What makes Thrawn a good leader?
I constantly see Thrawn being toted as the best leader for an Empire team, but I don't get it. He gives some stat boosts and a cleanse that the ai can't properly use, or the player if the character is ability blocked and/or stunned. So what makes him so much better than a Krennic lead, with the ability blocking, potency, and protection regen on crits?
0
Replies
As for Thrawn read his leadership ability. I agree it's the best lead in a predominantly Empire squad. He works nicely with Nihilus too - get annihilate off quicker.
2. Tons of passive protection regeneration for match-long survivability
3. Insane amounts of TM gained from debuffs
That's on top of + offense skills. It's one of the game's best leaders.
Thrawn gives protection and offense boosts, and the most important Tm gain.
Now regarding his lead zeta it's so underrated, you get the 2% twice so it's 4% per debuff, also a fast shore and storm can keep buffing the team, for example when shore taunts he gets 4% x2 (when the buffs disappear) which is 8%.
After I zeta'd his lead I noticed a huge difference in the survivability of my empire team and started finishing battles with almost full protection.
Thrawn is definitely the best leader for empire.
Here are a couple of videos to see it in action:
Anyway, speeding up thrawns turn meter between fractures and zebs daze/stagger allowed the fracture to last long enough to help me take out several nodes with GK and CLS.
Sorry for double post but protection stacking like this works insanely well. My Kanan has about 75k protection after mods. When teamed with Phoenix squad he gains about 13k-14k more from zebs shared unique so close to 90k.
Kanan special can give 40% protection up
Ezra special can give 40% protection up (when used on a tank)
Zebs special can give 50% protection up
On a side note - putting protection up on Yoda and having him share with entire team is awesome.
true I forgot to mention it, also it helps in prolonging thrawn's fracture
Glad to see the entire rest of the responders that actually have Thrawn's lead with a zeta supported my commentary. Maybe next time if you open a thread asking for info don't be so close-minded with the responses you get. The response you gave here makes it seem like you don't have much experience playing this game and definitely not playing with Empire. I could pick apart really all the lines here for various reasons, but I'll specifically ask what makes you think a crit chance leader, with pretty much all teams having GK and his cc immunity given to the squad, is a good way to go for empire? Also, you're relying on a debuff from DK's leader actually sticking and not being cleansed by R2 / GK? Just by being a cc / debuff leader DK's lead in this meta is just a flat out awful choice pretty much against most any other viable empire lead in the game today in arena at least.
Now for the comparison:
thrawn's lead doesn't require any caveats or setup. It's chalk full of passive bonuses and a cleanse. Director krennic requires debuffs on our opponent to attach the AB. Tenacity up and cleanses really impact this. R2 brings cleanse, barriss brings a passive cleanse, cls can cleanse himself and gk/chirriut/Rex bring teamwide cleanses. It's not very easy to guarantee debuffs (unless you splash mother talzin). Rex and chirriut provide tenacity up so sticking the compulsory debuff is not guaranteed (not including the minimum 15% chance to resist the required debuff).
If we argue that maneuver is not optimal on defense, then it's equally arguable that krennic's lead is even worse. Defense ai won't hold an attempt to attach a debuff if ten up exists additionally, ai defense won't prioritize targeting bebuffed targets to even attempt to attach AB.
The crit requirement is also a hinderence. Rex leads crave crit. Barriss passively heals up damage and gk provides passive crit immunity. So even if you do manage to get a debuff to last forever, you'd still have to crit vs a team designed to punish crits.
I think you may have missed something regarding his protection regen. First off, he brings 15% extra protection to all empire. This is amazing synergy with his PASSIVE protection regen. 2% each time ANY status effect is gained and lost. This means each buff and debuff will bring 4% regen at the cost of simply existing. We don't need to do anything other then get a status effect.
Finally, and perhaps more importantly, krennic's lead is slow. Thrawn brings enormous amounts of tm gains--20% each time we resist or are inflicted by a debuff! This decreases the duration of harmful stuns and any other terrible debuffs. This allows empire allies to attack more much often which gains synergy with his 25% increase to offense.
Krennic lead isn't bad, but it's not the same level as thrawn.
That's funny, because I have three different Empire squads that Thrawn isn't a part of.
Then you have 3 different Empire squads that could be made significantly better by removing someone(anyone....) and adding Thrawn.
Thrawn is the second best character in the game imo, and the only reason he isn't #1 is he can't be used in TBs yet.
So develop your opinion, share your squad and rank in arena.
Thrawn is the best leader for Empire in arena. His 2% protection recovery seems weak but in fact it's a key changer with high debuffer teams like CLS squads. The 2% gain is also for buffs, meaning that every taunt, crit immunity, defense up allows to recover protection.
The cleanse provided by Thrawn lead is also a plus. When your ShT receive buff immunity from CLS (providing TM gain too), ShT can use this special to cleanse, gains 50% TM, and regain taunt faster. I also use that ability when I don't want a toon to hit and receive counter (ie when a toon is low HP).
The +25% offense bonus and +15% protection is also a nice to have. My team was until now Thrawn, ShT, Storm, DT and Tarkin. I've replaced Tarkin with Veers this weekend because it's fun with Thrawn and the other troopers.