14 hours ago, Khobai said:

clones are definitely not costed consistently with other units in the game.

for example compare shoretroopers to clone trooper mk1s.

shoretroopers are 13 points each with a black attack die and a red defense save. with the ability to only sometimes get an aim token after the recent nerf.

clone mk1s are also 13 points each with a black attack die and red defense save. but they also get broken standby token sharing AND firesupport EVERY TURN.

1. First of all. Units are balanced in faction as well as against units of other factions. Certain factions don't have access to certain things, or don't have access to the same quality of a similar unit. This influences their cost and usefulness.

2. P1 clones have to be issued an order to get fire support, which when used, essentially 'wastes' an activation. It's a double edged sword.
Similarly, shore troopers only get their bonus when issued an order, plus they have access to veers using a single action to launch out 2-3 aim tokens, PLUS they give free orders to emplacement troopers, which can be given targeting arrays to get even more aims.
I think the two units are pretty similar in balance, even if clones have green token sharing, because clones need to siphon the effectiveness of other units in their army to get those green tokens, imperial shores do not.

20 hours ago, SailorMeni said:

Do you honestly believe that Phase 2 are costed adequately?

Actually FFG already published an upgrade for Phase 1 that makes them very similar to Phase 2: The clone captain.

Training Upgrade for both, exhaustible suppression ignoring Vs courage 2, extra trooper Vs reliable 1.

The captain costs 17 points, 9 points more than just picking Phase 2s (7 if you factor in the more expensive Z-6).

If you price Phase 2s matching those points I bet people would still use them extensively, but probably can't spam them any more. And there would even be an alternative that is completely useless otherwise.

So maybe not 8 points per rule, but easily 5.

I also believe that if the training upgrade wasn't so easily accessible for clones that you can fit it on 3-6 units, standby sharing would be much less of an issue.

3. Yes they are costed appropriately. They are 15 points for a 1 wound red die. When they die, that's a lot of points down the drain for a core unit.
P1 with captain + z6 is 94p VS. P2 with z6 which is 87p. (just leaving out overwatch for now as both would be getting it anyway) There is only a 7p difference between the P1 and P2 squads. The P1 get an extra guy and can ignore suppression for one round (because good players hardly use refresh actions), while P2 get native courage 2 and reliable 1. I really don't get what you're arguing here, because the two units are comparable.

11 hours ago, thepopemobile100 said:

Except that isn't true at all. A lot of stuff completely lacks surges. Both Vaders, B1 and B2 droids, Greivous, AAT, and IRG all lack any kind of surge (probably more, that's off the top of my head). The only faction that has surge on everything is the Rebels and they aren't exactly a pillar of power

4. Almost all of GAR lacks surge! So they are almost always trying to get aggressive tactics or surge tokens in other ways. Essentially paying a tax for it.

Standby sharing between clones should probably go. It would probably make the game a bit better.

...

I just hope the designers don't take a few whiners online as an authority on what to balance and not balance. Or at least show an element of neutrality in their decision making.

We also have to remember that the designers have designed units waves in advance of what's actually out. So they may have a better understanding of where the balance/meta will eventually go anyway.

3 hours ago, lologrelol said:

Standby sharing between clones should probably go. It would probably make the game a bit better.

...

I just hope the designers don't take a few whiners online as an authority on what to balance and not balance. Or at least show an element of neutrality in their decision making.

We also have to remember that the designers have designed units waves in advance of what's actually out. So they may have a better understanding of where the balance/meta will eventually go anyway.

You are right: Let's hope designers take the Top 5 of the recent Invader League Season 5 as a reference for their decisions:

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

4 hours ago, Dalae said:

You are right: Let's hope designers take the Top 5 of the recent Invader League Season 5 as a reference for their decisions:

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

That data while relevant isnt the whole picture. What if, of the people that participated 70% of the top players played GAR, you could just have proven that the majority of the top players chose GAR what if those players chose imperial and placed similarly, then the above just says for that tournament GAR was more popular (which says something in itself)

How many people jumped on the bandwagon and played rexstar/arcstar at that tournament, which creates the equivalent of net decking, the problem may not be that GAR is unbalanced, it could just be that Vital Assets strongly favors GAR and it's vital Assets that's unbalanced the game.

38 minutes ago, syrath said:

That data while relevant isnt the whole picture. What if, of the people that participated 70% of the top players played GAR, you could just have proven that the majority of the top players chose GAR what if those players chose imperial and placed similarly, then the above just says for that tournament GAR was more popular (which says something in itself)

How many people jumped on the bandwagon and played rexstar/arcstar at that tournament, which creates the equivalent of net decking, the problem may not be that GAR is unbalanced, it could just be that Vital Assets strongly favors GAR and it's vital Assets that's unbalanced the game.

Invader league is an international event, where all players are experienced (so we can agree none of them have to "git gud").

I count 64 participants, with 20 clones, 18 Rebels, 11 Imperials and 15 Droids.

I can't see your point with all the "what if...?". The main point is this data is with the current meta (including ARCs and BX), with all the players in a "similar" level of skill.

If you check the firsts 4 lists, they are practically identical (the 5th is a bit different, with Obi).

For me is hard to see the unbalancing factor in the Vital Assets expansion.

As i said, i hope designers take this data into consideration (among others, of course) to make decisions about the current state of the game.

5 minutes ago, Dalae said:

As i said, i hope designers take this data into consideration (among others, of course) to make decisions about the current state of the game.

The data will become irrelevant if they get rid of clone standby sharing, as that will fundamentally shift the way the faction is played.

I don't think clones need any more nerfing than loss of standby sharing (even though I love the ability lol)

1 hour ago, Dalae said:

Invader league is an international event, where all players are experienced (so we can agree none of them have to "git gud").

I count 64 participants, with 20 clones, 18 Rebels, 11 Imperials and 15 Droids.

I can't see your point with all the "what if...?". The main point is this data is with the current meta (including ARCs and BX), with all the players in a "similar" level of skill.

If you check the firsts 4 lists, they are practically identical (the 5th is a bit different, with Obi).

For me is hard to see the unbalancing factor in the Vital Assets expansion.

As i said, i hope designers take this data into consideration (among others, of course) to make decisions about the current state of the game.

For what its worth I agree and if you look at my earlier posts the stats of win ratios bear out what you say, however the exact reason why GAR are getting unbalanced results is never just as simple as saying its totally down to token sharing. Example those top 5 players , how many of those were top 10 in the previous invader league, how many of the top 10 got top 10 this year what factions etc. Just listing the top 5 isnt enough.

The replacement gencon tournament had the top 8 with 3 rebels, 1 imperial, 2 GAR and 2 CIS. This appears at first glance to be a fairly balanced result, so looking at that top 8 and compare with the IL top 5 the only difference was that arc troopers werent legal for Gencon. So logic dictates then that since the top 8 was balanced at Gencon and the only difference was arc troopers and BX being legal for Invader League , then it must be Arcs that are the issue, that is until you bring in the win ratios again with GAR at 56% CIS at 54% rebels at 50% and Imps at circa 40% at Gencon.

So the top 8 didnt bear out the conclusion you could take from the win ratios, stats on their own mean little. Trends tell a story but the reason behind the data also means a lot.

13 hours ago, lologrelol said:

P1 with captain + z6 is 94p VS. P2 with z6 which is 87p. (just leaving out overwatch for now as both would be getting it anyway) There is only a 7p difference between the P1 and P2 squads. The P1 get an extra guy and can ignore suppression for one round (because good players hardly use refresh actions), while P2 get native courage 2 and reliable 1. I really don't get what you're arguing here, because the two units are comparable.

That is my whole point: those units are comparable, why is one of them 7 points cheaper? 7 (~8%) points is not nothing, especially in a meta where you see 4-5 P2s per list.

So either you agree that there is something off here or you need to argue why the difference is justified.

Btw. my point is not from the view of someone frustrated playing against clones. I would love to play them myself, but it just isn't fun when you play the army that has the clear advantage. Tried it, but right now I'm waiting for a rebalance before I pick them up again ...

10 hours ago, Dalae said:

You are right: Let's hope designers take the Top 5 of the recent Invader League Season 5 as a reference for their decisions:

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

That's not the Top 5 though. Those were the 5 highest-seeded players going into single eliminations. If you look at the actual top 4, you have:

Luke Cook - GAR
Dashz - GAR
Garnanana - CIS
TowerNumberNine - GAR

Expand that to the top 8, and that adds:

Finn - GAR
JJs Juggernaut - GAR
Ellis-swlegioncommand - CIS
Floorf The Dwarf - Rebels

GAR is definitely over-represented in the top positions with 5 of the top 8, but please use the correct data. And some people might say that GAR over-placed because good players picked them. But did GAR do well because good players picked them, or did good players pick GAR because they do well?

1 hour ago, SailorMeni said:

That is my whole point: those units are comparable, why is one of them 7 points cheaper? 7 (~8%) points is not nothing, especially in a meta where you see 4-5 P2s per list.

So either you agree that there is something off here or you need to argue why the difference is justified.

This still isn't a comparison of like to like.

In the above comparison, the Phase 2s are cheaper because they have one less wound/attack die.

The P2 with the Z-6 and the additional trooper is most comparable to P1s with Captain and Z-6. Which puts the P2s at 102 points, 8 points more expensive than the P1s.

So in this case the P2s are more expensive because Courage two is active every round without a recovery action and they have Reliable 1.

7 hours ago, Dalae said:

Invader league is an international event, where all players are experienced (so we can agree none of them have to "git gud").

I count 64 participants, with 20 clones, 18 Rebels, 11 Imperials and 15 Droids.

I can't see your point with all the "what if...?". The main point is this data is with the current meta (including ARCs and BX), with all the players in a "similar" level of skill.

If you check the firsts 4 lists, they are practically identical (the 5th is a bit different, with Obi).

For me is hard to see the unbalancing factor in the Vital Assets expansion.

As i said, i hope designers take this data into consideration (among others, of course) to make decisions about the current state of the game.

With regards to the latter, they did when in year 1 strike teams were must have in the spec ops slot and year 2 when tauntaun and shoretrooper order chains were the main two archetypes in the meta, albeit I feel its hurt the imperial more than the rebel player. The nerf to tauntaun units IMO balanced them out but to me it wasn't obvious that was what was broken, and it could be the same thing here.

3 hours ago, Lochlan said:

And some people might say that GAR over-placed because good players picked them. But did GAR do well because good players picked them, or did good players pick GAR because they do well?

Thanks for pointing the correct data (even if the conclusions are quite similar)

Honestly, can't understand some people: "GAR did well because good players picked them"? So the players who didn't choose GAR are plainly bad? I specifically pick Invader League because the people competing there are supposed to have certain level; is not a tourney on a local store with 10 players.

Some GAR players insist the game is balanced and nothing has to change; meanwhile, i am reading in this forum posts of people actively avoiding to play against GAR in their local meta. This is not a good sign for a healthy game and a growing(?) community.

Standby sharing is the only problem. Aim and Dodge and surge is not a problem

They are supposed to be elite and higher priced, higher quality troops

1 hour ago, Dalae said:

"GAR did well because good players picked them"? So the players who didn't choose GAR are plainly bad?

So the players who didn't choose GAR are plainly bad? I don't thing this is what is being meant here!

I read this as; just not as competitive or as "good" as the "good" players.

It's not black and white!

7 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

This still isn't a comparison of like to like.

In the above comparison, the Phase 2s are cheaper because they have one less wound/attack die.

The P2 with the Z-6 and the additional trooper is most comparable to P1s with Captain and Z-6. Which puts the P2s at 102 points, 8 points more expensive than the P1s

Extra troopers are overcosted and nobody takes them, ever.

And as stated earlier already, the extra body is comparable to reliable 1. Extra wound equals a slight increase in durability and damage output. Reliable does the same thing and is even better because it can be used by other units if necessary.

So my comparison stands.

I have an easy solution for standby sharing without removing this flavour from GAR

Make standby sharing a REAL sharing i.e. if any unit in range 1 of unit with standby gets suppression, standby is removed. Also, if any unit with in range 1 attacks, the standby is removed.

This way there is no point in stacking more then 1 standby as they will be removed after attack. Also range 4 weapons can effectively remove hidden standbys.

13 hours ago, Lochlan said:

That's not the Top 5 though. Those were the 5 highest-seeded players going into single eliminations. If you look at the actual top 4, you have:

Luke Cook - GAR
Dashz - GAR
Garnanana - CIS
TowerNumberNine - GAR

Expand that to the top 8, and that adds:

Finn - GAR
JJs Juggernaut - GAR
Ellis-swlegioncommand - CIS
Floorf The Dwarf - Rebels

GAR is definitely over-represented in the top positions with 5 of the top 8, but please use the correct data. And some people might say that GAR over-placed because good players picked them. But did GAR do well because good players picked them, or did good players pick GAR because they do well?

Good players pick what is best, they are the ones who define the meta.

For me, this is an obvious case of "GAR is better, so good players take it to maximize their chances of victory".

More telling is that there was only 5 Empire lists in top32 and none in top16...

1 hour ago, costi said:

Good players pick what is best, they are the ones who define the meta.

For me, this is an obvious case of "GAR is better, so good players take it to maximize their chances of victory".

More telling is that there was only 5 Empire lists in top32 and none in top16...

A lot of the top players know each other from hosting pod casts and such, and there's a definitely a group think community among them. I think that a small group of folks have a relatively outsize influence on what we define as "the meta" when really its just "their meta" which we all follow closely.

That being said, I recently played with my buddy's republic army and ran a bunch of P2's with overwatch, and man is it cheesy.

1 hour ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

A lot of the top players know each other from hosting pod casts and such, and there's a definitely a group think community among them. I think that a small group of folks have a relatively outsize influence on what we define as "the meta" when really its just "their meta" which we all follow closely.

That being said, I recently played with my buddy's republic army and ran a bunch of P2's with overwatch, and man is it cheesy.

I agree, however if the top players in the game all end up settling on one particular type of build because , in their testing there isnt a viable alternative because a particular tactic is too hard to overcome (example think back to the 20+pt bids just to ensure you never got stuck on red on key positions,) then there is an issue.

I personally think that having standby tokens available to the premier units that could not be shot off to be quite powerful, but we do not as yet have any info on observation tokens, which for all we know, may counter this tactic and originally been planned for a much closer release)

6 hours ago, SailorMeni said:

Extra troopers are overcosted and nobody takes them, ever.

And as stated earlier already, the extra body is comparable to reliable 1. Extra wound equals a slight increase in durability and damage output. Reliable does the same thing and is even better because it can be used by other units if necessary.

So my comparison stands.

It isn't a matter of if people take them or not, it is a matter of comparing actual nearly equivalent units. The Z-6 shouldn't be included at all since the price on the weapon is consistently 12 points, regardless of the body holding the weapon. The cost of that extra body is included in every unit specific Heavy/Personnel upgrade.

And Reliable and an extra body are not "equivalent." An extra body changes the maximum damage that can be rolled in the attack pool; Reliable doesn't. An extra body makes the unit more resilient to Pierce; Reliable doesn't.

An extra body doesn't get shared with other Clones. The Surge token does.

If you are going to insist they are equivalent than the reason naked P2s are 9 points cheaper than P1s with Captain is because they have one less wound and one less attack die. Getting hit by 4 attack pools with 1 hit and Pierce 1 guarantees the naked Phase 2s will be removed, while the Captain in the Phase 1s will still be on the board.

4 hours ago, costi said:

More telling is that there was only 5 Empire lists in top32 and none in top16...

That's actually a bigger problem in my opinion than the GAR doing well, and is likely a result of two things. First, until Iden and ISF came out, the Empire hadn't had a solid release since Shoretroopers. Dewbacks and Operative Vader were duds at best. That left they very much behind the other factions.

Second, their last release's biggest advantage, coordinate, was nerfed in a pretty heavy handed way due to the complaints of threads just like this one. Personally, I take that as a warning of things to come; players don't like something, they complain, and a faction that used to be good gets nerfed into oblivion because FFG's approach is often to use a sledgehammer to kill a house fly. (as opposed to giving the most ridiculous units a slight nudge towards being balanced like they did with Tauns) As a GAR player, I don't want to see that. As a Legion player, I don't want the game to go back to only having two factions that can potentially win because that defeats the point of having more factions in the first place.

Bottom line: it's fine to air grievances, but remember that the law of unintended consequences exist, and their "fix" now will likely just break something else in the future.

5 hours ago, DerrKaTer said:

I have an easy solution for standby sharing without removing this flavour from GAR

Make standby sharing a REAL sharing i.e. if any unit in range 1 of unit with standby gets suppression, standby is removed. Also, if any unit with in range 1 attacks, the standby is removed.

This way there is no point in stacking more then 1 standby as they will be removed after attack. Also range 4 weapons can effectively remove hidden standbys.

that is a terrible idea that would remove the entire point of standbys, this would affect the other 3 factions way more than the GAR as well.

I have said it before and i will say it again, if a change has to be made to standbys then i suggest that one of 2 things is done

Either standbys are increased in range to range 3 so that all of the factions would actually see use out of them (and sentinel increases to range 4 but with a heavy cost increase of about 8 points to 12)

Or maybe since standby is supposed to be a reaction shot on an enemy that is moving, standbys stay as they are except that aims cannot be spent off other units during a standby attack or that aims can only reroll 1 die during a standby attack.

one is a buff to the other factions so they dont feel left out, the other is a nerf to standbys in general but clones in particular without being oppresive.

@5particus Why not go with the other potential "fix" of changing the color of the standby token or otherwise excluding it from being shared? I'm curious as to why you didn't include that in your list as it leaves every other part of standby the same, and is arguably the simplest way to modify it.

6 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@5particus Why not go with the other potential "fix" of changing the color of the standby token or otherwise excluding it from being shared? I'm curious as to why you didn't include that in your list as it leaves every other part of standby the same, and is arguably the simplest way to modify it.

as they are at the moment, standbys are pretty much exclusively used by GAR, i have not really seen them being used by any other army.

My opinion is that they are not broken on clones so much as they are not currently used by other armies and so some people have never really seen them being used up to now.

they do work well with clones i will admit but the downsides is no attack with the unit that does a standby and clones usuallly have fewer units on the table so every attack is important.

Edit: it would also require the tokens to reprinted and given out to all the players again as the tokens are actually green in colour and it would otherwise be confusing to new players at the least

I think the whole clone standby thing is objectively dumb, but honest at the moment I'd settle for Standby not being able to fire on any unit other than the one that triggers it. The use of standby to pound one target over and over just doesn't seem right gameplay or thematically wise.