It applies because you have to look at rolling the dice as one event even though you're rolling twice. If you go into the attack saying to yourself "no matter what happens, I'll reroll the not hircrits" then you'll get the 1.25 expected damage, whereas if you start making judgment calls you'll lower your average long term closer to 1.

Obviously you make an exception for leathal damage because that's the only time getting more damage doesn't matter.

It's good logic when you start from scratch.

If you roll a black die, and are set to reroll unless you get a hit+crit, you're totally correct, the expected damage output is 1.25.

However, the expected output of the reroll itself is still only 1. The combined value across two rolls is higher simply because you won't reroll if you rolled a hit+crit to begin with - but in the OP's scenario, this didn't happen.

For a similar example, consider the expected sum of two six-sided dice: 7. But if you roll one of the dice first and it's a 1, then your expected value immediately drops to 4.5.

Just out of curiosity, anyone who featured Keyan heavily in Wave I care to comment on how they generally approached this problem when attacking hull zones without shields? His special ability in that circumstance is essentially the same (except he's rolling two black dice instead of one, so it potentially poses twice the conundrum).

I've never been lucky enough to have Keyan squaring off against an unshielded hull zone, so I don't have any insight into it (besides the fact that I'd obviously reroll blanks). So in a neutral situation, where you rolled two dice, got a hit on each, and know that the ship will survive whether you land two hits or four, would you settle, reroll one in the hopes of increasing damage (and landing a crit), or tempt the fates and try for the knock-out?

Edit: The reason I ask is because we're starting to see more of these selective reroll cards. Vader and Ordnance Experts are the key new additions, and before that we had CF tokens (on a single die) and Leading Shots (not useable on black dice, but available for reds). They're obviously most useful when blanks are rolled, but if you land just a bunch of generic hits and have a reroll option (either for free, like Ordnance Experts or Keyan or Dash, or at a cost like Vader or Leading Shots), would you generally settle for the damage you've rolled (and just reroll blanks), or would you be more aggressive in trying to pump up your overall damage output (especially on black dice, where the odds of losing damage are relatively low compared to the odds of rolling the same damage, and comparable to the odds of rolling higher damage).

Generally, speaking, with a Blue + Black:

Acc + Blank -> reroll both

Acc + Hit -> reroll both

Acc + Hit&Crit -> reroll blue unless opponent has Contain or Redirect

Hit + Blank -> reroll both

Hit + Hit -> reroll both

Hit + Hit&Crit -> keep (reroll blue if opponent has Contain or Redirect)

Crit + Blank -> reroll black

Crit + Hit -> keep

Crit + Hit&Crit -> keep (reroll blue if opponent has Contain or Redirect)

Just out of curiosity, anyone who featured Keyan heavily in Wave I care to comment on how they generally approached this problem when attacking hull zones without shields? His special ability in that circumstance is essentially the same (except he's rolling two black dice instead of one, so it potentially poses twice the conundrum).

I've never been lucky enough to have Keyan squaring off against an unshielded hull zone, so I don't have any insight into it (besides the fact that I'd obviously reroll blanks). So in a neutral situation, where you rolled two dice, got a hit on each, and know that the ship will survive whether you land two hits or four, would you settle, reroll one in the hopes of increasing damage (and landing a crit), or tempt the fates and try for the knock-out?

Edit: The reason I ask is because we're starting to see more of these selective reroll cards. Vader and Ordnance Experts are the key new additions, and before that we had CF tokens (on a single die) and Leading Shots (not useable on black dice, but available for reds). They're obviously most useful when blanks are rolled, but if you land just a bunch of generic hits and have a reroll option (either for free, like Ordnance Experts or Keyan or Dash, or at a cost like Vader or Leading Shots), would you generally settle for the damage you've rolled (and just reroll blanks), or would you be more aggressive in trying to pump up your overall damage output (especially on black dice, where the odds of losing damage are relatively low compared to the odds of rolling the same damage, and comparable to the odds of rolling higher damage).

Generally, speaking, with a Blue + Black:

Acc + Blank -> reroll both

Acc + Hit -> reroll both

Acc + Hit&Crit -> reroll blue unless opponent has Contain or Redirect

Hit + Blank -> reroll both

Hit + Hit -> reroll both

Hit + Hit&Crit -> keep (reroll blue if opponent has Contain or Redirect)

Crit + Blank -> reroll black

Crit + Hit -> keep

Crit + Hit&Crit -> keep (reroll blue if opponent has Contain or Redirect)

Thanks, DA! For what it's worth, I think I'd be inclined towards all of the same choices, but it's fascinating to see how other commanders approach this topic.

It applies because you have to look at rolling the dice as one event even though you're rolling twice. If you go into the attack saying to yourself "no matter what happens, I'll reroll the not hircrits" then you'll get the 1.25 expected damage, whereas if you start making judgment calls you'll lower your average long term closer to 1.

Obviously you make an exception for leathal damage because that's the only time getting more damage doesn't matter.

It's good logic when you start from scratch.

If you roll a black die, and are set to reroll unless you get a hit+crit, you're totally correct, the expected damage output is 1.25.

However, the expected output of the reroll itself is still only 1. The combined value across two rolls is higher simply because you won't reroll if you rolled a hit+crit to begin with - but in the OP's scenario, this didn't happen.

For a similar example, consider the expected sum of two six-sided dice: 7. But if you roll one of the dice first and it's a 1, then your expected value immediately drops to 4.5.

Yup, you explained it better than I could, but this is exactly the dilemma.

Also, Keyan is black-black. So it's actually a good comparison... I just never had it proc for me, ever, so I kind of forgot it was a thing.

Also, Keyan is black-black.

Oh yes. Oops!

So:

Blank + Blank -> reroll both

Blank + Hit -> reroll both

Blank + Hit&Crit -> reroll blank

Hit + Hit -> reroll both

Hit + Hit&Crit -> keep (or reroll hit if you're feeling lucky)

Hit&Crit + Hit&Crit -> keep