When during the attack does Makashi Mastery let me reduce my pierce value? Could I, for example, roll my dice, re-roll my dice, then choose to use Makashi Mastery? Direct quotes below for reference. The underlying question here is What is the timing of While.

Makashi Mastery

"Those who have masted the Makashi style have turned lightsaber dueling into a true art form. While a unit with the makashi mastery keyword performs a melee attack, it can reduce the pierce x value of the weapon with which it is performing the attack by 1. If it does, the defender cannot use the immune: pierce and impervious keywords."

21 minutes ago, Orcdruid said:

When during the attack does Makashi Mastery let me reduce my pierce value? Could I, for example, roll my dice, re-roll my dice, then choose to use Makashi Mastery? Direct quotes below for reference. The underlying question here is What is the timing of While.

Makashi Mastery

"Those who have masted the Makashi style have turned lightsaber dueling into a true art form. While a unit with the makashi mastery keyword performs a melee attack, it can reduce the pierce x value of the weapon with which it is performing the attack by 1. If it does, the defender cannot use the immune: pierce and impervious keywords."

I think by the wording you can choose to use it right up to when the defender rolls dice (so they don't roll extra for Impervious).

The intent may have been to have it declared "When" you make the attack as opposed to "While," but somebody typed it wrong. It's worth sending in on the rules question page so they know there is a confusion or possible typo.

14 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I think by the wording you can choose to use it right up to when the defender rolls dice (so they don't roll extra for Impervious).

The intent may have been to have it declared "When" you make the attack as opposed to "While," but somebody typed it wrong. It's worth sending in on the rules question page so they know there is a confusion or possible typo.

I was going to submit it officially, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something first.

Does it really matter? Against Immune:Pierce it is always better to use it, against everything else it's worse to use it.

If somebody has a scenario where this is relevant, I'm very curious!

13 minutes ago, SailorMeni said:

Does it really matter? Against Immune:Pierce it is always better to use it, against everything else it's worse to use it.

If somebody has a scenario where this is relevant, I'm very curious!

Well, if you roll a lot of hits then it can be less advantageous to use it against Impervious, since you are now only assured of 1 damage. But if you only roll one hit, then it's a no brainier to trigger it against Impervious.

37 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Well, if you roll a lot of hits then it can be less advantageous to use it against Impervious, since you are now only assured of 1 damage. But if you only roll one hit, then it's a no brainier to trigger it against Impervious.

I still dont get why it would be less advantageous. You're stripping away the two extra defense dice they would otherwise roll, and still getting Pierce 1. I guess maybe if someone did the math on it I would understand, but Im pretty sure it is always better to use it.

27 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

I still dont get why it would be less advantageous. You're stripping away the two extra defense dice they would otherwise roll, and still getting Pierce 1. I guess maybe if someone did the math on it I would understand, but Im pretty sure it is always better to use it.

Redoing the math very roughly, it's close to even against the current characters with Impervious (difference of about 1/3). So I think I did my earlier mental math a bit wrong.

Impervious math is not so hard: every blank is a wound - with a maximum of rolled hits. Only a perfect roll prevents all damage. More dice -> more chances for blanks.

Just now, SailorMeni said:

Impervious math is not so hard: every blank is a wound - with a maximum of rolled hits. Only a perfect roll prevents all damage. More dice -> more chances for blanks.

It's working out the average amount of damage that goes through, aka the average number of blocks rolled minus Pierce value.

17 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Redoing the math very roughly, it's close to even against the current characters with Impervious (difference of about 1/3). So I think I did my earlier mental math a bit wrong.

Yeah I guess with red defense its a wash since on average you will roll 1 extra defense on 2 dice. If they have a dodge token to activate Block (which is Grievous only for now) then on average it is strictly better to use Makashi mastery.

20 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Yeah I guess with red defense its a wash since on average you will roll 1 extra defense on 2 dice. If they have a dodge token to activate Block (which is Grievous only for now) then on average it is strictly better to use Makashi mastery.

I honestly forgot about Grevious. I haven't played with or against him yet, so I don't know his card as well as I do Boba or Sabine, both of whom natively have Surge to Block.

9 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I honestly forgot about Grevious. I haven't played with or against him yet, so I don't know his card as well as I do Boba or Sabine, both of whom natively have Surge to Block.

True. So Makashi Mastery is on average superior to letting your opponent roll 2 extra dice which each have a 4 in 6 chance of getting an extra block result. There is the chance that both of those dice roll blanks, but its generally better to gauruntee pierce 1.

It has nothing to do with averages. There is literally no possible dice result with any available dice atm where pierce 1 is better than pierce 2 on impervious.

We can start talking averages if we get some new rules that potentially multiply blocks (surge to 2 blocks for example), but even then unless the average blocks per die is higher than 1 (which would really be bad for the game), statistically more pierce will be better.

10 minutes ago, SailorMeni said:

It has nothing to do with averages. There is literally no possible dice result with any available dice atm where pierce 1 is better than pierce 2 on impervious.

We can start talking averages if we get some new rules that potentially multiply blocks (surge to 2 blocks for example), but even then unless the average blocks per die is higher than 1 (which would really be bad for the game), statistically more pierce will be better.

You should actually be comparing pierce 2 vs. impervious and Pierce 1 vs. defense dice without Impervious. Thats the actual argument

6 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

You should actually be comparing pierce 2 vs. impervious and Pierce 1 vs. defense dice without Impervious. Thats the actual argument

Oh, thanks for pointing that out. I only just realized that I missed the "immune to impervious" part (which is missing in the reminder text on the card) in the rrg (and the initial post here). Sorry.

Will be fun to calculate the break even point depending on the used defense die ... tomorrow (it's 1:30 am here, I'll use that as an excuse :D)

1 minute ago, SailorMeni said:

Oh, thanks for pointing that out. I only just realized that I missed the "immune to impervious" part (which is missing in the reminder text on the card) in the rrg (and the initial post here). Sorry.

Will be fun to calculate the break even point depending on the used defense die ... tomorrow (it's 1:30 am here, I'll use that as an excuse :D)

No worries. When I first read the reminder text I thought it was weird that they didnt include impervious but Im glad its in the RRG

Just did it quickly. We'd need a defense die with ~71% success rate to have a statistical advantage. Red with surge is ~67% so I guess a shield token will push it over the edge. Not the most common scenario. But it's also helpful if you only need one wound or if you feel your opponent only rolls blocks :D.

But to give my opinion to the initial question: I would say you have to decide before any defense dice are rolled.

5 hours ago, SailorMeni said:

Just did it quickly. We'd need a defense die with ~71% success rate to have a statistical advantage. Red with surge is ~67% so I guess a shield token will push it over the edge. Not the most common scenario. But it's also helpful if you only need one wound or if you feel your opponent only rolls blocks :D.

But to give my opinion to the initial question: I would say you have to decide before any defense dice are rolled.

You should not do calculus at 2:00 am, only in your head and then post it somewhere ...

The break even point is of course where two dice have an average of 1 block. This happens at 50% chance, equals red die without surge. So it's actually an advantage to use makashi mastery on all impervious units at the moment. But it's still a valid option to not use it, if you want/need many wounds on the attack (for the kill in the final round for example).

1 hour ago, SailorMeni said:

You should not do calculus at 2:00 am, only in your head and then post it somewhere ...

The break even point is of course where two dice have an average of 1 block. This happens at 50% chance, equals red die without surge. So it's actually an advantage to use makashi mastery on all impervious units at the moment. But it's still a valid option to not use it, if you want/need many wounds on the attack (for the kill in the final round for example).

I would never decline to use it against any current unit. The gauruntee of getting rid of their mitigation while still keeping pierce 1 is just better in my opinion. I think you'd be foolish to bank on them rolling 2 blanks with their extra impervious dice, which is the only scenario where not employing Makashi is strictly better.