7 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

Sorry, but this seems like a strangely contradictory sentence to me.

Do you really see nearly half of a subset of ships in the game as being 'a lot'?

The idea that even a small majority of shots you face in a given game will be three hits just doesn't jive with my experience of the game at all.

Even ignoring all the 2 dice attack ships that definitely get played, like TIE Fighters, V-19s, Y-Wings etc, the strong average result for 3 dice attacks - whether you look at mean, median or whatever - is still 2 hits. I've played against Vader a lot recently, and even with his incredibly easy access to full mods and 3 dice, he still rolls 2 hits a not inconsequential number of times.

...

It seems unlikely this card will be cheap. So if Anakin takes this with 7B, he's going to be even more expensive. And it gets super situational, because you've given up agility and now one of your extra shields for insurance that only makes sense against more than one attack (because reinforce is the same or worse than an evade against one 3 dice or 2 dice attack respectively, which obviously is the bread and butter of attack rolls).

I’m on mobile, so I’ll just respond to this as one block instead of breaking it up.

Re: 3 incoming hits, it’s a pretty clear ‘yes’ that this is ‘a lot.’ Nearly every Rebel list I’ve played in the last 2 months has had 1-2 ships in that mod into 3 hits per turn, plus another 2-3 ships. If I was worried about TIE swarms, sure, you can run it versus 3 incoming hits, but I’m not because no one in my area plays swarms. And I think I alluded to the fact that I made this for me to think through whether I wanted this on high AGI or not and posted it to help others through the same exercise. It legitimately may not be useful to you, but there are others that will get exactly the same value that I did.

Vader should be hitting for 3 about 80% of the time... you don’t ignore the other 20%, but it’s also not what I plan around unless board state says I need 3 hits to kill something and can’t risk the return shot. Same thing here - people should know the maximum utility BEFORE putting it on the board, and adjust as necessary to hit your win conditions.

Lastly, I don’t understand the contention that it’s lacking so much value that it needs to dig itself out of the opportunity cost hole, but also it must be expensive. Maybe your definition of expensive is different than mine. If this costs 4 or less, it should see play. Looking at the results above, I lean toward expecting a flat cost.

13 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Just saying, @GuacCousteau , you come across as pretty argumentative, as if there was something that annoys you beyond the topic at hand. Maybe that's not the case, maybe it is, it's fine for me either way. Just thought I let you know in case it wasn't intended.

I have the numbers (for hyperspace) and 3dice attack ships make up just more than half of all ships that are played as close as 1 month ago. I really doubt that this changed a lot. That means your expected average attack has 3 or more dice (due to range 1 or ordnance on 2attack ships).

2	3	4
1187	1376	42

The post here was just a part of the full argument. If you're interested:

• The mod slot is usually empty
• Anakin knows when he can take the TL or reinforce. You will likely do one or the other, only rarely will you take a different action. I've used evade some times if necessary, but now you have even another option depending on the number of shots!
• It will also save you some force in defensive use: you know perfectly whether you can spend a force to reduce to 0, or not spend force if you can e.g. reduce to 1 only anyway (a hit-hit-blank and you roll focus-blank? Reinforce, safe the force).
• He can now do more against higher dice number attacks: 4 hits from a torpedo? double evade (by spending force) + reinforce, take just one. Same with 3 hits if you don't get perfect evades.
• He goes down to 2 shields only. But, he still has R2 with his 2 charges, so 2 shields are great.
• Especially while regenerating, if you somehow still end up in 2 arcs, you can reinforce. Otherwise, maybe evade.

Overall, it's a contingency. Of course you shouldn't end up in multiple arcs. But I know I do over the course of a tournament day. It's the same discussion with Hate on Vader, or Heroic on an ace. Some people prefer to take the insurance upgrade, others don't. I don't think it is clear cut enough to be as smug about it. But I'd be happy to learn one way or the other.

This is a great summary, thanks!

I’ll add that Luke doesn’t have access to the evade, but can have reinforce / force basically every turn and negate part of his defensive weakness. Add R2 back in, plus Biggs/Selfless, and he’s a notably improved jouster. This is something that I will definitely test, personally.

48 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

Three ships natively

The TIE Advanced v1 is the big one.

The reason it's relevant is because we have a 3 agility ship with a white evade action and two Force tokens in the Grand Inquisitor. And 3 agility with evade and Force is better than 3 agility with reinforce and Force (against one attack 3 hit attack, as is our data point here).

Nearly had me here. Personally not seeing it as worthwhile on an ace, for all the obvious reasons.

But I've been running a SNR v1 in a 3 ace list, usually in an early charge to disrupt the enemy approach. Focus + Evade on 3 greens can be amazingly tanky if you get it in a good spot, but it's almost always a big risk and can occasionally mean you're looking at defending against 3 attacks. SNR + Angled Deflectors allowing for focus + reinforce would have me consider it in this particular circumstance.

No mod slot on the v1 though, so it's moot.

Back to the only place I am currently considering it (for Scum/Imps), Feroph with Vader or 7th Sister crew. The only purpose he would serve with it, is to tank and disrupt, so it's probably not 'best use' of him, but still.

Otherwise, spending a shield and an action for limited damage mitigation does not greatly appeal.

14 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

This Machine works out the exact probability of success for one x-wing card.

I've just sucked the fun out of one Wave.

Tell me. Are you still going to use the card? Be honest; this is for posterity.

But, the Machine IS the fun of the wave. No?

OK fine. Reading and math bad. Sincere thanks to Mr. Paul Rudd for the bad things he has done here, as well as to everyone questioning and reinforcing the work. This stuff is why I keep coming back.

4 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Just saying, @GuacCousteau , you come across as pretty argumentative, as if there was something that annoys you beyond the topic at hand. Maybe that's not the case, maybe it is, it's fine for me either way. Just thought I let you know in case it wasn't int  ended.

Yeah, that's fair. There's been a recent trend - of which the aggressive negativity on the wave 4 leaks thread was kinda the culmination - that's soured me on the forums a bit. I guess I brought some of that in with me. Apologies if so.

4 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I have the numbers (for hyperspace) and 3dice attack ships make up just more than half of all ships that are played as close as 1 month ago. I really doubt that this changed a lot. That means your expected average attack has 3 or more dice (due to range 1 or ordnance on 2attack ships).

2	3	4
1187	1376	42

Sure, and those numbers are good. But we were talking about number of hits, not number of dice.

I was expressing doubt that the odds @PaulRuddSays gave for a normal focused 3 attack dice giving three hits less than half the time constituted 'a lot' when 3 attack dice ships who can even achieve it are already a subset.

It's not even that I'm saying the result isn't common, just that I find the argument behind it as given then and there a bit flimsy.

Hard numbers are good. You're absolutely right that a majority of attacks in a game are coming at you with at least three dice .

More on that later, I guess.

4 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

The post here was just a part of the full argument. If you're interested:

• The mod slot is usually empty
• Anakin knows when he can take the TL or reinforce. You will likely do one or the other, only rarely will you take a different action. I've used evade some times if necessary, but now you have even another option depending on the number of shots!
• It will also save you some force in defensive use: you know perfectly whether you can spend a force to reduce to 0, or not spend force if you can e.g. reduce to 1 only anyway (a hit-hit-blank and you roll focus-blank? Reinforce, safe the force).
• He can now do more against higher dice number attacks: 4 hits from a torpedo? double evade (by spending force) + reinforce, take just one. Same with 3 hits if you don't get perfect evades.
• He goes down to 2 shields only. But, he still has R2 with his 2 charges, so 2 shields are great.
• Especially while regenerating, if you somehow still end up in 2 arcs, you can reinforce. Otherwise, maybe evade.

Overall, it's a contingency. Of course you shouldn't end up in multiple arcs. But I know I do over the course of a tournament day. It's the same discussion with Hate on Vader, or Heroic on an ace. Some people prefer to take the insurance upgrade, others don't. I don't think it is clear cut enough to be as smug about it. But I'd be happy to learn one way or the other.

All very valid points.

But this is kind of what I was arguing too. AD, even on Anakin, is something of a niche utility. Not to say it's not worth taking necessarily , just that it's not going to be a dominant upgrade you're using every attack. You've pointed out a couple of cases I didn't consider, the easy decision on whether or not to save a Force to mod an eyeball when you can't block all damage anyway is probably the biggest of those, IMO.

I totally agree it's a contingency card. I think that's a good thing. The actual decision on whether or not to take it will of course come down to points, but that's an important thing to remember - AD is going to be a 'broken at any cost' card.

4 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

Re: 3 incoming hits, it’s a pretty clear ‘yes’ that this is ‘a lot.’ Nearly every Rebel list I’ve played in the last 2 months has had 1-2 ships in that mod into 3 hits per turn, plus another 2-3 ships. If I was worried about TIE swarms, sure, you can run it versus 3 incoming hits, but I’m not because no one in my area plays swarms.

See, this is where I feel like I must still not be understanding you quite right. Because again I feel like you're making a statement and giving a justification that doesn't track right with me. Just to go through it:

4 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

Nearly every Rebel list I’ve played in the last 2 months

So one of seven factions?

4 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

had 1-2 ships in that mod into 3 hits per turn

Okay.

4 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

plus another 2-3 ships

So... a maximum of half the list has reliable access to 3 hits per shot?

In one faction.

Do you see what I mean?

I know you're just using that as an example of a common list archetype, but even that example you're talking about at most 50% of the time.

Obviously that's not a reason to throw out your data set, I'm just saying I don't feel the spread of expected results is weighted so highly that's it's the only worthwhile consideration.

4 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

And I think I alluded to the fact that I made this for me to think through whether I wanted this on high AGI or not and posted it to help others through the same exercise. It legitimately may not be useful to you, but there are others that will get exactly the same value that I did.

Yeah, I mean this is the sort of context I was missing.

4 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

Vader should be hitting for 3 about 80% of the time... you don’t ignore the other 20%, but it’s also not what I plan around unless board state says I need 3 hits to kill something and can’t risk the return shot. Same thing here - people should know the maximum utility BEFORE putting it on the board, and adjust as necessary to hit your win conditions.

Same here.

I guess that's the most important thing I was missing. That this was more of a higher end threshold. What's the most you can get out of this upgrade rather than an analysis of how often you're likely to get that optimum state.

4 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

Lastly, I don’t understand the contention that it’s lacking so much value that it needs to dig itself out of the opportunity cost hole, but also it must be expensive. Maybe your definition of expensive is different than mine. If this costs 4 or less, it should see play. Looking at the results above, I lean toward expecting a flat cost.

Yeah, I wasn't very clear about that. I think there are relatively expensive upgrades that also occupy the mod slot. Afterburners being the big one. And yeah, I do think AD needs to justify its own cost and the mod slot separately. As an example, if this was, say, a missile slot (silly I know, just bear with me) there's a chance it could be so useful that even being expensive you would want to bring it and Afterburners. That's it justfying its cost. But as a mod, there's definitely an argument that this could justify a high points cost but still not be better than Afterburners in some cases. AD may be super good at negating damage and well worth, IDK, 8 points. But is it as good as just not being shot twice a game by boosting with Afterburners? I would say AD needs to be good enough to mitigate damage more reliably than Afterburners to be worth it. It definitely needs to mitigate 1 damage reliably enough to be worth taking instead of shield upgrade (it probably does that) if they cost the same. If it costs more than Shield Upgrade then I would say it needs to reliably mitigate 1 damage for the lost shield on AD, 1 damage for the opportunity cost of not just taking Shield Upgrade and an additional damage (because less than a whole damage isn't a thing) to make up the additional cost over SU.

Does that make sense? I may well be talking rubbish...

Yeah, I also think flat cost makes sense. I imagine it'll be higher than 4. 8 feels right to me, but that's not really based on anything so I guess that's not worth much as a guess.

10 hours ago, PhantomFO said:

I wouldn't say that, either. Torps and missiles in 1.0 were bad because the average damage of an unmodded Proton Torp was lower than a Focused primary shot.

This will probably find a home on something like a Palp Reaper or a Scurrg. There might even be an argument for it on Boba Fett, as his reinforce action is red. We'll need to see the points.

Actually the probability of a proton torpedo attack was better than a 3 dice primary attack with a target lock (you got to remember it had an effect similar to having a force/calculate token). What really kept them back was the target lock mechanic which telegraphed your intent to the other player so an arc dodger can simply move out of arc preventing that attack, and that you had better secondary weapons such as HLC which had the advantage of not needing a target lock, not discarding a target lock if you had one, and be available for more than one attack. So those 4 points you spent on improving a single attack often became 4 more points to your opponents MOV after your ship was destroyed regardless if it made that attack or not (and most often it did not).

Gonna be an interesting choice for Anakin Y-Wing.

Will be a part of some anti fun Nora builds. (Edit: no large base ships)

Maybe fun with Lando Crew on low ini scum ships.

But when you spend 80+ points on Anakin in the 7B, you want him to deal damage. So every turn he doesnt go for target lock better be a turn you reposition for arc dodging and / or range 1 shots. Reeinforce at cost of a shield seems counterintiutiv for the 7B to me.

Just throw it on Fanatical TIE/FO's and have them take an Evade or Target Lock for their actions.

8 minutes ago, Rangor said:

Will be a part of some anti fun Han Solo / Nora / Asaj(?)/... builds.

Of the three in that list only Nora can equip it. Small or Medium ships only (Bottom left of card in Requirements box).

3 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

Sure, and those numbers are good. But we were talking about number of hits, not number of dice.

On one hand, that's fair and correct. But on the other hand, I don't want to lose as soon as my opponent gets an outlier. Plus, and here I might slightly differ in my argument from PaulRuddSays, double modifications are again rather frequent. We have to plan and listbuild for the Braylens of this world, the Vaders, Poes, and other Anakins. They all get consistent double modifications, and that means they will have 3 hits most of the time.

In short: 1) 3-4 dice attacks are very frequent (more than half), and 2) double mods or simply luck/variance will lead to many situations with 3 hits .

It is in my opinion worth planning for those. And, as said, Anakin will know how many attacks are coming, and how much they will be modified. Only variance is unplanned, and there it depends on your risk aversion as player.

3 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

But  this is kind of what I was arguing too. AD, even on Anakin, is something of a niche utility. Not to say it's not worth taking necessarily , just that it's not going to be a dominant upgrade you're using every attack. You've pointed out a couple of cases I didn't consider, the easy decision on whether or not to save a Force to mod an eyeball when you can't block all damage anyway is probably the biggest of those, IMO.

I totally agree it's a contingency card. I think that's a good thing. The actual decision on whether or not to take it will of course come down to points, but that's an important thing to remember - AD is not going to be a 'broken at any cost' card.

I added the "not", I guess that's what you meant.

Anyway, it seems we agree to a very large degree. I'm looking for a delta-delta-torrent build with a single torrent. There, AD would probably fit very nicely.

That was all on Anakin. I think B-wings and some more rebel ships (Biggs!) will also take a long, good look at the card. To make that whole thing short: AD is not going to be a broken at any cost card. But it might push a nearly broken list into broken territory. And by broken I mean simply above the power curve by a large enough margin to make the games with the list in general less fun.

5 hours ago, kris40k said:

Just throw it on Fanatical TIE/FO's and have them take an Evade or Target Lock for their actions.

Don't forget that it doesn't give reinforce as permanent status, only reinforce action as choice.

At first, I thought it was pretty strong, but I am thinking that when do I really need reinforce: I want to reposition an ace instead of reinforcing him. I haven't seen the utility yet. Ships that may need reinforce already have the action (decimator, ghost, ...).

The only one I am thinking of putting him is Vader. Possibility of doing this action to complement other actions. But if you put angled deflectors, you remove afterburners....

Other possibility is coordinating the ship, or giving the token with the newly shown Holdo. A reinforced Poe is a badass ace.

Glad to play the faction with Teroch and Seevor.

I really see some use for this on the following.

4LOM with AdSen, Title and Deflectors sounds awesome to me.

Also a brobot build - not sure which but probably any combo with IG88C would be useful - could really mitigate damage.

3 hours ago, Silver_leader said:

Don't forget that it doesn't give reinforce as permanent status, only reinforce action as choice. 

The point of the upgrade on the Fanatical TIE/FO's is not to have reinforce, its to remove the shield so that your ships all start the game with Fanatical in effect and getting double modded shots all the time (ex Lock + Fanatical) or Evade + Fanatical, instead of having your opponent focus fire your ships one at a time down and only ever having one Fanatical TIE in effect at a time before it gets taken off the board.

Someone TLDR this?

21 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Someone TLDR this?

Everybody panic!!!

Except it’s not actually that good, and only a few pilots can make the most of it. You’re probably better with a shield or hull upgrade anyhow. Y-wing Anakin looks good though.

I mean yeah, pretty obvious it's never going to be an autoinclude. That's kinda the point of mods like shield/hull

You'll mainly be seeing it on action cheating (ahsoka) and Holdo (weird she comes in the same pack as angled, eh?), specifically with Mr. Coordinate and Ms. Blue manuever

On 6/6/2019 at 11:11 PM, Archangelspiv said:

Did Guri just get stupider???

...Meh...

Her ability to get a Focus at R1 makes this interesting, but you probably won’t see it taken without the Virago. That way a second Mod can be used for possibly Afterburners. Even then, I’d still rather go with Debris Gambit or Evasive as a defensive measure on Guri.

A really interesting prospect is the Khiraxz, I think. 3 mods allow you take take Angled Deflectors, a shield to reclaim the one lost, and Afterburners or a Hull Upgrade because why the **** not at that point? Would it be good? Meh... But a reinforcing Khiraxz might be *fun*.

34 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

A really interesting prospect is the Khiraxz, I think. 3 mods allow you take take Angled Deflectors, a shield to reclaim the one lost, and Afterburners or a Hull Upgrade because why the **** not at that point? Would it be good? Meh... But a reinforcing Khiraxz might be *fun*.

Reciting myself

FFG errs on the side of caution when pricing defensive upgrades (rightly so), so probably Angled Deflector is going to be quite expensive.

I wish Kihraxz still had a discount on mods. (Outmaneuver) Graz with Afterburners, shield upgrade, and Angled deflectors to survive initial engagements, and then sitting behind his prey. Also, with AD he can sit behind Arcs, Rz2 and S/F without being killed. Probably not competitive, but fun to test!

Oh right there's also U Saw

Still issue of not having focus when you reinforce, though

On 6/8/2019 at 3:42 AM, ficklegreendice said:

Oh right there's also U Saw

Still issue of not having focus when you reinforce, though

Heff, maybe ?