Feel free to correct me if you feel I'm wrong.

1. Sabine

2/3. Ryad

2/3. Vessery

4. Stele

5. Brath

2 minutes ago, Celestial Lizards said:

Feel free to correct me if you feel I'm wrong.

1. Sabine

1. Ryad

2. Vessery

3. Stele

4. Brath

You have two #1's. Also Vessery is still probably ranked above Ryad. Other than that it looks pretty accurate.

2 minutes ago, Celestial Lizards said:

Feel free to correct me if you feel I'm wrong.

1. Sabine Ha, you're real funny.

I personally fly a lot more Vessery. I consider Ryad next, usually because of her ability. Then Steele for his PS. I've never flown Brath. I'd probably fit in a Glaive before I fly Brath.

While I personally rank Ryad over Vessery (due to flexibility), i do think Vessery is a strong candidate for the top slot. For me, the top 3 are Ryad, Vessery, Delta.

22 minutes ago, Celestial Lizards said:

Feel free to correct me if you feel I'm wrong.

1. Sabine

I see what you did there. Defenders is one of those things, its a solid platform and the best one is always going to be 'The one that fits'. They can fill a few different roles a compliment a lot of things nicely.

Ryad and Vessery are a both on the top. I would vote for Vessery cause I want to make the /D Title work and he seems to be the best for that. However Vessery needs very specific support and without that his ability is dead so in a vacuum Ryad is better.

I like Steeles ability but I do not see a good way to push it on the defender so I prefer him on the tie-advanced.

Braths ability is just a trap. my reaction to reding his card was

1. What?
2. Oh, that could be realy ugly.
3. Nah that will never work out .

Vessery

Ryad

Brath (though I'd put him much higher on the list at present as PS10 is so useful, and in general as a RAC wingmate - his ability is definitely a trap in the vast majority of cases, but his PS is not to be sniffed at)

Glaive

Stele

Delta

Whatever the other one is noone ever plays (Onyx?)

18 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

While I personally rank Ryad over Vessery (due to flexibility), i do think Vessery is a strong candidate for the top slot. For me, the top 3 are Ryad, Vessery, Delta.

I think Vessery vs Ryad for top spot depends on what you want to do with the ship, and what's in the rest of the list. Also agree that Delta is in third spot. People always forget the generics, but a Delta with Ion and TIE/D title is a solid ship I've found.

Glaive >>>> Delta though.

1. Vessery
   *big gap*
2. Ryad
   *big gap*
3. Glaive
4. Delta
5. Rexler
6. Maarek
   *big gap*
7. Onyx

13 minutes ago, Hannes Solo said:

Ryad and Vessery are a both on the top. I would vote for Vessery cause I want to make the /D Title work and he seems to be the best for that. However Vessery needs very specific support and without that his ability is dead so in a vacuum Ryad is better.

I like Steeles ability but I do not see a good way to push it on the defender so I prefer him on the tie-advanced.

Braths ability is just a trap. my reaction to reding his card was

1. What?
2. Oh, that could be realy ugly.
3. Nah that will never work out .

Expertise Rexler Brath+/X7+Tie MrkII (paired with a Rac with Kylo-crew) is a beast. Took him to day 2 in a major tournament (300+ players), most fun I have had in a long time. And my personal favorite of the Defender pilots.

4 minutes ago, Sciencius said:

Expertise Rexler Brath+/X7+Tie MrkII (paired with a Rac with Kylo-crew) is a beast. Took him to day 2 in a major tournament (300+ players), most fun I have had in a long time. And my personal favorite of the Defender pilots.

He still costs a fracking fortune though.

Not to mention Onyx has some of the worst card art of any card in this game.

5 minutes ago, Sciencius said:

Expertise Rexler Brath+/X7+Tie MrkII (paired with a Rac with Kylo-crew) is a beast. Took him to day 2 in a major tournament (300+ players), most fun I have had in a long time. And my personal favorite of the Defender pilots.

So how does it work? I see that its nice to force crits when you have kylo-crew but there are more efficent ways to do it.
How do you modify your attacks when you have to spare the Focus for his ability?

7 minutes ago, Hannes Solo said:

So how does it work? I see that its nice to force crits when you have kylo-crew but there are more efficent ways to do it.
How do you modify your attacks when you have to spare the Focus for his ability?

...

With Expertise...

It doesn't trigger ISYTDS though, so the combo there is questionable.

44 minutes ago, CRCL said:

I think Vessery vs Ryad for top spot depends on what you want to do with the ship, and what's in the rest of the list. Also agree that Delta is in third spot. People always forget the generics, but a Delta with Ion and TIE/D title is a solid ship I've found.

Agreed. While I prize Ryad's flexibility and independence, I can completely understand why others would prize Vessery's damage output more.

my experience with Deltas come from the x7 side, where you can get a beefy ship for under 30 points to run interference for your other ships. A sleek, dependable way to spend 28 points.

40 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Glaive >>>> Delta though.

In a vacuum, yes. But there are two primary reasons why I think the Delta is more valuable than the glaive.

1) Price. Like I said above, a beefy ship for 28 points is really nice, especially when you consider a lot of what the empire what's to field is in the mid to high 30s range. It slots in more like a filler ship than a Glaive, but still feels substantial.

2) Direct substitution. From my experience, 80% of the time you are thinking about using a Glaive, Ryad is a better pick for the same points. A Delta does not have that kind of direct substitute. There are non-direct substitutions for a Delta in a price range around it, but they don't really fill the exact same role as a Delta, while I feel a Glaive does.

20 minutes ago, Celestial Lizards said:

Not to mention Onyx has some of the worst card art of any card in this game.

*cough*

*cough* *cough*

10 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Agreed. While I prize Ryad's flexibility and independence, I can completely understand why others would prize Vessery's damage output more.

my experience with Deltas come from the x7 side, where you can get a beefy ship for under 30 points to run interference for your other ships. A sleek, dependable way to spend 28 points.

In a vacuum, yes. But there are two primary reasons why I think the Delta is more valuable than the glaive.

1) Price. Like I said above, a beefy ship for 28 points is really nice, especially when you consider a lot of what the empire what's to field is in the mid to high 30s range. It slots in more like a filler ship than a Glaive, but still feels substantial.

2) Direct substitution. From my experience, 80% of the time you are thinking about using a Glaive, Ryad is a better pick for the same points. A Delta does not have that kind of direct substitute. There are non-direct substitutions for a Delta in a price range around it, but they don't really fill the exact same role as a Delta, while I feel a Glaive does.

You'd never use a Glaive when you coudl use Ryad, but you'd use one when you couldn't (i.e. you'd already used her).

Deltas are decent enough filler ships, but without the EPT they lack punch.

10 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

With Expertise...

I am sceptical this adds up. 3red vs 2green with a focus(expertise) add up to 1.5 expected damage
With Expertise and a target lock your expected damage would go up to 2.1
with a one dice rerolling predator and a focus it would be 1.9

So if I have Brath with expertise I would argue that taking a target lock rather then focus would be the better offensive option. I am not sure if the crits really compensate for loosing 25% of your expected raw damage.

10 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It doesn't trigger ISYTDS though, so the combo there is questionable.

That makes this combo even less appealing.

1 - Colonel Vessery
2 - Countess Ryad
3 - Rexler Brath
4 - Maarek Stele
5 - Delta Squadron Pilot
6 - Glaive Squadron Pilot
7 - Onyx Squadron Pilot

The Colonel's ability is awesome, simple as. Ryad's is a close second, Brath and Maarek are close run things but Brath takes it due to higher PS threshold; the x7 Delta is great entry level, Glaive drops below it despite having an EPT as there's very few reasons to take a Glaive over Countess instead.

Onyx comes in dead last, as will most 2nd-level generics without EPT.

You take the focus anyway, so you have it for your ability or defence, unless you're not getting shot in which case you bank a lock for later.

But Rexpertise goes a lot better alongside QD or BD with Targetting Synchroniser...

What makes Vessery so interesting to me is that he is only good with proper support from the rest of his squad. Without a good source of target locks, he's strictly worse than a Glaive. There have been times I've tried to play him along side a VI RAC, and it didn't really work that well. It wasn't worth giving up RAC's action to hand a TL to Vessery. With folks like FCS Omega Leader or Quickdraw who will leave TL behind after they attack, or someone who attacks after Vessery and still wants to TL (PTL Countess works, but lots of single-action low-PS ships prefer focus), it makes sense. Unless the squad is optimised for Vessery, Countess is better.

The same can be said for Rexler Brath. Without strong support from the rest of his squad (he doesn't "need" a TL from outside to assist Expertise, but it greatly helps), he's just too expensive, and too vulnerable. Oh, there have been times I've been absolutely murdered by Rexler putting 4 crits on a Miranda, but I just think the opportunity cost is too high.

///

I'm also a Delta > Glaive, or at least Delta = Glaive. PS 1 means you pretty much can't be blocked (hah, like blocking is still a part of the game), and Delta is generally going to be a better TIE/D carrier than a Glaive, if only because it's cheaper. If we were only looking at /x7, perhaps Glaive is stronger, but Delta seems more versatile to me.

///

Two Delta and Glaive related squads I've been thinking about:

* 3x Delta /x7, & Wampa. => Are three crack shots worth an extra ship? Maybe, but I'd love to see it in practice. When I've flown against triple defenders, it's often felt like the spare PS1 Delta did more work than Vess/Ryad. Maybe that's only because it lasted longer, but I think it's worth experimentation.

* 3x Glaive /x7, each with Draw Their Fire. Draw crits to Glaives with full tokens. Defenders are already fairly hard to kill, and Defenders which can't quite be focus-fired even more so. It doesn't give you more damage or more HP to work with, though. It just moves it around. We saw that was strong with FSR, but it might not be enough here.

13 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

You'd never use a Glaive when you coudl use Ryad, but you'd use one when you couldn't (i.e. you'd already used her).

Deltas are decent enough filler ships, but without the EPT they lack punch.

Fair, though by that point, the majority of the time I'm already fielding another named Defender or (more recently) a SF.

Deltas do lack punch, but hopefully you have that else where in the list and the lack of punch means you can go for blocks without wasting a really good shot.

4 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

PS 1 means you pretty much can't be blocked (hah, like blocking is still a part of the game)

Oh, it's still part of the game alright. It's just that so many people are playing 2 high PS ships that it shocks them when you whip the tactic out of the bag.

PS1 Deltas also make very fine blockers themselves; I played a couple of games recently where I was running TIE/D Vessery with Expertise and Tractor Beam and two TIE/x7 Deltas. The Deltas would set up a block on a high PS pilot, taking target lock as their action. The high PS ship lost it's shot as a result, then Vessery tractor beamed it backwards, allowing the Deltas to shoot it as well. Hilarious when it comes off!

Blocking is a lot less meaningful than it was though, what with a LOT of ships that either don't care (e.g. Nyms of both stripes) or actively WANT to bump into ships to avoid takign fire from them (Dengar, sometimes RAC).

Unless you stop them on a rock, the bump is rarely meaningful, and with Nym often costs you health.