To write this guide, I actually started a new character on a server I have never been to with nothing but what the game provides a new character. I did not use my guild of 220, a penny of my 50 million credits, any of my exceptional armor or my endless supply of krayt weapons. I also intentionally played the game slowly. I used no exploits, advanced combat tactics nor did I acquire the help of others in any way (friends or otherwise).
This guide is written with the assumption that you have no friends, no money and no real equipment. It also assumes that you will utilize the user?s guide for the most part to understand the interface, toolbars, datapad, cloning, trading, chat, etc.
We will start with the most basic of walkthroughs, eventually moving up to more advanced strategies. So if you have been playing for a short while and have a grasp of basic and even some intermediate fundamentals, scan through the earlier sections of this guide until you get to where you want to be, but I strongly suggest that you get a good grasp on beginning strategies first.
Upon completing the steps outlined in this guide you will have no less than 1 million credits, have mastered an elite combat profession and all the equipment (weapons, armor, food, etc) that you will need to play SWG at an elite level.
This guide is NOT designed to master a combat profession in the shortest time possible, nor is it a guide to making money as quickly as possible. It is designed for those ?fresh off the boat? with 250 credits, a melon and a CDEF, or for those who have played for a short period of time and want to get to the elite level of play much quicker than they have been.
OTHER ELITE PROFESSIONS
Bounty hunter, creature handler, ranger, commando, etc are all professions that you should move into later. I do not cover them here.
Since you are new it is vital that you accomplish two things:
1) Get a thorough understanding of intermediate combat.
2) Make money to afford higher level adventuring and faster profession mastery.
It may seem like a waste of time to master pistoleer or TKA first when you want to be a BH or creature handler, but you will make money faster this way and you will do those professions twice as fast with the offensive and defensive benefits you get from pistoleer and/or TKA.
MOS EISLEY
Welcome to Star Wars Galaxies. The first thing you need to do when creating your character is select marksman or brawler. This isn?t an artisan, scout, medic or entertainer leveling guide. All other customization is up to you.
If you plan to go melee in any way, I STRONGLY suggest you go TKA first. It is the easiest, safest and most effective solution out there for new players. If you plan to go ranged, I strongly suggest you go pistoleer first. If you?re learning this game, learn with something easier. 99% of all BH?s get at least some elite pistoleer. You may as well master it now. Don?t do all of marksman first. I am partial to rifleman, but it is extremely challenging to level for a new player. Let?s get our feet wet first and make some money.
For the record, TKA in my opinion is the easiest professions to grind and at master will allow you to make money a lot easier than almost any other profession with minimal effort.
Note: These strategies will apply in some degree to any other combat profession. If you want to go fencer or rifleman, feel free. I?m showing you the easiest way to get started and the best professions to learn with.
You?ve just landed in Mos Eisley. It is the starting city for all new players now. Make yourself at home. You won?t need to travel anywhere for quite some time.
You are in front of the starport. Always have your overhead map on. It?s annoying at first having all of that green mess in front of you in cities, but you quickly learn to ignore it when you don?t need it and it is vital to know whether you are about to run into a pack of red dots.
Just in front of you is an orange mission terminal. Let?s not use that one. Towards the back of the starport on the left side (if you?re facing the starport) is another mission terminal. It is on the edge of town making it much more convenient to go to and from. Avoiding buildings to do missions is a time suck and a lot of focus on navigation. When you find this mission terminal, left click on it and type /way. You?ve just created a waypoint on that terminal to guide you back when you complete sets of missions.
Before you start doing missions, find a medic trainer (/find) and get novice medic.
FINANCES
Money is your single biggest problem. This game has an INSANE number of money sinks. Let?s spend it wisely. Here?s your game plan of what you will be spending your money on and in what order:
-A decent weapon
-Stimpack B?s
-Buffs
-Food
-Vehicle
-Armor
We?ll get into greater detail on all of this later.
BASIC BEGINNER MISSION WALKTHROUGH
It?s time to make money for the first time. Before you open the mission terminal, equip your CDEF pistol. A list of kill missions will come up. Although you will have access to higher level missions, what we want are 600 credit missions.
Take two missions for 600 credits to the east. This assumes you are at the mission terminal near the back of the starport. Southeast might be a reasonable direction but northeast takes you over a giant hill. You don?t want that. Always take missions that A) Don?t require you to navigate through buildings B) Don?t require that you go over big hills and C) Don?t go over large bodies of water.
You may have noticed a droid has been driving you nuts with all kinds of dialogue boxes. Use this guy for awhile. His combat advice kind of stinks but he gives you rewards for completing certain tasks. A week from now these rewards will seem like nothing but right now they?re gold.
Run to your first mission. Your mission locations will change somewhat as you get within 250m. If you?re going pistol, tab to the nearest creature at the lair, stand 64m away and use overcharge shot. Overcharge is the shot you will be using in all situations until you train to higher levels. Even at point blank, it is better than point blank single or point blank area. Don?t run around. Stand your ground.
If you are melee, walk right up to the lair, target a creature and just whack on ?em with your bare hands using unarmed hit one. You?re likely going to take quite a beating from multiple creatures, but you should be ok. You take less damage than a ranged profession would because of something called melee toughness. There is a different type of toughness for each melee profession and it serves as damage reduction. Unarmed toughness provides the most damage reduction of all the melee professions.
After you kill everything at the lair, hit the lair twice. More creatures will come out. Kill them. Hit the lair again. Eventually, nothing else will be left to fight. Destroy the lair and receive your payment.
Move onto your second mission. Look at your bars. By the time you arrive at your second mission, you should already be fully healed just from natural regeneration. If not, before you start fighting hit F3 and sit down for a few seconds. This allows you to regenerate much faster.
Do the same thing at your second mission that you did at your first. Go back to the mission terminal.
You now have just enough XP to train pistols I or unarmed I and have about 1750 credits.
Say in spatial ?Looking to learn Unarmed I? or ?Looking to learn Pistols I?. Someone will likely respond to you and offer training. They need the apprenticeship points. You just saved some money.
You now have better accuracy and speed than you did before, but it?s not enough for you to take on bigger missions quite yet.
Now you can try and find a weapon better than what you have now. If you are unarmed, you don?t qualify for a vibro knuckler, but if you use one, it will provide you with some benefits that are slightly better than your bare hands.
In pistols you qualify for the D18, DL44 and DL44 metal pistols. Go to a bazaar terminal. It is in the bank area on the opposite side of the starport from where your mission terminal is. Never use a pistol you do not qualify for.
Chances are you?re not going to find a decent weapon for 1750 credits. You will probably find junk versions of these weapons for cheap. DON?T BUY THEM!!! Weapon stats vary from server to server. As a very basic rule of thumb, at this stage, don?t buy anything that isn?t at least 120 max damage and lower (faster) than 2.5 speed.
Whether or not you were successful in finding a decent weapon, do 5 more sets of missions for 600 credits each.
At this point you?re feeling pretty comfortable with the targeting system and the idea of running missions in the same direction. You also qualify for unarmed II or pistols II. Train it.
Now you have no less than 6000 credits and as much as 7750. It is time to buy a decent weapon (if you haven?t already) and some stimpacks.
Go back to the bazaar. Hopefully you can find a decent weapon now. If you trained Pistols II, you also qualify for the scout blaster. DON?T buy pistols that you don?t qualify for. I made it a point to go to 8 Mos Eisley bazaars on 8 different SWG servers. All of them had D18/DL44/Scouts for under 3000 that weren?t junk. If this is not the case, don?t be desperate. Just ask around a bit. ?Looking to buy a decent D18, DL44 or Scout?. Still having a hard time finding weapons? Read on, we?ll get to that.
Also, look for stim b?s in the bazaar. Med use 5 stim b?s are what you can use at novice medic. You likely won?t find 500 power stim b?s in the bazaar at a reasonable price, but buy nothing lower than 200-250. Using these stims will heal your health and action as you need it for somewhere between 100 and 600 damage a pop depending on the quality of stims you buy.
Bad situations arise even on pretty easy missions. It is vital that you can heal yourself in these situations.
Now you are going to create your first macro. Hit ctrl+A and select the macro tab. Create a new macro. Name it something, assign an icon and in the box for the macro data, type the following:
/peace;
/heal self;
Once you have created this macro drag it into your toolbar. Hit that button when you need healing.
If at this point you are having trouble finding weapons or stims in the bazaar, it?s time to head to Coronet Corellia. .
The bank in Coronet is to the right as you walk outside of the starport. The bazaars there have a lot more to choose from and the area is crowded with people that might be able to help you get a better weapon.
There are mission terminals right in front of the starport. We will be using those now. The missions are a bit different. If you have a new weapon and a few packs of stims, try taking missions up a notch. Try to keep the missions under 1000 credits. If you breeze through them, go for something a little higher.
Time to grind out more missions. Now that you have a better weapon and the capacity to heal yourself, one of two things will happen. 1) You can handle MUCH higher level missions or 2) You are still stuck at lower level missions but can do them in less than half the time and with zero risk.
Pick the direction for your missions that take you just out of town to the right. Grind it out until you finish Pistols III or Unarmed III.
Basic Combat for Pistols I-III- First things first: DO NOT waste your money on buying every pistol you qualify for. The first 4-6 pistols you qualify for are all energy weapons (for the most part). The mobs you will be killing at those levels are weak against virtually every damage type. The D18 pistol you qualify for at novice marksman is nearly as good as the pistols you get at pistols III and even IV. I did everything in marksman pistol and novice pistoleer with a single unsliced D18 (and it was a piece of junk 104 dam 2.0 speed). Eventually you will get body shot 1 and body shot 2. These specials focus specifically on the health pool. It is better damage per second than any other specials at this point. Use them when you qualify for them.
DO NOT RUN. When you move around, you are less accurate. Your accuracy sucks to begin with. The enemy also moves when you move which decreases your accuracy even more. You have about a 1 in 10 chance of hitting something when moving. Start from 64m when you approach a new lair. You might get a couple of shots in before they get in your face and you might not aggro the entire lair. Let them stay in your face. They will die eventually.
Also, don?t go out of your way to get your weapon sliced. If you get a 35% speed or damage slice on your weapon it doesn?t mean you will level 35% faster. It means you will kill about 10% faster and level about 3% faster. Let?s face it. This sliced weapon will not reduce your travel time and it will not make you more accurate. There?s better ways to reduce your level/grinding time. Read on?..
Basic Combat for Unarmed I-III- This is infinitely simpler. There is no temptation to load up on an array of pistols. I use nothing but unarmed hit 1 through the first three boxes. Your biggest issue will be wounds and battle fatigue. Hit ctrl+C to check on yourself from time to time. Keep your BF under 500 and your wounds under 120 per stat.
On single targets use intimidate 1 on them first, and then wail on them with unarmed attack 1. This will reduce the amount of damage you take. It wears off quickly so get ready to reapply if you even feel this level of defense is necessary. If you aren?t having a problem tanking, just do as much damage as possible.
As you move up the unarmed line, you will be getting attacks like stun, blind, etc. Don?t use any of them. Unarmed hit one does 10%+ more damage per second than the others. It?s also faster. Blinding and stunning an enemy isn?t an effective means of protecting yourself.
BUFFED COMBAT Im a manly man...or WOman
Now that you have completed the third tier of your starting profession and have enough money to keep it going, it?s time to start using buffs.
You?re already in Coronet, which on almost any server in the game is a spot where you can typically count on doctors being there to buff. Before you buff, go into the cantina, watch a dancer and a musician until your battle fatigue is at zero. Highlight them and select ?watch? or ?listen? from the radial. Always have your battle fatigue at zero before buffing. Be mindful of your wounds too. Sometimes when you get hit you take wounds. Keep them under control.
Now we have to find a doc. Look for a line of people. You will typically find them in front of the starport or directly inside the starport off to the side in the area where it lands. Get at the end of one of those lines.
A smart doctor will message in spatial exactly what he wants you to do, ?Pay after first buffed stat, 15K, etc, etc.? Some might ask how many stats you want buffed. Get all 6.
Now you?re able to take an insane amount of damage with little fear of death. Go to the mission terminal and try taking 2-3K missions. This is a pretty bug jump. If you can?t get this level of mission solo, see if you can group with someone to get higher mission payouts. Take creatures only, NO NPCS!
You really should be able to handle 2-3K missions. If not, take it down a notch to the 1400 credit missions to get accustomed to exactly how much of a beating you can take with buffs.
Put these buffs to good use. For the next 2.5-3.5 hours you will have all of your stats (health and action) increased by no less than 2000 and as much as 2800.
The only thing that can get you is a mind incap. If it takes you too long to kill the higher level mob their random pool attacks will eventually take out your mind bar (blue). This is highly unlikely at 2-3K missions.
In the unlikely event that they actually whittle down your health or action bars, use your heal macro.
I know what I can handle in this situation. No buffs, no armor, junk unsliced weapon and second rate buffs from starport docs. I can handle level 100 missions in that situation. 40K credit rancor missions would be no problem. Why don?t I ask you to do it? They take forever and require great skill. The experience per hour, minute, second is terrible. It might take you 30 minutes to kill a rancor for 4000xp. Or you could kill a bug in 2 minutes for 1600xp.
This is the hardest part of this guide. Tier 4 and novice elite boxes are hard to grind. You have very little skill thus you kill things slowly. The hard part is finding the right things to kill. If you?re getting junk missions, get in a group to boost them up a bit. Anything that doesn?t involve killing NPCs that pays 1400-3000 credits each. Don?t hunt with a group, even a high level group that knows what they?re doing will slow you down.
How comfortable you are at this point will dictate what level of mission you do, but believe me, at this point, above all else, keep your missions low for now! A little XP for something that keeps you alive and getting a steady stream of kills going is a good thing. 400-1600 XP per kill is what you should be getting.
Pistoleers, continue to use your D18 for now and use body shot 2 instead of body shot 1 when you qualify for it.
TKA is a different grind once you get unarmed 4. You now get unarmed spin 1. Now when you do missions, you will target the lair instead of the creature and spam unarmed spin 1. This is a tricky technique but extremely efficient. In attacking the lair, the creatures will want to protect the lair and all jump on you. You should be able to handle it.
When you finish those boxes, you?re ready to move on.
BEGINNING YOUR ELITE PROFESSIONS
Life just got a lot easier. The novice boxes for both TKA and pistoleer just gave you a sweet boost. Pistoleer can now use a DX2 pistol. It does acid damage which most high-end creatures are very vulnerable to.
TKA got the biggest boost of all. You are now qualified to use the vibro knuckler and now do 4+ times as much damage and can take MUCH more of a beating than you could before.
How much money do you have now? If you followed my advice from beginning to end you will have absolutely no less than 100K. It?s time to spend some money. Don?t buy armor. It would be nice to have, but for 100K or less it will be a wasted investment.
You HAM costs on mind will be a little higher now, so it might be worth purchasing some food. At master TKA it costs about 70 mind to do unarmed attack 3 once with armor on. It?s not so bad at novice but it will build up. Only 2 things you need and they are the only two ?foods? I take: Vasarian Brandy and Ahrisa. Don?t buy this stuff off the bazaar, let?s find a local vendor. Since you?re still in Coronet, you?re in luck. There are shops all around you less than 1500m away in nearly every direction.
Hit ctrl+V. This brings up the world map. On the right side you will see a column of categories. One of which is ?vendors?. Double click it. One of the subcategories is ?food/drink? (or maybe it?s ?chef?). Open that category and you will see a long listing of chef vendors on the planet. If you click on the chef category it will show all the waypoints on the map. See where they are in relation to Coronet. Pick a few near you and right-click on them to create waypoints in your datapad to those shops.
Now open your datapad (ctrl+D) and double click on all of these new waypoints to get arrows for them. By default there should be blue arrows showing the direction and distance.
Before you leave Coronet see if there is someone around selling cheap speeders. I suggest you get a speederbike swoop and not a swoop bike. Not a big difference either way, but it is faster. Prices vary from server to server, but you should be paying about 20-30k for a bike in general.
Cruise out at high speeds to the shops on your new bike. You don?t have enough money to buy crates, so look for a vendor that sells them by the piece as well. Spend about 10K on vasarian brandy. Ahrisa is something you can actually pass on at this point, but it?s not a bad idea to be ready.
400 for 38 minutes is what you want. That?s what the stats on these things should be. Ahrisa tends to be a little lower and vasarian gets a bit higher. Just stay away from the 300 for 20 minute stuff.
While you?re out it?s time for a little weapon upgrade. Pistoleers, get yourself a nice dx2 and a good scout blaster. It?s hard to determine what the best out there is. I can tell you where to go on Gorath. Just shop around a bit to compare. I believe a good DX2 does about 162 max damage and is 2.4 speed.
TKAs, get yourself a good pair of knuckles. They are the only weapon in your profession. On most servers the stats are 147 2.2.
If you want buy powerups for your weapons, get crates of speed powerups. This is not necessary.
You just spent a nice chunk of money, but you should have enough left to get 2-3 sets of buffs.
MASTERING THE ELITE PROFESSION
We?re now ready to start taking some better paying missions. 8-10K missions are not out of the question. I?d focus on 4-7K now. This assumes you?re buffed with no armor.
We should probably head to another planet now. Ride back to Coronet and get a ticket to any city on Dantooine. This is an excellent planet for XP missions. You have a nice variety here but not too much to make it hard to find the type you like. With no one in your group you should be able to pull missions as high as about 10K.
I suggest taking this first run slow. Get a pair of 3K missions of different types. Low-end hurtons are nice. Pick something different as your second mission to get a feel for what you like.
Ultimately we?re trying to build up to savage quenkers. They pay about 7800 per mission, spawn about 8 and are pretty easy to kill. The question becomes can you solo them without armor on? If you?re just starting, probably not, so let?s build our bank account.
What to train first
Pistoleers want fan shot as soon as possible. It is a special with nice damage that hits multiple targets at once. So we?re first going to train Pistol Techniques IV. Do not give in to the temptation of training other boxes except the techniques line and the stances line which uses combat XP instead of pistol XP. Once you have fan shot, do the Pistol Marksmanship line which improves your accuracy. Do grips last.
TKA?s, you will be doing the Power Techniques line first because of the massive speed and damage bonuses, then Balance Conditioning and finally meditation. The Meditation line is awesome, but please do Balance Conditioning first. You will become a MUCH better tank in that line.
Our next financial goal is armor. Grind out some boxes until you have at least 400K saved.
From time to time you will have to fly back to Coronet to train, heal, rebuff and get more healing stims. Travel is a bit expensive, but grinding missions there is about half as good.
YOUR FIRST COMPOSITE ARMOR
This is where it starts getting a little complicated.
Right now, there are only two things you should be looking for in armor:
1) MUST be 80% kinetic in special protection
2) As low in encumbrance as possible
Unless you get really lucky, you won?t find what you?re looking for by doing ctrl+v, searching for vendors. Do this next:
Go this link and pick your galaxy:
Create a new post with the following:
Subject: Looking for a Good Armor Shop
Hi, I?m fairly new to SWG and I have been grinding out missions to afford my first set of composite armor.
I am told that I should be looking for 80% kinetic composite with as low encumbrance as possible. Base protection isn?t a concern.
My budget is currently about XXX,XXX credits. If that won?t find me something decent, let me know and I will grind out missions for a few more hours.
If any of you have a waypoint, I?d greatly appreciate it.
Thanks in advance and may the force be with you.
Don?t offer 100K on some servers and expect any response. Other severs will respond exceptionally well to that price. I suggest 300K+
When you find these shops, there are 9 different pieces you will have to buy:
1) Helmet
2) Chest
3) Pants
4) Boots
5) Left Bracer
6) Right Bracer
7) Left Bicep
8 ) Right Bicep
9) Gloves
Get them all. Put on as much as you can. Get buffed, take a vasarian brandy and put the rest on. Make sure you see a medic to get rid of your wounds.
You now take virtually no damage from anything you could find in a mission. With buffs and armor of this sort on, you could stand in the middle of a lair of rancors, go outside and wash your car and will probably still be alive when you get back.
Your single biggest problem will be mind regeneration and mind HAM costs. This is where Vasarian Brandy and Ahrisa will be much more of a factor. At master TKA, you need 1500 focus to have zero mind costs. For master rifleman it?s 1700 focus. Watch yourself when you?re spamming specials. Since you?re buffed, the only numbers coming up over your own head should be blue. Other colors will come up, but you might see blue -23?s coming up over your head when you do specials. This is your mind ham cost for doing that special.
Let?s do some basic math:
Base focus=400
2 Vasarian Brandies=800
3 Ahrisas=1200
Total Focus= 2400
If your armor is heavy in encumbrance (900 on mind secondaries) you will be left with 1500 focus. This is barely enough to use specials with no mind HAM costs for a TKA and is not enough for a rifleman. On top of that, you have to completely load up on food and drink which is difficult to manage especially if the quality isn?t optimal.
Let?s take that same situation and make some changes.
Base focus=700 (max for some races)
2 Vasarian Brandies=800
3 Ahrisas=1200
Total Focus=2700
Armor gets sliced. Half the pieces get encumbrance with an average slice of 30% in reduction (15% off 900). This equates to 765. That leaves you with a total focus of 1935. This is much better and 435 more than TKA needs, so you actually could refrain from taking one brandy or one ahrisa.
It?s time for me to be obnoxious because it is important that you remember this above all else:
ZERO MIND COSTS FROM DOING SPECIALS
In other words, take enough brandy and ahrisa to keep ANY blue numbers from coming up over your head. You should be able to take 2 vasarians and 3 ahrisas if you need to. Also, do some stat migration. Mind and focus should be maxed out. In fact, since we?re buffed all the time, push everything down to the minimum except mind, focus and willpower. An image designer can make this stat migration happen immediately. Otherwise it will take a few days.
Do not give in to the temptation of using Vagnerian Canape. The stats seem nice at first but the duration is horrible. Stick with ahrisa.
Spend the money to get your armor sliced. Find a master smuggler and have him do your weapons too.
Mind encumbrance shouldn?t be much of a problem for pistoleers. It shouldn?t take much mind food to keep it at zero.
Sound simple enough? It really is. However, I can?t begin to tell you how rare it is that people get the idea of zero ham costs for spamming specials.
Let?s wrap this concept up:
If you are wearing 80% kinetic armor, are buffed and have zero ham costs, the only way a creature or creatures can incap you is from doing damage faster than you regenerate or heal it.
Since you can?t heal your mind, you are totally dependant on your natural regeneration to keep a full mind. This is easy if you?re mind costs from doing specials is zero. The mind isn?t hit by creatures nearly as much as health and action.
If it is taking 2 brandies and 3 ahrisas to keep at zero, stat migration and armor slicing will lighten that load significantly. My TKA/rifleman takes 1 brandy and 2 ahrisas to keep at zero when firing his rifle. I like having that extra stomach space in case of emergency and it makes managing my food and drink cycles easier.
Brandy and Ahrisa costs from 90-200K per crate. A crate will last you a long time, but keep that considerable cost in mind.
Avoid using spices. Muon gold will give you a sweet boost, but the downer is horrible. I?m good at handling the downer, but I know exactly when to use it and I?m very good at avoiding needing to use it in the first place.
I?M STARTING TO FEEL GODLY
Now it?s not even a question of ?can I handle these missions?? it?s a question of ?What missions will give me the most XP per hour??
At this point you are working out the zero HAM cost issue. You?ll get there. Just be mindful that you will have to stop and rest. Keep taking that food. Your stomach empties a little faster than good food wears off, so stay ahead of your food cycle.
The rest of your profession should be done doing savage quenker missions on Dantooine. Other things pay a little better or even spawn more per mission, but let?s keep it safe and simple. Savage quenkers don?t dizzy/knockdown, poison or disease. They will deathblow, but they shouldn?t be able to do much damage at all. You really should be invulnerable to them.
Doing them quickly and efficiently and having the patience to do this mindless routine a few hundred more times is your biggest challenge.
For the record, there are faster ways to grind this XP. However, it?s not much faster and requires that you are exceptional at combat and absolutely exceptional at managing your HAM costs, healing damage and curing poisons and diseases. All that, and it?s maybe 10% faster. Believe me; you?re doing the perfect missions.
Others might say that Gurk missions on Lok are better for pistol and Blood Stained Mereks are better for unarmed. I like gurks a lot, but the missions are a little more intense. I don?t think they?re worth the extra effort for someone still learning intermediate combat. Mereks are weak to kinetic (unarmed damage) but their missions are extremely hard to find (refreshing constantly to find them) and their armor type is bugged right now.
BEYOND MASTER
Congrats, you?re now a master pistoleer or Teras Kasi Artist. The master box in each of these professions is a HUGE leap. Take it out for a test drive. See how well you do one more mission. Get in a group and see how well you do in really high level missions. Take a trip to Dathomir and really test your limits.
Part of becoming an exceptional player is truly knowing your limits and constantly pressing them. It wasn?t enough for me to solo a rancor, I wanted to solo everything. I soloed a bull rancor, then a mid-level nightsister, then krayts and finally dark jedi masters, high end nightsisters, ancient krayts, etc.
Before we press the limits to no end, let?s consider what kind of professions you would like to master.
If you were looking to become a rifleman or carbineer, you get to do this all over again. The good news is that now you have the money and equipment you need and that you just need the new weapons. That and the bonuses from pistoleer and you will be done in a fraction of the time.
If you wanted to go to another melee profession, keep TKA. Most pure melee fighters keep TKA whether they sue it or not for the meditation and amazing defensive bonuses. Your second melee grind will be amazingly easy. If you?re focused, it will take you 18 hours.
ADVANCED MELEE COMBAT
Now it?s time to learn to solo anything. This frankly only applies to melee. While a rifleman, pistoleer, commando, etc, can dish out exceptional damage, in most cases it comes down to the bad guy getting in your face.
I would never make a pure ranged character unless his sole intention was to support tanks (squad leader/pistoleer for example).
The question becomes which melee profession(s)
I have explored fencer and pikeman thoroughly. While excellent professions, they are extremely weak in their ability to tank. I?ve been unsuccessful in my attempts to tank elders and krayts with them solo. It is possible, but certain tactics will likely have to be employed that aren?t true tanking. We?ll get to that stuff later. A pikeman and fencer can tank pretty well, especially if you follow all guidelines I?ve covered so far and even more so, everything I cover from here on.
I have always been partial to TKA, but they have one significant disadvantage. They only do kinetic damage. This isn?t such a bad thing as there are very few things in the universe that are 100% to kinetic. Unfortunately, some nightsisters, including elders are 100%.
In theory you could pound on a 100% for awhile and it will become 99%. Mobs lose resistances over time. In time, an elder would drop to 50% kinetic. At that point you should be able to do very reasonable damage. This system is bugged, in most cases (almost all really) a TKA will never do damage to an elder from beginning to end.
Eventually, TKAs will get the Razor Knuckler, which is heat damage. This is pretty meaningless in the above example as I recall the elder as being 100% to heat as well.
As I mentioned before, one of the best things about the TKA is their ?unarmed toughness?. They take less than half the damage that a swordsman takes. Note that toughness doesn?t apply to ranged professions. If you are a rifleman/TKA, you can?t tank with a rifle in your hand and get the damage reduction of a TKA. You must be unarmed or holding a TKA weapon (vibro knuckles).
Swordsman has become a more popular profession these days. 900+ damage Acklay power hammers have given them a big boost into the highest DPS melee class in the game. They don?t tank quite as well as TKA do, but if you?re good at healing yourself and protecting your mind, you can potentially take mobs down twice as fast (or faster) as TKA?s do.
Swordsmen can damage mobs with 100% kinetic. The power hammer does blast damage which is capable of killing an elder.
All melee professions should ALWAYS use intimidate1 or intimidate2 (master brawler)as often as possible when tanking big mobs. It will work on anything except mechanical enemies (droids, turrets, etc). In a nutshell, intimidate greatly reduces the amount of damage you take.
INVULNERABILITY AGAINST HIGH-END MOBS
The challenge in tanking anything over 200K HAM is keeping healed. Mobs this tough do a lot of damage. So even with toughness, buffs and 80% kinetic armor, you will have to heal yourself quite a bit. Novice medic and stim B?s won?t cut it anymore. All of my combat characters have at least pharmacology 4. Frankly, I like being 3-2-4-0 in medic. Some templates don?t allow for this. Pharm 4 is a must though. Make room for that in your template.
With pharmacology 4, I can tank absolutely any single mob with no fear of getting incapped from health or action unless I get a really nasty prolonged lag spike. Where I usually get incapped is in my mind.
No NPC or creature targets mind specifically. In fact, they rarely hit mind in comparison to health and action. It is supposed to be a random pool attack and yet random pool attacks hit health most often, action second and mind the least often. Of course, unless you have a combat medic standing behind you, you can?t heal mind. A combat medic can?t heal their own mind.
When a high level creature hits your mind it regenerates slowly. This isn?t much of an issue with medium-leveled guys like rancors as they only do 10-40 mind damage to a melee fighter who will heal most or all of it before they hit them in the mind again. A krayt dragon, however, might hit you in the brain for 200. This will not be regenerated before you take another hit for 70 and again for another 200.
In this situation you have to watch your food cycles very closely. Someone who has extremely high encumbrance armor, low base mind stats and low quality mind food is going to suffer greatly in this situation.
This is where I usually take muon gold. Quality isn?t an issue, all muon is the same. I won?t take it though unless I know I can kill the mob within 10 minutes. Otherwise, the downer comes and you will drop very soon afterwards. One precaution you can take is to take a food called smuggler?s delight. This food almost completely eliminates the downer from any spice. Don?t use smuggler?s as a reason to always be full of muon. The stomach fill isn?t insane, but you will need to take some ahrisa, so it is more of an emergency solution as well.
I never have mind problems. I can take dark jedi masters all day. How do I do it
First off, my primary character is human. His mind stats are almost completely maxed out since he is buffed all the time. Humans can set their mind stats higher than any other race.
Next, I buy multiple sets of extremely expensive armor. It?s nothing special in terms of protection; it?s just 80% kinetic. But the encumbrance is the lowest on my server. Most amorsmiths? armor is between 800 and 900. The stuff I buy a dozen sets of at a time is about 600. I take the best sliced pieces and usually end up with a total encumbrance of 350 across the board for all 9 pieces. I don?t need buffs or armor to equip it. That?s not the point though. My willpower is 300-600 points higher than most. This equates to much more regeneration of mind damage.
Also, I only settle for the best food and drink. I search for only the best stats of vasarian brandy and ahrisa that can be found on my server. While others might settle for 390 vasarian with a 50 stomach fill and lasts for 36 minutes, I?m using 438 vasarian with 49 stomach fill and 41 minute duration. This is almost 100 to mind, focus and willpower that lasts for 5 minutes longer and empties out of my stomach a little faster so that I can actually get WAY ahead of my food cycles.
There is also a skill that can almost completely insure that you never die in combat of any sort. Dirty fighting I in smuggler gives you feign death. Too few hunters use this skill. It has saved me countless thousands of times. When you activate feign death it takes a few seconds to kick in and the next time an enemy lands a hit on you, you will appear dead to them. While you are down, you regenerate as if you were standing up. In theory, someone with very few skills at all, could blast away at a creature, feign just before the creature killed them, completely regenerate and repeat until the creature dies.
While this might sound great in theory, regeneration is very slow. If you?re buffed, health and action will come back pretty quickly, but the mind will take a very long time. Like many other things, use it in an emergency. I can?t count the number of times I used feign to save my life, got back up and kicked the enemy?s butt that was about to drop me.
CONCLUSION
This guide is about going from to god in a week. Let?s put that in perspective with a fictitious diary:
Day 1 (6 hours): Spent 2-3 hours trying to figure out where everything is, getting comfortable with the interface, windows, controls, etc. The other 3-4 hours were spent grinding to unarmed 2 or pistols 2 and trying to find a budget weapon.
Day 2 (8 hours): Resisted the urge to want to hang around and chit chat or explore the land. I decided it was wisest to stay focused and explore when I am better at defending myself. Finished unarmed/pistols 3 and 4 and put a nice dent in unarmed/pistols 4 with a good chunk of my novice elite box.
Day 3 (8 hours): Finished novice pistoleer/TKA and have a good chunk of cash now. Bought a bike, am getting buffed before doing missions and have stims for healing myself. I?m not using them much but it?s good to have when I need them. I stumbled across a few tough mobs just outside of town that put the hurt on pretty good.
Day 4 (8 hours): Tough day. Couldn?t find a single doc most of the day in Coronet. Most of my day was wasted looking for one. I did a search for doctors in the area and no one was available. I did meet some pretty cool people that run a small guild and they invited me to their guild. I accepted. One of their guildmates is a doctor. I was able to buy buffs from him. The rest of my night went a lot smoother. Got a few boxes in pistol/tka. I bought a bike and now do my missions MUCH faster. I should have done that sooner.
Day 5 (8 hours): Now I?m smoking. I have a decent set of composite that someone was selling near the starport. I got lucky since I have no idea what I was doing and the guy didn?t try to rip me off. I now have fan shot and lay waste to everything at my mission lairs at once. My mission times have been cut in time. (Or if you were a TKA) I got master power techniques and do 3 times as much damage to the entire lair at once.
Day 6 (10 hours on the weekend): I?m really starting to get my mind HAM costs under control. This is allowing me to be so much more aggressive than before. I mastered pistol/TKA today. I have 1.4 million credits in my bank. I spent a good number of hours getting a feel for how much better my profession is at master. HOLY SMOKES. I can?t imagine why anyone would only partially master a profession. I spent some time on Dathomir killing rancors and low to mid level nightsisters. I got in a group to get high level missions and am making 40K per mission!!!
Day 7 (10 hours on the weekend): I added dirty fighting in smuggler to pistol/master brawler to TKA today and gave myself a ton of medic skills. I had a much harder time with higher-end nightsisters. All NPC?s seemed to have been given a boost today. It?s been a great week and I really feel like I?m just polishing the finer points of my professions to truly master this game.
Certainly there is much more to learn at this point moving forward. But in a week you were able to take the fast track to getting ramped up in SWG. The example listed above in the ?diary? would be someone that got a faster, stronger start than 99% of all new players in the game. Although he has much to learn, he is in his current state a better player than 90% of players that have been playing the game for 6 months or more.
Of course, the moment I write this guide, SWG comes out with a patch that gives many mobs a boost. While I do not expect this patch to affect any of the leveling portions of this guide, it will significantly affect high-end soloing. It?s time for you, the next generation of high-end hunters to redefine advanced combat.
