TIE Defender

UNIT NAME: TIE Defender
ALIGNMENT: Dark Side
CATEGORIES: Dark Side, Attacker, Empire

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Key Attributes:

• New Effect - Special Forces


• Has an undispellable irresistible, unavoidable stun, that’s right, you heard us


• Uses the formation buff through Reinforcement


• It counts as a TIE fighter


• Uses Resilient Defense Buff

Inspiration:

• Ships origin dates back to its introduction in the TIE Fighter game, we wanted to capture the nostalgia of our youth and bring a piece of history to the Holotables


• Our version of the TIE Defender demonstrates the abilities and weaponry it displayed in Star Wars: Squadrons


• The Executrix needed a 5th ship to fill out the fleet and we felt TIE Defender was the perfect fit for what that team was missing.


• We wanted Iden Versio to be the crew as before and during her time with Inferno Squad she was one of the Empire’s top TIE pilots


• The ability “We Weren’t Expecting Special Forces” is a direct callout to Iden’s role and rank in the Empire
  
  

Strategy Tips:

• Use it as a Reinforcement


• Get your Stun out there as soon as possible - Long cooldown


• BASIC BASIC BASIC - PEW PEW PEWWWWWWWWWW

FAQ:

Why is the TIE Defender counting as a TIE Fighter?

We wanted the TIE Defender to work well with the rest of the Executrix Fleet.

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ABILITIES:
BASIC: Wingtip L-s9.3 Laser Cannons


Final Text: Deal Physical damage 3 times. For each critical hit scored, grant TIE Defender a stack of Resilient Defense (max 2). If TIE Defender has Special Forces, this attack has +50% Critical Chance and Critical Damage.

SPECIAL 1:CLL-3 Ion Torpedoes - 4 Turn Cooldown


Final Text: Deal physical damage to target enemy, reduce their Turn Meter by 30%, and Stun them for 1 turn. If TIE Defender has Special Forces, this Stun can't be dispelled, evaded, or resisted.

UNIQUE 1: P-sz9.7 Twin Ion Engine
Final Text: Whenever TIE Defender Evades an attack, Grant 10% Turn Meter to the allied Capital Ship and an additional 10% Turn Meter if TIE Defender has Special Forces. This effect is tripled for Empire Capital Ships.



While TIE Defender has Special Forces, whenever it Evades an attack with Foresight, gain Critical Chance Up for 2 turns and dispel all debuffs on TIE Defender.



TIE Defender counts as a TIE Fighter.

UNIQUE 2: TIE/x7

Final Text:TIE Defender gains 10% Evasion, 20% Offense, and 30% Max Protection. Whenever TIE Defender gains Resilient Defense, recover 10% Protection. At the start of each turn, if TIE Defender has Special Forces and Resilient Defense, it gains Foresight for 1 turn. When TIE Defender evades, if it has Special Forces, recover 10% Health and gain 10% Turn Meter.
REINFORCEMENT: We Weren't Expecting Special Forces

Final Text: Imperial TIE Fighter allies gain Foresight for 1 turn.

Ally Empire ships gain 1 stack of Formation (max 30) until the end of battle or until TIE Defender is defeated and can't be copied, dispelled, or prevented. Imperial TIE fighter allies instead gain stacks of Formation equal to the number of ally Imperial TIE Fighters.

TIE Defender gains Special Forces until the end of battle.
NEW EFFECT

Special Forces: Gives abilities additional effects

Now that’s something nice to see. I guess I might as well get my gripe out of the way first. Iden Versio never piloted a TIE Defender. And given how Disney canon changed the TIE Defender so it was developed by Thrawn, I’m not a big fan of it getting pushed to the Executrix. No Thrawn synergy at all.

In the EU Thrawn did not develop the TIE Defenders. In fact, he fought against them because the one who did develop them, Grand Admiral Zaarin, attempted a coup. Thrawn developed the Missile Boats to defeat the Defenders.

Now back to the kit.

It’s clear that they want to build the Executrix fleet around TIEs and essentially making the Defender into another cog in the Scythe whack-a-mole is a way to do that. I don’t really see why the TIE Advanced, TIE bomber, and TIE Interceptor don’t count as TIEs, though. I mean the Interceptor has a foresight mechanic already and you could pair the Inquisitors together. But that’s not what they went for.

I do like the Resilient Defense incorporated. You really have to use the Defender as a reinforcement, since you only get Special Forces that way and you need it for the full effect. I guess the unresistable stun is nice, but you can’t get around taunt, so that might be limited. Then again, I guess it could be a way to lock down HT if you can get buff immunity on him with one of the TIEs.

For all my complaints about Iden being the pilot, it does benefit me. I already have her at R5.I imagine a fair number of people left her at G11 or G12 because she wasn’t needed higher for most situations.

Electricboa wrote:Now that’s something nice to see. I guess I might as well get my gripe out of the way first. Iden Versio never piloted a TIE Defender. And given how Disney canon changed the TIE Defender so it was developed by Thrawn, I’m not a big fan of it getting pushed to the Executrix. No Thrawn synergy at all.

In the EU Thrawn did not develop the TIE Defenders. In fact, he fought against them because the one who did develop them, Grand Admiral Zaarin, attempted a coup. Thrawn developed the Missile Boats to defeat the Defenders.

Now back to the kit.

It’s clear that they want to build the Executrix fleet around TIEs and essentially making the Defender into another cog in the Scythe whack-a-mole is a way to do that. I don’t really see why the TIE Advanced, TIE bomber, and TIE Interceptor don’t count as TIEs, though. I mean the Interceptor has a foresight mechanic already and you could pair the Inquisitors together. But that’s not what they went for.

I do like the Resilient Defense incorporated. You really have to use the Defender as a reinforcement, since you only get Special Forces that way and you need it for the full effect. I guess the unresistable stun is nice, but you can’t get around taunt, so that might be limited. Then again, I guess it could be a way to lock down HT if you can get buff immunity on him with one of the TIEs.

For all my complaints about Iden being the pilot, it does benefit me. I already have her at R5.I imagine a fair number of people left her at G11 or G12 because she wasn’t needed higher for most situations.

It does seem odd that they botched the lore so badly on this one. They could have easily used this kit for Iden's ship and released TIE Defender down the road so that it synergizes with Chimaera.

I'm with you though since my Iden is R4.

Good bet this will be a requirement for the next GL, too.

I’m not sure about the GL angle. I guess it would make sense if we were getting a Thrawn GL, but the Ahsoka show doesn’t have a set release date beyond sometime this year. Even then, CG isn’t always eager to do TV show tie-ins when they come out. Sometimes, they wait until the next season, like with The Mandalorian. And there’s no guarantee that Thrawn is going to be the main antagonist in the series. Ray Stevenson has been cast as an evil admiral, but they said it isn’t Thrawn. My money is on Ahsoka setting up Thrawn as a big threat in her series, but we won’t get Thrawn as the active villain until a team-up series, kind of like what the Netflix marvel series did with The Defenders.

But my point is it’s just too early for CG to do a Thrawn GL. I can definitely see it happening at some point, but I would assume that it’ll kind of be like Jabba. GL Thrawn will have some general Empire synergy, but we’ll be pushed into using an Imperial Remnant team. It does fit. You figure we’ve got four of them now. Thrawn did use the Death Troopers and it would make sense for him to make the most out of a basic Stormtrooper. My guess is Gideon will end up being part of Thrawn’s plan, so he and Dark Trooper get grandfathered in.

That does create some issues. The Veers and Iden teams would take major hits. There also aren’t enough Imperial Remnant units for GL requirements. I mean, sure, they’re going to require the OG Thrawn. Maybe the Chimaera or TIE Defender. But when we got Jabba, a bunch of characters got Imperial Remnant tags to fill out his faction so we weren’t locked into just a single team. There aren’t a lot of Empire units that I could see getting the Remnant tag. TIE pilot, Probe droid, and Shoretrooper would be at the top for me. Maybe some no-name troopers like Snowtrooper? Most Empire units died before the Empire fell.

The is, the TIE Defender would be FTP farmable long before any Thrawn GL came out. Though it’ll be a toss-up between the Chimaera and the Defender as the ship requirement. Chimaera makes the most thematic sense (assuming they don’t give him a new ship, which I doubt they will). The Defender will still be less common and players will need Iden to unlock it.

Speaking of unlocking the Defender, from the datamine:

EVENT_TIE_DEFENDER_SUMMARY The TIE Defender has arrived! For a limited time, TIE Defender blueprints are available as bonus rewards on all Fleet Battle nodes. Head over and start earning blueprints for this powerful Imperial Attacker! During this event, TIE Defender blueprint's drop rate on each node has been scaled to Ship Energy. Fleet Battles are rewarding bonus drops from 1/27 through 2/2.

So Sana gets sent to the Cantina and the Defender gets put on fleet nodes. Not going to lie, I kind of would have rather they both be in the Cantina so I can justify doing all those refreshes. 5-star is going to be the goal for the Defender, since we need it as a reinforcement.

To clarify, I don't think TIE Defender will be for a GL Thrawn, just the next GL to be released.

CG always throws in one ship as a requirement and it doesn't always match the GL. Outrider is required for Jabba, Rebel Y-Wing for Master Luke and TIE Bomber for SEE.

I'm with you on the fleet node. I also would have preferred if TIE Defender was dropping on Cantina nodes. Oh well, maybe I'll slow the BT-1 farm during the Galactic Chase period.

I guess so, though I think the ship requirement has some tangential connection to the respective GL. Like Luke had been part of the Rebellion and required a lot of Rebel characters, so the Y-Wing fit the theme. Palpatine was Emperor, so the TIE Bomber kind of fit him. Maybe a Rebel GL? Jabba was the first GL to have a ship that was opposite to his own alignment. But even the Outrider had a connection, since Dash was created for Shadows of the Empire, which was largely about trying to stop Han from being delivered to Jabba.

I suspect the next GL will end up being a LS one to balance out Jabba. For me, the most obvious choice would be Rebel. I just can’t figure out who it will be. Mothma or Leia would make the most sense. I guess we could get a different version of Mothma, since the one we have is ROTJ-specific. Endor Leia could work, too. If I wanted to go really out there, Luthen Rael from Andor? He could work with Rebel fighters. Saw Gerrera could be a requirement.

Endor Leia would be great.

I've wanted a strong Leia character for ages and I'm sure she'd be a popular choice among players, especially since we could conceivably get Scout Trooper, Bail Organa and Saw Gerrera as marquee requirements. There is a lot of potential for under-geared requirements like Stormtrooper Han, Farmboy Luke, Hoth Rebel Scout, Hoth Rebel Soldier, Wicket and other Ewoks.

It is also the 40th anniversary of the release of RotJ this May. Everything lines up for it...

Hmm, I forgot about Bail. He could conceivably be the Rebel GL. But I would much rather it be Leia. One of my bigger gripes about Disney canon is they never had Leia be the Chief of State for the New Republic. She was in the EU—multiple times. She was Mothma’s hand-picked heir.

I also forgot about the 40th anniversary. That would definitely line-up. You figure we don’t really have any other big unit on the horizon, so we are due for one. May would give them enough time to slow roll out the newer units and them to become farmable or close to it. They have been pushing it with Aphra, since Sana just became farmable.

On the other hand, I dread gearing up all those characters you just listed. But that’s exactly the kind of thing CG would do. I’m not sure about the three new units, though. I would have expected an Endor Han and Luke to go with Leia. Keep the trio together. Maybe a Golden God C-3PO in a chair?

Also, it looks like CG messed up on the drop rate:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/10mjayu/galactic_math_club_thrawn_was_robbed_edition/

Apparently, the math works out so doing refreshes for the ship really does work in your favor.

Edit: I was going to post about how good the Defender looked in testing, but CG came out with this:

Hello Holotable heroes, the team has been made aware of TIE Defender potentially overperforming against Executor and is investigating. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will keep you up to date as we learn more.

Not even 24 hours since release and already glaringly obvious how little testing they did themselves. I wonder if they ever get embarassed doing this stuff so often.

Someone in my guild posted this video for the first DS ship CM using the TIE Defender:



I tried it and did lose, but I came awfully close to winning for the very first time ever. They got a couple lucky hits and took out the Defender and everything started to fall apart. I just didn’t have the damage to finish them off. But I can easily see it working. I got off two ultimates and losing the Defender really was the reason I lost. If it stayed around even one more turn, I think I would have had it even if it fell.

The main downside is you can’t really make use of it until the TIE Defender is 7-stars. Iden might also be a limiting factor. Mine is R5. It really did help weathering some of the hits. Higher relics might have let her survive, so less RNG being a factor. You could probably get away with loser gear, but then you’d start to go the other way on the RNG pendulum.

I haven't unlocked Scythe yet, so haven't been able to try this CM.

Come to think of it, I haven't tried TIE Defender in any battle thus far.

Neither have I, apart from this. I've just been putting it on defense in GAC because I'm assuming CG is going to nerf the ship. Whatever my experience is now would likely get changed.