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.
If there isn't something we're not seeing that makes him more survivable, I would probably throw in K2 rather than go non-droid. Going non-droid lowers the initial tm gain which means they're too slow to get the opening zerg off.
K2 would practically have permataunt after BB8 taunted once due to the way Secret Intel moves around.
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...
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...
Yeah, he looked better at first than he does now.
Looks like the 0 protection was a bug. He has about 30k. He's tankyness is similar to cls, plus the foresight and healing he should have decent survivability.
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...
Yeah, he looked better at first than he does now.
Looks like the 0 protection was a bug. He has about 30k. He's tankyness is similar to cls, plus the foresight and healing he should have decent survivability.
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...
Yeah, he looked better at first than he does now.
Looks like the 0 protection was a bug. He has about 30k. He's tankyness is similar to cls, plus the foresight and healing he should have decent survivability.
I'm thinking JE may still be useful. He can make the opening zerg last longer. Just mod him to go last instead of first.
Cool in theory but not enough room.
Was thinking of ditching B2 for him. HK, BB8. R2, 88, JE.
R2 smokescreens first round, but gets his AoE and single target attack off after JE gives them all tm. With this comp I see it being possible to have more or less 3 rounds of the droid team, followed by one round of the enemy, followed up by 3 more rounds of the droid team (second round of AoE which leads to another round of single target which should be enough to trigger BB8's ultimate and blast through a third round of attacks) to start the match. I think that should be enough turn taking superiority to blow away most opponents.
Obviously you'd have to sub out based on the team you're facing. GK would likely require B2 subbed in.
Assuming all crits here is a play by play of the starting
BB8 goes first and uses Covert Data Transfer.
Cooldown of ultimate gets reduced by 4.
R2 goes second and smoke screens
Cooldown of ultimate is reduced by 3-4 (depending who BB8 gave his buff too)
HK goes next and AoEs
Cooldown of ultimate is reduced by 9-10
HK single targets
Cooldown is reduced by 1
88 AoEs
Cooldown of ultimate is reduced by 10-11
88 single targets
cooldown reduced by 1
JE recalibrates
cooldown reduced by 6
BB8 Covert Data Transfer
cooldown reduced by 7
R2 improvises
cooldown reduced by 11
R2 single targets
cooldown reduced by 1
HK single target
cooldown reduced by 1
So after the opening zerg, we're looking at a cooldown reduction of 54-57 on BB8's ultimate.
Then the enemy goes.
Afterwards Cooldowns will be up so we start at the beginning again. If JE's recalibrate is up at the end of the first 2 turns I'd use that first to get actually a 4th and 5th round in a row on the second time through (BB8 gives a 4th round... which AoE's are up for, which results in a 5th round).
Up to 8 rounds of attacks with the enemy only having had one round.
@Woodroward don't get the wrong idea, I'm an ex droid user myself and I have all my droids at 7* and at least G11, besides chopper
In fact, I respect you for using droids thus far till CLS appeared; I love droids myself and I have thrown in the towel when zMaul started running amok and I too am waiting for a rework of droids or separatist at least.
What I am pointing out is that BB8 is not going to be exactly viable in the arena (for the price you pay to get FOST and FOTP and the 2 zeta needed and the gear etc...) and against the current meta; I'm not going "droids had their time or whatever", so you need to chill and not take it as a personal snub
The team I am pointing out would likely start appearing in the arena, as it also isn't too bad a team in itself against other comps, if we droid users start appearing in enough numbers, so in that spirit how would we as droid users tackle such a team? It renders BB's ultimate useless and the opening stun from RHS may neuter our teams, sometimes even on defense!
I actually stopped finding Baze and Chirrut a problem for my droids some time ago. Even when accompanied by GK.
CLS is troublesome, but R2 is the answer to him. If Raid Han is present and stuns R2 for his opening turn, there is always BB8's daze to fall back on if necessary. If necessary, AoE can be held back on for one turn until R2 isn't stunned and can smoke screen. The nice thing about having Jawa Engineer in comp is that a single stun isn't enough to keep the droids from going first with all the tm gain they have.
The magic number we want to reach at the end of the first 3 rounds is a 35 turn reduction on the cooldown since that will give us the 2 super hard hitting turns at the end of the next 3 turns. We're ~20 turns over that limit, so missing an Aoe or some crits in the starting zerg isn't going to be a show stopper here.
As far as Baze's AoE buff wipe, with both HK and 88, there's an extremely high chance of him being ability blocked for what is likely to be the only turn he gets to take. If he does go and use it in that one turn, he'll only be wiping secret intel and JE's crit chance buff. If he somehow manages to live through the 5 rounds of attacks before he gets to go again, the buffs from BB8 will be all used up already, and the ability would be on cooldown anyway.
Baze is really no threat to this comp. Raid Han under CLS is probably the biggest issue, but I honestly see him as more likely to target Jawa Engineer than R2 or 88. Then if they do manage to kill someone off, there is always Jawa Engineer to revive them.
I honestly am seeing this as a very solid comp. Just not sure who would be best to sub out for B2 when up against a GK. Would probably depend on the rest of the comp.
I hope BB8 will do some work, droids are my first love and i sadly switched to another main team (empire - also underdog but very viable at arena etc.) - i have collected all droids 7*/purple gear and crossed my fingers for a IG100&Grievous Rework this year. Now BB8 is not a rework or Droideka but at least seems powerfull enough to think about droids again.
I like your Ideas about super powerfull openers and JE as a "backup" but i was never a fan of the little Jawa that do more or less nothing than push TM (it would be a little better if he gets the assist-raid ability...) so if the ideas above will not work i would lean to a tankier droid squad:
HK, R2, BB8, K2 and IG100 - its a lot of HP/Prot mixed up with Foresight/Stealth and 3 counterattacks (which will also feed crit-tm-train and reduce BB8 CD). K2 and IG100 will apply offense down over the enemy and you even gain some control with Daze/Stun. What is missed is a big hitter but no one has seen G12 droids in action.
Sure i would love to see some IG88/86 action again but so many new chars can hit the same numbers but also offers a lot of more abilites AND can survive some counterattacks too.
EDIT: I missed that R2 gets better with his cleans zeta if you pair him with K2 (so he nevers stops taunting) and BB8 to, since both have counterattacks. BB8 zeta special with HP/Prot recover can also be the first usefull thing (besides Jyn lead) for a K2 zeta
I hope BB8 will do some work, droids are my first love and i sadly switched to another main team (empire - also underdog but very viable at arena etc.) - i have collected all droids 7*/purple gear and crossed my fingers for a IG100&Grievous Rework this year. Now BB8 is not a rework or Droideka but at least seems powerfull enough to think about droids again.
I like your Ideas about super powerfull openers and JE as a "backup" but i was never a fan of the little Jawa that do more or less nothing than push TM (it would be a little better if he gets the assist-raid ability...) so if the ideas above will not work i would lean to a tankier droid squad:
HK, R2, BB8, K2 and IG100 - its a lot of HP/Prot mixed up with Foresight/Stealth and 3 counterattacks (which will also feed crit-tm-train and reduce BB8 CD). K2 and IG100 will apply offense down over the enemy and you even gain some control with Daze/Stun. What is missed is a big hitter but no one has seen G12 droids in action.
Sure i would love to see some IG88/86 action again but so many new chars can hit the same numbers but also offers a lot of more abilites AND can survive some counterattacks too.
EDIT: I missed that R2 gets better with his cleans zeta if you pair him with K2 (so he nevers stops taunting) and BB8 to, since both have counterattacks. BB8 zeta special with HP/Prot recover can also be the first usefull thing (besides Jyn lead) for a K2 zeta
At first I was anxious to run a pure droid squad, but then I looked at BB8's defense, health, and protection and realized that there was a better than average chance that he would die before he gets his ultimate ability off because of his taunt. As near as I can tell, BB8 will likely die before he gets his ultimate off on any full droid squad. 2500 protection and 2000 health every time he dodges isn't going to let him survive. The opening round of the enemy team will be enough to kill him... and they will too since they'll all be forced to attack him due to his taunt.
At first BB8 looked like he could make a pure droid squad viable, but he really doesn't.
Here's what I'm going to be working for: HK, R2, 88, BB-8, and B2/K2 depending on the matchup. BB-8 obviously replaces JE without a doubt. Since the 0 protection for BB8 was a glitch he now has about the same health as HK, who we all know has pretty good health, and BB8 using his taunt might not be that bad, although you definitely want him to survive. Overall BB8 has a great kit that will definitely bring droids back (not the meta but I definitely believe they will be top 20 easily). If you are facing a team with CLS lead and rebels you would use K2 to daze someone and then R2 to stun another, effectively making them no longer a threat. BB8 will taunt since all droids will have secret Intel, and he has 80% chance to counter attack someone and call R2 to assist and stun them. Now they only have 2 real threats left and you can win from there because then BB8 will use his massive buff and all of them will do insane damage. That's pretty much the hardest matchup, being CLS lead and rebels, that droids can face. Maul teams will be even easier than before since you get rid of the useless JE, Jedi teams will be smooth sailing for the same reason, and even rex teams will be easier because now you can stun so much more than before and you can just use B2 to cleanse tenacity up if you are unable to stun Rex. And another great thing that I haven't mentioned yet is that you can EASILY set up a turn order now. Before you would use JE's recalibrate to get all droids to 100% (unless you purposely slowed them down greatly) and it would be completely random as to who went first. But now it's just who has the most speed on your team so you can have B2 go before everyone else (but after BB8). And another slight bonus is that R2 will get another small bonus amount of protection (I think that's the right stat be gets from ally droids) from having that 4th droid ally and will give a small amount of that to all other droids. This last part isn't that big, but it can mean the difference in a fight.
I hope BB8 will do some work, droids are my first love and i sadly switched to another main team (empire - also underdog but very viable at arena etc.) - i have collected all droids 7*/purple gear and crossed my fingers for a IG100&Grievous Rework this year. Now BB8 is not a rework or Droideka but at least seems powerfull enough to think about droids again.
I like your Ideas about super powerfull openers and JE as a "backup" but i was never a fan of the little Jawa that do more or less nothing than push TM (it would be a little better if he gets the assist-raid ability...) so if the ideas above will not work i would lean to a tankier droid squad:
HK, R2, BB8, K2 and IG100 - its a lot of HP/Prot mixed up with Foresight/Stealth and 3 counterattacks (which will also feed crit-tm-train and reduce BB8 CD). K2 and IG100 will apply offense down over the enemy and you even gain some control with Daze/Stun. What is missed is a big hitter but no one has seen G12 droids in action.
Sure i would love to see some IG88/86 action again but so many new chars can hit the same numbers but also offers a lot of more abilites AND can survive some counterattacks too.
EDIT: I missed that R2 gets better with his cleans zeta if you pair him with K2 (so he nevers stops taunting) and BB8 to, since both have counterattacks. BB8 zeta special with HP/Prot recover can also be the first usefull thing (besides Jyn lead) for a K2 zeta
At first I was anxious to run a pure droid squad, but then I looked at BB8's defense, health, and protection and realized that there was a better than average chance that he would die before he gets his ultimate ability off because of his taunt. As near as I can tell, BB8 will likely die before he gets his ultimate off on any full droid squad. 2500 protection and 2000 health every time he dodges isn't going to let him survive. The opening round of the enemy team will be enough to kill him... and they will too since they'll all be forced to attack him due to his taunt.
At first BB8 looked like he could make a pure droid squad viable, but he really doesn't.
It's just 1 turn though and he will let all droids move first - can' you disable main components of the enemy with a droid opening barrage such that any attack they bring in round 1 will have minimal impact? If 88 blocks key specials and 47 puts O down for example - or you use R2 to stun early. Then he comes off taunt after 1 turn quick because he's really fast at 162 natural speed. R2 can then smoke screen another target? BB8 is tanky enough when built, especially with R2's zeta, to survive a short round 1 from a disabled enemy I would think.
I hope BB8 will do some work, droids are my first love and i sadly switched to another main team (empire - also underdog but very viable at arena etc.) - i have collected all droids 7*/purple gear and crossed my fingers for a IG100&Grievous Rework this year. Now BB8 is not a rework or Droideka but at least seems powerfull enough to think about droids again.
I like your Ideas about super powerfull openers and JE as a "backup" but i was never a fan of the little Jawa that do more or less nothing than push TM (it would be a little better if he gets the assist-raid ability...) so if the ideas above will not work i would lean to a tankier droid squad:
HK, R2, BB8, K2 and IG100 - its a lot of HP/Prot mixed up with Foresight/Stealth and 3 counterattacks (which will also feed crit-tm-train and reduce BB8 CD). K2 and IG100 will apply offense down over the enemy and you even gain some control with Daze/Stun. What is missed is a big hitter but no one has seen G12 droids in action.
Sure i would love to see some IG88/86 action again but so many new chars can hit the same numbers but also offers a lot of more abilites AND can survive some counterattacks too.
EDIT: I missed that R2 gets better with his cleans zeta if you pair him with K2 (so he nevers stops taunting) and BB8 to, since both have counterattacks. BB8 zeta special with HP/Prot recover can also be the first usefull thing (besides Jyn lead) for a K2 zeta
At first I was anxious to run a pure droid squad, but then I looked at BB8's defense, health, and protection and realized that there was a better than average chance that he would die before he gets his ultimate ability off because of his taunt. As near as I can tell, BB8 will likely die before he gets his ultimate off on any full droid squad. 2500 protection and 2000 health every time he dodges isn't going to let him survive. The opening round of the enemy team will be enough to kill him... and they will too since they'll all be forced to attack him due to his taunt.
At first BB8 looked like he could make a pure droid squad viable, but he really doesn't.
It's just 1 turn though and he will let all droids move first - can' you disable main components of the enemy with a droid opening barrage such that any attack they bring in round 1 will have minimal impact? If 88 blocks key specials and 47 puts O down for example - or you use R2 to stun early. Then he comes off taunt after 1 turn quick because he's really fast at 162 natural speed. R2 can then smoke screen another target? BB8 is tanky enough when built, especially with R2's zeta, to survive a short round 1 from a disabled enemy I would think.
^this. The Droid meta team will be hk,88, b2, bb8, r2. Droids will need to be modded for specific turn order, your gonna want bb8 going first and putting up taunt and spreading secret Intel immediately. Next it's a r2 smoke screen giving bb8 foresight, then a b2 aoe ( you want his potency high as can be) followed by HK and 88 aoes. A g12 88 can hit over 25k with his AOE making it the strongest aoe in game, assuming debuffs are up. At this point you've already knocked off 25+ on bb8s cooldown and he hasn't taken any damage yet. The enemy team should be at 4/5 and with many ability blocked, leaving bb8 nearly unscathed. In theory this all sounds pretty good but we will have to see it in practice. I'll hopefully have him g11 within a few days after release and will give feedback...
The problem is droids have one leader, Hk. And the problem is kenobi exists. One crit and he's taunting with the crit target now crit immune. Damage sink into kenobi and no tm gain for crits aoe. It's not the end of the world at that point, but when yo factor in Luke leader dropping counters, even if you used B2 to nullify the kenobi threat. I can't see him using aoe more than twice before he gets stunned and countered into the ground.
The problem is droids have one leader, Hk. And the problem is kenobi exists. One crit and he's taunting with the crit target now crit immune. Damage sink into kenobi and no tm gain for crits aoe. It's not the end of the world at that point, but when yo factor in Luke leader dropping counters, even if you used B2 to nullify the kenobi threat. I can't see him using aoe more than twice before he gets stunned and countered into the ground.
While that may be true with B2 dying really fast from counters, we now have R2 and BB-8 to stun the enemy team. So assuming you have average RNG there will almost always be 2 or more stunned characters. And then when B2 uses an AOE it's more likely that only 1-2 characters will counter attack (since there will be ~3 non stunned enemies and they have a 50% counter chance). And then we have BB-8 restoring health and protection to keep everyone alive. This is all dependent on RNG though so it could happen as you say it would, but more likely than not it won't. And now with BB-8 you really only need to survive 4-6 turns and then you can really turn the tides of the battle and rip them a new one
The problem is droids have one leader, Hk. And the problem is kenobi exists. One crit and he's taunting with the crit target now crit immune. Damage sink into kenobi and no tm gain for crits aoe. It's not the end of the world at that point, but when yo factor in Luke leader dropping counters, even if you used B2 to nullify the kenobi threat. I can't see him using aoe more than twice before he gets stunned and countered into the ground.
R2 is the answer to counter attackers. B2 is the answer to crit immunity. Droids have enough speed that they'll never be the ones behind when it comes to having an ability up in time.
Droids biggest problem is/was not crit hate in arena. It is/was the inability to bring as robust a toolkit to the field as other factions. Rebels are really big on crit too but do just fine.
I will say that the bb8 unique to start them off is a great benafit... guess he replaces jawa engineer?
Yep. Easily replaces JE. He's like 10x better than JE. 40% TM at the start is much better than JE giving droids 45% and pushing them way over 100% TM. With JE you have so much wasted TM
So what level will you guys get BB-8 to, if you can even unlock him? With luck I should be able to barely unlock him before it ends. I still need about 35 shards for FOTP and FO Stormtrooper. It sucks that I won't get him to 7* and as a result he'll have lower health, but just unlocking him is good enough for me since he easily replaces JE.
So what level will you guys get BB-8 to, if you can even unlock him? With luck I should be able to barely unlock him before it ends. I still need about 35 shards for FOTP and FO Stormtrooper. It sucks that I won't get him to 7* and as a result he'll have lower health, but just unlocking him is good enough for me since he easily replaces JE.
Just got my final shards for 7* FOST today (last one). Should have them leveled and abilitied enough by the end of the event I am thinking. All level 5 abilities g8-g9, level 63-75.
Going to be cutting it close though. He will be first on my list to gear up at that point without a doubt. Zetas may take a minute as my guild is getting close to HAAT ready and I will need a couple of toons for that.
I currently aim for 5* since i lack Trooper Shards and only have Pilot+Phasma geared/leveld enough, but Kylo and Officer progress much faster so if needed i should have them at 7* and i also hold back gear etc to adjust. My Problem is, i will not buy the FO pack if i only need 1 Toon. So unless CG split it up to get a single char, i will not have BB88 at 7* which really hurts because i invested my first year in droids and have all of them at 7* and more or less only use them at HAAT... I tried an Arena comeback with R2, but it doesnt work and i need a top20 team which is able to get 1-3 till payout.
BB8 is no CLS, Thrawn, Nihilus etc. so it is a very specific investment (he is made more for Droids, but even resistance is not a factor for arena etc.) which means only a small amount of players will a) buy and b) have all 5 FO (the only one in the game!) characters ready - because FO is also not "broken" enough, even with a bunch of zetas(!). Its nice that FO players get a gift, but it is a shame that droid lovers maybe dont get this good designed robot for their collection.
I have 1,5 zeta ready for BB8 but i will wait for the first test runs - if he is good enough to bring droids back (at arena) i will invest with gear/abilities etc. - if not i will only unlock him.
As i mentioned above, the team is more or less set in stone, HK, R2, B88 forms a solid support trio for the robots, than you need more damage: IG88/IG86/ (GG/IG100) and support/tanks (B2/K2/Chopper).
All configs need to adress currenty top team problems, which comes down to CLS-Counters (CLS/R2/Han), which are super deadly for the old HP/Prot canons like IG86/88 even more if AI will use AI (also a problem for B2!). Stupid Zarris/GK or even other top speed control characters like R2/Thrawn that interrupt with Steahlt/Fracture and high speed.
Unless someone find a good (AI friendly) combination to fire of BB8 special before the team is dead, i think K2 is needed as a tank to soak up (counter)damage, he spams offense down which is good and offers daze(!) with a solid hard hitting punch too.
R2s AI will use Smokescreen first so the first AOE Move from every droid should be safe, but keep in mind that Raid-Han will more or less Oneshot IG88 at the start of the battle...
I think Grievous (while still without a rework...) can be a solid sleeper IF you have him at G12 too, he gains a huge HP upgrade at G12 AND +50% Max HP for a full droid team, which means over 45k without Mods and Protection. His basic is still a very hard hitting and unavoidable (foresight spam Kenobi) and uncounterable (CLS/Thrawn). His AoE with healing immunity is also important against Zarris. So for a super small amount of droid players a maxed Grievous might be one of the best damage dealers in the current meta that is also able to take some hits - but most will not have him or will not invest THAT gear into him before a rework.
Replies
If there isn't something we're not seeing that makes him more survivable, I would probably throw in K2 rather than go non-droid. Going non-droid lowers the initial tm gain which means they're too slow to get the opening zerg off.
K2 would practically have permataunt after BB8 taunted once due to the way Secret Intel moves around.
Yeah, he looked better at first than he does now.
Looks like the 0 protection was a bug. He has about 30k. He's tankyness is similar to cls, plus the foresight and healing he should have decent survivability.
@Ig88isboss he's back!!!!!!!!!!!!
Droids creeping back in it maybe!!!!!!!
Heyo! @JohnnySteelAlpha .
Maybe. We will have to see the Droid in practice.
Cool in theory but not enough room.
RHS zaps r2 and it all goes sideways from there; (edit AI will use AOE from 47, 88 and B2 and just watch RHS counter)
Sure the buffs from that special looks nice, though baze will be laughing himself to the bank once you use it.
BB looks good on paper and in a protracted fight but droids will see plenty of rage quit in the early 1 min of the game when ig88 dies.
This is actually a thread on how to succeed using droids in arena. It's not an "are droids good" or "what can mess them up" thread.
In other words, if you aren't giving solutions to the problems you bring up, your post isn't in the spirit of the thread.
Was thinking of ditching B2 for him. HK, BB8. R2, 88, JE.
R2 smokescreens first round, but gets his AoE and single target attack off after JE gives them all tm. With this comp I see it being possible to have more or less 3 rounds of the droid team, followed by one round of the enemy, followed up by 3 more rounds of the droid team (second round of AoE which leads to another round of single target which should be enough to trigger BB8's ultimate and blast through a third round of attacks) to start the match. I think that should be enough turn taking superiority to blow away most opponents.
Obviously you'd have to sub out based on the team you're facing. GK would likely require B2 subbed in.
BB8 goes first and uses Covert Data Transfer.
Cooldown of ultimate gets reduced by 4.
R2 goes second and smoke screens
Cooldown of ultimate is reduced by 3-4 (depending who BB8 gave his buff too)
HK goes next and AoEs
Cooldown of ultimate is reduced by 9-10
HK single targets
Cooldown is reduced by 1
88 AoEs
Cooldown of ultimate is reduced by 10-11
88 single targets
cooldown reduced by 1
JE recalibrates
cooldown reduced by 6
BB8 Covert Data Transfer
cooldown reduced by 7
R2 improvises
cooldown reduced by 11
R2 single targets
cooldown reduced by 1
HK single target
cooldown reduced by 1
So after the opening zerg, we're looking at a cooldown reduction of 54-57 on BB8's ultimate.
Then the enemy goes.
Afterwards Cooldowns will be up so we start at the beginning again. If JE's recalibrate is up at the end of the first 2 turns I'd use that first to get actually a 4th and 5th round in a row on the second time through (BB8 gives a 4th round... which AoE's are up for, which results in a 5th round).
Up to 8 rounds of attacks with the enemy only having had one round.
Ridiculous potential.
In fact, I respect you for using droids thus far till CLS appeared; I love droids myself and I have thrown in the towel when zMaul started running amok and I too am waiting for a rework of droids or separatist at least.
What I am pointing out is that BB8 is not going to be exactly viable in the arena (for the price you pay to get FOST and FOTP and the 2 zeta needed and the gear etc...) and against the current meta; I'm not going "droids had their time or whatever", so you need to chill and not take it as a personal snub
The team I am pointing out would likely start appearing in the arena, as it also isn't too bad a team in itself against other comps, if we droid users start appearing in enough numbers, so in that spirit how would we as droid users tackle such a team? It renders BB's ultimate useless and the opening stun from RHS may neuter our teams, sometimes even on defense!
Baze would be dead by the time you get the buff
Btw do you droid users have a discord server for such discussions?
CLS is troublesome, but R2 is the answer to him. If Raid Han is present and stuns R2 for his opening turn, there is always BB8's daze to fall back on if necessary. If necessary, AoE can be held back on for one turn until R2 isn't stunned and can smoke screen. The nice thing about having Jawa Engineer in comp is that a single stun isn't enough to keep the droids from going first with all the tm gain they have.
The magic number we want to reach at the end of the first 3 rounds is a 35 turn reduction on the cooldown since that will give us the 2 super hard hitting turns at the end of the next 3 turns. We're ~20 turns over that limit, so missing an Aoe or some crits in the starting zerg isn't going to be a show stopper here.
As far as Baze's AoE buff wipe, with both HK and 88, there's an extremely high chance of him being ability blocked for what is likely to be the only turn he gets to take. If he does go and use it in that one turn, he'll only be wiping secret intel and JE's crit chance buff. If he somehow manages to live through the 5 rounds of attacks before he gets to go again, the buffs from BB8 will be all used up already, and the ability would be on cooldown anyway.
Baze is really no threat to this comp. Raid Han under CLS is probably the biggest issue, but I honestly see him as more likely to target Jawa Engineer than R2 or 88. Then if they do manage to kill someone off, there is always Jawa Engineer to revive them.
I honestly am seeing this as a very solid comp. Just not sure who would be best to sub out for B2 when up against a GK. Would probably depend on the rest of the comp.
I like your Ideas about super powerfull openers and JE as a "backup" but i was never a fan of the little Jawa that do more or less nothing than push TM (it would be a little better if he gets the assist-raid ability...) so if the ideas above will not work i would lean to a tankier droid squad:
HK, R2, BB8, K2 and IG100 - its a lot of HP/Prot mixed up with Foresight/Stealth and 3 counterattacks (which will also feed crit-tm-train and reduce BB8 CD). K2 and IG100 will apply offense down over the enemy and you even gain some control with Daze/Stun. What is missed is a big hitter but no one has seen G12 droids in action.
Sure i would love to see some IG88/86 action again but so many new chars can hit the same numbers but also offers a lot of more abilites AND can survive some counterattacks too.
EDIT: I missed that R2 gets better with his cleans zeta if you pair him with K2 (so he nevers stops taunting) and BB8 to, since both have counterattacks. BB8 zeta special with HP/Prot recover can also be the first usefull thing (besides Jyn lead) for a K2 zeta
At first I was anxious to run a pure droid squad, but then I looked at BB8's defense, health, and protection and realized that there was a better than average chance that he would die before he gets his ultimate ability off because of his taunt. As near as I can tell, BB8 will likely die before he gets his ultimate off on any full droid squad. 2500 protection and 2000 health every time he dodges isn't going to let him survive. The opening round of the enemy team will be enough to kill him... and they will too since they'll all be forced to attack him due to his taunt.
At first BB8 looked like he could make a pure droid squad viable, but he really doesn't.
It's just 1 turn though and he will let all droids move first - can' you disable main components of the enemy with a droid opening barrage such that any attack they bring in round 1 will have minimal impact? If 88 blocks key specials and 47 puts O down for example - or you use R2 to stun early. Then he comes off taunt after 1 turn quick because he's really fast at 162 natural speed. R2 can then smoke screen another target? BB8 is tanky enough when built, especially with R2's zeta, to survive a short round 1 from a disabled enemy I would think.
^this. The Droid meta team will be hk,88, b2, bb8, r2. Droids will need to be modded for specific turn order, your gonna want bb8 going first and putting up taunt and spreading secret Intel immediately. Next it's a r2 smoke screen giving bb8 foresight, then a b2 aoe ( you want his potency high as can be) followed by HK and 88 aoes. A g12 88 can hit over 25k with his AOE making it the strongest aoe in game, assuming debuffs are up. At this point you've already knocked off 25+ on bb8s cooldown and he hasn't taken any damage yet. The enemy team should be at 4/5 and with many ability blocked, leaving bb8 nearly unscathed. In theory this all sounds pretty good but we will have to see it in practice. I'll hopefully have him g11 within a few days after release and will give feedback...
While that may be true with B2 dying really fast from counters, we now have R2 and BB-8 to stun the enemy team. So assuming you have average RNG there will almost always be 2 or more stunned characters. And then when B2 uses an AOE it's more likely that only 1-2 characters will counter attack (since there will be ~3 non stunned enemies and they have a 50% counter chance). And then we have BB-8 restoring health and protection to keep everyone alive. This is all dependent on RNG though so it could happen as you say it would, but more likely than not it won't. And now with BB-8 you really only need to survive 4-6 turns and then you can really turn the tides of the battle and rip them a new one
R2 is the answer to counter attackers. B2 is the answer to crit immunity. Droids have enough speed that they'll never be the ones behind when it comes to having an ability up in time.
Droids biggest problem is/was not crit hate in arena. It is/was the inability to bring as robust a toolkit to the field as other factions. Rebels are really big on crit too but do just fine.
Yep. Easily replaces JE. He's like 10x better than JE. 40% TM at the start is much better than JE giving droids 45% and pushing them way over 100% TM. With JE you have so much wasted TM
7*. Going to grind him to g12 as fast as I can.
Going to be cutting it close though. He will be first on my list to gear up at that point without a doubt. Zetas may take a minute as my guild is getting close to HAAT ready and I will need a couple of toons for that.
BB8 is no CLS, Thrawn, Nihilus etc. so it is a very specific investment (he is made more for Droids, but even resistance is not a factor for arena etc.) which means only a small amount of players will a) buy and b) have all 5 FO (the only one in the game!) characters ready - because FO is also not "broken" enough, even with a bunch of zetas(!). Its nice that FO players get a gift, but it is a shame that droid lovers maybe dont get this good designed robot for their collection.
I have 1,5 zeta ready for BB8 but i will wait for the first test runs - if he is good enough to bring droids back (at arena) i will invest with gear/abilities etc. - if not i will only unlock him.
As i mentioned above, the team is more or less set in stone, HK, R2, B88 forms a solid support trio for the robots, than you need more damage: IG88/IG86/ (GG/IG100) and support/tanks (B2/K2/Chopper).
All configs need to adress currenty top team problems, which comes down to CLS-Counters (CLS/R2/Han), which are super deadly for the old HP/Prot canons like IG86/88 even more if AI will use AI (also a problem for B2!). Stupid Zarris/GK or even other top speed control characters like R2/Thrawn that interrupt with Steahlt/Fracture and high speed.
Unless someone find a good (AI friendly) combination to fire of BB8 special before the team is dead, i think K2 is needed as a tank to soak up (counter)damage, he spams offense down which is good and offers daze(!) with a solid hard hitting punch too.
R2s AI will use Smokescreen first so the first AOE Move from every droid should be safe, but keep in mind that Raid-Han will more or less Oneshot IG88 at the start of the battle...
I think Grievous (while still without a rework...) can be a solid sleeper IF you have him at G12 too, he gains a huge HP upgrade at G12 AND +50% Max HP for a full droid team, which means over 45k without Mods and Protection. His basic is still a very hard hitting and unavoidable (foresight spam Kenobi) and uncounterable (CLS/Thrawn). His AoE with healing immunity is also important against Zarris. So for a super small amount of droid players a maxed Grievous might be one of the best damage dealers in the current meta that is also able to take some hits - but most will not have him or will not invest THAT gear into him before a rework.