alpha strikes are not fun to experience and remove the bulk of pilots and strategies from competitive play. please nerf

Harpoon Missiles are THE BEST missiles. They are too powerful, another missiles/torpedoes are almost not used anymore.

I don't think that even "Spend your target lock" will help. With such effective abilities they should have range 2 only, as Advanced Homing Missiles. (Major Rhymer will be happy)

I'm sorry, but I have to cite this as a case of Scissors complaining that Rock is overpowered. Alpha strikes are certainly devastating to certain builds and strategies. However, they in turn have other builds and strategies that they struggle against. And Alpha Striking is in of itself its own strategy within competitive play- nerfing it in order to make a different strategy more effective isn't actually accomplishing anything productive.

Besides, nerfing Harpoons won't make alpha strikes go away, not by a long shot. People will just start using other forms of ordnance instead, such as Cruise Missiles, Homing Missiles, Plasma torpedoes, etc.

Nah. IMO, they’re fine.

But this is just a filthy casual’s perspective.

I'm on the fence abit. I don't think there any worse than TLT, should they have been 6 points ? maybe. Are people salty that they can only get them from Guns for Hire at the moment ? maybe. There certainly less faction locked ( apart from buying an off faction expansion of course ) than TLT's.

It's a shame they came out just after Cruise Missiles as I think they hit the sweet spot between power and skill.

The simplest of nerfs would be to apply all damage to the condition card. And only when the condition gets removed the damage is applied. Makes the missile a true delayed damage card, weakens the alpha strike somewhat and should allow to keep the price of the card at 4. And actually we even have already tokens for damage and critical damage to put onto the card.

What I'd love to see Harpoons require is: Attack: Target Lock + Focus ... Now Nym and Miranda suck with them, and suddenly PTL ordnance carriers become a thing. Blocking becomes crucial, since you can stop the focus token.

When actually playing against Harpoons, if you don't have ships that can go speed 4 or faster without stressing themselves you've already lost, since a wily opponent can always get the shot. Otherwise, you just outplay them and hang on the edge of R3, them move to R1 the next turn, which they can't avoid.

If they're really bugging you, run LoneWolf/Advanced Optics/BB8 Poe with the Black One title and solo their 100 points of Harpoons with a 40 point ship.

Non-VI Poe is sad against PS11 Alpha.

2 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

Non- VI Poe is sad against PS11 Alpha.

Except that he can guarantee either a R1 exchange (4-straight and boost from outside R3) or no shots at all (weaving through/around rocks) or simply tank a single 'poon and lose a shield or two and recover next turn.

1 hour ago, Herowannabe said:

I'm sorry, but I have to cite this as a case of Scissors complaining that Rock is overpowered. Alpha strikes are certainly devastating to certain builds and strategies. However, they in turn have other builds and strategies that they struggle against. And Alpha Striking is in of itself its own strategy within competitive play- nerfing it in order to make a different strategy more effective isn't actually accomplishing anything productive.

Besides, nerfing Harpoons won't make alpha strikes go away, not by a long shot. People will just start using other forms of ordnance instead, such as Cruise Missiles, Homing Missiles, Plasma torpedoes, etc.

alpha strike as a strategy is trying to kill an opponent before they get to play. youre basically trying to end the game without allowing your opponent to play their squad. that is not a strategy that belongs in any game

To be honest this is what I'm expecting :

25 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

Non-VI Poe is sad against PS11 Alpha.

If they require a focus and a targetlock, there will be very few ships who can still do it on PS 11. Vader, naturally, Quickdraw can take the focus banking tech, but even then it takes 2 turns to do it.

Or you get PTL and you are stuck at your original PS.

51 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

The simplest of nerfs would be to apply all damage to the condition card. And only when the condition gets removed the damage is applied. Makes the missile a true delayed damage card, weakens the alpha strike somewhat and should allow to keep the price of the card at 4. And actually we even have already tokens for damage and critical damage to put onto the card.

thats could be a solid solution. but doesnt that just mean when the next attack hits it goes off?

my beef with alpha strike BS is that you dont get a chance to play... you either have higher pilot skill or you get nuked. getting to do some stuff while your ship bleeds out would change that. maybe make it resolve at end of turn?

5 minutes ago, Vordyn said:

To be honest this is what I'm expecting :

yeah thet could work

4 minutes ago, RufusDaMan said:

If they require a focus and a targetlock, there will be very few ships who can still do it on PS 11. Vader, naturally, Quickdraw can take the focus banking tech, but even then it takes 2 turns to do it.

Or you get PTL and you are stuck at your original PS.

isnt that the point?

less ps alpha strike garbage making the game not fun.

one less thing fueling the P.S. wars.

give swarms and non-ace builds a chance

Just now, Vontoothskie said:

isnt that the point?

less ps alpha strike garbage making the game not fun.

one less thing fueling the P.S. wars.

give swarms and non-ace builds a chance

Yeah... I was agreeing with you there.

I think reducing the damage to 1 and applying the condition is probably the way to go. It also makes sense thematically since under the current rules a Harpoon, which is a missile that doesn't explode, is actually more dangerous than any of the ones that do explode. Then you have a highly accurate missile that does 2 damage to the target (most of the time) and splashes damage to other ships. Contrast that with the Cruise Missile which has a higher damage ceiling but you can play around it with good positioning and winning the mind games with your opponent. Then you have the Concussions which are more reliable than Cruise Missiles in terms of getting them off and more damaging than Harpoons but require spending the lock so lack accuracy.

The problem with Harpoons is they're better in every way than every other missile making taking them a non-choice. While we're nerfing them maybe the wording on the condition can be changed so crits from cancelled dice don't trigger them too.

7 minutes ago, Jike said:

I think reducing the damage to 1 and applying the condition is probably the way to go. It also makes sense thematically since under the current rules a Harpoon, which is a missile that doesn't explode, is actually more dangerous than any of the ones that do explode. Then you have a highly accurate missile that does 2 damage to the target (most of the time) and splashes damage to other ships. Contrast that with the Cruise Missile which has a higher damage ceiling but you can play around it with good positioning and winning the mind games with your opponent. Then you have the Concussions which are more reliable than Cruise Missiles in terms of getting them off and more damaging than Harpoons but require spending the lock so lack accuracy.

The problem with Harpoons is they're better in every way than every other missile making taking them a non-choice. While we're nerfing them maybe the wording on the condition can be changed so crits from cancelled dice don't trigger them too.

The cancelled critical hit effect I guess simulates a hit so hard or close enough that it triggers the harpoon but not enough for major damage ?

5 minutes ago, Vordyn said:

The critical hit effect I guess simulates a hit so hard that it triggers the harpoon, same with the ship being destroyed.

Yeah, I get that. The problem is the 4-dice attack is trying to simulate an explosion from the missile, much like it does with every other missile, while simultaneously having the missile...not explode. It's like Schrodinger's ordnance - it's both exploded and not exploded at the same time. Not saying it's a major issue, just something that I find weird

In the old PC sims, missiles were effective against slow fleeing ships, or ships too focused on doing something else than avoiding the missile.

They were totally ineffective against ships that would joust you like B-wings, BTL-A4 Y-wings, X-Wings, etc because they would shoot down the missile on its way there.
Have a look at a TIE Bomber firing a missile against a BTL-A4 Y-wing (skip to 0:20)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1afT9PxEzxS_cuoe_wsUyhXbVwaBFj2ta/view

I think this is precisely the kind of ships that struggle against missiles. They don't have the agility to evade them, they don't have the PS to fire before you, and they don't have the health to sustain several missile hits in the same round.
Since the devs admitted that they chase a certain degree of simulationism in the game, and since modifying the missiles themselves is a very slippery slope, where a notch too much is overpowered ordnance, and a notch too little is underpowered ordnance, why don't they add a base rule to the game concerning missiles and torpedoes?

It doesn't need to be like this, but an idea could be:

"At the start of the combat phase, if your attack score is higher than 0, you may choose to assign a warhead suppression token to your ship.

Warhead suppression token
Ships with this token cannot perform attacks.
When a ship with this token is defending against a torpedo or missile secondary weapon attack, if the attacker is in the defender's main firing arc , the attack misses.
Warhead suppression tokens are discarded during the End phase along with focus and evade tokens."

10 minutes ago, Jike said:

Yeah, I get that. The problem is the 4-dice attack is trying to simulate an explosion from the missile, much like it does with every other missile, while simultaneously having the missile...not explode. It's like Schrodinger's ordnance - it's both exploded and not exploded at the same time. Not saying it's a major issue, just something that I find weird

Sorry I edited my last post abit because I missed the part where you where saying about cancelled hits. I agree a 4 Damage strike is pretty catastrophic and is comparable to major heavy ordnance, I think Harpoons where intended to be a Missile Bomb/Mine hybrid, except they forgot to cancel some of the damage . I'm fairly sure an Errata will come through sometime. But I will say FFG needs to start offering hard Errata'd Cards at a discounted rate for purchase...

You can also range control

Harpoons and other range2-3 missiles can be countered by adaptive play. Which is good. Which means it can and should have a place in this game

Harpoons are not too good for the current meta. Why are we having the exact same discussion again?

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

You can also range control

Harpoons and other range2-3 missiles can be countered by adaptive play. Which is good. Which means it can and should have a place in this game

Harpoons are not too good for the current meta. Why are we having the exact same discussion again?

I was on the fence, and now I'm off the fence and as much as I hate crying nerf or demanding for something to have an errata, Yes of course you can range control, but the issue is that at the moment there is no other 2-3 missile even in contention.

As previously stated I would love to see Cruise Missiles in use, but why would you for just 1 point more you get something extremely consistent and powerful.

Removing the Alpha damage of the Harpoon:

A.) Makes Cruise / Homing Missiles ( maybe even torpedoes... erm... ) more attractive.

B.) Adds to the decision tree ie. will that harpooned ship try and clear his condition.... will he ram it at me ? can I splash the damage this turn ? will I force that ship to break of ?

1 hour ago, Vontoothskie said:

thats could be a solid solution. but doesnt that just mean when the next attack hits it goes off?

my beef with alpha strike BS is that you dont get a chance to play... you either have higher pilot skill or you get nuked. getting to do some stuff while your ship bleeds out would change that. maybe make it resolve at end of turn?

So what if VI and Adaptability had "to a max of Pilot Skill 9" added. That would open up the options for high PS builds without stretching things in to the ridiculous PS 11 necessity.

The Alpha strike may not be so bad if you got a simultaneous fire situation or a bid gives you better arc dodging options, neither of which happens at PS 11 over PS 9.

Capping PS is interesting but then how would I :