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

"Snowblood;77748" wrote:
Old Ben doesn't seem to work when fighting a Poe/Poggle team (example: droid team)

The offense down effect is overridden by Poggle's offense up.

They offset each other. There's just a graphical display where it won't show both. If you look closely, it does still flash in red text that Ben's defense down is applying even when there's an offense up icon showing. Additionally, I saw this the case as I dispelled the offense up on a toon that had been hit by Ben, and when I dispelled then the red icon appeared -- so both offense up and defense down apply and from just observation it looks like they just cancel each other out based on damage numbers.

"CronozNL;77930" wrote:
@JohnnySteelAlpha
Glad it worked out! It's certainly not impossible to beat as you have showed us as well. However Dooku as lead?
I'm curious to see what a Sid lead would have done instead of Dooku.

Nevertheless it's starting to get better :)
My top 10 stopped using Poe all of the sudden. Mostly droid teams and some weird other setups atm.

I haven't tested vs. Sid lead as that's not a setup right now I can hit - but Phasma is from my observation, just as difficult if not moreso. I'd estimate vs. Sid it would be similar to Phasma - 55-60% or so win rate. Sid and Phasma both bring RNG-based higher offense. Sid's in the form of crit / damage and Phasma with multi attacks. The part about Phasma that adds more depth though is that she is tanky, so she doesn't die from my AOE barrage - Sid would generally as he's squishy. That's less hits I have to burn in round 2. Also, with Sid, I don't have to deal with the enemy Phasma's speed down on my + advantage call in round 2. So it loses meter control and as long as I can survive the initial onslaught, the path to beating Sid-based team after that is easier than vs. Phasma.

Dooku is actually a deadly lead for this team. He helps them evade and then he gives offense up. That generally means someone is evading one of my AOEs at some point and gaining offense up. That's a problem as you need all the damage you can get on these guys and you definitely do NOT want them powering up here.

"stupidfatfool;77746" wrote:
f2p version of this? Replace Old Ben with Lumi?

There's been a mention of Plo - that's not bad as you get a 4th aoe in there - which would be big. That's the other approach you can take - skip Ben and insert another tanky 4th aoe in there that poggle can give offense up. Get a 4th aoe in there and you will have a decent shot of killing 2-4 enemy toons before you get to round 2. Just hit past Poe's taunt. Ventress is higher risk, but good gracious she's really OP if she doesn't get targeted - she would almost definitely wipe the screen with her aoe as the 4th. A sturdier option and one that has good synergy with Poggle would be HK - he's great too with the revive. Poggle gives O up - speeds him up - and with Jinn in there his meatbag AOE will be huge - and it will be good against the enemy as well. Remember, Jinn can dispel your Poggle O up buff and nuke his teammates - if you can ability block / slow / kill him with HK that's big. And from my experience with HK, him tossing that in to any 5 member crowd even the non-Jedi come out with some type of effect generally. That actually should work at a pretty solid rate as well. Especially if the Poe team you are using is using someone else like Lumi or another Jedi. Not ALL Poe teams that people are facing are the elite top tier types that I have posted above with Jinn / GS / FOTP as his sidekicks.

Healers can also work though - I think you could experiment actually with Barriss as a leader. I played with her as leader a little bit before going the "tank aoe + Poggle" route and she was a factor. Lumi can be good as a leader too with her evasion and heal / damage.

"Maestro;77961" wrote:
Hey JSA, great read so far :)
Is this team viable without Old Ben? Possible replacement? Poe? And how critical is Poggles *'s and Gear lvl in this setup? I got 7* Sid, Phasma and Kylo, all max gear lvl, so the AOE should be good, but my Poggle is only 5*. Still worth running?

Star levels depend on what level your opponents are. Vs. the comps I'm facing in the top 5 in my server, I need every drop of health I can get - and aoe damage / skills as well. At least vs. these 7* FOTP / Jinn teams posted here, I like to have hereos with 14k+ health - Sid works ok here because he's also turn 1. He rarely is killed before getting to hit. So you can squeeze in another turn 1 hero I think. 5* Poggle would be ok, but you'd have issues surviving if you're trying to face off vs. higher skilled / starred / level hereos. My Poggle has about 12.3k health - that's the min roughly you want to have if you're facing similarly maxed opponents. So it just depends on what level you are fighting against. Poggle also is OK being lower on health because as a fast toon he will often get his turn before FOTP - so he's at less risk to get killed. As long as Sid and Poggle get their turns, even if they die immediately after that, you're good. You just need Sid for leader + his aoe / DoT and then Poggle for the offense up.

"Elyndria;77602" wrote:
I guess. It's a good option if Poe is heavily nerfed.

Bulky teams like OP's example can survive even if their Poe taunts first though, and when yours taunts first you win easily. =)

It's a win-win.

Yes that's true - this can be easier in some ways by also using Poe, but as was noted - the challenge was to beat a Poe / FOTP / Jinn / GS team without using Poe or FOTP...but turns out you don't need GS or Jinn either.

"Qeltar;77949" wrote:
You had me up until "Old Ben".
At any rate, I am just holding out waiting for the update to hopefully return some diversity and sanity to PvP. I can still get into the top 10 with my same old team that I haven't changed in weeks, but I hate relying on lucky stuns to win.

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.

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.

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. @Pilot is working on some wicked builds as well that may not require Ben and are not "AOE tanks" as a tactic...they're pushing another approach that may be superior to this one overall and as a D-slot if it works. I'm working on Snowtrooper for example as another tanky aoe option. I do want to have aoe tank depth going forward.

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. Think about what most people have been farming: Droids (88 & 86 are not tanky), Lumi / Sid in arena (not tanky), JC as a healer (not tanky), Chewy is tanky, but doesn't do the damage or have AOE. People do have Poggle, some have Kylo and Phasma..but you need multiple aoes here to pull it off and with offense up. So I think most when they turned to their roster had limited options that could actually survive and if you can't survive round 1, you can't start to put something together that would work.

Great post, Johnny. Thanks for doing these.

"Qeltar;77954" wrote:
Against Phasma try replacing Kylo with Asajj. Yes she's squishier and slow, and so might die before she can be used. But with Poe and Phasma it all depends on luck anyway, and she can turn a game around if she gets a turn after Phasma puts up advantage. She also has an AoE.
She's great against Poggle teams as well.. though probably would do better with a Poe to protect her. (What team wouldn't? :) )
I find Daka is very helpful against these Poe teams if you don't have all tanky chars. The ability to fire a heal early in the fight is essential.

I love Vent as a 4th aoe option to replace Ben - it's higher risk - but it would for sure still get you some wins. If she isn't targeted too much or get hit with an assist by FOTP, she can survive. The reward for her living is huge as she's crushing with her AOE.

I love your approach. Sadly, this game makes leveling so slow that it's hard to test things unless you are a chromium player.

A think I wanted to test vs current meta was a lineup with Phasma, Kylo, nightsister initiate, Fives/FOST/HK47 and maybe Barris. This team has only average damage, but has a lot of tankyness. Lot of chars in 16-20k HP. But I'd need several months of farming (and opportunity cost) just to ser if it works.

Another option - especially if we could actually star him better (cheating aside) - would be Vader. Oh man oh man....Vader would be DEVASTATING here. The multiple DoTs, the tanking, the aoe damage, ... then in round he could easily one shot kill anything with the culling blade. He would be magnificent in this. I'm actually going to g8 Vader - he's still only 4* for me, but he will get decent health still. Plus I'm just 2 achievements away from having him at 5*. Won't be soon, but I'd like to test him at 4* and I'd be able to tell. And hopefully at some point we get options for Vader to farm him.