Hi everyone - I've heard really conflicting opinions about how people view the various faction strengths now, and we've got a couple weeks before there's another System Open Series that should provide an early indication about whether there's a new power list that will set a list strength benchmark.

To settle whether the part of the community concerned about a specific faction are clearly in a minority, I put together a very short, 4 question survey to get a feeling on whether the community is actually totally split on this... please take 30 seconds to read through and answer!

Results:

Faction power rankings are shown in 2 ways because I feel like you get interesting information out of both of them.

Rebels are currently over-represented in top placement; we've yet to see what the point cost changes do to impact their dominance, though. Also there has to be some consideration to the bandwagon effect, where people hear about rebels being so good and ergo they too play rebels and ergo rebels are overall over-represented.

Imps still have (and IMHO should have) the 'best' overall lists in the form of TIE swarms, but these lists are disproportionately difficult to fly correctly and so severely punish even small mistakes that you hardly ever see them in competitive play. They might be more competitive in tournament placement if they had more options for easy to fly / consistent lists (if the Hot Rod Decimator build picks up in popularity, that might give the imps what they need).

Scum is in a horrendously bad spot, with just a tiny number of viable lists and an illicit upgrade slot that is laughably bad. I suppose this is just desserts for scum being God mode for such a long time, but yikes they could use a bit of a hand now.

4 hours ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

Scum is in a horrendously bad spot, with just a tiny number of viable lists and an illicit upgrade slot that is laughably bad. I suppose this is just desserts for scum being God mode for such a long time, but yikes they could use a bit of a hand now.

^This. would love to see some help for Scum and some pilots that are just priced out of the competitive bracket. Here is a wish list...

• All Starviper pilots 2pts cheaper
• Maul crew at 10pts
• Skull Squadron Pilot at 46pts, 50 is just not worth it.
• -3pts reduction for all GA1 starfighters (4-LOM is awesome but not so stellar without 10pts of advanced sensors and 2pts of title)
• Hawk pilots could use a slight reduction. 18pts for the title is excessive. Is this the most costly title across all factions? Punishing One is 8pts and Verigo is 10pts.
• Han Solo gunner is priced out of the game. Marauder 6 and Solo12 adds 18pts to Boba 85pts rounding him out at 103pts. I guess the Han Gunner days are long gone but if he cost 10 he might actually get played somewhere.

Well the newer factions are just starting to get filled out. 4 ships does feel like a more complete faction.

1 hour ago, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

^This. would love to see some help for Scum and some pilots that are just priced out of the competitive bracket. Here is a wish list...

• All Starviper pilots 2pts cheaper
• Maul crew at 10pts
• Skull Squadron Pilot cost at 46pts, 50 is just not worth it.
• -3pts reduction for all GA1 starfighters (4-LOM is awesome but not so stellar without 10pts of advanced sensors and 2pts of title)
• Hawk pilots could use a slight reduction. 18pts for the title is excessive. Is this the most costly title across all factions? Punishing One is 8pts and Verigo is 10pts.
• Han Solo is priced out of the game. Marauder 6 and Solo12 adds 18pts to Boba 85pts rounding him out at 103pts. I guess the Han Gunner days are long gone but if he cost 10 he might actually get played somewhere.

Boba is also basically priced out of the game (in terms of competitive play) right now.

I mean, I get it, he was way too points efficient on release, but 85 points is a silly over-correction. He cannot win back 85 points worth of value before being taken off of the table.

Probably needs to be trimmed back something like 4 points, maybe even 6 points.

1 hour ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

Boba is also basically priced out of the game (in terms of competitive play) right now.

I mean, I get it, he was way too points efficient on release, but 85 points is a silly over-correction. He cannot win back 85 points worth of value before being taken off of the table.

Probably needs to be trimmed back something like 4 points, maybe even 6 points.

I agree. Its sad how he got mega nerfed last time and they have not readjusted things. I mean he is still playable and even good but not efficient enough on points to contend with what other factions are bringing against you.

I'm currently working on a brobots squad that might be competitive. still tinkering. Scum has lots of options just only a few really good ones. Palob and 4-LOM are still good but similar to Boba have been a bit pushed back in goodness. I hate paying 18pts for Moldy Crow, that's hard to build around. I mean you can build around it but your viable options start to shrink and ur really looking at a 3 ship list that either doesn't have much going for it in terms of initiative Palob = 3 and 4-LOM = 3. You are signing up to have Jedi or sootier/vader or wedge dance around ur low initiative ships . There is a reason rebel beef ran 4 ships. It could and it was efficient and was competitive vs the meta.

I believe it's too soon to point out which faction will be the top wolf. Give it 1-2 months

15 minutes ago, Vector Strike said:

I believe it's too soon to point out which faction will be the top wolf. Give it 1-2 months

At least we'll get a reference point so we can compare players' opinion right after pts changes with the power level after some exploration. After some seasons we might see how accurate these "hot takes" are.

1 hour ago, Vector Strike said:

I believe it's too soon to point out which faction will be the top wolf. Give it 1-2 months

imperials is top dog. rebels is still top 3. rebel beef will retool and still be really competitive. phantoms arent dead but have taken a good sucker punch.FFG doesnt want u to play multiple generics with juke, that still leaves whisper and echo right?

republic jedi squads with two torrents is probably top tier. im placing that faction 2nd behind imperials and rebels 3rd but as you say its a little too early to lock in definite faction rankings other than top3 and bottom 3. separatists lose hate/infiltrator but have some interesting droid swarm tools. i think theyre middle of the pack right now. Resistance, FO and Scum at the bottom imo.

I think there is an absolutely brutal list waiting to be unlocked with the new crew for the resistance. Combine that with the viability of several different versions of quad T-70, and I think they are a real sleeper (although my vote didn’t save on that question for whatever reason).

I also think that while what was arguably the best Republic list (regen 7B Anakin and Ahsoka with 2 Golds) is no longer viable, there are a ton of other variations on Jedi + something (not to mention N1s) that they are going to have a better showing than a lot of factions.

Of all the factions, CIS is, I think, in the weirdest spot. Not the worst, mind you, but the weirdest. They don’t have a lot of variance in list archetypes, Hyenas aren’t looking to change that, and even in Wave 4, they get an odd little ship that doesn’t look like it will switch up the archetypes all that much. Then again, who the heck knows? I’m still excited as heck for them (even if I’m more pumped for the Republic Y-Wing).

I'm pretty confident Empire will top this meta. Just got murdered last night by Hatchetman, which didn't get invalidated by the points update, despite winning at least 1 System Open IIRC. A lot of great rebates on Empire stuff (even Sloane!), whereas Rebels were pushed back, I would argue, to a worse spot in points-costs than at 2.0 release - and Rebels were last (of 3) in that meta. Scum did not do well in this points-update either, further opening the door for Empire. Resistance could be a thing, as mentioned above, with the new cards. CIS, FO, and republic are all pretty balanced, and I don't see the smaller factions having the options yet to rule the meta, but it's possible CIS (nantex) or republic (N1's) could sneak a winning list in. But my money's on Empire.

I'm definitelly in the camp that Republic is going to be dominating. Mace, Obi-Wan, and Plo Koon are crazy cheap now, even with the jump to 7B, and CLT is very affordable. Torrents are usable (even without missiles) and dedicated costs what it should. The N-1 will add some interesting options as well. I didn't see Empire get all that much out of this points adjustment, but they also didn't get hit to hard (neither did Rebels though). My 2nd would be Resistance because their large bases are crazy cheap for what they can do now. You can fit a lightly-equipped Rey/Ello/Nien list, or drop one to L'ulo to get all the upgrades you could want. Even with the cost of TrajSim, the bombers look quite playable. Add to that the resistance transport, pod, and new crew options, and you finally have the first non-OT faction that can really do whatever it wants (high-I arc-dodgers, munitions, bombs, tanky freighters, ace X-Wings, various support shenanigans, etc.). The other 3 want in on this action, especially FO.

Speaking of which, First Order and Separatists are enigmatic. No idea how they'll be doing honestly because most of their existing tricks got slight nerfs, but on the whole, the factions got huge buffs. Both have very few options for fieldable ships, but what they have is quite affordable. The Hyena is also a big question mark. It's like a TIE bomber with various loadouts and networked calculations, but a worse dial and less health. I'm quite eager to see how they do.

8 hours ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

Boba is also basically priced out of the game (in terms of competitive play) right now.

He's a little overpriced, but not by much. He got a point off, which will help, and he was performing at an almost-average level (23% compared to 27%) in the 16 lists he was used in this last season. Compare to Dash who was taken in 3 lists and performed at 17% or Leebo and the Wild Space Fringer which were taken in no lists. Those are unplayable and they didn't get touched.

Literally impossible to tell given how points are technically even legal

Best we can do is kneejerk, like saying how CLT cost decrease and the seeming utter ridiculousness of Ole! at 42 points puts Republic on top.

But no one has any real idea, especially given the nearly across-the-board buff to FO's TIEs and CiS' unabashedly weird ****

To everyone who says that it’s impossible to tell which faction will dominate, if any, I basically agree with you. This is mostly just to catch a snapshot of how people feel at the outset of a chaos meta.

I expect the reality of a month from now will not reflect the poll outcome.

59 minutes ago, PaulRuddSays said:

To everyone who says that it’s impossible to tell which faction will dominate, if any, I basically agree with you. This is mostly just to catch a snapshot of how people feel at the outset of a chaos meta.

I expect the reality of a month from now will not reflect the poll outcome.

I dunno this community is pretty impressive - I remember when last points change landed people were immediately posting their Drea + Lok, Yion lists and also Imperial players were giggling that Quad Phantoms made it thru losing just 1 Juke. People (including me) were immediately using Leia the day after points drop bc we knew it was bonkers, as well as Braylen/Ten.

So I'd say like ~50% of the meta was nailed by the community days after points-drop, with the rest being surprises (Handbrake Han, Hatchetman, ...)

Interesting stuff! As people have already said, it's way too early to make any meaningful judgements, but I'm still going to give my hot take none the less.

1. Galactic Empire - While the TIE Phantom did get hit reasonably hard in the last points update, the Empire still has a really strong selection of ships and archetype available to it. There's a lot of individually good elements that can be built into even better lists, and I think the TIE swarm may be in a place to do really well in the upcoming Hyperspace season.
2. Rebel Alliance - The Rebels definitely got hit harder than the Empire with the last update, but they've still got a really versatile toolbox of ships available to them. If you're looking at Extended, both the Empire and Rebels benefit from just the amount of choices they have.
3. Resistance - I think the Resistance Transport and Pod are both going to really flesh out the list building options for this faction, and certainly make them a very strong Hyperspace presence. In Extended they've got more competition, but the new ships and upgrade they're getting give them a strong selection of options.
4. Galactic Republic - 3 and 4 are really a toss up in my opinion, but I think the Republic took a bit of a significant hit with the effectively 6 point increase to the "standard" Anakin build. A lot of the other Jedi have come down in price however, and the addition of the N-1 is likely to lead to some new lists that I'm finding hard to predict. There's a lot to like about the Republic still, but they now pay through the nose for their previous trick of a super mobile I6 Force using ace.
5. CIS - Ouch, those increases to the Sith Infiltrators and Hate hurt. That said, the discounts elsewhere are really good, and opens up quite a lot of options for both the Vulture Droid and the ships that accompany them. I'm pretty sure that Soulless One Impervium Grievous is probably the best value ship in the game right now. It's going to take a little while for the best builds to shake out, but I think we'll see the CIS making much more of an impact on the competitive scene going forwards, held back in Extended only by their lack of options to respond to shifts in the meta.
6. Scum - Scum just didn't really make any major gains in the points update, and one of their key pieces (Drea) went up by a painfully hefty 7 points. That said, they do have access to a lot of stuff, which can help, and I'm interested to see if the drop in points on the Kihraxz and Kimogila help those ships to see play. (I'm a longstanding fan of the Cartel Marauder.)
7. First Order - This hurts me to say, as the First Order are my favourite faction, but they just can't keep up at the moment. The drop in price on the FO and SF are great to see, as is Hux getting more reasonably priced, but having the Upsilon go up in cost (particularly ones that aren't called Tavson) is just baffling. They're really in dire need of another ship or two (now being effectively two ships behind the Resistance thanks to the Pod/Transport combo), and the Separatists and Republic get a better selection of pilots to work with. Maybe there's something in large numbers of reasonably durable ships in FO or SF swarms, but I think they are the weakest faction by far as things currently stand.

23 minutes ago, mcintma said:

I dunno this community is pretty impressive - I remember when last points change landed people were immediately posting their Drea + Lok, Yion lists and also Imperial players were gigging that Quad Phantoms made it thru losing just 1 Juke. People (including me) were immediately using Leia the day after points drop bc we knew it was bonkers, as well as Braylen/Ten.

So I'd say like ~50% of the meta was nailed by the community days after points-drop, with the rest being surprises (Handbrake Han, Hatchetman, ...)

There's really nothing surprising about taking **** that was already very strong from the previous meta and also incorporating the same incredibly obivous i.e the suddenly 2 cost Leia (+ buffed named Bwings) and the suddenly 4 points cheaper ict + vtg combo.

Handbrake Han and Hatchetman and w e other H lists we discovered later were the real...discoveries

Don't think there's anything of that scale in this update, other than the high exaggerated anti-rebel bias thread that gravely overestimates how nerfed beef is.

Only really Drea lok got utterly ruined, and technically juke phantoms as four is no longer possible...but yeah the phantom itself is still super solid. Just comparing the Sienar to an I 3 xwing, or something, shows that you've easily come out ahead with Cloak + Stygium instead of a talent (Stygium easily making up for the 1 hull difference)

Scum's biggest chance is that the Ketsu + Old T + Ship archetype certainly didn't get worse, but I still have them ranked #6. I do think that there is a lot of new stuff that could happen in Scum though and I'm secretly pulling for them to come out top dogs.

8 hours ago, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

FFG doesnt want u to play multiple generics with juke, that still leaves whisper and echo right?

4x Sigma with Predator fits... 3x Juke + Passive Sens Baron or bare generic Inq v1 fits. Multiple Sigmas are still going to see table time (not that they should be nuked off the table by points adjustments). Be ready for that.

I do agree that scum is the least attractive so far, apart from Ketsu

In hyper though...Guri got a literal point increase. Oh the robomanity!

So, while the big beef got some much needed nerfing nothing really got superbuffed outside the necessary tweaks to FO TIEs and Servants of Strife (balanced by the gutting of double Sith; not convinced hate is dead now though ..)

Basically, staying the same (other than losing tac off on the craft and I guess trickshot on Han) isn't actually a bad thing. ****, the Fang seems untouched despite general across-the-board nerfs to I 5+ platforms that were any good (ie NOT oddball)

And with Jedi r2 getting more expensive, CLT making them less of a threat, and the n1 seeming nutty...well, it's Old T's time to shine!

@PaulRuddSays are you going to post the results or do I have to fill the form out twice to see them?? Scratch the second part, it won't let me take it again (not a bad thing) but I cannot see the results now...

40 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

@PaulRuddSays are you going to post the results or do I have to fill the form out twice to see them?? Scratch the second part, it won't let me take it again (not a bad thing) but I cannot see the results now...

I’ll post the results for sure, probably late this weekend after we’ve had a good chance for people to be heard. I’m at 99 responses so far, which is more than I expected.

Results haven’t shifted wildly since it started... I expect we’ll get some REAL hot takes if people want to argue about the interpretation, though.

That was fun and interesting. Thanks for setting it up!

As for ‘what ship will have the biggest impact’ I answered N1, however if I’m being honest it’s its the Resistance transport. Not the ship, per se, but the crew it comes with. Resistance has some bonkers good crew choices that lead to interesting lists. That probably has the biggest impact.

Honestly I could see Rebels, Republic, Resistance, or Empire as top dog this swing. FO as a sleeper. The only ones I don’t see are Scum and Separatist. Not because they are bad, but because hive mind thinking and the fact there is no one clear archetype that will be consistent. They’ll get their licks, but droids are inherently swingy. But if they won 20% of the system opens I wouldn’t be shocked either.

Scum has some terrific ships, I just think the points moaning is going to keep them from seeing major representation. Maybe I’m wrong. But Fangs, Vipers, Firesprays, And HWKs are all still amazing ships and with the whack to rebel beef I could easily see their top ships in 3 ship lists becoming top performers. There just won’t be any one specific list like there was for Rebels*

*broadly speaking. Yes some variance, but BUXX, BBUX, UXXY etc all fly similarly enough