Rebel Fleet
May 19, 2020 4:16AM
edited May 2020
So I am working on a Separatist fleet with Malevolence but I need a second fleet for GAC. I just unlocked the falcon and am thinking of making a rebel fleet. Anyone know what some of the best rebel fleet line ups are? And which ones are used as reinforcements? I know the falcon, HT and Biggs are good but who else do I need?
Also, I have the BH ships from unlocking the falcon, should I use them or should I stick with more rebels?
Also, I have the BH ships from unlocking the falcon, should I use them or should I stick with more rebels?
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Full Rebel LOLassist: Falcon, Biggs, Bistan with Cassian, Phantom and whoever
Pro tip: Do not put Squish 1 in your reinforcements. Ever. Not unless you want it to get callef first on defense, come out taunting and die faster than a Jawa who crosses Mando.
What is Squish 1?
I generally wouldn't use those ships in a Rebel fleet except for Hound's Tooth. You want to use HT right away. HT replaces Biggs, and Malevolence/Separatists is the one faction right now that can do without HT using 3 starting Geonosians + Hyena Bomber as first reinforcement (or swap Hyena & Sun Fac).
So drop biggs, he's only useful before HT.
Opening Rebel lineup should be Falcon, Ghost, HT or Falcon, Bistan, HT. (I much prefer Ghost myself, but Bistan is fast and can help give you a good start).
First Reinforcement should be Phantom. Cassian is vital as an option because of the amazing AoE buff dispel, even if Cassian's crew isn't geared highly yet. If Ghost isn't in your starting lineup, drop her in Reinforcements. If Bistan isn't in your starting lineup, you might just want to ignore that ship entirely.
So, mandatory ships are
HT, Falcon, Phantom, Ghost, Cassian.
Optional, best if used in starting lineup:
Bistan
Ships to round out Rebels:
Things with good offense
Things with good dispel
Things that inflict Buff Immunity
Who might fit in those categories? Well, both Vader and Ahsoka have good offense and some dispel capability. Vader's dispel is limited, of course. Ahsoka's is much better. If you're at this point in the game, which has better offense is really going to be based on current gear levels rather than the ship's ultimate potential.
Ebon Hawk has a great AoE dispel as her reinforcment ability, and inflicts Buff Immunity, but has poor offense.
Wedge has Rebel Synergy and inflicts Buff Immunity, but the character isn't worth taking to g12.
Those are the first 4 I really think of as fitting at all into this fleet, though Kylo's TIE Silencer can be dropped in to any fleet for pure offense.
Which you drop in will really depend on which pilots & crew you have geared up the most more than anything. Even comparing Ebon Hawk's underwhelming offense to Ahsoka or Vader, the Hawk is going to look good if you have g12 Carth & L3-37 for the Hawk and g10 Vader and Ahsoka. Alternatively, Ahsoka doesn't have good survivability, but if she's g12 and the Hawk's crew is low-gear, she'll be more survivable than the Hawk, which is normally one of its advantages. (Cargo ships tend to have higher survivability.)
Even Wedge, who has poor offense and low survivability will start to look good if he's higher gear compared to others since he can drop Buff Immunity on HT and then call the Falcon's assist, which makes up for the otherwise poor offense.
BTW: Plo Koon isn't a great ship, but it has one of the best reinforcements in the game, being the only ship that can AoE heal both Protection and Health. He can also give Taunt to any ally, if it has already been dispelled or you don't have a natural taunter. Because of that, even though his ship is pretty bad otherwise, he's worth it as a reinforcement (even at low gear!) because he saves your most valuable ships from dying, letting them fight on much longer. Since the starting ships are generally better than the reinforcements anyway, using a reinforcement whose only job is to return the starters to nearly undamaged states and then die gloriously isn't a bad strategy at all. So PK's ship is always an option even though she doesn't meet any of the criteria above.
So get the mandatory 5 geared up to usable levels. Then look at what pilots you've got already geared and compare their ships to the guidelines above.
Later, you should be able to pick up Anakin's fighter, who also works well as a plug-and-play type. Not as well as under Negotiator, but fine in this kind of mix-and-match setup trying to find the last ship or two to round out a fleet.
Good luck!
First thanks for the detailed response that is helpful! But I should drop Biggs? All of the top Home One fleets I see have HT, falcon and Biggs as their starting ships. Wish I could see their reinforcements though
The reason Falcon, Bistan, Biggs, the lineup I dubbed 'Rebel lite' was so prevalent was because it is the least gear-intensive option which worked well enough. Only Bossk, Han, Chewie& Biggs need gearing to g12+, Cassian's crew can languish around g8/9, and while there is benefit to gearing Cassian himself to g11, it is not strictly necessary. Phantom crew can also languish at mediocre gear levels, though Ezra is worth gearing up further.
Most of the Rebel fighters are multi-pilot which makes them very costly to gear and most of those pilots are of little use in endgame squad play. Ghost is unfortunately the epitome of that.
If they are not outclassed by several gear levels you should always try to use rebels instead of ships from other factions. Cassians key role was already mentioned. He should have his Guerilla Strike maxed (guaranteed crits with that skill with rebels), so you should take him to G11.
Starters: HT, Falcon, Ghost
Reinforcements (full year): Phantom, Cassian
Reinforcements (alternates, that changed over time): Wedge, Plo Koon, Vader, Ebon Hawk, TIE Silencer, JKA.
At the end of that a year at the top of the meta, my reinforcements were: Phantom, Cassian, Plo Koon, Ebon Hawk.
Before I started my (almost) year of #1 Fleet Arena finishes using Ackbar/Rebels, I did use Biggs.I had unlocked Falcon with a g9 Bossk while I had a g12 Biggs and figured Biggs just had to be better. But I didn't start my first long winning streak (literally over 2 months without a single loss on offense) until I had Bossk at a high enough gear tier. By the time Bossk was up there in gear, Biggs had become a liability.
The version that Rath_Tarr is advocating that ditches Hound's Tooth in favor of Biggs gets you more assists, which means it starts out with a bigger offensive bang. If you can kill 1 or 2 opponents very quickly, you can, indeed win the match quite handily.
However, your assists are dependent on RNG. Hound's Tooth gets taken out by Falcon more quickly than against other squads, but is still much better than Biggs on defense, and if RNG isn't with you in the first few turns, tide can turn against the non-HT fleet pretty quickly.
That's probably one reason why I didn't see that composition in the top 5 finishers more than 3-4 times a week, and very, very rarely taking #1.
But, of course, Rath_Tarr is absolutely correct that Phoenix ships are gear-intensive and Phoenix toons don't help you in the end game. For that reason, some people won't want to invest in them, and if you have a badly geared pilot in a ship with a lot of potential, that's probably still much worse than a well-geared pilot in a completely mediocre ship.
So my fleet comp did well in fleet arena for a very, very long time (I got Falcon the day it was released), but it does mean that I dropped gear on toons that I might like to have back these days.
On the other hand, 400 crystals per day for a year buys you a lot of gear, so I don't think that the trade wasn't worth it.
You'll have to decide for yourself if you want to gear Phoenix. I've given my advice on what allowed me to win #1 every day for about a year. Rath_Tarr's fleet is a good one, I just prefer otherwise b/c of RNG dependence.
It's also possible that you decide one team composition is better for you on offense and another better on defense and you switch between the two at the beginning of your fleet battles for the day and again at the end for overnight defense. If you have enough geared pilots to do that, that's fine too.
Since this is still your game, you'll have to follow your own heart in choosing what appeals most to you.
I could take first every day, until those new fleets began to exceed my.willingness to gear up my Rebel pilots. If I had been willing to relic Biggs, Bistan & SRP I could still be using it in arena, though I would be dropping further than I used to.
However it is heavily RNG-influenced, which isn't everyone's cup of tea, and SRP is a real pain to gear and is of limited use in squad play (and Bistan even less so).
I would build Rebel-lite if GAC/TW rather than fleet arena is the goal.