I have been thinking alot about impact and armor. Armor as a keyword was powerful in the core box, but over time it has lost alot of it's edge.

Bigger dice pools, surge-crit, more aims and the new critical keyword have made armor a paper shield. Sure it's better than nothing, but you don't really need impact to take out a vehicle.

The armor keyword was also changed to include a number instead of blocking all hits. I think you can take advantage of this and make a new rule.

Suggestion:

"While a unit with armor is defending before the resolve armor step, if the attack pool does not contain impact, flip one attack dice with a crit symbol to a hit symbol if able".

This would be a small nerf to critical only lists and make impact a little more important. It would also help full armor vehicles more than armor 1-2 units, since they can only block so many hits.

I know the tactic is often to ignore heavies and that they aren't always point effective. This could be a step on the way though.

It certainly needs something. Snipers cutting through armour hurts my head.

33 minutes ago, Memorare said:

It certainly needs something. Snipers cutting through armour hurts my head.

but they're really good shots!

I’ve grown weary of Critical in general. Heavy cover? Negated. Armor? Nope, this corps unit (with no native surge) is shredding that tank. Dodge tokens? Nah, sorry Nimble troopers, save it for after you’re dead. With such large dice pools, critical hits are pretty much guaranteed even without the Critical keyword. Snipers have a small dice pool, so I have no issue with them rolling a crit and piercing through - that’s a lucky shot.

I don’t want to rollback a keyword, but I’m not sure how to fix Critical. Point increase? Maybe the Rebel Vets had the right point cost on their heavy and all other critical weapons should have gone up? Critical helps you delete units, perhaps more effectively than Pierce due to ignoring Armor and Cover and Dodge. So you shouldn’t be able to have multiple critical weapons and 11 activations.

20 minutes ago, smickletz said:

I’ve grown weary of Critical in general. Heavy cover? Negated. Armor? Nope, this corps unit (with no native surge) is shredding that tank. Dodge tokens? Nah, sorry Nimble troopers, save it for after you’re dead. With such large dice pools, critical hits are pretty much guaranteed even without the Critical keyword. Snipers have a small dice pool, so I have no issue with them rolling a crit and piercing through - that’s a lucky shot.

I don’t want to rollback a keyword, but I’m not sure how to fix Critical. Point increase? Maybe the Rebel Vets had the right point cost on their heavy and all other critical weapons should have gone up? Critical helps you delete units, perhaps more effectively than Pierce due to ignoring Armor and Cover and Dodge. So you shouldn’t be able to have multiple critical weapons and 11 activations.

Yeah it really is the catch all. Dodge, cover and armor. Situational awareness will help SOME units with dodges, but overall it's a bit too good vs everything and it's making the impact or blast weapons feel redundant. Point increase would be a simplest solution I think.

19 minutes ago, smickletz said:

I’ve grown weary of Critical in general. Heavy cover? Negated. Armor? Nope, this corps unit (with no native surge) is shredding that tank. Dodge tokens? Nah, sorry Nimble troopers, save it for after you’re dead. With such large dice pools, critical hits are pretty much guaranteed even without the Critical keyword. Snipers have a small dice pool, so I have no issue with them rolling a crit and piercing through - that’s a lucky shot.

I don’t want to rollback a keyword, but I’m not sure how to fix Critical. Point increase? Maybe the Rebel Vets had the right point cost on their heavy and all other critical weapons should have gone up? Critical helps you delete units, perhaps more effectively than Pierce due to ignoring Armor and Cover and Dodge. So you shouldn’t be able to have multiple critical weapons and 11 activations.

Critical is...problematic. I think it's totally fine on units with small dice pools. The DF-90 Mortar, for example, has a really good chance of getting a crit as long as it has an aim token, but it has pretty low odds of getting more than 1. That feels perfectly fine to me. But on units with larger attack pools it starts to become an issue. Such as how the Stormtrooper T-21 is technically more efficient against armor than the DLT-19 (assuming you haven't lost any models in the unit).

But I'm not really sure how to fix it. It's hard to just increase the cost, because it's a keyword that functionally only has a chance to even trigger, so you can end up with a situation like the original cost of the CM-O/93, where people concluded that it was too expensive to be worth taking. But without changing how criticals in general work I don't know what other option there is.

The combination of Critical and Fire Support is I think the most problematic. Critical 1 on a smallish dice pool isn't terrible, but Critical 2 on a large dice pool is a bit of another story. Large dice pools are already more likely to roll crits, so now the average number of crits is increased.

To further the points comparison (points based on removing the price of a the basic model): the only difference between the DLT-19 (13 points) and DC-15 (17 points) are the keywords. So for 4 more points, you lose Impact, which only has an opportunity to activate against units with Armor if there are hits left in the pool, and in exchange gain a capped form of Surge -> Crit. If this is being priced the same across all units, then I especially think the pricing is wrong. Critical is more valuable on units without a native offensive Surge in my opinion.

Critical isn't the problem you all are describing, it's Fire Support. What other common method are we getting such large dice pools?

Critical should probably be Critical instead of Critical X . Would at least make a difference here on fire support.

To the discussion as a whole I'm not sure what you do as the keyword is too good and negates WAY to many things within the game. Outside of rolling a block it removes literally every single defensive mechanic outside of shields.

My ideas are similar to others'.

Either a significant points jump (the quickest and cleanest fix)

Or the x wing 1.0 fix and you keep making denature upgrades to combat it. Shortlisting awareness may be the first of many.

2 hours ago, buckero0 said:

Critical isn't the problem you all are describing, it's Fire Support. What other common method are we getting such large dice pools?

Critical is still a often better alternative than impact due to lost cost, no exhaust and it's great effect vs troopers in cover. In several cases a critical weapon is more effective than an anti tank rocker launcher due to crits from critical goes trough cover, impact dosen't

1 hour ago, Tirion said:

Critical should probably be Critical instead of Critical X . Would at least make a difference here on fire support.

To the discussion as a whole I'm not sure what you do as the keyword is too good and negates WAY to many things within the game. Outside of rolling a block it removes literally every single defensive mechanic outside of shields.

My ideas are similar to others'.

Either a significant points jump (the quickest and cleanest fix)

Or the x wing 1.0 fix and you keep making denature upgrades to combat it. Shortlisting awareness may be the first of many.

God I hope we dont go with the x-wing 1.0 fix. It work just as well as Jabba the hutt's diet

They went with the 1.0 print-costs-on-cards model and now we have a whole bunch of inaccurate cards, yet they still rarely do point changes! Truly the worst of both worlds!

My simple improvement to Impact:

+1 White Attack die per impact when targeting units without the armour special rule.

43 minutes ago, OneLastMidnight said:

They went with the 1.0 print-costs-on-cards model and now we have a whole bunch of inaccurate cards, yet they still rarely do point changes! Truly the worst of both worlds!

As far as I am aware, the points changes were supposed to be annual, but this year has delayed just about everything. We are also due for an RRG update I think.

I think vehicles and Armor are in a decent spot right now. Apart from the Rebel heavies, all heavies are playable even in a competitive Environment. The issues they have is not durabilty (only the imperial tank can go down fast because of its weak flanks) it's mostly opportunity cost and objective usability. Vital Assets helps a bit here.

Critical is a strong Keyword but nowhere near OP. Small dice pools get a better Chance of chipping one hit through cover/dodges. For large dice pools it's mostly one or two converts - if the unit doesn't convert naturally - and a better chance of doing some damage to vehicles. It's still not consistant and the only faction using it a ton is Empire and with the next wave they are approaching Bottom Tier. So making it weaker would not help the overall balance.

1 hour ago, SailorMeni said:

I think vehicles and Armor are in a decent spot right now. Apart from the Rebel heavies, all heavies are playable even in a competitive Environment. The issues they have is not durabilty (only the imperial tank can go down fast because of its weak flanks) it's mostly opportunity cost and objective usability. Vital Assets helps a bit here.

Critical is a strong Keyword but nowhere near OP. Small dice pools get a better Chance of chipping one hit through cover/dodges. For large dice pools it's mostly one or two converts - if the unit doesn't convert naturally - and a better chance of doing some damage to vehicles. It's still not consistant and the only faction using it a ton is Empire and with the next wave they are approaching Bottom Tier. So making it weaker would not help the overall balance.

Empire being labeled bottom trooper is hilarious to me. I keep seeing it and all it leads me to shine is that the talking heads day it is.

Which translates to reality means "the group think imperial meta is no longer point and click so the faction is no good anymore".

Well what that actually means is that maybe imperial players will have to look at other lists.

Just my 10 cents my 2 cents are free.

9 hours ago, lologrelol said:

My simple improvement to Impact:

+1 White Attack die per impact when targeting units without the armour special rule.

This would be cool. Maybe cap it at 1or 2 dice max or allow re-rolls. Impact 3 weapons would be pretty bananas.

5 hours ago, SailorMeni said:

I think vehicles and Armor are in a decent spot right now. Apart from the Rebel heavies, all heavies are playable even in a competitive Environment. The issues they have is not durabilty (only the imperial tank can go down fast because of its weak flanks) it's mostly opportunity cost and objective usability. Vital Assets helps a bit here.

Critical is a strong Keyword but nowhere near OP. Small dice pools get a better Chance of chipping one hit through cover/dodges. For large dice pools it's mostly one or two converts - if the unit doesn't convert naturally - and a better chance of doing some damage to vehicles. It's still not consistant and the only faction using it a ton is Empire and with the next wave they are approaching Bottom Tier. So making it weaker would not help the overall balance.

I can't say much on the clone wars factions, playing first AAT game on friday. However imperial heavy lists have a hard time placing in the middle in tournaments over here. Maybe they do better in other tournaments.

I can't say vital assets helped vehicle much. War veary don't affect them sure, roll out is a decent thing and bombing run for the airspeeder I guess. All the rest favours troopers units.

Small critical pools alone is ok, allthough they still often overshadow impact IMO. 4 Dice and above + aim gives you a pretty good chance of getting 2+ crits that ignore both dodges and cover.

Btw do you have a source for empire being bottom teir, cause my last prime prooved the opposite 😋 .

1 hour ago, jocke01 said:

I can't say much on the clone wars factions, playing first AAT game on friday. However imperial heavy lists have a hard time placing in the middle in tournaments over here. Maybe they do better in other tournaments.

I can't say vital assets helped vehicle much. War veary don't affect them sure, roll out is a decent thing and bombing run for the airspeeder I guess. All the rest favours troopers units.

Small critical pools alone is ok, allthough they still often overshadow impact IMO. 4 Dice and above + aim gives you a pretty good chance of getting 2+ crits that ignore both dodges and cover.

Btw do you have a source for empire being bottom teir, cause my last prime prooved the opposite 😋 .

When I said vehicles are decent, I really meant only decent and not great. That's why you can find good players in the middle but in the end other units are more efficient. And i also meant it when I said Vital assets helped a bit . Vehicles might still need a slight push to be really good, but they are far better then they were a year ago.

And yes, critical is in general a more useful keyword than impact which is solely situational. I'm also not defending critical x as a great keyword, I have my beef with getting 5/5 crits through cover and losing an entire activation like that ... But I don't think it breaks the game to an extend that it needs to be fixed.

And yes, I have a source for my claim:

https://www.invaderleague.com/component/tournamentmanager/?view=event&id=14

https://www.invaderleague.com/league/season-5/season-5-single-elimination-lists

Invader league is the largest online tournament with almost 200 players all over the world (including top players/world champions). They used unreleased units (STAPS, ARCs, BX), so real life tournaments will differ a lot until those units are released. Many people don't accept online tournaments as source for game analysis and meta predictions. But the results of Invader League have been quite accurate in the past so I don't see a reason to doubt the results. There are still two wild cards this year that can change it up: Clan Wren and Inferno Squad. And then we can also expect a balancing update later this year.

So I'm pretty sure by the end of the year we'll have a very different meta again. And I'm pretty hyped about that 😃

14 hours ago, jocke01 said:

Critical is still a often better alternative than impact due to lost cost, no exhaust and it's great effect vs troopers in cover. In several cases a critical weapon is more effective than an anti tank rocker launcher due to crits from critical goes trough cover, impact dosen't

I agree, but most of that was due to poor design or at least super conservative design from the start with impact weapons.

1 hour ago, SailorMeni said:

When I said vehicles are decent, I really meant only decent and not great. That's why you can find good players in the middle but in the end other units are more efficient. And i also meant it when I said Vital assets helped a bit . Vehicles might still need a slight push to be really good, but they are far better then they were a year ago.

And yes, critical is in general a more useful keyword than impact which is solely situational. I'm also not defending critical x as a great keyword, I have my beef with getting 5/5 crits through cover and losing an entire activation like that ... But I don't think it breaks the game to an extend that it needs to be fixed.

And yes, I have a source for my claim:

https://www.invaderleague.com/component/tournamentmanager/?view=event&id=14

https://www.invaderleague.com/league/season-5/season-5-single-elimination-lists

Invader league is the largest online tournament with almost 200 players all over the world (including top players/world champions). They used unreleased units (STAPS, ARCs, BX), so real life tournaments will differ a lot until those units are released. Many people don't accept online tournaments as source for game analysis and meta predictions. But the results of Invader League have been quite accurate in the past so I don't see a reason to doubt the results. There are still two wild cards this year that can change it up: Clan Wren and Inferno Squad. And then we can also expect a balancing update later this year.

So I'm pretty sure by the end of the year we'll have a very different meta again. And I'm pretty hyped about that 😃

Okey yes. What I can see from those Links is that clones ended very high, allthough several other factions ended 5-0. On the bottom, I didn't see alot of empire, but alot of rebels. Clan wren and iferno not being used can of course explain the lower number or successful civil war era lists.

Yeah atm the meta is a bit up in the air due to lack of organised play. I hope vehicles gets a push though.

4 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

I agree, but most of that was due to poor design or at least super conservative design from the start with impact weapons.

Yes, all the more reason to change it!

Also legion uses about the same way of obtaining crits as armada and x-wing. However in legion, crits aren't affected by cover and ignores dodges, armor and guardian making them far more powerful. I think critical as a keyword highlighted this fact.

I guess I can start taking the Rebel Captain and Situational Awareness. Maybe that’s the Critical fix? 16 points seems steep, but his anti-suppression ability is pretty good too. It’s possible the cost of the Captain gets chopped to facilitate this combo better.

2 hours ago, SailorMeni said:

When I said vehicles are decent, I really meant only decent and not great. That's why you can find good players in the middle but in the end other units are more efficient. And i also meant it when I said Vital assets helped a bit . Vehicles might still need a slight push to be really good, but they are far better then they were a year ago.

And yes, critical is in general a more useful keyword than impact which is solely situational. I'm also not defending critical x as a great keyword, I have my beef with getting 5/5 crits through cover and losing an entire activation like that ... But I don't think it breaks the game to an extend that it needs to be fixed.

And yes, I have a source for my claim:

https://www.invaderleague.com/component/tournamentmanager/?view=event&id=14

https://www.invaderleague.com/league/season-5/season-5-single-elimination-lists

Invader league is the largest online tournament with almost 200 players all over the world (including top players/world champions). They used unreleased units (STAPS, ARCs, BX), so real life tournaments will differ a lot until those units are released. Many people don't accept online tournaments as source for game analysis and meta predictions. But the results of Invader League have been quite accurate in the past so I don't see a reason to doubt the results. There are still two wild cards this year that can change it up: Clan Wren and Inferno Squad. And then we can also expect a balancing update later this year.

So I'm pretty sure by the end of the year we'll have a very different meta again. And I'm pretty hyped about that 😃

I think this Invader League season was all about playing with the new toys. My hunch is Rebels and Imperials would have had a better showing if they had been less experimental in nature. Why the lack of Triple Taun lists? People just wanted to try something new; many competitive folks wanted to try the best new thing there was in order to win as well, that being ARC Troopers. I’m not saying the other lists had no chance, but there seemed to be a less competitive mindset heading into Invader League than something like Adepticon.

Sure, Real Life big tournaments have more at stake and online tourney let you try out brand new stuff before it's even out. It's also a playground for what experimental lists can work. From what I've seen most finalists went in with a very competitive mindset.

And there were Tripple Tauntaun lists but they have a very hard time running up against those Overwatch Clone Castles. I have watched more then just one game where Tauntauns got wrecked hard in Turn one. I don't expect Trippletauns be nearly as successful as they were before once ARCs/BX are out.

Instead of trying to fix tbe critical x keyword y not change criticals so they arent so much of a catch all. Just spitballing off the top of my head but for example make it so guardian effects crit (dont really know y it doesnt allready) and possibly making it so only the first crit makes it through cover and they rest would get blocked like normal hits. Idk if this would actually help, but I feel like the problem stems from crits themselves being so good and not the critical keyword itself.