The Grind of Gearing Up

With two max level characters now, I'm having a really hard time trying to avoid gearing up both toons at the same time.  The way the endgame system works in SWTOR, it really makes zero sense to work on gearing two different characters at the same time.  Because once you hit max gear level (306) on one toon, all the future gear drops at that level are bound to legacy, which means that everything that drops can be sent to any other max level toons to help them gear up.

All that being said, I'm finding the process to be really slow and painful.  I'm generally just running veteran flashpoints for gear and that seems to work okay.  Sometimes I'll get lucky and get 2-4 upgrades on a flashpoint, but sometimes I'll get nothing at all.  Just RNG.

My Jedi Guardian is sitting around gear level 290, so he's got quite a way to go to that magic 306.

I've also been working on leveling up my crew skills across all of my characters.  

The above table is what that looks like at the moment.  I'm probably going to switch one of Ganntt's skills to Diplomacy or Investigation, but I still need to figure out how much either of those may be critical to leveling some of crafting skills.

That's about it for now.

Cheers!

The Legendary Homestretch

I've started Chapter 3 on my 8th class.  My Powertech Bounty Hunter is working his way through Belsavis.  I've enjoyed this class story line so far maybe a little bit more than the Jedi Consular story line, but I still wouldn't put it in my top 3.  But I'm enjoying the class so far. 

I've heard some folks complain about the fire discipline of powertech, but I've had no issues with it at all.  I did a decent chunk of heroics with a friend about mid-way through leveling, so I've outleveled most of the zones and have pretty good gear as a result, so that may be a big part of why it's working well for me.

After that, I'm mostly just grinding conquest each week on both my Jedi Guardian and my Smuggler.  I may start working on getting all of my Crew Skills maxed after I'm done with the whole leveling thing as well.

I discovered that leveling crafting Crew Skills is actually pretty easy because you can get there purely by crafting the components.  It takes some time, but as long as you have all the materials, it tends to go pretty quickly.  It's a decent chunk of gold to purchase each of the Onslaught level crew skills, but I'm thinking it's probably pretty quickly worth it in terms of GTN sales.

Hoping to finish the Legendary achievement by the end of this week though, so watch this space!

Cheers,

Joar

Ding. My First Onslaught Max Level Character

I managed to hit level 75 on my Jedi Guardian yesterday while working through the Iokath story line.  Yes.  That's right.  I haven't even started on the actual Onslaught content yet.  Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the Iokath stuff either, but I just felt like I should at least start through it.

One overarching piece of feedback for the SWTOR team after working through KOTET and the first part of Iokath is please, no walker quests.  Ever again.  Unless you're willing to fix the mechanics in them, they are terrible, and please stop.

I'm debating respecc'ing the Jedi to a tank spec now, but haven't fully decided yet.  I also started working my smuggler through the Hutt Cartel story line just to keep earning conquest points and gearing up.  My plan is to do that and Revan and then skip straight to the Onslaught stuff if I'm in the right spot level-wise.

On my Sith Marauder, I've now finished chapter 2 and am definitely enjoying the class a lot more.  I'm a huge fan of Jaesa as a companion, so we're just rolling through everything now.  I'm also starting to unlock all the strongholds for the huge conquest bonus, so that's helping as well.

I haven't spent much time on the Jedi Shadow or the bounty hunter, but that will definitely change once I get the Sith Warrior done, which could happen fairly quickly now.

One other thing that I've discovered on the professions is that you can absolutely level the crafting crew skills strictly by leveling the various components used to craft gear and not by crafting any actual gear.  Going to try that with the various ones that I've been working on.  The big crafting project is likely going to require moving everyone's materials inventory into Legacy Cargo and then crafting away.

Close to Finished with KOTET

I just finished the palace puzzle portion of Chapter VI of KOTET, and I am definitely ready to be finished with this particular stream of content.  I'm remembering that this is a large part of the reason that I stopped playing SWTOR the last time.  Advancing through this content just feels like small amounts of fighting in between long movie clips.

The dialogue and choices make for some fun, but I'm not sure they make a huge difference anyway.

I'm much more curious to see what the actual Onslaught content looks like once I get there, and then see how challenging it is to gear up.

I'll also be pushing my Smuggler to 75 after I finish with the Jedi Guardian.

Beyond that, I've been working a bit on the last 3 characters that haven't finished their class story line.  The Marauder has made the most progress so far and should be finishing Chapter 1 shortly.  As I've unlocked more abilities and figured out a better rotation, that class is definitely working better for me now.  I've also been working a little bit on the Bounty Hunter and on the Jedi Shadow while I let rested xp accumulate on the Marauder, so they've made some progress as well.

I'm still debating on crew skills.  I've set it up so that I have at least one of each crafting skill, but I'm debating whether it is really worthwhile to work on leveling all of those up.  The upside is that with my legacy storage, I can very easily using mats I've gathered across all my toons to level these crafting professions.  It'll just take some time to set up.  It would be nice to be in a position to outfit all my alts in decent gear once they hit max level.  

There is, of course, a spreadsheet that has been established to help track this.

That's it for this week!

Snuck in the Smuggler Before the XP Boost Ended

I managed to finish up the class story line on the smuggler before the experience boost ended.  Being part of a guild with a fully upgraded flagship is a huge bonus as well, so I managed to finish the class story line at level 60.  I'm not even sure where to go from there, because I'm pretty sure that's the level to start KOTFE, just skipping Ilum, Hutt Cartel and Shadows of Revan all together.

I've now started on the Sith Marauder.  I'm still not a big fan.  I might try changing up his discipline to something else and seeing if that helps. 

On my original main, Fiordin, I finished the KOTFE story line and have now started the first chapter or two of KOTET.  So far it seems like more of the same.  I'm anxious to get through the pieces that feel like you're just watching a movie, and hopefully the Onslaught stuff is back to more normal questing and progression.  I'm guessing I'll be level 75 before even finishing KOTET (since I'm 70 now), but I guess we'll see.

Sith Inquisitor Story Line Finished

I finished up the story line for the Sith Inquisitor.  Chapter 3 seemed to grind on for a while, but the finish was very satisfying.  Definitely one of my favorites so far.  For my next characters, I'm going to work on a Smuggler Scoundrel.  I'm trying to alternate between Republic and Empire, but the next Republic Character was my Jedi Sage, which seems awfully close to the Sith that I just finished, so Smuggler will be up next.

I'm also going to work on getting my "main" current on the various chapters and xpacs.  He's currently working his way through Chapter 12 of KOTFE, so we'll see how that all goes.  At least at the moment, if I run an Empire side character through the various xpacs as well, it will likely be the Sith Inquisitor who I enjoyed quite a bit more than the Imperial Agent.  We'll see though.

For the various characters, here is where we currently stand:

Republic:

Fiordin - level 65 Jedi Guardian

Karman - level 51 Trooper Commando

Tavlok - level 14 Jedi Consular

Ganntt - level 15 Smuggler Scoundrel

Empire:

Laerissa - level 51 Imperial Agent Sniper

Joarek - level 57 Sith Inquisitor

Talaq - level 18 Sith Marauder

Ravlok - level 12 Bounty Hunter

Cheers,

Joar

Returning to SWTOR

Yet again, a content drought in World of Warcraft has driven me back to playing SWTOR.  As an additional draw this time, both of my younger children have also started playing SWTOR now (they've been binge watching Clone Wars and Rebels during the current lock-down).

Before I had left off the last time, I'd gotten two characters completely through their storylines - my Jedi Guardian and a Trooper Commando, and had also gotten the Guardian to the max level at the time and relatively current on the content.

Coming back now, I managed to pretty quickly finish the story line on my Imperial Agent, who was already at the beginning of Chapter 3, and I've now also started on my Sith Inquisitor, who looks like an evil gray tennis ball in his new helmet.

So the current plan is to finish the story line for all eight classes and then bring my Jedi Guardian current on content.  I have currently finished the story line for 3 of 8 classes, so almost halfway there.

Here is where we currently stand:

Republic:

Fiordin - level 65 Jedi Guardian

Karman - level 51 Trooper Commando

Tavlok - level 14 Jedi Consular

Ganntt - level 10 Smuggler Scoundrel

Empire:

Laerissa - level 51 Imperial Agent Sniper

Joarek - level 35 Sith Inquisitor

Talaq - level 18 Sith Marauder

Ravlok - level 12 Bountry Hunter

The class story lines are going really fast with the current double xp bonus and are essentially all you have to do in order to advance and be comfortably past level 50 by the time you finish the third chapter.

Finally Current on the KOTFE Chapters

So I finally managed to get my Jedi Knight completely current on the set of  KOTFE chapters, finishing up Chapter 11 with Aric Jorgen earlier in the week.  I'm now focused on finishing up the initial storyline quests on some of my other toons.  My Imperial Agent just finished chapter 2 and is starting on her final chapter.

I'm still sort of torn on what I think about SWTOR at this point.  I'm less than enthused with the chapter storylines at max level, although I guess at least it's some form of new content, even if it only works out to about an hour a month.

I've also started doing some of the alliance alerts, and those have been interesting as well.  As a WoW player, I can't help finding a tiny Jawa named Blizz really amusing.  I'm told by my guildies that I should start checking out Star Fortresses as well, so I may give that a try.  I haven't really done anything to gear up my Jedi Knight although I certainly have enough credits and other currency to do that easily enough.  Also, it sounds like there's at least a chance to get some useful gear out of the crates that you get for doing the alliance alert missions.

The class storylines up through level 50 continue to be my favorite thing in this game though, so I'm enjoying going back and working on some more of those.  My plan is to finish up my Imperial Agent and then work on my Sith Sorcerer.

Finished Shadows of Revan and Almost Max Level

So I finished the storyline for the Shadows of Revan expansion yesterday, and find myself sitting at level 64, only one level short of max, with an entire expansion worth of storyline still to go.  I continue to find the content in SWTOR to be really interesting and the Jedi Guardian has been a fantastic character to play at this point.  I'm really looking forward to running him through the KOTFE content, even though it looks like I won't be getting xp for most of it.

Once the Jedi Guardian is done, I will likely move most of my characters onto a single server in order to consolidate what I'm doing from a Legacy perspective, and take full advantage of those perks.  I haven't fully decided which server I want to end up on from that standpoint though.

My Imperial Agent will be the next character that I at least run through their initial class story, although I haven't decided how many classes I want to take all the way to max level at this point.

I'm also making a fair amount of credits from my crew skills, and show go into max level being able to purchase a fair amount of gear on the GTN if I need to.  Although as long as my gear remains adequate for getting through the storyline, I'm not sure I'll be paying that much attention to upgrades.

After the Imperial Agent, will likely finish up a Sith Inquisitor / Sorc.

Cheers!

Complete Through Hutt Cartel / Makeb

So I've finished my initial class storyline quests on my Jedi Knight as well as the content from the Hutt Cartel expansion - the planet Makeb.  Both storylines were really interesting and enjoyed both a great deal.  Without any difference at the class level once you get past 50, I'm not sure that it will be quite as interesting for the next 7 classes after 50, but at least for now, it's keeping me very interested.

I've now started on the Shadows of Revan content.  Having been away from the game, I had no idea what was coming, but the whole concept of a solo dungeon with an additional companion added on to make it seem more like the traditional "holy trio" is a really interesting one.  The use of solo dungeons to move the story along is really interesting as well.

The only concern is I'm not sure how much of the story lines on the two planets I'm going to end up having time for before I hit level 60, but I guess at this point, it doesn't really matter and I can just work through the content.

All my other characters are lined up and ready to go with their storylines as well, but I haven't been doing much to progress any of them at this point.  If I keep working through these, the Imperial Agent will be next followed by a Sith Inquisitor.

Fast Progress on Leveling

I'm continuing to make really strong progress with my Jedi Guardian.  He's working his way though Voss and is sitting at level 45.  So far, I'm finding that just doing the class story line quests and maybe a handful of the planet storyline quests is more than enough to keep me on track.

I've really been enjoying the Jedi storyline so far.  I may get tired of the cutscene thing after a while, but at least at the moment, I really appreciate the new content and the way things fit together.  It also feels much more cohesive with being able to limit the quests that you're doing while leveling.  Not as much running around on random tasks.

It appears that in the course of sitting around for 4 years since the last time I played, a couple of my characters managed to lose their class story-line thread.  So far, it's happened on my Sith Inquisitor, but from what I've read on the forums, it sounds like I can expect that to be the case on one or two more.  I've wandered all over trying to pick it back up with no success.  I put in a ticket last Saturday but so far have not gotten any response.  The good news is that the character involved was very low level (around 11), so it's not a big deal for me to start another and quickly catch him up.  It is a bit disappointing to have a ticket sitting out there that long with no answer though.

My current plan is to play this Jedi straight through to current max level, then go back and work on finishing up other story lines.  My Imperial Agent would likely be next because that character is sitting around level 35 or so, so not far to go.

In any case, it's providing a nice break from Warcraft while I wait for their next new expansion, expected around the same time as transporter and hyperspace technology.

Jumping Back Into SWTOR

So with the severe shortage of new content out there in World of Warcraft land, I decided to jump back into SWTOR, particularly after hearing from a pretty large number of online friends that they had made a lot of improvements to the game and to the content and that it was really worth taking another look at.

I really can't believe it's been four years since the last time I posted here or did anything meaningful in SWTOR.

So I've jumped back in.  Rather than pick up my level 50 Trooper Commando and try to level him to the new 65 level cap, I decided to go back and start from scratch and level a new toon all the way, just to see how they've streamlined the 1-50 leveling process, and also to get the hang of the game again.

It really does move much faster now.  At least so far, completing the class quests and a few of the key Story Arc quests is more than enough to keep leveling along.  (And I hadn't yet noticed or picked up on the XP boosts available in the Legacy tab), so that should make things move even faster.

I've managed to get my Jedi Guardian to level 28 in just a couple of days of sporadic play.  I'm enjoying the story line so far, particularly given that the new streamlined leveling process really lets you focus on it.  It's also nice having the option to have your companions play any role and not having to worry about gearing them.  So I take a different one out from time to time just to work on the influence level on each.

I haven't noticed much in the way of changes to crew skills, at least at low levels, but I always thought that worked relatively well in SWTOR anyway.  This particular Jedi toon is set up with Artifice, Archaeology and Treasure Hunting.

I'm apparently not the only one that's jumping back in, because there is a ton of activity out there in the world, at least on the servers that I play on.  So look for more updates here.

Another SWTOR Legacy Complete

So I finished Chapter One on my Imperial Agent earlier this week which resulted in achieving my second SWTOR legacy.  My Imperial Agent continues to be a lot of fun to level as a Sniper, focused mostly on the Engineering tree.  I'm still primarily using Kaliyo as my questing companion.  She makes a decent tank and is able to soak up the damage long enough for me to get most of the bosses down.  I still don't have her as geared as I should, as I still need to grab an ear piece and implants for her.  I wish there were more of those types of things available on the GTN.

I'm also spending a little bit of time on each of my 6 other characters that I'm leveling, attempting to maximize the time spent leveling with rested xp.  So far that seems to be working fine.  Since I've found the end game content to be less than inspiring, I'm not necessarily in any big rush to get any of these last 7 toons to max level.  Right now, a lot of the interest for me in SWTOR is in the leveling process itself.

I've also done a little bit of PvP on my level 50 Trooper, which has been fun.  It seems like SWTOR is either going to need to do some server consolidation, or is going to have to get cross server warzones introduced sooner rather than later.  Nothing kills interest in end game like 30-60 minute queues for the same four warzones.

So right now, on my Imperial Agent, I'm working my way through the bonus series on Nar Shadaa - somethingg I skipped completely on my Republic Trooper - before beginning Chapter Two.  The Nar Shadaa bonus quests have been really good so far, including a couple of decent Heroic quests as well.

Blending Advanced Class Representation

So having gotten my first SWTOR character to max level, I've now focused on leveling many of my other SWTOR alts.  I've also decided to re-roll two of my classes to make sure that I get the chance to level one of each advanced class as well.

As a result, my Jedi Sentinel and my Smuggler Gunslinger will both be getting rerolled as a Jedi Guardian and Smuggler Scoundrel.  After checking, I've got about 5 hours of played time in both characters, and it's definitely easier to reroll now, than to finish the next 140 hours on both characters and then realize that I want to go back and  level two more of each class.

See, on the Empire side, my Imperial Agent (the Empire counterpart of the Smuggler) is leveling as a Sniper (which is the counterpart to Gunslinger).  The Imperial Agent is currently level 31, so would obviously be abandoning a much larger investment of time.  My Sith Marauder is level 14, so it's not incrementally a ton more time, but I'd still rather restart a level 10 rather than a level 14.

It also gives me the chance to get all of my Republic toons on the same server.  Right now my Smuggler Gunslinger is on a different server, so I can reroll on my main Republic server and be able to fully take advantage of all the legacy features.

Once that is done, it will just leave me with one server transfer to do once that ability goes live - moving my Imperial Agent to be with my other 3 Empire characters.  Although I may debate moving them all to the same server to be able to fully take advantage of legacy abilities.  We'll see how that goes.

I may also try leveling a couple of toons purely through PvP just to see how that compares from a leveling time standpoint.  Right now I don't have enough data points to do a very strong comparison, but hopefully that will change within the next few weeks.

Ding! First Level 50

So I finally managed to get my Republic Trooper to Level 50.  My total played time to 50 was 6 days, 5 hours.  This wasn't a straight hard core play through as this was obviously the first toon that I've leveled, and I also managed to max out all 3 of my crew skills while leveling.  I also spent a fair amount of time at the Galactic Trade Network getting rid of some of the excess materials that I generated by doing so.

So I have to believe a much faster played time should be possible, but we'll see.  From an endgame standpoint, I've been doing some PvP since without a group finder in game yet, that really works the best with my schedule.  So far, I've managed to get up to Valor Rank 14, and am close to having my first piece of Battlemaster gear.

My plan is to finish leveling my Imperial Agent next to see the Empire side of things, then go back to working on my Jedi Knight on the Republic side.

The Final Push to 50

So I'm now on the last planet on my Republic Trooper - Corellia.  I'm still finding the switch to a Gunnery spec, using Elara as a healer companion is working extremely well.  I've also almost finished leveling all of my crew skills.  Both Armormech and Underworld Trading are maxed, and Scavenging is at 390/400.  I've been a little disappointed with Armormech as a crew skill.   I haven't really found any benefit to it while leveling at this point, although I'm guessing some of the higher level gear that I can now craft might be helpful if I start doing more flashpoints and operations at end-game.

However, if you're interested in a crew skill that will be helpful to you while leveling, Armormech probably isn't it.

The levels seem to take a long time to complete in the high 40's, although I don't know how much of that is because I've been spending a fair amount of time finishing up my crew skills as well as working the Galactic Trade Network to sell of a lot of raw materials that I've collected while leveling.  From 46 to 47 took about 5 hours and from 47 to 48 took about 6 hours.  At this point, I'm at 5 days, 21 hours to 48.

On the Empire side, I recently hit 30 on my Imperial Agent.  She's continuing to level with a Sniper / Engineering spec which is working quite well.  It's lots of fun blowing stuff up!

Her played time to 30 was 2 days, 7 hours, so she seems to be progressing a little bit faster than the trooper.  I'm leveling Armstech with her instead of Armormech, but again, it doesn't seem too helpful, at least so far.

As soon as the Trooper is done, I'm going to push to finish the Imperial Agent and will then probably just alternate between factions.

Nerfs to Combat Medic Hurt Leveling

So I've been working on my Trooper for several days now following the release of patch 1.2. While I was looking forward to the patch in terms of the expansion of the Legacy system and the changes to crew skills, I hadn't focused as much as I should have on the impact that the changes were going to have to the leveling capabilities of my Combat Medic Trooper.

There were really just a few basic changes that directly impacted the Trooper while leveling:

• Field Triage now reduces the cost of Medical Probe by 1 (down from 2).
• Supercharge Cells now restores 1 Energy Cell (down from 2) when used and increases all damage and healing dealt by 5% (down from 10%). The shield applied by Kolto Bomb now reduces damage taken by 5% (down from 10%).
• Trauma Probe now costs 2 Energy Cells to activate.

The net result of these changes is that on my combat medic, I'm running through ammo much quicker than I was before the patch. On most fights, I'm running out of ammo pretty quickly trying to keep Tanno alive. Combine this with the fact that my heals are not hitting for quite as much after the patch and it becomes a serious challenge to keep Tanno up on most encounters with Elites.

After several days of trying to get my groove back with combat medic leveling, I eventually caved this weekend and switched back to a Gunnery spec. So far, I'm having much better results with Gunnery, using either Tanno or Elara as a companion. Demolition round got a pretty significant buff in the patch, although Grav Round received a bit of a nerf, increasing it's cost and cast time. However, as long as I don't spam it constantly, I'm not finding ammo to be that big of a deal for Gunnery at this point.

I will say that I'm disappointed at the changes to Combat Medic. I was really enjoying being able to level as a healer and to have the viability of that approach significantly hampered by a patch is a bit annoying.

I have managed to get my Trooper to level 47 and am working my way through the Hoth bonus series before heading off to my final planet - Corellia.

After finishing the Trooper, I'll be switching next to finishing up my Imperial Agent who is sitting on Alderaan at level 29.

Belsavis Thoughts

While I'm all about the push to 50 at this point on my Republic Trooper, questing my way through Belsavis has me wanting to try the same content on my Imperial Agent. It's interesting, because it's not a particularly inspiring quest line for the Republic.

Apparently our friends at the Republic have been keeping all sorts of nasty prisoners stashed away on this planet Belsavis and there's been some pretty inappropriate stuff going on. It's been an interesting story line, both from a character standpoint and also overall and I'm anxious to see it to its conclusion.

My boy Tanno and I continue to rock through everything in our way. He's still making for a top notch tanking companion and we have very little difficulty with just about anything.

After I finish my Imperial Agent, I think I'll be heading back Republic side to try a Jedi Guardian - tanking spec with a healing companion eventually.