I personally run Swarm leader on Pure Sabacc all the time. I haven't tried this yet but I was thinking of using "Decoy" on another ship with evades to bump Sabacc up.
Probably not a fantastic build, but it would be fun for me.

I like outmaneuver. I like automatics.

Love to play him with Determination, burying that crit is cool. Bored of taking Veteran Instincts although that's good too!

Edit: Also Crack Shot played it last time and it's nasty!

9 minutes ago, Fuzzywookie said:

I like outmaneuver. I like automatics.

just fyi, outmaneuver is always worse than predator, but it is conditional, so you will even use it less.

I know because outmaneuver is my favorite EPT and it sucks that it's just worse

Juke is nice.

for the topic: depending on points I like VI, Lone Wolf, or rarely Expertise

38 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

just fyi, outmaneuver is always worse than predator, but it is conditional, so you will even use it less.

I know because outmaneuver is my favorite EPT and it sucks that it's just worse

No it is not worse, it is a bit different. You can possibly reach "4" attack dice with outmaneuver (when considering -1 defense from the defender). And it also depends on the modifiers of the defender

1 minute ago, IG88E said:

No it is not worse, it is a bit different. You can possibly reach "4" attack dice with outmaneuver (when considering -1 defense from the defender). And it also depends on the modifiers of the defender

it's outright worse for all the following cases: 2-4 red dice against 0-3 green dice. I didn't run the numbers for more, but in all of those, outmaneuver is worse.
There are some fringe cases, e.g. when 0 green dice prevent the usage of an ability like 3PO or Palp. Then there is one case (4 red vs 3 green) where the difference is tiny (1.335 vs 1.332 expected damage). And finally, your argument is not really correct. You always have a maximum amount of possible damage. Rerolling a die improves the chance that you will maximize your own potential damage, while subtracting a die improves the chance that the opponent will not maximize his defense - both result in almost the same, being roughly +1 damage.

However, predator can always be used while outmaneuver is very conditional.

So together you are almost never better off with outmaneuver - unless of course you combine it with other upgrades and abilities. One example is other ways to reroll dice, such as TL. Of course that improves outmaneuver more than predator.

41 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

just fyi, outmaneuver is always worse than predator, but it is conditional, so you will even use it less.

I know because outmaneuver is my favorite EPT and it sucks that it's just worse

"I" went ahead and did the math.

Chance of ___ uncancelled hits/crits when attacking with focus and 1 reroll against 3 defense dice with a focus:

0: 0.37274932861328125
1: 0.38253021240234375
2: 0.20578765869140625
3: 0.03893280029296875

Expected Damage: 0.9109039306640625
Tokenless Defender: 0.535491943359375

Crit Chance: 0.2559041976928711
Expected Crits: 0.2736968994140625
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Chance of ___ uncancelled hits/crits when attacking with focus against 2 defense dice with a focus:

0: 0.30126953125
1: 0.38232421875
2: 0.257080078125
3: 0.059326171875

Expected Damage: 1.074462890625
Tokenless Defender: 0.404296875

Crit Chance: 0.25958251953125
Expected Crits: 0.280548095703125
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So in this case predator is, mathematically-speaking, worse. However, outmaneuver is fairly difficult to proc. 25%-50% of your potential firing area turns it off.

19 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

it's outright worse for all the following cases: 2-4 red dice against 0-3 green dice. I didn't run the numbers for more, but in all of those, outmaneuver is worse.
There are some fringe cases, e.g. when 0 green dice prevent the usage of an ability like 3PO or Palp. Then there is one case (4 red vs 3 green) where the difference is tiny (1.335 vs 1.332 expected damage). And finally, your argument is not really correct. You always have a maximum amount of possible damage. Rerolling a die improves the chance that you will maximize your own potential damage, while subtracting a die improves the chance that the opponent will not maximize his defense - both result in almost the same, being roughly +1 damage.

However, predator can always be used while outmaneuver is very conditional.

So together you are almost never better off with outmaneuver - unless of course you combine it with other upgrades and abilities. One example is other ways to reroll dice, such as TL. Of course that improves outmaneuver more than predator.

Not true at all. If the defender has a focus token (and agility), Outmaneuver > Predator. The trade off being that OM doesn't activate every turn (though it does activate against OL and DC for what that's worth).

3F vs. 3F: Pred = .91, Out = 1.07

3F vs. 2F: Pred = 1.45, Out = 1.63

3F vs. 1F: Pred = 2.06, Out = 2.25

And if you don't have a F...

3 vs. 3F: Pred = .50, Out = .55

3 vs. 2F: Pred = .86, Out = .95

3 vs. 1F: Pred = 1.35, Out = 1.5

If the defender doesn't have a F though... you can see that Predator is better.

3F vs. 3: Pred = 1.59, Out = 1.53

3F vs. 2: Pred = 1.94, Out = 1.88

3F vs. 1: Pred = 2.31, Out = 2.25

And then of course all of this is predicated on the assumption that you don't have a reroll from other sources (TL or HR come to mind). That would obviously lend itself more favorably to OM.

And that's not even taking into account the game situation - are you really going to spend that focus to get 2 hits if your defender is rolling 3 greens and has a focus (and has yet to shoot at you?)... But if he's only rolling 2 greens, then you probably are.

1 minute ago, Mattman7306 said:

So in this case predator is, mathematically-speaking, worse. However, outmaneuver is fairly difficult to proc. 25%-50% of your potential firing area turns it off.

I only checked without tokens. Also sorry for the different colors, I didn't do them at the same time.

2red

3red

4red

However my point remains - they are basically the same, but predator procs always and outmaneuver is conditional.

1 hour ago, force kin said:

The key difference is that biggs is biggs until he's dead whereas sabaac is only biggs until you hit him a single time.

Gotta hit him at least twice (at least 2 damage cards, could be from one shot still), since his ability still works with 1 damage card. Even a direct hit doesn't shut off his ability since it's still only one card. Also, even if you just shoot him to shut down his ability then move on, that's at least 2 damage someone ELSE didn't take, and you're splitting your fire, and ALSO leaving him alive to keep shooting you, even if it's "only" 3 dice.

1 hour ago, Khyros said:

Pretty sure the key difference is that Biggs forces you to take inferior shots and Pure Sabacc doesn't. Plenty of people state things like "oh, <insert deadly ship here> is Biggs -lite" but at the end of the day, Biggs is the only one that redirects your fire. When you have Sabacc at R3 obstructed, and Fel at R1 without tokens, you're going to take that shot on Fel , even if Sabacc is within R1 of Fel . And that's what makes Biggs special - you're still forced to take that pathetic shot on Biggs instead of the juicy one on the real threat in the list.

True. On the other hand, if the opponent manages to line up shots to ignore biggs (whether by keeping him out of arc, or TLed ordnance or whatever), biggs isn't all that scary by himself. Pure sabacc is more scary ifyou ignore him.

2 agility ship with focus and evade (e.g Assajj) can potentially have 3 evade results. Against 3 hits they still can avoid damage. With 1 less agility the defender can only have max 2 evades. Works also very good against lone wolf ships and brobots (spike damage). Of course one less reroll (due to no predator) means less propability to roll 3 hits, but with 3-attack dice ships you often succeed to roll 3 hits (with focus or target lock), therefore outmaneuver is often worth it (at most when defender has lots of defensive modifiers)

6 minutes ago, Khyros said:

Not true at all.

4 points:

1. I only checked without tokens as I did compare several offensive EPTs back then, you can see the graphs in my other post.

2. The difference is still very small, largest of your numbers being 0.19. While that's relatively respectable, it's just for one given situation.

3. The point still stands that predator procs always and outmaneuver is conditional. So over a game and even more over severals, predator is almost certainly the better choice.

4. I did already mention that the exception are special situations/builds, and if you will use another rerolling mechanic. However many ships and builds won't. Ships that decide between predator and outmaneuver can - in my experience - often use several actions, and TL will be the last to use, after Focus, Evade, and Repositioning.

Apart from that: I'll run the numbers with more combinations because I really love outmaneuver. It's the most statisfying EPT to me as you get immediately rewarded for flying well. So I hope that I'm really wrong and find a reason to use it again.

I like him super cheap. Trick Shot and Title. That's it. Anything more puts a target on his back early. Trick Shot is actually pretty easy to trigger with Strikers too. Only other upgrade I'd consider would be VI, but that's not a big deal in this meta.

13 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

4 points:

1. I only checked without tokens as I did compare several offensive EPTs back then, you can see the graphs in my other post.

2. The difference is still very small, largest of your numbers being 0.19. While that's relatively respectable, it's just for one given situation.

3. The point still stands that predator procs always and outmaneuver is conditional. So over a game and even more over severals, predator is almost certainly the better choice.

4. I did already mention that the exception are special situations/builds, and if you will use another rerolling mechanic. However many ships and builds won't. Ships that decide between predator and outmaneuver can - in my experience - often use several actions, and TL will be the last to use, after Focus, Evade, and Repositioning.

Apart from that: I'll run the numbers with more combinations because I really love outmaneuver. It's the most statisfying EPT to me as you get immediately rewarded for flying well. So I hope that I'm really wrong and find a reason to use it again.

I'm not debating that predator > outmaneuver. There's a reason that Predator has been a staple of the meta since it came out in Wave 4, and Outmaneuver, introduced at the same time, hasn't been anywhere close to as successful. But the numbers do tend to support that when OM procs, it is better.

There's also the secondary aspect that IG88E pointed out - a 2agi ship with F+E is capable of fully dodging a 3 hit predator attack, it is not capable of dodging a 3 hit Outmaneuver attack. This can't be accounted for in standard "average damage done" calculations. You would have to create a weighted scale for what each hit is actually worth... To help conceptualize, think about spending a Focus token under the assumption that you will get shot back. No one is going to spend it to change 0 -> 1 hit if you're against a 3agi target.. You might if you're against a 0agi target though, yet everyone will spend it to change from 3->4 hits regardless of the agility of the target. Even though it's the same incremental, the value of that 4th hit is much higher than the value of the 1st hit. And the value of the 1st hit changes based off of the opponents agility. This value scale is really where Predator and Outmanuever should be graded against... It comes down to which one provides more value (not more hits, or more damage or any of that... Those are all inputs to the value equation). And the valued based calculation will favor OM more than the average damage calculation does.

But with the exception of MajorJuggler, none of us are doing our dissertation on X Wing, so no one will bother creating said value based functions, and therefore we just use average damage as a substitute.

P.S. Value based calculations also favor expose more than average damage does. The value of getting that 4th hit occasionally is much higher than the value of consistently getting 2-3 hits.

All the math stuff hurts my head. Sometimes you gotta trust the FORCE. If it's good enough for a farm boy to make a "One in a million" shot. That's good enough for me.

3 hours ago, Khyros said:

No one is going to spend it to change 0 -> 1 hit if you're against a 3agi target.. You might if you're against a 0agi target though, yet everyone will spend it to change from 3->4 hits regardless of the agility of the target.

I get what you're saying, but for me the assumption that I won't get shot back at is good enough. My reason is that I only want to gauge raw offensive output - otherwise I'd have to factor in too many things. I'm aware that some of my decisions will diminish the offense - that's why it's important to keep the assumptions in mind. With that in mind, outmaneuver and predator really do amount to almost the same damage, but one conditionally and the other always.

The value of a hit is for example also dependent on the targeted ship. Against Pure Sabacc? Spending that focus from 0 to 1 might be well worth it! And pushing through a single damage against a TIE phantom is also great, whereas a defender has more and hence the single health point is less valuable. Same goes for your carrier ship - if a 13 health YT1300 can spend a focus to push through a damage but eats one more in return, then it might be well worth it. On the other hand this could push you to half health and lose you the game.

My point is that there are too many variables to consider as soon as you want to step away from the pure offense. So unless you really do your PhD on it, you're better off with the starting point of ignoring return fire and keep in mind for which situations you have to adapt instead of trying to calculate everything.

Edit: So I gave it a go and expanded my numbers with focus and evades in different combinations. Still only from 2-4 red and 0-4 green, but that's already 225 different points of expected damage. To make the comparison easier, I ignored the case of no EPT, and then I subtracted the value for OM from the value for predator. That way you can immediately see which one is better - larger than 0 means expected damage of Predator is higher, below 0 means Outmaneuver is better.

As you can see, predator is strictly better if tokens are not involved, and always worse if the defender has a focus, which was very surprising to me. I expected that the evade would be more important. You can also see how predator improves relatively to outmaneuver with increasing red dice. Also important is the scale - many differences are around 0.1 or even below. Personally I consider that to be negligible. And finally, keep in mind that this is just the difference between the EPTs! This does not mean that evade is worse than focus, just that predator performs worse against ships with focus than outmaneuver, because there are less dice for outmaneuver to be affected by focus.

2red

3red

4red

ah, forgot only defensive modifiers. Maybe I'll add them later on

last edit: I should waste less time with this... anyways, I added all 7 possibilities and I removed the case of 0 dice, which of course is extremely in favor of predator as there is nothing outmaneuver could reduce.

TL;DR: Outmaneuver is better if defender has a focus, Predator is better or quasi-equal in all other cases. The more red dice the better predator; the more green dice the better predator.

Echoing what people have already said there are a few viable options, depending on the rest of your list.

VI- Get your shot off first, esp if PS is a high priority target

Predator- slinging 4 dice means you will most likely use this every round

Juke- only off you are building a specific list with more token removal at a better PS or have Swarm Leader on another ship

Trick Shot - for the cheapest PS in a Biggs style role of bait

Swarm Leader - a very dangerous, high priority target

I have used the first three to good effect with PS.

Can I be crazy and say I like a Score to Settle.....

Veteran Instincts is the way to go, to increase the liklihood that Sabacc gets to shoot at least a couple of times before he inevitably explodes. Anything else is wasted points.

Sabacc is really nothing like Biggs. He likes to flank to avoid fire, which is something almost never done with Biggs. I've tried several EPTs and found you either want VI or Predator depending on how many points you want to invest in him (plus LWF to give him a little extra defence).

Outmanuver, Predator. Predator, Outmanuver.

Zoidberg in his A-wing says, "Why not both?"

Lightweight frame: yes or no?

I have only ever ran my Sabacc with the VI EPT.

I want to keep him cheap as a pocket ace and I have found that the adaptive arilons when combined with a hard 1 turn makes him very responsive when he is at PS 8.