9 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

If TLT was gone we'd see some ABT and nothing else. ICT was obsolete by the time the Falcon was released (because turrets don't care much about ion movements and dictate a minimum of 2 ion weapons per list which gets way too expensive)

Wait, you can‘t dismiss ICT ‚because turrets‘ when those turrets are firing below range 3!

An ABT has simply lost against an ICT. Once in range 2 you can walk him slowly off the board.

In fact that‘s my main problem with NymMiranda - they can still get me with their TLT even if I can set up my stress/ion combo. And I don‘t have regen or 10HP, so odds are that I lose anyway

Just now, kris40k said:

ICT figuratively (for action bombs) and sometimes literally (for on-reveal bombs) shuts down heavy bombers like Nym and Miranda. If they get within range to bomb you, they get ionized, then they get burned down. 1 Forward + 1 SLAM doesn't go far. Neither does a 1 Forward followed by a BR/Boost.

In theory sure, but in practice that hasn't happened, even when these ships made up an overwhelming part of the meta. You just can't afford to have 25 points of your list being useless against Dengar and his likes, just like you can't afford 50 points of your list to be dedicated to ionization.

4 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

In theory sure, but in practice that hasn't happened, even when these ships made up an overwhelming part of the meta. You just can't afford to have 25 points of your list being useless against Dengar and his likes, just like you can't afford 50 points of your list to be dedicated to ionization.

In practice for me, at least. I've only lost to 1 Nym list, and that came down to him with 2 hull left getting an unfortunate direct hit on my QD. Very good, close game. Now, that's my local meta, not Nationals, so whatever *shrug*

We are in a thread where people are complaining about Miranda making up 40-50% of the top lists in recent Nationals, and you don't think its worth tech'ing against heavy bombers?

Secondly, Ion's not worthless against the likes of Dengar. No need to bring 50 pts worth. Being able to shut down K4 on him and prevent him from slooping to keep his arc on you every other turn should be worth it. If Dengar decides to melt the ICT Aggressor before the 2nd token, then you just had 25ish pts of Imperial Biggs, congrats.

2 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

If TLT was gone we'd see some ABT and nothing else. ICT was obsolete by the time the Falcon was released (because turrets don't care much about ion movements and dictate a minimum of 2 ion weapons per list which gets way too expensive) and only saw play on the Stresshog, and only because it was the only turret with enough range that worked through stress.

Sure that doesn't mean that TLT isn't too strong, it certainly is (if not by as much as most people think), but it isn't the reason for the lack of variety in the turret slot. Even Synced Turret just isn't worth it.

But you can’t know for sure if it is or is not the reason for a lack of variety because none of us have been able to truly competitively “test” these other turrets because we knew we were handicapping ourselves.

And if it does turn out TLT is the only competitive turret, so be it. We will just see fair TLT at that point, and FFG can work towards developing more usable turrets.

6 hours ago, Kdubb said:

I can’t disagree with this as a possibility, and maybe I am alone on this, but I would take this over TLT being what it is. Turrets really shouldn’t be so strong that they are nullifying arcbound jousters. I think the big game changer was TLT going out to range 3. If turrets were never allowed to go out to range 3, that alone would probably be enough.

Perhaps you are right, but I don't want to ever see only one viable turret option. I'd like them all to be viable.

33 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Perhaps you are right, but I don't want to ever see only one viable turret option. I'd like them all to be viable.

I think we both agree on this fully. I think nerfing TLT would get us closer to this personally, but I’m not opposed to boosting the others up a notch as well. My only worry is if we get more options as strong as TLT, arc bound jousters would continue to fade even further into obscurity. Or, perhaps they need a buff as well.

14 minutes ago, Kdubb said:

I think we both agree on this fully. I think nerfing TLT would get us closer to this personally, but I’m not opposed to boosting the others up a notch as well. My only worry is if we get more options as strong as TLT, arc bound jousters would continue to fade even further into obscurity. Or, perhaps they need a buff as well.

I'm not a big proposer of fixes, but making turrets havevthe same range bonuses as primaries would go a long way toward leveling the playing field. ABTs might be too much.

I'd limit her regen ability to being within arc of the target instead of anywhere within a 12" radius of one. I'm not a fan of how Primary Weapon Turrets are implemented, and I don't think they need any pilot skills or EPTs taking advantage of the extended attack arc. Arcs should matter for those kinds of game abilities.

An alternative to that nerf would be a requirement of the attack succeeding prior to triggering the die/shield trade.

10 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I like* how flippantly you dismissed the huge difference between SLAM+Crew+Turret vs Boost+Systems+Missile. One is so massively better that it might be enough to explain why one ship dominates and the other sees no play

*I don‘t like it. You picked one easy point to answer and just brushed this one away.

From my previous post:

“The truth is that in a game like this there will always be cards that are just better than others. If you nerf them all, then other cards will take their place, then you’ll have to nerf those, and so on, and so on, until you have all new cards. The best that FF can do is make sure that each faction has an equal amount of powerful, but different cards.”

Seems as if you picked one easy point to answer and just brushed this one away. Y ou do get the irony here right? ;-)

Yep, Miranda may be slightly better than Nym, but if you don’t think Scum has powerful ships of their own, that’s funny. If FF gives the same strengths to each faction, what’s the point of having different factions? FF tried to give Scum Nym and Cad Bane. Nym and Bane do a decent job and they are good and strong cards. If you were expecting the same benefits and abilities as Miranda, I just don’t know what to say to you, but it doesn’t mean Miranda nor TLT need to be nerfed. Also as someone else said, if you require TLT or Miranda to be nerfed just because you don’t know how to beat them, that sound more like a you problem then a Miranda or TLT problem. (Sorry that last sentence sounded salty, but I didn’t know how else to put it at this point.)

Another way of putting this is that there will be people who have a problem with a given card and complain (a lot) and I’m actually glad that FF listens, but does what they think to be right.

Now what are you going to do if the Phantom II expansion has a card that allows Rebels to take control of a Scum ship? I think we should just do a preemptive nerf. T? Thematically speaking Scum should get one as well, but not Imps (sorry imps). Begin the NERF!

1 hour ago, JediPartisan said:

Yep, Miranda may be slightly better than Nym, but if you don’t think Scum has powerful ships of their own, that’s funny.

IMO, right now Scum has fewer (and ATM less powerful) ships than Rebels. Even before the FAQ Rebels were winning more than Scum, and Scum was hit much harder than Rebels by the FAQ, therefore widening the gap.

Do you not see this as a problem?

4 hours ago, JediPartisan said:

Seems as if you picked one easy point to answer and just brushed this one away. Y ou do get the irony here right? ;-)

That's not how this works.

You wrote your quote before you brushing aside his response. You - Keffisch - You* - Me, and you brushed away his response at the *. I get that you might believe your previous, and now again quoted, paragraph was enough to adress it, but it's clear that it was not to others. But especially this part from your initial paragraph " The best that FF can do is make sure that each faction has an equal amount of powerful, but different cards.”" is clearly not the case with Punisher and K-Wing, even though there were supposed to take a similar or even the same role. One rose to the top and one to the bottom, and they could not be further appart wrt being equally powerful.

So I don't understand why you don't understand why why Imperial players don’t use Punishers.

As for the rest: that's rather meaningless considering we're talking about the Miranda - Punisher comparison where Nym has no place.

6 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

That's not how this works.

You wrote your quote before you brushing aside his response. You - Keffisch - You* - Me, and you brushed away his response at the *. I get that you might believe your previous, and now again quoted, paragraph was enough to adress it, but it's clear that it was not to others. But especially this part from your initial paragraph " The best that FF can do is make sure that each faction has an equal amount of powerful, but different cards.”" is clearly not the case with Punisher and K-Wing, even though there were supposed to take a similar or even the same role. One rose to the top and one to the bottom, and they could not be further appart wrt being equally powerful.

So I don't understand why you don't understand why why Imperial players don’t use Punishers.

As for the rest: that's rather meaningless considering we're talking about the Miranda - Punisher comparison where Nym has no place.

Um... what’s a Keffisch?

And I was not only talking about Miranda (k-wing) - Punisher.

(In truth I have never seen the k-wing vr Punisher match happen, but I would love to see it. And each player would have to be equally skilled and familiar with their squads for a definitive answer.)

My point was that even if a faction doesn’t have a strong bomber, their faction makes up for it with other ships. So no, this is not just about the k-wing vrs Punisher, it’s about one faction vrs another as a whole. As it is, it would be very hard to give each faction different ships, each with their own unique abilities, and still keep the different faction’s power levels about the same. How do you gage the different abilities? There is no point system that can guess some of the synergies.

But I guess what you seem to want is for each faction to have an equally powerful ship, each with a unique ability, in every area (ie, arc dodging, bomber, cannon, etc). In essence you would be making each faction identical and the only difference between them would be colours and emblems. In order to have unique factions, each faction has to have strengths and weaknesses. I guess from the complaints, Rebels have the definitive strength in bombers, but obviously lack in arc dodgers.

And if I had another Punisher I would so play a squad of them, but then I tend to like odd lists that remain odd until people finally catch on, that they’re not a bad ship. It all comes down to what a ship is paired with and how the pilot abilities interact and how good the player is with that list. At first people didn’t like missiles or the JumpMaster, then they saw the devistation of its alpha strike. The Punisher should be capable of the same, if not better devistation. Redline has an awesome pilot skill for missiles. Pair it with FCS and you can fire your missiles and have a target lock for reroll. Against a k-wing who has 1 die defence, we’re talking 4-5 damage easily per missile. So while the complained about k-wing is doing its 2 damage a round (because they are seldom seen with missiles), Redline is taking Miranda off the board.

I have tried to play 2 k-wings (1 being Miranda and both only having TLT, but no bombs) and Poe vrs Palp aces and was beaten each time. TLT and Miranda are good, just not invincible and the right list or player can stop her cold.

Punishers are not bad. They're just overcosted by about 5 points, which makes them bad. Redline and Deathrain both have awesome abilities. That's why it's so disappointing that they cost so much more than those abilities can contribute.

Punisher versus K Wing isn't even a match, the K Wing has a TLT, it gets behind the Punisher, the Punisher dies.

K Wings are great but if you bring 2 of them with onyl TLTs and Poe versus autothruster aces, yeah, that's a tough match to win. Which is why you bring bombs.

4 hours ago, LordBlades said:

IMO, right now Scum has fewer (and ATM less powerful) ships than Rebels. Even before the FAQ Rebels were winning more than Scum, and Scum was hit much harder than Rebels by the FAQ, therefore widening the gap.

Do you not see this as a problem?

Depends what your definition of power is. I just watched a game with Ventress, Rau and Manaroo and they were top 8. Ventress is a tank! And Rau is about as powerful as ships get.

Each faction only has a few pilots like that. It was wrong that the JumpMaster was so broken and the fact that every ship in the JumpMaster line was scary was part of the broken thing. Yes the faq hit Scum the worst, but it by no means took them out of the fight and the top players will go back and make new lists that will frighten the **** out of Rebel and Imperial players.

I don’t see the Scum faction as weak, but I will admit that the Rebels have more to play with. More ships = more possibilities/combinations.

Rebel ships 18

Scum Ships 15

Imperial 16

Fantasy flight should have a wave that only has Scum ships, but for all I know that could be in the works or maybe they’re doing that cause Rebels are more popular (idk).

13 hours ago, Kdubb said:

But you can’t know for sure if it is or is not the reason for a lack of variety because none of us have been able to truly competitively “test” these other turrets because we knew we were handicapping ourselves.

And if it does turn out TLT is the only competitive turret, so be it. We will just see fair TLT at that point, and FFG can work towards developing more usable turrets.

Possibly, but personaly I have played a lot with both ICT and Blaster Turret before TLT came out, and while it is obvious that Blaster Turret is utterly useless, ICT had deeply rooted problems, too, which I already mentioned. One of them being that when you meet a large base turret, which have consistently been part of the meta since wave 2, you essentialy play at a ~20 point initiative bid without having initiative. If you want to avoid that you need a second source of ion, which means ~50 points of your list are dedicated to doing two damage. Synced Turret looks like a better Blaster Turret, which is probably still not good enough. A single range 1-2 3 dice attack isn't exciting, especially considering the hoops you need to jump through to get there.

9 minutes ago, JediPartisan said:

Depends what your definition of power is. I just watched a game with Ventress, Rau and Manaroo and they were top 8. Ventress is a tank! And Rau is about as powerful as ships get.

Each faction only has a few pilots like that. It was wrong that the JumpMaster was so broken and the fact that every ship in the JumpMaster line was scary was part of the broken thing. Yes the faq hit Scum the worst, but it by no means took them out of the fight and the top players will go back and make new lists that will frighten the **** out of Rebel and Imperial players.

I don’t see the Scum faction as weak, but I will admit that the Rebels have more to play with. More ships = more possibilities/combinations.

Rebel ships 18

Scum Ships 15

Imperial 16

Fantasy flight should have a wave that only has Scum ships, but for all I know that could be in the works or maybe they’re doing that cause Rebels are more popular (idk).

I took a break from playing Scum after the FAQ, because I feel they're no longer good enough. I build a list, then I ask myself 'is this better than Dash Miranda?' So far the answer has been 'no' every time. So why play it over Dash Miranda then ?

Additionally, on most podcasts I've listened to, there is a lot of talk about how Rebels or the assumed resurgence of Imperial aces will influence the upcoming meta, and very little about Scum, which leads me to think many of them don't really feel Scum will be a strong force in defining the new meta.

Maybe somebody will come up with some new Scum lists that are good enough to compete with Rebels, but for now the outlook is pretty grim, at least in my view.

12 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Punishers are not bad. They're just overcosted by about 5 points, which makes them bad. Redline and Deathrain both have awesome abilities. That's why it's so disappointing that they cost so much more than those abilities can contribute.

Punisher versus K Wing isn't even a match, the K Wing has a TLT, it gets behind the Punisher, the Punisher dies.

K Wings are great but if you bring 2 of them with onyl TLTs and Poe versus autothruster aces, yeah, that's a tough match to win. Which is why you bring bombs.

Wait, it’s the k-wings that don’t have a k-turn. Punishers do have one, so if your opponent does try to sit behind you, let them for a round while you get your lock, then k-turn the next and take out their shields and then some. As long as you have Missiles for close range and long range, you should be able to keep pounding them, hopefully even after they bug out with slam.

I guess I have to buy or borrow another Punisher and give this a shot. I still don’t see it. I know Action economy made the JumpMasters so fierce, but doing near max damage from ordinance and having bombs has to be worth a shot.

3 minutes ago, JediPartisan said:

Wait, it’s the k-wings that don’t have a k-turn. Punishers do have one, so if your opponent does try to sit behind you, let them for a round while you get your lock, then k-turn the next and take out their shields and then some. As long as you have Missiles for close range and long range, you should be able to keep pounding them, hopefully even after they bug out with slam.

I guess I have to buy or borrow another Punisher and give this a shot. I still don’t see it. I know Action economy made the JumpMasters so fierce, but doing near max damage from ordinance and having bombs has to be worth a shot.

K Wings have SLAM, 2 turn > 2 turn is plenty for getting behind things.

You are just wrong about Punishers. I want them to be good, just like you do. But they're not. They're bad.

5 minutes ago, JediPartisan said:

Wait, it’s the k-wings that don’t have a k-turn. Punishers do have one, so if your opponent does try to sit behind you, let them for a round while you get your lock, then k-turn the next and take out their shields and then some. As long as you have Missiles for close range and long range, you should be able to keep pounding them, hopefully even after they bug out with slam.

I guess I have to buy or borrow another Punisher and give this a shot. I still don’t see it. I know Action economy made the JumpMasters so fierce, but doing near max damage from ordinance and having bombs has to be worth a shot.

I have 4 and can tell you they don't even come close to K-Wings. Fun little ships, but mostly usable as a handicap if you don't want to crush a new player.

2 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

I took a break from playing Scum after the FAQ, because I feel they're no longer good enough. I build a list, then I ask myself 'is this better than Dash Miranda?' So far the answer has been 'no' every time. So why play it over Dash Miranda then ?

Additionally, on most podcasts I've listened to, there is a lot of talk about how Rebels or the assumed resurgence of Imperial aces will influence the upcoming meta, and very little about Scum, which leads me to think many of them don't really feel Scum will be a strong force in defining the new meta.

Maybe somebody will come up with some new Scum lists that are good enough to compete with Rebels, but for now the outlook is pretty grim, at least in my view.

I think the problem is that Imperials and Rebels have 2 new ships coming and Scum only has one and its special ability is only so so. I do like Scum and I hope they see more love soon. In the mean time Scum does have some strong pieces, it’s just figuring out how to fit them together... actually I just thought, it is possible to have strong ships, but for the ships/pilots not to work well together. I hope that’s not the case. I think Scum does bring some good stuff to the table.

2 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

I have 4 and can tell you they don't even come close to K-Wings. Fun little ships, but mostly usable as a handicap if you don't want to crush a new player.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

K Wings have SLAM, 2 turn > 2 turn is plenty for getting behind things.

You are just wrong about Punishers. I want them to be good, just like you do. But they're not. They're bad.

Well I hope you guys are wrong. As much as each player may complain about the other factions, it’s more fun when the other side has good ships to bring to the table too. I’ll let you know if I have success... any success. lol

Just add Main weapon only on her ability. Instant fix

2 minutes ago, JediPartisan said:

Well I hope you guys are wrong. As much as each player may complain about the other factions, it’s more fun when the other side has good ships to bring to the table too. I’ll let you know if I have success... any success. lol

Welcome to the Punisher crew then! There are several ways to play the Punisher. The most promising at the moment is Deathrain with Bomblet Generator, Lightweight Frame, and a either Accuracy Corrector or Advanced Sensors and Unguided Rockets. Then you have Redline, who can use any unmodified ordnance. A lot of people swear by FCS, one set of unmodified range 2-3 ordnance (like Plasma Torps), and Cluster Missiles. I believe that's way too expensive and strip FCS and Cluster Missiles. This version has the choice of LRS instead of Guidance Chips, too. This way seems outdated with the arrival of Harpoons making Redlines ability obsolete. Finally, you can run the generics as impressive hunks of stats with Lightweight Frame and Unguided Rockets.

Oh and maybe you could attempt something with Minefield Mapper, but it isn't too exciting.

52 minutes ago, Holmelund said:

Just add Main weapon only on her ability. Instant fix

I'm not sure you understand what "fix" is. Removing a ship from the game isn't it. Unless you want to argue that a 40 point ship with 1 agi that only regenerates provided it A) can shoot the enemy and B) does so by rolling ONE die would be viable. Think again.

2 hours ago, JediPartisan said:

Um... what’s a Keffisch?

Redline has an awesome pilot skill for missiles. Pair it with FCS and you can fire your missiles and have a target lock for reroll. Against a k-wing who has 1 die defence, we’re talking 4-5 damage easily per missile. So while the complained about k-wing is doing its 2 damage a round (because they are seldom seen with missiles), Redline is taking Miranda off the board.

A Keffisch, is me.
And you did dismiss my post with what amounts to a handwave, nothing wrong with that per se but your argument is flawed. I'd like to elaborate so bear with me.

Quote

My point was that even if a faction doesn’t have a strong bomber, their faction makes up for it with other ships. So no, this is not just about the k-wing vrs Punisher, it’s about one faction vrs another as a whole.

What other ships in the Imperial arsenal makes up for flying overcosted ships that cannot perform their basic duty well, which in this case is bombing and using ordnance?
And don't you think we'd see more of them placing higher in world if that was the case?
During the reign of the Toiletseats(tm) an entire faction (Rebels) was sidelined, now that Rebels are back, and both they and Scum have access to so many turrets and strong auto damage (Bombs) on cheap platforms another faction has been sidelined - BECAUSE THEY PAY PREMIUM FOR GREEN DICE and ships with fixed firing arcs, which are no longer worth a ****.

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As it is, it would be very hard to give each faction different ships, each with their own unique abilities, and still keep the different faction’s power levels about the same. How do you gage the different abilities?
How do you gage the different abilities? There is no point system that can guess some of the synergies.

There is a system which can do that actually, it is called Math. See the wonderful posts from MajorJuggler on the matter.

Balance is possible - just not at the stage where X-Wing is now - but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be able to fly all the ships in the game and have them perform in their intended role.

Quote

But I guess what you seem to want is for each faction to have an equally powerful ship, each with a unique ability, in every area (ie, arc dodging, bomber, cannon, etc). In essence you would be making each faction identical and the only difference between them would be colours and emblems. In order to have unique factions, each faction has to have strengths and weaknesses. I guess from the complaints, Rebels have the definitive strength in bombers, but obviously lack in arc dodgers.

I think I speak for almost everyone when I say that X-Wing players would like to see each ship do well in their intended role, with a few variations for flavor between the factions. Nobody wants identical factions/ships.

You also hit the nail on your head with that last bit, for what Rebels lack in arc dodgers, they have in staying power and damage output, particularly VERSUS arc dodgers. Still, I expect to see more Imperial aces going forward.

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And if I had another Punisher I would so play a squad of them, but then I tend to like odd lists that remain odd until people finally catch on, that they’re not a bad ship. It all comes down to what a ship is paired with and how the pilot abilities interact and how good the player is with that list.

This is incorrect, your opponents list and skill is also a factor.

And here's the kicker, when his ships are undercosted, has access to a ton of abilities that lets him respond to everything you do (just try to fly PS 10 Adv. Sensors Nym and you'll see how easy it is, or pre-slam nerf Miranda) compared to yours, then the value of your already overpriced ships is skewed even further.

The TIE Punisher is NOT a good ship for the points because you need to load it with ordnance in order for it to work and it has no access to regen, movement shenanigans or turrets, and that; for those points - makes it a dead ship. It needs a cost reduction, unlimited ordnance types with the purchase of a single card of that type, or something similar. It cannot compete with a toolbox ship which can do everything, performs better, and is cheaper.

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The Punisher should be capable of the same, if not better devistation.

That we can agree on!

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Redline has an awesome pilot skill for missiles. Pair it with FCS and you can fire your missiles and have a target lock for reroll. Against a k-wing who has 1 die defence, we’re talking 4-5 damage easily per missile. So while the complained about k-wing is doing its 2 damage a round (because they are seldom seen with missiles), Redline is taking Miranda off the board.

The TL from FCS doesn't kick in until after you have performed your attack, so you can't spend the lock in the same round.

Miranda also isn't being taken off the board because she can slam out of arc, out of range if running away, or into R1 if she needs to, to avoid the missile and she can fire back with her turret (which is fantastic vs agi 1 btw).

Redline cannot do that.

And remember, she has PS 8, versus Redline's 7. Just to reiterate, as she is undercosted compared to Redline, Miranda has stronger wingmen as well.

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I have tried to play 2 k-wings (1 being Miranda and both only having TLT, but no bombs) and Poe vrs Palp aces and was beaten each time. TLT and Miranda are good, just not invincible and the right list or player can stop her cold.

Anecdotal evidence is just that. I.e. I have beaten pre-nerf Whisper with two Rookie Pilots many times (when training to beat Whisper back in the day). This does not make Whisper bad or T65s good. But you should be able to tell at a glance which ship is better for the points..

Quote

TLT and Miranda are good, just not invincible and the right list or player can stop her cold.

And a Nym player can still lose, as can everyone. But the vast majority of unbalanced games will end as expected, in favor of the strongest list.