37 minutes ago, Do I need a Username said:Several thoughts: 1: Is wedge back?
2: Most people don't tend to think about upgrade card and modification math. In other words, a Three die focus shot vs. a four die unmodded shot. this comes up all the time with expose, and also with boost. This is also probably what contributes to the idea of "Just joust it" Happens with gunboats, and also lots of secondary weapon stuff.
3: Should I just take as many red dice as possible for final salvo? Is that the best strategy?
1. No. In and of himself, Wedge still isn't really quite where he needs to be. If you assume that Flight Assist Astromech and Integrated Astromech are mandatory (and they basically are) you can either put an offensive action economy EPT on him (Expertise/Predator) etc., or you can put VI on him. With a dice mod EPT and his ability he hits super hard, but he needs to be higher PS to PS kill some of the meta monsters at higher PS (Poe, QD, Nym etc.). With VI, he can get PS kills, but he doesn't have the dice mods to really take advantage of his pilot ability. And, in all cases, without Regen, and with just two green dice and no Autothrusters, he's vulnerable to turrets and massed ordnance/Wookiees (maybe he can dodge an arc or two, but someone's going to catch him before too long).
Wedge is unquestionably better with Flight Assist and IA than he has been in a long time, but he still sits below the power curve.
2. That kind of maths is important, but really hard to do because it depends way more on your opponent and the game state than your basic statistical dice averages. Three dice focus vs 4 dice unmodified is pretty straightforward (2.25 vs 2 on average, ignoring crits). But what are you shooting at, and what are you choosing not to shoot at? How many agility and green dice mods do they have? Have they already shot, and if not can you PS kill one of them before they do? Do you have a whole of game strategy which requires you to prioritize one target over the other? How many squad points are your targets worth relative to your ships? Could they escape and regen if they survive? There are plenty of situations where the four dice unmodified attack has advantages that way outweigh the 0.25 points of damage on average that you're giving up.
3. Only if you have ways to keep those dice alive. An eight TIE or Headhunter swarm (or four generic phantoms) will outdo just about any other list I can think of come final salvo, but unless your plan is to take 30 minutes a round setting dials and moving ships, you're unlikely to final salvo very often with it. The successful final salvo lists are those that spread damage around and keep ships alive forever and ever. That is quite a bit harder and more matchup dependent with Biggs nerfed. The best strategy remains using a list that can kill your opponent and flying it well enough that he can't kill you. A good final salvo is a substantially lower priority.
That said, my suspicion is that one of the smaller reasons that three and four Wookiee lists are as good as they are is that they are made of hard ships to kill and have a nasty number of red dice. They may final salvo more than other lists, and the dice there are probably one of their advantages. But a small one.
