Elyx
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Overall, a healing companion makes things easier no matter what the spec. However, I find that on my shadow as Kinetic, i have less of an issue without heals then I do on my Jugg (solo). I think part of it's the self-healing aspect of the Kinetic, plus the shield talent (which helps out a great deal against smaller groups of mobs). so I don't feel the loss running with a DPS companion as i do on my jugg. However, at gear levels that exceed columi, it's really a moot point. On my jugg, I kill things fast enough solo that I don't need the extra DPS from my comp. the heals only insure that my health never really dips. at all. DPS companion kills faster, but trash dies so fast at those higher gear levels that my comp almost doesn't have time to hit anything much.
Tanks spec is different...but so far (my kinetic's only 42), my shadow kills things faster in tank form then my jugg did, so that helps out allot. I would honestly try both...gear up theran, and one of your DPS (pick your poison...Nadia is cute, and my extra gear can go to her, so thats a no brainer for me), and see what you like the most. even though I take very little damage on my jugg at this point, I still prefer running with my healer (quinn). It's my own personal preference, but I get irritated when I have to stop and heal. but I may not do that with my shadow. but keep both available....even with a DPS comp, you'll probably still want your healer for heroics (soloing them is fun on my shadow....can't do that well on my jugg).
Another note: make sure ou keep the two comps equally geared. it's very easy for one comp to feel worse then the other when they're not as well geared, and your not used to working with them. Each companion you use changes your playstyle due to their inherent strengths. A DPS comp speeds up killing, but you tend to focus more on holding the extra mobs and using mitigation skills. with a healing comp, you can go full bore on everything (and honestly, my heal comps have tanked more mobs then I thought they could). Heck, I've even had quinn almost finish off elites on his own (yes, healing comps do Damage
, you just have to enable their damage stance). but he'll finish off weak mobs even in healing stance. so either works fine. -
ouch, well I've already bought some field medic gear the rest is gonna be enforcer.
Not too much of an issue. once you get past columi "any" gearset, he can pretty much heal a 4 man. same with most the healers for classes. columi-rakata+ and they're healing dynamo's
actually ran a torvix 4+ the other day where my companion had more health then the tank did. Gotta admit that inside i cheered for Mako a bit.....She's a MONSTER!
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The only issue I run into in PvE with hybrid is rage starvation. In PuG runs (where mob direction is wild and often you are chasing multiple mobs) I feel it clearly. not as much in a controlled Op with the guild. but then again, i run all my HM FP's in full vengeance now. only thing I really respec for is EC. And im not even close to optimized (no set bonuses...mix of columi/rakata/BH, etc.).
I'm sure an optimized tank could get away with hybrid in a guild controlled Op just fine. but YMMV, as always.
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For Juggernauts, if you can get campaign armor and Battlemaster shells, you basically have 3 set bonuses you can choose from. You can either take the traditional minimum range reduction on Saber Throw (cleans up rotation a bit in long fights), the 2 piece Marauder bonus to lower the cost of Vicious Throw helping you in execute phases, or the PvP 10% damage bonus for 5 seconds after charge.
Personally, I've gone with the PvP set bonus. Thinking about the current content, in HM EC, you're looking at 5+ charges a fight (the last time we did Kephess I had 22 charges according to my logs), and even with only 5 charges, that's 10% damage bonus for 25 seconds, basically an extra Adrenal or click Relic. Its especially nice for burst damage phases, of which there are plenty on the Kephess fight.
Thoughts on this? Which set bonus do you use, and which do you think would be the best for a Juggernaut in endgame?
Good question. In just comparing the 3 above, and thinking about my experiences, im more often CD locked with VT then Rage limited. I never felt the rotation a real issue (im usually quite high in DPS on our EC runs), so I think I would also go for the PvP bonus (which I don't' have atm....it requires PvP of which i have no interest)
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Hitting a milestone on a dummy is one thing, but knowing the fights and getting from boss to boss quickly and knowing what to do and when as well as when to pop adrenals and relics is just as important.
^^^ this in spades. but it can also be a balance point. the more DPS each individual does, the more flexibility you have within the group to deal with skill variations...and vice versa.
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I leveled up with artifice. but once i hit 50, i leveled up synthweave to get the rakata bracers ( I had about 80% of the mats needed to do it already), then once i got the bracers and belt I dropped it for Bio.
No matter what you do with crafts prior to that, Bio is really far too effective end game to want anything else for the long term. but leveling something prior to that can be beneficial for various reasons. Cybertech and artifice are great for leveling. but once you hit 50, other then the rakata pieces off synthweave (and perhaps making yourself a few crystals), Bio has the most feasibility.
I like allot of the other crafts, but due to how crafting works in this game, there's not allot of reason to have them on your main since you alts can make everything you need off those other crafts. The only exception is the high end schematics, but atm, the only ones I can think of that really net a benefit post columi gear is the cybertech mod schematics that drop off Ops bosses. But you will use far more stims and medpacks then you will mods.
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OP in above post said that with Vette you have to heal after fight => downtime - it was *not* my case, i just always used purple medpacks whenever it was off downtime and it was really enough to keep me going like killing machine without need to stop and heal. .
Excellent point. I never leveled with Bio on mine, though my current main jugg is using it to make stims for herself and for the guild.
Only downside to using this is you don't have the other crafts available. they all have their benefits. synthweave allows you to gear yourself much better, artifice is amazing for your weapon damage (the hilts from comms really suck for stats), and cybertech (one of my favorite leveling crafts) will supply your with close to 3/4 of the mods you'll need...plus earrings (though biotech does the implants, another bonus for Bio).
Oddly enough, on my second Jugg I actually stuck with gathering skills and used my alts to craft with...i kept him up on stims, hilts, mods, enhancements, as well as gearing up both his force user comps and his armormech comps with what he farmed. once I hit 50, I leveled synthweaving with the leftover crystals, made his rakata wrists and belt, and then leveled Bio for the Rakata stims. got the best of all the worlds, but it did take a bit more work. but IMHO, it was far faster then running FP after FP and hoping for your columi/rakata wrist/belt to drop. I actually got synthweaving leveled up in about 2 hours (watched TV while I did it).
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Great guide Aerro!
Merc is my second and probably currently most played toon. Aerro's guide pretty much covers it all. here's a quick and dirty daily approach to getting access to that gear:
1) Do Corellia dailies. Also referred to as Black Hole (BH) dailies. also include the 4 man "End of torvix". the creds and drops you get from there really help out. an average full run of those dailies (including Torvix and selling junk) is about an hours time, and yields about 100k overall in credits, and roughly 12 daily commendations or so. if its the beginning of the maintenance week (tuesday) or later, you will get 5 BH comms for completing all the dailies on Corellia (it's a once a week bonus), in addition to a nice hefty cash reward (you'll need the cash for mod swapping, so yes it is critical for you're gearing to have available creds)
2) if you don't have implants from daily comms, that would be your first goal (aside from a few barrels if you need them). if your starting out in blues/greens, then make sure you are doing the heroics on both belsavis and Illum as well...they reward some juicy purple mods, but they are also a bigger time sink. you'll get about as many mods from one lucky torvix run as you would those dailies, so often it's not needed. but can help early on. so belsavis and Ilum can help, but Corellia gives you the most rewards for the least time. i always do Corellia, then the others if i have time.
3) queue up for your daily HM run. fast, easy, and nets you columi gear and 5 additional BH comms. these are currently the "high end" commendations, and you can purchase campaign level gear with them, though the stats are not optimal..you WILL be shuffling mods around to maximize your stats to match what Aerro has in his guide.
That's it! within a week max, you'll have most your Columi gear, and will be ready to try out some of the harder Ops. but make sure you're capped with columi gear before you try opting in for an HM Op (pug). pug's are hard enough as it is, you don't want to walk in undergeared. HM Ev is designed for good players with full columi. add in your rakata earpiece and implants from dailies (or from crafting if thats your bent), and you should be fine for HM EV. that's where you start to get your rakata.
But by the time you start to fill out your rakata set, you will probably have plenty of BH gear. my merc just got her second rakata piece, and the rest of her gear is BH. so it's pretty easy to get the BH gear as time goes on. but if your dedicated and want to push, running multiple flashpoints (the HM ones) will net you your campaign gear fast. You only get the BH comms from the first one that day you do, but they all still drop columi (and have daily/tionese comms as well).
so its BH dailies - Belsavis/ilum if time - daily HM flashpoint - then mroe FP's if you have time. you'll be swimming in BH and columi in no time. if you're not sure what you need to start runs, here's a basic breakdown. Keep in mind that this is optimal...i.e. the player knows how to play the class. obviously the less experience, the more gear is needed to offset that, and the more skill, the less gear needed.:
Normal (story mode) Flashpoints: blue/or daily comm mods
Hardmode Flashpoints: Full Tionese
Storymode Ops : tionese/daily rewards (Ops being Ev or KP)
Hardmode Ops : full columi/daily reward jewelry
HM LI (lost Island) : full columi *** (this is an FP, not an OP...see below)
SM Denova (also called EC): columi/rakata/BH gear can help
HM EC : full Rakata/some BH can help
*** - Lost Island was a 4 man designed for challenging play (to give the high end small teams something to do). A good player can do it with the recommended gear. however, most PuG's and about 70% of the population will need higher level gear to offset the challenges of the bosses. the second boss in particular is very melee unfriendly, and some PuG's refuse to bring along a melee to that boss (I do no agree with this, but that's why I run mostly with guildees).
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I didn't say that I enjoyed the VO, I said that it gets boring after first run.
It is a nice extra feature, but since the game is lacking in other departments, I'd trade a nice feature for more important stuff.
point well made. I may disagree, but i see where you are coming from
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Ooooooh, fancy words
I like fancy words, they make me feel smart! when i spell them correctly that is (a.k.a is my spellchecker working..Yes. good!)
Seriously though, now I think about it - this could be real problem. What with 1.4 on its way we might find BW have sacrificed immersive VO and storyline in exchange for quicker content release. So in that sense both sides lose, no barber shop or guild houses, and no VO or great storyline. Lets hope they manage to pull it off!I agree! as the budgets grow tighter (I think its about as foreordained in most aging MMO's as taxes are in my checkbook), Im worried that they may have to make that decision. so there's some wieight to the OP's question, but i think that unless EA decides to do a replay of the SWG debacle, they won't digress from VO's. If anything, they may focus VO on primary storylines, and emphasise data terminals as much as possible. But lemee tell ya, if i start to see quest bubbles, it may be time for me to migrate!
hehe...i use another fancy word! my English teacher would be proud of me.
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This whole thread is completely POINTLESS!!
that was an excellent point on the pointlessness of this thread. So the real issue now is....
Does your point make the thread actually have a point, thereby nullifying your point as it was made?
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I think the Core issue isn't the specific changes. It's the perception that they are creating with their changes. far too often lately, the changes they make have no correlation with the general feeling of the populace, nor with the data that the testers that often post show.
I think people are frustrated because Bio came out and said they were making changes that very few people really wanted. and wanting a change is totally different then being OK with a change. the people who often defend the patch are usually from the position of they are OK with the changed. not that they wanted them. but it doesn't impact their gameplay.
the problem is, for allot of people, these small things do impact their gameplay. In PvP the balance is justified. But the impact to Pve obviously has ALLOT of people hyped up and aggravated. What I find amazing is how many people are frustrated with it, and yet those that are siding with Bio can't see that. look at all the posts about the same exact subject, and how much controversy it has started up. it's worse then what happened with the healers in 1.2 (I know some sorcs/mercs may disagree, but the over post count for the involved threads is higher now then it was for the sorc threads back in 1.2)
S no matter what you want to think about it, it is a VERY touchy point for many. I wasn't impacted by the 1.2 healer changes when they happened, but I can understand why the healers felt the way they did. And at that time, Bio had actually listened...and cut back on the nerf. Many may have not agreed with the scope, but Bio at least listened. which is the EXACT reason why people are griping now. In hopes that Bio will listen, and possibly make some adjustments.
Plus, for many, the changes are doing exactly what Bio said they wouldn't do, which is make change for PvP that would impact PvE. you may not think that it has a noticeable impact, but the volume of those against it say otherwise. so it's really additional salt in an otherwise open wound.
Edit: after reading my own words, I want to note that this isn't to take steam away from those who are not liking the PvP impact as well. It was a general comment on why many are voicing their opinions. I just happen to come from the PvE side, to the posts discussing it from that perspective are impacting me the most.
On a personal note: the actual changes themselves don't upset me as much as their approach to the whole process. It seems disingenuous at best, and at worst, lacks integrity.
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I currently run a dual core 3.1ghz CPU, 4 meg ram, 1gb vid card, and 500m HD and I run 90% of my settings at max.
So yeah...you'll be fine
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the same reason they restricted the ones for level 34. But seriously, the weapons came with stats and it would be unbalanced to send a level 50 weapon to a level 10.
Doesn't fly. I can pull those mods out of it, and put them in another orange weapon that's lvl 1....and the orange will still be lvl 1 after I rip them out. I could even put in mods from my columi armor into that gun (except for the barrel of course), and mail those mods to an alt and take them out and presto! my alt has the mods for a columi piece of armor! i can do the same thing with rakata and columi weapons now (as long as they use barrels). the level restriction on a moddable item has nothing to do with the item stats.
weapon damage range and armor are base ranks on a weapon. the actual damage or armor value is a calculation between the base damage/armor value and the damage/armor rank on the primary mod (barrel, hilt, armoring, etc). so taking out the barrel on those casters and they will have the same base rating of a lvl 1 orange moddable blaster rifle.
to the OP: I hadn't checked that yet, but it is unfortunate. Not sure at this point if it was an oversight, or the specifically wanted them that way. I'm assuming oversight, as they are legacy rather then just character bound, and it seems completely silly to offer a legacy bound item (something to encourage the use of alts), when the only "alts" that can use it are lvl 50.
NOTE: for people that are considering yanking out the mods, BE CAREFUL! if the toon that you are yanking the mods out with is under the level of those mods, they will NOT be able to replace them until they are high enough level! so you can mail it to anyone, and anyone can yank the mods. but only a lvl 50 (or 34 if you have the lower one) can put them back in ANYTHING. I learned this the hard way after i had been tinkering around with a lvl 20 toon, and was going to delete them before I realized i had yanked out the columi mods from a legacy armor piece on that toon. I wasn't going to level her (i was deleting her at that point...), so it was either level that toon, or lose the columi pieces. Hard lesson learned....do NOT take the mods out until they are on the toon that is going to use them.
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Yes.
Voiceovers get boring after first playthrough and get annoying when people don't skip convos in fps.
Give us actual content, not spacebar action
Your answer is inconsistent. you enjoyed the VO, but didn't want to have to deal with it after that. a simply toggle would solve your problem.
and since they are adding new content , the either or is pretty null. ALTHOUGH...the idea that a percentage of the budget is going to VO, and hence not other things, is a valid point. But IMO the issues with this game aren't about the VO taking needed Dev budgeet, it's about the choices they make with the leftover budget outside of the VO. a poor decision is a poor decision, no matter how much budget they throw at it.
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I think we need to extrapolate the question into 2 parts.
1) would you like to have the option to skip VO if you preferred?
answer to that for me would be helluyes. I love the VO, but after 4 of the same class archetype (AC's share teh same storyline), you tend to look to the VO as an interruption in the process. But it should be voluntary...much like how you can skip intro movies in the options menu right now. so allot of people liked it the first time around, but may not be so eager the second...or fifth....so they may say "yes get rid of VO" when in reality, they enjoyed it the first time around.
2) If the only way to get meaningful content at a regular pace was to eliminate the VO, would you?
i think it's important to stipulate that. content will come, but it sounds like you feel that at this point it was one or the other (and speaking of budgets that's probably true). However, new content/QoL improvements are far easier to add then tryign to go back and add VO after the game was designed.
So for #2, if I had to pick either or...I would go with VO first, because after all, new content can and will be added, but it's pretty obvious that VO would have been nigh impossible unless it was included in the original design.
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Don't care if this tread gets deleted.
I played CoX from 2004 through the better part of 2009. Loved that game, and my favorite PvP was the consignment house. I was a flipping master and made billions of influence. Though I left it to explore the great big MMO world, it was my first MMO love, and you never forget your first.
RIP
QFT, I never played myself, but my 2 brothers did with severe enthusiasm. Welcome to SWtOR, and RIP for those who are grieving. another niche giant killed by the public market sector.
Just on a side note: hopefully you've been keeping up on many of the changes in the game. I've seen many come in with expectations set too high. while this is a fun game, its definitely not a CoH2. so take it as it is. A KotOR with other people in it at the same time you are (and some end game material). if you can handle that, you'll be fine.
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Please show objective proof that no consideration to PvE play-styles was applied. It's pretty clear from Biowares responses to questions about 1.4 skill changes that they do give consideration to affects on PvE. Just because they make a change you do not like DOES NOT = they never gave PvE consideration in their adjustments.
I have considered the change in the context of PvE and all it means is that will use it differently then I do today. In other words, it's still a valuable skill in some PvE engagements, but I will apply it differently due to the shortened range.
Seriously, it's not that big a deal for PvE, you just need to adjust your mechanics of play to account for it.
[This is not directed at anyone in particular, just a general observations ] Having played MMOs for years now, two things are absolutely facts: 1) skills will be changed over the life of a game, and you WILL have to adapt. 2) some people would rather complain and cry then adapt and adjust.
Please show me where they have proven that they really listen to player feedback on a regular basis. Please show me where they are always honest and up front about their reasons...and please show me where they never change their mind and go back on things that they said they never would do.
Not trying to be snide, but you are asking a bunch of people tho simply blindly trust Bio when they say what they say. I know that currently that's all we have...but the historical evidence does not show that they are always up front with the player base.
and just because they took PvE under consideration, doesn't mean the made the right choice. It means that they "took PvE under consideration." Honestly, it sounds more like a placation. especially when it impacts people. and I agree...change and adaptation are part of an MMO. but people make choices, and when a class or game changes to much that they don't like it anymore....they oftentimes choose to leave (remember SWG?)
So while the naysayers may be over-exaggerating and being extreme, you are as bad with your "if you have a complaint, then adapt or ****" approach. if people didn't complain, how would Bio know what we want and what we don't want? Of course...bios history also shows that even though we do complain, they rarely do anything about it.
Honestly, the changes don't impact me that much (because they really are PVP oriented). the problem I think people have in general, is Bio said they would never make PvP changes that would impact PvE negatively...and this patch is nothing but PvP changes that Do impact PvE (whether its good or bad). this is why people are up in arms. even if you don't agree with their assessement...it part of the PvE game that they like that is impacted that DIDN'T HAVE TO BE.
the idea that PvP HAS to impact PvE is sheer ignorance. there are MMO's out there that have proven that PvP can be isolated from PvP and not impact it at all, thus allowing for both game style approaches (PvP and PvE) to work without unduly impacting one another. the real issue is Bio simply does not want to put the work in. but is that the fault of the players?
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I understand your thought process behind the idea OP, so Don't think I'm against the concept. but as stated many times already, it's simply too much to change. So the part about your idea that is off base is where you stated it was "simple".
the game eingine and the world structure wasn't even designed to take flying like that into consideration. Add to that the sparse resources available, and the real question is: If they can't put the resources together at the moment to even get a solid structure for people to migrate to the PTR, do you honestly think they would put the herculean effort into redesigning the WHOLE game just so you can fly from point A to point B instead of speeding there?
Probably not.
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I've also seen allot of people running hybrid. Im currently doing Medecine up to kolto probe, and then running the rest up Concealement. I like the benefits of the extra burst damage and the stealth bonuses. This may change as I get higher, but the burst damage from Conc. seems to fare better in the levels im in then the DoT's from the Lethality tree.
Of course, once you get Lorken you could probably go full Conc or Leth, but Kolto probe is just too nice of a skill to not have IMO. a few of those up and you never have downtime. and since they're instant, you don't have to waste much of your time with casting heals. throw one or two up on your comp, and spend the rest of the time DPS'ing with them.
I think after KP though, it's really all about how you want to play. the deeper you go into the medicine tree, the more you will need DPS from your companions to keep the kill speed up. but if you work your way up a DPS tree, you can offset the Companions damage with your own, making your comp choice a bit more flexible. But ultimately, it really boils down to how you like to play more then anything else.
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as are the other BHs mentioned in previous posts
the issue isn't cannon IMO...it's game design. The reasons the OP posts are RP based, and would be best served in a more sandbox style game (where you could build your version of the "bounty hunter")
personally, I always thought that the BH was really a 'whatever goes' kind of person...similar to a smuggler, but from a different perspective. Smuggler uses what he needs to get the job done (which is smuggling goods). a BH does the same, but his job involves...well, hunting bounties. really, this could be anything from the full armored mandalorian wanna-be to the gunslinging leather clad cowboy look. but the game wasn't' designed around that flexibility. so they chose to go the "mandalorian" emphasis (with the boba-fett style). simple game mechanics decision.
it's the same reason a smuggler looks like Han solo , even though a smuggler could easily wear a few pieces of ancient mandalorian gear that he acquired during his travels, and it would probably benefit him depending on where he tended to smuggle stuff. that would work well in something a bit more sandbox, but this isn't one of those games.
given the limitations of the game design, I feel they did pretty good...the BH feels very much like a battle ready mercenary with a set of tools that are used (and probably coveted...and hidden) by the merc community in general. the Agent feels very much like a Special Ops soldier combined with a spy. not too shabby IMO.
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this seems to be the same arguement I see on most forums. all the classes that I've leved (probably far too many), and I tend to see a sepcific trend:
Most tank Comps slow down in their 30's. We tend to get skills/abilities to compensate for the 31+ Mob buff (they mobs abilities jump up drastically post 30), but our tanking companions don't seem to get the same scaling at that point.
Most DPS companions DO scale with us (could simply be how gear affects DPS classes vs. mitigations). Healer Comps are a different perspective....since they are there to keep you up, It's all about you maximizing your damage to kill the mobs...or tank them, etc. But I think allot of it is playstyle....many of us get real used to our tank Comps early on as they're all you have. Especially with the Agent...you don't get anything else until alderaan! so you have probably already adapted your playstyle to Kaliyo...and since you like how it works out, you are obviously going to like using her more.
although my Op isn't high enough yet to know, Kaliyo feels very much like Qyzen did on my shadow. very effective and enjoyable pre-Alderaan, but post-Aalderaan it was tougher to keep them going (especially on my non healing shadow). My lvl 50 toons rarely bring their tanks coms out at all...once geared in columi +, there's simply no reason...DPS comps kill so fast that there's little difference in their health and that of the tank comps.
As an example, Torian on my Merc is columi/rakata. He has more health then about 3/4 of the peeps i run Torvix with, and he kills almost as fast as they do. if I switch identical gear over to blizz (the merc version of Kaliyo), it simply isn't as fast. health is negligible at that point, as I can keep up with just about any damage that's given to Tor. But Blizz sees play time just cause hes totally awesome. Just watching him pull out that rocket launcher is worth the extra kill time. So it all still goes back to playstyle and preference.
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Thanks for good comments!
What i think about now is, if there is any difference between the "energy" and "kinetic" type of damage on the lightsabre vs. the vibrosword - i mean - are there some situations where one of the damage type is preferred over the other ??
to answer your question Tatatan, No, there isn't. Most of your abilities will specify what kind of damage they do. the only time IIRC that the weapon damage is important is when the skill specifies it does "weapon damage" (such as X% weapon damage)
And there are as of yet no real encounters in the game where the damage type is so critical that you should build weapons solely for that encounter. GENERALLY speaking, energy/internal damage is better then Kinetic damage. but the impact of your weapon on that is minimal, if anything.
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As for my damage, on a Dummy I generally average around 1590, as I generally just do few 3 min parses, and that's small enough time for Ravage procs to mess things up. Of course, our damage gets a boost under 30%, with every 4 GCD being a 1 rage, 100% Crit V.Throw. Can't parse that on the dummy though, and no fight really is a perfect 100% up time solo fight, so I can't tell ya how that factors in there. Until Orange offhands come out, there isn't anywhere left for my gear to go, so I think that's my Juggs limit.
anything above 1400 is good enough for 98% of the current content. Proof in the pudding that juggs can do it. the damage numbers are all still close enough to each other that skill > class. Anyone who picks a player just because they are "X" class are shorting themselves and the players involved.
, you just have to enable their damage stance). but he'll finish off weak mobs even in healing stance. so either works fine.
Black Hole Striker Mk-1 Generator is no longer BiS.
in Shadow / Assassin
Posted
It's not as much that they are adding a new tier of gear as that they are using a broken system and they are....continuing to use it. not much to do about it at this point though. But tier scaling is pretty much the given with the system bio chose.