Only one I've finished was the Trooper 3/10 Very subpar plot, lazy, repetitive, barely anything of note happens. You can basically summarize the plot in 2 sentences because nothing happens.

Best stories 1- Agent 2- SW 3- JK Had problems but still cool 4- BH 5- SI Mostly subpar with some good moments scattered about 6- SM 7- TR Absolutely atrocious, good luck staying awake 8- JC

For a new person like yourself, I would recommend rolling a Mercenary/Commando followed by Sorcerer/Sage. They are the easiest classes in the game to play, literally Commando is almost braindead. If you want a good story, pick the Empire equivalents. Jedi Consular is almost always ranked as one of the worst stories in the game by people on this forum. Some people found the first act of the Trooper enjoyable but I personally hated it. Whatever your opinion on Act 1 is, Act 2 and 3 are atrocious. To sum it up, pick a Mercenary and/or Sorcerer. Enjoy the Bounty Hunters awesome companions.

The problem is that this game is competing with others that are complete on day 1. $15 a month is a lot to ask for and I know a ton of people that opted to get other games (Arkham City, Skyrim, etc) instead. When the paying consumers like us put our money down we expect a completed product. It doesn't matter if our expectations are unreasonable, we are paying $15 a month. That's where all the hate comes from. This game already has a reputation for having broken PvP and Operations. We will see how long that will last.

I'm going to respectfully disagree. This game follows the same tired formula of the last decade and really doesn't improve on anything past presentation. To call a game something akin to "next generation" there has to be some sort of improvement beyond the old system. I'm not saying the trinity system doesn't have a place, but in order to expand the market there needs to be improvements. GW2 looks more like a next generation game to me. It's not lazily regurgitating the same system we have seen in other MMOs. It's looking at the system from the bottom up and taking risks with its design. Considering all the problems with PvP and the end game going, a lot of people are reaching lvl 50 and are wondering what to do next. Bioware needs to step it up or they will risk alienating a lot of people. Until they do, its way to soon to come on the forums like a Bioware spokesman and toot this game as the end all be all.

Vanguards are one of the lowest population classes in the game. All those Troopers you see are Commandos.

Repost from an earlier thread. I use a Naga.

Although I'm serving in the military, I don't think a writer with a military background is required to make the story good. The story is bad because it doesn't put you in any interesting situations. Everything is straight forward, predictable, bland, run and gun checkpoint to checkpoint experience. It's sad because there are a lot of interesting concepts set up, they just choose not to explore it.

4 Play IA and see what a real ship looks like.

The ending is horrible? Try the whole damn story.

I run a lot of pickup groups on Jekk'Jekk Tarr so I'm constantly looking at /who. Here is what I usually see Sentinel=Commando>Sage>Guardian>Shadow>Vanguard>Gunslinger=Scoundrel

Hmm, well I don't know anything about Tactics since I'm primarily a Tank (Shield Spec) so I have no clue what your secondary tree should be. Honestly though, at lvl 26, I wasn't even thinking about putting any points outside of my primary tree because I wanted to max out the top tier talents as quick as possible. My route of leveling usually consists of doing every FP my level 2-3 times for gear and completing every quest (including heroics) on each planet before moving on. This has probably helped me and my companions a lot in the long run as I breeze through content with no issues. I don't know much about going the PvP route as I don't PvP so hopefully someone that knows more about that can help you out.

It's hard to help you without knowing what your spec is, what gear you are wearing and what your rotation is. I'll tell you up front that Vanguards can get through a lot of content solo that most other classes can't. You can solo almost any Heroic 2, kill almost any Champion your 3-4 levels below you, and even handle Heroic 4 content if your 4-5 levels above it. I can't say the same with my Sentinel, Gunslinger, or Sage. First thing is you need to not only get good gear for yourself but your companions as well. If you plan to solo Heroics, Elara needs to be just as geared as you are. Unlike other tanks, Vanguards mitigation is spread across several abilities. You need to rotate through those abilities often to stay alive. Defensive Field, Cryo Grenade, the Static Field debuff, Riot Strike, Smoke Grenade even Storm are key to survival. Also remember to take advantage of your AE's, group mobs together and Ion Pulse/Sticky Grenade.

The Trooper story isn't really a story, nothing is happening in it. You go from one objective to another, very straight forward, nothing in between. It gets old, fast. There are so many good concepts they could have explored in the story but chose not to. If you like a story that can be summarized in 3 sentences, Trooper is for you. Otherwise, stick with the BH.

Jedi Knight>>>>>>>>>>>>Trooper>Smuggler>>>>>>>>>>>>>Jedi Consular That seems to be the general consensus among the people I talk to in game and in real life. Jedi Knight has the best story by far because a lot of the major events of the game are directly tied to it. There is a lot of stuff going on and it's pretty fulfilling. Trooper is my main and the one I have the most experience with. I don't understand how anyone can like it. The plot is told to you within the first 5 minutes of every planet. Here are the objectives. Do the objectives. End. There isn't anything in between. No plot twists or interesting things that happen. Again, I don't understand how anyone can like it but whatever. Lot's of setup but no payoff. I constantly talk to my peers about it, throwing them story ideas and stuff. One day I want to make an outline in the forums of how I would do the Trooper story to see what everyone thinks. It's almost unanimous though that Chapter 3 sucks. Smuggler is one I don't hear much about. It seems to have great dialogue but the main complain I hear about it is that it's not really your story, it's Risha's. I don't know if that's true or not but that's what I hear. A lot of mixed reviews for it but it's generally praised for it's good dialogue between characters. Plot, not so much. Personally, I had a lot of problems staying awake during sections of the JC story. I got through half of Chapter 2 and couldn't take it anymore. I've found a lot of people who say the same thing. The redeeming factor seems to be an epic Chapter 3 which I have not played.

The reason why an Imperial Trooper doesn't work is because they are the punching bags of the Empire. There is no rank advancement, you're canon fodder and the bottom of the barrel. Nothing you do as a Imperial Trooper can directly connect to the major ongoing plot or TOR.

Why would you make an already horrid UI even worse? Change it back.

Because it doesn't make any sense. Gunslingers are going to all of a sudden drop 75% of their abilities to reroll into another AC, for what? They are 2 completely different classes, would you advocate a Mage dropping all of his abilities to reroll into a Rogue in WoW? Of course you wouldn't, it's dumb. And I don't necessarily blame you for thinking it's just semantics, I blame Bioware. They should have just called each of them what they were, STORIES AND PROFESSIONS. Smuggler is your STORY, Gunslinger is your PROFESSION. It should have been like that at lvl 1, not lvl 10.

I don't even know why this is a debate. Here is the solution. CHARACTER CREATION Pick your Faction- Republic-------------Empire Pick your STORY Trooper Smuggler Jedi Knight Jedi Consular Pick your CLASS Vanguard-----------Commando That's it. The end. If we did that then this stupid topic and thread would go away for all of eternity. Get rid of this crappy Advanced Class system and lets start calling these things what they really are. STORIES and PROFESSIONS.

I don't remember either. I think it's because we both rolled fem troopers. I didn't get any interesting dialogue options with her but like you the dude on Nar Shadaa kept hitting on me lol.

I'm not going to put up a fancy chart but the way I think about my abilities are two in one. You know how in FPS's you have a weapon with a main function then an alt function? That's how I think about my abilities. Maybe you will understand when I list my binds 2 Center Bars- Mainly used to track cooldowns, I have it set up Guild Wars 2 style (first half of bar combat, other half utilities). All CC/Interrupts/Secondary Crap is on the bottom bar --------------------------------- My Character Portrait--------------Enemy Portrait Slots 1-6 Action Abilities----------Slots 7-12 Utilities (Gap Closer) Q- Storm (Alt)- Harpoon (Single Target Melee) 2- Stockstrike (Alt)- Riot Strike (Interrupt) (Grenades) 3- Sticky Grenade (Alt) Cryo Grenade (CC) (Conditional Abilities) 4- High Impact Bolt (Alt) Blitz (Melee Version, useless...) <Mapped on Naga> (Melee Range) 0- Energy Blast (Alt) Smoke Grenade (Melee Evasion) (Melee Multi Target) -- Pulse Cannon (Alt) Neural Surge (CC) Slot 7-12 Utilities 7- Purposely left blank, when my eyes look at the bar I automatically know utilities follow R- Mortar Fire (easy for me to spot, middle of the bar with a empty slot above it) (Threat Modifiers) E- Neural Jolt (Alt) Guard (Threat Mod+Self Buff) Shift E- Sonic Round Shift +- Tech Override (Resource Altering Abilities) +- Recharge Cells (Alt)- Reserve Powercell (Oh $h*1! Abilities) MB5- Reactive Shield (Alt) Tenacity (Oh $h*1! Heals) MB4- Potion (Alt) Adrenaline Rush Left Bar- Combat Abilities that don't have cooldowns (Continued from Melee Range Series) Shift 0- Ion Pulse (Continued from Multi Target Series) Shift --Explosive Surge 9- Explosive Round (Single Target Ranged) 1- Hammer Shot (Alt) Full Auto- The only cooldown ability, I rarely use it but it's easy to spot on the bar) Right Bar-- Out of Combat junk with the exception of No Retreat at the very bottom Organized, simple, easy to follow.

Sounds like a personal problem, I love my Vanguard. Pick a Gunslinger if you want to be ranged dps with a blaster.

Opinions on this topic are so widely varied it's ridiculous. Maybe there is no clear cut answer.