The Poe Principle

With point changes potentially a month or two away I am hopeful FFG will broadly aggressively increase the cost of i5/i6 aces and passive mod stacked ships for the first time in 2.0’s brief history.

With that in mind I think it’s useful to look at a 2.0 ace that might serve as a kind of benchmark.

That ace is Poe.

• Unlike most other power aces in the game Poe is susceptible to “traditional” in game counter play tactics.
  • This is easily the most important of all the reasons why Poe is a decent example.
  • Key is he is vulnerable to blocking and loss of mods while K-Turning or hitting obstacles, assuming the rest of the combos in the list dont make that irrelevant.
  • The fundamentals of non-list building counters are generally available to basically any ship/pilot/list in game that are facing R4 Poe at least.
  • Despite that his pilot ability, stat-line, available actions and init level are all valuable & powerful for the cost, so Poe is still definitely useful and able to end games.
  • Without multiple shots worth of defensive passive mods though he cant simply park in 2-3+ of an opponents lists arcs and trade up without consequence.
  • 2 Agility cant be forgotten and helps make this all possible. Though he can spend his hp as a kind of resource to gain board position advantage.
  • He is consistently threatened by 2 dice or single modified 3 dice attacks as well without the equivalent to Calc Calc Focus when defending.
  • Poe's mix of mobility, offense, and defense mostly involves real compromise in 2 of the 3 areas where an 5/i6 Ace typically doesnt.
  • And all 3 of those things mobility, offense, and defense can be stopped in their tracks by an opponent who predicts your dial properly.
  • Critical to note though that Resistance has tons of supporting cards that at a cheap enough price would eventually mitigate most of what makes Poe a good example here.
  • For other Aces, Force and Always on Passive Mods natively mitigate most of the above especially in combination with 3 agility.
  • The aces that see competitive play almost all directly negate this type of counter play in some way.
    
• Premovment Upgrades Are Actually Expensive Enough to be a Non-Factor
  • Thankfully BB8 Primed costs enough combined to be mostly ignored across all formats.
  • Same as 24-30+ point Supernatural this is a good thing.
  • I have played it enough times with Leia R4 Cova to know this isnt a version of Poe I want to see effective.
  • His BB8 builds are frankly boring compared to his more restrictive R4/Blackone variant
  • Primarily because its essentially the same as many of the player skill lite premovement aces that we have seen bully 2.0 throughout, and even now.
  • Premovement abilites are comparatively cheap with 10 pt advanced sensors, 3 pt passive sensors, 10-13 pt Precog, and Whispers built in lateral movement.
    
• Black One is Poe's most broken under costed upgrade option
  • Despite that its cheap cost is ultimately just a minor complaint. It doesnt break the ship, for now.
  • It allows an additional get of jail free card once a game ( which is alarmingly often all thats actually necessary ).
  • Refered to as additional because his built in Double Repositioning is an incredible way to avoid mistakes and mental errors made.
  • Id argue Black One should be more expensive than 2 pts simply because of what it does.
  • Once per game you mostly dont have to set your dial. Thats incredible.
  • But in the scheme of things at least its only got 1 charge.
  • Ability charges are comparatively plentiful or non-exist for other Aces.
    
• To get the most value from Poe you mostly have to minimize reposition and dial errors.
  • The more you stress the more predictable he becomes and the less you can kturn to stay on target.
  • The worse your angle or speed of approach the more likely you are to get blocked or have to disengage recycle.
  • The more you reposition the less you can double modify your shots.
  • The rest of your list has to be used properly to "protect" Poe's points, but you typically cant afford to leave him entirely out of the fight until mid/end game like other Aces.
  • The title adds another solid layer with Poe having to sacrifice/restrict Attack dice to double reposition.
  • Little mistakes have big consequences instead of just, "oh **** I have fewer free assigned calculates now"
  • R4 Poe “feels” unique because for the most part there is the illusion at least that he actually has to be played well to get the most from his points.
  • Your opponent should they be moving first typically will still have a clear idea of what they can do and what a mistake looks like when you make one.
  • The crazy thing is that despite sporting 1.0 Push the Limit Poe can still be considered one of the most reasonable 2.0 i5/i6 Aces.
    

Compare Poe to the rest of the “Ace” field:

• i5/i6 Aces that are no where near the "Poe Principles" either due to cost or mechanics.
  • Soontir ( 53 )
  • Vader ( 67-76, 89 )
  • Grand Inquisitor ( 52 )
  • Duchess ( 42-59 )
  • Whisper ( 60-71 )
  • Rex ( 81-91 )
  • Redline ( 75 )
  • Guri ( 74 )
  • Boba ( 85 )
  • Kylo ( 76 )
  • Holo ( 54-61 )
  • Anakin ( 67-82 )
  • Obi Wan ( 52-67 )
  • Plo ( 48-63 )
  • Sun Fac ( 82 )
  • Luke ( 62 )
    
• i5/i6 Aces that are already almost following the "Poe Principles"
  • Fenn Rau ( 68 )
  • Old T ( 56 )
  • Talonbane ( 50 )
  • Blackout ( 63 )
  • Quickdraw ( 57-61 )
  • LeFrance ( 49-51 )
  • Vonreg ( 57 )
  • Han ( 80 )
  • Leia ( 79 )
  • Lando ( 79 )
  • Wedge ( 55 )
  • Thane ( 48 )
  • Corran ( 66 )
  • Midnight ( 42 )
  • Tomax ( 35 )

Haven't listed everything. The i5/i6 Aces that don't follow the Poe Principles need to see price increases. Sometimes double digit increases. Force users are the biggest issue by far. But Soontir isnt far off and is an example of a ship that is out right better than R4 Poe for 17 points less! Even 7b Anakin and Boba are still to cheap for what they bring to the table.

Main point here is that for 2.0 to ever become consistently something other than just i5/i6 Ace-Wing we need more i5-i6 pilots designed and priced according to the Poe Principles.

4 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

The Poe Principle

With point changes potentially a month or two away I am hopeful FFG will broadly aggressively increase the cost of i5/i6 aces and passive mod stacked ships for the first time in 2.0’s brief history.

Nice post with good arguments, but I think we have way to low data of the effects of last points changes for FFG to change as aggressively as you propose. Especially for extended we have not really have much in the way of high tier tournaments to show what the best meta will be. Best we had are things like Space Jam from GSP which only had 1 of the planned events so far.

From Hyperspace we could see that squads with many low initiative generics where doing well. Also that Vader without afterburners was not performing all that well, so upping his base costs by large amounts doesn't seem a correct fix.

I really hope they stick to minor fixes this time around to get a clearer view of the effect from last update and that they do shake up which ships, pilots and upgrades can be used in Hyperspace to give us a new experience still which might also give them more information they can use to get the points even better next update.

Also aces shouldn't all be costed to perfectly match eachother. As other components from the specific factins should also be taken into account when pricing an ace. This might make a Rebel ace be cheaper in comparison to a Resistance variant.

6 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

...with point changes potentially a month or two away...

...let me stop you right there.

Why would FFG change the point costs right now, when the latest round of point adjustments haven't even had chance to be used in earnest yet?

Give it six months after OP resumes, and we might see a new update.

FFG have confirmed points will change on schedule in a month or so. It was announced via Discord.

7 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

The Poe Principle

With point changes potentially a month or two away I am hopeful FFG will broadly aggressively increase the cost of i5/i6 aces and passive mod stacked ships for the first time in 2.0’s brief history.

With that in mind I think it’s useful to look at a 2.0 ace that might serve as a kind of benchmark.

That ace is Poe.

• Unlike most other power aces in the game Poe is susceptible to “traditional” in game counter play tactics.
• Premovment Upgrades Are Actually Expensive Enough to be a Non-Factor
• Black One is Poe's most broken under costed upgrade option
• To get the most value from Poe you mostly have to minimize reposition and dial errors.

Poe is such an odd pilot.

On the one hand, he's Redline and Soontir Fel mashed into one. Double-reposition or double-mods Proton Torpedo. Except, he really doesn't do that.

He's got pre-dial reposition access, and SLAM, but... and I think this is the major factor... limited by non-recurring charges. Not even Leia-like "spend 3 charges" stuff. When you can only do it twice per game, turns out pre-dial boosts and rolls are fair.

He's got 2 agility. That doesn't seem to be a problem for the more-expensive 7B Jedi, but it does for Poe.

Which brings me to another aspect of Poe: he has no passive mods (OK, Heroic. But like, Heroic ...). Sure, he's got two actions, but none of his dice mods are passive. Turns out, that's huge. Luke. Han. Kylo. Vader. Soontir. Phantoms with 5th Brother. The Grand Inquisitor aka TGI Force Charges. Boba. Guri. All Fang Fighters. Greivous, for what he's worth. Jedi. Jedi Jedi Jedi. They're all loaded with passive mods.

I mean, it feels odd to reduce it down to one point, but it kinda fits.

Passive Mods: True or False?

The only thing wrong with Poe is he’s too expensive. He’s very good for what he is, but because he’s not super-defensive with force/agility/regen etc he’s taking up too much of your squad value for just ‘a really good fighter who will eventually die’.

Poe at 62-64 would be more appropriate. That’s like ‘Wedge with an extra hull plus a few points’ territory, which is where he should be.

You know, it's funny. It somehow never "feelsbad" to lose a 70+ point Redline. You absolutely expect to lose Redline, every time. Duchess just doesn't *hurt* when she eventually pops. Grand Inquisitor or Luke always, *always* make up their points before they go, and they can hang around forever under the right circumstances. If you play halfway decently, you will never lose Soontir, or Vader, or any Jedi; and if you do, you've never sold one of them cheap. But somehow Poe, no matter the circumstances of his loss, always feelsbad. I keep trying him, and keep losing him, and keep giving up. And then coming back and trying him again. He doesn't in any way feel like an Ace, no matter that he's costed like one.

And perhaps part of the equation is his wingmates? All other factions have multiple Aces or other power pieces to run with their badasses - the Resistance doesn't. Not really. (Neither does the CIS, but that's another thread.) The RZ-2 is really good. Leia-Cova is really good. But somehow they don't feel good enough to make up for that easy loss of the Poe. Other factions can say, "Oh, you somehow managed to kill Ace-X? That's okay, I've still got Ace-Y and Ace-Z." Or, "Ah-ha! You had to commit so heavily to killing Ace-Y that you've exposed yourself to the entirety of my list otherwise, and poof! You're dogmeat!" Of course, I'm mostly referring to Imperials and First Order, respectively, in this analysis. Rebels fit as kind of a blend of those two arguments (and Scum effectively has only three pilots in the faction). The Resistance somehow just can't bring this kind of pressure. A-Wings just can't quite get there in terms of threat, and T-70's are just a little too costly to reach the necessary mass.

And I will say this: try Guri without Advanced Sensors sometime. She's not easymode any more. She's not undercosted. She's also not nearly as much fun. And Sun Fac? Have you tried Sun Fac lately? Ouch. But again, that's another thread.

I think the greatest difficulty in pricing any Ace substantially upwards is that there are so many really good swarm models out there right now. The balancing act is getting to be very, very delicate. There are already instances of swarms that are so good that they can (almost) easily counter Aces. If Aces get further priced up, can they compete ever with these swarms? Contrarily, what happens if swarm pieces are priced up? Can that necessarily smaller swarm still compete with the Aces at all? Or beef?

So here's a thought exercise: what happens if there is a listbuilding restriction that says, "You may only ever have one i6 in a list, and no more than two of i5/i6 in any combination in a list."? Suddenly, and Ace feels like an Ace, a solitary repository of amazeballs surrounded by lesser beings. That sounds good to me. Thematic. Appropriate. And maybe even balanced?

Some rambling responses to the masses

• This point cycle was defined by basically zero changes to the costs of the prior meta staples.
  • Aces basically did not change at all.
  • Already have all the data we need from pre-pt change Extended.
  • There is no "secret" swarm or generic list made possible by the previous point reductions that can compete consistently with the Undercosted Aces.
  • Closest thing is CIS Swarm, the rest of the card pool is largely irrelevant.
• Hyperspace is a different beast in that FFG out right banned many of the problematic aces. Which made it more fun, even though they forgot to remove Slave 1 for some weird reason.
  • One cool bonus from Hyperspace was that Burnerless Vader actually kinda proved to be excellent.
  • You can see how far just his pilot ability, passive sensors, and stacks of passive mods can take him.
  • I know this from considerable testing in Hyper. Vader even with just Passives is a monster, though not very good for Extended without burners I agree.
  • I maintain that Vader's base costs is in fact a problem though. 67 pts and 3 pts cheaper than Poe? It makes no sense given what we know about Force Charges at this stage.
• Minor Fixes is all we have had for Aces since 2.0 Started
  • Its time for a real change and for them to actually shake things up.
  • We have almost 2 years of evidence that Passive Mod Stacked i5/i6 Aces are dramatically more powerful than the rest of the card pool. Including every good Swarm list that has shown up.
  • Nothing compares besides a few blips with Quad Phantoms, Leia Beef, and occasionally CIS Swarms supported by Ensanre hanging around in various forms.
• Comparisons of the Broken Aces to the Well Costed Aces Matter and are Relevant
  • Looking at what Poe does and how the entire card pool deals with him on the table there are some lessons to be learned.
  • As far as specific components in other factions it boils down to something really simple...
    • Does the faction have other undercosted i5/i6 aces to pair with the Ace in question
    • If Poe was in Empire I would probably be sitting here thinking Poe was undercosted as well
    • Mainly because of how much packing 655 or 665 into a list changes its shape when each of the Aces is an undercosted passive mobile beast.
    • When your guaranteed to have 2 i5/i6 ships in the mid game and at least 1 in the end game the entire shape of the game warps around that.
    • Thats made possible by how cheap power aces generally are.
  • Boba is a good comparison point as well...even though he has received multiple price increases
    • He can carry Fenn Rau around as luggage basically across formats.
    • He would do the same if Poe was playable in Scum.
    • I am not suggesting Fenn should see a cost increase, though a 1-2 pt change wouldnt bother me.
    • Im suggesting that Boba is still very obviously undercosted when you look at what you get for 85 pts compared to Poes 72.
  • Comparisons to Poe give hints at the direction of cost changes to consider.
    • Everything I listed as needing increases is priced strangely enough that it calls into question Poe's cost.
    • I dont think the conclusion should be to reduce Poe's price to compete with these things.
    • That won't under an circumstance actually work. He will still be worse mechanically than equivalent options.
    • I still wouldnt take poe at 62 pts if i can take Empire or Republic instead at current costs.
    • He would have to be priced like Soontir for me to begin to consider him as a valid choice, basically cheap enough that BB8 or Proton Torps essentially becomes "free".

Aces are 2.0's biggest problem. Increasing their cost where they are out of line with what makes Poe feel "fine" would drive things in a fresh new direction.

^ ^

21 minutes ago, Kleeg005 said:

I think the greatest difficulty in pricing any Ace substantially upwards is that there are so many really good swarm models out there right now. The balancing act is getting to be very, very delicate. There are already instances of swarms that are so good that they can (almost) easily counter Aces. If Aces get further priced up, can they compete ever with these swarms? Contrarily, what happens if swarm pieces are priced up? Can that necessarily smaller swarm still compete with the Aces at all? Or beef?

This isnt necessarily true.

Swarms are not actually that good even now. None of them can easily counter Aces. There is no such list. The only exception is CIS Swarm which again I cant state this enough....loses consistently to current Trip Ace lists. Ensnare is the only thing that swings that equation a bit, but then we are talking about one of the Aces again.

Its not that delicate of a balance.

Substantial point increases to Aces would not make them irrelevant or swing things dramatically towards efficency. We have never once seen that happen in 2.0, at least not as a result of Aces being to expensive. Quad Phantoms is the one time because it could stall/fortress and Leia Beef because it was essentially a turret blob defender list. And even then what did Leia Beef lose reliably to? Undercosted Trip Aces. Quad Phantoms to...could get picked apart by Passive Mod Trip Aces. Think about Vader Soontir Whisper running just 1 upgrade ( burners on vader ), that list still out right has a win condition against existing CIS Swarms even if it were 200 pts even. Remove Soontir if he was 70 pts and replace with GI....and the list could still for sure bully a CIS Swarm. Whisper doesnt even require 5th bro passive sensors to do that kinda work. Largely made possible because of how powerful Vader is with 3 force charges and that insane pilot ability. But also of course has to do with the fact that any of the 3 can solo remaining parts of a CIS Swarm.

There is no Extended Swarm right now that I would take instead of equivalent Ace Options.

Swarms are currently only a consistently good way to collect Ace Players who are not well practiced at the game. Thats about it.

And remember....if we priced Aces to kill the Trip Ace archetype.....Aces would still 100% be playable, just would have to bring more lower init ships along for the ride with the Ace you choose which on net helps against Swarms and makes that game easier to.

We need to price more Aces based on comparisons to Poe's current cost and gameplay.

We need to force other factions to see fewer low cost Multi-Ace options in their list builder, similar to what Resistance currently deals with ( despite how cheap i5 RZ2As are )

From my experience, I agree with @Stay OT Leader 's summation of Poe being kind of like Wedge. He's done best for me (for the most part) as a jouster where I know I'm likely to trade him, aiming to do so favorably.

• I'm not sure what @Boom Owl means by BB-8/Primed Poe being boring. The build? Playing it?
• I don't agree that Black One needs to go up, at least not as Poe is currently costed. It's a get out of jail card, but a lot of times it just gets him out of jail for a little bit. Best case scenario (for Poe) is it does get him out of jail for a while, but then he's probably out of the fight for too long.
• Poe is stupid easy to bully. You get him running away and it's nearly impossible for him to turn with any modicum of safety or often even assurance he can trade shots well.
• Having played some Soontir, a lot of Fenn and a lot of jedi, what Poe is actually missing isn't necessarily passive mods, it's a 1-hard. It feels exponentially easier to ace with a 1-hard, blue or white.

Ultimately, I think trying to play Poe as a true ace in an ace squad or ace + shenanigans is just making a worse version of something that can be done in other factions.

23 minutes ago, gennataos said:

From my experience, I agree with @Stay OT Leader 's summation of Poe being kind of like Wedge. He's done best for me (for the most part) as a jouster where I know I'm likely to trade him, aiming to do so favorably.

• I'm not sure what @Boom Owl means by BB-8/Primed Poe being boring. The build? Playing it?
• I don't agree that Black One needs to go up, at least not as Poe is currently costed. It's a get out of jail card, but a lot of times it just gets him out of jail for a little bit. Best case scenario (for Poe) is it does get him out of jail for a while, but then he's probably out of the fight for too long.
• Poe is stupid easy to bully. You get him running away and it's nearly impossible for him to turn with any modicum of safety or often even assurance he can trade shots well.
• Having played some Soontir, a lot of Fenn and a lot of jedi, what Poe is actually missing isn't necessarily passive mods, it's a 1-hard. It feels exponentially easier to ace with a 1-hard, blue or white.

Ultimately, I think trying to play Poe as a true ace in an ace squad or ace + shenanigans is just making a worse version of something that can be done in other factions.

I think BB8 Primed Poe is boring because it turns him into the same ship I have played dozens of times before ( with some more intrigue thanks to the charges ). It still removes layers of decision making. Playing it is boring to me personally. BB8 being so expensive that its not competitive on Poe is a feature not a bug. For the same reason Adv Sensors being 10 pts on Guri is still a problem in my opinion.

• Adv Sensors Guir
• Precog/Super Vader or Passive Sensors
• Precog/Super Kylo or Luke
• Whisper
• Slave 1 Boba
• Kanan Han

Its all the same thing. Delay a decision and make it later. Its not interactive.

Also to be clear I dont think Black One needs to go up in cost, I was just pointing out its his most mechanically "busted" option and its 2 pts. What makes it ok for the most part is the 1 charge. He gets a Super Natural or BB8 or Precog equivalent mobility option for just 2 pts but single use. Thats restraint we dont see with other Aces. Like Passive Sensors Vader...

The Wedge Comparison I think is a really weak one. Poe is so much more than that. So much more capable in various phases than Wedge. His cost is a signal fire of something being done correctly. Like Fenn Rau who I could use for this comparison to though the passive mods muddy it a bit, he still is strongly vulnerable to counter play in game.

Poe is like the Anti-Soontir. Imagine if Soontir was priced properly? He would be 69-70 pts. At least 1 pt more than Poe.

Reducing Poe's cost isnt a path forward I have interest in. Punish the "Force" Aces that have been running at a discount forever otherwise nothing will change besides maybe adding another Premovement Ace to the pile or free Poe up to give him Torps or Rey more Toys i guess? Would still be essentially bad compared to other Force Ace options.

Despite the name of the thread this isnt about Poe’s current cost being wrong or him needing buffs. Its about the fact that Poe is one of only a handful of reasonably priced full i6 aces in the game. If Poe is bad something is very wrong with everything else.

And I'm still thinking about the definition of ace arc-dodger. Could we replace every occurrence of ace with arc-dodger? Does that change anything?

14 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

I think BB8 Primed Poe is boring because it turns him into the same ship I have played dozens of times before ( with some more intrigue thanks to the charges ). It still removes layers of decision making. Playing it is boring to me personally. BB8 being so expensive that its not competitive on Poe is a feature not a bug. For the same reason Adv Sensors being 10 pts on Guri is still a problem in my opinion.

• Adv Sensors Guir
• Precog/Super Vader or Passive Sensors
• Precog/Super Kylo or Luke
• Whisper
• Slave 1 Boba
• Kanan Han

Its all the same thing. Delay a decision and make it later. Its not interactive.

I get that. I do think the limited charges and limitation to blue maneuvers is a pretty big departure from the other stuff you listed, but I get it.

16 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

The Wedge Comparison I think is a really weak one.

I just think he's way more of a Wedge than a Soontir or Fenn.

I guess you're not really looking for opinions on what Poe can and cannot do, though, yeah? Moreso saying "Poe is a properly pointed ace, others aren't"? If that's the case, yeah, I agree.

Also, the terrible things I could do with a phat Rey and Fenn Rau...

11 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Also...this. I love this scene and I've spent most of 2.0 trying replicate it. The only way you can come close to it is BB-8/Primed. Fenn/Vader/Soontir/Jedi can, to varying degrees, do that right out of the box.

10 minutes ago, gennataos said:

Also...this. I love this scene and I've spent most of 2.0 trying replicate it. The only way you can come close to it is BB-8/Primed. Fenn/Vader/Soontir/Jedi can, to varying degrees, do that right out of the box.

He can with just R4 or at least he has for me vs certain mixes of remaining 2-3 ships. He needs his wingmen though. Poe has to be a team player or he fails, which is ultimately the most thematic if you think about it.

And yea this isnt about how can we make Poe as broken or undercosted as the other Aces. That accomplishes and improves exactly nothing.

27 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

This isnt necessarily true.

Swarms are not actually that good even now. None of them can easily counter Aces. There is no such list. The only exception is CIS Swarm which again I cant state this enough....loses consistently to current Trip Ace lists. Ensnare is the only thing that swings that equation a bit, but then we are talking about one of the Aces again.

Its not that delicate of a balance.

Substantial point increases to Aces would not make them irrelevant or swing things dramatically towards efficency. We have never once seen that happen in 2.0, at least not as a result of Aces being to expensive. Quad Phantoms is the one time because it could stall/fortress and Leia Beef because it was essentially a turret blob defender list. And even then what did Leia Beef lose reliably to? Undercosted Trip Aces. Quad Phantoms to...could get picked apart by Passive Mod Trip Aces. Think about Vader Soontir Whisper running just 1 upgrade ( burners on vader ), that list still out right has a win condition against existing CIS Swarms even if it were 200 pts even. Remove Soontir if he was 70 pts and replace with GI....and the list could still for sure bully a CIS Swarm. Whisper doesnt even require 5th bro passive sensors to do that kinda work. Largely made possible because of how powerful Vader is with 3 force charges and that insane pilot ability. But also of course has to do with the fact that any of the 3 can solo remaining parts of a CIS Swarm.

There is no Extended Swarm right now that I would take instead of equivalent Ace Options.

Swarms are currently only a consistently good way to collect Ace Players who are not well practiced at the game. Thats about it.

And remember....if we priced Aces to kill the Trip Ace archetype.....Aces would still 100% be playable, just would have to bring more lower init ships along for the ride with the Ace you choose which on net helps against Swarms and makes that game easier to.

We need to price more Aces based on comparisons to Poe's current cost and gameplay.

We need to force other factions to see fewer low cost Multi-Ace options in their list builder, similar to what Resistance currently deals with ( despite how cheap i5 RZ2As are )

I guess I am perhaps too strongly weighing the cries of folks who feel outclassed by (CIS) swarms. They are a vocal crowd, at least in my neighborhood. And we have one guy who is absolutely brilliant with TIE swarms. Which I guess means more that he is competitive with them, whereas the rest of us don't even try? Which kind of proves your point about swarms.

I think I'm generally agreeing with you regarding the costing of Aces. Except I don't want my Guri to get smacked around by all this. She's all I've got, man! Whack AdvSen by all means, but Guri is fine(tm). Ha ha. But true Aces, with all their passive mods and consequence-free double repositioning and masses of defensive dice ( ESPECIALLY Force Aces), are, yes, just stupid right now.

4 minutes ago, Kleeg005 said:

I guess I am perhaps too strongly weighing the cries of folks who feel outclassed by (CIS) swarms. They are a vocal crowd, at least in my neighborhood. And we have one guy who is absolutely brilliant with TIE swarms. Which I guess means more that he is competitive with them, whereas the rest of us don't even try? Which kind of proves your point about swarms.

I think I'm generally agreeing with you regarding the costing of Aces. Except I don't want my Guri to get smacked around by all this. She's all I've got, man! Whack AdvSen by all means, but Guri is fine(tm). Ha ha. But true Aces, with all their passive mods and consequence-free double repositioning and masses of defensive dice ( ESPECIALLY Force Aces), are, yes, just stupid right now.

Hate to break it you. Guri is similar to Soontir in terms of acting like a Force User in disguise. And that bendy barrel roll? Its essentially a double reposition. Especially crazy with Passive Sensors or Burners or both. Adv sensors isnt Guri’s only problem. Though I agree of the force aces shes slightly closer to Poe than some of the others. Especially due to her vulnerability at r2-3, like Fenn Rau. Thats counterplay.

1 minute ago, Boom Owl said:

He can with just R4 or at least he has for me vs certain mixes of remaining 2-3 ships. He needs his wingmen though. Poe has to be a team player or he fails, which is ultimately the most thematic if you think about it.

There aren't any wingmates in that scene, though. And he shot down at least 4-5 TIEs there! 😉

2 minutes ago, gennataos said:

There aren't any wingmates in that scene, though. And he shot down at least 4-5 TIEs there! 😉

Hey man, he had an entire squadron behind him distracting the other ties. Can I interest you in a singleplayer X-Wing video game reboot of Rogue Squadron but with Resistance Pilots instead?

Also by this logic Poe should be the best Epic ship in the game 🙂

11 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Can I interest you in a singleplayer X-Wing video game reboot of Rogue Squadron but with Resistance Pilots instead?

Yes!

11 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Also by this logic Poe should be the best Epic ship in the game 🙂

To be clear, I'm not advocating Poe being better.

19 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Hate to break it you. Guri is similar to Soontir in terms of acting like a Force User in disguise. And that bendy barrel roll? Its essentially a double reposition. Especially crazy with Passive Sensors or Burners or both. Adv sensors isnt Guri’s only problem. Though I agree of the force aces shes slightly closer to Poe than some of the others. Especially due to her vulnerability at r2-3, like Fenn Rau. Thats counterplay.

I mean, if I step back and consider her dispassionately, you are correct. It's really only next to other Aces that she feels "okay." I get that. But I'll say it again: as a Scum main who doesn't Fett, she's all I've got!

I like your assessment of Poe as the benchmark, "the Ace as it should be." Using him as a basically balanced point of reference works for me. So, if we place him at the fulcrum, where do the other "Aces" fall? If we give him a rating of 5.0 on a scale of 1 -10, where do the others fall? Just as an exercise and a source of contention, mind you.

I agree that the top list of pilots (and fenn rau) are undercosted but I doubt they will increase in points. Last point change we expected a bunch of ships to go up and instead of them going up other ships went down. I expect that trend to continue.

There are other solutions to get away from swarms vs i5/6 aces. They could either give i3/4 pilots superior pilot abilities or add more support options for those ships (please wave 7) without going full blown combo wing.

Right now braylen, farell, ten numb, scorch, backdraft and Greer are the most playable i4s. Fifth brother is great as well but he is also arguable the best gunner in the game.

7 minutes ago, reqent said:

I agree that the top list of pilots (and fenn rau) are undercosted but I doubt they will increase in points. Last point change we expected a bunch of ships to go up and instead of them going up other ships went down. I expect that trend to continue.

There are other solutions to get away from swarms vs i5/6 aces. They could either give i3/4 pilots superior pilot abilities or add more support options for those ships (please wave 7) without going full blown combo wing.

Right now braylen, farell, ten numb, scorch, backdraft and Greer are the most playable i4s. Fifth brother is great as well but he is also arguable the best gunner in the game.

Every i4 ship you mentioned loses out right to current Ace list options. Simply bringing an i4 ship, even just one is a massive handicap.

I also dont agree that buffing the rest of the cards via pt reductions can solve this well. The gap in mechanics and power level is just big.

They would have to go all in on cheaper 360 AOE equivalents or Control to get to a reasonable place. Not exactly an improvement.

Or re-introduce cheap Long Range Scanners equivalents for lower init to leverage, similar to CIS accessibility to Probes + Networked. That I would sign up for.

2 hours ago, Kleeg005 said:

So here's a thought exercise: what happens if there is a listbuilding restriction that says, "You may only ever have one i6 in a list, and no more than two of i5/i6 in any combination in a list."? Suddenly, and Ace feels like an Ace, a solitary repository of amazeballs surrounded by lesser beings. That sounds good to me. Thematic. Appropriate. And maybe even balanced?

This, I like. But I still don't want to see Obi-wan and Anakin in the same list. Plo or Mace aren't so oppressive, having less force or lower Init.

Conversely, Redline is priced high enough that he can't have all the toys he'd like so I don't mind seeing him in the same list as an Ace. Unlike the first set of points!

So slightly more nuanced restrictions, not simply Init based would work better.