Tank Raid P3 Strategies

NOTE: This is the third post in a series dedicated to Heroic Tank squads and strategies:

• Phase 1
• Phase 2
• Phase 3 (this post)
• Phase 4

Intro

As part of our series on how to maximize damage in the Heroic Tank raid, here is some info on how to tackle Phase 3 most effectively. P3 is the "richest", in a sense, in terms of different possibilities for how to deal respectable damage. Here we will cover some of the most common, including:

• Palpatine-centric turn meter manipulation
• TIE Fighter Pilot-centric turn meter manipulation
• Jawa-based teams
• Straight DPS zerg teams (a.k.a. kitchen sink teams)

The Teams and their Strategies

Chirpatine / Teebotine teams

Palpatine-centric turn meter teams, ironically, involve using a leader other than him. You can use either Chirpa as lead (a.k.a. Chirpatine teams) or, less effectively, Teebo (Teebotine teams). The other three squad members should be tanks that taunt. They are essentially used to soak up the damage dealt by the Rocket B2 to allow Palpy to continue dealing damage for as long as possible. You can substitute others like EE to cleanse and heal the two tanks, but three solid tanks work best.

The crux of this technique relies on two abilities:

1. Palpy's basic attack, which both shocks the opponent AND provides an immediate 15% TM gain per shocked opponent every time it's used. Once all 6 of the adds are shocked, that's a whopping 90% TM gain on every hit!
   
   
2. The leader's leader ability gives additional TM. Chirpa gives 10% TM gain on every hit, which means that if all 6 adds are shocked Palpatine regains 100% TM every time he hits, effectively freezing all the adds AND more importantly, the background turret, preventing all of them from ever taking a turn. Teebo's TM gain is a little more flaky (50% chance to gain 25%) but it still means Palpy gets to go almost all the time. On the bright side, you get to use Teebo's TM reduction basic on the B2 (or to prevent an impending instakill from a droid!), which helps a bit.
   

So the whole thing goes like this:

• The first tank that gets a turn should taunt, and from then on you should strive to have a tank taunting at all times
• Palpy starts to shock one add, then the other, until all adds are shocked. DO NOT kill any of the adds or the whole thing falls over (which is why this doesn't really work well in Normal raids since the adds die too easily)
• Once the adds are all shocked, you're ready to start dealing damage! Palpy switches to hitting the Rocket B2, still using his basic (to ensure continuous TM gain). B2 still takes turns once in a while due to counters and forced TM gains but the tanks slurp it up so Palpy can continue dealing damage. Just spam his basic attack and watch the damage pile up!

Wanna see how it's done? Feast your eyes: Chirpatine, Teebotine (with 2 tanks and EE)

PalpaTIE teams (i.e. TIE Fighter Pilot-based teams)

These teams are a close variation on the Chirpatine principle, except that Palpy is the leader this time and TFP is the principal damage dealer. Here again, the other team members are ideally 3 taunting tanks and are used in a similar way to absorb B2's firepower.

This team leverages the following abilities:

• Palpy's leader ability provides both him and TFP (who is also Empire) with 20% TM gain whenever they land a debuff. Also, both gain 32% potency which helps land these debuffs.
• TFP's AoE does two things: It has an 80% chance to inflict Buff Immunity on each enemy, and the primary target also gets an Ability Block debuff.
• TFP's Unique gives him 10% TM for each debuffed enemy at each turn, which is a potential 70% TM gain if all the adds AND B2 are debuffed.
• TFP's basic is the breadwinner: It deals 35% more damage for every debuffed enemy, yielding a whopping 245% damage increase if all 7 droids are debuffed (!)

Here's how you run the team:

• First tank that gets a turn taunts, and from then on you should try to have one tank taunting at all times
• On TFP's first turn, select one enemy, which will be the one guaranteed to get Ability Blocked, and fire the AoE. This should debuff most of the droids, giving TFP lots of TM. You can get pretty fancy with this AoE later on as it refreshes and you want to re-debuff the droids: For one thing, if one of the adds has the "Directing Fire" buff (the green triangle) that means his next shot is instakill, you can land Ability Block on it to prevent the special from firing (i.e. his next shot will be a basic, softball shot). Once ability blocked, you don't have to rush to kill that droid since he's as good as stunned; further TFP AoE damage or Palpy shocks may very well kill it before he gets to hit again! In the absence of any droids with the Directing Fire buff, just select a toon without a debuff to guarantee an extra 20% TM gain even if the AoE doesn't proc its 80% chance of debuffing him.
• At this point, whenever TFP gets a turn (and he'll get a LOT of 'em!) he can use his basic to deal massive damage to B2 -- which, after all, is the point of this exercise  .
• Meanwhile, Palpy should use his stun AoE to freeze the adds, and in subsequent turns just shock them one by one (Chirpatine style) to get more TM. Then just spam the B2 with his basic for additional damage. You can also use him to target an add that is in danger of firing his instakill special if need be.

And that's all there is to it. You can watch this video to see it in action.

Jawa-based teams

Those teams don't use any fancier mechanics than good old AoE stuns to get the adds out of the way and straight-up DPS on the B2 boss to rack up the points. Dathcha makes a good lead, and both his and POJO's (a.k.a. Plain Old Jawa) AoEs stun droids. Also, Jawa thermal detonators give you a TON of damage which makes them great for this phase. Ugnaught makes a good buddy here as well, for his high dodge and mass stun.

So keep the adds under control using stuns, and hit the B2 boss until your gruesome demise. Add a tank or two to deflect damage from B2 and the background gun and you're ready to go.

Not a whole lot more to say about these types of teams, but to see them in action: Jawa + GS + Tank, Jawa + Uggy + 5s. 


The Mods

Modding Palpatine is a well-covered subject -- mostly speed, plus health and damage and maybe a potency cross if you're not running him as lead.

TFP needs speed and damage galore -- plus maybe a potency cross to stick his debuffs unless he's running under Palpy lead.

Jawa, Uggy... no magic here, but you can refer to this post to look up how to generically mod each of them (plus every other toon in the game for good measure ).


Random Thoughts

P3 offers the most flexibility in terms of team composition, so hopefully you can put together one or two squads to make a nice dent.

Things that work:

• Stun works great on the adds, as does Ability Block to prevent their instakill
• TM reduction works on both the adds and the B2 boss, although the boss will still take turns -- he can't be TM-locked like the Pig Captain in the Rancor raid
• Speed Down works on the adds and the B2 boss
• Amazingly, this particular B2 does NOT dispel so this is the only phase in which taunting tanks are not only useful but almost indispensable (to prevent severe turret-induced health issues)
• Mostly, just pile on the DPS on the boss!

Things that do NOT work:

• Stun doesn't work on the B2 boss
• NOTHING works on the turret gun in the background. It will fire whether you want to or not, except in the case of Chirpatine teams while the TM is locked by Palpy. When it does fire, just hope that the toon on the receiving end is buffed, otherwise it becomes very dead quite suddenly

That's all folks, questions and comments are welcome, and happy raiding!

-- TS