Disclaimer: Not trying to come off as rude, just want to make observations and bring clarity.


Both of your examples encourage shooters to become adjacent, just like melee pieces, and in so doing encourages close engagement. SSM does not do that... It encourages you to camp and shoot from afar.


The main point has been that we do not need more characters with SSM, counting obi-kin. Also, I am not sure that giving over powered pieces as examples really helps the point you are trying to make.


Taking what you have said to its logical conclusion. People would lose one insensitive to play shooters because now they can get around SSM with melee... For someone that wants to play GOWK I can see how that would be unfortunate. However, for the game as a whole it seams like a huge positive effect.


Hopefully the designers will try to make the move gradual in an attempt make playing balance squads the norm as opposed to all shooters or all melee.


Gowk is probably the worst of the SSM for what his CE does. You can not ignore him because generally his allies have defenses that are higher than has and hit way harder. So in some instances you are almost forced to go after him first. With zannah and Obikin I can just ignore them for there allies, then come back to them later... If I do not have enough gambit by that time.

When your opponent only has a couple of pieces left the rounds tend to go by quite quickly. Your point does ring true though and is why I do not like competitive pieces with a cost over 60... It is another side to the extreme rock NPE, not unlike extreme swarms NPE that leave 85 points of commanders in the back field.

Okay, fair enough. I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt when I'm reading your posts.


So then, trying to understand these past few posts, am I correct in trying to understand that, in your opinion, SSM should not be on any future Tier 1 pieces?

If so, then I don't think that you've adequately answered/refuted my post about probability. I think SSM certainly does have a place in the (competitive) game, and I think I've demonstrated it in my post above. If anything is overboard with SSM, it's the combo of MotF2 and Mettle on GOWK. That is why SSM was originally changed back in 2009. But then the damage ceiling (and the number of attacks made per round) increased a lot, which is why we changed SSM back to its full/original definition. If anything, those factors have only increased since SSM was restored to its full definition, so you'd think that GOWK would be less significant now than he was before. In fact, I'll contend that that is exactly the case. There are now SAs like Rigged Detonators and Suppressive Fire, both of which completely nerf SSM and turn it into goo.

And therefore, if anything, I think there is more room--not less--in competitive SWM now for SSM than there has ever been before.

[And we haven't even considered all of the melee-specific tank-busters that help melee figs to beat SSM (Brutal Strike, OWF, Overwhelming Power, etc). But that's getting into the whole SSM-hurts-melee-more-than-shooters debate, which is a slightly different topic.]

In an attempt to get this thread back on track I am going to respond to the last relevant post.



I agree with you on almost all accounts. I think that the top 5 are hurting Jedi as well.

1. Skybuck- If the rock squads are able to blow the right doors then generally this is not a bad matchups. I think this may be the best matchup for rock squads amond the five though, but I could be wrong about that.

2. Durge- For durge it is more of what support you choose. If you go with cad and assaj then you have a much better time against rock squads. You can use assaj to interfere and keep heat off of the other two. Not a good matchups for most rock squads, but that isnt do to the mtb. That doesnt make it any easier however.

3. Grevious+BXS/S- You have a minimum of 3 snipers that are 18 for 30 with double. Depending on the build, one or two spotters to make a couple shots 22 for 50. Grevious falls quick to jedi, but as a last ditch effort you can drop down to hero of hipori. Even though the snipers arent mobile, their intuition still allows them enough versatility to be one step ahead. Also you have mouse walls... that is enough to screw up alot of jedi squads.

4. Double Swap- this squad probably has the easiest time against jedi squads. Crazy movement, high damage dealer, auto damage dealer, and they can base you at end of round if need be. This squad should win almost every single game against jedi.(unless they have bastilla)

5. Daala Scouts- If you fully utilize Palleon and are able to protect him for several round then this should be in your favor. The diplomats provide more than enough interference in order to help protect palleon. Not an auto win, but in daals favor in my mind. At least most times I have played it.

I do believe aves is going to have a big impact on the game and I would dare to say be the most impactful piece of the set. Talon squads are already very common, this gives them a tool to comepeet with most of the squads they fall short to. Crazy good and only time will tell how big his impact will ultimately be.

It just takes better playing by the daala player. The two times I have played against mace gowk I have been able to keep them from getting to palleon for as long as I need to while keeping the Jedi in the bubble. Not as easy by any stretch, but very doable.

I feel like the topic of gate keepers goes hand in hand with what squads are tier 1. Here is a quote from wizards on the topic.

"Gatekeeper- The gatekeeper is a figure, or squad, that other squads must be able to compete with in order to be considered Tier 1. It might not be the best squad or character, but it’s generally good, popular, and typically easy to play. It’s something at least one of your opponents is likely to play over the course of a tournament, and if your squad is critically flawed against this opposition, your odds of winning are too low for your squad to be considered Tier 1. The metagame doesn’t always have a clear gatekeeper at every point level but it’s common enough that it’s worth considering"