7 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

Does it though?

I mean, I love me some Delta Defenders. But Juke... Juke is just a bad idea, a bad design. Counter-point to the counter-point, suppose Juke just doesn't exist?

Either it's busted strong, or hilariously under-powered. Both of those are bad. It's the reason for so many Phantom nerfs, why the N-1 doesn't have a Talented generic (even though I don't even think 5 Juke N-1s would be that good... just give it a shot in FlyCasual). Juke is just a really unhealthy card. It scales awkwardly across a list, people hate having their already-bad green dice made worse, and it becomes the ultimate trap card for bad jank builds where folks are trying to squeeze Juke into someone who doesn't even have a natural Evade action. Just be gone with it.

So if I think Juke is just a bad card that shouldn't exist. And if I think that, then you'd see why I think it's a really terrible idea for a buff* to turn something into a free-evade-plus-Juke machine.

I kinda don't care whether it'd be too strong or too weak. It'll be one or the other. I just think it's the wrong direction things should be headed, and it'd be better to do something different.

* Also, @Blail Blerg is right that the specific Wingman cards are just way too complicated. Removing those complications and buffing stats is just easier.

thanks.

(Also not to confuse anyone, but things like 1.0 Sfoils-FAA, which I enjoyed, were also too complex. I did not appreciate that level of complexity from FFG, even though I completely welcomed the the fixes and our 5X overlords. I know that contradiction can be hard to understand.)

Man I miss playing this game. 2 die ships. Now I'm excited to try them.

Been trying to make Z-95s work before the fire nation attacked.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

because it looks awesome and I love it. The game is more fun when stuff you like is also somewhat decent. For some odd reason, mass Awings have been popular for years.

There are underlying reasons of course, but that's the crux of it. I love the ship.

Ok, and that’s fine. But as I said, I love the Y-Wing... should I expect that FFG will give me the tools to fly a competitive “Y-Wings Only” list? What about TIE Bombers?

Some things work fine in solo lists, some don’t. Just because I want Y-Wings to be fine on their own doesn’t mean they need to be, and just because you want RZ-1’s to be fine on their own doesn’t mean they need to be.

I guess what I’m saying is: I consider the Y-Wing to be one of the coolest ships ever, so I’m really glad it doesn’t suck in the game. But I don’t thing flying six Y-Wings at a time is necessary. Why do we need an A-Wing swarm to be really good in a faction that really has no business focusing on swarms as a core identity anyway?

What about a reload action?

Linked Evade>> Reload

5 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

should I expect that FFG will give me the tools to fly a competitive “Y-Wings Only” list?

I've heard good things about 5 with Ion Cannon Turrets and Proton Bombs.

I suspect that, like TIE bombers (where 6 with Prox Mines is probably semi-viable) and Y-Wings, A-Wing swarm is best with upgrades.

That said.... 6 Y-Wings with Dorsal Turrets is probably not terrible. It'll have great time-on-target due to the turrets, and that'd be a lot of health to have to chew through.

//

More broadly, as to why A-Wings... it's kind of similar with Strikers and Interceptors. Folks just want to run a lot of them. The higher mobility, the greater desire to run a full-squad.

27 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Ok, and that’s fine. But as I said, I love the Y-Wing... should I expect that FFG will give me the tools to fly a competitive “Y-Wings Only” list? What about TIE Bombers?

I hope you're aware that 5Yion was the list a year ago?

e: apart from that... ok? Allowing 7A or a good 5-6A rebel list has no impact on rebel core identity. The Awing doesn't fit into the core identity in the first place, it's an imperial ship in the rebel faction - and that's cool. If it breaks anything balance wise then it's a bad idea. But if your reason against it is your idea of what factions should be like then... yeah...

e2: it's also pretty funny that the two ships you picked as example had or have outstanding spam lists. 5 Barrage bombers was also a meta menace.

27 minutes ago, Target_2.0 said:

What about a reload action?

Linked Evade>> Reload

This at first seems like a silly idea, but I am reminded of the fact in Rogue Squadron a huge part of the ship's identity was that you were able to load like 500 missiles onto the thing and you mostly won dogfights by holding an angle long enough to ice someone with a missile.

Linking it to Evade would make it THE best missile trash ship. Doesn't fix their identity as a 'skilled' ship but may lead to interesting things with proton rockets and homing missiles. Proton Rockets being the only missile your likely to run out of, and Homing Missiles doing interesting things with your mods in a way that help out A-wings a bunch.

Combined with some actual pilots at I4 and I5 and this may work for A-wings. Not sure if I prefer the idea but it helps cement the idea that A-wings are there to make missile passes.

5 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I hope you're aware that 5Yion was the list a year ago?

No. Was it really? It sounds... very bad.

My point though, is that not every ship that someone decides they like should or even can be good when leaned into to the exclusion of all else. Some things are always going to swarm well, and some will not. Why do A-Wings have to be one of the things that does?

I want to be clear that I’m not trying to be antagonistic, or even to shoot down the idea, necessarily. The main problem I see with the A-Wing is that it’s got a dual identity caused partly by inconsistent source material.

From the introduction of the A-Wing in 1983, all I ever heard about it was how amazingly advanced it was, how only elite pilots were assigned to it, it’s faster than an X-Wing and has an on-board computer which eliminates the need for an astromech droid, etcetera.

Certain creative forces... got hold of the early Rebels stories and decided to make the A-Wing a starter ship for Rebel noobs. Kind of like an Alliance TIE Fighter. I think I read somewhere they weren’t even equipped with shields in the Rebels series.

It seems to me that the first interpretion causes people like me to wonder why the A-Wing isn’t a platform for high initiative aces... whereas the second interpretation leaves others wondering why it can’t swarm that well.

27 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

No. Was it really? It sounds... very bad.

My point though, is that not every ship that someone decides they like should or even can be good when leaned into to the exclusion of all else. Some things are always going to swarm well, and some will not. Why do A-Wings have to be one of the things that does?

Veteran Turret Gunner used to be 6 points; that's the kicker. Y-Wings weren't quite as cheap, but you could run 4 with VTG and one with just a Turret and no Gunner.

It was bad, in a different way.

It also was probably the only instance of Ion being seriously unhealthy in the game, whereas Ion is generally a pretty healthy control element in 2.0 due to the fact it usually comes at the cost of damage and the cost to endlessly repeat it on a single ship is high due to needing TLs and the like. No one is complaining about ion missile spam, but the VTG-Y was sorta a nightmare.

This list was really heavily NPE because if you got an ion shot in it wasn't hard to get two Y-wings into the rear arc to just ion kill the target with endless ion double taps. VTG is weird and while itis healthy on deluxe ships like the VCX or Norra he is unhealthy on smaller ones where he can be spammed. Probably is a good example of why limited diamonds should have been app side, as it could probably be dropped back down in price as a two of limit.

6 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

No. Was it really? It sounds... very bad.

My point though, is that not every ship that someone decides they like should or even can be good when leaned into to the exclusion of all else. Some things are always going to swarm well, and some will not. Why do A-Wings have to be one of the things that does?

Hey I think you mean well. But if I recall you’re new here right?
we in xwing have a beautiful tradition of adoring and allowing single ship type lists. It’s a point of honor for this game to be able to field some very odd lists and still be tier2 competitive at least. saying that anything should not be allowed to be t2 competitive with the right list building just because it’s a certain ship is wrong and a poor understanding of balancing for diversity and the concept of ship flight patterns. The exceptions are for things that are frustrating to play against: like 5 ion. This is also talking about making bad lists good, not about needing t1 super conpetitive overpowered or frustrating lists.

armada is horrifically bad at this. So please don’t bring any of their concept of balance over to xwing. Xwings balance has always been better, is better and is still better for diversity and win rates.

really good players also get heavily practiced with some very odd builds until they learn how to make it work even in the face of odds that don’t. This is why xwing is very interesting: the changes in flight pattern drastically can overcome imbalance at the highest skill ceiling level. A combination of reasonable practice, and excellent in game execution allows one to beat both pure-overwhelming-planning/practice and numeric/literal-stat imbalance.
this is also not true of many other games and is a fundamental tenet as to why xwing is a GREAT game even if it has its flaws (namely too much impact via pilot skill and too much design dependency on pure efficiency compared to encouraging better flying)

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

Hey I think you mean well. But if I recall you’re new here right?
we in xwing have a beautiful tradition of adoring and allowing single ship type lists. It’s a point of honor for this game to be able to field some very odd lists and still be tier2 competitive at least. saying that anything should not be allowed to be t2 competitive with the right list building just because it’s a certain ship is wrong and a poor understanding of balancing for diversity and the concept of ship flight patterns. The exceptions are for things that are frustrating to play against: like 5 ion. This is also talking about making bad lists good, not about needing t1 super conpetitive overpowered or frustrating lists.

armada is horrifically bad at this. So please don’t bring any of their concept of balance over to xwing. Xwings balance has always been better, is better and is still better for diversity and win rates.

really good players also get heavily practiced with some very odd builds until they learn how to make it work even in the face of odds that don’t. This is why xwing is very interesting: the changes in flight pattern drastically can overcome imbalance at the highest skill ceiling level. A combination of reasonable practice, and excellent in game execution allows one to beat both pure-overwhelming-planning/practice and numeric/literal-stat imbalance.
this is also not true of many other games and is a fundamental tenet as to why xwing is a GREAT game even if it has its flaws (namely too much impact via pilot skill and too much design dependency on pure efficiency compared to encouraging better flying)

I’m not really sure what you seem to be admonishing me for. I’m just saying that in a game like this you can’t expect everything to be fit for every purpose. Simply because the A-Wing doesn’t do an all-in swarm as well as Droid Starfighters (or whatever) doesn’t mean the ship type is no good. It’s just that... any game you play, there are going to be lists or decks or whatever that are going to work, and some that won’t. The old Star Wars CCG has Tusken Raiders... built for mass spam, and they were truly and consistently awful. Magic has all sorts of “tribal” decks... Wizards, Goblins, Elves, Kobolds, Knights, and a hundred others... and some of them just never got the tools to work as a tribe. And that’s just how it is. Kobold Tribal may never have worked, and maybe never will work... but that doesn’t mean that every Kobold that’s ever been printed or will ever be printed sucks.

I’m only wondering why there’s this obsession with the idea that A-Wings are somehow unsatisfying unless you can run a full list of nothing but A-Wings. It seems a curious line of thinking.

7 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I hope you're aware that 5Yion was the list a year ago?

7 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

No. Was it really? It sounds... very bad.

7 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

Veteran Turret Gunner used to be 6 points; that's the kicker. Y-Wings weren't quite as cheap, but you could run 4 with VTG and one with just a Turret and no Gunner.

It was bad, in a different way.

I think you guys are overstating 5Yion's effectiveness a little bit. It was certainly a good list, but it was far from the list of its time. According to Meta-Wing, 5Yions was only the 17th best performing list for the 6 months it was legal (arguably 15th if you roll together the 3 different variants on Leia U-wing +3 that are above it).

I think a history lesson for @Cpt ObVus is probably in order: 5Yion came into being in the January '19 points update, when VTG dropped from 8 to 6. The Y-wings suddenly became an obvious spam list and a for a couple weeks they were everywhere. Then Rebel players finally caught on to the fact that Leia crew had been dropped to a frankly ridiculous 2 points, and that better than taking a bunch of i2 Y-wings which were vulnerable to range control and being initiative killed was taking Cassian with Leia, Braylen, and any two other named B-, X- or Y-wings. And thus Rebel Beef was borne, and for the next 6 months was the real list to beat.

55 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

I think you guys are overstating 5Yion's effectiveness a little bit. It was certainly a good list, but it was far from the list of its time. According to Meta-Wing, 5Yions was only the 17th best performing list for the 6 months it was legal (arguably 15th if you roll together the 3 different variants on Leia U-wing +3 that are above it).

It was meta defining and led to threads everywhere asking how to beat it. It was never the best, and imo got more attention than it deserved. But it was one of the lists that got the most attention.

e: case in point:

And another blog and thread

Where someone wrote this:

"Lol, everyone hates on Yion swarms so hard but they just aren't that good. I've never seen so much vitriol thrown at such a mediocre list. It was scary at first when no one knew how to approach them but they have since dropped out of favour in Hyperspace, mostly due to them being outclassed since people figured them out."

2 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

I’m not really sure what you seem to be admonishing me for. I’m just saying that in a game like this you can’t expect everything to be fit for every purpose. Simply because the A-Wing doesn’t do an all-in swarm as well as Droid Starfighters (or whatever) doesn’t mean the ship type is no good. It’s just that... any game you play, there are going to be lists or decks or whatever that are going to work, and some that won’t. The old Star Wars CCG has Tusken Raiders... built for mass spam, and they were truly and consistently awful. Magic has all sorts of “tribal” decks... Wizards, Goblins, Elves, Kobolds, Knights, and a hundred others... and some of them just never got the tools to work as a tribe. And that’s just how it is. Kobold Tribal may never have worked, and maybe never will work... but that doesn’t mean that every Kobold that’s ever been printed or will ever be printed sucks.

I’m only wondering why there’s this obsession with the idea that A-Wings are somehow unsatisfying unless you can run a full list of nothing but A-Wings. It seems a curious line of thinking.

No. That’s wrong. Get that out of your head. An all Awing list is just as valid as an all FO tie list or an all delta or all X list. Even an all Arc170 list should be a valid T2 even though the more valid T1 is 3+something else.
I don’t even play Awings but I will defend other people’s fun to play with them.

yes the better lists are likely more one of and two of And that’s how I run it but never ever tell people ever again: your way of playing is wrong and bad and not valid for semi competitive fun.

I hope that the Awings don't go the "swarm" way, but rather the "elite" way, however mechanically the devs decide to do it.

Z95 swarms? I'm all in. Even if numbers was never a Rebel strongpoint.

5 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

No. That’s wrong. Get that out of your head. An all Awing list is just as valid as an all FO tie list or an all delta or all X list. Even an all Arc170 list should be a valid T2 even though the more valid T1 is 3+something else.
I don’t even play Awings but I will defend other people’s fun to play with them.

yes the better lists are likely more one of and two of And that’s how I run it but never ever tell people ever again: your way of playing is wrong and bad and not valid for semi competitive fun.

You’re acting strangely.

I’m not “telling” anyone how to have their fun. I’m merely asserting that a list made of any one ship type is not guaranteed to be good. Just like a deck of Kobolds is not going to be good. Is it possible to do so? Sure. Can you expect to win many games with it? Not really.

If people want to run a bunch of RZ-1’s together, they totally can. I’m only asking why this should be expected to be a winning list. If nothing else, an equivalent number of Resistance RZ-2’s would wreck RZ-1’s head-to-head, because of the spinning turret.

On 5/25/2020 at 2:22 PM, Cpt ObVus said:

You’re acting strangely.

I’m not “telling” anyone how to have their fun. I’m merely asserting that a list made of any one ship type is not guaranteed to be good. Just like a deck of Kobolds is not going to be good. Is it possible to do so? Sure. Can you expect to win many games with it? Not really.

If people want to run a bunch of RZ-1’s together, they totally can. I’m only asking why this should be expected to be a winning list. If nothing else, an equivalent number of Resistance RZ-2’s would wreck RZ-1’s head-to-head, because of the spinning turret.

You are in a what-if thread here. The title is literally "thoughts on how to improve the A-wing". As I mentioned earlier, I think a single A-wing is already decent and does not need much improvement if any at all. Jake, Arvel and a phoenix are good. Good enough. Because they are not primarily in a list to deal damage. They can only be used in mixed lists where they add a support/control(blocking!) element.

But if you want to improve Awings to a point where they are good at dealing damage, and if you want to improve Awings to be usable in a mono or near-mono list, as the OP wanted with the thread before we derailed it so much, then it makes sense to talk about what would be necessary. That leads to my conclusion that, right now, there is nothing clever list building can do to give them more of a fighting chance.

The discussion is in as much interesting as it should give us an idea when to revisit the mono list. A cheap snapshot would be such a case, or a rebel howlrunner. And I still think that mass selfless is less stupid than it looks. Also a mix with Z95s, or with Luke, might be something to try once the point costs come down.

Just a couple of ideas using Green RZ-1s and what is already available:

Extended:

(Be patient and you'll be able to get the arcs lined up, easier to do with RZ-1s than it is to do with Scyks)

Hyperspace (also could work for Extended):

(Fly loose and fast, try to engage from multiple angles like a swarm of ticked off hornets)

or

(leans into blocking to benefit focused fire and allows spreading damage)

I recently tried 3 greens (outmaneuver/predator) plus protorp Luke. Opposing squad was Vader, Deathrain, and a couple named TIES. Opposition green dice were slightly above average and led to an extremely frustrating night. I couldn't push damage with outmaneuver and predator and blocking on Vader. I even failed to push damage through on the punisher and with Luke's Torps. All in all a bad night. May try outmaneuver/crack next time.

2 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

You are in a what-if thread here. The title is literally "thoughts on how to improve the A-wing". As I mentioned earlier, I think a single A-wing is already decent and does not need much improvement if any at all. Jake, Arvel and a phoenix are good. Good enough. Because they are not primarily in a list to deal damage. They can only be used in mixed lists where they add a support/control(blocking!) element.

But if you want to improve Awings to a point where they are good at dealing damage, and if you want to improve Awings to be usable in a mono or near-mono list, as the OP wanted with the thread before we derailed it so much, then it makes sense to talk about what would be necessary. That leads to my conclusion that, right now, there is nothing clever list building can do to give them more of a fighting chance.

The discussion is in as much interesting as it should give us an idea when to revisit the mono list. A cheap snapshot would be such a case, or a rebel howlrunner. And I still think that mass selfless is less stupid than it looks. Also a mix with Z95s, or with Luke, might be something to try once the point costs come down.

Thanks @GreenDragoon , you get my point.

Maybe I should have named the thread:
Thoughts on how to bring a somewhat effective Finger Four RZ-1 A-wing list to 2.0

I had a lot of fun, exciting, and very close matches with the Four Fingers in 1.0 and wanted to share the nostalgia of being able to have that, but envisioned in 2.0.
Though I like where this discussion ended up going.

You bring some excellent points to the table, @GreenDragoon .
I look forward to your further analyses of other lists & hypothetical improvements to the game.

Kind regards

What about bringing in the cruise missiles upgrade from 1.0? It could favor the ships that can fly fast and use, it??? I don't really know, but here is a card for it that I just made up quick:

(sorry that it's sideways)

Additionally, you could make the number of charges tied to the agility of the ship (excluding stealth device). Although then it would become even more appealing to a TIE/d

Certainly didn’t mean to derail the discussion. I think I had missed a bit of the context... part of it was that I had literally spent the afternoon mowing the lawn, thinking about why people slagged on the RZ-1 so badly, it seemed to be a pretty good frame capable of doing about what it ought to do vis-a-vis the TIE/fo and other similar ships, and how it was probably costed fairly and not as bad as people were saying... and then I read this thread and was like, taken aback. I think I was thinking, as you pointed out @GreenDragoon , that Jake and Arvel and company were already good, what more could people expect? But I suppose there’s nothing to be gained by being negative. People can dream!

I definitely agree that I’d like to see some higher-initiative pilots on this frame. And if people want to fly some legacy 1.0 A-Wing swarm and make it good again, no skin off my nose.

Been lurking long enough. Had to share an observation.

Having been an A-wings fan for some time (dash/2xAs through most of first Eds end, and unfortunately now on the Z-2) I've been reading along. I found it interesting that the most common suggestion is to give it a dice mod, usually a passive uninteractable one at that.

I mean, it would work. But if that's what's going to happen, did you really address a core cause of it's shortcomings? I would agree that it only had a severe deficiency in attack dice. But I'd rather see it actually get a trick to pull over fresh steroids.

I play the 2s now because I have time on Target, not because I have heroic that triggers once every three games. I played the SCP swarm and it's frankly dumb. Of want something different.

Could the leaked Phoenix Squadron pack (supposing that it is real), fix some of this? What could that look like?