or A Wall-o-Text Why Lt. Kestal is the Super-Greatest-Bestest BFF Pilot EVAR

TL;DR: Lt Kestal is very effective at hunting high agility AT Aces with an ICT, and will most likely not spend the Focus token on attack, instead keeping it available for the pilot ability.

My favorite build of Lt. Kestal is with the Ion Cannon Turret which I use for hunting high agility AT aces that are still prevalent in my local meta. Lt. Ketsal's ability allows you to cancel the Focus and Blank results of the defenders dice before the defenders modification, which prevents Autothrusters from being able to trigger, and AT has been cited as one of the reasons for the decline of ICT's.

Often though, I hear people disparage Kestal's pilot ability as not being useful, due to people stating that the Focus token will be spent on attack, and thus not available to trigger her pilot ability. This is incorrect, as in most cases, when attacking a high agility AT ace, you will be keeping the token for later use. I'll explain why here.

This is assuming a target with 3 Agility, a Focus token, and AT, attacking them out-of-arc so AT triggers, with Kestal having a single Focus token. This situation is very favorable for the defender, and a typical scenario considering Attani or PtL Ace equal or higher than PS 7, re-positioning, and with AT. Evade tokens or lower agility targets will require you to adjust your decisions.

Legend:

- = Blank

F = Focus

H = Hit or Crit

E = Evade

Possible Results % Keep It Spend It

--- 0.015625 --- FFF

--F 0.046875 HHH FFH

-FF 0.046875 --H

FFF 0.015625 -HH

--H 0.09375 --F

-HH 0.1875 -FF

HHH 0.125 -FH

-FH 0.1875 FHH

FFH 0.09375

FHH 0.1875

Reasoning:

Keep it:

---, HHH, --H, -HH: The obvious ones out of the way first, spending a Focus token on attack does nothing here. Keep it.

--F: Spending your token here is fruitless. Against 3 agi + Focus + AT, you will not hit. Keep it for defense.

-FF: Here, you get 2 hits if you spend it. The defender is guaranteed 1 Evade from AT or Focus, so you will need to dodge a focus or evade result on the remaining 2 dice (---); it is heavily not in your favor. Keep it for defense unless you are super aggressive or the situation warrants it (no chance of return fire this turn).

-FH: Same as above, however Kestal's ability allows you to hit unless your opponent rolls at least 1 natural evade. Keep the token for the ability or defense.

FHH: This situation is where Kestal's ability really comes into play. You could spend it and send over 3 hits, but then the defender just needs an average roll (-FE) or better to avoid being hit. If you keep the token, and send over 2 hits, you have the ability to cancel out dice, and you require that the opponent rolls 2 or 3 natural evades to avoid being hit. Keep it for the ability.

89% of the time, you keep the Focus token after the attack roll.

Spend It:

FFF, FFH: Here spending the token allows you to send over 3 hits. You will likely force the defender to roll decently and spend their focus token on the defense to avoid being ionized. If they roll below average, they get hit. I say spend it, but its up to you to analyze the situation (ex. return fire) following this shot and decide to keep it or not because this roll could go either way. (FFH) is also similar to (-FH) in that you could keep it for defense and hope to see a bad defense roll (no natural evades) and spend it on Kestal's ability to still hit if you lean conservatively.

The Lieutenant's Ability:

Now, with the examples of when you will be not spending the Focus token on attack out of the way I just want to point out a few things about Kestal's ability. Many previous examples are rolls that on non-Kestal pilots would have little to no hope of hitting a target with an ICT + Focus token with the defenses given, hence the decline of ICT usage during the days of AT arc dodgers.

Rolling 1 hit is evaded with any possible result thanks to AT and the defensive Focus token.

Rolling 2 hits is evaded with a very poor roll (--F, --E) or better.

However, keeping your focus, with the Lt.'s ability, rolling 2 hits (-HH) requires that the defender roll 2 natural evades on 3 dice. This is favorable to the attacker now. If you only roll 1 hit (--H, -FH), you still can force your opponent to roll a natural evade or get hit and ionized. It’s likely they will, but I think everyone has seen green dice fail at this on occasion. A mix of blanks and focus and you've got an ionized defender. It's no longer a 100% chance to Evade.

3 Hits (HHH) use to be evaded with an average roll by a Focused AT defender (-FE or better). Now, it requires 3 natural evades; this is a huge swing. You are almost certain to have an ionized target (although I had an AT A-Wing roll 3 natties last game to avoid this exact situation).

===

Now, with all that considered, high-agility AT pilots are on the way down due to the prevalence of bombers. You will likely run across more low agility ships (ex. Nym, Miranda) or Large bases (ex. Jumpmasters, Dash) depending on your local meta and if you are attending larger tournaments, so I am not attempting to say that Kestal is appropriate for all lists or metas. Just that the pilot is **** good at what she does, which is stop high agility AT aces dead in their tracks and leave them open for being killed by the rest of your list. She may have relevance in your own meta even if its ripe with Nymlets, as 1 Agility is very easy to hit, and Ion stops Advanced Sensors and non-Genius on-reveal bombs limiting the ships maneuverability and leaving it a sitting duck to be burned down.

Feel free to criticize my analysis. Thanks for reading.

PS Don’t put TLT on Kestal. Just run a Sienar or Double Edge if you want another TLT. There are a few corner cases where this might work out, but you are using a wrench as a hammer.

PPS The prevalence of keeping the Focus token until seeing the defense roll is also a reason why I am comfortable running Intensity on her even though she is not a token stacker. It allows me to better position her where she needs to be to control/deny area, and I am often still holding a Focus token at the end of the round to flip Intensity back.

Yes, I absolutely agree with you. I tried it out for Mario Kart when she first came out. I was utterly amazed at how well Kestral would hit aces with her Ion Cannon Turret. She can ruin people's day with it. I mentioned it at the time....and everyone ignored it.

How much damage can LT. K push through using her ability and Cruise missles or Homing missles?

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

I mentioned it at the time....and everyone ignored it.

Obviously, you forgot to deploy a Wall of Statistics

2 hours ago, Cap116 said:

How much damage can LT. K push through using her ability and Cruise missles or Homing missles?

None, unless she takes deadeye. Getting a TL then a focus at PS 7 is a pain in the neck.

With deadeye and guidance chips she could dish out around 3.5 hits on a cruise missile attack, then spend the focus to ruin the defender's day.

If you har a targeting synchroniser buddy (probably Quickdraw) alongside her focus token, she could average around 4.75 hits with the cruise missile, then spend her focus to ruin the defender's day...

So essentially, on the average defense roll (-FE) Kestal's ability will be relevant 50% of the time (HHH, -HH, FHH). The other 50% of the time the attack won't hit unless the defense roll is below average (less than two paint). I suppose that's better than 0% against the average defense roll for any other ICT carrier.

If Autothruster aces ever make a comeback Kestal may be worth looking into. Still my bigger issue with ICT is the range and not the damage.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Obviously, you forgot to deploy a Wall of Statistics

Ha, or it's just that right now there it's both a niche role that isn't needed right now (even as mentioned by the OP) and there are plenty of other tools that can do the same job and still be more effective against what is actually out there.

It is a nice analysis, though.

Whilst I agree with and your support your report on the Lt, in my area and including local tournaments, I haven't seen a ship with three agility since the last wave was released.

Maybe Kylo/Silencer will be ruined by the Lt once he makes headway. Maybe a PS9 Kylo/Lt + Palp Combo will surface?

Woohoo imperials get a ship to counter a nonexistent meta.

Yay?

@heychadwick you could probably post a nonsensical ramble and at least three people will like the post.

10 hours ago, defkhan1 said:

So essentially, on the average defense roll (-FE) Kestal's ability will be relevant 50% of the time (HHH, -HH, FHH). The other 50% of the time the attack won't hit unless the defense roll is below average (less than two paint). I suppose that's better than 0% against the average defense roll for any other ICT carrier.

If Autothruster aces ever make a comeback Kestal may be worth looking into. Still my bigger issue with ICT is the range and not the damage.

In about 78% of possible results (--H, -HH, HHH, -FH, FHH), Kestal's ability will be relevant to the defense roll.

Comparing a non-Kestal ICT + Focus to Kestal:

For about 28% of rolls (--H, -FH), your chance to hit will go from 0% (--H) and 5% (-FH) to about 24%. That is not a insignificant increase. Not in your favor, but about 1 in 4 will hit instead of never.

For about 38% of rolls (-HH, FHH), your chance to hit will go from about 5% (-HH) and 32% (FHH) to 68%. This is very significant.

For about 13% of rolls (HHH), your chance of actually hitting goes from only 32% (remember this was a "perfect" shot) to about 95% chance to hit.

8 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

Woohoo imperials get a ship to counter a nonexistent meta.

Yay?

The meta that is relevant is the one that you are standing in and is affecting what is on the other side of the table from you.

AT Aces like Fenn Rau and Procket Jake still stalk my local meta, and with Guns for Hire about to drop everywhere, I have zero doubt I am about to see a bunch of AT Starvipers all over the tables, and not a few EU/AT Vaskai.

While it may not be relevant to US Regional/National/Worlds play, which I previously mentioned, there are those that may be in similar situations where its a useful pilot. If the Polish Nationals taught us anything, its that even National Metas can vary widely.

In any case, my only goal of the OP was to present an argument against those that state that Kestal's ability is not useful due to the Focus token not being available to use most of the time; not that AT Aces are still ruling the top tables. Those days are gone for the moment. /shrug

Excellent post. Any chance you have analysis for ships with two defense dice? I would really like to see you explore the situation more of 2attack vs. 2 defense and 3 attack vs. 2 defense. (Though I expect many more of these instances will just boil down to spend the focus token on attack, even then, knowing the select few situations where you should save the token would be helpful).

On 10/11/2017 at 4:36 AM, Viktus106 said:

Whilst I agree with and your support your report on the Lt, in my area and including local tournaments, I haven't seen a ship with three agility since the last wave was released.

To me, I think that means Lt. Kestral with ICT is even better. You can save the Focus for defense, if you need it, but you are surely going to give that ion token to someone that round.

10 hours ago, Gibbilo said:

Excellent post. Any chance you have analysis for ships with two defense dice? I would really like to see you explore the situation more of 2attack vs. 2 defense and 3 attack vs. 2 defense. (Though I expect many more of these instances will just boil down to spend the focus token on attack, even then, knowing the select few situations where you should save the token would be helpful).

Certainly. Kinda having a sick, mathy fun with this now.

As previously discussed, there is a lack of high agility AT aces in the widespread meta, but for a more contemporary use case, you can look at Plot Armor, which has a 2 Agility Dash + Lone Wolf, and 2 Agility Poe + Focus + AT + Evade. Now, I’m not going to go into the difficulty of getting into range 1-2 of Dash, that’s another story. I’ll also do just a simple 2 Agility + Focus token as well. I’m not going to do the re-roll effect of LW, but it will fall between 2 Agi + Focus + AT and 2 Agi + Focus, as the re-roll of a blank is not as effective as simply modifying a blank to an evade result.

One thing to remember is that Lt. Kestal’s ability is less powerful the less modifications to evasion dice the target has, and the corollary to that is that her ability is more powerful the more modifications they have. This is shown when comparing 3 Attack + Focus vs 2 Agility + Focus, then adding AT, and then lastly Poetensity’s Evade token.

One important note: Blanking out. There is a 14% chance of rolling two blanks on two agility dice. When the only chance to hit was if the opponent blanked out on both defense dice, I decided to act conservatively and Keep It for defense. This will be a decision that must be made depending on the actual status of the game (ex. is there any return fire, do you want to try to make the opponent burn tokens, etc.). This has an interesting effect when we get to Poe.

===

Vs 2 Agility + Focus

Keep It 46.875%

(---, --H, -HH, HHH): Obvious choices where there is no effect to spend it.

(--F): Here, the only chance to hit is if your opponent rolls blanks. Keep it for defense.

Spend It 53.125%

(FFF, FFH, FHH): You have a 100% chance to hit this opponent if you send across 3 hits.

(-FF, -FH): You have about a 61% chance to hit this target with 2 hits compared to a 39% chance with only 1 hit + Kestal’s ability. Spend it.

Now, with a more average defense target, it is more likely that you will spend the token on the attack roll by a modest amount (in poker a 45/55 is often considered close enough to be a "coin flip"). Converting the focus result to a hit is more effective than keeping it for Kestal's ability. However, for about 28% of your attack rolls (--H, -HH) Kestal will be effective at increasing your chance to hit from 14% (ie blanks only) to 39%, with 1 natural hit, and from 61% to 86% with 2 nat hits.

===

Vs 2 Agility + AT + Focus

Keep It 70.3125%

(---, --H, -HH, HHH): Obvious choices where there is no effect to spend it.

(--F, -FF): If you send over 1 or 2 hits without Kestal’s effect, you only hit if your opponent rolls blanks (--). Keep it for defense.

(-FH): Your chance to hit goes from 14% to 39% if you keep it.

Spend It 29.6875%

(FFF, FFH, FHH): 3 hits has a 100% chance to hit this target.

Interesting to note is that while there is a 100% chance to hit the target with 3 hits, without Kestal’s ability, with 1 or 2 hits you will only ever hit this target if they blank out on both dice (14%). With Kestal’s ability, your chance to hit with 1 (--H) or 2 hits (-HH) is about 39% or 86% percent, a huge swing in your chances.

===

Vs. 2 Agility + AT + Focus + Evade aka “Poetensity” all tokened up

(Ho-boy)

Keep It 100%

(---, --H, -HH, HHH): Obvious choices where there is no effect to spend it.

(--F, -FF, -FH): You have a 0% chance to hit this target. Keep it for defense.

(FFF, FFH, FHH): You will only hit this target if they roll blanks on both dice (14%). Keep it for defense.

Spend It 0%

Uh, yeah. That happened.

So, without Kestal’s ability, the attacker will not be able to hit the target with 1 or 2 hits, and will only hit the target with 3 hits if the defender rolls blanks on both dice. Kestal will also not be able to hit the target with only 1 hit thanks to the Evade token. However, Kestal’s chance to hit the target with 2 hits is up from 0% to 39%, not too shabby. With 3 hits, the chance changes from 14%, blanks only, to hitting about 86% of the time!

I might do the math for 2 attack dice later, but that’s it for now.

Got any examples of lists you've flown with it, or at least the full build of Kestal?

For instance, something like Predator or Expertise would obviously increase the odds of hitting with Ion, but that seems like it could be an over-investment on the table. I'm inclined to think a lean build for a ship with technically 2 defense dice and 5 HP would be best.

On 10/11/2017 at 4:49 AM, thespaceinvader said:

Woohoo imperials get a ship to counter a nonexistent meta.

Yay?

As noted above by others, this isn't a list for the top tier tables. But the world isn't just those tables, and my local community - being comprised of people, weirdly, that play casually even in our little house league we have - play a ton of high agility ace pilots. I'll have to give this a try. Thanks for the data analysis @kris40k!

I think Kestal is decent. Not amazing, but decent, kind of like Countdown (Striker), or Omega Leader (FO). She's a decent filler ship for other lists, especially if you know you are going to be hunting aces.

My biggest complaint about her is her PS. At a 7 all the aces that you would want to hunt are going to out PS you and likely are going to avoid you (especially if you run Ion Cannon) as it's just not that hard to stay out of range 1-2 for most maneuverable aces. Yeah her ability is cool, if you get a shot. Also something to keep in mind- if she's out PS'd by aces, she's likely going to get focused- at least enough to force her to use her focus token defensively, which completely negates her usefulness as an ace hunter.

The few times I've used/seen her used, she gets to use her ability maybe once during a game. It's why I give her a score of decent, instead of good/amazing.