xkcd

by **Ixtellor** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 3:50 am UTC

I said vicious slash when I meant sundering Assault... yes I use that as my 4th attack, them as frequently as possible. Next to retaliation and force scream its the most important.

by **mike-l** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 5:19 am UTC

I'm really enjoying my Immortal Juggernaut. I don't find there's too many buttons, but then, I'm used to keybinding 30+ abilities and macros (I use ~ to 5, qertfgzxcv and shift on each of those for 32 abilities, and alt+ertfg if I need more later, alt zxcv replacing the original bindings on those keys). I don't have all my abilities yet, only level 30, but I still have a lot of free spots on my bars. I also use every single one of my abilities regularly, with Chilling Scream being the least common.

by **Chen** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 12:43 pm UTC

mike-l wrote:I'm really enjoying my Immortal Juggernaut. I don't find there's too many buttons, but then, I'm used to keybinding 30+ abilities and macros (I use ~ to 5, qertfgzxcv and shift on each of those for 32 abilities, and alt+ertfg if I need more later, alt zxcv replacing the original bindings on those keys). I don't have all my abilities yet, only level 30, but I still have a lot of free spots on my bars. I also use every single one of my abilities regularly, with Chilling Scream being the least common.

Chilling scream does seem more or less pointless at the moment in PvE. I haven't found anything I need to kite and kiting isn't terribly easy on a Juggernaut anyways with scream being the only real ranged attack. I got Force Choke and Force Push on the weekend and I love them. It'll be great in a level or two when I can talent Choke to not have to be channelled.

by **Ixtellor** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 2:46 pm UTC

Chen wrote:Chilling scream does seem more or less pointless at the moment in PvE. I haven't found anything I need to kite and kiting isn't terribly easy on a Juggernaut anyways with scream being the only real ranged attack. I got Force Choke and Force Push on the weekend and I love them. It'll be great in a level or two when I can talent Choke to not have to be channelled.

Later on you get a skill called ____ Kick. Its only usable on a slowed opponent. So sometimes I use chilling scream then the kick. (does decent damage)

In PvP Chill is very useful. Force Choke looks cool but it lowers your DPS until you talent it to not be channeled. I still used it a ton generally on Mobs that made me mad. If I was on my speeder and got agged off it, those people are getting 'choked the F out'.

In PvP Force Push is KING. Other than that I generally only use it in Boss fights. About half way through the fight I push them, then leap. Also be careful with it. I once pushed a Boss mob out a window then he added several aggs AND my companion couldn't handle the sudden change in the fight.

I am currenlty level 43. Level 39-41 were SLOW as heck. 41-43 was very fast. Planet Belsavis is quest overloaded, sooo much to do. I already have like 25 commendations, but all the good stuff is level 44 at the mod vender.

Also, I finally hit a wall in Ship Combat. I need to upgrade using commendations on the extra stuff because I can't handle my currently daily mission.

by **JudeMorrigan** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 4:17 pm UTC

Ixtellor wrote:In PvP Force Push is KING. Other than that I generally only use it in Boss fights. About half way through the fight I push them, then leap. Also be careful with it. I once pushed a Boss mob out a window then he added several aggs AND my companion couldn't handle the sudden change in the fight.

HUGE spoiler for the last fight in the Jedi Knight storyline:

Spoiler:

Also, I finally hit a wall in Ship Combat. I need to upgrade using commendations on the extra stuff because I can't handle my currently daily mission.

Have you bought your power conversion module yet? The one that lets you redirect power to weapons and shields? If not, that should be the first piece of commendation gear you get. I did the same thing, not spending any fleet commendations until I was in my 40s. Then I hit a brick wall on one mission (Drexel Sweep). The power conversion module is hugely powerful though and fixed all my problems. I heartily recommend people buying it asap.

2) I have 400 snythweaving now, its not worth it. Only real use is making items for guildmates and alts, but at level 50 no use.

Slicing is the BEST skill, its a hardcore money maker. Diplomacy is useful for darkside and lightside points.

Biochemical is the one very good crafting skill and lots of people like artificing or ones that make mods. Mods are very useful.

I'm an artificer on my knight, and I found it quite useful as I leveled. However, it's kind of useless at max level given the quality of mods you can get from your Illum dailies. At this point, I'm inclined to think one would be just as well off using the GTN for critical upgrades. Especially for lightsaber hilts, there are enough artificers out there you should be able to stay equipped well in front on what you could via commendations, and at a very reasonable price.

Biochemistry, on the other hand, rocks. Reusable med kits, stims and adrenals are hard to beat. I've even been able to find other biochemists selling reusable med kits quite cheaply on the GTN for my alts, so I haven't even had to fight the RNG for favorable reengineering results for those.

Slicing isn't the moneymaker it used to be. Bioware's nerfed it from launch. And honestly, money's pretty easy to come by in this game. If you have to go an extra level or two for your speeder or it's upgrades on your first character, it's not *really* that big a deal. The upgrades are particularly not that urgent, as the speeds go 90%-100%-110%.

by **Obby** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 4:25 pm UTC

Also, leveling up helps a lot. I couldn't do Drexel Sweep at level 42, but when I came back at 44 I was able to manage it. Now at 46 it's not really that difficult. I hadn't changed any of my ship upgrades (was using a smattering of Grade 3 greens and Grade 4 blues the whole time).

by **Chen** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 4:25 pm UTC

Ixtellor wrote:Later on you get a skill called ____ Kick. Its only usable on a slowed opponent. So sometimes I use chilling scream then the kick. (does decent damage)

Ah that would make it useful in a way in PvE then.

In PvP Chill is very useful. Force Choke looks cool but it lowers your DPS until you talent it to not be channeled. I still used it a ton generally on Mobs that made me mad. If I was on my speeder and got agged off it, those people are getting 'choked the F out'.

Choke does lower your dps but against a single target it also removes all incoming damage while letting you build rage. Choke and Push are both nice in that they give you breathing room. It also feels pretty cinematic to leap at a group, AOE smash, push one target away and choke another to death while your companion kills the one you first jumped at. Horrible waste of cooldowns, but it looks badass.

by **Ixtellor** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 4:54 pm UTC

JudeMorrigan wrote:Have you bought your power conversion module yet? The one that lets you redirect power to weapons and shields? If not, that should be the first piece of commendation gear you get. I did the same thing, not spending any fleet commendations until I was in my 40s. Then I hit a brick wall on one mission (Drexel Sweep). The power conversion module is hugely powerful though and fixed all my problems. I heartily recommend people buying it asap.

I was thinking of buying the one that doesnt' allow you to be targeted for 10 seconds.

Forget the mission name, but the one after Mulgaar Ice Fields. Its a single mission and you have to kill TONS of enemy ships, I can't even finish that part, and at about 75% of the way in you get a lot of ship on the screen and they take me from full health to dead in about 20 seconds. I have lots of commendations, will buy both the upgrades once I hit the fleet.

You guys at 50... are you doing HardModes, or just doing PvP for the epic gear? I keep reading that the PvP gear is basically the best.

Also, Reddit, did a good post explaining the insanely complicated PvP gear system. (18 different vendors.)

by **mike-l** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 6:52 pm UTC

I mostly use chilling scream when I just want to run past a bunch of mobs without killing them. (I'm a VERY lazy questor sometimes)

by **Ixtellor** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 2:59 pm UTC

Hit a wall in Ship Combat.

Im level 46 with every upgrade, except the EMP. And I can only complete my 'green' mission about a 3rd of the time. (Forget the damn name, corrusant or succulant... something. )

I can get half way though the mission with no damage, then use my (can't be hurt of 10 seconds) thing during the part where there are a billion fighters on the screen, and still die about 2/3'rds of the time. (with about 40 seconds remaining).

I tired the yellow space daily (level 47 mission) and can't come close to it. Its a repeat where you have to shoot down 50 Raven bombers while defending.

I have been using my power converter on Blasters, then switching to shields as I am nearly dead.

Any advice?

by **JudeMorrigan** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 3:27 pm UTC

Ixtellor wrote:I have been using my power converter on Blasters, then switching to shields as I am nearly dead.

Any advice?

Don't hesitate to go through significant chunks of the missions dodging and weaving with your power converter on shields, switching over long before you get to the point of being close to death. You can still use your missiles to provide *some* offense while turtling. That strategy may make it hard to meet some of the bonus objectives, but it should make you *really* hard to kill, particularly if you do use your ECM when there are a bazillion fighters on the screen. (I play on the republic side, but I think I know exactly the part you mean in the mirror mission.) And speaking of missiles, try to end the mission with as few in reserve as possible. Also, when you get an enemy corvette on the screen, drop EVERYTHING else to focus on killing it.

by **Chen** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 3:56 pm UTC

Playing the Sith Juggernaut storyline really does play the whole corrupting nature of the dark side quite well. Just finished Chapter 1 and I really am enjoying it. Trying to play full Dark side and while the dark side options are often pretty damn evil, rarely does it seem like evil for evil's sake (unlike KOTOR). Now there definitely are SOME places where its just silly to take the dark side option, but in those cases there's usually a neutral one. There have been a couple where my gut said the light side choice would have been the more utilitarian one, but I ended up choosing the dark side one anyways since I didn't want any light side points. But overall I find its pretty decent in this regard.

Spoiler:

by **Ixtellor** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 4:19 pm UTC

The only dark side choices I thought were evil.
This isn't really a spoiler at all, just being ultra mega safe, but its not a spoiler.

Spoiler:

Then there are darkside choices I relish. Killing people who were extremely annoying.

Real Voss choice:

Spoiler:

by **mike-l** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 6:33 pm UTC

The time when (Sith Warrior Story aldaaran spoiler)

Spoiler:

was where I could no longer stomach the dark side choices. I'm all light all the time now.

by **Chen** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 3:17 pm UTC

Hit level 46 as my Juggernaut. Still not having any problems that the forums seem to indicate the game is FULL of. The Bioware general forum is worse than the WoW one, and thats saying something.

I've been yoyo-ing around with professions too. The only one I've kept from the start is Underworld Trading because it makes a ridiculous amount of money. Mandalorian Iron is still selling for around 9-12k a piece on the server. Companion gifts are also pretty pricey. I had archeology and Synthweaving but I dropped synthweaving in favor of slicing. After getting to 400 slicing I dropped Archeology to get Biochem and then realized no one was posting mats for it on the GTN. So I dropped 400 slicing for Bioanalysis and have been making money with that too. I managed to sell a stack of 30 Green goo (level 1 compound) for 6k just because no one else was selling it and Biochem seems to be the skill everyone wants at endgame. The lower level mats are selling like hotcakes which is pretty crazy. I'm worried about getting it to 400 though since I see very few Diplomacy mats which are needed for the blue and purple recipes. I don't want to have to drop underworld trading for Diplomacy, but it may come to that. Either that or I'll rush an alt to get his spaceship and just use him as a diplomacy mule.

by **Ixtellor** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:09 pm UTC

Level 50 for a week now. Have successfully tanked a few Hard Modes, and it was fun, but buggy. (We killed a boss just by running back to spawn, and he teleported back to his spawn area and died --- to avoid whiping, not glitching)

Currently have 7 Epic pieces, 2 of which I bought. 2 from PvP, 1 from crafting, and 2 from Hard modes.

Question: Do you have to do Battle of Ilum to finish the line and get the "Dailies?"
Last time I was there I got that quest and couldn't find a group... still need to figure out how to get dailies.

by **JudeMorrigan** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 2:52 am UTC

Ixtellor wrote:Question: Do you have to do Battle of Ilum to finish the line and get the "Dailies?"
Last time I was there I got that quest and couldn't find a group... still need to figure out how to get dailies.

You get more dailies the further along in the storyline quest you go.

by **Ixtellor** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 2:28 pm UTC

JudeMorrigan wrote:
Ixtellor wrote:Question: Do you have to do Battle of Ilum to finish the line and get the "Dailies?"
Last time I was there I got that quest and couldn't find a group... still need to figure out how to get dailies.

You get more dailies the further along in the storyline quest you go.

But that storyline is currently on "Battle of Ilum" a 4 man Heroic. So your saying I do have to do it, to continue that story line and access the dailies?

by **JudeMorrigan** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 2:36 pm UTC

I suspect that's not actually the storyline quest. I play Republic side, so the parallels aren't necessarily perfect, but after I finished my class quest, I picked up one at the Fleet that sent me to Ilum. That lead to a series of single-player quests on Ilum. I picked up my first solo daily immediately upon arrival at the first quest hub, and two more in relatively short order.

by **Izawwlgood** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:36 pm UTC

Started up, first thoughts:
Star Wars: I have to walk a fuckton.

Everything seems WoW-lite right now, but it's kind of neat. The companion mechanic is brilliant.

by **Ixtellor** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:41 pm UTC

Izawwlgood wrote:Started up, first thoughts:
Star Wars: I have to walk a fuckton.

Everything seems WoW-lite right now, but it's kind of neat. The companion mechanic is brilliant.

To me it feels just like WoW but in the star wars universe. (Max level belf with a good gearscore when I quit)

I felt like I walked less than in WoW. You can generally get a lot of quests and they are all kind of along the way to your 'main' quest. Then you finish em all, and go back to the 'base'.

Hoth had a lot of walking(speeder biking), and on my home planet it felt like a lot of walking because I didn't know what I was doing.

You get a teleport every 3 mins, so that greatly helps. And every 18 hours you get a free teleport to the Fleet. (where anything can be done, maintenance wise).

Dont' forget ship combat! Its free exp till level 43, then its brutally hard.
( I have all blues, 2 purples, I'm level 50 and still cant' finish Aetan Defense)

by **Chen** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:59 pm UTC

Ixtellor wrote:I felt like I walked less than in WoW. You can generally get a lot of quests and they are all kind of along the way to your 'main' quest. Then you finish em all, and go back to the 'base'.

Yeah I felt that same. The quest grouping was pretty well done. The one thing I disliked was knowing when I should go turn in a quest or when I should keep questing. Sometimes there were follow-ups in the same area and sometimes there aren't. I usually have a good "feel" for it but sometimes it results in a bit of running back and forth.

You get a teleport every 3 mins, so that greatly helps. And every 18 hours you get a free teleport to the Fleet. (where anything can be done, maintenance wise).

Its 30 min on the teleport (I assume that was a typo). Note if you have a security key (either a physical one or an iphone/android app) you can buy a 1 hour cooldown consumable fleet pass for 1000 credits. Well worth the price.

by **Swivelguy** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 2:22 am UTC

Ixtellor wrote:But that storyline is currently on "Battle of Ilum" a 4 man Heroic. So your saying I do have to do it, to continue that story line and access the dailies?

You don't have to do the FP to get the dailies. Chances are you did all the dailies already and didn't know it, because they don't say [Daily]. Come back tomorrow and see how many you can do again. There's 6 total dailies in Ilum, including 1 [heroic 2+] for a total of 8 commendations/day.

There's also a bonus series on belsavis (you should be able to start it at an npc on the belsavis orbital station) that leads to a bunch more dailies (like 15 commendations/day worth).

by **Izawwlgood** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:49 am UTC

Having just picked up Sprint, things move a little easier, but seriously, I had a quest that was 'go talk to this person over here', and it took literally 5m45s to walk to them. After a brief dialog, my next quest was 'go talk to this person back where you started from'.

I'm not judging the game yet; I've seen very little of it and aside from some flaws, I'm enjoying it.

No dual spec? It costs every time you want to respec?

Just got my ship and my second companion. I'm a huge fan of the companion and crafting mechanic.

by **Obby** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 1:06 pm UTC

Izawwlgood wrote:Having just picked up Sprint, things move a little easier, but seriously, I had a quest that was 'go talk to this person over here', and it took literally 5m45s to walk to them. After a brief dialog, my next quest was 'go talk to this person back where you started from'.

I'm not judging the game yet; I've seen very little of it and aside from some flaws, I'm enjoying it.

No dual spec? It costs every time you want to respec?

Just got my ship and my second companion. I'm a huge fan of the companion and crafting mechanic.

Unless they've changed it, your first respec is free.

by **Swivelguy** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 2:30 pm UTC

Your first respec each week is free and the 2nd is damn near free (I believe it resets on Tuesday when weekly quests do). The game will try to fool you, though, and give you a high cost, but once you get to the confirmation dialog box it'll be lower.

So you can, for example, use a PvE spec for raiding during the week and a PvP spec on the weekends with effectively no cost.

by **Izawwlgood** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 4:53 pm UTC

Yeah, I view that as unacceptable. Not having a dual spec just means I have to decide between dropping cash and playing healer with my friends, or dropping cash and running PvE solo.

by **Chen** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:55 pm UTC

Izawwlgood wrote:Yeah, I view that as unacceptable. Not having a dual spec just means I have to decide between dropping cash and playing healer with my friends, or dropping cash and running PvE solo.

For leveling you have a companion to flesh out your char. There doesnt have to be the problem of "oh I'm a healer so I'm terrible at leveling". Take out a dps companion and just heal them while they kill mobs for you. Odds are you won't need to throw constant heals on them so you can throw damage abilities out too. Leveling as a tank in any other MMO is a painful process but in SWTOR I haven't had ANY problems leveling my tank in as quick a way as I level any dps. Its all about keeping your companions up to date.

by **Izawwlgood** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:00 pm UTC

Yeah, good point.
I've read a bit about the different Sage trees, but was hoping for some more input; Telekinesis is obviously the damage spec, but I read that Balance has pretty good damage output as well. Would it be worth leveling Balance? Can Balance heal in a flashpoint sufficiently?

by **Ixtellor** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:18 pm UTC

Attention: Healers wanted.

Healers are the most important part of the Flash Points.
(2 hours wasted last night)

by **Izawwlgood** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:23 pm UTC

I want my Healium for SWTOR.

by **The Utilitarian** » Sat Jan 28, 2012 9:53 pm UTC

Izawwlgood wrote:Yeah, good point.
I've read a bit about the different Sage trees, but was hoping for some more input; Telekinesis is obviously the damage spec, but I read that Balance has pretty good damage output as well. Would it be worth leveling Balance? Can Balance heal in a flashpoint sufficiently?

The way I've seen it, the healing tree is healing (of course) Telekinesis is mostly pve damage and Balance is PVP damage. Balance can definitely be worth leveling for damage spec, though I imagine it could get a little dull since once you have zero cooldown on Force Throw you pretty much just use that forever, occasionally stopping to apply your instants.

For PVP it's monstrous since you've got a zero cooldown, high damage ability with 75% pushback resistance, which gives you force back and can make your long cast spells instant. Crazy.

by **CombustibleLemons** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 10:19 pm UTC

How WoW like is this game?
I want to play it but I didn't enjoy WoW very much and that seems to be like the standard for MMORPGs.
Also how much does it cost a month?

by **mosc** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 10:27 pm UTC

Very very wow-like, except for the major additions:
1) a companion to follow you around. Solves many of the healer/tank playing solo problems typical in an MMO.
2) Virtually everything is voice acted. Every fetch quest is "in character". Sometimes give a singleplayer type story feel.
3) Each class has a story. 8 stories total. These have a tremendous amount of content and drive the game through a more natural narrative than "go to new place, do fetch quests, then go to next new place"

So many things drip of wow-cloning though, but since you didn't say which parts of wow bothered you, I don't know if you'll find TOR any different or not.

I think it's $18/month?

by **Swivelguy** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 1:55 pm UTC

$15/mo for 1 month, $14/mo for 3 mo, $13/mo for 6.

by **maybeagnostic** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:30 pm UTC

Is there some kind of trial available? I was very excited about the game before it came out but I also find WoW excruciatingly boring and I don't want to spend $60 on the game just to discover that I don't want to play it after a few days.

by **Izawwlgood** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:59 pm UTC

I would suggest that if you found WoW boring, you will find SWTOR boring, unless you absolutely love Bioware style conversations. The game really is WoW light with a higher emphasis on the immerse RP.

Also, yeah, no trial I don't think. I found that pretty annoying, because it means in order to start playing, you have to drop at least 75 bucks for your first two months.

by **Chen** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 6:06 pm UTC

Izawwlgood wrote:I would suggest that if you found WoW boring, you will find SWTOR boring, unless you absolutely love Bioware style conversations. The game really is WoW light with a higher emphasis on the immerse RP.

Also, yeah, no trial I don't think. I found that pretty annoying, because it means in order to start playing, you have to drop at least 75 bucks for your first two months.

First month is free isn't it? It ends up costing you the same as buying any new AAA game nowadays. You have to set up a payment plan (i.e., have a credit card) but you can cancel before it gets charged if you do it within the first month.

Unless it becomes extremely popular (like WoW) or goes F2P, I doubt there'll be a trial available anytime soon. Those come out when the company is sure people who try it will continue to play at least a month or two's worth. Right now its still up in the air as to how well this game will do.

Frankly I find it pretty similar to WoW. They've changed some things for the better (companions and crafting mechanics are good) but a lot of it is still not polished well enough (animations causing delays in ability use, endgame itemization). Still vanilla WoW was pretty unpolished as well so I think its probably worth giving Bioware some leeway to get things running smoothly.

by **Izawwlgood** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 6:10 pm UTC

First month is free in that you pay 60 bucks for the game, and get a month to play. You then need to subscribe, which as you said you can cancel ahead of time, so the cost for the game entry is 60 bucks + 15 bucks for the next month.

This game is making me want to resub to WoW truthfully. It's WoW light in many regards, plus a handful of cool fixes or tweaks, also, lightsabers, but ultimately, it's still just WoW light.

by **JudeMorrigan** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 6:58 pm UTC

Izawwlgood wrote:First month is free in that you pay 60 bucks for the game, and get a month to play. You then need to subscribe, which as you said you can cancel ahead of time, so the cost for the game entry is 60 bucks + 15 bucks for the next month.

This game is making me want to resub to WoW truthfully. It's WoW light in many regards, plus a handful of cool fixes or tweaks, also, lightsabers, but ultimately, it's still just WoW light.

You have to set up a subscription, but if you cancel during your "free" month, you shouldn't be charged for the next month.

As far as the rest goes, a lot there depends on how you feel about the stories. They really are considerably more in-depth than you get in WoW. Sure, they're not exactly Shakespeare, but then, I don't think anything in Star Wars ever has been. The Jedi Knight storyline in particular really is KOTOR3. I considered the game worth buying and playing just to get some fracking closure on KOTOR2.

But yeah, if it's combat, grouping and raiding that one really cares about, I'm not sure the game has a whole lot to offer or WoW. At least at this point.

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