When I first saw Crack Shot, I thought to myself: "No way that's worth it on anything except Tomax Bren." I mean, you can only use it once! But it seems people are quite into this card. Why is that and why should you use it?

Its best against hogh agility ships with tokens when you literally remove 1 agility fromnthe enemy ship

It's just not that good at the moment - it's at its best on large numbers of low-attack ships with otherwise good dice mods, to make their attacks more potent - TIE Swarms, basically, maybe Juke/Crack A Wings. And if Mindlink had been nerfed but the Jumpmaster still had its torps, I'd've expected them to transition into it too.

Mostly when you're looking at more expensive ships, it's better to invest in making your attacks better permanently.

It's still one of the best EPTs in the game, but the best platforms for it aren't really viable right now.

So first off: Crack Shot is generally overused and overvalued.

That said: it's overvalued to 'amazing' when it's really only 'very good'. 1pt spent for a near-guaranteed 1 damage is a fantastic trade off (look at it this way, your opponent is spending 100pts to bring 20-30 health points to the table and you're removing one of them for just 1pt). If you're ever short of an idea for what to do with an EPT slot and you've got a point spare then you'll always get something from Crack Shot.

There's also the nice wrinkle in the timing of the card's effect which means it can screw with the opponent even if you never discard it. The opponent has to mod their green dice before you decide to Crack Shot, which means that if they want to avoid taking damage they need to over-defend and get 1 more Evade than you've got hits. At which point you don't spend the Crack Shot and save it for next turn. It means that your opponent is often constantly burning Evade/Focus tokens on their defense dice for no benefit.

However it's one of those cards where the expected value has been set too high because of what it does in TIE Swarm when you're playing 6 copies of it. Each Crack Shot you add to a squad is worth a little bit more than the one before, because the massed effect of throwing 5-6 Crack Shots at an enemy ship is frequently the difference between killing the ship outright or barely damaging it. When you spend 6pt points on Crack Shots and trade it for 30pts of enemy ship you're WAY ahead. However it really needs that weight in numbers for Crack Shot to become such a decisive card, and I think most people don't really understand that when they slam-dunk 1x Crack Shot into their list. Though, as I've said already, 1x Crack Shot is pretty much never bad .

It's a one point missile that works at r1-3, does not require focus or TL, and always hits for 1 damage when you use it.

Another trick it to turn it into more than one damage. For example, someone in my local meta places it on a TIE/D with Ion cannon, using it to guarantee an Ion when they really need it. It's pretty brutal actually.

I usually don't run it myself, but a friend of mine likes to describe Crackshot as "A damage sooner, rather that later." He always thinks of it as letting him kill a ship that-much faster than usual, possibly letting his own last longer in return.

1 minute ago, Do I need a Username said:

Another trick it to turn it into more than one damage. For example, someone in my local meta places it on a TIE/D with Ion cannon, using it to guarantee an Ion when they really need it. It's pretty brutal actually.

Also nice on TIE/D with Tractor Beam. Very, very nice.

good lord, you put it on everything that doesn't need epts to modify dice. It really doesn't matter what you're up against, it's just extra damage

I've had two crack-shot T-70s against a double VCX and I spent them both on the first round of shooting

**** green dice

whether or not you actually use it depends on whether or not you need the ept for crucial dice mods or ps. For example, Quickdraw wouldn't like it because she needs Expertise to mod her double-tap while pilots like Soontir Fell have incredibly obvious auto-include epts that would forbid crackshot

the most common place for crackshot is currently Black Squadron Tie Fighter swarm, but I've also used it a lot on x7 defenders (particularly Vess, who doesn't need epts for full mods thanks to his ability) and I expect it to be incredible on XG-1 HLC with linked battery Gunboats

it's peculiar how imps have the best places for it, but I guess that's why the alt art crackshot has an FO TIE murdering a T-70 with it

1 minute ago, Innese said:

I usually don't run it myself, but a friend of mine likes to describe Crackshot as "A damage sooner, rather that later." He always thinks of it as letting him kill a ship that-much faster than usual, possibly letting his own last longer in return.

This is very true and it's the part I decided was too complex to discuss in my original reply.

Basicallly Crack Shot, especially multiple copies of it, allows you to compress your firepower into a smaller window earlier in the game. That can both overload defences that you wouldn't otherwise breach, and create advantages that ripple through the rest of the game.

Work compression is the strategic theory that I've never really heard anyone properly nail in an x-wing context.

I'd also expect even though they're 26 points and you can't get 4 of them, Scouts with Crack Shot to be generically good. Take 3 of them and a 22 point support or smaller damage ship - maybe Kaato or N'Dru - and you've got a lot of hull with decent mods and some alpha punch.

2 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

I'd also expect even though they're 26 points and you can't get 4 of them, Scouts with Crack Shot to be generically good. Take 3 of them and a 22 point support or smaller damage ship - maybe Kaato or N'Dru - and you've got a lot of hull with decent mods and some alpha punch.

Im pretty sure that's a great example of when not to take Crack Shot!

You've a squad that doesn't have the firepower to create an overwhelming fire advantage early game so Crack Shot isn't at all aligned to your strategic goals.

Yeah, you're probably right.

What's the cheapest EPT generic at the moment that has an appreciable amount of hull?

I'm wondering about Crack Shot Gamma Vets with UGR and LWF for 24, but what to do with the extra 4 points? I don't think it's possible to get more than 4 without going to A wings, naked Gamma Vets, or Black/Omega Squaddies is it?

Juke/Crack A Wings are an interesting use of it, but not a high powered one for the most part.

My last game was using a Tie swarm with Crack Shot against Han with C-3PO and the evade title. Just put yourself in the position of the poor guy that was flying fat Han and you'll understand what makes crack shot so good.

Let's compare Crack Shot and Predator. Crack Shot costs a single point, and kind of does a single damage. It won't always, since your opponent might have a number of evade results which strictly exceed your hits, but maybe they had to spend tokens to do that. Predator costs three points, and on a 3 dice ship, it on average adds about half a damage (presuming a single reroll) per attack. So in order to make up the damage from a single Crack Shot, you probably need to attack twice. But Predator cost 3 more points, so maybe you need to attack even more than twice to make it really worthwhile?

The three lists I feel like I've seen Crack Shot most are [1] TIE Swarm [2] Triple /x7 Defenders [3] HCL/FCS/Glitterstim Brobots.

With TIE Fighters, Crack Shot is strong partly because of how instantaneous the damage can be. A disposable Elite upgrade for a disposable ship. Predator can do a lot of damage over long stretches of the game, but these are TIE fighters.

Triple Defenders can last long enough (and can keep arc relatively well with that white K-Turn), but they cost 32 points per Glaive, so can't afford much else. Crack Shot is a good fit, however. Being able to concentrate fire, take a ship off the board early makes Defenders really solid over time. With their free tokens, 6 HP, and 3 dice, it's hard to kill them with only a few attacks per turn.

With Brobots, it kind of fits with the Gunner. If your opponent doesn't overspend tokens, you can Crack Shot them, and do serious damage. If they do overspend tokens, you'll have a Gunner-type effect to follow up, against a target with fewer tokens. These robots are a relic of a different time, however, and the particular build doesn't fit as well against today's metagame.

//

Cheap EPT generics? Black Sun Ace is 23 points... Crack Shot, Ion Dischargers, and Pulsed Ray Shield? ID/PRS seems better on table than it does on paper.

7 hours ago, Do I need a Username said:

Another trick it to turn it into more than one damage. For example, someone in my local meta places it on a TIE/D with Ion cannon , using it to guarantee an Ion when they really need it. It's pretty brutal actually.

This is what I do! It's incredibly strong.

19 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Cheap EPT generics? Black Sun Ace is 23 points... Crack Shot, Ion Dischargers, and Pulsed Ray Shield? ID/PRS seems better on table than it does on paper.

eh...it's a question about mods

x7 Defenders don't really need ept mods because x7 is just an amazing ability on its own, while Vessery provides his own full mods via ability. They don't need anything else to be exceptional, so crackshot compliments them just fine

the BSA just...isn't amazing. at all. It's still just a K, capable only of bare minimum dice modifications and no actions after k-turning (not counting new contrabands, but they'll shut off actions for two turns). Giving them a free crackshot helps, but not enough to overcome how un-exceptional they are relative to other ships in the game

I'm fairly comfortable in saying their only niche is Harpoon missiles, which means deadeye instead of crackshot

Probably right. Mostly, I played against some the other day with ID/PRS, and was surprised by how effective the combo seemed, even if the Ks lost in the end.

8 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Im pretty sure that's a great example of when not to take Crack Shot!

You've a squad that doesn't have the firepower to create an overwhelming fire advantage early game so Crack Shot isn't at all aligned to your strategic goals.

Crack shot is also in arc only.

8 hours ago, Do I need a Username said:

Another trick it to turn it into more than one damage. For example, someone in my local meta places it on a TIE/D with Ion cannon, using it to guarantee an Ion when they really need it. It's pretty brutal actually.

I've been running crackshot Inaldra with ion cannon & pulsed ray shield. (23 points!) The crackshot with ion cannon is game winning good. Also, pulsed ray shield is often triggering 2-4 times in many games. Crackshot ion cannon TIE/D Vessery is the best TIE/D.

2 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

eh...it's a question about mods

x7 Defenders don't really need ept mods because x7 is just an amazing ability on its own, while Vessery provides his own full mods via ability. They don't need anything else to be exceptional, so crackshot compliments them just fine

the BSA just...isn't amazing. at all. It's still just a K, capable only of bare minimum dice modifications and no actions after k-turning (not counting new contrabands, but they'll shut off actions for two turns). Giving them a free crackshot helps, but not enough to overcome how un-exceptional they are relative to other ships in the game

I'm fairly comfortable in saying their only niche is Harpoon missiles, which means deadeye instead of crackshot

I don't think deadeye synergises particularly well with harpoon missiles. Part of the appeal of harpoons is you get to keep your TL, with deadeye you're either ignoring that mod, setting it up over minimum 2 turns, or using a quadjumper with targeting synchronizer.

I think crackshot/glitterstim is the better harpoon missile BSA. Far, far more likely to hit.

you get to keep your focus with deadeye harpoons, using it to modify your dice

you lose absolutely nothing outside of the absolute ideal, lucky outcome where you roll out enough unmodified damage to not need to spend your lock, and you gain vastly more positioning flexibility since you aren't dependent on low PS target-locks

You lose the ability to modify more than one blank die as well. If I'm going to fire a missile, I want it to be fully modded. Yes, a deadeye harpoon missile is as likely to hit with each die as a just-a-TL-harpoon missile, but they're both equally vulnerable to dice variance.

That's why I'd prefer to have both focus AND TL and realize that I'm not likely to surprise my opponent with the flexibility of deadeye. At the end of the day, it has an average dial, with no 1 forward (often the ideal move for deadeye), and no reposition. Its missile strike is going to be a pretty obvious move no matter the build, and either the intended target can escape it, or they can't.

But at least with glitterstim and crackshot, if the intended target's only escape path is a range 1 dive, then you've still got upgrades you can use.

11 hours ago, Celestial Lizards said:

When I first saw Crack Shot, I thought to myself: "No way that's worth it on anything except Tomax Bren." I mean, you can only use it once! But it seems people are quite into this card. Why is that and why should you use it?

How much would you pay for +1 damage on an attack?

missiles cost generally 4pts+ to add one dice over a normal 3 dice primary attack (with some other percs and drawbacks). crackshot does one better and just adds a straight up damage to an attack.

It also always works, you only have to spend it when you know it works. totally messes with opponents in that way, if you roll 2 hits and your opponent rolls 2 evades do they spend their evade token or focus? to stop you from cracking shooting through a damage? if they do you don't spend the crack shot and they spent their tokens for nothing.

Think of it like a missile in the EPT slot.... and all of the sudden it looks amazing for its price.

It's a tricky upgrade at the moment - in wave 7 it was pretty amazing - the highest hull ship was a YV-666, and it wasn't very good. Most ships were Imp aces at the time, so crack shot was incredibly viable, since a point to destroy a tenth of your opponent's list was pretty amazing.

Nowadays, with the Scurrg, Miranda and other such low agility, high health ships out and about, there's significantly less value in doing a single more damage. Crack shot will get you one damage, but Predator will get you 0.75 damage per turn for a long, long time on the right ships. Consistency has trumped damage spikes in the current meta.