I don't get why Stealth Device is cheaper. It's FAR superior in my opinion. The only exception might be if you are using R2D2 or Draw Their Fire (or both). In pretty much every other situation the stealth device just flat out seems better to me.
Even the Millennium Falcon for example. Lets say he gets hit round 1 and loses it.... it's still likely to add an evade to his total rolls, so still saving him from a point of damage...
What am I missing here?
It has about a 50% chance to add the evade on the falcon. Shields are better at low agility, and for the falcon chewie is better still. You hit on one, Luke plus r2d2 plus shield is evil. Add Biggs and draw their fire and some very unfriendly things become possible.
Basically stealth is great for high agi ships, shield is better at low agi.
It has about a 50% chance to add the evade on the falcon. Shields are better at low agility, and for the falcon chewie is better still. You hit on one, Luke plus r2d2 plus shield is evil. Add Biggs and draw their fire and some very unfriendly things become possible.
Basically stealth is great for high agi ships, shield is better at low agi.
3/8 of a chance if you don't have any modifiers.
Shields demote Crits, and are a guaranteed buff. Stealth Device has a chance of doing nothing (albiet a small one when you use it correctly).
Compare it to the new Hull Upgrade (improve your Hull by 1), as they cost the same, and remember that Shields are definitely 1 point better than Hull.
Stelar has it correct, but in either case it adds an extra hit, unless the dice aren't in your favor. Stealth device really should only be played on ships that have at least 2, but more typically 3 evade dice to start with so that you can get the most out of them.
However, there are situations that will warrant one in favor of the other. For example, as pointed out above, Luke is typically paired with R2-D2 and Shield Upgrade, but against squads that have fewer attack dice it might be worthwhile to give Luke Stealth Device instead, especially if you have him using R2-F2's ability. In the upcoming Rebel Transport, having another shield is going to be great since it can also regenerate using energy, but it has 0 agility to start, so it will be useless to put on Stealth Device.
In the end, it comes down to whether you trust the dice to be lucky enough to help you avoid attacks entirely, and if you can't, use Shield Upgrade.
There are only 3 evades on an agility dice, so it will give you an evade result less than half the time. Also don't forget that you lose it if you get hit. If you get hit the second time you get shot at then chances are it was less efective at protecting you than a simple shield upgrade. It is pretty hard to get shot at three times and never get hit.
But a single focus will boost those odds to over 50%, with a betting odds chance of more even in the same round. A shield upgrade will only ever block one damage(Baring stacking other shield refilling upgrades on top of it), and if you don't receive a crit on your printed shield value+1 and if the hit that kills you takes you from two hull to zero then the shield device was still useless. Neither is guaranteed to be worth it and stealth is cheaper.
Stealth doesn't protect you from Crits whereas a shield does. Sure complete avoidance is better than extra durability since IF you're not getting hit the extra durability is rather pointless.
With Crits cancelling last unless your always rolling equal or better than your attacker the benefits from stealth is quite prevalent. you don't get hit.
When you're being attacked by more A-Dice than you have to defend Shields is the better option. IF a crit leaks past your D-Dice and hits Shields your D-Dice did it's job mitigating damage and that extra Shield did it's job mitigating Crits.
so the things to take into account are:
Avoidance is great if you can get it to work 100% of the time. Since stealth does not, it is a point cheaper and Crits hit it as hard as it does Hull Upgrades which are priced the same.
Stealth's a long term, high risk, investment.. whereas Shields are like a GIC.
Except the stealth device is just as "crit-proof" as a shield, assuming it works, a shield upgrade only blocks a crit if the normal hits don't shed the shields first, so it is no better at blocking crits, and once again, focus for a round or too and the stealth device more than likely just locked at least one shot.
And again a shield only helps in the very specific circumstances of a crit bouncing off that extra point of shield or an attack that would have destroyed you leaving you with one hull because of the shield. Any other time it didn't actually help you at all. While these aren't uncommon I would hesitate to say they are more common than the 37.5% chance of an unmodified evade and with focus stealth pulls ahead.
The biggest issue here is that the shield only works once... where the stealth device can work fifty times. Even IF the stealth device only works once, you STILL have prevented NEARLY the same damage as a shield (IE if it was a crit), but hey, there's the very realistic chance it will work 2-3 times at least.... so I remain unconvinced that a shield upgrade is usable outside of a draw their fire/r2d2 build.
I used to put SD on Soontir Fel, but all it did was make my opponents even more bloodthirsty for him. Further than that, no matter what my odds were, it always seemed to get hit the first round someone fired on him. The final straw came when a Y-Wing fired it's two dice at me at range 3 (5 evades) and I rolled 5 blanks. I started taking Shield Upgrade on him for one point more and to date, any time he's been hit on his shield, it was a critical hit that got cancelled. I know that seems made up but if you think about it, it makes sense: regular hits are cancelled first so if something does squeak by it's likely to be a critical hit. To me the unpredictability of Stealth Device just doesn't warrant the points on my best ships. Oddly enough, it has seen stellar performance on my bombers… go figure.
Edited by That One GuyI'm looking at Biggs with R2F2 and Stealth Device at the moment, with a friendly ship using Squad Leader to give Biggs a Focus. Some stats charts I saw (if I was reading them right) suggest that for a Tie Fighter at range two to get ONE hit would be 4.8% and at range one still only 12.4% (if the TIE has a focus that rises to 9.3% and 27%)
So, I whipped some numbers up real quick. For now, lets say as the defender you don't have a focus (makes it easier to do repeatitive attacks since there's no calculation of whether you spent the focus, and when the turn is over and you get a new focus). I'm also going to say the attacker has a focus (or TL) since they're trying to strip the stealth device.
After 1 attack, a 1 agi ship has a 22% chance of still having it's stealth, 2 agi = 28% chance of retaining, 3 agi = 40%, 4 agi = 52% and 5 agi = 62%. You can get the higher agility from R3 and obstructed. Note this is the agility value before stealth. But that doesn't tell the whole story. What we're really looking for regarding the stealth is how much damage did that extra die prevent? To make this easier to understand, consider an interceptor with evade and two focus tokens sitting pretty behind an asteroid at R3. Attacking him is a HWK. The HWK rolls a hit, and the interceptor rolls 3 evades, a focus, and a blank, and maintains his stealth device. But the stealth device itself didn't help out. So lets turn our attention to the cases where the stealth device actually did something. Note that it can prevent damage while being stripped.
So lets continue with our 3 Focused attack against unfocused defenders. We want to look at the attacker rolling 2 hits vs. 2/2 evades (and the like). We also want to look at 2 hits vs. 2/3 evades, and the probability increase of getting that 2nd evade from the 3rd die. This will take some time, so I'll post this, figure that out, and then post those results.
in a recent tourny this last weekend, I ran an awing with stealth. Lost it first shot at the Awing. Had evades and focus (PTL) and it still let a hit through. previous times I have used it, it was on the whole time and a great mod. Stealth is great IF you can keep it on your ship.
another tourny I had a Xwing with r2d2 and sheild upgrade, worked pretty well for the most part, but focus fire is any ships downside.
in a recent tourny this last weekend, I ran an awing with stealth. Lost it first shot at the Awing. Had evades and focus (PTL) and it still let a hit through. previous times I have used it, it was on the whole time and a great mod. Stealth is great IF you can keep it on your ship.
another tourny I had a Xwing with r2d2 and sheild upgrade, worked pretty well for the most part, but focus fire is any ships downside.
Keep in mind that one shot made it through, but you still got the extra die once, so 2 shots may have made it through instead if you had not had it.
Okay, so again unmodified defense. We're discussing the probability of the stealth preventing damage. I'm looking at it by hits rolled instead of 3 F attack or whatever.
If your opponent rolls 1 hit, 1 agi w/ stealth has a 23% chance of the stealth preventing damage, 2 agi = 15%, 3 agi = 9.1%, 4 agi = 5.7%, 5 agi = 3.5%.
If he rolls 2 hits, 1 agi = 37%, 2 agi = 32%, 3 agi = 25%, 4 agi = 19%, 5 agi = 14%
If he rolls 3 hits, 1 agi = 37%, 2 agi = 37%, 3 agi = 35%, 4 agi = 32%, 5 agi = 27%
To be as effective as a hull, it needs to cancel a full hit of damage. So, now we need to calculate the probability of keeping the stealth. Once again, I'm going to take a look at if you opponent rolls 1, 2, or 3 hits.
1 hit vs: 1 agi = 61%, 2 agi = 76%, 3 agi = 85%, 4 agi = 90%, 5 agi = 94%
2 hits vs: 1 agi = 14%, 2 agi = 32%, 3 agi = 48%, 4 agi = 2%, 5 agi = 73%
3 hits vs: 1 agi = 0%, 2 agi = 5.2%, 3 agi = 15%, 4 agi = 28%, 5 agi = 40%
So we can use these two percentages (and probabilities of getting them if you want) to determine what stealth is worth. For now lets focus on the opponent rolling 2 hits. Automatically, it is worth .375 hull to the 1 agi (from table 1), but then there's a 14% chance that it'll help out on the next attack .375, so after two attacks, the stealth is worth .375 + .14 * .375, after a 3rd = .375 + .14 * .375 + .14^2 * .375, etc.
So, after they all converge, the damage prevented from the stealth is:
1 agi = .435, 2 agi = .471, 3 agi = .494, 4 agi = .51, 5 agi = .521
As you can see, none of these results actually come close to 1 damage prevented. But the one thing I'll say, is that this is all based on no focus. Lets take a look at what happens when we add focus to the equation. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to assume that you have infinite focus tokens to spend, which is obviously not true, but it'll do for now. So now the results are:
1 agi = 1.02, 2 agi = 1.20, 3 agi = 1.30, 4 agi = 1.37, 5 agi = 1.36* (still not 100% converged)
For comparision, if the attacker gets 3 hits, the results are:
1 agi = .625, 2 agi = .827, 3 agi = .981, 4 agi = 1.09, 5 agi = 1.17
So, what do these numbers mean? They mean that the stealth device is indeed better on higher agility ships than low agility ships, but even on the low agi, if they can manage a focus, then they can get a good return from it. However, there will be an averaging between these two numbers, since infinite focus tokens is not reasonable, and the stealth is not worth anywhere near the 3 points if you don't have a focus, though with a focus, it's right in line with the shield pricing on high agility ships, and in line with the hull pricing on low agility ships.
So, best way to kill a stealthed ship? Deny it its action.
Edit: Math error
Edited by KhyrosI'm mentally bookmarking this topic...
I'll brute force it later with my scripts, under a variety of situations to compare the two.
I still need to finish my R2-F2 analysis. Without a 2nd action, it's generally worse than simply using focus.
I've had generally good experiences with Stealth Device. During my last match I had 2 X-Wings with Stealth Devices. They did eventually get hit, but each ship stopped 3+ attacks before loosing the stealth device.
Easily worth the points IMO. The real question is gonna be what happens with 1 AGI targets. (I mean in playtesting, not just the numbers that are posted above)
Edited by CrabbokI'm mentally bookmarking this topic...
I'll brute force it later with my scripts, under a variety of situations to compare the two.
I still need to finish my R2-F2 analysis. Without a 2nd action, it's generally worse than simply using focus.
Didn't we go over this in another topic and once you had me run the numbers with the residual focus I agreed with you that R2-F2 was inferior to focus? Or did you mean to run it w/ SL vs. Stealth or something?
Crabbok,
Were you up against Tie, squints or rebels when you used them on your X-wings? Against a regular tie ln (eyeball) the stealth makes sense on an x-wing because it gives you more defense dice than they have offense dice.
Keep in mind that one shot made it through, but you still got the extra die once, so 2 shots may have made it through instead if you had not had it.
Maybe... That's the problem with stealth device, you don't actually know if it had an effect. You have at best a 50/50 chance that it had an effect, if you have a focus. That means it's at least as likely to have been a blank as it was a focus or evade.
I think with the numbers that Khyros ran it backs up the common wisdom for it. Shield on a low agi ship, stealth on a high agi ship. Especially if you can't count on having a focus for that low agi ship for defense.
I'm mentally bookmarking this topic...
I'll brute force it later with my scripts, under a variety of situations to compare the two.
I still need to finish my R2-F2 analysis. Without a 2nd action, it's generally worse than simply using focus.
Didn't we go over this in another topic and once you had me run the numbers with the residual focus I agreed with you that R2-F2 was inferior to focus? Or did you mean to run it w/ SL vs. Stealth or something?
Yes on the first. I actually also ran all the permutations with Stealth device as well.
The only things I didn't do were:
It's going to end up being something around 48 figures.
Each figure is for a unique number of attack dice vs defense dice. 2-5 attack dice vs 1-3 defense dice. Then repeat with Howlrunner for a free reroll. Each one will have 4 pairs of plots (8 total): all permutations of 1) attacker with or without focus, 2) Defender with or without Stealth Device, 3) focus vs R2-F2 action. It's tens of thousands of data points if you count all the raw probability density function data points. Yay for automated scripts that calculate average damage, generate figures, and save as .pngs!
I'm not sure that the numbers back up that conclusion. If you don't have a focus, you'll get much less than 1 damage saved via the stealth. If you have perpetual foci, you could save up to 1.3 damage. I have a feeling that once you calculate in the residual staying power of the foci, the average damage saved would be much much closer to the .4-.6 number of the de-focus results.
So, it seems that at 3 points, the math does not support taking stealth device on anything, regardless of how you play it. Now, with that said - there is a mental game going on that it's next to impossible to hit a stealthed interceptor. Obviously if that was true, we'd have seen plenty of interceptors in the top 16 at worlds... So, the math backs up that stealth shouldn't be taken (haven't worked through the math on defensive Ibby or Luke yet, nor will I really... since defensive Ibby reduces the opponents hit #, so it pushes the "hits rolled" down from 3-> 1 and the like... so you're left with 61% chance of keeping the stealth, but only .23 damage stopped. And in that case, it maxes out at .6 damage prevented (actually, all stealth devices regardless of agility max out at .6 damage prevented from 1 hit attacks).
Keep in mind that one shot made it through, but you still got the extra die once, so 2 shots may have made it through instead if you had not had it.
Maybe... That's the problem with stealth device, you don't actually know if it had an effect. You have at best a 50/50 chance that it had an effect, if you have a focus. That means it's at least as likely to have been a blank as it was a focus or evade.
I think with the numbers that Khyros ran it backs up the common wisdom for it. Shield on a low agi ship, stealth on a high agi ship. Especially if you can't count on having a focus for that low agi ship for defense.
62.5 if they focused. A defense die has 3 evades, two focuses, and three blanks. The numbers are skewed in favor of attackers already, no need to turn one of the defense results into a blank on top of it.
I look at it this way:
Shield = you get 1 free evade, but then it's gone for good.
Stealth you get 5/8ths of an evade and if successful you get to keep doing it over and over.
I say 5/8ths because you would always focus with a stealth device.
I also don't count the critical hit benefit of the shield upgrade, because even without a shield upgrade that first hit isn't going to crit regardless... BECAUSE your ships already has probably at least 2 shields if not more - so it's extremely unlikely you are getting a face up damage card on the first attack if you are using any ship that might otherwise want to take a shield upgrade.
Personally I'd take stealth device even on a ship with zero agility. I'm a renegade.
I look at it this way:
Shield = you get 1 free evade, but then it's gone for good.
Stealth you get 5/8ths of an evade and if successful you get to keep doing it over and over.
I say 5/8ths because you would always focus with a stealth device.
I also don't count the critical hit benefit of the shield upgrade, because even without a shield upgrade that first hit isn't going to crit regardless... BECAUSE your ships already has probably at least 2 shields if not more - so it's extremely unlikely you are getting a face up damage card on the first attack if you are using any ship that might otherwise want to take a shield upgrade.
Personally I'd take stealth device even on a ship with zero agility. I'm a renegade.
And that's been the standard train of thought since it came out (at least regarding the high agi ships).
The problem is on low agi ships, it's unlikely to stay on, as such, you get 5/8 of a benefit and that's that. On high agi ships, the chance of the hit getting through to begin with was minor, so the additional benefit of the extra die is marginal. As such, even though it likely stays around for multiple turns, it doesn't actually end up blocking that much damage.
As an experiment - try rolling all but 1 die for your defense. If you haven't fully cancelled the hits yet (including if you spent the focus token) go ahead and roll 1 more for the stealth. If you start rolling that way, you might start seeing how often the stealth is actually used / how much it blocks.