#PhantomsAreFine

I'd look hard at, but maybe not change, Juke.

And I'd look hard at crew Vader.

But hyperspace format is a mystery so it super doesn't matter, once FFG finishes throwing darts at their product catalog to tell us what's legal in OP the meta will be all different anyways.

Whisper could stand to go up a couple of points so that the other three pilots become viable options. Same with Boba and Redline. The ships in relation to the rest of the meta are mostly fine though.

5 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

Played against Whisper/Sloane swarm last night. Like trying to get a set of keys you just dropped down a drain.

The problem there is not the ship frame.

In Folkestone by any chance?

But agreed. Sloane is one of the most powerful cards in the game right now. Even if she didn't grant rerolls, that double stress would still be crazy. It's punishing the opponent for playing the game.

10 hours ago, gamblertuba said:

Whisper, Collision Detector, Juke, and Vader crew are at the very least going to get a real hard look. A very hard look. My hope is they just lose the crew slot. The phantom is not a crew carrier. Maybe someday they will release a gunner that affects primary arc attacks and the phantom can get a gunner slot.

Oh, I love Collision Detector on Phantoms, but it's the last thing which needs a price change. It's a totally fair upgrade in general, made stronger by a particular platform, and altering the price on it would be the wrong way to adjust the power balance of Phantoms.

Juke is... odd. It's totally fair on any ship with a natural evade action. However, Phantoms and Defenders get Evade actions for really simple stuff they tend to do anyhow. So is the problem Juke? Or is the problem free Evade actions? And is it really a problem? Defenders are hella expensive, and that already constrains list building. Talented Phantoms, however, are cheap enough to easily slot into lists. If FFG came up with a "special tax" list of pairs of upgrades which got a bonus cost added when paired together (Juke on Phantoms and Defenders, Trick Shot on turret ships), I don't think I mind that. It adds a lot of complexity to the process, and makes it even harder for someone to tell if a list is legal at a glance, to tell if an opponent is honest about their bid at a glance. I could go either way.

3 hours ago, Shazbot said:

Whisper is fine. Jesus things are allowed to be good sometimes. The whole point of points adjustments are to eliminate the missileboats, super dengars, and supers ghosts of the world, not have a revolving door that cycles out anything and everything that's good.

There's also a new option opened up by points adjustments: the small tweak. Suppose Whisper (and the other Talent-slot Phantoms), Juke, and crew-Vader all went up 1 point. Suppose Redline and Deathrain go up 2 points. Maybe Barrage Rockets up 1 point, and Concussion Missiles down 1 point. Doesn't this make Imperial balance a little better? It doesn't kill most lists, but it cuts into bids, and makes a few combinations a little too tight. All these ships, as well as Barrage Rocket TIE Bombers, are all still pretty good in that point-adjusted world.

Moving to Scum, perhaps 0-0-0 up 1 point, Han Solo (gunner and ship!) up 2, Moldy Crow up 2. I'm not as up on Rebels balance, but still. I think if there were a lot of 1 point, maybe 2 point adjustments, things get a little more fair. Importantly, it's not the nuke-from-orbit nerfs they had to do with 1e errata, because there wasn't a way to tweak things a little. They don't need to kill the Phantom like they had to kill Dengaroo or Biggs, but they could make it cost 2-3 points more fully built.

I get the feeling FFG wants to avoid any card wordings changes unless there's confusion on how they work.

Because ideally trick shot should just be changed to be primary arc only.

But I don't think there's any rules about having an upgrade cost more depending on the ship type. So maybe just have it be more expensive for all ships with a rotating turret arc.

Same for juke. Defenders and Phantoms are the biggest winners for this upgrade because they can get free evades every turn potentially. So maybe just raise the cost of juke on these two ships only.

I don't think that they will be doing many small tweaks - the fuss and fretting on this forum (and other social media sites) mean that minor changes aren't worth the vilification and vitriol they'll receive.

I think the Hyperspace Format will be used to remove/allow certain combinations instead. Possibly to allow some things that aren't allowed currently e.g. mod slots on Fangs...

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Oh, I love Collision Detector on Phantoms, but it's the last thing which needs a price change. It's a totally fair upgrade in general, made stronger by a particular platform, and altering the price on it would be the wrong way to adjust the power balance of Phantoms.

I'd argue there is a distinctly unfair element in that, it lets you roll or boost onto obstacles all game. You only have 2 turns of ignoring the effects, but that alone, especially with debris, is really letting you do something no other ship can and it makes blocking reposition options significantly harder. In that regards, I do feel like the collision detector is more abusable than it really should be. If you had to spend a charge to turn the whole card on, then I think it would've been more fair, but with a good enough dial, you're pretty fine rolling or boosting through debris all day.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Juke is... odd. It's totally fair on any ship with a natural evade action. However, Phantoms and Defenders get Evade actions for really simple stuff they tend to do anyhow. So is the problem Juke? Or is the problem free Evade actions? And is it really a problem? Defenders are hella expensive, and that already constrains list building. Talented Phantoms, however, are cheap enough to easily slot into lists. If FFG came up with a "special tax" list of pairs of upgrades which got a bonus cost added when paired together (Juke on Phantoms and Defenders, Trick Shot on turret ships), I don't think I mind that. It adds a lot of complexity to the process, and makes it even harder for someone to tell if a list is legal at a glance, to tell if an opponent is honest about their bid at a glance. I could go either way.

I'd be fine with a cost increase on Juke mostly because it's pretty close to unplayable unless you're trying to abuse it. Would a Green Squadron ever take this card? Nope. Spending an action to possible flip one defense result and rolling 2 naked attack dice is pretty crap and it's even worse if you're forced to spend before firing. The only ships bothering with this card are the ships trying to abuse something, so I'm okay if they bump the points.

Whisper will see a change, but probably not all of the changes. This includes common Whisper upgrades. I'd predict she'll either get: crew changed to gunner, OR a 2 point increase, OR Juke will go to 6 points, OR Vader will go to 16 points. I've listed them in the order of most likely to least likely based on absolutely nothing scientific.

As long as it isn't multiple of these things she'll still be totally playable and still a top-tier pilot. The other Phantoms don't need to be touched.

35 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

I'd argue there is a distinctly unfair element in that, it lets you roll or boost onto obstacles all game. You only have 2 turns of ignoring the effects, but that alone, especially with debris, is really letting you do something no other ship can and it makes blocking reposition options significantly harder. In that regards, I do feel like the collision detector is more abusable than it really should be. If you had to spend a charge to turn the whole card on, then I think it would've been more fair, but with a good enough dial, you're pretty fine rolling or boosting through debris all day.

I guess I just think 5 points is the right price for ColDet.

Advanced Sensors and Afterburners are both 8 points, and ColDet really shouldn't be that high. In some ways, it's kind of comparable to Contraband Cybernetics. That's only 1 charge for the same 5 points, but it's going to be more generally useful. While zipping over obstacles can be really potent in the right turns, actions while stressed is going to show up a lot more for most ships. Ablative Armor is a 4 points upgrade, and that also seems kinda comparable.

Meanwhile, when not spending charges, you'll still need to roll for damage and will take stress tokens. Potentially two tokens on both the way in and way out. I mean, I haven't really seen ColDet on anything other than Phantoms, because while it's potent there, it's not really that unfair of an upgrade for the price.

36 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

I'd be fine with a cost increase on Juke mostly because it's pretty close to unplayable unless you're trying to abuse it. Would a Green Squadron ever take this card? Nope. Spending an action to possible flip one defense result and rolling 2 naked attack dice is pretty crap and it's even worse if you're forced to spend before firing. The only ships bothering with this card are the ships trying to abuse something, so I'm okay if they bump the points.

Juke is... at least OK. I was crunching numbers on a Juke-based TIE Swarm (Howlrunner, Valen Rudor, 4x Juke Black Squadrons) and they do OK damage, more per ship but with fewer ships than a 7-TIE Swarm. The 7-TIE Swarm will just barely outperform it, but not by a lot. So Juke at 4 points is really on the edge. Probably not the best, but not really so much worse. I don't think it's the end of the world to see Juke get increased to 5 points, but it is kind of a nerf to fun and to janky usage. I'd perfer to avoid that, if possible. One upside would be that Trick Shot would be a lot better on Phantoms in comparison, if Juke went up in price.

That said, I think Trick Shot should be 2-3 points... I think it's easier to trigger than Predator, and with a stronger effect when triggered.

Just now, theBitterFig said:

I guess I just think 5 points is the right price for ColDet.

Advanced Sensors and Afterburners are both 8 points, and ColDet really shouldn't be that high. In some ways, it's kind of comparable to Contraband Cybernetics. That's only 1 charge for the same 5 points, but it's going to be more generally useful. While zipping over obstacles can be really potent in the right turns, actions while stressed is going to show up a lot more for most ships. Ablative Armor is a 4 points upgrade, and that also seems kinda comparable.

Meanwhile, when not spending charges, you'll still need to roll for damage and will take stress tokens. Potentially two tokens on both the way in and way out. I mean, I haven't really seen ColDet on anything other than Phantoms, because while it's potent there, it's not really that unfair of an upgrade for the price.

Juke is... at least OK. I was crunching numbers on a Juke-based TIE Swarm (Howlrunner, Valen Rudor, 4x Juke Black Squadrons) and they do OK damage, more per ship but with fewer ships than a 7-TIE Swarm. The 7-TIE Swarm will just barely outperform it, but not by a lot. So Juke at 4 points is really on the edge. Probably not the best, but not really so much worse. I don't think it's the end of the world to see Juke get increased to 5 points, but it is kind of a nerf to fun and to janky usage. I'd perfer to avoid that, if possible. One upside would be that Trick Shot would be a lot better on Phantoms in comparison, if Juke went up in price.

That said, I think Trick Shot should be 2-3 points... I think it's easier to trigger than Predator, and with a stronger effect when triggered.

I agree with pretty much this entire statement with an asterisk on Juke.

Collision Detector is good but isn't a necessary upgrade on anything, just nice to have if you are a really aggressive player. In a game that tends to reward the more cagey defensive types of play more often, anything that promotes aggression is fine by me.

Juke is possibly the best EPT if you have access to another offensive mod (force or a second action like Phantoms and Defenders) and really underwhelming if you don't. You are generally already paying for that second modifier already, so upping the price on Juke makes it go from situationally good elsewhere to why bother. It also gets worse as your initiative gets lower, so there is that. Defenders aren't really tearing up the scene, and while Whisper is awesome the other phantoms aren't tearing it up either, with only occasional appearances by Echo.

The answer definitely seems to be a slight points increase on Whisper instead of messing with upgrades that can go on it, but I still think they take out the crew slot for a gunner.

FFG has said (in the RPG, which is the most official source we have) the second crew member is a copilot/gunner... which could be either crew or gunner. With only two gunners that do anything for an armed ship that doesn't drop bombs in the imperial faction (one of whom requires you to take Vader before taking them), sticking with crew makes a lot more sense to me. The only crew cards that are a problemon the Phantom are problems by themselves (Sloan is a nightmare, and as for Vader... Well, look at Kanan and Ezra. Now look at Vader. Now back at Kanan and Ezra now back to Vader. Something is not right here).

Adding a second tier of pricing to Juke for Defenders and Phantoms is probably the way to go in my opinion.

If only they evidenced changes colouring them as per every faq in this world they will make me very happy. I could not see if my list is still legal and now i have to go to play in 30 minute on the other side of Rome.

They complicate my life when they do thiz >~<

1 minute ago, CapitanGuinea said:

If only they evidenced changes colouring them as per every faq in this world they will make me very happy. I could not see if my list is still legal and now i have to go to play in 30 minute on the other side of Rome.

They complicate my life when they do thiz >~<

The fact that they didn't strongly suggests this was either a mistake or a formatting change.

No they take off mod slot on awing tiedefender and fang. No other change in my sight. Now i have to run to catch the bus... if some one locate other changes could mark them here?

1 minute ago, CapitanGuinea said:

No they take off mod slot on awing tiedefender and fang. No other change in my sight. Now i have to run to catch the bus... if some one locate other changes could mark them here?

Those ships didn't have mod slots to begin with.

I played about 5 games against juke phantoms in 2.0 and to me they doesn't seem so OP to justify a point increase....... i can't say nothing about sloane... i didn't try it.

1 hour ago, Micanthropyre said:

I agree with pretty much this entire statement with an asterisk on Juke.

Collision Detector is good but isn't a necessary upgrade on anything, just nice to have if you are a really aggressive player. In a game that tends to reward the more cagey defensive types of play more often, anything that promotes aggression is fine by me.

Juke is possibly the best EPT if you have access to another offensive mod (force or a second action like Phantoms and Defenders) and really underwhelming if you don't. You are generally already paying for that second modifier already, so upping the price on Juke makes it go from situationally good elsewhere to why bother. It also gets worse as your initiative gets lower, so there is that. Defenders aren't really tearing up the scene, and while Whisper is awesome the other phantoms aren't tearing it up either, with only occasional appearances by Echo.

The answer definitely seems to be a slight points increase on Whisper instead of messing with upgrades that can go on it, but I still think they take out the crew slot for a gunner.

Fair enough on Juke. But there aren't too many ships like that out there. Like, Fifth Brother Strikers and... Sabine Wren Attack Shuttle? I guess Howlrunner-backed TIEs.

TIE with focus and HR? 1.11 damage against 2 unfocused green dice. Juke TIE with Howlrunner and no Focus? 1.25 damage. But a Juke Black is 30% more expensive than an academy, 15% more expensive than a naked Black.

That's fascinating to me. Juke does more damage 12.8% more damage per ship, but slightly lower damage per point. If Juke was 3 points, it'd win out over a naked Black in damage-per-point with Howlrunner present, but only just barely. Either way, you'll get hosed if you have to fight Luke. A full swarm of 6 TIEs drops from like 7.5 damage down to 2.8.

2 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

Fair enough on Juke. But there aren't too many ships like that out there. Like, Fifth Brother Strikers and... Sabine Wren Attack Shuttle? I guess Howlrunner-backed TIEs.

TIE with focus and HR? 1.11 damage against 2 unfocused green dice. Juke TIE with Howlrunner and no Focus? 1.25 damage. But a Juke Black is 30% more expensive than an academy, 15% more expensive than a naked Black.

That's fascinating to me. Juke does more damage 12.8% more damage per ship, but slightly lower damage per point. If Juke was 3 points, it'd win out over a naked Black in damage-per-point with Howlrunner present, but only just barely. Either way, you'll get hosed if you have to fight Luke. A full swarm of 6 TIEs drops from like 7.5 damage down to 2.8.

Palp hands out the Force where it is needed, but overall you are correct there are not many instances where you can get it (Jyn Erso + Perceptive Copilot is another way to token stack)

There is also the consideration of damage difference, making them spend their focus when they have it so they are unfocused on their return fire (assuming you fire first).

What happens when you run the numbers on Focused defense on a TIE vs defense with an Evade token? Again, the straight points on attack isn't a very good metric in this case, because you have an offensive mod that doesn't require you to spend your token, leaving that token on defense so while the damage per point is worse, your expected survival increases, giving you more shots which raises significantly the damage per points per game.

4 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:

Palp hands out the Force where it is needed, but overall you are correct there are not many instances where you can get it (Jyn Erso + Perceptive Copilot is another way to token stack)

There is also the consideration of damage difference, making them spend their focus when they have it so they are unfocused on their return fire (assuming you fire first).

What happens when you run the numbers on Focused defense on a TIE vs defense with an Evade token? Again, the straight points on attack isn't a very good metric in this case, because you have an offensive mod that doesn't require you to spend your token, leaving that token on defense so while the damage per point is worse, your expected survival increases, giving you more shots which raises significantly the damage per points per game.

Juke is insane on focused fire, e.g. a Phantom Swarm. Hard card to balance as it's not a big deal on a single shot nor when the carrier doesn't get free evades...

You want op stuff to complain about then you should look at the gunrunner, not the phantom. Not only is the strongest pilot the cheapest, but it’s priced like a mid tier TIE fighter.

23 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

You want op stuff to complain about then you should look at the gunrunner, not the phantom. Not only is the strongest pilot the cheapest, but it’s priced like a mid tier TIE fighter.

I mean, that ship shouldn't exist (complete removal of player agency combined with a relatively powerful debuff and no RNG factor or real cost to use), but yeah, there's no way it's a 28pt ship.

40 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:

Palp hands out the Force where it is needed, but overall you are correct there are not many instances where you can get it (Jyn Erso + Perceptive Copilot is another way to token stack)

There is also the consideration of damage difference, making them spend their focus when they have it so they are unfocused on their return fire (assuming you fire first).

What happens when you run the numbers on Focused defense on a TIE vs defense with an Evade token? Again, the straight points on attack isn't a very good metric in this case, because you have an offensive mod that doesn't require you to spend your token, leaving that token on defense so while the damage per point is worse, your expected survival increases, giving you more shots which raises significantly the damage per points per game.

Once you start running a full Jyn/PerCo/Juke combo, that clocks in at 16 points. Personally, I doubt I'd ever run it.

//

Presuming one focus token, a group of 6 ships backed by Howlrunner does 5.6 damage between them if the attackers are Focused, or 5.9 if they're Evading with Juke. The first Juke ship does a lot worse, but subsequent ones go a lot better.

And as you were saying, the math is never clean with Juke. Does your opponent hold a focus token for defense, since they'll be so much more likely to be able to use it? What is the value of your opponent not spending the focus on offense? Well, on a 3-red dice ship, I guess a focus is worth 0.75 damage. And isn't a 4-point Hotshot Gunner at least OK?

But I guess what I've always been trying to get at is that, for a some non-Phantom ships, Juke is close-ish to being "worth the points." That the Juke effect is powerful, but there's an open question as to whether the effect is worth the points. On a lot of ships, it's not a massive addition, but it does add something. It's not like Composure on most ships, where good play negates the effect. But any use of points in a fixed-point game means that something else can't be bought. I think it's clear, an increased price on Juke, while it'd help balance out Phantoms, would certainly kill it for nearly any other use. That would hurt players who are looking to do fun and silly stuff which is on the edge of competitive.

In a lot of ways, I feel the same way about non-Phantom/Defender Juke as I do about the TIE Advanced x1 with pilots other than Vader. Is it a bad ship? A bad talent? I find that really hard to say. There's a lot of potential for effective use. Maybe it costs a little too much, takes a bit too much work to get it to work properly. But by another understanding of what makes a ship or upgrade good or bad, costing too much does mean it's bad.

35 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

I mean, that ship shouldn't exist (complete removal of player agency combined with a relatively powerful debuff and no RNG factor or real cost to use), but yeah, there's no way it's a 28pt ship.

This makes me laugh - lets take the nerf bat to a AG1 - 5Hull - Atk2 - Def2 ship that has 1 special ability and a crazy dial.

Whats that - "Oh it really sucks that I can't just roll up into your face with more firepower as your little gunrunner will throw my fragile powerhouse fighters around"

Yes they are annoying and powerful and provide another threat if not dealt with - it depends on the match up (that's the great thing about 2.0 so far).

This video shows that the balance (and points) is right - although Alex won with them it could so easily have gone the other way.

8 hours ago, player2072913 said:

In Folkestone by any chance?

But agreed. Sloane is one of the most powerful cards in the game right now. Even if she didn't grant rerolls, that double stress would still be crazy. It's punishing the opponent for playing the game.

It was!!!

I really enjoyed the game though. It was a really interesting tactical puzzle. I realised after that I should've gone full beans on Whisper when I got the chance. If I'd been braver, it maybe would've been worth trading one of my Defenders for it, the open season on TIEs for the one remaining would've been a joyous release of explosive violence.

My feeling is that the whole Sloane mechanic might be over the top and points won't fix it. The Phantom might be a great platform for her but the ship itself is fine. Fun to play, fairly balanced with it's difficulty.

Double stress is the killer.

6 minutes ago, Hugeman said:

This makes me laugh - lets take the nerf bat to a AG1 - 5Hull - Atk2 - Def2 ship that has 1 special ability and a crazy dial.

Whats that - "Oh it really sucks that I can't just roll up into your face with more firepower as your little gunrunner will throw my fragile powerhouse fighters around"

Yes they are annoying and powerful and provide another threat if not dealt with - it depends on the match up (that's the great thing about 2.0 so far).

This video shows that the balance (and points) is right - although Alex won with them it could so easily have gone the other way.

What? I don't even fly powerhouse fighters and I still feel like I can't fly most of my games against this ship. Even if I make the correct choice for maneuvering, it doesn't matter because my opponent gets to tell me where my ship is and doesn't even sacrifice an attack or roll a die to do it, it just happens. That kind of ability shouldn't be cheap, it should be prohibitively expensive to make sure it's not the default right answer like it is right now. Oh, BTW, you also lose a die as well. Cool.