Need Advice on My Lvl 60 Phoenix Squad and Space/General Progression
So I started playing this game about 5 weeks ago and am currently focusing on Phoenix as recommended by the people here. I had another thread up but people stopped responding to that one and this is more specific to Phoenix so I made this new thread. The old thread is here: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/154006/new-player-have-some-questions-about-best-f2p-characters-and-need-allies/p1?new=1
My collection is here: https://swgoh.gg/u/letareus/collection/
Basically I was just told to "focus Phoenix" and I've been doing just that. It's been working really well for Galactic War and decently in the arena until recently. Now I'm having serious issues with arena and dark side battles, but most importantly with space battles. Let me talk about that first.
I just hit level 60 and unlocked ship battles. This is hurting my ability to finish daily activities (a significant source of CRYSTALS that I need for ENERGY REFRESHES that I need to FOCUS PHOENIX) since I only have the free ships and they're all at level 1. I refuse to level up any of my ships until I know what I'm doing. I learned my lesson from the wasted effort I put into my non-Phoenix characters. So all but one of my ships (I leveled up 1 ship the bare minimum amount to finish the daily activity) are stuck at level 1 until I get some recommendations here. So, what ships can I / should I level up and by how much? You can see what I have in my collection link above (basically the free ships). I have 1.9 millon ship building materials available atm.
Next, I've been having serious problems with arena. I can't seem to break into the top 200. I can hold in the 200-500 bracket OK, but I get annihilated everytime I try to get below 200. I have problems with other Phoenix squads, Nightsister squads, and Boba Fett/Lando squads, which seem to be all I find at that level. With Phoenix/Nightsister squads, I usually run out of time as the battles seem to go on forever - I can probably beat many of them if I had more time (yes, I play at 4x speed). Then there are the squads with Boba Fett and/or Lando which often annihilate me before I can do much damage to them. Boba Fett squads used to be pretty easy for me, but the ones at around rank 200 seem to be very well built and usually annihilate me. What can I do to improve my arena performance or I have pretty much maxed out the potential of my Phoenix team at my current level?
Since I have no real dark side squad, I've been using my borrowed characters to carry me through dark side battles. This means I can't sim many of the battles, which can hamper my Phoenix progression, though at the moment, all my equipment upgrades seem to be light side. I suspect that will change sooner or later though. How should I deal with this? Since I will need a dark side squad eventually, what should my eventual dark side squad look like so I can maybe level up one character that might be able to survive alongisde my borrowed ally so I can 3 star the battle. Don't worry, I'll make sure this doesn't detract too much from my focus on Phoenix.
I unlocked Sabine a while back but since she'll be so far behind everyone else, I didn't bother to use her or level her up. Should I use her and level her up? Seems like by the time I get her up to the point that I can use her, I might be moving on from Phoenix anyway.
I unlocked Mod battles a while back. Should I be spending my Cantina energy on mod battles (I only finished the first two sets) or stars first? I've mostly been focusing on stars. Also, what mods should I be giving my Phoenix characters? I just gave them the stuff I got from the first two sets of battles because that was what I had.
Finally, because Phoenix seems weak in arena, and from what I've read in other threads, people transition out of Phoenix eventually, exactly how far should I take my Phoenix squad? Should I go all the way, with 7 stars and level 85 and full gold gear and everything? Or should I transition to something else before that point?
Thanks all for the advice.
My collection is here: https://swgoh.gg/u/letareus/collection/
Basically I was just told to "focus Phoenix" and I've been doing just that. It's been working really well for Galactic War and decently in the arena until recently. Now I'm having serious issues with arena and dark side battles, but most importantly with space battles. Let me talk about that first.
I just hit level 60 and unlocked ship battles. This is hurting my ability to finish daily activities (a significant source of CRYSTALS that I need for ENERGY REFRESHES that I need to FOCUS PHOENIX) since I only have the free ships and they're all at level 1. I refuse to level up any of my ships until I know what I'm doing. I learned my lesson from the wasted effort I put into my non-Phoenix characters. So all but one of my ships (I leveled up 1 ship the bare minimum amount to finish the daily activity) are stuck at level 1 until I get some recommendations here. So, what ships can I / should I level up and by how much? You can see what I have in my collection link above (basically the free ships). I have 1.9 millon ship building materials available atm.
Next, I've been having serious problems with arena. I can't seem to break into the top 200. I can hold in the 200-500 bracket OK, but I get annihilated everytime I try to get below 200. I have problems with other Phoenix squads, Nightsister squads, and Boba Fett/Lando squads, which seem to be all I find at that level. With Phoenix/Nightsister squads, I usually run out of time as the battles seem to go on forever - I can probably beat many of them if I had more time (yes, I play at 4x speed). Then there are the squads with Boba Fett and/or Lando which often annihilate me before I can do much damage to them. Boba Fett squads used to be pretty easy for me, but the ones at around rank 200 seem to be very well built and usually annihilate me. What can I do to improve my arena performance or I have pretty much maxed out the potential of my Phoenix team at my current level?
Since I have no real dark side squad, I've been using my borrowed characters to carry me through dark side battles. This means I can't sim many of the battles, which can hamper my Phoenix progression, though at the moment, all my equipment upgrades seem to be light side. I suspect that will change sooner or later though. How should I deal with this? Since I will need a dark side squad eventually, what should my eventual dark side squad look like so I can maybe level up one character that might be able to survive alongisde my borrowed ally so I can 3 star the battle. Don't worry, I'll make sure this doesn't detract too much from my focus on Phoenix.
I unlocked Sabine a while back but since she'll be so far behind everyone else, I didn't bother to use her or level her up. Should I use her and level her up? Seems like by the time I get her up to the point that I can use her, I might be moving on from Phoenix anyway.
I unlocked Mod battles a while back. Should I be spending my Cantina energy on mod battles (I only finished the first two sets) or stars first? I've mostly been focusing on stars. Also, what mods should I be giving my Phoenix characters? I just gave them the stuff I got from the first two sets of battles because that was what I had.
Finally, because Phoenix seems weak in arena, and from what I've read in other threads, people transition out of Phoenix eventually, exactly how far should I take my Phoenix squad? Should I go all the way, with 7 stars and level 85 and full gold gear and everything? Or should I transition to something else before that point?
Thanks all for the advice.
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I guess your problem with arena comes from mods and stars, are you sure you are refreshing cantina energy at least 1 per day? At level 60 I had my whole phoenix squad 6*, Zeb 7* and with 5 health mods dots. If you want to improve in arena level up all of them to 5* and spend one week and a half or so trying to get tier III health mods then return to Hera/Ezra farming. Mods make the difference in arena.
Phoenix isn't weak in arena till end-game, I have seen many people lvl 75+ who still use phoenix squads. Max the whole squad to 7* and push their gear to VIII-IV (You can push Ezra to X) before making any transition.
The problem is, other than Phoenix, I have no idea what characters I'm going to use eventually because when I asked in my old thread what characters I might use eventually, I was basically just told "focus Phoenix." Also, it's going to be a few days at least before I can get a Phoenix ship. Also, I'll be getting them much more slowly if I can't at least get out of the lowest rank tier in fleet arena. And do I just lose 30 crystals a day until then? Remember, I only have 5 level 1 ships (basically, with the one exception I mentioned) that can't beat any challenges and can't win any arena battles, since I won't spend anything to level up any of the ships I have unless I'm advised to do so. Also, what capital ship should I use? You can see the three I have in my collection link above.
I'm going to get the Ghost first and then the Phantom (can't work on both at the same time b/c I won't have enough currency to get both unless I can get out of the lowest bracket in the arena). Does this mean I have to level up Sabine (as I mentioned in my OP I had given up on her)?
I refresh cantina energy some days but not others, because nobody ever advised me which refreshes to buy. They just said "focus Phoenix." You can see what they said in the link in my OP. So I've mostly been buying normal energy refreshes at 50 crystals each x3, and if I have a lot of crystals left over, which I rarely do, I might buy 1 cantina refresh. I have so few crystals that I can barely afford those refreshes (I'm 100% F2P). So, should I do the 1 cantina refresh a day first, and then spend whatever I have left on normal energy?
So I should equip everyone with health mods? Nobody ever advised me what mods to get so I have 3 of my guys with health mods and 2 with defense mods. What secondary stats should I focus on on which characters?
I only started focusing hardcore on Phoenix at level 41, if you look at my old thread above you can see more of my history. That and not getting much cantina energy might be why I'm behind on stars compared to you.
The problem with advice is sometimes you get it from players that are higher in GP, and they will advise you on what to do to get certain characters, etc....I read your other thread, and some of the advice you were getting was prepping you for CLS and JT Rey. That is something that takes a long time, and if you get distracted, it takes even longer to get anywhere.
Crouching Rancor is a great site for Mods advice. Again, mods are something that will make or break a squad. But good mods don't come easy, and they get cost a lot of credits to upgrade. You won't get endgame mods done quickly.
The META changes regularly, and nobody knows what it's going to look like in a few months. It often includes new characters that you couldn't have worked on previously because they didn't yet exist. There's never going to be any guarantee that any character or ship you work on is going to be viable a year from now. Legendary events won't change, so you at least should work towards getting the characters required to unlock any legendaries you want. Scoundrels for credit heist will always be important. The factions needed for the mod challenges for good mods are fixed. The characters needed in the current TB maps will stay the same, but we are likely to get new maps at some point that either replace or rotate with the current ones. So you can do all of that, but nobody can tell you what will be winning in your arena 6 months from now.
The current ships META largely consists of Thrawn's capital ship with Biggs, Imperial TIE, TIE Reaper, FO TIE, TIE Advanced, and Scimitar (as reinforcement). But you need more ships than that. In order to get Chimaera you need the Phoenix ships and 3 of the other 4 rebel ships. You also need strong enough light side ships to complete the Ackbar challenge.
Don't be so afraid to upgrade your ships. Right now, there just aren't that many ships, and there isn't as big of a crunch in ship credits and materials as with characters. You won't be able to get some of those end game ships yet, and you are better off having pretty decent ships like Jedi Consular, Ahsoka, and Fives, than doing nothing. In the long run you will just hamper yourself because you can't do the higher tiers of the challenges or win any fleet arena battles. Also keep in mind that the strength of your ships is largely determined by the strength of your pilots. So a ship that isn't considered as good might still be better for you because of how much you have geared and leveled those particular characters.
- Get your phoenix squad to 7* first and geared them since they will be your main arena squad and will clear your GW everyday.
- When you have all of them 5* you can try Tier III health mods challenge, spend as I said before 1-2 week getting health mods as they are mandatory to climb in arena (I say health mods because you don't need any specific squad to unlock tier III). Square will give you always as primary stat Offense, diamond defense, circle health or protection (protection is better), arrow try to get speed, triangle try to get critical chance or critical damage and for cross try to get potency or tenacity. You should focus on looking for speed in your secondary stats, speed is all in arena. Then return and push Hera/Ezra to 7*.
- For ships, keep in mind what Liath told above. Moreover, you can work on Ghost and Phantom at the same time, people in rank 501+ receives 800 fleet tokens I don't understand why you have said you can't.
- I would invest more crystals on cantina refresh rather than normal energy refresh to max them up fastly.
https://swgoh.gg/u/lakson/
So there are a few very big mistakes you said here and that you need to fix. First off, YOU NEED MODS. You are close to having your rebels to 5 stars and you can get 5 star mods then. It does not matter that they are hp mods. I did a quick calculation on my zeb and lets see what the 5 star hp mods x6 give him:
+34.07%Protection
+15%Tenacity
+12Speed
+6.4%Health
+6.18%Defense
+4.55%Potency
+4%Offense
+1.6%Critical Chance
+307Protection
+112Health
+90Offense
+15Defense
and I just slapped whatever mod looked good on him. In short, YOU MUST GET MODS. Even more important than ezra/hera shards unless you are ~10 shards short of 5 starring someone. You still get cantina tokens from mod battles so you will have no trouble leveing chopper.
I got scoundrels for cred heist (ST Han and Boba) And I have to admit that was the WORST decision I made on this account. Yeah, they are good, the creds are good, but those are 80 arena shards off my Kan and I bought 20-30 boba shards instead of chopper. I would have a signifcantly better arena standing if I did not do that (leveling a char from 6 to 7 stars gives you 3000-3500 GP so consider the jump). I made maybe a million credits off 2 heists.
A lot of people giving advice here are veterans. Playing in VETERAN SHARDS. What they say is true, but some of it does not apply to you. First off, when people say "stop focusing phoenix" they mean stop gearing them. All of them should be 7 starred. And you will play for at least 2-3 months before you come to the point of starting to drop your phoenixes. I am top 50 in my shard and ALL teams are phoenix/NS. Save for one FO whale. Dont even think about stopping phoenixes before you get at least lvl 80 and get zetas. By that time you will have a lot of 7 star characters to choose from. I am going for a empire team atm, my phoenixes are all 7 star. Not even close to gear finished.
A very strange thing I saw in my arena is that above rank 100 is a quite LOWER GP ratio of phoenix teams than below. I have seen 50k phoenix teams below 100 while above are around 46-7k. Only explanation to this I have come to is that people refuse to spend crystals on arena refreshes. Big mistake. Spend 50 gems now for 5 refreshes and you will be getting 50 extra every day from then since you boosted your rank.
As for ships, I am somehow top 20 in my squad. I did not get lucky on pulls, completely f2p. I did not listen to any guides other than getting biggs. Again, EVERYONE IS EQUAL IN FLEET. Nobody can prep for that since it is lvl 60. You will again have whales but as I said, I had no prep and top 20 np.
I started buying phoenix ships whenever I can. On side of that I am buying boba ship when I see it and tie advanced. Some char shards, do not hoard too much. Always have 400 tokens on refresh in case you see shards you need. Once you unlock phoenix ships the jump will be BIG. They heavily outweight any rebel/NS squads since lando/any NS/ all main characters for those teams dont go into ships. Yours do.
And as far as phoenix arena advise goes, I still lose sometimes due to time limitation. My opening is ALWAYS the same: Chopper dispell on other chopper to remove evasion, ezra auto, hera auto, zeb sunder auto, kannan auto. Get that chopper shield off and prepare for ezra/hera burst. If I get at least one ezra double attack I can often kill that stupid bot and then I just auto on hera/kannan/zeb/ezra last. I started expermenting using zeb to stun kannan. I save all my dispells for kannan taunt/chopper taunt. Sometimes RNG will just make you lose. Oh and those HP mods will help you in arena also by making others draw against you. It's not all about attack in arena.
The general order suggested is:
1.) Phoenix squad can get Grand Admiral Thrawn and Emperor Palpatine
2.) Five 7* Empire characters (both Thrawn and the Emperor are Empire characters, so ideally you’d only need 3 more) can get R2D2
3.) R2D2 plus 7* Old Ben, Stormtrooper Han, Princess Leia, and Farmboy Luke can get Commander Luke Skywalker, one of the best characters in the game
The most important thing in this game is the event schedule, especially the big events that the developers keep hidden until right before they start. Your arena is going to change and be highly affected by which characters are accessible. Hopefully, comparatively few players in your arena will be able to get Emperor Palpatine at 7* this time. If that’s true, then by starring and gearing up your Phoenix team, you’ll be able to get both the Emperor and Thrawn the next time they both come around. From there, just follow the farming order I wrote out and you’ll be on the road to getting end-game characters.
For arena, Phoenix can be viable up to the point where people in your shard can get 7* Palpatine-led Empire teams, which with the recent rework will likely crush Phoenix teams. However, you probably won’t have to worry about that until after the next time Palpatine comes back, so estimated 2 months from now.
For ships, you will eventually need 5 dark side ships and 5 light side ships for capital ship upgrades. In order to get Thrawn’s capital ship Chimera, you will need 5 rebel ships (not just light side, but specifically rebel). I would advise you to start starring up every ship you have that you might even consider using and farm the rest you want. This will help advance you in fleet arena and get you toward your goals. Also, I’d initially focus on getting the Ghost and Phantom II, since they are Phoenix ships and Phoenix are currently your best characters. From here on out, you want to try to match your best characters with the ships they fly. I also would specifically encourage you to farm Biggs after Zeb in galactic wars, since his ship is used everywhere. And in answer to your question about Sabine, I would farm her as much as her hard node allows. Pilots have a big impact on their ships, and Sabine is no exception.
I scrolled through the thread you linked, and it seems as though everyone who responded to you wrote out long, in-depth, and thoughtful responses (and/or linked multiple videos along those lines) to try to help you out. If all you got from all of that is "focus on Phoenix squad to exclusion of all else" then the problem here lies not necessarily with the advice given to you, but your attempt at following it. Now, I am not going to waste my time actually reading that thread--and will immediately stop attempting to help you should you ask me to--because I don't really believe you're actually interested in being helped, but I'm going to try anyway.
Before I go on, let's talk about your BIGGEST PROBLEM which is a complete lack of Scoundrels. A lack of scoundrels explains quite a bit why you're in such a bad position, and having such problems advancing in the game. You're probably constantly out of resources and credits, and the reason why? No scoundrels! I'm going to say you immediately stop (do not make me capitalize and bold that; I will if I have to) farming Phoenix and work on unlocking (don't go further than that for now, you won't need a higher star level until much later) some Scoundrels. You will need 5. Get them leveled and geared as soon as possible; they pay for themselves through the Credit Heist (Personally I use Bounty Hunters, which are eventually needed for DSTB--they're not a very strong team though, so I wouldn't recommend using them as your DS team--Boba Fett is the most useful of the lot; you can also pick up Stormtrooper Han, needed for CLS, and Lando, decent for arena and will make the Mod Challenge/Heists ridiculously easy).
Now, about things you actually asked:
Everyone and their mother says "get Phoenix" because you would be a fool not to; they're probably the best combination of strong, useful, and an easy farm that you have access to in early game (I mean, with a decent Nix team your arena--at least until later mid-game--light side battles, any event requiring rebels, and GW are handled; you already have a team needed for two combat missions in LSTB and a solid defense squad for TW; and you get two Legendary characters for your trouble. You need them at least G8--I'm personally taking mine to G10 before I move on, and may eventually come back for G11 for ship abilities--seven stars, max level and level 7 abilities with maxed out uniques; note: this may not be sufficient to beat the Thrawn event, invest more to be assured of victory). Now, there isn't a real equivalent team on the dark side--either the required characters are hard to farm and/or inaccessible early, or just aren't useful enough... either immediately or long term... to justify expending the resources--and building an early/mid-game team requires a bit of luck and a bit of thought.
Many people use a hodgepodge of characters they got through promotions, marquee events, other events, or happened to unlock in other ways--I started back in October and was lucky enough to be around for the Talzin marquee; I started out using nightsisters and a couple other characters, and eventually transitioned into a mixed First Order/Empire squad... and I am quite close to splitting those squads up now--until they're in a position to actually build up a dark side team. Picking out a team requires, as I said before, a little thought--I suggest going First Order and/or Empire because you need those teams (BB-8 and R2-D2, DSTB respectively)--and an examination of your priorities.
Now, if you decide to go Empire then your Phoenix team will give you two of the five--Emperor Palpatine and Grand Admiral Thrawn--achievements will give you another--Vader--and Fleet mastery events will give you another--Grand Moff Tarkin--so it'll be up to you to take a look at your farms and [pick out] one that will not interfere with what you're already working on. In the mean time you'll just have to make due with a haphazard mixture of your existing roster. Looking at what you have, I suggest: Vader, Tarkin, Kylo, and two others. If I remember correctly Royal Guard is quite squishy and Talia's healing starts to feel ineffective about your level, so you may consider dropping them entirely. You may also consider using your Tie Fighter Pilot--you'll need him for his ship, and for ships you have to invest in your pilots--and your First Order Executioner. This team is going to die quickly, will probably handle like wet tissue, so you either have to go all-in on the glass canon model, or pause your cantina farm long enough to unlock Kylo Ren (Unmasked). KRU is a very solid tank at lower levels--he's only just now starting to feel squishy to me--and you'll want to drop Tarkin if you're going to use him.
Let's talk about mods next; whichever problems you're having in the arena are probably down to mods (if it isn't the team make up, gear, or ability levels it's mods). You're going to want to unlock Mod Challenges, which means you have to complete the first three maps of the Mod Battle table. Next, you're going to want to take your Nix team and go into Mod Challenges, select the Health Mod Challenge, and get as close to three-starring tier III as you can (if you can't yet, it's no sweat). You'll be farming all your mods from this location until much later game; prioritize leveling and using any mods with speed on them (speed mods go on your arena team; for Phoenix prioritize slapping that speed on Ezra, Hera, Chopper/Zeb, and Kanan, in that order). At your current level I wouldn't suggest spending more than a weekend's worth of Cantina energy on Mods; your other farms take priority.
Now for ships: you will eventually need (by level 80) five (8 might be better) dark side ships at five or more stars; you'll need these for upgrading Tarkin's ship past four stars, and for the zeta ability material challenge. Next you're going to want five rebel ships at at least five stars (seven is better); you'll need them for unlocking Chimaera and upgrading Home One and Endurance. For Chimaera your Home One will have to be at least 5 stars to unlock, and you'll need it at 7 stars to 7 star Chimaera (five rebel ships at the same level). Prioritize dark side ships, then work on your rebels. From these two sets of ships you should be able to build a decent fleet arena team (other people will have more advice on getting a meta fleet team; I honestly don't care that much about ships). It is worth noting you will have to level, gear, and eventually star up your pilots to have the most effective use of your ships.
The key is that remembering this game is about two things: resource management, and long-term planning. As you're leveling, in order to succeed, you will need to balance distribution of your incoming resources into three teams: light side, dark side, and scoundrels. It is best to focus on characters and teams you will need for as many other things as possible, or to unlock other characters that you want.
Your priority, for now, should be:
1. SCOUNDRELS; you will need five, unlock them, level them, gear them, then use them to rake in credits/droids
2. MODS; spend a weekend--and no more, until you finish Hera and Ezra!--of Cantina Energy on Mods
3. DARK SIDE; get your dark side team in order; catch your team up to your Phoenix Squad in levels and gear, then alternate between them on each gear level/ability level
4. PHOENIX; get back on track farming your Phoenix team, prioritize their character shards and ability levels (uniques first, always!)
5. DARK SIDE SHIPS; needed for late game ability mats, level/gear pilots as possible
6. ????????
7. PROFIT
As you level you will only be asked to balance more, not less. Figure it out, OP.
The problem with farming Phoenix only is, that you won't have enough scoundrels to do the highest tier of credit heist available to you. You should as a minimum have farmed all of Boba Fett's hard nodes every day until now. He and Lando are MVPs there.
Which hard nodes did you farm while farming Phoenix in various shops and cantina? It seems like you didn't really farm much hard nodes. I'm afraid, that you have crippled yourself by leaving out farming hard nodes like:
Biggs (must—have ship and good combined with Wedge).
JC (good ship mid—game and jedi for mod challenge and Yoda)
RG (mediocre toon, but works well for unlocking R2D2 early)
FOTP (excellent ship and used to unlock BB8)
Old Daka (in case you plan on a NS team at some point).
Regarding Dark Side nodes you should have had at least Boba Fett, FOTP and Vader unlocked by now. You will unlock EP soon (or maybe not until next time his event comes around. Don't worry. Be patient and farm DS toons and you will master the DS nodes eventually. Having a few level 85 allies helps immensly. Invite some high level players from your guild.
Since you will probably use Sabine's ship in fleet arena (and later for unlocking Chimaera) you might as well level her a bit on the side.
Regarding mods, you should at least do the health and defense mod challenges at highest tier. This will make mods of better quality appear more frequently in mod shipments. Lack of focus on mods is probably one of the main reasons, you're loosing ranks in arena. Phoenix are supoosedly still good in mid—game arena. Lando/Boba teams and other Phoenix teams probably only cause you trouble because of their speed. You need to acquire arrow mods with speed primary stat and the other types of mods with speed as secondary stat.
Regarding ships, Biggs', TFP's, FOTP's and Vader's ships are must—haves. The Phoenix ships are ok as well in mid—game (but end—game tends to be dominated by DS ships with Biggs). JC's and Wedge's ships are ok mid—game. However, be aware, that you will need 5 rebel ships to unlock Chimaera (much) later on. Did you already join a fleet arena shard? If you did, you really need to get your ship farming going, if you want to stsy competitive.
What are the other 3 Empire characters I should get? I assume one of them would be Boba Fett. I have Darth Vader already so it would be great if he's viable. I've seen various video guides recommend Kylo Ren, Royal Guard, Old Daka, Tie Fighter Pilot, Geonosian Soldier, IG-88, IG86, and Poggle the Lesser. Some of those recommendations are probably bad/out of date. So, which do I choose? Catharsis recommends Vader, Kylo Ren, Tarkin, and/or TFP. Would that comp (with Emperor Palpatine and Grand Admiral Thrawn) be viable endgame? What should my eventual Empire team comp be besides the 2 givens (Emperor Palpatine, Grand Admiral Thrawn)?
And thanks for all your other advice, it helps a lot.
From the feedback I received in this thread, specifically Liath's post, I started leveling up the Jedi Consular ship and the Imperial Tie Fighter. Out of the 5 free ships, those are the 2 that I might consider using, let me know if I should consider using the other 3 (Resistance X-Wing, Geonosian Soldier's starfighter, and Clone Sergeant's ARC-170). I also leveled up Executrix slightly because my Tarkin is slightly leveled up.
Also, does this mean I should start leveling up the Jedi Consular and Tie Fighter Pilot again? I was specifically advised NOT to do so in my old thread. I doubt I have the spare resources to do so atm.
Thanks for answering my question about Sabine! I've been wondering about that for a while. And only you and Waqui answered that. And I will start farming Biggs now (I just 7 starred Zeb), though it may be a while before I can get his fighter.
I realize that just like in an MMORPG, the relative power of every class/ship is always subject to nerfs/change. And there will always be a chance of new overpowered characters being introduced, or an old character becoming the new FOTM. But I still need good information on the current situation so I can make the best, most informed decision I can make. For example, without the advice in the previous thread, I probably would have continued to invest some resources into Clone Wars Chewbacca, Kylo Ren, and Jedi Consular, which I realize now would have been a waste. And the advice you've given here helps a lot too, thanks!
Thanks, that helps a lot. Because of your advice and the advice of others, I've started leveling up some of my ships, specifically, the Imperial Tie and Jedi Consular as I said above.
Thanks, this mod advice is exactly what I wanted to know. The reason I can't work on Ghost and Phantom at the same time is because the shops reset 3x a day, so I can potentially spend 1200 tokens on Ghost in a single day if it happens to show up 3x.
Yeah, you're right I don't do much hard mode. WIth my normal energy, I've been farming mostly normal battles to gear up my Phoenix toons with equipment faster. I've been pretty much only been doing 5x Hard Mode battles a day for the daily task. Those 5 used to be Sabine, and after I unlocked Sabine I've been doing 5x Boba Fett. Now I might have to do Sabine again.
So yeah, I was aware of the importance of Boba Fett, but wasn't focusing on him very hard, due to advice from the previous thread. Also, on days where my guild activity is Hard Mode battles, I would do more Hard Mode battles. As per your advice, I will start doing more hard mode battles so I can get Boba Fett faster, and then Lando who was also on my to-do list after Boba.
I've already been doing the dark side battles by being carried by my high level allies. The problem is, I can't 3 star the battles to sim them because my own characters get killed, even if I only bring 1 or 2 of them. I do have Darth Vader and First Order Tie Pilot. I leveled up Darth Vader a bit, but haven't touched the FOTP yet.
Since you will probably use Sabine's ship in fleet arena (and later for unlocking Chimaera) you might as well level her a bit on the side.
I'm not asking you to read the old thread. I only posted it for reference for those who wanted to look at it. But I have to push back on some of the things you said because they are clearly misconceptions. First, all the videos posted in that thread were posted BY ME. Second, I was the one in my old thread who was asking questions about all these other characters, but was repeatedly directed to focus on Phoenix. Here are a couple of the most egregious examples.
And I actually have deviated from a pure Phoenix focus a bit - I haven't been dogmatic - I have been working on Boba Fett, just very slowly (he takes 80 shards to unlock which takes forever), because I've been prioritizing gear for Phoenix more. I've also leveled up several Empire toons in a mostly failed attempt to 3 star the dark side battles that my borrowed ally characters have been carrying me through.
I'm not sure why you believe I'm not actually interested in being helped. But I can tell you that the advice I've already gotten in this thread has been invaluable and I can tell you specifically things that I learned and what I'll be doing differently because of that:
1. I'll be working on Sabine again because of the advice here; I had stopped after unlocking her.
2. I started leveling up some of my ships now that I know which ships are most likely to be useful in the long run. (Imperial Tie Fighter, Jedi Consular)
3. I have a revised long term plan for Phoenix progression - get all toons to 5 stars first, then spend a week or two focusing on mods for them. Then go back to focusing on stars.
4. I now know what mods to get for Phoenix (the highest level health mods I can get) - I had no clue before. Also, I know what secondaries to shoot for due to the information provided here.
5. I learned that mod challenges exist and how to unlock them.
6. I have a plan for ship progression - unlock both Phoenix ships, level up Imperial Tie Fighter, try to get Biggs' fighter and the FO Tie ASAP, get TIE Reaper and Tie Advanced when I can, get several other rebel fighters (though not sure which ones yet).
7. I'm going to try to do more Hard Mode battles to unlock Boba Fett sooner.
8. I should be spending my crystals on cantina refreshes more than normal energy refreshes. I had previously spent them mostly on normal energy refreshes.
I actually have no problem with credits at all right now. I believe you and others when you say that credits will eventually be a problem. But at the moment, I have 6.4 million credits, all of my Phoenix toons except Sabine are at max level (61 atm), several other characters are at pretty high level, and I have nothing else I need to spend credits on atm. The mods that I have are all at max level (15). I buy the cheap equipment with gear in shipments every refresh. Is there something else I can buy with credits that I'm missing here?
As I've said, I've decided to spend more resources on unlocking Boba Fett, but unless I'm actually in a credit crunch, I'm not sure why I need to drop everything and go all out on unlocking scoundrels. Consider this counter argument from someone on this very thread:
I do plan on getting Scoundrels eventually, I'm just not sure I want to drop everything and go all out on them right now.
This is great info, thanks. I've been wondering which of my dark side characters were viable, and now thanks to you I can put together a team if I badly need to 3 star a dark side battle with what I have.
I was trying to figure out what you were talking about, then I realized that mod challenges are something I haven't unlocked yet lol. I've been spending 90% of my cantina energy on stars for Hera and Ezra and only did the first 2 tiers of mod battles. Thanks for making me aware of this!
The rest of this is all extremely useful info. I would need more convincing on Scoundrels, though, since I don't yet have a problem with credits.
It costs roughly half a million credits to upgrade a 5 dot mod to level 15. If you only do mods for your arena team you need 30 mods.
Then the cost of each level increases as your level increases.
In your last post you appear to be mixing up dark side and empire. There are numerous dark side factions. Kylo ren is first order not empire, boba fett is a bounty hunter not empire.
As to what empire characters you need well tarkin and tfp are needed for ships so I would work on them anyway then add a tank (storm trooper or Royal guard).
That said Vader Palpatine and Thrawn are key to any top tier empire team. So there's 6 to work on.
For ships, only level up the ships you intend to use. You’re going to eventually need 5 dark side (preferably Empire) and 5 light side (preferably Rebel) ships, but you won’t be able to farm them all at first. So pick the best ones you have and level them up. Look at ship abilities to tell you what level the ship needs to be, then level the ship to the required level for the ability.
Most of the characters you listed, including Boba Fett, are not empire. Vader is a fine choice. TFP as I mentioned is great for ships anyway, so he's a good choice as well. Royal Guard is a relatively tough farm, but a tank is a good idea. Shoretrooper is ideal, but very difficult to farm, so you can go with Royal Guard or Stormtrooper.
About the credits/bounty hunter thing... you might not have a Credit crunch now, but you eventually WILL regardless. The sooner you get started on them the longer until you hit that point. Fett, STHan, Lando IG88 and whoever are fairly easy farms will fill quotas for different events, and don’t require a ton of gear to knock out Credit Heist/Droid Smuggling. Don’t neglect them for too long.
You are right, I am mixing up Dark Side and Empire, and I'll probably continue to do so. The reason is because I've been playing Star Wars the Old Republic (an MMORPG) for over 6 years and am sort of still playing it. In that game, the two factions are Republic and Empire, and light side and dark side are individual character alignment choices independent of faction.
So I'm going to do the 10 hard mode missions for Boba every day from now on until I unlock him, not sure if I should star him up after that though. STHan and IG88 both use squad arena currency though. I can put Kanan on hold until I get them (gonna finish the star on Kanan first though since I'm like only 10 shards short), but it still seems slow going and will take 5 days each unless there's a better way I don't know of. Lando takes cantina energy which I don't know if I can afford.since I need to bust those mods for 2 weeks or so. Are there really no easier choices for smugglers?
More later on Empire choices, I have to run for now.
It seems as though I owe you an apology: I regret that I jumped to conclusions and made assumptions about you that were unfounded. I'm sorry for this, and for taking a bit of my temper out on you (stirred by unrelated things and the kind of person I thought you were from those conclusions and assumptions), and glad that I was mistaken.
Sincerely, I'm sorry.
That'll change, and soon. I hit the credit crunch a little earlier than you will--about as soon as I unlocked mods I spent tons of credits on leveling mods just out of curiosity, mods that I farmed from the mods battle table of places, was probably one of the biggest early mistakes I've made playing this game (I've been able to turn my other missteps into happy accidents; now everyone is thinking of Bob Ross). It was a learning experience I can now tell you and others about so that they don't make the same one, or are at least prepared to make choices intelligently--and had had my Scoundrels for credit heist quite early (I was only late for preparing for like one tier and my Scoundrels still need a little work so I don't have to steal my good mods off my arena team in order to complete the event--good thing I'm farming mods again!).
The price to level mods, characters, and even craft gear increases exponentially past your level. A five dot mod costs nearly 500,000 credits to level from 1 to 15 (you get new and/or upgraded secondary stats at mod level 3, 6, 9, and 12); you won't even know the potential of a mod until you've gotten it to 12 and revealed all of the secondary stats, and whether or not it's even worth finishing out. It's nearly 170,000 credits per five dot mod to reveal those stats. A character from 60 to 65 is almost 570,000; 65 to 70 is almost 750,000; 70 to 75 is almost 950,000; 75 to 80 is almost 1,280,000. I couldn't tell you about 80 to 85 without a calculator--I'm not quite there yet--but surely you get the point.
If you neglect your scoundrels for too long you'll be hurting financially--the last tier of the heist is up to 10 million credits/attempt, but you're more likely to get 2.5 or 5 million/attempt; nothing to sneeze at--and probably kicking yourself for taking steps. Knock your Scoundrels up a step or a half in your priorities and you should be set.
That all should be plenty to rebuff @LaksonVell's argument, but I'll go ahead and do so now:
That amount is nothing to sneeze at--and he's exaggerating the delay to his Phoenix characters (for example, Stormtrooper Han unlocks at 50--not 80-- shards; the rate it takes you to unlock him depends on your arena rank, provided that you can buy from the Arena store twice a day--if you're within the top 200 of your shard--it'll only take about five days to unlock Han, that's only a 5 day delay to seven starring Kanan--10 if you're getting IG-88 too--which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of this game; you would probably only choose to do otherwise if Thrawn/Palpatine was returning/ending within that period of time. I'll admit that Boba Fett would be a slightly longer delay--depending on the number of Cantina refreshes you use each day--it could take you anywhere from a week to three to unlock Boba Fett primarily using the Cantina Store)--and the rewards increase as you level/unlock the later tiers. The rewards earlier aren't always fantastic, but you'll want your Scoundrels ready to go by the time you hit level 70 at latest.
Vell's arena failings aren't down to being a little slower to the punch in starring up his characters--your gear, ability level, and mods are much more important for arena standing--unless he's letting his opponent's higher power score keep him from competing. I'll say again--I think I said this in another thread anyways; I talk too much to keep track of everything I say and where--that before I seven starred my Phoenix characters I was taking on squads with 20,000 GP on me (I don't have much luck with power differences that large right now, my shard's in the middle of having spotty access to zeta materials/abilities, so I'm having to rethink strategies and comps I thought I knew). In short: don't over-estimate the importance of a star rating.
He'll likely find he made a "happy accident" in working on his Scoundrel characters when he did.
If it helps, here's what I do to balance my character and mod farms:
One of my guildmates actually got me doing this (she told me what she was doing, and what worked for her; she's the same person who talked me into starting Phoenix to begin with), and I decided that I liked the strategy. The idea is to pick out two characters--in this case Hera Syndulla and Ezra Bridger--and alternate between them at each star level. I'm about to start my third such set--I'll be working on uKylo (20/65) and Farmboy Luke (5/30); I'll start by getting Luke to his fourth star, then working on Kylo's fifth, and so on it goes until I finish the farm--and have my next three or so planned out (I may segway a bit, because I have some characters quite close to 7 stars that I may need for events that are available in the cantina).
After finishing a set of characters I'll spend the next week's worth of energy on nothing but mods (it'll probably be at least another round of this before I work on the other challenges to start tailoring my mods). Like I said earlier, it probably isn't worth it to do more than a weekend's worth of mod farming in the middle of a farm.
Dengar is my reccomendation as a temporary placeholder for earlier tier credit heists. He is guild store so he doesn't clash at all with phoenix and he unlocks at 2 star so you only need a few shards to buy him. You can replace him later after phoenix or you can upgrade him more if you want your choice.
Thanks, it takes a lot of courage to admit something like that. Apology accepted. All of the information you provided is very helpful, though I have like 2 minutes right now so I'll have to follow up some other time.
What about Zam Wessel and Cad Bane as bounty hunters? They use guild store and galactic war currency, respecitvely. I assume these are all characters that I'll unlock and leave at level 1, and the only ones I'll be leveling up are the ones I'll eventually use: Boba Fett, Lando, ST Han, IG88. Who is number 5? Clone Wars Chewbacca will obviously temporarily fill a slot, but everyone has been adamant that he not be leveled up.
So the temporary Scoundrel team I'm shooting for at the moment is:
Clone Wars Chewbacca (since I have him already), Dengar, Boba Fett (close to having him), IG88, Zam Wessel. Do I actually need 5? The second tier only needs 4 it seems, but I assume you need all 5 later.
How much should I level up this temporary team? I'm going to max Boba Fett and IG88, since they'll be members of the final team. I'm hoping those 2 can carry the entire temporary team.
The permanent Scoundrel team I'll be shooting for is:
Boba Fett, IG88, Lando, ST Han, and Zam Wessel. Is that a good comp? Or is Dengar/Greedo/Cad Bane/Gamorrean Guard more useful than Zam? And how much do I need to upgrade this permanent Scoundrel team? Do they need stars or not, and if so, how many? I'm assuming Clone Wars Chewbacca is not viable, because people have said nothing but bad things about him, but if he is I'd rather just use him because I already have him and I already upgraded him quite a bit.
Also, I've noticed that the fleet arena store doesn't seem to refresh when it's supposed to, at the same time as the other stores, though I'm not 100% sure on this. It's just that sometimes, when all the other stores refresh, I think the fleet store doesn't refresh, and some time afterwards, I might notice that it has refreshed. Might just be my imagination though.
My short-term Dark Side team will consist of Vader, Kylo Ren, Tarkin, TFP, and either Royal Guard or FO TFP (b/c I'm going to have to level him anyway). Do I actually need a pure Empire team for anything? I was mixing up Dark Side and Empire before, like I said.
12pm 7pm and 9pm.
As to your scoundrels did you clear the tier ii credit heist today? What I did was upgrade my team a bit between tiers and stockpile some gear so if they couldn't clear it I could upgrade them a little.
Boba's ship is very good and if you are a small spender there's a pack with 80 of his shards and 80 of his ship shards that becomes available when you hit level 80.
There's one video floating around of a gear xi seven star boba and 4 2 star gear 1 level 1 scoundrels clearing tier iv.
You need a pure empire team for the r2 event if that is a priority for you.
You do need 5 Scoundrels for tiers III and IV; the only requirement is that they're strong enough to defeat the event. III unlocks at 70, and IV at 80--testing them out in similar level battles should give you a good idea of whether or not they're capable of it--you only need a certain star rating on your Scoundrels for the Critical Chance Mod Challenge (you need scoundrels at at least 5 stars for that) and/or for the Bounty Hunter-only Missions in Territory Battles (six stars there).
A lot of people don't really pick out a permanent Scoundrels team for Credit Heists, and either have to build up other characters for events (Territory Battles need Bounty Hunters and Captain Han; CLS needs Stormtrooper Han; JTR needs Veteran Smugglers, etc), or get access to characters like Raid Han that they use for their Arena. Chances are you'll have to eventually build up more Scoundrels than you plan on using for Heists, your best bet's getting those that you need later on, or are going to use for things like Arena and Territory Wars.
Remember we'll be able to sim Heists soon, so you'll just want to do your best to three star the last tier when that comes (then it's just a matter of making sure they're strong enough for the Mod Challenges and whatever else you need/want to use them for). For just Credit/Droid Heists alone (and until you're in a position to build them up for all that other stuff), just do your best to keep them about even with your progress as you approach the next level of the tier and make sure they have decent mods, gear, abilities, and levels.
You need two pure dark side teams for events: BB-8 requires First Order, and R2-D2 requires Empire. You'll probably want a decent team for Assault Battles and the like down the line too.
Is there? Didn't see that come up when I hit 80, and I would've been tempted because Slave I rarely shows up in the fleet store for me (and I wouldn't have had to go far out of my way to 7* Boba). Could've been a temporary promotion, maybe?
There was a Boba Fett pack available as a promotion around Christmas; is this what you're referring to?
Sorry it's there when you hit 60 or 65, not 80. There's a few other ship backs that become available at the same time.
Ah ha, thanks! So confusing!
Well, as Catharsis, pointed out, I have a complete lack of scoundrels, except for Clone Wars Chewbacca of course, which everyone has. So I only have 1/3 scoundrels needed for the lowest tier of credit heist. On the advice of Catharsis and others, I'm now hauling **** on Scoundrels. I'm at 70/80 for Boba Fett, 10/25 for Dengar, 11/50 for IG-88, and I'm going to be getting Zam ASAP, and ST Han after IG-88.
I haven't heard anything about Greedo on this thread, though I know people use them in their scoundrel squads. He seems to be pretty easy to get.
I've resolved to spend $0 on this game. I can actually afford a small amount, like $5-10, but I won't buy anything because I want to be able look at everything I've accomplished in this game and know that I did it all completely F2P.
It looks like I'll be getting a lot of different scoundrels for different things. So I'll need a Bounty Hunter team, a Smuggler team, and ST Han. So, how does that affect whether I get Zam, Greedo, Cad Bane, Dengar, etc., and how far I level them up? And whether I invest more in Clone Wars Chewbacca? What I mean is, are each of them good for their eventual respective teams (Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, etc.)?
Veteran smugglers is just Veteran Han and veteran Chewie
Bounty hunters is just the ones with a bounty hunter tag. It will be very late game before you worry about it. Also there's only 6 bounty hunters.
Let me extend you an invitation to the SunBros, because the excellent and logical questions you posted in your previous thread and in this one are constantly discussed and debated in our guild chat. We have many players at levels 60-75, and we want them to be succesful with fleets from day one, it's fundamental for F2P in order to get nice crystal payouts.
-A bounty hunter-only composition isn't very strong by current standards. I always put Boba Fett with Empire, Rebels, Sith teams, etc. I almost never use other BH outside the heists.
EDIT:
Regarding Scoundrels, I could suggest a low budget, easy to put together scoundrel team that would take care of Tiers III and IV for credit and droid heists. Only 2 or 3 of those scoundrels would need to be strong, and they'd carry the team. Tier V credit heist doesnt unlock until level 82. It's funny how this topic came up in our chat yesterday. And none of the scoundrels we'd suggest would be a waste or conflict with your farming in in Arena squad (I never got IG-88 or Greedo from there, because I had 3 other priorities including fleet commander, sthan and Phoenix).
Also, the scoundrels I would suggest work in other parts of the game and they will not strain your limited resources. In fact, I use clone wars chewbacca with minimal investment and terrible, cheapo mods in that low budget scoundrel team for heists. My Boba Fett does all the work, and he is also one of my top Arena and Fleet characters (his ship, the Slave 1, is a must have).
-Boba Fett 7 Stars, gear 8 or 9 - Max level you can get him up to. He is your super star, and main dmg dealer (Lando would have enormous dmg output potential too, but you can be farming something else in cantina). I gave him some of the best mods I have.
-St Han 5/6 stars, gear 7 or 8 - Max level you get him up to. He doesn't even have to be 6 or 7 stars. If his gear is good, he will die in the third phase of the heist but will take a lot of shots.I gave him mods that make him a very effective tank. At gear 8, StHan can deal more dmg, while gear 7 is mostly comprised by pieces that make him more durable.
-Clone Wars Chewbacca 5/6 stars, gear 6 - I use him because he's given to you for free, and his shards constantly drop from bronzium packs and Galactic War rewards. Give him levels to make him a meatshield. the more hits he gets, the less shots landing on Boba Fett. He has some very average health and defense mods.
-Dengar 3 stars, gear 5 or 6 minimal investment in him. Level 60-65 is enough. You unlock him at 2 stars with five simple shard purchases in the guild store. I use his stun attack quite frequently.
-Cad Bane 3 stars. Gear 4, almost no investment, he d ies quickly anyway. I unlocked him simply with galactic war currency once I was able to finish GW every single day. Getting his shards didn't conflict very much with other farms, because you get plenty of GW currency each day. I like Dengar better, and now I spend more galactic war currency on ships and Zeb. Cad Bane could be replaced by any other scoundrel like IG 88 (truly a good character), Zam Wesell or Greedo, he is just filler. You need five scoundrels, it's ok if one or two are quite weak as long as the two strongest scoundrels can put out the damage.
lOGRLCl CommanderShepard in HoDA
Find our Guild here: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/126148/praise-the-sun-for-some-jolly-co-op#latest
And F2P is me. I have child suport. i like to try to buy a pack every other month or so if its something I really feel I enjoy. These are like the world's greatest action figures to me. You fan take them out play level up and give them new abilities. Then put away when done. Truly gretest 3D rendered action figures I have collected tbis past almost 2 years and enjoyed every day. And vood to miss a day once a while. Its ok to miss things once in awhile. Join a guild that knows we all have lifes and important responsibilitys besides this game. Oh ya if you want you can save.like 500.000 or something like that and creat your own guild. And so forth. But sugest you play in one for a few months to see how they funtction and so forth. K feel like I may have mist something but also enjoy this game and wish you the best. Feel your better then I at your start so good job. Keep it up. Get Vader shards trust me if you have a first to zeta.Vader is a win every time be is so usable every were. Good gaming and may the force be with you new force buddiezzzzz. VORGOG going to get so.e Jawa juice. Pecie....!!!
I'm not sure that helped legibility at all, but you seem like a pretty nice/chill guy @gaggillTRON