So, what are those of us who want to DPS but don't like the style of dual wielding supposed to do exactly?

Having the option to is nice, but I get burned out if I get asked to tank all the time. I know vigilance/focus are viable, but I feel like if dps is my focus I should just go sentinel. I just don't want things to end up like they did for my paladin in WoW where I'd get shoehorned into tanking or healing all the time. Problem with just going sentinel is I'm not a fan of the dual wield style, especially on Jedi as it feels more aggressive which is not a typical Jedi trait. Plus you never actually dual wield in cutscenes, which is kinda lame.

Oh I know that's the reason. Still breaks immersion for me. I would just play guardian but I'm not that interested in tanking. I tanked so much in WoW back in the day I just get burned out easily if I feel like I'm being asked to tank all the time, and apparently a guardian who isn't interested in tanking at all is shooting themselves in the foot from what I hear, so better to just go sentinel and not have that option. I'd rather just use 1 lightsaber. Even aside from not using it in cutscenes I do prefer the traditional style. Just wish I didn't have to worry about tanking so much or I'd go guardian np. Even in PvP I've heard it's best to go tank and use dps gear, which I don't like the sound of. I feel like guardian falls into the same trap my WoW pally did, where I never really got to play ret as my main spec bc guilds always needed healers or tanks, and even if they did need DPS ret has always been middle of the pack "meh" and trying to force my way in anywhere with it always felt like "no, I refuse to play holy or prot, which are typically always amazing and desired, in favor of the mediocre dps spec". Feels exactly the same on my guardian. "No, I don't want to tank even though defense is incredible, please take me as one of the dps specs that do less dps than the other version of this class I could've gone which completely focuses on my favorite role, but didn't bc I can't stand dual wielding. Aren't I just the most selfish person?"

It's annoying how as a Sentinel I never use both my lightsabers in cutscenes. Always makes it seem like you're "supposed" to only use one lightsaber. I can kind of rationalize it if there's a scuffle scene before a fight as "I didn't want to use both if I didn't have to". Like how in DBZ they always hold back and never use their full power right off the bat, but if there's a scene after a fight where I only have one lightsaber out I'm like "Why??" Why would I put one away? I guess you could say the enemy's weak so again, I don't need both now, but if I'm playing a dual wield character in DnD I'm not gonna spend part of my turn sheathing my offhand weapon on the last round just bc I don't need the extra damage. I know I'm injecting way too much logic into this, but that's just how my brain do. I like how the sentinel plays. It feels a lot more face paced than the guardian, and I'm not too bothered with tanking. I've never been the biggest fan of dual wielding in Star Wars though bc in every instance I've seen it it feels accidental or forced. E.g. in episode 2 Anakin uses Obi-Wan's lightsaber to dual wield. Even in the SWTOR cinematic Satele's master only dual wields bc she gives him her lightsaber. Same with Malgus. I just haven't seen many Jedi or Sith who officially use 2 lightsabers as their main choice. There's just this constant disconnect for me between the story and my character. In cutscenes I'm a guardian and in the actual gameplay I'm a sentinel. That's how it feels to me at least.

Good to know. I appreciate all the help. I know I had a lot of questions. I guess I just won't pay as much attention to what level I am in relation to the things I am doing, or be more picky about the quests I do instead of going to every yellow triangle on the map if it bugs me that much. It's not like the extra quests do much except on your starting planet I suppose to get some initial gear so you don't show up on the fleet with most of your slots empty, and even then you can get moddable gear for pretty cheap to fill in whatever gaps you have, so besides the main class missions I guess it really doesn't matter much progression wise while leveling what else you do. Thanks again for getting me up to speed!

Is there any reason to do the expansions on more than one character, as far as tangible rewards are concerned or is it all just for story? I'm not really sure how it progresses from a mechanical sense.

Yeah I remember watching some videos a while back about the expansions just to kinda see what they were about and noticed there's involvement from all class' companions. Was the main thing that made me wonder if it's best from a story perspective to do every class story first so you learn about all the companions and know what goes on from everyone's perspective. I just don't know if I have the time or attention span for all of that, or enjoy all the classes enough to get through it. I guess the bonus of that being I can start the expansions with any class I want. I've heard they don't make much sense for non-force users.

Thanks for the advice. So are the regular (non-purple)/exploration missions not worth doing anymore? Before it was good to do everything bc you wanted all the ls/ds points and affection from your companions which you got through dialogue via quests. The more quests you did the higher those scores would potentially be, but now it seems your ls/ds score is mostly dependant on whatever side is highlighted next to the minimap, and you don't lose affection anymore and gifts seem to drop much more commonly now, so I'm not really worried about it. I haven't even turned on exploration missions. I level so fast just doing class/regular quests I don't seem to need them and the other quests have gear covered so I figured the only rewards were xp/creds.

I was wondering how gear factored into scaling or if everyone just got scaled up to an even amount and gear didn't really play much of a factor until endgame, although I guess you're supposed to be getting enough rewards no matter what you decide to do to stay up to date. It also doesn't make much sense to me to be able to queue up for so many FPs right off the bat. "Just completed my Sith trials and became an apprentice. Guess I'll queue for a random instance. Oh look The Foundry, yeah sure I'm strong enough to fight Revan right off the bat.", but that's just me nit-picking. Idk maybe if I had already completed a few stories I wouldn't care so much about continuity and pacing. Edit: I guess I just wanted to come back to really experience the story progression. I just want to go from A to B to C to D to E etc. etc. but trying to do all the game has to offer makes it feel more like you're doing A to B to C to D to K to E to L to P to N to G...if that makes any sense.

Hey I appreciate it man. I do like the companion changes. Having to gear them up separately was a pain and having them not tied to specific roles helps swapping or sticking with one less of an issue. I also like how you don't seem to ever lose affection anymore, choosing options they approve of just seems to reward more. I haven't done any of the heroic or exploration missions. I never feel like I need to do them. With a healer companion the regular gear you get from class/regular quests is more than adequate and I just end up feeling "overleveled", but maybe that's my problem in that I'm having trouble letting go of that term. I still think of Coruscant/DK as the "level 10-19" zone, Taris/Balmorra as the "19-24" zone, etc. I've really just been treating the game like a single player game, but it feels weird playing an MMO that way. I actively decline all guild/group invites bc I'm afraid ppl are going to steer me to do extra content that's going to screw up my level in relation to what planet I'm on, bc I've done them all before and I remember what level you're "supposed" to be, and it just seems weird to be like "I'm level 65 after doing all this PvP, guess I should go back to the low level planet of Tatooine and continue my class story". I know when I get there I'll be scaled down so stuff still puts up somewhat of a fight but in my head I'm like "this is something you're supposed to do when you're like level 25". lol

Haven't played since the level cap was still 50. I'm confused on how to exactly play the game now as everything scales to you it seems. When I last played it wasn't like that. You could still do FPs and some PvP on the side and sometimes you'd have to to stay on the level curve. Now I get off my starting planet, do a FP and a warzone and I'm already the level I used to be when I'd get done with Coruscant but I haven't even gone there yet. So I look at my journal and it shows my quest is still my level and I notice my level gets scaled down eventually and I'm like "huh, I guess it doesn't matter, that's weird". Does gear not matter anymore before endgame either? Am I just being too old-fashioned in my thinking here? Just having a hard time wrapping my head around it. Feels like swtor adopted a Who's Line is it Anyway style motto of "welcome to swtor where the experience points are made up and your level doesn't matter", which is fine I'm not complaining if that's the case. I'm just trying to understand how the game works now. Also, I think I'm mainly going to focus on class missions and experiencing the stories for the most part at first. Is it a good idea to do every class story before moving on to expansions or whatnot? I know all the class stories have interconnections between them, but I only completed the SIth Warrior story before. And does mainly focusing on solo content cause you to shoot yourself in the foot later in terms of group content? Is this a common thing new/returning players do?