24 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Rerolls are not blanks to hits.

Can you explain why blanks to hits should be an NPE when other mods are not?

Particularly, why is a free reroll on 3 dice not heaps and bounds better than optics on a 2dice ship? Whether optics should or should not go only on 2attack dice ships, currently that's where they overwhelmingly are. And a focus+reroll (1-3) on 3 dice is always better than optics on 2 dice - including the chance to get 0-2 hits.

I honestly do not understand why optics on 2 attack dice would be treated as worse than passive rerolls on 3 attack dice. Unless you meant to describe an irrational feeling. Optics has to be announced specifically, the different ways of rerolls don't. Maybe that makes optics stand out more, I don't know. But a reroll on 3 dice is just so much better than optics on 2 that I do not understand why one is an NPE and the other is not.

3 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Is Tina TN-3465?

Heh, ninja'd. Yes.

19 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Rerolls are not blanks to hits.

I'm saying the NPE here is the blank to a hit. That was the issue with some of the worst 1.0 stuff. There were all sorts of things where the dice results didn't matter. All of the Resistance and FO ships have access to Advanced Optics except the Scavenged YT and thus access to blank to hit without particularly fancy flying.

I'm going to have to take issue with this. A 1-die reroll + Focus is better than Advanced Optics.

It's a reroll and not a blank-turn, but on 2 red, 3 red, or 4 red, mathematically it's superior. Is Howlrunner an NPE for existing? Is Predator? At some point, you have to look at the math. I know NPE is about feelings as much as victories. That's why Nantex and Tractor got mega nerfed.

But a fixation on Blank-to-Hit as magic and without reference to the probability of dice outcomes... yeah, no.

20 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

5 TIE/SFs use advanced optics, but seem to be used as a list significantly less than 5As and pretty much get ignored in the conversation. Is it because they are easier to hit? People feel like the match is more fair if they are dealing damage.

I think it's the mobility. The TIE/sf has a really great dial, but it can't boost. Boosting rear arcs can just put A-Wings into places with Range 1 shots which feel really unfair sometimes. 5 TIE/sf is a withering barrage of a jousting list, but like most jousting lists is ultimately limited. 5A brings ace-like features into it.

I’ve been playing 5 A’s pretty consistently since I got back into X-Wing, and while I don’t usually play hyperspace format, I tend to play a smattering of A-Wings with Heroic, Crack Shot, and Optics (generics with less upgrades as necessary). I play this squad because, well, flying a pack of meth addict squirrels is a blast.

They also fold like wet tissue paper if anything remotely close to focus fire is pointed in their direction. Heroic doesn’t trigger all that often on green dice, and usually 2 or 3 attacks is all that’s needed to pop one, and of course every A-Wing aficionado has had three blanks heroic into three blanks at least once (if you haven’t, you will). All that optics and heroic do is even out the variance on a VERY dice dependent ship. It provides a measure of consistency, and that consistency is really the only thing (besides price) that lets the A shine.

Based on my experience flying RZ-2’s, here are some of their weaknesses:

They REALLY don’t like flying in formation. They will spread out to make a kill box. Don’t be in the box, and pounce on them one at a time. Start by initiative killing the generics, because that’s one less shot that turn. Then you can focus up the ladder. Greer should be your first target after the generics, or your first target period if you can’t initiative kill one of the A’s. He’s low-key the best RZ-2 out there.

They need focus. Every single action after turn 1 will be focus. That leaves them limited to either boosting or rotating arcs. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve needed to boost to arc dodge and ended up with the wrong end of the ship pointed at the enemy. That also means I’m stressed, which means a blue next turn. I like to switch it up when my opponent gets comfortable, but 9 times out of ten, I’m doing a hard 2.

Block them or stress them. A blocked RZ-2 is a dead RZ-2. Same goes for a double stressed RZ-2. Their dial is great, but usually there’s only one or two really viable moves they can make and still impact the fight. Block those maneuvers and you either have a blocked and soon to be dead A-Wing or an A-Wing that’s not contributing.

RZ-2’s are (generally) capped at 2 damage. Sure, they are most likely getting 2 hits. That damage isn’t unavoidable, and can take a long time to chew through beef, especially if there’s a reinforce thrown into the mix. I’ve been absolutely gutted by Kallus in a VCX of all things. Also, deplete tokens are some bull.

I don’t want my post to come across like “git gud,” just trying to point out that the ship is good and the list archetype is strong, but it’s not unbeatable at all. What’s also important is that most of the named pilots can mitigate one or two of their weaknesses (Zizi can scrounge up a focus, Greer is always on target, L’ulo is L’ulo), but no one mitigates all their weaknesses (and for all it’s worth, Tallie’s ability text should read “I’m initiative 5, suckas!”).

I will concede that RZ-2’s are probably a touch too cheap, but they are also on the razor edge of viability. Too light of a touch does nothing, too heavy of a touch kills the ship as a competitive option.

1 minute ago, FatherTurin said:

Based on my experience flying RZ-2’s, here are some of their weaknesses:

Shhhhh!

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Can you explain why blanks to hits should be an NPE when other mods are not?

I have been trying to explain why it feels wrong.

How most people experience dice results bears no resemblance to statistical impartiality or "fairness" of those results. An NPE is how about how things make us feel. Not about how they should or should not make us feel. When a Heroic A-wing with Optics and Focus goes from blank-blank to crit-blank to crit-hit it doesn't feel fair. It may in fact be fair or even unfair to the A-wing but it doesn't feel fair to be on the other end of it.

It feels like the A-wing should be stuck with the blank and a player can feel ill done by when on the receiving end of that.

You're answering a statement about feelings with logic. The feeling is that a blank then re-rolled and getting a hit is the way it goes. Blank re-rolled to blank and still ending up a hit feels wrong. Good on all of you who can keep their feelings about the dice results in check with their logic about the dice results.

It doesn't feel right that getting a blank doesn't matter. Take D&D and their 20 sided dice. From a statistical standpoint 1-5 and 16-20 all being "hits" is the same as 11-20 being "hits" but it is done one way and not the other. You aren't allowed to pick the eleven results you'll get a "hit" on from roll to roll (yes for lots of reasons but "feelings" is certainly one of them.)

I played with a bunch of AO ships today, and honestly I feel like you just got an opponant with good rolls that made it seem super legit and OP.

Most of my rolls today, I would have had the same result whether I spent the focus to change focus results or a blank. So I barely ever actually needed to use AO. It only came in to play maybe three times over 2 games.

Also you took Dengar...so like...yeah of course you got smashed lol

the consistent accuracy can feel very TLT, I get that. but there are ways to deal with it. 5A is a super fun list, and there are many ways to build it. I'm a bigger fan of 3A + Poe personally as it helps handle some of the things the RZ2's can't on their own.

Boba is a deadly counter to the A-wings tho as he is insanely hard to get damage into with just 2 die attacks. I also found, until I added Poe, that Kylo/Jedi were difficult to deal with as well.

1 hour ago, Frimmel said:

It feels like the A-wing should be stuck with the blank and a player can feel ill done by when on the receiving end of that.

You're answering a statement about feelings with logic. The feeling is that a blank then re-rolled and getting a hit is the way it goes. Blank re-rolled to blank and still ending up a hit feels wrong. Good on all of you who can keep their feelings about the dice results in check with their logic about the dice results.

Then I misunderstood you, or at least missed an important part: I'd expect that any mentioning of irrational feeling about advanced optics would be followed by a sentence explaining that/why it is irrational.

1 hour ago, Frimmel said:

I have been trying to explain why it feels wrong.

How most people experience dice results bears no resemblance to statistical impartiality or "fairness" of those results. An NPE is how about how things make us feel. Not about how they should or should not make us feel. When a Heroic A-wing with Optics and Focus goes from blank-blank to crit-blank to crit-hit it doesn't feel fair. It may in fact be fair or even unfair to the A-wing but it doesn't feel fair to be on the other end of it.

It feels like the A-wing should be stuck with the blank and a player can feel ill done by when on the receiving end of that.

You're answering a statement about feelings with logic. The feeling is that a blank then re-rolled and getting a hit is the way it goes. Blank re-rolled to blank and still ending up a hit feels wrong. Good on all of you who can keep their feelings about the dice results in check with their logic about the dice results.

It doesn't feel right that getting a blank doesn't matter. Take D&D and their 20 sided dice. From a statistical standpoint 1-5 and 16-20 all being "hits" is the same as 11-20 being "hits" but it is done one way and not the other. You aren't allowed to pick the eleven results you'll get a "hit" on from roll to roll (yes for lots of reasons but "feelings" is certainly one of them.)

but if we start with the feeling game, where do we stop? People can feel a lot of different ways about lots of stuff.
Does it feel unfair when Vader shoots down Luke because he never did in the movie? Does it feel unfair when a player roll 3 red dice and get hit hit crit with no mod? Does it feel unfair that I only have 3 ships, but the other list has 8? Should we just ban all those unfair moment from the game? If the game is entirely about how you feel, am I suppose to ask the opponent if he could just lose against me because I really like winning?

Statistic are great, because they are always ''fair'' , in the sense that they never really favor a player and just describe likely occurrence.
Personally, knowing about statistic is great, because I can know when things were likely to happen anyway (ex. ''Wow, your kylo with advanced optic got a lot of hit this game, you're very lucky'' well yeah, the pilot has 98% of at least 2 hit, of course it's bound to happen often)
versus knowing when something is unlikely but just happened, and now yeah it sucks but it's not like it'll happen all the time (''that Fenn Rau just threw 5 hits at r1 with no mod. It came at the worst possible moment, and it sucks, but I know it probably won't happen each time i'll play against him so I shouldn't get stuck up on that'')

2 hours ago, Frimmel said:

I have been trying to explain why it feels wrong.

How most people experience dice results bears no resemblance to statistical impartiality or "fairness" of those results. An NPE is how about how things make us feel. Not about how they should or should not make us feel. When a Heroic A-wing with Optics and Focus goes from blank-blank to crit-blank to crit-hit it doesn't feel fair. It may in fact be fair or even unfair to the A-wing but it doesn't feel fair to be on the other end of it.

It feels like the A-wing should be stuck with the blank and a player can feel ill done by when on the receiving end of that.

You're answering a statement about feelings with logic. The feeling is that a blank then re-rolled and getting a hit is the way it goes. Blank re-rolled to blank and still ending up a hit feels wrong. Good on all of you who can keep their feelings about the dice results in check with their logic about the dice results.

It doesn't feel right that getting a blank doesn't matter. Take D&D and their 20 sided dice. From a statistical standpoint 1-5 and 16-20 all being "hits" is the same as 11-20 being "hits" but it is done one way and not the other. You aren't allowed to pick the eleven results you'll get a "hit" on from roll to roll (yes for lots of reasons but "feelings" is certainly one of them.)

That's not an unreasonable position. I just think there's a limit to it.

Nothing stinks more than having only a Lock and rolling 3 blank/eye miss results into 3 more blank/eye. Optics has their own trash roll, in the Blank/Focus. I've had games where Blank/Focus has turned up like three times in a row, and that's also frustrating. That's clearly a time when rolling the blank *does* matter. I think some of it has to be chalked up to this being a dice game, and having to trust that long-run the dice are fair, and that the probabilities matter. I think it's a part of the game where the math has to be taken more seriously than feelings.

I think there are certainly unpleasant things with low-ish win rates (Nantex) which deserve the nerfs they got.

And again, I think a lot of this might be more about rear arcs than Advanced Optics. I guess we won't really know, since we don't see too many massed Advanced Optics TIE/fo lists, but since they'll have to give up their focus to K-Turn or S-Loop, it probably feels less bad. Not because Optics is a uniquely unpleasant kind of dice modification, but because these RZ-2s and TIE/sfs have such high time-on-target while focused.

13 hours ago, KettchGER said:

I faced lists based on Advanced Optics all day long (2x Avenger + 4 Zetas, and 1x 5-A-Wings) and got beaten up really bad.

( OP's list: Fenn Rau, Dengar and 2 M3As with autoblasters)

I don't believe this has been mentioned yet, but keep in mind that both of the lists you mentioned are actually pretty good lists.

Until you play each a few times they can be tough to deal with.

With the list you used, I'd probably pick the Avenger + Zetas or 5As to win the majority of the time, assuming players of roughly equal skill.

So while AO is pretty good, and *really* good in quantity, I don't believe it's under-priced or can't be dealt with.

Most of the pods routinely put Optics on the RZ2s when discussing lists. As soon as something is auto-include on most of the pilots of a ship (or over several ships) , the situation smells a bit fishy.

On the Rz2 the problems is having: basically 2 arcs, linked actions, heroic, amazing dial and optics, all together. It is a bit much, esp. at the price point.

Last game at the club I clearly outflew my opponent, getting blocks with Intimidation Marksmanship Arvel on higher ini enemy Rz2 A:s, enabling -1 def die on the other attacks from my squad, and still lost, cause could not push enough damage through the stupid combo.

10 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

Last game at the club I clearly outflew my opponent, getting blocks with Intimidation Marksmanship Arvel on higher ini enemy Rz2 A:s, enabling -1 def die on the other attacks from my squad, and still lost, cause could not push enough damage through the stupid combo.

And the connection to optics? That you took too much damage too fast?

11 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

As soon as something is auto-include on most of the pilots of a ship (or over several ships) , the situation smells a bit fishy.

I agree with that. Same with AfterburnerVader, MaulBoba, FearlessFenn, 7bAnakin/Obi, NiennunbLando, ReyFinnRose, Uwings+Leia, and so on. There are a ton of these automatic combinations. All deserve a close look, but not all are the same kind of problem. Sometimes the culprit is the pilot, sometimes the chassis, and sometimes the upgrade - and sometimes nothing.

35 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

Last game at the club I clearly outflew my opponent, getting blocks with Intimidation Marksmanship Arvel on higher ini enemy Rz2 A:s, enabling -1 def die on the other attacks from my squad, and still lost, cause could not push enough damage through the stupid combo.

This doesn't sound like an optics problem.

If you were blocking him he wouldn't have a focus to use AO in the first place.

This sounds like a "not having enough ships shooting at the blocked target" or "not rolling well enough" problem.

This is a troll thread right? I mean... right?

30 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I agree with that. Same with AfterburnerVader, MaulBoba, FearlessFenn, 7bAnakin/Obi, NiennunbLando, ReyFinnRose, Uwings+Leia, and so on. There are a ton of these automatic combinations. All deserve a close look, but not all are the same kind of problem. Sometimes the culprit is the pilot, sometimes the chassis, and sometimes the upgrade - and sometimes nothing.

Out of reacts but this is exactly the right response. I'm kind of in the camp of "Wait and see" because 5A has been pretty strong for a while, though mostly flying under the radar. I feel like spam lists shouldn't be good most of the time, with a potential exception if it's spam of a ship that's a great generalist (like the X-Wing for example). The reason is that most ships are designed for a specific niche. If you double-down on one niche, then you should be made vulnerable to lists that can exploit that. If you still do well, I'm concerned that either that play style is too strong or the ship/upgrade combo being spammed is just too cheap.

Obviously I wouldn't make a definitive ruling in this case. AO is very strong on 2-primaries, especially with Heroic, but at 4 points it seems fair. On the other hand, the RZ-1 seems like it's in a decent place and the RZ-2 costs... just 2-3 points more? Again, I'm certainly no authority. Maybe the RZ-1 needs more of a break, but I somewhat suspect that the low-end As and SFs could use a teeny little price bump. We'll see how the season goes and whether that intuition proves misplaced.

I could see it. On a play experience level for sure. For now, on how effective in the meta that will be, I'll hold judgement till I see some data, but as an experience I could totally see how that would feel like the Dark Times.

Your some where between looking at a player with too much agency, and that feeling of inevitability with the repeated numbers being thrown at you. Like, you've lost that hopeful moment that they whiff, since even then you'll still have one coming at you.

And if those are legit lists, which it seems they would be, I feel like it more than anything else is the 'benchmark' your going to have to plan to beat. Like, compared to five X? 8 TIE? I think you'd be hard pressed to not pick these AO lists over those.

It has been my observation that, when playing 2 dice Advanced Optics ship Heroic, your odds of seeing a focus + blank result sees an exponential increase 😕

1 hour ago, MasterShake2 said:

It has been my observation that, when playing 2 dice Advanced Optics ship Heroic, your odds of seeing a focus + blank result sees an exponential increase 😕

Sure seems to be what I roll in that case!

5 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

And the connection to optics? That you took too much damage too fast?

Yes, really reliable offense, and reliable defense, so could not kill fast enough, while loosing on points due to all the damage.

5 hours ago, underling said:

This doesn't sound like an optics problem.

If you were blocking him he wouldn't have a focus to use AO in the first place.

This sounds like a "not having enough ships shooting at the blocked target" or "not rolling well enough" problem.

But all his camerades had, while I still had difficulties pushing damage (heroic).

And that is what feels bad. You fly well, and opponents gets saved by easy mods, you do not have access to.

52 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

Yes, really reliable offense, and reliable defense, so could not kill fast enough, while loosing on points due to all the damage.

They can't have reliable offense and defense at the same time - if you force them to spend focus on defense, their offense will drop in response.

53 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

But all his camerades had, while I still had difficulties pushing damage (heroic).

How many times did heroic trigger? It sounds like you had an unlucky roll or two when you were shooting the target that you blocked, but how many ships (besides arvel) did you have shooting at the blocked target? Assuming you were firing with focused 3-dice ships, it would have taken you more than 3 shots to down the blocked, intimidated a-wing that turn. For what it's worth, heroic only adds 0.25 to the expected number of shots required.

54 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

And that is what feels bad. You fly well, and opponents gets saved by easy mods, you do not have access to

If you were truly outflying your opponent, you would have denied them those mods by blocking or arc dodging. I hope you never find yourself flying against ships with access to the Force

5 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

It has been my observation that, when playing 2 dice Advanced Optics ship Heroic, your odds of seeing a focus + blank result sees an exponential increase 😕

It's statistically proven that 50% of all 2-dice focused heroic shots are Blank/Eyeball, followed up by your opponents dice always rolling at least one evade.

When I first saw the combo at release I too thought it may have the stink of TLT about it, but in practice it's nowhere near as reliable or easy as a massive lump of Ghost just nominating a ship to take 4 damage every turn.

9 hours ago, Rettere said:

This is a troll thread right? I mean... right?

At least there seems to be some controverse discussion about the topic.

I get the point, that Dengar may not have been a good pick for the tournament. But one would assume that 2 Ini-6-Aces and two point-efficent fillers like the M3As could compete with an average 5-ship-list.

It seems kind of weird to me, that people are saying "Hey, Optics don't have much of a benefit compared to other dice-mods" and yet on the other hand they consider 5 A-Wings being "unplayable" if Optics would be increased by 1 point (meaning you would have to drop 1 of 5 Optics...or trading one named pilot for a generic).

And yes, of course one A-Wing might have to spend his focus-token for defense, but the other 4 won't and will most likely throw at least 8 hits at you

Advanced Optics is good, but as noted it does rely on you getting that focus; what it guarantees is that you'll always be able to spend it.

Essentially, that's why it's most useful on generic 'swarms', especially, but not exclusively, those with 2-dice attacks.

90% of the time, a generic without ordnance will focus if it gets an action, because it makes everything better and you don't know which of your ships is being shot at by the generally-higher-initiative opponents.

When your turn comes to shoot back, ships which still have their focus may or may not get to actually use it - that's the big draw of target lock, since - whilst it's not guaranteed to do anything, if you roll anything but perfect hits, you know you can spend it and try. Focus doesn't always let you spend it. Advanced optics changes that; if you have the upgrade then as long as you've rolled something other than perfect hits you know you can throw the token into the attack for some benefit.

As someone who's been using the bughouse swarm a lot, I'm perfectly aware of how scary massed 2-dice attacks are, especially when they're very accurateas tech-enhanced ones can be. RZ-2 do come apart in concentrated fire, though, so whilst they can zip around merrily a primary-3 can still mess them up badly.

But I suppose the counter-argument to 5 RZ-2s with Advanced Optics and Heroic is that if you were prepared to take them without optics you could have had six!

Fenn Rau is a bit of a special case - in close he gets his bonus dice and is one of the few ships which realistically can flatten an RZ-2 with a good shot. But whilst he gets 4 green dice to defend, the assumption is that Concordia Face-off is going to help keep him alive against a swarm's fire. Against mobile-arc attacks, that assumption doesn't hold true and that's a big chunk of his toughness gone.

12 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Same with AfterburnerVader, MaulBoba, FearlessFenn, 7bAnakin/Obi, NiennunbLando, ReyFinnRose, Uwings+Leia, and so on. There are a ton of these automatic combinations. All deserve a close look, but not all are the same kind of problem.

But those (with the exception of U-Wing/Leia) are single pilots with a synergistic upgrade(s). More attention should be brought to a ship that 7 out of 8 of it's pilots always take an upgrade. The SFs have a similar streak with Optics, but a little less so, but if you are taking a generic SF, you are taking Optics.