Vader deals a critical damage, which is different from a face up damage card like in proton bombs.

So vader is especially effective against opponents once their shields are gone.

Is this right?

Correct. Damage always hits shields first, which applies to the damage Vader deals to the target and his own ship.

This leads my to believe that when they designed it they didn't expect people to just give him to an omicron and that's it.

Since it's pretty terrible against shields, and all rebel ships have shields, I think they maybe thought he would sit and wait until late game when shields are gone.

Ya but by late game you may not get a much user from him.

Remember he does 2 pt dmg to your ship.

Want to use him early on, otherwise if your ship is focused fire you may not get any use from him

Doom Shuttles can work very well in mirror matches though. The Empire doesn't really believe in shields.

As Eagle says, it's awesome in mirror matches. But it works better against shielded targets than I think you're giving it credit for.

Don't forget that the shuttle still gets it's attack first. It's not at all unreasonable for a the attack itself to strip the shields off an X-wing before Vader does his thing. The Omicron's low PS helps this too, as you can use your other ships to take the shields down before the attack.

Vader's ability is a great theatric coup de grace. Everyone else strips the shields and maybe inflicts a damage point, then Vader comes along with his "And now you die!". And if you can have that happening while playing the Imperial March soundtrack at the same time, it's even better!

Vader makes me think that he'll be insane on board a huge Imperial ship with loads of hull that has a way to regenerate its own shields like the Corvette can.

Or heck, he'll probably do really well on the Decimator since its got hull to spare.

Vader's one of those cards that I assume will not be legal on Huge ships, due to Recover.

I also expect that Mara Jade won't be legal as well, as stressing all enemies with range 1 of a Huge ship would be insane.

There is no way Vader will be legal on Huge ships, between the ability to fire multiple weapons a turn and being able to recover shields.

You don't use Vader until something's on its last hull point, anything else is just doing it wrong