Strategic Problems By "Strategic" problems, I mean problems stemming from a misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about the game's features and mechanics. Contrast with "Tactical" problems, which is basically not being good at combat. (I discuss those later, in the next post.) If you have never played an MMORPG before, you may have overlooked several important aspects of improving and customizing your character, or may not understand how to progress smoothly. The companion system in SW:TOR is also somewhat unique, and it is important to understand how to use it to its full potential. If you have played other MMORPGs (especially World of Warcraft), you probably know a lot of this already. But there may be some aspects unique to SW:TOR that you did not pick up on. TL;DR Fighting enemies and doing quests above your level is supposed to be hard. 'Heroic' missions are designed to be done in groups. 'Elite', 'Champion', and 'Boss' enemies are much tougher than others of the same level. 'Champion' and 'Boss' enemies are not designed to be fought alone. Doing side missions and bonus missions will get you LOTS of extra experience and Commendations. If you can't figure out what to do in a mission, look in the log. Also check if you have a 'mission item' (under a special tab in your inventory) that you have to use. To make things easier, specialize as a tank, DPS, or healer, and pick a companion that complements that role. Keep your gear (and your companion's gear!) up to date. Buy blue and orange gear with Commendations and Credits whenever possible. Don't forget to update the mods in your orange gear! Equip gear with the correct stats for your character and your companion. Make sure your companion is in the right stance for the combat role you want them to fill. Levels and Experience Basics of leveling up, and how character, enemy, and mission levels work. Enemy Types Basics of enemy difficulty types. Missions The basics of obtaining and completing missions. Classes, Advanced Classes, and Roles The basics of character classes, Advanced Classes, and combat roles (tank/dps/heal). Skill Trees How to customize your character further with Skills ('talents'/'spec'). Equipment The basics of equipment/gear and how to get and upgrade it. If you're wondering WHICH gear to buy and equip, read the next section. Stats The character statistics in SWTOR, and how to gear your character and companions for maximum performance. Companions Basic information about Companions and how to use them.

I've seen a number of posts in the New Players forum (and in various class forums) either asking for help or complaining that the game is too hard. If you are finding it very difficult to progress in the PvE content (doing quests and completing your class storyline), this guide should help. I have not seen a really comprehensive guide to PvE basics, so I put one together. If you're really, REALLY new, you might want to start with this guide: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=612 and the resources linked here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=2 This guide is not designed to help with PvP (player-versus-player) content. It touches on aspects of small group play (for Heroic missions or Flashpoints of up to 4 players), but does not discuss the more complex 8- and 16-player endgame Operations. I do not cover things like server and class selection, although if you read this guide you may have a better idea of which classes would suit you. The idea is to help you play the PvE content with any class. Note that the "Spoiler" tags in this document do not actually contain any spoilers -- the information is all generic. (I try to avoid even saying too much that is class-specific, since I have not played all the classes extensively.) The tags are just used so the guide isn't so long when you open this post. Simply click those tags to show/hide the sections of the guide you want to read in detail. How hard should the game be? No matter what class you are playing as, you should be able to complete any non-heroic quests at your level by yourself (with your companion). You should also be able to walk around and kill any single pull of normal enemies at your level in a non-heroic zone with a minimal risk of dying. This does not mean everything will be a cakewalk, and mistakes can be deadly -- but if you are constantly dying, something is probably wrong. A 'normal' pull of enemies usually consists of either: 1-4 'normal' and/or 'weak' enemies OR 1 'strong' enemy and 0-2 'normal' and/or 'weak' enemies OR 1 'elite' enemy and 0-2 'normal' and/or 'weak' enemies If you are running into groups with multiple elite enemies, or one elite with several strong enemies, you are probably in a heroic area. These areas are designed to be played through in a group, not by yourself. (The game will pop up a notification whenever you walk into one of these areas as a warning.) If other player-controlled characters are randomly running up and killing you while you do quests, you are probably playing on a PvP (player-versus-player) server. This makes for a much more challenging environment, to say the least. Aside from getting good at PvP combat or always trying to group up, the only 'fix' for this is to start over on a PvE (player-versus-environment) server, where enemy players cannot attack you without your consent. Really Obvious Things You May Have Missed If you have played other MMOs, you may have blown by all the help prompts and missed some basic, yet important things about SW:TOR that commonly cause issues. Here are some of them: You can (and should!) upgrade your companion's gear as well as your own. To do this, open your character sheet while you have a companion summoned, then click the 'companion' tab at the bottom. You can drag gear to them from your inventory or right-click it while the Companion tab is open to equip it on them. When you level up, you need to actually visit a class trainer to learn new abilities (or improved versions of your existing abilities). Class Trainers are present in most large cities and on the Republic/Imperial Fleet. At your class trainer, there are two tabs of abilities to train -- one for your class, and one for your Advanced Class / specialization (once you pick one at level 10). Be sure to buy the abilities on both tabs! (Also, if you somehow avoided getting your advanced class at level 10, go do that at the fleet.) Be sure to spend the points in your skill tree (after you pick an advanced class at level 10) -- hit 'K' or the tree icon at the top of the screen. This will enhance your abilities, and give you some powerful new ones as well as you advance deeper into the trees. 'Orange' (custom/moddable) items can be upgraded with special equipment modification items that increase their power (and level requirement). Some green/blue/purple items also have modification slots. To do this, CTRL+Right-click an item in your inventory (or that you have equipped), then drag new mods into the appropriate sockets on the item. You can remove mods (at a cost) by dragging them back to your inventory to put them in other items or give them to your companions. If you load in new mods without removing the old ones, it doesn't cost anything, but you lose the old mods permanently. This kind of gear is usually MUCH better than normal equipment if you keep it upgraded. Your gear can wear down and break over time, especially if you are getting killed repeatedly. Having broken gear makes things much much harder. If there is a yellow or red equipment warning icon displaying on your UI, you need to repair your equipment. You can do this at any vendor; there is a 'repair' option in the lower left corner of their window. If you cancelled accepting a quest reward, or your inventory was full, you can still get the reward! There should be a blinking indicator in the upper right corner of the screen that you can click once you have inventory space to accept the reward. You can do this anywhere; you don't have to go back to the quest giver. Those 'commendations' you get for doing quests can be turned in for powerful gear! Look for commendation vendors in the marketplace area (or main military base) of the appropriate planet. The exact same gear can also be bought on your fleet, in the side rooms of the market area on the station. If you help NPCs during a quest, they may send you mail with money or items later. Check a mailbox if there is a mail indicator at the upper left corner of the screen. Most companions have several 'stances' they can be put in if you expand their full ability bar (hit the '+' icon next to the 4 quick abilities). For characters that can tank or heal, one of the stances will be WAY better for tanking/healing and the other will be WAY better for DPS. Be sure to pick the correct one based on what you want to use them for. For DPS-only companions, they may have two stances that enhance different combat abilities. Some people have reported bugs where companions will 'forget' their stance, so if they seem especially useless, check this. If you log out while on your starship or in a cantina, you will accumulate 'rested' XP, meaning that after you log back in, you'll earn double XP for a while. This can really help you level up faster, so always try to log out in a rest area. (All cantinas have a fast travel bind point, so be sure to get it when you arrive at a new city or planet.) When you are crafting, you can keep materials in your cargo hold ('bank') and your companions will automatically take supplies from there. No need to carry around crafting materials! Useful In-Game Options There are a lot of in-game options that either have odd default settings, or that people tend to overlook. I suggest taking a look through all the possible options, but here are some that I've seen lots of people ask about: Controls -> General -> Auto-loot on Right-click / Enable Area Loot: When checked, looting one enemy automatically loots *all* nearby corpses. Combine with 'Auto-loot on Right Click' to loot much, much faster solo. Contrlols -> General -> Camera -> Camera Max Distance: controls how far you can zoom out using the mouse wheel. Many people find the default to be too close for comfort, especially when fighting larger bosses/monsters. Make the value larger to be able to zoom out further. Controls -> General -> Combat -> Ability Action Queue Window: controls how far in advance you can 'queue' an ability while another ability is active. If you have trouble getting abilities to go off seamlessly after the global cooldown, try raising this. Flytext: these are toggles for the 'floating' damage/healing numbers over your character in combat. User Interface -> Quickbars: the toggles here turn on extra quickbars with more slots for your abilities. You will probably want some of these once you start leveling up. (You can add keybinds to these using the "Key Binding" tab at the bottom of the Preferences window.) User Interface -> Tooltip -> Enable Companion Comparative Tooltips: when checked, when you hover over an item in your inventory and have a companion active, it will show the comparison for both you and your companion in that item slot. (I have NO IDEA why this is not on by default. I suspect this is why some people don't realize they can upgrade their companion's gear.) It's not yet smart enough to know when gear is only usable by one of you. Graphics -> General -> Window Mode: if you set this to "Fullscreen (Windowed)", the game doesn't minimize and then hang to reload the UI when you tab away to another window. However, this may reduce performance. Social -> General -> Hide Head Slot: hides your character's helmet/headpiece. (If you have 'hood up' Jedi/Sith robes, the hood will be shown when you hide the head piece, since it is technically part of your "chest" armor. Hopefully BW will add an option to toggle this in the future.) Social -> General -> Allow Access to Same Class Story Areas: when checked, if you are in a group with a member of the same class, you will be able to enter each other's class quest instances (though only the player that enters first will get credit for completing the quest, and you will need to do it twice for both of you to get credit.) Social -> General -> Show Sith Corruption: when checked (on by default), your character will begin to look 'evil' as you acquire Dark Side ranks. If you don't want this, uncheck the box and you'll look normal no matter how many innocent people you slaughter! Social -> Legacy -> Legacy Display: once you unlock your Legacy (after completing Chapter 1, usually around level 30), this toggles whether your 'last name' displays when other players look at you in the game.

You don't NEED a tank, but running tank+DPS (or heal+dps later) is much more forgiving than 2xDPS. Kira is not designed to tank. If you're well geared, double dps can cut through mobs like a hot knife through butter. If you are under geared it will be hell.

At least some of the pain is because JKs don't get a healing companion until Balmorra (32-36). Running tank+healer has a much bigger margin for error than tank+DPS against elites. 2xDPS is a recipe for frustration unless you are well geared and know what you are doing. I'm working on a generic guide for a lot of this stuff (not specific to JK). Might get a first draft posted tonight.

Really depends on your spec. If you are DPS, you'll want a tank or healer companion, at least for tougher fights. If you're a tank, a DPS companion will make trash pulls die faster, but a healer will make you way less likely to die on tough pulls. Also, as some people have suggested, try Doc in his DPS stance. He still throws heals if you need it, but does a lot more damage.

There is actually a 'boss' enemy type above 'champion'. I've only seen it used for major class quest enemies and Flashpoint bosses. Some 'champion' enemies are VERY tough, maybe impossible to solo at equal level with some classes. But you should really not have a problem with 'normal' elites (gold).

If you can't beat a single equal-level elite, something is wrong. Either you or your companion are not properly geared, or you are not effectively using all your abilities and cool downs. Make sure you interrupt or stun when enemies wind up for big attacks. If they do an area attack (usually a circular mark on the floor), and you can't stun or interrupt, move. Use a complementary companion (healer or dps if you're a tank, tank if you're dps, tank or dps if you Are a healer).

I've been specced as a tank and not having any problems fighting elites. (The 'Stinger' bugs on Balmorra are annoying, but I was killing them easily at 33.) You do have to stay geared and focus on your own survivability -- let your companion beat the crap out of the enemies. Use stuns and cooldowns, and interrupt anything you can. (Note that many special attacks COMPLETELY BYPASS ARMOR, so interrupting them means you take WAY less damage overall.) If you do lots of side quests you should have plenty of money and commendations to load yourself up with blue and orange gear. Being DPS specced makes you squishy; best bet is to use T7 to tank, at least until you get Doc. If you're both geared well, you should kill elites before T7 is dead. Make sure you're using your high-damage abilities, and spamming Sundering Strike whenever it's up.

Yes, this happens frequently. They DO get stunned (the icon for Hilt Strike lights up immediately), but can appear to keep attacking for a second or two, and then snap back to being stunned/floated. Just seems to be a quirk with attack animations and when an attack actually 'happens'. I suspect it's something like the server had already made the attack roll, and if you're going to take damage they must always try to play the attack animation so it doesn't look like there is damage coming out of nowhere.

You should be destroying mobs 4-5 levels lower than you, even elites. If you're specced for DPS, the 'right' companion early on is T7 in his tanking stance. When you fight something tough, send him in first, give him a few seconds to build some threat, then start wailing on the bad guy. You should still try to interrupt/stun any damaging abilities the enemy uses. It should keep attacking T7, and he should live long enough for you to kill or seriously hurt elites/bosses before he drops. If he's dying really fast, make sure he's in his tank stance, that he has a shield generator in his 'offhand' slot, and that he has reasonable gear and no empty gear slots. You can buy robot parts/armor on the trade network, or do side quests and pick the rewards that are specifically for him. Make sure he has a really good blaster to hold aggro. Or you can go with a DPS companion and just try to overwhelm things before they kill you. You may have a tough time against high-damage elite mobs, though.

Power increases all damage. This is good for pretty much everything, but moreso for PvE. Crit makes you crit more, so you'll do more burst damage. Surge makes your crits bigger. These are also good for pretty much everything, but moreso for PvP. Not sure how much Accuracy you really need before endgame content, but if you are missing a lot, get more Accuracy! (I haven't noticed problems with hitting things as a tank, even in Flashpoints, as long as I'm not fighting things way above my level.) At these levels it's probably more important to just keep your gear up to date than fretting about whether +Power is slightly better than +Crit.

If you're getting creamed by equal-level bad guys (that aren't champions/bosses), something is wrong. You and your companion should be able to beat an equal-level elite or a strong with several normal/weak guys handily. If you are built as a tank, make sure you are using Soresu form, only wear Heavy armor, and have equipped a shield generator in your offhand. You take WAY less damage. If you are trying to use T7 as a tank, make sure he is in his tanking stance and not his DPS one. Kira is not an effective tank. Timely use of interrupts (Kick) and stuns (Stasis/Push/Pommel Strike) makes fighting tough enemies WAY easier. Interrupt whenever they wind up to do something nasty. If you don't have an interrupt, stun instead. Use Hilt Strike, Opportune Strike, and Riposte whenever you can. Do not be afraid to blow cooldowns against tough enemies. One good approach for a tough mob like a boss: leap in, stun repeatedly, then use both defensive cooldowns one after the other when you can't stun anymore. When they are done, your stuns should be mostly cooled down again, and the mob should be at least half-dead while you've taken almost no damage. Against very tough enemies (like class quest bosses), use Call on The Force at the start of the fight; the regen will keep you alive a lot longer. Also, a good trick to use sometimes is to send your companion in first (CTRL+1 by default while targeting something), then leap in and start beating on things. If your companion gets too close to dying, use Taunt or Challenging Call to pull mobs back to you. As for gear: whenever a quest reward is an upgrade for a slot where you don't have an orange item, or they offer you an upgrade for a companion, take it. Otherwise, take commendations. Use commendations (or cash when possible; try the 'specialty goods vendor' on most worlds) to buy blue and orange gear, or upgrades for your orange gear. Appropriate-level Flashpoints also drop great stuff. As a JK you want 'Guardian' or 'Might'/'Rage' mods. (Guardian gives more endurance/survivability, Might/Rage gives more Strength/damage.) +Defense is also good. One thing they do NOT make terribly clear for companions: they only really use one 'primary' attribute. For T7 this is Aim (whether you use him as a tank or DPS), and for Kira this is Willpower. They do NOT need any other attributes; the primary attribute will increase the potency of all their abilities. Do not give Kira +Strength items. (All the quest gear that drops specifically for them will have the 'right' attribute.) I recommend getting a nice orange weapon for your companion and keeping it up to date, as this will DRAMATICALLY increase their damage output. If you're doing a fair number of side/bonus quests, you should have every slot for both you and your companion with something fairly close to your level, and moddable items should have mods close to your level as well. Note that for orange items, the 'Armoring' slot determines the overall level of the item and how much armor it gives you (similarly, the 'Hilt' determines DPS for a saber/sword, and the 'Barrel' determines DPS for a ranged weapon.) So make sure you upgrade those; they're much more important than the other mod slots! That's also why they cost 7 commendations instead of 2.

I use a G95x, which is a little less crazy but also has the adjustable DPI (which I don't use) and adjustable size/weight (which is awesome). Not cheap, but you get what you pay for...

I also use the Saitek Cyborg command unit, which is very similar. Much cheaper than the Razor keypad, though not *quite* as many buttons. Works very well.

This seems like a terrible idea, as it would let people trivially farm below-level content for phat lewt. The reward you get should be commensurate with the difficultly/challenge of what you're doing. I also did Nar Shaddaa/Taris out of order on my JK, not realizing they were not the same level range (and having done just about everything on Coruscant, I was already in the range for Nar Shaddaa). Oops. If you really want to be a completionist I'd suggest 'completing' every other world, then do the other half on an alt. If you REALLY want to do every single possible quest on the same character, you'll be doing a lot of quests that are way below your level. I'm pretty sure BW created lots of 'extra' content on purpose because they expect at least a fair number of people to play through multiple class storylines on the same faction.

If you mean you found a 'prototype' or 'advanced' item with an Augment slot, you need to either buy one from the galatic trade network, or craft them yourself with Cybernetics (I think).

You can: 1) Go back to earlier planets and pick them up. 2) Send crew members on low-level Archeology missions while you run around. 3) Buy them on the market.