Ability upgrades that are detrimental

Guar

There's a few Omega and Zeta ability upgrades that just either seem detrimental to squad synergy or to the character itself. Sometimes these cases only apply to certain squads, so they're not all bad.
Perhaps I'm missing the intended interactions, but I'll give some examples along with my thoughts:

BB-8
Covert Data Transfer (Special)
BB-8 and a random ally who doesn't have it gain Secret Intel unique buff for 3 turns. Then, BB-8 gains 8% turn meter for each ally with Secret Intel. OMEGA UPGRADE: If all active allies are Droids, BB-8 gains Taunt for 1 turn.

Thoughts: Why would I want a character taunting that 1) has terrible defensive capability (is near the bottom of the list compared to other toons in terms of hp, prot and defense), and 2) I want to give the LEAST amount of attention to so it can pop Illuminated Destiny before dying/getting disabled? Kinda defeats the purpose of running him in the first place.
Personally, I have never upgraded this ability to max for these reasons. However anecdotal this may be, I encourage Droid users to enlighten me.

Darth Traya
Lord of Betrayal (Unique)
When an ally suffers a debuff, Darth Traya gains 10% Protection (stacking) until the end of her next turn. ZETA UPGRADE: At the start of each Sith ally's turn, Traya dispels all debuffs on them and deals damage equal to 5% of their Max Health for each debuff dispelled. When allied Darth Nihilus or Darth Sion are Critically Hit or inflicted with a debuff, Traya gains 12% Offense (stacking) for 2 turns.

Thoughts: The dispel is unrivaled and an incredible asset. However, I find the whole 5% damage pretty ridiculous. I have never witnessed the following, but it doesn't specify "This damage cannot defeat allies." So therefore why would I spend a zeta on an ability that could potentially kill my allies? What happens when I run Darth Revan and I work for debuffs? Does Traya deal 25k+ damage to me every turn and completely screw up my Ferocity stacks? Traya would be detrimental, whereas without this Zeta, she might do pretty well in a Revan team. I understand the dispel is pretty OP, but I also cannot see why I would spend a precious Zeta on an ability that would hurt my team.

Grand Admiral Thrawn
Legendary Strategist (Leader)
Empire allies have+15% Max Protection, +25% Offense, and gain 20% Turn Meter whenever they Resist a detrimental effect or suffer a debuff. Whenever an Empire ally gains or loses a status effect, they recover 2% Protection. Empire allies gain a new Special ability, Maneuver: Dispel all debuffs on this character and gain 50% Turn Meter (Cooldown 3).

Thoughts: This interaction is innate for Thrawn's lead and therefore doesn't necessarily qualify for this list but I still wanted to mention it since it is an optional ability. Why would I want to provide TM to a toon that is meant to be stagnant in order to keep Fracture active for as long as possible? Just seems contradictory to the rest of his kit.

Thanks for reading. Do you agree or disagree? What are some abilities that you think aren't good to upgrade?

Mullas

Does Traya deal 25k+ damage to me every turn and completely screw up my Ferocity stacks?

Jep

SithVicious

As far as BB-8 goes, there’s a high probability he’ll be taunting with foresight. If he does get hit, he’s likely to counter and will hopefully land a daze

Delvorin

For BB8, that actually helps with a GG droid team. BB8 can get foresight which helps while taunting and if he ends up dying, that's another turn for GG to do big damage.

For Traya, the intent wasn't for her to be used on a DR team. They put in the 5% of hp damage for balance and even with that, dispelling debuffs is a huge benefit. You can actually see dispelling ferocity as a benefit as having too many ferocity stacks can cause your characters to die too quickly. I use traya and DR for the assault battle you need sith on and definitely helps to not have that additional damage taken because of ferocity.

Ultra

Traya unique is great - it’s only detrimental if you are running her under Darth Revan lead or with Darth Revan

Which is fine because they didn’t intend those two to work together for balance reasons and you don’t need them together

bb8 taunt is good since he has foresight and heals droid allies when he evades, so it keeps the other droids healthy and alive, and with R2 and C3PO in the team, it’ll call them to assist

Thrawn thing is great too because you can cycle fracture more often and benefits 4 other toons immensely or do you run your Thrawn with +0 speed so that fracture runs for the longest time possible?

Guar

Legend91 wrote: »

3) Thrawn can't gain bonus turn meter when an enemy is fractured. His leadership was good and actually used back when Magmatrooper was used to counter Traya.

Unless this is a hidden interaction with Thrawn's lead, the ability reads that Fractured characters cannot gain bonus TM, but it doesn't say anything about Thrawn. I also just tested this under EP lead and Thrawn did indeed gain Bonus TM.

Ultra wrote: »

Thrawn thing is great too because you can cycle fracture more often and benefits 4 other toons immensely or do you run your Thrawn with +0 speed so that fracture runs for the longest time possible?

I currently run +125 Thrawn under EP in order to Fracture fast in the beginning, and so Fracture fires pretty frequently due to TM gain from EP lead. I see the benefit you're talking about in fracturing multiple times, I guess it could go both ways.

Anakin_Earthrunner

Another one that could possibly go on the list is fives omega that causes him to taunt. It is useful before you get his sacrifice zeta but after you apply the zeta it works against you.

Legend91

Guar wrote: »

Legend91 wrote: »

3) Thrawn can't gain bonus turn meter when an enemy is fractured. His leadership was good and actually used back when Magmatrooper was used to counter Traya.

Unless this is a hidden interaction with Thrawn's lead, the ability reads that Fractured characters cannot gain bonus TM, but it doesn't say anything about Thrawn. I also just tested this under EP lead and Thrawn did indeed gain Bonus TM.

Ultra wrote: »

Thrawn thing is great too because you can cycle fracture more often and benefits 4 other toons immensely or do you run your Thrawn with +0 speed so that fracture runs for the longest time possible?

I currently run +125 Thrawn under EP in order to Fracture fast in the beginning, and so Fracture fires pretty frequently due to TM gain from EP lead. I see the benefit you're talking about in fracturing multiple times, I guess it could go both ways.

Yeah, that part belonged to fractured chars not Thrawn himself, my bad.

OnlyZuul

You have obviously never used BB8 on a droid team if you think that’s a bad upgrade. He is a great tank (through avoidance) and he always counter attacks calling a resistance ally ... bring R2.

Kyno

Detrimental might be the wrong word. There are just some that are "odd" but very useful, situationally speaking.

Guar

OnlyZuul wrote: »

You have obviously never used BB8 on a droid team if you think that’s a bad upgrade. He is a great tank (through avoidance) and he always counter attacks calling a resistance ally ... bring R2.

Yes. My opinion was entirely anecdotal. Hence:

Guar wrote: »

However anecdotal this may be, I encourage Droid users to enlighten me.

Therefore thank you kindly for the enlightenment.

OnlyZuul

Guar wrote: »

OnlyZuul wrote: »

You have obviously never used BB8 on a droid team if you think that’s a bad upgrade. He is a great tank (through avoidance) and he always counter attacks calling a resistance ally ... bring R2.

Yes. My opinion was entirely anecdotal. Hence:

Guar wrote: »

However anecdotal this may be, I encourage Droid users to enlighten me.

Therefore thank you kindly for the enlightenment.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be snide. It was just a figure of speech.

He makes a great tank, and it's fun to play. The bad thing is you need to break up good teams (resistance & rebels) to use him this way, so forget GA and TW.

Snowbird13

It's not an upgrade, since it's level 1, but slave-1's reinforcement bonus is terrible. Why would you want an attacker taunting? And ai almost always brings it out first. It would be a decent reinforcement otherwise.

Gifafi

Anakin_Earthrunner wrote: »

Another one that could possibly go on the list is fives omega that causes him to taunt. It is useful before you get his sacrifice zeta but after you apply the zeta it works against you.

fives gets +100% defense when taunting if Echo is present (+100% offense when not taunting) and has 85% counter chance (so he builds health back up quickly this way). Granted, you don't want to always taunt with him (which he will only if he uses this ability and if there is no one else taunting on the team at the end of five's turn) if he gets killed that way, but it's not as bad as it seems at first glance

Indominable_J

Thrawn's is fine. If he has his unique zeta, then he has +100% tenacity while fracturing, plus a decent base tenacity (~55% at g13), so he's not getting debuffed a ton while fracturing. Running his lead, all your empire allies gain an extra special ability, which can then be used to remove tm from him to keep fracture going longer if need be. Plus, his own use of that special ability and his tm swap means when comes out of a fracture he can refracture very quickly.

Traya's, as others have pointed out, wasn't designed with DR in mind, and they aren't necessarily meant to synergize together.

One that does strike me as bad design is Hux's basic. Hux was designed at the same time as SLKR. SLKR's unique reduces the max health and protection of a dark side ally who gains bonus turn meter. Hux's basic gives him bonus turn meter, as does his first special. This means that if you have the omega on Hux's basic, in any long PvE event Hux will quickly become incredibly weak very quickly, even if you aren't running SLKR lead. The prime example of this is the Sith Raid. I don't have the omega on his basic (once I saw SLKR's kit, I decided not to upgrade it) and my Hux makes it deep into phase 4 every time. A guildmate who has the omega can't keep Hux alive more than part of the way into phase 2.

DrMorpheus

Nice comprehensive list! Yeah I know what you’re talking about. I’d add General Hux’s basic omega to the list; the bonus TM is nice, but in the end if you wanna use him with SLKR he’d lose health and prot way faster than you would without it.

EmpressOrgana

Ahsoka's zeta in Padme mirror matches. Just hands extra prot/courage to the enemy

EmpressOrgana

Snowbird13 wrote: »

It's not an upgrade, since it's level 1, but slave-1's reinforcement bonus is terrible. Why would you want an attacker taunting? And ai almost always brings it out first. It would be a decent reinforcement otherwise.

It's ok under - wait for it - executrix. Taunt + retribution. But yeah.

Snowbird13

EmpressOrgana wrote: »

Snowbird13 wrote: »

It's not an upgrade, since it's level 1, but slave-1's reinforcement bonus is terrible. Why would you want an attacker taunting? And ai almost always brings it out first. It would be a decent reinforcement otherwise.

It's ok under - wait for it - executrix. Taunt + retribution. But yeah.

I used it under executrix. He would just die. I did sometimes use him for cannon fodder if my other ships were low on health.

Vendi1983

The Thrawn one is beneficial mainly because if they happen to get debuffed, they are boosted closer to using "Maneuver" and cleansing themselves, then gaining another 50% TM. It works great, unless the debuff was Ability Block...

AM2Rainman

How did Stormtrooper not make this list?
Yes, that's what I want my tank to do, get more squishy as other characters die. Not detrimental but certainly not helpful.
Wall of Stormtroopers
Stormtrooper gains 40% Defense for each living Empire ally and 40% Offense for each defeated Empire ally.
While Stormtrooper is active, Imperial Trooper allies have +30% Defense.

Guar

Indominable_J wrote: »

Thrawn's is fine. If he has his unique zeta, then he has +100% tenacity while fracturing, plus a decent base tenacity (~55% at g13), so he's not getting debuffed a ton while fracturing. Running his lead, all your empire allies gain an extra special ability, which can then be used to remove tm from him to keep fracture going longer if need be. Plus, his own use of that special ability and his tm swap means when comes out of a fracture he can refracture very quickly.

Traya's, as others have pointed out, wasn't designed with DR in mind, and they aren't necessarily meant to synergize together.

One that does strike me as bad design is Hux's basic. Hux was designed at the same time as SLKR. SLKR's unique reduces the max health and protection of a dark side ally who gains bonus turn meter. Hux's basic gives him bonus turn meter, as does his first special. This means that if you have the omega on Hux's basic, in any long PvE event Hux will quickly become incredibly weak very quickly, even if you aren't running SLKR lead. The prime example of this is the Sith Raid. I don't have the omega on his basic (once I saw SLKR's kit, I decided not to upgrade it) and my Hux makes it deep into phase 4 every time. A guildmate who has the omega can't keep Hux alive more than part of the way into phase 2.

Excellent analysis on Thrawn’s Lead.

I agree Traya and DR aren’t meant to be, but theoretically if you didn’t upgrade Traya’s zeta, would she be valuable in a DR team? I’m curious to see.

I will also be avoiding Hux’s basic if this is the case. Good catch.

Mephisto_style

In terms of a character usage perspective:
This 1 on Nest if you are going slow tenacity

And then there is 1 with NS acolyte or initiate I think that makes them worse for Deathstorm.