Is your Galactic War too hard? Here is some help.

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There was a time, over a year ago now, when you could take your arena team into Galactic War and run it wire-to-wire without losing a character and complete your War every time. This was changed quite a while ago, but the mentality has stuck and even now you still see people trying to brute force their way with a single team. If that team is Resistance, then congratulations enjoy your nearly constant finishes and rewards, don't bother reading any further. If you're wondering why Resistance is so good, scroll on down to the bottom, that's in there.

But a lot of people have trouble, and it boils down to one common theme: Too much emphasis placed on your Arena team.

All the guides say to get a certain set of characters, invest heavily in them, max them out, and take 1st in Arena every day. That's fine, whatever, go ahead and do that. But if you do, don't go to General Discussion and then complain because you get wiped on node 9 and Galactic War is biased against you. Let's dispel a persistent myth first.

Galactic War opponents are not based on your arena rankings or the highest power you've recently defeated or anything of the sort. According to this developer post the difficulty of your nodes is based on the combined power of the five highest-powered characters on your roster. This post empirically determined power percentages in each node, and while a developer stated that it isn't exact, it's broadly correct. What this means is that every time you give one of your five highest characters a piece of gear or add a star or upgrade their mods, you're making your Galactic War a tiny bit more difficult for yourself.

That's okay. You have several advantages that you can use to win against teams that grossly outclass you. I'll get into those in a minute, but for now the philosophical answer: The purpose of Galactic War is to reward you for roster depth. Because the top 5 characters are the ones that count towards GW difficulty, you can do anything you want to characters 6 through 600 and it won't increase the difficulty of your war, in fact it will do the opposite and give you even more advantages. If your top 5 get wildly unbalanced in relation to the rest of your roster, you will start to suffer. So tip number one is:
  • MAKE MULTIPLE TEAMS.
This doesn't mean every team has to be 7* gear 11. My Resistance Trooper and Pilot are still only gear 8 and I clear nearly every Galactic War. But the more teams you have, the more answers you have to problems you might face. If your team is crit-oriented, and most guides will gently usher you in that direction, you will have trouble with General Kenobi and zeta Barriss Offee teams, who punish you for critting against them. You can easily get around this by having Darth Nihilus lead some Sith with Offense mods, who won't crit, and will completely negate the Barriss/Kenobi synergy. Furthermore, the more teams you have the more you can...
  • ABUSE TURN METER ADVANTAGE.
Your turn meter carries over between nodes. This is your biggest advantage. Even the slowest character will probably go first if they start a battle with 90% turn meter. The problem people face when they try to brute force one team from node 1 through node 12 is that eventually that team dies, and the team they bring in to replace it starts with 0 turn meter. Because most people start with their most powerful team, not only are they starting from scratch when it comes to turn meter, they're doing it with a team that is strictly weaker--less damage, slower, less health--and will get mutilated by the other team. The first five nodes are the easiest, you should try to use a new team each time. This way you have five teams that have turn meter advantage going into the second half of your War.

You can monkey with this further by using half-teams. For example, I have a team that's zeta Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, Emperor Palpatine, Captain Phasma, and Stormtrooper Han. The idea of that team is to blast everything with AoE damage and DoTs, use Phasma and Han to fill my turn meter, and just alpha strike before dying. Instead of using this on node 1, I use Admiral Ackbar as my leader and Lando, along with the three sith. Lando AoEs, Ackbar uses Tactical Genius, Lando AoEs twice. The three sith only use basic attacks. Because of how much weaker the characters on node 1 are, Lando's third AoE should finish everyone off and leave the sith with nearly full meters. Do this again in node 2, but remove the sith and replace them with Phasma and Han, and a fifth character of your choice (or keep one sith with a low meter and hope for a better result) and fill their bars. That way when you deploy the full team, they will all have high turn meter before they are murdered.
  • RETREAT. RETRY
One of the biggest advantages in your favor is that you can retreat on your turn and start the battle over from the beginning. The RNG seed will remain the same for each character, meaning that if you make the same decisions every time, the same outcomes will occur--the same attacks will crit, or miss, and the AI will target the same characters. Once you understand the nuances of the RNG you can win an awful lot of battles that you shouldn't. Did your Rey miss with Leverage? Retreat, use a regular attack and it might hit, use Leverage next time. Did Biggs and Wedge call Aayla to assist, who then called Qui Gon Jin with her basic and all four attacks gibbed someone? Retreat, target someone else with a different attack, it might change how the AI reacts.

The most subtle nuance of the RNG is that you can change things by partly autobattling. If Rey misses with Leverage when you tap that attack, retreat, do everything the same, then quickly tap autobattle twice to turn it on and off. Rey will use Leverage, but the seed will have changed and you may hit this time. (A semi-explanation of why this works can be found here.) The important thing to keep in mind is that the AI prioritizes certain attacks over others, and sometimes those attacks don't make sense. For example, Resistance Trooper's basic attack is the backbone of a Resistance team but the AI will always use his special instead. You can mitigate this by toggling on "Basic Attacks Only" in the autobattle options menu, but be sure to turn it off immediately after--I've forgotten in the past, then wondered why I was losing ship battles only to notice that they were only using basics still...
  • RETREAT. RETRY. RESIST.
I've mentioned Resistance a couple times, and for good reason: Once you've upgraded Finn's leader ability to Zeta level, Galactic War is trivialized. With him as leader, any time an enemy takes damage from Expose, all your Resistance characters gain 35% turn meter and cooldowns are reduced by 1. He has a special that exposes (and stuns), Trooper's basic exposes reliably, Pilot's special exposes, and Poe's taunt will AoE expose. Trooper will also gain 55% turn meter any time someone becomes exposed, meaning Poe will taunt, Trooper goes, hits someone with expose, the rest of your team goes, Poe's taunt is off cooldown by his next turn and you can just repeat this loop. If you hit a spat of unlucky expose rolls, you can always retreat, retry, and abuse autobattle to try and get a different, better seed.

This team will regularly win against teams that grossly overpower it, but it isn't invincible. There are teams that counter it, which is why you should always, always, always have multiple teams and ensure they have a decent starting turn meter of their own. Characters that gain turn meter when something happens (Rex (leader) when an ally is crit, Thrawn and Yoda when resisting a debuff, Barriss and Royal Guard when you attack someone else, Anakin when you kill or take someone down to 50%, Darth Sidious when you kill someone), characters that taunt when it isn't their turn and prevent you from attacking exposed enemies (Royal Guard, Shoretrooper, Baze), characters that can throw up Tenacity Up (Chirrut, Rex), or enemies that can counterattack (too many to list) all have the potential to give you a hard time. Zeta Qui Gon Jin can be frustrating, as can Zeta Maul-led sith teams with Kylo Ren as the one non-sith. So there are definitely obstacles to overcome with this team, but they more than make up for it by plowing through the rest of the nodes.

Hopefully these make it easier for you. The big bullet points:
  • Build the middle of your roster and use multiple teams.
  • Abuse turn meter advantage.
  • Abuse retreat and change up that RNG in your favor.
  • When all else fails, zeta Finn (almost) never fails.
Ceterum censeo Patientia esse meliat.

Replies

  • Ricky_Starwalker
    33 posts Member
    edited August 2017
    Nicely-written guide; thanks for taking the time to write it! But are you sure GW difficulty depends on the power of your top 5? I keep reading that it depends on the power of the strongest Arena team you've won an Arena match with. In many cases that's the same five, but maybe not in all cases.

    I am ftp, level 67, with just one 7-star toon (Biggs) but maybe a dozen g7/8 toons, and until yesterday I'd been clearing GW easily. Suddenly I've hit the wall at node 12 two days in a row. I wish the game would account for recent success/failure in GW to mitigate the sense of helplessness that can arise when you realize your top 5 have outrun your next 10. My characters are here: https://swgoh.gg/u/rickystarwalker/collection/

    My character collection is here: https://swgoh.gg/u/rickystarwalker/collection/
  • Heh, your advice helped me. I thought I had no chance in node 12, but I retreated a dozen times until I figured out which enemy to attack first. All the same, I'm now going to put more resources into my B and C squads.
    My character collection is here: https://swgoh.gg/u/rickystarwalker/collection/
  • Rlex
    160 posts Member
    NicWester wrote: »
    There was a time, over a year ago now, when you could take your arena team into Galactic War and run it wire-to-wire without losing a character and complete your War every time. This was changed quite a while ago, but the mentality has stuck and even now you still see people trying to brute force their way with a single team. If that team is Resistance, then congratulations enjoy your nearly constant finishes and rewards, don't bother reading any further. If you're wondering why Resistance is so good, scroll on down to the bottom, that's in there.

    But a lot of people have trouble, and it boils down to one common theme: Too much emphasis placed on your Arena team.

    All the guides say to get a certain set of characters, invest heavily in them, max them out, and take 1st in Arena every day. That's fine, whatever, go ahead and do that. But if you do, don't go to General Discussion and then complain because you get wiped on node 9 and Galactic War is biased against you. Let's dispel a persistent myth first.

    Galactic War opponents are not based on your arena rankings or the highest power you've recently defeated or anything of the sort. According to this developer post the difficulty of your nodes is based on the combined power of the five highest-powered characters on your roster. This post empirically determined power percentages in each node, and while a developer stated that it isn't exact, it's broadly correct. What this means is that every time you give one of your five highest characters a piece of gear or add a star or upgrade their mods, you're making your Galactic War a tiny bit more difficult for yourself.

    That's okay. You have several advantages that you can use to win against teams that grossly outclass you. I'll get into those in a minute, but for now the philosophical answer: The purpose of Galactic War is to reward you for roster depth. Because the top 5 characters are the ones that count towards GW difficulty, you can do anything you want to characters 6 through 600 and it won't increase the difficulty of your war, in fact it will do the opposite and give you even more advantages. If your top 5 get wildly unbalanced in relation to the rest of your roster, you will start to suffer. So tip number one is:
    • MAKE MULTIPLE TEAMS.
    This doesn't mean every team has to be 7* gear 11. My Resistance Trooper and Pilot are still only gear 8 and I clear nearly every Galactic War. But the more teams you have, the more answers you have to problems you might face. If your team is crit-oriented, and most guides will gently usher you in that direction, you will have trouble with General Kenobi and zeta Barriss Offee teams, who punish you for critting against them. You can easily get around this by having Darth Nihilus lead some Sith with Offense mods, who won't crit, and will completely negate the Barriss/Kenobi synergy. Furthermore, the more teams you have the more you can...
    • ABUSE TURN METER ADVANTAGE.
    Your turn meter carries over between nodes. This is your biggest advantage. Even the slowest character will probably go first if they start a battle with 90% turn meter. The problem people face when they try to brute force one team from node 1 through node 12 is that eventually that team dies, and the team they bring in to replace it starts with 0 turn meter. Because most people start with their most powerful team, not only are they starting from scratch when it comes to turn meter, they're doing it with a team that is strictly weaker--less damage, slower, less health--and will get mutilated by the other team. The first five nodes are the easiest, you should try to use a new team each time. This way you have five teams that have turn meter advantage going into the second half of your War.

    You can monkey with this further by using half-teams. For example, I have a team that's zeta Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, Emperor Palpatine, Captain Phasma, and Stormtrooper Han. The idea of that team is to blast everything with AoE damage and DoTs, use Phasma and Han to fill my turn meter, and just alpha strike before dying. Instead of using this on node 1, I use Admiral Ackbar as my leader and Lando, along with the three sith. Lando AoEs, Ackbar uses Tactical Genius, Lando AoEs twice. The three sith only use basic attacks. Because of how much weaker the characters on node 1 are, Lando's third AoE should finish everyone off and leave the sith with nearly full meters. Do this again in node 2, but remove the sith and replace them with Phasma and Han, and a fifth character of your choice (or keep one sith with a low meter and hope for a better result) and fill their bars. That way when you deploy the full team, they will all have high turn meter before they are murdered.
    • RETREAT. RETRY
    One of the biggest advantages in your favor is that you can retreat on your turn and start the battle over from the beginning. The RNG seed will remain the same for each character, meaning that if you make the same decisions every time, the same outcomes will occur--the same attacks will crit, or miss, and the AI will target the same characters. Once you understand the nuances of the RNG you can win an awful lot of battles that you shouldn't. Did your Rey miss with Leverage? Retreat, use a regular attack and it might hit, use Leverage next time. Did Biggs and Wedge call Aayla to assist, who then called Qui Gon Jin with her basic and all four attacks gibbed someone? Retreat, target someone else with a different attack, it might change how the AI reacts.

    The most subtle nuance of the RNG is that you can change things by partly autobattling. If Rey misses with Leverage when you tap that attack, retreat, do everything the same, then quickly tap autobattle twice to turn it on and off. Rey will use Leverage, but the seed will have changed and you may hit this time. (A semi-explanation of why this works can be found here.) The important thing to keep in mind is that the AI prioritizes certain attacks over others, and sometimes those attacks don't make sense. For example, Resistance Trooper's basic attack is the backbone of a Resistance team but the AI will always use his special instead. You can mitigate this by toggling on "Basic Attacks Only" in the autobattle options menu, but be sure to turn it off immediately after--I've forgotten in the past, then wondered why I was losing ship battles only to notice that they were only using basics still...
    • RETREAT. RETRY. RESIST.
    I've mentioned Resistance a couple times, and for good reason: Once you've upgraded Finn's leader ability to Zeta level, Galactic War is trivialized. With him as leader, any time an enemy takes damage from Expose, all your Resistance characters gain 35% turn meter and cooldowns are reduced by 1. He has a special that exposes (and stuns), Trooper's basic exposes reliably, Pilot's special exposes, and Poe's taunt will AoE expose. Trooper will also gain 55% turn meter any time someone becomes exposed, meaning Poe will taunt, Trooper goes, hits someone with expose, the rest of your team goes, Poe's taunt is off cooldown by his next turn and you can just repeat this loop. If you hit a spat of unlucky expose rolls, you can always retreat, retry, and abuse autobattle to try and get a different, better seed.

    This team will regularly win against teams that grossly overpower it, but it isn't invincible. There are teams that counter it, which is why you should always, always, always have multiple teams and ensure they have a decent starting turn meter of their own. Characters that gain turn meter when something happens (Rex (leader) when an ally is crit, Thrawn and Yoda when resisting a debuff, Barriss and Royal Guard when you attack someone else, Anakin when you kill or take someone down to 50%, Darth Sidious when you kill someone), characters that taunt when it isn't their turn and prevent you from attacking exposed enemies (Royal Guard, Shoretrooper, Baze), characters that can throw up Tenacity Up (Chirrut, Rex), or enemies that can counterattack (too many to list) all have the potential to give you a hard time. Zeta Qui Gon Jin can be frustrating, as can Zeta Maul-led sith teams with Kylo Ren as the one non-sith. So there are definitely obstacles to overcome with this team, but they more than make up for it by plowing through the rest of the nodes.

    Hopefully these make it easier for you. The big bullet points:
    • Build the middle of your roster and use multiple teams.
    • Abuse turn meter advantage.
    • Abuse retreat and change up that RNG in your favor.
    • When all else fails, zeta Finn (almost) never fails.


    Awesome guide but seriously... it needs to be fixed. There are teams that me and others get put against that the whole roster isn't going to be beat. And I get that it's not made to be beaten every day but when you get hit with impossible/excessive teams daily for weeks to months straight. That's ****. And if you're in a guild that has good players it's hard to keep them motivated to continue playing the game. We're not stupid, we see where this game is heading. TB is probably going to be the final nail in the coffin. There are quite a few things of this game that need fixing. The horrible drop rates that came with the 3-5 times change. I've gone days without getting 1 shard from people I got way more before. Mod thing looks to be fixed.

    But the galactic wars really needs to be fixed. The pages of pages of posts don't lie and no matter what tactics from whatever people (not calling anyone out), is going to stop the posts from coming. Your useful and insightful advice isn't going to help. It needs to be fixed. Because my 2 zeta team has no business fighting a all maxed out (level, mod, star and gear) CLS, GK, Chaze and thrawn.
  • But are you sure GW difficulty depends on the power of your top 5? I keep reading that it depends on the power of the strongest Arena team you've won an Arena match with.

    It may have been that way in the past, that was certainly a persistent theory anyway. But now it's dev-confirmed to be based off your top 5, whether you use them in Arena or not.

    ALTHOUGH, one caveat that I caveforgot: Your top 5 now is affected by ability level. Give a character a Zeta and they jump to the top of your list. This is a new development. Your GW "top 5" still uses the pre-zeta power ratings, so who you see and who it's based on MAY not sych up until they change that.
    Ceterum censeo Patientia esse meliat.
  • theWeasel
    2 posts Member
    edited August 2017
    Rlex wrote: »
    Awesome guide but seriously... it needs to be fixed. There are teams that me and others get put against that the whole roster isn't going to be beat. And I get that it's not made to be beaten every day but when you get hit with impossible/excessive teams daily for weeks to months straight. That's ****.

    Yup. It's kitten right now. My whole roster can't scratch node 6 most sets.
    Post edited by Ambassador on
  • Since I have read this article I have tried to track the power ratings of the individual team members of the final node. My top five overall are around 16k each. The last three days the final node contains opponents that average around 21-22k in power. I run around 6 teams to mix and match and stay fresh to the end. I don't think I've cleared a table in the last two weeks that I can remember. They need to adjust this - it's hosed.
  • This is a great guide and I appreciate the time and advice. There is honestly no way to start this game and be able to compete properly though. I am 79. My arena team is 45k power and my Phoenix Squad is up to 40k power.

    I am no where near unlocking the challenge speed mods because I need an insane team to get there. I am still trying to upgrade my Jedi, unlock my Jawas, and struggling to collect enough raid items to get a GS 9 toon. Plus level my Imperial side so they are meaningful. I gave up on marquee events and that rat race even though I really need the gear and credits.

    Point being, you have to level a single team to compete in Arena to even unlock half the good characters with arena crystals, if you are not leveling that team you find yourself in the 5k zone pretty fast with poor rewards. And by so doing also screw your GW up.

    My 12 node for the last week has been all 7 star 85 Palp Lead, Vader, Dokoo, Nihilus, Kylo. All are 5 star mixed mods maxed out 65k - 70k power. My highest mixed bag team is 46k power 6-7 star GS 8 mods range from 6-9 all 5 star mixed bag.

    Today that was my node 6. Brick Wall. We'll see what tomorrow brings. If I can't get credits from GW to level my 40 and 50 toons, life is going to suck for months and raids are going to be stunted. And moving into level 80 without being able to level to compete or finish 8 and 9 rebel/Imp storyline or Cantina battles.

    The common complaint I am reading is once Vader is opened or 5 starred GW takes a turn for player abuse with Zeta teams and synergy teams with ridonkulous speed and AI buff. Retreat is an awesome tool, but after being Palp Stun Locked and Dokoo getting 6 attacks in a row, thank you Palp lead, it is Kessel Run in a garbage scow.
  • Thanks for the info ...
    but I seem to get by with 2 teams at most so I'll just stick with that ... Go Sith !
  • Sharkeater_23
    7 posts Member
    edited November 2017
    This is just so not true. I have not a single g12 character. I have only 2 zeta leaders. And have a decent pair of good mods only. But yet i just keep getting at the last node. 99% teams of CLS/GK/DN etc. They are totaly maxed out to g12 all have zetas and speed of over 250 normaly. I manage to beat gw maybe 2-3 a month if i'm lucky and get a decent team to fight. The GW has become just another oddity in this game as the rest of the game.
    Post edited by Kyno on
  • I was also frustrated with the increased difficulty of Galactic War. Sith toons led by Darth Nihilus made my time easier as he grants health stealing. Sometimes I can finish all nodes with that team. I don’t have any Zetas but have Omegas. Vader and Maul are at 7* level 80. Palpatine is at 6* Level 80. Dooku is at 4* level 82. Nihilus is at 4* Level 84. All have gear level 8. My top toons are all at gear 8 except one at gear 10. My backup team has Nightsisters: A strong Assaj leads, Talia and Old Daka are also strong, Mother Talzin and Nightsister student are mediocre. Their synergy of healing and resurrecting the entire team helps. In order to soften an enemy group, I use Rebel team to one-shot someone or use my strong Jedi team.
  • And don't forget to spend a small fortune moving your best speed mods from 'average team that gets destroyed before taking a turn' to the next 'average team that gets destroyed before taking a turn' just so you have a chance at going maybe once or twice against that node 12 rank 1 arena team with +400 combined speed....

    Great effort though.
  • Stopped reading when resistance was brought up. So tired of this advice. It’s not galactic resistance war. If I can’t take any other teams to beat it, something is wrong.
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator
    Stopped reading when resistance was brought up. So tired of this advice. It’s not galactic resistance war. If I can’t take any other teams to beat it, something is wrong.

    There is some solid advice there and resistance is just the current team to do it, but for a while there have always been GW teams. It used to be Ewoks, and there was RG, with queen daka. This current resistance trend will get pushed out at some point.
  • TVF
    36489 posts Member
    Even if something is wrong, you can certainly choose to avoid Resistance and just complain if you like. One is guaranteed to help, the other...maybe yes, probably no.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • TVF wrote: »
    Even if something is wrong, you can certainly choose to avoid Resistance and just complain if you like. One is guaranteed to help, the other...maybe yes, probably no.

    You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
  • So does the other team start with random amounts of turn meter? What affect, if any, does my team have on their starting turn meter?
  • Jonsolo32 wrote: »
    So does the other team start with random amounts of turn meter? What affect, if any, does my team have on their starting turn meter?

    Your teams speed and turn meter effect every battle you play, especially in GW because of how it is setup: If your team has no turn meter because they sat in your roster while you tried to bullrush your way through from node 1 to 11 with 1 team, and start node 12 with a fresh set of toons, you're gunna get smoked.

    To simplify: 2 teams go head to head - your team and the AI in GW: the team with the higher speed will go 1st. You negate this (to some degree or another) rotate in all toons you MIGHT need in GW in the 1st 5 nodes, and put your reserve toons back on the bench until you need them.
  • This is all fine and good general advice, but it assumes that the reader is max level and has the possibility to level and gear more than one squads. Tell me, what do i do when i face level 81, gear 10, sith squad with level 71, gear 8 Phoenixes. To be more precise the squad was DN(L),Vader, Cound Duku,Sith Assassin and Sith Trooper - two of them gear 10, the rest gear 9. How is this based on my top 5 toons power. That squad is 5k GP on top of mine and has most of its skills maxed - the most crushing - Vader's AOE. HOW am I supposed to win against that, my entire rooster can't even damage the Sith Trooper. And that is of course on the cursed node 9. This is my first time i can't clear this **** in 48 days...
  • Darthpedro
    1175 posts Member
    Mangroth wrote: »
    This is all fine and good general advice, but it assumes that the reader is max level and has the possibility to level and gear more than one squads. Tell me, what do i do when i face level 81, gear 10, sith squad with level 71, gear 8 Phoenixes. To be more precise the squad was DN(L),Vader, Cound Duku,Sith Assassin and Sith Trooper - two of them gear 10, the rest gear 9. How is this based on my top 5 toons power. That squad is 5k GP on top of mine and has most of its skills maxed - the most crushing - Vader's AOE. HOW am I supposed to win against that, my entire rooster can't even damage the Sith Trooper. And that is of course on the cursed node 9. This is my first time i can't clear this **** in 48 days...

    Dispel the taunt on sith trooper. Get buff immunity on sith trooper or even better use b2 to dispel and get buff immunity on everyone. Stun or daze count dooku to prevent his counter. Use healing immunity to prevent their healing.

    Phoenix is very bad against that squad for 2 reasons

    1. Your feeding Vader tons of speed using Jedi/Rebels up to 56 speed depending on which 5 you use.

    2. Phoenix just doesnt do enough damage to overpower the healing of a Darth Nihilus led Sith team

    Basically it's time for you to branch out from Phoenix. One squad isn't going to be enough to clear galactic war and your going to have to look for counters to certain mechanics to beat squads.
  • Naraic
    2243 posts Member
    Mangroth wrote: »
    This is all fine and good general advice, but it assumes that the reader is max level and has the possibility to level and gear more than one squads. Tell me, what do i do when i face level 81, gear 10, sith squad with level 71, gear 8 Phoenixes. To be more precise the squad was DN(L),Vader, Cound Duku,Sith Assassin and Sith Trooper - two of them gear 10, the rest gear 9. How is this based on my top 5 toons power. That squad is 5k GP on top of mine and has most of its skills maxed - the most crushing - Vader's AOE. HOW am I supposed to win against that, my entire rooster can't even damage the Sith Trooper. And that is of course on the cursed node 9. This is my first time i can't clear this **** in 48 days...

    As always (until level 85) node 12 is a step stronger than you. Usually node 12 is poorly synergised mix the developers cant code galactic war to pick a synergised team.

    Also you have a team that hard counters you (dooku health steal and counter attack, vader getting 56 speed from phoenix).

    Phoenix isnt always the answer and level 71 is a hard time to have multiple squads. Personally im not sure what options i had at 71.

    Not sure what to say other than hard luck and i guess its time to start working kn another squad.
  • At my level (mid 50s) my node 12 is usually level 65 ish.

    If they have anything remotely synergistic (or have good healers, usually Luminara in my case) my Phoenix is toast and I have to bring the bench out which is a mix and match of what I was using before Phoenix but well geared and levelled. I have nearly all the components for a good Empire squad and the beginnings of a Sith squad.

    I'm already seeing the holes in Phoenix's game, especially when Zebs stuns whiff.

    Sadly more often than not that isn't enough either and I have to reset without total victory. My take is sometimes GW is set up so you just won't win.
    Hey, it's still better than MSF
  • Mangroth wrote: »
    This is all fine and good general advice, but it assumes that the reader is max level and has the possibility to level and gear more than one squads. Tell me, what do i do when i face level 81, gear 10, sith squad with level 71, gear 8 Phoenixes. To be more precise the squad was DN(L),Vader, Cound Duku,Sith Assassin and Sith Trooper - two of them gear 10, the rest gear 9. How is this based on my top 5 toons power. That squad is 5k GP on top of mine and has most of its skills maxed - the most crushing - Vader's AOE. HOW am I supposed to win against that, my entire rooster can't even damage the Sith Trooper. And that is of course on the cursed node 9. This is my first time i can't clear this **** in 48 days...

    You're not. Sometimes, especially in the next few levels, you're going to face battles you can't win. It happens. Keep getting stronger and that will happen less. Eventually you will move on from Phoenix, and then you will have 2 (or more) teams that can clear GW regardless of what shows up. That's the position I find myself in now - usually the last 4 nodes are so are all 85s. I don't even use Phoenix in GW now, but I know that if I find a team that is really strong against my primary squad, I can always break out the Phoenix crew as clean-up or even to soften the enemy.
    Ally Code 766-465-766 swgoh.gg/u/trystansr/collection/
  • Kai_Mulai
    683 posts Member
    edited May 2018
    I’m almost at the point where I can sim galactic war now, and I’ve used Phoenix since I unlocked it. Now, I also use my Empire arena team and a couple others just for fun. There have been maybe 5 days when I ran into teams I just could not beat no matter what. And if the point of galactic war is to prepare you to face different teams, it’s done that wonderfully. Just like there are teams in my arena I currently can’t beat, there will be those days where there’s a galactic war team you can’t beat. But if you consider there were only 5 days out of 150 where I couldn’t clear it, I think it’s tuned pretty well.

    If you’re struggling with galactic wars, it could mean your team is low on synergy or you need better mods. It could also mean your team has a weakness against a certain faction that you didn’t realize. If you keep learning and keep trying, you’ll eventually get to the point where you can handle anything. And that’s the point.
  • Poxx
    2288 posts Member
    Resistance is a walk in the park...sure, but there r others that will do the same.

    zAsajj led NS w/ a paper zombie.

    Phoenix if u drop the bot. Sabine and Ezra give u more than enuf damage output and their zetas, although unnecessary, r phenomenal.

    Also, pre-loading tm is huge. Tossing in a trash team to burn your opponents specials can also b quite helpful.
  • I will disagree with this statement, "Galactic War opponents are not based on your arena rankings". Once my arena ranking dropped, my GW has become easier to win.
  • Boy, am I glad I checked the post dates before responding to this thread all "half of this stuff doesn't apply anymore!"

    The biggest things to retain from this guide are:

    It may be worth--strategically--keeping your top five characters a little on the weaker side to keep your Galactic War easy/manageable. When leveling you have three teams that you should be investing resources in: light side (Phoenix), dark side (Empire/First Order), and scoundrels; alternating levels, gear, ability levels, etc. between these three teams (prioritizing whoever is your arena team) may be a good idea. It gives you enough roster breadth that if you have to lose a couple characters in order to win a match it isn't a big deal, and that, in the event you run into a hard-counter for your primary GW team, you have invested-in back up characters capable of (hopefully) finishing the War.

    Don't be afraid to use the mechanics available to you: retreat, retry, and play with the RNG; use the easiest fights to load turn-meter for your secondary teams if you have been having trouble.

    Furthermore, ideal Galactic War teams are those that consistently punch above their weightclass; Phoenix, Resistance, Night Sisters, etc, etc, etc. There are hard-counters for all of these teams (if, like most people, you went Phoenix when leveling then Empire and Sith are those hard-counters), so it's always worth having a Plan B.
    Mangroth wrote: »
    This is all fine and good general advice, but it assumes that the reader is max level and has the possibility to level and gear more than one squads. Tell me, what do i do when i face level 81, gear 10, sith squad with level 71, gear 8 Phoenixes. To be more precise the squad was DN(L),Vader, Cound Duku,Sith Assassin and Sith Trooper - two of them gear 10, the rest gear 9. How is this based on my top 5 toons power. That squad is 5k GP on top of mine and has most of its skills maxed - the most crushing - Vader's AOE. HOW am I supposed to win against that, my entire rooster can't even damage the Sith Trooper. And that is of course on the cursed node 9. This is my first time i can't clear this **** in 48 days...

    5,000 power isn't really a lot, especially when you take into account that people regularly--I certainly do--take on teams with 10,000, 20,000, even 30,000 power on their team. The level difference is largely irrelevant, if intimidating--though this particular one might be a little unfair considering the enemy squad would have access to omega abilities and you do not--so simply don't let yourself be intimidated. Your problem here is that you have run into a hard-counter for your Phoenix team. In the future, since it's been a couple days since you've posted this, bring in your B-Team in--if they have buff immunity or a cleanse, all the better--and nuke down their leader, their squishiest characters, or biggest damage dealers.
    At my level (mid 50s) my node 12 is usually level 65 ish.

    If they have anything remotely synergistic (or have good healers, usually Luminara in my case) my Phoenix is toast and I have to bring the bench out which is a mix and match of what I was using before Phoenix but well geared and levelled. I have nearly all the components for a good Empire squad and the beginnings of a Sith squad.

    I'm already seeing the holes in Phoenix's game, especially when Zebs stuns whiff.

    Sadly more often than not that isn't enough either and I have to reset without total victory. My take is sometimes GW is set up so you just won't win.

    It doesn't really help matters that your Phoenix team isn't operating to its full efficiency just yet. Phoenix gets a lot of its survivability from Zeb's unique--and once you get that going Phoenix can shrug off just about anything--and in the mid 50's there just isn't enough protection from gear and mods for it to really shine.

    You're doing well in that you have/are building a solid back up team--keep investing in Phoenix until they're good enough to get you Thrawn; then you can put them down for awhile until you need to invest further for Territory Battles--so you should resolve most of your issues with Galactic War fairly soon.

    Anyways, I've been able to sim my Galactic War since 3 days into level 85; possible because I've never failed to complete it--though Lord knows there were teams that gave me issues; a couple of times it took me two hours and 20+ tries to take down the other team, perseverance is key--and I largely used my G8/9 Phoenix on auto to do so. If they had problems--or I spaced out and didn't realize one had died--I had plenty of other characters (First Order, Empire, scoundrels) to take their place and finish things if need be.
  • Boy, am I glad I checked the post dates before responding to this thread all "half of this stuff doesn't apply anymore!"

    The biggest things to retain from this guide are:

    It may be worth--strategically--keeping your top five characters a little on the weaker side to keep your Galactic War easy/manageable. When leveling you have three teams that you should be investing resources in: light side (Phoenix), dark side (Empire/First Order), and scoundrels; alternating levels, gear, ability levels, etc. between these three teams (prioritizing whoever is your arena team) may be a good idea. It gives you enough roster breadth that if you have to lose a couple characters in order to win a match it isn't a big deal, and that, in the event you run into a hard-counter for your primary GW team, you have invested-in back up characters capable of (hopefully) finishing the War.

    Don't be afraid to use the mechanics available to you: retreat, retry, and play with the RNG; use the easiest fights to load turn-meter for your secondary teams if you have been having trouble.

    Furthermore, ideal Galactic War teams are those that consistently punch above their weightclass; Phoenix, Resistance, Night Sisters, etc, etc, etc. There are hard-counters for all of these teams (if, like most people, you went Phoenix when leveling then Empire and Sith are those hard-counters), so it's always worth having a Plan B.
    Mangroth wrote: »
    This is all fine and good general advice, but it assumes that the reader is max level and has the possibility to level and gear more than one squads. Tell me, what do i do when i face level 81, gear 10, sith squad with level 71, gear 8 Phoenixes. To be more precise the squad was DN(L),Vader, Cound Duku,Sith Assassin and Sith Trooper - two of them gear 10, the rest gear 9. How is this based on my top 5 toons power. That squad is 5k GP on top of mine and has most of its skills maxed - the most crushing - Vader's AOE. HOW am I supposed to win against that, my entire rooster can't even damage the Sith Trooper. And that is of course on the cursed node 9. This is my first time i can't clear this **** in 48 days...

    5,000 power isn't really a lot, especially when you take into account that people regularly--I certainly do--take on teams with 10,000, 20,000, even 30,000 power on their team. The level difference is largely irrelevant, if intimidating--though this particular one might be a little unfair considering the enemy squad would have access to omega abilities and you do not--so simply don't let yourself be intimidated. Your problem here is that you have run into a hard-counter for your Phoenix team. In the future, since it's been a couple days since you've posted this, bring in your B-Team in--if they have buff immunity or a cleanse, all the better--and nuke down their leader, their squishiest characters, or biggest damage dealers.
    At my level (mid 50s) my node 12 is usually level 65 ish.

    If they have anything remotely synergistic (or have good healers, usually Luminara in my case) my Phoenix is toast and I have to bring the bench out which is a mix and match of what I was using before Phoenix but well geared and levelled. I have nearly all the components for a good Empire squad and the beginnings of a Sith squad.

    I'm already seeing the holes in Phoenix's game, especially when Zebs stuns whiff.

    Sadly more often than not that isn't enough either and I have to reset without total victory. My take is sometimes GW is set up so you just won't win.

    It doesn't really help matters that your Phoenix team isn't operating to its full efficiency just yet. Phoenix gets a lot of its survivability from Zeb's unique--and once you get that going Phoenix can shrug off just about anything--and in the mid 50's there just isn't enough protection from gear and mods for it to really shine.

    You're doing well in that you have/are building a solid back up team--keep investing in Phoenix until they're good enough to get you Thrawn; then you can put them down for awhile until you need to invest further for Territory Battles--so you should resolve most of your issues with Galactic War fairly soon.

    Anyways, I've been able to sim my Galactic War since 3 days into level 85; possible because I've never failed to complete it--though Lord knows there were teams that gave me issues; a couple of times it took me two hours and 20+ tries to take down the other team, perseverance is key--and I largely used my G8/9 Phoenix on auto to do so. If they had problems--or I spaced out and didn't realize one had died--I had plenty of other characters (First Order, Empire, scoundrels) to take their place and finish things if need be.

    Dude why are you bumping threads from half a year ago?
  • Dude why are you bumping threads from half a year ago?

    He's not. This thread was reactivated days ago by someone else.
    Ally Code 766-465-766 swgoh.gg/u/trystansr/collection/
  • CPace
    151 posts Member
    NicWester wrote: »
    There was a time, over a year ago now, when you could take your arena team into Galactic War and run it wire-to-wire without losing a character and complete your War every time. This was changed quite a while ago, but the mentality has stuck and even now you still see people trying to brute force their way with a single team. If that team is Resistance, then congratulations enjoy your nearly constant finishes and rewards, don't bother reading any further. If you're wondering why Resistance is so good, scroll on down to the bottom, that's in there.

    But a lot of people have trouble, and it boils down to one common theme: Too much emphasis placed on your Arena team.

    All the guides say to get a certain set of characters, invest heavily in them, max them out, and take 1st in Arena every day. That's fine, whatever, go ahead and do that. But if you do, don't go to General Discussion and then complain because you get wiped on node 9 and Galactic War is biased against you. Let's dispel a persistent myth first.

    Galactic War opponents are not based on your arena rankings or the highest power you've recently defeated or anything of the sort. According to this developer post the difficulty of your nodes is based on the combined power of the five highest-powered characters on your roster. This post empirically determined power percentages in each node, and while a developer stated that it isn't exact, it's broadly correct. What this means is that every time you give one of your five highest characters a piece of gear or add a star or upgrade their mods, you're making your Galactic War a tiny bit more difficult for yourself.

    That's okay. You have several advantages that you can use to win against teams that grossly outclass you. I'll get into those in a minute, but for now the philosophical answer: The purpose of Galactic War is to reward you for roster depth. Because the top 5 characters are the ones that count towards GW difficulty, you can do anything you want to characters 6 through 600 and it won't increase the difficulty of your war, in fact it will do the opposite and give you even more advantages. If your top 5 get wildly unbalanced in relation to the rest of your roster, you will start to suffer. So tip number one is:
    • MAKE MULTIPLE TEAMS.
    This doesn't mean every team has to be 7* gear 11. My Resistance Trooper and Pilot are still only gear 8 and I clear nearly every Galactic War. But the more teams you have, the more answers you have to problems you might face. If your team is crit-oriented, and most guides will gently usher you in that direction, you will have trouble with General Kenobi and zeta Barriss Offee teams, who punish you for critting against them. You can easily get around this by having Darth Nihilus lead some Sith with Offense mods, who won't crit, and will completely negate the Barriss/Kenobi synergy. Furthermore, the more teams you have the more you can...
    • ABUSE TURN METER ADVANTAGE.
    Your turn meter carries over between nodes. This is your biggest advantage. Even the slowest character will probably go first if they start a battle with 90% turn meter. The problem people face when they try to brute force one team from node 1 through node 12 is that eventually that team dies, and the team they bring in to replace it starts with 0 turn meter. Because most people start with their most powerful team, not only are they starting from scratch when it comes to turn meter, they're doing it with a team that is strictly weaker--less damage, slower, less health--and will get mutilated by the other team. The first five nodes are the easiest, you should try to use a new team each time. This way you have five teams that have turn meter advantage going into the second half of your War.

    You can monkey with this further by using half-teams. For example, I have a team that's zeta Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, Emperor Palpatine, Captain Phasma, and Stormtrooper Han. The idea of that team is to blast everything with AoE damage and DoTs, use Phasma and Han to fill my turn meter, and just alpha strike before dying. Instead of using this on node 1, I use Admiral Ackbar as my leader and Lando, along with the three sith. Lando AoEs, Ackbar uses Tactical Genius, Lando AoEs twice. The three sith only use basic attacks. Because of how much weaker the characters on node 1 are, Lando's third AoE should finish everyone off and leave the sith with nearly full meters. Do this again in node 2, but remove the sith and replace them with Phasma and Han, and a fifth character of your choice (or keep one sith with a low meter and hope for a better result) and fill their bars. That way when you deploy the full team, they will all have high turn meter before they are murdered.
    • RETREAT. RETRY
    One of the biggest advantages in your favor is that you can retreat on your turn and start the battle over from the beginning. The RNG seed will remain the same for each character, meaning that if you make the same decisions every time, the same outcomes will occur--the same attacks will crit, or miss, and the AI will target the same characters. Once you understand the nuances of the RNG you can win an awful lot of battles that you shouldn't. Did your Rey miss with Leverage? Retreat, use a regular attack and it might hit, use Leverage next time. Did Biggs and Wedge call Aayla to assist, who then called Qui Gon Jin with her basic and all four attacks gibbed someone? Retreat, target someone else with a different attack, it might change how the AI reacts.

    The most subtle nuance of the RNG is that you can change things by partly autobattling. If Rey misses with Leverage when you tap that attack, retreat, do everything the same, then quickly tap autobattle twice to turn it on and off. Rey will use Leverage, but the seed will have changed and you may hit this time. (A semi-explanation of why this works can be found here.) The important thing to keep in mind is that the AI prioritizes certain attacks over others, and sometimes those attacks don't make sense. For example, Resistance Trooper's basic attack is the backbone of a Resistance team but the AI will always use his special instead. You can mitigate this by toggling on "Basic Attacks Only" in the autobattle options menu, but be sure to turn it off immediately after--I've forgotten in the past, then wondered why I was losing ship battles only to notice that they were only using basics still...
    • RETREAT. RETRY. RESIST.
    I've mentioned Resistance a couple times, and for good reason: Once you've upgraded Finn's leader ability to Zeta level, Galactic War is trivialized. With him as leader, any time an enemy takes damage from Expose, all your Resistance characters gain 35% turn meter and cooldowns are reduced by 1. He has a special that exposes (and stuns), Trooper's basic exposes reliably, Pilot's special exposes, and Poe's taunt will AoE expose. Trooper will also gain 55% turn meter any time someone becomes exposed, meaning Poe will taunt, Trooper goes, hits someone with expose, the rest of your team goes, Poe's taunt is off cooldown by his next turn and you can just repeat this loop. If you hit a spat of unlucky expose rolls, you can always retreat, retry, and abuse autobattle to try and get a different, better seed.

    This team will regularly win against teams that grossly overpower it, but it isn't invincible. There are teams that counter it, which is why you should always, always, always have multiple teams and ensure they have a decent starting turn meter of their own. Characters that gain turn meter when something happens (Rex (leader) when an ally is crit, Thrawn and Yoda when resisting a debuff, Barriss and Royal Guard when you attack someone else, Anakin when you kill or take someone down to 50%, Darth Sidious when you kill someone), characters that taunt when it isn't their turn and prevent you from attacking exposed enemies (Royal Guard, Shoretrooper, Baze), characters that can throw up Tenacity Up (Chirrut, Rex), or enemies that can counterattack (too many to list) all have the potential to give you a hard time. Zeta Qui Gon Jin can be frustrating, as can Zeta Maul-led sith teams with Kylo Ren as the one non-sith. So there are definitely obstacles to overcome with this team, but they more than make up for it by plowing through the rest of the nodes.

    Hopefully these make it easier for you. The big bullet points:
    • Build the middle of your roster and use multiple teams.
    • Abuse turn meter advantage.
    • Abuse retreat and change up that RNG in your favor.
    • When all else fails, zeta Finn (almost) never fails.

    For all of this effort you put into this, I salute to you. I am not a top player but I still find other strategies that really help me out. Even though it make take a while to outsmart the AI, it still comes in handy, especially for F2P players like me who can't get the best characters instantly and the best teams for the GWT.
  • Huatimus
    3669 posts Member
    Boy, am I glad I checked the post dates before responding to this thread all "half of this stuff doesn't apply anymore!"

    The biggest things to retain from this guide are:

    It may be worth--strategically--keeping your top five characters a little on the weaker side to keep your Galactic War easy/manageable. When leveling you have three teams that you should be investing resources in: light side (Phoenix), dark side (Empire/First Order), and scoundrels; alternating levels, gear, ability levels, etc. between these three teams (prioritizing whoever is your arena team) may be a good idea. It gives you enough roster breadth that if you have to lose a couple characters in order to win a match it isn't a big deal, and that, in the event you run into a hard-counter for your primary GW team, you have invested-in back up characters capable of (hopefully) finishing the War.

    Don't be afraid to use the mechanics available to you: retreat, retry, and play with the RNG; use the easiest fights to load turn-meter for your secondary teams if you have been having trouble.

    Furthermore, ideal Galactic War teams are those that consistently punch above their weightclass; Phoenix, Resistance, Night Sisters, etc, etc, etc. There are hard-counters for all of these teams (if, like most people, you went Phoenix when leveling then Empire and Sith are those hard-counters), so it's always worth having a Plan B.
    Mangroth wrote: »
    This is all fine and good general advice, but it assumes that the reader is max level and has the possibility to level and gear more than one squads. Tell me, what do i do when i face level 81, gear 10, sith squad with level 71, gear 8 Phoenixes. To be more precise the squad was DN(L),Vader, Cound Duku,Sith Assassin and Sith Trooper - two of them gear 10, the rest gear 9. How is this based on my top 5 toons power. That squad is 5k GP on top of mine and has most of its skills maxed - the most crushing - Vader's AOE. HOW am I supposed to win against that, my entire rooster can't even damage the Sith Trooper. And that is of course on the cursed node 9. This is my first time i can't clear this **** in 48 days...

    5,000 power isn't really a lot, especially when you take into account that people regularly--I certainly do--take on teams with 10,000, 20,000, even 30,000 power on their team. The level difference is largely irrelevant, if intimidating--though this particular one might be a little unfair considering the enemy squad would have access to omega abilities and you do not--so simply don't let yourself be intimidated. Your problem here is that you have run into a hard-counter for your Phoenix team. In the future, since it's been a couple days since you've posted this, bring in your B-Team in--if they have buff immunity or a cleanse, all the better--and nuke down their leader, their squishiest characters, or biggest damage dealers.
    At my level (mid 50s) my node 12 is usually level 65 ish.

    If they have anything remotely synergistic (or have good healers, usually Luminara in my case) my Phoenix is toast and I have to bring the bench out which is a mix and match of what I was using before Phoenix but well geared and levelled. I have nearly all the components for a good Empire squad and the beginnings of a Sith squad.

    I'm already seeing the holes in Phoenix's game, especially when Zebs stuns whiff.

    Sadly more often than not that isn't enough either and I have to reset without total victory. My take is sometimes GW is set up so you just won't win.

    It doesn't really help matters that your Phoenix team isn't operating to its full efficiency just yet. Phoenix gets a lot of its survivability from Zeb's unique--and once you get that going Phoenix can shrug off just about anything--and in the mid 50's there just isn't enough protection from gear and mods for it to really shine.

    You're doing well in that you have/are building a solid back up team--keep investing in Phoenix until they're good enough to get you Thrawn; then you can put them down for awhile until you need to invest further for Territory Battles--so you should resolve most of your issues with Galactic War fairly soon.

    Anyways, I've been able to sim my Galactic War since 3 days into level 85; possible because I've never failed to complete it--though Lord knows there were teams that gave me issues; a couple of times it took me two hours and 20+ tries to take down the other team, perseverance is key--and I largely used my G8/9 Phoenix on auto to do so. If they had problems--or I spaced out and didn't realize one had died--I had plenty of other characters (First Order, Empire, scoundrels) to take their place and finish things if need be.

    Dude why are you bumping threads from half a year ago?

    She’s not the thread necromancer here.
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