4 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

How? How could that possibly be true? All they have as new options are Autituck and Nym. ScumNym is worse, so Nym can't count towards 'worst than scum'. And the Auzituck allows a single build. Everything else was there during the reign of scum, too, so it can't contribute to 'worst than scum'

http://meta-wing.com/ship_combos?

3 scum builds in the top 10. Rest is Rebel.... As to how they achieved that. Very simple. They were already in a good position before the Imperial nerf. They got even better after the FAQ because they had 1 less faction to care about. They just got an OP ship that boost their already OP Biggs. And they got access to Nym, the OP scum pilot... They can combine with OP Miranda, OP Sabine, close to OP Dash and Kanan (same lvl as Shadowcaster) and all the amazing upgrades, action economy and regen they have.

1 hour ago, Thormind said:

http://meta-wing.com/ship_combos?

3 scum builds in the top 10. Rest is Rebel.... As to how they achieved that. Very simple. They were already in a good position before the Imperial nerf. They got even better after the FAQ because they had 1 less faction to care about. They just got an OP ship that boost their already OP Biggs. And they got access to Nym, the OP scum pilot... They can combine with OP Miranda, OP Sabine, close to OP Dash and Kanan (same lvl as Shadowcaster) and all the amazing upgrades, action economy and regen they have.

That's a thoroughly unfair and disingenuous misrepresentation of the data.

1 hour ago, Thormind said:

3 scum builds in the top 10. Rest is Rebel....

Or 5 in the top10 if you look at Wave11 as a whole. More importantly: 273 Scum squads, 278 Rebel squads. That's almost perfectly equal (1.8% difference), but ignores that Rebels have two "new hotness" ships while Scum only got one. Based on this alone we'd already expect more Rebels, but they are equal.

Even more important: Scum places higher than Rebels (weighted: 42.11% Rebels vs 42.39% for Scum). With the added effect that Scum-lists are 4/5 the same old ones (Parattani, Dengar Tel, Sick Man Fang, Triple Jumps) that do not benefit from being less known and understood. Again we'd expect Rebels to be higher if you were right, but we don't.

1 hour ago, Thormind said:

They just got an OP ship that boost their already OP Biggs.

Which I acknowledged.

1 hour ago, Thormind said:

And they got access to Nym, the OP scum pilot...

Whose ability is worse than ScumNym

1 hour ago, Thormind said:

They can combine with OP Miranda, OP Sabine

No disagreement here. Of course it also means that combining a better Nym with a more OP ship than Miranda *ahem Dengar* means the Rebel version is necessarily worse in comparison, not better.

1 hour ago, Thormind said:

close to OP Dash and Kanan (same lvl as Shadowcaster)

That's reaching. Both Nymdash and Dashmiranda are clearly worse than all other squads in the Top10 (below 40% vs up to 49%!). Common nominator? Dash. Kanan is not even in the top10.

1 hour ago, Thormind said:

and all the amazing upgrades, action economy and regen they have.

When you say "all the amazing [...] regen", you mean Miranda? Because that's the only regen in top10. We don't need to discuss how problematic Miranda is but talking about "all the amazing regen" is intentionally misrepresenting the facts that only one single pilot has access to problematic regen by implying that all 4 options to regen are great.

When you say "all the amazing action economy", you mean what exactly? Rey? AdvancedSLAM? Because remember: it needs to be more amazing than Mindlink, K4 Security droid+unhinged. Otherwise your claim would be misleading or outright wrong.

56 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

That's a thoroughly unfair and disingenuous misrepresentation of the data.

Or 5 in the top10 if you look at Wave11 as a whole. More importantly: 273 Scum squads, 278 Rebel squads. That's almost perfectly equal (1.8% difference), but ignores that Rebels have two "new hotness" ships while Scum only got one. Based on this alone we'd already expect more Rebels, but they are equal.

Even more important: Scum places higher than Rebels (weighted: 42.11% Rebels vs 42.39% for Scum). With the added effect that Scum-lists are 4/5 the same old ones (Parattani, Dengar Tel, Sick Man Fang, Triple Jumps) that do not benefit from being less known and understood. Again we'd expect Rebels to be higher if you were right, but we don't.

Which I acknowledged.

Whose ability is worse than ScumNym

No disagreement here. Of course it also means that combining a better Nym with a more OP ship than Miranda *ahem Dengar* means the Rebel version is necessarily worse in comparison, not better.

That's reaching. Both Nymdash and Dashmiranda are clearly worse than all other squads in the Top10 (below 40% vs up to 49%!). Common nominator? Dash. Kanan is not even in the top10.

When you say "all the amazing [...] regen", you mean Miranda? Because that's the only regen in top10. We don't need to discuss how problematic Miranda is but talking about "all the amazing regen" is intentionally misrepresenting the facts that only one single pilot has access to problematic regen by implying that all 4 options to regen are great.

When you say "all the amazing action economy", you mean what exactly? Rey? AdvancedSLAM? Because remember: it needs to be more amazing than Mindlink, K4 Security droid+unhinged. Otherwise your claim would be misleading or outright wrong.

Help me understand - is your point that Rebels aren't doing well?

9 hours ago, the1hodgy said:

Scum superiority won't be fixed by giving them rubbish ships; the reason you see Jumpmaster, Fang and Shadow more than anyship is because those are their good options.

Giving them more good options improves variation; vus improving the overall health of the "meta"

Before the imperial nerfs I would have agreed. But FFG decided to turn down the power curve, so they should finish the job and get rebels and scum down to imperial levels. And thus means "rubbish" ship compared to the worst offenders of scum.
Now more good options would work if you heavily buff empire, removal of the x7 and palp nerf, adding something nice to the defender title, fixing interceptors, fixing the shuttles, fixing the 2 dice swarm attacks. Oh and while you are at you, you might as well fix B-Wings.

What do we get instead? Gunboats. Not that I want to complain about that. I just wanted to mention the awesome gunboat.

So many tears!

9 hours ago, Rinzler in a Tie said:

Random b*tch: Why does Scum get a Sabine? I don't get the logic. And they have the gull to release it in the same pack as the PS 10 MONSTER that is now on every single table in the game.

He takes what should be a 50% chance to hit on each red bomb dice rolled and turns it into a 75% chance of hitting with each dice... Anyone want to defend this decision?

Havoc title+not so many good ships to put Cad Bane on (Scum doesn't have a K-wing equivalent).

Looking at metawing and tournament results, how much Cad Bane is there?

Nym is vastly superior with Havoc+Genius, and I don't think you can find a wingman for him with Cad Bane that's not worse than Dengar.

4 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Before the imperial nerfs I would have agreed. But FFG decided to turn down the power curve, so they should finish the job and get rebels and scum down to imperial levels. And thus means "rubbish" ship compared to the worst offenders of scum.
Now more good options would work if you heavily buff empire, removal of the x7 and palp nerf, adding something nice to the defender title, fixing interceptors, fixing the shuttles, fixing the 2 dice swarm attacks. Oh and while you are at you, you might as well fix B-Wings.

What do we get instead? Gunboats. Not that I want to complain about that. I just wanted to mention the awesome gunboat.

I don't want to go full Illuminati on you guys in this thread, but have you noticed that all nerfs are ditched out for free on erratas and FAQs and all "fixes" are done through expansions that you have to pay for? So yeah, Gunboats, nice addition to "fix" the Imperial drop in power, but you gotta pay for it once again.

I'm also under the firm opinion that introducing one good ship as a potential fix for the meta does nothing but power creep and stagnant the game. That's exactly what happened with Contracted Scouts and Dengar, then K-Wing and Miranda, and now Nym. Gunboats being powerful is not the answer to a healthy meta. It's actually the exact opposite, and comes with a price tag.

20 minutes ago, HERO said:

I don't want to go full Illuminati on you guys in this thread, but have you noticed that all nerfs are ditched out for free on erratas and FAQs and all "fixes" are done through expansions that you have to pay for? So yeah, Gunboats, nice addition to "fix" the Imperial drop in power, but you gotta pay for it once again.

I'm also under the firm opinion that introducing one good ship as a potential fix for the meta does nothing but power creep and stagnant the game. That's exactly what happened with Contracted Scouts and Dengar, then K-Wing and Miranda, and now Nym. Gunboats being powerful is not the answer to a healthy meta. It's actually the exact opposite, and comes with a price tag.

You are my spirit animal!

8 hours ago, Rinzler in a Tie said:

Help me understand - is your point that Rebels aren't doing well?

He claimed Rebels are worse than Scum* by now, and I say that's still hyperbole

edit: his reasons are partially hyperbole, too (dash/kanan, regen, action economy). I'm not saying Rebels aren't doing well, but he eiter misunderstands or misrepresents the reasons, in my opinion.

*worse as in: more OP, just in case anyone is confused

Game has X-Wing and TIE Fighter in the top list.

How can game be broken?

14 hours ago, Scumwing Apologist said:

Fixed that.

If Scum and Rebels have more options than just stupid OP jumpmasters and Mirandas you will see more creativity. Thus more lists, thus more fun. The possibility of more (mini-)swarms reappearing and thus maybe shifting the meta is good, no? And while Nym is the latest hotness (and of COURSE played much due to "new-ness") he still folds pretty, pretty fast. So probably you will see less of him in the future. Add in the rumour of the K-wing and JM5K nerf (hopefully this time affecting the ship itself and not just innocent bystanding upgrade cards), and the stupid Gunbloat with repeated ordance strike and then firing while SLAMming away, Empire has a good outlook I'd say.

Some people just want to stay in their salt bubble. Ignoring everything which goes against their preconception, e.g. having the French Nationals 2 Empire in the top 4. Together with some other posters, mainly the same relatively new posters with few posts, more likes than posts, all of them giving each other likes on repeating the same over and over again, starting salty thread after salty thread.

Lately i hear a lot of people that they stay away from the forums due to these kinds of threads and the break-in SALT! posts in unrelated threads. And probably it was a waste of my time answering here, the lot will anyway not listen.

Rebels and Scum are on a par. I'd say since Mindlink seeks to have taken a dip recently that Rebels probably slightly have the upper hand.

Its nice to be able to package it all up and complain about scum, but Rebels are very similar. Especially as both get Nym.

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Rebels and Scum are on a par. I'd say since Mindlink seeks to have taken a dip recently that Rebels probably slightly have the upper hand.

Its nice to be able to package it all up and complain about scum, but Rebels are very similar. Especially as both get Nym.

On par looks right.

But I still maintain that the successful Rebelsquads field more new ships, relatively speaking. This at least hints at the two points that I made:

1) stronger 'new hotness' effect

2) stronger 'new list, not yet understood and hence performance will go down later' effect

Particularly I was surprised that 4 of 5 scum squads in top10 since wave11 have been around for such a long time. So I argue for a third point here, which builds on the other two: Scum is getting boring. Mindlink is getting boring.

And despite these three points Scum and Rebels share the top10 almost perfectly, with Scum having an edge on performance/placements. Which indicates to me that Scum is still stronger.

edit: and that's before Guns for Hire!

Guns for hire makes virtually no difference IMO. The only thing I expect to make much of a meta impact is Harpoon Missiles.

While in a vacuum I'd argue that Scum Nym is better than the Rebel one, there's a lot more synergy between Rebel Nym and his potential partners than in case of Scum Nym.

Miranda with Sabine Crew makes Nym's bomblets ridiculous and the ability to delay detonation means they can both just keep running and make the opponent eat bombs and TLT shots all day while they stay at R3. It pretty much destroys most traditional small ship lists.

Meanwhile teaming Nym with Dash gives the latter the sorely needed protection from high PS aces. Nym just creates a series of no-go zones where Dash can venture (because bomb detonation can always be delayed) but opponents will probably want to avoid them. Dash was always the pilot who would overcome his opponents by making maneuvers they can't quite keep up with. Nym just supercharges this ability. Between obstacles and bomblets it becomes really hard to catch Dash and if you focus on Nym, you give Dash plenty of time to HLC you to death (not to mention you're gonna have to eat some bomblets too).

Meanwhile the only reasonable partner for Scum Nym is Dengar. And don't get me wrong, Dengar's one of the best pilots in the game but he doesn't synergise with Nym particularly well unless he goes for Cad Bane crew and cluster mines. I'm not a big fan of that though. Despite the ability to do some crazy stuff such as s-looping towards the enemy and dropping clusters on them, jumpmaster isn't really a great bomber ship and outfitting Dengar for bombing doesn't synergise at all with his ability... on multiple levels - from the preferred upgrades to the style of flying. As a result I fear Nym+Dengar less than I do any of the Rebel Nym lists.

Do wonder how much less the forums would whinge about nym if we removed Sabine (or Miranda) and dengar

See, they've made top two world's twice in a row before nym and have already enjoyed more than their fair share of success

Meanwhile, we haven't had any problems with nym showing up a lot locally because he has yet to appear with dengar. Dude's a lot of fun because he's close range high damage with no defensive dice mitigation. Makes for really tense close games

3 hours ago, Scumwing Apologist said:

You are my spirit animal!

In a vacuum I think Rebel Nym beats scum. The flex of the bomb placements is awesome when you get your head round it.

37 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Do wonder how much less the forums would whinge about nym if we removed Sabine (or Miranda) and dengar

See, they've made top two world's twice in a row before nym and have already enjoyed more than their fair share of success

Meanwhile, we haven't had any problems with nym showing up a lot locally because he has yet to appear with dengar. Dude's a lot of fun because he's close range high damage with no defensive dice mitigation. Makes for really tense close games

Nym Corran seems to cause a lot of tears. Last tournament I played, it does cause more tears than Nym + Dengar. People just hated those bomblets and rebel regen.

Nym is such a tough cookie because there's no one thing that you can point to and go 'there, it's that which is the problem'.

Its the native barrel roll, with a system slot, and the high PS, and the EPT, and the astromech, and the infinite bombs, and the pilot ability, and the turret slot, and that you get all that for a very competitive cost and can add Engine on. He's probably the clearest exponent of the value of synergies that completely outperform the basic attributes a ship is given and points-costed for.

If they'd swapped Scum Nym and Sol Sixxa's abilities I think we'd be in a better place. Sol can still use Genius he just HAS to barrel roll all the way forward after, so it would be a lot harder for Scum Nym to use it at that point.

FFG really needs to remember the doctrine of putting the best abilities on the lower PS pilots more often

8 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Nym is such a tough cookie because there's no one thing that you can point to and go 'there, it's that which is the problem'.

Its the native barrel roll, with a system slot, and the high PS, and the EPT, and the astromech, and the infinite bombs, and the pilot ability, and the turret slot, and that you get all that for a very competitive cost and can add Engine on. He's probably the clearest exponent of the value of synergies that completely outperform the basic attributes a ship is given and points-costed for.

It's the title. Non-title Scurrg is fine. Title costs nothing and adds way too much (or doesn't remove enough - if it removed EPT slot for example, things would be way easier to manage).

14 hours ago, Thormind said:

I agree but it will probably take more than 1 powerful ship to get the Imperial back in the game (unless it's something like a JMK xpac with crazy upgrades and OP ship...). Rebels/Scums have OP shipS and many unique upgrades to make them even better. Imperials lack both.

That's why my approach is so elegant.

Sry. have to promote that at every opportunity. I like my own ideas much too much.

7 hours ago, HERO said:

I don't want to go full Illuminati on you guys in this thread, but have you noticed that all nerfs are ditched out for free on erratas and FAQs and all "fixes" are done through expansions that you have to pay for? So yeah, Gunboats, nice addition to "fix" the Imperial drop in power, but you gotta pay for it once again.

I'm also under the firm opinion that introducing one good ship as a potential fix for the meta does nothing but power creep and stagnant the game. That's exactly what happened with Contracted Scouts and Dengar, then K-Wing and Miranda, and now Nym. Gunboats being powerful is not the answer to a healthy meta. It's actually the exact opposite, and comes with a price tag.

The heavy scyk fix was done through the FAQ first. Which is surprising since the CROC was less than a year away.

Could add cluster mine fix as well and maybe a couple other minor ones.

But otherwise yes very true.

Power improvements are mostly done through expansions already.

I mean, that's the whole concept behind most of the ace packs.