Full update - 8/19 - last full update was July 22 with a few mini bumps in between
Unlike last update, we have seen tremendous changes in the meta over the last 4+ weeks. Mainly, Rex has now given up his most used leader status to CLS and...DN is no longer the most used hero in the game - in fact he's now no longer even the 2nd most used. That honor belongs to R2! Speaking of R2 - he's now achieved hall of fame usage status and is in 70% of all rank 1 squads. Since tracking the report, only DN and GK have been able to cross the 70% usage mark. Go little droid go! We've also seen the Classic Cleanse team of Chaze / GK / DN / Rex displaced by a Thrawn + R2D2 version. Huge meta shifts here across the board.
Leads:
- CLS at 42% with 1198 counts is now the #1 most used lead in the game per GG - displacing Rex is impressive and shows how strong a character release this was
- Rex at 40% (that's down from 49% last update) with 1161 counts is now the #2 most used lead - likely this pushes down a bit more still as CLS continues to take hold, but expect Rex to maintain a solid hold on the #2 most used lead .. none of the other leads are even close and don't bring as much to the table
- Wedge is 3rd at 8% with 242 counts, QGJ 4th at 7% with 203 counts, and DM users are hanging on for dear life at 7% with 194 counts
- GK is of interest as a lead combined with zeta Barris to counter rebels and is the 6th most used lead with 190 counts
- The 8th most used lead - Thrawn - is incredibly powerful when zeta'd and what I've been using with 100% success against all CLS-led teams ... definitely think that's the most underutilized lead in the game.
Character Usage
- Most used character is... GK! 74% usage for GK, that's up from 70% last update
- Second most used is... R2 and he has done it in style hitting that legendary 70% usage mark - that's up from 46% from July; huge move by R2
- DN ... now falling like a rock in this fast speed Rebel meta ... relegated now more to a counter squad tactic, he's still at a respectable 62%(down from 78% last update) .. but expect that to continue to drop.
- Thrawn is 4th most used at 51% followed by CLS at 50%. Thrawn's value should still hold, I don't see him dropping or jumping up a lot from here - CLS though should continue to push up in usage.
Rex is fully out of the top 5 and stands at 7th now, behind Baze at 6.
Of note, Han and Leia are at 9th and 10th most used respectively as a result of CLS and the strong updates they received. Overall, huge Rebel pass that pushed CLS to #1 lead and brought 2 more classic rebels in to the top 10 and...helped R2 break 70% usage.
Teams
- Most used team is Rex lead, R2, Thrawn, DN, and GK - this team has 117 counts and displaced the long-standing classic cleanse, which is still at #2
- At 72 counts, second most used is the Classic cleanse squad - that's a huge drop from the 169 counts in the last update - the Thrawn meta shift from before combined with the in-progress CLS meta shift has finally eroded the viability of this comp that roamed free of threat for months
- CLS-led teams make up the 3/4/7/8/9 most common teams
- First DS lead is at 10, Thrawn + Shore +GK +DT +DN with 19 counts --- DS users trying to hold strong but it's a tough hill to climb
- No specific Maul team even registers in the top 25 for individual teams
Big Winners:
- REBELS! CLS takes over #1 lead, Han and Leia enter top 10 in usage, R2 breaks 70% mark usage and passes the long-standing king of SWGoH DN - 6/10 of the top used characters are rebels, 1 Sith, 1 Clone, 1 Jedi, and 1 Empire
- Thrawn - still a key piece in top-tier meta teams and also in counter-Rebel comps
- zeta Barriss - She will be critical for many players as a counter to these very powerful crit-based Rebel squads
- GK - still a staple with Rebles, now also a key cog in the counter to them with zBarriss (or also with Shore in a Thrawn led team) -
Big Losers:
- Rex ... huge hit to his usage and it's reflected in the #s pretty clearly - still viable but definitely steps down a notch from before
- QGJ / Jedi - CLS teams can hold on D vs. non-CLS Jedi squads - CLS+Thrawn+GK+R2+zSolo in particular is tough for a Jedi comp to get past - Luke wants to eliminate the Jedi in TLJ moving coming up so it seems...and he's helped do just that in GoH as well
- DN - massive drop in his usage from almost 80% down to 62% - the game sped up a lot and makes it more of a challenge to utilize his slow wind-up annihilate
- Tanks - pew pew pew - without proper support a lone Baze / GK defending an entire team won't cut it anymore as they can get burned down pretty fast vs. these high damage rebels .. additionally, with Han and CLS you now have two pretty high damage dealers that can avoid taunts completely, which limits their effectiveness
The decline of nihilus and his replacement by the emergence of CL as a popular lead is not because CL is good, but due to the novelty of a new toon, and the staying power of the name and idea of Luke himself. The game will settle, and nihilus, replaced by CL in many cases will make a come back once people figure out CL is very beatable. Already, I run a squad w/o CL (even though mine is G11) and am doing better in arena than any of the CL squads on my launch shard. Protect Nihilus is still the meta.
what an ugly thing to say... does this mean we're not friends anymore?
The decline of nihilus and his replacement by the emergence of CL as a popular lead is not because CL is good, but due to the novelty of a new toon, and the staying power of the name and idea of Luke himself. The game will settle, and nihilus, replaced by CL in many cases will make a come back once people figure out CL is very beatable. Already, I run a squad w/o CL (even though mine is G11) and am doing better in arena than any of the CL squads on my launch shard. Protect Nihilus is still the meta.
I also think that people are simply bored. The protect Nihilus squads are really not fun to play and have a very binary, repetitive gameplay.
Luke is indeed novelty and therefore benefits from that, but I believe Nihilus will not make a come back after the initial Luke hypes passes, simply because of that fact.
The decline of nihilus and his replacement by the emergence of CL as a popular lead is not because CL is good, but due to the novelty of a new toon, and the staying power of the name and idea of Luke himself. The game will settle, and nihilus, replaced by CL in many cases will make a come back once people figure out CL is very beatable. Already, I run a squad w/o CL (even though mine is G11) and am doing better in arena than any of the CL squads on my launch shard. Protect Nihilus is still the meta.
I also think that people are simply bored. The protect Nihilus squads are really not fun to play and have a very binary, repetitive gameplay.
Luke is indeed novelty and therefore benefits from that, but I believe Nihilus will not make a come back after the initial Luke hypes passes, simply because of that fact.
Try beating a GK(L), Zarris, R2z2, Zihilus, Thrawn squad w/o nihilus. Good Luck.
what an ugly thing to say... does this mean we're not friends anymore?
The decline of nihilus and his replacement by the emergence of CL as a popular lead is not because CL is good, but due to the novelty of a new toon, and the staying power of the name and idea of Luke himself. The game will settle, and nihilus, replaced by CL in many cases will make a come back once people figure out CL is very beatable. Already, I run a squad w/o CL (even though mine is G11) and am doing better in arena than any of the CL squads on my launch shard. Protect Nihilus is still the meta.
I also think that people are simply bored. The protect Nihilus squads are really not fun to play and have a very binary, repetitive gameplay.
Luke is indeed novelty and therefore benefits from that, but I believe Nihilus will not make a come back after the initial Luke hypes passes, simply because of that fact.
Try beating a GK(L), Zarris, R2z2, Zihilus, Thrawn squad w/o nihilus. Good Luck.
We have that team on the shard as well among a ton of CLS teams and it gets moved out like any other - sitting at 12 currently and my top 20 is typically 60-70% CLS leads. I'd say about 1/3 of those CLS leads still have DN in their team.
I think the CLS shift is a hard one that will stick and is necessary based on LB chat feedback and watching results. At least vs. CLS lead + GK + Thrawn + R2 +zSolo long-standing #1 rank capable Jedi teams can't beat it on offense, classic cleanse Rex teams have issues with it winning on offense, and former DN / DV leads that could take #1 HAD to switch out to CLS leads or Boba leads cause they couldn't break the top 20 even. This seems to be a hard shift.
The zBarriss team is a perfect counter, but any hide DN team is toast now to a squad with Thrawn + CLS in it since you can fracture DN / perma-pin him with CLS as he avoids taunts.
While beatable, unless you use that zBarriss team, you have a chance to lose to CLS / Solo, etc due to RNG. There's little to no chance to lose anymore to a hide the DN team cause once you fracture DN the enemy has no firepower.
The decline of nihilus and his replacement by the emergence of CL as a popular lead is not because CL is good, but due to the novelty of a new toon, and the staying power of the name and idea of Luke himself. The game will settle, and nihilus, replaced by CL in many cases will make a come back once people figure out CL is very beatable. Already, I run a squad w/o CL (even though mine is G11) and am doing better in arena than any of the CL squads on my launch shard. Protect Nihilus is still the meta.
I also think that people are simply bored. The protect Nihilus squads are really not fun to play and have a very binary, repetitive gameplay.
Luke is indeed novelty and therefore benefits from that, but I believe Nihilus will not make a come back after the initial Luke hypes passes, simply because of that fact.
Try beating a GK(L), Zarris, R2z2, Zihilus, Thrawn squad w/o nihilus. Good Luck.
We have that team on the shard as well among a ton of CLS teams and it gets moved out like any other - sitting at 12 currently and my top 20 is typically 60-70% CLS leads. I'd say about 1/3 of those CLS leads still have DN in their team.
I think the CLS shift is a hard one that will stick and is necessary based on LB chat feedback and watching results. At least vs. CLS lead + GK + Thrawn + R2 +zSolo long-standing #1 rank capable Jedi teams can't beat it on offense, classic cleanse Rex teams have issues with it winning on offense, and former DN / DV leads that could take #1 HAD to switch out to CLS leads or Boba leads cause they couldn't break the top 20 even. This seems to be a hard shift.
The zBarriss team is a perfect counter, but any hide DN team is toast now to a squad with Thrawn + CLS in it since you can fracture DN / perma-pin him with CLS as he avoids taunts.
While beatable, unless you use that zBarriss team, you have a chance to lose to CLS / Solo, etc due to RNG. There's little to no chance to lose anymore to a hide the DN team cause once you fracture DN the enemy has no firepower.
I hear you and am not arguing with you. I'm only pointing out my 1st hand experiences. The key to making a Zarris squad work against a nihilus - less squad is having a high health pool with as much speed as possible. To break the Zarris squad, Zarris needs critical immunity buff from gk. Then a blast from PL, Han, or ATF won't critical and trigger a heal. But a fast enough Zarris means she'll get a turn quicker and drop that buff. And then there is no chance of killing Zarris w/o nihilus. If you can't remove Zarris, between GK auto-taunt and R2 stealth, you can't target nihilus and thus can't Fracture him. My shard has it all. Nothing holds, but from what I can put out there, this squad actually performs better than any other squad I can field given the nature of my shard. Granted no 2 shards are alike.
what an ugly thing to say... does this mean we're not friends anymore?
The decline of nihilus and his replacement by the emergence of CL as a popular lead is not because CL is good, but due to the novelty of a new toon, and the staying power of the name and idea of Luke himself. The game will settle, and nihilus, replaced by CL in many cases will make a come back once people figure out CL is very beatable. Already, I run a squad w/o CL (even though mine is G11) and am doing better in arena than any of the CL squads on my launch shard. Protect Nihilus is still the meta.
I also think that people are simply bored. The protect Nihilus squads are really not fun to play and have a very binary, repetitive gameplay.
Luke is indeed novelty and therefore benefits from that, but I believe Nihilus will not make a come back after the initial Luke hypes passes, simply because of that fact.
Try beating a GK(L), Zarris, R2z2, Zihilus, Thrawn squad w/o nihilus. Good Luck.
We have that team on the shard as well among a ton of CLS teams and it gets moved out like any other - sitting at 12 currently and my top 20 is typically 60-70% CLS leads. I'd say about 1/3 of those CLS leads still have DN in their team.
I think the CLS shift is a hard one that will stick and is necessary based on LB chat feedback and watching results. At least vs. CLS lead + GK + Thrawn + R2 +zSolo long-standing #1 rank capable Jedi teams can't beat it on offense, classic cleanse Rex teams have issues with it winning on offense, and former DN / DV leads that could take #1 HAD to switch out to CLS leads or Boba leads cause they couldn't break the top 20 even. This seems to be a hard shift.
The zBarriss team is a perfect counter, but any hide DN team is toast now to a squad with Thrawn + CLS in it since you can fracture DN / perma-pin him with CLS as he avoids taunts.
While beatable, unless you use that zBarriss team, you have a chance to lose to CLS / Solo, etc due to RNG. There's little to no chance to lose anymore to a hide the DN team cause once you fracture DN the enemy has no firepower.
I hear you and am not arguing with you. I'm only pointing out my 1st hand experiences. The key to making a Zarris squad work against a nihilus - less squad is having a high health pool with as much speed as possible. To break the Zarris squad, Zarris needs critical immunity buff from gk. Then a blast from PL, Han, or ATF won't critical and trigger a heal. But a fast enough Zarris means she'll get a turn quicker and drop that buff. And then there is no chance of killing Zarris w/o nihilus. If you can't remove Zarris, between GK auto-taunt and R2 stealth, you can't target nihilus and thus can't Fracture him. My shard has it all. Nothing holds, but from what I can put out there, this squad actually performs better than any other squad I can field given the nature of my shard. Granted no 2 shards are alike.
I'm one of hucks shardmates that run a kenobi, thrawn, barris, r2, and nihilus team. This team can beat any team on offence and any CLS team on auto. With Trawn moving first at 280 speed I have my choice on who to lock down. With both barris and Kenobi abilities providing full assists, only speeds up nihilius annihilate.
I find myself constantly being in battle but not changing rank so I know this team is holding on Defense as well.
The decline of nihilus and his replacement by the emergence of CL as a popular lead is not because CL is good, but due to the novelty of a new toon, and the staying power of the name and idea of Luke himself. The game will settle, and nihilus, replaced by CL in many cases will make a come back once people figure out CL is very beatable. Already, I run a squad w/o CL (even though mine is G11) and am doing better in arena than any of the CL squads on my launch shard. Protect Nihilus is still the meta.
I also think that people are simply bored. The protect Nihilus squads are really not fun to play and have a very binary, repetitive gameplay.
Luke is indeed novelty and therefore benefits from that, but I believe Nihilus will not make a come back after the initial Luke hypes passes, simply because of that fact.
Try beating a GK(L), Zarris, R2z2, Zihilus, Thrawn squad w/o nihilus. Good Luck.
We have that team on the shard as well among a ton of CLS teams and it gets moved out like any other - sitting at 12 currently and my top 20 is typically 60-70% CLS leads. I'd say about 1/3 of those CLS leads still have DN in their team.
I think the CLS shift is a hard one that will stick and is necessary based on LB chat feedback and watching results. At least vs. CLS lead + GK + Thrawn + R2 +zSolo long-standing #1 rank capable Jedi teams can't beat it on offense, classic cleanse Rex teams have issues with it winning on offense, and former DN / DV leads that could take #1 HAD to switch out to CLS leads or Boba leads cause they couldn't break the top 20 even. This seems to be a hard shift.
The zBarriss team is a perfect counter, but any hide DN team is toast now to a squad with Thrawn + CLS in it since you can fracture DN / perma-pin him with CLS as he avoids taunts.
While beatable, unless you use that zBarriss team, you have a chance to lose to CLS / Solo, etc due to RNG. There's little to no chance to lose anymore to a hide the DN team cause once you fracture DN the enemy has no firepower.
I hear you and am not arguing with you. I'm only pointing out my 1st hand experiences. The key to making a Zarris squad work against a nihilus - less squad is having a high health pool with as much speed as possible. To break the Zarris squad, Zarris needs critical immunity buff from gk. Then a blast from PL, Han, or ATF won't critical and trigger a heal. But a fast enough Zarris means she'll get a turn quicker and drop that buff. And then there is no chance of killing Zarris w/o nihilus. If you can't remove Zarris, between GK auto-taunt and R2 stealth, you can't target nihilus and thus can't Fracture him. My shard has it all. Nothing holds, but from what I can put out there, this squad actually performs better than any other squad I can field given the nature of my shard. Granted no 2 shards are alike.
I'm one of hucks shardmates that run a kenobi, thrawn, barris, r2, and nihilus team. This team can beat any team on offence and any CLS team on auto. With Trawn moving first at 280 speed I have my choice on who to lock down. With both barris and Kenobi abilities providing full assists, only speeds up nihilius annihilate.
I find myself constantly being in battle but not changing rank so I know this team is holding on Defense as well.
How much of that is your mods relative to others and how much of that is the characters? That's not really a question that can be answered of course, but it would be interesting to test if for one day you intentionally nerfed the mods in place - like a 10% reduction in speed on all characters - to see if that matters a lot to separate out how much is the character team set and how much is your turn advantage. Similarly, how do your results change if you go with like a "F2P" set where your max speed is +80 and maybe a team-wide average of just +70-75?
It's tough to make definitive conclusions on characters and matchups in this game when there are differences in shards and differences in mods and also AI vs. human that often weigh more heavily than the actual character composition.
The decline of nihilus and his replacement by the emergence of CL as a popular lead is not because CL is good, but due to the novelty of a new toon, and the staying power of the name and idea of Luke himself. The game will settle, and nihilus, replaced by CL in many cases will make a come back once people figure out CL is very beatable. Already, I run a squad w/o CL (even though mine is G11) and am doing better in arena than any of the CL squads on my launch shard. Protect Nihilus is still the meta.
I also think that people are simply bored. The protect Nihilus squads are really not fun to play and have a very binary, repetitive gameplay.
Luke is indeed novelty and therefore benefits from that, but I believe Nihilus will not make a come back after the initial Luke hypes passes, simply because of that fact.
Try beating a GK(L), Zarris, R2z2, Zihilus, Thrawn squad w/o nihilus. Good Luck.
We have that team on the shard as well among a ton of CLS teams and it gets moved out like any other - sitting at 12 currently and my top 20 is typically 60-70% CLS leads. I'd say about 1/3 of those CLS leads still have DN in their team.
I think the CLS shift is a hard one that will stick and is necessary based on LB chat feedback and watching results. At least vs. CLS lead + GK + Thrawn + R2 +zSolo long-standing #1 rank capable Jedi teams can't beat it on offense, classic cleanse Rex teams have issues with it winning on offense, and former DN / DV leads that could take #1 HAD to switch out to CLS leads or Boba leads cause they couldn't break the top 20 even. This seems to be a hard shift.
The zBarriss team is a perfect counter, but any hide DN team is toast now to a squad with Thrawn + CLS in it since you can fracture DN / perma-pin him with CLS as he avoids taunts.
While beatable, unless you use that zBarriss team, you have a chance to lose to CLS / Solo, etc due to RNG. There's little to no chance to lose anymore to a hide the DN team cause once you fracture DN the enemy has no firepower.
I hear you and am not arguing with you. I'm only pointing out my 1st hand experiences. The key to making a Zarris squad work against a nihilus - less squad is having a high health pool with as much speed as possible. To break the Zarris squad, Zarris needs critical immunity buff from gk. Then a blast from PL, Han, or ATF won't critical and trigger a heal. But a fast enough Zarris means she'll get a turn quicker and drop that buff. And then there is no chance of killing Zarris w/o nihilus. If you can't remove Zarris, between GK auto-taunt and R2 stealth, you can't target nihilus and thus can't Fracture him. My shard has it all. Nothing holds, but from what I can put out there, this squad actually performs better than any other squad I can field given the nature of my shard. Granted no 2 shards are alike.
I'm one of hucks shardmates that run a kenobi, thrawn, barris, r2, and nihilus team. This team can beat any team on offence and any CLS team on auto. With Trawn moving first at 280 speed I have my choice on who to lock down. With both barris and Kenobi abilities providing full assists, only speeds up nihilius annihilate.
I find myself constantly being in battle but not changing rank so I know this team is holding on Defense as well.
How much of that is your mods relative to others and how much of that is the characters? That's not really a question that can be answered of course, but it would be interesting to test if for one day you intentionally nerfed the mods in place - like a 10% reduction in speed on all characters - to see if that matters a lot to separate out how much is the character team set and how much is your turn advantage. Similarly, how do your results change if you go with like a "F2P" set where your max speed is +80 and maybe a team-wide average of just +70-75?
It's tough to make definitive conclusions on characters and matchups in this game when there are differences in shards and differences in mods and also AI vs. human that often weigh more heavily than the actual character composition.
Agreed. We can speak definitively of our comps when much of it is relative (shard, mods, gear, strategies, etc.). What works for one may not for others, and via versa. What is definitive, is the swgoh.gg meta report which shows trailing indicators of what gamers are using, and we can certainly see CL is on the rise.
what an ugly thing to say... does this mean we're not friends anymore?
The decline of nihilus and his replacement by the emergence of CL as a popular lead is not because CL is good, but due to the novelty of a new toon, and the staying power of the name and idea of Luke himself. The game will settle, and nihilus, replaced by CL in many cases will make a come back once people figure out CL is very beatable. Already, I run a squad w/o CL (even though mine is G11) and am doing better in arena than any of the CL squads on my launch shard. Protect Nihilus is still the meta.
I also think that people are simply bored. The protect Nihilus squads are really not fun to play and have a very binary, repetitive gameplay.
Luke is indeed novelty and therefore benefits from that, but I believe Nihilus will not make a come back after the initial Luke hypes passes, simply because of that fact.
Try beating a GK(L), Zarris, R2z2, Zihilus, Thrawn squad w/o nihilus. Good Luck.
We have that team on the shard as well among a ton of CLS teams and it gets moved out like any other - sitting at 12 currently and my top 20 is typically 60-70% CLS leads. I'd say about 1/3 of those CLS leads still have DN in their team.
I think the CLS shift is a hard one that will stick and is necessary based on LB chat feedback and watching results. At least vs. CLS lead + GK + Thrawn + R2 +zSolo long-standing #1 rank capable Jedi teams can't beat it on offense, classic cleanse Rex teams have issues with it winning on offense, and former DN / DV leads that could take #1 HAD to switch out to CLS leads or Boba leads cause they couldn't break the top 20 even. This seems to be a hard shift.
The zBarriss team is a perfect counter, but any hide DN team is toast now to a squad with Thrawn + CLS in it since you can fracture DN / perma-pin him with CLS as he avoids taunts.
While beatable, unless you use that zBarriss team, you have a chance to lose to CLS / Solo, etc due to RNG. There's little to no chance to lose anymore to a hide the DN team cause once you fracture DN the enemy has no firepower.
I hear you and am not arguing with you. I'm only pointing out my 1st hand experiences. The key to making a Zarris squad work against a nihilus - less squad is having a high health pool with as much speed as possible. To break the Zarris squad, Zarris needs critical immunity buff from gk. Then a blast from PL, Han, or ATF won't critical and trigger a heal. But a fast enough Zarris means she'll get a turn quicker and drop that buff. And then there is no chance of killing Zarris w/o nihilus. If you can't remove Zarris, between GK auto-taunt and R2 stealth, you can't target nihilus and thus can't Fracture him. My shard has it all. Nothing holds, but from what I can put out there, this squad actually performs better than any other squad I can field given the nature of my shard. Granted no 2 shards are alike.
I'm one of hucks shardmates that run a kenobi, thrawn, barris, r2, and nihilus team. This team can beat any team on offence and any CLS team on auto. With Trawn moving first at 280 speed I have my choice on who to lock down. With both barris and Kenobi abilities providing full assists, only speeds up nihilius annihilate.
I find myself constantly being in battle but not changing rank so I know this team is holding on Defense as well.
How much of that is your mods relative to others and how much of that is the characters? That's not really a question that can be answered of course, but it would be interesting to test if for one day you intentionally nerfed the mods in place - like a 10% reduction in speed on all characters - to see if that matters a lot to separate out how much is the character team set and how much is your turn advantage. Similarly, how do your results change if you go with like a "F2P" set where your max speed is +80 and maybe a team-wide average of just +70-75?
It's tough to make definitive conclusions on characters and matchups in this game when there are differences in shards and differences in mods and also AI vs. human that often weigh more heavily than the actual character composition.
First, let me say I'm free to play on a day one shard. My mods are not as good as others on my sever. The speed on Thrawn is due to placing all my eggs in one basket and I farm mods daily over farming toons just to stay competitive. That is what makes this team great for F2P as Kenobi and barris works well to keep you alive, while the others give protection to Nihilus so he can do his thing. If I ran the paper tiger teams in my shard I would be pushed out of the top 50 every night. I don't discord chat and collude to arrange a payout, so I'm attacked constantly durring payout times. Now I've ran this team with success before the empire made the meta, which the empire had advantage over my team so I had to retire them until CLS push them back out. All I'm trying to say is this team works better for me than other team I've tried and is in my opinion a better team than any CLS lead so far. This will probably cha ge with additions to the rebel lineup but for now it working well.
3 of the top 5(including myself) are running...
Ackbar-CLS-r2-leia-GK
A very powerful combo... Useful in dealing with Chaze squads. Extra speed helps move first and ackbar/r2/CLS/gk all call an ally when they use specials.
3 of the top 5(including myself) are running...
Ackbar-CLS-r2-leia-GK
A very powerful combo... Useful in dealing with Chaze squads. Extra speed helps move first and ackbar/r2/CLS/gk all call an ally when they use specials.
Do not see it anywhere in meta..
Yeah, I started a thread a week ago on that squad, love it
3 of the top 5(including myself) are running...
Ackbar-CLS-r2-leia-GK
A very powerful combo... Useful in dealing with Chaze squads. Extra speed helps move first and ackbar/r2/CLS/gk all call an ally when they use specials.
- CLS lead now up to 60% - unprecedented leader usage level, Rex is 2nd at 14% and then GK at 13% as the CLS counter with GK ... this is potentially the least diverse arena meta we've had since the game's very early days when there were few characters. You essentially have CLS led-teams and then GK / zBarriss CLS counter teams. Aside from those 3 leads above, all the remainder of the leads COMBINED are just 13%. Between CLS and his counter PVP arena has been totally taken over by the CLS + ANH rework toons.
- CLS + Han + GK + R2 +Thrawn is #1 most used team with 331 counts - that's among the higher counts for an individual team I ever recall. 6/10 of the most used squads are CLS leads, 3/10 are GK and 1 is Rex
- R2 has now cracked 80% usage! I'll have to look back and see what DN's peak was, but he is either the first or the second to crack 80%
- CLS is at 75% usage and GK is at 73% - CLS joins the ranks of DN / GK / R2 as the only heroes to crack 70%+ usage in #1 squads.
- DN is down to 44% usage, Thrawn steady at 50%
What a dominating take-over of arena by CLS. For the most part, you're either running him or you're running his direct and narrow counter (GK + zBarriss). Dark Side leads combined look to be just 5-6% total!
Idk... i think g12+ zeta leia coupled with R2 and zhan ate gaining traction fast. To early to tell 3 days into TB launch but im seeing g11 leia/r2 all over my shard now as much as zhan solo who we already know is a big deal.
So i think zleia/zhan/zzr2 are gonna be the most popular new upcomers... probably under CLS lead, possibly zjyn if nihlus becomes scarcer.
So I guess I shouldn't feel too bad that my Empire lead (1 of a whopping 3 DS leads in my top 50) falls in to the high 20's overnight...
Empire needs a DS R2 that can group stealth. These counter attacks are killing me. I'd try Gar Saxon lead but there is no TM manipulation on his lead like there is with CLS.
SMH
Even Territory Battles won't dissuade me from making Tarkin, DK, and DT my first G12's!!!
Even Territory Battles won't dissuade me from making Tarkin, DK, and DT my first G12's!!!
Thats quite a sacrifice
Not too bad. My lightside already stinks. I am slowly farming gear but the best thing I can do for my guild is to star up toons like Bhodi and Pao so I keep filling up platoons.
I have lots of 7* Rebels, they just have crummy gear levels so even on Phase 3, I can't get past wave 6.
It is what it is.
The day I have to run the exact same squad comp to compete is the day I quit.
That day seems to be almost upon me by I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel.
Main item of note is CLS has now hit that 80% usage mark in #1 teams and along with R2 at 82% creates the first instance since tracking gg that two characters are at or above 80% at the same time. He now joins DN and R2 as the only toons to hit 80%+ on #1 rank usage.
Main item of note is CLS has now hit that 80% usage mark in #1 teams and along with R2 at 82% creates the first instance since tracking gg that two characters are at or above 80% at the same time. He now joins DN and R2 as the only toons to hit 80%+ on #1 rank usage.
R2 at 82% has the highest usage I've seen.
R2 is great with and vs luke. Him being so common was to be expected.
I got to admit, this is one of the least diverse "meta's" we've had in a while, even on my usually quite diverse leaderboard. The gear tier increase probably isn't helping much either since most will upgrade their current arena team first and will be reluctant to swap out a g12 character before having a g12 replacement.
I can’t believe that developers look at less than 5% of top leads being DS and think that is balance, unless of course they’re trying to make that 0%...
I can’t believe that developers look at less than 5% of top leads being DS and think that is balance, unless of course they’re trying to make that 0%...
Some day, the chosen one will come and bring balance to the force. We will just have to wait. ;-)
I can’t believe that developers look at less than 5% of top leads being DS and think that is balance, unless of course they’re trying to make that 0%...
Why do you think that there is supposed to be a balance between light and dark arena leads in this game?
Replies
That's because I'm a bad player and you're smarter than I am.
I very much doubt that either of those things is true. I don't even know you!
What I DO know is that I can take first in 5 battles or less and I have never used GK and I stopped using DN when Thrawn was released.
... at least I'm not telling you to run zTarkin lead, lol.
There's a reason nihilus and gk are 1 and 2 in the meta report. That's all I'll say. Cheers.
this was very much true, but i doubt it still is.
Unlike last update, we have seen tremendous changes in the meta over the last 4+ weeks. Mainly, Rex has now given up his most used leader status to CLS and...DN is no longer the most used hero in the game - in fact he's now no longer even the 2nd most used. That honor belongs to R2! Speaking of R2 - he's now achieved hall of fame usage status and is in 70% of all rank 1 squads. Since tracking the report, only DN and GK have been able to cross the 70% usage mark. Go little droid go! We've also seen the Classic Cleanse team of Chaze / GK / DN / Rex displaced by a Thrawn + R2D2 version. Huge meta shifts here across the board.
Leads:
- CLS at 42% with 1198 counts is now the #1 most used lead in the game per GG - displacing Rex is impressive and shows how strong a character release this was
- Rex at 40% (that's down from 49% last update) with 1161 counts is now the #2 most used lead - likely this pushes down a bit more still as CLS continues to take hold, but expect Rex to maintain a solid hold on the #2 most used lead .. none of the other leads are even close and don't bring as much to the table
- Wedge is 3rd at 8% with 242 counts, QGJ 4th at 7% with 203 counts, and DM users are hanging on for dear life at 7% with 194 counts
- GK is of interest as a lead combined with zeta Barris to counter rebels and is the 6th most used lead with 190 counts
- The 8th most used lead - Thrawn - is incredibly powerful when zeta'd and what I've been using with 100% success against all CLS-led teams ... definitely think that's the most underutilized lead in the game.
Character Usage
- Most used character is... GK! 74% usage for GK, that's up from 70% last update
- Second most used is... R2 and he has done it in style hitting that legendary 70% usage mark - that's up from 46% from July; huge move by R2
- DN ... now falling like a rock in this fast speed Rebel meta ... relegated now more to a counter squad tactic, he's still at a respectable 62%(down from 78% last update) .. but expect that to continue to drop.
- Thrawn is 4th most used at 51% followed by CLS at 50%. Thrawn's value should still hold, I don't see him dropping or jumping up a lot from here - CLS though should continue to push up in usage.
Rex is fully out of the top 5 and stands at 7th now, behind Baze at 6.
Of note, Han and Leia are at 9th and 10th most used respectively as a result of CLS and the strong updates they received. Overall, huge Rebel pass that pushed CLS to #1 lead and brought 2 more classic rebels in to the top 10 and...helped R2 break 70% usage.
Teams
- Most used team is Rex lead, R2, Thrawn, DN, and GK - this team has 117 counts and displaced the long-standing classic cleanse, which is still at #2
- At 72 counts, second most used is the Classic cleanse squad - that's a huge drop from the 169 counts in the last update - the Thrawn meta shift from before combined with the in-progress CLS meta shift has finally eroded the viability of this comp that roamed free of threat for months
- CLS-led teams make up the 3/4/7/8/9 most common teams
- First DS lead is at 10, Thrawn + Shore +GK +DT +DN with 19 counts --- DS users trying to hold strong but it's a tough hill to climb
- No specific Maul team even registers in the top 25 for individual teams
Big Winners:
- REBELS! CLS takes over #1 lead, Han and Leia enter top 10 in usage, R2 breaks 70% mark usage and passes the long-standing king of SWGoH DN - 6/10 of the top used characters are rebels, 1 Sith, 1 Clone, 1 Jedi, and 1 Empire
- Thrawn - still a key piece in top-tier meta teams and also in counter-Rebel comps
- zeta Barriss - She will be critical for many players as a counter to these very powerful crit-based Rebel squads
- GK - still a staple with Rebles, now also a key cog in the counter to them with zBarriss (or also with Shore in a Thrawn led team) -
Big Losers:
- Rex ... huge hit to his usage and it's reflected in the #s pretty clearly - still viable but definitely steps down a notch from before
- QGJ / Jedi - CLS teams can hold on D vs. non-CLS Jedi squads - CLS+Thrawn+GK+R2+zSolo in particular is tough for a Jedi comp to get past - Luke wants to eliminate the Jedi in TLJ moving coming up so it seems...and he's helped do just that in GoH as well
- DN - massive drop in his usage from almost 80% down to 62% - the game sped up a lot and makes it more of a challenge to utilize his slow wind-up annihilate
- Tanks - pew pew pew - without proper support a lone Baze / GK defending an entire team won't cut it anymore as they can get burned down pretty fast vs. these high damage rebels .. additionally, with Han and CLS you now have two pretty high damage dealers that can avoid taunts completely, which limits their effectiveness
I also think that people are simply bored. The protect Nihilus squads are really not fun to play and have a very binary, repetitive gameplay.
Luke is indeed novelty and therefore benefits from that, but I believe Nihilus will not make a come back after the initial Luke hypes passes, simply because of that fact.
Try beating a GK(L), Zarris, R2z2, Zihilus, Thrawn squad w/o nihilus. Good Luck.
We have that team on the shard as well among a ton of CLS teams and it gets moved out like any other - sitting at 12 currently and my top 20 is typically 60-70% CLS leads. I'd say about 1/3 of those CLS leads still have DN in their team.
I think the CLS shift is a hard one that will stick and is necessary based on LB chat feedback and watching results. At least vs. CLS lead + GK + Thrawn + R2 +zSolo long-standing #1 rank capable Jedi teams can't beat it on offense, classic cleanse Rex teams have issues with it winning on offense, and former DN / DV leads that could take #1 HAD to switch out to CLS leads or Boba leads cause they couldn't break the top 20 even. This seems to be a hard shift.
The zBarriss team is a perfect counter, but any hide DN team is toast now to a squad with Thrawn + CLS in it since you can fracture DN / perma-pin him with CLS as he avoids taunts.
While beatable, unless you use that zBarriss team, you have a chance to lose to CLS / Solo, etc due to RNG. There's little to no chance to lose anymore to a hide the DN team cause once you fracture DN the enemy has no firepower.
I hear you and am not arguing with you. I'm only pointing out my 1st hand experiences. The key to making a Zarris squad work against a nihilus - less squad is having a high health pool with as much speed as possible. To break the Zarris squad, Zarris needs critical immunity buff from gk. Then a blast from PL, Han, or ATF won't critical and trigger a heal. But a fast enough Zarris means she'll get a turn quicker and drop that buff. And then there is no chance of killing Zarris w/o nihilus. If you can't remove Zarris, between GK auto-taunt and R2 stealth, you can't target nihilus and thus can't Fracture him. My shard has it all. Nothing holds, but from what I can put out there, this squad actually performs better than any other squad I can field given the nature of my shard. Granted no 2 shards are alike.
I'm one of hucks shardmates that run a kenobi, thrawn, barris, r2, and nihilus team. This team can beat any team on offence and any CLS team on auto. With Trawn moving first at 280 speed I have my choice on who to lock down. With both barris and Kenobi abilities providing full assists, only speeds up nihilius annihilate.
I find myself constantly being in battle but not changing rank so I know this team is holding on Defense as well.
How much of that is your mods relative to others and how much of that is the characters? That's not really a question that can be answered of course, but it would be interesting to test if for one day you intentionally nerfed the mods in place - like a 10% reduction in speed on all characters - to see if that matters a lot to separate out how much is the character team set and how much is your turn advantage. Similarly, how do your results change if you go with like a "F2P" set where your max speed is +80 and maybe a team-wide average of just +70-75?
It's tough to make definitive conclusions on characters and matchups in this game when there are differences in shards and differences in mods and also AI vs. human that often weigh more heavily than the actual character composition.
Agreed. We can speak definitively of our comps when much of it is relative (shard, mods, gear, strategies, etc.). What works for one may not for others, and via versa. What is definitive, is the swgoh.gg meta report which shows trailing indicators of what gamers are using, and we can certainly see CL is on the rise.
First, let me say I'm free to play on a day one shard. My mods are not as good as others on my sever. The speed on Thrawn is due to placing all my eggs in one basket and I farm mods daily over farming toons just to stay competitive. That is what makes this team great for F2P as Kenobi and barris works well to keep you alive, while the others give protection to Nihilus so he can do his thing. If I ran the paper tiger teams in my shard I would be pushed out of the top 50 every night. I don't discord chat and collude to arrange a payout, so I'm attacked constantly durring payout times. Now I've ran this team with success before the empire made the meta, which the empire had advantage over my team so I had to retire them until CLS push them back out. All I'm trying to say is this team works better for me than other team I've tried and is in my opinion a better team than any CLS lead so far. This will probably cha ge with additions to the rebel lineup but for now it working well.
3 of the top 5(including myself) are running...
Ackbar-CLS-r2-leia-GK
A very powerful combo... Useful in dealing with Chaze squads. Extra speed helps move first and ackbar/r2/CLS/gk all call an ally when they use specials.
Do not see it anywhere in meta..
Yeah, I started a thread a week ago on that squad, love it
A couple others followed suit, strong comp
Havent seen an akbar lead in.... Ever?
- CLS lead now up to 60% - unprecedented leader usage level, Rex is 2nd at 14% and then GK at 13% as the CLS counter with GK ... this is potentially the least diverse arena meta we've had since the game's very early days when there were few characters. You essentially have CLS led-teams and then GK / zBarriss CLS counter teams. Aside from those 3 leads above, all the remainder of the leads COMBINED are just 13%. Between CLS and his counter PVP arena has been totally taken over by the CLS + ANH rework toons.
- CLS + Han + GK + R2 +Thrawn is #1 most used team with 331 counts - that's among the higher counts for an individual team I ever recall. 6/10 of the most used squads are CLS leads, 3/10 are GK and 1 is Rex
- R2 has now cracked 80% usage! I'll have to look back and see what DN's peak was, but he is either the first or the second to crack 80%
- CLS is at 75% usage and GK is at 73% - CLS joins the ranks of DN / GK / R2 as the only heroes to crack 70%+ usage in #1 squads.
- DN is down to 44% usage, Thrawn steady at 50%
What a dominating take-over of arena by CLS. For the most part, you're either running him or you're running his direct and narrow counter (GK + zBarriss). Dark Side leads combined look to be just 5-6% total!
So i think zleia/zhan/zzr2 are gonna be the most popular new upcomers... probably under CLS lead, possibly zjyn if nihlus becomes scarcer.
Empire needs a DS R2 that can group stealth. These counter attacks are killing me. I'd try Gar Saxon lead but there is no TM manipulation on his lead like there is with CLS.
SMH
Even Territory Battles won't dissuade me from making Tarkin, DK, and DT my first G12's!!!
Empire forever
Thats quite a sacrifice
Not too bad. My lightside already stinks. I am slowly farming gear but the best thing I can do for my guild is to star up toons like Bhodi and Pao so I keep filling up platoons.
I have lots of 7* Rebels, they just have crummy gear levels so even on Phase 3, I can't get past wave 6.
It is what it is.
The day I have to run the exact same squad comp to compete is the day I quit.
That day seems to be almost upon me by I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel.
Main item of note is CLS has now hit that 80% usage mark in #1 teams and along with R2 at 82% creates the first instance since tracking gg that two characters are at or above 80% at the same time. He now joins DN and R2 as the only toons to hit 80%+ on #1 rank usage.
R2 at 82% has the highest usage I've seen.
R2 is great with and vs luke. Him being so common was to be expected.
I got to admit, this is one of the least diverse "meta's" we've had in a while, even on my usually quite diverse leaderboard. The gear tier increase probably isn't helping much either since most will upgrade their current arena team first and will be reluctant to swap out a g12 character before having a g12 replacement.
Some day, the chosen one will come and bring balance to the force. We will just have to wait. ;-)
Why do you think that there is supposed to be a balance between light and dark arena leads in this game?