Let me first say that I would love to see more attention to these Jedi, and more characterization embedded within their kits.
That said... some toons have to be average, and some toons have to be below average. There are many great Jedi -- but they can't all be great.
I go back to what I said before about Planetary Heroes in ROTE. While Ops Missions provide CG with an opportunity to encourage us to relic up otherwise unloved toons, Planetary Heroes provides a similar but better opportunity.
With PHs the idea is that a character is given a fantastic ability, similar to an Omicron, for a single planet only. This permits CG to encourage grabbing an unloved toon and relic'ing it up, but the reward at the end isn't passive TB points. Instead the reward at the end is that you get to actively use the character to open up a can of Chemical X (see what I did there) on the baddies.
Kit Fisto, for instance, could star on a water world. Or perhaps a special underwater mission on Naboo. KF could thus be below average **in general**, but have one great place where he shines.
This allows you to make below average, bad, and even terrible characters fun. Not necessary, the way Ops does, but FUN. And yet it doesn't contribute to power creep in the same way, nor does it buy into the idea that every toon has to be above average.
Honestly even though my original idea was for ROTE, you could do the same in Assault Battles. Imagine if NightSister Initiate got an AB bonus that increased with Relic Amplifier Level and helped make Secrets & Shadows trivial. Now, I get it, we have Merrin for that now, but the idea stands. Grand Master Yoda is insanely great in the Jedi vs. Separatists Assault Battle. Indeed though GMY already existed so he wasn't built for the AB, the AB seems built for GMY. The buffs + bonus turn seems deliberately designed for GMY to grab bonus protection through his big leap, gain a bonus turn from that, use the event ability, gain a bonus turn from that, and then pass on the massive bonus protection plus event bonuses to his squad.
Many of the ABs are difficult to impossible at CT3 without a GL. But they could be made easier for the price of levelling up and relic'ing a toon that most people don't want. If magma trooper is the least loved Imp, then the Imp Trooper/Bounty Hunter AB could focus on him. Or maybe there's a bounty hunter that is used even less, and that's the toon that CG targets.
The point is that while Omicrons provide Mode-specific abilities that you have to pay for and that make a toon great in that mode, there's nothing stopping CG from creating even more limited abilities (a single planet in a single ROTE phase instead of all TB missions) and passing these out for free, but ONLY on sub-par toons to encourage (or reward) broad roster development.
Again, you can force broad roster development with Ops and similar requirements, but this is a **reward** rather than a **mandate**. It also allows for more characterization, and since it would apply only to a single battle (even if it applied to a planet, you could only use it once per TB) it doesn't have to disrupt game balance or add to power creep.
If CG decides to upgrade Kit Fisto, IGD, Plo Koon, and other unloved Jedi, I won't complain. But if CG decides that adds too much pressure to make every toon excellent, I understand, and I hope that they consider this more creative solutions to add fun and love to the game without affecting balance.
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That said... some toons have to be average, and some toons have to be below average. There are many great Jedi -- but they can't all be great.
I go back to what I said before about Planetary Heroes in ROTE. While Ops Missions provide CG with an opportunity to encourage us to relic up otherwise unloved toons, Planetary Heroes provides a similar but better opportunity.
With PHs the idea is that a character is given a fantastic ability, similar to an Omicron, for a single planet only. This permits CG to encourage grabbing an unloved toon and relic'ing it up, but the reward at the end isn't passive TB points. Instead the reward at the end is that you get to actively use the character to open up a can of Chemical X (see what I did there) on the baddies.
Kit Fisto, for instance, could star on a water world. Or perhaps a special underwater mission on Naboo. KF could thus be below average **in general**, but have one great place where he shines.
This allows you to make below average, bad, and even terrible characters fun. Not necessary, the way Ops does, but FUN. And yet it doesn't contribute to power creep in the same way, nor does it buy into the idea that every toon has to be above average.
Honestly even though my original idea was for ROTE, you could do the same in Assault Battles. Imagine if NightSister Initiate got an AB bonus that increased with Relic Amplifier Level and helped make Secrets & Shadows trivial. Now, I get it, we have Merrin for that now, but the idea stands. Grand Master Yoda is insanely great in the Jedi vs. Separatists Assault Battle. Indeed though GMY already existed so he wasn't built for the AB, the AB seems built for GMY. The buffs + bonus turn seems deliberately designed for GMY to grab bonus protection through his big leap, gain a bonus turn from that, use the event ability, gain a bonus turn from that, and then pass on the massive bonus protection plus event bonuses to his squad.
Many of the ABs are difficult to impossible at CT3 without a GL. But they could be made easier for the price of levelling up and relic'ing a toon that most people don't want. If magma trooper is the least loved Imp, then the Imp Trooper/Bounty Hunter AB could focus on him. Or maybe there's a bounty hunter that is used even less, and that's the toon that CG targets.
The point is that while Omicrons provide Mode-specific abilities that you have to pay for and that make a toon great in that mode, there's nothing stopping CG from creating even more limited abilities (a single planet in a single ROTE phase instead of all TB missions) and passing these out for free, but ONLY on sub-par toons to encourage (or reward) broad roster development.
Again, you can force broad roster development with Ops and similar requirements, but this is a **reward** rather than a **mandate**. It also allows for more characterization, and since it would apply only to a single battle (even if it applied to a planet, you could only use it once per TB) it doesn't have to disrupt game balance or add to power creep.
If CG decides to upgrade Kit Fisto, IGD, Plo Koon, and other unloved Jedi, I won't complain. But if CG decides that adds too much pressure to make every toon excellent, I understand, and I hope that they consider this more creative solutions to add fun and love to the game without affecting balance.