Dooku and Barriss endgame? Viability?

"djlott;11463" wrote:
Too bad this is my first post but what I have to say about Dooku is f*** him. I'm level 40 and seem to be the only player left in the universe that doesn't have him. So I get to watch him single-handedly dismantle my entire team by 1) Always going first with a f***ing lightning strike to my Jedi Consular (usually stuns), then 100% counter attack with additional bonus attacks on the f***ing counters, and then just his normal turn which also features bonus attacks! I swear sometimes I watch him go 3 to 4 times in a row.

I honestly don't mind losing and I've had my share of losses. But it's sort of ridiculous how much damage he does alone with a 40% higher attack rate then the rest of the team.

Yes rant reply here. I know, I need better toons, higher levels, more gear, etc. I'm fully geared to level 5 and promoted Chewey and Talia up 1 star. F2P so far following WhipIT's (and other's) advice on leveling and gearing. I feel like I'm doing well and have a solid team but damn if Dooku doesn't sh*t on me every time. I guess I wouldn't be so crossed about it if everyone didn't somehow already have him.

This exact thing just happened to me although Ive known how OP this character is I didnt know he would be there.my Jedi consular was stunned the entire match until his death he got 2 pre-emptive strikes on my underwolrd policeman to bring him to yellow and I think that was before I could get a strike on anybody. Then chewie taunts and nobody gets a chance to try to take him out. Unreal, and if that wasn't bad enough they only offered him for sale for a very short time, I'm guessing legal told the store manager to pull him hes too OP? not to mention this dooku is one level behind all of my characters. I know they are working on a nerf but I can relate to your frustration, this is amateur balancing at best. They have the most experience in play for free games but they refuse to learn anything from the past.

Anything with anti-Jedi skills will be viable long-term, like Dooku. Droids would be another group - HK for example. You also have to take in to account if you're talking about Dooku in a D slot or Dooku being used by a human not playing on auto. Sure Dooku has lower health, but the enemy AI really doesn't try to expose that. So many are running Jedi now - and I can't ever see this SW game not featuring Jedi prominently as we have no shortage of more strong Jedi yet to be released - Dooku is a great tool. He leads off matches with a high stun chance vs. Jedi - great tactical tool to use vs. Jedi. His ability block / stun chance on basic vs Jedi is valuable too when trying to prevent all the great Jedi specials from firing while you damage down a target...Ben, Barriss, Lumi, etc. with their specials.

Also, on him being a slow farm - maybe compared to Lumi yes, but tomorrow will be 3 weeks of playing for me. I have Dooku for example at 40/65 to 5*. So I've farmed 70 Dooku Shards in 3 weeks. He needs 110 more shards to get to 6* for example - that's a little less than 5 weeks form now and he will be 6* - should be 5* in a week or so. I don't think that's so bad.

Want to make a comment on "end game" as well....really no one knows the end game because we are capped at 60 currently, but we won't be indefinitely. Levels are capped, but more importantly specials, gears, and leader abilities are currently blocked as well with the level cap. Let's take Darth Maul as an example. His Dancing Shadows leader provides him with evade and turn meter - his two big weaknesses are health and slow speed. Well as his evade % and meter % from evading scales up, this will help address his two biggest holes as a toon. Those are all blocked though due to 60 cap. So no one for sure knows how Maul plays out when he's fully built. While you could say, well everyone else will be built too so it evens out...that's not necessarily the case. Maul's leader skill specifically covers up a weakness of his - health / speed. Other leader skills do not really cover up a weakness. Barriss for example just has a leader that gets more and more tanky. As her leader scales up, you just get more and more health / tankiness; her skill just accentuates her current strengths. If as it scaled she gained damage that'd be filling a weakness like Maul. Maybe the scale on Maul ends up not being good enough to overcome his deficiencies, but you can't know for sure. This doesn't even take in to account new toons released over time and how that can shift meta.

Lastly - just play the game more before you say anything is OP. I'd say Old Ben is way more tactically challenging than Dooku by a mile - at first I just couldn't see how he could be countered and thought he was OP, but after fighting him so much he's now pretty manageable once you build teams that can counter him and his healing Jedi units. You start to build a pattern and understand when to fire a special, timing to pull an ability block, when to attack and damage down a specific unit. Takes time to learn nuances of a battle and certain opponents. When their specials fire, etc. We are only 3 weeks in - wait to judge units until you have a good chunk of the roster to work with. Nerfing Dooku would be silly because he's not even close to the toughest toon to manage. I'd say even like HK47 is tougher to handle for me than Dooku. His aoe special just splatters all over my Jedi team and I'm dealing with ability block, damage down, and speed down...and he has a cooldown of just 2 on that move :) Can seriously weaken my entire team. Dooku just hits one toon mostly.

Dooku becomes nich at higher levels. A component of your larger team. At lower levels, he just all out beast, and you have a hard time seeing his nich. I find they value of Dooku has become his speed and his stun, and i dont think much of his counter attack at all any more. When i pull Dooku from the bench, its because i need to be the first one to act at the start of a fight, and i need to be able to stun. When this is the case, i swap in Dooku. He is no longer a staple for me as he was at level 10 through 50. I keep him leveled and geared though, and once per day i sim his 2 nodes.

"Pilot;11709" wrote:
Dooku becomes nich at higher levels. A component of your larger team. At lower levels, he just all out beast, and you have a hard time seeing his nich. I find they value of Dooku has become his speed and his stun, and i dont think much of his counter attack at all any more. When i pull Dooku from the bench, its because i need to be the first one to act at the start of a fight, and i need to be able to stun. When this is the case, i swap in Dooku. He is no longer a staple for me as he was at level 10 through 50. I keep him leveled and geared though, and once per day i sim his 2 nodes.

I think this is very good assessment. I still haven't pulled him from my team yet as there are so many Jedi squads on the server (I think we're on the same server). If I was bothering to switch offense / defense I supposed I would re-fight and remove him from my team for a better defensive toon - I know at the upper brackets he's a liability in the D slot. AI doesn't use him smartly and the human attacker knows how to easily approach him.

Wow thanks for all the answers everyone!
Like FashionFett I do love both Barriss and Dooku (waiting for General Grevious) and don't really want'a waste the $60 we spent to get these awesome units. I'll try and level them till the end as see what happens. JSA, great to see you here! I am so happy and thankful to see your insights on builds.
Keaven, do you think that the AI on defense for Asajj currently works better than Barriss for you? And in PVP is it ok to have Lumi as your only healer you if you are dropping Barriss from your NS team (as Talia really does't AI heal well).

Again thanks for all the answers everyone, esp. to those I didn't mention above -- your answers really do help me out a lot!
Much Appreciated.
God bless ya'll

My goodness Keaven, all 7 equipments, do you have a way to farm equipment that I am sadly missing??

I'm sitting at level 49 with level 6 equips, but I can't imagine getting 7 with some parts costing over 20 pieces each, then six per unit, and some only drop 1-3 a refill.

Are there better nodes/drop rates to farm equipment at higher levels on the maps?

Thanks again for all your answers everyone

Smiles n God bless!