the designers sure do love greater mobile attack in republic... the faction with the most movement.
oh well,

there are some things in set 10 i do like and look forward to seeing.

i honestly hope that was a tongue in cheek post....

and what trend i think there were 3 republic pieces with GMA before vsets.-- 2 of which are versions of captain rex.

The others still aren't as competitive as Rex.

I think the Wolfpack will be interesting and fun, but not tier 1.

And if its not? The repercussions will be?
More lamentations?

Oh my god! another clone got GMA!

Allied characters with Order 66 within 6 squares gain Greater Mobile Attack.

That is Rex's commander effect. You know that awesome clone that never has been seen with other clones even though his CE is awesome.

He's used so rarely for his commander effect that I often forget how awesome it is, and that you can give a quad attacker GMA.

But no-one plays them.

Curious.

Every clone has had GMA since Rex, give a clone GMA and you might not have to play Rex to play a clone.

umm, did you miss the most recent NZ tourney where Luke's art class was in the finals and a roll away from winning?

An all melee squad.

For all the crap about how shooters rule, we sure have seen some strong performances by melee squads this regional season.

People just refuse to take the time to build actual competitive melee squads and then complain about how they aren't spoon fed a melee squad.

That being said, I expect the Gencon T8 will be a mix of some strong shooter squads (Double Swap and BX droids) and some strong melee squads (Mace/GOWK, Luke's art class, etc).

Now, back on topic, the perceived issue really stems from the fact that around the time set 5 was in full swing, tanks were at the top of the heap (Mace/Gowk, Malgus, Caedus, etc) and a combination of some Tank-busters (Kyp, Ackbar, etc) combined with some better scissors (Durge, Luke and Leia) in addition to the cool new shooters (Boba) and the lack of sexy melee pieces all led us to a meta where shooters moved closer to the top. I think that with designers making an effort to get some "new" melee pieces out for people to have fun with coupled with everything else and I think the meta is at a pretty good spot right now.

it is most definitely a dislike of GMA in general. I don't care if they only have double, GMA takes ALOT of skill away from using a piece. i'll just pop out from behind this wall, and move right back to behind his wall, lame.

we ran into this problem during legends designing as well. the thing is no one wants a piece that has to sit still to do 40 anymore, so its easy to jut add GMA and fix that issue, but at the same time doing that takes away from the skill aspect of the game.

Urban, ok cool, so an all melee squad ALMOST won a tournament.... but lost to a squad that has ONE attacker lol. has a melee squad won a single regional... I guess the krayt squad did right?


I guess my point is that in a faction that has swap, coordinated movement, tow cable, master lift, a commander that gives out greater mobile, more movement breaking abilities are not needed.



Edit* forgot to talk about fox, yeah I am one of the ones that said I like Fox, and I do like fox in the legends format, but legends also didn't keep the coordinated movement pieces, master lift, etc.

I agree with this general sentiment. Republic has an embarrassment of riches. I have often said we need to specifically not give them more tier one pieces. But it would be unfair to actually not give them any pieces. So for the most part we are focused on giving them fun interesting pieces.

Republic is the movement breaker faction. Those other movement breakers are the key to the faction. Even Naboo and Gungans are gonna use tow. GMA doesn't really add anything outside of Rex as a pure attacker. Mobile double Cesta and mobile twin attack with death shots are far worse in my opinion.

The point is that Republic already has stronger options so that this (Wolf) won't be an issue as far as GMA.

As I said, he actually does more for melee Jedi then he'll ever do as a shooter.


More to your point, Extreme movement breakers are the truly dominant force our a game right now (always has been). Move an extra 12 squares with flight for a mere nine points (oh yeah and have override too!), board wide swap with a 26 square sprinter that also kills stuff along the way, 48 squares of strafe, 18 squares with stable footing, moving a figure halfway across the board two squares of the time before they've even activated once (Republic commandos), DOUBLE SWAP, etc.

On V-set 10 we were very conscious about movement breakers. Adding a tier 2 GMA shooter to republic does nothing to shake the meta.

Do we as designers need to be more conscious about not creating overpowered shooters? Yes.
Do we as designers need to be more conscious about not creating more tier one movement breaking options? Yes.

Do we as designers need to stop making GMA shooters? Not an issue if they are not tier 1

EDIT: I in no way intend to assault your designing philosophies or preferences on what abilities you like/don't like to see one a piece. You have every right to not like GMA on a piece, and I respect that . Please take the following as just my defense of why I think GMA is okay on Wolffe. [end of edit]


@bolded I agree with you partially, but that argument goes both ways. I agree with what you are saying in this way: theme pieces are theme pieces because their flavorful and fun, but not necessarily competitive. Part of the fun of theme pieces is that you have to use them differently because they aren't GMA turrets with 6 attacks at +17 for 30. If someone decides not to use Wolffe in a Wolfpack theme squad because he doesn't have GMA, they've missed the point.

But my point is, if it is not a problem, then there is no problem. If I am reading the bolded area right, you are saying that if a Tier 2 piece has GMA, then it shouldn't have GMA because it's Tier 2 anyways and doesn't need it, and thus GMA should only be on a piece if it is specifically designed to be a Tier 1 fighter (preferably melee).

My sincere apologies if that is not what you meant. If it is, then I very much disagree with it. GMA lets Wolffe be cool and mobile without being a problem. True, GMA shouldn't be put on every piece just because it won't hurt the game. But GMA also shouldn't be denied to a theme piece simply because the piece is uncompetitive either way and doesn't need it. If Wolffe is a theme piece, then GMA is part of the flavor.

I think there are valid points all around, GMA is annoying on a shooter as has been shown in the past, and having access to extra attack to make him a triple GMA attacker is also rough. But at the same time it's not something that they can't already do, their whole faction has GMA, and with the padawan commander they can also already avoid disruptive/distraction/anarchist/that Sith ability. And only Bastilla could shut Rex's CE down. So while GMA is annoying to play against and not my style, it does already exist as a normal part of the game and this character could get it very easily with or without having it to begin with. Your post more points out the annoying aspect of GMA in general especially in a mostly broken faction. I do enjoy the challenge though as my brother traditionally plays Republic against my separatists and he needs the advantage haha.
I guess my point is GMA is annoying, I agree, but it's already here and on any order 66 piece with or without them having it. It would be more prudent I think to develop a counter or use such things that already exist like force barrier or energy shield/all of the new republic melee defensive options which I think haven't been praised enough for their genius. Shien, soresu and Ranged combat expert or whatever it's called is plain awesome and another step in the right direction to balance out melee with ranged.

As far as melee teams go, in our Canadian regional final four half the teams were melee (Krayt and Vong) and the final I played against the Vong was a brutal game that melee wiped the floor with my team until a positioning mistake, and a lucky shot turned the tides to let me scrape out a win. Melee is getting stronger and there are lots of powerful options out there these days that can deal with GMA shooters. How about a generic fringe melee hero who has None Shall Pass. But for now use these amazing melee teams that I have either seen do extremely well or used them well myself:

Vong Priest + anything especially Lah warriors
Krayt and ghosts
NR Luke and friends
Ben Kenobi, Yoda and Leia
BHC Emperor Palpatine and Vader combo (or new reborn)
Bastilla/Kerra Holt/Satele
Any combination of GOWK/Mace/Adi Gallia/Yoda BHC/Pong Krell
Indomitable Mandalore and charging melee friends or new Death Watch Maul

Or my personal favourite
Dooku and either Grievous HoH, Vos, or Asajj (I suppose you could say lancers too but they are so broken I will never play with them on account of class).
After this next set republic melee is going to be epic level of cool

Moved the GMA conversation to a new thread. Continue with the spoiler conversation here please...