There is a lot of talk about Tulak. That something should be "done with him". I have played against Tulak pretty extensively. In Championship events I am 4-2 against him. One of my losses, I believe, came down to my inability to roll over a 5 for an entire round and a different character who is an NPE for me. He is powerful, but not unbeatable obviously. I understand that he can be a NPE to may people and many popular squad types. Does that mean that the Balance Committee should do something about him?

His name has come up a lot in the Balance Committee thread. Ability X should be changed, aspect Y should be changed, change this, change that. I am not advocating for a change. If I were to change anything, it would be to take away him handing out Distraction. As I said though, I am not advocating for a change.

If You are an advocate for the Balance Committee to make a change, then let's talk about it in this thread, and not in the other one. What do you think the problem is? How would you change it? What would you remove (if anything)?

If you are against change or errata to his card, please also speak up. I am interested in hearing all sides of the argument so that the Balance Committee can make an informed decision based on what the community would like to see.

For years the Sith struggled to make headway in the top tables. This year the World Championship saw 5 Sith squads out of 14 total. 3 Imperial. 1 Mando squad twice. 1 OR, 1 Republic, 1 Vong, 1 Fringe. (Talon was in 3 of the squads that showed up). Of those 5 squads, 3 had Tulak and those squads made the top 6 cut. 2 were piloted by former World Champions. (Among the top 6 were a total of 8 Championship titles btw) Is it the tool that got them to the top seats, or was it skill and a solid understanding of the game that got them there this year, or both? The Sith won, but not Tulak. They had a good chance going in, because the Sith were half the field. IMO the map list was very melee friendly and that helped. But it is the first World Championship win for the Faction. Overall in the event Tulak went 9-6. All three players went 3-2. Does this justify change in his first year out? Or do we wait a year and see where things go?

Please state your opinion.

Darth Cognus, she is one of the Sith who I find to be the most annoying.

He also opens up many sith squads who have struggled since Darth Caedus squads were indirectly nerfed (if I recall correctly).

I'll add my voice to the "Ain't broke don't fix it" chorus.

When I was talking with Tim he mentioned that the collection of effects on Tulak turn him into more of a melee-hate piece than anything. Tim recommended that it would've been better for him to have Ranged Defense Expert +4 instead of Melee Duelist (+4 vs adjacent attacks). I can see a good point here, since melee characters already need to deal with his Distraction, so needing an additional +4 Attack on top of that is very difficult. If he needs any adjustment, I'd say this would be it.

Nevertheless, I do not think Tulak needs a nerf. I think one reason people played him a lot (I'm certainly speaking for myself here) is because he actually does have durability in a large number of matchups, which is something that is very rare these days. It seems like almost any squad can do a 1- or 2-activation nuke of any target when certain conditions are met...and yet Tulak's Sith Reflexes mean that he can slip away when the opponent tries its nuke tactic. I think this is GOOD for the game, because it requires squads to use more than a single freakin' activation (or phase) to kill a key piece. I remember when that was the normal experience in this game...before the dark times, before the damage creep.

Also, it's probably good for the game that the Sith finally have some playable CE-suppression. I was one person who helped Bryan think through his initial design for Tulak. We were trying to brainstorm a way to give the Sith some kind of benefit when they closed ranks and reached the enemy, because they're big and aggressive, and they should be rewarded for aggressive, in-your-face play. That's when we came upon the idea for Distraction: it's totally useless if he's standing back and thumbing his nose at you...it only works if he chases you down. Sith should be at their best when they get up in your face. Mission accomplished!

Finally, can we just stop to recognize the good thing that happened here? SITH are being used in competitive play! When was the last time that happened with any frequency at all? We often speak about how we want balance between the factions, and we want every faction to have a few different options for competitive play. Well, now the Sith have something to work with. It looks like the Sith have finally brought balance to the Force....

yes Tulak is verrrry good, however I feel like he is the hot new piece right now the same way Boba AFH was a few years ago. I remember a huge outcry against Boba after his first year on the scene but a few years on and while Boba is still very good, he didn't turn out to be the Meta warping menace that everyone feared initially. I say we should table the talks of errata to Tulak for a year and see where we are. It is possible that a change is needed, but I also feel like he is the hot new piece that everyone is playing and if we give it that time the meta will probably shift on its own and while I think he will still see play, I don't think he will have the huge presence that he does currently.

Melee Duelist being on him is a bit to much in my opinion. Every time i would get close to him in a game, that +4 to defense automatically made a already hard piece to hit even harder. If you could manage to land a hit on him, he'd either SSM or Teleport away. Distraction takes away any CE attack boost advantage you would have to help vs Melee Duelist. I think it is the combo of Melee Duelist + SSM + Sith Reflexes that makes it so frustrating to hit him when you don't get CE's. Best option i think is to take away Melee duelist and that way it would force Tulak to spend more force points on rerolls of SSM or teleport. It's also pretty hard to get damage through when he also has MotF 2 and access to a lot of force points. Yes the IA is good with the CE, but the IA also had a huge target on his back because that is the bulk of the damage output in the squad and he only has 80hp. Usually no init control is present in Tulak squads, so that makes it harder for the IA to completely dominate a game.