Eeth Who Now?

Eeth Koth. Our own Iridonian Zabrak. A Jedi Master from Nar Shaddaa, of all places. There's so much to recommend the character of Eeth Koth in the Star Wars universe generally. He's an interesting soul. Unfortunately -- and conversely -- there isn't much to recommend him in SWGoH. As the screenshot below suggests, I gave up on Koth long ago. Both offensively and defensively, he proved himself a lightweight when compared to many of his Jedi counterparts. Now that new Jedi have been released along with a host of other powerful heroes, he does little more than collect dust near the bottom of my inventory.

Which is a shame. As I outlined in my previous post, I think the Jedi deserve a sweeping rework. But none more than our ineffectively limp friend here. So, I decided to dust this Jedi Master off, imagine an effective yet realistic redesign, and post about it. It should go without saying that the rework I imagine here is only one of many I could write about. Which is as much to say, the suggestions I discuss below are just for fun. Although, again, I do hope the SWGoH developers officially decide to make dusty heroes like Eeth Koth shine.

In any event, let's take a look under his Jedi hood, shall we? Here are the current specs on Koth's Attacks and Abilities:

Breaching Strike (Basic): Deal Physical damage to target enemy with a 50% chance to inflict Defense Down for 3 turns. If the target is a Droid, this attack has a 100% chance. 

Force Push (Special): Deal Special damage to target enemy with a 75% chance to Stun for 1 turn and a 100% chance to inflict Ability Block for 3 turns if the target is a Droid. 

Stalwart Jedi Defense (Leader): Jedi allies gain 60 Defense. 

Anti-Droid Specialist (Unique): Eeth Koth has +35% Critical Chance and +20% Critical Damage when attacking Droids.

It's worth noting that Koth is listed as Support, and this is the first aspect of his character that I would overhaul. Out of the 19 Jedi heroes available, only 5 are Attackers. With a +1000 base damage to his basic attack, Breaching Strike, Koth could make a fine Attacker, on a par with Jedi Knight Anakin. And because he isn't the most robust Jedi, I would have his Health Steal max at 35%, which is above game average, but by no means jaw-droppingly unreasonable.

Now for the Attacks and Abilities spec changes. This rework proposes that Koth shouldn't become just another Attacker who clobbers his enemies, but rather a tactically oriented Jedi Attacker who not only hits respectably hard, but also throws down a balanced variety of buffs and debuffs. And, of course, he'll still mop the deck with Droids:

Breaching Strike (Basic): Deal Physical damage to target enemy. This attack inflicts Offense Down for 2 turns with an 80% chance to gain Foresight for 1 turn. If the target is Dark Side, attack again. If the target is a Droid, this attack is guaranteed a Critical Hit. 

Force Push (Special): Deal special damage to target enemy and inflict a debuff (Attacker: Stun, Healer/Support: Stagger, Tank: Expose) for 2 turns. If the target is a Droid, call Ima-Gun Di to assist if he is present. 

Stalwart Jedi Defense (Leader): Jedi allies gain 60 Defense, Tenacity Up and Evasion Up for 3 turns. If a Jedi ally falls below 50% health, they regain these buffs for 3 turns. 

Nemesis (Unique): Eeth Koth has +25% Critical Damage when attacking Droids and +50% Critical Damage when attacking General Grievous. If Ima-Gun Di is present he also gains these bonuses. 

So, let me walk us through all this. First, as it currently stands Breaching Strike isn't altogether terrible. However, there are two Jedi who gain significant bonuses against Droids -- yep, you guessed it, Ima-Gun Di is the other one -- and both of these Jedi inflict Defense Down with their basic attack at 100% chance against Droids. This seemed redundant to me.

If it isn't already obvious, I've paired Ima-Gun Di and Eeth Koth to work together, similar to Jedi Knight Anakin and Ahsoka Tano or, more obviously and effectively, Wedge Antilles and Biggs Darklighter. Retool Breaching Strike and these two Jedi would pack a 1-2 punch that inflicts both Offense and Defense down on any given enemy. Because I designated Koth as Attacker rather than Support, in turn I added an Attack Again feature, but only against the baddies. And, as we'll see, a guaranteed Critical Hit against Droids makes him extremely dangerous. At the moment, he's so-so even when maxed.

To polish Breaching Strike, I added an 80% chance to gain Foresight for a single turn, akin to Rey's 40% chance to gain this buff for 2 turns. To balance out the percentage difference, I doubled the chance but halved the turn length. Again, these are maxed percentages. And I added this buff chance because, as I noted earlier, Koth is practically made of glass.

I had fun with Force Push. Because the original ability mixes Stun and Ability Block, I thought it might prove interesting to focus these debuffs, inspired as I was by Director Krennic's Experimental Weaponry (Special) ability. And, again, this Special Ability offered the opportunity to develop synergies between two specific Heroes, rather than simply a random ally, which Jedi glaringly lack.

So. Let's face it. Koth's Leader Ability stinks. Sure, the 60 Defense is a good start, but it falls quite short when compared to a long, long list of other Leader Abilities. It's like the devs just threw up their hands and said, "Well, nobody's really gonna use this dude anyways. Let's just get this done and go to lunch." To make a bona fide leader out of Koth, I'd have him grant initial buffs to the whole Jedi squad. Tenacity Up has its obvious advantages at the outset of an encounter, but I also chose this because Yoda's default first move is to grant the entire squad Tenacity Up, which means that he would no longer have to do so. With just this one change, Yoda -- and, in turn, the rest of the Jedi squad -- would become far more formidable. My choice to add Evasion Up as well is less defensible, but it still makes sense to me when I consider that a hero like Cassian Andor grants his entire squad buffs at the outset of an encounter with his Unique ability, Groundwork. Evasion Up makes it less likely that the entire squad will get destroyed by AoE attacks in the first few turns. And I also thought it a nice defensive touch to have Koth automatically grant these buffs again to ailing Jedi later in the encounter. Jedi aren't generally built for speedy victories.

Now, you'll notice that I changed the name of Koth's Unique ability. Some of you may recall that, during the Clone Wars, he was taken prisoner by General Grievous. I thought to play upon that relationship with this Unique ability by doubling Koth's Critical Damage against Grievous, similar to how Darth Maul does double damage against all Jedi. With this retool, Koth would become extremely dangerous against your average Droid since Breaching Strike guarantees a Critical Hit, but when facing Grievous, however, Koth and Ima-Gun Di would form a downright deadly duo, since the latter gains +50% Critical Damage as well. And yes, these two would become very useful in the Tank Takedown arena.

So there you have it, a reworked Eeth Koth. I'd use'em a lot, that's for sure. And while I'm also sure we won't see a Jedi rework any time soon, it doesn't hurt to imagine the possibilities. I hope you enjoyed the musing. Maybe I'll write a series of these thought experiments, we'll have to see.