Ding, level 50!Follow

I don't know the answers to a lot of that

However:
Unless you finished your Chapter 3 before Corellia (which seems unlikely. The trooper one needed quite a few quests on Corellia) you have quests to do to finish that.
There are dailies on Ilum and Belsavis which are worthwhile at 50.

And I never heard the fanfare as I was fighting

Belsavis dailies for sure. Is your character female? If so, Belsavis is a great way to raise Ashara's affection since she basically hates all gifts from a female character. You can get like 960 affection per day through those. Also, running through the lowbie version of Boarding Party will net you 120 affection with Ashara if you pick all #2 responses. You make about 30-40k/run just killing the bosses and opening chests and zooming past everything else.

Sith Inquisitor Daily Affection Guide

Edited, May 1st 2012 11:09am by Spoonless

My character is a male. I'm not too concerned with Asahra's affection because I don't think she's seen the light of day since I acquired her. I only use her for UT missions and I'm almost at 400 so I'm not sure how many more missions I'll be running. I like to use Andronikos for those since he has UT +2 crit, anyway.

I guess I'll just go ahead and finish Corellia and my class quest then go and do the bonus series I didn't do (Alderaan, Hoth, Belsavis) and start my dailies once I've done all of that. At some point I'll have to pop onto the fleet and buy my recruit set so I can start grinding WZs while questing. I have a feeling the recruit set will also be an upgrade to my PVE armor as most of my stuff is moddable gear with Voss-level mods in it.

Lol, Maz, seriously--just get a character to the end of Chapter 1. It won't take long, and then you can at least work on Legacy progression as you level all your other toons.

Yeah, I'm wishing that I had taken my mara the last 3 or 4 levels to finish chapter 1 before starting my tankassin. Now the 29 levels of exp my mara got don't count at all towards my legacy. They should change it so that when you add an already levelled character to a legacy, your legacy gets an experience bump. This would help people like Maz who are altaholics and people like me who just can't decide what class they want to play.



It's not a whole lot, just what sounds like some trumpets playing. But it's definitely more than you get for dinging levels 2-49.

Edited, May 1st 2012 12:27pm by Bigdaddyjug

You're right

Then again it could be Alderaan

I like the place, its pretty. The missions are no better or worse than elsewhere but somehow my characters seem to spend a long time in the cantina while I play different planets. I currently have a Scoundrel, a Jedi, and an Inquisitor stuck there (possibly more but I'm not going to log in and look )

Yeah Jugg is a very late blooming class. You don't get your aoe fear CC until level 42, and your execute throw until level 46. Plus Intercede is your level 50 skill, and honestly, out of all the skills, that one is what makes the Jugg class. It's also the reason why I consider Juggs to be the best true tanks in pvp. I just wish you got it earlier so you had time to practice with it before 50. I mean, even Orbital Strike/XS Freighter Flyby are acquired pre-50, and that's about as defining a skill you can get for a class.

I don't see why you'd level in Soresu, though. It would be fine if it just buffed your defenses, but it reduces your rage generation by 50%. Now that you have whatever the analog to Overhead Slash is, you're going to want



Because of this, I'm guessing you didn't know that? Effciency isn't bad when you aren't in Soresu form, because Sunder and your standard attack both generate 2 Rage. Shien form also generates an additional focus/rage when you take damage (ICD of 6 seconds).

I never had any resource problems. I'm only just starting to now that I have Overhead Slash and want to use it on CD, but haven't really adjusted my priority list to include it properly yet.

I disagree. At least, I disagree when we're talking about early levels. I had no rage/focus issues at all at earlier levels, because I just didn't have many skills that required it.

Blade Storm takes 3 (but requires you have 4), Riposte takes 2 (3), and Saber Slash takes 3 (2).

That's really quite easy to keep up with--I almost never had to use Slash. I might have lost a few Ripostes here and there, but not enough to warrant getting skills (Shien Form, free Force Sweep) later. Not by a long shot. You at least want those two skills before you grab it.

Once you get some other focus-costing skills, particularly in the early 30s, it is definitely a good investment. But I wouldn't bother before that. Return isn't nearly as high as Shien Form, and free Force Sweep means you start fights with 3 Focus instead of 0.

Force Leap > Force Sweep > Sunder Strike > Master Strike > Sunder Strike > Blade Storm.

That leaves you with 4 Focus. You can't riposte during Master strike, but if you can after that brings you to 2 Focus. You'll use a basic strike here instead of a stronger one, yes. That's the first point of variance, and you're probably nearly done with the fight.

So without the talent, you use your basic strike and end up with 4 Focus. Then you use the stronger attack, go down to 2, then the basic, back up to four. That alternation (weaving in Sunders instead of the basic attack) can last forever. At lower levels, anything but gold mobs should die before BS (Force Scream) is back off CD. You don't have the focus to riposte freely, but you can riposte before the GCD for your stronger strike, if it will kill the mob.

With the talent, you use a stronger strike here, and go down to 1 Focus. Then you use the basic attack, go up to 3, then stronger, down to 2, repeat. The one (or max, 2) sunders you can weave in shouldn't make any difference at all. At best, you are afforded one additional riposte. But, really, if your fights are taking long enough for it to give you more than that, you really need to upgrade your weapon or your companion (particularly if you are a Knight, since Kira's forcequake is beastly).

Once you get to higher levels, I agree it will make a world of difference. Because, at that point, you're trying to gain the focus/rage you need for several strong abilities. At early levels, Blade Storm/Force Scream are really your only one, and you can easily fuel them. Your basic force strike isn't strong enough to prioritize focus for, and Riposte's cost and CD means you probably won't really have an issue there until fights are lasting longer--at least the mid 20s.

To tell the truth, until you hit Alderaan enemies shouldn't be giving you enough time for it to make a difference. There's a big difficulty leap with that planet. Whether or not you want to take the talent before/after Plasma Blade is a matter of preference. But until you reach that, I'm going to say those points are just making your life more difficult.

I see what you're saying, but my point still stands; you get the most return out of Enraged Sunder/Victory Rush compared to any other talent out there. And you can have it maxed by level 11 (which I did) with the option to respec to Shien at 20 if you want.

Course, I went for a full 7 in Immortal because I wanted my free spammable aoe snare, but that was a personal preference thing.

As for the early levels, I dunno, maybe things are different now. I didn't exactly have rage problems leveling up, but I do know that Enraged Sunder and Battle Cry made my early levels go much smoother than they did on the beta PTR (where I went full Vengy for 10-25). Course, that was back in December. Maybe if I did it again I wouldn't feel the need for the extra resource generation, but I sure as hell liked it while I was leveling up.

I have a 34 Powertech and 33 Shadow, Pyrotech and Kinetic Combat respectively, and while I don't really fear dying on my Shadow, thanks to the life leech on Combat Technique, I never really had a problem doing any of the the soloable quests on my Jugg. Even the odd 2 person heroic was doable with Quinn or Vette and some proper kiting.

Point being, I don't think Jugg is weak so much as PT (and to a lesser degreem tank Shadow/Sin) is strong. Powertechs and Vanguards are REALLY strong now, and the rotation of skills is downright inane in it's simplicity. The challenge doesn't come so much from the order of skill usage as it does from managing resources for the classes, but even that isn't terribly hard to do. Intersperse a Rapid Shot/Hammer Shot every other skill and you'll never get into the second tier of resource regen.

But the way Jugg and Guardian are built now they're fine. I didn't level as Soresu yet I hardly used Quinn past the end of Tattooine. It was always Jaesa or Vette from then on, up until I hit Ilum and things got markedly harder (and I lacked the gear, for myself or my companions, to kill things without risking the odd death). Again, I was in Shien from level 27 onward (Shii-cho the rest of the time previous to that) except when I was tanking heroics or FP's, and I leveled almost exclusively with dps companions.

And this was before Enraged Defense and the longer duration on Endure Pain.

And it wasn't hard. It was challenging, and I did die a few times, but that was more bad thinknig/execution on my part than anything else. Yes, the class is backloaded talent wise, but that doesn't mean it isn't viable. Just that it peaks later compared to, say, a Pyrotech.

It depended on the elite. There are a few out there that have an Overload Saber-like DoT that stacks on you. Most of those tend to have 2-3 other DoTs they stack on you, and that would always tear me up. Any melee class sucks against those guys if you can't wipe the DoTs, but that's nothing new, and now that I know what to look out for I adjust accordingly. Vette is a great turret for when you're kiting with Chilling Scream. But those guys are cake for my Sniper or my Sorc.

Meanwhile, any ranged elite my Sorc or PT has a field day with, since they can abuse the crap outta LoS to avoid most of the damage without issue. My Jugg needed to be more aggressive, typically sending Vette or Jaesa in for a bit to soak the first 1/3 of their life in damage (blowing their defensive CD in the process as well, which helped a lot) before I taunted off of them and tanked it the rest of the way. Usually by the time I had to take it off it was around half life, and I was able to down it before i got much under 75%.

Generally anything that had some kind of DoT attack was worse for my Jugg (and my Sent) than anything else. Stuff that had a lot of casted things tended to be pretty easy as long as it wasn't out in the open (and my Jugg could change that generally with Push). Just requires a bit of forethought and planning to engage guys with the most effectiveness.

Keep in mind you lose the 20% armor pen from deep in Rage, which affects Smash as well (since it's classed as kinetic damage, and thus armor mitigated).

With practice, it's not hard to just swap to Shii-Cho, Sunder once, then Smash, then back to Soresu if need be. Just takes a bit of timing. But you kinda invalidate some of the earlier talents as well.

True about the armor penetration. Hadn't thought about that.

Might just stay at 22 points in Rage and work my way up the Immortal tree. Getting some more defense sounds like it could be useful once I leave Alderaan, plus it would give me an 8% damage boost on Smash from Heavy Handed. Once I hit level 50, I'll have to respec to something else anyway.

Meh, Shadows only really have one ranged attack as well. Telekinetic Throw's channeling requirement makes it far less useful for everything a Shadow needs a ranged attack for. Okay, Mind Crush too, but same thing--it has a cast time. If you're melee, you only really want instant ranged attacks.

Anyway, on the one hand Knights to take slightly longer to come into their own. I think that might be somewhat intentional. Jedi Knight generates a ton of hype on its own, where Trooper and Smuggler need to work harder to win the player over. But if you're in the late 40s, you probably don't need to be won any more. And you can't give the Knight the best skills early, or else you have the same issue--Trooper and Smuggler remain unattractive compared to the Knight.

Less true with the Sage, definitely. But Shadow is, without a doubt, WAY too slow at getting their main skills. It's easily the worst offender of all the classes. They don't end up with that many skills in general, and they're so spaced out that you're only really using 3-4 skills (one of which has a huge CD, the other a positional requirement). It's even worse if you go infiltration--I don't know if it has remained this way, but when I was leveling my first shadow optimal dps in the early teens was to do nothing but basic strike and shadow strike with a breach every 15 seconds. Talk about boring.


But it's definitely unfair to say that only knights come into their own that late. Things might not be linear in general, but 34-38 is the level range where nearly all classes really develop. Guardians get Saber Throw, Sentinels get Guarded by the Force, Sages get Forcequake, Gunslingers get Speed Shot, Scoundrels get Shoot First. They generally also get 21 point skilled abilities, though that's less true.

Only Vanguards and Commandos don't fit this skew, having all their major non-skill abilities by 24. Generally, they don't even get a level 30 skilled ability. But they both get Adreneline Rush and Stealth Scan, which can be very nice, in the 30s.

The problem isn't the end point, its the rate at which they get major skills. Maybe the skew favors Smugglers/Troopers more (well, definitely Troopers), but it isn't by a TON.

Lolwut? Telekinetic Throw is fairly important as both a Kinetic Combat and Balance Shadow. And with a tank as your first companion, you can effectively pull off a rotation in which you only use ranged abilities.

I found it great fun to send in Qyzen, use Force Breach (Force Technique), cast Mind Crush and then channel Telekinetic Throw, or use Project, and kill stuff just as fast as if I'd just spammed Double Strike. It's not as efficient in terms of Force use, but seriously, who gives a crap? Force regenerates from zero to hero in the the time it takes me to reach the next pack of enemies.

On my Madness Assassin, I regularly just skip melee combat all together and just cast Crushing Darkness, Discharge and Force Lightning. Why? Because LIGHTNING! The point being that you have options. You can pull off a theorycrafted rotation that delivers the maximum possible DPS, which requires a mix of ranged and melee abilities, or you can mess around and enjoy yourself. On the Juggernaut, you're forced to hit the same abilities over and over, in the right order, just to generate resources that you can then spend on enjoying the class.



You don't use Shadow Strike, ever, unless you go x/3/x. And what ability has a huge cooldown? Project and Telekinetic Throw both have a 6-second cooldown. Force Breach has a 15-second cooldown, which puts it up there with Obliterate and Force Scream for a Rage Juggernaut.

It's true that Shadows/Assassins don't end up with that many offensive abilities, but how many abilities do you need? By level 30, I've got just as many keybindings on my Shadow as I do on my level 32 Juggernaut (if not more). Yes, the Juggernaut has more short cooldowns (Force Choke, Force Push, Enrage, Ravage), but the Shadow has a lot of utility abilities (Mind Maze, Force Cloak, Force Speed).

I'd rather have 3-4 offensive abilities that I can choose between than 9-10 of which I have to use three just so I can use the other ones. And that's why I recommend Balance/Madness for Shadows/Assassins. You get Force in Balance at level 20 and Mind Crush becomes part of your rotation at level 25. Now you're up to 5-6 abilities, of which five of them are ranged (Force in Balance, Force Breach, Project, Telekinetic throw -- and Mind Crush, though it requires you to use a melee attack to become instant and free). The last ability is Double Strike and you can sort of throw it in there if you feel like it.

"Shadows only really have one ranged attack," psh!

Eh, what?

As for defining "ranged," I consider anything that isn't melee range to be ranged, which would be 10-30 meters in this game.

Well, to rerail the thread back to my original derail, I just hit level 34 and finished Chapter 1. Legacy unlocked.

Time to go level up some alts. I've had cravings ever since I set out to unlock the damn thing.

Yeah, they feel a lot more natural, and you don't feel like kicking yourself for missing them either. The addition of weekly stuff also helps.

Incidentally, the new pvp daily change at 50 (and sub-50 too for that matter) is probably one of the smartest things Bioware could have done. For those that don't know, it used to be win 3 WZ's for the daily at 50, which was either relatively easy or laughably hard depending on whether or not you had a pre-made of decent players to run with, Now they've changed it to where you just need to play six WZ's, but if you win a WZ, it counts as playing two. So in other words, winning is no different, but even if you lose terribly, as long as you get 3 medals per WZ (thus showing you wern't completely AFK) you'll get credit for the daily even if you lose. And this way you can still advance your character via coms, even if it'll take longer.

OK argument if you're talking about fighting a single mob, which you rarely do. Slap it on a silver or gold to open a fight, and go to town on the weaker mobs in the pack. You certainly get plenty of usefulness out of it.

I used Force Lightning in harder fights against melee mobs, because it has a slow component to it. AoE knockback with FL followthrough on a harder mob does decent damage while keeping it from hitting you.

Edited, May 10th 2012 4:37pm by Spoonless

I use Project all the time on my Shadow, simply because it's one of my favorite animations in the game. Nothing is more rewarding than ripping rocks out of the ground and delivering them at high velocity to someone's face.

DPF sucks, but I have yet to find myself Force starved while fighting regular enemies. On boss fights I skip Project for Thrash so I can use the instant, free Mind Crush. My typical boss fights is me cycling through TT, FB and MC while weaving in Thrash for the MC procs. Probably not the most efficient way to do it, but the style is right up my alley. I love using a mix of lightsaber and Force abilities.

Edit: Force in Balance is in there as well on boss fights. Doesn't cost a lot of Force and crits for sicko damage.

Edited, May 10th 2012 11:47pm by Mazra