Colred's NEW Galactic War Strategy Guide
Greetings! Some of you may remember my previous guide to Galactic War. Since then, the devs have made enough changes to GW to require a new approach, and a new guide. For those of you who are interested, you can find my old guide here.
As with my first guide, this new guide is intended to help players who may be struggling with their Galactic War campaigns, and the changes to GW have made the obstacles considerable. This guide includes a short discussion on theory and an in-depth explanation of our strategy, with some few suggestions for squad composition. As always, I'm happy to admit that my approach is not the only way to be successful. However, after a few days of tweaking my squads, I've once again found a highly successful method for completing GW. I hope some of you may also find it useful.
The OLD theory:
There were two main strategies to conquering the old GW: build one squad with excellent survival skills that could complete the entire campaign (sustain method) or build a huge roster of toons and win by constantly rotating in new heroes to replace the fallen (attrition method). In addition, “suicide” squads could be used to soften up tough enemy nodes before sending in your main squad.
With the changes to GW, it's almost impossible to build a squad that can survive the whole campaign intact. Likewise, you would need a massive roster in order to successfully use the attrition method (although this can work). However, a combination of these strategies has proven effective for me.
Here's the NEW plan:
We need an A-squad, a B-squad, and a C-squad. Your A-squad and B-squad will have some overlap, as you customize for the last two nodes. While having a solid, sustain C-squad is best, the job of the C-squad can be accomplished by the attrition method if necessary.
The campaign is laid out the same way every time. Each purple node hosts a stronger enemy squad than the rest, while the difficulty generally increases as you progress. That means nodes 3, 6, 9, and 12 will have tougher squads. In addition, I've found that node 11 is usually the second toughest fight.
Our plan is to keep ALL of our heroes alive until node 12, if possible. Then we'll use the attrition method on the final fight.
PHASE ONE: C-SQUAD
Your C-squad should, hopefully, get through the first 8 nodes entirely intact. To do this, we need a decent tank, some solid sustain, and some utility. Do NOT use your top-tier toons here, but don't hesitate to mix in some good second-tier heroes.
My current C-Squad is:
Tank: Chewbacca (leader)
Healer (1): Jedi Consular, Old Daka
DPS (2): Asokha Tano, Cad Bane, Darth Sideous
Utility: Admiral Ackbar.
Chewie and JC are my best-geared toons here. This squad has excellent sustain, good utility, some cc, and nice dps. There are plenty of heroes that can work in your C-squad, but remember that you want to keep EVERYONE alive through those first 8 nodes.
PHASE TWO: SUBSTITUTION TIME
This phase of the plan will take some practice. At some point, usually node 9 for me, our C-Squad will no longer be able to conquer nodes without losing a hero. Since we don't want that, it's time to retreat and make some substitutions. However, we want to be smart about our subs. Since the game-state of each hero is saved from node to node, shields become an irreplaceable resource. Health can be restored by healers, but once shields are depleted, they are gone for good. That means we want to swap in our B-Squad heroes as sparingly as possible during nodes 9, 10, and 11 so that we can save as many fresh shields as possible for the last battle.
Our priorities for this phase are (in order):
1 - keep everyone alive.
2 - our end-state should leave all heroes at, or near, full health with all skills off cooldown.
3 - use up as few new shields as possible.
4 - don't dip into your A-squad roster if you can help it.
What that means is that we WILL dip into our A-squad roster if it helps us maintain the greatest number of clean shields. We WILL use up new shields if allows us to finish battles at high health with good cds. We WILL accept a sub-optimal end-state if that's the only way to keep EVERYONE alive. We WILL sacrifice a hero if that's the ONLY way to progress, though we will try to sacrifice the least important hero we can.
PHASE THREE: THE FINAL BATTLE
If we've done our job right, we've gotten to node 12 with our entire roster intact. Our A-squad should have most of its shields left, our B-Squad might have a few shields as well, but our C-squad will have no shields. At this point, we want to examine the enemy squad closely. You may even want to run a trial battle with your A-squad to get a feel for what you're up against. WARNING: these final battles are EXTREMELY tough, so be prepared to retreat multiple times. Don't accidentally lose this fight and mess up the plan.
We're going to fight the final battle in multiple stages. First, we're going to finalize our A-squad. All of our non-A-Squad heroes will then compose a giant roster of toons we're going to throw at the last squad in order to weaken them enough for our A-Squad to defeat. So, decide on what kind of squad you need: sustain, nuke, buff-removal, anti-jedi, anti-droid, and cc are typical squad types. You can also mix those as needed.
Here's my roster of A-Squad toons:
Tank: Royal Guard
Healers (1 or 2): Luminara, Bariss
DPS (1 or 2): Count Dooku, Savage Oppress
Utility (0, 1, or 2): Captain Phasma, Master Yoda
RG, QGJ, and Luminara are almost 100% locks for my A-Squad. The others get swapped in as needed. Your choice of leadership skill is very important. I most commonly use Phasma, but mix in QGJ or Yoda for Jedi squads, or Barriss for the most sustain. There are plenty of other good heroes I might use if they were geared up, such as Rey, Teebo, Old Ben, etc.
Once we've determined our likely A-squad, we fight the final battle in stages.
Stage 1: C-Squad and lower
Chances are, you won't even be able to kill a single enemy hero with your C-squad. So, your goal becomes simply weakening the enemy as much as possible. I've found a good C-squad will be able to remove 100% of the shield of ONE enemy hero, so choose your target wisely.
Stage 2: B-Squad
This is where the fight is really made. You may need several attempts with your B-Squad to accomplish the necessary goal: Kill ONE hero. If you can do that, and you've built your A-Squad properly, you have an excellent chance of completing your Galactic War.
Stage 3: A-Squad
Finish off the enemy. Remember, you only need to have one surviving hero in order to win you GW, but be careful you don't accidentally get killed off. Your roster of heroes is basically gone, so if you don't win with your A-squad, you're probably going to fail.
Well, those are the main aspects of my method for a successful Galactic War campaign. Below are some addition tactical and miscellaneous tips that you may find useful as well.
There are 5 keys to good Galactic War tactics:
1. Often, a battle is won or lost based on the choice of first target. Remember, you want to keep ALL your heroes alive. Prioritize anti-healers, assist-callers, or nukers first. Then aoe dps, then tanks, and healers last.
2. Use your cc's and active abilities to secure kills quickly or to protect your squad. If there are 2 dangerous dps, cc one while you focus fire the other. Ability block or stun enemy healers to secure kills on low health targets. Remove enemy taunts to get to squishies more easily. Don't hesitate to use your finishers to secure kills.
3. Use your heals effectively. Don't waste them, but also don't hold them in reserve too long. The most important part of this strategy is keeping people alive. If you have healing trouble, add another healer. Speed is less important than survival.
4. Learn what all the heroes do, and which ones cause your squad trouble and why. It will help you choose your line-up more effectively, as well as improve your target priority.
5. Once you're in control of a battle, start thinking about the NEXT battle. Don't waste cooldowns you don't need, especially cc's and finishers. Heal up a few rounds before the end, so you can start the next fight in good health, but also with your heal off cooldown or close to it. You want your squad to be as strong as possible to start each battle.
Here are some general tips:
1. Using the auto-combat option has become extremely risky since the changes to GW. I recommend you do NOT use auto-combat AT ALL until you've employed this method successfully several times. Even then, I'd use it carefully.
2. Be flexible, and be patient. There's no time limit in GW battles, and you're allowed unlimited retreats. If you're having trouble with a battle, retreat and try again. One adjustment to try - change your first target. A different kill order may make things easier.
3. Redoing a tough battle 5 or even 10 times to get it right is usually a better idea than sacrificing a hero just to get it over with.
4. Remember that my “A, B, C” designations are just for convenience. Mix your roster in whatever way is most effective for the opponents you face. Just remember that you're trying to get to the final battle with as many toons, with the healthiest shields, as you can.
5. The node 11 battle is often critical. If you have enough heroes, it's an okay idea to use a suicide D-squad to keep your C-Squad intact for node 12.
6. Always hit “restart” as soon as you finish a campaign. GW rewards are phenomenally good. Don't miss a restart by accident.
7. All of this information is just a starting point. Don't take it as gospel. Experiment with squad compositions and tactics and find what works best for you. Ultimately, try to have fun with it.
That's everything. I hope you found some useful information. Good luck in game!
As with my first guide, this new guide is intended to help players who may be struggling with their Galactic War campaigns, and the changes to GW have made the obstacles considerable. This guide includes a short discussion on theory and an in-depth explanation of our strategy, with some few suggestions for squad composition. As always, I'm happy to admit that my approach is not the only way to be successful. However, after a few days of tweaking my squads, I've once again found a highly successful method for completing GW. I hope some of you may also find it useful.
The OLD theory:
There were two main strategies to conquering the old GW: build one squad with excellent survival skills that could complete the entire campaign (sustain method) or build a huge roster of toons and win by constantly rotating in new heroes to replace the fallen (attrition method). In addition, “suicide” squads could be used to soften up tough enemy nodes before sending in your main squad.
With the changes to GW, it's almost impossible to build a squad that can survive the whole campaign intact. Likewise, you would need a massive roster in order to successfully use the attrition method (although this can work). However, a combination of these strategies has proven effective for me.
Here's the NEW plan:
We need an A-squad, a B-squad, and a C-squad. Your A-squad and B-squad will have some overlap, as you customize for the last two nodes. While having a solid, sustain C-squad is best, the job of the C-squad can be accomplished by the attrition method if necessary.
The campaign is laid out the same way every time. Each purple node hosts a stronger enemy squad than the rest, while the difficulty generally increases as you progress. That means nodes 3, 6, 9, and 12 will have tougher squads. In addition, I've found that node 11 is usually the second toughest fight.
Our plan is to keep ALL of our heroes alive until node 12, if possible. Then we'll use the attrition method on the final fight.
PHASE ONE: C-SQUAD
Your C-squad should, hopefully, get through the first 8 nodes entirely intact. To do this, we need a decent tank, some solid sustain, and some utility. Do NOT use your top-tier toons here, but don't hesitate to mix in some good second-tier heroes.
My current C-Squad is:
Tank: Chewbacca (leader)
Healer (1): Jedi Consular, Old Daka
DPS (2): Asokha Tano, Cad Bane, Darth Sideous
Utility: Admiral Ackbar.
Chewie and JC are my best-geared toons here. This squad has excellent sustain, good utility, some cc, and nice dps. There are plenty of heroes that can work in your C-squad, but remember that you want to keep EVERYONE alive through those first 8 nodes.
PHASE TWO: SUBSTITUTION TIME
This phase of the plan will take some practice. At some point, usually node 9 for me, our C-Squad will no longer be able to conquer nodes without losing a hero. Since we don't want that, it's time to retreat and make some substitutions. However, we want to be smart about our subs. Since the game-state of each hero is saved from node to node, shields become an irreplaceable resource. Health can be restored by healers, but once shields are depleted, they are gone for good. That means we want to swap in our B-Squad heroes as sparingly as possible during nodes 9, 10, and 11 so that we can save as many fresh shields as possible for the last battle.
Our priorities for this phase are (in order):
1 - keep everyone alive.
2 - our end-state should leave all heroes at, or near, full health with all skills off cooldown.
3 - use up as few new shields as possible.
4 - don't dip into your A-squad roster if you can help it.
What that means is that we WILL dip into our A-squad roster if it helps us maintain the greatest number of clean shields. We WILL use up new shields if allows us to finish battles at high health with good cds. We WILL accept a sub-optimal end-state if that's the only way to keep EVERYONE alive. We WILL sacrifice a hero if that's the ONLY way to progress, though we will try to sacrifice the least important hero we can.
PHASE THREE: THE FINAL BATTLE
If we've done our job right, we've gotten to node 12 with our entire roster intact. Our A-squad should have most of its shields left, our B-Squad might have a few shields as well, but our C-squad will have no shields. At this point, we want to examine the enemy squad closely. You may even want to run a trial battle with your A-squad to get a feel for what you're up against. WARNING: these final battles are EXTREMELY tough, so be prepared to retreat multiple times. Don't accidentally lose this fight and mess up the plan.
We're going to fight the final battle in multiple stages. First, we're going to finalize our A-squad. All of our non-A-Squad heroes will then compose a giant roster of toons we're going to throw at the last squad in order to weaken them enough for our A-Squad to defeat. So, decide on what kind of squad you need: sustain, nuke, buff-removal, anti-jedi, anti-droid, and cc are typical squad types. You can also mix those as needed.
Here's my roster of A-Squad toons:
Tank: Royal Guard
Healers (1 or 2): Luminara, Bariss
DPS (1 or 2): Count Dooku, Savage Oppress
Utility (0, 1, or 2): Captain Phasma, Master Yoda
RG, QGJ, and Luminara are almost 100% locks for my A-Squad. The others get swapped in as needed. Your choice of leadership skill is very important. I most commonly use Phasma, but mix in QGJ or Yoda for Jedi squads, or Barriss for the most sustain. There are plenty of other good heroes I might use if they were geared up, such as Rey, Teebo, Old Ben, etc.
Once we've determined our likely A-squad, we fight the final battle in stages.
Stage 1: C-Squad and lower
Chances are, you won't even be able to kill a single enemy hero with your C-squad. So, your goal becomes simply weakening the enemy as much as possible. I've found a good C-squad will be able to remove 100% of the shield of ONE enemy hero, so choose your target wisely.
Stage 2: B-Squad
This is where the fight is really made. You may need several attempts with your B-Squad to accomplish the necessary goal: Kill ONE hero. If you can do that, and you've built your A-Squad properly, you have an excellent chance of completing your Galactic War.
Stage 3: A-Squad
Finish off the enemy. Remember, you only need to have one surviving hero in order to win you GW, but be careful you don't accidentally get killed off. Your roster of heroes is basically gone, so if you don't win with your A-squad, you're probably going to fail.
Well, those are the main aspects of my method for a successful Galactic War campaign. Below are some addition tactical and miscellaneous tips that you may find useful as well.
There are 5 keys to good Galactic War tactics:
1. Often, a battle is won or lost based on the choice of first target. Remember, you want to keep ALL your heroes alive. Prioritize anti-healers, assist-callers, or nukers first. Then aoe dps, then tanks, and healers last.
2. Use your cc's and active abilities to secure kills quickly or to protect your squad. If there are 2 dangerous dps, cc one while you focus fire the other. Ability block or stun enemy healers to secure kills on low health targets. Remove enemy taunts to get to squishies more easily. Don't hesitate to use your finishers to secure kills.
3. Use your heals effectively. Don't waste them, but also don't hold them in reserve too long. The most important part of this strategy is keeping people alive. If you have healing trouble, add another healer. Speed is less important than survival.
4. Learn what all the heroes do, and which ones cause your squad trouble and why. It will help you choose your line-up more effectively, as well as improve your target priority.
5. Once you're in control of a battle, start thinking about the NEXT battle. Don't waste cooldowns you don't need, especially cc's and finishers. Heal up a few rounds before the end, so you can start the next fight in good health, but also with your heal off cooldown or close to it. You want your squad to be as strong as possible to start each battle.
Here are some general tips:
1. Using the auto-combat option has become extremely risky since the changes to GW. I recommend you do NOT use auto-combat AT ALL until you've employed this method successfully several times. Even then, I'd use it carefully.
2. Be flexible, and be patient. There's no time limit in GW battles, and you're allowed unlimited retreats. If you're having trouble with a battle, retreat and try again. One adjustment to try - change your first target. A different kill order may make things easier.
3. Redoing a tough battle 5 or even 10 times to get it right is usually a better idea than sacrificing a hero just to get it over with.
4. Remember that my “A, B, C” designations are just for convenience. Mix your roster in whatever way is most effective for the opponents you face. Just remember that you're trying to get to the final battle with as many toons, with the healthiest shields, as you can.
5. The node 11 battle is often critical. If you have enough heroes, it's an okay idea to use a suicide D-squad to keep your C-Squad intact for node 12.
6. Always hit “restart” as soon as you finish a campaign. GW rewards are phenomenally good. Don't miss a restart by accident.
7. All of this information is just a starting point. Don't take it as gospel. Experiment with squad compositions and tactics and find what works best for you. Ultimately, try to have fun with it.
That's everything. I hope you found some useful information. Good luck in game!
