3 minutes ago, Manolox said:

So you can easily make 2 linked actions every turn and take off the stress. (None of the defenders can do it)

Defenders are getting two actions every turn with no stress. Plus they can choose to stack green tokens for better survival. A free Evade every turn may as well be a free shield. They basically have a 1.0 R2-D2 onboard every defender.

The E-Wing’s linked actions interact awkwardly with its ship ability. You can boost and target lock every turn, but you probably shouldn’t.

You’re probably not linking actions in to a range one shot, and you can’t stack up survivability.

Here's the other thing: is an over-costed ship which functions thus a bad ship?

The generic TIE Advanced x1 is a barely-functional ship. Low-init Missile based ships (the x1 is essentially a missile carrier with unlimited charges) are hard to use effectively. They'd still be hard to use if they cost a bit less, but perhaps the potential upside when flown right would be worth it.

The E-Wing, however, actually functions . The statline is solid, and the ability is good. Linked actions aren't amazing, but they still exist; lots of ships don't have them at all. The E-Wing isn't a hard ship to use, it just trades away a lot of the rest of the list, perhaps not gaining back enough value. Some expensive ships can generate enough value for their price (TIE Defenders do, and I think folks might be sleeping on both Rebel YTs), but I kinda don't think E-Wings are up there.

E-Wings, Defenders, and Starvipers each fall into a relatively new category of fighter that I call the “Bugatti” fighters, or superiority fighters. Starvipers clock in a bit cheaper to start, but that’s mostly due to less hit points... Virago jacks it up to match the other two.

The key thing about these ships is that they are expensive, or at best potentially expensive. You are paying for some of the best tricks and maneuver dials, best statlines, and potentially most abusive upgrade options. The Defender relies more on it’s raw ability, the pilot and talent, combined with sensor upgrades and optional missile/cannon (mixed bag, there). The Starviper gets by with it’s unpredictable nature, generous upgrade bar, and being a lethal knife-fighter. While the E-Wing is clearly intended for a “boom and zoom”, and accomplishes that through setting up target locks from far away, and (again) making use of a generous upgrade bar.

In short, you get what you put into them... They’re solid ace platforms, and naturally have a super high risk/reward potential. And that risk is very much something to consider, because the last thing you want is to blank out on a defense roll and watch 70 to 105 points fizzle off the board. But very few ships are capable of carrying you through the end game like a juiced up super fighter on ******* steroids.

TL;DR: The E-Wing is high risk/reward, tricky to use, and potentially devastating in the right hands.

It's not even the worst ship in its faction.

2 minutes ago, YourHucklebrry said:

It's not even the worst ship in its faction.

Preach

2 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

One might also ask what kind of testing you did - and what factors pointed towards an overcost, and what size of reduction are we talking about.

And I will happily detail it. My tests have primarily delt with the basis of using R3 and FCS together to give the E-Wing a mini-Predator. I started with Gavin as the pilot in question, but switched to primarily the Rogue Squadron Escort for further testing, feeling I wasn’t getting enough use out of Gav’s ability.

My first list was teaming the E-Wing up with Kyle Katarn and Norra in the Y-Wing. The hope was for Kyle to hand off the extra focus the E-Wing needed, but this didn’t help as much as I had hoped. Since then, I’ve tried a variety of lists, including triple E-wings, teaming it up with a Jake assisted A-Wing Swarm, a fun little list with Arvel, Sabine, and a Phoenix. There have been a few successes, but ultimately it felt more based on hot dice rather than dependability of the chassis.

What I went up against is a variety of lists, including Punishers, two ship Scum, Starvipers, and Phantoms. This was primarily against an opponent of roughly equal skill as we were playing around with our new 2.0 toys.

Most of what makes me feel that the E-Wing is overcosted is Luke. He is just one point more than the base Knave pilot. For i5 and his pilot ability, I feel he is a much better piece for the similar cost. And as one adds on upgrades and even advance the E-Wing with bigger pilots, there is still Luke there who can do most of what the E-Wing can do, but tankier and with Supernatural Reflexes. In all the lists I have described, I feel changing from the E-Wing to Luke would have made a noticeable difference in my list’s preformance.

As for the what kind of reduction, i’m inclined to agree with @FriendofYoda . Start with something in the 3-5 point range, maaaaybe even 6. We see how that does, and adjust as needed from there.

Now, to be clear, I do not mean to imply that that my experience is all inclusive and all that is needed to change its points. There are a couple of things I still want to try, including some suggestions posted in this thread. This is the primary reason I asked the questions I did. If someone else is getting better results than I, I would like to know what I’m doing wrong and try to implement the new build/way of thinking about the E-Wing. My belief that it needs a price reduction is based on an on-going process and is subject to change based on evidence.

The reason I am more directly asking @Cgriffith is that he is critical of sentiments that the E-Wing is overcosted, but hasn’t (at time of typing this) provided his own experience as to why the E-Wing is fine. And when it comes down to it, I trust my experience (as limited as it is) over someone on the internet just saying it is fine without expanding on why they think that.

?

6 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Most of what makes me feel that the E-Wing is overcosted is Luke.

I agree. Wedge as well, to a certain extent even Thane, but definitely Luke. I mean I enjoy running Gavin, but it's very hard for me to justify his cost when Luke is cheaper (76 vs 74 with AdvS and SR respectively). It has to be said though, they complement each other pretty good, but that third ship has to be relatively cheap.

I've built the Ewing and tried making Corran work since release. I've been using a few different play styles including the proper engage once, disengage and come back around technique. I'm probably the most creative list builder in my local group, especially concerning Rebels. I replaced Corran with Sabine and Jake and found much better performance from my list and flying Jake very similarly to how I flew Corran.

There are a few ways to build E-Wings that I enjoy, but I still find it way too much points for the value I'm getting compared to other ships available to me.

R4 Astro/Daredevil/Adv. Sensors

R4 Astro/FCS/Crackshot

R2 Astro/Adv.Sensors/Daredevil

R3 Astro/FCS/Torpedos

Elusive / FCS / R2 / Torp

Lone Wolf / FCS / R2

Lone Wolf build being my current preference on flying Corran. You cannot fly the E-wing like you did in 1.0, nor can you fly it like any other ship in the game. But it's still not good. Like an A-wing it will pop if you rely on the green dice, but you can almost fit in both Arvel and Jake for the same cost as Corran. Personally I'd rather take the 2 A-wings as they are more efficient for the points and it's not as feels bad when you blank on 3 evades (which we all know happens at the worst possible times).

Just compare it to things with similar point values.

61 points Knave is more than any X-Wing other than Luke.

For 20 points you are getting 1 more evade die, sensor slot, same amount of hit points (distributed differently), add red 1 hards, add 3/4 forward blue and 5 forward white. That is not worth 20 points. Even with LRS (which was free in 1.0) and link action it's not worth.

10-15 points maybe, but not 20.

Look at it this way, in 1.0 the E-wing was effectively 54 2.0 points for a Knave. It was over costed then, now it's 7 points more expensive and everything's fine with minimal changes to the chassis?

Corran was 70 points, so 5 points more expensive now and worse in almost every way.

2 hours ago, ScummyRebel said:

I’m not sure it’s overcosted so much as current gameplay theory aka the “meta” likes more than 2 ships in a list. Note that the tie defender, the other premium ship, didn’t make it high in ranking at Mynock Open.

Their time will come at some point I am sure. Just needs the right combination to be unlocked and someone will find a way to fly them well.

The Defender is pretty good, just check out Francois Moret's 2 ship list. Not only that, but you can fit it into a 3 ship list if you go lean enough. I suppose that Rexler not being everywhere is a result of taste, especially considering how many tasty options Empire has right now. Plus, you can customize lighter ships like Whisper or Redline far more than you can Rexler if you have a 3 ship list. Furthermore, he may be a good juking platform, hilariously so with HLC, but he doesn't have a crew slot to slap in Darth Vader.

54 minutes ago, Phelan Boots said:

They basically have a 1.0 R2-D2 onboard every defender.

Man, I'm sure glad that when I hunt something down in the endgame to boost my overall MOV, Rexler's shield count magically fills back up to undo the 44pt I lost on him.

Objectively looking at the E-Wing vs. the X-Wing

E-Wing has +1 AGL, a beefier action bar (Evade and 2 linked repos into locks), a solid ship ability and a slightly better dial. Is this enough for a 20pt difference? Out of context, possibly, but the E-Wing has a lot of features that anti-synergize or simply aren't useful.

You can get locks from really far away and take an FCS to basically never spend them until targets are dead. This is pretty solid, but it begs the question of why you care about having Repo -> Lock linked actions? More importantly, if I can't lock at Range 1, then why is the repo before the lock? Putting this on the table just highlighted for me how awkward it was because boosting forward only to find you can't lock your target means you just lost average damage (a small amount, granted, but having a lock sets you up for FCS focused shots on later turns). In short, the whole locking system with the range and links is just horribly goofy and means most of the time you might as well not have a linked action.

The Evade action combos anti-well with the general lack of action economy. If I only get 1 token, why would it ever be evade over focus? This means it's rare for the 3 AGL to be a really big deal. It's frustrating on token stackers, but on single action ships that are as expensive as the E-Wing, it just doesn't add that much value.

TL:DR In a vaccum, I could see the costing making sense, but as soon as you get it on the table and realize how hard it is to get value out of all the features at any given time, it becomes clear that this ship is probably in the 5-6pt range of overcosted. To put it simply, would I pay 15 extra points to turn an X-Wing into an E-Wing? In most cases, meh.

13 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

You can get locks from really far away and take an FCS to basically never spend them until targets are dead. This is pretty solid, but it begs the question of why you care about having Repo -> Lock linked actions? More importantly, if I can't lock at Range 1, then why is the repo before the lock? Putting this on the table just highlighted for me how awkward it was because boosting forward only to find you can't lock your target means you just lost average damage (a small amount, granted, but having a lock sets you up for FCS focused shots on later turns). In short, the whole locking system with the range and links is just horribly goofy and means most of the time you might as well not have a linked action.

I think this is for the turn after the initial engagement, when you need to do the "zoom" part of Boom'n'Zoom, and want to reacquire the target lock. The boost/roll helps you ensure you're outside of R1 of a ship that is moving slowly/has not moved yet.

36 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

You can get locks from really far away and take an FCS to basically never spend them until targets are dead. This is pretty solid, but it begs the question of why you care about having Repo -> Lock linked actions? More importantly, if I can't lock at Range 1, then why is the repo before the lock? Putting this on the table just highlighted for me how awkward it was because boosting forward only to find you can't lock your target means you just lost average damage (a small amount, granted, but having a lock sets you up for FCS focused shots on later turns). In short, the whole locking system with the range and links is just horribly goofy and means most of the time you might as well not have a linked action.

Basically, you're doing it wrong, given the Ewing's ship ability. You lock from out of range, then have lock+focus or lock+evade for the actual engagement, then boost>Lock to get out and start setting up for the next pass, while using R2 to regen the shields you lost. You arnt supposed to be using the 1 hard to turn into the enemy unless they are predicting your departure and you can punish them for it.

6 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Basically, you're doing it wrong, given the Ewing's ship ability. You lock from out of range, then have lock+focus or lock+evade for the actual engagement, then boost>Lock to get out and start setting up for the next pass, while using R2 to regen the shields you lost. You arnt supposed to be using the 1 hard to turn into the enemy unless they are predicting your departure and you can punish them for it.

This doesn't actually work, though. If you fly past them, then boost into a lock, great, you have a lock, but how do you reengage at that point especially with an R2 instead of an R4? You're only blue is a 2 bank and even with a boost doesn't help you get back in the fight. In order for this to work you either need nothing but ships doing this (and even then a canny engagement by your opponent can make it inviable) or just accept that you're E-Wing will abandon your squadron after every shot which is just a ridiculous expectation for a 61pt ship.

1 minute ago, MasterShake2 said:

This doesn't actually work, though. If you fly past them, then boost into a lock, great, you have a lock, but how do you reengage at that point especially with an R2 instead of an R4? You're only blue is a 2 bank and even with a boost doesn't help you get back in the fight. In order for this to work you either need nothing but ships doing this (and even then a canny engagement by your opponent can make it inviable) or just accept that you're E-Wing will abandon your squadron after every shot which is just a ridiculous expectation for a 61pt ship.

Ewing, Awing or Kwing, yes. It's not a common combat style.

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

Ewing, Awing or Kwing, yes. It's not a common combat style.

My a-wings usually stick in the fur ball and clog stuff up for my heavy hitters.

You have to find a way to use that free target lock. Having a target lock allows you to use focus for defense. Maybe torpedoes are the secret? I do not believe there is enough data to say whether anything is over or under costed right now. People have not had enough time to fly everything and experiment. I am glad FFG is not doing point re-balancing too often.

6 hours ago, Cgriffith said:

So your point exactly? Just because a ship is expensive doesn’t mean it’s not warranted.

the point is that luke is startlingly better in that price range. he plainly stated that point

I'm gonna need to test this list....

Knave Squadron Escort (61)
R2 Astromech (6)

Knave Squadron Escort (61)
R2 Astromech (6)

Miranda Doni (48)
Hotshot Gunner (7)
Sabine Wren (3)
Bomblet Generator (5)
Hull Upgrade (3)

Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

Is the E-wing overcosted? Absolutely. Are it's linked actions the wrong way around, severely limiting their impact? Also absolutely.

Is it the worst ship in the game? Not even close.

As others have said, the Jumpmaster has it beat soundly, and even in-faction the Ghost would probably make an argument that it's worse off. However, unlike the Jumpmaster, which might not be salvageable even with a price reduction (and no tears were shed), the only thing holding the E-wing back is the price point. Rocking up to combat with a fully-modified Proton Torpedo with no outside assistance is very powerful -- just look at Redline. There's a really strong ship hiding under those extra points, fix that and we're definitely in business.

15 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

As others have said, the Jumpmaster has it beat soundly, and even in-faction the Ghost would probably make an argument that it's worse off.

Lok Revenant...

Alot of Aces across the board need to go up in price. A fair amount of Generics down a smidge.

I came 2nd in a 16 player tournament this weekend with a pair of Knave Squadron Escorts with FCS, R3, Proton Torpedoes and Thane (with just S-foils).

I won two games against Wedge/Luke/Thane triple X-Wing torpedo alphas and a Redline/Vader/Maarek list, and lost my game against Jonus, two Gamma Squadron Aces, and Deathrain all with Barrage Rockets and an assortment of bombs and mines by 1 hull point. Overall pretty pleased with how they performed, and with even a little luck on the green dice the Knaves can prove surprisingly durable.

This isn't to say the E-Wing isn't a little overcosted, but it's not by much. The Knaves fly a lot like the PS 4 TIE Silencers I was flying a lot of at the end of 1st Edition, and the R3/FCS combo alongside the E-Wing's ship ability gives you some very strong offence.

The E-Wing is a great ship. There are too few pilots for it currently IMHO, and a dearth of good system and astromech upgrades. It's a ship that wants three in a list, basically the T70 of 1.0.