SWTOR

Malakriss · Nov 2, 2015

Tacticals are basically worthless now, might as well run the HM which are reliably duo-able with high influence healer companions. I kind of understand why they didn't release any new FPs/Ops given the bolster since they would have to give the same tier of rewards as all of the old ones that now scale. If they actually put new content in with 4.1/4.2 that rewards 224/228 without a bolster then they actually know what they're doing. But my money is on them being clueless money grabbing whores and we'll see either no tier increase at all or the SM bolster still applies to the new which renders all progression pointless and you might as well not bother with no awesome vanity items from PVE any more.

Delly · Nov 2, 2015

moontayle_sl said:
Quick hits:

- No more skill trees. You choose one of three disciplines and all requisite abilities are assigned to you. You will need to hit up a trainer to get back some stuff and any base abilities added/changed since you last played but skills are now free so no worries there.
- The choice now comes from utilities, which are passive boosts to various things. The tooltips will guide you and there's no wrong choice here unless you do something like take a healing focused utility when you're not a healer.
- Companions are now role agnostic. Pick the one you want to fight beside, choose their role and get going. Oh, and no more gearing.
- They cut most of the necessary chaff from leveling. If all you do are quests that show up in purple you shouldn't need to do anything else.
- Most flashpoints have a solo-mode now.

The game is much better now than it was when 50 was the cap. Lots of basic Quality of Life improvements, lots of simplifying of various systems, and an emphasis on actually getting you to the part BW cares the most about: Story. The actual MMO has taken a backseat except in a few cases.

Sounds awesome. Any other tips?

Apparently I have 3800 cartel coins from having a security key thingy. Anything I should focus on getting first with those?

Kreugen · Nov 2, 2015

Did a 4 DPS tactical in False Emperor. It was far more challenging than any HM. Trash was rape.

Hell, the reason I've never been interested in tanking in TOR is how goddamn annoying it must be to hold threat on shit that is spread out all over the fuck and using ranged attacks. You know quickly when your tank sucks at it.

But I haven't actually done any group content as melee. Just blown through 12x story shit.

Kreugen · Nov 2, 2015

The first answer to the cartel coins question is always get all the ranks of rocket boost. It costs a few million credits but is relatively cheap with CC, and unlocks for your entire legacy. Once you have it, you'll never want to be without it.

The rest just depends on how few credits you have and whether or not you are a sub. And I wouldn't even play without subbing. A lot of the shit you can unlock with coins is dirt cheap with credits and thus a bad use of CC.

You just missed turning 2000 CC into ~5 mil credits.

Heallun · Nov 2, 2015

Kreugen_sl said:
Did a 4 DPS tactical in False Emperor. It was far more challenging than any HM. Trash was rape.

Hell, the reason I've never been interested in tanking in TOR is how goddamn annoying it must be to hold threat on shit that is spread out all over the fuck and using ranged attacks. You know quickly when your tank sucks at it.

But I haven't actually done any group content as melee. Just blown through 12x story shit.

Tanking the ranged groups isn't so bad on a powertech. On a jugger, though, it's awful. Never did any shadow tanking.

Kreugen · Nov 2, 2015

Heh, had a powertech that would just run in and dps a single mob while the rest pounded the shit out of the dps/healer. Using detaunts just got the healer killed. We had to CC and single target dps just to stay alive.

He was in full 216's...

Kreugen · Nov 2, 2015

So, stockpile crates once each specialist hits rank 10? Assuming they don't change the fucking currency with each chapter.

Heallun · Nov 2, 2015

Kreugen_sl said:
Heh, had a powertech that would just run in and dps a single mob while the rest pounded the shit out of the dps/healer. Using detaunts just got the healer killed. We had to CC and single target dps just to stay alive.

He was in full 216's...

Hrm. That's odd, always found with the grip and early flamethrower you really couldn't help but tank everything. Good charges...I need to load up SWTOR again and play some huttball :3

Rafterman · Nov 2, 2015

Kreugen_sl said:
The first answer to the cartel coins question is always get all the ranks of rocket boost. It costs a few million credits but is relatively cheap with CC, and unlocks for your entire legacy. Once you have it, you'll never want to be without it.

The rest just depends on how few credits you have and whether or not you are a sub. And I wouldn't even play without subbing. A lot of the shit you can unlock with coins is dirt cheap with credits and thus a bad use of CC.

You just missed turning 2000 CC into ~5 mil credits.

What was selling for 5 million credits? And you can probably buy some level 60 tokens and make around the same, especially if you hold on to them until after the sale.

Malakriss · Nov 2, 2015

People keep buying up the stock when they dip below 3m but within a day they push back down to those levels anyways. After the sale ends the going rate will be around 4m with the standard coins:credits conversion rate. There was a brief period in the beginning where you could make 5m+ off them but that time has passed.

Wesh2 · Nov 2, 2015

My Friends and I re-subbed after a LONG break to see the new expansion. Long story short, we ended up making new characters as no one could remember how to play. We hit the first flashpoint last night and it offered us two difficulties. Solo and Tactical. We went Tactical thinking it would be at least semi-challenging and give us a taste of how our Group Dynamics will work. Nope. Everything died super easily.

Reading about it today I see mention of a Hard mode and Normal Mode. Did we miss that somewhere in the conversation dialog leading up to the flashpoint? Or do you have to run it in tactical first before the options open up?

Kreugen · Nov 2, 2015

Tactical can be rough if you group finder it and wind up with 4 dps because trash can put out a lot of damage. But if you go in the front door as a duo you can use your companions and it's far easier.

Solo = you get a godly npc tank to help you, along with your normal companion
tactical = tuned for any 4 idiots in any role level 10-65
hard mode = 60+ and the only "normal" mode left.

Wesh2 · Nov 2, 2015

Kreugen_sl said:
Tactical can be rough if you group finder it and wind up with 4 dps because trash can put out a lot of damage. But if you go in the front door as a duo you can use your companions and it's far easier.

Solo = you get a godly npc tank to help you, along with your normal companion
tactical = tuned for any 4 idiots in any role level 10-65
hard mode = 60+ and the only "normal" mode left.

Hm. As I'm understanding then, its a choice of:

Story - God robot does the instance for you! - Chosen by dialog or walking in alone.
Tactical - Easy - chosen via dialog.
Normal - Still easy - Walk in with your group
Hard mode - Wait till we hit 60+.

Do I have that correct?

Right now our group is:

1 Jedi Sentinel (DPS of some sort)
1 Jedi Shadow (tank)
1 Jedi Sage (healer)
1 Jedi Sage (Balance)

So should we just push to 60 and run the flashpoints after that if we are looking for more of a challenge?

We were also sort of worried that at 60+, the Shadow Tank and Sage healer would not mesh well or that we will run into loot issues with that many of the same "class" in the same group. I've considered swapping my DPS sage out for a Gunslinger if that would help gearing later in the game

Kreugen · Nov 2, 2015

There is no normal any more. Tactical IS the normal now, and is intended for any mix of levels/classes. However its not very well tuned in some cases, unless you have a tank/healer or at least a companion healing.

Armor won't matter - the only loot issue you have is 3 people wanting the same main hand lightsabers, heh. And as it happens, that's the one thing you can't buy with comms.

Tanks want tank stats, dps/healers mostly share the same loot outside of healers not giving a shit about accuracy. There's no light/medium/heavy armor any more, it just auto scales.

sakkath · Nov 2, 2015

Kreugen_sl said:
Hell, the reason I've never been interested in tanking in TOR is how goddamn annoying it must be to hold threat on shit that is spread out all over the fuck and using ranged attacks. You know quickly when your tank sucks at it.

I haven't done any serious PvE since Makeb but you never used to need to tank everything in flashpoints.. Trying to hold aggro on every mob was a waste of time.. Most random trash mobs/adds can be tanked by anyone.. some classes better at it than others (ie gunslinger in cover vs ranged)..

Trash fights tend to have some stronger mobs which you tank.. Bosses you could afford to switch off the boss to pick up adds usually..

moontayle · Nov 2, 2015

And as long as you reminded people to work up the difficulty chain (normal -> strong -> elite -> champion) only a couple of pulls were difficult. As a tank all you really needed to do was hold aggro on as many of the heavier mobs as possible.

Tarisk · Nov 2, 2015

I think the biggest issue right now with all the FP's being tactical is as said before, tuning is fucked up on a lot of them. You get 4 dps, and bosses are still easy for the most part because of the kolto stations, but trash annihilates you. This difficulty seems to affect the ones that used to be designed for the 2 dps, 1 tank, 1 heal format. The previous tacticals are a non-issue still.

Best just to find a non-retard and go in with the comps and 2 man it until they tune the FP's accordingly for 1) average MMO retards 2) 4 dps combos (most common group format now).

moontayle · Nov 2, 2015

What my wife and I have found, at least for the planetary heroics, is that the mobs you see are fine and generally good for that person who likes to solo things. We basically annihilate them. When shit is spawned though, that's when it could get hairy for the solo person. One of the republic ones on Taris, the Locust I think, spawns four elites on top of you early on. Then later it gives you a Champion and four strongs. We still took care of business (and to be honest, did that even when it was a H4 and level appropriate back in the day), but I could see it being a problem for someone not prepared.

Sylas · Nov 2, 2015

I pretty much skipped all the fp. I've done a few operations like dread masters or whatever but never did any fp.

Whats the best way to do these? All these different modes and shit is confusing. Im a tank, can i just use group finder to do them all or should i find someone to duo+comp them?

Do i have to go around to all the droids to initiate the quests or what

Malakriss · Nov 2, 2015

If you don't use group finder you have to talk to the NPC outside each to pick solo/tact/HM options, that's about it. HM does drop 216 non-set for final boss and bonus bosses so it's not a bad way to gear up on the side.

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