I find it strange that people think that ions are underpowered. I love ion turrets. It's my #1 elite pilot killer. Ion it, fly in its way, kill it.

Ever ionized a stressed Soontir (or any stressed ship)? Oh the joy!

It's especially strong against ships with high defense, since you wouldn't do more than 1 damage most of the time anyway.

I've been noticing a trend lately where people pick words that are not wrong, but are perhaps not the best fit for what they're trying to convey. For example, I think it might make more sense to argue not that Ion is under powered, but that to a lot of people (especially those using it for the first time) it strikes them as under whelming .

I think underpowered implies an absolute, that it's intrinsically too weak to be useful, which is arguably not the case at all. But it does clearly disappoint a lot of people who are trying it out, which makes me think it's maybe as powerful as it needs to be, but not as powerful as people seem to expect it to be. I know I fell into that category at first, as well.

Now I wouldn't complain if it had some very careful wording that it made you skip the action step (but still allowed you access to free actions) or something, but I also think it's ok the way it is. I've seen enough ships get Ion'd into rocks Ion'd while stressed, Ion'd right off the board that I'm wary by now of the idea of making it any more powerful than it is.

Like many elements of the game, sometimes the trick is simply finding better times to make use of it. If you catch a stressed ship with it, they are in for a bad day. I've seen stressed ships get Ion'd and then simply stalked right off the map with a turret trailing along behind them zapping them each turn. It's a nightmare for agility 1 ships like the B-Wing, Y-Wing, etc because if you manage 2 hits on your 3 dice, it's un-evadeable. There's no reducing the damage; either it hits you, does a damage, and gives you an Ion token, or not.

It's also great fun to find wounded ships and simply Ion them to death a damage at a time.

But it does clearly disappoint a lot of people who are trying it out, which makes me think it's maybe as powerful as it needs to be, but not as powerful as people seem to expect it to be.

Well put

Yes there's nothing really wrong with the Ion, it works quite well and 4 Y's with Ion Turrets can be a fun list to play. Perhaps not the most competitive, but still a lot of fun.

I think the problem with Ion's as you point out is a matter of expectation. Prior to X-Wing most people saw the ion cannon on Hoth completely disable a ISD with one shot, and in XvT it shut you down completely. Which is all supported by the lore.

But in X-Wing it doesn't have quite the same effect, you can still act and shoot, so it doesn't quite match up with what we've seen elsewhere. So peoples natural reaction is "well they suck", because they don't live up to the hype as it were.