Interesting side note about R2, number crunch zetad seems to restore some protection to my droids every node in galactic war. I usually beat it with just my droids, start with hk, 88, 86, K2, and JE. Sub B2 in for JE node 2, Sub R2 in for B2 node 3, Then usually run with that comp until node 11 or 12 unless I need to sub in B2 for one. I may sub in JE for 10, or 11 to heal a few people.
It's not R2 that restores the protection. After each galactic war node your team recovers a small % of their protection
Well my half health characters never had their protection restored in between matches before I ran with R2. He does increase protection for the droids. I wouldn't be surprised if it was giving it out in the fashion I have described. Otherwise that would just be some freaky timing with updates.
So I have been able to regularly beat at least one zeta maul team now. No sith assassin or Savage. One non-Sith. I beat it running HK, R2, K2, B2, & JE. I haven't been able to make a proper starting turn order, but it should certainly be: R2. B2. K2. HK.
R2 goes first and drops burning to get rid of evasion. This is an unevadeable attack that is happening while they are stealthed so they are guaranteed to not gain tm at this point. B2 goes second and buff wipes and drops buff immunity. They're likely to all go after this if they have Sith Assassin and most of them without her. K2S0 goes next to Daze whichever toon with buff immunity you wish to eliminate. From there it's a crit fest on that toon with no fear of stealth, dodging, or tm gain until they die.
Go ahead and drop AoE's on cooldown. Hold back on HK's at first if it seems like you're giving out too much tm. R2 and B2's debuffs are essential though, so should be spammed on cooldown.
With a Sith Assassin in group it becomes much harder, but only if she ends up being faster than Jawa Engineer. Once 200 speed is reached, SA will go first at equal character panel speeds under a Zeta maul lead, but Jawa Engineer really doesn't need that much more speed than her to go first anyway. As long as he does, it'll end up being a decent match I think.
Hmm - once my R2 gets to Gear X I'll try this out on some of the zaul teams still in my arena. I've been reluctant to drop IG88 from my comps since he's usually the only real heavy hitter in a droid team.
Assuming a team with zMaul, zSavage, Dooku, SAss, and Palpatine, what's your usual kill order? Guess it depends on who got the buff immunity but I usually try to target Dooku/Palp first.
Hmm - once my R2 gets to Gear X I'll try this out on some of the zaul teams still in my arena. I've been reluctant to drop IG88 from my comps since he's usually the only real heavy hitter in a droid team.
Assuming a team with zMaul, zSavage, Dooku, SAss, and Palpatine, what's your usual kill order? Guess it depends on who got the buff immunity but I usually try to target Dooku/Palp first.
I would go for Palps or Maul first myself. Dooku would be my third priority, followed by Sass and then Zavage.
Palps and Maul both cripple a whole team. Palps's group stun, and Maul's group Daze are both devastating to droids. K2 is the perfect counter to Dooku with his daze. Dooku really becomes non-threatening if you have him in your comp.
Zavage is really tough, and that's actually exactly why I would save him for last. Hope to burn through the others to have full life bars to take him on with. It's pretty much the only answer I've come up with for him that I have a decent success percentage with.
As for dropping 88, yeah everybody says that. My K2S0 deals out more damage in an arena match than 88 due to the sheer number of attacks he does. R2 is actually pretty close to his damage as well with burning. Do I lose damage by taking out 88? Definitely. But the control I gain is significant enough to make it a more than even trade.
I mean look at the triple cleanse team. How much damage does it deal out? Not a lot. it's a rather weak team all in all. But they have so much control it doesn't matter.
Now it's true that I'm giving up a lot in 88 as well: Defense down, ability block, healing immunity. R2's number crunch kind of makes up for the defense down. His stun is actually better than an ability block other than being one person only. The only debuff that is missed really is healing immunity. Savage is one person it will be missed against. I think the daze for Dooku is more important than the healing immunity for Savage though. Either way that is a really tough comp. It's actually much easier against Sith Trooper. Then you could actually use 88 instead of K2S0 and be effective.
I actually took out 2 different Zeta Maul teams on my way up my squad arena ladder today. Made it to rank 19, but ended up getting knocked down to 21 before payout.
Still running HK, K2, B2, R2, JE. This team deals out more damage than you would think.
I actually took out 2 different Zeta Maul teams on my way up my squad arena ladder today. Made it to rank 19, but ended up getting knocked down to 21 before payout.
Still running HK, K2, B2, R2, JE. This team deals out more damage than you would think.
How to you deal enough damage to take out DN hiding behind tanks?
I actually took out 2 different Zeta Maul teams on my way up my squad arena ladder today. Made it to rank 19, but ended up getting knocked down to 21 before payout.
Still running HK, K2, B2, R2, JE. This team deals out more damage than you would think.
How to you deal enough damage to take out DN hiding behind tanks?
With B2 in my comp. there's not a lot of hiding behind tanks to be done. That said there are a few tanks that are notoriously hard to kill, first on that list being Kenobi.
Kenobi is actually really easy to deal with just by having my well modded K2S0. K2 taunts, so the whole enemy team attacks him. Kenobis taunting, so he counterattacks Kenobi for every single attack the enemy does in addition to getting attacked on every one of my turns. GK just melts. Usually dies before his second turn.
In short, I usually have plenty of damage for Nihilus, but he's usually about my 3rd target, and he still rarely annihilates on me.
First and foremost with any droid comp is a crit damage set and triangle on every droid... no exceptions.
Secondly is secondaries: On JE stack as much speed as you can. Potency is good. Crit chance isn't wasted. Try and save offense secondaries for other toons if you can, but really it's all about speed. The faster he is, the faster everyone else is.
With everyone else, the secondary priority is pretty much: Maxing everyone's speed for turn order (which really won't be all that much speed stacked); Followed by crit chance and offense; followed by potency.
Since droids don't need to stack much speed, you can often use an offense arrow and rely on secondaries for speed. There's more than enough room left over after getting your starting turn order to maximize your offense and crit chance as much as possible, and whether or not you do that is the biggest difference in whether or not your droids are deadly or just quick IMHO.
First and foremost with any droid comp is a crit damage set and triangle on every droid... no exceptions.
Secondly is secondaries: On JE stack as much speed as you can. Potency is good. Crit chance isn't wasted. Try and save offense secondaries for other toons if you can, but really it's all about speed. The faster he is, the faster everyone else is.
With everyone else, the secondary priority is pretty much: Maxing everyone's speed for turn order (which really won't be all that much speed stacked); Followed by crit chance and offense; followed by potency.
Since droids don't need to stack much speed, you can often use an offense arrow and rely on secondaries for speed. There's more than enough room left over after getting your starting turn order to maximize your offense and crit chance as much as possible, and whether or not you do that is the biggest difference in whether or not your droids are deadly or just quick IMHO.
I completely agree tho there are a few cases where I feel potency is better as secondary than crit chance like K2S0, IG-88 or HK-47, running R2 you only need 50-60 crit chance and that's easy to reach imo
Rex Lead is and always will be the hard counter. Droids crit, he feeds from crits....no real strategy to get around that.
New issue Han, again another good droid counter. Now that he can ignore taunt pretty hard to protect JE when he is needed.
There is actually a good strategy against Rex leads: Don't AoE.
It only works on offense though. Rex lead is a hard counter to Chaze since every single counter attack will feed their TM while doing very few damages. Usually a Rex lead team plays twice against a Chaze, it's almost as annoying as playing Leia who feeds Baze TM like crazy.
I still haven't geared Old Ben enough but i guess he could be useful against a Rex lead, same with zLuke as a leader.
So for the past week or so I have been subbing R2D2 and IG88 back and forth, and it seems to work greatly.
R2D2 is much better against the Wiggs +Chaze combos. Starting off by having R2 smokescreen onto K2S0 before B2 strips the taunt keeps Jawa Engineer from being targetable by the resulting triple, which is a huge plus against this comp. I strongly recommend holding back on your first daze until after Chirrut takes his first turn and cleanses too. There are only 2 characters in the fifth slot that seem to really make it hard to beat this comp that I have come across: Jyn and R2. Running R2 instead of 88 has made them easier to deal with.
As before, don't bother trying to burn Chirrut down until either Baze is dead or Baze has buff immunity and Chirrut has Daze or is stunned. Wedge is first priority target unless things line up for you to take Chirrut out. R2/Jyn and Biggs are roughly shared priority for second.
I've found that for ZQGJ leads and Zader leads, I am better off with 88 than R2. They have comparable AoE damage, but R2's happens over time and 88's is instantaneous. Beating Zader relies on taking out his control and one of his DoT appliers before they go so I need the high damage opening burst. Wiggs/Chaze is about waiting for your opportunities, so I need the control that R2 brings instead.
So for the past week or so I have been subbing R2D2 and IG88 back and forth, and it seems to work greatly.
R2D2 is much better against the Wiggs +Chaze combos. Starting off by having R2 smokescreen onto K2S0 before B2 strips the taunt keeps Jawa Engineer from being targetable by the resulting triple, which is a huge plus against this comp. I strongly recommend holding back on your first daze until after Chirrut takes his first turn and cleanses too. There are only 2 characters in the fifth slot that seem to really make it hard to beat this comp that I have come across: Jyn and R2. Running R2 instead of 88 has made them easier to deal with.
As before, don't bother trying to burn Chirrut down until either Baze is dead or Baze has buff immunity and Chirrut has Daze or is stunned. Wedge is first priority target unless things line up for you to take Chirrut out. R2/Jyn and Biggs are roughly shared priority for second.
I've found that for ZQGJ leads and Zader leads, I am better off with 88 than R2. They have comparable AoE damage, but R2's happens over time and 88's is instantaneous. Beating Zader relies on taking out his control and one of his DoT appliers before they go so I need the high damage opening burst. Wiggs/Chaze is about waiting for your opportunities, so I need the control that R2 brings instead.
Why don't you sub K2-SO against Zader and Jedi teams instead of R2? I feel like R2 helps more with its utility and also the number crunch gives some nice help too
So for the past week or so I have been subbing R2D2 and IG88 back and forth, and it seems to work greatly.
R2D2 is much better against the Wiggs +Chaze combos. Starting off by having R2 smokescreen onto K2S0 before B2 strips the taunt keeps Jawa Engineer from being targetable by the resulting triple, which is a huge plus against this comp. I strongly recommend holding back on your first daze until after Chirrut takes his first turn and cleanses too. There are only 2 characters in the fifth slot that seem to really make it hard to beat this comp that I have come across: Jyn and R2. Running R2 instead of 88 has made them easier to deal with.
As before, don't bother trying to burn Chirrut down until either Baze is dead or Baze has buff immunity and Chirrut has Daze or is stunned. Wedge is first priority target unless things line up for you to take Chirrut out. R2/Jyn and Biggs are roughly shared priority for second.
I've found that for ZQGJ leads and Zader leads, I am better off with 88 than R2. They have comparable AoE damage, but R2's happens over time and 88's is instantaneous. Beating Zader relies on taking out his control and one of his DoT appliers before they go so I need the high damage opening burst. Wiggs/Chaze is about waiting for your opportunities, so I need the control that R2 brings instead.
Why don't you sub K2-SO against Zader and Jedi teams instead of R2? I feel like R2 helps more with its utility and also the number crunch gives some nice help too
My K2S0 does a lot of damage, and I think is honestly the reason I don't fall really far overnight. I am usually only just outside the top 50 when I start my matches these days. WIth his offense and crit chance stacked, he hits pretty hard and gets free turns all the time.
He hits really hard for me, and I have yet to come across a comp where the Daze isn't useful. Anakin in Jedi comps, or GK. Zader himself in his comps so he doesn't get a free turn after force crush and if/when he kills someone or SIdious for if I kill someone, or Dooku.
K2 is basically my highest damage dealer with the kit I can't let go of either.
As a ex droid user. Just stop man it wont work until we get a new droid zetas or a rework:/
Pointless comments don't help. Some of us are running droids. They work well enough. Knowing how to run them is half the battle. The fact that they aren't META doesn't magically change people's desires and investments, so realistically, it is you who needs to stop.
Haven't been on the forums in a while so I missed some stuff. Maul teams are actually pretty easy for me (although bad RNG against savage can still end my run). If they don't have Sith Assassin I use HK, R2, 88, GK, JE. Kenobi is the key here because of his taunt, cleanse, aoe crit immunity for allies, and his assist attack. Basically just wait for maul to use his aoe daze (unless you can kill him before that with Kenobi's assist attack) and then use his cleanse. He may be on cooldown or whatever but that should be fine assuming you can use it NEXT turn. Kill maul, and 2 others but leave Nihilus and Savage for last. Nihilus will kill Kenobi but that's fine because he'll basically just give savage a free turn whenever he damages savage. Then try to only hit savage with 88, or whenver he's stealthed, so you don't lose the heal immunity or give him lots of turns and he just heals back to full every turn he gets. Then get Nihilus (he's ez pz). But it needs 88, R2 and Kenobi until the last 2 are alive to work. And that's also where the RNG comes in, if you don't get heal immunity in 2 or 3 turns you don't have good chances.
If they do have Sith Assassin then I use HK, R2, 88, GK and Zarriss. Kenobi will usually survive until Nihilus annihilates him thanks to Zarriss (through her unique and her heal), but by that time you should be able to kill maul, sith assassin, and whoever else. Again, leave savage and nihilus last and repeat the steps.
These solutions aren't pure, 100% droid squad solutions but they're still 60% droid, which is more % composition than most other teams with a theme.
Against Jedi teams just use HK, R2, 88, B2 and JE. I don't have a set turn order so I just yolo it lol. Use all your aoe's except R2, use him to stun Kenobi. There's probably a 1 in 7 chance that you don't get either ability block or stun on kenobi, which means you will most likely lose unless you can use B2 immediately after and then disable kenobi again.
Against CLS lead....just don't. But apparently some people on the forums think Ackbar lead is SOOOOO much better than CLS lead, and in that case it becomes easy for droids (if they don't have chaze). Just use B2 and JE and pretty much whoever else you cause you're almost guaranteed to win (unless someone cleanses all your stuff so take him out first)
But I have to pay my massive respect to you guys who actually DO run droids.
Way to fight the meta and show that knowing your toons and tweaking your teams synergies, is more important that actually just getting the some toons as everybody else!
Yup, still running them here while I work on getting Jedi arena-ready (so I can have TWO off-meta teams :P).
I've found that droids can take on most of the CLS teams with a line-up of HK, JE, IG88, R2, and K2S0, by using R2 stealth and K2's daze to prevent too many counters. It's often touch & go and doesn't do well on defense, of course, but for me it's markedly easier than zMaul teams with Sith Assassin.
Haven't gotten any droids to G12 yet due to switching my focus to Jedi, but IG88 is quite easy to take to G12, so I might do that soon anyways. R2 is another comparably easy G12 character and he's good in all aspects of the game.
Edit: Speaking of G12, supposedly a full G12 Gen. Grievous more than doubles his HP from 16K to 34K. If only he could do something useful with all that sudden tankiness...
Bump.
I'm curious if you guys are still running droids, and how they are holding up under the full swing of CLS. @Woodroward@STRIKEBOMB
I just through in the towel 3 days ago. However, I may still play around with them from time to time in arena just for fun and giggles.
What comp were you running? Did CLS prove too difficult to beat?
I have both '47, '86, '88, K2, B2 and JE at g11. R2 at g12. Nebit at g10 while Cassian is still at mediocre gear.
More and more teams came around that are difficult to beat. First Zaul (only few are beatable — many impossible) and rex lead, now CLS while jedi teams are more scarce and most have Zarris now.
However, I'm considering the CLS (L), K2, R2, Cassian and Han/Leia combination now. At least two are droids.
Bump.
I'm curious if you guys are still running droids, and how they are holding up under the full swing of CLS. @Woodroward@STRIKEBOMB
Well I would still be getting top 30 or higher everyday, but I recently started my first year of college so time is an issue....especially when I have 3 hour labs during my arena payout lol (the labs SUCK). So usually I just get on and do my dailies, and every 2 or 3 days I get myself back to top 50 or whatever in arena. Against full rebel teams I just don't even go through the stress of Han Solo counter attacking 8 times in a row for 15k each (same with leia) and therefore I don't attempt attacking them. But teams with 1-3 rebels (and not Rex lead) I can usually win. The team I use depends on who is on the other team.
Wow congrats! Are you able to get to the top 20? @Terand
Nah, since CLS release I've usually been bouncing between top 50 and top 100. I can't do arena at payout times due to my work schedule, so typically I'll log on at 9pm at around rank 55-70 and do my battles to get to rank 30-40 and rinse and repeat for the next day. On weekends I'll refresh if it looks like I can jump from 30 to top 20 or top 10.
In the range that I play (10-70), there are 3 Resistance teams, 2 Zader teams, 2 DN teams, 3 Jedi/CLS teams, and 2 FO teams. Those are the ones that I target the most to jump ranks. After those I try to hit non-Chirrut/Baze CLS teams (there are about 20). Then there are about 30 CLS+Chirrut+Baze teams and a dozen zMaul teams which I try to avoid if at all possible. I figure Jedi+R2 should do well enough against the CLS+Chaze teams. Once my GK is geared enough the zMaul teams without Sith Assassin should be do-able either with droids or my Jedi.
Once I have CLS myself, I'd like to try a team with CLS (L), R2, K2, Chopper, and either JE or Lobot (similar to Woodroward's build). Lobot is normally trash but he is a rebel and I need to farm him for our platoons anyways :P
Used to run droids, had my zzR2, HK, IG88, B2, and K2 squad take me to #6 in arena a month and a half ago and dropped out of the top 100 over night. I even had Chopper Gear 11 and tested that out but it didn't work.
I decided to use R2 and K2 as a pivot point. I got a zCassian, and then went Zyn as the leader, added Old Ben with the zeta since the rework, and switched out K2 for Zeb.
Not all droids but still not meta. They don't drop from the top 50 on defense but it's hard even on offense to crack the top 20. Old Ben is still G10 so there's hope.
I hope droids make a comeback, I'll gladly make the switch but I'm glad I went rebels for now with TB only allowing light side characters.
All my droids sitting at G11 maxed(before G12) and just wanting to be used, hopefully with BattleFront 2 coming out the Seperatist get a rework and clones get goodies as well.
So BB8 is looking pretty righteous. I see him making droids much more competitive in arena.
He lets you run a full droid squad and replaces both K2S0 and Jawa Engineer doing so. He gives 40% tm at the start of combat and can taunt, counterattack (calling R2 to assist) and daze.
Then there's his amazing ultimate ability. You say, "but it has a 70 turn cooldown". Well, look at this. I foresee the team to go with being HK, R2, BB, 88, and B2. Not couting BB8's actions, droids can crit 24 times in their opening zerg. With BB8's speed, he should always go first which means the 4 special abilities that happen in the opening zerg will further reduce its cooldown by 14-18 for a grand total of 38-42 turns removed from that cooldown in the opening zerg. Now it will take 2 more rounds for everyone to get their aoe's up again, so we're looking at using this ability on about round 4 of droid turns (which is like 2-3 rounds of other people's turns).
I agree with your planned team composition, though B2 might get subbed out in some matches where you really want another ability.
It seems from posts here that BB8 has very low HP/protection so despite his foresight ability he may be quite squishy and easily killed before he uses his mega special. It might be better to put in a non-droid character (perhaps Chief Nebit or GK?) to keep BB from gaining taunt.
Well they have bb8 a whopping 0 protection. Don't know how we can expect him to taunt when he's capable of being one hit by most the meta characters...
Replies
Well my half health characters never had their protection restored in between matches before I ran with R2. He does increase protection for the droids. I wouldn't be surprised if it was giving it out in the fashion I have described. Otherwise that would just be some freaky timing with updates.
So I have been able to regularly beat at least one zeta maul team now. No sith assassin or Savage. One non-Sith. I beat it running HK, R2, K2, B2, & JE. I haven't been able to make a proper starting turn order, but it should certainly be: R2. B2. K2. HK.
R2 goes first and drops burning to get rid of evasion. This is an unevadeable attack that is happening while they are stealthed so they are guaranteed to not gain tm at this point. B2 goes second and buff wipes and drops buff immunity. They're likely to all go after this if they have Sith Assassin and most of them without her. K2S0 goes next to Daze whichever toon with buff immunity you wish to eliminate. From there it's a crit fest on that toon with no fear of stealth, dodging, or tm gain until they die.
Go ahead and drop AoE's on cooldown. Hold back on HK's at first if it seems like you're giving out too much tm. R2 and B2's debuffs are essential though, so should be spammed on cooldown.
With a Sith Assassin in group it becomes much harder, but only if she ends up being faster than Jawa Engineer. Once 200 speed is reached, SA will go first at equal character panel speeds under a Zeta maul lead, but Jawa Engineer really doesn't need that much more speed than her to go first anyway. As long as he does, it'll end up being a decent match I think.
Assuming a team with zMaul, zSavage, Dooku, SAss, and Palpatine, what's your usual kill order? Guess it depends on who got the buff immunity but I usually try to target Dooku/Palp first.
I would go for Palps or Maul first myself. Dooku would be my third priority, followed by Sass and then Zavage.
Palps and Maul both cripple a whole team. Palps's group stun, and Maul's group Daze are both devastating to droids. K2 is the perfect counter to Dooku with his daze. Dooku really becomes non-threatening if you have him in your comp.
Zavage is really tough, and that's actually exactly why I would save him for last. Hope to burn through the others to have full life bars to take him on with. It's pretty much the only answer I've come up with for him that I have a decent success percentage with.
As for dropping 88, yeah everybody says that. My K2S0 deals out more damage in an arena match than 88 due to the sheer number of attacks he does. R2 is actually pretty close to his damage as well with burning. Do I lose damage by taking out 88? Definitely. But the control I gain is significant enough to make it a more than even trade.
I mean look at the triple cleanse team. How much damage does it deal out? Not a lot. it's a rather weak team all in all. But they have so much control it doesn't matter.
Now it's true that I'm giving up a lot in 88 as well: Defense down, ability block, healing immunity. R2's number crunch kind of makes up for the defense down. His stun is actually better than an ability block other than being one person only. The only debuff that is missed really is healing immunity. Savage is one person it will be missed against. I think the daze for Dooku is more important than the healing immunity for Savage though. Either way that is a really tough comp. It's actually much easier against Sith Trooper. Then you could actually use 88 instead of K2S0 and be effective.
Still running HK, K2, B2, R2, JE. This team deals out more damage than you would think.
How to you deal enough damage to take out DN hiding behind tanks?
With B2 in my comp. there's not a lot of hiding behind tanks to be done. That said there are a few tanks that are notoriously hard to kill, first on that list being Kenobi.
Kenobi is actually really easy to deal with just by having my well modded K2S0. K2 taunts, so the whole enemy team attacks him. Kenobis taunting, so he counterattacks Kenobi for every single attack the enemy does in addition to getting attacked on every one of my turns. GK just melts. Usually dies before his second turn.
In short, I usually have plenty of damage for Nihilus, but he's usually about my 3rd target, and he still rarely annihilates on me.
Secondly is secondaries: On JE stack as much speed as you can. Potency is good. Crit chance isn't wasted. Try and save offense secondaries for other toons if you can, but really it's all about speed. The faster he is, the faster everyone else is.
With everyone else, the secondary priority is pretty much: Maxing everyone's speed for turn order (which really won't be all that much speed stacked); Followed by crit chance and offense; followed by potency.
Since droids don't need to stack much speed, you can often use an offense arrow and rely on secondaries for speed. There's more than enough room left over after getting your starting turn order to maximize your offense and crit chance as much as possible, and whether or not you do that is the biggest difference in whether or not your droids are deadly or just quick IMHO.
I completely agree tho there are a few cases where I feel potency is better as secondary than crit chance like K2S0, IG-88 or HK-47, running R2 you only need 50-60 crit chance and that's easy to reach imo
It only works on offense though. Rex lead is a hard counter to Chaze since every single counter attack will feed their TM while doing very few damages. Usually a Rex lead team plays twice against a Chaze, it's almost as annoying as playing Leia who feeds Baze TM like crazy.
I still haven't geared Old Ben enough but i guess he could be useful against a Rex lead, same with zLuke as a leader.
R2D2 is much better against the Wiggs +Chaze combos. Starting off by having R2 smokescreen onto K2S0 before B2 strips the taunt keeps Jawa Engineer from being targetable by the resulting triple, which is a huge plus against this comp. I strongly recommend holding back on your first daze until after Chirrut takes his first turn and cleanses too. There are only 2 characters in the fifth slot that seem to really make it hard to beat this comp that I have come across: Jyn and R2. Running R2 instead of 88 has made them easier to deal with.
As before, don't bother trying to burn Chirrut down until either Baze is dead or Baze has buff immunity and Chirrut has Daze or is stunned. Wedge is first priority target unless things line up for you to take Chirrut out. R2/Jyn and Biggs are roughly shared priority for second.
I've found that for ZQGJ leads and Zader leads, I am better off with 88 than R2. They have comparable AoE damage, but R2's happens over time and 88's is instantaneous. Beating Zader relies on taking out his control and one of his DoT appliers before they go so I need the high damage opening burst. Wiggs/Chaze is about waiting for your opportunities, so I need the control that R2 brings instead.
Why don't you sub K2-SO against Zader and Jedi teams instead of R2? I feel like R2 helps more with its utility and also the number crunch gives some nice help too
My K2S0 does a lot of damage, and I think is honestly the reason I don't fall really far overnight. I am usually only just outside the top 50 when I start my matches these days. WIth his offense and crit chance stacked, he hits pretty hard and gets free turns all the time.
He hits really hard for me, and I have yet to come across a comp where the Daze isn't useful. Anakin in Jedi comps, or GK. Zader himself in his comps so he doesn't get a free turn after force crush and if/when he kills someone or SIdious for if I kill someone, or Dooku.
K2 is basically my highest damage dealer with the kit I can't let go of either.
Pointless comments don't help. Some of us are running droids. They work well enough. Knowing how to run them is half the battle. The fact that they aren't META doesn't magically change people's desires and investments, so realistically, it is you who needs to stop.
If they do have Sith Assassin then I use HK, R2, 88, GK and Zarriss. Kenobi will usually survive until Nihilus annihilates him thanks to Zarriss (through her unique and her heal), but by that time you should be able to kill maul, sith assassin, and whoever else. Again, leave savage and nihilus last and repeat the steps.
These solutions aren't pure, 100% droid squad solutions but they're still 60% droid, which is more % composition than most other teams with a theme.
Against Jedi teams just use HK, R2, 88, B2 and JE. I don't have a set turn order so I just yolo it lol. Use all your aoe's except R2, use him to stun Kenobi. There's probably a 1 in 7 chance that you don't get either ability block or stun on kenobi, which means you will most likely lose unless you can use B2 immediately after and then disable kenobi again.
Against CLS lead....just don't. But apparently some people on the forums think Ackbar lead is SOOOOO much better than CLS lead, and in that case it becomes easy for droids (if they don't have chaze). Just use B2 and JE and pretty much whoever else you cause you're almost guaranteed to win (unless someone cleanses all your stuff so take him out first)
I'm curious if you guys are still running droids, and how they are holding up under the full swing of CLS.
@Woodroward @STRIKEBOMB
But I have to pay my massive respect to you guys who actually DO run droids.
Way to fight the meta and show that knowing your toons and tweaking your teams synergies, is more important that actually just getting the some toons as everybody else!
Massive kudos!
I've found that droids can take on most of the CLS teams with a line-up of HK, JE, IG88, R2, and K2S0, by using R2 stealth and K2's daze to prevent too many counters. It's often touch & go and doesn't do well on defense, of course, but for me it's markedly easier than zMaul teams with Sith Assassin.
Haven't gotten any droids to G12 yet due to switching my focus to Jedi, but IG88 is quite easy to take to G12, so I might do that soon anyways. R2 is another comparably easy G12 character and he's good in all aspects of the game.
Edit: Speaking of G12, supposedly a full G12 Gen. Grievous more than doubles his HP from 16K to 34K. If only he could do something useful with all that sudden tankiness...
@Terand
I just through in the towel 3 days ago. However, I may still play around with them from time to time in arena just for fun and giggles.
What comp were you running? Did CLS prove too difficult to beat?
I have both '47, '86, '88, K2, B2 and JE at g11. R2 at g12. Nebit at g10 while Cassian is still at mediocre gear.
More and more teams came around that are difficult to beat. First Zaul (only few are beatable — many impossible) and rex lead, now CLS while jedi teams are more scarce and most have Zarris now.
However, I'm considering the CLS (L), K2, R2, Cassian and Han/Leia combination now. At least two are droids.
Well I would still be getting top 30 or higher everyday, but I recently started my first year of college so time is an issue....especially when I have 3 hour labs during my arena payout lol (the labs SUCK). So usually I just get on and do my dailies, and every 2 or 3 days I get myself back to top 50 or whatever in arena. Against full rebel teams I just don't even go through the stress of Han Solo counter attacking 8 times in a row for 15k each (same with leia) and therefore I don't attempt attacking them. But teams with 1-3 rebels (and not Rex lead) I can usually win. The team I use depends on who is on the other team.
Nah, since CLS release I've usually been bouncing between top 50 and top 100. I can't do arena at payout times due to my work schedule, so typically I'll log on at 9pm at around rank 55-70 and do my battles to get to rank 30-40 and rinse and repeat for the next day. On weekends I'll refresh if it looks like I can jump from 30 to top 20 or top 10.
In the range that I play (10-70), there are 3 Resistance teams, 2 Zader teams, 2 DN teams, 3 Jedi/CLS teams, and 2 FO teams. Those are the ones that I target the most to jump ranks. After those I try to hit non-Chirrut/Baze CLS teams (there are about 20). Then there are about 30 CLS+Chirrut+Baze teams and a dozen zMaul teams which I try to avoid if at all possible. I figure Jedi+R2 should do well enough against the CLS+Chaze teams. Once my GK is geared enough the zMaul teams without Sith Assassin should be do-able either with droids or my Jedi.
Once I have CLS myself, I'd like to try a team with CLS (L), R2, K2, Chopper, and either JE or Lobot (similar to Woodroward's build). Lobot is normally trash but he is a rebel and I need to farm him for our platoons anyways :P
I decided to use R2 and K2 as a pivot point. I got a zCassian, and then went Zyn as the leader, added Old Ben with the zeta since the rework, and switched out K2 for Zeb.
Not all droids but still not meta. They don't drop from the top 50 on defense but it's hard even on offense to crack the top 20. Old Ben is still G10 so there's hope.
I hope droids make a comeback, I'll gladly make the switch but I'm glad I went rebels for now with TB only allowing light side characters.
All my droids sitting at G11 maxed(before G12) and just wanting to be used, hopefully with BattleFront 2 coming out the Seperatist get a rework and clones get goodies as well.
He lets you run a full droid squad and replaces both K2S0 and Jawa Engineer doing so. He gives 40% tm at the start of combat and can taunt, counterattack (calling R2 to assist) and daze.
Then there's his amazing ultimate ability. You say, "but it has a 70 turn cooldown". Well, look at this. I foresee the team to go with being HK, R2, BB, 88, and B2. Not couting BB8's actions, droids can crit 24 times in their opening zerg. With BB8's speed, he should always go first which means the 4 special abilities that happen in the opening zerg will further reduce its cooldown by 14-18 for a grand total of 38-42 turns removed from that cooldown in the opening zerg. Now it will take 2 more rounds for everyone to get their aoe's up again, so we're looking at using this ability on about round 4 of droid turns (which is like 2-3 rounds of other people's turns).
It seems from posts here that BB8 has very low HP/protection so despite his foresight ability he may be quite squishy and easily killed before he uses his mega special. It might be better to put in a non-droid character (perhaps Chief Nebit or GK?) to keep BB from gaining taunt.