The question is, will anyone care by that time?

Ugh even at the top levels the mood is sour. Balance in this game is just polluting everything.

It's stuff like Nym and JM5K that really makes me believe Davy is SUPER SUPER SUPER into Scum, and he's willing to DESTROY faction balance in order to show it. JM5K and Nym just have everything. No down sides. They're just 100% amazing with no weaknesses. They are simply BETTER than every other ship in the game, period. They have better dials, better stats, better upgrade bars (and Scum has more/better upgrades), better pilot abilities, better PS, EPTs- they just have it all. It just makes me mad! How is it not COMPLETELY OBVIOUS that these ships are better than all the others? I'll tell you how. It's either incompetence or intentional. Davy is either bad at his job, or he's hosing balance on purpose. It's probably a bit of both. EXACTLY.

Soontir Fel in TIE Adv. Prototype. A lot like his Interceptor, but with EVEN more Action economy, and a bunch of green 1s! Plus a missile slot for prockets or some such and you still get Autothrusters!

I've done a little bit of looking into that. They are VERY similar. About the only difference is that at top levels Rebels still won a few events- there was still a core of decent lists that could make it if they won the right matchups.

I'd ask that in 2.0 we not have ANY abilities that give tokens, instead opting to give actions which can't be taken if bumped, asteroid, stressed. Pretty much everything should work like x7 does now- things like K4, etc.

Oh yeah I totally agree with you guys. From a casual perspective, Commonwealth was above the power curve for sure. I guess what just gets me about it is the singling out of Imperials to remove them from top competition. I would have been much more OK with the Nerfageddon if it had come with JM5K cost increase, Miranda regen nerf, Sabine nerf, Adv. Slam nerf, Biggs nerf, and possibly a Fenn Rau nerf. Now add to that a Nym nerf (god I hate Nym and whoever designed him), and maybe we'll get back to a balanced state.

This statement makes me think that Commonwealth was actually pretty balanced then (at least for higher power level ships).

Yeah totally, I don't want anything like Phantom era back. I'd just like Imps to have some options that aren't just strictly worse than the other factions.

No doubt Defenders were ubiquitous for a time- but they really didn't dominate the game, despite their popularity. They were nothing like Nym is now. If you want to find a comparison to Nym, you have to go back to pre-nerf Phantom. Now that was a terrible meta- which is back! Hooray?

Parrot Goober LOL. I think you mean ParaGoombaSlayer, but no that's not my source. The someone I know is cross-country that plays- he and I go way back with gaming. He got into playtesting a while back, and was there for the JM5K stuff. I guess he was REALLY surprised when the retail release hit- and SURPRISE- the JM5K had a PWT instead of an arc. He called me immediately and was like "Holy **** why did they sneak this in after playtesting?" He immediately knew that the ship would be way over the top OP.

Personal contact, so I can't name names. Playtester. I'm pretty sure someone on X-WingTMG Reddit also spilled that one. Let me see if I can find link.

It happened to the JM5K- it didn't have PWT in playtesting, they decided to add the PWT after testing was done. The most OP ship the game has ever seen, and they made last minute changes to give it a PWT WITHOUT PLAYTESTING. If that's not incompetence, I don't know what is.

This is really well thought out. We should give you Alex Davy's job. He obviously doesn't appreciate it.

Amen! I haven't seen a Palp-mobile since! Now I only see an occasional Palp on RAC to help push through crits. Also, I only see the occasional Vessery with x7- pretty much don't see Ryad or any of the other Defender pilots anymore. If the necessity was wiping a successful archetype out of the game (one which kept Triple Jumps in check), THEN MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! And here we are, back in an era where the JM5K rules supreme again.

Answer: My Name. Alex Davy has a serious soft spot for Scum- he's the driving force behind making them the dominant faction.

I'd honestly love to see how reverting the FAQ nerfs to x7 and Palp changed things. It's not like x7 is necessary- there's stuff that doesn't get punished for bad flying (K4 Security Droid, Nym), so why even pretend like the devs care about bad flying being punished?

Yeah I was unclear. I meant unique to faction upgrades, not the whole. Scum with 42 and Empire with 22. Roughly 1/2. I think it does make a difference- Scum has a LOT more possibilities, a lot more possible permutations, and a LOT more slots. The upgrade state is definitely helping to keep Imps out of competition. A unique slot for Empire would be a big help- perhaps Command or Training slots with special orders/tactics- and titles to get them on older ships.

To some extent I agree with you, but facts are facts. Imperials have HALF the upgrade cards available to them as a pool than Scum. That's not subjective compiling of archetypes, it's not opinion, it's a fact. I'm making the point that this disparity is one of the reasons Imps are performing poorly. There's just less builds they can come up with than the other factions.

Imperial only player (like you didn't know). Kylo crew is a tricky one right now. I generally won't play RACylo+Ace in friendly games, unless I've told my opponent ahead of time and they're OK with it. As far as competitively, it's one of the only things that is propping up Imps right now. I know lots of people have called for a nerf on Kylo due to how NPE he is, and I can sympathize to some extent, but if he gets nerfed (in the current meta) Imperials are GONE. **** they're almost already gone, if we lose our only good 'OP' card, you'll just never see Imps at an event ever again. Some Scumwing players are probably cool with that though, especially Alex Davy.

Guys, guys, guys......lets be real. The Gunboat might be OK, maybe even decent, but lets be honest. Imps aren't Scum- it won't be amazing. I'm sure it will have its uses, but it's not going to single-handedly change the fortune of the Imp faction. I expect a mediocre dial, and some more situational cards in the set. It will be OK. But face the facts: All ships that dominate right now have the following: Great dials, great pilot abilities, and GREAT (meaning full) upgrade bars. Gunboat probably has a decent dial, meh pilot abilities (the revealed one doesn't wow me), and a SUPER restrictive upgrade bar. If it makes a big splash I'll be surprised. Sure you'll see it a lot because its the Gunboat, but there's no way it keeps up with the hyper efficiency of the Scurrg, K, or JM5K. Unless those ships are addressed in an FAQ, nothing will change about the state of the game.

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. Nym is RUINING the game. He's perp #1, FBI Most Wanted, the Pablo Escobar of X-Wing. If not for that bloated, under-costed, anal-tumor of a ship the game would be in MUCH better shape. He's single-handedly driving the PS war, and surprise he's the best ship in the game because he does EVERYTHING better than all other ships.

I'll site you proof: Upgrade Frequency since the release of Wave 11 You can see that VI is far and away the most used EPT with 1398 instances of it's use. The next closest are Push the Limit and Expertise with 760 and 742 uses respectively. It's basically twice as popular as the next used EPT. That's WAY WAY WAY WAY over-represented.

Because it's the most used EPT by a WIDE margin, eclipsing all the other EPTs and lessening the diversity of builds we see in game.