Very nicely adjusted post, and i agree with most of your suggestions, but i want to point out that Luke's leader ability should also be taken in consideration, since i usually fight the same guys in the top 20 i came to know their teamcomp and Luke's bonus tenacity saved my butt many times againt heavy DoT/debuff enemies. (he is also pretty useful against Sid imunity)
A very good, well-articulated post, though the true problem doesn't lie with a particular hero. The lack of a trade-off between speed and damage is the fundamental issue behind a lot of the problems we see in the game. Quick heroes shouldn't hit hard while heavy hitters shouldn't be quick. However, the overall hero design seems to overlook this basic principle and what we see is some heroes who have the firepower of the Death Star while being as nimble and quick as a X-Wing. This is why we don't see diversity in the game and this is why some heroes (such as Chewie) have essentially become obsolete.
The solution is quite obvious: (Repeating what I said above,) Quick heroes shouldn't hit hard while heavy hitters shouldn't be quick. Fast heroes such as Leia, Rey, Genosian Soldier, IG-86 and QGJ need their damage tuned down or their speed significantly reduced if their current damage is to be kept. Buff/Debuff heroes such as Poggle shouldn't be quick either as they can disrupt a match so early with powerful status effects. In that sense, I consider the likes of Dooku and Obi-Wan/Boba Fett as good hero designs; one is super-quick, but lacks firepower (thus, plays the role of a skirmisher very well) while the other two bring game-changing debuffs, but are slow.
As someone mentioned in another post, if Poe is to go fast, he should only be able to taunt for a turn and without any additional bells and whistles while a slower tank such as Chewie should be able to taunt longer and bring additional status effects. Such distinction would give a reason for players to choose one over the other as each has a trade-off in what they can offer. There will then be more diversity since there isn't a set of holy grail heroes. Unfortunately in the current world, there is very little reason to use Chewie as he is clearly inferior to Poe.
I only read up to 'double all HP' as I have to go soon, but instead of the negative side effects involved in this (e.g. helaing) you could add an armour bar. It could be based on the same amount of HP, but in Armour. It would then take twice as much damage to kill them but wouldn't effect healing etc.
This would then also create a more strategic environment as 'ignore all armour' or '100% defense penetration' would actually matter.
You could use Phasma's 100% defense penetration buff and try to take down the enemy's HP as quick as possible hoping to kill them before the buff runs out.
So I read through every post and I still think armour is a good idea.
It doesn't affect healing, it doesn't affect damage, it simply takes longer to kill an enemy.
Here's what I'd do; All heroes have an armour bar which is based on 50% of their health.
So for example a 7* gear 7 level 60 Luminara gas about 9K health. In Arena she would have an additional 4500 armour. This won't be too much or too little. Instead of thinking of major overhauls to Arena we should be thinking about small changes that can be made. This is a smaller change. Then later if it doesn't work you can add more armour or less or whatever.
Armour cannot be healed or replenished, it is a one time use only. Advantage could do extra damage to armour. Then other buffs and debuffs could be added which involve that.
Later ship synergies could create deflector shields. Other heroes could then repair armour to 'heal' it.
My name is cosmicturtle333, aka CT-333, aka Threes.
I didn't have a problem with no new characters in this update personally, but I can understand why others who have been playing longer would have liked to see one
Beyond that, fantastic post, some brilliantly argued points
toss cad bane in the mix also for doing tripple hits, but cad dont crit for 7k lol. only ones i havent seen doing more hits than intended are the melee guys like dooku and kit.
@Naecabon I loved your post! Also, funny that you mention Royal Guard as a role model for future developmemt. I've also identified the same problem and Im in this for the long run so for now Im actually trying to get RG to work (imagining future characters to at least have the "empire" stamp on them...because apperently Darth Sidious isnt part of the Empire.../end rant), but yes it would be awesome if other tanks (or any tank) could tank the high dps environment with focus fire/AoE totaly ripping characters apart without a good AI to give them a good game.
Good to see such dedication and constructive thoughts, excuse my bad english :-)
Alright, I'm here. Naec, can you provide me with anything from a dev that says fotp is bugged?. How are you so sure he is not working as intended.
I remember with leia, the devs admitted she was bugged and now fixed but not fotp. That is where I'm confused. This is how I see his 3shot. He shoots once, bonus attack triggers, gains advantage and shoots again, isn't that what the description says?. Gain advantage and shoot again?.
Alright, I'm here. Naec, can you provide me with anything from a dev that says fotp is bugged?. How are you so sure he is not working as intended.
I remember with leia, the devs admitted she was bugged and now fixed but not fotp. That is where I'm confused. This is how I see his 3shot. He shoots once, bonus attack triggers, gains advantage and shoots again, isn't that what the description says?. Gain advantage and shoot again?.
He's supposed to have a 45% chance to shoot a second time, and this % is doubled if he has advantage, meaning he has a 90% chance to shoot a second time.
Right now, he occasionally shoots three times, similar to how Leia can sometimes shoot four times. She was not fixed, by the way. She can still shoot four times. I had hoped if/when they fixed her, it would also immediately fix FOTP, but until she's actually fixed we won't know for sure.
Suggestion #4 – Revamp many leader skills to open the door to diversity.
As it stands right now, Darth Sidious reigns supreme.
A guide from Team Instinct says:
While we can’t say that the Phasma leadership skill is STRICTLY better than that of Sidious, as we have laid out, in most cases the damage output from Phasma will prove to be the best option.
The article was written before the lvl 70 level cap. Also Sidious has some good synergy with Poe as he can easily trigger all the exposes.
Thanks.
I know the article was written before the new level cap and that's why I wonder if its conclusions are outdated now (if it is indeed, there should be an edit asap imho).
And the OP doesn't state that DS is very good in some specific combinations (e.g. with Poe) but that his leaderskills make him much better than every other leader in general (or maybe I didn't understand well ?).
The article was written before the lvl 70 level cap. Also Sidious has some good synergy with Poe as he can easily trigger all the exposes.
Thanks.
I know the article was written before the new level cap and that's why I wonder if its conclusions are outdated now (if it is indeed, there should be an edit asap imho).
And the OP doesn't state that DS is very good in some specific combinations (e.g. with Poe) but that his leaderskills make him much better than every other leader in general (or maybe I didn't understand well ?).
Every article is only accurate for the meta-game it was written for, even if strength can transition into a different meta. I doubt older articles will get a revision, but I didn't write it so won't talk for others.
As OP stated there are currently very few leadership abilities that are worth considering in the arena top, Sid and Phasma are among those very few and the article on the Team instinct website gave some reasons for why.
Also the article only talks about the leadership ability of both characters (and it does mention that specific character synergies can lead to one ability being stronger than the other) and don't really talk about any of the leaders in themselves which always should factor into your decision of which leader to run in your squad. Phasma is not bad, and there are still some very strong players that prefer her over Sidious as a leader.
When choosing between Phasma and Sid there is also the RNG-factor of Phasma to consider. Some fights you won't get any early assists, and some you get several assists the first turn leading to a win you otherwise wouldn't have gotten. If you want to rely on the RNG-factor is a personal choice.
...
Please refrain from responding to this post with derogatory comments insinuating we do not know what we're talking about or that we come from a place that does not have incredible amounts of hands on experience dealing with these topics. If you disagree with something in this post, that is obviously completely fine, but I would appreciate it if you made the effort to toss in constructive feedback and opinions instead of needless trolling and conflict.
...
Sad world when you have to ask for such an easy thing. Respect for others... This is the most important thing you had to say!
I hope the development team takes notice and tries to fix bugged and broken parts of the game.
Every article is only accurate for the meta-game it was written for, even if strength can transition into a different meta. I doubt older articles will get a revision
That's not the way I think about guide articles, we're not talking about a forum post but a Web site guide. When you decide to publish such a guide I think you have the responsability to edit it when needed or at least to warn readers that it's outdated (if it is).
there are still some very strong players that prefer her over Sidious as a leader.
That's the point. OP stated that when you have the choice you always pick DS (or should), as he is uber anything else :
It's a telling thing when a personne (...) can make a team compisition of any 5 characters he so wishes, goes with Darth Sidious anyway because nothing really comes close.
@Naecabon
I agree that something needs to be done regarding the fact that pvp is pretty much always decided after the first turn but I don't believe that halving all damage sources(your suggestion #2) is the route to go in order to fix this.Yes it would open the door to longer lasting battles and new strategies but I believe there are solutions to achieve this while still keeping "nuke the opponent" as a viable play style that players can choose.
If one wants to make a nuke team, which relies on crushing your opponent before he has a chance to get going, then they should be able to. Even if nuke teams remained viable after a 50% dmg cut(Which I don't think they would be), in my opinion the solution isn't to limit the effectiveness directly by cutting all dps. Rather, it's to limit it by establishing more consequences and factors to think about(like your royal guard example) before you just nuke all the time.
These new "consequences" to think about can come in the form of tweaked/new abilities or (more reluctantly) slightly tweaked stats regarding specific individual characters. When it comes to nerfing/buffing characters, @obiwan1011 talked about the stats I'd be willing to change at the moment. Speed and dmg. That is, in general I agree that if the dps character hits hard, then they should not be fast, and vice versa.
The devs have a number of options to go about fixing the pvp one shot problem. Here some of my solutions, going from number 1 being my easiest fix with the desired result to number 3 which is harder to implement but more fun and interesting. (Each have their drawbacks and I wouldn't say I'm 100% for any one of them without first getting some feedback)
1.Limit the number of consecutive moves per turn to 2 or 3. It may be that a player can still go 4 times in a row but now you and your opponent will have a single generation of turn meter per character after you attack 2 or 3 times consecutively. This benefits the slower characters by allowing a possible win of the rng roll at 100% turn meter without crippling dmg too much.
2. Lower the dmg and or speed stats of only the powerful dps characters. The amount lowered should depend on the character. Careful consideration for that character as an individual as well as part of a squad should obviously be taken into account.
3. Implement interesting yet fair abilities consistent with lore and specifically designed to counter nuke teams. For example, in Star Wars kotor II I remember the main character had a force link with a Jedi consular named kreia. As a result the two shared each other's physical and mental states. Perhaps there could be an ability that allowed a Jedi to establish a health link with the enemy for a turn. Both positive and negative things including dmg apply to both characters throughout its effect. Or maybe an ability that gives your ally a force barrier to absorb damage could be the solution. I can go on with these for days.
TIE being pointed out I say is a symptom though and not the actual problem. If this game didn't have so much early meter control (Poe / FOO) and didn't have so much early ally calls (GS / Jinn) and didn't have so much early offensive buffs (Leia / Poggle) than TIE would seem ok as a high damage, but slow toon.
That!
Without all that, there would be a lot of possible teams and strategies avaible.
Wonderful OP! Well thought-out and written! I heavily agree with points 1-3.
I'm not sure that Sid's leader ability is comparatively overpowered though. I personally agree that it's great and I use him exclusively, but I'm in the heavy minority in the top 50 of my server where nearly everyone uses Phasma or hk/poggle with a droid team. So many would disagree that he's the best.
Point Five definitely will be a sticking point between free and pay players. If you're a whale with everyone already maxed then of course you want more characters, but the rest of us want time to catch up before you get too far ahead of us. Obviously there's no right answer to this, up to the Devs to pick the right balance point.
My ally code: 296-673-769. Wish we could have more than 35.
I only read up to 'double all HP' as I have to go soon, but instead of the negative side effects involved in this (e.g. helaing) you could add an armour bar. It could be based on the same amount of HP, but in Armour. It would then take twice as much damage to kill them but wouldn't effect healing etc.
This would then also create a more strategic environment as 'ignore all armour' or '100% defense penetration' would actually matter.
You could use Phasma's 100% defense penetration buff and try to take down the enemy's HP as quick as possible hoping to kill them before the buff runs out.
So I read through every post and I still think armour is a good idea.
It doesn't affect healing, it doesn't affect damage, it simply takes longer to kill an enemy.
Here's what I'd do; All heroes have an armour bar which is based on 50% of their health.
So for example a 7* gear 7 level 60 Luminara gas about 9K health. In Arena she would have an additional 4500 armour. This won't be too much or too little. Instead of thinking of major overhauls to Arena we should be thinking about small changes that can be made. This is a smaller change. Then later if it doesn't work you can add more armour or less or whatever.
Armour cannot be healed or replenished, it is a one time use only. Advantage could do extra damage to armour. Then other buffs and debuffs could be added which involve that.
Later ship synergies could create deflector shields. Other heroes could then repair armour to 'heal' it.
Interesting idea, and at first, I thought, yeah, that might work....
Then however, it occurred to me that the mechanics would have to be ported to GW as well since you face actual teams who, presumably, might have FOTP or some other OP toon and you're back to the original problem in a different venue.
The issue then becomes, if armour cannot be healed, how can you make it through a full run of GW without adding yet another mechanic to overcome this obstacle? She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.....and it's no longer a simple, elegant solution.
This sort of fundamental change to the underlying mechanics of the game cannot happen in a vacuum.
I only read up to 'double all HP' as I have to go soon, but instead of the negative side effects involved in this (e.g. helaing) you could add an armour bar. It could be based on the same amount of HP, but in Armour. It would then take twice as much damage to kill them but wouldn't effect healing etc.
This would then also create a more strategic environment as 'ignore all armour' or '100% defense penetration' would actually matter.
You could use Phasma's 100% defense penetration buff and try to take down the enemy's HP as quick as possible hoping to kill them before the buff runs out.
So I read through every post and I still think armour is a good idea.
It doesn't affect healing, it doesn't affect damage, it simply takes longer to kill an enemy.
Here's what I'd do; All heroes have an armour bar which is based on 50% of their health.
So for example a 7* gear 7 level 60 Luminara gas about 9K health. In Arena she would have an additional 4500 armour. This won't be too much or too little. Instead of thinking of major overhauls to Arena we should be thinking about small changes that can be made. This is a smaller change. Then later if it doesn't work you can add more armour or less or whatever.
Armour cannot be healed or replenished, it is a one time use only. Advantage could do extra damage to armour. Then other buffs and debuffs could be added which involve that.
Later ship synergies could create deflector shields. Other heroes could then repair armour to 'heal' it.
Interesting idea, and ay first, I thought, yeah, that might work....
Then however, it occurred to me that the mechanics would have to be ported to GW as well since you face actual teams who, presumably, might have FOTP or some other OP toon and you're back to the original problem in a different venue.
The issue then becomes, if armour cannot be healed, how can you make it through a full run of GW without adding yet another mechanic to overcome this obstacle? She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.....and it's no longer a simple, elegant solution.
This sort of fundamental change to the underlying mechanics of the game cannot happen in a vacuum.
I guess it could reset at the beginning of every battle in GW. But I don't think it's necessary in GW. It should be and is a challenge
My name is cosmicturtle333, aka CT-333, aka Threes.
i have to disagree with those arena related arguments
so many changes would need to happen that thats possible, i dont know your arena rank but if youre high in the standings its already frustrating when all players are "in fight", if you cut the damage or increase the health - would you give players a 10-15 minute timelimit? so people just wait 15 mins in a fight? is that your definition of more enjoyable pvAI? its still a MOBILE game its fast paced and fun, if you could trade shards with your friends, that would be a great thing but unecessary extended fights, no tx...
then that DPS thing... they made one mistake: only 1 character with 100% healimmunity and heals which are so strong and also easy farmable that u actually need heal reduction, hes just way 2 easy to farm and there are no good options in the arena, but i guess if they just release some VIABLE(!!!!) General Akbars/Lobots sid wont be a thing anymore....
fotp is 2 strong but at least slow, while poe is fast,tanky and resists all negative status effects + all current dispel-toons are either extremly slow (ventress) or completly useless (mace, plo koon[no potency at all ****]..)
They could speed up character animations to reduce fight times.
Because of everything mentioned in the OP. Thirty second battles.
One hit KOs.
In GW you have the ability to retreat, to change your squad, to use multiple squad's to defeat one enemy squad.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be implemented in GW. I'm saying it should be tested in one location before being implemented everywhere.
I think it's an overly complex solution to the problem. Would it be a nice future addition? Certainly but in the meantime, something needs to be done to address the speed-killer meta and I don't think adding an entirely new mechanic is feasible for the immediate future.
Nerf the characters that outperform others. Its that simple. Changing the whole way arena is done to accommodate overpowered characters is silly.
You fix the characters like QGJ, FOTP, Leia, Geonosian Soldier, Rey, and Poe and you don't need to worry about how an arena fix will effect GW, missions, or future guild activities.
Nerf the characters that outperform others. Its that simple. Changing the whole way arena is done to accommodate overpowered characters is silly.
You fix the characters like QGJ, FOTP, Leia, Geonosian Soldier, Rey, and Poe and you don't need to worry about how an arena fix will effect GW, missions, or future guild activities.
I don't necessarily disagree with that, but it's a lot harder a sell to make an announcement that you're essentially nerfing the most used DPS toons all at once than it is to say you're trying a blanket adjustment that evens every single character together at once.
It's not really a nerf if everyone gets it.
As for the Sid / Phasma thing, a) I did make mention of "you can make an argument for Phasma" which is what the website article did, but I don't really agree with it, and b) even if Phasma is as good/better, having two top leaders isn't suddenly a diverse, wide open meta. It's still pretty bad. QGJ is a pretty poor leader choice and I'd wager a guess that a majority of people that use him, do not regularly visit the forums or reddit and probably have no idea his leader skill doesn't actually function properly on the first round of actions... if they did, they'd likely swap him for someone else.
Let's put it this way... how many characters are in the game that have a leader ability, and how many of them see play in the top 50 of Squad Arena?
Replies
The solution is quite obvious: (Repeating what I said above,) Quick heroes shouldn't hit hard while heavy hitters shouldn't be quick. Fast heroes such as Leia, Rey, Genosian Soldier, IG-86 and QGJ need their damage tuned down or their speed significantly reduced if their current damage is to be kept. Buff/Debuff heroes such as Poggle shouldn't be quick either as they can disrupt a match so early with powerful status effects. In that sense, I consider the likes of Dooku and Obi-Wan/Boba Fett as good hero designs; one is super-quick, but lacks firepower (thus, plays the role of a skirmisher very well) while the other two bring game-changing debuffs, but are slow.
As someone mentioned in another post, if Poe is to go fast, he should only be able to taunt for a turn and without any additional bells and whistles while a slower tank such as Chewie should be able to taunt longer and bring additional status effects. Such distinction would give a reason for players to choose one over the other as each has a trade-off in what they can offer. There will then be more diversity since there isn't a set of holy grail heroes. Unfortunately in the current world, there is very little reason to use Chewie as he is clearly inferior to Poe.
'Bring in
So I read through every post and I still think armour is a good idea.
It doesn't affect healing, it doesn't affect damage, it simply takes longer to kill an enemy.
Here's what I'd do; All heroes have an armour bar which is based on 50% of their health.
So for example a 7* gear 7 level 60 Luminara gas about 9K health. In Arena she would have an additional 4500 armour. This won't be too much or too little. Instead of thinking of major overhauls to Arena we should be thinking about small changes that can be made. This is a smaller change. Then later if it doesn't work you can add more armour or less or whatever.
Armour cannot be healed or replenished, it is a one time use only. Advantage could do extra damage to armour. Then other buffs and debuffs could be added which involve that.
Later ship synergies could create deflector shields. Other heroes could then repair armour to 'heal' it.
Beyond that, fantastic post, some brilliantly argued points
Good to see such dedication and constructive thoughts, excuse my bad english :-)
I remember with leia, the devs admitted she was bugged and now fixed but not fotp. That is where I'm confused. This is how I see his 3shot. He shoots once, bonus attack triggers, gains advantage and shoots again, isn't that what the description says?. Gain advantage and shoot again?.
He's supposed to have a 45% chance to shoot a second time, and this % is doubled if he has advantage, meaning he has a 90% chance to shoot a second time.
Right now, he occasionally shoots three times, similar to how Leia can sometimes shoot four times. She was not fixed, by the way. She can still shoot four times. I had hoped if/when they fixed her, it would also immediately fix FOTP, but until she's actually fixed we won't know for sure.
Hi @Naecabon !
There's something I don't understand.
OP from Team Instinct says:
A guide from Team Instinct says:
Is the guide outdated ?
Thks
Thanks.
I know the article was written before the new level cap and that's why I wonder if its conclusions are outdated now (if it is indeed, there should be an edit asap imho).
And the OP doesn't state that DS is very good in some specific combinations (e.g. with Poe) but that his leaderskills make him much better than every other leader in general (or maybe I didn't understand well ?).
Every article is only accurate for the meta-game it was written for, even if strength can transition into a different meta. I doubt older articles will get a revision, but I didn't write it so won't talk for others.
As OP stated there are currently very few leadership abilities that are worth considering in the arena top, Sid and Phasma are among those very few and the article on the Team instinct website gave some reasons for why.
Also the article only talks about the leadership ability of both characters (and it does mention that specific character synergies can lead to one ability being stronger than the other) and don't really talk about any of the leaders in themselves which always should factor into your decision of which leader to run in your squad. Phasma is not bad, and there are still some very strong players that prefer her over Sidious as a leader.
When choosing between Phasma and Sid there is also the RNG-factor of Phasma to consider. Some fights you won't get any early assists, and some you get several assists the first turn leading to a win you otherwise wouldn't have gotten. If you want to rely on the RNG-factor is a personal choice.
Sad world when you have to ask for such an easy thing. Respect for others... This is the most important thing you had to say!
I hope the development team takes notice and tries to fix bugged and broken parts of the game.
That's not the way I think about guide articles, we're not talking about a forum post but a Web site guide. When you decide to publish such a guide I think you have the responsability to edit it when needed or at least to warn readers that it's outdated (if it is).
That's the point. OP stated that when you have the choice you always pick DS (or should), as he is uber anything else :
You earned my respect.
I agree that something needs to be done regarding the fact that pvp is pretty much always decided after the first turn but I don't believe that halving all damage sources(your suggestion #2) is the route to go in order to fix this.Yes it would open the door to longer lasting battles and new strategies but I believe there are solutions to achieve this while still keeping "nuke the opponent" as a viable play style that players can choose.
If one wants to make a nuke team, which relies on crushing your opponent before he has a chance to get going, then they should be able to. Even if nuke teams remained viable after a 50% dmg cut(Which I don't think they would be), in my opinion the solution isn't to limit the effectiveness directly by cutting all dps. Rather, it's to limit it by establishing more consequences and factors to think about(like your royal guard example) before you just nuke all the time.
These new "consequences" to think about can come in the form of tweaked/new abilities or (more reluctantly) slightly tweaked stats regarding specific individual characters. When it comes to nerfing/buffing characters, @obiwan1011 talked about the stats I'd be willing to change at the moment. Speed and dmg. That is, in general I agree that if the dps character hits hard, then they should not be fast, and vice versa.
The devs have a number of options to go about fixing the pvp one shot problem. Here some of my solutions, going from number 1 being my easiest fix with the desired result to number 3 which is harder to implement but more fun and interesting. (Each have their drawbacks and I wouldn't say I'm 100% for any one of them without first getting some feedback)
1.Limit the number of consecutive moves per turn to 2 or 3. It may be that a player can still go 4 times in a row but now you and your opponent will have a single generation of turn meter per character after you attack 2 or 3 times consecutively. This benefits the slower characters by allowing a possible win of the rng roll at 100% turn meter without crippling dmg too much.
2. Lower the dmg and or speed stats of only the powerful dps characters. The amount lowered should depend on the character. Careful consideration for that character as an individual as well as part of a squad should obviously be taken into account.
3. Implement interesting yet fair abilities consistent with lore and specifically designed to counter nuke teams. For example, in Star Wars kotor II I remember the main character had a force link with a Jedi consular named kreia. As a result the two shared each other's physical and mental states. Perhaps there could be an ability that allowed a Jedi to establish a health link with the enemy for a turn. Both positive and negative things including dmg apply to both characters throughout its effect. Or maybe an ability that gives your ally a force barrier to absorb damage could be the solution. I can go on with these for days.
Without all that, there would be a lot of possible teams and strategies avaible.
I'm not sure that Sid's leader ability is comparatively overpowered though. I personally agree that it's great and I use him exclusively, but I'm in the heavy minority in the top 50 of my server where nearly everyone uses Phasma or hk/poggle with a droid team. So many would disagree that he's the best.
Point Five definitely will be a sticking point between free and pay players. If you're a whale with everyone already maxed then of course you want more characters, but the rest of us want time to catch up before you get too far ahead of us. Obviously there's no right answer to this, up to the Devs to pick the right balance point.
Interesting idea, and at first, I thought, yeah, that might work....
Then however, it occurred to me that the mechanics would have to be ported to GW as well since you face actual teams who, presumably, might have FOTP or some other OP toon and you're back to the original problem in a different venue.
The issue then becomes, if armour cannot be healed, how can you make it through a full run of GW without adding yet another mechanic to overcome this obstacle? She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.....and it's no longer a simple, elegant solution.
This sort of fundamental change to the underlying mechanics of the game cannot happen in a vacuum.
Edited for typos
I guess it could reset at the beginning of every battle in GW. But I don't think it's necessary in GW. It should be and is a challenge
Because of everything mentioned in the OP. Thirty second battles.
One hit KOs.
In GW you have the ability to retreat, to change your squad, to use multiple squad's to defeat one enemy squad.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be implemented in GW. I'm saying it should be tested in one location before being implemented everywhere.
They could speed up character animations to reduce fight times.
I think it's an overly complex solution to the problem. Would it be a nice future addition? Certainly but in the meantime, something needs to be done to address the speed-killer meta and I don't think adding an entirely new mechanic is feasible for the immediate future.
You fix the characters like QGJ, FOTP, Leia, Geonosian Soldier, Rey, and Poe and you don't need to worry about how an arena fix will effect GW, missions, or future guild activities.
I don't necessarily disagree with that, but it's a lot harder a sell to make an announcement that you're essentially nerfing the most used DPS toons all at once than it is to say you're trying a blanket adjustment that evens every single character together at once.
It's not really a nerf if everyone gets it.
As for the Sid / Phasma thing, a) I did make mention of "you can make an argument for Phasma" which is what the website article did, but I don't really agree with it, and b) even if Phasma is as good/better, having two top leaders isn't suddenly a diverse, wide open meta. It's still pretty bad. QGJ is a pretty poor leader choice and I'd wager a guess that a majority of people that use him, do not regularly visit the forums or reddit and probably have no idea his leader skill doesn't actually function properly on the first round of actions... if they did, they'd likely swap him for someone else.
Let's put it this way... how many characters are in the game that have a leader ability, and how many of them see play in the top 50 of Squad Arena?