As the title says, I am trying to build an Empire team that can effectively neutralize CLS teams with Wiggs or Chaze variants.
I’m curious whether Tarkins speed (+28) trumps Thrawns lead?
28 Speed seems great on paper and provided you are going against teams that do not have strong cleanse Tarkin(l)-Thrawn-ShT-ST-DT seems great? So what is the weakness of this combo?
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Isn’t the TM gain from Thrawn only when your team takes a debuff or resist? So it is a TM gain but your dps will be weaker due to the debuff applied assuming you don’t resist? very weird lead..
Anyone running Tarkin lead (over Thrawn) care to comment?
Thrawn
Krennic
Palpatine
I used Tarkin before Thrawn, also before CLS and it was really good (except against Thrawn leads). But after CLS, Tarkin is pretty much a bad leader for Arena. Thrawn has probably one of the best leads in the game, specially combined with Shoretrooper and Stormtrooper. Go for it.
Like others have pointed out, the tm gain in many situations will give you more speed than the actual speed.
But on top of that, you last longer with the bonus protection, hit harder with offense, regen protection (if zeta) and gives you a self cleanse that lets you get back to your abilities faster.
ex- say shore uses his two turn taunt. As the taunt ends, he'll be ready to throw his taunt back up bc every buff lost takes from his cd. But instead of waiting for that TM bar from going 0-100, you can just go from 50-100 with maneuver.
Thrawn lead, Shoretrooper Stormtrooper Krenic Deathtrooper is this unicorn. This team can auto CLS teams.
I have been able to stay in the top 50 until the arrival of ReyJT.
The speed is very interesting at the beginning at the battle.
With the expose of Tarkin, Death Mark of DT and fracture of Thrawn, this team is quite good.
But I’m now thinking to change because it has come very tough not to drop overnight when you become the prefered target of the other teams...
That may be the intention but I don’t see how this team nullifies CLS teams. There is a player on my shard with this team and he drops to 30s overnight after being in top 5.
Thanks for the comments tho
Hm, this team on defense will drop. Every team is easy to beat.
EVERYONE drops that much with any team in a very competitive shard. RJT or CLS full geared teams drops the same.
Against GK-Bariss, Tarkin was fine, but that's all. Against Rey and CLS, Thrawn is better.
The game was always based on speed since the modules were delivered. Now, it's based on speed AND TM manipulation.
No. Unequivocally, no.
First, any weaker DPS as a result of the 28pt slower speed is more than compensated by a 25% Offense boost. Look at mods for the 'general' balance: the highest offense boost a single mod can give us 5.88%; the highest for speed is +30.
Next, Tarkin doesn't help resist or dispell debuffs, so the comparison is in the recovery. The debuffs that you most have to worry about recovering from vs. the team you're looking to beat are stuns from CLS, R2D2 and Han Solo, Speed Downs from CLS and Baze and Buff Immunity from CLS (and whatever horrors Baze inflicts). There are others, but those are the nasty ones. In the case of stun, Tarkin's speed boost will allow the afflicted party to recover 28pts faster, whereas Thrawns lead will allow them to recover 20% faster _per debuff_. In the case of speed down, Tarkin only helps by 14pts, whereas Thrawn still allows them to recover at +20%. One toons with speed in the low 200s, Thrawn's lead offers 45+ point speed boosts on every debuff attempted or inflicted. Given the abundance of debuffs from CLS, R2, Baze, Wedge (not to mention all the other teams you might face), it's probably not inaccurate to anticipate an average of 1 debuff per turn. As long as your toons have greater than 112 speed, Thrawn's speed gain is superior, and exponentially so the higher the toons' speed.
That does not take into account that (with Thrawn zeta), the target will recoup a total of 4% protection for every buff inflicted/removed or that Thrawn allows them to cleanse the debuff with little lost productivity.
Another thing you may not be considering is that under Thrawn, your soldiers do not have to be debuffed in order to use Maneuver. Thrawns specials on cooldown? Maneuver! Boom. Command. Boom. Fracture. Boom. Further, Maneuver counts as a special ability for the purposes of Fracture. CLS not dead yet and close to waking up? Maneuver. Maneuver. Maneuver. Maneuver. All set.
That is the team I run in Arena (zzG10 Thrawn (L), G11 Krennic, G11 Death, G11 Storm and G10 Shore). In the 'bracket' of my shard in which I play, full G12 teams are ubiquitous. There are a few teams I see occasionally that have a purple toon or maybe two, but gold is prevalent. I am definitely the only one I ever see with no G12. That makes me a huge target on defense. Despite this I often fall as little as 2 battles in 24 hours (though I've fallen more!).
My shard 'bracket' (75-150) is also inundated with CLS, GK and Sith teams, primarily (the top of the shard being all JTR and Nightsisters). I go after the CLS teams (without Han Solo when I can), whether he's paired with Chaze or Wiggs. Even significantly overgeared, those teams can rarely outdamage my defenses. Han Solo's _opening_ shot can be a major hindrance, which is why I try and avoid him, but other than that, between Thrawn's Fracture, cleansing and his Maneuver swiss army knife, Krennic's staggers and Deathtrooper's rebel-destroying daze-stun doubletap, locking down two targets while you deal with the first threat is often pretty straightforward. Once that first target dies and Deathmark is in play, it just gets easier. Again, this is a G10/11 team going up against G12 teams. A zeta on DT or a couple of G12s could only make it more effective.
As someone who has an empire team and hunts for CLS teams with it, I find the idea of replacing Thrawn with Tarkin laughable (no offense). However, here's what I suggest... do 10/12 of your GW run without using any of these empire. Not using them earlier will ensure a more even playing field due to lack of preloaded turn meter. When you get to Node 11 or 12, if there's a quality CLS team, put the Empire team in with one composition and play it until the result is 'decided,' but the fight not over. Then retreat and try it with the other composition. Since GW random numbers are predetermined, do this many times using many different strategies, ever poor ones (particularly poor ones) to see how each team recovers. Assuming the opponent's CLS team is equitably matched (or superior) you'll have a decent idea of which plays better.
yep, I have one at rank 5 in my server right now.
I have Empire team maxed only Shore is g11 and this team can be top 1. His team is not maxed so probably that is the reason why he cannot go higher in the rank. I have no problem to go against any CLS team with Chaze or with Thrawn. Han Zolo is the most welcome. But I must admit that CLS team with Zolo are doing insane dmg and Storm is the key to absorb this. Sometimes Thrawn is getting stuned and is gone in the first round. Doesnt matter. Many times I beat CLS team using four chars.
It's not about where I rank. I loathe Arena for one, and my payout time is at the worst possible time for me. If I wanted to/had the time to try hard near paytime, I'd probably top out around 50 with this team, which is pretty nice given its gearing (3 G11, 2 G10). I am not a whale, I'm FTP. There are some ridiculous whales (Krakens) on my shard. Everyone ranked 1-50 is G12 maxed, either JTR, or Nightsisters, there's a couple maxed KRU and FOE and one guy running Empire with maxed Wampa and IPD! Not a single CLS lead still in my shard's top 50.
The original poster specifically asked about Empire teams with Thrawn or Tarkin as lead, and specifically in relation to fighting CLS. My empire team is 83k GP, yet I regularly seek out and defeat CLS teams that are significantly more powerful (105+ GP). I prefer fighting 100k+ CLS teams to 90k Sith teams (the other prevalent team in my shard bracket). Despite being G10/11 with 'really good but not insane' mods, it can defeat fully maxed CLS teams. It would not do that with Tarkin lead. Also, being the only team in its shard area without a 'gold' G12 circle makes them a big target on defense, yet they often hold decently.
As the post above your reply stated, this same team makeup is 5 on his shard. Stronger team?
Weaker shard? Who knows; doesn't matter. Point of my post was to address the original posters' specific inquiry and dissect why it crushes CLS with Thrawn lead and why Tarkins lead is not superior to Thrawn in that scenario.
Thanks all for very constructive discussion - I am an Empire player at heart after all