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Bjond-Sain

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Everything posted by Bjond-Sain

  1. I did this a fair bit 3~4yrs ago; got more than a little burned out on that FP. If you don't mind the grind, this will absolutely work. I'm unsure how fast scraps accumulate down low these days. I seem to recall always having piles of them with no clue what to do about them. You will have piles @ 75; I'm currently generating enough scrap to take one companion from L1->L50 from 3x FPs. However you do it, though, get a companion leveled if you're having a rough time in open world.
  2. Arena is just dull and boring. There was a 3yr gap in my play. I came back because of the update and the "play your way" tagline, which unfortunately is about as far from what I had imagined as possible. They murdered crafting, blocked picking stats until the character is finished, and are starving out PvP. With only one viable choice left, how is that "play your way"? Oh well, I was hoping they were going back to the days where there was a plethora of choice. FP if you like it or PvP, progress is about the same. Pick which stats you like to level. Instead I'm stuck running FPs because the rate of progress there FAR outstrips every other method and because PvP has been reduced to mostly arenas. I loved playing back when strategic maps were the norm and you could progress via PvP at roughly the same rate as via PvE. I don't even bother queuing PvP now. Honestly, I'd rather land in a strategic map with 4v4 than an arena. I do like the arenas now and then to satisfy the occasional bust of blood lust, but not every single time!
  3. Kinetic/Shadow tank. It has the most utility of any tank (push, pull, cc, ae, sneak, 2x sap) and if you get tired, you can swap to it's DPS variant and have some nice DPS and great utility there, too. Operative/Scoundrel DPS: same reason as above -- most utility of the dps/healer classes and you can swap to it's healer variant for great heals and similarly nice utility (or play healer main with dps option if that's your bent).
  4. I have both Death Knell and The Victor sets for my Kinetic/Shadow tanks. DK is nice, but Victor is incredible for FPs. It doesn't make you immortal, but it definitely gives a huge speed up to the FP by keeping your HP high. A fair number of FP boss fights also include a small pack of adds now and then that will punch your HP up and give your healer a slight breather right when he most needs it. The Victor set is basically so nice, I can't see giving it up unless you regularly have bored healers that need more to do to stay busy. I use Victor on my JK & PT tanks, too (for the same reason). -- BTW, Victor is a 20% heal on critter death, 8s CD; ie. it's healing scales up as your total HP increases. Go go gadget, B-mods!
  5. I've seen a lot of new players complaining about how hard open world is and then get soundly slapped down in chat, which isn't really all that helpful to the new player. Here's how to be unkillable in open world: level a companion to influence L50, put it in heal mode, and summon it. That's really all there is to it. But, it costs to much to level a companion! Not really. @L20 you gain a ship droid. You can use jawa scraps to level it to L50. You likely won't have near enough scraps on your first L20 character to do this, but it is by far the cheapest way to level it up. Buy all 3 ranks of companion improvement in your legacy tab, convert all scraps to maintenance items, feed your droid. Put your droid in heal mode and it will keep you alive in all open world content; at influence L50, a healer companion will out-heal all but a good player healer in i306 gear. Even influence L10 (or 20) is enough to cover open world and is a big step up from a L1 companion. But, I hate the ship droid. It doesn't talk and when it does, it whines! Well, yes. However, it is FREE to level with scraps, unlike most other companions. Scraps will accumulate simply from playing, but if you lack a sufficient pile to make a difference right away, you can use credits to buy companion gifts on the fleet. Credits -> Gifts -> Companoin is how to raise up the more fun and vocal companions you meet in your story: 14k cr for L1->10, 40k for L1->15, 78k for L1->20, ..., ~4M for L50 (which is why scraps & ship droid are nice). Here are some reference links to help you level your companions. Google Spreadsheet Companion Leveling Costs Influence Loves, Favorites, Likes, Etc (what to feed your companion) -- A L50 companion in heal mode can solo most small pulls while you watch, but for the big ones, you will want to help and will want some gear on your character. First, make SURE you fill every single slot. Then worry about improving your gear. FYI, at L10, doing one (1) PvP match will provide an entire set of left-hand-side (LH) gear. PvP peeps can seem a bit pugnacious, but in all honesty, as long as you're trying hard to help (especially in the lowbie unranked zones), you'll be appreciated and it is only a single match. So, the answer to the How-To in the subject is: high-influence companion, full gear (all slots), and go have fun. I've left out some details to keep the post short, but google will be happy to help you there now than you know what to ask it.
  6. @L20 you gain a ship droid. You can use jawa scraps to level it to L50. You likely won't have near enough scraps on your first character to do this, but it is by far the cheapest way to level it up. Buy all 3 ranks of companion improvement in your legacy tab, convert all scraps to maintenance items, feed your droid. Put your droid in heal mode and it will keep you alive in all open world content; at influence L50, a healer companion will out-heal all but a good player healer in i306 gear. Even influence L10 (or 20) is enough to cover open world and is a big step up from a L1 companion. If you don't mind spending credits, you can raise up the more fun and vocal companions you meet in your story: 14k cr for L1->10, 40k for L1->15, 78k for L1->20, ..., ~4M for L50 (which is why scraps & ship droid are nice). Google Spreadsheet Companion Leveling Costs Influence Loves, Favorites, Likes, Etc (what to feed your companion)
  7. Here's a recap of how to fill out the left hand (LH) side items. L75 was covered above, but it sounds like the OP might have leveled to 75 without anything stuffed in the LH side. This is not good. The first and most important rule for gearing in SWTOR is to stuff every slot ASAP. It's more important to have a bad something than nothing. LH @ L75: random drops, boxes (renown, fp, & conquest), and fragment vendor. Crafting is technically possible, but the drops are nicer and far FAR easier to get. LH @ 10: PvP. Get the starter pvp quest and do one (1) match. It will reward you with a full set of LH items. These are sufficient for PvP'ing all the way to L74 due to bolster. They work fine in PvE, too. LH/PvE @ 15+: crafting and gtn are a great way to improve your PvE leveling gear. However, it is definitely more efficient to use vendor items to level your first character than to pause and craft. The more characters you have, the more it pays off to craft ideal leveling sets to stuff in legacy (sharable) shells. ---- I'd urge swapping the sequence for tactical and set-bonus; ie. do tactical first. The reason is that many tacticals are quite nice and can make a significant and immediate improvement @ i268 (long before your set can matter). Set bonus "niceness" varies a fair bit from class to class, but it always will take 4~6 pieces before you will see any difference at all. And, that's not just 4-6 shells, but also the mods to fill them. So, for spending fragments & maybe credits, I'd do it more like this: tactical i306 (frags to upgrade boat-anchor iRating items .. ie. your lone 268 when the rest is 284) augments & set-bonus stat twiddling to taste The reason for spending frags only on boat-anchors is that it will speed your climb to 306 without unduly sapping your fragment pile. Tactical before set is another fast step up and one you can do long before 306. Augments are often overlooked as an early step up, but they can be a very nice boost, especially before you hit the point where your set-bonus starts paying off. No need for the very best at first, too; 73s are quite close in performance to the 74s and even the lower ones are much nicer than nothing. For set-bonus itself, seriously consider The Victor if you run a lot of FPs and/or have many alts. I chased the classic ideal set bonus first and then made a victor set for alts. Turned out the victor set is just plain nicer than the main set -- not for actual parsed DPS or tanking, but for speed and survival. It makes FPs so much faster and smoother that I made two victor sets (dps & tank) and use them over the "bis" class sets almost always. Ever run in a group with that tank or dps that just seems to have more HP than everyone and races from pull to pull without stopping? That what The Victor set does.
  8. Honestly, I'm FAR more peeved with the devs over this than with under-prepared folk trying MM. Hammer/RR/etc are so easy in MM that L70 is absolutely no problem in there and that does nothing good for the queue: just encourages under-geared to think "oh, MM is easy, I can do anything!" However, baring a game solution, it's on us as players to take action ourselves to ensure groups are successful. I'm not even sure what a game solution would look like. Perhaps tiers? Pansy, Fun, & Head-Banging? (I think those are the only modes FPs come in). They really need some reward:time ratio balancing as well. If I could see that the pop-up is for Hammer or one of the pansy-FPs BEFORE I waste my time by accepting, I'd be happy bringing a new / returning L70. I generally like grouping with new folk and resent that the game has made it important to ignore them. Same thing for iRating. Need to see it and the destination before accepting.
  9. The game only requires L70 to queue for MM FPs. This is fine for the easier FPs. However, I've been getting 70s and sub-306 DPS in the harder ones, like Nathema, Chiss, etc.. This has resulted in a failure every time until we replaced them with full 306 DPS. It's wasted so much of my time recently, that I no longer even give sub-75 DPS a chance. If I see a sub-75 in the MM queue, I decline, ignore, and requeue. So, to avoid an auto-ignore, I'd urge DPS to reconsider using the GF for MM until L75 and don't queue full random until i306. Considering the number of fast declines I've been seeing in the MM queue, I suspect I'm not the only one punting all sub-L75 DPS. BTW, this is only for DPS. I don't mind a sub-75 healer if they think they can cover the harder ones.
  10. The easier MM/FPs can be done sub-L75 (ones like Hammer Station and Red Reaper). The harder ones require not only L75, but full i306 in order to pass DPS checks. It's insanely annoying to queue random MM and get a sub75 for this reason. It's so bad, that I've started declining any group I see with sub-75, placing them on /ignore to block all future groups with them, and then requeueing. I have no idea if others are doing this, too, or not, but after multiple 2~3H sessions on a single FP with sub-306 DPS my tolerance for even giving them a try has worn thin. Post-KotFE everyone can access 4x companions that LOVE scrap-bought gifts: 2x Ship Droids, Scorpio, and Koth. Some classes have more (like Tano Vik). Even if you don't craft, the raw materials can be sold from companion missions and 4x L50 companions can really crank out a lot of mats. Also, a L50 companion is outright better than any sub-306 real player. There are many other companions that do quite well (favorite aka love-1), too: m4x, mk51, etc etc etc. If you really want credits over a L50 companion, you can convert scraps to crafting mats at the jawa junk vendors in the fleet basement.
  11. It's not a display error for me. The text that shows you receiving credits showed only the 3 that I really received and those all added up to what that character had on hand (plus the roughly 1~2M I keep on each char). The other 7 are all still outstanding: varying from 9H to 24H+. That's how I realized something was wrong. Clicking the "select all" and then "loot all attachments" only cleared 3 of the 10 with 3x credits granted messages -- basically, "uhm, that was fewer than it should have been, what's up?"
  12. I'm missing about 30M in sales from the GTN not sending credits in an hour. Most recent sale is ~2H old, oldest is ~17H. It's not a total failure. Of my last 10 sales, only 7 failed to deliver the credits. The ones that were delivered were not all old or all new, but scattered amidst the failures; ie. it doesn't look like a temporary window in which everything stopped. There is definitely at least a serious bug with credit delivery here. My biggest worry is that there is actually a GTN payment avoidance exploit going around. I made sure my ticket included both prices and buyer names in case this is indeed the result of an exploit. Sadly, this kind of bug is going to hammer CS. So, I'm not hopeful for a quick resolution. I suspect GTN will be effectively unusable for the next month; I've taken down ALL my GTN sales and won't be posting any more until CS makes good on the current outstanding sales and the devs announce the problem and post a fix.
  13. I was just considering whether to do ranked pvp or not and wondering what one can buy with "Ranked PvP Reward Token" (exact spelling from the ranked daily/weekly "provided rewards" section)? There don't seem to be any vendors at all that take them. There do seem to be vendors that take "Ranked Season 9 Token", though it's pointless junk. I'm hoping they brought back an old style vendor somewhere that sells progressive gear that leads to i306 or set-bonus shells -- something actually useful. It wouldn't bother me in the least if the process was slower than the FP grind; I just want to run in my pick of stats rather than junk the game forces on me.
  14. I wouldn't sell tanks short on the DPS side. It could be your gear choices rather than your class choice. I've since been leveling my Sin/Shadow tanks and they seem to be going a lot faster than my deception through solo story. The AE dps is MUCH nicer on the tanks. However, I am using 100% DPS gear without any tanking defensive stats (just passed deception DPS gear to tank via legacy). In general, across all MMOs, the ideal is to be as offensive (DPS oriented) as possible whether that's your main role or not, but "as possible" is a world of grey peppered with trial&error and salted with personal taste. I've had no problems tanking Vet FPs in 100% DPs or in unranked PvP. I strongly suspect there might be issues doing that with MM FPs or OPs. BTW, don't be shy about skipping as much as you can via stealth. If the quest doesn't call out for a kill, likely you can skip. The less killing you do, the faster you finish.
  15. KOTET + Onslaught was pretty easy in story-mode: i220 deception assassin (DPS / stealth) after not playing at all for ~3 years. No gear updgrades until L75 with Onslaught i268 mission rewards. BTW, I've played a LOT of different MMOs. Here's how I'd rate a couple other games along with SW:ToR -- kinda so you can maybe calibrate my opinions to yours if you've played one of them: player skill req'd: SW:ToR = very low, Tera = very high, FFXIV = moderate, SWL = low story/immersion: SW:ToR = good, Tera = zero, FFXIV = good, SWL = very good gear/grinding: SW:ToR = low (old impression from pre-KotFE), Tera = high, FFXIV = medium, SWL = medium UI/QoL: SW:ToR = good, Tera = poor, FFXIV = mediocre, SWL = poor community: SW:ToR = juvenile, Tera = toxic, FFXIV = amazing, SWL = nice IMHO, SW:ToR would likely be in my top-3 for "good for casuals". FFXIV would win "best for MMO newbies". SWL for "best solo in an MMO" and "best overall story". I'm unsure how you'd weight story, but if you like it, SW:ToR's class stories are truly unique and very good. There's nothing else like them anywhere. KotFE and later are professionally-polished drivel. If you're struggling in KotFE+ content, roll up a different class and play that until it's story is over. They're all worth it and you'll get some synergy for playing a variety. Or, try PVP. Oddly, in SW:ToR (at least 3 years ago), the PVP peeps were a lot less ornery than general chat. In unranked, as long as you're trying, they'll like you. If you're trying and succeeding, they'll adore you. Bolster means you need v.little gear and matches are quick.
  16. Returning (3 year gap) and trying to make plans for my rather large herd of characters (culled down to 29 from 64 when I first logged back in .. wth was I doing with them!?). Here are some things I've learned, guessed, or assumed along with a few questions. Hopefully y'all can help correct any misapprehensions and provide feedback. It looks like reusable meds are back. Crafting costs have gone hyperbolic and are leaving the system. On the dark side, FP-grinding seems to be moderately fast and providing better gear than crafted. So, what can crafting do that farming doesn't do better and faster? Here's what I have so far: Reusable Meds .. Biochem (only source) Augment kits .. Arms, Armor, Synth (only source) Augments .. Arms, Armor, Synth (only source?) Seems like Cybertech and Artifice can be punted completely due to being replaced by farming. PVP v PVE: my recollection is that the PVE meds (stim, adrenal, & medpac/unit) do not work in PVP? Is that correct? The Warzone adrenal & medpac say they can't be used in PVE, but the others don't have any PVE-only comments. BIOC "required" for PVE? Given the prohibitive cost of consumable crafted PVE meds in 6.0, I'm thinking every PVE character needs 700 biochem to use the reusable meds. This really isn't such a bad thing for me; I can make my non-BIOC crafters PVP-only and swap biochem for a gather skill on my triple gatherers.
  17. It also greatly speeds all crew skill actions, too (missions and crafting). If you do any kind of crafting, having a couple high-influence companions makes a big difference. This is the big one for crafters. While influence doesn't impact story, the reverse is not true. You will loose access to your high-influence companions during the story and if you make bad choices, they're gone. It can be very far from obvious which choices eventually lead to loosing a companion; you'll have to resort to spoiler sites to protect your high-influence companions. I haven't found a handy table or list for this -- just lots of google-sleuthing. To avoid all that mess, I now only raise up Treek, HK-51, and/or Ranos for new characters. AFAIK, those are the only companions immune to getting story-snatched.
  18. Yeah, I checked several times. Exited, reset instance, reentered, checked portrait "default" story/vet/master selection, etc.. The mobs inside are L75. My character level is 65. It was kinda funny going in and expecting things to die in the typical 3~4 hits from story-mode, but their HP barely moved and .. ouch! .. they hit hard. Didn't think to check their level until after I died a couple times and moved from wondering what I was doing wrong to what the game was doing wrong. BTW, I don't have a particular desire for that quest -- it was just next to me and handy from already being on my mission list. No idea why they'd modify it unless they were using it as a test-L75 area and forgot to change it back. Well, unless it's tied to level-cap. Did it get bumped up to 70 when the cap was last raised?
  19. Haven't played in 3~4 years. Wanted to do some easy solo to relearn things and so tried to run "Battle for the Stars", a solo-mode flash point in story mode. The entire interior was chock full of L75 targets that were uh, rather hard to make a dent in and killed me fairly easily. Portrait mouse-over is set to "Story". This contrasts a bit with my memory of this FP. I suspect it being full of L75 targets when the quest itself has a L65 mark and the character is L65 is a bug or I've inadvertently triggered "75-only mode". I suppose I could swap relearning a L65 tank first instead and (very) slowly whittle each non-elite L75 mob down to make progress, but I'm hoping there's a way to get this quest to match my character's level instead. Any thoughts?
  20. Removing the ability to transfer WZ comms without any LONG LONG notice in advance of 5.0 is frankly intolerable. I have likely 80k comms on disposable alts for transfer to permanent characters -- planned for eventual transfer pre-5.0 launch. I've not been happy with the gearing changes announce with 5.0 -- assiduously avoided any MMO with random gearing or gear-advantaged PVP in the past 10 years. Figured I'd give 5.0 a try until this. You just convinced me you have no interest in running an MMO or understanding of how to do it. Cancelling my subscription after posting this. Had a lot of fun with pre-4.0 content, but stealing rewards like this again removes any trust that it won't happen again and again -- why bother playing a game with long term rewards when the effort will be canceled without notice?
  21. Complete with underwater combat! Give peeps and incentive for wearing those diving helmets.
  22. I didn't realize that one was broken. Got mine on it a long time ago. Bit of a kick in the teeth when you finally notice something like that (prolly after having killed a lot with that annoying squeaker). As a side note, I'd like to see ALL the old achievements able to be completed, even if it requires a CM buy; eg. party-jawa achieves.
  23. One of the things 4.0 did nicely was to make companions interchangeable on the basis of skills. Then it completely undid that effort by raising the companion rank-cap to 50 -- after all, a rank 40+ companion so outclasses a rank 1 that companions really are even less interchangeable than they were pre-4.0. So, I'd suggest eliminating rank on companions. You'd have to do it in a nice way that preserves the outrageous expense and effort it takes to ranking up current companions; eg. by say a conversion to extra presence on the player or some other stat that offers similar companion bonuses, but equally to any summoned companion. I'd also suggest permitting companions to use any weapon or at least have both melee and ranged options. This doesn't matter for most players, but for anyone that ever attempts to solo difficult things, one high rank ranged and one high rank melee companion is mandatory (this is also why it's horrible to EVER change a companion's weapon type between ranged & melee). If you make companion changes similar to the above suggestions, companions truly would become completely interchangeable for game-impact. Choice would be a matter of taste rather than effectiveness -- and those with high-rank companions wouldn't feel robbed when a new companion is temporarily forced on them (or a valued one temporarily removed).
  24. More of a heads-up for y'all developing new companions than a true suggestion. I get my ideas for skinning new characters when I stumble on a new combo of cartel skins for a companion. Then, if needed, I'll unlock those skins. Unlocking costs CC, which translates to income for y'all. Unsure about others, but I only skin a character once (or a few times via new system, but usually just slight variations). However, every character has ~5 skinable companions. I simply ignore and don't summon characters I can't skin. And, even if I did, they wouldn't offer any income potential for y'all -- can't skin 'em. So, I'm more than a bit puzzled by why none of the 4.0 and later companions can be reskinned. The more slots open for skins per character, the greater my desire for cartel skins. Seemed to me like you were ignoring obvious potential income tricks.
  25. TBH, until tunings can unlock in collections, I don't care that they're even in game at all -- ok, well, only true for my own use. I love the fact that so many people place a high value on something that I see as utterly worthless. Makes them easy to sell.
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