Serenity or Telekinetics?

[FistsofCurie]

I'm currently playing my first main character in SWTOR, a Vigilance Guardian, and enjoying myself quite a bit. However, I'm looking into making an alt to play when I need a change of pace. Since I'm the type who will always play a jedi when given the option, that naturally led me to the Consular. I want to play another DPS, so Kinetic Combat and Seer are out. I tend to prefer simpler playstyles, and from what I've read, serenity is easier than infiltration (no mucking about with stealth, which you don't get when starting scripted encounters in story missions) and telekinetics is easier than Balance (blast enemies with the force until they die rather than worrying about managing DoTs efficiently.)

 

This leaves me deciding between a Serenity Shadow and a Telekinetics Sage, but I have concerns about both. For the Shadow, I'm worried the playstyle will be too similar to my current vigilance guardian (melee lightsaber dps), and therefore won't give me the change of pace I'm looking for. For the sage, I'm somewhat concerned about playing a squishy ranged dps in solo pve leveling, my preferred style of play. How good are the companions at keeping that type of character alive? Would I be better off setting them to tank to keep the enemies off me, or as a healer to keep me alive when I get swarmed?

 

Any input from anyone who's played these classes would be appreciated.

[LD_Little_Dragon]

You're looking at very different playstyles there. Stealth vs Non-stealth, dot vs burst, and melee vs ranged.

 

Stealth is good for skipping trash and sapping elites to make fights easier. If you go shadow then infiltration is much sturdier than serenity and is better at crowd control with the low slash cc and no dots/aoe to break saps. It's my preferred spec for solo'ing the harder endgame content.

 

As far as being squishy, that shouldn't be an issue on any class/spec while doing the basic storyline. Just pick the spec you like the playstyle of and roll with it. I suggest going with a dps comp and sending them to attack enemies first so they get all the initial aggro. If you have problems, then swtich the comp to heal spec but still send the comp in to attack first.