Need Advice: Imperial Squad for GAC

Shoretrooper is fairly dated nowadays. One of those units who's never bad, but not really worth it anymore. Ends up displaced from both troopers and Palpateams. And in most cases Stormtrooper is the better tank despite the pretaunt.

Pretaunt isn't especially valuable to Empire as a faction because you have two main Empire teams. Palpateams almost always have Vader go first due to his unique, then Force Crush/Culling blade to feed TM to the rest of the team. Pretaunt doesn't help much. Troopers rely on modding Starck to be faster than the enemy party, then using Starck and Range to buff and give TM to the other troopers to land a kill early and steamroll. Shore doesn't contribute to that win condition. Stormtrooper isn't ideal for either team, but will have time to put up taunt in either case and drains TM when hit to help you keep momentum.

For a Palpateam? Your lineup is fine for the point in the game you're at. A tank wouldn't improve your situation much. Your next step is to get out of Palpatine and run a different arena team. Bastila is a good next step, or JKR if you can get them before your Bastila team is arena ready.

Longer-term for a Palpateam, you're looking at Palpatine, Vader, Tarkin, TIE Fighter Pilot, and Imperial Probe Droid. Specifically, this lineup is good for taking out Padme teams. Vader lets you outspeed and land/clear a bunch of debuffs, kickstarting your team. zIPD and TFP both give you sources of buff block, with IPD clearing buffs at the same time. No out of turn attacks that would trigger locked protection up. All in all, it's the highest-value team you're reasonably going to get a Palpatine team to take down. The main tweak you can make is replacing TFP and Tarkin with Deathtrooper and Krennic, but Krennic really isn't worth it these days and you'd be pulling Deathtrooper from Troopers.

The other Empire team you can field in parallel is troopers. Right now the ideal lineup there is usually Veers, Starck, Rangetrooper, Snowtrooper, Deathtrooper. If you're running Deathtrooper with Palp, sub in high gear Magmatrooper (he takes high gear to get his damage up and really come online) or Stormtrooper. You need Starck faster than the enemy, Rangetrooper at least 80% as fast as Starck, and the rest at least 60% as fast as Starck, modded for high damage output. Starck buffs, Range buffs, then you have three turns to land a kill and initiate trooper roll. As long as Starck goes first and you have enough damage, there isn't a whole lot bar major meta teams or beefy pretaunts that this lineup can't kill.

The third Empire team you can field and get use from is niche. You need a high-gear Magmatrooper modded for potency, tenacity, and damage. Run under a fast Thrawn lead. The rest is more or less arbitrary. This is specifically to counter zSion, usually seen under Traya. Every turn Magmatrooper damages Sion, he gains 70% TM from his unique and another 20% from Thrawn lead, and he has an AoE that can drain TM from the entire enemy team. Loop to death and glory.

Use them on offense. They work well vs BH and FO, and a few others.

AI plays Thrawn terribly and is almost wasted on defense.

Use them on offense instead.

Bastila is a very hard counter to Palpatine and Bastila tends to be a pretty early farm for most people. This makes Palpatine teams a lot less useful on defense. So something to try is either stacking it behind another team they may want to use Bastila on.

But another way to play it is to move that team to offense and move a different team to defense. The Big Papa Palpatine turn meter train still has plenty of matchups it can beat.

Hey,
thanks for the advice.
The problem is that I don’t know what to set as defense then.
Regards.

Whoa on the wall of text above. Imp Troopers stink on defense. An EP team eats them alive. My zFinn team does too.

That said even though technically wrong Empire =/= Imp

Empire pretty much always equals a Palp led team. Imp has a fee options actually and many are good on offense. Lots of synergy no matter what.

A 5th to Empire is RG or TFP. Go RG for EP ship and a tank that heals your team. As a tank RG is wayyyyyyy bettet than ST if you focus on health.

Took a look at your roster. I think you should just focus on offense, don't worry about defense. I would put your Bossk BHs and your Jedi with both Bens on the same square and try to lock your opponent out of one side. Don't worry about the other half of the board, just get more points on your attacks.

"JoPrime;d-216203" wrote:
Greetings,
as I am recognizing that my Imperial Squad in GAC gets defeated very easily I am trying to improve them.

My current Squad: zzPalp., zVader, zThrawn, Tarkin and TFP.

I am considering to gear my Royal Guard or stormtrooper as tank.

As I have read multiple posts (from 2017/2018) most people are advising to use the ST and then the Shore Trooper asap. My Shore Trooper is at 4* and I have no interest in farming him as there are a lot more useful characters to farm first,

I am thankful for any advice.

Regards.

If you want to keep on with the idea of getting a new tank for the team, then use Sion as tank and remove Tarkin.

You don't need IPD to beat Padme teams, can be done with Sion

Hey @YaeVizsla ,
thanks for this detailed answer. I appreciate it a lot.
I don’t have the resources to farm imperial troopers right now. Even if not building a Trooper-Squad, shall I get the Magma Trooper though?
By the way, I am not running this team as my PvP-Arena Team. Thanks again.

Hey @Mephisto_style ,
ok, that sounds plausible. Thanks.

Hey @CCyrilS ,
there you are right, but then I am missing a slot for defense. Thrawn is the only darksider I use in my arena team, because even without synergy he is still one of the most useful characters. But my Imperial Squad lacks at many points. I have the 3 basics (Palp.,Vader, Thrawn) but I am still missing a tank, even for offense. And they are not wealth to farm right now (Sion perhaps, but there are others I need more) therefore I try to get the best out of my current 7* chars.

Hey @TarlaBille ,
thanks for the advice. Is the character in Slot A always the leader? I am about to get JTR next week when she comes around, therefore I would take R2 in her squad (I don’t have that many resistance chars ?). Thanks again.

Hey @Juzz ,
Sion would be a good addition, but I am only missing about 20 splits for Traya and therefore would use him there.

Thanks for the advice.
Regards.

"JoPrime;c-1986984" wrote:
Hey YaeVizsla ,
thanks for this detailed answer. I appreciate it a lot.
I don’t have the resources to farm imperial troopers right now. Even if not building a Trooper-Squad, shall I get the Magma Trooper though?
By the way, I am not running this team as my PvP-Arena Team. Thanks again.

Get shards? Yes, once you have more important units and ships from GW taken care of.

Build up? Probably not. Magmatrooper doesn't really come online until high gear, and is one of the game's harder gears. He needs a lot of stun cuffs that you'll want for other units.