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GOWK, the answer. Options
xpraider
Posted: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:34:20 PM
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Just for argument's sake, I want to take a look at each faction now that JA academy is just about out, including GOWK, and see how each faction looks, and I'll assume that the only truly viable squad options.

1) Old Republic: The OR is still not going to be really great, even with Academy, but it's definitely gotten better. The Exile and Nomi Sunrider add some anti-GOWK abilities, and with Lucien, Mira, Atton, the Battlemaster, and the Crusader (bringing in Malak and Revan), makes the OR a bit more viable.

2) Sith: In a GOWK environment, I think plageius has that bit of anti-GOWK, while the rest of the faction gains a good bit of survivability from him. Combining Plageius, Sion, and Holosidious makes them that much nastier.

3) Mandalorian: One of the factions that got really hurt by GOWK, but the amount of evade that exists in the game right now already hurt them a good bit.

4) Republic: Not much to say about the Republic, they have GOWK and can do GOWK v GOWK.

5) Separatist: GGDAC definitely helps, but they still have some weakness overall, but they do have one of the best anti-GOWK abilities.

6) Rebels: Quite simply they had and still have some of the best options to take down and deal with GOWK, including Disruptive, Force Push 4 (x2), and Loda for stopping the rerolls.

7) Imperial: M'Thrawn, Palpy on Throne, Vader Unleashed, Lord Vader, GAT, Sith Witch, etc. The Imps are still one of the best factions and have several viable options from several sets ago.

8) New Republic: GMLS brings in an overwhelming amount of attacks, along with Force Defense. Nevermind that they still have some of the best disruptive in the game.

9) Vong: Force Immunity helps a lot, and with one of the best Jedi Hunting mini, they can put a good amount of hurt without worrying about taking much damage from GOWK.

I've got to run now, but I'll see if I can elaborate a bit more later.
Sithborg
Posted: Sunday, June 28, 2009 11:49:34 PM
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Dr. Destructo wrote:
why not they just institute a rotation of minis like whats done in so many other games? That way once GOWK gets too old he'll be rotated out of standard competitive play. Now I know some of you may not like it because you would also lose all the other old stuff over time, but I for one have no issue with that. It just means one needs to be more inventive with the new. Maybe that's just me though, I've played ALOT of other minis and collectible card games besides SWM that have done similar so maybe I'm just used to it.


Rotation is worse than banning. So instead of getting rid of the ONE single problem piece, you want to get rid of even more minis, a lot of them aren't even an issue at this point.
engineer
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 12:36:03 AM
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Sithborg wrote:
Rotation is worse than banning. So instead of getting rid of the ONE single problem piece, you want to get rid of even more minis, a lot of them aren't even an issue at this point.

Thanks for the post.
IG-108
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 1:15:44 AM
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I just realized that Nomi Sunrider could become a valuable anti-GOWK piece with her Sever Force ability. If she survies long enough to get close enough to use it.
defender390
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 2:23:38 AM
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IG-108 wrote:
I just realized that Nomi Sunrider could become a valuable anti-GOWK piece with her Sever Force ability. If she survies long enough to get close enough to use it.


If only it replaced attacks instead of the turn.
Uggie Demo
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 3:44:59 AM
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That would work, and with OR getting alot more stuff She'd be a good counter to him.
billiv15
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 4:33:08 AM
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Uggie Demo wrote:
That would work, and with OR getting alot more stuff She'd be a good counter to him.


No she is not. She isn't even close. Nor is getting rid of his access to force points all that significant anyways. You will lose Nomi to even try it. That's not a good trade. It's actually a terrible "counter".
owaller3
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 5:07:54 AM
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billiv15 wrote:
owaller3 wrote:
For example, Billiv15 took 13th place in the Chicago Regionals. I am not sure of the exact breakdown but it didn't seem like the majority of regionals were won by GOWK. Would I like for GOWK to be banned? On one hand I like the challenge but on the other I don't like the limited meta.


For clarification, I went 4-2. I had the worst SOS out of the 4-2s, with the top of them placing 5th. I was more or less tied for 5th, but placed 13th due to a bad SOS.

Second, I could have easily gone 5-1, I simply chose to play out my second loss instead of going for an early lock out style win, which I had set up. Chicago was not running a playoff, so after losing in the first round to Jonny, I was out of the running for first. So I played looser than normal, and pulled of a nice string of 4 1s in a row, leaving my opponent's Vader at 20hps instead of dying. So I lost my second game that way. Big deal.


Billiv15, by using you as an example I was just demonstrating that even a guy who won GenCon can still lose using the best squad. (No need to explain it was bad luck and that's my point) If you look at the NJ regionals you will see I placed 7th which is similar in position since Chicago had more players. My losses were similar in nature to yours except I lost at the end not the begining of the tournament. Luck plays a big role in tournament play. Typically, a good player can get by on just rolling average and sometimes if the opponent is really bad can still win with bad luck. I've seen a bad LGS player take first in a 28 player tournament and never lost due to good luck. That same player lost every round in the prior tournament he played in. So as long as there are 20-siders involved tournaments will still have surprises.
xpraider
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 1:16:01 PM
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billiv15 wrote:
Uggie Demo wrote:
That would work, and with OR getting alot more stuff She'd be a good counter to him.


No she is not. She isn't even close. Nor is getting rid of his access to force points all that significant anyways. You will lose Nomi to even try it. That's not a good trade. It's actually a terrible "counter".


I have to disagree about getting rid of his ability to use force points. Yes, Soresu is still in effect, and will still be effective, but it loses it's big kick in making him unable to reroll failed saves. It brings him from, I believe, a 98.5% chance of saving against any attack to a 50%. Which is a significant drop in his ability.

The whole point of GOWK is to act as a Tank for the Republic, the guy who really can take a good deal of punishment, even if he can't really dish it out in return. He doesn't have the hitpoints or defense to do that and relies almost solely on Soresu and his ability to reroll it. Reducing Soresu in any way, either by Force Immunity, Force Defense, Force Absorb, or Sever Force reduces his overall effectiveness. In the meantime, Nomi will be open to attack, but a smart player would make sure she had enough Force Points to still be able to Block and Deflect. It becomes a trade off, the damage Nomi receives compared to the damage GOWK will now receive.

And of course, almost any good Republic player will be able to deal with Nomi and the OR figures with or without GOWK. The OR is and has been the bottom rung for the factions for a long time, and even with JA, that hasn't changed that much. But, if you were to place Sever Force in Imperial, Separatist, Rebel, New Republic, or even Sith, it would really put a hurt on GOWK.
Sithborg
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 1:43:27 PM
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That is a rather big, big WHAT IF.

Not only do you have to out activate the Republic squad to get Nomi adjacent, you also must win init. You then have to give up Nomi's ENTIRE TURN, leaving her a sitting duck. The payoff is too little for such a tough set up.
Darth Percocet
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 1:49:56 PM
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Sithborg wrote:
That is a rather big, big WHAT IF.

Not only do you have to out activate the Republic squad to get Nomi adjacent, you also must win init. You then have to give up Nomi's ENTIRE TURN, leaving her a sitting duck. The payoff is too little for such a tough set up.


Your very right Sithborg. Me personally i found that Lord Vader is the best counter on him. Thats my personal opinion. But at the same time with him, i feel that having to build a specific squad just to counter 1 figure isnt right. Takes the fun out of playing. Obviously everyone plays this game to have fun but at the same time we are all competitive a little bit.

People can say that they are the one eception to no being competitive but fact is we all are in someway. Nobody plays to lose. We play to win the game but to also have fun doing it. Its not fun to lose lol. So having to play a specific squad to counter 1 figure that probably 85% of the people now use is outrageous in my book. I think we should be able to play a squad we created not having to worry about if we will run into Gowk & not have a counter to him in our squad. It takes the fun out of the game to me.
xpraider
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 2:32:23 PM
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Sithborg wrote:
That is a rather big, big WHAT IF.

Not only do you have to out activate the Republic squad to get Nomi adjacent, you also must win init. You then have to give up Nomi's ENTIRE TURN, leaving her a sitting duck. The payoff is too little for such a tough set up.


Very true, it becomes a game of cat and mouse between GOWK and Nomi. Assuming Nomi bases GOWK, it becomes a question of who wins Init. At this point both players MUST win init or they are screwed. Nomi is unable to sever, or GOWK is without Force. And of course what happens also depends on what the rest of the squads are doing. The Republic player is obviously going to try and kill Nomi, while the OR player is going to either go after the the rest of the Republic squad, or shield Nomi from the rest of the Republic squad.

It's not an easy setup, but if it goes off it will really hurt GOWK, and if done early enough could be the difference between winning and losing. Denying GOWK his ability to use the Force is most certainly a viable option for dealing with him, and as far as the payoff goes, it's one of the only ways the OR really has to deal with him, and even the threat of it going off may be enough to give the OR the tactical advantage.

But the OR as a whole is already going to be behind the 8-Ball going up against any good GOWK squad, since the OR doesn't have nearly the support or maneuverability to make them truly effective. BUT, they aren't without options.

In some of the other factions that do have the maneuverability it would be a truly nasty ability. Imagine if the Empire had it. Getting the sever off would be a matter of using Thrawn and ozzel to outactivate, swap, then win init for the sever. In which case GOWK would severed and would be a much easier kill.

Sever can very well be a viable option and in most instances would probably be worth the cost of the figure doing the severing (assuming they get killed).
Sithborg
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 2:49:50 PM
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There is no point is discussing the possibilities of Sever Force in other factions. I doubt Sever Force is ever going to be handed out to more than a handful, if that.

Again, the benefit of setting it up is marginal compared to what you will be paying.
Tirade
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 2:52:27 PM
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Sithborg wrote:
There is no point is discussing the possibilities of Sever Force in other factions. I doubt Sever Force is ever going to be handed out to more than a handful, if that.

Again, the benefit of setting it up is marginal compared to what you will be paying.


At present, this would be correct. Nomi could use a movement breaker to pull off Sever the Force. Of course the OR could use a number of things. But a movement breaker would be a start.
xpraider
Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009 3:14:56 PM
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Sithborg wrote:
There is no point is discussing the possibilities of Sever Force in other factions. I doubt Sever Force is ever going to be handed out to more than a handful, if that.

Again, the benefit of setting it up is marginal compared to what you will be paying.


I guess I'll just have to disagree with you then. Going from a 98.5% chance to save against any single attack to 50%, especially for the OR is probably one of the best options they can get. For most other factions, setting it up the way the OR would have to is probably not the best way to go about dealing with GOWK. But the OR really doesn't have much in the way of options for dealing with him.

And I seriously doubt that any other faction but the OR is going to get Sever Force, but discussing it in the context of other factions allows us to consider the viability of the ability as opposed to the viability of the faction. In other words, what happens to the ability's effectiveness if it were given the proper support.

By hypothesizing about it in the Empire, the Republic, or the Rebel Faction, we can get a better picture of whether the abilities effectiveness is a consequence of the ability itself, or the abilities surrounding it. The argument can also be made the other way around by considering what would happen if the Old Republic gained some of the abilities of the other factions.

If say, we had Revan and Nomi in a squad (yes, I know it's already possible) it becomes a bit more effective because Revan allows Nomi to move before her activation to base GOWK and with Master Tactician allows her to activate first and sever his Force.

The overall point I'm trying to make is that one of the reasons GOWK is as broken as he is, is because of his ability to reroll the saves at +4, taking that away goes a long way to beating him. I would hardly call that marginal.
owaller3
Posted: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 12:04:05 AM
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You can't fit Revan (88), Nomi (41) and Crusader (23) in a 150 point squad. I have played against a nomi sunrider squad with Viable and my opponent tried to use sever the force on Vader (where it would be most useful) and died getting there. Sever the force is too hard to get to work to be any kind of counter. If OR had a swap then it might work but until then it is worthless.
DarthJak
Posted: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 1:32:36 AM
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[/quote]
xpraider
Posted: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 5:28:18 AM
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owaller3 wrote:
You can't fit Revan (88), Nomi (41) and Crusader (23) in a 150 point squad. I have played against a nomi sunrider squad with Viable and my opponent tried to use sever the force on Vader (where it would be most useful) and died getting there. Sever the force is too hard to get to work to be any kind of counter. If OR had a swap then it might work but until then it is worthless.


Maybe not in 150, but 200 point tournaments are still DCI, in which case you can fit Nomi, Revan, and a Crusader.
awesome
Posted: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 5:38:32 AM
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xpraider wrote:
owaller3 wrote:
You can't fit Revan (88), Nomi (41) and Crusader (23) in a 150 point squad. I have played against a nomi sunrider squad with Viable and my opponent tried to use sever the force on Vader (where it would be most useful) and died getting there. Sever the force is too hard to get to work to be any kind of counter. If OR had a swap then it might work but until then it is worthless.


Maybe not in 150, but 200 point tournaments are still DCI, in which case you can fit Nomi, Revan, and a Crusader.


but thats a whole lot of points just to try to get someone not to use force anymore,

now, if nomi could be in a sith squad that would be awesome they have swap or you can give renewal to everyone and mettle.
owaller3
Posted: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 5:41:17 AM
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xpraider wrote:
owaller3 wrote:
You can't fit Revan (88), Nomi (41) and Crusader (23) in a 150 point squad. I have played against a nomi sunrider squad with Viable and my opponent tried to use sever the force on Vader (where it would be most useful) and died getting there. Sever the force is too hard to get to work to be any kind of counter. If OR had a swap then it might work but until then it is worthless.


Maybe not in 150, but 200 point tournaments are still DCI, in which case you can fit Nomi, Revan, and a Crusader.


Sure 200 points would allow you to have them all but then the GOWK squad can have alot more too (including a swap). OR are just horrible and there is no point in playing them in a competitive environment when other more effect counters exist. Not to mention any discussion of counters outside of 150 are fruitless since the GenCon championship is 150 and it seems that is what most people are interested in.
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