It's been real, y'all.

Thread tracers were part of the first list I built, but then I realized ion torps were 4 points. I also played some test games with another squad vs Eta lists. I'm pretty sure Etas are way beyond the power curve for their points, and they're both squirrely and insanely durable with easy Force/Evade and stealth device. Wedge with Ion Torps can potentially help a lot there. With Jake he gets them double modded pretty easily, and a double modded Ion Torp from Wedge is a reasonably reliable way to knock off a stealth device. If an Ion goes through, it's even better, because it shuts off the Evade action and repositioning next turn. The main thing is that its 4 points of flexibility, and the squad has never in its history had that.

The thing I'm eyeing hardest is Ion Torps on Wedge, but some upgrades on Jake or a bid are not unreasonable.

Darn triple post.

Double post

Absolutely. That is, for me, the list I've played in 2.0 that feels the strongest. I don't think it has any really bad matchups. It has been just a little bit over for the last few update cycles, but the most recent change dropped every single ship, so there 4 spare points. Big swing, and if there was competitive X-wing these days, it would be at the top of my list of Exended tournament squads.

X-wings are among the most satisfying shios to play. They can go where you want them to go, but there are trade-offs for almost every decision you make with them. Tough enough to take a hit, dodgy enough to avoid damage, punchy enough to threaten most ships, fast enough to get where they need to go, slow enough to stay there. You just don't get everything on the same turn, so there's really interesting decision making involved.

I agree, and it's my favorite archetype.

I think I agree with this. 8 hp never seems like enough for Vermeil.

Thats true, the pre-Nantex data isn't an argument of today's state form a strictly raw data point of view. My opinion based on my understanding of the game is that the nerfs and buffs were mild enough that the aces are still on top, but we'll see what happens in the next 6 months.

I'm open to being convinced by numbers. I just don't think the Nantex meta is a good indicator of the current situation. Edit: Let me put this out there. Starting with the next points (starting soon, I think), we'll use 2-3 ship passive mod (Force, Boba, Soontir, etc.), high initiative (5-6), repositioning ships as the baseline. This type of squad is what I'm saying is the best thing right now, and what has always been the best thing. If 6-8 ship lists, call them "Efficiency", have an equivalent cut rate to that "Ace" cohort of ships and have 50% of the adoption rate or more of the "Ace" cohort, then I'll agree that 6-8 ship lists are as good as ace lists. Is this a reasonable comparison? If not, what would be?

If that's what you're getting from me, that's weird. I want the best things to be made less good, no matter what they are. I think passive mod high initiative repositioning ships have been the best and are still the best, so this new focus on generic efficiency, which has a very low rate of adoption, doesn't make sense to me.

That's a reasonable thing to do.

It's the only way to be sure.

What I take exception to is people that object to Sloane and Scyks and Mal despite the fact that we have things that have passive mod aces that have always been top tier that are still top tier, and we have 2 whole tournaments worth of data (i.e. not a lot of data) on Sloane/Scyk/Malswarm/whatever swarm people hate. If that's not you, no worries.

I totally admit that Sloane is really good, just not as good as most high passive mod ace lists. By your metric, Boba is even worse than Sloane because it was widespread competitive when Nantex were not nerfed, and even won a tournament. We've known Boba is this good for ages, yet one peek of Sloane making ships that have been pretty bad competitive and she's got to be nerfed. I'm not saying that she's not good. I'm not saying that she shouldn't be looked at closely, but I don't see how she can be priority over the continually dominating passive mod, repositioning, high initiative ships.

You have data thats not a tiny handful of squads? We have a ton of instances of Boba, Trip Jedi, Trip Imperial aces doing well. Basically, all the data you have save two tournaments is from the Nantex meta, and high initiative passive mods have been good the whole of 2.0.

Those are two good pieces, sure. They are neither as widespread or consistently good as passively modded 2-3 ship high initiative lists.

I think the generic buff was a great experiment. You saw the level where there was a generics that was actually good enough to beat an ace meta much of the time. Every experimental system needs to know where its boundaries are, and we now know that there is a point cost that's too cheap for an initiative 4 turret with bullseye bonus. The fact that people actually also want all the other borderline competitive (not borderline broken) generics to be nerfed before the obviously broken passive mod aces get nerfed shows that many people just hate and fear generics intrinsically. (Not talking about you).

Shut your filthy mouth. The only way named pilots are cooler than generics is if the names are things like Saber 2, Black 3, Red 6, etc. I don't want some lame wookiepedia backstory for my nameless heroes.

I think the best hs talent for Sabers is Ruthless. You might not use it, but it's cheap, and you have points for it. The heavy stack of hp makes using it fairly palatable in certain situations

Lytan and 4 Sabers has been fun. Real weaknesses, but also pretty cool. That one chunky ship is nice to have in a squad of paper mache hulls.

Like RZ2s.

Maybe different people have different opinions and complain at different times?

Yeah, this is pretty much what I'm thinking. I might be wrong, but with bugs knocked down 2-3 pegs, I have every expectation if force aces returning. Look at the one squad that wasn't a bug squad that won, it was a Boba squad, and Boba is basically a super force ace.