I've noticed going through the boards that most people put stock in health over evade dice. Has anyone ever crunched the numbers on how effective the evade dive are with focus, evade, and focus/evade (PTL or Vader)?

I would assume it would be best to limit this discussion to ships that have an evade value of at least three (and take an evade action). Has anyone directly compared them to popular ships like the B-Wing and X-Wing?

The issue is not really average survivability it's the variance. A Interceptor can be really hard to take down, but a lucky shot can one shot the thing. With a B-Wing you know you can take 2 or 3 shots.

tbh I like Interceptors, but you have to accept that you could have bad luck.

I agree with Rodent. I fly interceptors quite a bit and from I have experienced its kinda mixed as to the outcome of games. One game I will be on top and doing well and the other my squad will be reduced to nothing in a few turns. Takes a lot of patience and guts to fly interceptors. A lot of times you have to sacrifice a good shot to make sure you are either out of range from enemy ships and/or out of their firing arc. Bad rolls also contribute to losing a lot of your ships and bad maneuvering as well. It takes some time to get it down and once you do its a lot of fun. So evading is a good idea if you cant move out of range or firing arc. Its a gauranteed evade and can save you in the long run. The trick is to decide whether its a good time for evade or focus or boost. Depends a lot on the PS too.

I've noticed going through the boards that most people put stock in health over evade dice. Has anyone ever crunched the numbers on how effective the evade dive are with focus, evade, and focus/evade (PTL or Vader)?

I would assume it would be best to limit this discussion to ships that have an evade value of at least three (and take an evade action). Has anyone directly compared them to popular ships like the B-Wing and X-Wing?

Each evade dice is worth exactly 3/8 evade. With a focus token, that gets bumped to 5/8 evade.

Vader, with focus/evade is equal to 15/8 + 1, or 2 & 7/8 evade per turn. Same goes for an interceptor.

Vader, with TL/Focus, his evades are worth exactly 15/8 evades, or 1 & 7/8 evade.

The issue is not really average survivability it's the variance. A Interceptor can be really hard to take down, but a lucky shot can one shot the thing. With a B-Wing you know you can take 2 or 3 shots.

tbh I like Interceptors, but you have to accept that you could have bad luck.

I guess to me it was just a question of averages. I'm not very mathematically inclined but I do believe everyone rolls average eventually and that's the only rule of dice. It's just as often the dice spike the other way and my Interceptor lives forever.

I think it has been done because I've seen it but I can't remember where. IIRC there was a comparison between the B-Wing and X-Wing and the B-Wing just came out on top.

A thing to remember about the Evasion dice is that they are often better on tougher ships just because you may be able survive that random failure. As Rodent mentions an Interceptor can be "impossible" to hit or it can be "one shot" but some ships. If it could take a couple more hits it is usually removed from that "one shot" listing and gets to spend more time being "impossible" to hit. There is a reason that the TIE-Advanced is often considered the most survivable small ship.

When it comes to taking the Evade action vs. the Focus Action things again come down to percentages. If you are rolling enough dice for defense the odds of rolling an [eye] are pretty good which makes a Focus as good as a Evade (barring Autoblasters) BUT there are those times you don't roll any [eye] results which makes Evade more certain if you need to dodge a point of damage.

One thing that I think could start bringing higher agility ships back into the competitive world would be a "Han" type ability. Where you could reroll all of your dice or none.

As it stands, rolling 3 blanks with 3 focused evade dice has a a 5% chance of happening. So that means after 13 attacks, you have a 50% chance of whiffing completely. And if you don't have your focus, you have a 25% of rolling all blanks.

If they had an option to reroll all dice or no dice (Han's ability instead of TL ability) that wouldn't increase their overall survivability, but it would reduce the % of outliers that are currently responsible for the interceptors not doing that well on the competitive scene.

I've noticed going through the boards that most people put stock in health over evade dice. Has anyone ever crunched the numbers on how effective the evade dive are with focus, evade, and focus/evade (PTL or Vader)?

I would assume it would be best to limit this discussion to ships that have an evade value of at least three (and take an evade action). Has anyone directly compared them to popular ships like the B-Wing and X-Wing?

Each evade dice is worth exactly 3/8 evade. With a focus token, that gets bumped to 5/8 evade.

Vader, with focus/evade is equal to 15/8 + 1, or 2 & 7/8 evade per turn. Same goes for an interceptor.

Vader, with TL/Focus, his evades are worth exactly 15/8 evades, or 1 & 7/8 evade.

Thank you. I'm gonna go find that handy chart on how often A-Wings hit compared to X-wings and compare the die rolls.

Evade is definitely better on paper than a focus (unless you have 4 agility dice) for defense, but it doesn't quite play out that way.

The thing to remember about evade tokens is that your opponent can see them when he/she picks his/her shots.This, IMO, is the evade actions greatest liability and strength.

If your ship takes an evade action and you don't get shot at this turn, then it doesn't really do anything. It's wasted, or is it. Yes and no. If you have two TIEs one has evaded and the other has focused. Your opponent will probably just not shoot at the ship with the evade token. This is in his/her advantage for two reasons, 1- he/she is less likely to do damage to the ship with the evade token, and 2- if all he/she does is strip off the focus token then, he/she has at least reduced that TIE's offensive potential when it gets to fire.

The answer to this might appear to be just have all you TIEs evade. But that just grantees that some of your TIEs will waste their action (you probably have more TIEs than your opponent has shots). No if you have a bunch of identical TIEs (like a swarm of academy pilots) you are probably better off just focusing with all of them (they need the offensive boost anyway).

The answer to the shoot the focused TIE instead of the Evaded TIE, is to turn it into an advantage. What if one of your TIEs is an Academy Pilot and the other is Howelrunner. Now putting a focus token on the ACademy Pilot and an Evad Token on Howelrunner, not only protects Howelrunner from damage, but it also discourages your opponent from firing at her.

There is a reason why Wedge rarely survives the whole game but Howelrunner (at least the way I fly her) almost always does.

Are you referring to Agility Dice, or the Evade Action/Token?

I feel that no discussion of evade can be complete without the Millennium Falcon Title Upgrade card. When I play with Han Solo I follow the combat doctrine Evade every action. The YT-1300 (especially named ones) can take a ton of hits, but with its low agility dice almost garantees that It will take at least some damage almost every time it get's shot at. It is just a matter of time. But with the evade action I can reduce the amount of damage it take by one every turn.

It is also worth pointing out that Han Solo is pretty good at hitting with its three attack dice without spending any actions (especially with a Luke Skywalker or Gunner crew upgrade).

Not sure if you're talking about dice or about tokens.

The evade token gets more and more important the less green dice you have. A shuttle or YT doubles their evade potential when they select that action (if they can/could). Meanwhile, interceptors and ties in general, get much less mileage out of it due to the odds of rolling a focus on multiple dice and usually have the numbers advantage in a fight to begin with. There aren't a lot of things to do with evade tokens at this point besides use them, but there is no guarantee that you will use them since a savvy opponent can just not shoot at you. Kir is coming and his ability is strong because he's PS 5 and his Evade is better than a focus. Same options, use it for Def or use it for offense but his is guaranteed either way. More abilities that do more with evade would make it more useful (Jax also interacts with evade).

Heck, even with only 2 dice Evade action is still better if you know you're only getting shot at by 1 ship this round (looking at you fire-sprays).

I imagine a named tie instructor and maybe even another "flight instructor" crew that could pass evade tokens like Garvin passes focus. Or one that allows you to save one up or pass one instead of discarding it after combat resolves. Anything that makes them more useful will work. But there is a balance.

Saving Evade tokens, now THAT is a scary thought even if restricted to one token used per attack. It would be a lot like increasing shields every round with an Action.

My mistake, I should have been more specific. I wanted to start a discussion about how the ability to evade damage through green dice and actions seems to be a little underrated. However, the discussion has evolved in a way that's really helpful.

Saving Evade tokens, now THAT is a scary thought even if restricted to one token used per attack. It would be a lot like increasing shields every round with an Action.

Exactly, even if it was an elite pilot skill for a PS 7-9 interceptor, that interceptor would see play immediately. This is not something that should be thrown about or even an EPT, but as a one or two of (if you have a named interceptor and a unique crew) it would make the interceptor viable over-night... overpowered even if not properly balanced. I'd say you'd have to be unstressed to use it at least and maybe even another criteria to use.

@Rakky Wistol

Yes an evade token is more valuble the fewer agility dice you have, but not for the reason you said. Yes the more agility dice you have the better the focus action is, but it doesn't make the evade action worse except by comparison. The reason why having makes an evade token less valuable if you have more agility dice is because, with more agility dice you are more likely to cancel all your hits without the need to spend you evade token. It might become worthless.

The real reason why evade tokens are so goon on YT-1300 is because the have so many hull and shields. The better your ability to avoid damage the better your hull and shields are. You may have noticed that a Firespray lasts a lot longer than a YT-1300.

I use evade tokens quite frequently, I find I prefer long-term survivability over short-term attack. I'll frequently sacrifice a focused attack for a guaranteed evade. On the YT-1300, the MF title is essential (when you get to do an action though, it's so easy to be blocked mid-game), and on A-wings it can be really useful since they're pretty vulnerable (only 1 more hitpoint than an interceptor).

The guaranteed success is better than the possible success. Evade tokens are great. Straight-up agility dice...not so much. Sure, your rolls will average out over time, but that's going to take thousands of rolls; and even then, you can still be in the final rounds of a tournament and whiff every roll.

That's not to say that high-agility ships are bad, especially with those maneuver dials, but you can be taken down really quick.

That is basically it, rolling evade can be quite tough. However, it does open up bad luck, where as steady high hull and shield, mean you know you will have a few shots at least before going up in an explosion or the like. Hence why a firespray with recon specialist is so tight. Focus for attack and evade plus moderate shield and high hull, with a 2 evade dice can be quite a bear to tackle down, and it won't go softly , usually.

@Rakky Wistol

Yes an evade token is more valuble the fewer agility dice you have, but not for the reason you said. Yes the more agility dice you have the better the focus action is, but it doesn't make the evade action worse except by comparison. The reason why having makes an evade token less valuable if you have more agility dice is because, with more agility dice you are more likely to cancel all your hits without the need to spend you evade token. It might become worthless.

The real reason why evade tokens are so goon on YT-1300 is because the have so many hull and shields. The better your ability to avoid damage the better your hull and shields are. You may have noticed that a Firespray lasts a lot longer than a YT-1300.

That is what I said but perhaps not clearly enough: multiple dice = multiple evade potential

Does anyone know how many attacks from a focused X-Wing should take out Vader vs a B-Wing?

Assuming Range 2 attacks, and naked agility dice, the B wing will last 4.25 attacks, Vader will last 4.10 attacks (excluding the effects of crits). But that is ignoring actions, and the fact that Vader can use an evade token.

Assuming Range 2 attacks, and naked agility dice, the B wing will last 4.25 attacks, Vader will last 4.10 attacks (excluding the effects of crits). But that is ignoring actions, and the fact that Vader can use an evade token.

Sorry to bombard you with questions, but how long would a focus/evading Vader last vs a focused B-Wing? I'm not really an Imperial player but I have a friend who wants to get into it and was thinking about using Vader as a tank.

That's a bit harder to answer. Are you being attacked by 4 X wings in one turn, and therefore only have one focus/evade token? Or are you being attacked by 1 X wing over 4 turns, and in which case you have 4 focus/evades? The latter greatly increases Vader's survivability. Neither increase the B wing *that* much.

But if you're talking about pure defensive, you should add elusiveness and sensor jammer to the list. And still, the #1 defensive action of boosting/barreling out of arc won't be interpreted by those numbers.

Let's just say you are being attacked by one X-Wing over the course of several turns.