7 minutes ago, Lobokai said:

I think you should look at the top lists in between the FAQ and most recent Wave... because top players didn’t agree with you...

I don't believe that the amount of tournaments between FAQ and the introduction of harpoons was large enough to support this conclusion.

9 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

And I, too, mentioned the evade, which is functionally equal to a 5th damage.

Its not. It is functionally equivalent only if: 1. All ships in the squad would perform homing missile attacks. 2. Defending ship does have evade token. as opposed to probability of rolling a crit on subsequent attack (or a squad design that guarantees it).

1 minute ago, PT106 said:

1. All ships in the squad would perform homing missile attacks.

No. You have to look at individual attacks. One homing or harpoon against a target with evade token. The homing will do +1, while te harpoon does +crit%*1. A guaranteed crit makes them equal. Splash can make harpoons better or worse, depending on the situation.

4 minutes ago, PT106 said:

2. Defending ship does have evade token.

Obviously. Which is, again, what I also mentioned.

That makes homings better against Asajj, and worse against much else. That is not the question though, and it gets a bit frustrating how often I have to repeat myself:

Harpoons are superior. That is undebatable.

8 minutes ago, Lobokai said:

What does that matter? They’re their own counter too? That’s a good thing. They’re still going to die to their own hard counter. If that hard counter is common enough the broken stuff is no longer the right choice in field... so alls good

Sorry, I'm getting lost in your logic. You said that harpoons are good because some of the ships that carry them have counters in the form of arc dodgers. I then pointed out that the other ships that carry the missiles already counter those arc dodgers. And that isn't an issue you care about, have I got that right?

In which case I think it matters because it's doubling down on the ships that can just counter everything (i.e. Nym and Miranda, or both). Ignoring any inherent issues with overly reliable spike damage and condition cards with a paragraph of bollocks on them, that still seems like an issue to me.

13 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

No. You have to look at individual attacks. One homing or harpoon against a target with evade token.

Why? I think that looking at the total damage from all attacks in the round (and looking at a chance of killing a ship) is a better metric. Because otherwise we may fool ourselves with that extra 1 damage from homing missile meme - if the evade token was spent that round to defend from a different attack, than homing missile didn't have any extra damage benefit at all.

36 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

@Thormind

I had made that point about Miranda and Homing already 3Weeks ago.

I give up and am out. There is no point.

On 12/21/2017 at 1:48 PM, Stay On The Leader said:

Of all the nerf bandwagons, this is the one I understand the least.

firing a cable should affect movement, not hose a whole squad with splash-damage.

it doesnt make sense lore wise and its broken mechanically

A spear that is designed to penetrate and remain imbedded in its target is a harpoon whether it has a line attached to it or not. But I don't get how it does as much as damage as a homing missile and still blows up and damages all the ships around it later.

IMHO, should have read "If this attack hits you may choose to cancel all dice results and apply the Harpooned! condition to the defender."

Missiles and torpedoes will never be balanced. think about it....

if the missile/torp is worse than a standard attack, no one uses it. therefore it has to be better than a 3 dice attack to see play. the problem is that the game was balanced in every aspect around 2 and 3 red primary attacks. some ships have 4 primaries, but the phantom demonstrated that they need to cost more and generally have a drawback. if missiles/torps exceed the reliability of primaries, they need to cost more than they do so they cant be run as cheap alpha strike lists. its a pretty straight forward evolution of the game theory

The number of times in table top games I have heard people try to say "lore wise this doesn't makes sense"

Most developers don't take the fluff into account. Plus this is just more FFG power creep. I'm actually interested to see the division here of players that call for a nerf to what faction they play the most.

5 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

A spear that is designed to penetrate and remain imbedded in its target is a harpoon whether it has a line attached to it or not. But I don't get how it does as much as damage as a homing missile and still blows up and damages all the ships around it later.

IMHO, should have read "If this attack hits you may choose to cancel all dice results and apply the Harpooned! condition to the defender."

6 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

A spear that is designed to penetrate and remain imbedded in its target is a harpoon whether it has a line attached to it or not. But I don't get how it does as much as damage as a homing missile and still blows up and damages all the ships around it later.

IMHO, should have read "If this attack hits you may choose to cancel all dice results and apply the Harpooned! condition to the defender."

none of it makes sense. how does the pilot remove the harpoon? does he spacewalk down the hull with a crowbar? the whole card is bonkers

3 minutes ago, RedSkull said:

I'm actually interested to see the division here of players that call for a nerf to what faction they play the most.

You say that, but the one upside of harpoons being the new hotness is that they seem to be pretty faction independent in terms of who can use them.

1 hour ago, Lobokai said:

Could not disagree more.

Because 3 dice attack ships that can arc dodge are poison to harpoon carriers... especially PS 7 or higher

if all the broken OP junk was rock and harpoons are the paper the stuff you think is dead is now finally a legitimate scissor option. Harpoons are not the nail in the coffin... they’re the key out of the cell.

I appreciate your theory, and we'll see if it comes to fruition because it hasn't yet. Though, I am willing to give it time. I just don't quite have the faith that it will be the panacea you do and that key may just lead to a different cell.

For it to be successful, at least in terms of your theory if I understand correctly, is that other small base "arc" ships that don't carry harpoons will need to come back into the meta that aren't currently. Phase 1: Harpoons push out things that don't rely on arcs. Phase 2: arc based ships return in order to counter harpoons. Does that sum it up?

2 minutes ago, __underscore__ said:

You say that, but the one upside of harpoons being the new hotness is that they seem to be pretty faction independent in terms of who can use them.

That's true that there are plenty of different platforms to carry the new hotness onto the table. I'm just wondering if it's being brought up more because its countering some of the other popular power creep lists

I had the best Harpoon experience yesterday. My opponent tagged two Harpoons into my Gunboat, leaving it at two hull with two condition tokens. With my own attacks, I give one of his boats to one hull, and the other was stuck with a Major Hull Breach.

Next turn, I maneuver in such a way that his ships are the only thing in range one. The look on his face when he realized what was happening was priceless. That ship spent the rest of the game zooming around as a suicide bomber. It was glorious.

remember when whisper was cancer?

remember when kylo rac was evil?

yea.... completely wholesome now.

4 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

1) The point was that you claim a difference in cheating between Harpoons and Cruise. And that few cheaters are not able to skew such a large number by that much. You are saying that a very large amount of Cruise - and only Cruise! - players are cheating.

2) I don‘t think you understand metawing and the value of the vassal league data enough to make these claims. Meta wing aggregated swiss ranks with some few lists. I look at 955 individual games. Big difference.

3) 1pt meant 1 point of cost. And I, too, mentioned the evade, which is functionally equal to a 5th damage. Of course only if evades are frequent enough. But in most cases you will get 4hits out of both. The condition can also be negative, and often is. While the action denial is basically non-existant, by the way.

4) I think you should take a close look at metawing before making such a claim about Miranda. Already 1/3 was using homing missiles. Now many are using Harpoons. Of course paying one point less is better, but it was already being used and got now made very popular.

Why do you think that?

1) Sorry but i never said that. You really need to go read what i wrote again. I said Vassal data are unreliable (as a whole, not just regarding 1 specific upgrade) because some people are cheating. Nobody knows how many are doing it and the exact amount doesnt matter. As long as it's happening and/or can happen without any way to verify it, the data cant be reliable.

2) I do understand how it works, it is written on the website with the exact formula used to make the rankings. It is at the moment the most reliable source of data we have. If you can name me a better one, im open for suggestion. Every single game elements that got nerfed were omnipresent in the top positions of this ranker.

3) Sorry but no. You dont get a 5th hit out of homers even when the target has an evade token. You just get a better chance to get more hits on the target. You should also got watch some high lvl matches on youtube or twitch because i dont think you understand the impact of harpoons on games.

4) Most popular build between Wave 8 and SLAM nerf was Mirandash: http://meta-wing.com/ship_combos/3841/squadrons?ranking_start=2016-03-17&ranking_end=2017-11-06& There is 0 Homers in ALL the listed squadrons.

2nd most popular was OP cubed: http://meta-wing.com/ship_combos/6058/squadrons?ranking_start=2017-02-02&ranking_end=2017-11-06& Only 3 builds with homers in all the squadron listed. We are far below 1/3rd. Where are you taking your numbers??

2 minutes ago, Thormind said:

1) Sorry but i never said that. You really need to go read what i wrote again. I said Vassal data are unreliable (as a whole, not just regarding 1 specific upgrade) because some people are cheating. Nobody knows how many are doing it and the exact amount doesnt matter. As long as it's happening and/or can happen without any way to verify it, the data cant be reliable.

If it is a systematic error for everything then we can still compare two subsets with the same systematic error. So effectively you can only dismiss the data I showed if you are saying that a very large amount of Cruise - and only Cruise! - players are cheating.

4 minutes ago, Thormind said:

2) I do understand how it works, it is written on the website with the exact formula used to make the rankings. It is at the moment the most reliable source of data we have. If you can name me a better one, im open for suggestion. Every single game elements that got nerfed were omnipresent in the top positions of this ranker.

Yeah, no. You clearly don't understand because the point of contention is the data source. His work is fine and not the problem. But the data source is very flawed because so many entries are missing. The vassal league has some unique advantages that we never have with the data aggregated on meta wing.

10 minutes ago, Thormind said:

4) Most popular build between Wave 8 and SLAM nerf was Mirandash: http://meta-wing.com/ship_combos/3841/squadrons?ranking_start=2016-03-17&ranking_end=2017-11-06& There is 0 Homers in ALL the listed squadrons.

2nd most popular was OP cubed: http://meta-wing.com/ship_combos/6058/squadrons?ranking_start=2017-02-02&ranking_end=2017-11-06& Only 3 builds with homers in all the squadron listed. We are far below 1/3rd. Where are you taking your numbers??

And again you demonstrate that you do not understand metawing or how to use it. I even linked you the data. Click here . That's now using your timeframe from Wave8 to SLAM nerf. 390/1642 Mirandas used Homing missiles, or 24%. Where did those 390 Homing missiles go in your set?

Ahab is already having a difficult enough time against the current whale meta.

Here's an idea:

"when defending against Harpoons, you may cancel crit results before hit results."

5 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I give up and am out. There is no point.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

If it is a systematic error for everything then we can still compare two subsets with the same systematic error. So effectively you can only dismiss the data I showed if you are saying that a very large amount of Cruise - and only Cruise! - players are cheating.

Yeah, no. You clearly don't understand because the point of contention is the data source. His work is fine and not the problem. But the data source is very flawed because so many entries are missing. The vassal league has some unique advantages that we never have with the data aggregated on meta wing.

And again you demonstrate that you do not understand metawing or how to use it. I even linked you the data. Click here . That's now using your timeframe from Wave8 to SLAM nerf. 390/1642 Mirandas used Homing missiles, or 24%. Where did those 390 Homing missiles go in your set?

That didn’t take long.

I seriously don’t see the fuss with Harpoon Missiles.

Harpoons are the Twin Laser Turret of missiles. The best option in their upgrade slot by a mile. Almost certainly too cheap for what they do. Oppressive and meta warping. TLT helped rein in fat Han and harpoons may be doing the same for Wookiees.

Edit: I guess Missiles require a lock and an arc so Harpoons are probably more wholesome.

I don't have a huge problem with Harpoon Missiles' power level ... it is the best missile, but even so it is, at most , 1 point too cheap.

My problem with it is that it's actively thematically stupid and it's ridiculously complex, both in written and executed mechanics, and in the absurd rules questions it has exploded in interaction with other rules.

It's a terrible upgrade. Whatever the merits of its effect on the metagame, that effect could have been accomplished with a less terrible card.

10 hours ago, Pooleman said:

That didn’t take long.

yes it did not because @Thormind really got me riled up there. It is so ignorant to even remotely compare the two datasets, vassal league and e.g. regionals.

• The one from vassal is 1910 lists, and we can get a lot of information, even down to the actual score and - very important! - their opponent.
• The tiers mean that the difference in skill will be much smaller compared to regionals where player skill is wildly mixed.
  • if Paul Heaver beats my Timewalk Asajj with 4 naked hawks 100-0 then it doesn't mean that hawks are awesome and Timewalk Asajj is bad. It means I'm much worse than him. That means the datasets for regionals and almost all tournaments, really, is already skewed.
• We can talk about winpercentages. Most data on listjuggler does not include who played against who. That means we can't get faction, ship, pilot or upgrade winpercentages. All we have are the scores - usually, but not always - without the number of rounds played.
  • even if that is added manually, % requires to remove mirrors. 2 rebels playing each other will result in 50% winrate. If 9 out of 10 games are rebel-rebel mirrors (yes, I know that's not possible, I want to explain the principle), then the winrate is 45% or 55%, depending on whether the rebel lost or won the 10th game.
• Regionals include a lot of fatigue while this component is removed on vassal where games are usually spread out. Fatigue can tell us maybe which lists are easier to play, but that's not the same as telling us whether a pilot is too good compared to others.
• Regionals allow us to say which ships, pilots and upgrades were used how frequently and where they placed in a tournament. That's basically it.

To give an actual example: I'm currently taking a look at the 13 regionals since December 9th. Out of 1165 ship builds, 262 used harpoons, distributed over 145 squads out of 410 total. That means 22.5% of ships used Harpoons, or 35% of squads had at least one Harpoon. All I can say now is what scores they had: 92/145 (63%) had a score of 4 or higher. But we have no context. Some regionals went to 6 games and 8 people went 6-0, and part went 4-2. Other regionals went to 4 games, and there are also people that have a score of 4. But clearly 4-0 and 4-2 is not the same.

And there are many more problems like this. It really is incredibly ignorant to dismiss the data from vassal league so casually and flippantly.

16 hours ago, RedSkull said:

Plus this is just more FFG power creep.

This sounds like FFG does this on purpose. Don't know if that's the case.

At least power creep is not unusual for games of this kind, other companies have been falling into the same trap over and over. Doesn't make it better, I know, but imo the above statement sounds quite unfair to me.