Bastila still won't be effective against Jabba because the Jabba player can just bring in Sy Snootles who prevents Jabba's CE from being suppressed. Imperials have Pellaeon and while it's definitely trickier to pull that off, the counters are there. That being said I do love Bastila (actually played her in the tank tournament). I'm spitballing some ideas for the design team for 25 to see if anything shakes out. Right now I think she may actually shine brightest with Army of Light. I will definitely keep Malak in mind as Balance Committee considers changes to the next calendar year.

Okay, I see what you mean. I agree that he is better than just about any other melee piece for his points...the combo of Parry with Beskar 6 means that he is very hard for melee pieces to take down. In the Team Tournament I played against a Farfalla Revanchist JM swarm (30dmg hits) and he only ever took 20dmg per hit, even after he failed a parry; he survived until the end of the match and did a pile of damage while preventing Vindicated and Kelborn and Mira from being overwhelmed. That, combined (at least when I use him) with Disruptive is very solid. I think his damage output (standing still) is probably on par for a 56pt melee piece.

The thing with Tarre, though, is that he requires a certain meta in order to shine. He would've done some serious work at GenCon this year, but wouldn't have done much better than my Vong did at VassalCon.

[[Speaking of my Vong squad, FWIW, I think I had at least a chance vs Jason's Gungan squad (save 7s vs Cestas and then VCA 2 or 7 after that goes a long way), and was probably evenly matched vs Spry's and Randy's Revanchist JMs. The only squad I absolutely couldn't ever beat was Tim's Silri-cannon (which of course I was paired against in the first round of the playoffs). I would've likely had a very difficult time vs Gandalf's Morrigan (negating my Evade 7s).]]

I think the bigger thing that makes melee pieces unplayable, though (apart from Tarre) is both that (1) melee pieces die on the approach (Morrigan ignores damage prevention, or else pieces are doing 50dmg hits which will eventually get through no matter what you do...more on this next week) and (2) melee pieces don't usually have enough ability to close the gap. Morrigan has Charging Fire but almost no melee pieces do, Bib's CE pushes shooters 12+ spaces per round, Jabba has Levitation without needing to spend a FP, etc.

The meta is the meta. Regardless of what people bring there is always the top squads. Regardless of anything else. I think what you are saying is that it is hard to make a call on what will show up. That is because people do whatever they want. This Vassalcon is not the meta at all. It is just what people showed up with. Trying to read what will appear is impossible in today's game because people are not die hard about winning.

Most people would rather have a good time the try to win. I talked to Deaths_Baine about what he would bring and he said: whatever was fun. Legit his answer. There is no driving force anymore, which can be fine, but I feel like there needs to be a shift in how people talk about tournaments and things if competition is going to be brought out. It is frustrating to not have a true meta being played because then you can't find that "odd" squad that breaks it, which is always a ton of fun.
But there is a true meta right now and it starts and ends with Thrawn, Jabba, Tarre imo.

+1.

Big + 1!


Most of my friends play SW Legion now. You can't shoot all the way across the map in Legion. Jedi and Sith are very powerful in Legion, as they should be. They have much more survivability in Legion, because of the measuring of distance, to determine if they can be blasted or not. And when they get into melee combat, they annihilate shooters, as they should. Is Legion perfect? Well no it isn't, however, they got a lot of things right, that SWM got wrong.

Melee Force users have too much going against them. Sorry, but your sentence should have stopped right there. Fixed it for you.

I totally agree. Further, what is making the game not fun for me are squads with the main damage dealers being non unique faceless characters that may have been merely footnotes in novels or background characters at best in movies. SWM is the most fun when the core characters of the Star Wars universe are the ones shaping the meta. While I hated the mechanic of Gandalf's Jabba squad much like many hate the Thrawn swap mechanic, at least those are familiar Star Wars characters. Sorry, but being ripped apart by some cloaked faceless nightbrother when its not even his turn, or having some no name Vong easily evade my shots then reduce the damage when I get extremely lucky, or having my beloved Luke Skywalker swashbuckled by outcasts of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie are just not fun for me. Some of those designs are just brilliant, but they're on the wrong characters.

Maybe we need Jabba adjusted somehow... maybe. But when Gandalf ran roughshod over my squad the characters that did it I recognized. I don't like losing but I can lose to characters I read about and watch... identifiable by the most casual of fans. I don't really have a problem if Jabba wasn't adjusted enough as long as the process continues. I trust the balance committee to fine tune things.

What I would ask is that our designers... keep it up with the brilliant designs but please apply them to the characters in the universe we know well.

The immediate solution to bullying and aggression isn't therapy, that comes later. Bloo has lost great community members due to toxic community. It's the #1 thing i have to monitor for as a mod, and I'm sure you're well aware of the number spam bots we get here. Focus on how we can improve the game and our community. Everyone here wants whats best for SWM, and that can be done without tearing down other.

Guess it’s that time of year again huh? Where the 15 people still playing this game gather in a thread and fight with each other about something stupid that should be an easy fix. Can’t wait for the balance committee decision next year that will fix nothing discussed here. God I love this time of year!

Bruh, I’m on your side on this issue. I know we’ve had our issues with each other in the past, but lately you’ve been saying things that I also feel are spot on.

Also doesn’t change the fact some argument starts about this time every year.