People have been afraid of +6k Force Sweeps for a while now, but the biggest buffs to Guardians were in the Vigilance tree. Players of all classes should know that Master Strike is now uninterruptable and does 15% more damage. Don’t bother kicking a Master Striking Guardian, either stun or run. Also, Dispatch, a Guardian’s finishing move, is now usable on targets with less than 30% health, up from 20%. Those two buffs, which affect all Guardians, synergize best with the talents of the Vigilance tree.

The buff to Master Strike, combined with the buff to Zen Strike, a top tier talent in the Vigilance tree, makes it look a lot more viable than before the patch. In addition to resetting the cool down on Master Strike, Zen Strike now also grants 2 focus. Until now, the Vigilance tree has been overlooked in favor of massive Force Sweeps and more snares, but Vigilance’s high sustained single target damage cannot be ignored when it comes time to down a ball carrier or healer.

“There’s Merc’s in them there hills.”

The Outlaw’s Den was intended to be an active world PvP zone but became just another part of the desert when the designers removed all of the loot. Now the Mercenary Commendations are back and I’ve got the guide on how to get them.

For those not familiar with The Outlaw’s Den, it is a free-for-all PvP zone. You can attack, and be attacked by, anyone not in your party. There is an entrance for each faction. In the middle of the area is a building with an auction house and mailbox almost begging people to let their guard down. There are also 3 PvP vendors scattered around who sell unique speeders.

There has been a lot of confusion about the resolve system and we’re here to clear it up. First off, for people who are new to pvp, what is resolve and why do we have it?

With the amount of stuns and incapacitates flying around, a player could be unable to act for quite some time. To prevent this, Bioware gives us the Resolve system.

Each crowd control effect adds a predetermined amount of resolve to the player it targets. When a player’s bar reaches 1000, that player cannot be stunned, pushed, pulled, knocked down, or controlled for 12 seconds. Basically, after being targeted by around 2 control abilities, a player’s resolve bar is full and they are immune to control effects. Bioware set it up so that the maximum amount of time that you can be controlled is between 8-15 sec, depending on which effects are used.

Developers say things.  But sometimes they say things that make you stop and go, “WTF?!”  In recent interviews at the Guild Summit George Zoeller and Daniel Erickson said the following:

Georg Zoeller: (Source) We’re also hoping that by giving people access to the combat log, they actually get a better sense. Look at sithwarrior.com, for example. They say a lot of theories that are just plain wrong, and to be fair, how would you know better?

Daniel Erickson: (Source) They want to surface a huge amount of the information for the game. They want to be a place that you can trust the source, that they can feed stuff out so we have a standardization so people know where things are going there. I think the long term plan is sort of to be the one stop resource for all of your questions and anything that you actually want to know or need to find out how you’re going to figure out about The Old Republic.

There are some very interesting things you can take away from these quotes when looking at them together:

• Dev’s actively research and monitor player theory crafting of their game.
• They have plans to centralize the game community so players can come to them for game information.
• They are aware of respected sources having incorrect information and don’t always inform the player base.

Jedi Guardians will be familiar to anyone who has played a sword-and-shield warrior-type tank class in any MMORPG. They are the traditional melee tank relying on a combination of absorption, avoidance, and mitigation to successfuly tank content.

As the Jedi Knight you will start your journey as a Jedi Padawan on the planet Tython, the starting world of the Jedi Knight and Consular. As a Jedi Padawan you are expected to pass the Jedi Trials before being promoted to the rank of the Knight.

Upon reaching level 10, you will be able to choose an Advanced Class (AC) from the Jedi Advance Class trainer near the Combat Training section of Carrick Station. To play the “Tank” role in a group, you must pick the Guardian Specialization as your AC choice. After choosing your AC you will be able to equip heavy armor and use a shield generator to maximize your mitigation. When you pick the Guardian AC, you will receive your first shield generator for free. The Guardian Specialization opens up three skill trees where you can spend your skill points. Skill points are earned at the rate of one point per level for a maximum of 41 points. The three skill trees are Defense, Focus, and Vigilance. Defense is the Tank tree; Vigilance is the DPS tree optimal for Player Versus Environment (PVE); and Focus is the DPS tree optimal for Player Versus Player.

Now that you’ve hit level 50, starting furiously farming your dailies, hit up the GTN for some cheap gear, and finally gotten around to steamrolling that Alderaan Bonus Series, you might be wondering: what’s next? Sure, gear is great…but where do you put all those shiny Artifacts to good use?

Hard Modes. Classic flashpoints reimagined with the level 50 health pool and damage capacity in mind. Hard Mode Flashpoints are where you stop hiding behind your healing companion and put yourself to the test. As a reward you can earn various commendations, Tionese (or Energized) gear, and a chance at a Columi token. That’s right folks, Hard Modes drop comparable loot to Normal Operations, so let’s get cracking.

A good place to start for both Republic and Empire is also the last place you’ll be as a fresh 50: Darth Malgus’ Space Station and The False Emperor flashpoint. In order to start the flashpoint in Hard Mode, simply speak to the quest giver right outside the instance portal and select the Hard Mode option. Unlike some Hard Modes, having completed the flashpoint on normal isn’t a requirement.

So you’re ready for operations in SW:TOR?  Eternity Vault is generally the first operation the average player experiences in the game.  It’s got some fun encounters with a few unique characteristics and mechanics to learn. The 8 man version on normal difficulty is tuned for pretty fresh 50′s.  Gear is not really a huge factor to defeat this version.  It’s more to learn the mechanics of the encounters and to get players geared for later, more difficult, operations.  All the bosses have enrage timers, so efficiency is very important.

Welcome to SWTOR Mechanics 103.  Previously we discussed Attributes with SWTOR Mechanics 101: Attributes and Game Mechanics with SWTOR Mechanics 102: Game Mechanics.  But what about Crew Skills?  Crafting has been an integral part of many MMO’s over the years, but BioWare’s take on the familiar is definitely a departure from the classic mold.  Click to the “jump” for your new “laws of reality”.

In order to get the Ilum daily quest series, you have to complete your class quest, which should send you right to assist the war effort in Ilum. When you tire of being farmed by the Imperials on your server, you might take a moment to check out all this PVE content people have been raving about. Something about Darth Malgus yadda yadda yadda, skip to the end…Daily Commendations you say? Credits you say? Sign me up sir, it’s time for the second set of dailies!

If it’s your first time planetside, you’ll end up doing all the below quests as you advance through the initial questline in addition to about a dozen others that set up the plotline for the final two flashpoints. Once you complete this you’ll be able to repeat all the quests every day.

Again, there are bonus quests associated with many of the quests, but they don’t reward anything other than Legacy experience at level 50, so they’re not entirely worth the effort.

Ilum is one of two areas created purely for world PVP. Swtor’s initial foray into this area of gameplay was a bit bumpy, but after the 1.1 patch, the area has become much more stable. This commentary will show viewers the basics of Ilum as well as some neat little tricks to ensure a fun gaming experience!