More endgame thoughts and progress plans

More of my endgame experience as a new 50 planning to see what the game has to offer and progress through the content.

After about 3 hours of being level 50, it hit me just how much there is to do at this level. It's a bit overwhelming, but I'm sure that with time I will have a better idea what I'm interested in, what I need to do to advance my character and what I consider a good use of my play time.

One of the first things I tried was a hardmode Black Talon run. Someone was looking for a healer, I whispered him that I just hit 50, so I'm not sure if I'm ready, but I would give it my best shot if he'll take me. Turns out the tank was also a leveling geared fresh 50. 30 minutes later I learned my first lesson, a completely ungeared group of 50s can't make it in HM FlashPoints. I know some of the guides claim it's possible, but considering the first boss was hitting our tank for 50% of his health every 1.5-2 seconds, I wouldn't recommend trying it until you have some better gear. I guess that's what the normal level 50 FP are for, there are 4 of these.

Endgame plans I'm level 50 now what?

Last night I've hit 50 with my Operative. A major milestone. Time to explore the endgame and see what SWTOR has to offer.

I found a nice article about the number 50 at Moon Over Endor, another SWTOR blog: 50! this article has the same date as this one and starts with: "As of yesterday evening I got my (first) character to level 50!". Pretty funny to find this right when I'm about to write about hitting 50 last night.

Time for me to explore the endgame and see how well Bioware made it. Endgame is mostly what MMORPG are about, so a good endgame is a must if SWTOR is going to keep being fun and keep people playing it for months and years to come.

My to do list at this point is pretty long:

Altoholism playing different characters

I recently started my 4th character, I went for a Jedi Knight just to check out a completely different aspect of the game. With a different class mechanic, new story area and the fact I play him as a nice friendly "I'm here to save the world" type of hero, it feels like a whole different game. I'm enjoying every minute of it and I really recommend trying more than just one character.

The difference between the Republic and Empire factions, between playing a Light or Dark side character, between the different classes, the different class stories, is just too big to skip. I know many MMO players tend to pick a main, get to the end game and stick with just this one. I think by doing this they are missing a lot of the fun SWTOR has to offer.

Few more benefits that you get while playing different characters:

Sage and Sorcerer Healing Skills and Abilities

This post continue the Sage and Sorcerer healing guide from the previous post. I'll concentrate on healing abilites and skills and only mention others when they directly apply to the healer responsibilities or play style.


Abilities:
General abilities:
Overload: knock back, very useful when you get agro to give your party a chance to take care of the mobs while keeping you alive and healing
Whirlwind: general cc, make sure you use it often, there's no excuse not to help your party with cc when needed
Electrocute: 4 seconds stuns, I find it often better to use this as a stun\interrupt when doing so prevent more damage than casting another heal
Recklessness: 2 charges of 60% crit bonus, each crit use up a charge. Great for emergencies when extra healing is needed quickly
Force Speed: 2 seconds sprint, use it to get quickly to your healing target when they get out of range or to escape when you need to.
Jolt: the Sorcerer interrupt, use it often, remember, preventing damage is often more useful than healing it
Consumption: uses health to give you force. This is very expansive and should be used rarely without Force Surge proc. It costs a lot of health and lower your force regen rate for 10 seconds. Use it only if you need a bit of extra force for the last heal or 2 before combat ends or you get into a less intensive healing phase.
Cloud Mind: lowers your threat, don't forget to use it when you get agro to help your tank and dps grab the mobs away from you

Jedi Consolar Sage, Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer Healing

The Sage and Sorcerer are identical classes for the Republic and Empire. The only differences are the skills and abilities names and some of the visual effects. I'll be using the Sorcerer terminology, but everything also applies to Sage unless I specifically mention it.


The Sorcerer is the most similar healer to other MMO healing classes. If you played a healer in WOW or another major MMO you'll feel right at home with the Sorcerer with a very short learning curve. If you have previous healing experience and want to jump right in and know what you are doing, the Sorcerer is a good choice. He also doesn't have a complicated (or simple, depending on your personal skill) resource management mechanism the other 2 healing classes has. He does have management consideration and synergy between abilities which I'll get into soon, but it's more straight forward and quicker to learn and master, at least in my opinion.


Don't read the previous paragraph as the Sorcerer requiring no skills to play well, if you won't be aware of your strengths and weaknesses and be able to do the right thing at the right situation, you'll find yourself and your party dead very quickly. That's why this post is written, to try to give you as much information as I can to heal with the Sorcerer effectively.

Grouping with a server wide LFG Channel

Bioware promised a new LFG tool, but the players aren't waiting for it. A new trend that is taking over the galaxy is a player created, server wide, LFG channel. More and more servers now have player created LFG channel and this is becoming a great way to find groups these days. Like I mentioned in a previous post, sticking around the Fleet to find groups isn't a good option and many players, myself included, who will gladly join groups, don't do that.

1.7 million active subscribers

Bioware just released their current active subscription numbers. Their official announcement can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/news/press-release/20120201 1.7 million active subscribers. A pretty impressive number for a 6 weeks old game. Another thing to take into account is that many people who were estimating the growth and success of SWTOR were commenting that the first month numbers aren't a good indication of the subscribers, because people who buy the game get 30 days free, so when counting the numbers during the first month, you count all the people who bought the game at launch or pre-ordered it, were disappointed by the game and never became active subscribers. This become irrelevant past the first month. While potentially this number still includes people who bought the game during the past 30 days and aren't happy enough to become active subscribers, these numbers are currently much smaller than during the first month.

Questing SWTOR VS WOW

Yesterday I was doing the Aldaaran Bonus Series with my level 40 Operative and I get these 2 quests at the same area, right next to each other, both require 4 drops from specific mobs. I'm going for the first one, killed 2 of these mobs, no drops. I must be doing something wrong, right? No way I didn't get a drop twice while killing the right mob. I read the quest description, a rare thing by itself, because normally everything you need to know is part of the dialogs and built in quest tracker, couldn't figure out what I'm doing wrong, this looks like the mob I have to kill. As I'm one of these people who have to experience all the content, I wasn't about to let it go. Alt tabbed and looked for it online, turns out the drop rate is 30-40%, so I killed about 10-12 more and finished it. Went for the second quest, 4 kills, 4 drops, as usual, this is how quests normally are.

Group Finding Tips

Grouping is a huge part of SWTOR, the plot of the flashpoints is very interesting and engaging sometimes with the best story and twists in the game (I'm thinking of you Foundry) the fights are well designed and the plot is often very interesting. They did 2 things with grouping that I really like, the first is the system  where all groups participate in dialogs, this makes your group members from faceless, voiceless strangers who are only there to help you get through the content, to characters who are part of the plot and decisions. The conversation  rolling system in dialogs works really well. Makes you feel like a part of a group where each one participate in the decisions and actions of the team. The second thing I like is that the decision making makes each fp run feel a bit different, with different dialogs, different cut scenes based on the decisions and even different bosses to fight.

Scoundrel Operative Healing Abilities and Skills

This post continue the Scoundrel and Operative healing guide from the previous post. I'll concentrate on healing abilites and skills and only mention others when they directly apply to the healer responsibilities or play style.

Abilities:
Tack Cover - Boost your defense when healing from a distance, making you less likely to take damage so you can worry about healing your team mates.
Kolto Injection - Your typical big heal. It's pretty expansive to cast, so you won't be able to spam it, but when someone needs a big health boost, this is your best line of defense.
Adrenaline Probe - regenerate energy, very useful after an expansive healing burst is needed and you need to keep healing.