Who were the previous meta?

Tiggus

The meta at the current moment is something along the lines of:

Pack the quickest/hardest hitters together with some support to keep them alive long enough to score a few deadly hits

A typical team is: Count Dooku (L), QG Jinn, Rey, Geo solider, Royal Guard (give or take), where Count Dooku (L) really shines in that supporting role (evasion, offense-up, stun,... he has it all!)

It was enabled by an update mid-March that fixed (increased) Count Dooku's evasion leadership ability, and one a few weeks before that revamped Royal Guard from garbage to the star he is now.

But what were the meta before that one, and what made them become obsolete?
I remember of:

Speed, speed, speed!

With teams such as QGJinn (L) and some fast high-damage toons, not any of them even being a Jedi.

Poe-God

Teams based on Poe Dameron and FO Tie Pilot, not sure what they had at that time that they do not anymore (Poe got nerfed like -1 speed but that can't be it!).

Barriss Offee infinite health

It's really hard to believe now that Barriss Offee was once the main meta character, but she was, and to the point she was actually nerfed. Not sure what made her so strong back then, and how the tide turned so drastically.

And before her? Anyone remembers?

Dooku_for_days

As for the Poe meta, speed was done in tiers, starting at tier 7. Any character that had 143 speed or more was in tier 7 so any of those characters had an equal chance to go first. At this time, Poe had 143 speed, and if he went first, he would remove turn meter, expose (at 65% chance instead of 50 %), allowing everyone else in your team to go before the other team had moved. This meant it was the era of the droids, with those teams being top of every server. It was simply a coin toss, so EA and CG changed the way speed works to fastest character goes first. I honestly don't remember the Barris meta even though I started playing back in November, becuase I wasn't taking the game seriously and didn't know what I was doing. I was floating around rank 5000 and just remeber completely avoiding Barris wherever she was. . I'm now rank 1 most days though, so I've improved slightly

Azraelrulez

I was way down in the 500s so never faced Barris. Didn't buy her pack cos I didn't like anyone in particular. Missed out, lol! I missed out on the droid pack too. I don't remember if there ever was a droid meta or if it was the same as the Poe meta.

slmcmr

Azraelrulez wrote: »

I was way down in the 500s so never faced Barris. Didn't buy her pack cos I didn't like anyone in particular. Missed out, lol! I missed out on the droid pack too. I don't remember if there ever was a droid meta or if it was the same as the Poe meta.

It was Poe+Droids

Tiggus

@Dooku_for_days Yes I remember reading about Poe's coin-flip at the time (I was also way down there in the hundreds or thousands and didn't have Poe anyway). I missed that on top of taunting for 2 turns and mass-expose, he was/is also reducing TM! It seems like you can eat your cake and have it too, and have the baker's wife as well after all.

Well, despite all the noise being made around Dooku, Poe is still very much a force to be reckoned with. I feel facing a Poe + IG-88 combo is still a gamble that relies on very few coins that need to align properly (kill IG-88 or ability-block Poe or him with whoever's playing faster than 142). Add in Dooku Lead to the mix, and you increase the chance to fail -- and make it even way worse due to offense-up -- by 15%, and have to do it with one or two random dudes stunned.

Azraelrulez

Tiggus wrote: »

@Dooku_for_days Yes I remember reading about Poe's coin-flip at the time (I was also way down there in the hundreds or thousands and didn't have Poe anyway). I missed that on top of taunting for 2 turns and mass-expose, he was/is also reducing TM! It seems like you can eat your cake and have it too, and have the baker's wife as well after all.

Well, despite all the noise being made around Dooku, Poe is still very much a force to be reckoned with. I feel facing a Poe + IG-88 combo is still a gamble that relies on very few coins that need to align properly (kill IG-88 or ability-block Poe or him with whoever's playing faster than 142). Add in Dooku Lead to the mix, and you increase the chance to fail -- and make it even way worse due to offense-up -- by 15%, and have to do it with one or two random dudes stunned.

Lol at your cake story! Yeah, it really was like that!

Though Poe might still be a force, it's a far different world from when he was running the galaxy. The situation you describe with him and 88 is right now true for any number of squad combinations. It really is the universe of RNG right now. Dooku's leadership just benefits the most from RNG (imo).

Ztyle

Tiggus wrote: »

The meta at the current moment is something along the lines of:

Pack the quickest/hardest hitters together with some support to keep them alive long enough to score a few deadly hits

A typical team is: Count Dooku (L), QG Jinn, Rey, Geo solider, Royal Guard (give or take), where Count Dooku (L) really shines in that supporting role (evasion, offense-up, stun,... he has it all!)

It was enabled by an update mid-March that fixed (increased) Count Dooku's evasion leadership ability, and one a few weeks before that revamped Royal Guard from garbage to the star he is now.

But what were the meta before that one, and what made them become obsolete?
I remember of:

Speed, speed, speed!

With teams such as QGJinn (L) and some fast high-damage toons, not any of them even being a Jedi.

Poe-God

Teams based on Poe Dameron and FO Tie Pilot, not sure what they had at that time that they do not anymore (Poe got nerfed like -1 speed but that can't be it!).

Barriss Offee infinite health

It's really hard to believe now that Barriss Offee was once the main meta character, but she was, and to the point she was actually nerfed. Not sure what made her so strong back then, and how the tide turned so drastically.

And before her? Anyone remembers?

Barriss with Old Ben back then, along with some ok toons, that was the meta(both nerfed), Dooku always there in some degree, no matter what the meta is

darth_suicune

Barris with some other healers when there wasn't so high dps chars available for most people meant that you could stall people in defense (even the AI could do it) and not lose the matches, thus retaining your position in the rankings and climbling up slowly against people who you could take down. If they also had ben, that reduced your attack and blocked abilities... gg.

This is actually one of my concerns with both defense adjustments + fortitude/protection (or whatever it's called) being in the new update. If they tune them too high, they might actually make barris teams come back again as the dominant force, and make arena matches slow down to a drag, sometimes even unable to finish them. I hope the devs have this into account as well.

Eaywen

The issue with bariss had a lot to do with almost no servers being even level 60 cap at the time I started early and wasn't much into 50 when it happened. She was 4 stars in a world of 2 and 3 star, had a ton of hp, and by passed healing block. And at the time was still hitting for a reasonable amont.

Ztyle

darth_suicune wrote: »

Barris with some other healers when there wasn't so high dps chars available for most people meant that you could stall people in defense (even the AI could do it) and not lose the matches, thus retaining your position in the rankings and climbling up slowly against people who you could take down. If they also had ben, that reduced your attack and blocked abilities... gg.

This is actually one of my concerns with both defense adjustments + fortitude/protection (or whatever it's called) being in the new update. If they tune them too high, they might actually make barris teams come back again as the dominant force, and make arena matches slow down to a drag, sometimes even unable to finish them. I hope the devs have this into account as well.

Well then the timer in arena would make sense, now all you use it for is to see how fast the battle went, and the old Barriss domination, was easy to smash, just had to use your noodle when attacking a Barriss team

VeridianShakes

I still see Poe/droid teams on my server some. They can be nasty even now.

eleventhheart

Oh gee, way back in pre-release golden days, it was all about the AoEs. Damage was still being balanced, but I remember my 3* 88 doing a regular 16k each on his AoE. It was a bit like the Poe coinflip, since every team had Sid and 88 and it was over as soon as 88 had a turn.

Hyperalloy

I still remember the days just before the hard launch in December 2015, where Darth Sidious led teams with the fastest AOE heroes you can get. 3-4 AOEs and game over.

Before that, it was auto PvP only heal-a-thons. Those were the days when Barris, with her leadership that granted 50% extra max health to all Jedi's and half of that for the rest.

Tiggus

Interesting! The AoE formation (I think it's safe to call it IG-88, as he really is the centerpiece) still exists today, where Sidious has been replaced by Poe, and is really a make-or-break gambit: the battle is won if IG-88 gets a turn, and lost if he doesn't.

But Barriss-led teams is almost extinct now (I just counted 7 in my top-200, mostly towards the bottom).

I was way lower in Arena back then, but at my level I remember seeing (and fearing) Resistance Trooper at every other battle. He, like FOTP, were hitting like monsters at just 2* or even 1*. Since then, I don't see him anywhere anymore.

Greg1920

I think in this so called Dooku meta that the QG speed meta is still viable. The key thing is QG goes before Dooku now so Stun QG game over isn't as powerful.

One might say we are really in RG/Rey meta as those two have been consistent through the Dooku and QG eras.