Levelling at 20 and 32 respectively, I've found the planetary commendation dealers at the fleet to be the most useful gear source of any kind. Always relevant and attractive items, not overly hard to round up the currency needed via standard missions, and your normal credit supply is untouched.

It's funny how this seems to differ between players. If you have a char at 50+ you obviously know how to play the game, but I must say that I found Tattoine fairly negotiable. I came in with a 25 level and left at 28 or 29, and the standard mission fights weren't difficult at all. I think this is a phase where Kaliyo is quite useful, maybe you need to boost her stats? Racking my mind there were 2 boss fights (not to spoil anything) on Tat where I went in, died twice, took side missions and levelled up 1 level, went back in, and killed the bosses with no real problems. The strongs and elites were manageable. I basically liked the whole Tattoine sequence, even with the sand and the blazing heat (which you actually feel...). I had more trouble on Alderaan, which I just left at lvl 32. The final boss fight was demanding, and prior to that I had to abandon two side quests because the final battles were OP for me.

Yes, the Dulfy rotation leans heavily on a couple of abilities that you don't get until a late stage, so it's not very useful for PvE levellers. I'm running a Sniper MM at level 31 and use a home-made, non-scientific rotation that works pretty well at this stage...opening combo of Ambush and Lazed Target/Sniper followed by Explosive Probe, Corrosive Dart and Frag Grenade. After that is a cyclical rotation of mostly Ambush, Corrosive Dart, Frag Grenade, adding Sniper at meaningful intervals and Rifle to keep the show going. Mainly for fun I throw in a more obscure ranged ability like Suppressive Fire or Shatter Shot now and then, and if it's a powerful enemy I will watch his meter and go for the <30% Takedown. But basically with good gear on you and companion you will go far with just 5 ranged abilities, and then use Cover Pulse to knock meleers away, and Shiv if they still insist. Various defensive and interruptive abilities become available over time, but are rarely needed below 30. Often Kaliyo will do 80% of the work. The thing that is most likely to kill you is a very strong (Elite or higher) meleer, or 2-3 meleers +a couple of strong ranged. There's some nasty body-slammers on Alderaan (lev 28+) that you do not want close. Be sure to have Slice Droid within reach, extremely useful against strong droid mobs.

Hello, I recently re-subbed after almost 2 years and am enjoying the game a lot. Unfortunately one thing I managed to forget while I was away was that the companion doesn't necessarily have the same primary stat as "me". As a level 26 Sniper on Tattoine I've generously passed on to Kaliyo some discarded gear that I've upgraded. I didn't think much about this until she started dying a lot faster on me. I've replaced a couple of items, but at least one fairly crucial piece of armor is still Cunning-heavy with zero Aim, and as everything is 54+ it's not that easy to find and afford. As it is, Endurance is by far her strongest stat, followed by Aim, and then a semi-high rating on Cunning. How big a deal is this? Are there other and more important reasons for her lowered survivability towards the end of Tattoine? Should I drop everything and fix an upgrade on the inaccurate stat gear (think it was chest plate)?

Right. Except I'm not sure how many WZ teams really play like this, except within Guilds. Most of what I see is people running around engaging in 1vs1 and not caring about objective or DPS/tank/healer collaboration. So I perch myself on a shelf 25 meters from the action, light a cigarette and Ambush+Grenade enemies every 3 seconds... until someone discovers me, at which point I usually die from melee wounds. The teamwork aspect really has some way to go, but I guess there's just too many new players, like myself.

From reading the posts here, I got the impression MM was the best for PvE, and Lethality the best for PvP? The SWTOR science is as precise a science as sociology I guess.

Yes, this fight keeps popping up among new players, and I've written about it in the past. I wish there was a specific thread or forum where one could discuss the mechanics and tactics of single fights. As it was, I gave up on my IA and rolled a Bounty Hunter instead, because I couldn't figure out how to beat the final droid in that room. After a few weeks as a Bounty Hunter (which is much friendlier to the new player) I went back to the Agent, read up a bit, and decided to beat the damn droid. The first thing I did was raise my level 2 notches, by doing a few side missions and killing mobs. I also looked into stims and Medpacs, which are available with the stims vendor. I can't recall if stims are available on level 6-7 though, but if they are, it's a must. The Medpac you drop maybe halfway into the fight, don't wait too long. The actual fight: - things got easier when I moved the fight into the inner room, and crouched behind that circular thing in the middle. - first off, focus on taking the smaller droids down. This may cost you one "death". - then, while you're being revived, do the "Recuperate" thing that brings your full health back in 15 seconds. Hopefully it completes before the big droid attacks. - finally, for this "boss", you need to keep hitting him with your best attacks, which should be sniper shot and grenades. Open with a combined sniper shot + grenade, then keep hitting him with these no matter what happens. It's vital that he doesn't come right up to you with his flamethrower thing, but even so, keep rotating your attacks. - pop a Medpac when you're starting to hurt a bit. Keep the Medpac in your Quickbar, not in the inventory! - watch his health meter (the red line next to yours) to see how close you are. EDIT: ...throw in a Corrosive Dart somewhere also; this also for the smaller droids. Finally, it's important to have as little armor damage as possible when you go into the fight. Try and make it to the room without any lengthy fights before, maybe follow in the heals of some skilled player making his way through the facility. If you die maybe 3 times your armor will be so busted that you need to get it repaired with the medical droid or a vendor. Then go back in! If none of the above works, go out and raise your skill level yet another notch. The enemy's health meter will tell you how close you are to winning. I feel personally that this fight is over-powered for the level it's on, and it has probably made a bunch of people drop out of the IA class, although we never hear from them. Anyway, it's entirely winnable but demanding; it will be another 10 levels before you run into anything as difficult again.

Do not underestimate the power of the dark side.

I admit not being a very good PvP player but I do my best and try to contribute the special Sniper skills, mainly intense Dps bursts on longrange enemies who never knew what hit them. But most of the time I feel like the 12th man on the team. It was therefore a great moment for me on Voidstar when a healer on our side came in and backed me when two heavy melees came over and tried to clobber me. Rather than the usual "You have died" message I get after 5 seconds of melee, my Sniper now refused to go down, and thanks to the healer I had time to pull out my knockbacks and distractions. The two melees came back and started pounding on me again but now I could pull out frag grenade and that blinding effect. The healer and I then attacked the two melees and killed one of them right there while the other ran away. Eat that, bullies! This of course is how its supposed to work, but healers very rarely look my way and even less so in PUGs, so thanks Ms Whoever (I'm confident it was a she) for your support and collaboration. I also felt elated after saving our team leader with a single ambush shot + grenade. He was losing a turret on Alderaan and called for help but I was the only one to respond and got there just in time to bring the jedi enemy down. That earned me a "thanks" in the chat window and some extra shiny medals. This is all I ask for as a mid-level Sniper with limited PvP skills. :

Yeah, I had this happen in Voidstar but was too perplexed to do anything with it. Maybe it's a feature, not a bug. Are your cover abilities still available as you're sliding around? If so, this could be useful...

Yes, check the "PVP armor vendor" on Imperial Fleet. This is not a 50+ vendor, but has various lower-level things including orange moddables... I bought a moddable chest armor there the other day for my warzone commendations. There will still be level restrictions, like level 37 or level 23. You can use it in PVE too, of course. As for things you buy with credits, I'm not sure. Never seen an orange, or even a purple item with the regular "Medium Armor Vendor", and I sort of wonder why these vendors exist since they never offer anything better than what you've found via loots.

Unfortunately, forums like these, even when the heading is "New Player Help" seldom offer the kind of help a new player really needs, which is how to survive a difficult fight and make it to the next level. There is an info overload of incomprehensible stuff about speccing into skill tree blablah and modding your Tionese crystal zabadak, that are really useful... in about 6 months. They are of no use when trying to get off your start planet. Try this: 1) Always try to be over-levelled, or at worst, par with the mission. You raise your level by gaining XP, which you in turn get by doing side missions and killing enemies. 2) Before heading down to that combat where you've died 3 times already, go to a vendor and repair all your gear. There is a button that sez "Repair All". You need a little bit of credit to pay for this. When you die, your armor takes a severe beating. 3) During the fight, watch the red "health-meter" for your enemy, the horizontal red line right next to your own health meter. If your enemy's meter is almost down to zero when you die, then you will be able to make the fight next time (see #4). If you can't get his meter down below maybe 60-70%, you are truly underlevelled or under-geared, and need to analyze and correct your status. There is no way you can make the fight without improving your stats first. 4) If you get the dude almost down to zero but not quite, all you need is probably a Medpac and/or a Skill Stim, both of which you can buy from a Stim Vendor. Don't wait too long with taking the Medpac during the battle. The Skill Stim you take before entering the room. These things are common to all classes and fights, and new players may not realize them until they reach level 10 or so (I didn't). On top of this comes all the tricks and moves associated with your class, and your enemy's fighting style, and the layout of the place where you fight. Sometimes moving the fight to another room is all it takes. But these things can only be discussed on a specific fight-level.

When you arrive at a new planet, the mission levels will be higher than the planet you just left, so you have a chance when you're brand new on the planet to enlist for as many missions as there is room for. Once you start doing the actual missions, your XP will start climbing, obviously, and you will lose access to some of those missions, but there should be a window when you've just landed when you should be able to load up on a whole bunch of missions. This is a curious problem, wish I had problems like that. Is it a fact that mission giver "triangles" disappear from the map once you're over-levelled? Reason I'm asking is I had major problems finding new side missions to take on at Nar Shadaa, there simply weren't any mission giver dudes around when I looked. Had to leave the planet on a too low level (24) for my taste. Being under-levelled is a much worse drag than being over-levelled...

As always when someone has the guts to admit that the game is occasionally difficult, bozos come out unasked for and brag about how easy it all was, even though no one has asked them and they have no proof of it. Start your own threads about your achievements and see how interested everyone is. The two classes I'm levelling run into hard class quests about every 3rd or 4th level. What I mean by "hard" is that I have to go back and do some side missions to get my level up 1-2 notches in order to make them. I just finished the final fight on Nar Saadaa (Sniper class) with an equal-levelled Elite (lvl 23), and it took me many tries to beat the mob as he had so many different tricks. There is nothing strange about the earliest levels being the hardest; since your own level is so very low, your powers are weak (old man). There is a battle with 3 droids around level 6 for Imperial Agent which is one of the hardest ones so far, because you had to do it exactly right and then the strong droid would die maybe 2 seconds before you. Similarly, there is a harsh fight with "Grey Star" at the end of a long haul-*** mission on Balmorra circa level 19, where you have to beat 4 fairly strong droids first, and then go up against this Elite -- but by then your armor will be shot to pieces from the droid fight. I talked my way out of this battle since I didn't feel like spending another 3 hours on the planet bringing my level up. A basic rule is to keep your personal skill level on par or preferrably 1-2 notches above the class mission level. That way you can do normals and strongs with no real effort, and elites with a bit of extra work, maybe take a death or two if it's a crew. I've run into crews of two elites but have avoided combat with them so far, my guess would be that you need to be at least 3 levels above them to make it. Armor, weapons, abilities, stims, medpacks etc should all be in order, of course. That given, your personal level is what determines your chances... and your playing skill, of course.

I'm generally in favor of SWTOR, but I think this commendation business is a bit of a mess, or at least very poorly communicated. The "system" that applies above level 50 is opaque enough, but for the vast mass of people who are sub-50 there basically are no clues at all what to do with these "commendations". You look and look and finally you find 2 vendors on the Fleet that will accept warzone commendations sub-50, and maybe they even have something you need. Maybe they don't. Do you feel like wasting a fleet ticket after a couple of WZ to see if there's something new you can afford? Will see what they do in 1.2, but I think maybe this whole commendation business should be restricted to people who truly care, like 50+. The system with orange gear and upgrades and mods is also far from intuitive when you're sub-50. Replace it with credits instead, and start offering more purple and orange gear with regular vendors!

What I don't understand is why they only designed 3 warzones for the launch? Can't be that challenging a task for the developers... I'm not overly interested in PvP as it seems to attract too many people with the attitude of a sociopathic 14 year-old, but must admit the two WZ (I skip Huttball) in SWTOR so far have piqued my interest. Looking forward to the next one.

The casual players who are able to have fun and discuss the game in a helpful, relaxed way are the heroes of the gaming world. The losers are the ones who have been fooled into believing that these games represent anything remotely important, and who assign great importance and arrogance to merits which almost no one else cares about. Real people have real lives, and they don't have to brag about it. I've been on the internet since 93 and hung out with some pretty geeky crowds like record collectors, but I have to say that the gaming community, or the majority of it, is a new and creepy low. The games are supposed to be fun, but the vibe in the forums is like one of those persons who will never be satisfied and offers equal doses of whining, arrogance and depression. There's a lot of anger and sheer destruction in the air. Over a silly computer game! SWTOR is a great game, what needs to be fixed isn't the game but the players. I don't care much if they nerf or barf the color on a light saber handle, what I would like to see is a forum for people who 1. actually enjoy the game 2: can discuss it without sounding like a 14 year old sociopath May the Force be with you.

I think this clearly shows what kind of a place Balmorra is.

Can someone give an idea, in sheer numbers, of what you consider to be a sufficiently populated server? How many players on planet X? Instant WZ available?

Right on, the idea that some people might play WZ for fun and would like to see a balanced competition that gives all participants a chance to play, learn, and have fun...is frankly ludicrous. My faith in the entertainment value of SWTOR is undiminished, wish it was the same with the players. What an incredible bunch of whiners. Nothing is ever going to be "right", everything is broken or failed. It's like some massive depression that weighs upon 85% of the gamers. If it's not fun, then don't do it. It's a game, not a marriage or job that sucks and needs to be vented endlessly. What is your major malfunction?

From my impression, professional combat and task forces always use compass directions, even inside buildings and such. Learning the orientation of the building and your facing position is your task. If everyone takes this personal task and learns to handle it (which an 11 year-old can) there willl be no (zero) mistakes. I have a feeling that someone, like God or Darth Sidious, is laughing is *** off at this thread.

New players are arriving all the time, there's no need to be resigned or pessimistic about anything, except that a few servers were over-scaled.

OK, I could go back and do the Black Talon, at lvl 22 it should even be soloable. Are the orange loots only on Flashpoints? Owsley, huh? Well, he was a great man. RIP.

I've asked this before but... are there ANY orange loot finds in early levels, say up to lvl 20? I'm at lvl 22 now and haven't seen a single orange, best I've had was a single instance of a purple chest gear which my companion now uses. Two dark blues... zero orange. Sniper currently at Nar Shadaa.

Yeah, this seems to be the #1 solution with my particular set-up. However, you can't (at least I can't) predict which mobs have this specific skill, so if you engage in the usual way with a snipe or grenade, the DoT probe will seek me out first and by then it's too late, and one may have to take a 10-second death. After being revived one will of course send Kaliyo in first to draw the aggro. Anyway, I made it past this mission, so I'm good... even got up-levelled in the process.