I don't think it took that much text to really understand that Screed has two real uses: getting Blue Crits and rolling lots of black dice.
Vader is marginally better for most other attack strategies (even with the squad and token cost). However, maybe Vader should be compared to Tarkin passing out ConcFire tokens (6 dice you'll probably only get 1 blank, so the token is sufficent).
Lists with a pair of gladiators will continue to run Screed and lists without gladiators will run others.
My gut tells me that screed is still better, fewer points and not having to give up defenses combined is too much to pass up. I've only played a few games at the 400 point level, but in my local area i've seen the firepower get dialed up and the tokens are whats keeping my ships alive.
To be fair, I just played up to 6 games Armada in total, but: In my opinion, Vader is definitely more powerful than Screed !
Situation I: VSD II with Overload Pulse (OP) firing from front arc so we got 3 reds and 3 blues
unmodified result:
This would be 4 damage, and Overload Pulse working. Screed could use the blank red to change the blue aim into a crit which would be 5 damage in total and OP working, so +1 with him.
With Vader you would reroll the aim, and the red blank.
A possible result would be another blue hit (50%) and another red hit (25%) - so we reach 6 damage in total and OP still working.
Situation II: ISD I with Overload Pulse (OP) firing from front arc so we got 3 reds, 2 blues, and 3 blacks
unmodified result:
6 damege and OP working. Screed could use 1 blank black to change it into a crit/hit which means +2 damage and 8 in total. Vader would reroll the 1 red blank, the blue aim and both black blanks.
This is a possible result and we got 10 damage in total and OP working. So its +4 Damage from Vader..
Situation III: GSD I from side arc so 4 blacks.
A possible result could be 2 blanks and 2 crit/hit so 4 damage at all.
Screed can change 1 black blank into a crit/hit and reaches 6 damage at all. Vader got a 75% chance for each single black one to add 1 damage, or a 25% chance for add 2 damage.
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To sum up my thoughts behind that: Screed is able to improve your rolls and get the crits you need, but his abilitiy is not strong enough to change a really bad roll into something you can work with. Vader cant get that more damage out of your rolls which would legitimate his highter cost, but he can turn really miserable attacks into devastating firepower.
Sorry for my simple/inaccurate english but I do my best..
Edited by Jimbo2142
* * *
So basically, if you're using two rerolls on your black dice one of those rerolls should be devoted to rerolling everything not a hit+crit. The second reroll mathematically comes out even, depending on if you want to keep fishing for hits+crits or if you'd rather play it safe and only reroll blanks. Up to you. Maybe more math later, I'm not sure.
*All percentages rounded to the nearest hundredth point
Thanks for sharing your findings! This has been my conclusion, as well (though I lack the mathematical skill to be confident in my figuring out these percentages, so I've been just rolling lots and lots of dice in batches of 50 or 100). One selective reroll (Ordnance Experts + Vader for black dice, Vader + Leading Shots on other dice if you're in medium range, at the cost of a dice) reliably improves damage on black and red dice (and could on blue dice, too, though if you're just looking for a straight damage increase on blue dice, that math is relatively straightforward). Two selective rerolls (either fishing for double-damage again, or rerolling any blanks, as you've suggested) reliably improves damage in all but a few fringe outlying cases, and drastically reduces the chance of a catastrophic roll (2-4 blanks/1-2 damage out of 5+ dice).
It always surprises me when someone apologizes for their english, it not being their first language, at the end of a post that was so clearly superior to my own. Great post, Jimbo.
Screed is the safer option. It guarantees you a crit, and you don't have to burn defence tokens. When you have that guarantee, you can rely on it, and you can plan for it happening. Even though the odds of getting a crit on 4 or so dice with rerolls are high, it's not 100% and that could bite you on the behind. If you use crit dependant upgrade cards, Screed is the choice.
Here, let's do a little more math. Specifically, I'd like to compare the two in an arena where the superior choice is less obvious. Clearly Vader is superior when dealing with big pools of dice and Screed has a special love of black dice, and is even better the fewer of them there are (as Vader's rerolls are less numerically beneficial whereas Screed's benefit is often a static +1/+2 damage+crit effect, which is substantial). Obviously Screed will be superior with Gladiators and Vader will be superior with an ISD-I.
Anyways, without further ado:
Vader + VSD-I + Expanded Launchers + Heavy Turbolaser Turrets + Ordnance Experts
vs.
Screed + VSD-1 + Assault Concussion Missiles + Heavy Turbolaser Turrets + Ordnance Experts
Assumptions:
A front arc attack at short range with full dice from each. The Turbolaser upgrade slot is filled with the HTTs to ensure we want damage on red dice as much as possible to force a choice between brace or redirect (using both being non-ideal)
Vader
Each red dice has a .75 average damage roll on its own. One you reroll the non-damage faces (3 of the 8, as the accuracy result is difficult to quantify in our example which is why I went with the expedient workaround of just slapping HTTs on both ships), you get:
(37.5%*.75=)0.28 additional average damage per dice. So that means the red dice contribute (.75+.28=)1.03 damage each on average, so 3.09.
Assuming the double rerolls as stipulated above, each black dice does an average of 1.438 damage each, so 1.438*5=7.19.
Average damage = 10.28 from the front arc.
Screed
The red dice here are easy with no rerolls. They contribute .75 average each, so 2.25 damage total.
The black dice get tricky. Assuming you do a single reroll fishing for crits to best optimize Screed's ability, we still get 1.25 average damage per dice. That part is easy. 3*1.25=3.75.
The tricky part is determining how much damage Screed's ability will add to the end result, which depends on our odds of different dice combinations. For example, two blank black dice = +2 damage, as you gave up nothing to flip a nothing to 2 damage. 3 hits+crits adds nothing, because you wouldn't want to use the ability anyways. Similarly, rolling all dice with hits or higher on them statistically adds zero damage because you'd give up a hit to flip to a hit+crit. So basically, Screed's ability adds damage when you have at least one blank dice in the pool after the reroll and otherwise ensures a crit from the ACMs. After a reroll there is an 18.75% chance of a black dice turning up blank in the end (see my earlier post). So with that in mind, using a handy dandy binomial distribution calculator we find that...
37.1% of the time we get a single blank
8.6% of the time we get two blanks
0.7% of the time we get three blanks
The remainder of the time we get all "full" dice in one form or another, which doesn't provide a raw damage benefit but will trigger the crit on the ACMs of course in one way or another.
So, the Screed benefit itself works out to:
37.1%*1 = 0.371 additional average damage
(8.6%+0.7%=)9.3%*2 = 0.186 additional average damage
Which comes out to (0.371+0.186=)0.557 additional raw damage from Screed.
So let's throw this all together now
Screed red dice = 2.25
Screed rerolled black dice = 3.75
Screed's ability = 0.557
ACMs = 2 (on the surrounding hull zones)
Total = 8.557 average damage, 2 of which is on the surrounding hull zones
Conclusions
That's actually a larger difference in damage than I had been expecting. Do keep in mind that Vader himself is more expensive than Screed and the Expanded Launchers are also more expensive than the Assault Concussion Missiles as well, but a bit less than 2 more damage is done by Vader's VSD-I and it's all funneled into one hull zone on top of that.
Edited by SnipafistAlso for those of you wondering if the Ordnance Experts on the Screed VSD-I were worthwhile, without a reroll on the black dice we get:
42.2% of the time we get a single blank black dice
14.1% of the time we get two blank black dice
1.6% of the time we get three blank black dice
Which means that Screed's ability would be better (as your dice would be worse) and come out to roughly:
42.2%*1 = 0.422 additional damage
(14.1%+1.6%=)15.7%*2 = 0.314 additional damage
So +0.736 raw damage
So in the end it would be...
2.25 damage from red dice
3 damage from black dice
0.736 damage from Screed
2 damage from ACMs
So 7.986 damage (2 on adjacent hull zones) from the Screed VSD-I without Ordnance Experts. The Ordnance Experts end up adding a bit over half a point of damage on average, but you get more mileage from Screed himself without them. It's up to you.
And one last post on the subject because I was curious as to what the difference would be if the ships were swapped for a more direct apples-to-apples comparison. In the original example I kitted the VSD-Is out to emphasize the strengths of each commander, so we'll see what happens in a more direct head-to-head...
Darth Vader with VSD-I with Ordnance Experts, Heavy Turbolaser Turrets, and Assault Concussion Missiles
3.09 damage from red dice (as mentioned above)
3 black dice with two rerolls, using earlier math favoring fishing for hit+crit (as we're trying to trigger the ACMs) comes out to 3*1.438 = 4.314 damage
We again need to calculate odds of getting a crit from that using the binomial distribution calculator. With a 57.85% chance of getting a hit+crit per dice, there is a 7.5% chance of getting no crits on the 3 double-rerolled black dice, meaning there is a 92.5% chance of triggering the crit. That brings us to (92.5%*2=)1.85 average extra damage from triggering the ACMs.
So we have:
3.09 red dice damage
4.314 black dice damage
1.85 ACM damage (done to 2 adjacent arcs)
9.254 average damage total, compared to Screed's 8.557. Vader wins!
Screed with VSD-I with Ordnance Experts, Heavy Turbolaser Turrets, and Expanded Launchers
2.25 red dice damage
(5*1.25=) 6.25 black dice damage
And now we need to figure our how much Screed will add, using the same kind of math as before to determine the average benefit from his ability. Again, using the "fishing for hit+crit" method on the black dice rerolls because Screed loves having blank dice to sacrifice for his ability and it provides the highest total damage for him.
35.4% of the time there are no blanks and thus no net damage gain at all from Screed
40.9% of the time there is one blank only, giving +1 damage, meaning an average gain of (40.9%*1=) .409 damage
23.7% of the time there are two or more blanks, giving +2 damage meaning an average gain of (23.7%*2=) .474 damage
Totaled together it's .883 damage
So altogether it is
2.25 red damage
6.25 black damage
.883 Screed damage
9.383 total damage, compared to 10.28 Vader damage. Vader is again the winner.
Keep in mind this is once again coming from the front arc of a VSD-I. The side arcs with Screed and ACMs are far better than with Vader due to Screed being able to trigger the ACMs even on a pittance attack. Vader gains more of a benefit from the red dice than Screed, which seems to be what is pushing him over the top. On a ship like a Gladiator that is loaded down with mostly black dice, Screed would seem to be the clear winner (although I'll math it out if anyone really wants to put that to the test). Vader also costs more points than Screed and requires spending a defensive token unlike Screed. Hopefully this demonstration has been of benefit to somebody trying to put numbers to this comparison.
The raw damage is not really that important. Both Vader and Screed do 'enough'. The benefits you are looking for from these commanders are twofold - Firstly, an insurance policy against a bad dice roll (i.e. lots of blanks). Secondly also Accuracy fishing (Vader) and Crit ability triggering (Screed).
The reason that ACM are so good is that the extra 2 damage never gets braced down to half. This is guaranteed with Screed (only thing that can trump Screed being Mon Mothma as far as I can figure).
Vader however has a larger potential payoff if he can deliver an accuracy result that knocks out the brace for the full 9-10 points of damage. But it is risky and susceptible to things like ECM.
The other aspect is that Vader's ability scales with your dice pool size. Hence why people are suggesting Expanded Launchers or ISDs. Screed is really optimal for the 4-6 dice attacks from VSD/Glads.
So really the choice of which to take depends entirely on what your fleet is setup to do. Neither is inherently better than the other - they are options. Options are good!
Anyone try to put these numbers against certain Rebel scum? Additionally, how would an opponent react differently to these two commanders? Right now, the article is only focusing on a single aspect of the game and I always found that to quite narrow in relation to others.
The raw damage is not really that important. Both Vader and Screed do 'enough'. The benefits you are looking for from these commanders are twofold - Firstly, an insurance policy against a bad dice roll (i.e. lots of blanks). Secondly also Accuracy fishing (Vader) and Crit ability triggering (Screed).
The reason that ACM are so good is that the extra 2 damage never gets braced down to half. This is guaranteed with Screed (only thing that can trump Screed being Mon Mothma as far as I can figure).
Vader however has a larger potential payoff if he can deliver an accuracy result that knocks out the brace for the full 9-10 points of damage. But it is risky and susceptible to things like ECM.
The other aspect is that Vader's ability scales with your dice pool size. Hence why people are suggesting Expanded Launchers or ISDs. Screed is really optimal for the 4-6 dice attacks from VSD/Glads.
So really the choice of which to take depends entirely on what your fleet is setup to do. Neither is inherently better than the other - they are options. Options are good!
Great points here. For all the love Ackbar is getting (and all the intrigue Rieekan is generating), Mon Mothma remains a solid choice for Rebels because of this reason.
"Think you have that elusive crit? Eat it Screed!"
For me Vader is an insurance. Each game (Coreset/300pts/400pts) got some essential rounds when you got the big ships in action and nasty damage can be thrown in your opponents face. If you waste those big attacks with unlucky rolls, games can be changed dramatically. To avoid that, Vader can be an option.
Another point is that most of the imperial ships got defense tokens that are ineffective/less effective in particular circumstances. Think about the ISDs Contain, when your shields are all fine and hull damage is not likely in the situation or think about the GSD in close range and its evade token..
Here, let's do a little more math.
Vader
Average damage = 10.28 from the front arc.
Screed:
Total = 8.557 average damage, 2 of which is on the surrounding hull zones
Conclusions
That's actually a larger difference in damage than I had been expecting. Do keep in mind that Vader himself is more expensive than Screed and the Expanded Launchers are also more expensive than the Assault Concussion Missiles as well, but a bit less than 2 more damage is done by Vader's VSD-I and it's all funneled into one hull zone on top of that.
Cutting the working just to not quote the full lot, but thanks for showing it all. However i disagree with your conclusion, ultimately what matters isn't raw damage, it's applied damage. In this specific case, the Vader attack gets braced to 5.14 damage. The Screed attack gets braced to 4.28+2 surrounding damage, so ~1 less on the main targetted hull zone but ~1 more damage overall. Plus the Vader build here is 16 points more expensive and you have to burn a defence token of your own.
Cutting the working just to not quote the full lot, but thanks for showing it all. However i disagree with your conclusion, ultimately what matters isn't raw damage, it's applied damage. In this specific case, the Vader attack gets braced to 5.14 damage. The Screed attack gets braced to 4.28+2 surrounding damage, so ~1 less on the main targetted hull zone but ~1 more damage overall. Plus the Vader build here is 16 points more expensive and you have to burn a defence token of your own.
Just in the interest of making sure we're all on the same page here, I believe the damage comparison you are referencing is a Screed ship with ACMs vs. a Vader ship with Expanded Launchers. Comparing those two ships, you'd be right: a ship that can add +2 damage after a brace is applied is probably going to get a higher applied damage score over a ship that has higher raw damage before the brace is applied (unless that raw damage score is doing 4+ points of raw damage). A more apples-to-apples comparison was made below, where Vader still results in higher damage overall (although the damage splits are less disparate).
And one last post on the subject because I was curious as to what the difference would be if the ships were swapped for a more direct apples-to-apples comparison. In the original example I kitted the VSD-Is out to emphasize the strengths of each commander, so we'll see what happens in a more direct head-to-head...
Darth Vader with VSD-I with Ordnance Experts, Heavy Turbolaser Turrets, and Assault Concussion Missiles
3.09 damage from red dice (as mentioned above)
3 black dice with two rerolls, using earlier math favoring fishing for hit+crit (as we're trying to trigger the ACMs) comes out to 3*1.438 = 4.314 damage
We again need to calculate odds of getting a crit from that using the binomial distribution calculator. With a 57.85% chance of getting a hit+crit per dice, there is a 7.5% chance of getting no crits on the 3 double-rerolled black dice, meaning there is a 92.5% chance of triggering the crit. That brings us to (92.5%*2=)1.85 average extra damage from triggering the ACMs.
So we have:
3.09 red dice damage
4.314 black dice damage
1.85 ACM damage (done to 2 adjacent arcs)
9.254 average damage total, compared to Screed's 8.557. Vader wins!
Screed with VSD-I with Ordnance Experts, Heavy Turbolaser Turrets, and Expanded Launchers
2.25 red dice damage
(5*1.25=) 6.25 black dice damage
And now we need to figure our how much Screed will add, using the same kind of math as before to determine the average benefit from his ability. Again, using the "fishing for hit+crit" method on the black dice rerolls because Screed loves having blank dice to sacrifice for his ability and it provides the highest total damage for him.
35.4% of the time there are no blanks and thus no net damage gain at all from Screed
40.9% of the time there is one blank only, giving +1 damage, meaning an average gain of (40.9%*1=) .409 damage
23.7% of the time there are two or more blanks, giving +2 damage meaning an average gain of (23.7%*2=) .474 damage
Totaled together it's .883 damage
So altogether it is
2.25 red damage
6.25 black damage
.883 Screed damage
9.383 total damage, compared to 10.28 Vader damage. Vader is again the winner.
Keep in mind this is once again coming from the front arc of a VSD-I. The side arcs with Screed and ACMs are far better than with Vader due to Screed being able to trigger the ACMs even on a pittance attack. Vader gains more of a benefit from the red dice than Screed, which seems to be what is pushing him over the top. On a ship like a Gladiator that is loaded down with mostly black dice, Screed would seem to be the clear winner (although I'll math it out if anyone really wants to put that to the test). Vader also costs more points than Screed and requires spending a defensive token unlike Screed. Hopefully this demonstration has been of benefit to somebody trying to put numbers to this comparison.
I'd agree with Snip on Vader seeing the greatest benefit as a red dice modifier. Those dice are extremely fickle, and having just one chance to reroll dice you don't like offers a real boost to raw damage. Raw damage on black dice also increases with selective rerolls, though not quite so dramatically (there's a lot less variance on a black die than a red one), but you can do that with Ordnance Experts at a much lower cost than Vader, and with no built-in cost whatsoever.
All that said, you're correct about paying a premium (+12 points and defense token) for Vader's reroll ability, so on a black-dice heavy fleet, that's going to be less valuable--although I should probably say "less necessary," since Vader allows you to modify black dice potentially three and even four times (Ordnance Experts + Vader + CF token; and if an ISD I has Leading Shots, that's an additional modification), so if you're looking to get 6-8 damage consistently out of 4 black dice (8-10 if, God forbid, you have ACMs...), that's where you'll find it.
Edited by RythbrytI will note that the reason I went for a raw damage comparison was to remove the consideration of fishing for accuracy results on Vader. Given the criticism that has been posted regarding Bracing Vader's damage down, however*, let's explore Vader's odds of getting an accuracy result with those 3 red dice vs. the normal results. I'd assume that should you be fishing for accuracy results on red dice (which is reasonable if you're fishing for hit+crit on black dice), you'd be using XI7 Turbolasers and ideally looking for a single accuracy to lock down a single Brace.
So on 3 red dice you have a 67% chance of not rolling an accuracy at all, meaning your odds of getting at least one accuracy are 33%. Therefore, you will need to reroll all the dice 2 out of every 3 rolls to try to find that elusive red accuracy. That means...
33% + (67% need to roll again * 33% odds of success=)22% = 55% of the time rerolling the red dice will result in at least one accuracy icon.
Breaking it down for the first roll, we have...
That means the average damage for the first roll factoring in accuracies is (noting that the total damage on the 7 remaining sides is 6)
For a total of 2.25 (just like average above, but this will be important for Vader later.
We can do the Screed math on the VSD-I right now, then. Screed will do the same average damage as above but 33% of the time he will also have at least one accuracy result. When I break down numbers later I'll factor that in.
Vader's math is more complex because our decision is informed by how many of the dice turned up accuracy and if any did, how many other dice turned up blank.
So for example, if we initially rolled zero accuracies, we would reroll the entire pool hunting for that accuracy result, which would result in the same probabilities as the initial roll of 3 dice.
So this all breaks down to:
For a total of 2.1 average damage while fishing for accuracy results while factoring in rerolls. This is a 93% of the average damage and 68% of the "fishing for damage" average with Vader reroll but with an increase from 33% accuracy results to a more dependable 55% accuracy result, a 67% improvement. Trading away 32% damage for 67% improved accuracy odds seems like a wise choice to me.
So what we come down to for the two core examples, with Vader's VSD's HTTs replaced with XI7s:
Vader's VSD-I with Ordnance Experts, Expanded Launchers, and XI7 Turbolasers
2.1 red dice damage (rerolling to get 1 accuracy)
7.19 black dice damage (rerolling to get hit+crit)
9.29 total damage
55% odds of locking down the Brace. If that does occur and the opponent spends their Redirect to try to stop at least 1 point of damage, that's still a huge amount of damage going to the hull. It'll wallop a 4-shield Rebel ship for 4+ damage plus whatever card you flop for the crit.
Please note that per the example above, Screed would average 9.383 damage for the same ship (which is higher, if slightly), but his chance of getting 1+ accuracy results is only 33%.
*For what it's worth, 10 damage even halved means that a single Brace token (if we're using Heavy Turbolaser Turrets) will not prevent damage even against a full shield arc on a heavy Rebel ship like an Assault Frigate or MC80 from reaching the hull and that's almost always going to be crit-enabled. Screed will assuredly do an equivalent if not slightly higher amount of damage but against a heavier ship after a brace none of that is hitting the hull. You're relying on subsequent attacks (preferably ACM-enabled) to melt through the shields and start piling up big damage.
Screed is a better choice in fleets making attacks with small dice pools of mostly black dice, or in fleets trying to trigger critical effects on specific color dice (like Overload Pulse).
Vader is better in fleets making attacks with large dice pools of multi-colored dice.
When you unleash the medium range front-arc of an ISD twice with Gunnery team, Vader is going to add a lot more net damage than Screen will. Furthermore, Vader can also help in the production of more accuracy results, which are often "worth" multiple damage, whereas Screed has no way to add accuracy results with his conversion ability. This is huge, and its value cannot be overstated (but I'm surprised it's been so overlooked).