One of the stars of Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Captain Phasma is the leader of the First Order troops in the opening scene attack on the small village on Jakku. While her status remained up in the air at the conclusion of the movie, Phasma has been confirmed, along with General Hux and Kylo Ren, to be a part of Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. While I fully expect the addition of Hux and other First Order faction members before the end of 2017 (oops!), today we will look at Captain Phasma’s Zeta Leader ability.
In SWGoH Captain Phasma has a single Zeta Leader Ability. At level 7, her leader ability reads “Whenever an ally attacks, they have a 20% chance to call a random ally to Assist, dealing 15% less damage. This chance is doubled if the attacking ally is First Order. If that ally had Advantage, they regain it for 2 turns.” The upgrade with a Zeta used reads “Whenever an ally attacks, they have a 20% chance to call a random ally to Assist. This chance is tripled if the attacking ally is First Order. If that ally had Advantage, they regain it for 2 turns. First Order allies gain Advantage for 2 turns at the start of each encounter, can’t be Critically Hit while they have Advantage, and gain 20% Potency.” The difference? The 15% less damage is removed on assisting attacks, and First Order allies go from a 40% chance to assist to 60% chance. On top of that, the “First Order allies gain Advantage for 2 turns at the start of each encounter, can’t be Critically Hit while they have Advantage, and gain 20% Potency,” is all additional with the Zeta.
Looking this over, running a 4 or 5-member First Order squad can really be strong, especially if you have other First Order characters with a Zeta. We know Kylo Ren recovers Protection equal to the damage dealt with a Zeta on his special Unstoppable, and if you add First Order Stormtrooper and First Order TIE Pilot with the additional attacks and the damage dealt can be huge.
Captain Phasma Zeta Review
Gameplay: Captain Phasma’s Zeta is of of the more elusive ones in terms of the extra attacks. Rarely does anyone sit and count the extra attacks they get in a Phasma-led battle, but for the purposes of this article I did. Running a 5-member First Order squad with Zetas on Phasma and Kylo only, I saw anywhere from 3-6 additional attacks in most battles. Those extra attacks could be the difference in winning or losing, and if you add FOTP’s critical hits or additional attacks from FOST with a Zeta, this can be a game-changer.
Squad Arena: Personally, I use my Zeta Captain Phasma in the Arena on my alt account and typically rank about 120-170 (attacking 2-3 times a day on average). Since it is a completely FTP account, I am not able to invest the resources into toons immediately like I have with Darth Nihilus, Grand Admiral Thrawn and others on with my main account, so building up FTP toons like the original 5 First Order characters is my strategy.
Rancor: Running a First Order squad against the Rancor is fun, but nothing like a Zeta Darth Vader lead. First Order Officer can take away turn meter at times and Phasma, FOO and Kylo can all grant TM to their First Order teammates, so they can definitely put up really good numbers, but these 5 do not have the ability to solo the Rancor.
AAT/HAAT: Captain Phasma was often used in Phase 4 of HAAT with Rebels before the Clones and Chaze teams took over. While others tinkered with different squads, it became apparent that First Order squads work well in Phase 2, but multiple Zetas and crazy speed were necessary. This team is solid in HAAT, but you better have some awesome speed secondaries to see big numbers in the Tank Takedown Raid.
Territory Battles: Captain Phasma and her First Order allies have value in Imperial Retaliation, the Dark Side Territory Battles as several battles call for Dark Side toons with no specific faction. While Phasma’s Zeta and the additional attacks are a nice to have, the Zeta ability is certainly no game changer in the extra difficult battles.
Territory Wars: How Captain Phasma’s Zeta will impact Territory Wars in SWGoH is still in the early stages. We will be happy to add more thoughts on how this Zeta translates in the near future.
How I Use zCaptain Phasma: My use of Zeta Captain Phasma is typically the Galactic War each day and in the Arena. As I stated before, I use her as my Leader in the Arena and rank in the 120-170 range most days, so she still is not an elite leader in my opinion, unless you run a 5-member First Order team. Even then, I rarely see First Order teams in the Top 20 with my main account, so I do not see this as a group with Elite potential in the Arena. I did recently add a Zeta to First Order Stormtrooper and I am enjoying the extra attacks which seem to multiply under Phasma, despite having FOST at just 4-stars.
My Rating of zCaptain Phasma: My rating for Zeta Captain Phasma is a 4/10. I am basing this score on a stand alone Zeta used only on Phasma and none of the other First Order members. I think the Zeta becomes more valuable on Phasma when you have one on FOST and FOTP as well, thus add 2 points per FO member (excluding Kylo) making her Zeta Leader Ability a 6/10 with FOST/FOTP with a Zeta or a 8/10 with both. I will surely update this with more gameplay, but at this time this is my rating based on my experience.
Images courtesy of SWGOH.gg
