Playing solo

[Cryshal]

Is it possible after about level 45? The game has stopped being fun for me, the quests too hard. I'm a casual player and returned to the game after a few years. I've worked hard at getting good gear for me and my companion. I can't afford to outfit more than one companion.

 

I know most probably have figured out what works best. I've tried stealth (that worked fine most of my levels) and now healer, to see if I could keep myself healed long enough to survive. I've played different classes and disciplines, Mercenary, Smuggler, Commando, Gunslinger, etc. and etc.

[Shaithiss]

It's possible, though a bit more difficult if you refuse to do anything outside of quests (like flashpoints and warzones). I might recommend making sure you caught all the bonus series for the various planets that came before whichever point you are stuck at, just to try and get a level above what you are currently working with. Might help you with the difficulty problems plus the extra commendations would go a ways towards upgraded gear if your not already at your max.

[FerkWork]

Is it possible after about level 45? The game has stopped being fun for me, the quests too hard. I'm a casual player and returned to the game after a few years. I've worked hard at getting good gear for me and my companion. I can't afford to outfit more than one companion.

 

I know most probably have figured out what works best. I've tried stealth (that worked fine most of my levels) and now healer, to see if I could keep myself healed long enough to survive. I've played different classes and disciplines, Mercenary, Smuggler, Commando, Gunslinger, etc. and etc.

 

Are you doing just the Questline? Cause if you keep your gear current and use liberal use of interrupts you should be dandy. Now soloing FPs at that level might be a challenge or Heroics.

[trancejeremy]

Yeah, the game kind of gets to be a slog in the 40s.

 

I probably wouldn't have ever bothered to finish it if not for Treek, and then when Makeb came out, there were purple level 50 mods that really helped.

 

Unfortunately they are gone now, but if you go to Makeb when you are 47 you can use the GSI thing there will pretty much makes you 4x stronger and do the story quests there until you are level 53 and can get that gear which will let you finish Chapter 3 in relative ease.

Edited July 30, 2015 by trancejeremy

[DarthVengeant]

I solo all the way to 60.

 

When you finish you class story (I am usually about lvl 52-53 then) you can do the Ilum story by yourself (which is now forced on you annoyingly) until it gives you the Flashpoint to do. Then you can then abandon it and get rid of it.

 

Then start doing the Prelude to Revan story from you ship. That is 4 flashpoints solo mode and a few levels of XP. After, that do the Revan story on Rishi and Yavin, which is all soloable as well. You should hit 60 on Yavin.

 

To the people who say it is difficult to solo to 60, you are doing it wrong. It is a piece of cake. Remember to use XP boots stim and buy a few levels of the Character perk for Class and Area Discovery XP gain. I usually buy up to lvl 3.

Edited July 30, 2015 by DarthVengeant

[Upirlikhyi]

I solo'd both my 60s. A sin and mara just had to find right comp to use and it was pretty easy. I went for more dps instead of healer to kill things faster

[Asheris]

If you don't want to do any group content you need to do all quests you can find, bonus series included or the level of mobs will finally be too much for you.

 

Also, as someone pointed out, your choice of companion is important. If you are a dps class you might want to run around with your healer (tank if you are one of those squishy willpower/marauder/sentinel ones ). If you level with a tank/healer choose a dps (preferably melee, they do a bit more damage in the "bleeding" stance).

 

If you have means to get Treek by all means do so - she tanks and heals so it makes her a perfect leveling companion (makes my ears bleed though).

[Jeweledleah]

If you don't want to do any group content you need to do all quests you can find, bonus series included or the level of mobs will finally be too much for you.

 

 

that is actualy completely unnecessary. OP is a subscriber, or they wouldn't be able to post here. which means they have 12x story xp. even without guild bonus, just using xp boosts provided by finishing each story planet - you end up being pretty ahead of the curve.

 

what IS important is to get moddable gear. with appearance tab - doesn't even matter what it looks like, anything will do as long as you can put mods into it. not sure if they fixed planetary mod sellers yet, but just in case - go to fleet and upgrade there. there are mods upgradable every 4 levels, which to be honest, I found unnecessary so far, even on legacy with no unlocks and no presence bonuses (I upgrade every 8 levels), we'll see how I feel in 10 levels (she's lvl 33 right now). lvl 17, 21,25,29, etc they are on outer ring of supply section. since class quests reward 12 commendations (make sure you pick them as a reward and NOT gear) by the time you are done with a planet, you should have just enough to upgrade yourself AND companion of choice. the one thing that will be difficult to get is implants/earpieces. if you can craft them? awesome. otherwise, they are pretty scarce :/

 

P.S. I do have Treek, but I umm... completely forgot I had her until alderaan. around mid 40ties, all classes should have their healing companions though. (I think inquisitor is the latest with Talos Drelik on Hoth

Edited July 30, 2015 by Jeweledleah

[zechio]

You should probably provide more details, like your exact advanced class, your stats, companion, companions stats, and roughly how you play.

 

The reason I say this, is you must be doing something very wrong. When leveling a new character, I usually get 10-20 levels behind in my gear, using a sub-optimal companion ( HK-51 on everyone ) and still find the content down right easy.

 

Make sure you are using the right stat gear. Another thread in here had a depressing amount of people that just assumed they automatically knew what stats they wanted, and got it very wrong.

 

Inquisitor/Consular use Willpower

Warrior/Knight use Strength

Bounty Hunter/Trooper use Aim

Agent/Smuggler use Cunning

 

No ifs ands or buts. You don't mix the primary stats or anything. For secondary/tertiary, just worry about power leveling up. This isn't optimal, and is pretty wrong for 60, but you'll change gear often enough leveling that you don't need to worry about it at any more than "just go power." if you are soloing.

 

You should be taking basic comms any time the choice is offered. It only takes 50 to upgrade your entire set of mod gear. ( You don't need to worry about ears, implants or relics. The ones you get will be overkill when stacked with the above mods. ) Another 50 comms to upgrade your favorite companion will turn you into a wrecking machine, and you can do this every planet or 2 if you really want.

 

You can just ignore and sell all of the gear you get until ziost at level 60. Just use the basic comm gear. ( Obvious exception for the ears, implants and relics as mentioned. )

 

Every now and then you might run into a rougher fight in a class quest. During these, don't forget about things like mezzes, stuns, knockbacks, interrupts, defensive cooldowns, offensive cooldowns, the works.

 

Also, consider taking Biochem. You can easily get reusable medpacks, stims and adrenals. These can help out a ton. Biochem is still easily the best crafting skill if you aren't simply interested in selling to make money.

[rocsharr]

My smuggler solo'd most of her career, as well as my trooper whom solo'd. Smuggler used Treek after a bit if not Risha. Trooper stuck with Forex all the way. My Sentinel grouped with a friend from level 1 to 56th level currently.

 

I have a sith inquisitor that leveled with 2 60s running with her from pretty much 1 to 54th. My Sith warrior is right now 17th and above planet level already without barely doing much bonus missions and capable of gearing Vette as well.

 

Its possible to solo or group or what have you and make it all the way to 60th without much effort.

 

Those that hit close to 55 was rested in cantina's whenever not online with them as well as saved all xp boosters till reached 55 in first place. Dont need it if sub'd honestly. About 50 commendations per character to be geared at level they are, roughly. Its what I figured the cost was to those I do. Generally it can be wise to mod up say at 41, then wait till 49 to mod up again. Then skip 53rd and mod at 55, or just do the Shadows or Revan and gain the 168 gear as base start free from it. Ilum or Makeb would help either way and still get x12 comm's from both planets, my smuggler did get x12 comms at 60th when went back to hit Makeb cause skipped over it. Again, that is if your a sub.

[SteveTheCynic]

Another voice for (mostly) solo play. I played my commando on mostly preferred status from level 1 to level 50-something, almost always solo (except for heroics, a couple of the bounty contract targets, and one spoilerific class story boss on Voss where I lacked the patience to go away for a few levels to gain power).

 

For almost the whole of Voss I was below the recommended quest level by one or two levels.

 

And along the way I did enough bounty contracts to get myself two full sets of the tracker gear (one for me, one for Elara), and earned enough credits to buy Black/Deep Red dye modules for the chests, with the Unify Colours unlock. That combination looks just awesome.

 

So, OP, you're doing something wrong.

[Kulyok]

I've levelled about twenty alts, and 40-s are still hard, if you are not overlevelled. Voss, Belsavis - yeah.

 

That's what I do:

 

- always take a healing companion. Guss Tuno for Smuggler, Mako for the Bounty Hunter, and so on. If you got Treek, get her in the healing stance.

- you must be one or two levels above the mobs. If you are not, do more planetary quests(but with 12xp that shouldn't be an issue) and bonus series. For example, after Chapter 2 you can do bonus series on Alderaan.

- Get moddable(orange) equipment for you and your companion, and fill it with blue mods from the Fleet, Supplies section. Get mods with power, get enhancements with accuracy for yourself, and level as DPS(not heal/tank, that's much slower).

 

Get power mods for your companion. Good armorings, hilts, barrels, etc. Change those as often as you can - you must be swimming in commendations by now.

 

That's pretty much it, And one more thing - kill more stuff. If you see a mob with gold star - kill the bastard. You've got rested XP, which means double XP for every mob you kill.

[PavSalco]

1. Use interrupt on mobs' casting or channelled abilities that harm you a lot (the most dangerous ones are Terminate, Death Mark and Sweeping Slashes if I remember the names correctly).

2. Use a healer companion if you are a dps/tank.

3. Remember to start your fights from attacking the weakiest mobs. The fewer mobs hit you, the better. Leave Strong and Elites as the last.

4. Remember about Heroic Moment when the fight gets nasty.

[Zharik]

1. Use interrupt on mobs' casting or channelled abilities that harm you a lot (the most dangerous ones are Terminate, Death Mark and Sweeping Slashes if I remember the names correctly).

2. Use a healer companion if you are a dps/tank.

3. Remember to start your fights from attacking the weakiest mobs. The fewer mobs hit you, the better. Leave Strong and Elites as the last.

4. Remember about Heroic Moment when the fight gets nasty.

 

1, 2 and 4 are spot on.

 

I would disagree with your #3. Strongs hit *way* harder than the others. Elites are a little ways behind but also have a lot more health. Start with the strongs and use AOE as best you can, the weak ones die from AOE pretty quickly; once you are left with an elite, your healer comp should be able to keep up with it. Last thing is most classes have abilities that "pseudostun" as a side effect: Like plasma grenade, sticky grenade, mortar volley (examples for a commando). When they are not hitting you and you are doing damage via these abilities, then you are winning.

 

I would add a 5. CC the elite or other highest health target if possible.

 

And a 6. Turn off your healer companion's "7-second stun ability". It is usually the 9th ability on the list and it makes them stop healing for 7 seconds... usually during the worst 7 too.

[Upirlikhyi]

I guess I am just way outside the box since I have never used a healing companion as I leveled. I have always gone with another dps class to just kill things as fast as I could. Kept the comp geared as best I could and just killed as quick as I could...I think I take way less damage that way but I know its not for everyone

[RobNightfall]

1. Use interrupt on mobs' casting or channelled abilities that harm you a lot (the most dangerous ones are Terminate, Death Mark and Sweeping Slashes if I remember the names correctly).

2. Use a healer companion if you are a dps/tank.

3. Remember to start your fights from attacking the weakiest mobs. The fewer mobs hit you, the better. Leave Strong and Elites as the last.

4. Remember about Heroic Moment when the fight gets nasty.

 

This plus the earlier comment about using orange/modifiable gear. Experiment with your companions a bit in case the healer isn't your best option, but most people find the healer to be ideal.

[Bobs_YourUncle]

Is it possible after about level 45? The game has stopped being fun for me, the quests too hard. I'm a casual player and returned to the game after a few years. I've worked hard at getting good gear for me and my companion. I can't afford to outfit more than one companion.

 

I know most probably have figured out what works best. I've tried stealth (that worked fine most of my levels) and now healer, to see if I could keep myself healed long enough to survive. I've played different classes and disciplines, Mercenary, Smuggler, Commando, Gunslinger, etc. and etc.

 

Hey, Im also a fellow solo player and someone who when starting this game was totally new to this style of game. I went through many classes and learning curves before finally completing a class story as an Imperial Agent Healer. Hopefully some of the things that gave me trouble and the solutions I found will help. I apologize if this gets too basic for you.

 

To start, I would suggest a healer spec and use a tank companion is the easiest combination to play.

 

1. Proper gear. If you are playing a healer, by the time you reach level 45 or so you should be getting gear with some alacrity (makes casting and regeneration of resources faster) the rest can go to power then critical and surge as a last priority. Your tank companion needs to have a shield type offhand item, (just look for what has 20% shield chance) because there is a dps alternative item that can go there but not give any shield chance. The tank will need absorb, endurance, shield %, and lastly defense stats beyond their primary, be it strength, aim or whatever. If you are not gaining enough comms to fully equip both yourself (priority) and your companion (use moddable, orange, gear and swap out mods as you go), don't forget to check the GTN for cheap greens, preferably the slightly more expensive blue gear as filler. It will be enough.

 

2. Use your companion. Don't make the first attack on hard fights. Send your tank companion in first, let him get agro from the enemies before doing anything. There is an ability, I think the first one next to your companions picture, which will have them attack whatever enemy you have selected.

 

3. Use CC (Crowd Control). Need to take on a gold that has some silvers, or regular enemies with him? Don't forget you most likely have an ability that will stun a target for 60 seconds (but heal them all the time). Use that on the gold. You may want to turn your companions abilities that do damage to multiple targets at once off, and be careful not to do any damage to the CC'd enemy as well as it will break the stun. You also likely have some other abilities that will stun one or more enemies for a few seconds as you are fighting. Those are very useful.

 

4. Interrupt/disrupt. When you get to Alderaan (Rist snipers/marksmen I believe) or depending on class, as early as Tatooine, you will start running into silver (strong) enemies with some abilities that will knock you down and take half or more of your life. Later than that, maybe on Voss you will see Golds (Elites) with sniper/marksman like that. Pay attention to your enemies picture/health bar area and watch for the charge up of that ability. You will have a few seconds to use your interrupt ability, or any other ability that will disrupt the cast. For example, a knockback or stun skill will interrupt an ability too.

 

5. Defensive Abilities. I think all classes have a few abilities that will reduce or block or even return all damage done to you or your companion (if you cast it on him). Don't forget to use those, especially in critical moments when you or your companion are close to dieing.

 

6. Priority of killing. I know someone else said take out golds before silvers, but I don't think doing solo missions you ever run into a case where you will be fighting multiple silvers and golds at once. Best thing, imo, is take out weak, then strong, then elite. Silvers hit as hard if not harder than golds but they die much quicker.

 

I shaped most of this around using a Healer spec with tank companion but most is true for all combinations. With my healer imperial agent and tank companion most fights became as simple as me standing back and keeping my companion healed. I could even take down some of the gold/silver champion enemies on my own. Hope it helps.

[Asheris]

that is actualy completely unnecessary. OP is a subscriber, or they wouldn't be able to post here. which means they have 12x story xp. even without guild bonus, just using xp boosts provided by finishing each story planet - you end up being pretty ahead of the curve.

 

 

Sometimes I forget about this stupid rule of paying to post but you are correct of course, my bad - forget I said anything

[XiamaraSimi]

I have 20 characters, all of them are solo characters. As others have said, get all 3 ranks of exploration xp, and if your not getting 12xp, get all the ranks of class xp as well.

 

Although some people find them boring, when leveling while 12xp isnt available, the on rails space missions are a decent xp supplement as well.

 

You can usually pick up General 25% xp boosts off the gtn, and being in a guild can give you a xp boost as well.

[SteveTheCynic]

I've levelled about twenty alts, and 40-s are still hard, if you are not overlevelled. Voss, Belsavis - yeah.

I spent almost all of Voss underlevelled, and only one enemy gave me any real grief, the Sith boss in

 

the class mission where you finally find the ZR bomb doodad that was lost at the very beginning of the story

. A couple of level 55 guildies (this was before 3.0 raised the level cap to 60) came over and handed him his tush for me.

 

The other point that nobody has mentioned, because it never happens except at almost any part of any map on any planet(1), is to be careful of aggroing too many foes, and therefore to watch out for groups that lie on the patrol path of wandering silvers / golds.

 

And do take the time to regenerate energy / force / ammo / hit points, or let BH heat dissipate, so that you start every fight at full whack. And don't forget, if you play trooper (or is it just commando?) that there's a sort of half-power heroic moment that regenerates health rapidly if you are below about 35% health.

 

(1) "any" here is really a euphemism for "every", although there are places in other games where this problem is far, far worse, like the Jennur's Horde mission in Guild Wars 1.

[DirtyDiggler]

This game is about as easy as it gets use your comms you get from your story missions every 5 or so levels to gear out do this until your close to 50. Go to maleb which will bolster you get higher level, finish your story missions over level 50 then return complete makeb. Move on to oricon, Rishi, yavin, ect.... You should be able to do all the main content solo.

[Bobs_YourUncle]

Sometimes I forget about this stupid rule of paying to post but you are correct of course, my bad - forget I said anything

 

Well its true with one exception, you get access to post on the forums with the 7 day free sub.

[Jamtas]

So I"m making the assumption that this toon in the 40s is your highest leveled one.

 

With that in mind, I saw you mentioned leveling as a healer and stealthing through a lot of stuff. I made the same choice (I"ll now call it a mistake) leveling my scoundrel. Stealthing througha lot of stuff left me under leveled and my initial two toons I leveled as a tank and a healer. Since then, I've leveled 17 toons to 60 and all of them save the first two I level as DPS and then change their role end game to what I want.

 

So as others mentioned, I'd take a heal comp and go dps. If not using that method, then have your comp attack enemies first. Use your stealth and stun move to incapacitate the strongest member of a mob and then clean up the little guys first before moving on to the elite. Interrupts should be used on the heavy hitters an enemy tries on you. Uee heroic moment when needed, make sure taking proper gear/stats, buffs should alkways be on for your toon, and above all else don't stealth through things to the point where you are now levels under the enemies you are facing.

[Beltane]

I have around 20 characters in the 55-60 range and have leveled the majority of them solo. The difficulty should not ever increase in level if you are keeping your gear up to date.

 

You should have enough basic comms from leveling to kit out yourself and one companion. Get a full set of moddable gear for yourself + comp and update it every 5-10 levels or so (whatever you can afford with comms).

 

If you don't have enough comms for a full set for whatever reason, prioritize hilts/barrels and armorings.

 

You may need to buy health packs if you aren't using a healing companion, but it's definitely a player issue if you are struggling, and I don't mean that meanly. When I was new to this game I thought Voss was incredibly difficult until I got better at the game and realized things such as kill order, interrupts, companion choice, and gear mattered lol.

Edited July 30, 2015 by Beltane

[Eillack]

Game is easy to solo. I solo'd all non-ops / X flashpoints.

 

But with the new expansion, solo-mod flashpoints will be a normal feature.