I have a speed assist team, and yes, I can beat gear 9 Rey + RG. But like if she doesn't get foresight and my two assists pull correctly and they all hit hard. So yeah, there's at least a 8% chance I can snipe at payout. It's just that little extra health that makes Rey so much harder. So yeah, once I gear up, she will be nothing, again.
As for Ugnaught and all.. yeah, there's a balance issue at stake. But making the current toons all mediocre by buffing every random toon in the game isn't a really great option. People hard farm certain toons for a reward. If a team of Ugnaught, CUP, FOST, NS Acolyte, and Chewie are suddenly on par with Dooku, 555's, Rey, RG, Phasma, then I can assure you, this will not please the majority of players.
If these weaker toons eventually even out end game, that would be better. Nerfing things because of some higher geared toons having a more immediate and visible impact than others is just going to cause more problems in the end.
What we need is a way to farm gear to get even with the precrafters. It is going to be another 3-5 weeks before my guild can even complete a Tier V raid. In the meantime, no mk5 Droid callers.
If Ugnaught's level 9 gear and level 8 abilities make him viable in Arena, I don't think there will be a lot of complaining. It will be a month before anyone takes a chance on using these gears on him, anyway. If you make him a contender, right now, on par with the likes of hard-farm-Rey or P2P Leia, this will make some people rage.
FTR, I have Ugnaught, and I don't have Rey or Leia.
Well, I suppose you always had to take available gears into account. One of the big reasons GS is so good is he gets to gear 9, even before the lvl increase. Now the situation is there is mk5 furnace available in shipments. But no droid caller. This will make certain toons payoff in Arena for perhaps weeks or even months. I don't know why, but I assumed when precrafters could make mk5 droid callers, that the rest of us wouldn't be that far behind. When you hear they added 50 purples, you think that takes an extra week or two to farm. Now it's an extra month or two, if you are in a very active and high level guild.