So I am a rebel player and therefore have not flown the glorious defender even in 1.0. The designers keep saying the new defender is no more that 2 to a list. This would mean that they cost a minimum of 67 points. That's 33.5 points in 1.0 as a base with no upgrades. Imperial pilots are they worth that much from what you have seen? That seems pretty steep to me.

The baked in x7, added maneuverability and health make me cautiously optimistic. That said; I'm guessing the E-Wing will be slightly cheaper and, by virtue of being more offensive, better for the points.

They kept TIE/x7, and presumably no longer lose their secondary weapons to it, picked up an extra shield (I assume because one of the developers lost a game with them in testing), picked up the boost action (I assume because one of the developers clipped a rock while navigating the asteroid field during this game they lost), got the evade action added to the bar, and their dial received a buff. In a world where most everything else has gotten noticeably worse, they've received nothing but buffs across the board.

They'll be little cockroaches who refuse to die thanks to the constant token stack protecting their 7 hit points and will just keep on K-turning and shooting you until you run out of health before they do. Three in a list would probably define the 2.0 meta (ie. you either deal with 3 Defenders or don't bother turning up); two in a list, or one as a beatstick in a mixed squad, is still going to be very strong.

My good friend who's expressed interest in getting back into X-wing for 2.0 has a love affair with the Defender, so I imagine no matter what I play, I'll find out how good the Defender is either way. Like DR4CO said, the amount of buff they've gotten is impressive, so I imagine they'll be pretty scary. I'm curious to see what those lists look like though, since you can't just default to 3 of 'em, and I'm not sure if just 2 loaded up defenders will be enough.

They're going to be very durable. The weaknesses look like lack of offense for the points and vulnerability to blocking. Those might be mitigated by upgrades, but we lack some certainty about what upgrades they have and how much the good ones will cost. Of the abilities we've seen, Rexler Brath and Valen Rudor look great. Ryad is good, but is less awesome than 1.0.

5 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

The weaknesses look like lack of offense for the points and vulnerability to blocking.

Lack of offence may not be that big a deal. It's not like we're trying to crack Focus + Evade + Autothruster + Palp anymore, or keep up with Focus + Target Lock + Guidance Chips Harpoons.

They look like they are gonna be the hardest thing on the board to kill. I dont think two + a cheap blocker is the optimal way to go, but 1 beefy SOB with a coordinating (tactical officer) support reaper to give it locks and pre-boosts and maybe a midrange pocket ace like an Omega Leader could be a nice list.

10 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

Lack of offence may not be that big a deal. It's not like we're trying to crack Focus + Evade + Autothruster + Palp anymore, or keep up with Focus + Target Lock + Guidance Chips Harpoons.

Yeah, we don't know, but if we end up seeing a lot of TIE Swarms or 4/5 ship Rebel lists, they'll still have trouble chewing through all of that.

28 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

In  a world where most everything else has gotten noticeably worse  ,

Not my impression. The majority of ships seem to have been buffed. None as much as the Defender though. Well maybe the HWK-290 but those buffs just make it a normal ship. The Defender does lack in one area - it has no linked actions presumably because of its Full Throttle ability.

I think they will definitely be worth their price of admission.

The extra shield (which I think was for fluff and to counter balance Krennic) will make them tougher as crits matter more, and offense in general has been toned down. Juke will be very strong on any defender now with X7 baked in. The addition of the boost and blue 1 banks means it will be more manoeuvrable at low speed, and the generic onyx pilots with I4 will eat other generics for breakfast. Ryad is as good as she always was, and Juke Rexler will have a lot of offensive potential with the new damage deck.

39 minutes ago, BVRCH said:

I think they will definitely be worth their price of admission.

The extra shield (which I think was for fluff and to counter balance Krennic) will make them tougher as crits matter more, and offense in general has been toned down. Juke will be very strong on any defender now with X7 baked in. The addition of the boost and blue 1 banks means it will be more manoeuvrable at low speed, and the generic onyx pilots with I4 will eat other generics for breakfast. Ryad is as good as she always was, and Juke Rexler will have a lot of offensive potential with the new damage deck.

In 2.0 krennic doesn't have the shield restriction for his choice

Rexlar is an incredibly strong pilot. I believe Juke is the same as 1.0, and added to him really will make him a beast of a pilot at PS 5. I'm anticipating them gaining the system slot in addition to their existing missile and cannon, meaning that an advanced sensors boosting Defender will be possible. That's a 100 [50] point ship right there.

The extra shield and green banks are just icing on the cake.

11 minutes ago, Astech said:

I'm anticipating them gaining the system slot in addition to their existing missile and cannon, meaning  th  at an advanced sensors boosting Defender w  ill be possible

But doing so would prevent the free evade action from full throttle, so AS probably not the best option for them.

5 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

But doing so would prevent the free evade action from full throttle, so AS probably not the best option for them.

How so? The boost action is white on a defender and, provided they go speed 3-5 I can't think of a reason they wouldn't get the evade.

Even if it's not that great, Fire Control System is pretty amazing as an end-game option.

40 minutes ago, Skandranon said:

In 2.0 krennic doesn't have the shield restriction for his choice

Fair call. In that case then the point cost is even more justified if defenders can be buffed by Krennic.

28 minutes ago, Astech said:

How so? The boost action is white on a defender and, provided they go speed 3-5 I can't think of a reason they wouldn't get the evade.

Even if it's not that great, Fire Control System is pretty amazing as an end-game option.

The new AS is phrased if you do, (meaning, take the pre move action) you may not take any other actions that round. Since the full throttle evade is an action, if you use AS to pre movement boost you can’t do the evade action later.

5 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

The new AS is phrased if you do, (meaning, take the pre move action) you may not take any other actions that round. Since the full throttle evade is an action, if you use AS to pre movement boost you can’t do the evade action later.

Ah, or course. That's a pretty neat change. If the new Advanced sensors is 3-4 points it might still be a good option. If you got into a scenario with Rexlar where it's a 1v1 and he's the higher PS, then you're in a very good position to arc-dodge your way out of almost all shots.

3 hours ago, Sasajak said:

Not my impression. The majority of ships seem to have been buffed. None as much as the Defender though. Well maybe the HWK-290 but those buffs just make it a normal ship. The Defender does lack in one area - it has no linked actions presumably because of its Full Throttle ability.

Most bad ships, that you never saw competitively got buffed. Most good ships (the ones you might actually encounter in a tournament) got nerfed, either directly or indirectly (through upgrades or core mechanics changes). Defenders were a pretty solid ship and got buffed across the board.

4 hours ago, Nyxen said:

The baked in x7, added maneuverability and health make me cautiously optimistic. That said; I'm guessing the E-Wing will be slightly cheaper and, by virtue of being more offensive, better for the points.

Plus, whilst 'the cheapest pilot is 67 points' , we don't know for definite what that pilot is. Currently, it's a PS1 non-elite pilot.

I don't think we've seen the index page for the Imperial kit - if the Initiative 4 Onyx Squadron Ace is the cheapest going (unlikely but possible) , then it's definitely worth it, especially if it's kept its cannon and missile slots.

I have heard Alex said while at euros that the cheapest defender with no upgrades is 72 points. They have to be good for that so the buffs are merited.

Seeing the new Defenders has rather upended my plans.

I was planning on using 2.0 as a jumping point for Rebels, having not used them in 1.0 (Imp and Scum).

Defenders have always been my favourite and were one of the big reasons I started playing the game, so to see them looking so healthy has me looking back over my shoulder at them.

Rexler:

White 4k, free evade, boost-bank, juke attack, crit your Xwing into Oblivion.

Over...

And over.....

And over..........

.........and over............

...............and over........................

32 minutes ago, SDCC said:

Seeing the new Defenders has rather upended my plans.

I was planning on using 2.0 as a jumping point for Rebels, having not used them in 1.0 (Imp and Scum).

Defenders have always been my favourite and were one of the big reasons I started playing the game, so to see them looking so healthy has me looking back over my shoulder at them.

I:m in the exact opposite situation. I've always liked the aesthetics and fluff of the Empire, but in 1.0 they were always my never played faction die to the over-reliance on green dice. Pretty much every game I played with them ended up with something blowing up due to bad green dice.

Now, between defenders and Vader, it looks like I might give them another go.

2 hours ago, LordBlades said:

Defenders were a pretty solid ship and got buffed across the board.

Did they though? if Tie D is gone, that's a nerf. Cost decrease from X/7 gone is a "nerf" Lack of PTL and lack of green k-turns seriously changes Ryad. Juke going to bullseye arc (is it bullseye?) would be a nerf to the x7 title. The increased action bar is a nerf*. A lot of the action economy cards that make defenders monsters in 1.0 just aren't there anymore... Predator, Expertise, PTL, Tie/D ... At least Rexlar's Ability isn't upgrade card dependent anymore.

--- *Hear me out on that one.... If we believe that the action bar actions have some kind of efficiency value, then values are not static per action per chassis. let's say for the sake of argument that each action costs 2 points to add to a ship - then a ship with 1 action, (and unhindered from using the action) gets to perform that action every turn, but a ship with 2 actions, is wasting 2 points per turn, since it can only use half of its actions. The defender, with 5 actions - is using 1/5th of its actions each turn - wasting the other 4. The burden to choose the correct action is much higher. The opportunity cost is higher on the Defender than on the X-wing. Full throttle (X7 ability) is almost required to mitigate this, we get 2/5ths of our actions used, but only when performing a three speed maneuver. Yes, i'll give you that there is value in having the ability to choose from more actions. Brath's ability requires the opponent have damage as well, it won't likely trigger immediately - esp at high pilot skill.

The game's overall re-balanced action economy (and pseudo action economy) is pushing the defender down hard. and make up for the cost and lost offensive output - since you're likely taking a single ship in its place. Action advantage is still a thing, and the Defender is going to have to work hard to keep up. if you can bring a defender and I can bring 3 tie fighters, what happens? I've got a slight numbers advantage - and if I can block you, my other 2 ties are likely to deal damage. This battle is heavily positioning dependent.

TLDR? Defenders look like they've got buffs all around, but that may just counterbalance the nerfs they get enough to keep them relevant at their points cost.

As someone who maybe used X7-s maybe three times, and all other occasions I flew the TIE/D, I'll be fairly disappointed if that option is gone. I don't care if its limited to a bullseye arc, or whatever. I just wanna shoot things many times.

I like the buffs, although, I'm still holding out for information. We haven't received as much as the Rebels yet, and I'm interested in their options. The Upgrade slots are important... I think the ship should have the System slot, but we will see.

The new ship is fancy, but it is #NotMyDefender