TAC stats

More funky data for you, this time looking at TAC stats. A lot more straightforward than defensive stats, since you can claim that TAC 5 is almost objectively better than TAC 4, which you can't really do when comparing defensive stat lines like 5+/0, 4+/1 and 3+/2.
I say almost because TAC interacts directly with a character's playbook, and it could be argued that TAC 5 with a 4 column playbook is better than TAC 6 with a 6 column playbook in many situations.

Here is the chart for the whole game:

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TAC	Players
2	6
3	12
4	20
5	34
6	20
7	5
8	3

Unlike the DEF curve, the TAC chart looks a lot more like a bell curve - a dominant median average in TAC 5, with the mean being just below that at 4.77 (thanks, Mascots). I thus have no problem making the claim that TAC 5 is an 'average' stat.

Captains and Mascots

Next, a more focused look at Captains and Mascots:

 

We can see immediately by looking at Captains that they have an above average TAC on the whole. The median (10/17) is a TAC of 6, whereas the mean average is just a little over 6 (6.18). Nothing too impressive, as you expect your captain to pull their weight. Surprisingly, there is only 1 TAC 8 Captain (Fillet, not surprisingly a Butcher) and 1 TAC 4 Captain (Smoke, not surprisingly an Alchemist).

In terms of Mascots, we can see a general pattern - they suck. Mascots generally are not meant to achieve much in combat, usually having a utility role or being an INF battery. Princess and Scum are the two with higher TAC scores, and also the two of the three with legit dealing damage capabilities thanks to their playbooks (Fahad being the third).

TAC Stats by Guild

Finally, we come to Guild by Guild numbers:

Mean average TAC stats across guilds:

Fishermen	Engineers	Masons	Alchemists	Union	Morticians	Brewers	Hunters	Butchers
4.4	4.5	4.5	4.7	4.7	4.8	4.8	5	5.6

• Alchemists are just a little lower than average (mean 4.7), which is suitable for a guild with playbooks mostly designed to get out of combat. There are a few notable exceptions of courses - both Katalysts have excellent TAC, along with Midas, and also Vitriol thanks to her cover bonuses - which boost their average up significantly.
• Brewers, again, demonstrate largely mediocre stats with a heavy skew towards the median TAC of 5 and a mean just below that (4.8). This is deceptive of their impressive melee capabilities given their buffs and short playbooks, not to mention their tendency to get into a brawl and stack on Ganging Up bonuses.
  Shoutout to that TAC 6 Stave.
• Butchers unsurprisingly are way above average (5.6) in their TAC scores, with 2 of the 3 TAC 8 models in the game. They want to get in combat and make attacks and get high playbook results for those big damage numbers.
• Engineers are on the low end of the scale (4.5), except lack a melee monster like Katalyst to boost their numbers. They only really want to use their TAC to get out of combat or generate enough momentum to do their thing (score some goals and heal up, usually), which is where the captains' TAC of 6 can help.
• Fishermen are at the bottom of the pile in the TAC department (4.4) Their captains' TAC of 6 helps them get enough momentum to make it through their turn and do their thing (goals, counter attacks), while most of their players' mediocre TAC scores are just sufficient to get the low playbook results they require for momentous dodges. It certainly doesn't help them in the damage department or pulling off power plays, though.
• Masons are also a little bit lower than average (4.5), which is not that big a deal for them as they have access to some decent TAC buffs when needed, as well as most of their momentous results being low on the playbooks. If they want to get big numbers in combat, they can make it happen.
• Morticians are in a pretty good spot (4.8) for a 'non brawler' guild, thanks to a surprising number of TAC 6 models with Graves and Ghast. Quite a few of their players' big power plays are triggered by GB results (ie. Unmasking, Tormented Agony, Unexpected Arrival, etc). so they need to get into combat to make these things happen.
• Union also average out nicely (4.7) putting them in the middle of the pack, with 5 models above TAC 5 and 5 below. Those two TAC 2 Mascots certainly help bring things down.
• Hunters again have a perfect spread of stats (5), showing the diversity and specialization in the guild, as well as their overall tendency to get those big playbook results on certain players (especially stacked with the -1DEF from Snared!).

Funnily enough, the above spectrum is also quite representative of "most likely to win via goals alone" to "most likely to win via takeouts alone". :)

Defensive Stats

Continuing on my exploration of core stats across the game... via stats. Ironic, given that I am pretty crap at processing numbers and would not really categorize myself as the quantitative type. I apologize if I screwed up any numbers on the way.

While writing the Cornerstones series, it struck me that we (as in the Guild Ball community) think of a model like Gutter as being pretty average stats wise: 6/8" MOV (5/8" is probably a lot more common),  TAC 5, 3/6" KICK, 4+/1, 14 boxes.

I don't think this is quite accurate. I had a gut feeling that the 'average' stat like is probably a non-existing value somewhere between 4+/1 and 3+/1. So I decided to pull up the stats to check.

Results

Overall numbers:

DEF/ARM	Players
4+ / 1	30
3+ / 1	23
5+ / 0	16
4+ / 0	13
3+ / 2	7
2+/ 1	4
2+ / 2	3
2+/ 0	2
2+ / 3	1
3+ / 0	1
4+ / 2	0
5+ / 1	0
6+ / 0	0

Given that there are 100 effective players in the game (again, Compound counts twice and this time Greede is included as a separate model), you can look at the player numbers as percentages.

• While 4+/1 is the most common stat, it is not the "mean average". 4+/1 is actually slightly better than the mean average stat.
• Just under a third of players have a 4+/1 stat line, and just under a quarter have a 3+/1 stat line. Combined, these two stat lines make up 53% of the game.
• 5+/0 and 4+/0 (arguably both slightly better and slightly worse than 4+/1) combine for 29 players, the same as 4+/1.
• If you combined the four most common stat lines, you end up with over 80% of the stats in the game, leaving only 18 other players.
• The more unique stat lines (4 stats amongst 7 players) all belong to "big guys" and are on the lower end of the spectrum:
  - 2+/0 (Boar and Stave)
  - 3+/0 (Avarisse)
  - 2+/2 (Brick, Colossus and Strongbox)
  - 2+/3 (Wrecker)
• The 2+/1 stat is also quite popular for "big guys": vKatalyst, Kraken, Fangtooth and Seenah.
• The remaining 7 players are the holders of the excellent 3+/2 stat, popular in Masons (Honour, Mallet, Tower) but scattered across 4 other guilds (Blackheart, vGraves, Stoker and Flask). These players are slightly vulnerable to character plays and high TAC charges but do very well in an isolated combat.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics - DEF + ARM

Another way to picture this data is to add DEF + ARM. This is of course not entirely accurate as DEF is preferable in certain situations, whereas ARM is preferable in others, but as a general analysis tool it provides an interesting lens:

DEF/ARM	DEF+ARM	Players
4+/1	5	30
5+/0	5	16
3+/2	5	7
2+/3	5	1	5s =54
3+/1	4	23
4+/0	4	13
2+/2	4	3	4s =39
2+/1	3	4
3+/0	3	1	3s = 5
2+/0	2	2	2s = 2

  

 The majority of players (54) fall into the 5 category of 4+/1, 5+/0, 3+/2 and 2+/3. I think most would categorize these as equally good stat lines, depending on the situation.

The next large chunk (39) falls into the 4 category of 3+/1, 4+/0 and 2+/2. Again, these stats are probably seen as roughly equivalent. 4+/0 might be seen as slightly worse, but again almost all of these models have some kind of defensive capability outside their stat line (a few examples here would be Greyscales, Shank, Bonesaw, Snakeskin and Jaecar - Cosset and Meathook would probably the 2 big exceptions to having survival traits) so on the whole it is pretty good. The same can be said about 2+/2 (all 3 of these models have Tough Hide).

The last two groups of stats are the 3 and 2 category, 7 players in total. Every player here has some kind of defensive tech (usually Tough Hide), except vKatalyst and Boar. vKatalyst is a ticking time bomb that can be witnessed for extra VPs and, well, Boar has Regenerate - the issue is Regenerate is pretty crap.

So on the whole, the 3 and 2 category are not fantastic, but have other tools to make up for it. Except Boar. Poor Boar.

In summary, it's difficult to isolate survivability down to a defensive stat line alone, given that many models have abilities that boost them in some way (ie. Charmed [Male]. Melting Body, Tough Skin, Fear, Nimble...) as well as defensive tricks like Unpredictable Movement or Clone, but at least it demonstrates that 4+/1 is in fact a slightly above a mean average stat line, and that Boar is a sad panda.

Average DEF

Masons	Brewers	Engineers	Union	Butchers	Fishermen	Hunters	Alchemists	Morticians
3.2+	3.3+	3.6+	3.7+	3.7+	3.7+	3.8+	3.8+	3.9+

Average ARM

Morticians	Hunters	Butchers	Fishermen	Union	Alchemist	Brewers	Engineers	Masons
0.6	0.6	0.6	0.6	0.7	0.8	0.9	1	1.4

Defensive Stats by Guild

And for your amusement, here are some pretty Excel sheet tables for each guild:

• Alchemists, if you remove vKatalyst, have remarkably decent stat lines for what was originally perceived as the squishiest team. They do lack tanky Tough Hide models and do not have a lot of consistent defensive tech (ie. more than 1 use) compared to most teams though, so rely quite a bit on their stats to survive compared to other teams.
• Brewers are quite tightly packed in the 3+/1 bracket with a few outliers, showing their tendency for generally mediocre base stats improved through multiple subtle buffs and character traits.
• Butchers are a pretty square in the middle for defensive stats. They are able to tank up certain players situationally thanks to some good flat stat buffs like Tough Skin or Swift Stance, but in the end lack the durability of the Brewers or Masons in a scrap.
• Engineers are on the upper side of average for resilience, relying on their decent stats and several durability character traits to allow them to live through combat long enough to do their thing.
• Fishermen are slightly below average in the survivability department, below average on stats alone, but have a lot of traits that help protect them.
• Masons, as most know by now, are on the lower end of an RNG stat like DEF but on the upper END of a reliable stat like ARM. They also have the only 3 ARM model in the game in Wrecker, which embodies them pretty well.
• Morticians, which was a bit of a shock to me, are surprisingly survivable *insert crappy undead joke here*. Their two big guys have pretty solid stats and excellent survival traits which pushes the team up quite a bit on average. The one notable exception to the team, as mentioned earlier, is the glass cannon that is Cosset.
• Both Hunters and Union are pretty well spread across the board and pretty representative of the game as whole I feel.