Forum Discussion

bazza4life's avatar
10 years ago

Kylo Ren: The worst franchise character

Kylo Ren, the main protagonist of The Force Awakens and the leading villain for the current trilogy, is without a doubt the worst character in the game with respect to his notoriety and popularity in the franchise. There are many reasons why I think that he needs to be buffed...

Kylo Rens rival, Rey, is currently the strongest DPS character in the game. I am all for gender equality but Kylo is arguably as strong as Rey in TFA and surely this should be represented in SWGOH as well.

Kylo is listed as an Attacker but at max level, gear, abilities his basic can only achieve 2322-2566 damage, Lash Out 2557-2825 and Outrage 4667-5157. To give you an idea his basic is the 5th weakest in the game only surpassing B2, Barriss, RG and Gam Guard.

Lash Out is frankly useless. It does pitiful AOE damage and only provides a single turn of retribution, the only benefit to upgrading the ability is added damage which is virtually insignificant.

Outrage has potential but is not in useful in the current meta. Kylo needs to be below half health in order for it become stronger (which is effectively qtr health if you consider protection to be an extension of health). Due to his poor speed there is almost no way that he would be able to get a full power Outrage off before his demise.

Kylos kit is so deeply flawed that he's a liability to any team (including FO teams!) Kylo has been designed to take hits which in turn makes his hits stronger. Opposing teams entirely disregard him because he isn't threatening in early stages of a battle (due to lack of damage, speed and utility) and only when he is almost dead can he be relatively threatening. His ability to apply debuffs (healing immunity and DOTs) is limited due to average potency (as well as being largely irrelevent debuffs) and is severely hampered by poor tenacity.

Kylos only redeeming qualities is his large health pool and protection and his affiliation with FO which still cannot compete with many other factions in the game (Jedi, Rebels, Resistance, Droids etc).

TLDR; It's time EA put some respeck on Kylos name.

37 Replies

  • "Mesutmerised;506448" wrote:
    "7AnimalMother;506248" wrote:
    "Mesutmerised;506227" wrote:

    Fair play for the first point, but Kylo Ren is no wuss. IMO his conflicted feelings towards the good and the bad is a handicap to his true potential. Yeah he got beaten up by Rey (who is also very strong), but that's after he took a massive hit from Chewies Bowcaster. If Kylo can supress his feelings and harness the power from either light or dark he would be pretty powerful in the force. - Also let's not forget he sent LUKE SKYWALKER into retirement. : B)


    Well getting beat up by Rey isn't why he is a wuss. It's his whining and crying. Great villains don't do stuff like that. Vadar and Palpatine were both great villians.

    Best ever though - Henry Fonda as Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West


    Sick and tired of the Kylo Ren slander. Let's just overlook the complexities of his character and palm it off as being a 'wuss villain'.


    I agree 100%. I think he's one of the best villains in SW history. It would have been so disappointing if he were just another Maul or Emperor, evil character with absolutely zero depth to his personality. "I'm evil, I'm going to conquer and destroy, grrrrrr" That would have been so repetitive and boring.

    What we got instead is an emotionally unstable teenager who is probably on drugs. He has Skywalker blood and is unusually powerful in the force, but is being twisted and controlled by Snoke. I find this infinitely better than another Darth Maul.
  • "Teague;506614" wrote:

    What we got instead is an emotionally unstable teenager who is probably on drugs. He has Skywalker blood and is unusually powerful in the force, but is being twisted and controlled by Snoke. I find this infinitely better than another Darth Maul.


    Ren should be about 30.... so if he is behaving like an emotionally unstable teenager that lends credence to the "wuss" theory. ;)
  • "BradGoodyear;506627" wrote:
    "7AnimalMother;506603" wrote:
    "Mesutmerised;506448" wrote:
    "7AnimalMother;506248" wrote:
    "Mesutmerised;506227" wrote:

    Fair play for the first point, but Kylo Ren is no wuss. IMO his conflicted feelings towards the good and the bad is a handicap to his true potential. Yeah he got beaten up by Rey (who is also very strong), but that's after he took a massive hit from Chewies Bowcaster. If Kylo can supress his feelings and harness the power from either light or dark he would be pretty powerful in the force. - Also let's not forget he sent LUKE SKYWALKER into retirement. : B)


    Well getting beat up by Rey isn't why he is a wuss. It's his whining and crying. Great villains don't do stuff like that. Vadar and Palpatine were both great villians.

    Best ever though - Henry Fonda as Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West


    Sick and tired of the Kylo Ren slander. Let's just overlook the complexities of his character and palm it off as being a 'wuss villain'.


    Almost forgot, taking Rey out of the equation, FINN (a complete non-force user) basically holds his own against Kylo in a saber duel. Finn the janitor....



    Finn the highly trained first order storm trooper, against a gut-shot by a bowcaster Kylo Ren, gets sliced up the back. They spent the entire movie showing the power of the bowcaster. Most people die from that gut-shot.

    Kylo is literally critically wounded, beat's Finn, barely loses to the new chosen one.

    Kylo Ren needs a little damage boost. I have him 7* and Gear 9 and he is moderate at best, but nothing great. He only needs a moderate boost to his basic and possibly a slight speed boost. That would be adequate. His AOE hits over 2K on everyone, that's like 5 basic attacks. When it crits it can be 5K. When teamed with phasma, his AOE with Advantage always Crits for like 5K per enemy.


    Did we just become best friends? :smiley:
  • I will admit I'm probably pre-biased because I have always found Adam Driver to be annoying so that is likely coloring my perception of the character.
  • "7AnimalMother;506603" wrote:
    "Mesutmerised;506448" wrote:
    "7AnimalMother;506248" wrote:
    "Mesutmerised;506227" wrote:

    Fair play for the first point, but Kylo Ren is no wuss. IMO his conflicted feelings towards the good and the bad is a handicap to his true potential. Yeah he got beaten up by Rey (who is also very strong), but that's after he took a massive hit from Chewies Bowcaster. If Kylo can supress his feelings and harness the power from either light or dark he would be pretty powerful in the force. - Also let's not forget he sent LUKE SKYWALKER into retirement. : B)


    Well getting beat up by Rey isn't why he is a wuss. It's his whining and crying. Great villains don't do stuff like that. Vadar and Palpatine were both great villians.

    Best ever though - Henry Fonda as Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West


    Sick and tired of the Kylo Ren slander. Let's just overlook the complexities of his character and palm it off as being a 'wuss villain'.


    Almost forgot, taking Rey out of the equation, FINN (a complete non-force user) basically holds his own against Kylo in a saber duel. Finn the janitor....



    Finn did not hold his own. He was able to block a few hits and get one (tiny) hit on Kylo. The reason he was able to do this is that Kylo was toying with him and wanted to play with his food before he ate it. The hit Finn landed I blame on Kylo being injured already. If Kylo wanted he could have killed Finn immediately. Also, not that you said anything about the untrained Rey beating Kylo, the only reason Rey was able to hold her own is that Kylo has not been fully trained yet. He's not a perfect swordsman but he is insanely powerful in the force. That kinda fits with the game, he can take a beating but isn't a professional with his lightsaber yet
  • "7AnimalMother;506805" wrote:
    I will admit I'm probably pre-biased because I have always found Adam Driver to be annoying so that is likely coloring my perception of the character.


    In episode 7 driver reminds me of Raul silva from skyfall. Similar accent and facial structure I guess.
  • I have a lvl 72 gear IX 7 star Kylo, I use him in the with Phasma Lumi RG QGJ and I usually end up around 50 in the arena (in my server - top players are 79 lvl). I use him mostly because he's fun to use and not so much because I think he boosts my team. Still, even with Kylo I think I could get even higher if I bothered to refresh the attempts; and I mostly lose because of lack of gear/level in my team rather than due to lack of a good combo. I've beat up many ray-gs-rg-dooku teams with not much difficulty, and without dropping more than 15-20 positions overnight in the ladder.


    Kylo doesn't seem to have enough potential to take you to the top 10 (or even top 20) nor did he meet the expectations I had from him, mainly because of his basic's damage which is underwhelming. His retribution is only useful for applying random healing immunities, and he is slow.

    But still, he is strong: his outrage deals sick damage even without crit + usually calls a phasma assist + refreshes often enough that I use it on average 3 times in an arena battle, and often I end up using it more times than his basic (depends on how many times the AI will hit him). In the rare occasion where he has QGJ's offense buff + Phasma advantage + he has less than 50 % health, outrage means one hit KO. I also find his healing debuff very useful, at least in my server which is dominated by healers until the top 20, and it definitely applies more often than sidious's because of his potency. His lifebar is HUGE, and he is very versatile, mostly because there are many different scenarios in which his skills can be used.

    Added to that, he is fairly easy to gear up, and VERY easy to farm by spamming the cantina battles (and using some crystals to refresh the energy).

    Overall, Kylo is good in many things, he excels almost at nothing. Doesn't really add in a PvP squad but he is not a liability either unless you want to go for the very top. Surely you can substitute him for a more synergistic toon; as I said I mostly keep him for the fun and his cool sword. In any case, I don't want to judge the toons based on their potential to take you to the very top, otherwise we could narrow it down to 10-12 toons and throw all the rest in the trash.

About SWGOH Strategy & Tips

Share guides, tips, and tricks for Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, discuss Arena strats, and help new players get started.22,838 PostsLatest Activity: 10 months ago