"Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast."- Ron Burgundy

Thinking aloud, on little sleep.

Of all the things 2.0 has brought us, which has been far more good than ill, the one fundamental choice that is perhaps most confounding is the intended glut of Initiative 5 pilots. They filled up quickly. This inverted "All Meets One Size" approach has certainly had the most warping effect on two significant facets of the game; squad building, and bidding. In throwing so many pilots into this band, alongside the compressive effects of pilot skill reduction, the designers have placed much of the future ship ace design space within considerable constraint. With barely 5 months and 2 waves underneath us, it isn't unreasonable to ponder how this is going to affect the game long term. Will platforms that can't offer a mix of I5s and who may or may not have expensive I6s be viable? What's to be expected in how this might all shake out?

THE GOOD

Initiative pricing potent upgrades is a start. It's already having an effect on Force users like Kylo, Luke, and Vader. It also is helping future proof the incoming Jedi from the Republic a bit. The slope is tricky, however. FFG is going to ensure the new faction sells but if we're barely seeing Luke, Grand Inquisitor or Kylo in the future due to cost and the incoming efficiency / high health meta, it could be tough to balance properly the few to allow factional viability for all. Perhaps more upgrades being priced by initiative can weed down the temptation to field 4 Resistance init 5 pilots and the like. Even 1 point upgrades like Crack Shot or Marksmanship are better values on an initiative 5 than a 3, for example. Of course, frequent points updates can allow for more fine tuning. The upside is out there.

THE BAD

Squad selection where I5 Aces represent the best option invites counters either in pure efficiency/ high health lists hoping to capitalize on ship count, (3.5 to 4 is trending upwards a bit more it seems in 2.0) an Init 6 Ace plus mini swarm, or the three Ace build which might mandate a couple of 5s still need to go with a 6. So it stands to reason that low benefit chassis pilots at I4 are the least represented in the game. (TIE Phantoms, IG Aggressors notwithstanding.) It's might be why lists containing such as Inferno Squadron, or low health swarms in general, have yet to break open.

THE UGLY

I4 is purgatory for the most part. Mace Windu flip flops. Grievous I4 being a huge liability and rendering his ability moot. Large ship pilots like Asajj, the YV-666 I4s, non factors. Fragile chassis that have I4 aces as their ceiling, such as the Rebel A-Wing, the TIE Aggressor, or the scum Z95, are they already obsolete?

IDEAS TO DILUTE THE I5 TOP HEAVY ISSUE

No one probably wants to see Veteran Instincts come back. It had a corrosive effect on the game and became indispensable. Maybe if it was allowable only on generics? And maybe it gave them a ceiling increase of 1, or had them at initiative 7 during the Activation phase only? Give it 2 charges or something?

I6 is an obvious answer. Han in both factions can prey on those I5s pretty well. Quickdraw is being held back a bit by the high health efficiency lists. Where's Dengar when you need him? He sure could keep them in check. Those B-Wing aces are pretty good though even at I4. They might open some doors.

It's certainly going to be intriguing to see how the game evolves with all of these I5s in the mix. There's just so many of them already out there. I guess in summary, I'd like to see them knocked down a peg or two. I'll try some more I4s. See what else is out there.

Thanks for reading!

13 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

I4 is purgatory for the most part. Mace Windu flip flops. Grievous I4 being a huge liability and rendering his ability moot.

I'm not sure I agree. Yes, a lot more ships have repositioning ability, but I don't get people's view that you must have a higher initiative to be able to get/avoid a shot. After all, no matter how much you spend on an initiative bid, sooner or later you'll face someone who's spent 1 point more and you have to be able to cope with that situation.

A higher initiative pilot with boost/barrel roll/SLAM can often avoid being shot, but as often as not that's by giving up their own shot, especially if a lower initiative pilot can pose impossible manouvre problems.

I like that I6 pilots generally have a weakness - Darth Vader, Quickdraw and Wedge Antilles have awesome initiative and abilities but the limitations of the ship they're flying, and Supernatural Reflexes (justifiably!) is extortionately expensive. Fenn Rau is brutal but the lack of evade and no access to modifications means that if he's caught at range 3 - or worse yet range 2 - he's little more than a TIE fighter with delusions of grandeur. Soontir Fel is incredibly agile but literally made of tissue paper unless you want to spend a million points on modifications. Midnight is great in a one-on-one duel but if asked to engage two ships at once folds like a cheap paper fan.

Thing is, they're all good - and more importantly, all good enough to act as a natural predator to the hyper-mobile Initiative 5 ace - Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren, Duchess, etc.

Initiative 4 is fine provided they have the stronger ability - i.e. you're paying for dice-fettling potential or similar pilot abilities, rather than high initiative activation/engagement.

That's why I like (for example) the TIE striker - "Countdown" and "Pure Sabbac" are distinctly better than "Duchess", who gets to dance at high initiative but that's her one and only trick , and the moment an Initiative 6 pilot peeks over the horizon is not a dramatically better investment than a generic planetary sentinel.

Taking Grievous as an example, his ability looks brutal. A 2-dice reroll conditional on a fairly-easy-to-achieve trigger is incredibly impressive, added to the fact that he will almost certainly have a talent slot and his ability has the same trigger as outmanouvre.

That said:

28 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

IDEAS TO DILUTE THE I5 TOP HEAVY ISSUE

No one probably wants to see Veteran Instincts come back. It had a corrosive effect on the game and became indispensable. Maybe if it was allowable only on generics? And maybe it gave them a ceiling increase of 1, or had them at initiative 7 during the Activation phase only? Give it 2 charges or something?

Veteran Instincts becoming so stapled-on to ships was bad for the game. I'd make the observation that the reason it got so stapled on was because the ships carrying it could get action efficiency in other ways - Veteran Instincts Soontir Fel was never a thing, for example, because he needed Push The Limit to get focus/evade and survive.

In the current situation...

Vader has a force slot, not a talent slot, so wouldn't be able to use a future veteran instincts option.

K4 Security Droid, R4 Agromech, Dengar, and so on have mostly gone (or changed). Linked actions are a thing but one action of every linked pair is always either a boost, barrel roll, or turret rotation, not a 'token stack'.

A high initiative 'talent' could work, provided it's not better than taking a high initiative pilot . I would only give it a single charge, but a single charge "initiative 7" ability is not too bad; you're not "better all the time" - you have to think carefully when to use your ability to get the drop on someone - that, in and of itself, is no worse than inertial dampeners or contraband cybernetics.

I5/6 are broadly too cheap compared to the other pilots on the same chasis.

Wedge is hilariously better than a Cavern Angel. Norra is hilariously better than a Gray Squadron. Old Teroch is hilariously better than Joy Rekoff. For your 11/10/4 points, there's no better upgrade you could take. You can get a better pilot ability and a better initiative for less than the cost of a proton torpedo.

They need to be more expensive across the board. It was the one major thing FFG didn't address in the first points update.

3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

everything

Couldn't agree more. Ideally, FFG does too, and hands the lower initiative pilot the stronger ability onwards. From what we've seen from the new factions, I'm pretty optimistic. Dooku is an I3 pilot with answers to both higher and lower initiative pilots, while Grievous has an amazing pilot ablity that's tempered by his middling iniative. Meanwhile, Maul and Obi-Wan has abilities that are fine but nothing fantastic, and as far as we can tell Anakin requires bullseye and likely has to spend a force token as well.

Also, I think the meta (both local, forum and global) has adopted this idea that you have to move last to win, and that's simply not true. In my local 556 meta I've won lots of games with low to middle initiative lists, often to people who've glanced at my list and expected an easy win. I absolutely love I1 Strikers ("whut, you can bomb me and move 270 degrees?", I2 StarVipers ("how did it get there?!") and I3 Inquisitors ("it...just...won't...die!") in second edition, and I'm still baffled as to why these are apparently considered bad and rarely see play. On the other hand, them rarely seeing table time means that as an X-Wing hipster I still get to play them, and smack Poe and Vader upside the head with squirrely generics.

Its a symptom of a problem. The problem is alot of people equate being I6 and moving last with perfect knowledge of the board state with skill. I say this because alot of them have little to no ability to predict where their opponent if going to be and there fore cant pre plan their maneuvers. Its also why the initial rush to double repo abilities like Super Luke were a thing. It was all about forcinging you to have to pick a spot and then them having the ability to say no matter how good that pick was I can invalidate it buy being able to move after you and not being bound by my dial choice in any meaningful way.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

Norra     is hilariously better than  a Gray Squadron

Mashes X furiously

50 minutes ago, Okapi said:

I absolutely love I1 Strikers ("whut, you can bomb me and move 270 degrees?", I2 StarVipers ("how did it get there?!") and I3 Inquisitors ("it...just...won't...die!") in second edition, and I'm still baffled as to why these are apparently considered bad and rarely see play.  On the other hand, them rarely seeing table time means that as an X-Wing hipster I still get to play them, and smack Poe and Vader upside the head with squirrely generics.

My first outing with Afterburner-equipped strikers (after the points drop allowed them as an option for a 40-point heavy swarmer) featured an Initiative 5 TIE silencer, and after the second movement phase 'Blackout' was left using autothrusters to boost/barrel roll away from a crossfire whilst the player was left going "where the [censored] did they come from?!?!?!?" . I haven't played against starvipers in second edition but several games against the Continously Pinwheeling Cybernetic Ninja* have left me with the greatest respect for its capabilties, and the fact that Supernatural Reflexes is now disturbingly affordable on the TIE/v1 makes it an interesting option where it's legal to use.

56 minutes ago, Okapi said:

Ideally, FFG does too, and hands the lower initiative pilot the stronger ability onwards. From what we've seen from the new factions, I'm pretty optimistic. Dooku is an I3 pilot with answers to both higher and lower initiative pilots, while Grievous has an amazing pilot ablity that's tempered by his middling iniative. Meanwhile, Maul and Obi-Wan has abilities that are fine but nothing fantastic, and as far as we can tell Anakin requires bullseye and likely has to spend a force token as well  .

One reason I think Soontir Fel is a perfect example is that he's cheap, but his pilot ability is stupidly powerful but bullseye locked - meaning that whilst you can easily outfly someone with Initiative 6 and autothrusters, you need to fly him perfectly to get the most out of him. Having I6 pilots with abilities which are either bullseye-locked (Anakin/Fel) or similarly restrictive (Fenn is range-1-in-both-my-arc-and-theirs-without-bumping to get the pilot ability plus fearless)

35 minutes ago, Endureil said:

Its a symptom of a problem. The problem is alot of people equate being I6 and moving last with perfect knowledge of the board state with skill. I say this because alot of them have little to no ability to predict where their opponent if going to be and there fore cant pre plan their maneuvers. Its also why the initial rush to double repo abilities like Super Luke were a thing. It was all about forcinging you to have to pick a spot and then them having the ability to say no matter how good that pick was I can invalidate it buy being able to move after you and not being bound by my dial choice in any meaningful way.

I've met the type. When Push The Limit and TIE interceptors (and later TIE phantoms) first became a thing, you came across this subset of players - who execute a move, then fettle their final position with decloak/boost/barrel roll/SLAM/Whatever to be juuust outside your arc of fire and grin smugly at what an amazing pilot they are.

Thing is, there are situations where you can be left with no good choice at all. Kylo Ren is probably the closest I can think of to "who cares what's on my dial", thanks to boost/autothrusters/barrel roll before moving, but even then, whilst that makes him almost impossible to nail down to get shot if all you try to do is avoid the enemy, getting a shot off at the same time is infinitely harder unless you've taken your repositions into account, just like you have to with adaptive ailerons or decloaking.

* A.K.A. Guri, A.K.A. " Stand Still And Bloody Well Let Me Shoot At You !"

I think it would help to simply make the best pilot abilities on ships that are Init 3 or 4. Empire, for example, has two ships (Striker and Defender) where the highest Init ship has the best ability AND is the cheapest named pilot. Also, just increasing the cost on Init 5 and 6 pilots would help IMO.

yeah they botched innitiative again. if it just alternated then it wouldnt matter

I'll agree with the general premise that the fact of Init 5 and 6 is a little bit underpriced, relative to the rest of X-Wing 2e.

Like, if nearly every Init 5 went up ~2 points, nearly every Init 6 up ~4 points, I think that'd probably be better overall.

18 minutes ago, McGarnacle said:

I think it would help to simply make the best pilot abilities on ships that are Init 3 or 4. Empire, for example, has two ships (Striker and Defender) where the highest Init ship has the best ability AND is the cheapest named pilot. Also, just increasing the cost on Init 5 and 6 pilots would help IMO.

Duchess vs Pure Sabacc/Countdown is interesting. Countdown can be very tanky if there aren't many folks shooting at him. Pure Sabacc gets an extra red die. That's pretty potent. Duchess? It's a good ability, but less flashy. I feel like all three could be the same 44 points and it'd be good. But I really don't think she should be *more* expensive than either of the other two.

Likewise TIE Defender aces, all collapsed on Countess Ryad's point cost. She's certainly underwhelming, but Colonel Vessery is really potent on paper. Potentially two free actions a turn? That's a lot. If he was cheaper than Rexler Brath, you'd probably never see Rexler.

27 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I haven't played against starvipers in second edition but several games against the Continuously Pinwheeling Cybernetic Ninja* have left me with the greatest respect for its capabilities, and the fact that Supernatural Reflexes is now disturbingly affordable on the TIE/v1 makes it an interesting option where it's legal to use.

I've flown generic Starvipers and SNR Inquisitors lately. Both felt fun. Whether or not they truly hold up is a bit less clear, but they're fun ships. 4x Black Sun Assassins with Trick Shot (because I'm trying to suck less with Trick Shot) seems like a pretty solid squad. 3 green dice can get hot from time to time, and waste an opponent's round of shooting. Meanwhile, they move so nice, and tossing some 4 dice shots through rocks is fun.

Generic SNR Inquisitor is also wicked cool. Boost or Barrel Roll into focus into blue move into Lock or Evade is pretty sweet. They can shimmy and shake so well. Only 2 red dice for 48 points hurts some, but they're fun to mess about with.

//

Anyhow, I'll cap things off with a fun list which goes hard on the Init 4 dead zone. Only had one chance to fly it once (I keep switching...), and it was kind of a throw-away game (Scum Han dead on the first round of fire to 14 red dice...), but I feel like it'll be nice to fly it again. Decent mobility, decent hitting. And Init 4 seems like something that might be coming up in value. With the current boom in Rebel Swarm, a 4-ship "Ace Swarm" still has a lot of potential to outfly generics, but also not be quite as bad off as a 3-ship list if someone bites it to a mistake or block or such.

• Soontir Fel (Predator) 54
• Countdown (Crack Shot) 45
• Pure Sabacc (Crack Shot) 45
• Seventh Sister (Hate, Fire Control System) 51
• Total 195, bid 5

Obligatory preface: I generally agree with a lot of the things being said in here.

Looking at Toronto tournament results I wouldn't say that there is a problem with the game. There are a variety of lists that can be played and the top place in both Extended and Hyperspace were generic-focused lists, and while I agree that there is kind of an I4 dead zone I feel like this is more of an issue with Initiative Killing via alpha strike than it is about movement . Dropping the points on these seldom used pilots would certainly see a spike in their use and it might be a "good enough" answer

I'd like to see more variance in what people take, but everybody likes their 'ace' play so they keep taking the I5s. It's not that the lower skills are unusable, it's that nobody wants to use them.

Better match of initiative to pilot ability is a design fix, but takes time to implement and is not retroactive.

I’ll give an alternative that can be implemented immediately: points not spent on pilots or upgrades (ie, the initiative bid) are considered destroyed. This eliminates points fortressing, disincentivizes bidding at below I6, and creates a significant trade off decision for bidding where none currently exists.

38 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

I'd like to see more variance in what people take, but everybody likes their 'ace' play so they keep taking the I5s. It's not that the lower skills are unusable, it's that nobody wants to use them.

It’s a problem of list building choices.

Most often the choice between an I4 and I5/6 isn’t the choice between extra ships or not, but more often the choice between losing a few toys or dropping one pilot to a generic. And the question shifts, is it better for you to have 4/4/4 or 2/5/6? Or even 5/5/6 but with one or two fewer upgrades (eh I guess I’ll drop the second Protorp)?

With generics you are often getting more ships, with high I you get more information. With the 4 hump you get the worst of both worlds often. Still only 3-4 ships but having to maneuver like generics in many matches.

Which is a shame, since there are some really fun I4’s out there. And some are even quite playable! Defenders, V1’s, Strikers, Y’s, TIE/ln’s, and a few others can do quite well in the I3-4 dead zone. A recent favorite list of mine is Vessery, Seventh Sister, And Vynder, all I4 ‘aces’. It’s a ton of fun, and I’ve had good success with it.

But I4 A-wings are super sad, Turr doesn’t cut it, and generally anything that relies on maneuverability is particularly hurt by the hump. Interceptors are either I1 or Soontir (and the I1s are super fragile and go pop, so always run multiples), Rebel A-wings don’t match against Resistance, even with the points fixing, X1’s just are on the struggle bus, even at I5, with their action starved initial engagements, non Guri Starvipers don’t see play for a reason, and so on.

Relying on green dice, even single modded green dice, is bad strategy. And mid I ships are often forced to do so. So fragile ships in that range can’t bring the numbers to even out, but are paying the premium anyhow. They’re too expensive to rely on dice, but unable to use their movement to avoid the worst of it.

If you’re flying Turr, and your opponent has Protorp Wedge, you may as well have them remove one charge and not even deploy Turr.

9 minutes ago, Hawkstrike said:

I’ll give an alternative that can be implemented immediately: points not spent on pilots or upgrades (ie, the initiative bid) are considered destroyed. This eliminates points fortressing, disincentivizes bidding at below I6, and creates a significant trade off decision for bidding where none currently exists.

This feels like an obvious option FFG needs to look into that a bunch of people keep calling for. Maybe FFG will listen to what the players want one of these days.

12 minutes ago, millertime059 said:

It’s a problem of list building choices.

I've yet to feel limited by list building choices within my style of play. Then again, I don't fly aces and arc dodgers. What do I know?

31 minutes ago, millertime059 said:

If you’re flying Turr, and your opponent has Protorp Wedge, you may as well have them remove one charge and not even deploy Turr.

This line made me laugh though - What the heck is Turr doing flying right at Wedge?! What's the rest of the squad doing? Taking pictures and giggling?

No, I'm not making fun of you here, and yes I'm oversimplifying the scenario.

31 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

I'd like to see more variance in what people take, but everybody likes their 'ace' play so they keep taking the I5s. It's not that the lower skills are unusable, it's that nobody wants to use them.

Ehh, I mean when you look at list building you don't really have a great window. You can't really fit 3 I4 ships where you can put 2 I5s, so you don't gain anything but upgrades which have been (rightfully) toned down in 2.0. I want to use Echo, but the mere 4 point difference means that I don't really gain anything by dropping from Echo to Whisper, especially if you consider Collision Detector as a near must-have for Echo.

10 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

This line made me laugh though - What the heck is Turr doing  flying  right at Wedge  ?! What's the rest of the squad doi  ng? Taking pictures and giggling?

   No, I'm not making fun  of you here, and yes I'm oversimplifying the scenar  io. 

Oh I’m oversimplifying too, obviously.

But the point stands. Wedge is **** near as maneuverable as Turr, especially in the initial engage (once that happens then the Interceptor can shine, but you need to survive to that). At I6 Wedge is deploying after Turr, has both boost and roll, and is largely the one who controls if that engagement happens. So if Wedge wants to shoot Turr, well, there is very little on the opening engage Turr can do about it.

Now perhaps your other ships can make this unappealing. But with pricing, you’re probably in a 4 ship Imperial mid I list. Wedge… is either in a 3 or 4 ship brick himself. It’ll be tough to engage in terms that don’t have you lose more value from Turr than you gain.

@Micanthropyre Echo is completely playable and great. In fact Echo and Fifth Brother are good friends. But you really need to leverage that decloak ability. Which, arguably, makes Echo better at range control than Whisper.

1 minute ago, millertime059 said:

Now perhaps your other ships can make this unappealing. But with pricing, you’re probably in a 4 ship Imperial mid I list. Wedge… is either in a 3 or 4 ship brick himself. It’ll be tough to engage in terms that don’t have you lose more value from Turr than you gain

This is my line of thought with Turr, flank with him and present a lot of guns on the other side. I might lose Turr, but that may mean I have guns on with the rest of my ships, which would likely be cheap generics to increase their numbers. I fully agree that Turr is likely over priced in comparison to... well, most other choices. I think for supporting your side of the argument he's a fine choice. 44 points in a fragile frame when almost everybody chooses the high initiative to make it easier on themselves... yeah.

5 minutes ago, millertime059 said:

@Micanthropyre Echo is completely playable and great. In fact Echo and Fifth Brother are good friends. But you really need to leverage that decloak ability. Which, arguably, makes Echo better at range control than Whisper.

I agree. There are three reasons to take Whisper over Echo

• To make arc dodging easier (play style not a build limitation!)
• To get a shot before you're alpha'd off by other I5s (play style, you totally messed up!)
• I can spend an evade token, guys! (mistake insurance?)

Echo on the other hand... oh, the choices. The places we can be. The things I have seen. A good Echo player can be anywhere... and bad one will of course be everywhere they don't want to be. (I think I fall under number two here)

3 minutes ago, millertime059 said:

@Micanthropyre Echo is completely playable and great. In fact Echo and Fifth Brother are good friends. But you really need to leverage that decloak ability. Which, arguably, makes Echo better at range control than Whisper.

Totally playable. I've considered playing both in the same list, but the glut of I5s being played when I was playing mostly Extended made Whisper the better choice. I've not played any Extended since Phoenix (so nothing with the points change) but in list building there aren't very many instances of being able to fit Echo but not Whisper.

10 hours ago, Cloaker said:

IDEAS TO DILUTE THE I5 TOP HEAVY ISSUE

No one probably wants to see Veteran Instincts come back. It had a corrosive effect on the game and became indispensable. Maybe if it was allowable only on generics? And maybe it gave them a ceiling increase of 1, or had them at initiative 7 during the Activation phase only? Give it 2 charges or something?

I actually really like this idea.

But it would be kinda sad to see such a mechanical shake-up after all this conversion kit stuff.

Releasing a new card this impactful could be annoying to implement for 7 factions without a common "card pack" for everyone.

I personally would disagree about I4 being purgatory. I believe there are just a lot of players who are afraid of having to predict what the opponent will do.

In v1 I flew Guri. A. LOT. I still do. But in v1 she was Pilot Skill 5 when 9 was the top end. Despite that, I still flew her and learned how to predict where an opponent was going to go and set myself up for an advantage. Even if they used their higher PS to dodge her arc they were losing out on shots or lacked dice mods.

Guri came out nicely in v2, keeping her Initiative of 5. This has taken some getting used to, as now she’s at a higher tier than most of the pilots in the game. But she’s not high enough to guarantee initiative advantage all the time... Just most of the time. And yet I still fly a lot of PS 3 and 4 aces. Dalan Oberos is a lot of fun to fly, even though Guri out-Initiatives him. Quinn Jast has become my favorite Scyk pilot. And I have flown Jek Porkins more than any other X-Wing in v2! Kulbee Speedo comes close, however.

My only advice is this... step out of your comfort zone(s) and play more pilots who are below Initiative 5. They tend to have abilities that make you scratch your head, or devise combos around. And they’re fun. The first time I pulled a lateral position shift with a Daredevil Dalan Oberos, while maintaining his facing, it blew my opponent’s mind.

Init 5 and 6 are underpriced, relative to the current prices for I 1-4, especially the generics.

Look at, for reference, the skull.

44 for a Zealot.

+6 for a Skull: that +3 init is of limited use. Not a good upgrade.

4 more points gets you Kad: similar to a Pattern Analyzer upgrade, maybe slightly better.

2 more points gets you Old Teroch. You all had better know how good Teroch is.

8 hours ago, svelok said:

I5/6 are broadly too cheap compared to the other pilots on the same chasis.

Wedge is hilariously better than a Cavern Angel. Norra is hilariously better than a Gray Squadron. Old Teroch is hilariously better than Joy Rekoff. For your 11/10/4 points, there's no better upgrade you could take. You can get a better pilot ability and a better initiative for less than the cost of a proton torpedo.

They need to be more expensive across the board. It was the one major thing FFG didn't address in the first points update.

All this ^^

Like whats been said a dozen times here, the point difference is not wide enough to make taking init 4 worth it unless the ability is bonkers good. Jek Porkins or for a mere two points Thane?

13 hours ago, Cloaker said:

No one probably wants to see Veteran Instincts come back. It had a corrosive effect on the game and became indispensable. Maybe if it was allowable only on generics? And maybe it gave them a ceiling increase of 1, or had them at initiative 7 during the Activation phase only? Give it 2 charges or something?

Ceiling of one increase just makes the problem worse. Onyx defenders are I4 and then you are getting two I5 generic Defenders. They arent juking, but dear god, man!

I would like to see a reverse veteran instinct where you can go down in point squads for lower initiative, like adaptability. Like for -1pts you can go from init 4 to 3. You are not getting equal points to init ratio, but it can provide enough to fit in an upgrade you desperately want on another ship, and it can help make flying formation better if you can bring like Ten Numb or Braylen Bwings down to init 3 to fly alongside Blade squadrons at same PS while pocketing a couple points. This could open the way to init 3 and 4 uniques by getting them closer to init 2 and 3 generic pricing. EDIT: Probably limit it to 2 or 3 per squad to prevent spam abuse.

Locally here we have 3 players running the 4xI5 list in Resistance, the only thing I've seen do well vs it is massed ion cannon Y-Wings or high init alpha strike - the mix of high init arc dodging in a highly efficient 4 ship list is just so tough to deal with.