Character Review: Davith Elso

In the original Star Wars trilogy (and particularly in the prequel trilogy), being a Jedi is an iconic part of what makes Star Wars different from other Sci-Fi adventure films. With Luke Skywalker as an example, the ability to mindlessly hack at an enemy with a lightsaber is fun for little kids and big kids alike. In the prequel trilogy, we saw more elegant lightsaber skills and fights with such duelists as Qui-Gon Jinn and Count Dooku. Regardless of which you prefer, you get to run both sides of the spectrum with the amazing Rebel operative, Davith Elso.

Davith Elso: Staying Hidden

With the release of the Bespin Gambit, we got access to the beneficial condition “Hidden” – this ability is very straight-forward: make you harder to hit with ranged weapons and give you an extra Surge to your attack results. Hidden might not be as powerful as Focus (really depends on what you can do with a free Surge), but it does change the way the Imperial Player behaves – he’ll still shoot at you, but he’ll move closer. On offense, triggering your Surge abilities becomes easier, since you have one Surge result guaranteed. With Davith’s Cloak and Dagger ability, you can use the free Surge to retrigger Hide every time if you need it, though it does require that your opponent doesn’t get Evade results a-plenty. Since this ability requires the use of a Melee weapon, we’ll only be looking at those types of weapons today (and with that, here we go).

End-Game Weapon #1 – I Am A Jedi: Shrouded Lightsaber with High Impact Guard and Focusing Beam

As we hinted at in our previous post, Davith is the only character who is guaranteed to be able to use a lightsaber (we also talked about this in our post on Diala Passil). Davith’s Shrouded Lightsaber, like Shu Yen’s Lightsaber which is available to Diala, has a two-dice attack pool, but if you take the Falling Leaf upgrade as well, you can make it a three dice weapon with a Yellow-Yellow-Green attack pool (which is VERY good at surging). With just the original dice pool (assuming that you use your first surge results to trigger Cloak and Dagger and that you have the High Impact Guard equipped), you’re expected to get 2.63 damage past a Black die, while with three dice you’re expected to get 4.91 damage – that’s almost double the damage of the original attack pool!

Supplementing the High Impact Guard is the Focusing Beam, which you can tap for Pierce 1 (which can save you having to trigger Pierce 3 if your target only gets 1 Block), but it’s really present so that White die figures can’t escape your wrath. While managing Strain is important to Davith, getting attacks that do damage is far more important. The strain required to trigger this ability can also be offset by taking Elusive Agent, which you should be able to trigger if you begin Hidden (and we’ve taken Covert Operative to make it more likely to happens).

To top off this list, we’ve taken Fell Swoop, which is easily the coolest skill Davith has (though I don’t think it’s as useful as Falling Leaf). At the cost of two surge, you become hidden, gain a few movement points, and get to perform a free attack. The best thing about this upgrade, however, isn’t the free attack. Instead . . .

Fell Swoop is great because it can be triggered by surging, not by straining. 

Lots of other characters (Diala, Gaarkhan, Jyn, Mak, Biv, Verena, Shyla, and Jarrod) can perform extra attacks by spending Strain, while others allow other characters to perform free attacks on their turns by spending Strain (Gideon and Murne). Davith is the only hero who can perform an extra attack because he performed another attack, which allows him to save his strain for things like Force Speed (if he’s healthy). In addition, we don’t need to trigger Cloak and Dagger with our first Surge result, since Fell Swoop makes you Hidden. Since your first Surge is provided automatically, you just need a single surge on a Yellow-Green (or Yellow-Yellow-Green), which is pretty reliable.

Upgrades to purchase – 11 XP: Covert Operative (1), Elusive Agent (1), Falling Leaf (2), Shrouded Lightsaber (3), Fell Swoop (4)

End-Game Weapon #2 – Surge All Day Long: Force Pike with Weighted Head

Let’s face it: as great as running around with a Lightsaber is, it’s a lot of XP to spend on a weapon. Thanks to Falling Leaf, you can get a lot of surge with Davith. If you want to get maximum surge, there’s only one weapon for you: the Force Pike. The Force Pike is the only Tier 3 weapon available in the Core Set that’s designed for melee characters. With a Red-Yellow-Yellow attack pool, you can turn up to two of your surge into Damage 2, which is admittedly not that effective. With Falling Leaf, you have a Red-Yellow-Yellow-Yellow, and with a free Surge, you should have plenty of surge to spend on things. With this build, we’re going to focus on turning maximum surge into damage (of a kind) by taking the Weighted Head. Half the time with this weapon, you’ll get 0-2 surge off your dice (which will trigger both of the Damage abilities). The other half of the time, you’ll get 3-7 surge off your dice, and you can turn the first two of those surges (which accounts for over 90% of the possible results you’ll get) into Cleave damage, which is great for hacking apart someone that isn’t your attack. While we could get more precise damage out of the High Impact Guard, we can do more total damage this way.

Until you hit Tier 3, you can take the Gaffi Stick – the automatic Pierce 1 is welcome on the Red-Yellow, though you won’t be surging for very much with it. As soon as you hit Tier 2, be on the look-out for the Weighted Head (in Tier 1, you can pick up the Extended Haft to get used to having Reach if you like). This weapon does a little less damage than the Weighted Head, but does a decent amount for being a Tier 1 weapon.

To supplement either weapon, we’re taking Covert Operative, Elusive Agent, Falling Leaf, and Fell Swoop as we did in the previous build – you’ve got plenty of surge to become Hidden either with Cloak and Dagger or with Fell Swoop. Not buying the Lightsaber opens up a few more XP for Blindside, which is a great way to do damage to people without spending an action (and ignoring their defense), which queues them up nicely for some Cleave damage to finish them off. Like Fell Swoop, this also doesn’t cost Strain to use, which frees up your strain to help you move around (and save your actions for attacking).

Upgrades to purchase – 10 XP: Covert Operative (1), Elusive Agent (1), Blindside (2), Falling Leaf (2), Fell Swoop (4)

End-Game Weapon #3 – Rainbow Pinwheel: Electrostaff with High Impact Guard

Ok, we’ve talked about using a lightsaber and using a Force Pike to deal Cleave damage left and right. Now comes the big finish – let’s talk about the Electrostaff. Like the Force Pike, this is a Tier 3 weapon, so you’ll need something earlier to help you get through the majority of the missions (I recommend the BD-1 Vibro-Ax). With a great attack pool (Red-Green-Blue) and the ability to turn the first two surges from your dice into 2 Damage (thanks to the High Impact Guard), we’ve got the makings for a TON of damage. The Electrostaff also allows us to automatically Cleave 2, so that’s even more damage! By taking Falling Leaf, generating this kind of surge is easy, but our strategy changes a little bit with this build. . . .

We don’t want to end our activation Hidden.

Why not end Hidden you say? The reason is simple: with a Red-Green-Blue attack pool, you’re not that likely to surge, we’re going to look for another way to become Hidden (instead of attacking). If you’re attacking twice in a given round, you should use Falling Leaf in the first attack and use the first surge you get to trigger Cloak and Dagger as we have done previously. During the second attack, however, let yourself remain unhidden and benefit from that extra surge (more damage is awesome). We leave Fell Swoop at home this time and we take Force Illusion instead. The first time we’re attacked, we can Strain to become Hidden, so long as we can see the attacker (a given if a melee weapon is used, most likely to be true with ranged weapons). Remember how we said that Davith doesn’t strain for stuff? This means we should have Endurance to spare and can direct our very limited surge store to actually doing damage (like basically everyone else). Furthermore, if we take Elusive Agent, we can recover the strain we spend to become Hidden with Force Illusion, so you just need the Strain in the first place. We’re also taking Embody the Force, which not only gives Davith a great Health stat, but also increases his Endurance, allowing him to do the Force Illusion more reliably. Finally, we also take Covert Operative, which will give us the ability to start Hidden, turn our Hidden condition into Block (which supplements the High Impact Guard very well) and regain Hidden so long as we didn’t take any damage (possible with a Dodge result OR just getting enough Block from Covert Operative/High Impact Guard bonuses).

Upgrades to purchase – 11 XP: Covert Operative (1), Elusive Agent (1), Falling Leaf (2), Force Illusion (3), Embody the Force (4)

Davith in the Skirmish Game

Davith Elso is a Force User – he supplements a Jedi team well (see our post on Balance) with lots of attacks and has a decent amount of health for only 6 points. With a Fell Swoop ability, he can do multiple attacks each turn (though not with a great attack pool) and his unique Command Card Vanish is fantastic (especially if he’s surrounded by enemies). The weakness of Davith is the standard weakness for Force Users: he won’t stand up to concentrated fire from an opponent’s army. Keep Davith on the periphery, picking off units and supporting your other troops. Having other units around who can supplement his attacks (Luke Skywalker for example) or defense (the other Luke Skywalker for example) is fantastic, while having other figures who can attract damage away from him (like Ben Kenobi) is great too.

In our next post, we’ll be wrapping up our discussion of “Slashers” by looking at the famous bounty hunter Shyla Varad. Shyla can be run with a pure focus on melee damage OR with more tactical skills. However you choose to do it, Shyla is a powerful piece and can be very hard to kill. Until next time, happy gaming!