The Meta Forecast (from the Playbook)

*STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION* (Call it a beta)
The Meta Forecast is my take on a tier list for the most promising defense teams each season.
Since omicrons can't be tested with datacrons, each season starts off with a lot of unknowns.
Building a strong defense can buy you a lot of room to figure things out on offense, or win single handedly.
If a team isn't on this list, it doesn't mean that it's bad, just that it's a known quantity with no interesting twists.
The goal is to get the most promising new angles in your hands so you can catch your opponents by surprise.
Defense theorycrafting is one of my favorite things in this game, and I’m hoping you’ll get the same joy out of their holds that I do.
Bring some popcorn. Feel free to tag me with screenshots of your holds and I'll put them up on the Bounty Board!

The rating system is meant to indicate potential. Keep in mind that this rating heavily depends on your level of play.
A C Tier team could be S Tier at lower GP levels.

S Tier: This team is highly destructive and has very few ways to kill it efficiently.
A Tier: Very high hold potential, a solid trap/angle that forces your opponent to find the answer.
B Tier: Solid hold potential, but often needs to be paired with other effective comps to create leverage.
C Tier: Has been solved at the top end meta, but will be devastating against players who don't know the answer.
Volatile: Wild card. This could single handedly win your GAC for you, or get cleared for near max banners.
Mid GP: Setup only works in GP brackets where opponents don't own recently released hard counters.

Every LV 9 is solid, but ult charge has proven to help LV take command of the fight more quickly, and the Mastery ramp isn't quite pushing his lethality enough. TFP 9 is also solid. High amounts of dodge can opt to take the Offense Up level 3 instead.

Because the datacron adds so much damage reduction, I'm focusing on Protection/Health to make the most of it.
Offense is a fine secondary splash if lacking %Health and/or %Prot.

De-emphasizing defense modding to maximize effective combined Health.
Defense is still fine to take if you don't have %Health or %Protection secondaries.

I prefer Maul to hit as hard as possible, even if it means stripping his speed.

Bulky focused primaries to make sure that he can maintain demoralized for as long as possible.

The high speed is to give Maul a fast 2nd proc. Do what you can with your speed depth.

We need however much extra Tenacity via mods that our Datacron can't provide to reach 160-170% Tenacity. Other than that, Stick with the standard SEE Health/Speed focus.

The goal of protection on Savage is to make it harder for %Health centric teams to snipe him out in multi-shot scenarios. Health stacking him is probably fine. Don't forget armor!

SEE's Tenacity magic number to beat is 270-280 after mods and Datacron. That might sound horrific, but SEE has 108 base, meaning you just need 162-172 from outside sources. Plenty doable.

SET's still SET, if anything he's even more on his BS than usual with an armor cron.
If your Datacron has high Armor, %Health secondaries become more valuable.

Modding focuses on bulk to buy more time before the enemy can go for SEE.
If the speed is too difficult with a damage set, go speed.
If she's at mid to high relics, her base crit chance + unique is high enough
that she can focus mainly on offense, with health as a side bonus.

Focusing on damage modding to try to take a more aggressive approach. Keep in mind that Dooku's base Crit Chance needs a ton of help.

Pretty much all of the stats are great, this list is ordered best to worse.

Jabba's a weird character in that he doesn't really NEED much, so we're kinda just throwing on Speed and Health.

De-emphasizing defense modding to maximize effective combined Health.
Defense is still fine to take if you don't have %Health or %Protection secondaries.

I'm starting to think that we ideally want Boush to go at or near last, to get as many chances to make detonators as possible before the big payoff. Standard fast Boushh is also fine.

Bulky focused primaries to make sure that he can maintain demoralized for as long as possible.

Fast enough to be involved, not breaking the bank here.

JKA should aim to reach 100% Crit Chance, or as close as possible.
Check the people around you on the leaderboard and see how fast their BB Echo is. You want your JKA+60 to be 1, ideally 2 faster than the average you see.
If you can't reach this speed using damage sets, speed set is okay. If you only have 1 fast damage set to spare, give it to JKA.

Qui-Gon's first priority is to reach 1 speed under JKA, to leave as little gap as possible.
His second priority is to cram as much Offense as possible to share when he dies.
It might sound counter-intuitive, but I actually like him a bit tanky. The team is perfectly capable of putting up a brutal fight even before Qui-Gon dies.

KAM gets 20 Speed from Ataru, so he wants to be 21 speed under JKA.
His Crit Chance is also awful, so make sure to bolster that as much as you can.
If you can't get his Crit Chance up to ~75-85%, go for an Offense set.
Like QGJ, if the speed is too difficult with a damage set, go speed.

Ahsoka gets 50 speed from her unique, so she wants 51 speed under JKA.
If the speed is too difficult with a damage set, go speed set.
If she's at mid to high relics, her base crit chance + unique is high enough that she can focus mainly on offense, with health as a side bonus.

A crazy evasion seems like the best chance to try to cheese this team for cheap, so investing in their accuracy seems like a responsible decision to try to lock in their value. Dodge certainly isn't bad, but is unlikely to matter since we're expecting this team to be overkilled.

An evasion datacron seems like the best chance to try to cheese this team for cheap, so investing in their accuracy seems like a responsible decision to try to lock in their value. Dodge certainly isn't bad, but is unlikely to matter since we're expecting this team to be overkilled.

You can either choose to run GK 1 under JKA, or not. It adds extra burst to the combo,
but it's wildly expensive. As long as QGJ/KAM/Ahsoka are tied under JKA,
this is a corner you can cut.

Honestly I don't have a dodge cron with a good Smuggler effect, but if you do, go for it!

Maul lead normally only cares about offense, but I'm trying a bit of a bruiser-y approach to make it harder to snipe him. Still, Offense is what matters most for him. High speed is great if you have the mods for it.

Canderous gets so much free TM that he doesn't really need to mod for it, but giving him some helps ensure that he overflows.

Tanky BAM to give this team an extra defensive line.

Full Protection, Bo is mostly here for her Unique, and we want her to keep providing it.

Nothing too fancy here, just generic Speed/Damage.

Pretty standard Dash cron. You can run Offense Up on Evade for the level 3 if your cron has good deflection.

The lack of CAT means that Rey really needs to bring the heat on this one. We can't ditch Health primaries or we risk making Ben killable too easily, meaning we want some very robust %Offense secondaries.

Ben seems pretty happy to mimic Rey's modding style here, with Health making it harder for him to go down, and good %Offense secondaries keeping him threatening. Hard to say whether he wants to be fast, or slow. The faster he is, the more damage he can contribute. The slower he is, the longer he stays stealthed.

Main focus is on survivability to continue providing VIP to Ben.

Normally I run L3 with heavy Protection/Defense Sets, but I'm modding her for Health for her equalize mechanic/Barriss value.

Generic Barriss modding, nothing special called for on this team's defense setup.

Malgus might need to rethink his modding style depending on how the meta evolves, but this is the trickiest day 1 setup he can run.
Don't underestimate how good %Protection secondaries can be for Malgus' lead Omicron.
He heals Health/Protection when he's debuffed, and if you have the suggested level 6 cron, he also converts 10% extra Health into Protection, giving him huge staying power.

Health is of course best for Malgus' nuke damage, but work with what you have.

I don't bother modding Talon for Speed or Offense.
Her job is to stay alive as long as possible to let Malgus keep doing his job.
If your Datacron has a lot of Armor, then her 2nd best stat after Health is Protection.

Sass is a pretty promising speed dump if you have any leftover speed to burn.

I'm running a kind of hybrid style Marauder to give him some damage output while making the most of how tanky he becomes with his unique.

We want to try to overflow BH using Sith Assassin's turn meter, so Maul needs a fairly pricy amount of speed here.

Echo's zeta technically allows GAS to get away with ignoring accuracy, but it helps Rex nuke anyway.

The higher the armor, the better the shot we have at trying to stop GAS. Honestly, it might not even be enough. Dodge has a better chance of causing problems here..

4x Protection has the best odds right now of affecting the most counters.

Rex's main enemy he could race is someone like Mara Jade.
This is prohibitively expensive due to her natural speed + 70.
A 340 Mara needs a 342 Rex, and she's naturally far faster.

Since the Datacron provides so much Potency, Echo technically no longer needs it.
Not a huge difference if you don't feel like remodding these extra characters.

Nothing has really changed for ARC.

Nothing has really changed for Fives. The Grand Inquisitor counter makes Health stacking instead of Defense stacking look possibly more attractive.

Armor is the only priority here, Offense is just optimal if not armor..

Standard DR modding.

Standard BSF modding.

Standard Malak modding.

Standard SET modding.

Standard HK modding, this build is solely based on the Datacron armor.

We need as much Dodge as possible to try to survive Iden's attempts. If you have a Datacron that can do that, go for it. If not, consider Set 3.

Tenacity splash to prevent Grievous from getting Target Lock. If you have a fast Prot or Crit Avoid arrow, could be a cheeky place to use it.

Pushing a high quality Damage/Speed build for Chewpio this time around to try to wipe out the Iden squad. Note that his Crit Chance is pretty low baseline.

Possibly unhinged idea, but I think Set 3 chewie could go full defense/protection, and forget about Tenacity since Iden can't be resisted anyway. Lean in on the armor.

Generic Han modding, can splash Tenacity Set/Cross if you have the Tenacity depth and you're feeling frisky.
Pushing Han speed can cover for possible CLS mirror, but is generally seen as an expensive speed dump.

Tenacity mostly just a holdover from anti-GAS, but also good for stopping Grievous Target Lock.

Heavy Protection is best to try to keep her alive. I didn't adjust her speed for this setup.

Good speed to ensure going first. Heavy bulk focus to ensure Echo stays alive.

Dodge helps force the opponent onto Traya. Penetration helps try to beat Traya.

Hunter's one of your aces for kill power here, don't skimp on his offense.

Protection focus with solid Offense secondaries can maximize Tech's damage output while keeping him standing.

Generic tank build, the speed is likely not important here, but I don't want to break normal Batch modding if it's needed.

Tenacity is critical to stop Wampa from applying Heal Block to Shore. With Tenacity no longer in the Datacron stat pool, that means that his Modding needs to pick up the workload. The average Wampa has 50-65% Potency, so our Shore target is 150-165% to be airtight. Because of the reduced armor from the swap to Tenacity, we also want to make sure that we boost him with as many good % scaling tank secondaries as possible. Shore is the brick wall that stands between the team living and dying.

The magic Tenacity number for Shoretrooper is 165. There is no magic number for Iden, just dump lots of Potency into her mods and the datacron.

Grit is our angle to try to block against Wampa and Raddus. The level 3 heal on %Health damage is a nice synergy pairing, but not a huge payoff.
The issue is that she has a hard time making much of other level 3 effects. She can't hit an enemy 4 times in a turn, since it's 3v3. Her basic and AOE will always cap at 3 hits.
Statwise, Dodge has the highest chance to add more volatility to the mixture, but Armor Pen is also a competitive choice. If your Datacron has high dodge, Offense Up when evading could be a potent option.
The Accuracy Up/Evasion Down level 3 could prove to be necessary, but it's unlikely. Iden is one of the few rare teams that can take a fight to timeout comfortably.

Shifting Range Trooper's mods away from Damage and towards bulk to give a 2nd potential timeout threat against Raddus. Give him top ~40% speed depth investment to keep his Special rolling, with good %Protection, %Health, and %Offense secondaries.

Iden's modding needs to react to the meta. If you expect your opponents to hold Raddus, she should mod for Protection Arrow/Cross. If you don't think this is a concern, go for Offense instead.

Pretty standard Dash cron. You can run Offense Up on Evade for the level 3 if your cron has good deflection.

Extra damage focus to make the most of his cron. We still want to go first, so don't skip as low on speed as bonus Dash normally can. Heavy, heavy crit chance to deal with Traya's Crit Avoidance.

Potency to make sure her staggers hit; Crit Chance to make sure she gives the team more TM.

Crit Chance is a pretty solid add for Vandor, believe it or not. His nuke can destroy people.

All of the Crit Chance you can get to make sure he lands Target Lock on Traya. Higher priority than Offense, even. As close to 140% as your mods can get.

Same build for Scion if using him instead. Make sure to provide solid extra crit chance.

The stat sharing nature of the team will make nice extra usage of this bulk.

120% Tenacity hits a critical teamwide target for stat sharing. Offense and Protection are best for stat sharing.
The faster Mon Mothma is, the sooner she'll get to her bonus turn chain.

120% Tenacity hits a critical teamwide target for stat sharing, after that grab offense.

Speed Set is okay if you're lacking the speed depth to use an Offense Set. Don't neglect his Crit Chance either, he lacks a lot.

100% Crit Chance + ~70% Potency target to maximize his stun, 120% Tenacity for team share, Offense as the fallback.

120% Tenacity hits a critical teamwide target for stat sharing
Otherwise, focus on damage.

120% Tenacity hits a critical teamwide target for stat sharing. Generic speed/bulk build past that.

Armor is the only priority here, Offense is just optimal if not armor..

Standard DR modding, this build is solely based on the Datacron armor.

Standard BSF modding, this build is solely based on the Datacron armor.

Standard Malak modding, this build is solely based on the Datacron armor.

Standard SET modding, this build is solely based on the Datacron armor.

Standard HK modding, this build is solely based on the Datacron armor.

There's an argument for trying full Health/Armor stacking to try to get SorT to time Wampas out.

It's not a Turn Meter cascading team but I still clock off of BB8 to ensure the optimal nuke combo.
Tenacity BB-8 has some Wampa upset potential.

Pretty generic mods, nothing fancy for T3.

Offense primaries help boost the team's power.

Focus on Offense with high Crit Chance to maximize the free Crit Damage.

Giving SorT "Rey" style mods with Health primaries and high Offense secondaries can set up the wampa timeout while maintaining damage threat as a nuke team.

Offense is of course the priority to enhance BAM's whistling birds, but the other stats can help Jango.

Kuiil is the pace car for the team, everyone clocks off of him. Give him as much speed as you can. Offense primaries are preferable for boosting BAM's birds.

Standard BAM modding, 2nd in the turn order to absorb the following 3 AOEs for 20 birds.

Jango before IG-11 might seem strange, but is intentional to apply burn to characters with reactive turn meter like Shaak Ti or B2.

IG-11 doesn't make great usage of damage, but this is a combo burst team. Grabbing some extra chip damage before the finisher isn't the worst idea.

IG-11's Tenacity Down means that Veteran Han can ignore Potency modding if he wants.