Arena advice please

nevertellmetheodds

Hello lovely forum-folk.

I'm after a bit of advice with my arena team/performance.

My team is:

Lumi (L)
7* G7 lvl 61

RG
5* G7 lvl 61

Ackbar
7* G7 lvl 53

IG86
7* G7 lvl 53

GS
5* G8 lvl 61

At my level, I'm normally fighting Sid/Vader teams so Ackbar's cleanse with Lumi's heals used to keep me up, with RG's auto-taunt stepping in when needed and his stun keeping opposing attackers in check. Leaving IG86 and GS to use their basics and assists to gun them down.

Before the update, I was close to getting in the >200 bracket (I don't aim high, I don't care that much) but now I'm getting absolutely hammered. I can't win a game. I'm currently rank 714.

I've looked at the update notes and can't see anything that could cause such a massive change, have I missed something?

I have the following at 5*+ if you can recommend a swap around:
Kit Fisto, Teebo, Ahsoka, IG100, Fives, Dooku, Rex

Indominable_J

Rex (L), Fives, GS, 86, RG. Rex gives you cleanse plus tenacity up, and turn meter boosts whenever there is a crit. Healing isn't really necessary in arena.

nevertellmetheodds

Indominable_J wrote: »

Rex (L), Fives, GS, 86, RG. Rex gives you cleanse plus tenacity up, and turn meter boosts whenever there is a crit. Healing isn't really necessary in arena.

And with that, I just won my first arena match this week.

Much appreciated, thanks! I always thought healing was a must.

Zooey

You'll want to farm better dps like QGJ and Rey/Leia or Wedge+Biggs as well. Fives and 86 are fairly underwhelming in that setup.

nevertellmetheodds

Zooey wrote: »

You'll want to farm better dps like QGJ and Rey/Leia or Wedge+Biggs as well. Fives and 86 are fairly underwhelming in that setup.

QGJ is on farm.

I got Leia to 4* and was completely underwhelmed. When I fight against her, she's a critting machine gun. When I fight with her, she very rarely fires more than once and gets killed as soon as she breaks stealth - earlier if there's AoE.

Indominable_J

Leia is an RNG dependent character. Lando, QGJ, Rey, Wedge + Biggs (in concert only) are all good damage dealers.

Fives is good with a Rex lead, because he benefits more from the turn meter boost, but isn't necessarily the best. For what you have, he's good at the moment.

Healing was important pre-protection. Once protection came out, healing went by the way-side. You'll learn why as you level and gear and mod up -- 5 dot mods with a health primary ability give +5.88% health. 5 dot mods with a protection primary ability give +23.5% protection. Given that your tanks often have as much protection as health, if not more so, +23.5% is far superior to +5.88%. Since protection can't be healed, healing is not particularly useful once you get into g7+.

nevertellmetheodds

Indominable_J wrote: »

Leia is an RNG dependent character. Lando, QGJ, Rey, Wedge + Biggs (in concert only) are all good damage dealers.

Fives is good with a Rex lead, because he benefits more from the turn meter boost, but isn't necessarily the best. For what you have, he's good at the moment.

Healing was important pre-protection. Once protection came out, healing went by the way-side. You'll learn why as you level and gear and mod up -- 5 dot mods with a health primary ability give +5.88% health. 5 dot mods with a protection primary ability give +23.5% protection. Given that your tanks often have as much protection as health, if not more so, +23.5% is far superior to +5.88%. Since protection can't be healed, healing is not particularly useful once you get into g7+.

Again, very helpful. Thank you!

Tuftedpaper85

The most important thing I noticed is that you have Ackbar and 86 at level 53 while everyone else is at level 61. The most important thing you can do while building an arena squad is to pick your five characters and commit to keeping those five at the max gear/level/star that you can.

nevertellmetheodds

Tuftedpaper85 wrote: »

The most important thing I noticed is that you have Ackbar and 86 at level 53 while everyone else is at level 61. The most important thing you can do while building an arena squad is to pick your five characters and commit to keeping those five at the max gear/level/star that you can.

The way I'm currently doing it is to only level characters once I have gear that needs them to be higher, so I've always got max gear for their level. Gear farming is the worst so it's taking a while.

Indominable_J

nevertellmetheodds wrote: »

Tuftedpaper85 wrote: »

The most important thing I noticed is that you have Ackbar and 86 at level 53 while everyone else is at level 61. The most important thing you can do while building an arena squad is to pick your five characters and commit to keeping those five at the max gear/level/star that you can.

The way I'm currently doing it is to only level characters once I have gear that needs them to be higher, so I've always got max gear for their level. Gear farming is the worst so it's taking a while.

Not a good idea. Characters have multipliers for the three core ability scores: STR, AGI, INT. Those multipliers (which are increased by star level) are multiplied by the character level. Therefore, increasing character level (irrespective of gear level) increases your character's health, damage, and other abilities. Keep your arena squad at or within one of your player level.

Firman

I'm going to make a suggestion a little bit different to what has been said here. Unless you're planning on spending a bit of money then Rex is off limits as he's only farmable from chromiums and crazy crystal amounts from shipments. I'm thinking two important characters that will benefit hugely in the long run are Lando and STHan. They're both scoundrels and will allow you to complete high tiers of the credit heist event. They're both also rebels and if you farm wedge and Biggs who are the best 1 - 2 combination in the game at this point in time. Under Lando's lead they gain crit damage and speed. Wedge is a tough farm though and with Lando can only be farmed from cantina energy which his why I've put off going for wedge for so long now but I'm finally starting now, far later than I should have. A decent toon to round out this team might be somebody like Anakin. He's also a tough farm gear wise but seriously worth it in the end, and is a Jedi so will go towards getting Yoda for yourself.
It would be a bold move to drop your current team and adopt this whole new team and would probably hinder your progress in the short term but would be incredible for your long term progress

Edit - sorry I didn't realise you already had Rex

nevertellmetheodds

Firman wrote: »

I'm going to make a suggestion a little bit different to what has been said here. Unless you're planning on spending a bit of money then Rex is off limits as he's only farmable from chromiums and crazy crystal amounts from shipments. I'm thinking two important characters that will benefit hugely in the long run are Lando and STHan. They're both scoundrels and will allow you to complete high tiers of the credit heist event. They're both also rebels and if you farm wedge and Biggs who are the best 1 - 2 combination in the game at this point in time. Under Lando's lead they gain crit damage and speed. Wedge is a tough farm though and with Lando can only be farmed from cantina energy which his why I've put off going for wedge for so long now but I'm finally starting now, far later than I should have. A decent toon to round out this team might be somebody like Anakin. He's also a tough farm gear wise but seriously worth it in the end, and is a Jedi so will go towards getting Yoda for yourself.
It would be a bold move to drop your current team and adopt this whole new team and would probably hinder your progress in the short term but would be incredible for your long term progress

Edit - sorry I didn't realise you already had Rex

Nice to have an alternative view, thanks! That looks like a long farm though. *wipes sweat from brow*

I've got JKA at 4* but he needs a lot of gear (as you said) and shard drops from battles is a painfully slow way to star a character up. He'll get there, though. Eventually.

Curious why no one suggested keeping Geo Soldier in my line-up, he's seems fast and does good damage.

Tuftedpaper85

nevertellmetheodds wrote: »

Firman wrote: »

I'm going to make a suggestion a little bit different to what has been said here. Unless you're planning on spending a bit of money then Rex is off limits as he's only farmable from chromiums and crazy crystal amounts from shipments. I'm thinking two important characters that will benefit hugely in the long run are Lando and STHan. They're both scoundrels and will allow you to complete high tiers of the credit heist event. They're both also rebels and if you farm wedge and Biggs who are the best 1 - 2 combination in the game at this point in time. Under Lando's lead they gain crit damage and speed. Wedge is a tough farm though and with Lando can only be farmed from cantina energy which his why I've put off going for wedge for so long now but I'm finally starting now, far later than I should have. A decent toon to round out this team might be somebody like Anakin. He's also a tough farm gear wise but seriously worth it in the end, and is a Jedi so will go towards getting Yoda for yourself.
It would be a bold move to drop your current team and adopt this whole new team and would probably hinder your progress in the short term but would be incredible for your long term progress

Edit - sorry I didn't realise you already had Rex

Nice to have an alternative view, thanks! That looks like a long farm though. *wipes sweat from brow*

I've got JKA at 4* but he needs a lot of gear (as you said) and shard drops from battles is a painfully slow way to star a character up. He'll get there, though. Eventually.

Curious why no one suggested keeping Geo Soldier in my line-up, he's seems fast and does good damage.

Because people let their heads get wrapped up around the shiny toons of the day and Geo Soldier hasn't been considered a meta toon for months. But to answer your question, yes, at max gear and levels he's still a very strong toon and viable in top end arena these days

Doitsuyama

You sound like you entered at about the same time as my alt account, late September. I made this alt mostly f2p and focussed right away on easy to farm toons which form a good arena squad, and boy, is this squad good: Phasma (L), GS, Lando, QGJ, STH, now mostly 7* level 67 gear 8.

Two from level 1 cantina nodes (both already 7*), QGJ from cantina store (soon 7*, would be 7* if not sidetracked a bit by HRSc before realizing that QGJ 7* is more important), STH from arena store (very soon 7*, got sidetracked by forming the initial arena team with IG-88 who I got as starting toon) and Phasma in GW store (7*, this is a fast one). Keep this squad levelled and geared always at the possible max and it pretty easily beats everything but Rex leads who love AOE crits (which I give them with Phasma and Lando). Sometimes I beat that too, sometimes I luck into someone else beating them (so I can fight them), so usually I'm rank 4, sometimes higher.

The strategic question will be if this squad can sustain higher levels, I suspect not. So my plan will be farming Wedge when I'm level 69, of course Biggs, and later Anakin and form a squad with Lando, Anakin, Wegde, Biggs and STH which probably is better.

Don't get sidetracked by other projects in the start and concentrate on your main toons. Only sidetracking is allowable to form a scoundrel squad (credit heist is too important) and later a raid squad (meaning Teebo).

Indominable_J

Firman wrote: »

I'm going to make a suggestion a little bit different to what has been said here. Unless you're planning on spending a bit of money then Rex is off limits as he's only farmable from chromiums and crazy crystal amounts from shipments. I'm thinking two important characters that will benefit hugely in the long run are Lando and STHan. They're both scoundrels and will allow you to complete high tiers of the credit heist event. They're both also rebels and if you farm wedge and Biggs who are the best 1 - 2 combination in the game at this point in time. Under Lando's lead they gain crit damage and speed. Wedge is a tough farm though and with Lando can only be farmed from cantina energy which his why I've put off going for wedge for so long now but I'm finally starting now, far later than I should have. A decent toon to round out this team might be somebody like Anakin. He's also a tough farm gear wise but seriously worth it in the end, and is a Jedi so will go towards getting Yoda for yourself.
It would be a bold move to drop your current team and adopt this whole new team and would probably hinder your progress in the short term but would be incredible for your long term progress

Edit - sorry I didn't realise you already had Rex

I agree that Rex is a tough farm to keep up, but he has two things going for him -- he's currently viable for @nevertellmetheodds and his two most important attributes in arena are tenacity up and his leader ability -- if he gets tenacity up before he dies, he remains fairly viable at 5*.

I agree that Lando and STHan are important farms -- for a long-term arena plan, they're good choices. I was just trying to figure out what the best team was from the current lineup.

nevertellmetheodds wrote: »

Curious why no one suggested keeping Geo Soldier in my line-up, he's seems fast and does good damage.

Who did you put in instead of him? I suggested him and 86 as your damage dealers.

nevertellmetheodds

Doitsuyama wrote: »

Don't get sidetracked by other projects in the start and concentrate on your main toons. Only sidetracking is allowable to form a scoundrel squad (credit heist is too important) and later a raid squad (meaning Teebo).

Yeah, this is definitely a problem for me. I wanted to clear GW daily so I farmed a deep but low-level roster. It's worked really well for GW, but not much else. Now I need to pick my five and focus on them.
(but it's so hard)

Doitsuyama

Yeah, this is definitely a problem for me. I wanted to clear GW daily so I farmed a deep but low-level roster. It's worked really well for GW, but not much else. Now I need to pick my five and focus on them.
(but it's so hard)

I worried about GW too with my approach but so far I won all but three I think. Having Ackbar at 4* helps as healer, I convert Sid and Vader attacks into healing. Otherwise I only have rather weak Talia and JC as healers, plus important life steal abilities from Lando, Phasma and IG-88

nevertellmetheodds

nevertellmetheodds wrote: »

Curious why no one suggested keeping Geo Soldier in my line-up, he's seems fast and does good damage.

Who did you put in instead of him? I suggested him and 86 as your damage dealers.

[/quote]

Sorry, my crappy wording and my crappy reading skills. I meant when folks were suggesting better damage dealers no one had suggested GS, but no one mentioned replacing him in the first place.
In short: ignore it

And yes, Rex is a great lead! His tenacity up when he clears Sid's/Vader's/OldBen's mass debuffs is very handy. I just wish he wasn't so squishy. It was a current line-up change I needed urgently, but also nice to see suggestions for long term goals.

Indominable_J

Rex's squishyness can be addressed (at least somewhat) with mods. He is, however, going to remain squishy. That being said, there are plenty of top 10 arena teams, on servers across the months, with a squishy Rex lead.