Hello everyone!

I have been thinking about Norra Wexley's ability for quite a while now, trying to find out, how to make it work.

And somehow.. the more I think about it, the more I regard this ability to be really bad.

"When attacking or defending, you may spend a target lock you have on the enemy ship to add 1 eye result to your roll".

I mean.. WTF?

She is supposed to be the top ARC-170 pilot. Why didn't they give her something more usable?

Why am I supposed to get a target lock in the first place, which is important to modify dice, just to add an eye result?

Why only an eye? Why not a crit instead?

I mean... the eye is absolutely useless, if you don't have a focus or anything else to convert the eye into a boom or kaboom.

This ability is VERY VERY VERY situational. You have to get the perfect crew on her ARC to convert this to that and back to this to make her ability work in the first place. Why?

She should have something, which always works. Just like Ten Numb or Tycho or somebody else.

What do you think? Have you got any good ideas about Norra and her special ability?

Yeah it kinda blows. It works ok out of the aux arc since you can convert the eye.

Before fickle gets here: the title alows you to turn a focus into a crit out the back, and with its dial Norra can easily make PTL work. Plan a conservative maneuver, get Target Lock and Focus, and toss on a Tail Gunner to make it hit a little harder.

Not bad by any means.

Are you serious?

It's a nice ability

Give her ptl and tailgunner, and the title

You target lock and focus, gives you good potential of 4 dmg out the front and 3 out the back while reducing your opponent green dice by 1, and changes the focus to a crit. That's a nice ability

I've used her beside biggs with great results, haven't lost out of at least half a dozen games with this

Works on defense too

Stack with r2d2 for 2 guaranteed damage cancels per round

Ptl away! Aux arc makes lack of green turns almost negligible

Working the rear arc is key. With tailgunner you reduce opponents agility, add a free crit with her ability, then regen with R2D2. Don't underestimate tail Gunner! You make aces into x wings and x wings into b wings and b wings into ghosts! If you roll perfect, you can just add a nasty crit for 3-4 hits. If you get focused a lot, use the target lock to add a free evade to your roll. That + R2D2 is a mean combo. I use her with dash. It's either regen god or mobile god in end game!

I tried her with Rey Crew + Weapons Eng Shara and Biggs.

Bank focuses early, then setup a target lock of your own and two you can borrow from Shara and start doing focus + take one from Rey.

Works like a charm.

There's thread after thread of ideas about how to make this work. First off, if all you have is the target lock, that eye result is as good as a crit result out the rear arc. Catching opponents in the rear arc seems to be the primary benefit of flying the ARC-170, especially with Tailgunner. They have the second most greens out of any rebel ship (not counting R2), so PTL is very usable on them. Rebels also have a lot of crew/support options to make it easier to get TL + Focus. Rey in particular comes to mind (if you don't mind losing Tailgunner).

I've been running this as I mentioned above great results.

Nora

Ptl

Vector thrusters

Tail gunner

R2d2

Title

Thane

Plasma torp

Tailgunner

Title

R3a2

Guidance chips

Biggs

R4d6

Integrated Astro

Also works with Shara Bey. Hey, if she is firing a Proton Torp and snags a TL from Shara (who maybe has Weapons Engineer), then that's a free critical hit right there.

PTL is a good choice as there are so many green moves on her ship. It easily gives you a free hit if you use your 2nd action for a Focus.

Adding a result is worth a LOT. Basically. I mean, compare Backdraft - Norra's ability gives her his ability - it costs a TL, but she also gets to use it from the front arc.

Conclusion. Not a bad ability.

In fact it's a great ability on a pretty good ship

With R3 Astromech she can trade her TL for an Evade.

hi fickle

Only if you have a shot and only works if you're at a higher ps

Meanwhile her defensive ability always works on the enemy she has locked

Alright, I understand that there are quite a few people here, who think that it's a good ability.

Thanks for the input, I agree that PTL & gunner is a way to make this usable

But honestly... I am still not convinced. Please keep it mind, that a TL might be a lot more important for rerolling than adding an eye, which means, you can only use her ability, if your roll was good in the first place.

Yes, maybe it was meant to be this way, but then it's a weak ability in comparison to a lot of others out there.

im not a fan of how limited it is, but i fully understand its pretty powerful if used right. I sorta wish it was "when spending a targetlock" and prevent rerolling the added die, but i have a feeling that might be too powerful.

i'd rather they release mild abilities that require cards to be really effective, as we might get something in a wave or two that REALLY loves Norra, rather than get crap like Soontir again.

She should have something, which always works. Just like Ten Numb or Tycho or somebody else.

What do you think? Have you got any good ideas about Norra and her special ability?

You kind of had me until this point. Ten Numb is not a pilot I think of when I think of "always working." First of all Ten requires you to have a [Crit] result, which only happens sometimes unless you invest in upgrades to make it work (just like you need to do with Norra). Secondly, Ten's ability is only useful against high agility/token targets, he is not very likely to do anything special against Decimators, Ghosts, Y-Wings, YV-666s, etc.

I'll note that Norra does add a [Crit] result in the rear, since Alliance Overhaul makes an [EYE] = [CRIT]. So, in that sense, her ability basically says "When attacking in your rear arc, spend a TL to add one [Crit] result." Still, her ability is more flexible than that.

Norra +PtL

Norra + R3A2 + Ezra

Norra + M9-G8/Predator

Norra + Kyle, Dutch, Garven, Lando, or Esege

Norra + Tycho-SquadLeader-ExpInt

All of these are off-the-top-of-my-head ways one could build around Norra to make her ability begin to approach something like [spend a TL to add +1 Hit/Crit], which isn't useless on a ship with front and rear arc.

But honestly... I am still not convinced. Please keep it mind, that a TL might be a lot more important for rerolling than adding an eye, which means, you can only use her ability, if your roll was good in the first place.

not really

you only need to re-roll if you roll badly, i.e 2+ blanks

otherwise, you're better off adding the guaranteed focus to turn into a hit because it's just guaranteed

and then, fighting against ships that can evade, you just learn not to use her ability offensively unless you get all hits + focus because you won't do jack **** with less but you will get a guaranteed evade if you don't spend the TL + focus on the offense

Her ability is quite powerful. When considering an attack out of the front arc, assuming you have a TL+F, either through PTL or Rey/Garvin etc, you have a few different combinations that are possible...

First, you roll 3 blanks. You're better off spending your TL to reroll and get on average 2.25 hits. (1.5%)

Second, you roll 2 blanks - You're better off spending your TL to reroll and get on average 2.5 hits. (14%)

Third, you roll 1 blank - You're better off spending your TL to add a focus (which then gets converted) - giving you 3 hits (42%)

Fourth, you roll 0 blanks - You're better of spending your TL to add a focus - giving you 4 hits. (42%)

Therefore, with a TL+F, Norra's ability results in 3.32 hits on average. Compare this to a TL+F normal attack of 2.81 hits. Her ability, when built to synergize, yields an extra .51 hits. Not bad!

Alright, I understand that there are quite a few people here, who think that it's a good ability.

Thanks for the input, I agree that PTL & gunner is a way to make this usable

But honestly... I am still not convinced. Please keep it mind, that a TL might be a lot more important for rerolling than adding an eye, which means, you can only use her ability, if your roll was good in the first place.

Yes, maybe it was meant to be this way, but then it's a weak ability in comparison to a lot of others out there.

Example

I roll hit hit blank. Spend tl add focus and focus. That's better than spending my target lock to possibly reroll another blank.

Lots of times I'll roll something like hit focus focus, I'll spend tl add another focus, and boom 4 hits.

Or hit hit crit, again spend tl another guarantee hit that equals 4 hits total

The only way you get two or less hits is if your dice really fail and you roll 2 or 3 blanks. Then you spend your tl. It almost always guarantees 3 hits min

Then there's the rear arc. With tailgunner you are reducing your opponent green dice by one and already you have 1 guaranteed crit.

I'm not sure what the actual math is on it, but to have pretty well 3 guaranteed hits out your front, and possibly 4 is very strong.

I'm not sure what your hoping for. I feel like some people want Uber powerful stuff. Sorry but if you can't see the potential in that, then your not seeing the big picture

It's a very strong ability. I really can't understand what so difficult to see about that. Having consistent dmg output is very strong.

The ship has a lot of greens, and with the rear arc, ptl works very well. Again, roll hit focus out the back, and you have your focus token, that's hit, hit, crit out the back, while reducing your opponent green dice by one. Jesus, what else can you ask for? That's pretty potent, throw r2d2 on there and fly beside biggs. That's a very nasty ship. If you can't see how good that is, then I don't know what to tell ya

Also, something I want to point out that's lost in the discussion of averages - the value of 4 hits is >>> the value of 3 hits. Let's assume for a moment that you are going against the Inquisitor at R2. He's going to roll 3 Greens and have Palp + Evade token to guarantee at least 2 evades. Therefore in order for the 3 hit attack to do a single point of damage, you need to have the Inq blank out on all 3 Greens (5.3% chance). And that's the best that a standard 3 dice attack can HOPE for... If you take a 3 dice attack with TL+F, there is a 82% chance of 3 hits, and a 5.3% chance of 0 evades from Inq, therefore you have a 4.4% chance of doing damage (and an expected damage of .044). And doing damage is what matters, not rolling hits.

As for Norra, she has a 42% of 3 hits, times 5.3% of 0 evades, for 2.2% of hitting with 3 hits. But she can also roll 4 hits 42% of the time. The defender can then either roll 0 evades and take 2 damage, or roll 1 evade and take 1 damage. The chance of 1 evade 26%. Therefore, Norra has an overall chance of doing damage of 15.3% , meaning that she is over THREE times more likely to hit the Inquisitor than a standard 3 dice TL+F attack. Oh, and her expected damage is also increased to .176, quadruple that of a standard 3 dice TL+F attack.

on the flip side, dealing specifically with palp aces, target Inqy last (shuttle first)

reason being, Inqy basically can't kill Norra 1v1. It's almost sad

scoring a maximum of 3 hits against, at least , norra's defensive ability + r2-d2 makes it almost impossible to deny your (no longer mod) win

Yeah thats kinda mean.

In theory, he can kill her. If he can get 3 hits every round and not lose arc. But the moment Norra rolls a normal evade on top of the TL+F evade, he lost a shot. Considering hes like 4x as squishy hp-wise, a single bad defense for him (which is bound to happen after 6-8 tries) spells doom.

im not an inqy fan. I love the ship, its cheap as hell for what it does, but i think inqy is overrated. I get more use out of Barons than i do Inqy. Everyone acts like Inqy is some unkillable monster that annihilates boards....yet he dies the first time i look at him more often than not lol.

it's basically how you win the late game

had a lot of end game scenarios where it's norra v evade + focus dejour

the procedure is basically:

roll all hits/focus?

if no, use defensive ability and essentially take no damage

if yes, modify third/fourth/fifth hit; maybe a damage.

repeat

had an especially memorable endgame v a PTL tie/mk2 Tie/x7 Ryad

twelve rounds (we counted) and Ryad had suffered 1 damage while Norra had suffered 1 hull damage (facedown) but had gotten all her shields back

It's better than Han Solo crew, who is considered very reasonably priced at 2 squad points...