I guess my answer would be "keep doing what they're doing." I have been a huge fan of just about every piece from set 12 on. None of them have wrecked the meta, most of them have been really interesting and made me want to build squads with them. Before then, I was definitely okay with most of the pieces, but these last few sets I have specifically liked most of the pieces (except for a few of the Vong pieces, just because I'm not interested in trying to figure out how to work them properly). I actually just did a quick count, and out of 144 pieces to come out starting with set 12, only 29 of them did not specifically make me go "Wow, I want to go build a squad with that!"

Right now, it feels like the Tier 1.5 bracket is expanding rapidly, allowing the meta to expand without any piece rising to the top. I would even venture to say that it is expanding so rapidly, previously Tier 1.5 or even Tier 2 squads can do well because there's so much going on that nobody knows specifically what to plan for. A while ago, everyone had to be ready to deal with Vader of Lothal and Sid Mastermind. Now, I haven't even heard the word "Gatekeeper" in a very long time.

Designers can't pinpoint the power level of every piece. It's simply impossible. Aiming at power 10 is dangerous because if you miss and it's too powerful it can screw things up pretty bad. We still aim at power 10 anyway, but not with very many pieces. Aiming at power 8/9 can be disappointing if you miss low and wind up with an unplayable piece. But if you miss high, you (generally) wind up with a power 10, which is okay, instead of power 12 and breaking things.

I think that is wise as a general whole. I think Set 15 was a large success for a lot of reasons. I think it also laid foundation for the possibility of creating a power 10 piece boldly.
I don't know. Dare I say it?
I think melee needs a piece that pushes the boundaries to too powerful, in a very fun, accurate way. Here is an example that might work as a starter.

http://www.bloomilk.com/Custom/30694/anakin-skywalker--republic-hero

http://www.bloomilk.com/Custom/29673/obi-wan-kenobi--champion-of-the-jedi

I think the play testing committee should hold a "Play test regional" where some people are told to not use any set 16 and some are told to use set 16 as well.

WotC left us with about 6 Tier 1 squads:

Pawned Lancer
Thrawn Swap (Black & Blue / Stealth & Blue)
Smug Commandos
Skybuck
GOWK + dudes (although he was nerfed at the time)
Solo Charge

I may have missed one or two. And then there were maybe twice that number that would fall into the category "Tier 1.5", that could compete with some or most of the above but are generally weaker or have a really bad match-up. Out of 800 or 900 pieces that WotC gave us, probably about 100 are in those squads above, with maybe another 100 in the Tier 1.5 squads. Most of the WotC pieces were outclassed by other WotC pieces.

The Vsets have been targeted mostly to the WotC Tier 1/Tier 1.5 power level but not above them. After 15 Vsets where most of the pieces are targeted to the power level of those 200 WotC pieces, you're left with 200 WotC pieces and 500 or 600 Vset pieces that are in the right power range to be playable. Add in the fact that people like to play whatever is new even if it isn't the most powerful, and that explains why you see so many Vset pieces. There has been power creep, but not that much - certainly way less than what was seen with WotC. Depending on the meta, you could still bring a pure-WotC squad or a WotC squad core augmented with a few key Vset tech pieces and do very well in a major tournament. Even win. People just generally don't want to.

The community has also specifically asked for counters to some of the powerful aspects of the pure WotC game. Thrawn-swap and Pawned Lancer both derive a lot of power through out-activating and going first. People have repeatedly asked for counters to spamming activations, to activation control, and creative ways to counter initiative control. Skybuck and Pawned Lancer get a lot of power from swooping with Gallop/Strafe and then getting away. People have asked for counters to that, too. And there are now counters out there, but they aren't in every squad. So those WotC squads could still do well, again depending on the meta.

They are not better.

NR relies on Ganner and most of the time Wedge or Dodonna. (or all)

Rieekan is much much much better than See-threepio. Can you find a squad that does not have rieekan that is better than one with him?
Has there been a squad at gencon without Rieekan?
OR needed Bastila, but she was set 1..... practically the same thing as WOTC. I am not a WOTC purist. I see everything as the same. So TIME is the factor in my opinion. Daala has been around for a LONG time as well.

Talon is refreshing and still is, as is Vader of Lothal, but I do not see him being TIER 1. I won a regional with him but it was not a very competitive regional.

All those make for tier 1.25 squads in my opinion

Reserves to come back. Hahaha. But seriously nerf the hard counter and bring back more play options rather than limiting them. I would also like to see more boosts for old WOTC early set pieces, I.E. Destroyer Droids, huge Seps (still aren't there), basic Vong warriors, old costly Sith (a triumvirate piece for the KOTOR 2 villains would be great!), Imperial AT-STs, Snowspeeders, Versatility-style pieces to boost up old Republic jedi, an effective clone swarm. Stuff like that. Only things from the Vsets I would like to see brought up is Darin Troopers (Imperial Grievous/NK-1 Necrosis with a droid boost anyone?).

And lastly while powercreep is bad and unnecessary since we aren't trying to push product, ability creep to me is far worse. Keeping it simple is key, oftentimes just a major rapport and a strong CE/Camaraderie/Force Bond/synergy is all that's needed. A commander shouldn't give out more than one ability in my opinion as it just exponentially increases complexity which makes it hard for me to teach new players. Especially keeping the number of abilities down on cheaper cost characters. A piece should have a number of abilities equal to its cost/10 +1. Example average battle droid has nothing, Super has charging and synchronized, etc... a non-unique with 8+ abilities at sub 20 cost is just crazy when you can add them with other similar ability-heavy pieces. Keep it simple haha. Side note I do applaud the efforts of Heroes on Both Sides to be a teaching mechanism and the characters being a little less ability heavy than normal VSET pieces.

Just because Grievous has cybernetic reflexes, armor, blasters, different Lightsaber styles, the ability to pilot crafts, communications boosters, keen strategy and tactics and the ability to parry, evade, wall-climb and spinning blade attack everyone doesn't mean he should have all of those abilities on a sub-50 point character. That should be on an epic and what epic is made for, to be the ultimate RPG-style hero piece. That's an extreme example using a character I love but while that particular piece doesn't exist, the Rogue One and Rebels characters are great examples of this. They have a ton of abilities that are generally pretty accurate to the character but game-play wise it's too complex. Especially for newer players trying to learn 30+ different abilities on a dozen cheap characters because they wanted to play a Rebels theme squad.

Remember Rebel Storm? Darth Vader had triple attack, and like a single Force power if memory serves? These days every piece can do five different things and it only gets worse the cheaper the character is because there are more of them. So help us keep it simple. Also great job in general guys! Way more balanced than WOTC!

good point about Simplicity. But to be honest. Freshness is also very much needed.

I am just saying it gets stale playing against the same faces every competitive game I play.


Simple but Fresh can be the best way to do things. I think we saw some of that in this set as well. The new Kol is pretty stream line (Defense Beacon being the only one) but the force powers are assault, defense, push

http://www.bloomilk.com/Forums/default.aspx?g=posts&m=202694

I described the squads in more detail in that link. Not going to re-copy it here, though.

Haven't used the v15 enough to make an opinion honestly, but simple & fresh are always great. My old girlfriends from back in the day used to say I was simple and fresh .....

Honestly though, when it gets too complicated that I need to worry about ten different factors + what my competitor Might use, I just wind up with using a squad I'm comfortable with instead of building a squad where I need three pieces to make one of them uber great. When I glance at a card and I start scratching my head and say Huh I know its not for me.

well there is that...
but that is a HUGE outlier. one in a dozen and it was just well played. I do not think it is better than other builds with rieekan. No one saw it coming.

Rieekan is a huge staple and in 99% of all tier 1 rebel options is the point.

I would love to see new things in the competitive realm that is why I am endorsing Power 9.5-10.5 pieces. Especially melee pieces. At this point we need to match some of the power 10 pieces that are out (from V-set 1 and before).

I want to play against something other than Ganner for instance.