In all seriousness though, I'm trying to think of a pocket Imperial Ace that could use this. And yet I keep drawing a blank. Tried looking through the Striker Pilots, the TAPs, the FOs, and nothing pops out at me. The more I look at it, the less appealing it is.
Expertise Niches
You aren't going to see it on a pocket ace because it makes your pocket ace the cost of a regular ace.
You aren't going to see it on a pocket ace because it makes your pocket ace the cost of a regular ace.
True. As far as regular Aces I did think of Backdraft + Title + Expertise + FCS at 33 points. Cleans up his action bar allowing him to focus on BR to get those shots in. Throw in LF or TIE mk. 2 as needed.
For imperials it's a good EPT for strikers, SF, defenders, long range bombers, and decimators. Ships with 3 or more red dice and able to not get stressed a lot. Inquisitor, Ryad, Vessery, Pure Sabacc, Backdraft, Quickdraw, Chiraneau... All made good expert-aces.
Not to mention Keyan plays into the weakness of the Bwing - its maneuver dial is full of reds. Every time i fly a Bwing i am CONSTANTLY doing red maneuvers to get a shot, either the 1hard or the 2k. With Keyan, i want to do those maneuvers, and with Adv Sensors i get my TL anyway.
I was just trying to think of a way i'd build keyan the way i'd want to, i understand people have their playstyles that work, but i tried doing that and he just became a ball of fire before he could do anything really effective
If you're paying 4 points for an offensive EPT, you want to use it for every attack. Keyan's maybe going to use it half the time, probably less. For 3 points, you could build Keyan with Rage, a B-Wing/E2 mod and an Inspiring Recruit. That gives him full mods at range 2-3, and he can still keep a Focus token for defense.
Odds of profiting with predator against a pilot skill above 2:Yeah as soon as the card was spoiled I was thinking it's just a less reliable, more expensive predator. At first glance it appears to be better than predator, but that's before you factor in that it can be turned off (rather easily too). It also requires a TL instead of a focus for the double modifier, which telegraphs your target if you can even acquire it.
On 3 dice: 0.436
With focus: 0.434
On 4 dice: 0.469
With focus: 0.513
Odds of using expertise :
On three dice: 0.578
On four dice: 0.684
Expertise is a few things, but it it is not less reliable.
Sorry to be blunt, but you're just wrong. Number-wise expertise is arguably better if you ignore it's extra cost and any board context, but Predator is undoubtedly more reliable.
Predator lets you reroll 1 attack dice, always . There's no condition to be met, or downside, you just pay 3 points to reroll 1 dice whenever you attack, and sometimes you even get to reroll 2. Did you just perform a K-turn? Congrats, you still get to reroll 1 dice! Is your target out of range and higher PS? Congrats you just took a focus and got a double modded shot on someone! Do you have the **** stressed out of you by Braylenn? Congrats, you still get to reroll 1 dice! It's Pretty much the definition of reliable.
Compare that reliability to Expertise's: You get to change all focus results to hits... Unless you K-turned, got stressed by R3-A2, are shooting at a ship with Rebel Captive, got stressed by Asajj, and/or are R2 of a ship with tactician. A very strong ability, that you won't always be able to count on... Some might say it's a little unreliable. That's not even accounting for the fact that you have a harder time double modding your shots, because you need to take a TL instead of a focus (which vastly reduces your flexibility).
That's why predator is still one of the most popular EPTs in the game. It's 3pts you spend that you always get to use. Besides some interaction with other cards (which I'm not sure even exists) Expertise is just inferior to Predator: 1/5 Stars, do not recommend.
I'm agree about the more reliable value of predator over expertise, stress, provoked by one self or others is just too common in this game to expect a free use of expertise.
As a rule of thumb, in a generic ship, probably predator is a better choice.
But, in a few ships/pilots, with high attack values and stress resistant, expertise would be a preferable EPT over predator.
Jek Porkins (26)
Expertise (4)
R5-D8 (3)
Integrated Astromech (0)
So, good 'ole Porkins here is never stressed, so always has Expertise and can Target Lock for fully modified shots, every time. You can K turn and shed the stress, and still get a TL+Expertise on your shot. If you do take damage from the stress dump (37.5% of the time) you can use your action to repair it most of the time (62.5% success) and still get Focus effect on attack.
Not quite a Defender, but comes in at 33 pts. 3 perma fully modified attack dice, ~6 HPs, can 4K with them. 7 PS so higher than glaves/ryad/vessery
Plus, the ability to target lock and still get a focus effect makes for quite a nice torpedo boat. Jek and Hobbie might be a nice 'fake TIE defender' pairing...
Odds of profiting with predator against a pilot skill above 2:Yeah as soon as the card was spoiled I was thinking it's just a less reliable, more expensive predator. At first glance it appears to be better than predator, but that's before you factor in that it can be turned off (rather easily too). It also requires a TL instead of a focus for the double modifier, which telegraphs your target if you can even acquire it.
On 3 dice: 0.436
With focus: 0.434
On 4 dice: 0.469
With focus: 0.513
Odds of using expertise :
On three dice: 0.578
On four dice: 0.684
Expertise is a few things, but it it is not less reliable.
Sorry to be blunt, but you're just wrong. Number-wise expertise is arguably better if you ignore it's extra cost and any board context, but Predator is undoubtedly more reliable.
Predator lets you reroll 1 attack dice, always . There's no condition to be met, or downside, you just pay 3 points to reroll 1 dice whenever you attack, and sometimes you even get to reroll 2. Did you just perform a K-turn? Congrats, you still get to reroll 1 dice! Is your target out of range and higher PS? Congrats you just took a focus and got a double modded shot on someone! Do you have the **** stressed out of you by Braylenn? Congrats, you still get to reroll 1 dice! It's Pretty much the definition of reliable.
Compare that reliability to Expertise's: You get to change all focus results to hits... Unless you K-turned, got stressed by R3-A2, are shooting at a ship with Rebel Captive, got stressed by Asajj, and/or are R2 of a ship with tactician. A very strong ability, that you won't always be able to count on... Some might say it's a little unreliable. That's not even accounting for the fact that you have a harder time double modding your shots, because you need to take a TL instead of a focus (which vastly reduces your flexibility).
That's why predator is still one of the most popular EPTs in the game. It's 3pts you spend that you always get to use. Besides some interaction with other cards (which I'm not sure even exists) Expertise is just inferior to Predator: 1/5 Stars, do not recommend.
I agree with the substance of your analysis, but I still think Expertise is a good card. It's just situationally good, as opposed to Predator, which is 100% good. I think it ends up being a meta call, or a card specifically paired with a ship that has intrinsic re-rolls, such as Rey.
No need for Predator when you have Dengar crew
Odds of profiting with predator against a pilot skill above 2:Yeah as soon as the card was spoiled I was thinking it's just a less reliable, more expensive predator. At first glance it appears to be better than predator, but that's before you factor in that it can be turned off (rather easily too). It also requires a TL instead of a focus for the double modifier, which telegraphs your target if you can even acquire it.
On 3 dice: 0.436
With focus: 0.434
On 4 dice: 0.469
With focus: 0.513
Odds of using expertise :
On three dice: 0.578
On four dice: 0.684
Expertise is a few things, but it it is not less reliable.
Sorry to be blunt, but you're just wrong. Number-wise expertise is arguably better if you ignore it's extra cost and any board context, but Predator is undoubtedly more reliable.
Predator lets you reroll 1 attack dice, always . There's no condition to be met, or downside, you just pay 3 points to reroll 1 dice whenever you attack, and sometimes you even get to reroll 2. Did you just perform a K-turn? Congrats, you still get to reroll 1 dice! Is your target out of range and higher PS? Congrats you just took a focus and got a double modded shot on someone! Do you have the **** stressed out of you by Braylenn? Congrats, you still get to reroll 1 dice! It's Pretty much the definition of reliable.
Compare that reliability to Expertise's: You get to change all focus results to hits... Unless you K-turned, got stressed by R3-A2, are shooting at a ship with Rebel Captive, got stressed by Asajj, and/or are R2 of a ship with tactician. A very strong ability, that you won't always be able to count on... Some might say it's a little unreliable. That's not even accounting for the fact that you have a harder time double modding your shots, because you need to take a TL instead of a focus (which vastly reduces your flexibility).
That's why predator is still one of the most popular EPTs in the game. It's 3pts you spend that you always get to use. Besides some interaction with other cards (which I'm not sure even exists) Expertise is just inferior to Predator: 1/5 Stars, do not recommend.
I agree with the substance of your analysis, but I still think Expertise is a good card. It's just situationally good, as opposed to Predator, which is 100% good. I think it ends up being a meta call, or a card specifically paired with a ship that has intrinsic re-rolls, such as Rey.
The other point, is that Expertise + Target Lock works on every die you roll, whereas Predator + Focus only works on one (unless facing a swarm of PS1-PS2 targets).
How much value you get from the extra point is dependent on how likely you are to roll two or more blanks with the latter - so I suspect you'll really start to see the difference with 4+ dice attack ships.
Edited by Magnus GrendelYou are correct, but the counter argument to that is that you have to commit to Target Lock in the action phase, whereas a Focus action can be used for defense if that ends up being necessary. There's a legitimate reason to go for either. They're both quite strong.
You are correct, but the counter argument to that is that you have to commit to Target Lock in the action phase, whereas a Focus action can be used for defense if that ends up being necessary. There's a legitimate reason to go for either. They're both quite strong.
Not when you have K4 Security droid on Dengar. This card becomes phenomenal.
It also has value on ships you intend to do other actions. Think bumpmaster scouts. You're going to use barrel roll to get in the way and then the expertise to help get those hits.
Sorry to go back to an old thread, but Expertise just seems insanely good. I was surprised to Google it and see mixed reaction.
I'm a new casual player and have a U-Wing/T70 X-Wing/T70 X-Wing squad I came up with from the limited ships I have. One of the pilots is Ello Asty with Expertise. With his ability to pull the talon roll without becoming stressed he is regularly getting behind opponents, boost into range one and firing off his dice with all focuses becoming hits.
I guess it is the cost that makes Expertise questionable, or maybe just loads of other ways to roll a lot of dice that I don't know about yet. But it seems to make a dogfighter like Ello incredibly dangerous.