Star Wars: The Old Republic: Episode II

[Kosciuszko]

Relic, I'm running this as my current spec at 36. I eventually plan on something like this or this. Probably gonna decide based on how important the extra 3% to hit is versus the 30% extra crit chance on Vicious Slash. Current build really likes Surge Rating so the Annihilation/Rage/Carnage might actually outpace the Annihilation/Carnage, but I've not really ran any numbers on this. Just a gut feeling.

ETA: The skills on the calculator are old so this is just an idea.

[Lyanna Stark]

My main (sort of, only level 15 or some such?) is a Sniper, so just checked out some spec suggestions, but I am a nooblet and happy about that, so prolly won't do anything apart from experimenting for some time yet.

Also, the techie engineery tree looks pretty tempting since it has exploding gadgetry. And stuff!

*hums the Inspector Gadget theme*

[Cuellar]

Up to L21 on my healer inquisitard. I actually like playing healer here since it is pretty action packed. Plus having to work out grouping strategy is interesting, instead of in WoW where everyone was on autopilot.

Biggest mistake I've made so far was not gearing up my companion better. Now that I started using commendations for his gear, he works a lot better.

Haven't PvP'd yet. Should I bother or wait until I'm higher level? Not having a lot of different heals seems like a big problem, although with my L20 talent, life's a lot easier.

[Emery Silverstein]

There is actually some really good PVP gear that you can get at level 20 with the PVP badges you earn. The stats on them are better than most quest drops around that level. Not too mention its good xp and you earn a decent amount of credits.

[Solmyr]

My main (sort of, only level 15 or some such?) is a Sniper, so just checked out some spec suggestions, but I am a nooblet and happy about that, so prolly won't do anything apart from experimenting for some time yet.

Also, the techie engineery tree looks pretty tempting since it has exploding gadgetry. And stuff!

I've played in the Marksman tree for the entire lvling and although it may be a little distasteful for soloing (stop, take cover, shoot them down, move to next group ...) it's damage is off the hook. So far I've compared my dps as closely as the game permits to all classes except Marauder and Sniper marksman outdmgs them all by quite a bit.

Engineering and Lethality are good trees too, but they excel in different things. Engineering has a lot more instant stuff, more survival and some aoe, which I assume would come quite handy in PvP. Lethality is the DoT tree, I think its dps should be on par with Marksman, but you need a longer fight for equalization. Also, both of these trees rely a lot less on cover and many players seem to dislike the cover mechanic.

P.S. The only bad thing about the marksman tree is the 31p ability. Totally useless in my opinion, not even worth the 1 point. The 25p talent which increases critical dmg is also bad, many other classes have a similar talent, only it's 3 points and it increases all critical dmg and not just that of 3 attacks.

[Rhom]

My 'main" is a trooper-vanguard. He's only level 19 so far, I'm still looking online for some decent skill tree builds. I saw something that suggested 31-8-2... but just like WoW, that does me no good when I don't know which 31 points to take!!!!!!!!!

Any good sites out there?

So far I have two characters out of the starting zones. The aforementioned trooper and a Jedi-Sentinel. I liked the trooper starting zone much more. I felt like I was dropped immediately into a Star Wars story with him as opposed to the TOR equivalent of Northshire abbey the Jedi starts in.

[Kosciuszko]

When I hop back on in a few hours, I will be ready to go to Hoth and work towards level 40. Already have most of the money I need for the next level of speeder piloting/speeder bike. So long as my abilities don't cost absurd amounts (seriously, Undying Rage/next rank of an ability I never use 'cuz I rarely PvP set me back like 50,000 credits... least Undying Rage is a pretty badass defensive cooldown, hell yeah to 99% damage reduction).

ETA: Also, Quesh was fucking empty. No more than 8 people on planet on my server at any time. No heroics on it either (that I found) so I wonder if it's just a case of fewer classes going there for class quests, or if Taris maybe represents people slowing down on leveling.

[me399]

How does this game compare to WOW? We love WoW and I'm tempted to try this game. I got bit by the DC mmo and I'm curious about this one.

[Kosciuszko]

How does this game compare to WOW? We love WoW and I'm tempted to try this game. I got bit by the DC mmo and I'm curious about this one.

My impressions:

The core gameplay mechanics are largely the same and you can definitely see inspiration from WoW classes and, in some cases, direct analogues. This isn't something that's so much different from WoW, as it's WoW in the Star Wars universe with Bioware trappings. For me, at least, that's enough. The quests all feel much more impactful and as I've progressed through the game I've found moments where your choices have definite consequences in the rewards from quests and how they progress. It's not often, but it happens. An example of a quest-line that is presented really well is

(Sith Warrior spoilers up to Act II)

The tracking of a Jedi padawan that has a talent that will let her ferret out your Sith Master's spy network among the Jedi and Republic. You taunt her by killing everything she holds dear; eventually, her master decides to confront you. You can prey upon his desire to protect his padawan to turn him to the dark side. When you fully turn and then defeat him, you restrain and torture him until the padawan arrives to rescue him. You then defeat the padawan and show her the "true" nature of her master; you can convince her of the power of the dark side and take her as an apprentice, then make her kill the master she believes had been lying to her about the power of the Force.

You can also choose to kill her or I bet straight-up fail turning her to the dark side if you mess up. I think there was also an option to spare her.

Gear wise there's some great customization. You get gear of orange rarity every once in awhile and it's basically fully customizable, stat-wise, though as you further beef it up the minimum level increases. It can also be difficult to find the proper mods, etc, to keep it up to date. The various types of mods have different rarity from basically green to purple. So you always can have the look you like if you have the proper orange stuff, and just mod it up. At the same time the gaining of new loot probably won't feel as awesome because it'll likely be mods, which somehow just doesn't feel as cool.

So I'd definitely say give this is a shot, but I can't comment on the end-game. I'm only level 38 but I'm finding it a blast.

[Lyanna Stark]

How does this game compare to WOW? We love WoW and I'm tempted to try this game. I got bit by the DC mmo and I'm curious about this one.

Depends, what do you do in WoW? Quest? Raid? Alt? PvP? Just exploring the world?

So far, playability is the same, but how much you are going to enjoy it really depends on what you like with WoW.

[Trebla]

I've been playing it a bit the last couple days. The mechanics greatly irritated me the first day or so. I was able to fix the choppiness by eliminating the shadows function. Controls still are a bit jumpy. It definitely not my graphics card because I play LOTRO everyday and the graphics (particularly the LOTRO end game stuff) is on par.

I might be spoiled because LOTRO is by far the best MMO I've ever played. I gave up on EQ 2 and Age of Conan because OF how they paled in comparison. But I am liking the storylines in TOR so far. I've only played as Jedi Consular and a Bounty Hunter and have enjoyed both.

Question? What is the best DPS in the game? I tanked and healed in in the past but I've become a DPS junky since playing a Champion on LOTRO. So I love DPSing and especially love AOE and DOT. What classes offer either/or?

[Solmyr]

When I hop back on in a few hours, I will be ready to go to Hoth and work towards level 40. Already have most of the money I need for the next level of speeder piloting/speeder bike. So long as my abilities don't cost absurd amounts (seriously, Undying Rage/next rank of an ability I never use 'cuz I rarely PvP set me back like 50,000 credits... least Undying Rage is a pretty badass defensive cooldown, hell yeah to 99% damage reduction).

ETA: Also, Quesh was fucking empty. No more than 8 people on planet on my server at any time. No heroics on it either (that I found) so I wonder if it's just a case of fewer classes going there for class quests, or if Taris maybe represents people slowing down on leveling.

If you haven't done it yet, don't buy lvl40 speeder! Unless you're filthy rich with over 2m credits, etc.

I have 1.3m myself and I haven't bought one, don't intend to either. Waste of money. I'd rather go to the lvl1-10 zone and hand over the credits to strangers, it would be a better use than a 10% increase in speeder speed (when the basic is already 90%). As for the skills, if you're rly poor you can avoid new skill ranks of skills that don't scale well. For example, I have a shot that reduces armor and lasts 45secs. It also does some minimal dmg. New ranks of the skill increase that dmg by ~10. Definitely something you can skip.

Finally about Quesh, don't be upset - Quesh is a mini-planet, it's intended for class quests. There is a very short planet quest chain, no heroics, no world boss, only a single area. Personally I like the idea, not every planet needs to be huge.

@Trebla - If you are committed to playing dps, my advice is rolling a pure-DPS class (sniper or marauder). All other classes can perform healing or tanking roles, hence at least 1 of your talent trees will be useless. Also people may mooch you to respecc and tank/heal for them.

Having said that, Sniper and Marauder seem deliver the most dps. Once again, I'm going by hearsay about the Marauder, but I can guarantee personally about the Sniper. A friend of mine plays a DPS sorcerer, which presumably should be the equivalent of mage - his dmg never comes near mine. These stats are valid for up to lvl46 so there is a chance of equalization at lvl50, but imo there will be an imbalance until Bioware patches it.

[Shryke]

How does this game compare to WOW? We love WoW and I'm tempted to try this game. I got bit by the DC mmo and I'm curious about this one.

In addition to what's been said above, I'd say it's no where near as polished or smooth as WoW. It's still got alot of bugs (which is to be expected) but nothing really major and game-breaking. It's also got a bunch of small irritations and the like that WoW has smoothed out over time, though it does have fun improvements all on it's own to the formula.

It often feels like WoW-from-5-years-ago with Star Wars trappings and a Bioware story.

God knows how anything beyond the leveling experience (which is pretty damn good) is gonna pan out at this point though. Hasn't been long enough.

Only other thing I'd say is the combat sometimes doesn't feel quite as smooth and responsive as WoW's. Reminds me of LOTRO in that respect (though not as bad as that game)

[Cuellar]

I've been playing on my 5 year old computer with everything set to low. Get my new computer today, so looking forward to seeing the game on mostly high settings! To be honest, it looks like shit on my old computer.

I've seen snipers, and they seem pretty damn good. Thinking about starting one for a DPS alt, and probably will do a Jugg for tank.

One thing I'll note about this game (same as leveling in WoW) is that you can log on for 30-60 minutes and make some progress. I usually play for 1-2 hours a night after the kids go to bed, and have managed to hit L23 with maybe 30 hours played.

[Kosciuszko]

To add to Solmyr's discussion on DPS-

Marauder is a beast. At 38 tanks still don't hold threat on me when I pop Berserk. And Berserk isn't some 5 minute cooldown aggro stealing thing to use just to piss off a tank that you don't like. It's a core part of Marauder DPS that, if you build for it, can be popped every 10-20 seconds to release a string of horribly powerful critting DoTs that also heal the party for a not horrible amount.

The only class I've seen hold up to me has been.... Sniper. So yeah. Sniper and Marauder are the choices for high DPS players atm. As I understand it, Marauder is generally considered underpowered and I can't comment on end-game; they, however, do a shit-ton of ass-kicking if you go Annihilation tree and keep lightsabers upgraded.

Just be prepared to be squishy as fuck. Like I mentioned in another post, if you're not expecting it three mobs can slaughter you totally. So much surviving depends on smart use of your cooldowns. And the class has virtually no AoE, even with Sweeping Saber at 30ish.

[Galactus]

Only other thing I'd say is the combat sometimes doesn't feel quite as smooth and responsive as WoW's. Reminds me of LOTRO in that respect (though not as bad as that game)

Really? For me it's the absolute opposite, at least for the Inquisitor. You're a whole lot more mobile and less static and have a much more natural set of chains than in WOW.

[karaddin]

Playing from Australia it feels less smooth and responsive than WoW, for me I think it's the net code isn't as good. Sometimes I'll get stuck trying to hit attacks and have it trigger the global but not go off 3-5 times in a row. It's really annoying.

[Kosciuszko]

I kinda feel like the classes play on par with WoW's, it's just still in a glitchy stage where stuff isn't quite working like it should. When my Marauder is rolling, it's a sight to behold. But every once in awhile a silly glitch will complete destroy my rotation.

On that note, I found a tank that held aggro on me! 42 Powertech held it on my 39 Marauder, even for the long fights. It was wonderful not blowing defensive cooldowns every second or third fight.

[Solmyr]

Kosciuszko, if sniper and marauder are on par with dps I think they are pretty balanced overall too. Sniper is squishy too, even tho you have a surprising amount of defensive mechanics. Most of them are either very short or hard to use. I played marauder in beta and it didn't struck me as a squishy class - to the contrary I soloed Black Talon at lvl10. I tried it with sniper on release and couldn't come close to killing even the first boss. I guess that changes on later levels, but I find it hard to believe a melee class would be squishier than a sniper. Saber Ward alone provides 50% dmg reduction for 12sec.

When it comes to end game, ranged often beat melee in PvE because of positioning. However, the bulk of sniper's abilities are only usable from cover and have casting time, making any movement a dps loss. Marauders on the other hand can deliver most of their attacks while moving. I guess it's a trade off between range and movement.

[Howdyphillip]

I have a question for you guys. I do not like MMOs. I have given a couple of them shots including WoW, and found myself quickly bored after a week or so of play. I also never play any multiplayer functions of any of the games I have. The most important thing to me is story and world immersion.

Now, I am a HUGE Star Wars fan. I absolutely loved KOTOR. Is this games story good enough to justify spending the money on it. or would I be missing too much by vehemently refusing the co op?