I've held off on it.... I've been trying to make a mostly-resistance team work.... But I'm getting my ass kicked further and further down the arena ladder every day. It's that damn bug. Everybody and their mother has one at gear IX, so it seems that for me to continue to be competitive, I better follow suit... I shall cringe doing it.... but shit y'all. I can't ignore his speed and power anymore.
They did say that they are about to increase lvl cap to 80 soon, so gear advantage will be void, if you dont want him then you may waste time/resources for farming him (he is excelent toon anyway though), however you can manage easily without him.
Even when the level cap is raised, I still think GS will be worth it. His speed, high attack, and assist all make him dangerous.
I'll make it even worse. After the cap is raised, GS will be able to get to Gear X. I already have him at Gear IX and the only locked spot is level locked to 79. So he'll stil have a Gear advantage after the cap. As it is, he's the strongest power character I have. I still need to give him the MK 6 Chiewab, but he's already at 6,100 power. The next closest I have is Poggle at 5,814 and then Luminara at 5,656. Luminara does need a Chiewab, but I'm just waiting for the higher level challenges to farm those.
My bad! But someone covered it... I still has the sads about it.... I think it's just a reality that he will remain ridiculous. Alas...
Oh, and one more thing. This applies to both GS and IG-86. At level 8, their assist attacks will have -1 Cooldown (can be upgraded at level 78, so next cap raise). Not a huge deal for IG-86, who now has a 2 turn cooldown, but right now GS has only a 1 turn cooldown on his special. That means every GS attack will be an assist one in the future, unless you apply Block.
@Electricboa @TheBeard @binary flotsam How do you guys have the resources to get characters to gear level IX, their stars to 7? I play this game multiple times a day and for good chunks of time, and I have played for months now and I am at level 70, but still only have Sid to 7*, Luminara to 7*, and only about 6 characters at gear level VIII. How do you do it?
Well, the short answer is I spend a little money and usually end up #1 in the Arena. My server started about the time I started playing, so I more or less kept up with everyone else. I probably end up as #1 in the Arena over 95% of the time. I'm just lucky enough to be able to be an hour or so before the reset happens. Whatever position I lost overnight I make up and claw my way back to #1. The prize is 500 Crystals, but I usually end up sacrificing 50 Crystals to freeze everyone else out in end and guarantee I keep the #1 spot. If I'm lucky, I use up my 5 free attacks and get 5 more instead of wasting 50 Crystals to just execute a single attack. Still, that's 450 Crystals a day. That more than anything funds my account. So in a given week, I can realistically make 3,150 Crystals for free. I also get 1,000 Arena Tokens, which lets me get Arena Shards much more quickly than other people. So that's how I got my Sidious, IG-88, HK-47, and Ventress to 7 stars. Full disclosure, I also drew IG-88 as a character from a pack, so he was sped up a bit. I'm doing Eeth Koth (32/50) now for the Yoda Challenge. I think going for a Droid team has helped me stay competitive. There aren't a lot of people who will fight me when they could go after an easier target. If, like I said before, I get lucky and my 50 Crystals gets me 5 more battles, I use them before they expire (was at 12:00 AM EST, but it's probably 1:00 AM EST now).I shoot for rank #2 or #3 (too many people go after #1). And I don't do anythign till about an hour or so before the prize reset happens. In those 18 hours, I usually don't get knocked down that much. I've had some days where I'll only be knocked back to #7 and others when it's #16-#21. I can easly make it up to get back to #1. The other part is I do spend some money. I got that 100 Crystals for 21 Days and maybe once every 1 1/2 - 2 months spend $20 for Crystals. But if I wasn't doing so well in the Arena, I wouldn't do any of it. The Arena truly funds most of my game. What I buy gives me a buffer, if I don't get #1 and lets me go a little faster than I probably should. What do all those Crystals go towards? Refreshes. All Refreshes. Chromium Packs are a tourist trap. In the Cantina I do 2 Refreshes. The first costs 100 Crystals and the second is 200 Crystals. A 3rd would be 400, and I just can't bring myself to do that. As it is, I can farm Shards more quickly and get at least one Cantina Shipment a day. That's how I got Geo Soldier, Dooku, and Barriss all to 7 stars. I'm doing Lando now 11/85 to 6 stars and will do Windu (maybe) after that. Cantina Shipments are the slowest, but it got my Poe to 7 stars. I'm working on Qui-Gon now with 76/85 to 6 stars. I also have Daka going, 64/85 to 6 stars, but I actually drew her as a character a couple times. For regular Energy Refreshes, I do the 50 Crystals and 100 Crystal Refreshes. I stop when they jump to 200. I'm not actually sure how many Refreshes that is total off the top of my head. For that, I split it between farming for characters (Rey, FOTP, Ewok Elder, Royal Guard, Ima-Gun Di, and sometimes Jedi Consular) and Gear farming. I used to do Dooku and Barriss, but when I finished them, I was able to use that Energy to start on other characters. And what does all that get me? That's a pretty substantial roster, in my opinion. I'll be the first to say that I got pretty lucky with Bronzium Pack pulls, but most of that was just farming, patience, and lots of Refreshes. Gearing is just as important as Star promotion. I can't tell you how many people I'd fight (back when the cap was 60) and beat with characters that had fewer stars, but higher Gear. And in the end, those characters let me breeze through GW. When it was based on Squad Power, I had to be more careful, but now that it seems to be based on level I have nothing to worry about. I've never not finished a GW run (not counting the first few days after I unlocked it). So 1,200 GW Tokens a day let me unlock those characters more quickly. It's all feeding back into itself. Doing well in one area lets me do better in others. With GW, I basically 7 star-ed everyone I really wanted. Now, I'm just doing the NS Initiate because Ihad nothing better to do (that's why she's a 6 star at level 24). After her, I'll do Biggs and Resistance Pilot. All of it really doesn't take that long. I'd say maybe an hour or so of solid playing for GW and doing all the famring. The Arena I just come back when the timer lets me attack again. I do other things in between.
This basically covers it. Though, on my end, I don't spend much money (only spend what I get from google rewards surveys). I did get lucky with two things: #1 getting Rey from my only intentional chromium pull (don't play games that require careful placement of fingers while drinking) early, which helped me soar through my leveling (she's great at 4*, not end-game worthy, but helps greatly to about level 50-55ish I'd say) and kept me high up in arena, which is #2, and from that getting numerous crystals for refreshes, the advantages of which electricboa explained. I actually only have a small number of 7* toons (mainly most of my arena team), but I have many well-geared 3*-5*, which helps out greatly in GW. I've decided to take a detour from just starring toons up to just do some collecting for fun.
Thanks for the help! I didn't realize spending 50 crystals on the arena gave 5 more attacks. I thought it was just one. This is a lot of information to think about!
