Data Analysis: Damage Per Roll and Damage Per Roll Per Point

Written by TheRealQwade

With the release of Legacies and the game hitting its 100th Character, I found myself asking, “Which Characters that are built for raw damage can hit the hardest and most reliably?” In a game where you have to deal with not just dice rolls, but also differing values of the Characters, this can get complicated. But, I devised a formula to try and consolidate all the characters different stats and compare them to one another.

Step 1: Convert all the sides of a Character’s die into a single number to act as a starting point. By taking all the damage sides for a die, adding them together, and dividing by 6, you can find a stat that I call “Damage Per Roll.” In much the same way that an “average d6 roll” is 3.5, this gave me an average value for each Character’s die that approximates how much damage they do over the long haul. Now, these numbers are not perfect because they consider all damage to be worth the same (whether normal, paid, modified, or indirect), but it does give some a glimpse into which characters can consistently roll the most damage. I considered trying to make a formula to convert all the different damage options into raw damage, but no matter what my conclusions might be, I suspect other people might find the values to be different. Sure, modified and paid sides are strictly harder to resolve than raw damage sides, but if you have the tools to resolve them, they still provide you with the value as printed. And, since this analysis is looking for the best possible damage dealers, it’s reasonable to consider the best possible situations to compare those Characters. Special sides and Character Abilities further complicated the matter (because just how much value should we give Mace Windu‘s die due to his Character ability numerically?), but I’ll get into those specifics in a second. Here are the top 10 Characters with the highest DPR (Damage Per Roll). Coincidentally, these are the only 10 Characters that have a DPR higher than 1:

Palpatine’s ability was hard to approximate because it doesn’t exist as a damage side. His average DPR sits at .83333 (since he has 5 total damage on his die), but his ability actually allows you to resolve 2 damage automatically with his die. So, simply adding 2 after the calculation seemed reasonable. Baze and Mace has a Special side and character ability respectfully that I needed to approximate values for. I gave Baze’s special an approximate value of 1.5 (since he’ll probably be hitting 2 characters most of the time, but later on in games he may not). Realistically, this approximation may need to be higher as 3 and 4-wide lists (or even 5-wide Battle Droids) start to become a thing. For Mace’s Character ability, I approximated the effect on his die value at .5. It only works when the opponent is almost dead, but it does cut through shields. Finn(LG) was a surprising find this high, but only one of his sides is raw damage (the other 2 being modified and indirect). His Special is accounted for here as being a +1 as well. Aurra Sing has a Character ability that allows you to discard a card when resolving her die to pump it by 1. Because she has 3 damage sides (and the fact you’d probably want to do it about half the time), I added on an approximate DPR of .5. It’s also worth noting that this is not a power action and can be done with both of her Character dice, so she can spike damage pretty high if she needs to. I approximated Chewbacca’s Special as a 2 since it seemed the most reasonable number to be consistently turning opposing dice, but Chewbacca players can feel free to weigh in. Grand Inquisitor’s Special does a straight 2 damage (which is as it was run in the calculation), but requires a specific board state to be active, so his real DPR is likely lower. An interesting note here is that all of the Characters here have either a Special side or an innate ability that allows them to do damage except for two: Grievous and Kallus. Grievous is worth noting as basically the Star Wars: Destiny equivalent of a berserker, doing nothing but consistent damage (and potentially swiping an Upgrade because of it). Kallus is also worth noting as a standout here because he comes with a Power Action that makes it much easier to hit his higher numbered sides. This Power Action is not accounted for in the calculation, so his real-world DPR is certainly going to be higher.

With all the DPRs calculated, I took that number and divided it by the point cost for the Characters to get a Damage Per Roll Per Point (DPRPP). In an outcome that shouldn’t be shocking, most of the top 10 DPRPP are low costed, non-unique Characters. For posterity sake, here they are anyway:

The lowly Battle Droid tops the list, but that’s due to its extremely low cost and the fact that most of its sides are indirect damage (including a side with the elusive modified indirect damage). Tie Pilot is similarly very high, but all 3 of his damage sides are modified, so he can’t even resolve his die by himself. I was a bit shocked to see Palpatine so high up despite the 21 point cost, but the fact that he’s guaranteed 2 damage per roll really shows its weight here. I was also surprised to see Greedo pop up here. Then again, he’s got 5 total damage on his die and only costs 7, so he’s a bargain. His ability (not accounted for in the calculation) also can help toss some more damage around when he dies, so he’s worth consideration if you need some cheap damage. Aside from Greedo, DPRPP seems to be a “well duh” metric that focuses on non-unique, low cost Characters that are built for damage and not much else.

That brings us to the final calculation: Damage Per Roll Per Point, Elite! It’s the same calculation as DPRPP, but the DPR is doubled (for 2 dice) and the point cost used is for the elite version of a character. No non-uniques here, they don’t qualify!

It shouldn’t shock you that DPRPP(e) is higher than DPRPP across the board because buying an extra die is just more economical. It also shouldn’t shock you that Palpatine and Vader top the list once again. What is shocking (for me) is how high up Aayla Secura is, considering that nowhere in this calculation is her Special side that provides both die fixing and potential mitigation. For Anakin (the one from Rivals), I used the villain version where his Special side discards a card for damage instead of shields because this whole analysis is about raw damage output and not shield generation. A surprise rounding out the list here is Bossk, but it makes sense because of his 6 total damage and reasonable cost. His ability also gains a lot more usefulness with the inclusion of direct damage as a damage type.

As a final note, Tarkin‘s Power Action is not included in this list because of how complicated it is to fit into the calculation. Feasibly, he provides 4 indirect damage per turn with just one die (which is twice as strong as Palpatine), but it can only be triggered under specific situations and consumes 2 dice to do it. Instead of trying to figure out just how to put that into a “damage per roll” calculation, I’ve ignored that it exists. Just note that Tarkin has deceptive consistent damage potential, and his Power Action can be used on blanks as well to act as a supercharged die fixing Ability.

Hopefully this is a fun and somewhat useful exercise for everyone. Keep in mind, this is not an end-all-be-all. This only accounts for Character dice and the abilities on those Characters to do damage. Mill or supporting Characters really have no value here, but they still can provide a lot of value during a game. Plus, Characters that specialize in things other than damage (like Rey – Force Prodigy/Sabine/Cad Bane for action cheating, Ahsoka/Bala-Tik multiple activations, Qui-gon shield tossing, Seventh Sister’s extra die, Hera’s vehicle abuse, etc.) are going to be lower on the list just because their point cost is made up by the other things they can do. But, if you’re looking for raw and consistent damage, these charts can be a good resource.