When does Red Guard (RG) become viable?

Depending on level he is arena viable from the second you get him.

On a second account he is the perfect tank for my team. Lumi, GS, 88, 86 and RG. Team is level 44 and just got RG to 2*, been using him since day one.

Gives Lumi time to heal and lets the glass cannons get in at least two rounds of attacks, usually more

RG on arena 5* but always will be better at 7*, for GW on 4* on a B team, 5*-6* for an A team.

It really depends on your server. If you are on a newer server than 4 stars is no problem, but if you are on an older server like mine, eventhough RG is viable at 4 stars, as others have said, the drop in your team power will cause you to be targeted more. I found myself dropping from top 10 down to close to 100 overnight whereas without him, i would stay in the top 30-40. Saying he is viable only means he is useable for you on offense, but others will see him as a free climb up the ladders on defense. He is a hard grind, so if you like him, stay with him, he fits the tank role in pretty much any team and is a life saver in GW as well as climbing dark hard nodes.

I have a pretty good arena squad, and RG works wonderfully for me at 4*s max gear. I ranked #1 today w Dooku (L) GS Rey QGJ and RG

Max gear is important. 4* will probably work but will put a target on you if in higher ranks.

My current team (rank 1) is 7* Poggle (L), 7* GS, 7* IG-86, 7* Kylo Ren and 4* RG, all fully maxed, and RG at 4 stars have more health than Poe, and the taunt is activated automatically, he is very fast because gain 15% turn meter everytime that any other ally took damage, in the most of cases is faster than Poe Dameron, for example, and can stun the Poe enemy. Also sometimes I play with Poe, without Kylo Ren, when the enemy have Poe. I have 51/65 to the 5 stars, with the hard nodes and the shipments I'm getting an average of 4 shards per day.

These are videos of my current team:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=EbPxjCdCTlg

https://youtube.com/watch?v=E2CDbEFn0fc

I tried my 4* RG for a day (gear VII still) and it didn't seem to work so hot. On offense, he was fine, but I fell from sub-#50 rank to #178 in a day on defense, so that clearly wasn't such smart choice.

Then again, maybe the team comp wasn't up to snuff and/or just attracted too much attention with the "low star" characters:

7* Phasma, 7* Poggle, 7* Lumi, 6* QGJ, 4* RG

YMMV. I can see how RG would benefit gib teams that use the Poggle/GS/Rey combo though.

"scootle;237358" wrote:
7* Phasma, 7* Poggle, 7* Lumi, 6* QGJ, 4* RG

Royal Guard is the tank for the top teams, not for teams with Phasma, Lumi and without attackers. Your problem is not RG, your problem is that you don't have attackers. The best attackers of the game are Geonosian Soldier, IG-86, Rey, FOTP, Qui-Gon Jinn, Yoda, Resistance Pilot, Resistance Trooper, Hoth Rebel Scout, First Order Officer and IG-88, you only have QGJ, to be in the TOP 10 you need Geonosian Soldier first of all, then you can use IG-86, Rey, RP, HRS, FOO, IG-88, etc., you need 3 attackers in the same team, the best is with a synergy, for example with Poggle as leader, to give +25% offense to GS and IG-86, then are the 2 best attackers of the game, and the 3th can be QGJ, so a good team would be Poggle (L), GS, IG-86, QGJ and RG, then your RG will be useful. To prevent the stun of Dooku in the defense (to defend the rank) you can use Resistance Pilot, and only use Qui-Gon Jinn when you are fighting for the rank.

Also you need full skills in Royal Guard, at least 7-5-7, and gear 8 to be better than Poe.

Somebody has been playing too much skyrim...

"Greg1920;237562" wrote:
Do you really need past ability level 5 on his basic. Once you get 80% stun I don't thing the mats are worth it. An extra 11% damage or like 200 on a crit doesn't seem to matter.

Also does increasing his special do anything. It looks like it just increases the turn meter gain a few % but not the chance of the effect. So an extra 10% meter every 4 battles doesn't seem worth it either.

I'm about to start using him in arena and have him at 5-3-7. Is there really a benefit past there?

Correct! He's unique is all that's useful max right now. I battle #1-10 with 4* RG that have 5-5-7.
Team comp is: poggle/qgj, 86/yoda, gs, RG, lumi.

RG has worked wonders ever since he joined the team. I was struggling to maintain top 50 before I got RG, same team but with poe.