7 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

It should, but not in its current form. Bombing gimmicks like Deathfire/rain are a lot of fun. Giving the K-Wing something similar is a good idea. The problem was too high flexibility, which should have been solved by applying restrictions rather than just killing the upgrade.

Agreed, when I mean Adv Slam shouldn't had been a thing I mean the text of the card.

3 hours ago, Tbetts94 said:

Oh I know, but this thread's goal is to calm their nerves about Adv Slam nerf

Which is un-confirmed, also the nerf is not needed on adv. slam anyway. It should be changed on sabine. but that's beside the point because some redditor's wishful thinking is freaking people out.

7 hours ago, garciaj113 said:

This thread should be called k-wings are not viable anymore, but at least we can still run Miranda. K-wings were the only good generic bombers in the game, now the only two pilots left that use bombs are Miranda and Nym. K-wing with autoblasters is cute but utter garbage cuz they are so slow and expensive, if you really wanna autoblaster spam run y-wings. This nerf completely removes k-wings from the meta except Miranda. Yes you can still run y-wing as an inefficient missile carrier in friendly games but thats the most you will get out of them

If one nerfs the only good generic bomber in the game, one gets more options in how to buff generic bombers in general.

58 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Which is un-confirmed, also the nerf is not needed on adv. slam anyway. It should be changed on sabine. but that's beside the point because some redditor's wishful thinking is freaking people out.

I think Sabine is good overall for bombs. Adv Slam was a mechanic that made using bombs easy, but was balanced because bombs weren't good. Sabine made bombs good and now the Adv Slam mechanic is overpowered.

It certainly is possible to bomb people the regular way, and for miranda it is NOT that big of a deal, in fact she WANTS to bomb people without slamming.
She only really should slam if she can get out of arc, out of range, otherwise it is a loss for her. In the match you showcase here, there is absolutely no reason to advance slam over them: She would lose her shot and lose her regeneration for something that did not need to be rushed, since she had biggs to cover for her.

What it really hurts however is the flexibility of the warden bombing in regards to catching fast targets, and bombing people without getting shot at.

The evidence you showed include 2x big ships, and there is some flaws to ONLY showing these as evidence for your claim.
Big ships are harder to slam past due to their big size, and often times it was easier to just slam into a block, to make sure you got the bomb off the turn after. Also, big ship lists usually have 2-3 ships in their lists, making it less punishing to bump-then-bomb than a bigger list.
This sort of bump-then-bombing is much harder to pull off against small ships, and everytime you do manage to get the block, it takes twice as long time to deal damage to your opponent, while you are taking shots from the rest of your opponents list.

Another problem is catching turrets with your bombs. If a big ship with PWT is running away from your bombs, you will ALMOST NEVER be able to catch them with a bomb.
Chasing dash with wardens was a nightmare to begin with, but now it is almost an automatic loss.

27 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

I think Sabine is good overall for bombs. Adv Slam was a mechanic that made using bombs easy, but was balanced because bombs weren't good. Sabine made bombs good and now the Adv Slam mechanic is overpowered.

Sabine was released in march 2016. It is not a recent thing to occur.
When she was released, cluster bombs still only did damage on hits, so conner nets was the thing to use, but almost only on miranda as a control element.

So you are saying that sabine/advance slam has been secretely overpowered for 1½ years without anyone noticing?
Or did you forget what triple defenders, paratanni and torpedo uboats was?
Why is it overpowered now in your opinion? What changed in X-wing the last 16 months of play that made advance slam so powerful?

3 hours ago, ModernPenguin said:

Sabine was released in march 2016. It is not a recent thing to occur.
When she was released, cluster bombs still only did damage on hits, so conner nets was the thing to use, but almost only on miranda as a control element.

So you are saying that sabine/advance slam has been secretely overpowered for 1½ years without anyone noticing?
Or did you forget what triple defenders, paratanni and torpedo uboats was?
Why is it overpowered now in your opinion? What changed in X-wing the last 16 months of play that made advance slam so powerful?

No I didn't forget about Triple Defenders, Parattani or Torp scouts. Just because others were overpowered doesn't make Adv Slam K-Wings not overpowered. The one thing every one of those lists have in common is that there was no counter play unless you countered through very specific list building. Also, does time really matter anyways? Dengaroo and Mindink took forever to get going.

The Cluster Mine buff really brought them to be noticed plus bombing Miranda making top table at Worlds helped. The lists really started taking off one November 2016 due to those reasons.

I'm not saying they are overwhelming the meta. I've already stated this. The problem is with everything combined that effected the K-Wing this card ability created an effect that was more powerful than original intent. Sabine and Cluster Mines fix bombs overall within the Rebel Faction and are fine, but put together with Adv Slam, bombs become more than what they should be.

9 hours ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Which is un-confirmed, also the nerf is not needed on adv. slam anyway. It should be changed on sabine. but that's beside the point because some redditor's wishful thinking is freaking people out.

Yup. The issue isn't ADv. Slam. It's Sabine's auto damage; it just renders too many low HP ships vulnerable.

3 hours ago, Tbetts94 said:

No I didn't forget about Triple Defenders, Parattani or Torp scouts. Just because others were overpowered doesn't make Adv Slam K-Wings not overpowered. The one thing every one of those lists have in common is that there was no counter play unless you countered through very specific list building. Also, does time really matter anyways? Dengaroo and Mindink took forever to get going.

The Cluster Mine buff really brought them to be noticed plus bombing Miranda making top table at Worlds helped. The lists really started taking off one November 2016 due to those reasons.

I'm not saying they are overwhelming the meta. I've already stated this. The problem is with everything combined that effected the K-Wing this card ability created an effect that was more powerful than original intent. Sabine and Cluster Mines fix bombs overall within the Rebel Faction and are fine, but put together with Adv Slam, bombs become more than what they should be.

I disagree that Sabine does not fix bombs, I feel she instead breaks them. Auto damage does not give the player a chance to react, the simply have to suffer it for flying through the bomb. If you hit all 3 cluster mine tokens, that's 3 auto damage before you even start rolling dice. Even taking just 2 on a A-wing or Z-95 hurts those ships allot. I think instead of hitting adv. slam they should look at making sabine an RNG type card where you roll adk dice instead of just handing out auto damage. Your opponent could at least have a chance to react to sabine's efforts to cause maximum destruction.

4 hours ago, Tbetts94 said:

No I didn't forget about Triple Defenders, Parattani or Torp scouts. Just because others were overpowered doesn't make Adv Slam K-Wings not overpowered. The one thing every one of those lists have in common is that there was no counter play unless you countered through very specific list building. Also, does time really matter anyways? Dengaroo and Mindink took forever to get going.

The Cluster Mine buff really brought them to be noticed plus bombing Miranda making top table at Worlds helped. The lists really started taking off one November 2016 due to those reasons.

I'm not saying they are overwhelming the meta. I've already stated this. The problem is with everything combined that effected the K-Wing this card ability created an effect that was more powerful than original intent. Sabine and Cluster Mines fix bombs overall within the Rebel Faction and are fine, but put together with Adv Slam, bombs become more than what they should be.

Oh, but there is a lot of counterplay to Adv. SLAM, it is just a bit counterintuitive - the most vulnerable ships need to fly at the front of a formation, going completely against what the people playing those ships weak to bombings are used to, which is why it is so hard for many of them to adapt. Whenenver you engage, there needs to be a friendly ship or asteroid token in the area where a K-Wing would need to land to hit a bomb. It is not easy at all, but if done right can buy you the time you need to trade with a K-Wing. The matchup is tough, but winnable for the player that knows exactly what they do.

1 hour ago, FlyingAnchors said:

I disagree that Sabine does not fix bombs, I feel she instead breaks them. Auto damage does not give the player a chance to react, the simply have to suffer it for flying through the bomb. If you hit all 3 cluster mine tokens, that's 3 auto damage before you even start rolling dice. Even taking just 2 on a A-wing or Z-95 hurts those ships allot. I think instead of hitting adv. slam they should look at making sabine an RNG type card where you roll adk dice instead of just handing out auto damage. Your opponent could at least have a chance to react to sabine's efforts to cause maximum destruction.

3 auto damage? Have you ever played against sabine? It is 'once per round when a friendly bomb token is removed'
So only 1 damage out of 3 clusters, unless you somehow run on each token every round for some odd reason.

If you run over 3 clusters, then 1 auto damage should be the least of your problems.

6 hours ago, FlyingAnchors said:

I disagree that Sabine does not fix bombs, I feel she instead breaks them. Auto damage does not give the player a chance to react, the simply have to suffer it for flying through the bomb. If you hit all 3 cluster mine tokens, that's 3 auto damage before you even start rolling dice. Even taking just 2 on a A-wing or Z-95 hurts those ships allot. I think instead of hitting adv. slam they should look at making sabine an RNG type card where you roll adk dice instead of just handing out auto damage. Your opponent could at least have a chance to react to sabine's efforts to cause maximum destruction.

That's 1 auto damage, she's only once per Round.

5 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Oh, but there is a lot of counterplay to Adv. SLAM, it is just a bit counterintuitive - the most vulnerable ships need to fly at the front of a formation, going completely against what the people playing those ships weak to bombings are used to, which is why it is so hard for many of them to adapt. Whenenver you engage, there needs to be a friendly ship or asteroid token in the area where a K-Wing would need to land to hit a bomb. It is not easy at all, but if done right can buy you the time you need to trade with a K-Wing. The matchup is tough, but winnable for the player that knows exactly what they do.

Have you seen the Adv Slam tree image? The K-Wing player can make multiple mistakes in a game and be fine, the ace player just has to be anywhere Range 3 in Arc (little to the side too) of the K-Wing at anytime during the game and it's dead. For instance, look at Duncan Howard's top 4 game at Hoth.

6 hours ago, Dr Zoidberg said:

Yup. The issue isn't ADv. Slam. It's Sabine's auto damage; it just renders too many low HP ships vulnerable.

12 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

Have you seen the Adv Slam tree image? The K-Wing player can make multiple mistakes in a game and be fine, the ace player just has to be anywhere Range 3 in Arc (little to the side too) of the K-Wing at anytime during the game and it's dead. For instance, look at Duncan Howard's top 4 game at Hoth.

This.

Sabine is effective, but not broken at only once per round. The problem was that with Adv Slam being able to bomb, you effectively need just to just be almost anywhere (w/ a few exceptions) within range 3 of the front 180 degrees of the K-Wing, and you are getting a bomb dropped on you, no matter what. While Sabine being 1 auto damage is tough, you can deal with that; the bombs being unavoidable due to Adv Slam is the problem.

1 hour ago, Tbetts94 said:

Have you seen the Adv Slam tree image? The K-Wing player can make multiple mistakes in a game and be fine, the ace player just has to be anywhere Range 3 in Arc (little to the side too) of the K-Wing at anytime during the game and it's dead. For instance, look at Duncan Howard's top 4 game at Hoth.

This is wrong. The ace player has to be anywhere range 3 in arc with sufficient space behind him to SLAM into, not asteroid, no other ship, and thats where your counterplay is. It is still very hard to do, I am not denying that at all, which is why I am in favour of a restrictive nerf for Advanced SLAM that reduces the area of threat either by limiting the speeds at which you get the action, the moves on which you do, or a combination. Aces would still have to work harder than the K-Wings in that matchup, but thats fine given how easy they have it in many others.

7 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

This is wrong. The ace player has to be anywhere range 3 in arc with sufficient space behind him to SLAM into, not asteroid, no other ship, and thats where your counterplay is. It is still very hard to do, I am not denying that at all, which is why I am in favour of a restrictive nerf for Advanced SLAM that reduces the area of threat either by limiting the speeds at which you get the action, the moves on which you do, or a combination. Aces would still have to work harder than the K-Wings in that matchup, but thats fine given how easy they have it in many others.

Yes, it's not impossible. But very very hard to do. For instance, Duncan Howard is on an entire different level than any of us and even he couldn't do it.

Limiting the speed would be a good solution, I'd not allow hard turns either I think. Do 1-2 Speeds and 1-2 Straights and Banks.

Where is this "nerf" coming from? I can't seem to find it.

15 minutes ago, Jadotch said:

Where is this "nerf" coming from? I can't seem to find it.

It is a leaked nerf you can find on reddit, or on one of the front pages here on the forums.
Nothing is for sure of course, but we have nothing better to do, so ...

1 hour ago, Tbetts94 said:

Limiting the speed would be a good solution, I'd not allow hard turns either I think. Do 1-2 Speeds and 1-2 Straights and Banks.

@MajorJuggler did a VASSAL screenshot of "SLAM must be the same as original maneuver," and it limited it quite a bit. (I think it's 50%; he thinks less, and said he'd calculate when he got a chance.)

If it's less of a reduction in coverage than 50%, a similar (more restrictive) fix would be requiring it to be a 2-speed maneuver of the same bearing (including direction) of the original maneuver.

Note that this should be a change to SLAM, which would be a change to AdvSLAM by incorporation.

Almost nobody is saying that the current AdvSLAM bomb isn't too strong. All we're saying is that the nerf is a huge over-compensation that kills the card, and that there's no reason to do that. FFG is positioning themselves to lose a lot of trust ... the K-wing and AdvSLAM was heavily sold as combining together for bombing runs. The nerf we're seeing would be a direct, undeniable, refutation of that, and given that it's so avoidable, it's a really big mistake.

This is a hard topic. I used to like flying Imperial Aces, and stopped doing it once I got my teeth kicked in by bombing K-Wings. Not fun. Also, it is weird: why should this one Rebel ship have access to a bombing technique that makes it heads-and-shoulders better than all the other bombing ships? I want to fly Imperial Bombers and Punishers, but Rebel only Advanced Slam upgrade card, it is just too good to pass up (especially with ol' Sabine in the mix)!

So one one hand it suppresses an important fragile-aces archetype, and on the other hand it suppresses other bombing archetypes. And while I appreciate that this feels lame ("wait, I bought 3 bombing K-Wings, and now they are just as good as the rest of the bombing ships? WTF?"), I'm fine with that. I'd still pay a point for it - getting that free action after the slam is nice! But 2 points seems like too much.

5 minutes ago, sozin said:

So one one hand it suppresses an important fragile-aces archetype

It doesn't do that alone. I'll give you that bombs are 75% of it, even, for the sake of argument ... and that 25% of other anti-ace tech is enough to keep them down. (And that's ignoring the new bombing monster, Nym, which is, of course, unaffected by the nerf.)

Quote

And while I appreciate that this feels lame ("wait, I bought 3 bombing K-Wings, and now they are just as good as the rest of the bombing ships? WTF?")

But they're not as good the other bombing ships, dial-wise, without AdvSLAM.

Quote

I'm fine with that. I'd still pay a point for it - getting that free action after the slam is nice! But 2 points seems like too much.

I wouldn't pay 1 point. (I heard y'all on S&V, and Alex is right ... if this nerf is final, AdvSLAM is a dead card.) The action's value is heavily mitigated by the weapons disabled token and the extremely situational usefulness. (How often does a K-wing SLAM? And still be in range where a useful action can be taken? And still need it at the end of activation? Occasionally, yeah. At best.) I'd pick Vectored Thrusters at 2 points before AdvSLAM at 1 point ... and I would almost never pick Vectored Thrusters.

Yeah, I think the opportunity cost of forgoing Guidance Chips is big enough; I think AdvSlam being dropped to 0pts is acceptable post-nerf.

@Tlfj200 was back on the Krayts this week, so they actually had some content. They spoke about the Adv Slam nerf. It's definitely worth a listen.

The leak has already been verified as legit by several prominent members of the community and by the fact that an FFG playtester asked the XW reddit moderator to delete the thread.

IMO, the Advanced Slam nerf, if FFG does decide to implement it, doesn't kill the K-Wing as a viable ship, a single Warden can still function as a mine dropper with EI and reveal bombs are proving to be a powerful on Miranda who still has TLT, regen as her core strength and can also use missiles which have been proven as a strong option on her.

I think the most important result of this nerf would be to provide a much needed pressure valve release for high agility low hp Imperial ships that are struggling right now. Bombs aren't the only issue those ships are having, but not having to worry so much about getting hit by multiple Connor Nets each game might make things a little easier for Soontir and friends to allow them to rejoin the metagame.

15 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

Bombs aren't the only issue those ships are having, but not having to worry so much about getting hit by multiple Connor Nets each game might make things a little easier for Soontir and friends to allow them to rejoin the metagame.

... "Each game"?

It's been weeks since I saw a bombing Warden. The terrors now are Nym and Miranda, and the AdvSLAM card-kill does "zero" and "almost zero," respectively, to those builds.

As usual, FFG is doing the simplest possible thing that has the illusion of being a fix. With the JM5Ks, the illusion was masking a nerf that was too weak; with AdvSLAM, the illusion is masking a nerf that is too strong. But, as with every "easiest-thing" FFG foists on us, it fools some people.