Powertech leveling

[Alexminzatu]

I have leveled some characters to level 50 and every time i did it the same.I ignored heroics, flashpoints and warzones and just focused on story and side mission. Recently i started a Bounty Hunter, i went powertech , and heard about a new way of leveling. A friend told me to go Shield Tech and only do heroics and flashpoints along with the story missions, he told me its a very fast leveling technique. My record time of leveling to 50 is 3 days and 8 hours played time.I am on a very high population server, The Red Eclipse and i have the moneys and legacy level to buy the flashpoint bonus experience perks. So do you guys think if i try my friends technique i will be able to level faster than that?

[gabigool]

This is exactly what I did on my PT. I would do my story quests when I was about 2 levels over so they wouldn't take too long.

 

I did it less to level quickly (It's NOT quicker) and more to just not have to go through the grind of all the mission on the same damn planets again. I can say with certainty that it was seeing the guy in DK for the Revanite questline and thinking "no f-ing way I'm doing that junk again" and popped a BT queue and just kept at it.

 

The first non-story quest I did was Belsavis because around that time I had CCWG which seemed to be a slower queue than anything up until that. Besides, Belsavis is cool (and you need to farm the cubes anyway for your relic). I play almost always in prime-time (8pm-1am est) and can count the times I had more than a 2-3 min queue on one hand before CCWG.

 

The upside - there are a few people you'll bump into along the way that seem to do the same thing. Probably 8-10 people that I grouped with 20+ times along the way. These people are by nature generally pretty pro and pretty cool. FP banter is always pretty cool.

 

Also, gearing is simple: it doesn't matter that your tank gear kills **** too slow, you don't have to kill much of anything. Greeded greens are fine for mako and the one fight in the story arc that is actually remotely difficult (2-3 before the end) I just pulled out Skadge (whose gear I never touched) and was fine. I also got enough greeded Cunning orange gear to keep Mako better than fine most ofthe time.

 

The downside - it is definitely slower to level to do nothing but FPs. Each time a new FP is unlocked the XP is awesome for a level or two, but it slows down fast. By the time you need one more level to unlock the next FP it's maddeningly little xp. IMO the smart thing to do would be to do nothing but FPS when they first unlock then blast through both story arc, main planet questline and planet heroics until the next FP unlocks.

 

But, if you're not trying to set a speed record then just deal with the slowdown every couple levels. To me, it was way more tolerable than running around in, say tatooine.

 

Tank gear is pretty rough to come by until around Taris or so. Crank out the comms like mad and just buy a bunch of the Powertech (TT-whatever) Legs and rip the mods out to fill up your main pieces. Use the AH for Ear/Implants. Buy killer purple ones and they'll last a LOT of levels. I had level 41 purple implants I didn't replace until 50.

 

All of the FP's are stupid easy if you are starting them with excellent gear from the last bunch. I relied much less on FP loot drops and much more on using the coms to buy the single tank piece of gear and ripping out mods. The first remotely difficult thing is the early trash in Red Reaper.

 

Id say give it a go, was the most enjoyable leveling experience I've had in this game and if queue times were as short for DPS I'd do it on every char from now on.

[Larry_Dallas]

I have leveled some characters to level 50 and every time i did it the same.I ignored heroics, flashpoints and warzones and just focused on story and side mission. Recently i started a Bounty Hunter, i went powertech , and heard about a new way of leveling. A friend told me to go Shield Tech and only do heroics and flashpoints along with the story missions, he told me its a very fast leveling technique. My record time of leveling to 50 is 3 days and 8 hours played time.I am on a very high population server, The Red Eclipse and i have the moneys and legacy level to buy the flashpoint bonus experience perks. So do you guys think if i try my friends technique i will be able to level faster than that?

 

I don't know about 3 days and 8 hour play time, but I've got a Vanguard tank with which the only thing I do is class missions, the PVP daily, a group finder random FP (which checks the box on one of the two fleet FP daily I'm eligible for) and a group finder for the other fleet FP daily I'm eligible for. Gain about 2 levels every day in about an hour and a half of play time this way (at 28 now, so it's possible this'll slow down, though I seem to recall my op healer leveling at almost the same rate this way when I tried this in his mid 40s).

Edited August 12, 2012 by Larry_Dallas

[Larry_Dallas]

The upside - there are a few people you'll bump into along the way that seem to do the same thing. Probably 8-10 people that I grouped with 20+ times along the way. These people are by nature generally pretty pro and pretty cool. FP banter is always pretty cool.

 

I've pretty much seen the same. 8 or 10 people who keep showing up in the FP q at around the same time I do, at the same level I do, and more often than not, the warzone afterward. And yeah, they tend to be rock solid in their roles and complete bros. These FP finders are almost like guild runs after a while.