zSavage, Palp or zBoba under zMaul Lead?

ghecinel

I currently run Zaul (L), Palp, SA, DN and zBoba. I like the setup, as expected SA goes first followed by Palp, DN and Zaul with Boba fast enough to go before many of the opponents.

This works well for me also because before SA (I had Vader as the fifth), Boba used to get killed right away as the only non-sith - but now with the fast first round blitz he is mostly fine

Pondering who to give my next zeta to and I am inclined to go with Savage. The problem is I don't know who zSavage should replace, I feel I have to choose 2/3 mentioned in the title as I don't want to touch Zaul, DN or SA. zBoba is great and I feel Palp is essential to this lineup, without him I am afraid Boba becomes ineffective again.

Who should zSavage replace, or should I consider another toon for the next zeta?

Thanks

SnakesOnAPlane

So you use Zaul and zMaul.

Kj9973

Savage!

ghecinel

SnakesOnAPlane wrote: »

So you use Zaul and zMaul.

Yeah! And I forgot to mention I have zeta Maul waiting on the wing

WenHandel

I feel that Boba and Palp are your weakest links, even though their AoE ability block and stun are useful. I suspect you have to let go of one of these two, probably Boba. If your Sith Assassin is quick enough to get Nihilus to go early then he increases the cooldowns of the opposition's specials and that's similar to what Boba does with ability block - so you can probably live without Boba.

zSavage might be an improvement, but I suspect that a disruptive tank like Sith Trooper or General Kenobi would have a bigger impact in your squad in place of Boba than zSavage will. zDooku is another option and I find him fairly useful as I face a lot of General Kenobis, which he deals with, and he survives better than Boba and Palp. They're all great characters so nothing you do is bad. I haven't zetaed Savage yet so I can't really say how good he would be.

I guess another option for your next zeta is Nihilus' unique - which should be useful in all circumstances. If you aren't sure about Savage then I'd consider that.

Jetlife

Drop ep and pick up savage. Since you got Nihilus you don't need ep. Get away from his rng.
I run zaul/Zavage/zooku/Nihilus/sid and do great on defense! I was hesitant about dropping ep because he used to be the back bone of my sith squad to get those stuns at the start. Now Nihilus can take out there first turn. And he has a dispell.

Believe it or not, Zavage can help your sith squad survive even longer. He cleanses your squad quite a bit and is very hard to kill.

sneeekypants

"followed by EP, DN and zaul"

I assume you meant that isn't the sequential order right? SA mucks up the start order. I'm not sold on her unless you don't have the speed to compete.

EP is getting benched soon, his stun is only attempting ~2.2 out of 5 (not landing but attempting the 70%) average so it's not reliable. He's also super squishy.

Pretty much anyone can win on offense now so I'm going for a team where everyone has 70k+ except for zaul to see if defense holds better. Zaul, zid, DN, GK and EP replaced by SiT or Zavage.

WenHandel

It all depends on the squads you are facing, doesn't it? The main purpose of Sith Assassin is to get your first round of attacks in before the opponent, but if your opponent has a faster Assassin then you're going second. If your opponents can disrupt you with taunters like Kenobi or Sith Trooper, or zQGJ with his team foresight, then you can get into a mess as well, and Nihilus may not attack often enough with his dispel to fix things. What is going to help you best to avoid or deal with this kind of situation?

When things are going well, it doesn't matter whether you are using Palp or Boba or Savage. You're fine whichever you use, and Nihilus will eventually snuff out any painful opponent. But what about when things are going badly?

Palp and/or Boba can help to delay trouble or bad damage from your opponent for a short while, but they don't always land their stuns/ability blocks against a team with decent tenacity, and foresights get in their way. That's why I think you can lose one of them and should think about bringing in someone who can really mess up your opponent's plan and allow your team to re-group - like Sith Trooper or Kenobi. I find both of these awkward to face in Sith squads that are similar to mine, even when I go first.

And that's also why I'm a little sceptical about Savage. He'll survive a long time, and his yellow-bar instakill is useful, but is his debuff dispel on a random ally enough to turn a difficult fight around? He doesn't really disrupt the opposition. And is he really dangerous enough for the opposition to worry about? Is he fast enough? How often is his instakill relevant (it only makes a difference on a character who is low on health but not so low that your other guys could have killed him too, and it only works if your opponent doesn't have a taunt up when it is Savage's turn)?

I may be wrong, but I feel Sith Trooper or Kenobi are better options than zSavage. Maybe zDooku is as well. And the zeta on Nihilus' unique might just be the thing that makes the difference in the most situations. Essentially if he puts health down on every opponent, isn't that better than Savage's ability to kill one opponent who has a bit higher health? Doesn't it put more opponents into an instakill situation for more of your allies?

WenHandel

Oops. Didn't realize that post was getting so long. Sorry.

JohnnySteelAlpha

zSO all day from the options presented. He's complex in how you have to handle him in a team and when you go for a kill shot ... the AI can't handle him well. He's also tricky on defense. He gets so much turn under a zDM leader that he comes out of stealth a lot, which means he ends up being a default taunter really since the other Sith are stealthed much of the time. Drop Boba. Having both EP and DN in there gives you disabling flexibility where you can use EP shock or DN basic on first turn. The ideal order is DM moves first, applies debuffs, then let's say Baze is pretaunting - use EP to shock him round 1 - so he's shocked and can't taunt after turn 1 when the pre-taunt turns off. Then use DN aoe to remove buffs - so now Chirrut or Rex can't dispel in rd 1. Rd 2 starts, Baze goes out of taunt, but now you have SA and EP there with stun capability to disable Chirrut's cleanse again in Rd 2....and Baze is shocked so unable to taunt as you FF Chirrut down.

Kylo is also great in a Sith team to give a zeta to - not being Sith he is a default taunter much of the time.

Olddumper

People need to quit dropping EP from their squads. Just because you are tired of his kit doesn't make these new sith better than him. I don't think people understand how amazing an AOE stun really is. I don't face many good sith squads on my shard but I do face a maxed all 7* Zaul Nihilus SA SithTrooper and FOST squad on my shard and I could only imagine how much tougher it would be with EP instead of FOST. In any sith or empire squad you should be running EP. It is just that simple. For you, I would just replace boba with GK and you are in great shape then.

Bora

Although I have zaul I'm still running zader lead with sid, tfp, palp. My fifth were Boba but three days ago I replaced him with zavage, gaining auto clean for everyone except tfp and adding another tmr toon.
Furthermore, with the additional offense from Zader he hits for 17~19k and his survivability is greater than Boba, so I'm pretty pleased with him.
Honestly I'm still working on my zaul team, which will be sa, palp, zavage and zylo but I think that zavage is really good.. Enough to justify investing on him.