Just curious about the meta in general. It seems like shields are pretty useless since vibroknife exists. I mean every melee deck has to include vibroknife right? And unless you know for sure an opponent is running a support, mill, or ranged deck the risk of vibroknife being out there pretty much means that all cards that give shields (take cover, defensive stance, lukes protection) as well as all die sides that have a shield are pretty much pointless. Unless you have a specific strategy involving something like riposte, or unless your opponent is unlucky enough not to get their vibro in one of the first few rounds, shields won't help. Has everyone else pretty much decided to ignore anything that gives a shield?

There are a few Qui-Gon approaches which still use shields, but as a defensive option you simply can't rely on them. Even if melee decks only make up 1/3 of the meta, your shield cards all become pretty much instantly useless. You need more reliable options.

The problem I have with shields is more often than not you get 1 shield on a dice with 2 or 3 damage so you use the dice for one shield and forgo the damage. Perhaps with one dice it isn't all that much, but to gain 3 shields you may spend 3 dice, so you are looking at not dealing maybe 3-6 damage to prevent 3.

That's what I figured. It's hard to believe they haven't fixed that with a faq yet. Pretty game breaking. Takes a whole dimension out of the game. I'm sure it's been discussed plenty already. I'm late to the game. Thanks for the opinions.

40 minutes ago, Amanal said:

The problem I have with shields is more often than not you get 1 shield on a dice with 2 or 3 damage so you use the dice for one shield and forgo the damage. Perhaps with one dice it isn't all that much, but to gain 3 shields you may spend 3 dice, so you are looking at not dealing maybe 3-6 damage to prevent 3.

I agree damage would almost always be preferred to shields on a die. But if you don't have the discard to reroll or don't want to for any reason the shield is a nice option. But with vibro it's a bit pointless. And as another point the very existence of vibro limits deck building options. When i think of building a ranged deck, I have to weigh the options and decide if it's worth it because it means I take the vibro out. The lack of shields means it's a rush to ko. If they have vibro and I don't they can out last me with even just a few shields unless I get some really great rolls. I would wager that 75%+ of decks are primarily melee decks as a result.

Even new cards that could be pretty awesome like shoto lightsaber are not that exciting. Double shotos with ancient lightsaber could be an awesome thing to build for. Very doable with lightsaber pull to stack all those lightsabers for only six resource, and then get 2 shields each round when you activate. That would be a blast to play. Not really an option though with vibro out there. i hope they fix it soon

Vibroknife is an easy fix. "While this die is in your pool and showing melee damage, melee damage dealt by your dice (including this die) is unblockable." 50% chance of rolling in and getting the desired effect, and much easier to mitigate. Makes shields and damage mitigation upgrades/abilities more useful.

Same simple rewording could also fix Maz (who is just as broken as Vibroknife) as well "After you activate this character, you may immediately resolve up to 2 of this character's dice or upgrade dice."

4 hours ago, Destraa said:

Vibroknife is an easy fix. "While this die is in your pool and showing melee damage, melee damage dealt by your dice (including this die) is unblockable." 50% chance of rolling in and getting the desired effect, and much easier to mitigate. Makes shields and damage mitigation upgrades/abilities more useful.

Same simple rewording could also fix Maz (who is just as broken as Vibroknife) as well "After you activate this character, you may immediately resolve up to 2 of this character's dice or upgrade dice."

No, for 2 cost, with ambush, the card should have read "Melee damage done by this die (or modified by this die) is unblockable." It would still be good. It would also force you to resolve the Vibroknife die, instead of leaving it sit in your pool. (As it stands, I actually just want Vibroknife banned until an errata comes out. There is only one card I hate more than Vibroknife, Imperial Inspection.)

I'm all for the Maz fix.

Honestly, I don't think that Vibroknife is quite the hoser that people claim it is. Don't get me wrong - it (and other anti shield cards) certainly devalue shields significantly. However, the other thing that devalues shields is that they seem to be overcosted/underpowered in general.

Like IG-88's 2 shields for 1 resource side - seriously, considering his cost it's one of the worst die face in the game (and that's counting blanks). There's plenty of cases of this - expensive cards that don't give enough payout. We're seeing the same in EoW and the 2 Player set. It seems like the initial balance was that shields were as valuable as damage, and well....that's clearly wrong. Shields will likely continue to be unviable as a strategy until they get some straight up get some more potent cards.

Vibroknife does devalue shields, but not as much as people seem to be insinuating. There will be turns that the Vibroknife isn't in play and other sources of damage like Lightsaber throw, Kylo and Guardian. And instances where keeping your shields will be preferable (Qui-gon, Riposte, Rey).

Han and Qui-Gon can have successful shield strategies. I have some Han builds that can roll through the current aggressive decks out there.

But just because two characters can effectively use them, doesn't mean they are balanced correctly. I agree with everyone with regards to shield faces on dice being underwhelming. A shield vs a damage is not a fair trade off. So, unless you're getting multiple use out of those shield faces (Qui-Gon) or generating them consistently some other way (Han) then they're pretty much worthless.

2 hours ago, gokubb said:

Han and Qui-Gon can have successful shield strategies. I have some Han builds that can roll through the current aggressive decks out there.

But just because two characters can effectively use them, doesn't mean they are balanced correctly. I agree with everyone with regards to shield faces on dice being underwhelming. A shield vs a damage is not a fair trade off. So, unless you're getting multiple use out of those shield faces (Qui-Gon) or generating them consistently some other way (Han) then they're pretty much worthless.

True about Han and Qui-Gon.

I think shield have to be a little bit "underwhelming" compared to damage. FFG can quickly lose control of the game if they give shields too much strenght. With too much shield and dice control, player can creat impassable wall of caracters and force every game to become mill game.

Probably they should release a counter to shield penetration (Like a support that prevent shield from being bypassed).

Chak