Arena: Shaak Clones or Padme?

I don't have stats on this, but my best guess is that Shaak is better when it can counter-attack, but since JKR's Strategic Advantage prevents counterattacks, Padmé is probably better against them. It's a narrow thing, however, since Echo has an AoE dispel, which can be hugely important and effective against Revan.

Think about this:

The Shaak squad needs fewer zetas to work.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the game (just because you're starting a new account doesn't mean you don't have an older one), so forgive me if this is all information you already have, but zetas are going to be hard to come by early on.

Both Padmé and Shaak TI squads need 2 zetas just to be minimally viable, but really significantly more than that to work as intended. The difference is that with a Shaak Ti squad 3 zetas is plenty (that gives you both of Shaak Ti's zetas + 5s sacrifice zeta). More zetas is gravy, but 3 is good for Shaak. Meanwhile Threepio can't do much for you without 2 zetas of his own, so the Padmé squad doesn't work as intended without 4-5 zetas. You can go without Threepio, of course (and at the beginning, you will have to) but then you run into other problems: Ahsoka, for instance, adds a bunch of assists with her zeta, enough to put her on par with Echo's AoE dispel, but Echo doesn't need a zeta to get that job done. Remember that getting GK is going to take a long time - there's no way around the HAAT slow-farm requirement there. Threepio's event is going to require at least one ewok zeta, and if you don't want to waste g11 finishers on your ewoks, you'll need 2 or 3 zetas total on your ewoks just to unlock Threepio at 7*. Again, this is a zeta tax that the Clones just don't face. So you're likely going to be using CloneWars Chewbacca in your early-version Padmé squad, and that's not bad, he does surprisingly well there, but it is gear you're spending on a character you will later retire - so that's a gear tax. You may very well also run Barriss, and again, that's not a bad character for this squad, but Padmé, Anakin, Ahsoka, CWC, Barriss is simply an inferior squad and you can't get GK or Threepio right away. So there's that gear tax again - plus a zeta tax if you want to make Barriss work.

Add to this that the gear requirements for Padmé are worse than the gear requirements for Shaak Ti and I think if the purpose is to gear up a viable Arena squad quickly that you'll be better off with Shaak.

Success will probably be better in the short run, slightly worse in the long run, but you avoid steep zeta and gear taxes that can hurt an early player account.

Again, I don't have data on your original question - which one is harder for Bastila and JKR squads to beat - but I hope these additional thoughts are helpful in putting together your ideas about which is nonetheless the better squad for you.

Geo's also beat jkr, so if you go padme, you can use your geo's while you're working on your padme team

"TargetEadu;c-2159827" wrote:
But before C3PO, would GMY or Barriss be a better 5th? GMY seems to be the more often used (and doesn't necessarily need a zeta to work), but zBarriss's healing seems like a good way to mitigate JKR and GMY's attacks.

As someone who runs JKR in arena, I'm more afraid of GMY than Barriss as the added health only comes into affect when a crit occurs. With GK, you get a lot of crit hit immunity. It only lasts one turn and will only pop up if there's no buff immunity locked. I'd do GMY if I were you.

@Darth_DeVito
Are you sure shaak doesn't beat DR+ malak . Because I've been consistently beating them with my shaak team since day 1

"Treeburner;c-2159955" wrote:
@Darth_DeVito
Are you sure shaak doesn't beat DR+ malak . Because I've been consistently beating them with my shaak team since day 1

Mine (all r3 and shaak g12) can beat a relic Dr but only a 5 star g11 malak. Its a struggle beyond that and if I lose echo then its over

"Sanderzas;c-2160550" wrote:
shaak ti clones cannot beat a relic DR/malak unless you use JKA as fifth

I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I keep getting wins

Should I throw in JKA to help ?

on my alt i also run shaak + clones - everyone is between R5-6 and i can beat DR+Malak, too.

it is just my laziness for falling out of top50

They both go down pretty easily.
Padme squad: if enemy revan marks anakin its a gg, if padme dies early - gg. Team requires way too many zetas to function reliably and not really usefull in raids.
Shaak+clones: falls apart if fives dies first, same thing if shaak dies. Requires at least 2 zetas shaak and fives uniques to start rolling, deals nice damage in raids.

Since you asked for easy revan counter... palpatin led siths, he easily destroys him on offense/defense but easily looses if the owner puts bastila in the lead xD. Requires like 2 zetas and does even less damage in raids than padme team

Those JKR teams will soon be replaced by DR and GAS teams. Padme counters both (with some difficulty when it comes to DR+Malak, but still). Shaak Ti beats neither.

Also, while Padme vs JKR is a bit of a timeout nightmare, the same is true in reverse. Meaning JKR risks timing out and sometimes losing against Padme on offense. Ahsoka constantly assists and dispels GK, Anakin's AOE can be brutal, and one lucky team assist can take out their Jolee.

Whereas Shaak Troopers are easy to beat with JKR and will drop like a rock on your server. Kill Shaak, kill Fives, mop up. There's a reason https://swgohcounters.com/ lists JKR as a hard counter for Shaak Ti and a soft counter for Padme.

There is also GAS to consider. You'll ultimately want both teams when you're going for GAS, but you don't need the clones to unlock him. You can initially run GAS on your Padme team in place of JKA, which already holds a lot better on defense, while you're gearing your clones. The only argument in favor of gearing clones first that I can see is their vastly better HSTR score.

@Darth_DeVito

I think you're missing the point that this is a quick-fire squad for a new account. No one expects the OP to try to stay with one squad (either Clones or Padmé) for any long period of time.

The OP needs both of these squads (and I think the OP knows that) but one is better for getting together quickly and one is going to take longer - much longer if you're talking about an ideal Padmé squad with Threepio.

Since they're going to need both, I strongly recommend Shaak & Clones to start off, then moving to Padmé rather than starting with Padmé and losing ground while trying to get the squad together, then trying to make that ground back later.