Direction of the top end of arena

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Rex leads have always been strong and will continue to be so because his cleanse/Tenacity Up and turn meter gain on AoEs is so strong.

I currently am in the top 2 at payout running NO Rex leads.

I will run GK(L), zBarriss, Chaze, and Nihilus or GK(L), zzR2, Chaze, and Nihilus or zQGJ (L), zYoda (Battle Med.), Aayla, GK and zzR2.

Its all dependent on matchups and what teams in my Arena shard are in 1st or 2nd place (I rotate 1st and 2nd with another shard mate, when we can).

Not sure why people keep talking about zaul, at the end of the day its DN that cemented the "Zaul" team.

Zaul (and other AOE Debuffers) were just there to feed DN and had a "taunt-light" stealth/dodge mechanic that allowed more DPS in some cases.

Rex was a solution for DN. Before DN zaul teams were ok but zader seemed still more effective.

You could build a team and avoid TM/Assists to deal with Zaul, it was the DN annihilate and 3 turn timer the AOE debuff/DN combo created that lead to Rex.

Rex lead is very versatile but I would argue generic and not nearly as valuable as a more synergistic lead. But there really isn't a lead that combat the AOE debuffs effectively as the Rex tenacity+lead combo.

As has been said, Rex leads tend to be fairly week on defense.

Have not been too impressed with DN leads either, similar issue as Rex... good against specific builds but bad on def imo.

Rex teams prosper vs. aoe heavy teams and debuff heavy teams. zMaul is otw out due to the frequency of Rex teams and the addition of R2D2 to jedi/rebel teams.

Rex is not the issue as they r easy to dismantle for single-target heavy-hitters like jedi.

The future killer team, once Maul (it's only competition) has waned...is troopers.

Veers (L), DT, Snow (Lando on steroids), Shore and GK.

No other team has such strong synergy. Shore can crit for over 10k fully tank modded. Snow can gain over 100% tm...i know it caps...on a kill. No other toon can do that.

50% tm for the kill, 30% for his passive, 10% tm for the offense up buff he gets and 15% more for using a special if Shore is taunting.

GK and Veers both have a call-all assist, they r all tanky, hard-hitting, Daze, ability block, stun, crit down on basic.

Once they get 1 kill...its all over.

I think it depends on the Maul squad. A Maul squad using Palp, Vader, or even zKylo will have issues because of tenacity up and TM gain. The squad I use (zMaul, zDN, SA, zSavage, SiT) had no issue with Rex because his tenacity and Chirruts cleanse don't affect anybody but Maul's daze. Sure the squad gets plenty of TM but they're hitting into my SiT with over 80K HP & Prot and he dodges a fair amount of attacks including dispels. I face enough Chirruts around 260+ speed too, just not an issue. Now if you're using Palp, you are at a disadvantage at times. Basically his opening AOE gives a ton of TM, maybe stuns a couple and then it's cleansed by one of the 3 because the TM gain is often enough to make the squad go before your DN. Just depends on the squad you're using. I stopped using Maul because after two months or so it just got boring.

Jedi can beat Maul, even before r2.

Again, depends on the Maul squads and mods too. We had a couple Jedi that manged to crack top-10 but none that could crack top-5 or ever take 1st. I think even the best Jedi were at a definite disadvantage against the better Maul squads. At my payout there's this one ass that likes to snipe even though it's not his payout and he was never able to snipe me once I put my squad in. Other's followed suit with my squad and he never sniped anybody again. A couple others might finish between 6 and 10 but that's the best I saw.

The biggest problem is mods, specifically speed secondaries. Team comp is important, but no one wins without speed. That is what breaks the game and creates a huge imbalance

Rex is not meta nor has Rex ever been meta. Rex is a neat trick who's useful because his cleanse and tm manipulation. The only reason Rex lead is relevant is because of chaze, Kenobi, and nihilus

"Tuftedpaper85;c-1063274" wrote:
Rex is not meta nor has Rex ever been meta. Rex is a neat trick who's useful because his cleanse and tm manipulation. The only reason Rex lead is relevant is because of chaze, Kenobi, and nihilus

He's the best meta lead if you want to be specific

"SwarmyStargazer;c-1063264" wrote:
The biggest problem is mods, specifically speed secondaries. Team comp is important, but no one wins without speed. That is what breaks the game and creates a huge imbalance

I generally agree with that. I think the issue with Maul is that good / bad RNG can really swing a match and has enabled average Maul squads to compete if they have the crystals to refresh through the bad RNG. Maul is more friendly to those that are "mod-challenged."

"Insufferable_camper;c-1063109" wrote:

"RealHanSolo;c-1063089" wrote:

"Insufferable_camper;c-1063071" wrote:
The krooper teams were a joke. Now some of that is because they were so bugged, but they still didn't have near enough speed to do anything. They were all mod dependent. He/she with the best mods, would win. Chaze was a great combo for sure, unfortunately I got sixth in his tournament and had to wait a while to seven star him, but the chaze teams struggled against the time-out teams. They didn't have enough firepower to take them down. Rex actually does better against the Zader teams than it does against Zaul teams. Zader was never a problem on our arena leaderboard because everyone had Rex. Anyone who used Zader would drop so fast and not be able to climb.

Once much of the randomness is taken out of arena, defense will stand again, and the best mods will win again.

There are a lot of changes on competitive shards that you're leaving out in that large timeframe. RexFac got crushed by Chaze for months in between Wiggs and Zaul. EP came back after Shore and TFP were released, was dropped for Wiggs/Chaze. Then Zader/Shore/TFP was a counter to Wiggs/Chaze. Then Sith rework happened just as the Zaul meta started to overtake Zader and Zaul then wiped the floor with everyone.

My whole shard had Shore/TFP and then Chaze, the entire top 20 and much of 50. Mine moves fast is very competitive, that's the only reason Krooper was mentioned, they were ok but then demolished by the Sith rework.

EP never came back after Shore, not at a top ten level. RexFac was transformed to Rex/Chaze or even Rex/Wiggs/Chaze. In the top ten of tournaments, no one put in an EP defensive squad.

: Again to reemphasize my original that the problem has always been Rex. I have both Rex and Zaul at gear max, I have used them both. Players who regularly compete for number one in arena would agree with me.

EP came back on many shards because he was fast enough to ability block Rex, Shore auto taunt nerfed Wiggs and EP could stun everyone.

Its very simple, any team vs Zaul is at best a 50/50 RNG nightmare except Rex. On the other hand dozens of teams can easily beat Rex. Rex is not the problem, Zaul + the Sith rework overturned the whole chessboard. There are so many Rex's only because there are so many Zauls, but Rex is easily beatable by tons of teams that's why it's not the problem.

Rex is a reliable toon with a good but not OP leader ability that's why he's been a good lead more than once while never having a toon specifically designed to counter him *cough* R2 *cough* Shoretrooper *cough*