8 minutes ago, jagsba said:

Cloaker if you want to count avg ship count why go by avg ship count in archetypes instead of average ship count in events (and that's glossing over mean vs median vs mode)

For example. Imagine an event with 4 players:

3 dash ghosts, and 1 eight ship.

By meta archetype:

1 two ship

1 eight ship

Average ship count 5.

By list count

3 two ships

1 eight ship

Average ship count 3.5.

If I was at this event and was asked what the meta was like. 3.5 is far more representative than 5 for an event with 75% of the lists only having two ships!

If you insist on meta wing (which was it ever fixed for 2e?) you should be multiplying each archetype by number of lists played in that archetype.

We also need to discuss filters and what time frames are appropriate for backing your hypothesis

I ran the filters for July 2017-July 2018 vs points change 2020 January to now. Totaled all ships / 25 for one litmus and actual ship count top 25 for the other. I trust your brain as you're hella brighter than me, if you see different trends I'd love to hear the process. I'm genuinely bummed about Rebels in the game right now.

4 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Hey, now. No changing the goalposts with that Hyperspace clarification. In anycase, I still might take that bet... not tonight though, I'm practicing versus Nantexans. Gotta get my game face on for Concord Dawn.

Don't You Forget About Me

7 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

I ran the filters for July 2017-July 2018 vs points change 2020 January to now. Totaled all ships / 25 for one litmus and actual ship count top 25 for the other. I trust your brain as you're hella brighter than me, if you see different trends I'd love to hear the process. I'm genuinely bummed about Rebels in the game right now.

The question isn't when you set the filters but why.

Your hypothesis is something along the lines of 'It's also no coincidence that the faction with the least amount of AG3 Aces, that has some of its best higher initiative pilots stonewalled behind med/large bases in a swarm era iteration of the game, is chasing smoke right now.'

So that breaks down into

Rebels:

1) don't have big green aces

2) big orange are chubby or fat

These two things are disadvantages because

3) Swarms are prevalent

Is that a decent summary?

10 minutes ago, jagsba said:

The question isn't when you set the filters but why.

Your hypothesis is something along the lines of 'It's also no coincidence that the faction with the least amount of AG3 Aces, that has some of its best higher initiative pilots stonewalled behind med/large bases in a swarm era iteration of the game, is chasing smoke right now.'

So that breaks down into

Rebels:

1) don't have big green aces

2) big orange are chubby or fat

These two things are disadvantages because

3) Swarms are prevalent

Is that a decent summary?

that's started the rabbit hole. is 5 a swarm? probably not--but it's certainly a lot more models on tables than before, maybe more now than at anytime since the game began 6 years ago? With non AG3 synergistic Rebels it's moar arcs and time on target against them in said lower ship counts, and they suffer exponentially more when losing a ship in the scrum. Buncha AG3 mooks handling the Rebs 3-4 attacks on average, seems like diminishing returns.

but what do I know, I'm the guy who flies 2 WSFs with Wedge sometimes

32 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

Build me a Hyperspace Rebel list to go against 7 scyks with autoblaster. I'll run it tonight and pray

• Leia Organa: Kanan Jarrus, Heightened Perception
• Braylen Stramm: Hull Upgrade
• Ten Numb, Hull Upgrade, Stabilised S-Foils

Pack a bunch of Debries and just murder them before they can murder you. Keep Leia in range 0-2 to Braylen so she can engage his dial a bit more. I am having lots of fun with this list so far. Leia is a beast.

7 minutes ago, Schanez said:

• Leia Organa: Kanan Jarrus, Heightened Perception
• Braylen Stramm: Hull Upgrade
• Ten Numb, Hull Upgrade, Stabilised S-Foils

Pack a bunch of Debries and just murder them before they can murder you. Keep Leia in range 0-2 to Braylen so she can engage his dial a bit more. I am having lots of fun with this list so far. Leia is a beast.

on it

19 minutes ago, Schanez said:

• Leia Organa: Kanan Jarrus, Heightened Perception
• Braylen Stramm: Hull Upgrade
• Ten Numb, Hull Upgrade, Stabilised S-Foils

Pack a bunch of Debries and just murder them before they can murder you. Keep Leia in range 0-2 to Braylen so she can engage his dial a bit more. I am having lots of fun with this list so far. Leia is a beast.

I tweaked it to get that B-Wing double tap and run Leia into things front arc, force to mod if she has to

Ten Numb (48)
Autoblasters (3)
Stabilized S-Foils (2)

Braylen Stramm (52)
Autoblasters (3)
Stabilized S-Foils (2)

Leia Organa (77)
Kanan Jarrus (12)
“Zeb” Orrelios (1)
Total: 200

6 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

that's started the rabbit hole. is 5 a swarm?

See you're bright. The next step is to ask what big green and what fat orange do we want to compared

6 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

probably not--but it's certainly a lot more models on tables than before, maybe more now than at anytime since the game began 6 years ago?

Maybe? Tie swarms were the only meta lost for a while. I'd have to check the numbers

6 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

With non AG3 synergistic Rebels it's moar arcs and time on target against them in said lower ship counts,

Thats something thats also testable though will take more than a casual perusment of meta wing. I'd be surprised if most lists are getting more arcs in target over a tlt ghost though!

6 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

and they suffer exponentially more when losing a ship in the scrum.

Compared to a swarm? Yes. Compared to imp or republic aces which are still common, not so much

6 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

Buncha AG3 mooks handling the Rebs 3-4 attacks on average, seems like diminishing returns.

but what do I know, I'm the guy who flies 2 WSFs with Wedge sometimes

So I don't know if we're in a swarm meta or of rebels do worse in one. But if you want to talk specifically about how your rebels can do better against swarms we can talk that. You're not going to like some of my answers though 😛

28 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

I tweaked it to get that B-Wing double tap and run Leia into things front arc, force to mod if she has to

Ten Numb (48)
Autoblasters (3)
Stabilized S-Foils (2)

Braylen Stramm (52)
Autoblasters (3)
Stabilized S-Foils (2)

Leia Organa (77)
Kanan Jarrus (12)
“Zeb” Orrelios (1)
Total: 200

Not bad! Everyone flies differently. My Leia is a cruising artillery, usualy hiding behind a pile of trash from shots. Makes her extremely tanky. And she can zoom through those busted Tie pieces in no time and still do actions thanks to the ever helpful Kanan Back Massage. Double Tapping B-Wings are extremely good, although in this set up, I would go...

1. Lando Calrisian: Nien Numb, Millenium Falcon
2. Braylen Stram: Marksmanship, Autoblasters, Stabilized S-Foils
3. Ten Numb: Marksmanship, FCS, Autoblasters, Stabilized S-Foils

Lando can give Braylen the Focus to give him double mods on at least one attack. Ten can now reroll one Die on his Primary as well. Marksmanship helps you tap into the Bullseye Autoblasters mechanics, not to mention the unavoidable Crits when out of front arc.

9 minutes ago, jagsba said:

See you're bright. The next step is to ask what big green and what fat orange do we want to compared

Maybe? Tie swarms were the only meta lost for a while. I'd have to check the numbers

Thats something thats also testable though will take more than a casual perusment of meta wing. I'd be surprised if most lists are getting more arcs in target over a tlt ghost though!

Compared to a swarm? Yes. Compared to imp or republic aces which are still common, not so much

So I don't know if we're in a swarm meta or of rebels do worse in one. But if you want to talk specifically about how your rebels can do better against swarms we can talk that. You're not going to like some of my answers though 😛

I already know your main answer rhymes with "Try Butter" --but what else you got?

I like swarms by the way, i just want to fly fun fast zippy big green big orange Rebel versions of them, because I am THAT guy.

Right but the Imp or Republic ace has an entirely different list goal.

In aces matchup, the ace doesn't lose a ship as a sure thing early. In a jousting/brawly list, you can do positional games and I-kill and the like to keep your ships alive longer, but the rebel game plan involves inevitable deaths (Which is an additional identity problem because the gimmick of many named characters is to try to provide collective value, so losing ships actually hurts rebels unusually hard outside of just trending towards 4 beefy ships). An aces list is trying to minimize the head to head interaction and create a scenario where their nominal statistical disadvantage (And this isn't always the case, Boba literally doesn't care and can joust super well vs lists that don't have a LOT of red dice, which is a problematic reversal of traditional ace weaknesses that hurts rebels, who sacrifice some offensive power for I-kill potential and some health), and thus doesn't care as much that say... losing Vader in a Joust is them losing 33%+ of their effective offensive power vs a Tie Fighter only being 16% of their opponent's: Your not there to make those trades anyway.

So Rebels are in this weird spot: Every ace list is extremely affected by a single death early but has lots of tools to avoid that and isn't planning to lose anyone, while swarm lists aren't as affected by early deaths but inevitably lose ships and are willing to do so to accelerate the game out and get more of an advantage. Rebels have the worst of both worlds: inevitably losing ships but being heavily affected by their loss to the point trades affect them like they are an ace in almost every matchup.

Some oldschool lists like BBUX (which is the third best list EVER, according to Metawing, and which was so strong literally every element of the list save Tactical Officer was nerfed ) got around this by I-killing and having such high health totals on decently defensive ships (Sure, the B-wing only has 1 green, but it could almost always defensively mod it while keeping offensive mods) and such a good alpha strike let it actually do quite well against swarms.

So it is both a combination of their best list getting... super extremely nerfed (It now costs 227 points to fly, for perspective), and the fact that brawly lists naturally just... will statistically favor the stronger one and there is limited room for how many brawly lists 'can' be good.

21 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

I already know your main answer rhymes with "Try Butter" --but what else you got?

I like swarms by the way, i just want to fly fun fast zippy big green big orange Rebel versions of them, because I am THAT guy.

http://xwing.gateofstorms.net/2/ship_durability/?d=AgAAAAMAwBAE&a=AAIAAA

3 hours ago, jagsba said:

http://xwing.gateofstorms.net/2/ship_durability/?d=AgAAAAMAwBAE&a=AAIAAA

It looks even better when you give Luke all 4 hull.

1 minute ago, 5050Saint said:

It looks even better when you give Like all 4 hull.

well now I'm gonna go add a hull upgrade just for the heck of it.

8 minutes ago, jagsba said:

http://xwing.gateofstorms.net/2/ship_durability/?d=AgAAAAMAwBAE&a=AAIAAA

still needs buddies. Arvel is on the other line though, I'll switch over and talk to him.

8 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

I'm really hoping on this. I don't share the sentiment that Rebel aren't viable, but these packs should be used to revitalize those factions. If Scum gets a Y-wing/Kihraxz pack, that's probably not going to cut it. StarViper + Something, A-Wing + Something, and Interceptor + Something, seem good routes to go.

Rebel has some pieces, in the last local Bistan Dash made a splash. Olli also used it to good effect against Spamtex.

I would be totally down for Kihraxzes if they were to get some awesome pilots. But scum only gets Hotshots, not Aces. And Kihraxzes suffer from having only 1 action, while every one and their kitchen sink in the later released factions has linked actions (even Torrents) or force and calc sharings etc.

2 hours ago, Schanez said:

Rebels rely heavily on cross ship synergy. Once they start falling, it's a domino syndrome.

They suffer hard from FFG not having nerfed the aces but instead buffing everyone else. Now there are so many ships and so much firepower on the tables, that lynchpin andmutual support lists mostly no longer work, as the lynchpins just straight up get deleted and the list falls apart.

1 minute ago, Cloaker said:

still needs buddies. Arvel is on the other line though, I'll switch over and talk to him.

You know my third piece

19 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

well now I'm gonna go add a hull upgrade just for the heck of it.

On a purely defensive level, your already paying a 70% tax on a U-wing to get 1 extra attack survived, meaning your paying a 55% tax to get just 1 more attack of life, or only a 10% increase. With hull upgrade, that goes to a 30% increase, and your paying a 70% increase in cost, which translates to about twice the efficiency per-point spent on defensive power. So the hull upgrade is a pretty decent call if your not using the upgrade for something else, can afford it, and are trying to maximize his survival as long as possible.

But this also makes it really clear you need to get something out of Luke besides pure defensive power, which is why Luke wasn't flown in most beef lists despite fitting the I-killing double offensive modding pseudo-ace role like Wedge. It can be done, but there is a reason Luke's play rate is historically so low: If you want a thick ship with good initiative, rebels already have plenty of great options outside of Luke that are way more price efficient for their durability.

He is often flown as a late game piece to ensure some aspect of your list's offensive power survives as long as possible, which is a role he can do that the U-wing or B-wing can't. Another option is to try a rebel 'beef ace' list, which has always skirted around being a thing with stuff like Luke-Wedge-Norra, or Han-Luke-Norra often having surprising results but never making too big a splash. If I recall there was also a VCX list that used him as a late game carry piece due to the inevitability of the VCX dying.

You guys should separate "good" from "popular". High ship count lists feel more prevalent because they are stronger now than ever before.

Current average ships per list is at 3.96 and almost identical to hyperspace trials of Wave 3 in April 2019, where it was 3.98.
Empire decreased a lot (4.59 to 3.66), scum (3.09 to 3.58) and separatists (5.04 to 5.97) and FO (3.52 to 4.41) increased a lot.

More important is how dominant high ship count lists are now compared to then. The only good list with 6+ ships were inferno swarm and 2 ARCs+4Torrents, and at 5 was only 5A and 5 TIE bombers. Only inferno swarm really dominated.
Now we have several that dominate. Sick scyk six and other scyk variants, Spamtex, Droidswarms, a ton of combinations between those. Then all the 5 ship lists in a ton of combinations.

That makes the high ship count lists more noticeable.

45 minutes ago, jagsba said:

You know my third piece

Brother, it's been a long year. Refresh my memory cause the only low hanging fruit I see are thicc oranges and key limes.

24 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

Brother, it's been a long year. Refresh my memory cause the only low hanging fruit I see are thicc oranges and key limes.

Princess. When I'm lazy with a missile for that 270 arc

20 minutes ago, jagsba said:

Princess. When I'm lazy with a missile for that 270 arc

Ah yeah. We both were running her that night awhile back. Good times.

Jeez, how long ago that seems....

What will completely beat a 6-Nantex Swarm ?

The points revision for the release of the 3 next ships. I say that the hive guards will be at 34 and petranaki at 35 points. Chertek at 36-37 and Berwer at the same.

Maybe a little shift down points for ensnare, to compensate for the addition of points on the nantex.

This way you can easily have 5 nantexes with crack shot, but not 6.

I like the idea of a nantex swarm, but I don't think that 6 nantexes is the way FFG wanted them to be played. The points adjustements were major. It will be simply minor instead.

To the haters who say "Don't joust Nantex" this is me vs 6 last night. Despite being spread out across the entire board edge, this is round 3. I have hash marks at about where each turn was for them. I think I mixed Teal and Greens starting points, but the result was still the same. The only way for my to not joust would have been to spread my formation and get picked apart separately, weakening myself further. Nantex dictate the engagement against anything moving before them.

Having officially flown against it, now I can definitively say this list is gross. Not being able to block them is much more of a deal than I thought. Several turns I would have been taking about two less shots per turn due to blocking them, but instead they just bounce off. Being able have 100% time on target is absurdly good. They always had shots. Blocking them is still good as they lose their green token, but Crack Shots help push damage through when they don't have it.

Despite getting decent engagements and strong dice luck and crit luck (double weapons failure on teal), I felt helpless. I think I'm going to have to go to high initiative and force to beat this.

12 minutes ago, Silver_leader said:

The points revision for the release of the 3 next ships. I say that the hive guards will be at 34 and petranaki at 35 points. Chertek at 36-37 and Berwer at the same.

I doubt this will happen, but I would be ecstatic if it did. They have only done emergency points adjustments once.

12 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Since I super agree with everything you've said, I thought I'd jump in with the 1st "your list is in no way a decent thing to run against spamtex".

Since that point is more an illustration of how they may warp the meta in a totally not good way, rather than "you need a better list".

That latter answer is not the answer.