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?
I don’t think it needs to be equal but I feel like there should be dark side options that aren’t just tackling dummies for Rebels.
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?
That's obviously never going to happen, but anything more extreme than 30/70 is just ridiculous. It's not the Dark Side verses the Light Side anymore. It's the Light Side version the exact same Light Side.
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?
That's obviously never going to happen, but anything more extreme than 30/70 is just ridiculous. It's not the Dark Side verses the Light Side anymore. It's the Light Side version the exact same Light Side.
It’s a contest of whose Rebels have the best mods.
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?
That's obviously never going to happen, but anything more extreme than 30/70 is just ridiculous. It's not the Dark Side verses the Light Side anymore. It's the Light Side version the exact same Light Side.
It’s a contest of whose Rebels have the best mods.
Yes, and that's unfortunate. Boredom will creep in very soon.
What's even more depressing is if you look at ranks 1-10, light side is 97% of all leads, with CLS at 62%, Rex with 15%, and GK at 14%. The only dark side leaders at 1% or higher are Thrawn at 2% and Zaul at 1%.
Several light side hurricanes have hit the shores of swgoh in the last few months. Off the coast of whatever island they’re on, hurricane Jedi Rey and tropical depression Grand Master Luke are forecasted to arrive in early December. Dark side insurance agencies are still sending out checks to troopers living in temporary housing for category 5 CLS devastation.
I just hope at some point they’ll let some men in black hats wreak some havoc in Rebelville.
Several light side hurricanes have hit the shores of swgoh in the last few months. Off the coast of whatever island they’re on, hurricane Jedi Rey and tropical depression Grand Master Luke are forecasted to arrive in early December. Dark side insurance agencies are still sending out checks to troopers living in temporary housing for category 5 CLS devastation.
I just hope at some point they’ll let some men in black hats wreak some havoc in Rebelville.
The biggest problem is that virtually every team is a mix of the last several characters to be released. They keep making the newest characters more powerful than every other previous one. Aside from a few tweaks like adding zetas, all of the older characters are pretty much irrelevant in arena, and as a result GW is similar.
All this makes sense from a business standpoint. The new character is OP so if you want to stay on top you must spend money to get him. In my arena 48 of the top 50 teams have CLS and the other two have Thrawn. They are almost entirely a mix of those two characters plus R2, Nihilus, GK, raid Han, Chaze and Zariss. There is literally no variety at all anymore because almost every new character is made OP so people will be tempted to spend money to get them.
I still like collecting the characters and playing around but without any kind of practice sandbox mode it's becoming less fun every day.
I didn't really spend much money to get CLS. The characters I needed were all pretty much ready. I didn't spend anything to get R2, either. Two of the biggest characters in my team were free.
It would have cost me some money to get Phoenix ready in time for a 7* Thrawn, so I didn't worry about it. Mine is 5* and that's fine.
11/11 BUMP (last full update was 8/19 with a few mini-bumps in between as there hasn't been much change in the last few months)
Hasn't been a tremendous amount of movement recently with CLS / Han, etc still holding serve in arena. CLS hit peak leader usage at 62% that I saw in September, but GK has steadily been whittling away at that margin. Mother Talzin probably won't register much on GG due to her paywall, but when effectively deployed in a team she's a legit game-changer. Will have to see what FO brings and of course the new Rey in terms of impact on the meta.
Leads:
- CLS 57%, GK 22%, Rex 9% and no one else above 2%. Top 3 leads make up 88% of all leads used! I mentioned this in August, but this is the least diverse team / leader situation we've had since early in the game...and that's been for 3+ months now.
- In the August update I mentioned GK as a lead of interest given how much GK + Barriss counters the CLS meta, and he has moved from 6th most popular at the time to a clear 2nd
Character Usage:
- Most used character is.....R2D2 at 79%. This is actually down a few percentage points from a few weeks ago as R2 was pushing 83% usage - still, he's a pillar for many squads.
- Second in Command is Mr. Skywalker clocking in at 78%. Similar to R2, this is down a few percentage points from his peak around 82% a few weeks ago, but CLS is still a dominant character.
- Coming in 3rd is THE GENERAL at 77%...Kenobi just keeps getting better with age and he's the core of most every type of elite arena squad. Even when fractured and disabled, his tanking due to high h/p + team CD immunity come up big to help get a win.
- GAT comes in 4th at a very strong 62% and is followed by Raid Han at 54% as he crosses the 50% usage benchmark. Apparently hitting 5 times in the first round of a match is helpful!
- DN, who was previously a lock for 80%+ usage, is now down to 37%.
- Barriss usage is now up to 25% and is actually greater than the COMBINED usage of Chaze at 21%! Think about that!
- Of note - Mother Talzin clocks in at 13th most used - 3% of all teams. I'd expect this to creep up a bit gradually over time as that AOE plague is elite. Her growth will be mitigated by her paywall, but she's among the arena elite.
Teams
- Most used team by far, and most used I've seen even over the old 3x Cleanse squad, is CLS, Han, GK, R2, and Thrawn. This team is used by nearly 5x more players (1,082 counts) than the next most common squad:
- GK lead, Barriss, DN, CLS, and R2 ... which is the CLS counter! This squad comes in at 239 counts.
- The top 15 most commonly used team comps are all led by either Rex, GK, or CLS - the first DS lead comes in at 16th, which is Thrawn-led Empire team of Shore / Storm + DK / DT.
BIG WINNERS
- Barriss - her usage stepped up tremendously with the risk of CLS and G12 gear for GK that pushes his tankiness to new levels
- Raid Han - as of August update, he was 9th most used, but is now solidly in the top 5 with >50% usage. His update was huge.
BIG LOSERS
- All the ancillary leads being used back in August: Wedge, DM, and QGJ - these leads are now almost non-existent as arena has consolidated hard around about 10 or so heroes in specific comps.
- DN ... usage at 37% now, which is down from 60% usage in August, which was already down from 80% usage prior to CLS / Han
- Rex - while still very much a viable leader to take 1 even on old shards, Rex's usage is now down to just 9% overall
From what I've seen, plague + Barris / GK combo looks to be the most elite combination in character arena currently.
Man, Arena is just gonna get more and more stale every time they release a new wave OP toon to counter the last OP toon. Too bad the devs are so afraid of balancing their game.
Man, Arena is just gonna get more and more stale every time they release a new wave OP toon to counter the last OP toon. Too bad the devs are so afraid of balancing their game.
Those who spent the money on a Talzin plague team are already switching back to a meta team in my arena.
Yeah if they went full NS that's going to happen. If you package her along with R2 / GK / Barriss for example it's very deadly. Some of the best D slots now feature MamaT, GK, Barriss and some combo of R2 / Thrawn / + 1-2 other NS.
zbarriss is by far my least favorite "meta" to date. Well, the only meta i don't like besides droids back in the day.
Think I'm going to zeta Barris next one - just seems too good. The Rex of zetas.
tbh, it's probably the smart thing to do. Unfortunately for me it doesn't allign with my personal preference on how arena battles should be.
Funny enough, it wouldn't be that bad if luke wasn't around who punishes teams designed to punish kenobi/barriss teams. Oh well, it is what it is. I'm an avid meta-lamer myself, so i can't really blame others for doing the same.
zbarriss is by far my least favorite "meta" to date. Well, the only meta i don't like besides droids back in the day.
Think I'm going to zeta Barris next one - just seems too good. The Rex of zetas.
tbh, it's probably the smart thing to do. Unfortunately for me it doesn't allign with my personal preference on how arena battles should be.
Funny enough, it wouldn't be that bad if luke wasn't around who punishes teams designed to punish kenobi/barriss teams. Oh well, it is what it is. I'm an avid meta-lamer myself, so i can't really blame others for doing the same.
Actually I'm with you 100% on the playstyle, but lesser of two evils vs. all the CLS / Han tomfoolery. I'm intrigued by her ability to pair with Talzin. I don't run CLS right now and haven't since Talzin came out. Plus Barriss should be DS anyway so I'm counting her as DS now
zbarriss is by far my least favorite "meta" to date. Well, the only meta i don't like besides droids back in the day.
Think I'm going to zeta Barris next one - just seems too good. The Rex of zetas.
tbh, it's probably the smart thing to do. Unfortunately for me it doesn't allign with my personal preference on how arena battles should be.
Funny enough, it wouldn't be that bad if luke wasn't around who punishes teams designed to punish kenobi/barriss teams. Oh well, it is what it is. I'm an avid meta-lamer myself, so i can't really blame others for doing the same.
Actually I'm with you 100% on the playstyle, but lesser of two evils vs. all the CLS / Han tomfoolery. I'm intrigued by her ability to pair with Talzin. I don't run CLS right now and haven't since Talzin came out. Plus Barriss should be DS anyway so I'm counting her as DS now
Hey bud. One of the only reasons I'd consider using barriss, is to counter opposing Mt. That being said, we both use a low crit deck and she doesn't provide much in our current mt setup. It would have to be something different.
zbarriss is by far my least favorite "meta" to date. Well, the only meta i don't like besides droids back in the day.
Think I'm going to zeta Barris next one - just seems too good. The Rex of zetas.
tbh, it's probably the smart thing to do. Unfortunately for me it doesn't allign with my personal preference on how arena battles should be.
Funny enough, it wouldn't be that bad if luke wasn't around who punishes teams designed to punish kenobi/barriss teams. Oh well, it is what it is. I'm an avid meta-lamer myself, so i can't really blame others for doing the same.
Actually I'm with you 100% on the playstyle, but lesser of two evils vs. all the CLS / Han tomfoolery. I'm intrigued by her ability to pair with Talzin. I don't run CLS right now and haven't since Talzin came out. Plus Barriss should be DS anyway so I'm counting her as DS now
Hey bud. One of the only reasons I'd consider using barriss, is to counter opposing Mt. That being said, we both use a low crit deck and she doesn't provide much in our current mt setup. It would have to be something different.
Agree. I like the flexibility it could provide with GK though. I think that could possibly make R2 expendable as GK could stand up against the counters - so pull R2 for Barriss and push GK up to the lead. That could be good as removing an elite-level speed set from R2 could open up others to have more speed. It's a setup that allows more mod flexibility. Not pulling the trigger on it now, but I'm evaluating it. Not many Talzin squads out there right now.
zbarriss is by far my least favorite "meta" to date. Well, the only meta i don't like besides droids back in the day.
Think I'm going to zeta Barris next one - just seems too good. The Rex of zetas.
tbh, it's probably the smart thing to do. Unfortunately for me it doesn't allign with my personal preference on how arena battles should be.
Funny enough, it wouldn't be that bad if luke wasn't around who punishes teams designed to punish kenobi/barriss teams. Oh well, it is what it is. I'm an avid meta-lamer myself, so i can't really blame others for doing the same.
Actually I'm with you 100% on the playstyle, but lesser of two evils vs. all the CLS / Han tomfoolery. I'm intrigued by her ability to pair with Talzin. I don't run CLS right now and haven't since Talzin came out. Plus Barriss should be DS anyway so I'm counting her as DS now
There definitely needs to be a DS Barris. That would be too cool.
Replies
I don’t think it needs to be equal but I feel like there should be dark side options that aren’t just tackling dummies for Rebels.
That's obviously never going to happen, but anything more extreme than 30/70 is just ridiculous. It's not the Dark Side verses the Light Side anymore. It's the Light Side version the exact same Light Side.
It’s a contest of whose Rebels have the best mods.
Yes, and that's unfortunate. Boredom will creep in very soon.
This is getting ridiculous.
I just hope at some point they’ll let some men in black hats wreak some havoc in Rebelville.
The comment of the decade.
All this makes sense from a business standpoint. The new character is OP so if you want to stay on top you must spend money to get him. In my arena 48 of the top 50 teams have CLS and the other two have Thrawn. They are almost entirely a mix of those two characters plus R2, Nihilus, GK, raid Han, Chaze and Zariss. There is literally no variety at all anymore because almost every new character is made OP so people will be tempted to spend money to get them.
I still like collecting the characters and playing around but without any kind of practice sandbox mode it's becoming less fun every day.
It would have cost me some money to get Phoenix ready in time for a 7* Thrawn, so I didn't worry about it. Mine is 5* and that's fine.
Hasn't been a tremendous amount of movement recently with CLS / Han, etc still holding serve in arena. CLS hit peak leader usage at 62% that I saw in September, but GK has steadily been whittling away at that margin. Mother Talzin probably won't register much on GG due to her paywall, but when effectively deployed in a team she's a legit game-changer. Will have to see what FO brings and of course the new Rey in terms of impact on the meta.
Leads:
- CLS 57%, GK 22%, Rex 9% and no one else above 2%. Top 3 leads make up 88% of all leads used! I mentioned this in August, but this is the least diverse team / leader situation we've had since early in the game...and that's been for 3+ months now.
- In the August update I mentioned GK as a lead of interest given how much GK + Barriss counters the CLS meta, and he has moved from 6th most popular at the time to a clear 2nd
Character Usage:
- Most used character is.....R2D2 at 79%. This is actually down a few percentage points from a few weeks ago as R2 was pushing 83% usage - still, he's a pillar for many squads.
- Second in Command is Mr. Skywalker clocking in at 78%. Similar to R2, this is down a few percentage points from his peak around 82% a few weeks ago, but CLS is still a dominant character.
- Coming in 3rd is THE GENERAL at 77%...Kenobi just keeps getting better with age and he's the core of most every type of elite arena squad. Even when fractured and disabled, his tanking due to high h/p + team CD immunity come up big to help get a win.
- GAT comes in 4th at a very strong 62% and is followed by Raid Han at 54% as he crosses the 50% usage benchmark. Apparently hitting 5 times in the first round of a match is helpful!
- DN, who was previously a lock for 80%+ usage, is now down to 37%.
- Barriss usage is now up to 25% and is actually greater than the COMBINED usage of Chaze at 21%! Think about that!
- Of note - Mother Talzin clocks in at 13th most used - 3% of all teams. I'd expect this to creep up a bit gradually over time as that AOE plague is elite. Her growth will be mitigated by her paywall, but she's among the arena elite.
Teams
- Most used team by far, and most used I've seen even over the old 3x Cleanse squad, is CLS, Han, GK, R2, and Thrawn. This team is used by nearly 5x more players (1,082 counts) than the next most common squad:
- GK lead, Barriss, DN, CLS, and R2 ... which is the CLS counter! This squad comes in at 239 counts.
- The top 15 most commonly used team comps are all led by either Rex, GK, or CLS - the first DS lead comes in at 16th, which is Thrawn-led Empire team of Shore / Storm + DK / DT.
BIG WINNERS
- Barriss - her usage stepped up tremendously with the risk of CLS and G12 gear for GK that pushes his tankiness to new levels
- Raid Han - as of August update, he was 9th most used, but is now solidly in the top 5 with >50% usage. His update was huge.
BIG LOSERS
- All the ancillary leads being used back in August: Wedge, DM, and QGJ - these leads are now almost non-existent as arena has consolidated hard around about 10 or so heroes in specific comps.
- DN ... usage at 37% now, which is down from 60% usage in August, which was already down from 80% usage prior to CLS / Han
- Rex - while still very much a viable leader to take 1 even on old shards, Rex's usage is now down to just 9% overall
From what I've seen, plague + Barris / GK combo looks to be the most elite combination in character arena currently.
Amen.
Bring back the healing Barris/Lumi/JC meta.
zbarriss is by far my least favorite "meta" to date. Well, the only meta i don't like besides droids back in the day.
Think I'm going to zeta Barris next one - just seems too good. The Rex of zetas.
Empire is probably still the best pure faction in the game for arena/raid/GW
viability.
edit: typo
Thrawn lead / Shore are very good counters to plague. 100% agree.
back? with gk zarris is the worst to fight
rtt: lol so many tears
Yeah if they went full NS that's going to happen. If you package her along with R2 / GK / Barriss for example it's very deadly. Some of the best D slots now feature MamaT, GK, Barriss and some combo of R2 / Thrawn / + 1-2 other NS.
tbh, it's probably the smart thing to do. Unfortunately for me it doesn't allign with my personal preference on how arena battles should be.
Funny enough, it wouldn't be that bad if luke wasn't around who punishes teams designed to punish kenobi/barriss teams. Oh well, it is what it is. I'm an avid meta-lamer myself, so i can't really blame others for doing the same.
Actually I'm with you 100% on the playstyle, but lesser of two evils vs. all the CLS / Han tomfoolery. I'm intrigued by her ability to pair with Talzin. I don't run CLS right now and haven't since Talzin came out. Plus Barriss should be DS anyway so I'm counting her as DS now
Hey bud. One of the only reasons I'd consider using barriss, is to counter opposing Mt. That being said, we both use a low crit deck and she doesn't provide much in our current mt setup. It would have to be something different.
Agree. I like the flexibility it could provide with GK though. I think that could possibly make R2 expendable as GK could stand up against the counters - so pull R2 for Barriss and push GK up to the lead. That could be good as removing an elite-level speed set from R2 could open up others to have more speed. It's a setup that allows more mod flexibility. Not pulling the trigger on it now, but I'm evaluating it. Not many Talzin squads out there right now.
There definitely needs to be a DS Barris. That would be too cool.