Galactic Legend Kylo

UNIT NAME: Supreme Leader Kylo Ren
ALIGNMENT: Dark
CATEGORIES: Dark Side, Attacker, Leader, First Order, Galactic Legend
Destructive Leader of the First Order who overpowers his enemies with brutal attacks

[Developer Insight - Kit Reveal]

ABILITIES:

Basic: BRUTAL ASSAULT

FINAL TEXT: (ZETA) Inflict Buff Immunity for 2 turns on target enemy and deal Physical damage to them twice. If the target was Stunned, deal damage again and gain Advantage for 2 turns. If it's Kylo's turn, he gains 10 Siphon until the end of the encounter.

Siphon: This unit will gain 1% of a stat per stack and the target will lose the amount gained

Special 1: STASIS STRIKE (Cooldown 3)

FINAL TEXT: (ZETA) Dispel all buffs on all enemies and Stun target enemy for 2 turns, which can't be copied, dispelled, or resisted. Then, deal Physical damage to target enemy and Kylo gains 20 Siphon until the end of the encounter. On a critical hit, Kylo gains 40 Siphon instead. This attack can't be evaded.

Special 2: FURIOUS ONSLAUGHT (Cooldown 3)

FINAL TEXT: (ZETA) Deal Physical damage to all enemies. Kylo Siphons Mastery from target enemy, doubled if they were Stunned, which can't be resisted. Then, dispel all debuffs on all Dark Side allies and grant them Advantage for 2 turns.

Siphon Mastery: Gain a percentage of Mastery equal to this unit's Siphon until the end of the encounter and the target loses that much Mastery (stacking, excludes raid bosses and Galactic Legends)


Leader: SUPREME LEADER

FINAL TEXT: (ZETA) Dark Side allies have +40% Mastery and +50% Critical Damage.

Whenever a Dark Side ally loses Advantage without scoring a critical hit, they gain Advantage for 1 turn at the end of the turn.

Whenever a Dark Side ally gains Advantage, if they didn't already have it, they gain a bonus based on their role:

• Tanks Taunt for 2 turns
• Attackers gain Critical Damage Up for 2 turns
• Supports and Healers gain 20% Turn Meter

Unique 1: PRESS THE ADVANTAGE

FINAL TEXT: (ZETA) Supreme Leader Kylo Ren is immune to Stagger and can't gain taunt effects, and enemies defeated during his turn can't be revived.

Whenever a Dark Side ally loses Turn Meter, they gain 10% of their current Max Health and Max Protection (stacking).

Whenever a Dark Side ally gains bonus Turn Meter, they lose 10% of their current Max Health and Max Protection (stacking).

Unique 2: GALACTIC LEGEND

FINAL TEXT: (ZETA) This unit takes reduced damage from percent Health damage effects and massive damage effects. They take massive damage from destroy effects (excludes raid bosses) and are immune to stun effects.

This unit has +10% Max Health and Max Protection per Relic Amplifier level, and damage they receive is decreased by 30%.

Ultimate: DEPTHS OF RAGE (Requires at least 60% Ultimate Charge to activate)
Unlocked with purchase (10 Ultimate Ability Materials) after meeting requirement of Relic Amplifier level 1
Ultimate Charge: Supreme Leader Kylo Ren gains 2% Ultimate Charge whenever a Dark Side ally deals Physical or Special damage to an enemy, increased to 5% on a critical hit.

FINAL TEXT: (ULTIMATE) Supreme Leader Kylo Ren dispels all debuffs on himself, enters an aggressive stance, and deals Physical damage to all enemies, which can't be evaded. While in this stance, Kylo is immune to damage and detrimental effects, he can't be defeated, his Siphon is doubled, and his abilities have no cooldowns.

• 60% Ultimate Charge: Aggressive stance lasts for 1 turn
• 85% Ultimate Charge: Aggressive stance lasts for 2 turns
• 100% Ultimate Charge: Aggressive stance lasts for 3 turns

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren can't use this ability if he is already in an aggressive stance

 

I'm just going to leave this here for all my fellow Kylos.

 

I mostly did it to be glib. Here’s the thing, no matter how good Kylo’s ultimate is, Rey is infinitely better. She’s immediately good and can basically solo GAS teams with one other character (has to be strong enough to trigger her massive attack instead of being outright taken out). Kylo will never do that. And that isn’t a bad thing. Kylo seems to be reasonably balanced. He’s obviously powerful, but he isn’t broken. Rey is broken and needs an immediate nerf, but CG is too cowardly to do it. At best, they would buff Kylo.

They basically created Jedi Revan 2.0 and look at how long it took them to deal with that dumpster fire. The only thing that eventually stopped it was because the Jedi tag limited the team and they were able to specifically counter parts of the kit. Not going to happen with Rey. She’s all LS, so nothing will limit her leadership viability. And seeing as they made her immune to things like Fear and Deathmark, she may as well be a god. She can be beaten, but it’s RNG. And every new LS character will just make it harder.

On the other hand? Kylo hurts his own team, needs to ramp up to lots of damage, and has far less health to get through.

 

I don’t know, it does look like there could be hope for Kylo, but it’s going to be heavily dependent on how the ultimates actually work.

Rey’s ultimate seems less impressive on the face of it because it just stalls a turn until she does an AOE. Given Rey dishes out 300k damage regularly, I’m not entirely sure how much that’s going to matter. It’ll make her harder to beat with counter teams, but it might not. You figure the main Rey counter right now is all about keeping her ability blocked and locked down as much as possible.

Kylo’s ultimate seems to be the better of the two. It gives you the flexibility to activate it at 60%, 85%, or 100 % charge. So if you need to boost early, you can take it or wait and get more turns out of it. Kylo’s whole game is about stacking siphon. It seems like if you can get him to 200+ stacks, he’s almost unstoppable. The ultimate makes it easier to get stacks quickly because it doubles it. Don’t know if it’s a permanent double or what, but I could see it becoming a runaway train if you get to 100% on the ultimate.

This assumes he can charge his ultimate while he’s in the aggressive stance, but let’s say you get to 100%, which means 3 turns with no cool downs. It’s not hard to have 100% crit chance on Kylo. So Kylo can use his AOE three times, get 5 crits on the other team each time, which should have +75% towards his next ultimate. Depending on the rest of your team, it’s not impossible to imagine getting 5 crits in there from everyone else, letting Kylo use his ultimate immediately after losing the aggressive stance. Or you could just use his Stasis Strike and rapidly stack up siphon and stun the other team (not Rey, obviously).

Right now, mirror matches with Rey seem to be a nightmare—JKR mirrors on steroids. But Rey is way better than Kylo on defense. That could be the key difference between them. Rey can beat Kylo, but Rey vs Rey will be RNG timeouts. Kylo can beat Kylo and Kylo can beat Rey. But Kylo isn’t that great on defense. It could end up being whether you’d rather have a more defensive team or offensive team.

Either way, it sure looks like Rey’s ultimate would backfire against a Kylo team. The way it reads, Rey won’t get charges while she’s in her defensive stance (since it says the charge will be consumed when it’s used again, instead of initially). Stalling isn’t really going to help against Kylo, since that just gives him time to get more siphon. Sure, her team is immortal during that time, but as soon as it ends, they have to deal with Kylo’s stacks.

I did see the stuff on Kylo soloing the HST, but I’m not sure how much it matters. I’m kind of assuming anyone getting either GL is going to be in a guild that has no trouble beating the HST. Soloing it is a novelty, but probably doesn’t matter too much to people. My guild doesn’t have any limits on the HST and less than half the people bother doing anything in it. And I’m assuming the next raid (if it isn’t a ship one) will have some mechanism so Kylo can’t solo it.

My arena, so far, has two Reys and one Kylo. I can beat the Kylo with GAS (it has gotten very close a couple times) and I was able to use the Revan counter against one of the Reys. It’s not really a big deal because all three are friendlies. One even tries to solo Rey if he has an extra battle. Even 1v5, I still lost my Fives against her with GAS. The guy with Kylo is convinced that Kylo is going to be the better one of the two, but it won’t really shine through until after the ultimates and more people can experiment. Unfortunately, we do have one rogue kraken that has everything for Rey and Kylo. He’s usually not a threat because he doesn’t usually bother unless he can auto the battle. With Rey, he actually can.

For me, I guess I’m okay as long as I can climb. Revan worked very well against Rey, and that was without me moving mods around. That will keep me afloat until I actually get Kylo geared.

 

I’m still a little way from actually accessing the event:



Need about 40 shards for each, but Hux is basically ready for G13 as soon as he hits 7 stars.

But I did do the whole thing without spending anything. I refuse to give CG the satisfaction. Things just kind of fell into place for me. I already had the ‘ideal’ FO team at G12 and had taken KRU to G13 right before the GLs were announced. So I didn’t exactly need to hoard my resources. My FOTP was G12 from back when his ship was good. The only characters I really needed to gear up to G12 were the new ones and FO SF TIE. Phasma was G11 from way back when she was relevant.

Had I not been so far ahead on FO, I probably would have just hoarded. I doubt I could have skipped it entirely because of how I’d struggle in the arena, which is kind of the main focus of my game.

People have unlocked the ultimates and it looks like it’s about what I was guessing. Kylo can charge his next ultimate while he’s in his aggressive stance, but Rey cannot. There’s not enough testing, but I did see a Rey vs Kylo (with both ultimates unlocked). Rey and Kylo were the only ones left, she did her AOE and wasn’t able to take out Kylo directly. She did get to attack again and beat him, but the fact that she couldn’t do it in one hit (since Kylo was alone, he got the full damage ~300K) was surprising.

Definitely seems like Kylo has a slight edge because he can activate his invincibility early. If Rey uses her ult on an invincible Kylo, that’s probably a guaranteed loss for her. I’ve even heard that there’s a Kylo team that Reys are having trouble beating on defense:



Apparently, his arena is asking him to change teams, and his Kylo doesn't even have all the Zetas.

 

Thought I might write some of my initial thoughts on GL Kylo from my arena climb today. The biggest thing I noticed is there really isn’t an ideal team for him. Rey more or less has a handful of main teams and that’s about it. Kylo teams can vary radically and that is good and bad. The good part is if you don’t have a specific character geared up enough (my Thrawn is still G12), you can work around it. Though on offense, G12 Thrawn works just fine.

I’m not sure how the AI handles it, but on offense Hux and FOO are analogues to the RH Poe and Finn. Just feed SLKR TM and that’s really all you need. The health reduction really doesn’t matter as long as you’re taking turns. That’s why Thrawn is so good. He does the same thing, except his swap doesn’t have any downsides, since you’re not ‘gaining’ TM. I hadn’t originally planned on it, but getting Thrawn to G13 is now on my radar.

Wat is another one. I wanted to gear him anyway, but the idea of using him in an arena team with SLKR is very tempting.

I do not like using KRU under SLKR because he can give TM to FOO and Hux too soon and mess up the turn order. Not that impressed with FO Sith Trooper, either. He still does decent damage, but Kylo is the driving force behind the team, so there’s no real point in trying to add in another damage dealer. Malak or GBA works pretty well as a tank. GBA and Wat together could be interesting.

I do have trouble with one odd Rey team:

Rey (L) GAS, Rex, Fives, and Echo​

It’s not the team so much as that Rey has her ultimate and I don’t have mine. I can get it down to Rey vs Kylo, but the ultimate means she can one-shot him. That would no longer be the case when I have my ultimate, since I can just save it to be immune to her ultimate. It’s a minor thing, since I should have the ultimate done in two weeks at most.

 

I actually did try that team. It was very effective against GAS teams, but I had some issues against Rey. SLKR didn't get enough turns to ramp up his damage. Maybe mine was too slow? I have mine modded for offense, which kind of hurts the speed department.

My arena has 5 Reys and 3 Kylos. Most of them (including me) switch to just Kylo or Rey alone after payout so we can be knocked back. It's usually not an issue because GLs rarely fall that far so there are extra battles.

 

A little more Kylo insight after playing him in arena for a while.

I admit that when the kits came out, and especially after the early testing, I was afraid that Kylo wasn’t going to be all that useful for arena. Apparently, that is not the case. Right now, my arena has 5 Reys and 3 Kylos. Neither one falls much on defense. Most of us switch to a solo GL team after our payout to let others get in because we end up with so many extra battles. I don’t think I’ve fallen out of the top 15 since switching to Kylo, and most of the time I stay in the top 10. A few times, like today, I’ve sat at the same spot without dropping at all.

The team I more or less settled on is:

GL Kylo (L), Hux, FOO, Malak, and GBA​

I suspect mods have something to do with my staying power. Both Hux and FOO are at 322 speed and the AI always gives the bonus TM to Kylo. That can get tricky against any non-GL because Kylo goes first, uses his stun special and gets +40 siphon. If Hux goes next, he passing TM to Kylo and resets the cooldowns, so the stun special again and we’re at +80. If FOO goes second, then Kylo uses his AOE, then Hux rests both cool downs.

GBA makes DR counters harder because of the Brute. Plus, Malak is in there to cause chaos on his own and taunt. I’m still working on Thrawn and Wat, but I have a feeling they would only replace Malak. The Hux and FOO combo is very nice. Hux resets the cool downs, but FOO gives Kylo offense up. Unfortunately, I don’t think Thrawn will target Kylo with him TM swap. If he did, it would definitely be better than Malak.

Wat could be interesting. He would boost the survivability of GBA and Brute, but his tech is what I’m really curious about. I wonder if the TM tech on Kylo could be worth it. He’d be losing max health, but if he’s taking a bunch of turns and ramping up the damage, does it matter? Or just slap the health and protection regen on him?

For context, the other two Kylos in my arena are running slightly different teams from me:

GL Kylo (L), Hux, DR, DS Bastila, and Malak

GL Kylo (L), Hux, DR, Thrawn, and Malak​

Both of them have the ultimate unlocked. I’m only at 3/10.

Edit: Apparently, Kylo may be getting a buff:

https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.sta...es-to-galactic-legend-supreme-leader-kylo-ren

I don’t know. I can understand the logic, but CG does not have a good track record of ‘fixing’ things like that. It’s also a relatively narrow situation where GAS can do it. It’s almost never going to happen in the real world. Why?

In arena, no one uses a full FO team with Kylo. You’ll have Malak, DR, Thrawn, GBA, or a bunch of other characters that would shut down that GAS cheese like a brick wall.

In GAC, you’ll never see it done because you actually have to mod GAS and the other 501st character in a unique way for it to work. GAS has to have low protection and high health to make sure Kylo knocks him down on the first turn and GAS will weather the attacks when he’s alone. On top of that, the other 501st character needs to die off ASAP. The best way of doing that is to remove the mods altogether.

Now think about this. You essentially sabotage your GAS and at least one 501st clone or Ahsoka on the chance that you’ll fight an opponent who not only has GL Kylo but also puts him on defense with a full FO team. Against everyone else, you’ve crippled yourself. And all this has to be done before you see your opponents. Who would do that? And if they do, they’re going to struggle a lot more than it’s worth.

 

It’ll mostly depend on you. People tend to favor some teams more for climbing than others. Rey can be beaten by any GL, so it’s pretty much whatever is more consistent for you. That’s also why you won’t see too many Reys once you get to the very top. She’s a liability on defense.

Outside of that, the Armorer trick would probably work just as well on Kylo. Maybe even better, not that he needs it most of the time. Kylo will always bead SEE on offense. It doesn’t matter what team they have or whether you solo or use a full team. The AI isn’t going to properly use the Armorer on defense.

And linking Kylo doesn’t really matter. GLs are immune to its effects. The only benefit you get is speeding up your ultimate because GLs take so many turns.

Right now, there are ways for every GL to beat each other. JML can even beat SEE, if you play around with the mods. I believe it’s called a Jericho team. Basically, you pass around a bunch of Jedi Lessons and then do JML’s AOE and knock out SEE’s whole team. Then work on him alone. It’s a bit of a pain to do and doing counter teams like that make you vulnerable in other areas, so the GLs that counter them are still counters, just not hard ones anymore.

 

If you are able to get to the top of arena, the team you leave will probably depend on how many JMLs there are. If there’s enough of them, it’ll create a wall that would insulate a SEE team from Kylos. Yes, Kylo can beat JML, but it’s not something most people will actually do. If there aren’t enough JMLs, then you could drop with SEE. But as long as you can climb, that's your foot in the door.

In my experience, most people don’t usually change their arena team. The one main exception is if you have to go to a certain spot to save a battle. Like you’re on 9 and want to go to 1. If you don’t go to 5, then you have to use an extra battle to get to 1. At that point, most people will switch if they can. Outside of that, they tend to stick with what they’re using. I do it, too. I use my JML team against Rey, Kylo, and mirror JMLs. The only time I switch is against SEE because I don’t want to change my mods.

Mods are another reason a lot of people don’t want to switch teams. Most people put their best mods on their arena team. If they don’t have a lot of good mods, they might not feel as comfortable switching to another team with weaker mods.

And mods are a big factor in who stays in the top 30 and who drops out of it, too. The teams matter, of course, but you’ll usually notice a significant jump in mod quality when you get to the edge of the arena chat.

 

I saw that. I admit, I’m genuinely surprised by CG’s stupidity there. I mean my expectations for them are low, but . . . yeah.

Even if they don’t do anything, the implication that they might is damaging enough. Up until now, they used the thin veil that endless loops were the only reason they changed kits, even though they used that as an excuse a couple of times already. But the P1 solo was not a loop by any stretch. Not only did it require R8 and insane speed, but it’s only a single phase. Guilds are struggling to complete it as-is and CG want to consider making it harder? Then again, I guess that’s the LS Geo TB model. Make it impossible to beat so the content can’t get outdated.

And if they actually do change something on Kylo, are they going to refund everyone all the gear they put into FO to unlock Kylo? The people who took him to R8 for the CRancor? It’s going to be a disaster for them when the backlash hits. And for players, how can anyone feel comfortable gearing a character when over a year after they might change the kit because they didn’t play test a raid? It was bad enough when they did it to Finn, but GL Kylo required a lot more investment. It also puts a damper on theory crafting. As soon as someone figures something out that goes against CG’s pre-defined acceptable teams, it gets changed?