2 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

What makes you think in these circumstances Nym wouldn't be PS 9 as well?

Honestly I couldn't say. 8 or 9 both seem likely but it's hard to know since he was developed with VI and Adaptability around. Whisper is an interesting case because you can look at the mechanics of Advanced Cloaking Device together with Whisper's pilot ability and infer the intention that, yes, Whisper was going to move last and shoot first whenever possible, otherwise they would have gone with one of the other (ten or so?) Cloak mechanics they were tooling around with at the time. VI was almost baked in to Whisper's cost.

As for Nym specifically, the Havoc/Advanced Sensors/Bomblet/Genius combo almost seems unintentionally powerful. It's pretty much impossible to approach Nym without catching a bomb, unless you're moving after him. I honestly wouldn't mind Nym as a metagame piece if he were unable to equip VI. I think PS8 with no Talent slot would have been plenty good; System + Turret is strong enough! The bombs are just gravy at that point, kind of like Miranda Doni.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I think a lot of good would come of dropping VI and Adaptability from the competitive scene, even if some of the collateral damage would sting.

3 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

The extra hull doesn't help Fenn that much. If it did, Soontir could buy it instead of Stealth Device.

Fenn works because he defends either at R3 with double focus and ATs, or at r1 with 4 dice, double focus and either title or thrusters. And he's 3 points cheaper than Soontir.

I stopped playing him without ever facing a single K Wing bomber, because he's too fragile to survive multiple high accuracy 4 dice attacks (triple jumps) and even one or two 5 hit attacks.

It's not one or the other, it's a combination of both.

I played Soontir against triple jumps and never had to take more than 1 torpedo per turn. For that matter, I don't recall giving my opponent the chance to fire torpedoes against him more than twice per game and even that was a lot. The idea of using Soontir isn't really about abusing green dice. It's about abusing his mobility to not get shot in the first place and that worked rather well against triple jumps.

Fenn is now disappearing too, thanks to Nym, but he held on for much longer for 3 reasons:

- he can use the entirety of his dial, since he usually relies on mindlink rather than PTL, which makes him somewhat less prone to bombs

- for the very same reason he's much more forgiving to fly, since he can bump things and still have his focus

- he's usually teamed up with ships that provide a greater threat and/or can control the enemy movement. In Paratanni for example, Assajj had enough survivability on her own to go up front and stress the potential bombers while Fenn stayed back initially. Dengar/Fenn/Inaldra also kinda work against Nym if played very well, because Dengar has sufficient firepower to take out Nym single handedly, while Fenn focuses on staying alive rather than fighting, until Nym is dead.

Unfortunately Soontir has no access to mindlink and most of all, he doesn't have access to partners as powerful and disruptive as Assajj or Dengar. RAC is the closest analogue, but he's an arc dodger himself and can't provide the same disruption that the scum large ships offer.

Quote

Unfortunately Soontir has no access to mindlink and most of all, he doesn't have access to partners as powerful and disruptive as Assajj or Dengar. RAC is the closest analogue, but he's an arc dodger himself and can't provide the same disruption that the scum large ships offer.

Palp Ion Projector Oicunn can lock Nym in place, forever. Tis' a shame that Genius makes Nym ignore the Ion rules, vs. maneuver template reveal-based bomb drops.

2 hours ago, Tsiegtiez said:

Honestly I couldn't say. 8 or 9 both seem likely but it's hard to know since he was developed with VI and Adaptability around. Whisper is an interesting case because you can look at the mechanics of Advanced Cloaking Device together with Whisper's pilot ability and infer the intention that, yes, Whisper was going to move last and shoot first whenever possible, otherwise they would have gone with one of the other (ten or so?) Cloak mechanics they were tooling around with at the time. VI was almost baked in to Whisper's cost.

As for Nym specifically, the Havoc/Advanced Sensors/Bomblet/Genius combo almost seems unintentionally powerful. It's pretty much impossible to approach Nym without catching a bomb, unless you're moving after him. I honestly wouldn't mind Nym as a metagame piece if he were unable to equip VI. I think PS8 with no Talent slot would have been plenty good; System + Turret is strong enough! The bombs are just gravy at that point, kind of like Miranda Doni.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I think a lot of good would come of dropping VI and Adaptability from the competitive scene, even if some of the collateral damage would sting.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. I really dislike when VI is practically stapled to a pilot. Whisper is the perfect example- run VI or get blown up before you can shoot. FFG really needs to more carefully consider PS in ships that are really PS reliant due to abilities/mechanics. Post-nerf Whisper should have easily been native PS 9- increased cost- but allowing use of the EPT slot for something useful. Nym is another example where you might as well just staple VI to it- why they made him native PS 8 is beyond me. His PS should probably have been 6 at most, considering his ability, strength of the ship, and the near zero counter-play that the Scurrg has introduced into the game.

12 hours ago, Zazaa said:

But in this game all the possible outcomes need to be clarified!

I know right?! God forbid we expect people to exercise common sense and judgement!

On 9/6/2017 at 8:19 AM, Favoritism Flight Games said:

FFG really needs to more carefully consider PS in ships that are really PS reliant due to abilities/mechanics. Post-nerf Whisper should have easily been native PS 9- increased cost- but allowing use of the EPT slot for something useful.

This is a weird example of being sorta right about something, but wrong on design theory.

It's not Whisper that lives or dies on PS, it's all Phantoms. The pre-nerf Phantom design was broken good. The post-nerf Phantom design is broken bad, with only Whisper surviving the culling (sort of) because of high PS.

The problem both have in common is cloak/decloak mechanism. FFG screwed it up out of the box, and then screwed it up -- but in a different and novel way! -- with their "fix." And the "fix" is what really annoys me. Doing a new mechanic and screwing it up, especially one as weird as cloak/decloak, IMO that's understandable. You take your best try, and sometimes things go wrong. But having two whacks at design and still screwing it up is pretty inexcusable. And the reason they screwed it up is that they were too hung up on VI Whisper.

Phantoms needed to be usable -- but not broken -- on that second try. All of them ... not just Whisper. And that meant a serious rethink of the cloak/decloak mechanic, not just a half-a$$ed timing change. Cloak/decloak is a reference card ... if ever there was the opportunity to get something right, while still not having to issue errata, that was it.

On 9/5/2017 at 7:20 AM, Hannes Solo said:

What if FFG would use an FAQ to change the rules so that PS 9 is the highest possible PS? It could be a relative easy fix you could introduce with an FAQ with no need to print new cards etc. (though you also would need to change 'Epsilon Ace' to go along with this rule).
So with this rule you could use VI on a PS7 pilot to get him to the top but putting VI on a PS9 pilot would have no effect (so you wouldn't put VI on a Vader or Soontir).

The main benefit I see in this is that we would have more options whenever the meta calls for 'highest ps possible'

just errata Veteran instincts. "increase your pilot skill by 2, to a maximum of 8". maybe cap it at P.S. 9, whatevs.

that way a specific ace could have a higher pilot skill(Vader for example could be errattad to native PS 10). the problem is that if you have a straight ps 8 or 9 cap then VI can still tie every ace pilot in the game. ace PS should be varried to make the game interesting.

20 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

just errata Veteran instincts. "increase your pilot skill by 2, to a maximum of 8". maybe cap it at P.S. 9, whatevs.

that way a specific ace could have a higher pilot skill(Vader for example could be errattad to native PS 10). the problem is that if you have a straight ps 8 or 9 cap then VI can still tie every ace pilot in the game. ace PS should be varried to make the game interesting.

This is my thought too, well done sir.

...and Scruggs should't have EPT's

1 hour ago, Vontoothskie said:

just errata Veteran instincts. "increase your pilot skill by 2, to a maximum of 8". maybe cap it at P.S. 9, whatevs.

that way a specific ace could have a higher pilot skill(Vader for example could be errattad to native PS 10). the problem is that if you have a straight ps 8 or 9 cap then VI can still tie every ace pilot in the game. ace PS should be varried to make the game interesting.

Adaptability could still be equipped by Vader to push to 10 in this scenario, allowing PS9s to spend the elite slot to edge above any competition.

On 9/5/2017 at 6:46 AM, xbeaker said:

It is fine the way it is. This is really just people wanting to put on an EPT but still have the highest PS on the board. Sorry, the price you pay for having the unqualified best pilot is the loss of another EPT. Limiting it to 9 also screws up other ships. Whisper is a 7 specifically because if she were a 9 than VI would all but ensure she got first shot in every game making her Advanced Cloaking device overpowered. If you make the cap 9 you put her right back in that place. Ahsoka as a 9 with that as a cap makes captured TIE that much more powerful.

+1

54 minutes ago, Varyag said:

+1

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

Veteran instinct is used 7 times more than the next most common EPT (Attani Mindlink). Does that seem right to you that one EPT be so over-represented?

They've been explicitly printing cards with PS 12 for years now.

Epsilon Ace and Roark would look mighty odd with a 12 that's secretly a 9.

Then play Dengar + Fenn Rau and have 10 point init bid.

High PS pilots are fine, but it's a bit of an NPE to have a ship blasted off the board before it can shoot. I think the following FAQ entry would be quite nice:
"At the end of the end phase, if the number of damage cards assigned to you equals or exceeds your hull value, you are destroyed"

Ordincnace carriers can get a shot off, and high PS aces no longer, inexplicably, win jousts.

4 hours ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

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

Veteran instinct is used 7 times more than the next most common EPT (Attani Mindlink). Does that seem right to you that one EPT be so over-represented?

Actually, as far as I can see from that link, the second most used EPT is Expertise, with 233 uses (****, even PtL has 226 uses), while VI is used 467 times. A 2 to 1 ratio between most used and second most used seems common in that list among most upgrade categories.

23 hours ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

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

Veteran instinct is used 7 times more than the next most common EPT (Attani Mindlink). Does that seem right to you that one EPT be so over-represented?

Just because a card or ship is used a lot right now does not make it broken. Nerf everything that is popular? No. I hope FFG does not listen to the majority of the forum talk. Most of it is just people complaing that their pet ship is not "top tier".

On 9/7/2017 at 7:03 PM, Polaritie said:

Adaptability could still be equipped by Vader to push to 10 in this scenario, allowing PS9s to spend the elite slot to edge above any competition.

errata adaptability as well

Allowing to go above PS 9 gives you counterplay to the powerful high-PS ships. Think Dengar for example. If the cap was at PS 9, then you would know that no matter what you do with your list, Dengar would always be able to attack back, plus get his skill. Since we practically have no PS cap (even though PS 11 is the highest an ace can go), this gives you some counterplay. Being PS 10-11 allows you to move after Dengar and dodge his arc and/or attack before him. Sure, Dengar can still get VI to push his PS to 11, but he sacrifices his elite slot (basically Expertise) to go that high. The same applies to Whisper, Soontir, etc.

On 9/7/2017 at 9:01 PM, Favoritism Flight Games said:

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

Veteran instinct is used 7 times more than the next most common EPT (Attani Mindlink). Does that seem right to you that one EPT be so over-represented?

Maybe read the whole thread..quoiting myself from eariler...

Those numbers are skewed. That is simply the number of lists that contain at least 1 VI. Yes, it is used well above the other EPTs, but not because there is some conspiracy that every single ship that has an EPT gets VI without looking at any others. I frequently use VI on a single ship not to get it to the top PS spot, bust simply to make 6 an 8 or 5 a 7 or the like. Because I want it to have the same PS as the rest of my squad so on movement phases I can choose the move order of my own ships. There are more EPT upgrades than any other upgrade type. VI is just one of the most versatile in that almost any ship can benefit from it, and it is only 1 point. So obviously it is going to show up somewhere on a lot of lists. But if you look at the % of use, Attanni mind link, Selflessness, Draw their fire, Expertise, Loan Wolf, PTL, Crack Shot, Adaptability, Intensity... all have about the same numbers in the 30%-40% range.

On 9/5/2017 at 7:20 AM, Hannes Solo said:

What if FFG would use an FAQ to change the rules so that PS 9 is the highest possible PS? It could be a relative easy fix you could introduce with an FAQ with no need to print new cards etc. (though you also would need to change 'Epsilon Ace' to go along with this rule).
So with this rule you could use VI on a PS7 pilot to get him to the top but putting VI on a PS9 pilot would have no effect (so you wouldn't put VI on a Vader or Soontir).

The main benefit I see in this is that we would have more options whenever the meta calls for 'highest ps possible'

That would make my HWK basically useless.