13 hours ago, Oldpara said:

I disagree with those points.

Cartel Spacer with Ion cannon is 33 pts - cheaper would be bonkers. Also Serrisu, Quinn Jast and Inaldra are pretty much in good spot.

I would contend that 6x 3 red dice isn't that good anyway. The scyk isn't that maneuverable and the numbers go down fast. One gets initiative-killed, and your list can probably tank or dodge 5 of them or it's not up to meta snuff anyway. Bring them down 2 points and it still doesn't allow 7; it just lets you upgrade one to Serissu for a tiny bit more staying power at the cost of yet more maneuverability... Like 6x Alpha Interceptors, it doesn't seem remotely broken to me. As time goes on, I expect we will continue to see the low-I generics generally overlooked because there are too many ways to get around a lot of arcs, even when they're throwing 3 dice, and they just bleed MoV like nobody's business.

Quote

Cheaper Missiles would affect also to other platforms - like TAPs etc, which would be too powerful.

Then the problem is the chassis, or (more likely) the very aggressive costing of Passive Sensors. If PS went up 1 and all missiles went down one, who would complain? Not the Z-95, or the RZ-1, or the Kihraxz, which now have viable but quite situational options in Concussions, Ions, or Homing for a tad extra punch. And not the TIE/v1 or TIE/sf because they'd be almost entirely unaffected.

2 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

If PS went up 1 and all missiles went down one, who would complain? Not the Z-95, or the RZ-1, or the Kihraxz, which now have viable but quite situational options in Concussions, Ions, or Homing for a tad extra punch. And not the TIE/v1 or TIE/sf because they'd be almost entirely unaffected.

I'd be very unhappy to see the kihraxz go up, I never run it with missiles. Likewise with the Z, which I'm usually putting deadman's switch on.

10 hours ago, Wazat said:

More and more I think Scum's predicament is a strong argument for different generic upgrade costs per faction. Maul and Handbrake Han etc have spiked card costs so they're ridiculously pricey for the scum faction.

very good point. I think maul crew should be cheaper for scum, why is that guy helping the rebels anyway?

Hate on Assajj is not nearly as OP as on Dooku. Good ol scum os copping collateral damage to keep things balanced in other factions that have access to the same upgrades as scum. Moldy Crow is another example. keep it at 18pts but make some of the pilots cheaper such as generic hawk and Dace Bonearm who r getting zero use right now.

3 hours ago, gadwag said:

...

Someone is probably going to mention sunny bounder with autoblaster, but I think I'd put both seevor and ahhav in my squad before bringing her, especially in the current meta. I appreciate though that sunny would be good fun.

Ion Scurrg and Y-Wings can’t make use of Juke, however...

I’ll one up the Sunny Bounder suggestion with Quinn Jast equipped with an Ion/Auto Cannon, Predator, and Afterburners. Predator can be swapped for Marksmanship on the Auto, Juke if you have the points, or Elusive.

You know you wanna try it... It’s super fun!

Encouraged by the discussion I took Serissu for the tournament yesterday evening. And I won

With Ion Cannon and Crack Shot for 46 pts she's quite effective as a budget ace.

51 minutes ago, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

why is that guy helping the rebels anyway?

Go watch Star Wars: Rebels and you will have your answer.

24 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

on Scurrg and Y-Wings can’t make use of Juke, however...

Juke isn't an improvement unless you can also get a free evade. 3 red with evade and juke vs 3 naked greens gives you 1.197 hits, but 3 focused reds vs 3 naked greens gives 1.217 hits. Low init pilots are also likely to spend their evade on defence before they can fire anyway. The only pilot where juke remotely makes sense is Laetin, but I think that's throwing good points after bad (I'd only take Laetin if I had a TPV and a single spare point with nowhere better to spend it).

32 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

I’ll one up the Sunny Bounder suggestion with Quinn Jast equipped with an Ion/Auto Cannon, Predator, and Afterburners. Predator can be swapped for Marksmanship on the Auto, Juke if you have the points, or Elusive.

You know you wanna try it... It’s super fun!

Now this is my kind of nonsense! I think I'd take composure instead of afterburners so I could double-mod my attacks with a failed burner boost. It's a rather expensive option at 43pts (even more if you take proton rockets) but it sure looks fun! The more sensible choice is probably just a naked cartel marauder and save points for something else, or scrape around for a point to upgrade to a cartel executioner, but that quinn build is...not terrible, and certainly fun!

One other thing for the fun bucket: inaldra with proton rockets can spend her shield to fire a double-modded 5-die attack. Lining up someone in bullseye to pull off that attack is a bit of a challenge, though. I had a great time in 1.0 using her with proton torps and deadeye.

Just now, Oldpara said:

Encouraged by the discussion I took Serissu for the tournament yesterday evening. And I won

With Ion Cannon and Crack Shot for 46 pts she's quite effective as a budget ace.

Was she accompanying ketsu and old Terry?

4 minutes ago, Oldpara said:

With Ion Cannon and Crack Shot

Also just checking - you didn't use crack on your ion cannon attacks did you? Cos that doesn't work

1 minute ago, gadwag said:

Also just checking - you didn't use crack on your ion cannon attacks did you? Cos that doesn't work

Of course not. But there is many occasions you're in r1 and wanna put final blow on the enemy with 3 dice primary and crack helps with that.

4 minutes ago, gadwag said:

Was she accompanying ketsu and old Terry?

I am extensively testing now double Lancer lists (with 3rd ship accompanying).

I feel its next hidden power Scum have. Not sure if its Tier1/Tier0 and not sure about 3rd ship yet.

Serissu is strong option.

10 minutes ago, Oldpara said:

Of course not

Just checking, because I've made that mistake myself before (and I make it regularly when list building)

2 minutes ago, Oldpara said:

I am extensively testing now double Lancer lists (with 3rd ship accompanying).

Serissu does feel like a decent option there, she's around the right price point for what you want and can bring an element of control to help the lancers getting their front arcs working. If you find that serissu is a target too often, tac jammer works pretty well on a lancer

58 minutes ago, Oldpara said:

Encouraged by the discussion I took Serissu for the tournament yesterday evening. And I won

With Ion Cannon and Crack Shot for 46 pts she's quite effective as a budget ace.

Thats how I've used her effectivley alongside, Nym, Kavil and Talonbane.

14 hours ago, Scum4Life said:

At absolute best you get to Tractor a ship then deal 8 damage from two range 1 attack. But more likely Tractor a 3, maybe 2 agility ship, then deal ~ 4 damage. It doesn't seem crazy and one B's down no double-tapping and the final T beam might only help put something on rock if at all. Plus Tractor just got slightly nerfed. I dont think it would be too scary.

You say like that 4 damage isn't, y'know, actually quite a bit of damage.

It's not so much the raw firepower I'd be worried about, anyway, as just the raw amount of coverage. Three medium base arcs can cover an awfully large amount of the map, and if any small base gets into that space they stand a reasonable chance of being tagged and thrown into a disastrous position. And we're not talking about squishy little Scurrgs or anything; we're talking about 3-agility, 8-health monsters who can pull a very reasonable Defender impression when necessary. And, again, there's three of them.

I could be wrong, but -- and remember, this is coming from someone who'd be flying these things -- it sounds horrendous. For the opponent.

11 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

You could always increase the IG-2000 title to compensate. That way you can make 2 IGs and a third ship easier to fit, but 3 IG less so.

This would certainly be much less spooky than just giving them a flat reduction.

58 minutes ago, gadwag said:

Juke isn't an improvement unless you can also get a free evade. 3 red with evade and juke vs 3 naked greens gives you 1.197 hits, but 3 focused reds vs 3 naked greens gives 1.217 hits. Low init pilots are also likely to spend their evade on defence before they can fire anyway. The only pilot where juke remotely makes sense is Laetin, but I think that's throwing good points after bad (I'd only take Laetin if I had a TPV and a single spare point with nowhere better to spend it).

I use Juke with Seevor quite often- for him it makes sense to take an Evade to give him a better chance of surviving to shoot and if I don't have to use it I still have a way to de-buff the enemy on my shot.

I took a different approach to the whole "scum is weakest" question.

Ok.... long post, but bear with me.

On the up side I think scum has some of the most unique tricks. Things like

• Boba Fett crew allows some unique deployment options.
• Tobias Becket crew allows obstacle movement.
• Moralo Eval going into reserve and entering again.
• Tel Trevura not dying one time.

And (barring nantex) we definitely have the best tractor control tricks:

• Space Tugs
• Ketsu (Both ship and crew)
• Latts Razi ship

On the down side, a lot of the unique abilities comes with a negative effect. Certainly a lot of abilities in the game have some cost, but scum has the most (I think) abilities that actually damages ourselves or are fairly weak.

• B5-TK (Still trying to find a really good reason to shoot yourself. I know we have loaded DMS ships or Kuldra, but these are not game winning effects)
• Greedo crew (You better shoot first or else)
• Jabba crew (You can make junk illicites spawn more junk for just 2 crew slots, and staying within range 0-2)
• A lot of abilities that either stresses or damages yourself to use. Don't think this is really unique to Scum though, but we have a lot.

But where it all breaks down is fleet-wide synergy.

I did a search for the words "each friendly ship" and "a friendly" and "each enemy" in all pilots, ships and upgrades.

The number of times each of these terms occurs over the factions:

"Each friendly"

• Separatists 2 (Kret Pilot, TA-175 Relay)
• Empire 2 (Grand Moff Tarkin Crew, Moff Jerjerrod Crew)
• Rebels 1 (Leia Organa Crew)
• First Order 1 (Hyperspace Tracking Data Tech)

"Each enemy"

• Rebel 2 (Chopper Pilot, Baze Crew)
• Scum 2 (Boba Pilot, Kuldra Pilot)
• First Order 1 (Phasma Crew)

"a friendly" (So in general these abilities can trigger off any friendly ship, so good synergy. Depending on the ability could be as strong as each friendly, for example good old Drea)

• Rebels 14 (Lowhhrick Pilot, Evaan Verlaine Pilot, Esege Tuketu Pilot, Gavin Darklighter Pilot, Jan Ors Pilot, Kyle Katarn Pilot, Lando Calrissian Pilot, Jake Farrell Pilot, Magva Yarro Pilot, Benthic Two Tubes Pilot, Kanan Jarrus Pilot, Jyn Erso Crew, Kanan Jarrus Crew, Sabine Wren Crew)
• Republic 12 (Jag Pilot, Sinker Pilot, Goji Pilot, Obi-Wan Kenobi Pilot, Barriss Offee Pilot, Luminara Unduli Pilot, Saesee Tiin Pilot, Ahsoka Tano Pilot, Axe Pilot, Swoop Pilot, Tucker Pilot, Ahsoka Tano Gunner)
• Sepratists 10 (Captain Sear Pilot, Baktoid Prototype Pilot, Gorgol Pilot, DFS-081 Pilot, Hyena Ship, Vulture Ship, General Grievous Crew, K2-B4 Relay, TA-175 Relay, TV-94 Relay)
• Empire 7 (Captain Jonus Pilot, Howlrunner Pilot, Del Meeko Pilot, Iden Versio Pilot, Valen Rudor Pilot, Muse Pilot, Admiral Sloane Crew)
• Resistance 5 (Vennie Pilot, Chewbacca Pilot, Jaycris Tubbs Pilot, Chewbacca Crew, Leia Organa Crew)
• Scum 4 (Drea Renthal Pilot, Manaroo Pilot, Serissu Pilot, Overseer Yushyn Pilot)
• First Order 1 (Captain Cardinal Pilot)

Ok, so this is no proof of anything. I don't know the meta, and don't know what of the listed things are top tier... But look at the things I listed for Scum.

Boba, Drea and Serissu all made the lists, all known to be really good ships. (And technically "each enemy" from Boba doesn't even fall within the scope of synergy, but I felt that its a valuable term to include.)

Manaroo was top tier in V1.0, and then nerfed down a couple of times AND is now on arguable one of the worst ships otherwise I'm certain she would see more play too.

Kuldra and Yushyn are more occasional tricks.

And... oh wait, thats all of them. 6 In total. Largest number of ships. Lowest synergy.

ok ok, I over exaggerate, First Order is lowest on the list, and Resistance is also quite low. As for FO Hyperspace tracking was so strong it required emergency points adjustments and Phasma is still top tier material. And both FO and Resistance are relatively new armies with a lot of growth focus at the moment.

Laetin is totally worth the +1 pt over a Tansari Vet. Is the veteranest Tansari Vet!

I like Laetin with Juke becaue he just meshes well with it. And his ability gives you an evade token regardless of whether or not the attack came from him or an opponent. He can be amazingly tough to push damage onto. He is also one of my first picks for “Dunelizarding”.

Basically I have a pair of third party Dunelizards painted up, that I really like. And until FFG does an official Dunelizard, I run them counts-as a Scyk with Hull or Shield Upgrade. I’ve yet to see a single competitive player ever do this, as the 7pts is a huge turn-off on an already not-very-attractive chassis for competitive players. But the end result of having just a bit more health is interestingly useful on someone like Laetin.

Thread turned into "Scum are meh, but Scyks are fine"

1 hour ago, Ikka said:

I use Juke with Seevor quite often- for him it makes sense to take an Evade to give him a better chance of surviving to shoot and if I don't have to use it I still have a way to de-buff the enemy on my shot.

Not a bad idea, although I find that seevor is valuable partly because he is cheap. Sure, Juke+evade helps you defend, but the price of juke also makes seevor a more attractive target.

29 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

Laetin is totally worth the +1 pt over a Tansari Vet.

If you have a spare point, sure - but I don't think Laetin's ability is worth building around. If you want to use juke you still have the dilemma of choosing your first action - either take a focus/lock to mod your attack (and hope that an enemy shoots you and you can dodge it to get an evade) or take an evade anyway and just have a weaker attack than not using juke. Laetin is a bit hardier than a normal vet though, which is something

14 minutes ago, gadwag said:

If you have a spare point, sure - but I don't think Laetin's ability is worth building around. If you want to use juke you still have the dilemma of choosing your first action - either take a focus/lock to mod your attack (and hope that an enemy shoots you and you can dodge it to get an evade) or take an evade anyway and just have a weaker attack than not using juke. Laetin is a bit hardier than a normal vet though, which is something

So... Laetin with an Autoblaster and Juke is 42pts (49 if I Dunelizard him).

31pts buys me a Mining Guild Surveyor with Squad Leader. And I have 127 (or 120) points left to do whatever I fee like.

Laetin may not have linked actions, but in that setup I’m not worried about a Tie fighter spending it’s turn telling him to Focus before he tries really hard at not dying.

I find that the mining Ties, and the Scyks, work quite well together.

23 hours ago, Oldpara said:

Cheaper Missiles would affect also to other platforms - like TAPs etc, which would be too powerful.

As I have only seen TAPs and droids be good missile carriers, you could simply raise the cost of those chassis proportionately.

9 hours ago, Bort said:

(synergy stuff)

I've found the Scum synergy to be more implicit than explicit, and what's there can be really solid. Examples include the Tractor Aggressors discussed above, Old Teroch stripping tokens from a ship you want to shoot with allies (whether that's juking allies, or really just anyone who wants an exposed target), quadrijets tractoring things into position for shots or onto rocks, Torani stripping tokens from foes scared to take auto damage so allies can fire at a naked & afraid target, or allies shooting before torani to give her a naked target for her railgun, Ketsu moving a target for allies, Asajj or 0-0-0 stressing targets to limit their options next round, etc.

I wouldn't worry about the lack of aura and explicit helper abilities. Those aren't the only useful synergy out there, and a lot of aura abilities aren't used all that much. The standouts that are don't make for a strong case for/against the others; they're too unique (e.g. Leia). And Scum lacking synergy isn't necessarily a hobble. Rebels and Empire presumably thrive on synergy but not all their fleets bother to use those abilities.

Scum is more a group of pilots that, if solid on their own, tend to work well together simply by virtue of not having a limp leg anywhere. E.g. two bounty hunters joining forces. Ketsu isn't necessarily feeding synergistic vibes to anyone, with or without the title, he's just a potent pilot. Guri is a wacky & mobile ace looking for a frenemy. Boba is just a nuclear blast looking for a crowd. Add to this the support effects like tractoring, ion, quirky movement and deployment, etc and you can make some very solid lists. It's just pricey to do so right now, that's all.

I think if points were adjusted just a bit to make the fleets not so overcosted, we wouldn't be having this synergy discussion. It wouldn't matter, because scum is plenty synergistic and solid as it is. It's been a monster in the past with the same -- or less -- synergy. It's just overcosted now because of balances to other factions, neglect, and some power creep. All of that is easily fixable in a points & slots update.

13 minutes ago, Wazat said:

It's just overcosted now because of balances to other factions, neglect, and some power creep. All of that is easily fixable in a points & slots update.

True. It doesn't help though that every time S&V has something close to Imp or Reb synergy it gets nerfed into the grave.

54 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

True. It doesn't help though that every time S&V has something close to Imp or Reb synergy it gets nerfed into the grave.

Agreed. Jedi or Empire Aces are amazing and I don't expect them to be nerfed away (they might get slight adjustments but not made meta-nonviable). Scum is like the step child that gets slapped for seemingly doing the same thing as its half-siblings.

Though other stuff has been nerfed to death, e.g. Rebel Beef, Handbrake Han, and Triple Upsilon Rush. So maybe it's just that the quirks of scum place it onto the naughty list any time it's getting good, by virtue of being strange enough to freak players & FFG out. Scum has a lot of control effects, and Boba's whole deal is passive mods. You can have passive mods if you're a force user, otherwise it's naughty.

1 hour ago, Wazat said:

It's true.

14 minutes ago, Wazat said:

All of it.

Qft.

are quadhumpers still worth using at 32? Anyone have the sick urge to get on board with make quadhumpers great again at 30 points?

9 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

are quadhumpers still worth using at 32? Anyone have the sick urge to get on board with make quadhumpers great again at 30 points?

Give it a test:

Jakku Gunrunner (32)
Pattern Analyzer (5)
Total: 37

The tractor nerf has reduced the strength of its support ability, but against small bases it still has some capability.