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 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 11:38am 

Having a problem getting past lvl 30. I'm an altaholic, to be sure, and I'm currently sitting on a 32 Guard, a 31 Shadow, 30 Commando, and just deleted a 28 gunslinger (can't stand the class, even though I tried really hard to like it). And with all that, I got bored and rerolled a Sith Warrior on a rp pvp server (I'm not a big pvper but needed a change).

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 12:01pm 

When do SW get their healer? Leveling solo as a JK/SW is considered the most difficult content, Knight even more so. Knights don't get their real healer until Balmorra (level 35 or so). Then they steal our healer on the last mission. And I beat the fucker before they nerfed it to Hell.

Unless you're talking about how the game tends to drag on past 30..... yea. The only solution is to game with friends. I have been and will always be stuck tanking, so my 3 characters are 50 Guardian, 26 Vanguard, and 21 Shadow.

Fucking Vanguard and Shadow tanks are bullshit easy mode. They literally have to do 0 work for more mitigation, threat, and damage over a Guardian. Not that Guardians aren't viable end-game tanks, but it's annoying feeling more gimped as a 50 Guardian than a ~30 Vanguard.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 12:32pm 

SW get a healer on imperial balmorra, which is right after DK. Pretty quick. Too bad he's massively annoying :p.

I sort of like the challenge of the SW tank, tbh, but yeah, could use a bit of a buff overall (force pull please). AOE threat is a bit annoying, though in most of the content, if your DPS/cc'ers are anywhere near on the mark you can basically ignore the non gold/bosses. And I find it's hard for most dps to pull single-target threat off me unless a) they're idiots and attack before me, or b) outgear me massively.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 01:20pm 

Man, Imps really are easy mode. I got a SW off Korriban and, while doing so, was treated to a planet about 1/3 the size of Tython, no retarded space sharks to kill, quest spacing requiring literally walking 5 feet and falling over XP, laughably easy heroics, and Datacrons just sitting out on the main paths, waiting to be used. You can't get off Tython at level 10 without spending 3 hours there. My first run through of Korriban took me a little over an hour and that was with doing the heroics and every quest.

As a Guardian, you have to let DPS take on normals, maybe a strong or 2, while you keep the Elites occupied. As a Vauguard? Focus targets, pull mobs to you, and pop your AOE once every 10 seconds or so and you won't lose aggro. The big issue with a Guardian is the healer ripping aggro and/or DPS AOEing. Since my AOE as a Vanguard is spammable (no CD), all I have to worry about is resource management. And since trash pulls aren't that long and my AOE hits hard, it's a joke. The big issue is that Mortar Volley is pathetic when compared to the BHs "Death from Above." But that's a mirror issue BW likely won't fix because it favors the imps (notice how fast they fixed the Sages AOE heal having a large upfront tick, unlike the Sorc).

And Bioware has stated Guardians "are where we want them to be," so fuck them.

If I got something out of the "challenge" of Guardian tanking, I might agree with you. But our stats pale in comparison to Vanguard Tanks, and Shadows put out much more damage for only a slight loss of mitigation. And that's only taking into account the class itself. The Guardian defense tree is bad when you look at it, but it's faults become excruciating when compared to the Vanguard/Shadow Defense trees. You can only begin to outshine a Shadow by using the Vig/Def 14/27/0 hyrbrid build (and losing your 4 piece set bonus, fucking Blade Barrier......), and a Vanguard will still out threat and out mitigate you. Just look at the top tiers of Shadows and Vaguards: shit is awesome. Guardian Defense tree is just filled with resource management due to Soresu lowering our Focus generation. But speccing into all the Defense constantly leaves you with everything on CD and a full Focus meter (even more so if you pull Slash off your bar because it's shit).

It's cool that I have to work harder for my threat than WoW or Rift. But it's annoying that I'm the only tank that has to do so.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 01:38pm 

Man more and more the 31 skill point toppers are either awesome or just worth it.
Look at something like BH Mercs
31 Bodyguard is a massive instant heal (Good for healers) a great ohshit heal
31 Arsenal are Heatseeker missiles which rock in PVP providing king of spike damage
31 Pyro is Thermal Detonator which does slightly worse AOE damage than explosive dart, a skill you get for free

Meaning every single guild out there says stay away from Thermal Detonator because it's literally worse than the free skill you already have. It might be worth if for spike damage if you could stack the two of them but no Thermal detonator conflicts with dart, can't use both at the same time.

BH Powertech's are in a similar boat
31 Pyro=to BH Merc Ie is useless
31 Advance Prototype is Immolate and inferior DPS wise to a free skill
31 Heat Blast while not a great skill damage wise, lets you manage heat as it does damage and dissipates heat letting yo do more damage.

Which is why every PT guide out there says stay away from every 31 pointer except possibly Heat blast but most BH Powertech builds are dual builds to begin with.
Meanwhile my Sith Sorc has 3 awesome 31 pointers each able to bring something different to the table only Creeping doom is a bit lackluster but combine with the tree it's in its more DOT stacking.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 02:28pm 

The resource management of the Tanking 31 point ability at least address issues with the class/spec. And getting an extra 10% shield chance isn't a bad way to get there. Guardian Slash and Hilt Strike for Guardians are just unbelievably worthless. The only justifications I've seen for people defending Full Defense specced Guardians are "BW intended this to be the tanking Tree" and "It's better than Vig hybrid because it's a Tanking Tree."

Yes, the SWTOR forums are full of idiots.

Sorce/Sages are the new FotM and helped my decision to never PvP in this game again. After the OP/Scoundrel got re-tuned, they lost their only true nemesis (of course, OPs were the nuke in the Paper/Scissor dynamic of SWTOR, they were everyone's nemesis). Using a Madness/Corruption hybrid will net huge Damage and Healing numbers in your Warzone. And since OPs can no longer 3 shot them (and all the OP/Scourndrel babies re-rolled Sorc/Sage anyway), they are left to run rampant in PvP.

Yes, they are certainly killable. I kill the Lightning spammers non-stop, as they freak out after the first interrupt. But, like marines in Starcraft, there's a threshold in regards to their numbers where they become ridiculously powerful. 4 Sorcs/Sages using a hybrid spec are almost unstoppable and the class can be viable by literally smashing your head against the keyboard and mastered by maybe adding keybinds into your facesmashing routine. And lately, they're everywhere. The class has too much utility right now and needs to be retuned. But it's also the most played class in the game, so it's unlikely BW will bother with it. So, it's either get used to loads of purple lightning in your warzones, or just call SWTOR PvP for what it is: terrible.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 07:28pm 

lol, my SW is on Korriban so have no idea when he gets his healer. My old server is 'standard' pve, so I'm hoping the rp pvp I can get a good guild. Pickings were slim on Empress Tetra, have my toons in two guilds with each one not really doing the trick. So, hopfully Ajunta Pall has better guilds. If it works out, perhaps I'll do a server changed later on with the other three toons I got. I'm quite happy with the Shadow dps build. Very much reminds me of a WOW rogue, where in LOTRO I've been playing for the last two years didn't have that sort of build with the burglars.

Anyway...

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 07:50pm 

There's a few posters of note on the SWTOR forum from Ajunta Pall. They seem on the ball, so you may have good luck there. I've heard the faction imbalance isn't that bad with both sides having a good spread of PvE and PvP players.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 08:07pm 

Welcome to Ajunta Pall! I have a JK (50) and an IA (26). I haven't done much PvP on the Imperial side but from what I've seen so far, it's fairly even on both sides. Republic tends to win in Alderaan, Imperials tend to win in Voidstar and Huttball seems like it's always a toss-up. That and the king of Ilum really depends on how many people are online for the respective faction.

Other than that, it's a fairly populated server and, being the only RP-PvP server on the west side, I don't think it's going to have any population issues for awhile.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 09:10pm 

Well, my little SW Nymn hopes so. Will probably go marauder with him, got a tank already, so wanna try the dps er version. Do you know the major guilds on that server? I'm really more of a PVE person, though I don't mind the RP at all. Just need a switch and need a shot at better guilds. Tired of pugs and tired of 5 guildies on at any time.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-21 09:33pm 

I'm honestly not in tune with the Imperial guilds. My IA (Turing) is only lvl 26 and I've really been just focusing on my singleplayer class story. On the Republic side, "The Order" is fairly populous and I've participated in a quite a few RP events with them. As an Imp, you'll probably want to watch out for "Infantry". When they come to the Ilum battlefields, we usually stomp the Empire fair quickly. Sometimes when we have obvious supremacy over Ilum, we try to curb back on the stomping so the Imperials won't just outright quit and go home, thus providing us with longer and improved "fishing times".

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 09:16am 

But why should they want to facilitate cross faction trading when the storyline doesn't call for it?

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 12:27pm 

Because sometimes gameplay > story adherence? And even in the real world, countries at odds find ways to legally sell goods to the other side which doesn't make purchasers fly to a neutral country.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 12:31pm 

Cross faction trading? Ever heard of the Hutts? Black markets? Blasters don't have made in Space Evil America stamped on them. Production is still a large amount of neutral parties. At this point in history control is still a light touch. If a world can pay it's taxes or tribute, unless it's attacked it's not going to have millions of soldiers stationed on it and credits are a neutral currency.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 12:59pm 

Cross-faction trading exists in SWTOR, like in WoW. There's 3 separate Markets: 1 Republic, 1 Empire (both on their respective fleet stations and some scattered about the galaxy), and 1 neutral on Nar Shadaa.

The problem is since they're separate, you can only post and buy a particular item on 33% of the total market. Even having a neutral Market trader NPC on the fleets would be better than this. But as it stands now, the neutral AH on Nar Shadaa only exists to send money/items to cross-faction alts. And it's annoying as Hell to get there.

By having the Trade Market be completely neutral, you solve a lot of issues with faction imbalance and lower population servers. Right now, my buddy has a lock on the Crit Magenta crystal because he's the only Rep who has the schematic (they other guy who did hasn't logged in like 3 weeks). Opening that up not only increases his market, but also competition. If storyline is your thing, just have the kiosks replaced with Hutts and some bullshit line about how "in these troubled times, we have to get our brave soldiers equipped any way possible, so we outsourced to the Hutts."

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 03:01pm 

That's what Nar Shadda is for.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 03:04pm 

In that case, why have markets anywhere else? Because being able to trade between all players makes for a much healthier and easier to use and more fun market for everyone.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 03:11pm 

Because they didn't want to an open market available as the only source?
Some people might not want to sell cross faction?

Seriously, why should they care if the market's healthy or not? It's an addition to the core game, not a selling point. I see it like space battles. It's extra.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 04:30pm 

The entire crafting system by default requires a trading system to work and Synthweaving effectively fucks anyone taking it because they will only be able to sell goods to 50% of the market and have 50% unsellable. How many Sith Warriors have you seen on Republic side exactly... so all those other faction restricted items are unusable.
Same goes for specific weapons, mods and otherwise that are only useful because OTHER faction characters, companions use them. I.E A Empire players arent going to see much use for a Tech blade but Consulars will love them for their starting companion, same goes with all the other exotic weapons out there.

Instead... if you dont follow the common trends your shit out of luck which effectively means Inquisitors / Consulars are set for life as they can get an orange set by level 10 and all it takes is someone with Cybertech to see them all the way to endgame. If your a Medium or Heavy armor class your boned by comparrison as you need at least a Synthweaver AND a Cybertech person to back you up... and populations on some servers are simply unable to produce enough to meet demand. Thus trying to find things is impossible even when you can literally jump faction and find the items you want on the OTHER side not selling at all.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 05:23pm 

Who the hell relies on crafting gear for 50 lvls? Plenty of orange gear and mods for either sale or trade with commendations.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 06:04pm 

Pound for pound a full set of purple gear is superior than equivalent modded gear mostly because there are procs to get items with five separate mods. IE with mod gear you might (Hypothetical sage/sorc) get Wis/End plus Crit/Surge plus alracity or power with something getting doubled up on (So 25 Crit, 25 Surge, 25 Alarcity and 50 Power) But I've seen orange gear of the same level which have higher +s and something extra like shield chance, absorption, accuracy or just better stats period.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 06:15pm 

If you have a decent crafter than can make purple items then you can be set for life. Purple Cybertech nets you equipment that is easily 2 - 4 levels ahead of anything will get on-level from the store. If your a light armor user then you can keep your full set of oranges fully purpled from 10 - 50. Otherwise your scrounging for a full set of oranges just to begin with. Sure as hell not going to find many crystals for your weapons outside of crafting or wasting comendations to buy something just so you can rip out the mods.

If your smart, you will save those comendations to equip your companions or get the items so you can RE them into straight purples.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-22 06:24pm 

Argh. This game fucking hates me. So far i've managed to get to Taris with my Trooper, who's at about level 22, but before I could finish the story quest I had to re-install windows to improve my computer's performance. (It was getting really slow) Now whenever I try to play the game, the launcher crashes as soon as I click play. I've contacted BioWare's support staff. I hope they respond quickly.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-23 03:54am 

This is hilarious, so Bioware makes it that crafters explicitly craft stuff for both factions and then makes it a PITA to actually sell to or buy from the other faction? Did the devs just not communicate properly or are they really such big MMO noobs?

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-02-23 09:58am 

MMO noobs, it's most notable in the PVP space. They had good ideas but no experienced people/those people were ignored by the Dev's in several areas. There's a lot of filler, PVP for example it's so obviously grindy it's not even fun. To use the best PVP stuff you need Valor level 50... and to get to Valor level 50 even if you run three warzones a day for a month you won't even be halfway there. And since Valor levels grant you literally nothing until you hit 50 it's the most obvious grind it's not even funny.

*Edit, every 10 valor levels you get a new title but again you get nothing the other 40 levels.