Things Veteran Players Wish Newbs Knew

[JattaGin]

Quite a good guide, I give you that. However, in my native language we have the saying "the tone makes the music". And your tone is quite unfriendly, if not even hostile. Why don't you re-write this as a positive, helpful guide instead of a rant (which it basically is)? Especially your info about threat control could be super helpful for many players, not only "noobs". Even I learned something new (how I can better support my tank with his aggro).

[thebvp]

Missile Blast is useful for kiting when you need a quick burst of upfront damage to keep aggro and have to swivel your camera quickly. Yes, it is limited but it does have its... uses, or, uh... use.

[Dras_Keto]

Very good read, but I've got a couple additions. For threat, at "melee range", which in this case I think is something weird like 4m from the center of the boss (not the same as your range meter) you will take aggro off of the current player when you reach 110% of their threat. This means that melee players, if they're within this range are able to take threat easier than ranged players. Ranged players take aggro once they reach 130% threat of whoever has aggro. Taunting just places the tank at whatever percentage would get them aggro. If they're standing inside of "melee" range then their taunts give them 110% threat, or if they're outside of that they'll get 130% threat.

 

According to this thread Sentinel/Marauder aggro drop works as long as they've taken damage by that boss. They don't currently need threat in order for it to work.

 

And finally, inquisitors need to learn that overload is not to be used for its damage. It's awful and nine times out of ten it does more harm than good. Just stop using it.

 

The inquisitor thing, yes. They are worse than boomkins. The Marauder thing makes a bit more sense, although, if you dont camo while the boss is targeting you, thats still kind of bad.

 

As far as the aggro goes, like I said earlier, Ive heard it before its just never seemed to work that way. I dont know if thats just an artifact of how quickly the positioning on the table is changing at the beginning of a fight (which is basically the only time you have to worry about people taking aggro) before it settles down or what.

 

In any case, cant change it now, have to go make pizza dough.

[mikebevo]

It had more to do with how bad this guy was, but I once went so far as to take the barrel out of my gun on my pt to prove why I needed the guard more than the healer did.

 

Then he put it back on them at the end boss.

I would have never thought possible, but recently I have pulled a total of three times on boss fights (non-mechanic) on healers in GF HM55 FPs. Twice on a 180 geared sage and once on my 180/186 geared sawbones. Something I never would have thought possible. On my sawbones I just disappeared and slacked off on the dps and started using aggro dump when I did hit a good burn after the first time. The group my sage in was so bad I couldn't slack off on dps or we would have been there all day, so I did whisper tank for guard. Not for my healing, but for my dps. However, both those groups were the exception, 99.9999% of the time I would agree healer does not need the guard and should never pull for dps.

[DomiSotto]

It isa very helpful post, but as a newb on the info-gathering run one thing I noticed is that If you look in the PvP forum, the first thing you see is 2 stickied posts. One of which explains in a friendly manner how to start a new character in the PvP, and take him/her from level 10 to level 55, and the second – how to start a L55 character new to PvP on PvP.

 

When I go to the Flashpoints, Operations and Heroics Forum, there is no post that explains anything at all. Off top of my head the following would be useful and I had to look for it and ask and stuff (and some of it I am still fuzzy about):

 

1. Explanation of each of the Group Style Activities: Raid, Ops, Heroic, Flashpoint.

2. Abbreviations for all the names of the Ops, Flashpoints etc

3. Explanation of Modes, and which ones are available through the GF and on which level of character.

4. Expectations of a Player Skill: keybinding, stance, AC, skill tree, etc. Maybe add a few demo Videos of a good group acting together against a boss so people have a benchmark to judge their own performance

5. General ‘do’ and ‘don’t’. Don’t stay in the circles, don’t pull before the tank, peel off the healer…

6. Gearing requirements and handling your gear through the levelling and in the End Game, particularly the tricky points like keeping your comms close to 100 on approaching L50 to get Makeb mods;

7. End Game Demystification with highlighting the milestones in the game when you should be doing each piece of Group Content for the first time… so, you, like, don’t miss the bolstered stuff and don't hang on Corellia till you are L55.... AGAIN.

[Pscyon]

It's not related to the 12x fast leveling you're on about, but the question "What is the best class?" you'll see on Korriban/fleet/Dromund Kaas is always painful to read.

Powertechs ... ARE NOT RANGED CLASSES.

I wish I had known that from the start. I really liked my powertech and I'm not a fan of dual wielding so I tried very hard to play it rangedish. I managed to do okay, even -decent- damage, but it just wasn't fun to play and I didn't feel very good either. (Before any elitist min-maxing jerks starts on a rant let me point out I only ever played it solo or with very good friends so I wasn't "dragging anyone down").

 

Having restarted as Mercenary a few months back I now have all the ranged pew pew I want and the character is mostly back to the point my Powertech was... just a cartel speeder and title missing. Better class descriptions could probably have prevented ever having to restart the character in the first place though.

[Derzelaz]

Good idea for a thread, but not every point you made was accurate or correct. Some of your points really gave the impression of "if you don't play like me, you're wrong".

But as a general, very good thread.

[Jadescythe]

99% of threat problems can be solved by waiting 2 seconds for the tank to build aggro. This isn't a NiM operation. Your stacks don't matter, your parses don't matter. If you don't know your tank, let them setup for a second or two and then get started.

[mikebevo]

99% of threat problems can be solved by waiting 2 seconds for the tank to build aggro. This isn't a NiM operation. Your stacks don't matter, your parses don't matter. If you don't know your tank, let them setup for a second or two and then get started.

Parse always matter.

 

 

Joking

 

[Sirce]

One of the biggest but minor issue that most people don't know regarding aggro management. When you start the fight, the first damage on the target provides a bonus threat modifier. So when the tank starts the fight with his first attack, he get a small bonus to threat.

 

This is why, when Sentinels/Marauders toss their dual lightsaber toss on first strike, mobs often stick on them unless the tank uses AoE taunt. This is a large pet peeve of mine, especially against this DPS class. While Orbital Strike is similar but has a delay effect that tanks can get the bonus before Agent/Smugglers do.

 

TL;DR; DPS should not start the fight, Tanks should.

[Heezdedjim]

Having restarted as Mercenary a few months back I now have all the ranged pew pew I want and the character is mostly back to the point my Powertech was... just a cartel speeder and title missing. Better class descriptions could probably have prevented ever having to restart the character in the first place though.

It doesn't help that they sold the PT/VG as "ranged tanks" back in the day. That (utterly false) impression has stuck to this day. And to be fair to those who persist in wanting to play them as ranged classes; from the VG side anyway it is pretty stupid that you're all decked out in fancy armor with a big *** cool looking blaster rifle, and your single highest damaging attack is smacking the enemy in the face with the butt end of the thing. The PT is little better, with his signature move being to holster those fancy dual pistols and basically sucker punch the mob with a little boost from the rocket boots.

 

You also can hardly blame those Consulars and Inquisitors who wonder why the hell they're running around as a ranged class with a melee weapon. And to add insult to injury, their main stat doesn't even buff the trivial damage of their "default" attack.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Heezdedjim

[CommanderKeeva]

Arenas

 

Basically, Dont suck.

 

Oh, and if you dont have at least a full set of the basic WZ commendation PVP gear. STAY OUT.

 

All good advice, save for this. You can't actually choose to stay out of an Arena while queuing for non-ranked because all Arena types are in the regular warzone rotation. The only way to stay out of an Arena while you don't have a full set of PvP gear is to leave it immedietaly after joining, which is generally a worse idea than staying inside, gritting your teeth and giving the match your best shot.

[tmblake]

Good idea for a thread, but not every point you made was accurate or correct. Some of your points really gave the impression of "if you don't play like me, you're wrong".

But as a general, very good thread.

 

Yeah, the tone of the article was very....abbrasive? But the points were all very good, if not all correct like you said. It is still a good place to start for new players though! If only it was phrased in a friendlier way.

[Projawa]

Quite a good guide, I give you that. However, in my native language we have the saying "the tone makes the music". And your tone is quite unfriendly, if not even hostile. Why don't you re-write this as a positive, helpful guide instead of a rant (which it basically is)? Especially your info about threat control could be super helpful for many players, not only "noobs". Even I learned something new (how I can better support my tank with his aggro).

 

Agreed. This is a good guide but the tone comes across more like a frustrated rant. It wouldn't hurt to tone it down a bit.

[MillionsKNives]

One of the biggest but minor issue that most people don't know regarding aggro management. When you start the fight, the first damage on the target provides a bonus threat modifier. So when the tank starts the fight with his first attack, he get a small bonus to threat.

 

This is why, when Sentinels/Marauders toss their dual lightsaber toss on first strike, mobs often stick on them unless the tank uses AoE taunt. This is a large pet peeve of mine, especially against this DPS class. While Orbital Strike is similar but has a delay effect that tanks can get the bonus before Agent/Smugglers do.

 

TL;DR; DPS should not start the fight, Tanks should.

 

I've not heard of this. Are you sure that what you're seeing isn't that the tanks must not only beat the DPS's threat but that they must beat it by 130%? I do know though that whoever starts the fight gets all the initial aggro.

[DomiSotto]

All good advice, save for this. You can't actually choose to stay out of an Arena while queuing for non-ranked because all Arena types are in the regular warzone rotation. The only way to stay out of an Arena while you don't have a full set of PvP gear is to leave it immedietaly after joining, which is generally a worse idea than staying inside, gritting your teeth and giving the match your best shot.

 

The whole Arena needs some sort of a huge discussion in its own right. I think the opposite is actually true: never stay out of the Arenas. The come up relatively rarely in the rotation and they are different from the objective based play. Seeing how people love to deathmatch in the 8x8s, one would think people would love arenas and would shine. But here it is, a deathmatch, and well, it's suddenly confusing, despite the super-simple concept and folks drop out at an alarming rate. I would certainly love to see a good guide to the Arenas, starting with maps, pointers to LoS breaking and position taking, kill order ruminations....

 

Based on one unfortunate experience i am intensely curious what would happen if both teams take a defensible position and do not attack?

Edited October 21, 2014 by DomiSotto

[thebvp]

Based on one unfortunate experience i am intensely curious what would happen if both teams take a defensible position and do not attack?

 

Time runs out and then the room slowly fills with deadly gas that kills anyone it comes into contact with.

[Deewe]

Healers

 

Cleanse the Mining Laser debuff in Hammer. Im serious. Actually, understand that you can cleanse period. There are a lot of "healers" out there that dont seem to understand this

Biggest cluprit here is the damn UI.

 

Good start anyway.

It isa very helpful post, but as a newb on the info-gathering run one thing I noticed is that If you look in the PvP forum, the first thing you see is 2 stickied posts. One of which explains in a friendly manner how to start a new character in the PvP, and take him/her from level 10 to level 55, and the second – how to start a L55 character new to PvP on PvP.

 

When I go to the Flashpoints, Operations and Heroics Forum, there is no post that explains anything at all. Off top of my head the following would be useful and I had to look for it and ask and stuff (and some of it I am still fuzzy about):

 

1. Explanation of each of the Group Style Activities: Raid, Ops, Heroic, Flashpoint.

2. Abbreviations for all the names of the Ops, Flashpoints etc

3. Explanation of Modes, and which ones are available through the GF and on which level of character.

4. Expectations of a Player Skill: keybinding, stance, AC, skill tree, etc. Maybe add a few demo Videos of a good group acting together against a boss so people have a benchmark to judge their own performance

5. General ‘do’ and ‘don’t’. Don’t stay in the circles, don’t pull before the tank, peel off the healer…

6. Gearing requirements and handling your gear through the levelling and in the End Game, particularly the tricky points like keeping your comms close to 100 on approaching L50 to get Makeb mods;

7. End Game Demystification with highlighting the milestones in the game when you should be doing each piece of Group Content for the first time… so, you, like, don’t miss the bolstered stuff and don't hang on Corellia till you are L55.... AGAIN.

Now THAT's would be a winner thread.

[Urantia]

Nice rage post OP.

[Malorey]

As a newb this is really helpful info. I'm a sub but haven't bought the exp. yet because I want to learn my class and the game and earn credits and I'm totally addicted to gathering everything I come across, so I don't want to miss out!

 

p.s. You might want to add something I did as a newb....I 'needed' on gear that wasn't for my class even though the stats were better than what I was wearing....sorry about that to the person I did it to...twice!

Edited October 21, 2014 by Malorey
added info

[Dras_Keto]

The Arena thing is just an oversight on my part. When I say that, Im thinking ranked. Thus the "have a full set of pvp gear" part. In hindsight, that seems like it should have been obvious... but, maybe not. Ive got a theory.

 

As far as calling this a 'rage post,' Id say youre overreacting. I think its more likely the way I write makes you uncomfortable because I dont sugarcoat anything. Ever. If something is incredibly stupid, Ill say so, even if thats not perceived as nice or diplomatic.

[-Sullster-]

There are some really good points there, now if only the people that this would apply to actually read the forums

 

The communication part in pvp really gets me, I'm a very below average PVP player but I call incomings and am often successful at capping nodes if i get another stealther with me.

 

The bit I liked about your communication thing is saying "2 inc West" My pet gripe is people calling LEFT or RIGHT. They need to understand that left and right are all about perspective and the West and East are fixed locations. Yet I still get players claiming that people don't know there left from there right and we are baddies.

 

I remember I spent a whole Voidstar dropping off the wrong way at respawn because the "Leader" was facing the spawn point and calling his/her left or right which was the opposite of mine, As many times as I try to point this out I got abuse and was called a noob. I still post East/West myself (and even as turrets are labelled east/west, Novare comes to mind.) but no longer try to suggest corrections for the fear of the Vitriol I will suffer.

Edited October 21, 2014 by -Sullster-

[Reno_Tarshil]

That Body type 3 Males will make you look dumb.

[Dras_Keto]

The bit I liked about your communication thing is saying "2 inc West" My pet gripe is people calling LEFT or RIGHT. They need to understand that left and right are all about perspective and the West and East are fixed locations. Yet I still get players claiming that people don't know there left from there right and we are baddies.

 

OMG. This.

 

That Body type 3 Males will make you look dumb.

 

What are you trying to say? That tall muscular men cant be intelligent?

Edited October 21, 2014 by Dras_Keto

[-Sullster-]

OMG. This.

 

Feel free to add that point in your original post haha.