First appearing in The Force Awakens, the First Order TIE Pilot has been a part of Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes since the beginning when he served as the December 2015 daily login character. A Dark Side Attacker who can score some key critical hits, FOTP can be tough on any team but deadly in a all-First Order team. With a Zeta on his Keen Eye unique ability, FOTP goes from hitting hard to hitting even harder and is even more elusive to his enemies.

The Zeta is on his unique ability, Keen Eye, and adds the following text: “+15% Critical Chance, +10% Critical Damage, and First Order TIE Pilot has a 70% chance to gain Foresight for 2 turns whenever he loses Advantage.” Added to the original, level 7 text, the maxed (level 8) ability reads “First Order TIE Pilot has +30% Critical Chance and +30% Critical Damage, and gains Advantage for 3 turns whenever an enemy falls below full Health. First Order TIE Pilot has a 70% chance to gain Foresight for 2 turns whenever he loses Advantage.” To sum it all up, his chance to crit is high, his crits will hit harder and when he loses Advantage he is harder to hit.

First Order TIE Pilot Zeta Review

Gameplay: First Order TIE Pilot’s Zeta is all about more offense and taking fewer hits. Added CC and CD means he hits harder and scores critical hits more often. Thanks to the GameChangers program for SWGoH through EA/CG I was able to test him at 6-stars, Gear 11 (5 pieces) and I was seeing his basic crit for 15k-20k+ consistently while the special attack hit for 35-40k. The mods I recommend for FOTP are Critical Chance (CC) and Critical Damage (CD) mods with a focus on Speed, CC, CD and Offense, so his tested stats were 216% CD, 3104 Physical Damage and 65 Armor Penetration.

Squad Arena: The First Order is not really a faction that is competitive in the Top 50 of the Squad Arena for most shards, so FOTP’s Zeta does not really have much impact here. For this article I did test the First Order team against META teams with CLS, Thrawn and more and received a swift butt-kicking to further cement my stance on this topic.

Rancor: The Rancor Pit Raid is not typically a place where I would expect to see the First Order, however when you have Zetas on the original FO toons, First Order TIE Pilot included, strong scores will follow. FOTP is the main damage dealer in the group putting up more than half of the squad’s damage in my most recent test in the GameChangers program, and scoring hits into the 40k range is certainly possible.

AAT/HAAT: Phase 2 is where the First Order has been most-used in the Heroic AAT (Tank Takedown) and the Zeta abilities for SWGoH‘s First Order toons can take this group from a decent scoring team (under 1 million) to a high-level scoring team. FOTP is a big piece of that as when he is well-used striking with Advantage and critting over and over again, the numbers can be most impressive.

Territory Battles: FOTP and his 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. First Order TIE Pilot’s Zeta may be the second best of the original FO toons (behind Kylo), as the added survivability and the harder hits are quite valuable in Territory Battles. It does gain value, however, when paired with a Zeta Captain Phasma, to gain added attacks.

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 zFOTP: My use of zFOTP is mostly in the Galactic War. Territory Battles do not yet apply, the First Order is overmatched in the Squad Arena and while the First Order is a fun play in HAAT, it is an average play against the Rancor in my opinion.

My Rating of First Order TIE Pilot’s Zeta Ability: My rating for First Order TIE Pilot’s Zeta is a 5. I feel it is average overall and while I like the idea of hitting harder, the added survivability from the chance to gain Foresight being key. However, while hitting harder is always a good thing, spending Zeta on an ability that a Zeta Barriss can basically counteract is a hefty price. I am trying to reserve a 10/10 for the best of SWGoH, and I have yet to find one that is so OP that it deserves a 10. FOTP’s Zeta is nice to have, but it’s not one I am even considering for my personal account.

Images courtesy of SWGOH.gg