Last year I recall thinking that the Biggs nerf would open up new design space for the Rebel faction to grow into a slightly different gameplay style but it never happened. I just assumed it would allow players space to discover other useful ships in the faction. The one two punch of Lowhrick and Fenn for whatever reason resulted in a double down on all the same mechanics and archetypes. Essentially nothing has changed gameplay wise for Rebels since the great nerf, though trying to destroy Fenn or Low feels a little better than having to shoot Biggs at least. Still the best archetypes the faction has to offer are nearly identical lists that are slightly more efficient now.

Lets say the traditional same old stuff like Miranda, Lowhrick, Nym, VCX and Fenn all of a sudden didn't exist. What would bubble up to the top tables from Rebels? Would it just be Dash, Rey, Poe, Z95s, and Quad Wookies? Is there anything else in the Rebel Faction that is any good? I think there might be? R2D2 maybe?

Yep you pretty much nailed it (r2d2 goes on poe, possibly norda but I doubt it)

Unless, of course, Saw's delivers. Fingers crossed

Honestly? Probably not.

The entire rebel faction has morphed into a combination of hyper defense, regen, turret, bombs.

All of their good ships support those archetypes (usually many). Anything that doesn't isn't actually very good at a relative power-scale to other factions.

every ship he listed (Dash, rey, poe, and quad wookies...definitely NOT z-95s) is quite competitive without having to fit into the mold of walking synergy blob

curtailing Ghost, Fenn, Miranda (TLT, really) will still leave lots of wriggle room

Even Rebels' tier 3 stuff is still better than the majority of Scum.

I'm talking stuff like Intensity Snap Wexley, OT Chewie, Ragin Nien, &c

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

Even Rebels' tier 3 stuff is still better than the majority of Scum.

I'm talking stuff like Intensity Snap Wexley, OT Chewie, Ragin Nien, &c

Assaj would disagree with you.

As would probably Fenn... and a bump master...

The majority of Scum. Asajj is the key exception, as Scum's best ship by far at the moment.

Fenn similarly, without this list of ships he'd be in a LOT better of a place thanks to a lot fewer harpoon alphas and a lot fewer bombs and sabines.

The three legged stool is the only way to keep the game balanced; never let a squad member (a ship) have all three legs. FFG designer's failed. The Rebel faction has all three legs on their stool; therefore it's OP and breaks the game. An errata is necessary. I keep refreshing my browser when I move away from my Autodesk....but to no avail. Their delay is troublesome. The game --as far as being fun, and therefore a game-- suffers greatly under the weight of laziness.

A single faction having access to everything is fine. THis has been the case single like... wave 5 or so.

A Single SHIP having access to everything is not. I'm looking at you, Doni.

Yeah, bombs are a good way to help turrets combat jousters...

But when said turret is a Regen monster with better jousting than most jousters...ya dun goofed

Peronaly I love Snap with Vet. inst, Black One, BB8. This lets me get rid of target locks like it is nothing. You can easly remove 2 target locks in one round and still have a action.

56 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

A single faction having access to everything is fine. THis has been the case single like... wave 5 or so

Another often misunderstood point. The fixation on factions for balancing despite squads being the largest unit on the table is mindboggling.

2 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Lets say the traditional same old stuff like Miranda, Lowhrick, Nym, VCX and Fenn all of a sudden didn't exist.

I'll happily give all of that up, including TLT, bombs and any form of regen if Imperials give up QD and Kylo crew and Scum gives up Asajj....you know, the traditional starting points for those factions.

4 ships rebel would be strong.

Right now it involves some declination of Fenn and lowrick, but even without them it can sport Pava, Rex and two others (potentialy one being a Stressbot). Roark might be a thing, a second T-70 with R4D6 too and there's still the generic Auzituck as an option. You can still bring a selflessness+draw their fire combo even without Lowrick.

4 Auzituck would also become the new NPE everyone would be, rightfully, whining about.

Rey+Jan Ors might come back as well. Double arc + pava would be a pseudo 100 points ace.

Dash and Poe would be the most common rebel archetype probably, but it's hard to say since without so many ships the whole meta would shift

3 minutes ago, gennataos said:

I'll happily give all of that up, including TLT, bombs and any form of regen if Imperials give up QD and Kylo crew and Scum gives up Asajj....you know, the traditional starting points for those factions.

Quickdraw doesn't have three legs, she just has two; but she's the best at those two the faction has, thus she's selected most.

Kylo crew can be on a ship with one leg, but that makes two as he beefs up the one; but again, it doesn't have three.

Asajj I'm not as familiar with, I know she's tough to burn down and can control with stress, but I'm guessing she's just two-legged as well.

Miranda IS the three legged beast. She is arguably and mathematically the best ship ever in X-wing. OP is an understatement. Nym is surely right behind her and is only missing the Reinforce sidekick to have it all in spades as well. And with the 'pede, the Ghost is a three-legged stool as well. A f***ing "0" agility one at that; how the h**l can that even happen?!? There is only one faction with a three-legged stool and two that pretty much are as well my friend. Wake up.

1 minute ago, clanofwolves said:

Quickdraw doesn't have three legs, she just has two; but she's the best at those two the faction has, thus she's selected most.

Kylo crew can be on a ship with one leg, but that makes two as he beefs up the one; but again, it doesn't have three.

Asajj I'm not as familiar with, I know she's tough to burn down and can control with stress, but I'm guessing she's just two-legged as well.

Miranda IS the three legged beast. She is arguably and mathematically the best ship ever in X-wing. OP is an understatement. Nym is surely right behind her and is only missing the Reinforce sidekick to have it all in spades as well. And with the 'pede, the Ghost is a three-legged stool as well. A f***ing "0" agility one at that; how the h**l can that even happen?!? There is only one faction with a three-legged stool and two that pretty much are as well my friend. Wake up.

I don't recall arguing about legs or anything. I said you can wipe out all of the stuff you incessantly whine about and in exchange, just give up QD, Kylo crew and Asajj (and I don't even really care about Asajj), and we'll call it good.

I mean, it's another "what if" thread. It doesn't mean anything. What if all you hate about the game was gone, all of the things you're tired of seeing.... and what if the 3 things I'm tired of were gone?

13 minutes ago, gennataos said:

I don't recall arguing about legs or anything. I said you can wipe out all of the stuff you incessantly whine about and in exchange, just give up QD, Kylo crew and Asajj (and I don't even really care about Asajj), and we'll call it good.

I mean, it's another "what if" thread. It doesn't mean anything. What if all you hate about the game was gone, all of the things you're tired of seeing.... and what if the 3 things I'm tired of were gone?

I think you're missing my point. It is: regardless of faction, ships shouldn't have all abilities in one chassis. And I, for simplicity sake in debate, break these abilities down to three: 1) real 'above average' damage output, 2) consistent 'above average' damage mitigation, and 3) game-state and game-play control and damage beyond standard reds and greens.

Sure Palp is #3 like crazy, but he's currently locked on ship that any Lambda pilot would admit doesn't have #1 or #2. Palp may be on a Deci, that can be fairly good at #1, but she burns like a candle and is on a timer, thus she suffers to #2. You can substitute Kylo for Palp and the same is true. Or, you can throw either on on a --cough, cough-- Upsilon and it's a more expensive, less effective IMO Lambda.

Quickdraw does have #1, but she doesn't have the best #2 --even though LWF put her on the mat-- so she's just Interceptor agile level mostly; tough one could argue her Pilot Ability makes her tougher to target. Even so, #3 she has none.

The counter argument is void.......at least from the view over my tea; that honestly has been refilled far too many times today, haha.

Of course, there's always something new to fill the gap. I personally think that the meta is looking pretty good right now and will only be more balanced come the next release with a focus on Galactic Empire ships and hopefully classic X-wings back on the table (for good please FFG?). So that will be the balance I need.

Scum still has deadly jumpmasters, Fringe Nym, the aforementioned Asajj, IGs and Bossk are pretty darn close to me being sound choices and make good wingmen for Asajj (especially with IG-88 crew on Asajj).

As to the original question, my personal ranking of top Rebel ships in order are:

Miranda

Poe

Nym

Dash

Wookie Gunship

Fenn

Rey/Han

Ghost + Shuttle variations

TIE Fighter

ARC-170

Y-wings with FAA

Hwks with Pulsed ray shield + TLT

B/S Bomber

The only ones that are truly lacking for the Rebels as non-competitive choices at the moment are the old Wings (and the dead on arrival U-Wing):

E-Wings

A-Wings

Z-95s

X-Wings

U-Wings

What would be great is for a Krennic-style piece to come out for the Rebels to bring the old Rebel alliance wings back up to standard.

1 hour ago, gennataos said:

I'll happily give all of that up, including TLT, bombs and any form of regen if Imperials give up QD and Kylo crew and Scum gives up Asajj....you know, the traditional starting points for those factions.

I'd take that trade in a heartbeat. QD and Kylo can be a little annoying, but they're hardly in the same Leauge as Miranda/Nym/Ghost's TLT-Bomb swarms. That's like comparing somebody with the sniffles to cancer.

Without the things you've listed, Rebels are basically a bunch of front-arc jousters with mediocre offense and even more mediocre defense. X-Wings, A-Wings, B-Wings, E-Wings, Y-Wings, U-Wings, and Z-95s aren't suddenly gonna become competitive because the better Rebel ships and their Regen Droids are off limits. X-Wing's deepest issue is that for ... about 9 Waves now ... front-arc-locked fighters have been utterly trash unless they could bring at least one but preferably two of the following three things to the table: high-PS Repositioning, innate action-stacking, or regen. The bad news for Rebels is that the vast majority of their core line-up falls under the model of arc-locked jouster without any of those things, and that's a recipe for getting wrecked.

4 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Lets say the traditional same old stuff like Miranda, Lowhrick, Nym, VCX and Fenn all of a sudden didn't exist. What would bubble up to the top tables from Rebels? Would it just be Dash, Rey, Poe, Z95s, and Quad Wookies? Is there anything else in the Rebel Faction that is any good? I think there might be? R2D2 maybe?

I had to laugh at this because it takes away some of the options but there are still several left. I mean, Scum and Imperials don't really have that right now...as they're in that "would it just be" level...

The one thing I will say is that I think it's hard to know what will be good if you eliminate those 4 things from the game because I would argue that those ships are hurting some other rebel ships right now, too.

You guys might be inferring that I'm comparing, but I'm not. If I am, it's inadvertent and really I'm just agreeing with you guys. I couldn't really care less if all that stuff people think is killing the game goes away. I'm just saying most competitive Imperial list starts with QD or is RAClo. Most competitive Scum lists start with Asajj. You guys are tired of your laundry list. I'm tired of mine.

I think one thing that people miss is that a reason QD loves this kind of meta is that there are so few ships in lists now. If swarms had the potential to compete, you’d still see her but she wouldn’t be an autotake in nearly every Imperial list.

2 minutes ago, AlexW said:

I think one thing that people miss is that a reason QD loves this kind of meta is that there are so few ships in lists now. If swarms had the potential to compete, you’d still see her but she wouldn’t be an autotake in nearly every Imperial list.

That's another "what if" scenario. If you dump all the stuff in the OP post, then who know what the meta would look like?

3 minutes ago, gennataos said:

That's another "what if" scenario. If you dump all the stuff in the OP post, then who know what the meta would look like?

It was definitely a what if post, and sorry to add to the endless complaints about Rebel Defensive Turrets. I know your not a fan of all the "alternate" universe analysis and I get why.

I am very slowly letting it go since the ways to beat the current stuff is extremely clear. There isnt anymore analysis to do about any of it basically.

Im more generally interested in whether or not the Rebel Faction is such an empty shell that without Miranda, Fenn, or Lowhick it would have any average options. I think it just leaves Poe, Dash, Rey, and Wookies who are decent.

At least with Imperials and Scum you can create a couple of interesting lists that do well enough in Swiss but tend to wash out in the Cut. Thinking 3 ship aces, deadeye/lrs harpoon stuff, etc. You could take Palpatine and Kylo Crew away from imperials even in the current meta and there are still some balanced lists that could do ok in the right hands. Same is true for Scum who have a # of decent swiss options without Assaj that simply cant sift trough the cut meta.

But take the very best couple cards from Rebels...and you take away the cut basically. I genuinely dont know what they would have left to build around.