so I have just one question: how good is sato's ability to change the color of dice, and which ships benefit from it the most

He's alright. He works pretty well with Liberty's under certain circumstances. I only really use him for shenanigan builds, trying to proc apt at long range and things like that. i think someone did some math hammer and came up to .25 or so damage boost / attack which isn't great. I find him to be more of a "fun" commander than one that you would take to a serious game, which is why CC is a great place to try him out if you have one going in your area.

****** amazing

https://archiveofossus.wordpress.com/2017/09/16/uk-nationals-satos-star-destroyers/

The more that I play with him the better I think that his ability can be.

He is also tremendously fun and his fleet scan do all sorts of tricks, but they do take careful crafting to make it all balance out.

Ships? Hammerhead Torpedos, MC-30s, Assault Peltas, and Salvation all get a solid boost from him. Libertys and AFs can get some mileage out of combining him with Ordnance Experts, although I am not a fan of that approach. I think the MC75 will get a nice boost from him as well.

He's commonly known as a subpar kinda guy....but several of us are working to change that.

He's not an admiral for beginners - he does require a certain style of flying and the ability to play both the squadron game and ship game well. And he needs a correctly built fleet. Ginkapo and shmitty have written about him, as have I - Gink's is above, and here's mine and shmitty's:

Once you know how to fly him, he's pure gold. (You do have to practice. I lost with versions of my fleet 6 times in a row before it clicked...)

And just wait till the MC75 comes out......oh boy oh boy!

MC80H, Sato, Leading Shots...

Sato should be doing much better than he currently is given the squadron-focused Rebel meta.

He's fairly bad. I think when people are honest with themselves they will admit this...kudos to those who try, though I do believe it's a case of the player winning, not the list.

Sato in his original form probably would not have been op imo... I wish we got that Sato. Hopefully future releases will help him and other lackluster generals out but as snoke says, "we shall see..."

Half a damage per attack with squadron gymnastics sprinkled on good

I'll put it this way from a purely math standpoint enhanced armament increases your damage more than Sato does.

That said I am in the camp that thinks Sato is better on the table than he is on paper

lets see MC30 scout frigate... 2 red die at long range, swap them out for blacks then add a 3rd black die from a CF Dial and use your Ordinance Experts and APT or ACM at long range.....

1 hour ago, slasher956 said:

lets see MC30 scout frigate... 2 red die at long range, swap them out for blacks then add a 3rd black die from a CF Dial and use your Ordinance Experts and APT or ACM at long range.....

And that's pretty nice, unless you shoot at something with evades, bc then your HIT/CIRTS often go alway.

Plus if you're shooting at long range with an MC30, what's up close and personal (distance 1) of the enemy ships, without anything to back them up in the squad fight?

3 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

And that's pretty nice, unless you shoot at something with evades, bc then your HIT/CIRTS often go alway.

Plus if you're shooting at long range with an MC30, what's up lose and personal (distance 1) of the enemy ships, without anything to back them up in the squad fight?

Sato is all about parts of the whole supporting each other not the individual parts...

I will get round to actually getting game time with him... the few games I have managed to get in this year have mainly been imperial...

By the numbers (simple version):

Let's say you swap out a red (or blue) with a black. You can do that with 2 dice.

That 0,25*2=0,5 increase in average dmg.

If you assume you have OE for rerolling the blacks, and no rerolls on the reds/blues, you go up to 0,5*2=1,0 increase in average dmg.

You can do this twice at best, so very looking at a theoretical boost of 2,0 dmg.

That's not accounting for range, other reroll effects, black crits being nasty, etc. Nor those cases where you want Sato to add blues, rather than blacks.

By comparison Ackbar adds 0,75*2=1,5 damage out the side (again not accounting for any rerolls or whatnot), possibly doubled if you have GT or AG.

Both have a big limiter on their ability. Ackbar side only and no front/rear shots. Sato and his squads.

IMO Sato's limitation is the more crippling one.

1 minute ago, slasher956 said:

Sato is all about parts of the whole supporting each other not the individual parts...

I will get round to actually getting game time with him... the few games I have managed to get in this year have mainly been imperial...

BC of evades Sato works better up close and personal, where your ships can also better support your own squadrons.

That's about that only thing I'm very sure about.

@Ginkapo I summon thee!

6 hours ago, SkyCake said:

He's fairly bad. I think when people are honest with themselves they will admit this...kudos to those who try, though I do believe it's a case of the player winning, not the list.

Maybe when he loose, it was the player, not the list...

Sato isn't intuitive, but with careful handling, he can be devastating. Intensify Firepower w/ Sato CR90s will be amazing.

2 minutes ago, scipio83 said:

Sato isn't intuitive, but with careful handling, he can be devastating. Intensify Firepower w/ Sato CR90s will be amazing.

"slightly above average"

Since you can only IF into a Single hit, not a Hit/Crit

Just now, Drasnighta said:

"slightly above average"

Since you can only IF into a Single hit, not a Hit/Crit

Think about a naked, double-arcing cr90a (44 pts). With IF and Sato, it fires two blacks out each arc at the same target. The odds of rolling double blanks on an arc are VERY low, but even if you do, you're still guaranteed a hit.

What if you roll a hit and a blank? More likely than double blanks, but not super likely. IF makes it two hits.

If you roll two hits, you gain nothing.

If you roll hit/crit and a blank, suddenly you're looking at 3 damage.

And so on. IFF helps solve the "Sato problem" - ships that can't get rerolls for black dice. Because you can "correct" blanks, you minimize the chance that the dice under-perform. Basically, you gain the benefits of black dice without the drawbacks. You can expect to be consistently doing TRC90 base damage, but with increased likelihood of the damage spiking higher. And once you move that CR90 into blue range, you become even deadlier.

And hammerhead torps can now fish for acm crits without fear. Hammerhead w/ ACM, dcaps, and OEs is 50 pts. Concentrate fire to throw 3 blacks at long range. If you roll 3 hits, you can safely use OEs to re-reoll 2 or 3, because you have IF "correcting" 1 blank. The odds of rolling at least 1 blacl crit on 4-5 rolls of a black die are pretty good. And since we're firing from long range, we're probably going to plant at least 3 of those on our target, which amounts to 12+ damage splashed around. Combine that with the consistent long-range damage from our CR90 friend, and we've just blow an ISD straight to ****.

It’s just... on the corvette issue, it’s cost of Pelta and IF (unless you have a greater plan for the Pelta) vs just slapping TRC on it....

As it is, I view Black Dice, even without rerolls, to be a correction of Red Dice in the first place, what with only 2 blank sides...

(or blues for flotkills)

He is fantastic you just have to take into account support for his abilities such as black critic cards or blue reroll cards to maximize the use of his ability.

So, I'm increasingly of the view that Sato may very well be the bridge too far.

He dictates fleet composition, formations and, in some cases, order of activation. Don't get me wrong, when it happens, it'll be good, but so far it hasn't proven to be enough. My own experience is that he's fun and you can get some good work out of your fleet, but it's never quite enough. At this point, there's been enough attempts at making Sato work that the right combo just might not exist in the game yet.

Sato is a mixed bag.

On the surface, his ability seems powerful. In reality though, he has some problems that have to be overcome. His damage boost isn't as great as it seems. He's not adding black dice, he's replacing other dice with black dice. Sure, you can switch to other colors, but honestly why? I mean I could see some situations where you might swap a red for a blue to help get those accuracies, but the main reason to take Sato is to add damage by switching to black dice.

So at best, you are adding 1 or 2 points of damage. To do this though, you are also sacrificing potential accuracies, so you either need a way to deal with defense tokens, or that bonus damage is going to be eaten up by defense tokens anyways. So you either need big ships that are still bringing blues, or you need to overwhelm the defenses with smaller ships.

The other issue is that you really need two parts to the equation to make him work. You need fighters in range of enemy ships to get the bonus. This means you need to have a decent amount of squadrons. Bring a few and they are easy to kill off in order to negate your commander. Bring a large compliment of fighters and craft focused on commanding them...and now you don't have many ships to take advantage of his ability. On top of that, Sato isn't one of the cheaper commanders, so he eats up a few points himself.

So all in all, he's a delicate balancing act. You need to be able to survive if not win the squadron game while maintaining enough ship based firepower to take advantage of Sato's ability. In the right hands, with the right list, he can be powerful, but it's somewhat difficult to leverage his ability effectively.

13 hours ago, kmanweiss said:

Sato is a mixed bag.

On the surface, his ability seems powerful. In reality though, he has some problems that have to be overcome. His damage boost isn't as great as it seems. He's not adding black dice, he's replacing other dice with black dice. Sure, you can switch to other colors, but honestly why? I mean I could see some situations where you might swap a red for a blue to help get those accuracies, but the main reason to take Sato is to add damage by switching to black dice.

So at best, you are adding 1 or 2 points of damage. To do this though, you are also sacrificing potential accuracies, so you either need a way to deal with defense tokens, or that bonus damage is going to be eaten up by defense tokens anyways. So you either need big ships that are still bringing blues, or you need to overwhelm the defenses with smaller ships.

I was going to write a separate post elaborating on my take on Sato, but @kmanweiss your post gives me a good framework to work from. Thank you!

Summary: Sato is a bruiser. He wants to be up close and personal as he throws body blows into you over and over again. He isn't the Greatest, jabbing you and dancing out of range. He wants to get up close and trade blows, taking you down with big blows before you can do the same to him.

Sato requires a fleet that is extremely tuned to him, otherwise he is quite "meh". Adding 1-2 points of damage is so-so; instead what we want to do is maximize the chances of triggering an ordinance crit - ACM or APT. This is where Sato shines. Consider an MC30 - a side arc with 3 blacks + OE has a decent chance of getting a hit/crit. But a Sato side arc with 5 blacks + OE has a much greater chance of rolling that hit/crit to trigger. Pair that with a front arc of 3-4 OE black dice and instead of adding 1-2 points of damage on an MC30's turn, you're adding 1-2 damage from dice, and 4 damage from ACM's. Guaranteed (almost). MC30's are the perfect ship for Sato.

That effect also works well with Salvation due to the crit damage bonus, though obtaining rerolls is much more difficult.

Sato gives a decent boost to Hammerheads, which can mount ordnance and OE to maximize crits again, but only really benefits the front arc. A side arc derives almost no benefit from Sato. Still, given the discount price...and the ability to double reroll blacks using the title....something to consider.

Assault Peltas also benefit since they can mount ordnance, but like Salvation lack a reliable way to reroll black dice.

Assault Frigates can mount OE, but lack an ordnance slot. Their benefit from Sato is strictly limited to a small boost from converting reds to blacks - but in addition to the damage boost what you gain is much less variance in your damage output. You can absolutely rely on a Sato AF to put at least 6-7 damage on target at medium range with a double arc. They're relatively tough and can command your squadron element well.

The other ships don't match up with Sato as well. Sato's 2 dice are a relatively small proportion of an MC80's dice pool, and they lack ordnance slots. CR90's and Nebulons lack a weapons team for the rerolls. Transports.....well, actually, a combat retrofit can actually put out a decent whooping with 2 blacks out the front or rear arcs, possibly 3 with most wanted. Not bad for a little flotilla! Still I don't rely on them, and use them mostly for their blue flak.

13 hours ago, kmanweiss said:

The other issue is that you really need two parts to the equation to make him work. You need fighters in range of enemy ships to get the bonus. This means you need to have a decent amount of squadrons. Bring a few and they are easy to kill off in order to negate your commander. Bring a large compliment of fighters and craft focused on commanding them...and now you don't have many ships to take advantage of his ability. On top of that, Sato isn't one of the cheaper commanders, so he eats up a few points himself.

So all in all, he's a delicate balancing act. You need to be able to survive if not win the squadron game while maintaining enough ship based firepower to take advantage of Sato's ability. In the right hands, with the right list, he can be powerful, but it's somewhat difficult to leverage his ability effectively.

As I mentioned above Sato works best with small and medium ships anyways, so a relatively large squadron contingent still leaves a decent number of ships for the fleet. I fielded 96 points of fighters and still fit in Salvation, Landomition, an AF, and a combat transport. The squadron ball can shrink to add another transport and still be effective, but I'd rather have the squadron strength to win the squadron fight (in combination with flak from the ships - Toryn is key here).

It's absolutely true he's a balancing act - and as such isn't a good choice for beginners. You must be able to fight the squadron game and maneuver ships for double arcs in concert, while luring your enemy into your squadron ball (Strategic is good for this). No question it's a moderate to high skill floor - but so worth it once you get up there.

8 hours ago, Maturin said:

MC30's are the perfect ship for Sato.

Based on my experience, I couldn't agree more with this. Being able to change 1 front die to a black really ups how reliably you can look to rolling into a hit/crit if you aggressive (especially if you can concentrate fire). The side arcs can also suddenly gain the ability, if you are lucky and have a concentrate fire command, to one shot a small ship without a brace. I've one-shot an Arq before with APTs and it was quite surprising.

Next on my list to try is dropping what would usually be a scout MC30, down to a torpedo and adding spinal armaments, to further firm up the reliability of the black crits out the front arc for a double arc.

There are some great posts in this thread. The only thing I would add is that I think, for anyone interested in "trying out" Sato, going for a typical 2 MC30 list and modifying it to Sato gives a relatively transferrable approach (if you are used to MC30s) to how to leverage his benefit. The best performing lists for me with him are still 2 MC30s, 2 flotillas, plus typically 1, maybe 2 other ships and a decent squadron wing. Salvation or even Jaina's light can work well as your other combat ship.

The conflict between wanting to have high squadron commanding ships to use the squadrons, and low squadron value ships to take advantage of his ability (e.g. MC30s), is definitely real. Beyond Tycho (auto include!), Shara Bey is a great choice to help this as she doesn't really need squadron commands to be useful and is very survivable. I think Dutch is also a surprisingly solid choice as he is affordable, protects your squadrons by lowering incoming damage, and very survivable - heavy is of course the big downside.