gas clouds are popular and showing up in numbers. is this just a phase? is it a gas cloud meta now? will they eventually fade in popularity? they are the most ship friendly obstacle.

trickshot isnt as good vs gas clouds and squads using obstacles as part of their offensive strategy/damage output are less effective vs gas clouds.

are you liking the trend for lots of gas clouds?

I don’t like the trend, because I feel it’s just too easy a choice to make unless it’s specifically a part of your strategy to use something else (trick shot, fishing for stress control with debris, Scum Han, Mining Guild Ties, etc)

I like the world of choices.

2 hours ago, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

gas clouds are popular and showing up in numbers. is this just a phase?

I've heard a lot of talk about them.

Seems like a lot of hot air to me.

IMO, gas cloud are trickier to use than most people give them credit for.
I think that most people that bring gas cloud do so because they think : ''Hey, there are the easiest obstacle to use, they punish way less than asteroids or debris. I'll bring all three!''
The problem is that often, you don't want to bring gas cloud if they end up benefiting your opponents more than you.

For example if you play Kylo + quickdraw + Tavson. You think ''Hey, i'll bring gas cloud, that way tavson won't have to bother with obstacles!''
But then you play against Rebel beef, who actually want to take a large cube space and advance slowly. Breaking their formation became that much harder to do because now they effectively can go anywhere without repercussion.

So instead of advantaging you, your gas cloud actually help you opponent.
So you have to really think if gas cloud are worth it to your list to really make the most out of them, IMO.

I'm fine with them, and still take other obstacles as needed. They're not as much of a no-brainer choice as people think, as they can do just as much for your opponent as they do for you.

Bad. Obstacles should make you lose attack when you land on them.

1 minute ago, Blail Blerg said:

Bad. Obstacles should make you lose attack when you land on them.

what if you bought 5 obstacles and each chose 3 from a pool of 10? If i bring gas clouds they can choose them. If I bring 3 gas clouds they still take one and two others.

Just now, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

what if you bought 5 obstacles and each chose 3 from a pool of 10? If i bring gas clouds they can choose them. If I bring 3 gas clouds they still take one and two others.

The density of obstacles on the 3x3 right now is fine imo (maybe a tad on the sparse side). Its more the issue of combo-wing ships generally not having any sort of consequence flying through them. Everything else is hurt hugely by them.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

Bad. Obstacles should make you lose attack when you land on them.

I think we need a new obstacle then because the only one that does is rocks, and I got tired of always playing in an asteroid field. Bring back the satellite tokens but have some sort of card effect system where the effect is slightly randomized for each game (not each overlap). But yeah having 2 different types of soft obstacles and only one type of hard obstacle does seem a little uneven to the soft end.

3 hours ago, DarthSempai said:

IMO, gas cloud are trickier to use than most people give them credit for.
I think that most people that bring gas cloud do so because they think : ''Hey, there are the easiest obstacle to use, they punish way less than asteroids or debris. I'll bring all three!''
The problem is that often, you don't want to bring gas cloud if they end up benefiting your opponents more than you.

For example if you play Kylo + quickdraw + Tavson. You think ''Hey, i'll bring gas cloud, that way tavson won't have to bother with obstacles!''
But then you play against Rebel beef, who actually want to take a large cube space and advance slowly. Breaking their formation became that much harder to do because now they effectively can go anywhere without repercussion.

So instead of advantaging you, your gas cloud actually help you opponent.
So you have to really think if gas cloud are worth it to your list to really make the most out of them, IMO.

So gas clouds are the ones that punish the overlapping less as you skip your action which all obstacles do (well debris clouds don't but the stress that they give does). That being said they could also punish in a different way. If you end up attacking through a gas cloud (and you don't have a focus) you might find yourself missing more teeth than your target as the effects end up working both ways. Yes it is terrain to focus more on defensive bonus of obstacles instead of just something to avoid all together but all obstacles are neutral unless you specifically build for them (Mining Ties with Debris gambit). They can work both ways.

the one thing I will say is gas clouds sort of removed debris clouds out of the way. Obstacle selection like much of X-wing squad building has been subject to the min/max selection which means they are always picked to have either the minimum (gas clouds) or maximum (asteroids) effect. Much like how 1st edition you either had all small rocks or all big rocks (or all debris clouds if you were Dash Rendar). So with debris clouds now being in the middle effect there is little incentive to take them.

You should basically always take rocks against any sort of meta list. Fat Han, 4 Rebel Beef, Palp Aces, 2 fat ship, anything that has ever been meta in 1.0 and 2.0 is dealt with by rocks (except for those grappling separatists). Even Dash can ignore rocks the least.

Though, gas clouds... might be okay vs him now.

I've been trying 3 with a palp aces list running Duchess and Rexler, both of which have tricks when running over them.

I'm not sure how impactful they've been for me, but it is telling to me that I'm mildly annoyed when my opponent brings 3 clouds. That tells me I should bring some rocks.

I think they're a bit dumb, given that were released with the strain mechanic I thought for sure they'd give a strain token. The 'zero' consequences for hitting them feels bad when your opponent does it, but feels good when you do it! 😂

Previously I pretty well always used the 3 largest rocks, with only one tourney recently taking debris.

34 minutes ago, Roundy1161 said:

I think they're a bit dumb, given that were released with the strain mechanic I thought for sure they'd give a strain token. The 'zero' consequences for hitting them feels bad when your opponent does it, but feels good when you do it! 😂

Sums this up quite well.

8 hours ago, Marinealver said:

I think we need a new obstacle then because the only one that does is rocks, and I got tired of always playing in an asteroid field. Bring back the satellite tokens but have some sort of card effect system where the effect is slightly randomized for each game (not each overlap).

That's a cool idea.

Also, ion clouds could give you an ion token as a new mechanic.

10 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

The density of obstacles on the 3x3 right now is fine imo (maybe a tad on the sparse side).

I still think the game needs more ways to manipulate obstacles. +1/-1 during setup, and stuff like seismic torpedoes and minefield mapper.

It could even be a pilot:

Lt. Hebsly: when deployed, you may place 1 additional asteroid.

In the lore, he was near Anoat. If he shows up, the battle must be taking place there, in a higher density asteroid field.

Gas clouds are better. Unless you don't have them, playing with the other obstacles is just vanity.

I wouldn't say they have zero consequence for flying over them. Losing your action is usually a pretty big consequence. And if your attack draws a line of fire through that cloud, then you may as well not even attack.

6 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

I wouldn't say they have zero consequence for flying over them. Losing your action is usually a pretty big consequence. And if your attack draws a line of fire through that cloud, then you may as well not even attack.

The ability to go where ever the fk they want. Avoid dying to it cuz it blocks attacks while getting some weird *** shot on some poor non combo wing generic shmuck is worth wayyyyy more than the lost action.

Awful

3 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

The ability to go where ever the fk they want. Avoid dying to it cuz it blocks attacks while getting some weird *** shot on some poor non combo wing generic shmuck is worth wayyyyy more than the lost action.

Awful

Unless your ship wasn't going to be shot at in the first place, in which case your weird shot is rolling unmodified attack dice, probably through an Autothrusters cloud, at a focused target. Yay?

Or you are getting shot at, but the attacker was able to account for the cloud and worked out a line of fire that ignored it.

We've had obstacles with a minimal chance of damage that still allows you to attack ever since debris fields were introduced.

5 hours ago, AceWing said:

Gas clouds are better. Unless you don't have them, playing with the other obstacles is just vanity.

Nope, it's strategy. My Chiraneau/Whisper list uses the biggest rocks I can get. I only have two attacks, so I don't want to waste them giving my opponent a free evade result. Whisper has a collision detector, so I am often perfectly happy ending a move on a rock to give myself a defensive bonus and no penalty. Plus, there's a chance that they could land on a rock themselves, in which case they probably don't have the same considerations built into their list.

But if I'm using a list that can manage stress, like Anakin or Nien Numb, then I'll probably build around debris clouds in order to get bonuses that my opponent can't get.

47 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

We've had obstacles with a minimal chance of damage that still    allows you to attack ever since debris fields were introduced  .

Yeah debris fields and dash were also bad.

Sure, gas clouds *seem* like no consequences. Then you sloop over one, facing it, no problem, right? Unless you then take a loose stabilizer crit and a stunned pilot at the same time.... while one one health. Seriously. It happened. I looked down and went, oh, so either I turn, and die, or I go over the gas cloud, and die. True story. Gas clouds kill, y'all.

Do think they could stand to be more punishing

Like, if you engage while on one, you get an ion token. That'd get people to respect them a bit more and put more risk into them than just being an autothruster wall

People have brought up strain as another interesting idea

Overall, I'm all for variety but I think they're too "easy" esp when the list is built around them (Jedi LOVE these things)

Yeah, I think they should give strain (automatically) or a chance to ionize (on hit, focus, or crit, depending on how punishing you want to be... or maybe just if you attack while sitting on one).

They seem kind of boring. I prefer the large ion clouds from HotAC. I wish they had made something big enough that you are encouraged to interact with it, not just simply barrel roll around it.

I've used them a handful of times, but usually when teaching new players the game and don't want to punish them too harshly. I don't really have any issue with them and they open the door for new obstacles, namely ion clouds.

11 hours ago, PhantomFO said:

I wouldn't say they have zero consequence for flying over them. Losing your action is usually a pretty big consequence. And if your attack draws a line of fire through that cloud, then you may as well not even attack.

It is, but if you are a force user it really feels like no consequence. I lose an action, still have focus mods, and now have autothrusters.

Playing a game of mtg with my brother in law recently also made me think about these. His deck was built around mutual card draw (i.e. he puts out cheap artifacts/enchantments that enable both players to draw more cards, hence 'balanced') With that strategy, you are banking on you being able to take greater advantage of the cards than your opponent. That is how I feel with the gas clouds as well, and I'm not sure I will get more benefit than my opponent. Normal rocks/debris are the same, but the extra defensive bonus from the gas clouds really change the balance.

Strikers like them as they can roll up right behind them, and then completely 0 consequences over them with ailerons. Jedi love them as they don't switch of fine tuned controls so charge through them, reposition to ensure cover, and have force as mods. Afterburners Vader loves them (twice) and the defender quite likes them as well.

On 6/16/2019 at 2:03 PM, Blail Blerg said:

Bad. Obstacles should make you lose attack when you land on them.

I think they missed an opportunity that going through a gas cloud should give a strain token.

You lose an action for going through a gas cloud, with the large amount of coordinatiors, Ahsoka ability types, this downside seems rather negligible.