Hi, I thought I would share with you my experience. I have been running Padme for a month now in arena, and I'm starting to really succeed with her. I've been in top 10 for 5 days, and finished 1st 2 times B)
I started playing this game a bit more than 1 year ago, so the top 50 of my shard is almost full of G13 Darth Revan with many Malaks (and a few Padme hehe).
I run Padme, JKA, GK (all three are G13), GMY G12 (but soon G13) and Ahsoka G12. I recently put R2-D2 instead of Ahsoka, I'll explain later why. Also, I know that C3PO as 5th seems really nice, but I don't have him so I've never had the chance to test it.
I did a lost of tests and changes in the way I modded them. As other people told you, giving them a lot of health is really the core of the strategy for this team, it makes them very durable. BUT the problem with this is that if they are too slow, a fast DR team will take too many turn and you won't be able to control the fight, which leads to very quick defeats (less than 30 seconds sometimes :# ).
Moreover, against G13 Malaks (normally at the end of a "normal" fight you have 3, 4 or 5 toons left against Malak), if you are too slow and too weak, he will crush you.
I split my advices in 3 parts, first the gear and modding, then the zetas, and finally the overall strategies.
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Gear and mods
- some G13 are mandatory if you want to compete with other G13 teams, of course. For the order I'd say to G13 JKA and Padme first (the core of the team), then GK (he takes a lot of punches), then the other.
- I'd say that everybody should be at least around 250 speed, I like to have a faster Padme as she gives a bit of control (with the cleansing and the stunning kick), so mine is around 290. You don't need to make her too fast though, I tried a 320+ speed Padme and it didn't bring any real advantage, and surprisingly I fell lower in defense.
- Anakin has to hit hard and also to land his debuffs (mandatory to beat a G13 Malak), so Attack and Power have to be a secondary focus for him.
You can check at how I modded my team here https://swgoh.gg/p/289935152 if you're interested in it.
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Zetas
Some are absolutely vital, and other are quite important but it depends against which opponent.
The vital ones
=> Padme's lead will protect your team
=> JKA because you need Padme to have this bonus turn too (cf the strategy I explain after)
=> GK Soresu as he needs to take all the punches so the other can keep their protection up
For JKR
=> Ahsoka's unique to assist a lot and dispel buffs
=> Padme's unique to get the 40% prot up a lot as JKR teams do a lot of attacks out of turn
For DR/Malak
=> GMY's Grand master guidance, for the tenacity up AND the foresight that becomes useful when facing Malak alone
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You have to know that gearing and modding is not enough, there is a lot of training to do to understand the strategy and how to beat the two "Meta" teams.
For JKR, I really struggled at first, but now they are a piece of cake. For them you should use Ahsoka as 5th. If you modded with enough health, then with all the attacks out turn you get a lot of prot up, so they can't really scratch you characters. Ahsoka's basic dispels buff even if the opponent as foresight!
So you just take some punches, and stack some courage. As each 5 stacks of courage inflicts 40% of max health, the crit protection and strong defense of Jolee becomes obsolete here, you can kill him pretty easily.
As I highlighted above, a really slow Padme would be a bit of a problem here, as JKR teams takes a lot of turns. That' one of the reason why you want your toons to be a bit fast so they can attack sometimes :D
For Darth Revan, the strategy is to be destroyed in the beginning, they rise up like the Phoenix :D
How the fight will normally go is that DR will put fear on everybody but Padme, Badstila will put a lot of debuffs, then all goes south. BUT as soon as one of your toon's HP get under 50%, JKA will take his bonus turn, then Padme and here you use the cleanse. I know it's tempting to use it before, but you should wait for this moment to use it, as you will get way more protection up this way.
After that, just wait for the taunts to disappear (as soon as Malak attacks, he losts his taunt), and you have to focus on Basti and HK and kill them asap. With all the stacks it's quite easy. The main problem you may have is if you keep putting critical on Malak as he will constantly taunt and courage doesn't do anything on him.
That's why I told you Ahsoka is a bit useless in this fight in my opinion, she just brings more chances to crit.
Then it's not over, when trying to kill DR, he will suck health from other toons, including Malak. You really have to understand how Malak's unique works, he will sucks 100% of your max health with it and can quickly decimate your whole team. This is the part of the fight that needs some training to really manage to get through. Especially against G13 Malak which is REALLY resistant.
Once DR is dead, it's you against Malak. Ideally, you want to have Padme, JKA and GMY here. If JKA or Padme are dead, it's almost impossible to kill him. JKA has to put healing immunity with his basic to avoid Malak sucking your health. GMY spread offensive buffs and foresight. Padme cleanse and stuns. It can take more than 1 minute for the 3 of them to get him, and you have to be smart to trigger his health sucking when your toons have prot up so that he doesn't kill them.
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Here is all the experience I've gathered with this team, don't hesitate if you have any question, and good luck!!
