Then he's PS6 and not hitting before alot of pilots so you don't get to waste the enemies big gun before his friends fire, and Brath then loses the predator re-roll meaning his chance to use his ability becomes zero.

Re-rolling 1 dice makes his ability that much better? I think you are exaggerating the importance of predator here. I don't know, you have more experience with this build than I do--it just doesn't seem like changing out the EPT is going to be the difference between Brath being able to use his ability and not. Of course there will be effects, but it isn't so binary.

I think it's the combination of no Predator re-roll and no Vessery with PS8 taking shots ahead of Rex. His ability will still trigger a lot against stuff like Decimators, but Falcons drop so much damage off single attacks that you need someone else to burn through 3P0/Evade or Rex will need the Focus token just to do damage.

I tried a weird test yesterday, trading Rexler's HLC for an ion cannon, proton rocket and veteran instinct with very interesting results. The ion cannon was used against high agility targets (A-Wings, phantoms) where messing up with their maneuverability and forcing landings in asteroids or bumps increased the damage on the following round (and kept my other ships safe). The proton rocket was kept in reserve for targets with a lot of hit points (large base ships), where triggering Rexler's ability successfully could really be worth it.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the results and I'll be play testing variants of that in my next few days. One extra dice might not seem like a huge difference, but when you try to trigger Rexler's ability then it can make a heck of an impact (also, he's super annoying against phantoms with a PS 10).

Then he's PS6 and not hitting before alot of pilots so you don't get to waste the enemies big gun before his friends fire, and Brath then loses the predator re-roll meaning his chance to use his ability becomes zero.

Re-rolling 1 dice makes his ability that much better? I think you are exaggerating the importance of predator here. I don't know, you have more experience with this build than I do--it just doesn't seem like changing out the EPT is going to be the difference between Brath being able to use his ability and not. Of course there will be effects, but it isn't so binary.

I don't even usually worry about activating Brath's ability. I just try to get as much damage from the HLC as I can. Predator helps with that. If I happen to have a focus token left over and can use his ability that's a bonus.

I think it's the combination of no Predator re-roll and no Vessery with PS8 taking shots ahead of Rex. His ability will still trigger a lot against stuff like Decimators, but Falcons drop so much damage off single attacks that you need someone else to burn through 3P0/Evade or Rex will need the Focus token just to do damage.

Bang on you get vessery to strip shields and then try to score hits, sometimes you'll have to burn the focus to get hits but with a little luck predator will get you the needed hits and you can pile on a few crits.

His ability won't come into play every turn he fires but against large ships piling on crits works, like when you remove the falcons one agility or disable the outsiders cannon.