Master Datacron- Which Class to Boost?

[ADarklore]

I know there are those who would say boosting a character to max level and gaining all skills right away is 'bad for learning your class', however, I disagree.  Most of the guides you find are all 'Level 80' guides- there are no guides that say, "Use this rotation from level 1-30", then use this build rotation "from level 30-50", etc.  So IMO, it seems like it would be better to have all your skills available from the start, so that you can LEARN the rotations that you find online- before you hit max level.  I mean, some skills change into other skills, and I found it extremely confusing trying to read online builds and they always mentioned the final skill, not 'this skill becomes this other skill'.  I know there are some who might say, "Just have fun, leveling is easy, no need to worry about rotation until endgame, etc"... but IMO that makes more for a bad player than learning and practicing your final endgame rotation from level 1-80... that way once you reach endgame, you'd actually have your rotation down- or one would hope.  It's also nice not having to worry about XP gain and not having to do the 'bonus' parts of the quest- "kill 50 enemies" is so tedious when you just want to enjoy the stories. 

With all that said... my question is... many class builds depend on Tacticals to make the build actually worthwhile... but when you're not focusing on endgame content, I won't be gaining huge amounts of currency to buy the specific Tacticals until my character reaches endgame and starts running the high level content.  So this leaves me torn between boosting Assassin or Juggernaut.  Is Juggernaut's Vengeful Slam useful without the 'Cut to Pieces' tactical? 

I'm also considering boosting my Madness Inquisitor as well.   From what I've seen in guides, Vengeance Juggernaut is more reliant on their tactical than Hatred Assassin or Madness Sorcerer. 

Your thoughts?

[kgaydos]

I have played all class stories (solo) and just about all combat styles from level 1 to 80.  It wasn't until I started reading guides and watching videos of combat style play what some of the skills did.  If you start off with max level/gear, you will not use a lot of abilities since specific ones are overpowered at lower levels (looking at you Force Storm).

Still I forget to hit Mental Alacrity/force Potency on my Tele Sage, combat stealth etc om Sin/operative/smuggler since I really did not need it while leveling.

Never used Sage/Sorcerer Rescue or Warrior/Guardian Intervene and other abilities over all the combat styles

Now, I am thinking of using that Masters Datacron to gear a new character with 340 mods/Legendary Implants to transfer/establish my level 50 Legacy on a different server.   

[HypSpec]

On 9/3/2024 at 7:01 AM, ADarklore said:

Your thoughts?

You raise an interesting set of considerations here. Unless a player is brand new to the game, I do not think the story content is challenging enough to really deliver on significant class learnings whether leveling conventionally or boosting. I am not sure if there is clearly a class that is less reliant on their tactical and often more than the tactical are the legendary implants that really make classes go in end game. Realistically without those and a majority of the abilities in place, a player cannot really 'know' their class, and while the leveling journey to get there will provide some level of education, the end game version of each class/spec will work almost completely differently.

I would suggest if you are considering which alt to use a boost on, use it on the one you enjoy to play the most and embrace the end-game building, gearing, and playing content that pushes you.

[ADarklore]

Thanks for the replies.  As to what @kgaydos said... it isn't about what skills are 'needed' while leveling, it's about perfecting your rotation prior to reaching content that requires it.  IMO, trickle-feeding you skills doesn't really help a player become better at endgame, instead, it holds players back from being able to fully realize their class from the start.  Most MMOs do this, but most MMOs also give you all your skills within a few hours of leveling- because their 'end game' occurs much sooner.  Like with DCUO, you have to reach level 30 before you have all your skills- and that takes roughly five to six hours. ESO gives your all your skills by level 50, which you can grind out in just a few hours.  But with SWTOR, you have hours and hours and hours of quests that would be a LOT more fun if you had your best skills to use and could develop an actual 'rotation' early on and perfect it. 

I also get frustrated for the lack of 'leveling' guides.  For ESO, the content creators have leveling guides, best skills to use early on, leveling rotations, etc... but with SWTOR, all the content creators focus on ENDGAME rotations with no one offering leveling guidance.  It's like they all figure, "leveling is easy, don't worry about it" but then endgame players complain that new players don't know or understand their skills or have a good rotation.  How can we when there are no guides (I realize not everyone actively searches for help) that help new players understand their classes and what rotation would help them best transition from leveling to endgame. 

So back to the original topic, I have skipped a couple of my characters, and found that it is definitely worth having all your skills up-front because now I can actually get my skill bars setup and utilize an actual rotation- especially helpful for controller players who have more limited functionality. 

However, I have also found a very large downside that I never saw mentioned in regards to level skipping... the COST of everything!  You go from paying low level prices, to level 80 prices- where the expectation is that you have millions of credits to spend.  The cost of creating an outfit went from less than 1,000 credits to 100,000!  That's crazy.  Thankfully I'd played enough to have tried numerous alts, deleted, started new characters- that I have roughly 1.5M of credits on my account- but now any character I plan to level skip- I know to create all their outfits BEFORE level skipping. 

On the plus side, I no longer need to worry about XP on level skipped characters, nor worry about changing or upgrading my gear for a very long time.  I also don't need to worry about ever being under-leveled for any of the planets that I visit- which was starting to become a problem on one character because I just wanted to play the main story and not do side quests- and found that I went from being roughly three levels above planet, to being right at planet level, which made fighting enemies take a longer, which made everything start to become tedious.  I much prefer to be over-leveled and crush through enemies versus being under-leveled and spend so much time with fights dragging on and on.  I mean, I'm loving the stories, but having to spend so much time just getting from point A to point B because of having to fight through every mob is frustrating.  I realize stealth characters have it much easier, but I also like a bit of RP as well, and most of the time playing a sneaky character doesn't match the RP of the character.  So it's a 'pick your poison' kind of thing.   But with skipping to 80, I can have both an easier time AND play with the class that I enjoy and fits the RP for the character.  Just, have to make sure I get my outfits created before skipping.

[darktcb]

Leveling is definitely one of the worst ways to learn your class because it will just lead to bad habits that make learning the proper rotation more difficult. Leveling can be an enjoyable experience and some players may like that they have to make due with what they have, but its definitely not going to make somebody better in the long run, or make the class easier to learn.

[jamiesafc]

Leveling used to be a great way to learn your class and game mechanics back when it was challenging, you needed to cleanse and interrupt use DCD's. You can complete everything while levelling using a basic attack and your companion on heal and you will never die.  

I wont forget the joy I had when I first killed Darth Angral for the first time early in the Jedi Knight storyline all those years ago after a lot of unsuccessful attempts. I learnt more about my class in that one fight than you will in the whole solo experience of the game today. 

Such a shame and a reason why we need a difficulty mode in all solo content similar to kotfe and kotet.