Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

[TheFeniX]

I hope they respond quickly.

Good luck man. I'm serious. The tech support for this game has been atrocious as evidenced by numerous posts on the forums, but also first hand accounts of me and my friends. They'll probably just respond with "please hit CTRL+U+U. If that doesn't work, go fuck yourself."

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?

You weren't supposed to be able to find opposite faction recipes, but they dropped in a lot of the cross faction Flashpoints/questing areas. They patched out the drops a while ago, but left the worthless patterns in our synthweaving. I have a few for Marauders and Bounty Hunters (hehe, what?), so I could always send gear to an alt via the neutral AH.

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.

You could easily get to Valor 50 in under a month if you know how to exploit the WZ system. And a lot of people do know which makes PvP in this game a joke.

If you're under level 50, you're working towards 2 goals: to get Valor 50 (duh) and to get 6 champ bags (buy 1, save 1000/1000 comms to buy 5 more). The issue is that both valor and commendation are tied to winning a warzone and farming medals. But farming medals will grant a much higher amount for both. You get medals, not for completing objectives (besides "defending") but for doing damage, healing, and guarding/preventing damage to other players. So, winning is a secondary goal by far and most of the 10-49 bracket is players just farming each other at objective points. If you try and convince people to plant and bomb/score the ball/capture a turret, you will be called any number of things (mostly "noob" or "scrub") and informed how you're interfering with their medal farming.

If you happen to be sub-50 on valor at level 50, you go to Ilum on a good day, get 1-2 valor ranks an hour if there's some action then take the valor bonus with you into Warzones. Now here is where the big disconnect happens at 50.

Wins are only semi-important to level 50s who are sub-50 valor. Many of them view champ bags as a waste because they could be buying Battlemaster bags instead (even though the stat difference is hilariously minimal, like 2-3%). So, they are still doing everything they can to farm valor, and maybe trying to win in the process. Battlemasters on the other hand only need wins because of the daily/weekly system. So, if they see this going on, they usually drop the WZ and find another where they can steamroll. That's another issue: BMs think they have actual progression in PvP. They don't see any problem with being full Champ geared and being able to fight fresh-50s in quest greens. I don't either, I just don't think they should be rewarded with more gear by doing so. I mean, imagine if I could finish out my Rakata set by farming normal mode flashpoints.

So, you have 2 competing mentalities at level 50: those who want easy wins for the bags and those who want to farm medals till the time runs out for more Valor. And the system rewards both of them for being dicks about it.

Combined with the terrible resolve system, imbalanced WZ numbers (an easily reproduced and testable intentional exploit), and the general asshat nature of players, SWTOR PvP actually ends up being worse than the game everyone on the TOR forums bitches about: WoW.

[AMT]

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?

It's really not that hard to sell if you want to sell cross faction. You just have people who like to bitch and feel chuffed to take an extra 10 minutes to fly to Nar Shadda, go to the promenade, and sell their items

[TheFeniX]

It's really not that hard to sell if you want to sell cross faction. You just have people who like to bitch and feel chuffed to take an extra 10 minutes to fly to Nar Shadda, go to the promenade, and sell their items

By "sell," you mean "place your items on a Market that no one is purchasing anything on because they then would also have to fly to Nar Shadaa, on a gamble that anything is even posted, to even see what you're selling." This system is stupidly broken. Even on a highly populated server in WoW, the only thing you would find on a neutral AH is 7 listings of vendor trash priced at stupidly high amounts existing solely to transfer credits to another player.

Considering people just don't bother checking the NS market and listings can last 48 hours at most, the only way to possibly make decent use of the Neutral shop would be to log an alt on the opposing factions fleet, and spam that it's available and they should go check. This is not only stupidly inconvenient, it also kicks your "storyline" argument out the door.

I wouldn't even be opposed to having a way to check what's on the Neutral AH remotely, but being forced to fly to Nar Shadaa to actually purchase it (due to galactic plot relevance #365). But no Neutral market would be better than what they have right now.

[AMT]

It's really not that hard to sell if you want to sell cross faction. You just have people who like to bitch and feel chuffed to take an extra 10 minutes to fly to Nar Shadda, go to the promenade, and sell their items

By "sell," you mean "place your items on a Market that no one is purchasing anything on because they then would also have to fly to Nar Shadaa, on a gamble that anything is even posted, to even see what you're selling." This system is stupidly broken. Even on a highly populated server in WoW, the only thing you would find on a neutral AH is 7 listings of vendor trash priced at stupidly high amounts existing solely to transfer credits to another player.

Considering people just don't bother checking the NS market and listings can last 48 hours at most, the only way to possibly make decent use of the Neutral shop would be to log an alt on the opposing factions fleet, and spam that it's available and they should go check. This is not only stupidly inconvenient, it also kicks your "storyline" argument out the door.

I wouldn't even be opposed to having a way to check what's on the Neutral AH remotely, but being forced to fly to Nar Shadaa to actually purchase it (due to galactic plot relevance #365). But no Neutral market would be better than what they have right now.

Weird. I see stuff on Nar Shadda all the time. And when I sell my Republic stuff on there it always goes.
Guess that means it's not stupidly broken since it seems to work.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Am I the only one who wished they integrated crafting with their quests? I would love the ability to finish a quest differently if say I'm very good at slicing.

[AMT]

Am I the only one who wished they integrated crafting with their quests? I would love the ability to finish a quest differently if say I'm very good at slicing.

Yeah that would be nice. They do that a little with flashpoints, but its not really the ending, just the path that changes.

[Knife]

Am I the only one who wished they integrated crafting with their quests? I would love the ability to finish a quest differently if say I'm very good at slicing.

Yeah that would be nice. They do that a little with flashpoints, but its not really the ending, just the path that changes.

Was going to say, they kind of do with slicing. But yeah, just makes it easier, path wise.

[TheFeniX]

Weird. I see stuff on Nar Shadda all the time. And when I sell my Republic stuff on there it always goes.
Guess that means it's not stupidly broken since it seems to work.

Or it means you won the server selection lottery. Belgoth's Republic market has 6 pages minimum on pretty much all the standard search sections besides the obvious like crafting missions or pets. In fact, it makes the terrible filters even more noticeable. While waiting for our op to form last night, I decided to check the Neutral market since I hadn't checked it in weeks. Most filters had 0 listings, armor had 2-3 besides Heavy armor (which had 5 lower level greens). The only thing that broke a single page was those shitty alignment specific relics.

Yea, there's "stuff" on there. But nothing to justify a trip when you login. This was a major issue on my old WoW server. Alliance was essentially dead (3 raiding guilds that had to pool players together to even get anything going and maybe a few dedicated PvP guilds). Our AH was literally controlled by 2-3 players who inflated market prices anywhere from 1/4 to double the price of the Horde AH. So basically, if your server/faction sucks: fuck you, reroll/pay stupid amounts of cash to server swap. It's primarily annoying because we're one of like 4 Rep raiding guilds on our server, so schematic drops in Ops are limited to certain players. You'll be lucky to find one crafted Columi Implant on the Market and it's going for a minimum of 350K (and I mean minimum). The Imp side has two pages of them with the lowest price being 100k and most priced at around 200k.

But hey, this feeds into BW favoring the zerg faction and copying WoWs shitty system of: "roll on the right server and faction or go fuck yourself."

[Darth Yan]

I actually like how redemptions are handled. Many of those who are are actually revealed to be on a tightrope and in danger of relapsing (the primary case is darth sajar. When you find him he's perilously close and I honestly think that if Scourge hadn't backed down he would have fallen. Nomen Karr actually does relapse into darkness when pushed enough, and Praven was never really that monstrous and was there because it was expected and was an idealist. As such given the incentive he could switch sides. Scourge stays an evil bastard and sides with you only because he realizes that Vitiate is going to far (in short, he's evil but he has enough of a conscious to see that Vitiate has to be stopped.)

[Highlord Laan]

I well and truly liked Praven while playing my Knight, and hope we get to see more of him in the future. Running into him was eerie, because my Knight is on an RP server, and it was like looking into a mirror.

[Civil War Man]

One of the writers must have been taking crazy pills when they did the final mission of the Bounty Hunter's Act 1. I mean, so far all of the ones I've done have been a bit over the top since they all seem to involve boarding an enemy ship and killing everyone on board, but the Bounty Hunter boss fight is pretty silly compared to the others I've finished so far.
Spoiler

You fight a Jedi Master and his Padawan simultaneously. A Jedi Master known for killing 100 Mandalorians in a single battle, so not one of those peaceful meditative ones. You kill the Master, then have a choice to execute the Padawan if you are ruthless like that.

Whoever was in charge of planning the Bounty Hunter storyline is obviously a follower of the Church of Boba Fett.

[Darth Yan]

Well since the Great hunt is about the best of the best I can see why they made a Jedi the final challenge of the hunt (It shows that Jedi are regarded even by the mandolorians as the ultimate warriors in the galaxy.)

[TheFeniX]

The last patch made some fairly large changes to PvP. I'm not really sure if they are for better or worse.

You can now get credit for 3 Ilum "kills" or armaments per warzone match you play. So, 50 matches would finish out your weekly and also let you work towards your WZ wins. Medals were also capped at 4 in order to decrease medal farming and standardize the Valor/Commendation gains and allow for a bonus (I think around 500 valor) for actually winning the match.

On one hand: this brought a lot of the Ilum farmers back into Warzones for Republic on my server, not only cutting down queue times, but also bringing more skilled and geared players back into the warzone queue. As an added bonus, this also means more healers since they aren't getting press-ganged into flying to Ilum. I've also seen much less geared and competent Imperials players in WZs, so it's swinging in our favor either way.

On the other hand: Ilum is now a frozen wasteland. Same as before, except there's no warm bodies there anymore. I went there 2-3 times during our usual peak hours and saw no more than 6 Republics. Forum conspiracy theorists claim this was intentional as Ilum was broken, not only in it's concept, but due to lack of engine optimization making large scale battles a lag-fest. Also, that this change has ruined the game forever, just like the changes 2 weeks ago did..... and those other changes 2 weeks before that....

On the PvE front, not much has changed at end-game. Rakata gear is still horribly optimized and Nightmare Ops (at least the 4/10 we've had time to break into), are just as uninspired as lower difficulties. Supposedly 1.2 (a month or two from now) is going to completely revamp the entire PvE endgame system.

I'm also currently leveling a Vanguard Tank (level 28 now). It's so brokenly easy to tank as Vanguard.

[Knife]

Agreed, I gave up on my Jedi Guardian, the Vanguard is a better tanks so far. Just hit 27 and have a supremely easier time tanking with the class. Though, I can't leap onto target, harpoon is way better.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Exact same experience. 50 Guardian, with a Van now up to 34. It's insane. Guardian isn't underpowered per se, but you have to work three times as hard to pull the same numbers a Van can. Not to mention the significant advantage of a Van being 95% ranged combat.

Overall, I am liking this update a lot. I'm glad I don't have to deal with Ilum in its current state, I'm glad I can finally get my fucking purple lightsaber (even if I can't use it because my Champion saber is unmoddable and infinitely better), and most of the other changes feel about right.

I'm cautiously excited for the upcoming big stuff, like all the cool Legacy bonuses.

[Serafina]

People always say that "the Vanguard isn't a ranged tank". They are partially correct: Several crucial tanking skills (most notably Stockstrike and our interrupt) are melee-ranged, and several other important ones are medium-ranged (10m).

However, playing a Vanguard is DEFINITELY different than playing a normal tank class. I can only compare to WoW here, since i've yet to start a secondary TOR-char and never played a tank in any other game.
But i just have SO many alternatives for tanking other than "run up to the mob" when i have to tank multiple targets: i can throw grenades, fire a mortar shot (both of which produce good aggro), place a long-duration DoT on it (due to being partially pyro-skilled), i can even use one of my main-damage skills on it (High Impact Bolt).

I honestly have no idea how other tanking classes compensate for that while tanking multiple targets. Sure, a good group makes it much easier, but that's about it.

[Knife]

The guard has sweep to air some threat. I noticed leap then force push with another leap can keep multiples on you. Still, the Van and harpoon can do the same without hopping all over. Always better to bring mob to you than other way around.

I still usually start out running up there, which is a disadvantage, just so I can turn them away from dps and healer.

[TheFeniX]

Guardian Tanking is actually difficult. Which is to say, you can't fall asleep while tanking. Looked at in a vacuum, it's actually a decent tank that can handle any situation in TOR, with the possible exception of the boarding party fight on Mando, pre-nerf. At that level, you don't have your AOE taunt, and Force Sweep is doing jack-shit. At max level, you have to know what's going on at all times to keep your group alive. Guard melee and Guardian Leap the healer when he pulls threat. Force Leap back in, AOE, focus the elites while DPS kills weaks > standards > strongs. Hold aggro the best you can and maintain all the CDs BW gave you.

The thing about Guardian Tanking is that it's not even worth using the standard 31/10/0 build. You gimp your damage output for no real survivability over a Vig/Def hybrid. In fact, since switching to a 14/27/0 build, my active mitigation in PvE is great and I'm a fucking monster in PvP. Even BM Marauders have issues with me. The Defense tree for Guardians has all the good stuff in the low tier and the higher you go, you just get more resource management. Which means.... you end up spamming Slash as a Focus dump. It's stupid. Put "Generates a high amount of threat" on Plasma Brand and try to argue it doesn't make more sense as a "waaaaah jedi" tank build. It would take less work to make Vig viable as a tanking build than Defense.

The Vanguard (and Shadow as well) abilities and tanking tree just work. And when compared to the Guardian tree, it's almost like they intentionally designed them that way. The Vanguard has a slick 60 second-CD AOE that's awesome for pulling. The spammable Explosive Surge can actually hold aggro when your DPS is also AOEing (try that shit with cyclonic sweeps and laugh at the futility). Even at level 27, my stockstrike crits for 2600 with bolster in Warzones. That's about what my execute crits for on my guardian. And I'm not even talented into Stockstrike yet.

It's not impossible to kite as Guardian (we only have one ranged attack if a mob is over 20%) and one semi-ranged (Blade Storm), but it's fucking annoying. Vanguard? Try not to fall asleep while you run and gun.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

The differences in rotation is particularly telling.

Van: Spam basic attack, casually bounce around Stockstrike, Ion Pulse/Explosive Surge (if using a Defence build), High Impact Bolt, and Full Auto. Pop Defensive CDs if the shit hits the fan. Interrupt if needed. Taunt if needed. Harpoon/Storm if needed. Spam basic attack some more.

Guardian: Never EVER use the basic attack unless there's no other option available (though I enjoy getting the killing blow in PvP with it since it has more interesting animations). Intensive rotation through Sundering Strikes (priority), Blade Storm, Force Sweep, Master Strike, Slash if your focus is high, juggle your CCs (Push, Stasis, Hilt Strike, Awe), juggle your defensive CDs (which are much more critical than the Van's), Taunt if needed, Interrupt if needed, Saber Throw if you lose melee range, Dispatch on low target health... I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.

Guardian is a workout. Vanguard is a vacation.

[TheFeniX]

If I didn't PvP on my Vanguard, I'd have like..... 8 binds at most.

I have 20 full keybinds on my Guardian and I still have to click medpacks and cycle in different abilities based on the map or boss fight. The only good thing is that PvE and PvP with a Guardian is about the same amount of work into your Focus generation, damage, and mitigation etc in order to be viable. Vanguards only need to spam an auto-attack to regen ammo.

The big killer for a Guardian, especially if you spec into Protector and Unremitting is the liberal application of Guardian Leap. Since clicking on moving players is next to impossible (even reading their names is a motherfucker), you have to learn how to quickly make the correlation between who is in range on your raid frame and the player you want to target. Then Guard leap them (maybe taunt) and TAB target back for force leap and hope TAB won't put you on some other random asshole (which is does constantly). With the PvP Vindicator set, it's even more important due to the 8% heal on Guardian Leap.

Guardians get a bad rap on the forums and on my server. And some of it's deserved, like those Guardians who dismiss the Vig/Def hybrid build out of hand because "BW wanted us to use the Defense tree, it's a better tank build." I think a lot of people rolled Guardian/Juggernaut thinking they'd be the Warrior from Vanila WoW. And many of these players just aren't all that good to begin with. They want to stand in front of mobs, hit 1 button, and tank all day long. The problem is, it's the Vanguard class that allows that.

All things considered, I still believe Guardians have way more utility in PvP than Vanguards. AOE slow, AOE stun, more mobility, better defensive panic buttons, a sick heal (enure + warzone medpack = 8000 HP heal). In PvE.... not so much.

[Knife]

So far the only prob I've had with tanking with the vanguard is the last boss in mando raiders. He bounces around outside harpoon range. Some douche thought I was tanking bad in athiss when I couldn't hold the big dog and all the adds. Told him I was holding the boss and taking anything on the healer. Don't have an aoe forced threat. Besides, dps should burn through adds.

[Serafina]

There is NO, and i repeat NO circumstance where you EVER use Full Auto as a Vanguard. Period. It's a waste of time and ammunition even if you do not get hit while using it, and utterly worthless as a tank (less damage than an autoattack for 2 ammo? no thanks).
Other than that you're right. Well you forgot Pulse Cannon, and many Vanguards actually spec into the Assault-Tree so they also use Incendiary rounds. And of course sticky grenades to generate AoE-aggro because they're plain better for aggro than Explosive Surge once you've applied it's debuff. Oh and timed applications of smoke grenades. While keeping your ammo next to full, since otherwise your regeneration will drop into a downwards spiral.

But yes, i agree that right now Vanguard tanking is pretty easy.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

There is NO, and i repeat NO circumstance where you EVER use Full Auto as a Vanguard.

PvE, maybe. It's useful in PvP. You often don't get attacked much because you can just hang back and dictate the range and LoS, so you don't have to worry about pushback. If your High Impact is on CD and you're at long range, Full Auto is a good way to pour on some damage without hitting your ammo too hard and potentially proccing your Cell.

[Mr Bean]

Not in PVP either
As a Vanguard(Or Powertech Imperial side) you have a hierarchy of attacks

First off if the enemy is not vulnerable to HIB then priority 1 is hitting them with shock stick w/ion cell on/gutting them/hitting them with an incendiary missile
All 3 tiers have a 11 point talent to get the Dot damage you need for High impact bolt, you should always refresh that if you see it getting low. HIB needs to be on cool down constantly for best effect. After that you have a world of other options, in shield specialist you love Storm, as a Pyro you want to be spamming shock-stick and ion pluse try to get high impact bolt to refresh. With three points that's a 45% chance meaning your attack rotation can be alternating rail shots if your lucky.

[TheFeniX]

Harpoon is great, especially when it doesn't work 70% of the time. I leave full-auto on my bar because A. there's not a lot of abilities to fill up my bar with yet and B. every once in a while, I find myself sniping at players who I don't feel like moving into melee range with. Mainly, this happens on huttball with all the level differences. Also "hilarious" is the amount of times Cryo grenade does nothing, even on a target with no resolve. The leads into my next point: chasing Sorcs around is getting tiresome. There's like 4+ in every fucking match and it seems you can't keep them rooted or stunned at all. Meanwhile it's "slow root slow knockback slow root knockback" which is retarded because roots don't give resolve and slows give fuck all. That's not even the problem. The real problem is my harpoon doesn't actually counter what it's supposed to: force speed. Numerous times the harpoon attaches as they sprint away and just kind of disappears after a bit. I can't decide whether it's annoying or hilarious. Probably both....

Anyway, I've kind of come around on some of the gear for the Jedi Knight. The PvP set isn't very "jediey" but it doesn't look bad if you turn off the pants on head retarded helmet. My only real gripe is the damned backpack. The PvE set isn't to shabby either. It will look a lot better when BW implements the ability to pull the hood back. BW has stated this is a priority. I'm hopeful to have access to it by 2030.

We downed Karagga NM-mode last night. Raid lead just randomed the mount. I ended up winning it. Everyone was jealous and I can't figure out why: I now own the SW equivalent of the Lincoln Continental...... WTF is BWs deal with huuuuge fucking mounts? Like every "endgame" mount is the size of a passenger bus. I just don't get it.