In a Rush: Soloing on Hutta

Posted by FelizB on Jan 28, 2012 in Guides, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

This guide takes you from creating your character to the point where you are ready to pick your advanced class in an expedited manner, without skipping content. It leads a new Bounty Hunter or Imperial Agent through the newbie zone on Hutta, including the heroic quests. This is not a step-by-step guide. I will only point out the general direction and key moments in the storyline.

Poison Pit Cantina

You arrive here to get your class quest started. You are also given two side quests. Bind at the entrance of the cantina and activate the taxi stand. Finish those quests, pickup and finish the 3rd side quest before you head to Nem’ro’s Palace.

Nem’ro’s Palace

Follow your class quest line and pick up another side quest. They’ll both lead you to the Evokii Work Camp. As you leave Nem’ro’s Palace, you’ll see Nem’ro’s Bazaar to your right, which is  the vendor and trainer area. Side quests should point you to your trainers. Perhaps you repair equipment and sell off the vendor trash in your bags as well. On your way to the work camp, you’ll pass the bind point and taxi stand for Nem’ro’s Bazaar.

Evokii Work Camp

Along the path to the work camp, you will see a few animals. Shoot at least one of each species for the lore entries and the extra XP that comes with them. At the work camp you pick up another side quest and your first heroic quest. Here’s also a stop for the Imperial Agent class quests. The quests will lead you further south into an Evokii village, where you will find another side quest on a holopad. Don’t forget the to touch the Evokii totem, a lore object.

Continue south past the village. There you’ll find a level 5 Champion droid. You will need help to kill him. Finish the “Tech Jealousy” quest in this area. On the north side of the swamp is a toppled silo. Climb it and continue over the hill to your first datacron ( aim+2, location= -100,860). Jump down, continue north and finish “Trophy Hunter”.

Evokii Swamp

Leave the work camp, turn south and follow the wall eastward. You’ll see another Evokii village with a totem lore object for more XP. Turn back a bit and move north through the wall. There’s another bind point and a side quest, which will lead you further north. Remember you’ll have to jump onto the boxes to get to the quest object.

Don’t turn in the quest just yet. Continue north instead along the left side of the river. You’ll find a holopad for another quest. Kill chemilizards for the bonus quest. The head back south to location (-75,400) to kill a Wookie. Continue south and turn in your quests. Use your fast travel to return to Nem’ro’s Palace.

Nem’ro’s Palace

As usual, turn in your side quests and continue your class quest, eventually picking up 2 more side quests. Don’t forget to train. Then head for Nem’ro’s Bazaar taxi stand and continue to the location for “To Boom or not to Boom”. After that, you should see another heroic quest (location=0,200) on your way to the Rustyards.

Rustyards / Chemical Marsh

Hand in the quest that brought you here, pick up two new ones, bind and register at the taxi stand. Then head north through the nearby gate and take a walk around the factory buildings, picking up quest objects and bonus quests. Ignore the stops for heroic quests. This route will also lead to all generators that need to be disabled for the Bounty Hunter class quest. At the north side of this route (location=500,0) you’ll see pipes leading out to the water and onto an island. Hop on those pipes and follow them to the next datacron (presence+2) on the island. When you return, finish your tour around the factory and enter it from the south.

Insite the complex head upstairs first. The remaining quests are straight forward and you can return to the Rustyards hub using your fast travel option. After turning in your quests head to Nem’ro’s Palace using the taxi.

Nem’ro’s Palace

Again, turn in your quests and move the class quest forward. The class quest will send you into Fa’athra’s Palace. On your way out, pick up a side quest. See your trainer and get another side quest on the east wall of the bazaar. From here, take the taxi to the Chemical Marsh. Pick up yet another side quest on your way to the Palace.

Fa’athra’s Palace

Bounty Hunters will have a bonus quest to collect bounties for some named Lieutenants located in the area outside the palace. Enter the palace and use the lore tag right at the entrance. The questing within the palace is straight forward including the class quests. Make sure you don’t forget Fa’athra’s stash after you’ve freed Oren Ward. There’s also a lore carbonite block next to Oren Ward’s. And to top it off, there’s a good chance to find a security chest in both rooms neighboring this one. Fa’athra’s stash may or may not be guarded by Gajoru the Vault Guardian, an elite, for additional loot.

Once done with the palace, use your fast travel option to the Chemical Marsh for the first turn in, then continue to Nem’ro’s Palace.

Nem’ro’s Palace

Turn in your side quests and wrap up the class quest, including a trip to the space port. Head back to the bazaar for the lore object quest coming with your customizable weapon. Finally see your trainer, either in the bazaar or even at the fleet to pick your advanced class. Return for the heroic quests.

Heroic Quests

Head for the sewer entrance to do “Factory Recall”. Once inside the sewers, you can go straight for an champion droid, a security chest and a datacron (blue matrix shard, location=-25,320). You should have sabotaged the boxes by now and can leave through the other exit. Factory recall continues in the next building. Make sure you go to the second floor for a security box at the end of the balcony. Hand in your quest and go to the location for “The Man with the Steel Voice”. That quest isn’t hard at all, but it leads you to “Hostage Situation”, which starts a bit to the west of it.

Hostage Situation will eventually lead to the basement of the Muckworks, where you have to kill a champion guard for some bonus loot. Part 2 leads you to the roof, to blow up the first Evokii space ship. You’ll have to defeat Baranj, the Starseeker (champion) first.

Turn in your quests and head for the space port.

Wrapping Up

Once you have turned in your last heroic quest at the Evokii camp, you can follow the road from the Evokii camp east until you cross a bridge. To the left on a wall is the final Evokii lore totem. Some closing remarks: don’t obsess over gear. It’s not worth your time to grind for that 8th commendation to get your blue chest piece. By the time you are 13, you’ll have it replaced already. Similarily, don’t buy any gear from the vendors. What you get through quests is good enough for the zone and will last you for a while on Dromund Kaas as well.

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