I am quite salty about the new scum goodies, I am not gonna lie.

I am not salty because scum players get new and shiny toys, but rather, they do, and Imperials don't.

I understand that there is a lot to catch up with in terms of content, and I understand that the SV and Khiraqzhkzh fighter were almost not played at all, and badly needed a fix.

I also don't expect FFG to give them *** fixes that don't achieve anything. It is only natural to progress with powercreep (or at least, understandable), and I realize that giving these ships a fix that is on the level of most other fixes (IA, Royal Guard etc.) is futile...

HOWEVER

I want my Punishers, Lambdas, Bombers, Advanceds, Interceptors to inspire fear. I want them to have shiny abilities. I want them to become viable in competitive play. I want them revisited and fixed. Is that too much to ask? Can we ever have that? Or should I just give up on the Empire, and play First Order, as the new and powerful ships will come for them, and my lovely imperial ships will be forever buried under the sands of Jakku? Tell me, truly I implore...

there time will come for a "fix", and not all fixes come in a fancy box. Autothrustors was a fix, Lightweight Frame was a fix.

Also development and testing takes time.

Patience is something, we need more of in this game.

Everything runs in cycles, there where points when Rebels have been on Top, times when Imperials have been on top.

I think a lot of people are resistant to change, human nature been what it is. This game changes all the time with new content been added.

The game would be super dull if; we never progressed past wave 1.

1 minute ago, the1hodgy said:

.... times when Imperials have been on top.

Err... Wave 1 maybe? ... and... Wave 1?

Oh, and that 'TIE Phantom' shooting star, true...

31 minutes ago, the1hodgy said:

Patience is something, we need more of in this game.

How long do we have some *** pilots whose abilities never worked? Oh mostly imperial...

Like Fel´s Wrath, Lorrir, Tetran Cowall, Kir Kanos (do I sense a pattern here??? nearly every unique pilot in this Box was ***), the Punisher (except Deathrain, but still to expensive - even when you consider Bomblet Generator), Tie Adavanced Prototyp (except Inquisitor), the lambda had a year of good use with the emperor playable - now its back on the shelf. And don´t get me startet on that joke of a title the Lambda got (and the PRICE).

We've had imperial aces and veterans already. I hate to say it, because I love my imps, but I do not expect we'll see anything coming our way for a while. But let's take a step back for a moment and contemplate our position in the meta.

The Punisher is the only ship that has never found a decent spot. You could make an argument that bombers also never found a strong position either, but I think they have more potential than they're given credit for, and we've yet to see the overall impact unguided rockets and cruise missiles will have for them.

Every other Imperial ship has found meta-worthy niches. Even the triple firespray was once a trio to be feared. The reality, however, is that the meta leaves ships behind. It's happening to our interceptors now, but we're not the only ones to experience this. B-wings once won worlds, but when was the last time you saw one at the top tables?

Also, our interceptors may yet return. If ffg ever does something to address slam-bombs, you'll see Soontir gracefully return to the table, I just about guarantee it. Consider that Vader is making a strong return as TLTs have become less frequent and cruise missiles breathe new life into him.

Bottom line is, don't panic, my friend. The emperor does not tolerate cowards.

2 minutes ago, hargleblarg said:

We've had imperial aces and veterans already. I hate to say it, because I love my imps, but I do not expect we'll see anything coming our way for a while.

Well, you'll be getting a new ship announcement in roughly one month. And Last Jedi ships announced a couple of days after that.

If those announcements follow the pattern of the TIE Aggressor, the Imperials will likely have a fair few toys and builds to experiment with. Lightweight Frame, Cruise Missiles, Unguided Rockets all buff both Bombers and Punishers; it's only a matter of time before we see some creative use of existing Imperial ships. Personally I'm looking forward to giving a Cruise Missile Bomber list a go.

Tomax Bren - Crackshot, Cruise Missiles, Extra Munitions, Guidance Chips
Gamma Squadron Veteran - Deadeye, Cruise Missiles, Guidance Chips x 3

sorry my bad, for been positive about the situation.

2secs am gonna get some salt from the shop and i'll join in.

Here's to all the pilots that have been utter crap since release! Cheers.

Imperials and Rebels have already gotten 2 "Aces" expansions, which includes 2 of the ships you mentioned, the Interceptor and the Bomber. It makes sense that it was time to give Scum theirs, regardless of the state of the metagame.

All of the OG Empire ships have gotten supplementary releases already. Interceptors got Imperial Aces AND autothrusters, TIE Bombers and Defenders got Imperial Veterans, Lambda and TIE Advance got Imperial Raider, TIE Fighter got the Gozanti as well as Crackshot. Asking them to make these ships even more powerful than the already are is just adding to the problem of power creep, not fixing it.

Metagames move in cycles, at many points Imperials have been dominant and right now they are not. TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Advanced, TIE Phantom, and Lambda shuttle have all been dominant ships in the metagame at some time or another, even within recent waves and even multiple times. If you compare the competitive history of any of those ships with the Starviper or Kirahx, It's kind of hard to argue that the two scum ships are the ones that should be made to wait while Interceptors get fix #3. Also at a certain point making those ships any stronger than they already are will require hyperbolic boosts that warp or break the game in obvious and unthematic ways when added to the tools that they already have . We already know that FFG is making changes that will negatively affect the Rebel and Scum factions, I think that is the fix you're waiting for that will fix the environment that is making ships that at one point were very strong, underperfom.

4 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

Imperials and Rebels have already gotten 2 "Aces" expansions, which includes 2 of the ships you mentioned, the Interceptor and the Bomber. It makes sense that it was time to give Scum theirs, regardless of the state of the metagame.

All of the OG Empire ships have gotten supplementary releases already. Interceptors got Imperial Aces AND autothrusters, TIE Bombers and Defenders got Imperial Veterans, Lambda and TIE Advance got Imperial Raider, TIE Fighter got the Gozanti as well as Crackshot. Asking them to make these ships even more powerful than the already are is just adding to the problem of power creep, not fixing it.

Metagames move in cycles, at many points Imperials have been dominant and right now they are not. TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Advanced, TIE Phantom, and Lambda shuttle have all been dominant ships in the metagame at some time or another, even within recent waves and even multiple times. If you compare the competitive history of any of those ships with the Starviper or Kirahx, It's kind of hard to argue that the two scum ships are the ones that should be made to wait while Interceptors get fix #3. Also at a certain point making those ships any stronger than they already are will require hyperbolic boosts that warp or break the game in obvious and unthematic ways when added to the tools that they already have . We already know that FFG is making changes that will negatively affect the Rebel and Scum factions, I think that is the fix you're waiting for that will fix the environment that is making ships that at one point were very strong, underperfom.

They got expansions, not fixes, as they are not playable, and in many cases, they never were.

Advanced is overcosted. Vader is awesome, but Vader is like Biggs. I'll take that ability on PS 9 on any ship and it makes it better. ATC doesn't bring them back at all... they are now... passable?

Bombers rarely see play, despite being THE ordnance carriers of the universe

The TIE Interceptor box set was a joke, aside from Carnor, nothing useful.

The only 2 reasons the lambda was played was due to its cost efficiency and palpatine. The latter got nerfed and dissappeared, the former was destroyed by powercreep. The Scurrg has the same statline, better slots and actions, for 3 more points.

When was the last time you saw a TIE fighter in competetive scene?

The Punisher is the biggest flop of the game. Unplayable, and underperforms to other ships in its class by a MILE.

Imperial Firesprays are never seen.

The TAP lacks offensive power, and pilots except for the inquisitor.

I could go on.... but my point got through.

I don't need another box set, I want the ships that make up more than half of my collection to be playable.

Aside from the TIE SF, Decimator and maybe the Defender almost none of the ships can stand on their own... if they do, they are carried by pilot abilities and PS. The only reason why the PS 11 imperial alphastrike list works is because we have high PS pilots on ships with missile slots, and Cruise Missiles are just that much better than anything else.

AND in this situation FFG still makes the same mistakes... the Aggressor is the most boring ship in the wave, yet again without a generic ept (Scum got their PS 3 generic again...) comes with an EPT that can be used best on rebels and there are barely any imperial pilots that want it.....

</rant>

Look, I appreciate your ideas about "fixing" powercreep instead of adding to it... but that never works without a hard system restart (2.0). There is nothing we can do about that the Scurrg has better value for its points than the Lambda or the TIE fighter. The only way to fix this problem is to beef these ships up, and then, maybe we can still have some Star Wars in X-Wing.

editing

On 7/25/2017 at 2:44 AM, Jehan Menasis said:

Err... Wave 1 maybe? ... and... Wave 1?

Oh, and that 'TIE Phantom' shooting star, true...

Lol. Yea the 18 months of palp lists at the top of every tournament was what exactly?

Deathrain w/ Unguided, Adv Sensors, Bombletts, and LWF is actually pretty brutal...

So theres atleast 1 punisher thats viable.

10 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Deathrain w/ Unguided, Adv Sensors, Bombletts, and LWF is actually pretty brutal...

So theres atleast 1 punisher thats viable.

But are they as good as K-Wings or Scruggs against the meta? Close? .....I'd say they're eating the crumbs falling from the table where the Scum and Rebel Bombers eat.

The salt is free ?

i butchered a dengarnym build and a miranda poe build at a store tourny with deathrain...

if that says anything....

Im not joking when i say hes pretty deadly. Only real issue is potential friendly fire you gotta watch out for. Stupid agile with that build, literally always had a shot or hit someone with a bomb or both.
No he's not the top tier that somehow appears in every single list level of strong, the confusion Sabaac/Vader caused probably helped more than it seemed but hes still devastating. Said dengar/nym player openly stated when he saw my list "I'm not afraid of vader and deathrain is useless" - queue instant nym death lol.
Was at the top table for 3 of 5 rounds, only lost to a scout spam since i cant do THAT much damage fast enough or dodge arcs.

16 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Deathrain w/ Unguided, Adv Sensors, Bombletts, and LWF is actually pretty brutal...

So theres atleast 1 punisher thats viable.

I would call it cute rather than brutal. It is capable of doing some marginal damage and area control, but it is actually more fun than powerful.

I don't really understand how Vader's ability being good on other ships makes his tournament success somehow meaningless. ATC fixed Vader's only weakness at the time which was a lack offense for his points cost, and his tournament presence and success after the release of the Raider reflected that. 4x Tempest with Accuracy Correctors was also a strong list at the time and is still one of the more points efficient ships in the game, but low PS low damage jousters just aren't good right now.

Having stealth device and autothrusters on Soontir was only possible with the Royal Guard title from Imperial Veterans.

TIE Fighters were very competitive in Wave 8 because of how well the BlackCrack Swarm matched up against the PS3 Triple Scouts.

So far the Scurrg only has 1 pilot that is super successful in tournament play, the other pilots and generic aren't seeing any success at all despite fears that they would be the next u-boats, where as the Lambda shuttle saw Capt Yorr see success in the era of Imperial Ace dominance to combat stress strategies.

I don't see how saying Vader's ability is good on other ships makes him not good. A lot of players are saying cruise missiles have made him and the Inquisitor even better.

As a Rebel player I understand your pain, in Wave 4 the only Rebel build that was competitive was a ship I hated flying, the falcon, due to the dominance of Phantoms, and for a year after Imperial Veterans dropped the only way to compete against X7 Defenders was TLT spam, another boring strategy that I didn't like. Obviously you hate the First Order with a passion and refuse to use anything associated with their expansions.

But as a player who's been playing this game for 5 years, I remember that all of those ships (except bombers/punishers) did create feelings of anger and frustration in opponents when they hit the tables at tournaments, so I'm sad for you that you obviously weren't playing at tournaments in the glory days of the Imperial faction, but again I think bringing the other 2 factions back down to a reasonable level with nerfs makes more sense than trying to make each faction's ships successively more powerful with new releases and allowing the power creep to spin out of control.

4 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

*Lots of common sense*

7 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

I don't really understand how Vader's ability being good on other ships makes his tournament success somehow meaningless. ATC fixed Vader's only weakness at the time which was a lack offense for his points cost, and his tournament presence and success after the release of the Raider reflected that. 4x Tempest with Accuracy Correctors was also a strong list at the time and is still one of the more points efficient ships in the game, but low PS low damage jousters just aren't good right now.

Having stealth device and autothrusters on Soontir was only possible with the Royal Guard title from Imperial Veterans.

TIE Fighters were very competitive in Wave 8 because of how well the BlackCrack Swarm matched up against the PS3 Triple Scouts.

So far the Scurrg only has 1 pilot that is super successful in tournament play, the other pilots and generic aren't seeing any success at all despite fears that they would be the next u-boats, where as the Lambda shuttle saw Capt Yorr see success in the era of Imperial Ace dominance to combat stress strategies.

I don't see how saying Vader's ability is good on other ships makes him not good. A lot of players are saying cruise missiles have made him and the Inquisitor even better.

As a Rebel player I understand your pain, in Wave 4 the only Rebel build that was competitive was a ship I hated flying, the falcon, due to the dominance of Phantoms, and for a year after Imperial Veterans dropped the only way to compete against X7 Defenders was TLT spam, another boring strategy that I didn't like. Obviously you hate the First Order with a passion and refuse to use anything associated with their expansions.

But as a player who's been playing this game for 5 years, I remember that all of those ships (except bombers/punishers) did create feelings of anger and frustration in opponents when they hit the tables at tournaments, so I'm sad for you that you obviously weren't playing at tournaments in the glory days of the Imperial faction, but again I think bringing the other 2 factions back down to a reasonable level with nerfs makes more sense than trying to make each faction's ships successively more powerful with new releases and allowing the power creep to spin out of control.

I really don't care about the history of the game in that sense... And I don't think anyone should. What happened in previous waves, which ships used to be powerful, really doesn't matter. Partially because I didn't play back then, but more importantly... because I am playing now, and I want to play those ships, and feel effective.

Saying how bad things used to be in one way, to justify how bad things are now in a different way, is just an excuse for the game being bad. I want the game to be good, and I see there is potential for it.

No dominance is ever good. Imperial, Rebel, or even ... Scum :shudders:

I want all ships to be useful in any given time. There could be bad matchups, I don't expect TIE interceptors to defeat everything, in fact, I don't expect any ship to defeat everything. But I don't ever want a ship to be useless, ESPECIALLY the most iconic ships.

If some ship or upgrade is so good against everything, that it pushes other ships out, it is a problem. But if a ship is so bad, there is no reason to ever take it, it is just as bad.

Now, due to the design philosophy of FFG, certain changes are harder to come by than others. This is why I support fixes and buffs over nerfs.

On 25/07/2017 at 8:26 AM, RufusDaMan said:

I want my Punishers, Lambdas, Bombers, Advanceds, Interceptors to inspire fear

Me too

Let's face it though three of those ships have had official booster packs (Bombers in Imp Vets, Advanced in the Raider and Interceptors in Imp Aces) and the other two are unlikely to get the same treatment. They are now only going to get help through upgrade cards with other ships and I think a few are coming through. Eons ago with had Twin Ion Engines Mk II - one of my most used cards essential for the Defender but also useful on the Advanced. Cruise Missiles work really well on the high PS Advanced thanks to a bit of synergy with ATC (in that you need a TL for ATC and CM and you don't have to spend it). Unguided Rockets and Lightweight Frame on the Bomber or Punisher. Minefield Mapper and Bomblet Generator on the Punisher. Interceptors seem really neglected at the moment but they had a good run and can still be effective. I'm not sure what they can do with the Lambda! Maybe a Thrawn crew card.

Just picking up on

46 minutes ago, RufusDaMan said:

Advanced is overcosted.

It was but when you get a four point cost reduction on a system it helps a lot. Accuracy Corrector on the low PS pilots is really good, supplement with Prockets to get that punch. ATC on the high PS is also good, supplement with Cruise Missiles.

It's going to be alright it looks like there are quite a few First Order goodies going to come through and with them a chance to boost the old Empire ships. Also the Resistance will beef up Rebels which is also a good thing. It's all about the on-going Galactic Civil War. Pirates Scum beware!

46 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

Lol. Yea the 18 months of palp lists at the top of every tournament was what exactly?

Since all those lists hardly won anything relevant over that period.... I'd say... A good try... Or maybe a Swan song.

Just as a general thing, I get this frustration, but before you moan, I want you to think about something: how many ships see more than one pilot fielded? After you compose this list, you come to realize power creep hurts everything not just imperials. So while I too would love to see all pilots viable at the same time, I just don't see it happening. Each pilot (typically) beats one thing very well, and outside of that they crumble. For example, Fel's Wrath is designed to resist Alpha strikes by being able to fire regardless as a filler. Kir Kanos is supposed to punish some one for not shooting him. do both of them have issues? Undoubtedly. Can you do some funny "fix" things for them? Yes (Try Putting an EPT on Kir and making him lower PS). In conclusion, Every faction has ships that just aren't good (When was the last time you saw a rebel HWK? A generic E-wing? A non-Biggs T-65?) with the possible exception of Scum (Because of when the creep happened, and when Scum was introduced). Imperials are no different.

2 hours ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

Lol. Yea the 18 months of palp lists at the top of every tournament was what exactly?

Say what?

Quote

2016 World Champion

(Swiss #10) Nand Torfs (Belgium)

• 7-1 / 1094
• Flight 1: 5-1
• 97 points
• Dengar (54) + LW + Title + OCR4 + Zuckuss + Countermeasures + Glitterstim
• Manaroo (43) + PTL + Gonk + R5-P8 + Engine + Seismic Torpedo + Feedback Array

Runner-Up

(Swiss #13) Kevin Leintz (United States. 2016 GenCon Top 8, 2016 Regionals Top 8)

• 6-2 / 1164
• Flight 1: 5-1
• 100 points
• Corran (48) + PtL + FCS + R2D2 + engine
• Miranda (52) + TLT + Advanced Slam + Sabine + Extra Munitions + Homing Missiles + Conner Net + Ion Bombs

No fixes, only nerfs.

34 minutes ago, Stilgod said:

Say what?

Convenient cut you made there. Pretending like they weren't a large, dominant piece of the meta there is disingenuous.