In a Rush: Soloing on Korriban

Posted by FelizB on Jan 24, 2012 in Guides, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

This guide is supposed to help you getting through Korriban as a Sith Inquisitor or a Sith Warrior as fast as possible, without leaving anything out. The guide will not describe every single step along the way, only things that should be done at certain points in the game. Quests that are offered along the obvious path should all be picked up and finished. They will only be mentioned if more explanations are needed or if there is some obstacle to overcome.

Arrival

Once you are through the opening sequence, stop to set up your UI preferences, your key bindings and your quickslot assignments. Then run out into the valley, bind and kill a few slugs for the first bonus quest. Then head into the tomb and do the quest offered there. Otherwise, you won’t have money to train. Finish up the quests in the tomb and head to the academy. Don’t forget to bind on your way in.

Academy

Follow the class quest within the academy. Both classes will be sent to the lower wilds as their next step. See your trainer before you leave the building. Pickup and finish the Allegiance quest at the taxi stand before you head for the lower wilds. By now you should be level 4 or halfway to level 5.

Lower Wilds

From the taxi stand a quest will lead you to Lord Renning’s camp.  Lord Renning’s quest will lead you deeper into the wilds. Stay on the right side of the canyon to pick up another quest from a datapad and continue following the right wall around a corner and a bit uphill to pick up your first datacron, a willpower+2 datacron. Finish all quests in the area, then hand in Renning’s quest. Leave the area using the taxi stand above the camp. There’s a bind point as well.

Back at the Academy

Back at the academy turn in the remaining quests. After the class quest, you can pick up 3 more quests: Jailbreak which leads you into he same area as your class quest, “Purity”, which has you checking 4 Sith academy members and “Blood Legacy”, which we will finish once we return. Scan the academy members inside the building, head to the taxi stand and finally to the shuttle to scan the last member. Pickup the “Armed and Dangerous” heroic quest from the mission board there. Across the shuttle behind a wall and looking into the canyon, you’ll find the endurance+2 datacron.

Into the Tomb of Tulak Hord

Right at the entrance to the antechamber you can get the heroic quest “The Hate Machine” and just after the imperial guards on the right wall, you’ll find a holopad with another quest. Pass through the antechamber with a little side trip to pick up your class quest items. Once inside the atrium, follow the path to the right, until you pass through an arch. To the left of the arch within a little hole is the next datacron with a red matrix shard. It is sometimes protected by a level 8 champion. Leave him alone and get him on your second pass through the tomb.

Continue to the archives to pick up the class quest items. Don’t forget the lore object behind the tablet and a potential treasure chest in the same room. Ignore the heroic quest. Remember, you want to solo this and you are level 7 right now. Not going to happen. Once outside in the atrium again, pickup the parts for the Jailbreak quest and continue to the machine vault. Rinse and repeat, get the class quest item, ignore the heroic quest, try to get a chest.

Once back in the atrium, wrap things up: make sure you have the jailbreak pieces, finished the bonus quest and got enough robots killed. You also should have been able to kill the Slave Rebellion Leader (lvl 6, Elite) on each pass through the atrium.

Academy

Turn in your quests. You might not be level 8 yet for “The Blood Legacy”, but you should be able to solo it anyway, just use your stuns or crowd control spells to get some rest for yourself. The force and health gained during those short breaks is usually enough to push the elite mob over the edge.

Tomb of Naga Sadow

By now you should be level 9 or close to it. Your class quest will send you into the Tomb of Naga Sadow for the last steps on Korriban. The problem is, Sith Warriors have now already Vette by their side, while inquistors have to fight their way in solo in order to find their companion Khem Val. On your way in, you pick up three more side quests and another bonus quests. Nothing more needs to be said about those.

For a Sith Warrior, the end of the class quest line and all side quests is straight forward, no further difficulties to be expected. The side quests require one more trip to the Tomb of Naga Sadow after turn ins at the academy.

The inquisitors face a couple of harder fights against level 10 droids marked strong, plus the final fight against Khem Val, before he gives in and follows you. You may die a couple of times on your way in. Keep trying or wait until you turn level 10.

Tomb of Tulak Hord Once More

Once you’ve finished up your class quest on Korriban, you can either go back right away to the two heroic quests in the tomb. You should be level 10 by now and those quest shouldn’t be much of a challenge anymore. Or, if you are overly careful, you can go to the fleet first and pick your advanced class and crewskills. By the time you’ve done that, you are already level 11. And now the heroics should be really easy.

Winding Down

In winding down I want to say just one more thing: Don’t obsess about gear. Pick up what you can, but don’t go out of your way to get that eighth Korriban Commendation for your blue chest piece. By the time you turn 13 you’ll have it replaced already, even as early as the next flashpoint. Plus, in this level range things really aren’t gear dependent. Also, don’t waste your money buying gear from the vendors.

SWTOR Overview to Sith Sorcerer and Jedi Sage Guides

Posted by FelizB on Jan 3, 2012 in Guides, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

The Sith Sorcerer and the Jedi Sage, although using light sabers are primarily casting classes. Both classes are able to heal and to deal burst damage through their Lightning or Telekinesis trees or using the Madness and Balance trees to deal periodic damage.

Here are a few guides I came across when researching the Sith Sorcerer and the Jedi Sage advanced classes. The SWTOR main forum hosts these guides for the Sith Sorcerer and the Jedi Sage. Both guides are nearly identical, having only translated the Sith and Jedi abilities and vocabulary. In the long run it’s probably easier to read the guide for the side you choose, since you’ll be much more familiar with the skill names.

The guides themselves contain an introduction of the class, details about the three skill trees, builds for various scenarios, more information about the companions, about equipment and crew skills.

Another set of great guides (PvE only) comes from sithwarrior.com, which wants to be the prime theory crafting site for SWTOR. There’s the Sith Sorcerer Healing Compendium, which of course is valid for Jedi Sage’s as well. Both, the Madness/Balance Sorcerer DPS Compendium and the Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage Lightning/Telekinetics Compendium follow SithWarrior’s standard format with ability descriptions, builds, how to play the build and how to gear.

This table lists the builds discussed in all guides. Builds named SW xxx are from sithwarrior.com , all others from swtor.com

PvE Healer	Standard 32/7/2 Offensive Leveling 30/9/2 SW Healer 31/7/2	Standard 32/7/2 Offensive Leveling 30/9/2 SW Healer 31/7/2
PvP Healer	PvP Standard 32/7/2	PvP Standard 32/7/2
PvE Telekinesis / Lightning	Standard 3/31/7 SW 3/31/7	Standard 3/31/7 SW 3/31/7
PvP Telekinesis / Lightning	PvP Standard 3/31/5 +2	PvP Standard 3/31/5 +2
PvP Balance / Madness	Sever Force 3/7/31 Hybrid Telekinesis 0/13/28 SW Sever Force 0/7/31 SW Telekinetic Wave 0/13/28 SW Telekinesis Effusion 0/17/24	Creeping Terror 3/7/31 Hybrid Lightning 0/13/28 SW Creeping Terror 3/7/31 SW Chain Lightning 0/13/28 SW Lightning Effusion 0/17/24
PvP Balance / Madness	PvP Sever Force 3/7/31	PvP Creeping Terror 3/7/31

SWTOR Sending Out Progression Guides For Advanced Classes

Posted by FelizB on Jan 1, 2012 in Guides, News, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

Star Wars: The Old Republic has started sending out progression guides by email to players who’ve reached level 10 for their class. The guides introduce the advanced classes to the players and give some insight into their capabilities. Since many players actually missed choosing their advanced class, the guide explains how to pick it while at the fleet’s docks.

Furthermore, there’s a short section about Flashpoints and some more information about your brand new ingame companion is given. A quick rundown of the players crew skill options is provided and the guide closes with a description of the Warzones.

Here is a list of the progression guides:

Jedi Knight	Sith Warrior
Jedi Consular	Sith Inquisitor
Smuggler	Imperial Agent
Trooper	Bounty Hunter

SWTOR Classes for the Undecided, Part 3

Posted by FelizB on Dec 29, 2011 in Blog, Guides, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

Imperial Agent / Smuggler

Once my Jedi sentinel turned 19, I felt like it was time for a change. I brought a smuggler to level 12 on a different, highly populated server. I also had been playing an imperial agent in beta, but only to level 10. The smuggler story line was kind of dull, having to chase down my lost star ship and the companion was some geek, who gave his weapons names. The imperial agent background sounded more fun. Constant paranoia, a trigger happy, anarchic and ruthless bounty hunter as a companion and the option to throw a couple of monkey wrenches into the imperial secret service wheels certainly has more potential.

Playing a smuggler/agent comes easier to me. They usually take cover and start shooting. Throw some explosives here or there and stab, if the opposition gets to close. Damage output is paced by your energy levels, which slowly dwindle and once they are gone, you have only a few basic options and a recharge with a 2 minute recast timer. You have a few more options for crowd control, some dots and a snare. Perfect. Seriously.

Smugglers and imperial agents are damage classes. The advanced classes of smuggler/ scoundrel and imperial agent/ operative can be specced as healers or as melee/ midrange damage dealers. Gunslingers and snipers are the other options for advanced classes who deal damage from a distance, and nothing but damage. Although I like melee, healing is not my thing and the outlook of building a sniper/ tank duo with Kaliyo outweights my preference for melee. One more thing I like about the Empire side: I can play a Chiss. Blue in the face and no need for beards or tattoos.

One annoyance comes with the IA fun: The UI preference settings are buggy. By default, the UI switches between a standard and a cover bar for the main hotkeys. But I never could get used to that on WOW, nor will I opt for it here. You can switch it off using preferences, but it does not save your settings. It resets to the default every time an instance is reset. That happens after you die, when you leave a flashpoint or when you just switch instances to join your fellow group members. I’ve gotten myself killed right after a reset, where I just couldn’t make sense of my hotbar. I’ve bugged this already and might end up posting it on the SWTOR forums as well.

Likes: Cover, Kaliyo, Explosives, Laze Target, Imperial Star Ship, Chiss

Dislikes: Heal, UI bugs

SWTOR Classes for the Undecided, Part 2

Posted by FelizB on Dec 28, 2011 in Blog, Guides, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

In this series of articles I want to describe what classes I’ve played, what I liked and what I didn’t like. Just let me remind you ahead of time, these are my likes and dislikes. Others will enjoy and master certain aspects and mechanics of the game much better than I do and others will hate my favorites. It’s really not an opinion on quality of the game. The quality of the game comes from presenting at least one or two ways a particular user can enjoy the game.

There’s one more thing that should be mentioned beforehand: I prefer melee over ranged and magic in games like World of Warcraft or Everquest 2, with the WOW hunter being the positive exception. I also prefer dps over healing and I have been seen tanking with my death knight. How this actually translates into my favorites for TOR remains to be seen.

Jedi Knight / Sith Warrior

A Jedi Knight was the first character I played in one of the beta weekends, but I did not return to them, favoring the Sith Warrior because of their companion Vette. Vette is certainly more interesting than T7-O1. As for the mechanics, a knight or warrior plays pretty much like a WOW rogue or Rift warriors and rogues. You build up to 10 points of focus through some abilities and spend the focus through some more abilities. Once you have picked your advanced class, you also gain centering (Jedi) or rage (Sith). Once you reach 30 units, you can enable a new powerful, but temporary buff. I don’t like having to watch short term buffs all the time, but that’s the way it is set up and it hasn’t been to much of an annoyance, yet.

As advanced classes, I picked a Jedi Sentinel. Jedi, because for a main character, I want to have alignment and faction match with republic and lightside and playing darkside as a Sith gives you some truly ugly choices. Taking the advanced dps class of Sentinel seems to be the easier choice as well. And it will be just more fun. If I end up creating a tank, it will be a trooper or bounty hunter.

As I’ve been playing a multitude of characters, one thing became obvious to me for all classes: There are probably to many abilities to be arranged in a tidy manner on the keyboard and the hotbars. At level 19, both center hotbars are full  and grouped in a halfway decent order: focus builders / openers, finishers and others. From this point on, any new ability will create more chaos.

Likes: Force Leap and Sweep, Vette, Balance of DPS and staying power

Dislike: T7-O1, Rage and Center

SWTOR Classes for the Undecided, Part 1

Posted by FelizB on Dec 27, 2011 in Blog, Guides, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

I have been playing Star Wars for almost 2 weeks now and managed just yesterday for one of my characters to turn level 19. At first sight, that’s not much of an accomplishment, but if you continue reading, understandable.

You see, the Star Wars MMO has 4 classes on each side of the war to pick from. That makes 8 origin stories in 4 distinct areas. And that’s not even adding in the advanced classes. Those 8 origin stories want to be explored and the class mechanics want to be tested. Until I can finally settle into one and say: That’s it, that’s the one. I got close last night when my Jedi Sentinel turned 19, but then I rolled a Chiss Imperial Agent and had lots of fun with him. And that’s what happened since start: Play a class for a while, get bored or annoyed with the mechanics or just think the next class might be even more fun.

Storylines

Part of the problem are those 8 origin stories, one for each class/faction combo. Two classes share the same starting planet which therefore adds 4 more sets of local quests, which add atmosphere and local color to the class quests. The class quests lead you to level 10 and introduce your first companion to you as well as your first customizable class weapon like the light saber. Each starting planet has between 1 and 4 heroic quest areas or instances.

After that, you are sent to your capital planet with a stopover at the fleet. There, you decide what advanced class you pick and what crew skills to choose. You also have the option to run your first flashpoint group instance.

The story and quest lines for each specific class continue on the capital planets for each faction. And again, local quests are shared between the classes for added color. The class quest lines come in 3 consecutive sets, each leading to a different area of the planet and each leading to 1-3 heroic local quests. Once that is done, you’ll own a star ship. My jedi knight got his from a general who needs help, and other classes will find ways to get a star ship as well.

Once aboard the star ship, you are introduced to space battles which start around level 20. Your storyline continues on 2 more planets, with quests starting at level 18 for one planet and level 20 for the other. Here’s where my experience ends for now.

I will follow up with more info on the story lines and more details on the class mechanics, which will ultimately make me pick my class. Perhaps.