Worth it for FTP to unlock Baze through shard shop?

Most_Licey

I run an arena team with Wedge, Biggs, Lando, STH, and JKA (all 7*, level 81, G9-G10) on a June shard. I'm thinking about unlocking Baze through the shard shop. He would replace STH (whose time is just about up). There are quite a few shoretroopers (and a Baze or two!) starting to lurk on my shard, so aoe dispel has become almost a necessity.

One needs 10K shard currency to unlock Baze at 3*. I can convert my squad arena, guild ship, cantina ship, and GW ship savings into roughly 4300 shard currency.

I am willing to convert any daily GW tokens and any daily guild ship, arena ship, and cantina ship currency into shard currency. I already have the essential toons from these places at viable star levels so I'm not worried about falling behind on these fronts. A reasonable estimate is that I can generate 600 shard currency a day through these means. So it would take me roughly 10 days to get the remaining 5700 shard currency needed to unlock Baze.

I could also burn fleet ship currency as well as farm cantina and LS/DS nodes to generate extra shard currency. I'd rather not do that. I need ship BPs, tons of gear, and there are still many good toons in cantina I'd like to work on. Unfortunately, CG/EA (quite unreasonably) has left everyone hanging by not announcing how long Baze will be in the shard shop. So if I needed to accelerate things, I could do it.

So, should I unlock Baze through the shard shop? Although I do well in arena (usually top 10), I'm FTP, so my Baze may sit at 3* or, at best, 4* for a long time. Is he like shoretrooper -- arena viable at 3*-4* (assuming properly modded and geared)?

Others may have different views, but I don't think B2 is a reasonable substitute for Baze -- his (its?) toolkit is not quite as good. On the other hand, at least I can get him to 7* without spending tons of crystals.

I'd be grateful to hear from others who have Baze or are facing the same dilemma.

Varlie

I'm not pure f2p but I did use all of my **** currency to get Baze. He's only at 3 star right now and I am hesitant to blow through GW currency (which I have quite a bit saved) just because I am trying to collect Ships now from there.
I will probably work evenly between ships and Baze shards while I can. I've skipped opportunities in the past and have regretted it.

Twin

Sounds like a gamble... but probably a decent one.

How much time would it take? That is the biggest risk... What other toons will come out by the time you get and level him?

Will he be meta even? We just don't know yet, theory crafting says yes he certainly can be. AOE debuff with a 3 turn cooldown seems pretty good.

These new toons have soo many uniques and abilities... powercreep alone seems to indicate it would be worth it.

Now what would be a kick to the junk... what if he gets put in F2P while you are "cashing" out?

Another factor would be your guild... Are they doing AAT well enough? Are your squads up to snuff? Is the Baze cash out going to hurt that area of the game, do you even care?

djvita

i have a lot of cantina credits stockpiled so i can create 525 shard shop tokens every refresh. i would recommend to hit 4* for baze; we dont know when its ending (i think its gone monday morning)

CerealKiller

NO

as it is temporary unit there

Unless you can max him in a day....

Carth_Onassi1973

Heeeeeeeelllllllllllll

No

LVTrisha

Unless you can max him, I'd say no. Or you'd be stuck with a 3* until he was released in some other method sometime in the future.

RyanRen

Plenty of good characters that are not behind the paywall. Look at what they've done for Boba Fett for example. It's apples and oranges, but I would focus on what you can max.

Zooey

No. it's 5700 to unlock him but gonna be tens of thousands more to 7* him.

Edit: I'm working on him slowly from shipments and shard shop, and it may take about 2 months to max him. Definitely not worth wasting ship tokens on him, and probably not GW either cuz ships.

John_Matrix1985

Get him. That auto taunt will do wonders. Im FTP and have him on 44/50. Still top 20 in fleet arena and top 2 on squad arena payout. Hope it helps me keep rank overnight insteal of STH

dad2my3

He won't be in the shard shop forever. You would be stuck with a useless three star Baze that you'd never use.

senkoujin

Carth_Onassi1973 wrote: »

Heeeeeeeelllllllllllll

No

I concur, I'll patiently wait for Baze to be moved to a more 'viable' shop.

Most_Licey

Thanks for all the feedback. A lot of the comments focus on the viability of a 3* (perhaps 4*) Baze in arena. It seems to me that the prevailing sentiment is that tanks are more viable than other classes at low star levels because their protection ramps up significantly with gear level (star level is not relevant in this respect). And, as everyone knows, protection can be easily doubled with modding. I have a 4* shoretrooper on a different account and have faced well-geared and modded 3* shoretroopers in arena, and know that he is virtually impossible to OHKO with a Biggs special. Others may have done it, but I haven't come that close.

Also, a lot of tanks have specials that are effective at any star level (e.g., RG's stun, B2's aoe dispel and buff immunity, Shoretrooper's crit immunity). Baze's specials are similar in that regard. True, a low star level will adversely impact his health and damage. So his fierce reprisal special will suffer.

I'm less concerned about the resources I will need to use to unlock him. I am not using fleet shipment tokens for this endeavor, so I will still be able to farm ships (granted, not as quickly were I to also use GW tokens). In terms of farming other toons, a one week diversion is not material. Sid was the first toon I unlocked from arena and I lived to talk about it, lol!!!

So the real question is whether someone out there who is using Baze at 3-4* in arena is willing to share their experience with the community...

MackemSLAM

Most_Licey wrote: »

Thanks for all the feedback. A lot of the comments focus on the viability of a 3* (perhaps 4*) Baze in arena. It seems to me that the prevailing sentiment is that tanks are more viable than other classes at low star levels because their protection ramps up significantly with gear level (star level is not relevant in this respect). And, as everyone knows, protection can be easily doubled with modding. I have a 4* shoretrooper on a different account and have faced well-geared and modded 3* shoretroopers in arena, and know that he is virtually impossible to OHKO with a Biggs special. Others may have done it, but I haven't come that close.

Also, a lot of tanks have specials that are effective at any star level (e.g., RG's stun, B2's aoe dispel and buff immunity, Shoretrooper's crit immunity). Baze's specials are similar in that regard. True, a low star level will adversely impact his health and damage. So his fierce reprisal special will suffer.

I'm less concerned about the resources I will need to use to unlock him. I am not using fleet shipment tokens for this endeavor, so I will still be able to farm ships (granted, not as quickly were I to also use GW tokens). In terms of farming other toons, a one week diversion is not material. Sid was the first toon I unlocked from arena and I lived to talk about it, lol!!!

So the real question is whether someone out there who is using Baze at 3-4* in arena is willing to share their experience with the community...

The thing is, it's an enormous commitment to test this out.

I have 5* Baze and 4* Chirrut. I really want to test them out in arena.

But it would take a month to gear them up, at the expense of more proven characters, to be able to just test them out. That could prove to be time wasted while others have raced off into the distance!

It's becoming a fundamental problem, the requirements to gear, level and mod a character are too big for even heavy spenders to be able to develop a wide variety.

ziccoit

I'm in the same situation bro. My final verdict was to forgo baze until he shows up in Ftp friendly area. He's fantastic now but how long would that be? Remember fac and Rex have become ftp A team of well modded fac, Rex, b2 + wiggs could conveniently take on baze team. There's no single arena team without counter. Ship too is very important because of stuffs you can get via ship shipment. You would need gw token to upgrade your ships to become competitive.

ziccoit

Deleted

Gank_Killer

I would say no, not worth it. spend all those shard shop points for MAYBE 5*, and then need gear to make him useful, or raid gear for a much needed boost to arena or raid character? I'll take the much needed raid gear.

Danbloo

I'd say it depends on how deep your roster is. The only other way to get Baze is to pay for chromium or crystals. This is the only free way to get his shards. I have been playing awhile so I am mainly hunting for Vader in the shard shop and it's nice to see a premium character available to everyone.

Kyno

I got so many free shards from ship intro and the free pack.

It let me get Baze to 45/50. Meaning I can unlock him in a week or less with free crystals. I think that's worth it. 3* ain't great but gear is king.

Slowly working in shards from shipments everyone so often he will go up in lvl. He seems like a solid asset to have and it won't cost much. He's better then grevous and you can always leave a few 100 shard shop coins around for the random vader.

Danbloo

Kyno wrote: »

I got so many free shards from ship intro and the free pack.

It let me get Baze to 45/50. Meaning I can unlock him in a week or less with free crystals. I think that's worth it. 3* ain't great but gear is king.

Slowly working in shards from shipments everyone so often he will go up in lvl. He seems like a solid asset to have and it won't cost much. He's better then grevous and you can always leave a few 100 shard shop coins around for the random vader.

Cheaper than grevious and better and more useful

tabberkev

Same quandry here. I was lucky enough to get a 6* chirrut in the tournament, so Baze would be really good for me given the synergy. I also don't have B2 for mass dispel, so that would be very useful too. Its a long grind though. It's now been a week, and I've collected 25 / 50 Baze shards. Its literally meant pausing the rest of my game. All my normal energy goes on hard nodes for toons I already have, all cantina energy goes on GS to do the same. Then every shipments (GW, arena, cantina), the same thing. So i'm falling behind a little in ships, not collecting any ally points for the upcoming Vader ship tournament, not gearing my other toons, etc. I'm guessing it will be another week before I unlock him, so he better be worth it !!!! ;-)

Most_Licey

FWIW, I stopped my efforts after day 3. It was just too resource intensive and was also concerned that the developers would pull the plug on his availability with little or no notice. It was quite unreasonable not to give the community an actual deadline.

I did start converting shards into shard shop currency, but did not buy any Baze shards. I can obviously use the shard currency to buy raid gear, etc., so not a total waste.

Perhaps a 3* or 4* Baze is fine for arena as long as you have chirrut (whom I do not have). Maybe Baze is even useful against the upcoming QGJ AOE foresight meta. Let's assume that a zeta'd QGJ will move first in almost any encounter. With 175 speed before mods, he's faster than TFP. So QGJ moves first and dispels your Baze or Shore and give everyone offense up. That probably makes Shore more of a liability than an asset.

But the same is less true for Baze. With everyone getting an offense up buff, Baze will get a 25% tm boost from his unique. Assuming he also gets a 25% tm boost from 5 jedi starting with foresight, that's a whopping 50% tm gain. With any type of decent modding, he would go right after QGJ and use his AOE to take down the foresight (although not the offense up because of the dodge?).

Still, I kept coming back to B2 as the most practical solution for the F2P crowd. With omegas, he spams his aoe dispel and buff immunity. When his aoe is on cd, he is still useful because you can use his wet noodle basic to take down any foresight that pops back up on the enemy you're focusing on. He is guaranteed farmeable . And, because he does his job even at 4* and with low gearing, you can use him very soon after unlock.

Obs0lete

tabberkev wrote: »

Same quandry here. I was lucky enough to get a 6* chirrut in the tournament, so Baze would be really good for me given the synergy. I also don't have B2 for mass dispel, so that would be very useful too. Its a long grind though. It's now been a week, and I've collected 25 / 50 Baze shards. Its literally meant pausing the rest of my game. All my normal energy goes on hard nodes for toons I already have, all cantina energy goes on GS to do the same. Then every shipments (GW, arena, cantina), the same thing. So i'm falling behind a little in ships, not collecting any ally points for the upcoming Vader ship tournament, not gearing my other toons, etc. I'm guessing it will be another week before I unlock him, so he better be worth it !!!! ;-)

You might want to farm someone in Cantina requiring 12 or 16 energy because they provide a higher cantina credit/energy ratio (1.75) than 8 energy nodes (1.625).

Atlas1

Has anyone else tried out a 3 or 4* Baze since this thread was posted? I'm curious.

cherno

I was able to do it that way. I had a ton of cantina tokens, GW tokens and arena tokens. I took him from 3* to 7* purely through the shard shop in about a weeks time. I spent on the 50 crystal refreshes and was able to get him there. There were a few other sources shipments and fleet shipments, but that contributed in a minor way to the total.

BrianBuchanans

@Atlas1 I unlocked Baze with a combination of crystals and shard shop and I'm not in the least disappointed! Granted, this is on my alt account where I managed to also snag Chirrut, but together Baze is near invincible and Chirrut is WAY less squishy. The counter chance and tenacity up are absolutely gorgeous (and the key to defeating my shard's Old Ben - STH team), and Chirrut hits hard when set up right. It's also really nice to have Baze's two dispel abilities, and he leads off well bc most of the time QGJ goes right after STH and gives him 25% turn meter, meaning that—for the most part—double tanks are no problem.

Since unlocking him, I haven't fallen past 2nd place on my shard, even overnight. Good stuff, I say.

Atlas1

@BrianBuchanans thanks for the tip. I'm on a day 1 shard so I'm facing some whales. I rank around 120 daily with my current arena team. Trying to mix it up a bit.

UltimateZeus

@BrianBuchanans what * Chirrut do you have?

ThunderGun

One would also have to assume that putting Baze in the shard shop was done for a reason, say to get everyone to blow through their currency. I expect something new to be placed in shard shop in the near future, perhaps something to do with ships (vader's ship maybe?).

BrianBuchanans

@UltimateZeus he's only 3* but holds his own. I'm really hoping the tourney comes back eventually haha. That said, I'm on a very recent shard where the top level is 71 haha

BrianBuchanans

Right now I'm running with Lando (L) - STH - Chirrut - Baze - Biggs until I get Sun Fac and Wedge up to speed, then I'm switching to Wedge (L) - Biggs - Chirrut - Baze - SF!