22 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Again, there are situations where 6 1 die shots are nothing with EWS vs ECM...

hobestky, that’s why my marketing has been “ECM or EWS, the others just don’t perform...”

EWS, especially on small ships, depends on the attacking force being unable to move to a less defended hull zone.

4 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Agreed. It would make large shield hulls like MC80s and Star Destroyers more valuable. Make HTT and X17s modifications and it prevents the handful of double TL ships from combining both.

preventing also almost any double TL combination actually.

Noy saying they are not possible but h9, QTC (meh) and xx9 would be the only options. Neither the LMC80 nor the cymoon have evades

Oh and let's half Redundant shields cost and remove modification maybe make it work when a ship activates too.

1 minute ago, TallGiraffe said:

Then undo the AP/XI-7 ruling.

I am entirely in favor of this change. There are multiple tools available to burn down shields quickly such as Assault Concussion Missiles and HIEs. The original change was clearly in response to early tests with Imperial Star Destroyers or MC80s being too durable during Wave 2. The subsequent waves have made this a non-issue and actually lead to the opposite problem, where large ships feel too vulnerable to small attacks where Advanced Projectors would protect better.

29 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

On the other hand, it feels like I have to add 12 points (Intel) + 24 points (2 escorts) to any bomber expected make an anti-ship attack.

One of the reasons ships are so powerful is the economy of bombers being engaged by fighters, but ships are not.

For example, a wing of 10 TIE Bombers will waste 4 of those shots to remove a single engaging TIE fighter before it's ever able to shoot vs a Raider and the Raider survives. But a 6-damage hit with a single accuracy will kill it without any chance to defend itself.

I admit to finding this frustrating, because it makes squadrons very weak for their points and large ships with reliable damage output very powerful for their points.

------

Snark aside, I think there is a discussion to be had about how ships ought best to defend against squadrons, or whether Intel in its current implementation is good for the game, but it's not as simple as "squadrons bypass defense tokens so they're broken." There's a tradeoff--conceptually, they have to fight their way through defending squadrons before they can do that. In exchange, because that ideally takes some time to do and distracts from the time the squadrons have to attack ships, they're a big threat to ships once they do break through. I think that mechanic, in concept, is a fantastic way to introduce asymmetry into the game. Whether they hit the execution right is, I think, up for reasonable discussion.

I happen to think the tuning is pretty good, but not perfect, as it stands right now. I do, though, think it's much finer tuning work that needs to be done than just "make squadrons all attack at once and then be braceable" or whatever (not that that's what you suggested, @thecactusman17 , just an example I've seen suggested).

Isn't this related to the Sloane problem though? She's kinda pushed everyone to 0/134, lest you just give up 50-60 points defending yourself against her. Maybe some sort of Medium Fighter Core could still work against her, somehow making 90 points of YT1300s and friends enough?

4 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Isn't this related to the Sloane problem though? She's kinda pushed everyone to 0/134, lest you just give up 50-60 points defending yourself against her. Maybe some sort of Medium Fighter Core could still work against her, somehow making 90 points of YT1300s and friends enough?

3 1300s, Jan, Tycho, and Ketsu is my 96 point medium build at the moment. Holds up pretty well against Sloane

23 minutes ago, Card Knight said:

3 1300s, Jan, Tycho, and Ketsu is my 96 point medium build at the moment. Holds up pretty well against Sloane

It's a sad state of affairs when a quarter of your list is considered a "medium" fighter screen.

I have been playing since launch day.

I play alot.

I have NEVER used ECM.

Granted I've put it on some lists I've built - and even had it equipped it to a ship on about 3 occasions... but on those occasions I've simply never actually exhausted it and USED it. Either opponents had Intel Officer, or simply rolled no accuracy. So it's never been USED by me.

So I don't think it's by ANY means an auto include, or crucial.

It is nice though, for any Star Destroyer with a single brace.

7 minutes ago, Crabbok said:

I have been playing since launch day.

I play alot.

I have NEVER used ECM.

Granted I've put it on some lists I've built - and even had it equipped it to a ship on about 3 occasions... but on those occasions I've simply never actually exhausted it and USED it. Either opponents had Intel Officer, or simply rolled no accuracy. So it's never been USED by me.

So I don't think it's by ANY means an auto include, or crucial.

It is nice though, for any Star Destroyer with a single brace.

Crabbok you should do a video on underpowered upgrades or overcosted and along with possible fixes.

13 minutes ago, Crabbok said:

I have been playing since launch day.

I play alot.

I have NEVER used ECM.

Granted I've put it on some lists I've built - and even had it equipped it to a ship on about 3 occasions... but on those occasions I've simply never actually exhausted it and USED it. Either opponents had Intel Officer, or simply rolled no accuracy. So it's never been USED by me.

So I don't think it's by ANY means an auto include, or crucial.

It is nice though, for any Star Destroyer with a single brace.

Did you win a world without it? Cause that is always the point. ?

40 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

It's a sad state of affairs when a quarter of your list is considered a "medium" fighter screen.

I mean, I'm tooting my own horn slash original definitions from a year ago on the blog where (handwavey numbers) 30-70, 70-100, and 100+ were my distinctions of fighter screens to bring and all. It's a medium screen just because I had a light and heavy, haha.

I don't disagree with your point at all though...

lol "That one ability is causing me to do 3 to 5 less damage in 1 shot and that's what's making me lose".

K guy, good luck if that's the turning point.

The way I see it now, the universe is between ECMs and early warning systems, depending on who your nemesis of the day is (big batteries vs fighter swarms). I think one choice not necessarily being better than the other is a good thing for the game.

And with so much high-battery firepower being thrown around on large ships, I feel ships live and die by how much damage they can eradicate on the defense- the Brace token is essential for that. Either ships are cheap enough you won't miss them, or you can grantee they'll last for more than a single turn and slug it out.

8 minutes ago, dominosfleet said:

lol "That one ability is causing me to do 3 to 5 less damage in 1 shot and that's what's making me lose".

K guy, good luck if that's the turning point.

I have to disagree with you here. When you get to playing the best players, one or two points of damage can make all the difference. I can't even begin to remember how many big games in Regionals have come down to an ISD surviving a big barrage with a few points of health left and deciding the game. 3 to 5 damage, under the right circumstances, is MASSIVE.

Sloane and BT Avenger (seperately) make ECM entirely useless. Interestingly its also entirely useless when you Sato an 8 black dice roll with ACM's.

Fortunately I wrote an article on this a long time ago.

https://archiveofossus.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/defence-token-mitigation/

I think currently there is at least one very solid upgrade (EWS) that rivals the ECM spot. I also think it is good that there are ships that cannot take def retrofits. Different upgrades give different ships different feels. Not all ships must necessarily always be played at the highest level, at the current point in time though, I think most ships can find a spot in a very good list.

The problem is that people often dont see the full picture. Who succeeds in big tournaments of course depends on the players and the list, but also the matchups. I still have not seen the one broken list in the current state of the game. Sloane was that for a while, the only reason that list didnt get a good shot at winning a worlds was the change of relay and raddus.

As it stands, you are forced to make tough decisions when building your fleet as you cannot be good against everything. If you are lucky, the calls for nerfs are raised as your list was super unfair. If you are unlucky, you call for nerfs - oftentimes. Good players we obviously all are ;-).

25 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

I have to disagree with you here. When you get to playing the best players, one or two points of damage can make all the difference. I can't even begin to remember how many big games in Regionals have come down to an ISD surviving a big barrage with a few points of health left and deciding the game. 3 to 5 damage, under the right circumstances, is MASSIVE.

You can value every defensive effect in the game by how well it makes damage disappear. Scatter is the ultimate, but Brace is far more common, and why it's so coveted. Evades and the various defensive officers are around here too, since not all of them eliminate damage entirely (though ones that destroy dice are more valuable than ones that cancel damage). At the bottom are Contains, since their rarity combined with the need for a specific officer slot to make them functional in today's meta makes them not as essential.

4 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

You can value every defensive effect in the game by how well it makes damage disappear. Scatter is the ultimate, but Brace is far more common, and why it's so coveted. Evades and the various defensive officers are around here too, since not all of them eliminate damage entirely (though ones that destroy dice are more valuable than ones that cancel damage). At the bottom are Contains, since their rarity combined with the need for a specific officer slot to make them functional in today's meta makes them not as essential.

Depending on the fleet you face and what you fly, evade can be more valuable than brace.

11 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

You can value every defensive effect in the game by how well it makes damage disappear. Scatter is the ultimate, but Brace is far more common, and why it's so coveted. Evades and the various defensive officers are around here too, since not all of them eliminate damage entirely (though ones that destroy dice are more valuable than ones that cancel damage). At the bottom are Contains, since their rarity combined with the need for a specific officer slot to make them functional in today's meta makes them not as essential.

If Brace is more valuable then you can quit demanding redirects for Raiders.

16 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

If Brace is more valuable then you can quit demanding redirects for Raiders.

Brace is the overall better defense token of both but only if you have both. If i had to decide between ONLY Brace and ONLY redirect i would easily take Redirect. Because without it you basically paid for lifepoints (shields) that you cant spend.

The Fact that ships without brace but redirects (Arquitens, MC30) are highly competitive and ships with brace but without or few redirects get much easier destroyed (like the Raider, Nebulon, Liberty) shows this too. At least that has been my experience.

Brace is also useless against squadrons while redirect keeps damage off your hull longer.

Seriously, anyone who doubts that ECM is an auto-include on any MC80, MC75, ISD, or Tua-Demo is crazy. Even against Intel Agent, ECM often manifest itself as 7pts that adds 3-5 immediate hull to your ship, which is fantastic. Far more useful across a generalized context than EWS or AP or RBD, none of which are sufficiently cheaper than ECM to make them tempting choices on the heavy ships with Brace available.


If the meta was all ion turrent CR90 swarms, then another defensive retrofit would be potentially better. But with ISDs, MC80s, MC75s, MC30s, and Demolisher always being meta-common threats, ECM = +3-5 hull, even if used only once. And that can make a lot of ships survive at least one attack longer than they might have.


It's kind of like X17. I have no idea why everyone doesn't use X17 on their big-hitting ships, and yet some people don't... okay.

42 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

If Brace is more valuable then you can quit demanding redirects for Raiders.

Yes I can, because one of the Raider's primary targets are fighters , and Brace can't erase damage from multiple 1 point damage strikes from those fighters. With a redirect you can funnel them to the other arcs. And if close range engagement with enemy fighters is one of the reasons to use a Raider, shouldn't it be equipped to survive in the environment its supposed to be in?

Brace works on the Raider when your primary opponents are black dice throwers with no source of accuracy, but tossing a redundant evade for a redirect at least gives the ship options when a single accuracy is headed its way.

5 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

It's kind of like X17. I have no idea why everyone doesn't use X17 on their big-hitting ships, and yet some people don't... okay.

At least in the case of picking Quad Battery Turrets over the XI7s, I think it's dice volume. With that extra blue you might gain an accuracy and lock down the redirect entirely. -Shrug-

4 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Snip

Did you actually just admit that the game is nuanced? Happy days

17 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

22 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

It's kind of like X17. I have no idea why everyone doesn't use X17 on their big-hitting ships, and yet some people don't... okay.

At least in the case of picking Quad Battery Turrets over the XI7s, I think it's dice volume. With that extra blue you might gain an accuracy and lock down the redirect entirely. -Shrug-  

Actually, oftentimes ISDs never get to shoot their front arc in mid range. QBT powers Leading Shots for those red dice. I'd rather have an evade to face 3-4 red dice with XI7 than a brace to face same dice with LS/QBT.

26 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

ECM often manifest itself as 7pts that adds 3-5 imm  ediate hull to your ship, which is fantastic.  Far more useful across a generalized context than EWS or AP or RBD,

Yes, but as mentioned often before, only if a large amount of dice is shot in one go. Squads laugh in your face. Maybe people with your approach are responsible for Squad heavy lists performing so well - a thought?

39 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Seriously, anyone who doubts that ECM is an auto-include on any MC80, MC75, ISD, or Tua-Demo is crazy.

Call me crazy... a winner one