Is the X-Wing the weakest ship now?

[Daryl C]

Inspired by this thread: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/129449-and-now-the-poor-x-wing-is-officially-the-worst-ship-of-the-game/

Do you guys really feel that the X-Wing is the weakest ship due to the Phantom and now upcoming TIE Advanced cards? Discuss :)

[S.]

I don't think so.

I think ships over all are fairly balanced when speaking on terms of dial, stats, and actions.

Things get skewed by certain pilot abilities and EPT / upgrade slots. For instance a PTL Soontir is powerful, but a tie interceptor isn't. ACD on Echo is nuts (especially with VI), but sigma phantoms are fish in a barrel.

The xwing itself has a great dial and two of the most important actions. The access to astromech upgrades is by far more superior than most upgrade suites (other than arguably EPTs). These facts combined with solid attack and a decent defense value = a great ship.

Tie advance, even with the system slot boost, will be hard pressed to beat it out for a number of reasons. Mainly, the xwing pilots have better abilities and synergies, astromechs are great, and the tie advance is expensive and possess an awkward dial.

[Daryl C]

Interesting that you point out the astromechs as a key reason as to why the X Wing is still a good ship since that thread's opinion for the most part is that the astromechs are crappy and too niche.

[S.]

R2d2 alone is 4 pts for on average 4-6 free shields.
That would cost 16-24 pts in shield modifications and be illegal on any other ship!

R4D6 if lucky can add 2 to 3 extra points of damage absorbtion to your ship for 2 pts.

R5 can negate ship based crit effects for 1 pt (the ship version of determination).

That's just a small example of awesome.
As an imp player I'm very jealous of the astromech build options.

[Daryl C]

Lol I think their problem with the astromechs you mention is that they do not automatically work, I.e. you have to roll to get the effect or that crits do not occur often enough. In the case of R4D4, they feel the stress accumulation is not worth it.

 

It looks more to me that they have become too spoiled by B Wings and think X Wibg are weak because they choose not to use the astromech options they have because they want effects with all benefits and no drawbacks, which is funny because they claim a want of game balance.

[Daryl C]

Also, R4D6 is only 1 point :)

[Daryl C]

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/129807-i-dont-get-the-e-wingx-wing-depression/

Another forum claiming the X-Wing is weak competitively. A post even claims the B-Wings access to cannons and systems are better than droids and that even the B-Wing is more maneuverable because of the 1-hard turns and barrel roll and that it is slower doesn't matter.

[S.]

B wings are under-costed and very good for competetive play. That doesn't mean that the other ships are wrong or bad- it's just the comparison is skewed.

The meta is experiencing a shakeup right now since some imperial lists are now useable at high level competetion play (aside from the swarm) while it has been dominated by Rebels for 2 years.

Arc Dodgers like soontir and Echo are popular right now and do highlight the weakness of the Xwing, but those weaknesses are shared by all ships except the 360 pancakes.

[Chris Weinstein]

mmmmm pancakes....

Soooooo I do not think the x-wing is the weakest ship (especially not naked).  In a vacuum with no upgrades the x-wing is good, when upgrades come into play it is still good but a little basic.  I still feel like naked a rookie pilot is better than a blue squadron pilot.  The dial and the extra defense die are pretty important.

Overall the meta change makes it seem weaker because the popular ships now are strong against it.  If the meta swings again than the x-wing could possibly be great again.  I can see where some people are a little butt hurt about it though as the x-wing is one of the 3 most recognizable star wars ships that you can use in the game (falcon, tie fighter are others), and for those where its all about the movies and not the extended universe it can be a little depressing to play X-wing and have no x-wings on the board.  I definitely don't think point recosting x-wings is a good idea though.  Makes things messy with printed card values, rebalancing other ships, etc.  

Unfortunately, this goes back to some of my original comments and ideas that tournaments are becoming more about rock, paper, scissor list pairings and less about actual flight.  I feel like if more tournaments were in a two list single faction setting (similar to war machine) then we would see a little bit more variety.  A rebel player may take double turreted pancakes as 1 list to try and deal with a lot of the popular maneuver lists out there and then take a death star run x-wing squadron to tackle tie swarms, dove fleets, and firespray builds.

[S.]

Over on this thread:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1290384/does-x-wing-need-fix

Last I looked almost 78% of the votes felt Xwings were fine. Granted the choices on that poll are not the best (I would have voted "fine, but could use a neat title").