How I Write Leveling Guides (Part II)

Part I of this little mini-series talked mostly about when I write my guides. I consider when to be a big part of how because getting that feeling of being qualified to write a guide is really the foundation of the whole thing.

Once I feel that I’m qualified to write the post it’s time to start the research phase.

Research and Verify
After I feel that I know the class well enough to write a post about it, I get online and do some research to see if anything has changed that I didn’t know about. Sometimes I might miss a patch note that changes a stat priority or that makes a talent suddenly worthless, so I like to make sure I’m on top of everything.

I’ll also see what the flavor of the month versions of my spec are to see if there’s anything crazy going on that I should try out. That’s how I found out about the spec that I’m currently using on my level 40 Sage, which is a hybrid of Balance and Telekinetics that has some amazing AoE potential which I love more than these words can describe. I had been so used to WoW’s current talent trees that force you to use the whole tree before branching out that I didn’t even consider hybrid builds before I saw a post on that, which has led to some interesting builds I have in mind for other classes.

Once I know that I have a good grasp on everything for sure it’s time to move on to the next step.

 

How I Write Leveling Guides

Part I ~

“Psyn, when are you going to write more leveling guides?”

I’ve heard that question quite a bit lately, along with a few people asking whether or not I’m going to get back to writing leveling guides for WoW, so I figured I might as well answer it on the blog where everyone who didn’t ask could see the answer as well.

I could answer the question in short as, “hopefully soon for SWTOR, and maybe sometime after MoP for WoW,” but to really answer that question I need to explain a little bit about how I go about writing my guides.

 

My Dog Ate It…

I came home from work yesterday and found that our puppy had left us a few surprises. No, not the warm little piles of stinkiness that she used to leave us. No, this time the surprises were various items from the office that were chewed up and lying on the living room floor.

This isn’t the first time she’s done this, by far, and we know she has a thing for chewing on stuff so we keep the office door closed while we’re at work. But, we forgot to close it a few weeks ago and apparently we forgot again yesterday as well.

I noticed something interesting this time though, which is that all of the items from the office that she had chewed on were exactly the same items she had gotten to the last time, and that sent me on alert because last time it happened she had chewed up our SWTOR Collector’s Edition Security Key. I didn’t see it this time, but it was definitely there the last time, so I went on a hunt.

Living room? Not there.

Office? Not there.

Maybe my wife hid it somewhere so the dog wouldn’t get it again? Called her up – no answer.

Maybe she chewed it up in the den? Not there.

 

6 ÷ 6 = 1

This morning Cynwise tagged me for the Sixth Meme, which means it’s my turn to share with you the sixth image in my sixth subfolder.

However, I don’t keep images organized in the same way that other players do, I guess, and I’ve recently made the transition from WoW to SWTOR which throws another little spin on things as the Sixth has been going around the WoW blogosphere up to this point (as far as I’m aware).

So, since I use a more elaborate organisation system, and I have a lot of screenshots from two different games, and the fact that I don’t usually join memes because I don’t like spreading them to other people, I’m putting a Psynister spin on this meme. Instead of giving you the sixth image from my sixth subfolder, I’m going to give you six images from six of my sixth subfolders.

As far as tagging other people goes, it’s not really my thing. So, consider my tags open to the public. If you want to partake in the Sixth, but haven’t been tagged yet – then consider yourself tagged. If you haven’t been tagged yet, and you don’t want to be tagged – then consider yourself tagged anyway!

 

Taking the Ironman Challenge to a Whole New Level

Around the middle of last year Vrykerion and I came up with the idea for the WoW Ironman Challenge, for players to level a toon without using any type of stat boosting gear or consumables, no talent points, no professions, no glyphs, and no help from friends. Ironsally from Tome of the Ancient was our first Ironman winner, reaching the level cap with a Warlock of unmatched Iron quality.

Today we’re going to talk about a new kind of Ironman, this one going back more to the real roots of what it is to be labeled an “Ironman”.

There’s a new (to me, at least) blog out there called Iron Man Mode that’s collecting donations for the Child’s Play charity. The blog is aimed at having people play video games and blog about their experiences, but with the Iron Man catch – you play, and blog, only until your character dies. Once your character dies, the blog dies with it.

If you would like to donate to the cause of helping children, participate in the challenge yourself, or just help spread the word you can follow this link to get all the details.

 

Companions List

Over the last month of playing SWTOR I’ve relied a lot on various sites for information regarding companions. However, there’s always something that I’m missing from each of those sites that I’m looking for that causes me to look elsewhere, and I still haven’t found a single source that gives me everything that I want in a single package. So for that reason I’m going to do something I don’t normally do, which is to jump in with the crowd and do my own post on companions so that I don’t have to wait on someone else to present this information in a format that I’d like to see, I can just gather all of my own information and have it there at my fingertips.

This post is going to look at all of the companions that each class gets, which crew skills they give you a bonus to, where you get those companions planet-wise, and the average level at which you’ll get them. I’ll be listing the average level because it’s possible for you to use the help of high level friends to power through your entire class quest by level 15, thus gaining all of your companions. While you might find it appealing to have all of those companions from an early level, how many companions you can actively use at one time is restricted by your character level.

In regards to companion romances, many companions will not start the actual romance until you get to Chapter 2, and in some cases they won’t even start flirting with you until Chapter 2. Some companions also require significant Affection scores (7,500+) before those options become available. As a general rule of thumb, if your romanceable companion is a Force user, having a Light/Dark score that conflicts with theirs reportedly requires higher Affection to start a romance.

 

Sage/Sorcerer Leveling: 1-20 DPS

Playing a Sage/Sorcerer
For the most part, playing a Sage/Sorc is much like playing a spell caster in any other MMO. In the world of SWTOR, they’re the only real spell casters in the game. While you can get a caster feel from some of the ranged classes (Trooper, Smuggler, Bounty Hunter, Imp. Agent) most of what they do doesn’t really feel like casting, at least not to me, unless you’re playing their healing spec.

Concerning Sage/Sorc DPS, there are two primary trees available to you and they each have their own feel. The Telekinetics/Lightning tree is the turret casting tree, where you’ll spend the majority of your time remaining stationary while you simply turn left or right as needed while you spam-cast your spells. You do have some spells that you can use on the move, but you’ll have a loss of overall DPS if you use them without needing to move. The Balance/Madness tree relies on damage over time (DoT) effects and channeled spells for the majority of it’s damage and is much more mobile as most of the spells you’ll use in those trees are instant cast either by design or thanks to talent-based procs.

When you reach level 10 and take your advanced class of Sage/Sorcerer there’s going to be a complete change in how you handle combat. Out of all of the classes and advanced classes, the Sage/Sorc AC has the largest shift in playstyle because you’ve just spent 10 levels killing things primarily with melee attacks with some occasional spells thrown in (maybe) and now you’re never going to use another melee attack again. Some players do play low level Consulars/Inquisitors trying to focus on spell casting, but since both of your damaging spells have cooldowns you’re really better of just beating things up in melee.

In addition to the switch from melee to casting you’re also going to notice that your spells now actually have a decent range on them. Telekinetic Throw(Force Lightning) jumps up to 30 meters by default as does Project(Shock), and your new spam-cast spell, Disturbance(Lightning Strike), is a 30 meter cast as well. You also get to quintuple your Force pool from 100 to 500, and your primary crowd control spell Force Lift(Whirlwind) goes from an 8 second duration up to 60 seconds. All of these changes combine to make one heck of a shift in playstyle, so you’ll want to find a few things to kill to get a feel for your new life as a real caster.