32 minutes ago, SOTL said:

Basically 3 out of 4 of the Force Powers are complete garbage. Supernatural Reflexes is extremely good but also extremely expensive and you need to be sure you're getting a ton of value out of it.

I think even Supernatural Reflexes is borderline poor on anybody but Luke, who gets benefit from both sides of the card and has the ability to regen his Force tokens more rapidly.

Pfft. It’s pretty insane on the Grand Inquisitor and will be equally nuts on Kylo. At 73pt for SR and FCS you have an absolute bonkers knife fighter with triple actions and the FCS reroll.

I do hope that more stuff comes out that gives Vader a better choice but I don’t really agree with the assessment that Vader only gets to use 20-30% of the power of the card. The roll portion is the amazing part.

This is making me even more confused when it comes to flying with supernatural or not. Since the start of 2.0 i've been flying vader pretty much exclusively (only about 15 games or so but it's still something) and i tried a lot of different builds.

At first i also was in the mindset "no budget vader, if you take him, go all in" and i took the 100 points vader - with supernatural, prockets, afterburners and fcs. While the vader was great it was really hard to fill in the rest of the list and have a potent bid. So i only had about 6 points bid, a scimitar bomber and major reaper with kallus (it's a hidden gem, this is a ship that with no tokens at all can change focus, hit, blank into hit,hit,hit).

I'm thinking that despite of what majority is saying supernatural is not autoinclude on vader. The thing with 100 points vader is that if you lose him, the rest of your list probably won't cut it, as it's 90 points or lower - you need that 10 points bid or higher on vader. Also half points on vader then is 50 points which is a lot and will happen a lot. And when it comes to cutting points on him, i think supernatural is the least powerful upgrade out of the 4. It's really usable for kturning and similar plays but it costs a lot and a lot of times you won't even be able to do supernatural (if you're not willing to boost) because when fighting in tight spaces, which is when you often want to k-turn you just won't be able to do a barell roll and then k-turn without hitting a rock.

I will have to play both variants more but i'm warming up more to cheaper vader recently. This way you can naturally fit another good ace, a medium class ship and 10-14 points bid.

Vader needs FCS and maaaaybe Afterburners, but probably not even that. Roll him in as cheap as possible and spend your points better elsewhere.

Supernatural Reflexes does three things:

• 1) it allows you to trade a Force token for an Action. This is +1 action. This is A Very Good Thing(tm) and probably half the card's cost.
• 2) it allows you to pre-position with a Boost. This is pretty good.
• 3) it allows you to pre-position with Barrel Roll. This is pretty good.

When Vader is equipped with Supernatural Reflexes you can ignore 1) because his pilot ability already does that, and you can mostly ignore 2) because he has to take damage to boost - sometimes it's worth it but often not, so you're left with paying 12points just for 3). That's too much to pay.

Bump proofing him is super valuable though. He's basically worthless if he's bumped especially on the initial engagement. And freeing his kturns and trolls is also very useful.

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

Bump proofing him is super valuable though. He's basically worthless if he's bumped especially on the initial engagement. And freeing his kturns and trolls is also very useful.

All true.

IT'S TWELVE POINTS!!!!

1 minute ago, SOTL said:

All true.

IT'S TWELVE POINTS!!!!

It/he is definitely marginal. Keep him out of arc he's great. Get him shot he's vapour.

1 hour ago, SOTL said:

All true.

IT'S TWELVE POINTS!!!!

While this is true, if you don’t take it on Vader then you might as well look at no using him. You either buy into Supernatural Reflexes to give him pre or post move reposition to keep him alive or you just get something cheaper and build a better squad.

16 minutes ago, DodgingArcs said:

While this is true, if you don’t take it on Vader then you might as well look at no using him. You either buy into Supernatural Reflexes to give him pre or post move reposition to keep him alive or you just get something cheaper and build a better squad.

I largely agree with this, as I don't think Vader is good.

When the right Force Power comes along I think he could be extremely dangerous, but it's not his time right now. ****, if he just had a Talent slot instead of a Force slot I would slam Debris Gambit onto him so fast and he'd be really good again.

If you're looking for an Imperial ship in the 90-100 point range Rexler is probably your man. Vader just seems a bit too expensive with Supernatural Reflexes so if I run him at all it's with FCS and sometimes Afterburners. I don't agree that you have to make Vader more expensive just because he already costs a bunch of points. If spending 3 points on upgrades gets you a good ship, that's what you should do. Vader is just a little short of being a good ship right now though, but that's even more reason not to spend so many points on him if you take him.

35 minutes ago, SOTL said:

I largely agree with this, as I don't think Vader is good.

When the right Force Power comes along I think he could be extremely dangerous, but it's not his time right now. ****, if he just had a Talent slot instead of a Force slot I would slam Debris Gambit onto him so fast and he'd be really good again.

This I completely agree with. Debris gambit would make a world of difference. If anyone should have Force and Talent it’s Vader

With that in mind Blackout vs Kylo is going to be a super interesting comparison. Both i5 but one is Force and the other isn’t. I’m looking forward to playing around with Silencer builds.

Yeah, unfortunately Vader is pretty much on the worst possible chassis for his ability. It’s like it was custom designed to reign Vader in and make him less effective. The TAx1 is just a worse xwing, again, and that makes me sad.

14 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

Yeah, unfortunately Vader is pretty much on the worst possible chassis for his ability. It’s like it was custom designed to reign Vader in and make him less effective. The TAx1 is just a worse xwing, again, and that makes me sad.

The simple addition of either evade or a red boost action would have been enough to make him and probably at least Maarek Steele and Ved Foslo viable.

I don't see that either would have made them overpowered. Maybe pre-movement barrel and boost would have just been too much? I guess we'll see how strong Kylo is when he drops as between Supernatural and Advanced Sensors, he should be able to pull that off.

The only explanation for evade I have is that FFG really didn't want easy focus and evades to be a thing, and the only way to stop Vader doing that with his ability was to keep evade off the action bar completely. In that respect, it does feel like they deliberately held the chassis back exclusively because of Vader, which really sucks. I'd much rather have seen them give the chassis the option and cost Vader to the moon if he was strong.

21 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

Yeah, unfortunately Vader is pretty much on the worst possible chassis for his ability. It’s like it was custom designed to reign Vader in and make him less effective. The TAx1 is just a worse xwing, again, and that makes me sad.

I think that's the case for a lot of ships. Imagine Redline's ability on a Defender, or Braylen's on an Interceptor.

2 hours ago, Okapi said:

I think that's the case for a lot of ships. Imagine Redline's ability on a Defender, or Braylen's on an Interceptor.

Sure, but they are really good on their platforms, Vader feels very confined by his.

I like Vader with FCS and Afterburners. He really doesn't need a force ability. I may reconsider this when they come out with some Dark Side abilities, but for now, Vader is a powerhouse with just his native ability.

I hope we get a force power so that we can give pilot-Vader crew-Vader’s ability.

53 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

I hope we get a force power so that we can give pilot-Vader crew-Vader’s ability.

Only if it is unique and only goes on Vader.

it's sad that the Empire always gets screwed. They had this chance to finally make the faction able to compete instead we get our highest aces gimped, again...

59 minutes ago, Darth evil said:

it's sad that the Empire always gets screwed. They had this chance to finally make the faction able to compete instead we get our highest aces gimped, again...

Keep repeating your wrong opinion, buddy.

12 hours ago, Darth evil said:

it's sad that the Empire always gets screwed. They had this chance to finally make the faction able to compete instead we get our highest aces gimped, again...

LOL, wut?