5 years ago

Ability upgrades that are detrimental

There's a few Omega and Zeta ability upgrades that just either seem detrimental to squad synergy or to the character itself. Sometimes these cases only apply to certain squads, so they're not all bad.
Perhaps I'm missing the intended interactions, but I'll give some examples along with my thoughts:

BB-8
Covert Data Transfer (Special)
BB-8 and a random ally who doesn't have it gain Secret Intel unique buff for 3 turns. Then, BB-8 gains 8% turn meter for each ally with Secret Intel. OMEGA UPGRADE: If all active allies are Droids, BB-8 gains Taunt for 1 turn.

Thoughts: Why would I want a character taunting that 1) has terrible defensive capability (is near the bottom of the list compared to other toons in terms of hp, prot and defense), and 2) I want to give the LEAST amount of attention to so it can pop Illuminated Destiny before dying/getting disabled? Kinda defeats the purpose of running him in the first place.
Personally, I have never upgraded this ability to max for these reasons. However anecdotal this may be, I encourage Droid users to enlighten me.

Darth Traya
Lord of Betrayal (Unique)
When an ally suffers a debuff, Darth Traya gains 10% Protection (stacking) until the end of her next turn. ZETA UPGRADE: At the start of each Sith ally's turn, Traya dispels all debuffs on them and deals damage equal to 5% of their Max Health for each debuff dispelled. When allied Darth Nihilus or Darth Sion are Critically Hit or inflicted with a debuff, Traya gains 12% Offense (stacking) for 2 turns.

Thoughts: The dispel is unrivaled and an incredible asset. However, I find the whole 5% damage pretty ridiculous. I have never witnessed the following, but it doesn't specify "This damage cannot defeat allies." So therefore why would I spend a zeta on an ability that could potentially kill my allies? What happens when I run Darth Revan and I work for debuffs? Does Traya deal 25k+ damage to me every turn and completely screw up my Ferocity stacks? Traya would be detrimental, whereas without this Zeta, she might do pretty well in a Revan team. I understand the dispel is pretty OP, but I also cannot see why I would spend a precious Zeta on an ability that would hurt my team.

Grand Admiral Thrawn
Legendary Strategist (Leader)
Empire allies have+15% Max Protection, +25% Offense, and gain 20% Turn Meter whenever they Resist a detrimental effect or suffer a debuff. Whenever an Empire ally gains or loses a status effect, they recover 2% Protection. Empire allies gain a new Special ability, Maneuver: Dispel all debuffs on this character and gain 50% Turn Meter (Cooldown 3).

Thoughts: This interaction is innate for Thrawn's lead and therefore doesn't necessarily qualify for this list but I still wanted to mention it since it is an optional ability. Why would I want to provide TM to a toon that is meant to be stagnant in order to keep Fracture active for as long as possible? Just seems contradictory to the rest of his kit.

Thanks for reading. Do you agree or disagree? What are some abilities that you think aren't good to upgrade?

Mullas
5 years ago
Does Traya deal 25k+ damage to me every turn and completely screw up my Ferocity stacks?

Jep
TheSithVicious
5 years ago
As far as BB-8 goes, there’s a high probability he’ll be taunting with foresight. If he does get hit, he’s likely to counter and will hopefully land a daze
sageman19
5 years ago
For BB8, that actually helps with a GG droid team. BB8 can get foresight which helps while taunting and if he ends up dying, that's another turn for GG to do big damage.

For Traya, the intent wasn't for her to be used on a DR team. They put in the 5% of hp damage for balance and even with that, dispelling debuffs is a huge benefit. You can actually see dispelling ferocity as a benefit as having too many ferocity stacks can cause your characters to die too quickly. I use traya and DR for the assault battle you need sith on and definitely helps to not have that additional damage taken because of ferocity.
NotRealUltra
Seasoned Newcomer
5 years ago
Traya unique is great - it’s only detrimental if you are running her under Darth Revan lead or with Darth Revan

Which is fine because they didn’t intend those two to work together for balance reasons and you don’t need them together

bb8 taunt is good since he has foresight and heals droid allies when he evades, so it keeps the other droids healthy and alive, and with R2 and C3PO in the team, it’ll call them to assist

Thrawn thing is great too because you can cycle fracture more often and benefits 4 other toons immensely or do you run your Thrawn with +0 speed so that fracture runs for the longest time possible?
jppc2204
5 years ago
"Guar;d-232742" wrote:
There's a few Omega and Zeta ability upgrades that just either seem detrimental to squad synergy or to the character itself. Sometimes these cases only apply to certain squads, so they're not all bad.
Perhaps I'm missing the intended interactions, but I'll give some examples along with my thoughts:

BB-8
Covert Data Transfer (Special)
BB-8 and a random ally who doesn't have it gain Secret Intel unique buff for 3 turns. Then, BB-8 gains 8% turn meter for each ally with Secret Intel. OMEGA UPGRADE: If all active allies are Droids, BB-8 gains Taunt for 1 turn.

Thoughts: Why would I want a character taunting that 1) has terrible defensive capability (is near the bottom of the list compared to other toons in terms of hp, prot and defense), and 2) I want to give the LEAST amount of attention to so it can pop Illuminated Destiny before dying/getting disabled? Kinda defeats the purpose of running him in the first place.
Personally, I have never upgraded this ability to max for these reasons. However anecdotal this may be, I encourage Droid users to enlighten me.

Darth Traya
Lord of Betrayal (Unique)
When an ally suffers a debuff, Darth Traya gains 10% Protection (stacking) until the end of her next turn. ZETA UPGRADE: At the start of each Sith ally's turn, Traya dispels all debuffs on them and deals damage equal to 5% of their Max Health for each debuff dispelled. When allied Darth Nihilus or Darth Sion are Critically Hit or inflicted with a debuff, Traya gains 12% Offense (stacking) for 2 turns.

Thoughts: The dispel is unrivaled and an incredible asset. However, I find the whole 5% damage pretty ridiculous. I have never witnessed the following, but it doesn't specify "This damage cannot defeat allies." So therefore why would I spend a zeta on an ability that could potentially kill my allies? What happens when I run Darth Revan and I work for debuffs? Does Traya deal 25k+ damage to me every turn and completely screw up my Ferocity stacks? Traya would be detrimental, whereas without this Zeta, she might do pretty well in a Revan team. I understand the dispel is pretty OP, but I also cannot see why I would spend a precious Zeta on an ability that would hurt my team.

Grand Admiral Thrawn
Legendary Strategist (Leader)
Empire allies have+15% Max Protection, +25% Offense, and gain 20% Turn Meter whenever they Resist a detrimental effect or suffer a debuff. Whenever an Empire ally gains or loses a status effect, they recover 2% Protection. Empire allies gain a new Special ability, Maneuver: Dispel all debuffs on this character and gain 50% Turn Meter (Cooldown 3).

Thoughts: This interaction is innate for Thrawn's lead and therefore doesn't necessarily qualify for this list but I still wanted to mention it since it is an optional ability. Why would I want to provide TM to a toon that is meant to be stagnant in order to keep Fracture active for as long as possible? Just seems contradictory to the rest of his kit.

Thanks for reading. Do you agree or disagree? What are some abilities that you think aren't good to upgrade?

Bb8 I can’t tell.

Traya was released before DR so this wasn’t a probleme. Dispell debuffs can change the battle, if your nihilus is ready to anihilate but got a ability block? Or you need to use sion special? Or traya special? Or your sion got a buff imunity? Etc this zeta is very good, of course that you won’t want it if you use traya in a DR team but I prefere DR with SE only SE.

Thrawn: yeah you don’t want thrawn gain TM but you want the others in the team to gain. You can make thrawn loose TM using a special ability, so it’s not that bad (and you have better imperial leaders)
AnakinEarthrunn
5 years ago
Another one that could possibly go on the list is fives omega that causes him to taunt. It is useful before you get his sacrifice zeta but after you apply the zeta it works against you.
MickeyMakay
5 years ago
You have obviously never used BB8 on a droid team if you think that’s a bad upgrade. He is a great tank (through avoidance) and he always counter attacks calling a resistance ally ... bring R2.
NyKynoe
5 years ago
Detrimental might be the wrong word. There are just some that are "odd" but very useful, situationally speaking.
MickeyMakay
5 years ago
"Guar;c-2140563" wrote:
"OnlyZuul;c-2140542" wrote:
You have obviously never used BB8 on a droid team if you think that’s a bad upgrade. He is a great tank (through avoidance) and he always counter attacks calling a resistance ally ... bring R2.

Yes. My opinion was entirely anecdotal. Hence:

"Guar;d-232742" wrote:
However anecdotal this may be, I encourage Droid users to enlighten me.

Therefore thank you kindly for the enlightenment.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be snide. It was just a figure of speech.

He makes a great tank, and it's fun to play. The bad thing is you need to break up good teams (resistance & rebels) to use him this way, so forget GA and TW.
Indominable_J81
5 years ago
Thrawn's is fine. If he has his unique zeta, then he has +100% tenacity while fracturing, plus a decent base tenacity (~55% at g13), so he's not getting debuffed a ton while fracturing. Running his lead, all your empire allies gain an extra special ability, which can then be used to remove tm from him to keep fracture going longer if need be. Plus, his own use of that special ability and his tm swap means when comes out of a fracture he can refracture very quickly.

Traya's, as others have pointed out, wasn't designed with DR in mind, and they aren't necessarily meant to synergize together.

One that does strike me as bad design is Hux's basic. Hux was designed at the same time as SLKR. SLKR's unique reduces the max health and protection of a dark side ally who gains bonus turn meter. Hux's basic gives him bonus turn meter, as does his first special. This means that if you have the omega on Hux's basic, in any long PvE event Hux will quickly become incredibly weak very quickly, even if you aren't running SLKR lead. The prime example of this is the Sith Raid. I don't have the omega on his basic (once I saw SLKR's kit, I decided not to upgrade it) and my Hux makes it deep into phase 4 every time. A guildmate who has the omega can't keep Hux alive more than part of the way into phase 2.