9 hours ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

The Contain ( SSD with DCO) is about to become a huge part of the Armada

(Something Big is Coming)

I wonder if DCO is actually bad for Armada... I've run into it recently and having my crit effects nullified across the board nothing I can do about it seemed a bit off... By the end of those games looking back I wasnt sure that DCO made any difference as there was always going to be enough damage to kill that ship irregardless(intentionally spelt wrong)... Which brings me to my point:

If DCO is unfun for the crit ship, but doesn't make a difference in the final outcome of a lot of games, then why is it in the game...

I suppose no one much cares about this right now because it's usually only on one ship in your opponents fleet. But when your opponent's fleet is one ship as in the case of the SSD, is a DCO effect good for the game...I'm gonna say not!

53 minutes ago, SkyCake said:

why is it in the game...

To prevent metas from becoming overly crit-dependent. She's otherwise a silver bullet that occupies a valuable slot on expensive ships. SSD? Absolutely. MC75? Ehhhh, unless you know somebody who likes ACMs on everything. She can be countered, too. HMDV, Intel Officer, resolving multiple critical effects on a ship per turn, there are answers.

9 hours ago, SkyCake said:

If DCO is unfun for the crit ship, but doesn't make a difference in the final outcome of a lot of games, then why is it in the game...

By that logic someone could claim that squadrons don't belong in the game because they don't have fun playing a squadronless or squadron light fleet against a full bomber wing.

The premise of this thread seems to be based on the belief that all defense tokens should be equal. I disagree with that sentiment, and there is not much more to add really.

Regarding DCO, I personally dislike the card as it is a situational hard counter. I realize other hard counters exist (Xi7 and Adv. Projectors for example), but I'm not a fan of cards that have such a big outcome on a match depending simply on what you come up against. If your opponent has no special critical effects, then you waste 5 points, but more importantly lose your crew slot on your big ship. Alternatively if facing HIE and/or black crit upgrades, it easily saves 4-6 damage. I would have designed it as a much cheaper discard card, to serve the same purpose, but the investment is less and the payoff is much milder.

I'd be interested to see win rate statistics from Screed when against a DCO and when not.

31 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

By that logic someone could claim that squadrons don't belong in the game because they don't have fun playing a squadronless or squadron light fleet against a full bomber wing.

Actually no. When you go squadless there are at least upgrades you can take that will help mitigate damage from bombers and deter them from attacking you for too long... So there IS something you can do about it... When you go crit heavy and the guy throws an SSD with DCO on the table there's nothing you could have done differently, no upgrade you could have brought that can mitigate or challenge that... DCO in that case is going to save him significant amounts of damage against crit fleets but again maybe not significantly change the out come of the game... So why have it...

25 minutes ago, Divad said:

The premise of this thread seems to be based on the belief that all defense tokens should be equal. I disagree with that sentiment, and there is not much more to add really.

That's actually not true (and, as the OP, I should know). But I would like to see it more useful than it is, and, above all, more interesting to use.

The original 3 defense tokens are not all equal, nor are they all equally valuable to every ship they come with. I'm fine with that. But contain has a really, really small window of useage. And as others have pointed out, if your opponent is rolling ACM, HIE, APT, XX9, then it's basically a completely useless defense token (outside of DCO, but I think those 2 things need to be looked at independently of each other).

38 minutes ago, SkyCake said:

Actually no. When you go squadless there are at least upgrades you can take that will help mitigate damage from bombers and deter them from attacking you for too long... So there IS something you can do about it... When you go crit heavy and the guy throws an SSD with DCO on the table there's nothing you could have done differently, no upgrade you could have brought that can mitigate or challenge that... DCO in that case is going to save him significant amounts of damage against crit fleets but again maybe not significantly change the out come of the game... So why have it...

How is that a valid argument?

If someone takes a DCO SSD, there are other non-crit upgrades you could take, that push through or pump out, more damage rather than crit effects.

Besides, hard counter cards like DCO should be unfun for one trick pony lists, and useless against others. It makes for a healthy diverse meta.

28 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

If your opponent is rolling ACM, HIE, APT, XX9, then it's basically a completely useless defense token (outside of DCO, but I think those 2 things need to be looked at independently of each other).

I don't think they do. Most lists ARE running one of those, or Norra, or any other random blue crit effect. Which means that cancelling their ability to do those crits is actually super solid.

18 hours ago, Snipafist said:

Honestly the problem it has nowadays is it's vulnerable to tabling and the squad component is too anti-squad. The 3-ship version (Interdictor, Quasar, Gozanti) that I took first with is my preferred version of the fleet at this point but it would need a full-on overhaul after the flotilla nerf. Whatever new version you came up with needs to answer the question of "why isn't this just another Thrawn 2 ship fleet?" which can have a good answer but you need that answer if you're otherwise running Imperials with heavy squads nowadays. I seem to recall hearing of a Screed Interdictor Glad Raider 2 Goz fleet with a lot of squads doing well at one of the Regionals. Interdictor with HIEs, Glad with Demo, Kallus, and Flechettes to make other ace balls sleepy, and just designed to mulch through shields and let the bombers pound other ships to pieces.

The Screed Interdictor / Demo / Goz fleet was @CommanderDave 's fleet. It's a lot of fun to play.

52 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

The original 3 defense tokens are not all equal, nor are they all equally valuable to every ship they come with. I'm fine with that. But contain has a really, really small window of useage. And as others have pointed out, if your opponent is rolling ACM, HIE, APT, XX9, then it's basically a completely useless defense token (outside of DCO, but I think those 2 things need to be looked at independently of each other).

We seem to be glossing over what @Grumbleduke mentioned. Squads can't use upgrade cards, so Contain is always useful against bombers. There are also 4 cards in the damage deck that force you to discard a defense token, so it's good for that if nothing else.

38 minutes ago, Astrodar said:

The Screed Interdictor / Demo / Goz fleet was @CommanderDave 's fleet. It's a lot of fun to play.

We seem to be glossing over what @Grumbleduke mentioned. Squads can't use upgrade cards, so Contain is always useful against bombers. There are also 4 cards in the damage deck that force you to discard a defense token, so it's good for that if nothing else.

That's not strictly true as there are a few special Crit effect bombers: Nym and Norra come to mind, specifically Norra who allows all her bomber friends to drain your shields.

It does have more impact against squadrons in general though, I agree.

3 hours ago, SkyCake said:

Actually no. When you go squadless there are at least upgrades you can take that will help mitigate damage from bombers and deter them from attacking you for too long... So there IS something you can do about it... When you go crit heavy and the guy throws an SSD with DCO on the table there's nothing you could have done differently, no upgrade you could have brought that can mitigate or challenge that... DCO in that case is going to save him significant amounts of damage against crit fleets but again maybe not significantly change the out come of the game... So why have it...

12 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

She can be countered, too. HMDV, Intel Officer, Palpatine , Sloane , Boarding Troopers , resolving multiple critical effects on a ship per turn, there are answers.

1 hour ago, The Jabbawookie said:

She can be countered, too. HMDV, Intel Officer, Palpatine, Sloane, Boarding Troopers, resolving multiple critical effects on a ship per turn, accuracies, Nym, Avenger , literally anything else you'd normally bring to mitigate defense tokens, there are answers.

9 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

ACKCHEWALLY.... Doesn't Nyms effect count as a crit effect she can mitigate?

#NerfDCO

22 minutes ago, geek19 said:

ACKCHEWALLY.... Doesn't Nyms effect count as a crit effect she can mitigate?

#NerfDCO

FOILED AGAIN

4 hours ago, cynanbloodbane said:

How is that a valid argument?

If someone takes a DCO SSD, there are other non-crit upgrades you could take, that push through or pump out, more damage rather than crit effects.

Besides, hard counter cards like DCO should be unfun for one trick pony lists, and useless against others. It makes for a healthy diverse meta.

hmm yes perhaps I worded it poorly... and your right I could just take add dice upgrades instead of crits… my problem with this is :

crit effects provide a fun and interesting aspect in the game. there should not be a cheap, zero opportunity cost hard counter( in the case of the SSD) to anything in the game... all the counters we have now(Brunson, admo, lando, etc.) have ways the crit player can try and get past them... and wave 7 DCO hasn't been a problem because not all ships your opponent would take would have it...

You could add Intel Officer @skycake. Counters evades and DCO.

53 minutes ago, SkyCake said:

hmm yes perhaps I worded it poorly... and your right I could just take add dice upgrades instead of crits… my problem with this is :

crit effects provide a fun and interesting aspect in the game. there should not be a cheap, zero opportunity cost hard counter( in the case of the SSD) to anything in the game... all the counters we have now(Brunson, admo, lando, etc.) have ways the crit player can try and get past them... and wave 7 DCO hasn't been a problem because not all ships your opponent would take would have it...

Zero opportunity cost? She's an officer slot. And 5 points isn't historically cheap. It also only has 2 contains. Start burning them down fast and it'll fall.

6 hours ago, SkyCake said:

Actually no. When you go squadless there are at least upgrades you can take that will help mitigate damage from bombers and deter them from attacking you for too long... So there IS something you can do about it... When you go crit heavy and the guy throws an SSD with DCO on the table there's nothing you could have done differently, no upgrade you could have brought that can mitigate or challenge that... DCO in that case is going to save him significant amounts of damage against crit fleets but again maybe not significantly change the out come of the game... So why have it...

While all the other's points stand I also want to point out the problem with your logic that I was trying to critique, which is, an aspect of the game doesn't have to be fun for everyone in order for it to be a valid part of the game.

I HATE squadron play. It drives me insane playing people with full fighter wings. It drives me nuts having to field squadrons to counter them well enough to win (at my skill level, I'm sure some of you can do it without, no need to inform me of my lacking skill lol). That doesn't invalidate squadrons as part of the game if I have a bad time.

That was what I was trying to say. lol

1 hour ago, SkyCake said:

hmm yes perhaps I worded it poorly... and your right I could just take add dice upgrades instead of crits… my problem with this is :

crit effects provide a fun and interesting aspect in the game. there should not be a cheap, zero opportunity cost hard counter( in the case of t  he SSD) to anything in the game  ... a  ll the counters we have now(Brunson, admo, lando, etc.) have ways the crit player can try and get past them... and wave 7 DCO hasn't been a problem because not all ships your opponen  t would take would have it...   

I think you're taking it too far here. If you're a special crit-dependent fleet going against a DCO-equipped SSD, your job is to overheat or lock down the contain tokens (or Vader-remove the DCO). That's not much different than being a bomber-focused fleet trying to overheat redirect tokens against most ships. If you've got a single crit-dependent ship, it's probably going to have a bad time. You might want to reconsider swapping out its upgrade for something else. If you've got more than one, you should be fine. A pair of Raider-IIs with HIEs going after an SSD are quite likely going to see the first HIE crit canceled but the second attack should be able to lock down the green contain and force the exhausted contain discard if the SSD is looking to keep its shields.

It will mean changing some upgrade suites and fleet builds, but the SSD was already going to do this just like nearly every wave release does.