Ship strength

Mace works better with a target lock synergy.
Tie Fighter is fast, high chance to go first and get TL up which gets Biggs taunting. If you don't, all your squishy ships are vulnerable and you could lose a squishy early.
Umbaran/Fives is Republic, Tanky, Fast with TL that cannot be resisted. You can either put him in starting line up or first reinforcement to do his AOE the moment Biggs is dead.
First Order TIE is fast with TL, but the pilot is hard to farm and recently got fixed.
Bistan U-Wing is also fast, irresistible TL, passive that works with TL, but 2 crew needed.
Vader which you have, will keep all the TL up, and allow Mace to spam his AOE.
Biggs is your tank. Star Up both ship and pilot and give pilot as much gear, skill levels and level 15 mods that you can.
Boba has high chance to TL, AOE all TL that can AB plus another AOE, good to put in starting line up.
Maul is a good reinforcement too when you put up retribution on a remaining tanky ship like Fives or a TL ship like Boba.

Good luck.

Thx. All good info, most of which I already knew. But, that doesn't answer my question. How do I look at an opponent and determine their strength? Ship stars, lvls, power numbers... none of those seem to make difference one way or the other.

"Sawyerstooth;c-1077693" wrote:
Thx. All good info, most of which I already knew. But, that doesn't answer my question. How do I look at an opponent and determine their strength? Ship stars, lvls, power numbers... none of those seem to make difference one way or the other.

Well, I'm a little more than4 months into the game and I know my ship lineup well. Anyone running even close to the same comp as me and I know what to expect.. I place top 10 usually, so I fight the same teams. Since i manually fight all 5 battles everyday, I've learned what other shard mates comps can do if they run something totally different

I don't want to assume anything or put anyone down, but I bet most fight a battle or two a day, maybe even on auto, and therefore don't learn much about their squads or their competitions squads. I know nothing about you or your game style, but if you manually fight all five battles daily, I bet you would have a great understanding of ship synergies and strategies.

Another good way of telling how strong a fleet is is to pay attention to any synergies they might have in their starting fleet (since you can't see their reinforcements). If they have Biggs but don't have any method of generating target locks outside of him or maybe one other ship, you'll be able to kill Biggs super easily. If they run a Republic fleet, you can expect some taunt swapping and should probably bring an extra dispel with you. If they have Sun Fac, consider not using Ackbar's heal or other methods of generating buffs until you can kill the 1 or 2 primary targets that would otherwise get to hide behind Sun Fac's taunt.

Conversely, you should make sure you have some forms of target lock if you're planning on running Biggs as your taunt - he's the weakest tank in ships, until you start recovering protection on almost every turn you take. Making sure your fleet has synergy is important.

Sawyerstooth, aren't you also destroying teams that are 6k-10k "power" more than you?

It just seems to me that it's the nature of the game right now that you can take out higher than you and be taken out by lower than you.

Don't expect a viable defensive strategy, but if you find someone else who you can't beat that you think you should, figure out what they did. If you can't take out teams 6-10K higher than you, then it's worth figuring out why not.

Huatimus gave good advice.

"Sawyerstooth;c-1077693" wrote:
Thx. All good info, most of which I already knew. But, that doesn't answer my question. How do I look at an opponent and determine their strength? Ship stars, lvls, power numbers... none of those seem to make difference one way or the other.

Some ships have an inflated power level. Vader, and Jedi Consular in particular are very inflated. I think Ackbar is too, which would explain why the Mace teams in my shard have a much lower power level (5-10k lower). As mentioned synergies is the best way to determine an opponent's strength. Teams with Biggs with no target lock, or have Schmitar in the starting lineup with tanks tends to be terrible for defense since Schmitar likes to put Retribution on Fives and Jedi Consular over Biggs. Fought a team the other that had Sun Fac taunting, a Biggs in the lineup too, but it put retribution on fives. Needless to say this was a waste, and made it easy for me.

Ackbar tends to be a lot better on offense than it is on defense. Mace teams tend to be better than Ackbar on defense.

I'm not familiar with Plo, or Poe's ships, but your other ones are solid choices. Ahsoka tends to not be great on defense since she is kind of squishy and gets focused on quickly. I prefer not using her and just out damaging Biggs' ship till he is dead once he begins taunting. Sometimes I can get a target lock on a weaker ship or even destroy it before Biggs taunts though. When you use JC's assist attack then I suggest using Biggs to reinforce to give him extra protection, and try to keep his taunt up as much as you can. Gearing your Biggs up will help a lot so he can tank a lot of damage and with a lot of target locks he can be very tough to bring down. I also find myself never using Vader's special except when retribution is up so I don't trigger a counter attack.

I run Ackbar, Fives, Consular, Slave 1, Vader with Schmitar, Tie Fighter, and Wedge in reinforcements. I take top 3 daily, and often rank 1. I have 158k power right now with Schmitar, Slave 1, Tie Fighter, Tie Advanced on 6*, and the rest 7*.

"dsteve;c-1077838" wrote:
Sawyerstooth, aren't you also destroying teams that are 6k-10k "power" more than you?

No. if they're close to my power lvl, it's the same result.

I was doing fine before they did the update.

"Billcarson66;c-1077760" wrote:

I don't want to assume anything or put anyone down, but I bet most fight a battle or two a day, maybe even on auto, and therefore don't learn much about their squads or their competitions squads. I know nothing about you or your game style, but if you manually fight all five battles daily, I bet you would have a great understanding of ship synergies and strategies.

I've been playing over a yr as a f2p player. Everything is a slow grind. I ignored ships not long after they came out, because my characters needed my focus. Then, I found out about the Zeta challenge. So, I've been trying ships more. I manually do the 1 battle for the daily, but that's it, because it just upsets me. I'm currently between 850-950 on my shard of whales. I don't expect to be #1, but I would like to at least understand how to get better.

The only "synergy" I know of in ships is the Target Lock/Biggs Taunt, which is what I'm attempting to run. Vader - TLocks, Boba - TLocks, Mace - TLocks, Biggs/TLocks... But, it doesn't seem to matter how quickly I move, or how many times RNGesus gives me TL, I lose most of the time. I was doing better before they did the update. I think they changed more than graphics, regardless of what they say.

"Sawyerstooth;c-1078097" wrote:

"dsteve;c-1077838" wrote:
Sawyerstooth, aren't you also destroying teams that are 6k-10k "power" more than you?

No. if they're close to my power lvl, it's the same result.

I was doing fine before they did the update.

"Billcarson66;c-1077760" wrote:

I don't want to assume anything or put anyone down, but I bet most fight a battle or two a day, maybe even on auto, and therefore don't learn much about their squads or their competitions squads. I know nothing about you or your game style, but if you manually fight all five battles daily, I bet you would have a great understanding of ship synergies and strategies.

I've been playing over a yr as a f2p player. Everything is a slow grind. I ignored ships not long after they came out, because my characters needed my focus. Then, I found out about the Zeta challenge. So, I've been trying ships more. I manually do the 1 battle for the daily, but that's it, because it just upsets me. I'm currently between 850-950 on my shard of whales. I don't expect to be #1, but I would like to at least understand how to get better.

The only "synergy" I know of in ships is the Target Lock/Biggs Taunt, which is what I'm attempting to run. Vader - TLocks, Boba - TLocks, Mace - TLocks, Biggs/TLocks... But, it doesn't seem to matter how quickly I move, or how many times RNGesus gives me TL, I lose most of the time. I was doing better before they did the update. I think they changed more than graphics, regardless of what they say.

Nope, nothing but a visual change. Guaranteed :) I might not be able to convince you of that fact, but that doesn't change the truth.

You say "shard of whales", but I highly doubt you have 800 whales all on one shard. What it is is people who invested more into ships than you did. Additionally, knowing who to target, when to change targets, when to use what abilities, and other in-battle tactical decisions make a huge difference on rate of success.

"Mageduckey;c-1078112" wrote:

"Sawyerstooth;c-1078097" wrote:

"dsteve;c-1077838" wrote:
Sawyerstooth, aren't you also destroying teams that are 6k-10k "power" more than you?

No. if they're close to my power lvl, it's the same result.

I was doing fine before they did the update.

"Billcarson66;c-1077760" wrote:

I don't want to assume anything or put anyone down, but I bet most fight a battle or two a day, maybe even on auto, and therefore don't learn much about their squads or their competitions squads. I know nothing about you or your game style, but if you manually fight all five battles daily, I bet you would have a great understanding of ship synergies and strategies.

I've been playing over a yr as a f2p player. Everything is a slow grind. I ignored ships not long after they came out, because my characters needed my focus. Then, I found out about the Zeta challenge. So, I've been trying ships more. I manually do the 1 battle for the daily, but that's it, because it just upsets me. I'm currently between 850-950 on my shard of whales. I don't expect to be #1, but I would like to at least understand how to get better.

The only "synergy" I know of in ships is the Target Lock/Biggs Taunt, which is what I'm attempting to run. Vader - TLocks, Boba - TLocks, Mace - TLocks, Biggs/TLocks... But, it doesn't seem to matter how quickly I move, or how many times RNGesus gives me TL, I lose most of the time. I was doing better before they did the update. I think they changed more than graphics, regardless of what they say.

Nope, nothing but a visual change. Guaranteed :) I might not be able to convince you of that fact, but that doesn't change the truth.

You say "shard of whales", but I highly doubt you have 800 whales all on one shard. What it is is people who invested more into ships than you did. Additionally, knowing who to target, when to change targets, when to use what abilities, and other in-battle tactical decisions make a huge difference on rate of success.

I meant that I don't expect to be #1, or even top-25, but my Arena team is up to around 130 with still more that I could do to improve them. I shouldn't be this bad at ships. lol but, I just don't get it.

Yeah. It probably has to do with you ignoring ships at first. They got the jump on you so now there's more of them to climb over.

Doing only one battle a day won't move you up. You'll be attacked more than that so it really is one step forward multiple steps backward. It's no different here than arena in that.

You're not at 130 in arena just doing one battle a day, I bet.