Feb 14, 2012

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Breakdown: The Cybertech Mods You Want!

Breakdown is designed to to fill that stressful void while Star Wars: The Old Republic is down for maintenance. Each Tuesday morning, we’ll look at a topic and try to break it down to the basics. In the end, we hope to educate, entertain, and prevent you from having your own Breakdown!

This week’s Breakdown is about Modifications! If you’re an avid customizable gear user  you know that keeping up with all of the different modifications for your gear can be dizzying. Every class, and every spec, has something different you want to focus on. On top of that, once you hit the 30s, the number of options you have grow considerably! If you haven’t already, go back and read my previous article on Enhancements (there were so many they needed their own article!) This week, we’re going to break down all the different types of Modification mods and Armoring mods available to you, so that you know which ones you want to slot into your favorite set of custom gear.

First, let’s start with some definitions:

When you’re a “lowbie” (below level 30) You’re going to use one of the “Basic” mods. These terms work for both Armoring and Modifications.

  • Might = Strength (Jedi Knight & Sith Warrior)
  • Reflex = Aim (Trooper & Bounty Hunter)
  • Resolve = Will (Consular & Inquisitor)
  • Skill = Cunning (Smuggler & Agent)

22 Series: Each time you go up a level range, the series of Enhancements, Modifications, Armoring, Hilts, Barrels, etc… will increase. The 22 series is the highest level that crafters can make (not to be confused with the different qualities such as prototype and artifact). Every time you increase in rating, you’re increasing in the level requirement and the magnitude of the stats that are on that particular item modification.

Click to Enlarge

Rating: If you look carefully at the Armoring mods, they will have something that shows you the rating. In the above example, it says “Armor Rating 70.” This doesn’t really mean anything until you slot it into a piece of customizable armor, and that will depend on if it is heavy, medium, or light armor. The higher the rating, the higher the value of armor. Artifact pieces will have the same level requirement (such as level 31) but instead of being rating 70, they will be considerably higher, granting you a better bonus (and better stats) for the same level range.

Now without further ado, I give you Ask A Jedi’s newest Breakdown crafting modification chart:

Click to Enlarge

This chart includes the previous one on Enhancements, as well as Modification mods and Armoring mods. The bonuses marked in here are for the basic prototype quality that anyone can make. Prior to level 31, you’ll want to use the “lowbie” ones I mentioned above. Also, the italicized and struck out Enhancements are the repeats (exact duplicate) of the one above it.

Hopefully this will help you next time you decide to peruse the Galactic Trade Market (and remember that the one on Nar Shaddaa is cross faction), or the next time you hit up your local crafter. As always, I hope I’ve helped educate you on more of the basics, and I hope you’ll join me next week when the servers are down for another Breakdown!

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Feb 7, 2012

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Breakdown: Space Combat

Breakdown is designed to to fill that stressful void while Star Wars: The Old Republic is down for maintenance. Each Tuesday morning, we’ll look at a topic and try to break it down to the basics. In the end, we hope to educate, entertain, and prevent you from having your own Breakdown!

This week’s Breakdown is all about Space Combat! Quite frankly, this has been one of the hottest topics in Star Wars: The Old Republic, both for its implementation, and for people to just plain old talk trash back and forth between those who love it and hate it. Whether you like TOR’s Star Fox homage (I quite enjoy it) or not, it is a very rewarding (pun intended) part of the game. In this week’s Breakdown, we’re going to go over some of the basics of the system and show you some of the perks from doing space combat, and some of the tips you may not have known about if you’ve found it frustratingly difficult.

First, let’s start with some definitions:

Fleet Commendations: This is one of the rewards you get for completing Space Battles and Space Operations (more on this later). These can be used at your fleet station, and a handful of other planets, to buy things from the Space Commendation Vendor. You can buy not only ship upgrades, but also item boxes and social gear sets as well (more on this later as well).

Space Battle: It may seem obvious, but there is a distinction to be made here. The actual mission, is what you’ll see when you’re going there, such as “Balosar Outpost.” You can do these as many times as you want, and you will recieve XP, credits, and some Fleet Commendations.

Operation: While this may seem a bit confusing at first, you’ll understand it in game when you see it in context. Operations are the missions you get from your fleet communicator in the cockpit of your ship. These are repeatable daily missions (in most cases), such as “Operation Noble Gamit” which asks that you complete “Achenar Interception” and “Makem Te Assault” space battles. Completing one of these can net you 10 to 20 thousand XP and several thousand credits when completed at level. This can be a great way to fun your early level crafting, or grab you that last bub or two you need to get the next level.

Equipping Your Ship

When it comes to space combat, you should think of your ship like a companion character. C2-N2 for example, has absolutely no equipment. He’s not nearly as good as any of your other companions, and you shouldn’t except any more out of your ship when you haven’t given it any gear either! The ship tab (next to the companion tab on your character sheet) will show you the six equipment slots, and the 4 “power” slots. I call them that because it’s not really gear, but more similar to a consumable than a piece of equipment (though they never go away). The slots are as follows:

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Jan 31, 2012

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Breakdown: Enhancements and You!

Breakdown is designed to to fill that stressful void while Star Wars: The Old Republic is down for maintenance. Each Tuesday morning, we’ll look at a topic and try to break it down to the basics. In the end, we hope to educate, entertain, and prevent you from having your own Breakdown!

If you follow the official TOR forums at all, you will see more than a few threads repeating themselves trying to clarify some of the basic features of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Here in Breakdown, we’ll try to present all the currently known facts about how the game works in an easy to read format. Hopefully, we can clear up a few misconceptions, and answer a few questions; maybe we will even fill you in on something you didn’t know.

This week’s Breakdown is about Enhancements! If you’re an Artificer or a player over level 30, you know that the enhancements go from only having a few options, to having several dozen (about 56 at my last count). Enhancements come in almost every arrangement of secondary stats you could want, and they come in multiple quality grades; each one more difficult to craft than the next. This week, we’re going to break down all the different types available to you, so that you know which ones you want to slot into your favorite set of custom gear.

First, let’s start with some definitions:

Primary Stats: These are things like Strength, Endurance, Willpower, etc… They have a direct relation to how your character performs. Each class has a primary stat which increases almost everything they do.

Secondary Stats: These are derivative stats like Crit Rating, Surge, Power, etc.. and they are merely bonuses to your character’s performance. Secondary Stats, unlike Primary, are affected by diminishing returns. It has also been rumored that Power is not affected by diminishing returns.

Enhancement: This is the name of a specific modification slot in gear. Enhancements are universal, in that they are on both weapons and armor. Enhancements themselves can be purchased for commendations, or bought from an Artifice Crafter.

Enhancements can come in [Premium], [Prototype], and [Artifact] quality; they will always have Endurance on them, and then 2 other Secondary stats. The reason there are so many different combinations is due to the fact that you can get those 3 stats in different values.

Here is an example:

Acute vs. Finesse

Acute vs. Finesse

Both of these enhancements have the same 3 stats, but each has a different value. The important thing when choosing an Enhancement is to figure out which stat is most important to you.

Now, let’s get on to the list! I am using the green version, because they are the most widely available. Higher quality versions will have higher values, but the proportions will remain the same. (Also note there are duplicates in here which I will show, but strike out. These are covered elsewhere on the list.)

As you can see, there are many duplicates, and with time maybe this will be fixed to help fill in a few of the missing combos.

Hopefully this will help you next time you decide to peruse the Galactic Trade Market (and remember that the one on Nar Shaddaa is cross faction), or the next time you hit up your local Artificer. As always, I hope I’ve helped educate you on more of the basics, and I hope you’ll join me next week when the servers are down for another Breakdown!

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Jan 18, 2012

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Breakdown: Social Gear Sets For The Republic

Breakdown is designed to to fill that stressful void while Star Wars: The Old Republic is down for maintenance. Each Tuesday morning, we’ll look at a topic and try to break it down to the basics. In the end, we hope to educate, entertain, and prevent you from having your own Breakdown!

This week’s Breakdown is all about Social Gear! We’ve got the screen shots, and the locations of all the custom orange social gear you could want!

Let’s begin by giving you your social points goals! I wasn’t able to get numbers for all of them, so if you have the missing numbers, please post them in the comment section below.

  • Social Rank I: 10 points
  • Social Rank II: 750 points
  • Social Rank III: 1,550 points
  • Social Rank IV: Unknown (somewhere around 2300)
  • Social Rank V: Unknown (somewhere around 3100)
  • Social Rank VI: 4,350 points
  • Social Rank VII: 5400 points
  • Social Rank VIII: Unknown(somewhere around 6,200)
  • Social Rank IX: Unknown (somewhere around 7,750)
  • Social Rank X: 9000

Now you may be asking: how are social points calculated? As you might have guessed, you have to be in a group to earn them:

In a two person group, you get 4 points for winning the roll on a conversation choice, and 2 points for participating. In a group of 3, it increases to 6 and 3. In a group of 4, it increases to 8 and 4. As of the writing of this article, there aren’t any known dialogues in Operations that award points, so you won’t be getting any from that. Side note, it has been reported that Hard Mode Flashpoints (level 50 versions) are not rewarding Social Points at this time either, but you do get them from all regular flash points, world quests, side quests, and heroics; so get out there and be social!

Now that you know the cost involved, let’s see some of those rewards, in order of Social Rank.

Social Rank 1 Sets:

Elegant Dress: Found on Coruscant. This set is for Females only (though it could probably pass for most Consular gear!)

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Jan 10, 2012

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Blue Milk & Cereal: What Do You Think Of Bonus Series Missions?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

Last week, MMORPG.com ran an interesting piece on the “Bonus Series” missions in Star Wars: The Old Republic. At first, I thought the topic was about the bonus quests that pop-up as you’re running around the world, where you have to kill 15/30/50 of some type of enemy to receive some extra experience. But then as I read it, I realized it was something else… Something much more sinister. As I learned first-hand when trying to leave Taris, there are entire sub-zones dedicated to a lengthy chain of extra missions!

At first you might ask “how can you complain about more content?” and that would be a valid question. My answer would be because of the presentation and the pacing.

By this point, you’ve already spent hours if not days questing on Taris. It reminded be of driving across Texas it look so long, and everything looked the same anywhere you looked. And my God, so many Rakghouls. Just when everything appears to be complete and you’re looking forward to a new zone, they hit you! And then, they don’t tie into the story in any meaningful way. They quest line is literally called “Taris: Bonus Series.” Intriguing, huh?

“But, Lethality, they’re OPTIONAL” you say? Yes they are. But if you’re what I believe to be the fairly typical MMO player, you’re somewhat of a completionist. How do I know there isn’t some kind of cool lore revealed there? Maybe there’s a datacron back there? At the very least, how on earth could I leave sections of the map uncovered?

In the end, I’m just not sure why they are even there. It seems like they were added without any thought or attention to the tuning or pacing of leveling. I’m already out-leveling all of my missions by a few levels at least, and I’ve done no PvP or Space Combat.

The bonus series on Taris sucked the wind right out of me. If the same thing is at the end of Nar Shadaa, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. What about you guys? Do you enjoy these “extra” quests? Do you skip them? Let us know!

What do you think of the Bonus Series missions at the end of a planet?

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Jan 10, 2012

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Breakdown: Warzones And You

Breakdown is designed to to fill that stressful void while Star Wars: The Old Republic is down for maintenance. Each Tuesday morning, we’ll look at a topic and try to break it down to the basics. In the end, we hope to educate, entertain, and prevent you from having your own Breakdown!

If you follow the official TOR forums at all, you will see more than a few threads repeating themselves trying to clarify some of the basic features of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Here in Breakdown, we’ll try to present all the currently known facts about how the game works in an easy to read format. Hopefully, we can clear up a few misconceptions, and answer a few questions; maybe we will even fill you in on something you didn’t know.
This week’s Breakdown is all about Warzones! In this article I’m going to tell you the basic ins and outs of how each one operates. No strategy here, but if you don’t want to look like a noob when you first set foot in your first PvP match, you’ll want to read what’s below. You may even learn something that will give you an edge over your friends and enemies!

Let’s begin by defining a few things:

Warzone Commendations: The currency you get for completing Warzones which can be used to purchase PvP items and gear.

Valor: Valor is like your PvP experience, or perhaps it’s better to think of it like social points. As you get Valor, your Valor Rank (like your Social Level) will increase. This will earn you titles, (Skirmisher at valor rank 10, and Duelist at 20) as well as the person with the highest Valor Rank being the Ops leader in the Warzone. Also there is PvP gear which requires you have a certain Valor Rank to use.

Badges: Badges are what you get for accomplishing certain things within a Warzone match (more on this later). Each badge you earn increases your reward by 50 Valor and 5 commendations.

Resolve: Resolve is the system that BioWare has implemented to help with chain CC. It is represented as a white/gray bar around your target’s picture (by their health bar), or around your own by your health bar. The bar fills up when you’re CC’ed and when it’s full, you become immune. It can be a tricky system to use, and I can’t explain it as well as forum poster Felnadir can here.

MVP: When a match ends, you will be shown a window that has all the players on the match, and their various different metrics. Next to each person’s name is a button that looks like a plus sign, and a trophy. Clicking this for a player will give them an MVP vote, and reveal to you who gave them to you. Each MVP vote gives you an extra commendation, and (in beta) could unlock special achievement titles (Such as the “Warzone Hero” title). These titles have not been seen in game since release, but it could be that their requirement was increased. Voting MVP can only help your faction, so remember to do it every match!

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