AAT – Phase 1 Teams & Strategy

The gameplay of the Heroic AAT is considered “old content” by many players, but we at Gaming-fans.com know that it continues to be a challenge for players across the globe. While the game has evolved greatly since the AAT Raid was added to Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, the rewards remain necessary and the characters continue to get stronger. We will look to continue to update this content moving forward, but the challenge to solo the Heroic AAT (HAAT) is where the real focus is in today’s game.

AAT/HAAT Phase 1:

In Phase 1 we’ll be facing General Grievous, B2 Battle Droid and two IG-100 MagnaGuards. There is nothing overly complicated with the kits outside of General Grievous gaining a Tactical Maneuvering buff for 3 turns, every 7th time he takes damage (yes a Damage Over Time (DoT) does count too, which rendered many attempted zVader teams useless back in the day). This leads to him gaining +25% Offense and 30% turn meter whenever an ally is attacked. On top of this he and an ally immediately gain 100% turn meter and reset their cooldowns. The chosen random ally also gains Taunt for 1 taunt.

SWGoH - HAAT - DBofficial125The strategies largely consist of preventing Grievous gaining his buff and keeping his turn meter at bay. If these are accomplished then he won’t revive the other droids and we can rack up big damage. There are a few exceptions and we’ll cover all of them.

 

Commander Luke Skywalker (CLS)/Han Solo (and variations):

The team of Commander Luke Skywalker lead with (Raid) Han Solo is the core of any team meant to solo Phase 1. CLS’s lead causes counters while both of his moves reduce turn meter and Han’s basic reduces turn meter while his special boosts his own and his second special leads to both he and Luke hitting harder. Together they make the perfect team.

Han will go first, usually stunning and killing off B2 then ideally you want to land Luke’s 1st special and place Buff Immunity on Grievous early. From there use his 2nd special to allow him to ignore any taunts and just focus on controlling Grievous. That’s it, now you’ll just use both to control Grievous while the MagnaGuards will be killed by counter attacks. Speed makes things a lot easier although Critical Damage/Critical Chance sets with good speed secondaries are preferred.

 

(Wedge lead variation):

If you’re having issues with keeping Han alive then having Wedge as leader can certainly help this, as Rebels will recover 15% of their Max Health when they land a Critical hit. The team will also benefit from 10% Turn Meter gain and 30% Offense boosts.

 

(Chief Nebit ally variation):

My personal favourite option is to plug Nebit into a CLS lead team. Nebit is a self healing taunter who can also call both Luke and Han to assist him every 3 turns.

 

(Dathcha lead variation):

The team known as Brotini features Dathcha as the leader of CLS and Han to gain an additional 25% chance to reduce 25% turn meter. Dathcha can also stun the droids. Both Luke’s It Binds All Things and Han’s Zeta are required.

 

CLS Solo:

Don’t have Han yet for some reason? Well CLS can actually solo Phase 1 with a hit & run strategy. Following the same pattern from the CLS/Han team, you’ll land Buff Immunity, use your 2nd special to bypass taunts and control General Grievous’s turn meter. Ignore the side droids entirely unless you’re unlucky enough to mistime removing Luke’s buff to heal and have to hit a taunter. Once around seven turns till enrage you’ll want to attempt to escape by pressing the button above Luke’s portrait in the bottom left corner. If you escape then simple go back in and repeat, if you fail then make use of your 2nd special to speed up the escape cooldown and try again. Luke’s It Binds All Things Zeta is required.

 

Zeta Kylo Solo:

The original Hit & Run raid strategy was Kylo. Prior to a bug fix, Zeta Kylo was able to not only reduce his cooldowns, but also the escape buttons whenever he was hit. This meant you could spam damage, using the AoE to bypass any taunts, heal with your 2nd special and spam escape near the end.

Unfortunately now things are a bit more of a headache, you’ll want to try and escape early and do much smaller damaging runs. Otherwise you may end up failing to escape and being forced to retreat and retry. Kylo Ren’s Zeta is required.

 

Zeta Savage Solo:

Savage Opress was the poor man’s Kylo as he does about 50% of the damage and was a lot harder to escape, although now they have the same difficulty. The other downside is Savage has no AoE to continue to deal damage to General Grievous during any taunting periods. Once again you’ll want to get some hits in and escape as early as possible. Savage Opress’s Zeta required.

 

Kenobi Sink:

The Kenobi Sink team is probably the most fun of all the teams because it’s so quick and can’t go wrong as long as your first move works. In lead you’ll want Boba Fett or any character who boosts the teams damage output (i.e. Jedi Knight Anakin, etc.). Then you’ll throw in a couple of attackers with General Kenobi and Darth Maul.

The strategy here is Maul needs to land Daze on B2 and both Magnaguards with his AoE special. If he doesn’t, just retreat and try again. If he does, you’ll now use Kenobi’s 1st special to give the entire team counter. Now use up any remaining turns on Grievous… that’s it. Once Grievous takes a turn he’ll AoE your team and all of your team will counter him, he’ll immediately trigger his raid mechanic, gain 100% turn meter and repeat this loop until enrage when your team will die.

You should bank around 30% of the phase without even doing anything but watching your team counter. Modding here is about speed for Maul and Kenobi, then pure damage for the other 3 members. They don’t even need a Speed primary arrow, so use an Offense primary for extra damage.

 

Jedi Teams:

Prior to the arrival of Zetas and “Zylo” taking the raid by storm, the way to hurt Grievous before was with a Jedi team. Most people ran Ima-Gun Di lead to benefit from his 30 Defense and 35% Counter Chance and additional 25% Counter Damage. Often people would run a healer like Barriss Offee or Luminara Unduli in the squad, alongside powerful Jedi like Aayla Secura, Jedi Knight Anakin, etc. Runs of 4-8% weren’t that difficult with a good team. The only downside is that Jedi weren’t really used anywhere else in the game so it was a distracting farm in regards to account development.

Other lineups made use of Anakin Skywalker’s aggressive leadership in which Jedi gain 30% Offense and 20% Critical Damage. On top of that if one of your allys evades they gain Advantage for a guaranteed critical hit. Anakin also gains turn meter whenever an ally is seriously injured or killed and has Buff Immunity on a basic. Factor these leads in with the bonus of all Jedi gaining 20% Critical Chance and recovering 15% of their Max Health at the start of their turn in the AAT raid, and it was easy to see why these were the teams we built.

Now in December 2018 we have new Jedi like Bastila Shan and Revan to take the mantle, although as with all the newer characters, Zetas come into play. Bastila has one of the very best Zetas in the game anyway and is a great early investment.

There is no special strategy to using the Jedi against General Grievous, you just take care of B2 and do as much as damage as you could. No Zetas are required for these Jedi teams, although if using Bastila you’d ideally want her leadership Zeta.

 

RJT Resistance with CLS:

Since the rework of Finn that nerfed his leadership but otherwise made him a far better character, one of the best teams in the AAT is now Rey (Jedi Training) lead with BB-8, C-3PO, Finn and Commander Luke Skywalker. Here are some notes from Black Eagle of Descendants of the Empire on how this team is effective in Phase 1 of HAAT:

In Phase 1 I start by getting C-3PO to place the Confuse debuff on the B2 and the MagnaGuards. I look to avoid hitting General Grievous until I have at least two stacks of Confuse on the B2 Super Battle Droid so that he doesn’t get full Turn Meter and dispel my whole team. After this, I still try to hit General Grievous as little as possible until I have 2 stacks of Confuse on all droids.

I use Rey (Jedi Training)’s and Commander Luke Skywalker’s specials to keep his TM in check. Once all the sides have double Confuse and Expose debuffs then I start swarming mass attacks on GG and the sides won’t get any more turns because they lose TM every time you use a special ability.

It is possible to hit auto after you get this setup, but sometimes GG takes too many turns and gets dangerously close to Enrage. As a result I play manual whenever I have the time.

 

Special thanks to SWGoH GameChanger DBofficial125 for his historic help with this AAT Tank Takedown Raid guide.

 

Tank Takedown (AAT) Raid Strategy & Teams