So I took a few minutes to look at my arena shard's leaderboard and check out the mods on the top teams.
Pretty much every character has a speed set.
Normally, I go to gaming-fans or couching rancor or YouTube and check out recommended sets for toons. Attackers usually get cd/cc combo, tanks sometimes get health or defense, etc.
But when I look at top arena teams, none of that happens. It's just speed. On everyone. Every role.
So is it now the case that pretty much every toon on your arena team now needs a speed set (with insane speed secondaries)?
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If it helps you win more then sure, but a good crit damage set would probably be a wash if you have good speed secondaries.
The real choice comes do you want to farm 3 different sets and hope to get the right combo of farm 1 set and at the end be able to make up th lacking secondary with the set bonus.
End goal is a speed set on everybody, if you can get the right primaries & secondaries on the rest.
But for many characters, speed is one of the most important factors to consider in the arena specifically.
Baze
Royal Guard
B2 droid
Everyone else needs speed. And lots of it.
You could make a weak argument for 2 health sets (+10%) on Baze instead of 1 speed set, but that still only gives him an extra ~3000 hp. If you stack him with protection primaries everywhere, you can get an extra ~37k in protection. The extra 3k health does not mean much; it is almost insignificant.
Don't get me wrong, health bonuses do help Baze, especially when he's paired with Chirrut, but Baze does have other abilities that can come in handy ... if he's fast enough to use them.
For instance....if your CLS is at 245 speed with his speed set on, or he can be at 239 with a CD set on, I’d sacrafice the 6 speed. Especially if you run him in lead. That’s a lot more damage on counters and without doing the math(if it’s even possible) or allowing for bonus TM gain, an arena match generally doenst last long enough for that 6 speed to cost your luke a complete turn.
Players in the 100 range and above who may run Wiggs, they are another good candidate for a CD set. Obviously you want high speed secondaries, but their base speed is low so they don’t benefit much from a speed set anyways.
Once again this is very shard dependent. You need to look at the speed of your opponents to know what you can get away with.
I run other mods for raiding characters.
Thrawn is 262 and the rest of the team is between 178 and 215. And it's enough against CLS teams.
First of all, wedge gives them both +45 speed, making the duo extremely fast.
Secondly, imagine i give my wiggs a speed set against your crit damage set. Whether biggs goes first, or wedge to inflict defense down, i just killed your wedge and i won the battle (after dispelling your tank if needed). I do this against g12 wedge, zHan every day.
Third, for a character with low base speed, like GK, giving him a speed set will allow him to get a turn faster. If he gives his team counter before DN uses his special, DN gets hurt. To sacrifice 3,000 health set bonus from GK's 100k ehp is worth it to attack sooner.
All I got from this is you see wedge in arena. That would be awesome to see haven't seen him in months.
I went with potency and speed secondaries on Resistance.
I went with critical damage mods and speed secondaries on FO.
Still, what @Kyno said is the truest - if 80% of your roster all have Speed mod sets - it's easier to swap slots and more likely you'll have the combination of 4 speed plus 2 others you need. The 'real life' of farming mods means streamlining what you have.
The point of this discussion and my post is that speed is great for toons with low base speed and high base speed. The guy i disagreed with used wedge as an example, so i also wanted to correct his notion that wedge is slow for others.
And you get a pat on the back for being in an older shard.
Lol he was making a joke, a kinda funny one too.
I thought i was making a joke too
Nope. Speed is King on Poe. Just also give him a potency cross and a potency set and try to find some good potency secondaries if you can. There was literally an entire meta that involved having the fastest Poe. He just needs to land one expose to accelerate even the world's slowest RT to full TM, and that RT can then pop the expose to fill up everyone else. Let someone else go first and fracture him or get tenacity up and you are toast.
Of course, Raid Hans rework ensured zFinn would never be arena viable again. Hard to outrun 100 pct free TM with guaranteed stun.
Tank is another story, but bb8 negates the need for potency almost entirely, and JTR is a better option regardless.
Which pretty much answers your question doesn't it.
The answer is - yes.
For about 95% of your characters.
Depends on the tank. Some tanks literally just need to be a meat shield. Some tanks need to use abilities to be effective.
One post earlier mentioned Baze, B2, and Royal Guard. I'll add Sith Trooper to that list. I'll take my 118K health/prot over one that is faster.
Old Ben needs turns. GK needs turns. KRU needs turns.
Chewie, K2SO, Paploo, SRPF, Stormtrooper, and Sun Fac? You could make your argument for
On average, a speed set gives you 12 speed. Most speed secondaries range from 10-20, so that is almost the same.
So pulling a strong secondary (I know I know, nigh impossible) is equivalent to a whole set. The thing is that there are 2 kinds of percents with mods - percents that tie to a value (speed, hp) and percents that dont (potency, CC, CD)
Meaning 10% speed translates to 12 speed-ish. 30% CD is going to be 30% CD regardless of which character you put it on.
So it all boils down to your specific team. In a heavy dot meta like we have now, putting Thrawn in lead gives you basically no need for speed. Defense is another story, but one that will never have a definite "I found the strongest team and I dont drop anymore."
So analyze your shard, analyze your team, and see what fits. Speed sets are desirable, to be sure. But not mandatory, and certainly not the best in all situations. Otherwise nobody would even farm other sets.
Shore is iffy - he has a pretaunt and can get trashed at the beginning of a fight and he also provides TM with his unique, and his taunt has cooldown reduction. He also usually runs under a leader that provides TM or speed or both. Speed is helpful on him but not mandantory over EHP.
All of the rest of the weaker Tanks like Chewie, Sun Fac and Gamorrean guard should get either a pre-taunt, retribution/counter, or auto taunt. Otherwise they are too slow to be viable. SF has a counter and self heal but I think he is just too slow.
Even RJT doesn't need super speed, she gets so much TM from BB8 spreading secret intel and when others get debufs. Raid Han doesn't need super speed, etc etc etc.