BW hasn't released details on this (that I know of), and without accurate combat logging it's hard to tease out how it works. I know that WoW used a 'single roll' model -- so if it said you have a 22% chance to crit, exactly 22% of your 'swings' will be crits, NOT 22% of your 'non-misses'. So some games DO work like this.

If you're getting destroyed and you're in the level range for the planet, SOMETHING is wrong. Try checking out the guide linked in my sig -- I cover pretty much every possibility in detail, and how to fix it.

I've never seen a multi-stage one that didn't say 'stage 1', but I also haven't done EVERY mission in the game... If you outlevel a planet, you can just blow through your class missions there and go on to the next one. If you want to do EVERYTHING, I recommend clearing every other world, then doing the 'odd' ones on an alt. Otherwise you'll be WAY over level for all your class quests.

The only ability with a cooldown that long is your heroic moment. If you have messed up your ability bar (ie, right-clicking no longer attacks things properly): 1) Make sure the ability bar is unlocked so you can modify it (little 'lock' icon next to your character portrait). 2) Open your ability pane ('P' by default, or an icon at the top of the screen). 3) Find whatever your basic attack is (for JKs it is 'Strike', should be at or near the top of the class tab). 4) Drag that into the leftmost quickslot (the one tagged '1' by default). Now right-clicking an enemy will use that ability. 5) Also make sure your other abilities are in quickslots so you can use them, if you moved them around by mistake. 6) (optional) hit the 'lock' icon on the quickslot bar so you can't move things around by mistake again. 7) Profit! With Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior classes, you must use abilities like Strike that build focus/rage points, which you then spend to use more powerful attacks. (It works kind of like a Rogue in WoW, if you played that game.) The guide linked in my sig also has lots of basic information about how abilities and attacking works in SWTOR, if you're new to MMOs.

If you're just wondering about how to get more XP, the advice above will help. You also may not be properly geared, or may have even done something like not getting your advanced class or some of your abilities, which will totally gimp you. I wrote a handy guide for all this -- try the link in my sig. :-)

It does seem like 'remove hood AND don't show helmet' would be a pretty trivial option, since the code to do both those things is already there. Actually toggling hood up/down dynamically might be more annoying. Depending on how they coded things it might actually be a significant amount of work. It seems like they easily take more of the existing hood-down robe models and modify them into new items, though. It's probably in the pipeline, just lower priority than bugfixes and things like the UI customization. <shrug>

This seems to be a server lag problem... but they could handle it better. What's happening is that they actually hit their ability just before yours, or ran out of range but still appeared to be in range on your client. Would be nice if the cooldown didn't get wasted when this happens.

Leveling as a pure tank spec (and using T7 or Kira to DPS) works well -- the biggest problem is downtime, since you often have to meditate every 1-2 pulls. As long as your companion has good gear and you use your stun/interrupt abilities, you'll cut through normal enemies trivially, and elites aren't too bad. Once you get Doc it's incredibly easy to play through solo content as a tank. He can outheal a lot of Champions in his healing stance and you in Soresu form with defense gear.

I saw this happening a while ago, but not since the last patch. (I don't do much PvP, though.) If you're still seeing Riposte (or other non-GCD abilities) triggering the GCD, post in the Customer Service forum about it, or see if it's listed in the known issues sticky.

Updated with a section on game options, and general cleanup. Also removed unnecessary top-level indentation. Again, any feedback is appreciated! I'll be trying to update the combat tactics section further when I have some time.

Actually, I'm glad to see they have this (fullscreen windowed mode); I missed it in the graphics options! I run WoW like this and it's WAY useful for alt-tabbing to browser windows, etc.

Bump for feedback, suggestions, and/or getting put in the sticky guides thread. :-) More updates coming soon!

Lots of good info here. IMO the simplest solo combat role to play is a ranged DPS that has some healing capability, using a companion to tank for you. Those classes/ACs are: Jedi Consular (Sage AC) Sith Inquisitor (Sorceror AC) Smuggler (Scoundrel AC) Imperial Agent (Operative AC) Trooper (Commando AC) Bounty Hunter (Mercenary AC) Trooper/BH might have a slight edge in combat due to heavy armor. Operatives/Scoundrels get stealth, which is fun. Then spend your skill points in either healing, DPS, or a mix of both. If you go the healing route, you'll focus on healing your companion and slowly wearing tough enemies down. With a DPS focus, you'll kill enemies faster but have less margin for error. Having your char be a tank and using a healer companion may be even 'easier' in terms of killing difficult enemies. But you have to know what you are doing. That said, it's easy to try different classes out and see what you like.

I don't understand what you mean by "they have to tank also". Your companion SHOULD be doing tons of damage, but the boss mob should be hitting you. If you interrupt the boss' specials and throw in your defensive cooldowns and maybe a medpack, you should go a pretty long time before you die. If your companion is pulling aggro from the thing you're actively attacking, either they are in the wrong stance (or you didn't turn off T7's taunt), or you're in the wrong stance, or you didn't put Guard on them. In a fight with an elite and a couple weak/normal guys, you should use things like Master Strike or Blade Storm/Sweep->Hilt Strike to quickly down (or help down) the adds. Or just let your companion take them down while you focus on the elite. Edit: If you don't like juggling threat and interrupts/stuns, leveling as a tank may not be for you. Maybe try a Vigilance spec and use T7 as a tank?

Once you've talked to everyone you're supposed to, you should be able to take the shuttle from the Temple to the Republic Fleet. From there you'll take another shuttle to Coruscant. Check your mission log and make sure you're not supposed to meet with Orgus Din or the Jedi Council one more time before leaving. Also make sure you don't have a pending quest reward acceptance (would be a little blinking thing in the upper right corner) for the last class quest.

I believe Riposte is supposed to trigger GCD if you're not doing something else already, but if not then that is indeed broken. I have not seen either of these abilities glitch and not fire. I haven't noticed that but will try to reproduce. You should post this in the 'community' forum as a bug. Not a bug -- most attacks deal damage (or stun, etc.) when the animation actually 'hits', not instantly. These attacks can be interrupted by a quicker stun/KB. In PvP this can also happen if someone triggered their ability right before yours -- the server has to straighten it out. Agree it would be nice if you didn't lose the CD when this happens, or if both abilities went off (this can happen in WoW -- it's pretty funny when two Rogues stun each other simultaneously 1v1.) Not a bug -- 'stun' is not an 'immobilize'. I do agree this is awkward and poorly explained. IMO they should let you use Opportune Strike during stuns (or just get rid of it and make Hilt Strike's cooldown shorter -- though I do love backhanding people!). Opportune Strike is active right after Force Leap or if you use Freezing Force. I thought Bioware was fixing this in the latest patch. I will keep an eye out for it. If it is still happening you should report it. Haven't seen that one, though sometimes the VERY bottom of the icon is still shaded with the cooldown overlay but it 'looks' active. There could be a very small lag between your UI saying it comes off cooldown and the server actually letting you use it again. Yeah, I know the PC version of it is a 'force' ability and mitigated by armor. I'm pretty sure -- based on how much it hurts my tank -- that the NPC variant, or at least the one used by the Sith Lord bosses, is not.

If you're expecting to beat bosses into the ground by just spamming a damage rotation -- yes, you will be disappointed. If you and your companion are properly geared, your 3-minute cooldowns and maybe a medkit should be enough to beat any class quest. The 20-minute heroic cooldown makes most of them a cakewalk. 'Normal' elites are much, much easier once you get Doc, but you still have to pay attention on class quest bosses. (Especially the ones that can CC your companion.) Against bosses that use elemental special attacks (those Sith lords love their force lightning!), you need to interrupt almost everything, as there is almost no mitigation for those attacks and they will melt your face. You should have three stuns (Stasis, Push, Pommel Strike) on a 60s cooldown and a short-cooldown interrupt (Kick) that locks out the interrupted ability for a while. Occasionally something will have enough different special attacks to get a few through, but it's rare. Do things like Stasis -> Kick -> Pommel Strike -> Kick -> Push -> Kick. By then Stasis should almost be back up. Force Leap also interrupts, if you push them away and they start casting something immediately.

The problem here is that in a pull with multiple strong/elite guys bunched together, your DPS shouldn't be firing off AOE abilities right away. They should FF a single enemy with direct damage, preferably one that you're beating on to hold aggro. They should only kick in AOE DPS right away if they can handle pulling the aggro, or they're normal/weak mobs that will be dead by the time your AOE taunt wears off. Deeply defense-specced guardians don't have great AOE threat generation abilities. The best AOE burst you have is to jump in, sweep, back up a couple steps and do a cyclone strike. But that's not going to outstrip well-geared DPS spamming AOE abilities.

Looking carefully, it appears that the damage occurs immediately (the enemy's health bar goes down as soon as you trigger Riposte), but the 'flytext' takes a second to show up.

I'm not saying the Quadro card is bad -- but the drivers may not be optimized for gaming. It just stood out, and I know both NVIDIA and ATI have occasionally had problems like this in the past.

Each faction (Republic/Imperial) is different near the beginning, but eventually they meet. However, they visit different areas and get many different quests. Also, the force-using and non-force using classes have different starting worlds, even within the same faction. You'll get all the same side quests if you reroll on the same faction. But the storyline quests are all unique. There are enough side quests that you can skip lots of them on any particular character.

The kind of graphical glitches you're describing sound more like a video card issue. A bad connection might make you zone slowly, or cause enemies or other players to jump around, but it shouldn't cause things to be 'invisible'. I'm not sure how good the support is for cutting-edge games with the Quadro drivers. These cards are designed for professional CAD use, not gaming. Do you have another video card you could try? Edit: your later reply (posted while I was responding) makes it sound like it works fine at home on a fast connection but poorly on a slower connection. I dunno. It seemed to work okay for me on wifi in a hotel, but I haven't tried it on a REALLY bad connection. I haven't tried actually looking at its network utilization in detail while I'm playing. Loading can be pretty slow on even a fairly high-end computer. I've had it take 2-3 minutes at least to get into a new planet.

Reserved 4

Combat! Combat Basics Basics of PvE combat, combat roles, enemy groups/pulls, aggro/threat, crowd control Solo Combat Tactics for playing solo (with a companion only). Group Combat (COMING SOON!) Tactics and advice for assembling and playing in small groups for Heroic Missions or Flashpoints. Coming soon: advanced tactics for heroics/Flashpoints like focus fire/kill order, marking mobs, and dealing with special attacks and boss mechanics!

Tactical Problems If you are fighting enemies in the right level range, purchasing all your abilities, gearing up yourself and your companion, spending your skill points, and using the right companion for your role, things should be a lot easier. If you are still having trouble, or you are breezing through normal enemies and quests but certain fights seem impossible, you may not be fighting intelligently and using your comabt abilities effectively. This information should help. TL;DR Using hotkeys is much more efficient than trying to click abilities in combat. You can 'queue' an ability by activating it less than 0.5 seconds before the end of an active ability. Abilities get stronger as your stats and weapon improve. You should understand how your class' abilities work, and which ones to use to quickly kill weak/standard enemies. Using a complementary companion (or group composition) will make things much easier. Tank/Healer is normally the easiest solo setup. In combat, the goal should be to get a tank to hold threat while the DPSers focus on one enemy at a time, weakest to strongest. Crowd Control (CC) abilities can make hard pulls much easier, by temporarily disabling the tougher enemies while you kill the weaker ones. Use interrupts and stuns to stop enemies from using powerful special attacks. Kiting and LOS can be useful situationally to group up or separate enemies. Abilities Basics of abilities, ability list Slots and Hotkeys Quickslots and hotkeying abilities. Ability Queuing The ability queue, ability animations. The Global Cooldown Ability Details This section provides general information about ability usage. For details on a particular class' abilities, try the forum for that class or Advanced Class, or a site like http://www.torhead.com/ . Types of Abilities An overview of the different ability types. Cooldowns and Resources Ability cooldowns, class resource models. Cover The basics of the cover system. Companion Abilities Further information about Companion abilities. Ability Scaling How abilities improve as your stats and level go up. Abilities and Enemy Types How abilities interact with different categories of enemies.