6581

Akaavi isn’t a tank. She’s listed in the codex as dps only, and she doesn’t have aggro skills. Comparing her to Bowdar in that respect doesn’t make much sense. She’s dps, comparable to Risha only.

Bowdar is widely considered to be inferior to Corso in terms of both damage given and taken. There are many threads about it. Bowdar is really gimped in comparison for some reason, and afaik the developers haven’t commented on it. I don’t think any good tests with numbers have been done because lol no combat log.

Ranged tanks have the advantage of being able to aggro things at range, and not having to run between targets when you tell them to switch. This is exacerbated by the delays in your companions following your commands. Also less likely to get knocked back into adds when the fighting isn’t going on up by the pack. Taking aoe damage with your pet is a very minimal concern, and half of smugglers (scoundrels) will want to be in melee range anyway.

Guss isn’t superior to all the others if you’re already a healer. Doesn’t help at all.

Regardless, many people find other factors more important like Corso being annoying or Risha/Guss being able to use hand-me-down gear. Or one of them liking the way you choose your dialog options.

6582

I don’t think slicing works well for someone who wants to craft “seriously.” The problem is blues and purples require lots of resources from your corresponding mission skill. This may not be available on the market. For example, I currently need 4 level 6 gemstones for each blue artifice recipe. In order to turn my blue recipes into purple recipes, that’s going to take a lot of blue gemstones. The times I’ve checked on the market for level 6 blue gemstones there haven’t been any. Without the Treasure Hunting mission skill, I would not be able to progress further in my crafting until someone put those gemstones on the market.

I do have a tendency to spin up crafting missions and then either log out or go AFK while I’m eating dinner or reading the news. SWTOR crafting is very well suited to spinning up crafting missions and then logging out. The other thing that works fairly well at least until the mid-levels is to start a series of crafting in parallel, but slightly offset. So for example if I’ve got a 5 minute green recipe, I’ll start one companion crafting it, then one minute in start another companion, with a third companion offset by two minutes and so on. This means I’ll have something coming off to deconstruct every minute. The advantage of using offsets is if something turns blue, I can cancel all the other jobs without a loss of resources. Without the offset, you’ll still blue just as frequently, but you may end with some extra unwanted greens. OTOH if you’re crafting something which deconstructs into multiple different recipes – say a piece of armor instead of a color crystal – you may want those extra greens to increase the odds of getting the exact recipe you want. That’s the strategy I’ve been using for Shields, Focuses, and Generators.

6583

Well, I find Bowdaar a great tank. He doesn’t need to switch between targets because he has AOE aggro generating skills (AOE attacks + Flaregun). Now it could be that for a gunslinger, who puts out loads of DPS, he can’t hold aggro as well as Corso does. But what I’m not doing in damage I do in healing. On the rare occasion I do draw some fire with Bowdaar tanking I break out the hi-larious Surrender skill and they’re back on him again.

I don’t even find Corso annoying. As his harpoon attack is great for me, as a Scoundrel, as it usually just yanks a target right into Dirty Kick range and for my other melee/short range attacks.

I’d say Bowdaar strikes me as tougher and more damage dealing, obviously once he gets into range, and great at group tanking. He just attracts loads of attention and holds it. Corso is better at holding the attention of single targets, harpoon generates a ton of aggro, over long periods. When we’re fighting bosses I can pull them off onto me with Bowdaar, sometimes, though that’s nothing Surrender doesn’t usually fix. Corso never loses aggro no matter what.

6584

Yeah, I’m aware Bowdaar has better defense than Akaavi, but if Akaavi were to finish fights faster while still standing, she’d be the better companion; however she’s not.

But if I play with Bowdaar, combats are over faster, I have more health, and less downtime than with Akaavi. If I play with Guss, then I’m better off still. So it doesn’t really matter to me what the companion’s role is, so long as they help me more or less.

6585

Anyone else cancel before their first month was up?

6586

Not here. I signed up for two more months. Very happy with the game so far.

6587

I really love the game. I’m definitely staying on, and I’m interested to see where Bioware takes it.

I just started up a Jedi Consular alt to level up with a RL friend and will be starting up either an Imperial Agent or Bounty Hunter sometime over the next day or two.

6588

Looks like the 4GB redownload problem I experienced 2 weeks ago, with the culprit being corrupt data on a patch server is still happening as of yesterday.

6589

Oh, I know it’s a minor, petty lore detail but the use of anachronistic in-game mailboxes + email with “FW/CC” etc and attachments sort of bugged me. Surely they could have thought of some other way to handle it for a sci-fi setting.

6590

Just added a 2 month time card I got for christmas…then the credit card kicks in.

6591

Promo screen of Trooper: http://cdn-www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/en/classes/trooper/62img/ss03_800x450.jpg

In-game: http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/1466/screenshot2012011115012.jpg

6592

I’m really enjoying the game. Already signed up for six months. The storytelling really engages me, and the Light/Dark decisions are fun. The cut-scenes and conversation-decisions enhance my attachment to my character. For once, I actually feel like I’m playing a role in a role-playing game.

6593

The grass is missing. Am I right?

/flees

6594

I’m currently approaching 40 on my Jedi Sentinel, and feel like I’m starting to run out of steam. I really enjoyed Act I, but feel like questing is starting to become a bit of a slog, and can’t really say I have any urge to create a bunch of alts to see the other storylines. Maybe one Sith character to see part of the Empire side through Act I, and that might be it.

6595

ya, i did. Havent even logged in the past week or so…

I’m seriously thinking MMOs are dead to me - at least in the present context. I think i know what direction i’d like to see the industry go - i just don’t think it has the balls to go there.

6596

Any thoughts from any Jedi Sages on the three talent trees and how one might decide to distribute points between the various trees?

6597

It’s still looking like I’ll subscribe for one month past the first, then cancel. I’m leveling a second character with a friend, but once that’s done I don’t see any appeal in the form of endgame. The PVP is basically just Huttball, and there’s nothing to the endgame PVE besides running some not especially interesting instances in a thin gear grind.

6598

Madness equivalent (right tree) till you pick up no cool down on your channeled project and the proc that lets you insta cast spells with cast times. Then you can do whatever. Though I would recommend going center tree for the 3 second cast aoe. Which you instant cast with procs.

6599

I’ve never found endgame play very compelling in any MMO. Just out of curiosity what makes the endgame in something like WoW more compelling than SWTOR?

I can kind of see how running Flashpoints over and over might be fun, if there was enough Flashpoint variety and if the gameplay felt like it varied a lot and required a lot of careful tactics. But mostly doing the same thing over-and-over again whether Dungeons or Raids just seems like it would get old fast (OTOH I do have over 3500 World of Tanks matches under my belt … hmm).

For me the nice thing about SWTOR is that I’m actually interested in replaying the content both with other character classes and also with the same class, but with different choices or different character builds. I just didn’t feel that way at all about Rift. I did replay LOTRO to about level 30, and some day I may go back and do a full play through with another character class. But with SWTOR I feel excited and motivated to play with a different character.

6600

I’m not a big fan of WoW endgame, but I find their instance design, their loot design, the basic core fluidity/gameplay, their world design - MUCH better.

Much of that is based on when I played it, though. Back before WotLK.

I wanted to BE in Azeroth. Later on? Not so much. Too much of a joke and the whole dungeon finder stuff just ruined the sense of a living breathing world.