With the Star Wars Rebels Phoenix Squadron being the focus of SWGoH in March 2017, the newest release from that group is Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus. A Padawan in the Clone Wars who survived Order 66, Jarrus takes on his Star Wars Rebels Season 3 form blinded after a battle with Maul in the Season 2 finale.

At first glance, Jarrus sticks out in the Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes universe as he is the first taunting Jedi. Given the release schedule of the Phoenix Squadron and lack of available data on the other Phoenix toons’ abilities, we will be speculating on some of the possible synergies, but overall Kanan complements Hera nicely which is fitting since the two are a couple on the Rebels series.

Kanan’s basic ability, Disarming Strike, inflicts offense down until the start of his next turn – more effective since he is actually a very slow character. For his taunt, a special called Intervene, not only causes him to draw attention to himself, but is coupled with an attack of his own and he dispels all debuffs on a target ally. Oh, and if that is not enough, Kanan’s tenacity is doubled when he taunts making stun or other detrimental effects more difficult to inflict on him. His Total Defense special dispels all debuffs on Kanan and grants himself and a target ally 40% protection up. Finally, his unique grants Kanan 70% counter chance and he recovers 25% health when he suffers a debuff.

Let that all sink in…

Ok, let’s look at the start of the Phoenix synergies. Under a Hera Syndulla lead, each Phoenix Squadron ally shares their unique ability with their fellow Phoenix allies, and when they use a special ability they gain 20% turn meter if Hera is active. Thus, we now have a 70% counter chance for all Phoenix allies and they all recover 25% health when they suffer a debuff. And we only have two Phoenix Squadron toons thus far…

My only change/request would have been to have Kanan with a unique that allowed him to “see” through stealth given he does not actually “see” with his eyes, but rather through the force. This would have been quite fitting and a new ability in the game – much like Boba Fett and the ability to ignore taunt.

A quick look at mods for Kanan and right away potency, health, protection and defense stick out as the obvious choices. How and where we use those will be covered another day, but that is the direction I plan to go. As we look ahead, these Phoenix characters are going to be awesome together. Plan to stock up and gear them up and test them and let us know if you have any tips as well!