11 minutes ago, Kdubb said:

Part of me thinks that’s the best spot for ordnance happy platforms though. They just seem to lean too far in one direction or the other, so might as well just leave them below the power curve and let them provide niche roles.

Ew no

Why would we ever want to invalidate several ships? That'd be a phenomenally short sighted decision to deal with an upgrade thst isn't actually that strong (tons of 3 dice primaries already exist at 34 points)

Just up the cost on Jonus, who is TWO more points than Howlrunner when he's packing rockets

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

Just up the cost on Jonus, who is TWO more points than Howlrunner when he's packing rockets

Jonus is definitely a strong enabler of the list, no question, but that is not the whole story. You just have to look at Scimitar Pilot with Barrage Rockets and compare it to Planetary Sentinel and Alpha Squadron Pilot (all of which clock in at 34 points).

Here's a quick comparison:

Scimitar Pilot (with barrage rockets):

Offense: highest at range 3 (due to ignoring defender bonus), lowest at range 1, but equal at range 2. Overall slightly superior since range 3 band is biggest and range 1 band smallest. Add in Jonus re-rolls, and it moves from average of 2.25 hits to 2.8 hits at range 2 & 3 (+0.55 hits per shot is pretty substantial!)

Defense: highest due to 6 hull

Action economy: Worst (due to must focus)

Dial: Worst (but worth remembering that its still better than the 1.0 bomber dial)

Planetary Sentinel (striker)

Offense: equal to alpha, but worse than Scimitar

Defense: slightly better than alpha vs 3 attack guns, but slightly worse than alpha vs 2 attack guns (due to +1 hull but -1 agility). Worse than Scimitar due to -2 hull.

Action economy: Middle (better than Scimitar since not tied to focus, but worse than Alpha).

Dial: Somewhat superior to Scimitar's, Decidedly worse than Alpha's, but adaptive ailerons brings it nearly on par to Alpha.

Alpha Pilot (interceptor)

Offense: equal to sentinel, but worse than Scimitar

Defense: slightly better than striker vs 2 attack guns, but slightly worse than striker vs 3 attack guns (due to -1 hull but +1 agility). Worse than Scimitar due to -3 hull (despite +1 agility).

Action economy: Best thanks to autothrusters.

Dial: Best although effectively only marginally better than Sentinel's due to the striker's adaptive ailerons.

Conclusions:

Scimitar clearly wins on offense and defense. Even without Jonus, the Scimitar's offense is a tiny bit better overall. Add in Jonus re-rolls, and that +0.55 average will make a difference in game outcomes.

Alpha wins on action economy, and both Alpha and Sentinel come out ahead in terms of their dials. Striker edges Alpha slightly in durability only because its advantage against 3 attack guns is slightly more valuable in the grand scheme of things (but the differences are relatively minor).

Offense and Defense are clearly more valuable than dial/action economy (at least when we are talking about ships that CANNOT token stack, which is the case with all 3 of these ships). How much more valuable is hard to say, but Alpha and Sentinel feel pretty close to even; while the Scimitar is clearly superior. That means they SHOULD NOT have equal point values if we are talking about a game that is supposed to be balanced!

I'm not exactly sure how much the Bombers *should* cost, but after playing a few test games with them, they definitely feel too strong for their value. Jonus especially feels too cheap and probably should receive the biggest cost increase.

----------------------

Also, if we compare Barrage Rockets by themselves to all of the other missile options, we can see that they are extremely attractive. Granted, all of the different missiles have unique benefits intended to be used to greatest effect against different kinds of targets. So its not so 'cut-and-dried' that barrage rockets are the 'best'. Even so, the barrage rockets are an effective weapon against any type of target, and that cannot be said of any of the other missiles.

And again, after playing them on other ships (i.e. k-wings and punishers), they seem really good. Like so good that if you have the choice and points available, you'd be a fool not to take them. In other words, they feel 'auto-include', and that's a feeling that is a sure sign of being under-costed...

Altogether, I think at least a 1 point increase is warranted on Barrage Rockets. Either that, or it should lose the 'missile' icon (so defenders keep their range 3 bonus). Or perhaps even drop it down to 4 charges instead of 5. Any one of these adjustments I think would put them more in line with the other missile options.

And the Scimitar should probably cost at least 1 or 2 points more (Jonus maybe even 3 or 4 points more). Such price increases wouldn't stop players from taking the list and so it would still be an effective list. The only difference is that instead of being able to put 3 proton bombs + 2 seismics into the list, you'd be more constricted in what bombs you can fit in.

@blade_mercurial my gut feeling is Bombers need a tiny bump, barrage needs a tiny bump, and Jonus needs a healthy bump. I'd rather have them be more conservative with the generics because I'm not sure they'll ever see play if their barrage config becomes much more expensive.

On 9/14/2018 at 6:53 AM, SOTL said:

It was bad in 1.0 because it had none of those things and TLT existed.

I want to be wrong. But I spent yesterday watching the guy who decimated half of Europe with Triple Jumpmasters sweep the day 10-0 with TIE Bombers without only one of the games even being particularly close.

There's so much more to these bombers than a dumb joust, just like there was so much more to the Triple Jumps.

Yes, but did he have any TIE Punishers for Trajectory Simulator?

I flew a game on vassal with a 6 TIE Swarm vs Redline / Deathrain / 2x Scimitars. There was basically no way for me to win that game, even avoiding the first round of protons I barely got half points on anything. I could try splitting up the swarm into 3+3, but then the TIE bombers would be just as good at jousting at that point without Howlrunner's buff on all the TIEs.

Obviously, I have run the math on Barrage Rockets bombers and punishers, with and without jonus. ?

12 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

@blade_mercurial my gut feeling is Bombers need a tiny bump, barrage needs a tiny bump, and Jonus needs a healthy bump. I'd rather have them be more conservative with the generics because I'm not sure they'll ever see play if their barrage config becomes much more expensive.

A 'tiny' bump is basically the TL;DR of my post (if by 'bump' you mean increase in points)

And Major Juggler brings up the other 'under-costed' Imp ship: the TIE punisher! Its also a little too good for its cost, but of course, admitting that the TIE punisher is STRONG feels like living in some kind of bizzarro world....

If anything has to go up in price I would prefer it to be the rockets (RIP aggressors). Nobody is concerned about bombers with proton torpedoes or concussion missiles, and increasing the price of the chassis only serves to make those options even less appealing. That said, I think it is still a bit early to be demanding price hikes on a pair of ships that have never seen serious play, especially when nobody knows what the **** they are doing in second edition yet.

15 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

If anything has to go up in price I would prefer it to be the rockets. Nobody is concerned about bombers with proton torpedoes or concussion missiles, and increasing the price of the chassis only serves to make those options even less appealing. That said, I think it is still a bit early to be demanding price hikes on a pair of ships that have never seen serious play, especially when nobody knows what the **** they are doing in second edition yet.

The basic Chassis IS under-costed. Whether people are complaining about using them with 'such-and-such' doesn't really change that fact.

However, don't worry. Naturally FFG will not change anything whether its warranted or not. If they weren't willing to change any points on release of the App, then obviously they are going to play the 'wait-and-see' game.

And its not like Bombers are unbeatable. Grand Inquisitor flies circles around them, for example. So people will be able to deal with them I have no doubt, but again, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be 'fixed' (because they totally should or this game is quickly going to devolve into the 'tiers of competitive ships' that existed in 1.0), and the whole point of having points in the App instead of on cards is to avoid that problem...

Yes lets just nerf ordnance to oblivion and leave them there because historically they have always been utter trash or kinda broken.

That makes total sense, considering so many ships are designed around them would suddenly become useless.

No, none of the ordnance on their own are broken right now. The issue is the chassis they are on being soooo cheap. Punishers seem fine to me, theyre strong but theyre also moderately pricy and a flying barn anybody can ping quite easily. Bombers are nimble enough and that 2nd agi is vital and wicked cheap even when loaded out.

Bomberspam is the only list ive seen where multiple ordnances actually feels broken. All others, its deadly but not "you better perfectly dodge me or you lose!" strong.

2 minutes ago, blade_mercurial said:

The basic Chassis IS under-costed. Whether people are complaining about using them with 'such-and-such' doesn't really change that fact.

However, don't worry. Naturally FFG will not change anything whether its warranted or not. If they weren't willing to change any points on release of the App, then obviously they are going to play the 'wait-and-see' game.

Why would they change point values the day the game was released? I doubt we'll see a point update until after Coruscant.

Of course the bomber is slight better offense and defense than strikers/interceptor, because they can't move for **** relatively speaking

Why you'd expect a speed demon to be as efficient as a focus-dependent bomber is beyond me

But the bombers aren't actually THAT much slower than Strikers or Interceptors, and they have white barrel.

Just now, SOTL said:

But the bombers aren't actually THAT much slower than Strikers or Interceptors, and they have white barrel.

Which removes their ability to fire barrage rockets if they use it.

40 minutes ago, SOTL said:

But the bombers aren't actually THAT much slower than Strikers or Interceptors, and they have white barrel.

Lol no, they're MUCH slower

If there anything I've found in 2nd Ed, it's that boost (or equivalent, like decloak/aileron) is absolutely invaluable

the striker is many times more manueverable than the bomber, and almost incalculably better at exploiting obstacle placement

Huh. It's like balancing ships and upgrades with point costs isn't as simple as one might think.

****, I'd say it's complicated regardless of point values.

36 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Lol no, they're MUCH slower

If there anything I've found in 2nd Ed, it's that boost (or equivalent, like decloak/aileron) is absolutely invaluable

the striker is many times more manueverable than the bomber, and almost incalculably better at exploiting obstacle placement

Much slower than Interceptors yes. The Strikers not so much. A Striker's 3 straight + Adaptive used as a 1 straight boost is basically 5 straight, TIE/Sa is a 4 straight tops. Strikers have the edge on low speed maneuvers though, by a large margin over the /Sa.

1 hour ago, HolySorcerer said:

Which removes their ability to fire barrage rockets if they use it.

Yeah, that's fine because it for engage/disengage positioning and blocking.

On 9/13/2018 at 5:48 PM, SOTL said:

@ficklegreendice warned us about it. The bombers, the Jonus, the barrage rockets, the damage...

It's Deadeye Scouts all over again, only if anything they're worse second time around*. I don't really understand how we're here again.

* More damage output, more health, more ships, more ammo, harder to flank or range control, oh and they've all got Proton Bombs and Extra Munitions and they can drop the bombs at angles.

It's difficult, but I can work around it with Juke Rexler, Juke Whisper, and Predator Soontir. To cheese such a matchup if proton torps are involved with Jendon, I pull 3 squints and Kagi.

I finally came face to face with this last night. I had TrajSimNym and a Serissu/Juke-mini-swarm. Lost 75-200(-ish). He was able to nuke Serissu and a second Scyk on the first turn of combat with only two ships firing at either one, even with Serissu rerolls and evade tokens. Even flanking in, dodging a few arcs with this or that ship, even knocking out Jonus on the second turn of combat. I felt like I never really had a chance - my dice variance versus his double mods (and he admitted to having some uncharacteristically hot dice, but still) meant a very short, one-sided game. My opponent owned up to feeling dirty flying it after the game. ****, during the game.

Chatting after the game with my opponent and a couple others, the consensus was that the Bombers are just a little too nimble, a little too beefy, a little too cheap. And Jonus is much too strong an enabler. (Also, that Nym isn't actually worth his points, but that's another topic.) The onus of winning the match is on the non-Bomber player, as the Bombers just have to slow-roll until they see where you are going, then react appropriately. All they need is two arcs to cripple or kill a ship, and then the Proton Bombs finish off the wounded ships. And alpha-strike nuke might work...if you get lucky dice/crits. A perfectly placed blocker will slow it down. A perfect flanker can hurt it, although if you've paid enough points for a really effective flanker, what are you using for bait that is scarier than the flanker? Try to draw the Bombers through obstacles, maybe, but the Bombers can afford to be patient. But here's what is irksome about all that: the onus of winning the match is on the non-Bomber player. You have to do everything just right, hope the Bombers make a mistake, AND get hot dice. He only has to fly casual and roll dice.

tl;dr: the onus of the match-up is on the non-Bomber player, and that is everything that was wrong with 1.0. This is 2.0; 1.0 is dead - long live 1.0.

2 hours ago, Kleeg005 said:

tl;dr: the onus of the match-up is on the non-Bomber player, and that is everything that was wrong with 1.0. This is 2.0; 1.0 is dead - long live 1.0.

While I agree with pretty much all that you said, I just wanted to point out that there are some decent counters:

-Grand Inqy with Supernatural + FCS can almost solo the entire list if you are very patient and good at predicting enemy moves.

-Luke & Rexler can each solo 2 bombers (possibly even 3 if they are heavily damaged). The rest of your list just has to last long enough to kill 2.5 bombers (maybe Boba Fett can too, but I haven't tried him yet).

-Redline + Deathrain can theoretically destroy 2 bombers before they even get a shot off via Trajectory + Proton Bomb; then follow it up with proton torps (other ordnance alpha strikes might work also if higher Initiative). You probably need the firing of a 3rd ship to really seal the deal though.

-Initiative 1 blocker can really help swing the joust in your favour. BUT! It has to be a ship that is good at going from beyond range 3 into the block (not all Initiative 1 qualify...)

And there's possibly other options I haven't figured out yet, of course.

Now don't take this post to mean that Bombers are 'fine' (because counters exist). I still think they are in need of some kind of adjustment (and probably barrage rockets too), but since that isn't likely to happen for some time, its nice to have the counters to fall back on in the mean time

We might expect to see generic bombers lose one missile slot. You have a ton of points to fit Jonus + 4 generics, so points adjustments don't look like they'll have much impact.

12 hours ago, FGNRayJ said:

We might expect to see generic bombers lose one missile slot. You have a ton of points to fit Jonus + 4 generics, so points adjustments don't look like they'll have much impact.

I doubt the slot will change for the generic and not for all bomber. But the possibility exists, so who knows?

I for one welcome our new TIE-Bomber overlords.

I mean all through 1st edition the TIE-Bomber was worse than the HWK-290. At least the HWK had good pilot abilities and you can put TLTs on them. TIE Bomber yeah all that missile/bomb/torpedo slots but nothing else that they needed to make them good.

After my first 2.0 tournament I have to say that bombers are strong but not quite as strong as some people suggest. Yes, their jousting value is great but their mobility isn't amazing. Bombs do make up for many of their weaknesses but not all. A good, patient player will be able to outplay them. I can believe that bombers might be frustrating for newer or more casual players though. If your plan doesn' t go much beyond "I'll fly towards the enemy an shoot them", then yes, you will get obliterated.

If anything, I find punishers far more problematic balance-wise than the bombers. They are way more mobile and unpredictable. Their very presence might invalidate certain archetypes, such as TIE fighter swarms which is not true for bombers. Either way, it's way too early for nerfs. We're still in the 2.0's honeymoon period. People are testing what's good and what's not and for now they don't get much further than the simple spam of the most joust-efficient ship (and there's ALWAYS one, be it academy pilots like in 1.0 or bombers in 2.0 - at least bombers are less nimble and more predictable). Wait till people actually find the more complex, broken combos of named pilots and multiple upgrades before demanding nerfs.

On ‎9‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 4:36 PM, HolySorcerer said:

If anything has to go up in price I would prefer it to be the rockets (RIP aggressors). Nobody is concerned about bombers with proton torpedoes or concussion missiles, and increasing the price of the chassis only serves to make those options even less appealing. That said, I think it is still a bit early to be demanding price hikes on a pair of ships that have never seen serious play, especially when nobody knows what the **** they are doing in second edition yet.

I do think the aggressor is in a funny place; turret upgrade slot aside, it is a TIE bomber which is almost entirely worse, for more points.

On the other hand, it does have the currently unique (within the faction) turret slot, so even if barrage rockets become less appealing it's still got a niche.

On ‎9‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 7:33 PM, ficklegreendice said:

Lol no, they're MUCH slower

If there anything I've found in 2nd Ed, it's that boost (or equivalent, like decloak/aileron) is absolutely invaluable

the striker is many times more manueverable than the bomber, and almost incalculably better at exploiting obstacle placement

Agreed. It's not a matter of straight-line speed (where I agree they're the same) so much as the speed at which you can turn or bank, because either nine times out of ten you won't be pointing in quite the correct direction, or else you are a better pilot than I and frankly I think you need to immediately re-equip your entire squad with lethal-but-bullseye-restricted-proton-rockets.....

The Striker's party piece is the ability to do long, swoopy turns, not its speed in a dead run.

Note that I'm not saying the barrage rockets bomber isn't probably better than a TIE striker in practice, but I never got a change to try 5 unguided rockets bombers in 1.0 outside a test run - they were good, but the need to focus really punishes your already poor dial - loosing a focus token drops you from 3 focused dice to 2 unmodified dice, rather than from 3 focused dice to 3 unmodified dice like the TIE interceptor or TIE/sk.