Character review: Diala Passil

Some people like playing damage characters that shoot or hack their way through the bad guys. Other players like to take characters that are just not going to be killed. Still others (like me) prefer to play characters who can fight on their own but mostly exist to make the other characters do what they do better (through healing, rerolls, and free actions). Because I prize flexibility and teamwork, the support class lends itself strongly to me.

As a result, we’re going to start off our series on character reviews by looking at my favorite three support characters: Diala Passil, Gideon Argus, and Saska Teft. We’ll leave support class characters after that, but these three characters are by far my favorite characters to use (closely followed by…why would I spoil this now???).

Diala Passil was released in the core game of Imperial Assault and as a result is one of the best characters in the game (sure, the expansions have released great playable characters, but the original six are still top of the line and certainly some of the best characters you can use). Diala walks the line between support to the team and raw damage dealer. As a result, let’s look at three different builds we can use to bring out both the raw power and the supporting abilities she provides.

Diala Passil: Any Melee Weapon Can Be Good

Diala is a Jedi and while she’s not as offensive-focused as Davith Elso, she’s got some incredible abilities that make any weapon she uses simply amazing: first, while she is healthy, she has the Precise Strike skill that removes a defense die from your opponent. In most cases, this means your opponent doesn’t get to resist your attack. Any weapon that would normally do 3-4 damage now does its full weight against your opponent (instead of 1-2 damage past a black die). In addition to this base skill, for 1 XP you can get the Force Adept upgrade to allow you to reroll an attack die at the cost of 1 Strain. Finally, for 2 XP you can purchase Battle Meditation, which allows you to make yourself Focused (or someone else if you’re already Focused) whenever you rest (basically guaranteed – you’re testing Insight). These three abilities (which you have after you get 3 XP and as long as you stay healthy) can greatly change any weapon from a "meh" weapon into a good weapon and any good weapon into a great weapon. With this in mind, here are some broad ideas you can use for weapons (but I’ll note alternate weapons that can be even better).

End-Game Weapon #1 – the Guardian of the Whills: Plasteel Staff with Extended Haft OR Weighted Head

Diala’s base weapon is, if we’re honest, not very good. With a Yellow-Green combo, you run the risk of getting 2 Surge as your attack results, which can get you a whopping 1 Damage and a Stun (if you’ve strained twice to remove his dice). That’s…not great. On the other hand, you have the off-chance of getting 4 Damage and you should get 2-3 Damage each time you attack. In general, this is enough to clear out a basic Imperial unit each activation (which in the early game is pretty great).

While the staff isn’t great, it does have Reach. For melee characters, if you can avoid straining to get right up into the face of your opponent, that’s a good thing. For Diala, you want to save your Strain to reroll dice (or throw people, remove defense dice, etc.) so having Reach is great. You can then purchase the Extended Haft early in the campaign and use it to add Pierce 1 to the attack results (which is great against White die opponents and useful against Black die opponents). Ultimately this doesn’t matter as much if you are using Precise Strike, but you will find opponents who get static Block results (and this can handle those special cases nicely). Alternatively, you could forego relying on the Precise Strike and save yourself the strain, potentially reducing your damage output a little to rely on doing more attacks (vs. resting every turn).

With Reach, Diala has three different targets. Against the Stormtrooper, she can use Precise Strike to remove the Black die, in which case, she can expect to do 3-4 Damage against him (should kill him). Alternatively, she can rely on the automatic Pierce 1 to remove most/all of his Black die result (still might kill him). Since the Hired Guns can't get the Dodge result on a White die, you don't need to use Precise Strike at all (though they will get to shoot at you if you kill them).

If you plan on using Precise Strike (however), I’d recommend the Weighted Head – this is a great way to do extra damage to enemies nearby since you can guarantee that you hit the target with Precise Strike and then transfer damage to someone else (finishing them off or doing damage to someone you don’t want to have to hit directly). This is supplemented even more with the Snap Kick upgrade – which is kind of like doing Cleave damage…without the requirement of doing damage. Regardless of whether you choose the Extended Haft or the Weighted Head, you can get even more mileage out of the staff by purchasing the Dancing Weapon upgrade. Why do this?

This turns your ordinary Plasteel Staff into a Pulse Cannon.

The Pulse Cannon allows you to turn 2 Surge into 2 Damage + Pierce 1. With the Surge ability provided by the Dancing Weapon upgrade, you can also spend 2 Surge to get 2 Damage and either Pierce 1 (with the Extended Haft) or Cleave 1 (by exhausting the Weighted Head). The difference, of course, is that you need to spend one additional surge with the Pulse Cannon to get the accuracy bonus…and with Diala’s Dancing Weapon skill, you get it for free. Any additional surge you get with the Weighted Head becomes Cleave damage, while the Extended Haft adds the Stun (and removal of Strain). All in all, you’ve got the equivalent of a very good T3 weapon for the cost of…300-400 credits (and 4 XP).

If Diala is 6 spaces away from her target (distance between her and the Royal Guards above), she would need to get the Accuracy 1 + Damage 2 on the Green die, the Accuracy 2 + Damage 1 on the Blue die and the Accuracy 2 + Damage 1 (or either face that doesn't get Accuracy) on the Yellow die to miss hitting her target. All told, that's a 1.45% chance of missing a target that's 6 spaces away with Dancing Weapon!

I should note: you can do slightly more damage with other weapon builds – the Force Pike, BD-1 Vibro-Ax, and the Polearm are excellent examples. Each has Reach, so whatever we said previously applies. I find, however, that the damage threshold of these weapons isn’t that much more than what you get with the base weapon (assuming you use Precise Strike) and the credit cost (and waiting) is pretty high. For the same money, you can get gear options that supplement your other skills (such as the Portable Medkit, the Combat Visor, or the Combat Coat) – and you can buy two or three of these items for the cost of the weapon you’d be purchasing. Now tell me that’s not worth it?

Upgrades to purchase (with Extended Haft) - 8 XP: Force Adept (1), Force Throw (1), Battle Meditation (2), Dancing Weapon (4)

Upgrades to purchase (with Weighted Head) – 10 XP: Force Adept (1), Battle Meditation (2), Snap Kick (3), Dancing Weapon (4)

End-Game Weapon #2 – The Jedi: Shu Yen’s Lightsaber with Balanced Hilt

Let’s face it, Diala is a Jedi. As great as playing Chirrut Imwe with your Plasteel Staff is…

WE WANT A LIGHTSABER!!!!

There are two ways to get a lightsaber: do Diala’s side mission or wait for Tier 3 to get the Ancient Lightsaber. The sad truth is this: in a long campaign, it could be a while (hopefully you get it early) before you get the chance at Diala’s Side Mission if it shows up at all. In a short campaign, you get only one shot at Tier 3 gear (and you don’t get to choose which missions you play), so you may not get a chance to use a lightsaber. Ever. It’s sad.

The good news is, if you never get a shot at it, at least you have the Plasteel Staff, which we’ve just covered in great detail. So for our purposes here, let’s assume you get a lightsaber (we’ll start with Diala’s reward item and then move to the Ancient Lightsaber).

Shu Yen’s Lightsaber is a great weapon – it rewards you for using Foresight (even if you take damage) and it gives you the traditional Lightsaber bonus of Pierce 3 and the ability to Cleave into your opponents. The only thing it lacks…is the ability to surge reliably. Pierce 3 is fantastic – you basically don’t need Precise Strike anymore (unless you’re fighting someone with two defense dice). To trigger this effect more often, there’s an inexpensive fix: the Balanced Hilt. While the Red-Blue combo isn’t great on this weapon for damage (Red-Green or Red-Red would give you more), it does make the weapon more likely to hit targets farther away from you if you use Dancing Weapon (discussed previously). All in all, as a reward for a mission, it’s well worth having.

The Ancient Lightsaber functions in much the same way: it gives you the Pierce 3 skill with a Damage 1 at the cost of 2 Surge, but it also provides you a single surge option for 2 Damage – which against White die is better than Pierce 3. This more balanced weapon is also tied to your Insight stat, which means if you do get wounded, you’ll actually deal more raw damage than you did before (trading that Yellow die out for a Red one). This means you’ll also surge less often, but the damage output is negligible (and with the Balanced Hilt, you can still trigger that Pierce 3 fairly reliably).

Both weapons can be thrown, of course, but since you don’t need to strain for Precision Strike, consider taking Way of the Sarlaac – getting multiple attacks out of that lightsaber before resting (and using your Strain to reroll those die results you don’t like OR using the surge from the Ancient Lightsaber to recover strain and keep you from needing to rest). Defensive Stance is also good with Shu Yen’s Lightsaber, since it gives you bonuses when you use Foresight. It doesn’t have any synergy with the Ancient Lightsaber, but is a nice utility skill to have anyway (in case you want to be Focused when you start your turn, instead of becoming Focused from resting).

With Way of the Sarlaac, Diala can suffer 2 Strain to attack all three of these Stormtroopers. With either Lightsaber, a single Surge completely wipes out a Black die (or comes pretty close to it with the Ancient Lightsaber), allowing her to do most of her Damage against the target's Health instead of having to work through their Block.

Finally, if you want to get a similar feel for Shu Yen’s Lightsaber without doing the side mission, consider taking the Stun Baton - you can strain to weaken up to 5 foes around you, rest, then use Way of the Sarlaac to strike them all! Damage output is roughly the same (trading Pierce 3 for Damage 2) since the dice pool is the same.

 Upgrades to purchase (with either saber) - 9 XP: Force Adept (1), Battle Meditation (2), Defensive Stance (2), Way of the Sarlaac (4)

End-Game Weapon #3 – The Executioner: Vibrosword with Energized Hilt and Focusing Beam

So this weapon was the most surprising for me – I never really liked the weapon though I always WANTED to like it. In some ways, there isn’t much that recommends the weapon:

• You roll a Green-Blue but doesn’t need the range;
• You can surge for 2 Damage, but the dice pool doesn't surge reliably; and
• You can surge for Bleed (very useful), but you aren't likely to get the damage you need past any defense die have a surge left to issue Bleed.

So why take this weapon? That's when it hit me:

You’re Diala – turn this weapon into an Electrostaff!!!!!

As I said before, Diala makes all melee weapons good – with Dancing Weapon, this blade becomes a Green-Blue-Blue weapon, which not only makes it great for throwing down long hallways (guaranteed 5 accuracy, likely hitting 7-8 accuracy) and you can reliably expect 5-6 damage off of it for 350 credits. With two mod slots, there are a bunch of things you can do with it, but I’ve settled on the following: the Energized Hilt and the Focusing Beam. While you could go with the High Impact Guard, the guard costs the same as both of these upgrades and requires you to surge in order to use its effects…and we just got through saying how hard it is to surge with this weapon. Instead, the Energized Hilt allows you to change that awful Blue die into a Red die, giving you (effectively) an Electrostaff (except that instead of getting the choice of Reach or Cleave 2, you can surge for Bleed…and strain for Pierce 1…up to 4 times…AHHHH!!!!!!).

Diala (top-right) is seven spaces away from the Imperial Officer. If she stays with a Blue-Blue-Green, Diala would need to get either the 1 Accuracy + Damage 2 or 2 Accuracy + Damage 2 on the Green and the 2 Accuracy + Damage 1 on both of the Blue dice to miss (which happens <1% of the time). If she uses the Energized Hilt to swap one of the Blue die for a Red die, she'll want to move up closer

In addition, that second mod slot allows you to do something else – I’ve chosen the Focusing Beam to give you the ability to overcome White die without having to use Precise Strike (exhausting for Pierce 1 OR removing a Dodge from the defense results at the cost of a strain as well). If you wanted to mimic the Electrostaff, you could go instead with the Extended Haft (slightly more expensive but available at Tier 1) or the Weighted Head. All told the cost of these two upgrades and the weapon is under 900 credits – far cheaper than what you’ll find at Tier 3.

What’s even better is…besides the Force Adept upgrade and the Dancing Weapon upgrade, you can do whatever you want with the rest of your upgrades – the door is wide open. So…didn’t see that coming, huh?

Upgrades to purchase - 5 XP: Force Adept (1), Dancing Weapon (4)

Diala in the Skirmish Game

As should not be surprising, Diala Passil is fantastic in the skirmish game. As a Force User, she has incredible synergies with such characters as Ben Kenobi, Luke Skywalker (either one), Davith Elso, and Ahsoka Tano (though you can also do Leia Organa if you include her Command card). Diala’s ability to recover damage is nice (though not triggered very often) and she can allow you to discard Command cards from hand to remove a defense die from an opponent (handy if you have a card you can’t use or don’t want to use) and allows you to reroll her defense die for free. With all those beautify Force User cards (free damage, protection from blaster fire, etc.), she’s stunning.

But she’s even better when surrounded by walking carpets – that’s right, using her Brawler synergies with Wookies! Sure, being a Force User is great, but there’s something incredibly fun about running Diala with Gaarkhan, Drokhatta, and some regular WookieWarriors! Give it a try sometime – she’s fantastic with them.

In our next post, we’ll talk about Gideon Argus – my second favorite character and one of the first characters I ever used. Diala can support other characters by making them Focused (we focused on how to make her a power all on her own here), but Gideon does the enabling power of support characters better than any other character they’ve come out with so far. Until next time, happy gaming!