Slow Dancing with Poe and his DPS Minions; Countering Poe at 143 Speed

"JohnnySteelAlpha;78006" wrote:

Let's make sure we're not losing sight of the forest for the trees here. The big takeaway here isn't "x build and x toons" beat "x speed team." The big revelation here - and this SHOULD change people's views on the game and balance in general - is that you CAN tank vs. this DPS squad and make it a turn based game. The game DOES have much more balance than everyone (including me even) realized. In fact - the game actually looks to be pretty well balanced when you're fighting on the extremes.

Yes, I understand that this is your "big revelation". But while I appreciate the research, I don't agree with your conclusions.
Of course if you specifically tailor team A to beat team B, and you have access to everything maxed out, you will be able to find a combination that works. But the fact that this much tailoring is required pretty much proves the point that the Poe / massive damage teams are overpowered.
While your setup may work, there are many other team concepts that get completely obliterated by these teams, often without even getting a turn. There is very little build diversity, and that is the real issue, not a complete inability to beat Poe.
How would a defense-based team do? Destroyed.
Healer-based? Destroyed.
Nightsisters? Destroyed.
Counter-attacker team? Destroyed.
Stun-based team? Destroyed unless they get very lucky.
Traditional droid team not using Poe? Not sure, but I'd imagine they'd have a hard time.
Furthermore, I think your team construction is somewhat artificial here because you are deliberately not using Poe. If you sub him in for someone else here, I think the team works even better, and if your Poe goes first you don't have a chance to win -- you win. We are still back where we were, with everyone having a good reason to run Poe except for very specialized teams.

"JohnnySteelAlpha;78006" wrote:

If everyone is being open to new information and not stuck on their prior arguments and beliefs - than this should open people's eyes to other possibilities and approaches. You can hit this team back - even with Poe you do have a turn meter based game - now the challenge is what can you put together to hit them back effectively.

Of course you can hit it back. That's not really the point. If you have to design a team specifically to beat another team, then that itself indicative of a problem. There should be a diverse array of teams, not just "Poe+DPS" and "attempts to beat Poe+DPS".
This isn't about me not being open to new information. I'm a scientist/technologist and I am happy to evaluate new information and admit when I am wrong. I just don't happen to agree with you here.

"JohnnySteelAlpha;78006" wrote:

Further...this is JUST like the first initial attempt here. Poe has only been turn 1 for what, less than 2 weeks? This isn't done.

True, it isn't. But only whales have the diversity of characters already sitting around to try these different combinations. 99% of players do not, and it would actually be foolish for them to attempt this when a major update is around the corner. This is not to diminish your contribution here, which is very useful and interesting. It just doesn't really apply to most people.
Which is easier for a typical F2P or light P2P: sticking Poe on their team and becoming "part of the problem" or trying to find a replacement for Old Ben (who really HAS no replacement)?
There are countermeasures for Poe, but the best one for most players is: use Poe yourself. That is the problem with Poe.

"JohnnySteelAlpha;78006" wrote:

What I think happened here is that mostly people had built toons and teams around moderate to low health heroes such that rosters weren't equipped to challenge this meta well.

Why should it be necessary to stack my team with tanks and AoEs? What if I want to build a different type of team?
Proper balance should mean that characters with low and moderate health are equipped to still be competitive. They shouldn't be automatic one-shot kills on the first round. THAT is the real problem. You have characters who are SUPPOSED to have compensating factors, such as defense up or self-heals, and they have been rendered utterly useless by nonsense like FOTPs that do 12,000 damage on the first round.
By my count, over half of the characters in the game can be one-shot before they even get a turn. (Edit: if you add an expose in there, it's more like 2/3!) That's ridiculous, regardless of possible counter-measures. It's bad design to have a turn-based game where one build can ensure that the other team doesn't get a turn until it's too late to win. There's just nothing more to it than that -- the game as it is right now is badly designed and balanced.
Forcing everyone into cookie-cutter builds designed to counter other cookie-cutter builds doesn't solve the problem, it compounds it.

I want to make one last point here - Kylo Ren is an absolute monster. He's the guy getting the big MVP highlights and fame in this setup. Until just a few days ago, I wasn't impressed with him like most. I had him at 6* - all skills at 3. Had his 100 shards farmed though. Once I started putting around with this and adding up the possible damage from 3 AOEs though with offense up and then comparing that to health numbers for Jinn / FOTP / Poe, etc. I started to push him up gradually. Once I saw what he could do, I bit the bullet on 7* him and got his skills to 5/7/6/6. Just some examples:

- Kylo with Sid lead and O up will AOE crit for almost 5k damage.
- His outrage when he's below 50% and with O up I've seen go for 15k on a crit
- His basic, just on a counter attack, is doing about 4.7k damage on a crit

The guy really has an amazing kit that's very versatile once his offense is boosted.

His counter is also perfect for these high damage / lower health teams. Reason is that he's pretty tanky - so he's generally going to live to get off his aoe and have the counter setup. The high damage toons though kill other stuff - this leaves generally fewer targets standing which make it more likely they will target Kylo. The AI generally does pretty well not to target Old Ben and kill him early, so if the AI kills Poggle and Sid for example, well you're looking at hitting Kylo, Old Ben, or Phasma. After the round 1 of AOE the enemy is pretty well wounded as you can see. If they attack Kylo, he finishes them off one by one with his counter. He almost did that to all 5 toons in one match actually. He ran out of health on the 4th hit as it was a hit+assist+bonus attack, but it was impressive. He's definitely a nice piece to have in the toolkit. He's not OP (not sure anything is truly OP anymore), but he can be very very good. Also, he gets +15% damage increase at the next cap to finish off his attacking skills (outrage and lash out). He should just get better at that level and be pretty deadly end game.

Appreciate the time and crystals spent in giving this thread to us, thanks to all involved.

Just curious how your team has faired against mine. We usually beat each other on a daily basis but I take it as the npc doesnt know how to control your team well on defense because I probably shouldnt be able to beat you. Rewards for me arent for almost 8 hours so I wont be grinding my way into the top 5 until then

Wow, nice work! Thanks for taking the time to share in so much detail!

@Qeltar - I don't know what to tell you. If you're expecting sweeping changes across a bunch of toons, that's hard to see happening. Even if Poe's meter is yanked and he just fast taunts, he will have a lot of the same functionality and present rng initiative flips. The absolute fact here is that forum convention from not just you - but the vast majority of posters - said Poe couldn't be beaten without Poe at a consistent rate - we are "stuck" with Poe rolls was the rant we've heard non-stop for weeks. That has been shown to be absolutely false. And this is just me and a few guys in a chat / guild making the effort. What if we legitimately had all the community pushing different configurations and trying instead of just throwing up their hands and coming to the forum and complaining to CG to nerf stuff? What other heroes and combos would work? Seems like most have just given up trying to test more diverse builds. Seriously, where are the other whales (i'm far from the heaviest spender...FAR from it) that should have had this team built already and presented this info? I have 23 heroes in purple gear of various skill / star levels. 23. There's way more than that in the game. I SERIOUSLY doubt that with my relatively limited number of built options to pick from that I magically found the only option that can work. No way. There's more out there - people just haven't bothered to explore it. Now for some that's resources, but I think for many (especially the whales) it's just been lack of effort and giving up for the ease of just complaining on the forums. It's much quicker to make a rage post than to waste crystals on testing in PVP, possibly waste crystals building stuff, possibly waste mats, etc. on something that won't work. It's also no fun getting your teeth kicked in during the testing phase. I'm sure I probably have one of the worst winning %s in the game for players that finish in the top 5 consistently. It sucks losing and it's discomforting. If you haven't done that effort through - if you haven't explored options and thought long about the topic and exhausted the roster within your reach...than people shouldn't think they have the authority to claim something is unbeatable. I still say we are too young in the game, too young in roster development, and too soon relative to future level caps to talk about making sweeping changes. By the time those sweeping changes are made, we will be coming up to another level cap at 80, which can totally flip the meta again.

I'm not sure a healer themed build wouldn't work. I think barriss as a leader and healer can definitely have some possibilities vs. these teams. I'm farming her to 7* for that option down the road.

"TheRenegade;78080" wrote:
Just curious how your team has faired against mine. We usually beat each other on a daily basis but I take it as the npc doesnt know how to control your team well on defense because I probably shouldnt be able to beat you. Rewards for me arent for almost 8 hours so I wont be grinding my way into the top 5 until then

I'm not sure - like now I see you're at 37 rank so I can't try it to test as you're not in my pool. I'm also not leaving this team in the D slot at the end of the day and I've only had it viable to actually win for less than 2 days. However, you will be able to defeat it manually as you'll focus fire better than the AI. I wouldn't say this is a team that's great in the D slot. It's decent, but at a top level those guys with manual control will beat it.

Thanks for chiming in. Love hearing from our server. We are lucky to have a pretty strong and competitive server - get to see a lot of builds and toons early and with decent diversity.

Thank you for your sharing! I really like the idea of raining buffed AOE to override taunt setup and I need some advice to build a team like that.
As a f2p, I don't have access to old ben, but I do have a 5*G7 HK-47 in stock. By reading your comment, I think Sid+Poggle+HK-47+Kylo+(?) would make a good team. What about the fifth spot?
Phasma for AOE+turn manipulation?
or Asaji for AOE?
or Poe for expose+turn meter reduction?

One more question, is QGJ a viable alternative to poggle in this setup? Since he can offense up the whole team when dispelled a buff. Thank you @JohnnySteelAlpha

"MasterTamias;78136" wrote:
Thank you for your sharing! I really like the idea of raining buffed AOE to override taunt setup and I need some advice to build a team like that.
As a f2p, I don't have access to old ben, but I do have a 5*G7 HK-47 in stock. By reading your comment, I think Sid+Poggle+HK-47+Kylo+(?) would make a good team. What about the fifth spot?

I'm not sure this will work without Old Ben. The strategy revolves around surviving the single target damage, and I'm not sure that's possible without Ofense Down

Another very informative post and I am running something similar except I have lumi instead of old ben due to the burst damage and I like to hit a heal on turn 1 although she is often stunned by dooku which can negate her useful fulness.

For the record, phasma hits like an absolute truck when she has advantage and offense up from poggle. Her crits get up to 7k and her noncrit is 5k, that's no wet noodle.