NEVER underestimate the power of The Crumb! (right juice man?)

They're both damage pieces; that's as good of a comparison between two pieces of different factions that you could get. Obviously they work differently and are in different factions, but they're still doing exactly the same thing: making attacks to deal damage. Neither are tech pieces, or direct damage pieces, or fast pieces, or swarm-killers, or tanks, commanders, or anything like that. Mace, Mara, Lord Vader, Vader SotJ, Sora Bulq, Darth Maul, Jaina SotJ, and so on are all the exact same archetype, which are the kinds of pieces that should be compared. They're basic damage dealers; they all work a little differently and have different support and are good or bad against different things and cost different amounts, but they are essentially all in their respective squads for the exact same purpose, and should be compared first and foremost on how well they can successfully accomplish that purpose.

I get upset when I lose too. Instead of calling out pieces you should call out yourself. More often then not you made a play mistake that allowed him to beat you.

It's the same argument people used to make about yoda on Kybuck. "oh man yoda kills all my fodder too fast" .....ya if you don't protect your squishies yoda will run all of them over. You have to change tactics each game or youll lose. Have you ever watched a war movie? The armies that win are the ones that change strategies when something isn't working. A general doesn't say "oh man, those tanks are unfair and OP" he figures out a way to alter his plan and kill the tanks.

Force renewal 2 means mace can reflect maybe 3 shots per game, or even less if he uses force for speed or rerolls. Then he may only make 1 out of those reflects. So the strategy is simple as shoot and spread out.

And Mace costs 20 points more, and Mara has Stealth, and Mace can't get crits on Droids, and Mara is a shooter so she can do 20/40 damage from across the board, and Mace can be played with GOWK, Panaka, and R2, and Mara can be played with Ganner, Han, and Anakin....

Obviously there are tons of differences between the two pieces. Mara's attacks actually CAN'T be Blocked, as she's a non-melee piece, but Mace's can. What does Mace do when he DOES play against Force Alter? That hurts Mara a lot less because she has a larger range of rolls that she needs to get to do her damage. What about when Mace plays against Parry or Djem So? Those things have no effect on Mara, but hurt Mace a lot.

There are lots of reasons to play either of them. A common complaint, however, is "Mace does too much damage". That can be very precisely proven to be false, as I did. They're comparable because they fulfill the exact same role in any squad they're in. When you're building a squad and need a character that deals damage, these are the kinds of characters you look at to fill that role, and they can be compared based on how well they fill that role. Part of how they fill that role is how much damage they can do and how consistently they can do it.

I think a lot of people miss this. They get caught up in the fact that Mace's damage potential is technically infinity, but that's true of ALL characters with Flurry Attack. What is his ACTUAL average damage output?

Well, against a character with 20 defense, he has a 15% chance to miss, a 65% chance to get a normal hit, and a 20% chance to get a crit. 0.15x0=0, 0.65x20=13, 0.2x60=12, so each attack does an average of 25 damage. The problem is that that 20% chance to get a crit ALSO grants another attack, so we really need to find out the likelihood of 0 crits, 1 crit, 2 crits, etc.

The likelihood of 0 crits on 3 attacks is 0.8^3, or 51.2%. The likelihood of getting 1 crit on the first 3 attacks but then not a crit on the free attack is (0.8^3*0.2)*3 (it's 4 attacks now, 3 with the 0.8 chance to not be a crit, one with the 0.2 chance to be a crit, and there are 3 permutations that would create this result, those being 0.2*0.8*0.8*0.8, 0.8*0.2*0.8*0.8. and 0.8*0.8*0.2*0.8). That's another 30.7%. The likelihood of getting 2 crits is (0.8^3*0.2^2)*6, or 12.3%. Getting 3 crits will happen (0.8^3*0.2^3)*10 or 4.1% of the time. Getting a stunning 4 crits will happen (0.8^3*0.2*4)*15 or 1.2% of the time. That makes up for 99.5% of the rolls you'll make with Mace, so I'll stop there.

So 51.2% of the time you're getting no crits. That means that against a character with 20 defense, you're on average doing just 39 damage. That sucks. 30.7% of the time, though, you're getting one crit, which means you're doing that 39 damage plus another 60, for 99 damage. Much better. 12.3% of the time you'll average a whopping 159 damage with 2 crits, 4.1% of the time you'll be doing 219 damage, and 1.2% of the time you'll get 279 damage! Now lets multiply all that out to find the overall average.

(0.512*39)+(0.307*99)+(0.123*159)+(0.041*219)+(0.012*279)=82.245 average damage against a character with 20 defense.

Lets compare that to, say, Mara Jade Jedi.

WITH Cunning, she has a simple 15% chance to miss, 10% chance to crit, and 75% chance to hit. That's 0.15*0+0.1*40+0.75*30=26.5 damage per hit. With Lightsaber Assault she's getting 4 attacks, so 26.5*4=106 average damage with Cunning. Woah, that's way better than Mace! Of course, that requires her to be getting Cunning, and lets say she's only getting that half the time.

WITHOUT Cunning, she's got a 35% chance to miss, 10% chance to crit, and 55% chance to hit, and does less damage. So now we're looking at 0.35*0+0.1*30+0.55*20=14 damage per hit, 4 hits makes it 56 damage.

If she's getting 56 damage half the time and 106 damage half the time, that's simply 28+53=81 average damage overall. That's only 1.245 points of damage on average less than Mace, who costs a full 20 points more than her.


Now obviously there are lots of other factors to consider. Mace can spend 2 Force Points to reroll, Mara can't, which makes his number a lot better. Mace will also often be in a squad with GOWK or General Skywalker or someone like that to increase his damage output. However, Mara also realistically gets Cunning with Lightsaber Assault WAY more than half the time; I'd say that when I play her and Ganner (which I do quite often), she's getting it at least 85% of the time. There's also the issue that if Mace rolls 4 crits but is only adjacent to 1 enemy, a lot of that damage will get wasted, and there are always the other parts of the character that need to be considered: Mara has Stealth and is a shooter, both big advantages, and also has Block, while Mace has FR2 and MotF2, Absorb, Riposte, and higher Defense and HP, but he costs 20 points more, which is a whole lot of points.

Frankly, I consider Mara Jade, Jedi to be a much better piece than Mace. Yeah, Mace is powerful, but if you don't get a crit his damage output is pretty pathetic for his cost, and she's just a better bargain than him all around for 20 points less.

Echo/Hinkbert,

Echo was right about the probability of not getting a crit in 3 swings: just over 50%. (I teach this stuff.)

I ran a full simulation of Mara, Mace, and Lord Vader back when this discussion came up the first time. Pasting the results:

Mace: assuming he needs a 7 to hit his enemy and the enemy has infinite hit points, and allowing two FPRRs on misses.
(5000 replications)
Mean damage: 116dmg
25th percentile for damage: 60dmg (25% of all results are 60dmg or less)
50th percentile for damage: 120dmg (50% of all results are 120dmg or less) (median)
75th percentile for damage: 160dmg (75% of all results are 160dmg or less)
90th percentile for damage: 220dmg (90% of all results are 220dmg or less)
95th percentile for damage: 240dmg (95% of all results are 240dmg or less)
99th percentile for damage: 360dmg (99% of all results are 360dmg or less)
Max damage: 540 (1 out of 5000 replications was over 500 damage)

Mara: assuming Cunning is active, 4 attacks using LSA, and needs a 7 to hit the enemy.
(5000 replications)
Mean damage: 87.18dmg
25th percentile for damage: 60dmg (25% of all results are 60dmg or less)
50th percentile for damage: 90dmg (50% of all results are 90dmg or less) (median)
75th percentile for damage: 110dmg (75% of all results are 110dmg or less)
90th percentile for damage: 130dmg (90% of all results are 130dmg or less)
95th percentile for damage: 130dmg (95% of all results are 130dmg or less)
Max damage: 150 (160 is theoretical max, but that never happened in 5000 replications.)

Lord Vader: with Opportunist from Thrawn, needing a 5 to hit (his attack is 18 instead of 16 like the 2 above), 4 attacks at 40dmg each using LSA, Opportunist, and Sith Rage. No rerolls since he used 2 FPs for LSA and Sith Rage.
(5000 replications)
Mean damage: 131.324
10th percentile for damage: 80dmg (10% of all results are 80 or less)
25th percentile for damage: 120dmg (25% of all results are 120 or less)
50th percentile for damage: 120dmg (50% of all results are 120 or less) (median) (At least 25% of the time, he does exactly 120dmg.)
75th percentile for damage: 160dmg (75% of all results are 160dmg or less)
90th percentile for damage: 160dmg (90% of all results are 160dmg or less)
95th percentile for damage: 180dmg (95% of all results are 180dmg or less)
Max damage: 220 (240 is theoretical max, but that never happened in 5000 replications.)

(Original discussion: http://www.bloomilk.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&m=97487)

The numbers above are a bit deceptive, though, since you can't really deal more than 200 damage on one turn. Seldom more than 120dmg. So both Lord Vader and Mace's average are skewed higher than they really are. But you can say that Mace has at least a 25% chance of killing a 160hp piece in one activation, barring any damage reducers/avoiders.