Darth Vader viability

Shanks

How viable is darth vader (for PVP). My current team is 5* Lumi,Sid, 4* Luke,Dooku,3*chewie
also have phasma and 4* talia . I would like to replace chewie and Luke with phasma+vader or phasma+kylo. Since he can only be 4* is he viable in the end game? So 7* kylo or 4* vader? what if I can even remove dooku for vader and use phasma+kylo+vader?

reizse

sid and vader have pretty good synergy. add in kylo and you have a killer 3 aoe team. i got wiped at rank 17 due to such a team...my 3rd loss in arena in over 120 matches. pretty impressive

Shanks

yeah but his speed isnt anything to boast about.So will he be able to deliver before getting crushed?

reizse

the vader i fought was 4* gear vii. he was pretty tanky IMO. try him out and once he slows your team down, sub him out until you get more shards to 5* through achievements.

Nonemo

I'm happy with my Vader. No obvious weakness, good HP and useful attacks. The ability lock on the regular attack is great for messing up healers or avoiding that one devastating attack... Here's looking at you, Ben Kenobi...

brrrdt

I've found Vader to be too slow to be all that helpful at the moment. I'm still experimenting with my arena squad, but right now I haven't found him to be a big upgrade over my current setup--his cooldowns are long and his base attack seems rather weak. You need a lot of time to set up culling blade well.

WhipiT

He is awesome on offensive when you can set up culling. On defense under AI control..not so much.

Jabberwocky

The big question to ask yourself is: Is it worth investing in a character that I can't easily promote?.

Vader shards, for the time being, are only available through unlocked achievements, he's going to remain perpetually stuck at 4* unless they add a node to farm or you're prepared to do a lot of achievements. He's not even available in card shop according to the "find" button in his toon page.

That said, I have him myself and he's useful for DS PvE and GW (and the challenge with Veers and Tarkin for cull blade in last encounter) but I wouldn't build an arena team around him for the reason above and I also find him a bit slow and setting up his cull blade is hard to maximize if your opponent has even mediocre dispel capabilities.

JohnnySteelAlpha

I wouldn't judge any toon's worth strictly off what the AI does with it.

Vader I have at just 4*, but he's at max gear and his power rating is at just over 3600. He seems to me to be built with stats and abilities to be pretty sufficient at 4*, probably intentionally by the devs given his progress rate. His health including gear is 11260. That's higher than a good number of toons at 7* (Sid, Lumi, JC, etc.). His phys dam is 899, which is not that great, but as WhipiT allude to, his potency offensively is very high with the DoT special (upgrade it to 3x DoT) and the culling blade. Highest I've got him to hit on the culling blade is a crit for almost 11,000 damage. That's going to one shot just about any single toon. He then gets 100% turn meter off of that with a kill shot. Also find his ability block on his basic really handy to hold down healers and units with OP specials like Obi Wan or Lando. His speed is 115 with gear - so not slow. He's very tactical in how you can use him. This also means that in the hands of the AI he can seem underwhelming...but there's a lot of stuff that seems crappy when the AI is in control. He's been fantastic as a tanky dark unit going through the dark maps. He's on my main PVP team for now. I think he's pretty viable and worth building. He's a no-brainer replacement for Chewy. I like Chewy too, but Vader you can do a lot with.

Shanks

Thanks for the suggestions I will be getting vader today(worst case tomorrow) and gonna use him as soon as he is geared up

Scribble

I def want Vader on my team, only 16 Shards away. I always win Hard campaign when I get to borrow a high-level Vader, after many many losses with others.

Pitchblack47

The Vader, sidious, old Ben, IG-88 combo is quite potent on defence. The ai combos well in this set up, but this team is hard to develop.

RAMifications

Ive enjoyed vader, but just after getting him to gear lvl7, ive replaced he and obi won with sid and phasma. Sid's healing lock out is more eff3ctive than several ability blocks. Love my vader, but he doesnt fit in atm.

Kreel

Just a quick note to add, I pulled a Vader shard today for winning my GW. I know its not much, but it is another shard source for him.

moddom

I love vader, just the fact that I cant get him higher than 4* viably really makes me not want to use him since all of my other characters are progressing towards their 6*. Im assuming later on in the game they will offer a way to either farm his shards and buy them through the market. I want him at 7*.

Shanks

Kreel wrote: »

Just a quick note to add, I pulled a Vader shard today for winning my GW. I know its not much, but it is another shard source for him.

Wow I didn't know that thx for the info Not very dependable source of shards though.

MackemSLAM

I love having Vader on my team, but as my other characters move on to 5, 6 and in a week or so 7 stars, it's difficult to see how he can keep up.

Qeltar

I've unlocked him but he's sitting at level 1. Every time I have borrowed even a level 60 purple-geared Vader I have been unimpressed. His big light show is great, and if you can time it with culling blade you can do a lot of damage. But most of the time he's just a big lug with a sub-par main attack.
He will not be competitive with other heroes at 6* and 7* so I see no point in putting resources into him at this time.

Time

Vader is probably the most op hero in the game from what i have seen, but he's also the hardest to get shards for so it's sort of self balancing. Most 4* vaders do fine vs 5 and even 6* heros if used correctly. His abilities and base stats are very good although hes basic attack doesn't do very good damage.

Loce

I have only seen 1 5* Vader...the DMG on that saber toss special has to be outrageous

Time

Loce wrote: »

I have only seen 1 5* Vader...the DMG on that saber toss special has to be outrageous

Borrowed a 4* today and did 5k damage on a hero with 3 dots. Didn't even crit. So yeah use your imagination with debuffs etc and he can 1 shot anyone on second turn and then act again. Sure the cd is long but that is pretty **** powerful especially considering he's tanky and a sith meaning no counter to him, unless I suppose you have lobot or the like. It's only a matter of time before lobot and vader become at least somewhat common, at least among the high ranks.

Loce

Man that's funny that you say that. I was just looking at lobot haha. Being able to remove heal immunity and that occasional ability block would be cool to have sometimes.

ioniancat21

I wish they'd rotate Vader out of the achievements section and make him farmable. Clearly, they should replace him with Yoda instead, being the most powerful character in the SW movies....

JohnnySteelAlpha

Qeltar wrote: »

I've unlocked him but he's sitting at level 1. Every time I have borrowed even a level 60 purple-geared Vader I have been unimpressed. His big light show is great, and if you can time it with culling blade you can do a lot of damage. But most of the time he's just a big lug with a sub-par main attack.
He will not be competitive with other heroes at 6* and 7* so I see no point in putting resources into him at this time.

I'd disagree - look at the stats I posted on him above. Many 6/7* toons do not get to his level of health and don't have the culling blade ability to one shot kill something. The culling blade is not hard to execute. Even with just 3-4 negative effects it can do >5k damage frequently. I'm already facing 6/7* built toons in PVP and GW and Vader is just fine at 4*. Just depends if you like his skill set or not or his leader ability. HIs basic doesn't hit hard, but the ability block can change a battle in your favor by preventing specials by toons like Obi Wan, Phasma, Barriss, etc.

Jabberwocky

Pitchblack47 wrote: »

The Vader, sidious, old Ben, IG-88 combo is quite potent on defence. The ai combos well in this set up, but this team is hard to develop.

Yeah, Vader and Ben aren't farmable at all and Vader isn't even available in the card shop.

Jabberwocky

Loce wrote: »

Man that's funny that you say that. I was just looking at lobot haha. Being able to remove heal immunity and that occasional ability block would be cool to have sometimes.

Lobot is underrated IMO. He's great as leader on Droid teams and against debuff teams with the likes of Vader and Old Ben. Once they add a droid healer I'm going to put together a team based around him.

Pilot

Lobot is a hard farm, and for good reason. All the best heroes are hard farms. The current meta revolves around the easy farm characters because they are easier to power up, but long term, you really need to start the hard farms now or later will become never.

Jabberwocky

Pilot wrote: »

Lobot is a hard farm, and for good reason. All the best heroes are hard farms. The current meta revolves around the easy farm characters because they are easier to power up, but long term, you really need to start the hard farms now or later will become never.

Agreed, I never would have farmed him from scratch but I got him in a lucky drop but I'm glad I did and he's one of the characters that gets better at higher levels with the right synergy.

Poggle also has good droid synergy and is a lot easier to farm.

Shanks

Gonna get him today once I get the squad arena rewards today will post the stats once i gear+lvl him up

Cythis

Johnny's set up with Vader is very solid. I was impressed with the team synergy. Vader can not be left alone and must be dealt with asap. Good thing the AI is so bad.

m0rality

I faced several Luminara, JC, Vader, Sid, Kylo/Sidious teams today. I was able to beat them all with lesser teams. Vader just doesn't do enough damage to be a serious threat....but I run a tank heavy team.