Obviously not optimal....but are there any guides like Warriors Pillars for people who don’t want to do Phoenix?
It’s a fairly frequent request on the beginners forum and I try and answer it but am way way too longwinded. Plus, all of us simply saying you MUST do Phoenix might well just put them off playing all together.
I would think with the current state of the game it’s entirely possible to be semi-competitive without Phoenix (and Thrawn).
e.g.
1) Lightside Jedi team aiming at GMY (maybe suggest a compromise by farming Ezra)
2) Darkside - First Order aiming at BB8
3) BHs and STH aiming at Credit Heist
4) Rest of CLS requirements - aiming at CLS
5) Imperial Troopers aiming at R2D2
6) Complete Bounty Hunters.
Not sure how Fleet would fit into this - maybe an early Geo side-project? Unlikely any other beginners would be farming them...
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No. The only thing you NEED Phoenix for is - Thrawn, Chimera, some LSTB special missions, Thrawn Mythic.
They work great for Emperor Palpatine too, but aren't necessary.
A really good reason.
He's blue, ultra-ruthless and one of the top 10, if not top 5, characters in the game.
I avoided them for ages...didn't know who they were and didn't like the look of them. But once I started using them- I realised what a great team they are to use. They require some strategy and thought unlike a lot of other teams. Also...they are incredibly useful.
Remind me again why would you want to not farm them?
Not everyone wants to be a meta-sheep.
Phoenix aren't anywhere near meta. Thrawn is ubiquitous, but no-one calls it the "thrawn meta".
Everyone is welcome to play how they want. But ignoring Phoenix not only denies you a really useful team, but one of the most useful toons in the game.
After Ships 2.0 was introduced, Chimera isn’t as good as before. You could probably make do with Executrix.
The Phoenix Ships also are used for the Cargo Heist that comes around monthly now? Do Boba Fet for your scoundrel team (and BHs for Chewy event) and get slave 1 and bingo you can do the easier Cargo Heists with 3 ships. After that work on Falcons and/or Hound Tooth to do the toughest Cargo Heist.
Thrawn is possibly the most useful character in the game: His Capitol ship needed in dark side TB, Great in all raids, slots into many arena teams, really he's too good to avoid.
If you really want to avoid them, the only reason to do that would be to focus on getting one of the other top 5 characters, like Chewy, Revan, CLS and JTR sooner.
Phoenix are indeed the newbie meta which is what I said. Name one other newbie team which is even close to their accessibility, power, ease of use and ubiquity.
I never said they weren't useful, quite the contrary. The question posed was why anyone would want to go a different route.
Regarding your suggestions:
R2D2 (point 5) is a requirement for CLS (point 4). You will need to reorder those pillars.
You'll be missing Thrawn, obviously, but it's not like Empire is lacking options. I haven't built up my Imperial Trooper squad yet, so I still use Snowtrooper on my Empire squad. It's unconventional, but it works fine for what I use it for, which is mostly the Ewok assault battle and killing Phoenix squads in territory wars.
However, if their reply is “I get what you are saying, but I never watched Rebels and Star Wars to me is Luke, Leia and Jedi knights and that’s what I want to do....I don’t care if it’s not the BEST option”. Then I don’t think it’s right to not tailor “non-Phoenix advice” with an attached warning
Example - a new guildmate who’s got a reasonable Jedi squad but no Phoenix and doesn’t want them. I’ve tried to instead direct him to build up his Scoundrels (BHs mainly) for the Credit Heist, Galactic Bounties, Rebel Roundup and eventually Chewie. I’ve also got him working on his FOrder Squad.
There is no alternative guide on this forum or elsewhere....
* Biggs is an easy farm, great DPS especially with Wedge and good in fleer. (regular, cantina & GW store and later fleet but should be moot by that point)
* Wedge is a slower farm but well worth the effort if you have Biggs (cantina)
* Jedi Consular can heal until you are ready for Wedge lead and later help out in fleet battles (regular & cantina)
* Clone Wars Chewie is another easy farm and can serve as a tank for a while (regular & cantina)
* And since Chewie can tank, I would farm Leia before STHan as she is crit factory who works well with Wiggs (arena store)
* Or you could go STHan first, drop Chewie and keep Farmboy in the lineup
Farmboy Luke will be active early on which is fine as he'll be needed later for Jedi Luke.
My biggest regret is not going after Phoenix first thing. I only waited three months but even that small delay hurt.It is a team you will never not have need of. They unlock Thrawn (one of if not the best toon im the game), Palpatine (another great toon), and Chimaera. They give you 2/5 of the toons to get you GMY. The toons they unlock gets you 2/5 to R2. As I said they are required in TB as is Chimaera which requires them to be unlocked. There ships aren't bad. And they are viable in stage 2 of the heroic Sith raid. Any advice that doesn't tell newbies work on them early is just bad. Why offer bad advice?
If they don't want to work on them that is fine, as that is there choice. But any advice other than to work on them early is simply irresponsible. Don't do it.
I do kinda have to agree with this. I came back recently from a break that started right when mods were first introduced, so I wasn't far off being a newbie. I hated everything about Phoenix, but every suggestion said to do it, so I bit the bullet. I'm fairly sure I would still be kicking myself for not doing it if I'd missed Thrawn. My Chimaera is still only 5*, but he does more than enough work on the ground to have been worth it.
My Phoenix guys are still only at gear 8/9 because I still don't much like playing with them, but even that is useful for knocking off a back-row battle in territory wars now and then. Plus Ezra, and to a lesser degree Kanan, can pull double duty on a Jedi squad.
Excellently put. And it's correct.
I honestly think if you really don't want to go down the Phoenix route; Scoundrels is probably the best place to start. Something like this:
Cantina energy - Lando (can be used for Palp)
Cantina tokens - Boba (slave 1, TB and chewie)
Squad arena tokens - STHan (CLS and Palp)
GW tokens - Cad Bane (Xandu Blood, TB and Chewie)
Guild Tokens - Dengar (TB and Chewie)
It's a squad with little to no synergy but all have some use else where. It'll give you a couple of solid pilots and open up the Credit heists/droid smuggling super early.
From there I'd look at fleshing out a Rebel squad to unlock palp and LS hard nodes. Something like this:
Cantina energy - Old Ben (Palp and CLS)
Squad arena tokens - Leia (Palp and CLS)
GW tokens - Biggs (ships and Palp)
That gives you an OK Rebel team, another solid pilot and gets the bulk of the work on your CLS toons out the way nice and early. Then on to Empire toons with multi uses:
Legendary Event - Palp (R2)
Squad arena tokens - Tarkin (Executrix and R2)
Cantina Energy - TFP (ships and R2)
Fleet store - Vader TIE Advanced, TB and R2)
and a plus one. I'd suggest Storm Trooper from the Cantina tokens store simply because it's an easy farm but Snowtrooper is probably more useful in the long term.
This should get you R2 and with a bit of work on Farmboy your'e good for CLS. By this point you're also set up with some strong pilots and you've also got hard node farms going on in the background the whole time. You can probably build a decent team with CLS and/or Bounty Hunters by this point and start to climb in arena if you decide you want to. Sure Lando and Stormtrooper aren't great long term investments but Storm can at least be used for TB special missions and Lando is an easy farm in early game.
FO is a great team but not as easy beginners farm. Og kylo and KRU and FOX are all cantina farms, so you gotta choose or stagger them, FOST is hard node but I'd argue not as good of a farm as many others, Phasma being gw is easy to get but useless later on, and FOO is cantina store, but the same argument against Phoenix can be about FO.
I actually didn't start my phoenix til I was like level 60 (and was watching rebels), instead my first few 7* characters were Biggs, Lando, AA, Boba, Tarkin, Wedge... By time I got phoenix I was running ep, Vader, Tarkin, wiggs, replaced wiggs with thrawn, dn, and haven't looked back . but that comp definitely set me behind compared to Phoenix (ep was able to school them, but otherwise I hated facing them)
oh, and FYI, if you're wondering how well this works, it does quite well. I didn't unlock Phoenix until I was already over level 80, and by then I had a bastila lead Jedi team. Before her, I was using a Jedi team with Old Ben as the lead. The only member of Phoenix I unlocked and got to star 7 was Ezra. The team I used to unlock GMY with was Old Ben, Mace WIndu, Ezra, Qui Gon, and Luminara, which was my staple team until I unlocked GMY and got Bastila. I switched Mace Windu and Luminara out for them, and got to work on my bounty hunters. The only reason why I'm working on Phoenix now is so I can get Thrawn.