Planning My Legacy

A couple of days ago I wrote An Altoholic’s Look At SWTOR’s Legacy System describing some of the concerns that I have about the system. Today I wanted to gather my thoughts about this system and break it down to what really matters to me so that I can plan out how I want to create and level my alts.

This planning is necessary for me because SWTOR has no intention of increasing character slots above the existing 8, which I talked about in some detail in the post linked above. Since I can’t get all of the features I would want (ie all of them) I need to decide which ones matter to me the most so that I can prioritize the alts and see if I’m able to justify not deleting all of the high level characters I currently have.

There are two things that really stand out as far as deciding which alts to roll in regards to legacy: Species and Class. Certain features are tied to leveling a species to 50 and others are tied to leveling a class to 50. I need to decide which of those features matter the most to me.

Welcome to my thought processes.

Unlocking Species Features
This is probably the single biggest issue for me because the high level characters I have right now are all using the two least-useful races: Human and Zabrak. They’re the only two races that can be used for every class in the game right now by default. I get some more skin color options from the Zabrak (I’m assuming), but the Human reward is a bonus to Presence which is a leveling-only stat that’s largely useless.

Of the seven other races, let’s take a look at which ones appeal to me enough that I would sacrifice a character slot to unlock them:

• Chiss
• Cyborg
• Miraluka
• Mirialan
• Rattataki
• Twi’lek
• Sith Pure Blood

Chiss: This race of overgrown smurfs is sort of appealing to me because they do look kind of cool with their blue-toned skin and their glowy-red eyes. I kind of like the thought of having a blue skinned race flinging purple lightning around as a Sith Sorcerer, so they’re going to remain on the list.

Cyborg: Cyborgs are one of my favorite races because I just like the look of their cybernetics. Getting one to 50 not only unlocks the species for all classes, it also opens up all of the cybernetics options for all classes. Definitely remaining on my list.

Miraluka: The race that intentionally gives up their vision in order to enhance their Force sensitivity…I kind of like the look of a couple of these, but overall I don’t care for them a whole lot. If other options are open to me, I’m almost certainly going to take another route. I don’t need to waste time unlocking a race I’m not going to use.

Mirialan: Green being my favorite color, you’d think I kinda like this race. But, for all the Miri’s I’ve rolled, every one of them has been deleted. I really don’t care for this species as a choice for my own characters, so there’s no reason for me to really bother unlocking them.

Rattataki: This is an interesting looking race of grey people who have no hair and like jewelry and tattoos. I actually kind of like this race even though I can’t really say for sure what it is that I like about them. Will I use a lot of them? No, I don’t really think that I will…However, I do like them enough that I would at least consider them when rolling an alt. They can stay on the list, for now.

Twi’lek: I’m not gonna lie, I hate this species. If I could wrap my little head tentacles around my neck or something so that they didn’t swing around like I have two giant gummy worms on my head all the time then it might be different. Since I have no choice but to deal with stupid looking head thingies, I don’t need this race. I do really like the look of them when they’re standing still, but the second the gummy worms start to move it just looks bad. Animations have them move around like clothing (nearly weightless) and it just looks completely off to me.

Sith Pure Blood: I really like playing this species as a Sith. The more I think about playing them for other alts though, the less I feel that it’s necessary. They definitely fit that force-user look to me, so having one as a non-force class doesn’t really appeal to me. I could have one be a Knight or a Consular, I guess. It doesn’t bother me to see other people use them for whatever class they want, but for me personally I don’t know that I would really want to use them outside of what they can already be. I wouldn’t mind unlocking them, but I wouldn’t necessarily mind not unlocking them either, so they’re a maybe with a slight tilt towards no.

Recap of Species:
Looking at what I just said there, we end up with the following results.

Definitely: Cyborg
Probably: Chiss, Rattataki
Maybe: Sith Pure Blood
Not Interested: Miraluka, Mirialan, Twi’lek

So there’s only one species that I truly care about unlocking all of the features with, which is the faction-neutral Cyborg. I have two Empire-only species that are probablies, and a third Empire-only species as a maybe. None of the Republic-only races matter to me.

That’s kind of eye opening now that I sit and think about it. Maybe part of that has to do with me wanting to play Empire when the game launched and then ending up as a Republic? I don’t know, really. I guess it’s probably just more of my tendency to like “evil” races in games more than normal looking ones.

This brings up a few key points though:

1. I only have to level 1-3 alts to unlock all the species features that I really want.
2. Three of my four potential species choices are Imperials.
3. The only reason for me to level a Republic alt on an Empire server is to unlock faction-based features.
4. I need to potentially level 1-3 Imperial alts to 50 on my Republic servers to unlock everything I’m interested in.

I’m going to be flying high on my Empire servers, which is a very good thing. I’ve got some serious thinking to do on my Republic servers, though, because I’ve got some serious potential to end up with more diversity than I really want.

Unlocking Class Features
Each class that you level up to 50 gives you a couple of different legacy features. First, you get access to that class’s buff for your alts which is handy when you’re leveling as more buffs are always good. Second, you get a signature ability from that class that you can use on your alts once every 15-20 minutes.

Class Buffs
Consular/Inquisitor: +5% to all four primary stats, -10% elemental/internal damage
Knight/Warrior: +5% damage and healing
Trooper/Bounty Hunter: +5% Endurance
Smuggler/Agent: +5% Critical hit chance

All of those buffs are great. I’ve listed them in the order of importance, based solely on my own opinion. I would say the top two are definitely the most important as every single character can benefit from all of those equally. Increasing your endurance is cool, but it’s not nearly as important as the first two. The crit buff I have listed last strictly because not all classes benefit from crit, and they certainly don’t all benefit from it equally. Some classes will want that crit buff a lot and others won’t really care.

Personally, I want all four of these unlocked, so I’m definitely going to put forth the effort to level at least one of each on each server. I might not follow that priority as far as which alts I level in order because I level what I want, when I want.

A thank you to TORWars.com for the following information on legacy spells:

• Inquisitor: Lightning Storm (Force Storm?)
• Agent: Orbital Strike
• Consular: Project
• Bounty Hunter: Flamethrower
• Warrior: Force Choke
• Knight: Force Sweep
• Smuggler: Dirty Kick
• Trooper: Sticky Grenade

I need to start this one off with a big disclaimer: these abilities are not like the normal class abilities, they are a super-duper beefed up version of the spells. What does that mean? I have no flipping idea, except that they’re supposed to be much stronger versions of the spell.

I’ve listed these in order of their coolness as well, again based on my own opinion.

I think the Inquisitor’s spell is actually misnamed from the source data. I’m pretty sure (and hoping, wishing, praying, etc) that it’s actually supposed to be Force Storm which happens to be my favorite spell in the entire game and it’s a solid AoE. The Agent’s Orbital Strike isn’t too far behind it in coolness factor for me and it’s also a very good AoE spell, so it gets my second spot.

The Consular’s spell Project is one of my favorite animations in the game for a simple spell. I love pulling out chunks of terrain or parts of ships or old droids and flinging them at people. The Bounty Hunter’s Flamethrower spell is pretty cool too, though I initially hated the spell when I first leveled a BH in beta.

One of the most iconic Star Wars spells ever is the Warrior’s Force Choke ability and there’s no doubt that it has loads of cool factor. I don’t love the spell itself, so I’m hoping it’s like an AoE version where I choke a whole group of people at once because that would be pretty sweet. I like it, visually, more than the Knight’s Force Sweep spell, though it wouldn’t be bad to have access to an instant AoE on more of my characters.

The last two are the least thrilling to me. The Smuggler gets Dirty Kick which is great as an instant stun in melee range, but I don’t know how they’re going to make that more epic unless you get to kick several people in the nuts at once. Sticky Grenade from the Trooper can be useful, but it’s probably tied for first or second place on my “trooper spells I use least often” list. If the damage is high enough, it might be good, otherwise – meh.

So out of all of these, the only one that I would really be willing to go out of my way to get is Force Lightning. I’d love to have Orbital Strike as well. Project is pretty sweet, but I have enough Sage’s that I won’t miss not having it on other characters. Flamethrower is nice, but it’s not really necessary. The others I could take ’em or leave ’em. No big deal.

Class Conclusion: Combining the class buffs with the heroic spells, here are the classes that I need to get up to level 50:

1. Sith Inquisitor >> Jedi Consular
2. Imperial Agent >>>> Smuggler
3. Bounty Hunter > Trooper, but either will work
4. Sith Warrior > Jedi Knight, but either will work

Well ain’t that a kick in the pants… Once again, I’m drawn significantly more to the Empire.

Alright, there’s no way I’m going to level a full set of Imperial toons on each server just to get some 15 minute cooldown spells. That being the case, let’s look at this realistically with needs versus wants. Time for a brainstorm:

1. I don’t need any of these abilities. For that matter, I don’t need the buffs either.
2. I do want the buffs enough on leveling alts that I’m willing to elevate it to a Need.
3. Most of these spells are AoE’s in one form or another.
4. Spells that look cool eventually lose their flair when used too often.
5. Leveling is what I do, and I do it well.
6. I don’t need extra AoE spells to level a character, useful though they may be.
7. Having access to all of these extra spells would negatively impact my blogging if it trivializes leveling or if I use it as a crutch.

There’s a list for you that came straight from my brain as I thought about them. Conclusion? Screw the extra spells from the classes, they don’t matter enough to me that I’m going to base alts purely around heroic spells.

Final Result: One of each primary class is needed, non-faction specific. Buffs I do want, heroic spells aren’t crucial enough to influence decision making. In regards to buffs, Force-users should be my top priority as their buffs are more important to me than those given to non-Force classes.

Two Factions, One Server
The whole two factions on one server thing still bugs me. I don’t like having to have both factions in order to unlock features when I only have eight slots available. However, as long as it remains necessary to have only one character of each faction I think I’ll be able to deal with it. If we were required to have more of each faction, say a 4:4 split, then it would be a bigger issue. While I’d rather keep it all the same on a server, I can definitely handle one much easier than half of my available character slots.

I thought about doing a 4:4 split regardless and doing it for two different servers so that I had all the characters on Server A be four Republic characters and four Empire characters of the mirrored advanced classes, and then having Server B be the same setup but with the opposite advanced classes of Server A (and also opposite sex and/or alignment to experience the full stories). While such a setup would provide me with optimal legacy feature unlocks, it also means I would be locked down as far as which toons I was able to play.

I don’t want the legacy system to become something that dictates how and what I play. Its supposed to be a rewards system that encourages me to play, not something that rules my game. So that’s exactly what I’m going to have it do for me.

Maybe I’ll get around to unlocking everything at some point in the distant future. For right now I am comfortable with playing the game the way I want to play it. If I miss unlocking a feature because I level three human Consulars, then so be it. As long as I’m having fun it doesn’t really matter.