Post by Thann Solaar on Aug 7, 2016 19:51:18 GMT
Intro: If you auto your way through GW in 15 minutes every day while reading kotaku.com, feel free to move along -- there's nothing of interest for you here. Also, I'm jealous of you and you suck 
If you're still reading, I'm gonna assume you're like me and struggling daily with this stupid GalacticJokeWar and would looove to make things easier on yourself.
Being the neurotic OCD player that I am, I spent a LOT of time reading what everyone has to say about GW on the EA forums. 95% of it is just content-free whining, but some ppl have come up with useful ways to maximize your chances of completing your war every day. I have been experimenting with several of those suggestions myself and can attest that some of them work and some of them are of dubious usefulness at best.
In the hopes that it will help at least *one* of you do better at GW, here are my findings on the matter. If you have other/better tricks to share, by all means add them in this thread.
Observation #1: We all know that as we progress through GW, our toons lose protection and don't get it back. But we *do* get to keep some things, and the most useful of these is Turn Meter progress.
What this means: Retaining TM has many implications, one of which being that your team usually gets to go first at the start of a new battle, *provided* that you've used those toons before. The opponent team starts at 0 TM, but your team's TM is already at least partway charged so this allows you to shoot first.
How to use this: Simple: In nodes 1-5, use as many *different* toons as you can -- ideally, at least 3 squads' worth. This means that when you grab them again, your stunners will stun first, your glass canons will shoot first, etc. This can mean the difference between getting creamed in late nodes because you get one-shotted into oblivion before making a move, or taking out the most dangerous toons with your A squad before they get killed -- leaving an easier job for your B squad to finish the battle.
(This, BTW, is why throwing all your green toons at node 12 to soften the opponent up doesn't necessarily work: Those lvl 80 monster toons invariably have more speed than your fodder, and if everyone starts at 0 TM then they'll get to go first and one-shot your entire squad without getting so much as a hangnail in the process.)
Observation #2: Another thing that carries over between nodes is cooldown count.
What this means: This is not a good thing, of course -- it would be easier if all cooldowns started fresh at each battle. But if you're careful (and yes, a bit lucky) you can make sure your toons' cooldowns are zeroed-out and ready at the end of each battle in preparation for the next.
How to use this: As you finish the last toon in a fight try using nothing but Basic attacks to let your Specials reset. Corollary: If you're gonna heal your team, try not to do it at the very end of the battle if you can help it -- otherwise you won't be able to do so in the first half of the next battle. Toons gain a bit of health between nodes, so you're better off letting a battle finish with toons at 60% health than to heal them immediately -- for one thing they'll start the next battle at 70%, and your heal is primed to go as needed.
Observation #3: Both TM and cooldowns also carry over for your opponent between battles on the same node.
What this means: If you send one squad in and they all die, the next squad you use will face what's left of your opponent's squad just as if the battle had continued uninterrupted. So they start with the same protection/health, TM and cooldown counts that they had when your last toon died.
How to use this: You can try throwing lvl 1 fodder at the opponent to force the AI to waste their Specials, then swoop in with your A squad and face only their Basic attacks. In my experience this isn't terribly effective, but you may have better luck with it than I have.
Observation #4: You can retreat from a battle as many times as you want.
What this means: If your best toon (hell, if *any* toon!) gets picked on and is killed in early nodes, capitalize on the first stage of grief and DENY IT by retreating and starting over. Ideally, you should never accept the death of a good toon unless you're sure you can live without it going forward.
How to use it: Well, just retreat and start over
However, the best way to use this is in conjunction with the next observation.
Observation #5: History repeats itself. Guaranteed. Basically, RNGesus speaks once at the beginning of a battle and then he shuts up. Say your first move in a battle is to use RG to stun Rey and he whiffs, and then you use *your* Rey to Special another toon and she crits. If you retreat and try the same moves again the same thing will happen. The only ways to shuffle the cards are either to make a different move or swap out at least one member of your squad.
What this means: It means GW battles afford a certain predictability and repeatability that other game modes don't, which you can use to your advantage.
How to use this: There are many ways to exploit this quirk. One easy way is that if your opening move is an important one and it misses, feel free to retreat and try something else -- you don't have to accept the failure and move on. If your original plan was to stun stun Sid and try to one-shot Dooku but your stun fails, retreat and try to stun Dooku and one-shot Sid instead. These opening moves are all-important, so make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck! But you can go further with this: As you execute your game plan flawlessly (RG stuns, then Rey one-shots, then Leia stealths. Lookin' good so far!) if something goes wrong in the next move of the sequence you can just retreat, play everything back exactly the same up to the point where it went wrong, and then do something else to keep your streak going (attack someone else, or use a Special instead of a Basic, etc). Yes, it gets mind-numbingly repetitive and boring, but it helps you win.
Observation #6: The current theory (supported by a LOT of experimentation and quantified results from the community) is that the strength of the squads you'll face is directly calculated from your roster's most powerful 5 toons. So if your top 5 toons' power ratings add up to 33,000, that's the number used to calculate the opponent's squads' power ratings. The numbers observed by multiple ppl on the forums all converge on the following:
Node 1: 59%
of your top squad's power
Node 2: 61%
Node 3: 69%
Node 4: 60%
Node 5: 61%
Node 6: 93%
Node 7: 74%
Node 8: 75%
Node 9: 98%
Node 10: 84%
Node 11: 101%
Node 12: 112-115%
(As you can see -- and probably already knew -- the progression is NOT linear and does NOT stop at 100% power match)
What this means: If you're putting all your resources into your Arena team, they will become your 5 strongest toons by definition. This of course ensures better success in Arena each day. BUT the side-effect is that you create a power gap between your top-5 and all your other toons, and leaves you with crappy B and C squads in GW.
How to use this: Bring up the rear! If finishing GW is important to you, create as deep a roster as you can. If your B and C squads are *almost* as powerful as your A squad, this gives you lots of options and flexibility to mix and match in the late nodes, and allows you to throw LOTS of able bodies at node 12.
Putting it all together: Taken as a whole, you can see how these strategies can be combined for maximum effect. Having a roster of 15-20 of your best toons TM-primed and cooled down (some with a fresh protection bar, even!) affords you a LOT of flexibility in later nodes in trying different tactics and toon combos. If something doesn't work, retreat, think about what went wrong, and figure out how to prevent it from happening again. The opponent's Rey one-shots your GS in her opening move? Swap in RG, Daka or Dooku and try to stun her before she gets the chance!
Yes, I know that even with all that strategy and effort this stupid GW will still be freaking hard -- or even, as happened to me again yesterday, unbeatable. But if nothing else your efforts should serve to minimize the number of times you fail and maximize the sweet, sweet loot you can get from this important game mode. So fire up those light sabers and go get 'em!
-- TS
If you're still reading, I'm gonna assume you're like me and struggling daily with this stupid Galactic
Being the neurotic OCD player that I am, I spent a LOT of time reading what everyone has to say about GW on the EA forums. 95% of it is just content-free whining, but some ppl have come up with useful ways to maximize your chances of completing your war every day. I have been experimenting with several of those suggestions myself and can attest that some of them work and some of them are of dubious usefulness at best.
In the hopes that it will help at least *one* of you do better at GW, here are my findings on the matter. If you have other/better tricks to share, by all means add them in this thread.
Observation #1: We all know that as we progress through GW, our toons lose protection and don't get it back. But we *do* get to keep some things, and the most useful of these is Turn Meter progress.
What this means: Retaining TM has many implications, one of which being that your team usually gets to go first at the start of a new battle, *provided* that you've used those toons before. The opponent team starts at 0 TM, but your team's TM is already at least partway charged so this allows you to shoot first.
How to use this: Simple: In nodes 1-5, use as many *different* toons as you can -- ideally, at least 3 squads' worth. This means that when you grab them again, your stunners will stun first, your glass canons will shoot first, etc. This can mean the difference between getting creamed in late nodes because you get one-shotted into oblivion before making a move, or taking out the most dangerous toons with your A squad before they get killed -- leaving an easier job for your B squad to finish the battle.
(This, BTW, is why throwing all your green toons at node 12 to soften the opponent up doesn't necessarily work: Those lvl 80 monster toons invariably have more speed than your fodder, and if everyone starts at 0 TM then they'll get to go first and one-shot your entire squad without getting so much as a hangnail in the process.)
Observation #2: Another thing that carries over between nodes is cooldown count.
What this means: This is not a good thing, of course -- it would be easier if all cooldowns started fresh at each battle. But if you're careful (and yes, a bit lucky) you can make sure your toons' cooldowns are zeroed-out and ready at the end of each battle in preparation for the next.
How to use this: As you finish the last toon in a fight try using nothing but Basic attacks to let your Specials reset. Corollary: If you're gonna heal your team, try not to do it at the very end of the battle if you can help it -- otherwise you won't be able to do so in the first half of the next battle. Toons gain a bit of health between nodes, so you're better off letting a battle finish with toons at 60% health than to heal them immediately -- for one thing they'll start the next battle at 70%, and your heal is primed to go as needed.
Observation #3: Both TM and cooldowns also carry over for your opponent between battles on the same node.
What this means: If you send one squad in and they all die, the next squad you use will face what's left of your opponent's squad just as if the battle had continued uninterrupted. So they start with the same protection/health, TM and cooldown counts that they had when your last toon died.
How to use this: You can try throwing lvl 1 fodder at the opponent to force the AI to waste their Specials, then swoop in with your A squad and face only their Basic attacks. In my experience this isn't terribly effective, but you may have better luck with it than I have.
Observation #4: You can retreat from a battle as many times as you want.
What this means: If your best toon (hell, if *any* toon!) gets picked on and is killed in early nodes, capitalize on the first stage of grief and DENY IT by retreating and starting over. Ideally, you should never accept the death of a good toon unless you're sure you can live without it going forward.
How to use it: Well, just retreat and start over
However, the best way to use this is in conjunction with the next observation.Observation #5: History repeats itself. Guaranteed. Basically, RNGesus speaks once at the beginning of a battle and then he shuts up. Say your first move in a battle is to use RG to stun Rey and he whiffs, and then you use *your* Rey to Special another toon and she crits. If you retreat and try the same moves again the same thing will happen. The only ways to shuffle the cards are either to make a different move or swap out at least one member of your squad.
What this means: It means GW battles afford a certain predictability and repeatability that other game modes don't, which you can use to your advantage.
How to use this: There are many ways to exploit this quirk. One easy way is that if your opening move is an important one and it misses, feel free to retreat and try something else -- you don't have to accept the failure and move on. If your original plan was to stun stun Sid and try to one-shot Dooku but your stun fails, retreat and try to stun Dooku and one-shot Sid instead. These opening moves are all-important, so make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck! But you can go further with this: As you execute your game plan flawlessly (RG stuns, then Rey one-shots, then Leia stealths. Lookin' good so far!) if something goes wrong in the next move of the sequence you can just retreat, play everything back exactly the same up to the point where it went wrong, and then do something else to keep your streak going (attack someone else, or use a Special instead of a Basic, etc). Yes, it gets mind-numbingly repetitive and boring, but it helps you win.
Observation #6: The current theory (supported by a LOT of experimentation and quantified results from the community) is that the strength of the squads you'll face is directly calculated from your roster's most powerful 5 toons. So if your top 5 toons' power ratings add up to 33,000, that's the number used to calculate the opponent's squads' power ratings. The numbers observed by multiple ppl on the forums all converge on the following:
Node 1: 59%
of your top squad's power
Node 2: 61%
Node 3: 69%
Node 4: 60%
Node 5: 61%
Node 6: 93%
Node 7: 74%
Node 8: 75%
Node 9: 98%
Node 10: 84%
Node 11: 101%
Node 12: 112-115%
(As you can see -- and probably already knew -- the progression is NOT linear and does NOT stop at 100% power match)
What this means: If you're putting all your resources into your Arena team, they will become your 5 strongest toons by definition. This of course ensures better success in Arena each day. BUT the side-effect is that you create a power gap between your top-5 and all your other toons, and leaves you with crappy B and C squads in GW.
How to use this: Bring up the rear! If finishing GW is important to you, create as deep a roster as you can. If your B and C squads are *almost* as powerful as your A squad, this gives you lots of options and flexibility to mix and match in the late nodes, and allows you to throw LOTS of able bodies at node 12.
Putting it all together: Taken as a whole, you can see how these strategies can be combined for maximum effect. Having a roster of 15-20 of your best toons TM-primed and cooled down (some with a fresh protection bar, even!) affords you a LOT of flexibility in later nodes in trying different tactics and toon combos. If something doesn't work, retreat, think about what went wrong, and figure out how to prevent it from happening again. The opponent's Rey one-shots your GS in her opening move? Swap in RG, Daka or Dooku and try to stun her before she gets the chance!
Yes, I know that even with all that strategy and effort this stupid GW will still be freaking hard -- or even, as happened to me again yesterday, unbeatable. But if nothing else your efforts should serve to minimize the number of times you fail and maximize the sweet, sweet loot you can get from this important game mode. So fire up those light sabers and go get 'em!
-- TS
