Speed problem
This may not be as big an issue on more mature shards, but I’m in a November shard where most are in the low 80s approaching 85 and just now getting zetas. Since no one in that recent a shard has JTR or even CLS, Empire teams are now ubiquitous in the top 20 of the arena. They destroy NS, and there is no real counter to them available once Palp gets his leader ability zeta. The problem is, this has made arena stale because whoever has the fastest Vader always wins. Go first, Force Crush, Cull, allies get 100 percent turn meter, game over.
This feeds into a larger issue that I’m sure has been discussed as nauseum, but speed is seemingly the only stat that matters in arena, particularly with all the turn meter manipulation abilities. This game is in desperate need of some counter mechanics to speed. Passive abilities that punish toons who take frequent turns, abilities that boost evasion or other important stats scaling with opponent speed. Something. As it stands, it appears my shard will be “fastest Vader wins” for a few months. It’s a problem with the mature meta as well. This game desperately needs different ways to win to keep things from getting so stale.
This feeds into a larger issue that I’m sure has been discussed as nauseum, but speed is seemingly the only stat that matters in arena, particularly with all the turn meter manipulation abilities. This game is in desperate need of some counter mechanics to speed. Passive abilities that punish toons who take frequent turns, abilities that boost evasion or other important stats scaling with opponent speed. Something. As it stands, it appears my shard will be “fastest Vader wins” for a few months. It’s a problem with the mature meta as well. This game desperately needs different ways to win to keep things from getting so stale.
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Yep. My shard used to be all Wiggs and fastest Biggs won.
There is no counter to speed.
If you have two turn manipulation teams, the faster tram wins.
If you have two evasion trams, the faster team wins.
Of course... but if you have a fast team with no turn meter manipulation, a slower team that does have turn meter manipulation can win. That’s what a counter means. The concept doesn’t apply to effective mirror matches.
Use rex lead mate.
Everyone get on the tram!
Yes, speed is the most important, but speed alone does not win. I mean, TFP was supposed to be the chosen one, but he is mostly a nomad in search of a real home.
Wouldn't that be something? Take massive damage just for taking a turn. Something like an undispellable Thermal Detonator stack, applied similar to Nihilus' Health Down debuff. Oh, you want to take a turn? Here's an automatic time bomb. If any stack reaches 3, all stacks on all enemy characters explode for double damage, ignoring protection. Slowest team wins. The only winning move is not to play.
I would argue that plague is the anti speed. If I get plague on the enemy team and they go over and over then they are just killing them selves. Its happened to me many times using RJT vs NS.
Of course like anything else there are ways to deal with it, and it also does rely on getting that plague off in the first place which if the other team is really that much faster you may not be able to.
But Im just playing devils advocate here cause I agree, speed is king and will continue to be. I always found it interesting that in anime/manga you see the strongest people are considered the strongest most of the time based on how fast they are. The small skinny fast guy is gonna own the slow lumbering giant most of the time.
I see your points about plague, and that you need to change up your team and strategy to deal with it.
My point to Lief is that speed isnt a strategy, it's a necessity to have a tough team, no matter what team you run. Some teams are more forgiving, but the faster they become, the tougher your team becomes.
Assuming an Empire squad is properly modded, Rex will never go first against Vader. He can’t get his ability off before Palp AOE stun.
Zylo doesn’t have a leadership ability? Do you mean Kylo Unmasked? I’ve been running them, and they cannot match a Palp squad. Vader always goes first, Force Crush, Cull, and the entire Empire squad gets 100 percent turn meter. AOE Palp stun, Shoretrooper taunt and group crit immunity, Thrawn shatter. You will lost half your squad before you even get a turn.
This is the real problem. People just seem willing to accept the game’s crappy balancing. A properly balanced game should give you multiple options for squad makeup as long as gear is at comparable levels.
The underlying problem is that when speed is the only stat that matters and squads aren’t properly balanced, everyone has to chase the same squad, and it’s just a question of who has that extra point of speed.
In a shard like mine, where no one was high enough to get JTR, there is literally no counter to Palp/Vader. So now everyone is running them and it’s gotten stale and boring. If you are in a more mature shard where JTR beats Palp and Palp beats NS and NS can beat JTR, you at least have some variety.
that's should be the main purpose of 6 and 7 star mods, if they are to introduce them.
if the developers are to address this "issue", then they should increase speed by a small amount for 6 and 7 star mods while increasing the other secondary stats by a large amount e.g. maybe the highest speed secondary being 35 and other secondaries increasing to something like 17-18% protection or offense or something for 7 star mods.
while i don't know what the exact balance for the trade off of each secondary stats will be, this may be in the right direction
Rex lead will still feed TM to your team when they are criticaly hit.
How do you fare in LS territory battles? ROLO lead is great against empire. TM when getting debuffed and foresight when damaged by empire enemies.
There ARE multiple options. In fact I have rarely seen so many options as right now.
Furthermore, there are a variety of business models. This game is not based on balancing the various characters, but instead on letting power creep making it necessary to always farm/buy the new/reworked toons that are going to be the new shiny thing. And the game providers do quite well at this.
Thrawn works perfectly fine at 5* G11
"Passive abilities thay punish toons who take frequent turns." Guess what, you have it: Palpatine. Zader also qualifies for that.
Man, if only that were true i'd hold rank so much better. I was getting beat eventhough i was faster so gosh darn often. Currently i'm not even fast in comparisson, but i'm doing better than before.
Rex cheese woohoo
I am talking about the same team composition. Of course a similar team that is slightly slower can beat you if they play smart, but not if they have +0 extra speed from mods.
If you run rex, try running fast rex.
You'll see what i mean.
Winning will become much easier and beating you will become much harder.
The real problem is that teams like jtr, ns, and now empure can beat the snot out of rex and cls teams with really bad mods....oh well.
But of those new meta teams get faster (+120 or +130 speed) they will become nearly unbeatable.
Point is you can counter speed, wich doesn't mean that more speed isn't almost always beneficial. You can also counter crit dmg, but more crit dmg is still beter than less.
There are plenty of teams that don't need to be fast to win. Some teams do significantly worse when facing a mirror team with more speed, some teams only do slightly worse. AI is horrble though, so in most mirror matches the human controlled team wins, especially if it's a team that only does slightly better with more speed.
Rex cheese beats those +120/+130 teams btw. The only character with more than +100 on my team is rex (+110) and i'm doing fine, on offence aswell as on defence. Ofcourse the team will be even better with more speed, but i really dislike modswitching.
Yes, any team will be even better with more speed.
Yes, some types of teams can beat other types of teams (even if they are faster) if their skills give them turn meter advantage.
We are in conplete agreement
Unfortunately he has no synergy with top characters and alone (or with Han) just isn’t good enough to make an impact.
There isn’t an arms race for mods with higher crit damage. A mod isn’t worthless in arena because it doesn’t have crit damage on it. Speed is far and away the stat that defines virtually every arena match.