How Good is Nihilus for Early Game?

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So I'm a level 52 and my main team right now is a Sith core of Vader lead with Sidious Dooku, along with 2 tanks in Chewie and Royal Guard (basically placeholders for future replacements). The team works, but I notice that Dooku and Vader keep getting worn down with no way of healing up, particularly in Galactic War. There's 50 Darth Nihilus shards in my crystal shop right now. How good is Nihilus and how well would he synergize with my 3 Sith? If I'm not mistaken, slotting Nihilus in at leader should theoretically instantly fix my sustain issues. The only reason why I haven't done it yet is the slight negative synergy with Sidious.

Replies

  • My profile btw if anyone cares:
    https://swgoh.gg/p/356893396/characters/
  • I don’t see how that would hurt you at all. Play your Opress and not Chew if you do
  • Arva
    80 posts Member
    Ok, so first of all, NEVER buy character shards for crystals out of the shipments. its a big waste of your crystals.
    if you want a character, you will have to farm him from the respective node, and yes, that can take a long time.
    Use your crystals on energy refreshes (the first 3 refreshes for normal, ship and mod energy only cost 50 crystals each, and not only will that accelerate your leveling by alot, it will also help you get more characters/gear. Cantina energy refreshes cost 100 for the first 3, but they are also worth it, becouse you get cantina shop currency as well, and you can buy characters from that shop)

    now that we have that out of the way, you want to play a sith team, but for that to work, and help with your sustain issues, you should get emperor palpatine, he is one of the best Sith leads, and fairly easy to get.
    To get him, you are gonna need 5 rebels. I would recommend getting the phoenix team for that (Hera, Ezra, Zeb, Kanan and Chopper), thoose will unlock you EP and then later also unlock you thrawn. and they are also great in galactic war.

    So for your other characters you right now try to use: sidious sadly is a very very bad character, and he wont help you much in the longer game, so putting many ressources into him will hurt you, when you notice you dont have the ressources for a different and beter character. same kinda goes for savage.
    Dooku has some potential and isnt a bad character at all.
    So once you get EP, the Team you are gonna use for a while is gonna look like this:

    EP, Vader, Dooku, Tarkin and Thrawn (the lead from EP also works for empire characters), and this is gonna be a reasonable strong team for a while.


    Also you are gonna unlock fleet soon, so you should prepare for that, you will need 5 dark side ships at 4* to unlock tarkins capital ship at 5*, and you need that ship, to unlock the zeta challenge, and for that you need 5 ships at 5* (they also can be light side).
    So id look at the following ships and pilots for that:
    Geonosian Soldier + Ship
    Geonosian Spy + Ship
    Sun Fac + Ship
    KRU + Ship (both on the same node)
    Vulture Droid

    If you wont get vulture to 5* by lvl 78 (thats a possibility) you should probably just farm buy ahsoka tano shards from the cantina store, and get her ship to 5* instead, alternativly you can just farm the regular tie
  • Gifafi
    6017 posts Member
    Basically what Arva said. DN is great, but not as lead.
    Maybe End Game isn't for you
  • Mephisto_style
    5724 posts Member
    edited April 2021
    Nihilus is 1 of the best characters in the game when it comes to what he is for:

    Eliminating non-Galactic Legend pains-in-the-gluteus
    - slow tenacity Enfys Nest
    - Darth Malaj

    And, the best part is that Nihilus can be left out of your anti-Geonosian Sith Triumvirate. You only need Traya and Sion for that, so you can save Nihilus for other pains. You just need to pair him with a tank that can help ensure (like Sith Empire Trooper) that Nihilus will stay alive long enough to use Annihilate. Which gets to another point, in this situation it is possible that a zeta Nihilus lead with SET, Maurauder, Dooku, and a 5th would be a good team if using E palp Vader Empire elsewhere, and Traya Sion elsewhere. It's not that zNihilus lead is bad, just that there are usually better choices. However, there are situations like above where Nihilus could be your best remaining team.

    Whole point = do not ignore Nihilus, especially if Malak nd Nest poses problems for you. Edit, oh, and since you are early game you may not yet realize how they are a problem as they are are definitely level 85 for a few months characters, but they are massively difficult to beat without hard counters and you will be seeking forum advice to do it. Having Nihilus ready to go when you start hitting them will make you appreciate him later, and will likely be the reason you don't lose those GAC rounds.
  • Lol, you can probably see that my light side team is absolute trash right now. I was rather hoping to avoid a long drawn-out grind for an entirely new team for this but okay, I guess if I have to.
  • Arva
    80 posts Member
    Nihilus is 1 of the best characters in the game when it comes to what he is for:

    Eliminating non-Galactic Legend pains-in-the-gluteus
    - slow tenacity Enfys Nest
    - Darth Malaj

    And, the best part is that Nihilus can be left out of your anti-Geonosian Sith Triumvirate. You only need Traya and Sion for that, so you can save Nihilus for other pains. You just need to pair him with a tank that can help ensure (like Sith Empire Trooper) that Nihilus will stay alive long enough to use Annihilate. Which gets to another point, in this situation it is possible that a zeta Nihilus lead with SET, Maurauder, Dooku, and a 5th would be a good team if using E palp Vader Empire elsewhere, and Traya Sion elsewhere. It's not that zNihilus lead is bad, just that there are usually better choices. However, there are situations like above where Nihilus could be your best remaining team.

    Whole point = do not ignore Nihilus, especially if Malak nd Nest poses problems for you. Edit, oh, and since you are early game you may not yet realize how they are a problem as they are are definitely level 85 for a few months characters, but they are massively difficult to beat without hard counters and you will be seeking forum advice to do it. Having Nihilus ready to go when you start hitting them will make you appreciate him later, and will likely be the reason you don't lose those GAC rounds.

    All of this is no consideration for someone who isnt even close to 85 yet. And he was considering buying him with crystals, something which is a BIG nono. So at his current point, i wouldnt waste a second thought on him, for now. way more important to get the early game going.
  • Suppose I don't commit enough time to this game to warrant refreshing energy with crystals. Is there anything else I should be saving it for?
  • Arva
    80 posts Member
    refreshing energy with crystals. you can sim battles with it, so you dont need to do thoose battles manually. and you do get sim tickets when you do the refreshes
  • Gifafi
    6017 posts Member
    Suppose I don't commit enough time to this game to warrant refreshing energy with crystals. Is there anything else I should be saving it for?

    in that case do whatever you want, it won't matter much
    Maybe End Game isn't for you
  • So I just decided to buy him even though I know it wasn't the most efficient move. So far, no regrets. Nihilus lead instantly won me 2 Galactic Wars when I've previously never won a single one. Also gave me a sizeable boost in Squad Arena. Dooku is quite literally unkillable now unless they Stun then burst him in one turn.

    Now putting full priority on Phoenix for EP as suggested, btw.
  • So I just decided to buy him even though I know it wasn't the most efficient move. So far, no regrets. Nihilus lead instantly won me 2 Galactic Wars when I've previously never won a single one. Also gave me a sizeable boost in Squad Arena. Dooku is quite literally unkillable now unless they Stun then burst him in one turn.

    Now putting full priority on Phoenix for EP as suggested, btw.

    Ya you'll see buying them doesn't always help in the long run (but not bashing or discouraging you, I've spent on some toons too, but now I don't see the value in it). But yes, sadly this game is a slow process. You have to get team A to get toon A that makes Team B better that helps you get toon B. Thats a generalization, but more or less the idea here.
  • I mean I can already see why it isn't the best idea. Nihilus is stuck at 3 stars now while the rest of my team is all 4s and 5s and I'd probably have to wait for him to cycle back into my Shipments before I can change that. I also am now down to 500 crystals and cantina energy refill takes forever and therefore Hera and Ezra are taking forever. Whatever, I don't feel like sitting down and calculating whether the additional prizes I got since upgrading Nihilus onto my team was worth 2000 crystals. It's made the last few days really fun and that's all that matters to me.
  • Mephisto_style
    5724 posts Member
    edited April 2021
    I mean I can already see why it isn't the best idea. Nihilus is stuck at 3 stars now while the rest of my team is all 4s and 5s and I'd probably have to wait for him to cycle back into my Shipments before I can change that. I also am now down to 500 crystals and cantina energy refill takes forever and therefore Hera and Ezra are taking forever. Whatever, I don't feel like sitting down and calculating whether the additional prizes I got since upgrading Nihilus onto my team was worth 2000 crystals. It's made the last few days really fun and that's all that matters to me.

    Dude, you will not regret Nihilus at all. Get him with 4 more Sith. Here is how mine is modded if you want tips7qa1x0ephz7u.png
  • TVF
    36518 posts Member
    How's that potency working out for you?
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • @Tyranoraptor98 Do yourself a favor and dont take modding advice from Mephisto
  • Lol I'm still on E and D mods over here, I'm not even level 60 yet. I'm basically just slapping random non-Crit mods with set bonus synergy onto him.

    Question: I have ~1000 crystals rn and Nihilus is still 3 stars. Do I save to 1200 and go to Weekly Shipments to push him to 4 real quick, or do I dump all 1000 into Cantina refresh to push Phoenix to 5? I'm most likely going to do both in the near future but which one's more important?
  • Neither. Save crystals for campaign/normal energy refresh, w/ maybe a few refreshes in cantina. But really use a farming guide and prioritize phoenix over Nihilus at your stage.
  • Buying shards for crystals is one of the worst uses for crystals IMO. Eventually you'll get to the point where you have a ton of seven star characters and no gear for them. Shards for normal characters more than a year old are the easiest resource to come by.
  • MrSender wrote: »
    Neither. Save crystals for campaign/normal energy refresh, w/ maybe a few refreshes in cantina. But really use a farming guide and prioritize phoenix over Nihilus at your stage.

    I don't have any uses for normal energy. None. All the characters I need to be geared up are already geared up, I don't have any shards from normal Battle Stage I want to farm, and I'm also completely done with unlocked Battle Stages. Meanwhile Cantina takes a full day to refresh, not to mention both Hera and Ezra are Cantina and I need about 90 combined shards for them right now.

  • No disrespect intended, but looking at your profile that you posted earlier, you are just getting started in the game. You have a long way to go in regards to collecting & gearing up your toons.
    I'd recommend what the others have said & save your crystals for energy refreshes & occasionally gear
  • Sorry, let me rephrase that as "I have no immediate use for normal energy". Most of my units are Gear VI and I have no immediate incentive to rush VII. I usually find that the normal energy charge, along with bonus energy everyday, is usually more than enough to do whatever I want to do. Like today, I had to waste energy into random shard battles just to not overflow.

    Out of curiosity, how do you guys end up needing more than twice as much energy as Cantina energy? For my stage of the game at least, I find Cantina shard characters much more valuable to farm, and Cantina energy is also so much harder to come by. Does this just happen when I progress further into the game or am I doing something wrong?
  • Gifafi
    6017 posts Member
    Sorry, let me rephrase that as "I have no immediate use for normal energy". Most of my units are Gear VI and I have no immediate incentive to rush VII. I usually find that the normal energy charge, along with bonus energy everyday, is usually more than enough to do whatever I want to do. Like today, I had to waste energy into random shard battles just to not overflow.

    Out of curiosity, how do you guys end up needing more than twice as much energy as Cantina energy? For my stage of the game at least, I find Cantina shard characters much more valuable to farm, and Cantina energy is also so much harder to come by. Does this just happen when I progress further into the game or am I doing something wrong?

    character shards, gear

    and you have an immediate use for normal energy. it's character shards and gear.

    Also, you realize Nihilus is in dark side 9a, right?
    Maybe End Game isn't for you
  • Yes, I do. I was planning on pushing Nihilus to 4 and stopping. The thing is, I estimate if I keep playing at my current pace it's gonna take me months at least to get to Dark Side 9.
  • Gifafi
    6017 posts Member
    Yes, I do. I was planning on pushing Nihilus to 4 and stopping. The thing is, I estimate if I keep playing at my current pace it's gonna take me months at least to get to Dark Side 9.

    get some strong allies and use their toon you borrow to beat levels you can't beat on your own. You probably won't be able to 3* them until you improve your team overall, but it's a way to get a leg up early. There are ally code sharing posts in New Payers iirc. If you have an ally with slkr, for example, you will probably be able to 3* a node you wouldn't have been able to come close to beating on your own
    Maybe End Game isn't for you
  • Oh no you misunderstood, I'm not having trouble actually beating the levels once I'm there. I'm getting bottlenecked by EXP right now.
  • Gifafi
    6017 posts Member
    I don’t know/remember what that is. Like you can’t do harder nodes until you get to certain level?
    Maybe End Game isn't for you
  • Rath_Tarr
    4944 posts Member
    Oh no you misunderstood, I'm not having trouble actually beating the levels once I'm there. I'm getting bottlenecked by EXP right now.
    And that is the other reason to spend energy - in addition to character shards / gear salvage, you also gain XP.
  • G7 gives you protection, so Idk why you aren’t going for it
    My discord - BabyYoda#4470 My swgoh.gg - https://swgoh.gg/p/648565123/
  • G7 gives you protection, so Idk why you aren’t going for it

    I.... I may or may not have literally just found that out.
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