So. It's from Meta-Wing. If you don't know about Meta-Wing here is a blog explaining Meta-Wing. All the usual Meta-Wing caveats about sample size/validity etc apply as much as ever.

Data is since Wave 11 release to today. Store Championships only. Sorted by list archetype. Top 2/3rds of squads only (the archetypes break up into lots of '2 people played this, 3 people played that' whereas the top 66% are pretty coherent archetypes).

We've seen worse imbalances than this in the past.

The race to the top of the PS tree appears to be back in full flow. You can tell this by just how much is suddenly happening at PS10, which is people deliberately picking EPTs to boost their PS. PS3 is mainly Contracted Scouts and Jess, PS5 is Biggs & Lowhhrick.

If you really clumsily turn the three factions into amorphous blobs of all their archetypes you get this. Notable that Scum is appearing less than Rebels, but winning more often when it does appear.

This puts a bit more context behind those amorphous blobs. All three factions have a bunch of squads in 'Tier 1.5' that are roughly as good as each other, and decline in effectiveness at roughly the same rate, so to that extent the factions seem pretty well balanced. What's swinging Scum & Rebels ahead of Imperials is that they've got the Tier 1 squads, and the Tier 1 squads are WAY ahead of the best of the rest.

Tier 1 = Triple Jumps, Dengar/Tel, Dengar/Nym, Fair Ship Rebel, Dash/Miranda

This is the one I like least. 68% of squads are significantly loaded up with turrets. 68%! What's also noticeable is that we've moved on from Dash/Corran or Han/Jake to the point where a main turret ship is often now being supported by a second turret, and not just a second turret but ALSO bringing torpedoes and bombs. Turrets and bombs in particular is like playing rock/paper/scissors with a pair of scissors strapped to a rock, because bombs nail most of the stuff that brings autothrusters for the turrets.

Personal opinion - I'd like to see primary weapons squads a much bigger %. I mean the only reason primary weapons are even >15% is Fair Ship Rebels...

This kind of lends credence to my guess when the W11 spoilers completed that I'm not going to like this meta and I probably shouldn't bother going to Nationals.

I want a howlrunner and hopefully some Black Squaddies.

These are awesome! Thank you. For me, these alleviate some of the doom and gloom around the current meta, while certainly doing justice to this meta's problems. It seems like we're not too far off from balance...

In your last graph, do torps represent all ordnance or literally just the torpedo upgrade slot? Do primary weapon turrets fall into primary weapon or turret? How is Dash represented?

Torpedoes are Torps/Missiles on ships not also bringing turrets - it's mainly triple Scurrg and Imp Alpha type stuff.

PWT are turrets.

Dash is a turret.

No PS 11? Does that mean the PS 11 Imperial Cruise Missile lists are just not making to the top 2/3?

Think you for compiling this SoTL

2 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Torpedoes are Torps/Missiles on ships not also bringing turrets - it's mainly triple Scurrg and Imp Alpha type stuff.

PWT are turrets.

Dash is a turret.

Thanks! That's what I figured just wanted to make sure!

4 minutes ago, Transmogrifier said:

No PS 11? Does that mean the PS 11 Imperial Cruise Missile lists are just not making to the top 2/3?

The whole imperial alpha thing isn't showing up much at all (don't forget it needs to be successful multiple times before meta-wing really takes it seriously) and the version that is riding highest on meta-wing is Vader/QD/Inquisitor all at PS10. http://meta-wing.com/ship_combos/2076?

4th graph, the squad tier one. What's your x axis?

4 minutes ago, WAC47 said:

Thanks! That's what I figured just wanted to make sure!

I've not had any fancy formula for this that might be caught out by HLC on dash not being a turret, I just went down the list and did it all the old-fashioned way with the MkI eyeball. :-)

Just now, jagsba said:

4th graph, the squad tier one. What's you're x axis?

It's not anything, really. In theory it's the sequence for the faction 'the #1 imperial, #2 imperial' but when I pulled the graph together the similarity of the Tier 1.5 squads moving together was so strong that I manipulated the axis to line them up from the start of Tier 1.5.

2 minutes ago, SOTL said:

The whole imperial alpha thing isn't showing up much at all (don't forget it needs to be successful multiple times before meta-wing really takes it seriously) and the version that is riding highest on meta-wing is Vader/QD/Inquisitor all at PS10. http://meta-wing.com/ship_combos/2076?

Makes sense - it seems to be more of a troll list than a meta-topper. I'd expect the PS 11 variant to become more popular as players try to top the new PS 10 meta though :|

25 minutes ago, SOTL said:

All three factions have a bunch of squads in 'Tier 1.5' that are roughly as good as each other, and decline in effectiveness at roughly the same rate, so to that extent the factions seem pretty well balanced. What's swinging Scum & Rebels ahead of Imperials is that they've got the Tier 1 squads, and the Tier 1 squads are WAY ahead of the best of the rest.

You know, that sounds like a great argument for a temporary ban list

Out of interest, does Nym/Miranda come out anywhere? That felt like a REALLY strong squad the first time I flew against it, and it's utter murder on anything low hull.

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

Out of interest, does Nym/Miranda come out anywhere? That felt like a REALLY strong squad the first time I flew against it, and it's utter murder on anything low hull.

It's the first orange dot in Rebel tier 1.5.

In your secondary weapon pie chart, how many of a particular upgrade type has to be used in a list to count toward that type of squad? If it is one, than why? What if I have 15 points left so I threw in a z-95 with cruise missiles an guidance chimps, but the rest of my squad was primaries. Would it count for primary or torp/missile?

10 minutes ago, GLEXOR said:

In your secondary weapon pie chart, how many of a particular upgrade type has to be used in a list to count toward that type of squad? If it is one, than why? What if I have 15 points left so I threw in a z-95 with cruise missiles an guidance chimps, but the rest of my squad was primaries. Would it count for primary or torp/missile?

In the vast majority of cases it was pretty clear and I didn't have any tough decisions to make. There wasn't anything randomly splashing a missile in, but I'd have likely classed the above squad as primary weapons.

There's probably some variants of the Imp aces that run a single cruise missile in some of the squads collected up into the archetype, but they were classed as primary weapon.

This worries and disgusts me in equal measure.

From TurretWing, to AceWing, to ScumWing and now we're back to TurretWing.

54 minutes ago, Transmogrifier said:

No PS 11? Does that mean the PS 11 Imperial Cruise Missile lists are just not making to the top 2/3?

Imperials can't have both.
PS 11 means you're spending top-dollar for PS 9 pilots. You want to give them munitions? Now you get one less top-tier ace. You've got one less top-tier ace? You're ****ed.

"Imperial, Rebels, Scum - they're all just spokes on a wheel. This ones on top, then that ones on top, and on and on it spins, crushing those on the ground"
"It's a beautiful dream, stopping the wheel. You're not the first person who's ever dreamt it"
"I'm not going to stop the wheel, I'm going to break the wheel... SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"

6 minutes ago, Keffisch said:

This worries and disgusts me in equal measure.

From TurretWing, to AceWing, to ScumWing and now we're back to TurretWing.

Well, tbf, it's now Scumaceturretwing.

44 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

You know, that sounds like a great argument for a temporary ban list

Oh man, YES. If all the Tier 1 Stuff was banned.....the meta would be WIDE open. God that would be awesome.

1 minute ago, Johen Dood said:

Oh man, YES. If all the Tier 1 Stuff was banned.....the meta would be WIDE open. God that would be awesome.

Not to derail the thread, but the Jumpmaster and advanced slam nerf would take most of the Tier 1 stuff down a peg. That still leaves the jousting monster that is FSR, but if you take away the other Tier 1 lists, would other options open up to deal with it?

Just now, WAC47 said:

Not to derail the thread, but the Jumpmaster and advanced slam nerf would take most of the Tier 1 stuff down a peg. That still leaves the jousting monster that is FSR, but if you take away the other Tier 1 lists, would other options open up to deal with it?

You mean... could it be that FFG actually gets the right ships at the right time with a nerf?!
All we need more is the infamous Biggs nerf for which Selflessness is basically paving the way... right? Right?

It makes such good sense that you know it's never going to happen.

It is interesting that the proposed changes match up very closely to what the data say is dominating right now. Say what you will about FFG's playtesting, but this seems to be right on the money (if those changes end up happening).