2 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

I mean...the Neb is just as maligned. And the Hammerhead. You don't see Nebs outside of titles for a good reason. Snip found success with Hammerheads only because of Rieekan. Ask geek how his life with Hammerheads has been going.

We beat a triple Cymoon list in the team tournament and I beat a Sloane list after the final match, haha! I have thoughts and plans for Hammerheads, which I'll of course keep everyone updated on. My issues before were not figuring out the right builds and lists, but Slaved Turrets HH (Thanks @PT106 for the idea, also, great meeting you!) have some plans ahead of them.... as does Leia (shut up she's good!)

2 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

I much prefer the Raider to the Hammerhead. The Raider I is perfect with ER and OEs, and those double black flak are wonderful. That extra gear of speed makes all the difference.

I will fully agree that Raider speed >> HH speed, as that 4 vs 3, but the survivability of the HH for just one more turn.... it's nice. Again, I need more time with them, haha. Also my buddy is putting away his double Cymoon list for a bit, so THAT definitely helps me a bit FOR SURE, haha!

11 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

I mean...the Neb is just as maligned. And the Hammerhead. You don't see Nebs outside of titles for a good reason. Snip found success with Hammerheads only because of Rieekan. Ask geek how his life with Hammerheads has been going.

I rather enjoy the range of Imperial smalls. They all work very differently, which is awesome. I much prefer the Raider to the Hammerhead. The Raider I is perfect with ER and OEs, and those double black flak are wonderful. That extra gear of speed makes all the difference. The Raider II with HIE hits insanely high above its weigh class. I rarely take an Imperial fleet without one. I'll openly admit the Arq is a more challenging ship to use effectively, but unlike the Neb, you have a tool in Jerjerrod to cover its most glaring weakness.

Now hold my beer while I go break out a Cymoon, triple Arq Jerjerrod fleet.

Also, sorry, forgot. Fair amount of HH on the tables out there. They get work DONE, they just take a bit to learn and all.

11 hours ago, Norboats said:

I had neither ships nor squads, finishing 6th due to all ship matchups in final two rounds. I was out activated and out deployed in every game yet I still did well. Your statements just don't make sense.

Two things: My post came out more negative than it was intended, and I apologize if you or anyone else who participated took offense at it. That wasn't meant as an attack on anybody or any list designs, just a an observation that all 4 Rebel fleets are fairly similar, and had at least 5 ship activations (when including Strategic Advisers) and also nearly full squadron compliments. With the new cap on flotillas, Imperials have no effective equivalent to that at a similar point scale, especially when factoring in the excellent defensive boons that Rebels enjoy. This has remained the case after several consecutive waves and in fact has become more pronounced with reduced costs on Rebel ships each wave.

This composition disparity is enabled because Imperials have no truly inexpensive ships aside from the Gozanti Cruisers while Rebels have two sub-40 light ships with solid combat stats and maneuver charts. As a result, we saw several variations (yet again) of 5-6 activation Yavaris Aces lists where activation advantage, plus max squads, plus one or more abilities to completely mitigate the negative effects of damage gave players a clear advantage going into the finals.

I think that this is an observable trend over the last several waves that's independent of the obvious player skill involved at this level of play. Just the fact that all 4 players found an archetype that closely resembled each other is an indication that Rebels in particular have a defining aspect of their list building system that is not universal to both factions. We can directly observe that nearly every ship type has managed to fill that typically 5th slot including Assault Frigates, MC80s, MC75s, Peltas, MC30s, etc and we've seen consistent evidence that it is only a matter of taste when it comes to modifying the effectiveness of the archetype. That indicates that the other ships are really defining the list, and the most consistent element of the design is that aside from the Yavaris they are the cheapest ships available to put activations and key upgrade slots on the table, which opens up the rest of the fleet design for choosing the best available squadrons.

Imperials have to choose more carefully on how they want to focus fleet designs because every ship choice diminishes the availability of other cost-effective choices more than the Rebel equivalent.

6 hours ago, scipio83 said:

No, see, I'm not saying he doesn't have a right to an opinion. I'm saying his opinion is *stupid* and I gave reasons why.

He's welcome to voice his stupid opinion, just as you are. I am not trying to stop him or you from saying stupid things. I am, however, drawing a distinction between his ideas and mine: my critique of his dumb ideas will not lead to any more rule changes, but based upon the empirical evidence, his continued bellyaching may further change the game that has already changed in some ways I don't like.

So to sum up (just to help out your reading comprehension skills): I'm not (and have not) said he doesn't have a right to express his ideas. What I am saying is that hs ideas are dumb.

Ahhh...I see the problem, you view no change as inherently good. This is a fallacy. You argue that your opinion doesn't cause change and his does. This implies, therefore, that your opinion is natural and right, which is the fallacy.

Consider, he could just as easily state that your constant support of the current meta could lead to FFGs failure to respond to perceived problems. Just because your position doesn't require change doesn't make it natural, neutral, or inherently right.

Again, I am suggesting that rather than insult and demean, you could have said, "I like the current meta and here is why..." Instead you mocked. It is your posture, rather than your position that is untenable.

With that said, I can hardly make this critique without also acknowledging that my first post was mocking. Therefore, I apologize. I should have stated my opinion without the sarcasm.

59 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Two things: My post came out more negative than it was intended, and I apologize if you or anyone else who participated took offense at it. That wasn't meant as an attack on anybody or any list designs, just a an observation that all 4 Rebel fleets are fairly similar, and had at least 5 ship activations (when including Strategic Advisers) and also nearly full squadron compliments. With the new cap on flotillas, Imperials have no effective equivalent to that at a similar point scale, especially when factoring in the excellent defensive boons that Rebels enjoy. This has remained the case after several consecutive waves and in fact has become more pronounced with reduced costs on Rebel ships each wave.

This composition disparity is enabled because Imperials have no truly inexpensive ships aside from the Gozanti Cruisers while Rebels have two sub-40 light ships with solid combat stats and maneuver charts. As a result, we saw several variations (yet again) of 5-6 activation Yavaris Aces lists where activation advantage, plus max squads, plus one or more abilities to completely mitigate the negative effects of damage gave players a clear advantage going into the finals.

I think that this is an observable trend over the last several waves that's independent of the obvious player skill involved at this level of play. Just the fact that all 4 players found an archetype that closely resembled each other is an indication that Rebels in particular have a defining aspect of their list building system that is not universal to both factions. We can directly observe that nearly every ship type has managed to fill that typically 5th slot including Assault Frigates, MC80s, MC75s, Peltas, MC30s, etc and we've seen consistent evidence that it is only a matter of taste when it comes to modifying the effectiveness of the archetype. That indicates that the other ships are really defining the list, and the most consistent element of the design is that aside from the Yavaris they are the cheapest ships available to put activations and key upgrade slots on the table, which opens up the rest of the fleet design for choosing the best available squadrons.

Imperials have to choose more carefully on how they want to focus fleet designs because every ship choice diminishes the availability of other cost-effective choices more than the Rebel equivalent.

Other than your raider hate (which you have earned the right to), I agree.

4 minutes ago, ryanabt said:

Other than your raider hate (which you have earned the right to), I agree.

You're darn right I have, I own 3 of the darned things and they're all custom painted. I'm lucky if I can justify fielding 1 in a list!

5 minutes ago, ryanabt said:

Again, I am suggesting that rather than insult and demean, you could have said, "I like the current meta and here is why..." Instead you mocked. It is your posture, rather than your position that is untenable.

You will note that OP's original comment was *itself* an act of mockery, and dripping with derisive sarcasm. So I am sure you will shortly be adding a comment explaining how the OP was at fault for his "posture."

5 minutes ago, scipio83 said:

You will note that OP's original comment was *itself* an act of mockery, and dripping with derisive sarcasm. So I am sure you will shortly be adding a comment explaining how the OP was at fault for his "posture."

Nah, his was sarcasm directed toward a perceived aspect of the game, not a person. Either way, as I said, I apologize and hope you will accept it. I will remove my comment unless you prefer I leave it up (as note for my part in making the conversation worse).

10 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

You're darn right I have, I own 3 of the darned things and they're all custom painted. I'm lucky if I can justify fielding 1 in a list!

But do you own 6?

2 minutes ago, ryanabt said:

Nah, his was sarcasm directed toward a perceived aspect of the game, not a person. Either way, as I said, I apologize and hope you will accept it. I will remove my comment unless you prefer I leave it up (as note for my part in making the conversation worse).

You get me! Hahaha.

And no reason to remove your post, I saw nothing mean/wrong with it- merely responding to someone’s aggressiveness in a silly manner ?

3 minutes ago, MandalorianMoose said:

You get me! Hahaha.

And no reason to remove your post, I saw nothing mean/wrong with it- merely responding to someone’s aggressiveness in a silly manner ?

But I do. It was mocking. It doesn't matter whether a response or not. In fact, since it was critiquing his attitude, I had all the more responsibility to post kindly and instead I went for derision. A rude decision.

5 hours ago, Truthiness said:

Snip found success with Hammerheads only because of Rieekan. Ask geek how his life with Hammerheads has been going.

Rieekan definitely helps them no doubt in part because they're phenomenal at taking a big hit (or a few small hits) and being barely alive for cheap, which works very well with Rieekan's ability. A Hammerhead alive at the end of the round with 1 or 2 hull left is a Hammerhead that, if it's important enough, will continue on as a zombie for the next round and will require some more enemy resources to push over regardless if it's not going to keep flinging dice at range perpetually. I also find that when you're going MSU in the current environment you'll need some kind of "core" that your opponent is going to advance against because it's nearly impossible for all of your small ships to dodge away from angry ISDs or Raddus bombs or whatnot, and a modest battery of Hammerheads does that job just fine for a reasonable cost.

Plus TFO Scout Hammerheads with Slaved Turrets are much better than non-Jaina's CR90s when you hit the Early Warning Systems matchup, which is ugly against regular CR90s.

Quote

I rather enjoy the range of Imperial smalls. They all work very differently, which is awesome. I much prefer the Raider to the Hammerhead. The Raider I is perfect with ER and OEs, and those double black flak are wonderful. That extra gear of speed makes all the difference. The Raider II with HIE hits insanely high above its weigh class. I rarely take an Imperial fleet without one. I'll openly admit the Arq is a more challenging ship to use effectively, but unlike the Neb, you have a tool in Jerjerrod to cover its most glaring weakness.

Overall I feel that for most purposes the Raider-I is superior to the Torpedo Hammerhead (which has a place as a very cheap picket ship and extremely cheap knockoff baby MC30 when it gets the opportunity), but for the price difference it's not surprising the Raider-I is generally much better for the burst damage role. The speed 4 can really help tremendously on a Raider, for example, but the Raider is generally more nimble and positional and the Hammerhead is a bit more of a picket (although it has a pretty decent nav chart for its job, in my opinion, and the red die in the front helps reinforce its superiority as a cheap picket compared to the red-diceless Raiders). Raider-IIs are also pretty legit nowadays but can be tremendously expensive (60 to 65 points, usually) so it's tough to really compare them to the much cheaper Hammerhead options.

My main complaint about Arquitens is they're really difficult to get solid use from unless you have a commander that fixes either/both of their problems: inflexible nav or unimpressive/inconsistent damage output. That's why I generally see them with Jerry, Vader, or Tarkin (the fabled Tarquitens basically resolves both problems, but it is very pricey). The problem is Jerry and Vader at the very least aren't short on other ships that want their attention nowadays so you need a really clear goal in mind for them to include Arquitens even there.

If I'm allowed to continue ruminating on Arquitens for a while, especially as they compare to Nebulon-Bs, I think the immediate similarities between the ships are fairly obvious: both are heavier light ships built to harass enemy ships at long range usually using just one arc (for the Neb it's about survival and for the Arquitens it's about not navigating into enemy ships due to the weird nav chart and because the weird nav chart makes setting up a double arc difficult) and only have one evade but duplicate defense tokens that make them a bit more durable up close. Both clock in around the mid 50s without upgrades. While I agree that there are Imperial commanders that buff Arquitens moreso than Rebel commanders that buff Nebulons (it really is a shame the Nebulon came without a commander, that's a fairly unnecessary blunder in my book), Nebulon titles answer some of the obvious issues players have with running Nebulons while Arquitens titles do niche and generally unimpressive things. If you look at a Nebulon-B Support Refit and ask why you'd want to use a ship that only wants to bring its one front arc to bear due to its fragile sides, Salvation answers that question by providing you fairly high average damage from that front arc for the cost (although it is occasionally maddeningly inconsistent). If you look at a Nebulon-B Escort Frigate and ask why you'd want to spend the points for the generally-unimpressive Squadrons 2 upgrade, Yavaris answers that question by being the most amazing squadron force multiplier in the game. Neither Hand of Justice nor Centicore do anything to address the unimpressive and inconsistent damage done by individual Arquitens attacks (over a game it can definitely add up, but a single side arc attack is not very impressive for the cost, especially compared to cheaper Rebel equivalents like CR90s and Scout Hammerheads and even Salvation Neb-Bs) or the weird navigate chart.

1 hour ago, thecactusman17 said:

Two things: My post came out more negative than it was intended, and I apologize if you or anyone else who participated took offense at it. That wasn't meant as an attack on anybody or any list designs, just a an observation that all 4 Rebel fleets are fairly similar, and had at least 5 ship activations (when including Strategic Advisers) and also nearly full squadron compliments. With the new cap on flotillas, Imperials have no effective equivalent to that at a similar point scale, especially when factoring in the excellent defensive boons that Rebels enjoy. This has remained the case after several consecutive waves and in fact has become more pronounced with reduced costs on Rebel ships each wave.

This composition disparity is enabled because Imperials have no truly inexpensive ships aside from the Gozanti Cruisers while Rebels have two sub-40 light ships with solid combat stats and maneuver charts. As a result, we saw several variations (yet again) of 5-6 activation Yavaris Aces lists where activation advantage, plus max squads, plus one or more abilities to completely mitigate the negative effects of damage gave players a clear advantage going into the finals.

I think that this is an observable trend over the last several waves that's independent of the obvious player skill involved at this level of play. Just the fact that all 4 players found an archetype that closely resembled each other is an indication that Rebels in particular have a defining aspect of their list building system that is not universal to both factions. We can directly observe that nearly every ship type has managed to fill that typically 5th slot including Assault Frigates, MC80s, MC75s, Peltas, MC30s, etc and we've seen consistent evidence that it is only a matter of taste when it comes to modifying the effectiveness of the archetype. That indicates that the other ships are really defining the list, and the most consistent element of the design is that aside from the Yavaris they are the cheapest ships available to put activations and key upgrade slots on the table, which opens up the rest of the fleet design for choosing the best available squadrons.

Imperials have to choose more carefully on how they want to focus fleet designs because every ship choice diminishes the availability of other cost-effective choices more than the Rebel equivalent.

A well written post, and one I'd have to think through further.

The next question is really where do we go from here. Are the nerfs finally enough that another good wave of upgrades could open things back up to the Imperials? Given how far the nerfs went, I'm really reluctant to toss more onto the pile, and also at a bit of loss as to where we go from here, because they tossed onto the nerf pile almost every sensible idea that I've either had or has been suggested to me by other strong players. I know I got to the point in regional season where in order to match up, I had to fairly narrowly constrain my choices in list building. And in the case of regionals, it was a quality Imperial player and his list against whom I was primarily thinking about matching up. So from my Rebel standpoint that only flies those mass squad lists infrequently, I feel like the nerfs opened up the game to other build archetypes. @Snipafist was pretty close to making it (squadronless), and after reviewing the lists that were there and their performance, I'd have felt pretty comfortable with my Madine list in its current incarnation. Again, I'm not quite convinced that I can play as mistakeless as Nathan Coda, but I'm pretty confident on how it matches up on paper against each of the top-4. In that respect, I think the nerfs rather seriously open up the meta on what is competitive. I do wonder a bit about the costs as you point out on the Imperial side. But then I'm not sure that's the whole story. After all, that's 10 points down on the flotilla exchange, and in my experience, by the time you get an upgrade or two, you're at the cost of a naked Raider-1 (44 points) or more (I do a lot of Jaina's TRC, so that's 53). I know the wave-2 experience felt just the opposite, since you could match that naked raider-I with an SW_7 B, but in order to improve to a TRC/A, you were down 7 points on the activation exchange.

I think the bigger concern might be Rebel defensiveness versus Imperial Offensiveness. That's a really tough delicate balance to get down. The tiniest of adjustments on one can easily turn into strong dominance the other direction.

I think that if the Raider literally had 1 or 2 plus more actuated* health/hull, it would be an exceptionally fine ship and at the same time solve a lot of issues, as its the most powerful AA ship in the game, its problem is that it dies to everything, including the squadrons its meant to counter.

This means keeping the Raider at its current cost, or at a serious balance-pittance type of increase (say 1 or 2 points only).

One option is to give them 1 more hull (though inelegant: not as big as Glads).

option 2, give them +1 repair to 3, allowing for removing dmg cards/healing two shields via repair.

option 3, give them a fix card that allows them to: discard an unexhausted, unaccuracied evade and this card during the spend defense tokens step and pretend as if you just did a redirect spend.

All of a sudden, a few squads to tie down and chew up via 2-3 raiders becomes a great buy. Raiders die less to plink and random damage, while still retaining a burst damage problem.

They're also good for cheap non-flot ships. Their damage is already acceptable with ER.

5 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

One option is to give them 1 more hull (though inelegant: not as big as Glads).

There's an Imperial admiral for that, you know

1 hour ago, Vergilius said:

A well written post, and one I'd have to think through further.

The next question is really where do we go from here. Are the nerfs finally enough that another good wave of upgrades could open things back up to the Imperials? Given how far the nerfs went, I'm really reluctant to toss more onto the pile, and also at a bit of loss as to where we go from here, because they tossed onto the nerf pile almost every sensible idea that I've either had or has been suggested to me by other strong players. I know I got to the point in regional season where in order to match up, I had to fairly narrowly constrain my choices in list building. And in the case of regionals, it was a quality Imperial player and his list against whom I was primarily thinking about matching up. So from my Rebel standpoint that only flies those mass squad lists infrequently, I feel like the nerfs opened up the game to other build archetypes. @Snipafist was pretty close to making it (squadronless), and after reviewing the lists that were there and their performance, I'd have felt pretty comfortable with my Madine list in its current incarnation. Again, I'm not quite convinced that I can play as mistakeless as Nathan Coda, but I'm pretty confident on how it matches up on paper against each of the top-4. In that respect, I think the nerfs rather seriously open up the meta on what is competitive. I do wonder a bit about the costs as you point out on the Imperial side. But then I'm not sure that's the whole story. After all, that's 10 points down on the flotilla exchange, and in my experience, by the time you get an upgrade or two, you're at the cost of a naked Raider-1 (44 points) or more (I do a lot of Jaina's TRC, so that's 53). I know the wave-2 experience felt just the opposite, since you could match that naked raider-I with an SW_7 B, but in order to improve to a TRC/A, you were down 7 points on the activation exchange.

I think the bigger concern might be Rebel defensiveness versus Imperial Offensiveness. That's a really tough delicate balance to get down. The tiniest of adjustments on one can easily turn into strong dominance the other direction.

I don't think anyone disagrees that this last series of nerfs was appropriate, or that they didn't make the game better. It wasn't in a horrible state, but it was pretty stale with things that we still see as problems overly exaggerated. The nerfs did a lot to help that, and wave 7 itself worked hard to reduce the impact of activation disparity.

Yet...for all that...the game is still being won or lost (often, not always of course - the nerfs DID help - but still beating casino odds) by number of useful activations. And that chains into a lot of problems - the lack of a good Imperial 'cheap' ship being discussed here just one aspect of that (specifically - something that can burn an activation during deployment, during play, and isn't just blowing points for the activation and nothing else...even though activations were powerful enough that such a thing ON ITS OWN can work, see: 1+6/7/8/whatever lists that went away with the nerf).

The question of 'defensiveness' vs 'offensiveness' doesn't really matter if you ships cannot get into position, or out of a bad position, because the enemy timed a first-last at the right moment and you didn't have the activations to deal with that.

1 hour ago, PT106 said:

There's an Imperial admiral for that, you know

Take a guess which admiral I take the most with Raider lists.

@Snipafist please stop laughing at me.

7 hours ago, xanderf said:

I don't think anyone disagrees that this last series of nerfs was appropriate, or that they didn't make the game better. It wasn't in a horrible state, but it was pretty stale with things that we still see as problems overly exaggerated. The nerfs did a lot to help that, and wave 7 itself worked hard to reduce the impact of activation disparity.

Yet...for all that...the game is still being won or lost (often, not always of course - the nerfs DID help - but still beating casino odds) by number of useful activations. And that chains into a lot of problems - the lack of a good Imperial 'cheap' ship being discussed here just one aspect of that (specifically - something that can burn an activation during deployment, during play, and isn't just blowing points for the activation and nothing else...even though activations were powerful enough that such a thing ON ITS OWN can work, see: 1+6/7/8/whatever lists that went away with the nerf).

The question of 'defensiveness' vs 'offensiveness' doesn't really matter if you ships cannot get into position, or out of a bad position, because the enemy timed a first-last at the right moment and you didn't have the activations to deal with that.

First of all, you've definitely hit the major thing that is intrinsic to the game of Armada: the activation sequence. At some point we're going to bump up against that, but that is also fundamentally what makes Armada a game. That mechanic has been in the game from the start and what you describe here certainly affected fleets well before we got the right combination of units that allowed squadrons/flotillas to set in and take over the meta. Unfortunately, I think a complaint at this level bumps up against what can be done to fix it? Does it take Armada 2.0 to get a new mechanic going? I think the activation sequence, and by extension, the need for useful activations is going to be with us until the end of the game.

Now, I think where we've gotten to post-nerf is a place where if you want to take max squadrons, you have to do so at some cost to your fleet. So you are either all light, such as Yik and are at 6 activations. Or you have 5 activations like Nathan. If someone were to go no squadron, they could hit 7, and I know I can easily get to 6 activations with some pretty hard-hitting ships. It seems to me that the game has settled into a 5-6 activations for the most part, and that seems reasonably healthy to me.

Almost Vanilla Activations (400/400)
============================
Kuat Refit (112 + 31)
+ Moff Jerjerrod (23)
+ Strategic Adviser (4)
+ Leading Shots (4)
Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer (56 + 14)
+ Ordnance Experts (4)
+ Demolisher (10)
Raider I-class Corvette (44 + 3)
+ External Racks (3)
Raider I-class Corvette (44 + 3)
+ External Racks (3)
Raider I-class Corvette (44 + 3)
+ External Racks (3)
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23)
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23)
Most Wanted
Hyperspace assault
Solar Corona

?

Curse you @Truthiness now I want to go to NOVA. Maybe next year (already burned too much vacation time this year).

Makes me question why no one tried anti squad Demo build, would sure make Rieekan cry losing all squadrons in a last/first activation.

18 minutes ago, emsgoof said:

Curse you @Truthiness now I want to go to NOVA. Maybe next year (already burned too much vacation time this year).

DOOOOOOOOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTT

29 minutes ago, TheEasternKing said:

Makes me question why no one tried anti squad Demo build, would sure make Rieekan cry losing all squadrons in a last/first activation.

Antisquad Demo build won MA regional last year (Wave 5, if I'm correct)

38 minutes ago, TheEasternKing said:

Makes me question why no one tried anti squad Demo build, would sure make Rieekan cry losing all squadrons in a last/first activation.

You mean Kristjan who came 5th Day 1A.....

15 hours ago, geek19 said:

We beat a triple Cymoon list in the team tournament and I beat a Sloane list after the final match, haha! I have thoughts and plans for Hammerheads, which I'll of course keep everyone updated on. My issues before were not figuring out the right builds and lists, but Slaved Turrets HH (Thanks @PT106 for the idea, also, great meeting you!) have some plans ahead of them.... as does Leia (shut up she's good!)

I will fully agree that Raider speed >> HH speed, as that 4 vs 3, but the survivability of the HH for just one more turn.... it's nice. Again, I need more time with them, haha. Also my buddy is putting away his double Cymoon list for a bit, so THAT definitely helps me a bit FOR SURE, haha!

I admire your tenacity geek.