Hi all. I made myself a break and I want to return to TOR. Until now in MMOs I always (sans GW2, but that different game) played healer. Sometimes DPS in STO, but all in all I loved to heal so I played healer. Completed Inquisitor and Consular stories as healer and had my own share of flashpoints. Now I'm wondering if I should try tanking or just another healer, this time non-force user. How hard it is to switch mindset from healer to tanker? What character will be easiest tanker? I don't have any experience with tanking (just few sesions in STO PvP). I play PvE only, and love to level with flashpoints, but I do not want to me the most hated tank ever

I came here from STO so it's not that bad. Nothing gamebreaking in cartel shop, vanity items and stuff - I'm ok with them. Sadly there is no SI equipment pack with pants instead of skirt (and without capes, cloaks flapping in vacuum etc) I could buy for my SI. Imagine a shop where you get gear for lvl 50 with stats about 25-50% better then what you can get in game. And some additional properties like third hand with thrid lightsaber, additional autofiring super-weapon of doom, rewind time feature or impenetrable shield/armor. Yeah, that's current reality of F2P STO. So TOR Cartel Shop is pretty much cool feature with some vanity items and nothing more. But then it's just the beginning of F2P for TOR and anything can happen in the future.

Gameplay is not that much different then what you can find in other MMOs. For me it's the story that makes the game fun, and I do all the "click, kill, gather, deliver" thingies for class story. Not for lightsabers or lightnings, not for Star Wars (I'm like ST more then SW ). For story. I like it, although it's kinda childish from time to time, but still - story has drawn me to this game and is keeping my wallet open each month. No story = no game = no money for EAWare. Not from me at least. I could pay another 30-40$ for full expansion, with some great chapter full of class stories, planets and side quests/stories. For side quests only... I do not know about the others, but for me it is not worth to pay sub (and showe those 10$ for update) only to get some side story. Meh, still got to end SI story and do some story quest for Republic. So EAWare will be getting my money till spring or so.

PLUS - take into account that when someone is US earn 1000$ a month, in Poland we earn 1000 PLN/month. So for us this "expansion" (no storyline, really?) is more like 36$ (for subscribers) or 72$ (for free players). It's not very cheap from our perspective. And even less so if all that there is is the planet story, lvl cap and few shiny items. Sorry, would this be worth those 36$(PLN in my case) for you? I do not think so. Ok, I can pay the monthly sub and those 36PLN is not that much for me. But it still does not mean, that the upgrade is generally cheap.

Skip, spacebar, whatevery no bonus, takes to long is pretty common now in the normal FPs too. Not only Hard Mode. One more reason more to avoid Flashpoints for someone who is just started the game and is doing it all for the first time. - Skip it, I don't have time! - Hey, first time, anything I shoul.... - zip, zip, zip others are half way the next corridor/whatever. Yeah, right. MMO, socialize, play with others... Common experience of a newb looks just like that. I know, I am a newb playing my first character. There are obviously more old players who don't care about the game and just want to zip through the game as fast as possible, then there are new players who want to, don't know, play the game. I just don't quite get what is the point for those oldies? If it is all about doing the "skip it" content why they don't change the game? As this one is obviously boring them? Do they play for money and is it a job for them or what?

I have lvl 38 Sorc/healer and I like Ashara more then Khem. Never used Andronikus, he sucks for me. Khem makes things easier, he supplements my squishy healer in almost perfect way. I can do all 2+ and lot of H4 alone with him. BUT Ashara makes the game more fun as with Khem it's just boring clicking on the DoT over and over again with bubble and some heal in the meantime. Ashara with her lousy endurance (I just got her, still need to pump her up) and zero ability to hold aggro forces me to think at least a little during combat. She makes game harder, but faster and more fun.

I am leveling as healer (my first TOR character). Pretty slow but... honestly, with some mind even H4 from your current lvl are doable solo. Not all, but some of them - yeah. H2+ I rarely even bother getting someone else to help. It's just as fast and easy to do them alone. Sorc Helaer+Khem (dunno about Ashar) are pretty much unbeatable two-men army. He tanks, I throw heals and protection at him, disrupt and DoT enemies. Weaker mobs got trashed with whatever lightnings I got. Only negative is that killing is slow. Really slow. I think I respec and try to play DPS because, frankly, healer is so easy (and slow) that's actually boring. Gotta Big boss? Khem, maul him. Zing and Khem is bubbled. DoTs. Waiting. Heal. Waiting. Heal. DoT. Waiting. DoT. Waiting. Heal. Heal. Bubble. Waiting. DoT... ok, he is dead. Now the long ride back to mission giver for XPs. Wanna have it easy and boring - get helaer.

That is one of biggest fails of TOR (and most games). In TOR, for lightside Sith you are actually a traitor. And darkside you are... a traitor. The difference is that in light you are doing it willingly, and in dark because you are stupid. Example 1. On Korriban you may save Jedi. Going light means that you inform him of Sith manipulation and betray the Empire. Outside of some RP why would anyone playing Sith want to betray the Empire? Evil is not informing him. What the hell is evil this? And what good is in informing the Jedi? Your actions are based on politics (betray the Empire or not) and not on moral choices. Example 2. On Balmorra you may choose between killing a Republic general or not. Of course killing him is evil, not is light but... NOT killing him serves the Empire more then going dark and cuting that guy down. If you go light you give Empire a valuable prisoner. So by the ex.1 it should be dark - you are advancing the interests of Empire. You it is light because... dunno. So by those examples, if you were to play good Sith (good - loyal servant of Empire) you should be grey: lightside choice for Balmora (not killing general) and darkside for Korriban (not informing Jedi). Yet there are no rewards for going the middle road. Most play dark or light. I play light healer sorc (Sith Red Cross), but the more I play the more I'm inclined to simply go gray and choose whatever choices will be logical for a loyal Sith, good servant of Empire (and his own interests). Cause currently I play a traitor to the Empire and I DO NOT LIKE IT (you hear me, Bioware?).

I find it hard to believe that there are not enough healers on Imp side. Sith Red Cross is most funny way to play. Ok, in solo missions killing things can take some time, but then you will be able to kill anything(!) without breaking sweet. Just need a little time, but save yourself all those "oh, ****" moments when you realize, that there is yet another guy nearby and no one to boost up you 100 HP into something that will make you survive. And team content? First - if you play it good you should be able to solo most of it. Second - DPSer may kill faster, but then if he is dead he won't kill anything. He needs you to survive. Of course he will get the credit with "oh, how fast you killed that boss, you are great" and healer will be lucky if he get's "nice heals" (usually he wont) but healer will know that team succeeded because he was there to keep them alive. It's friggin satisfying. PvP - won't talk about it. TOR PvP suck, I do not play it.

Two cents from newb who started TOR month ago. No. And no. SW:TOR is good with the storyline, sucks with everything else. And poeple don't want to play TOR. They want to play Star Wars. Thats not the same. It's just that there is not much choice when it comes to SW. No. It was not subscription. It is never subscription, just look at WoW (sorry, had to say it). It's always the game. TOR evidently lacks when it comes to anything that is not tied to storyline. And that hurts your playerbase. Fix it, and people will sub. Not to mention that the F2P model you want to implement is really bad, and is more like extended demo, then anything else. AND - because storyline is the only good part of TOR, and storyline is for free, you will not see lot of incom from cartel coins. You may get more short term subs from people who try the game, sub for storyline and unsub after they complete it (I am such player - I sub for storyline). True. But you created this problem yourself with extensive voice overs rising the costs and times of updates. F2P won't fix it. AND you will never be able to create new content at pace at which it is consumed. Even such monster as WoW is not able. What you could do is to create interesting repetitive endgame content and good, balanced PvP - both low level (better queues, not mix of 1-49 levels) and high level for endgame. But, if those forums are right - you will never do this. You have not in past months and it won't change, I fear.

Isn't Satele at time of TOR pretty old? She looks like in her 50s on the Black Talon hologram. Romancing her would be a little... strange. But whatever you like. And yeah, even if not killing her then at least kicking her old arse and forcing her to "run, little Jedi, run" would be fun and good revenge after Talon. Oh, and unless there was something else, then Corran has not absorbed the lightsaber when he was trying to free that guy from Vong pain holder. He just absorbed a tiny, tiny part of it's energy by holding the arm close to it. And he got third degree burns. Plus he stated that he would loose his arm if he moved his hand (or Kyp moved the blade). So it was nothing like Satele blade stopping, cooling down the plasma in the middle and cracking it feat. Anywway - Malagus is far more Mary Sueish in the "Hope" then Satele. She is just human version of Ashoka - lucky, relative pretty Jedi beating the evil Sith because she had to win (being light and so). Malagus - man, he is like Epic Paladin (Black Knight), lvl 20+ from first edition of DnD.

Since yesterday you have one less to worry about (me). But I must say that poeple at sub50 PvP (those who know what to do) are not doing anything to change the cluelessness of newb. When I asked "new to TOR, anything I should know before we start" the number of answers I got was... ZERO. So it was like "stay/run and try to find out what the hell should I do" from time to time and "respawn" most of the time. Thank you very much, TOR PvP can go and ... itself.

This. Yesterday evening killed SW:TOR PvP for me. Starting PvP at 11 level and serving as practice targets for anyone and being unable to do anything simply takes all the fun from PvP. Even if I end on the winning team (more 30-40 lvl players then on the other side) I still know I had NO part at it and anything I was was a nuisance - for my own team. And to know, that it will be so for most of my leveling... no, thank you. It is even worse then STO PvP (and I never thought I say this), cause at least there the queues and the open PvP system (one) are grouped by levels (each 10 levels have their own zone) I think I will return to PvE and simply play all of the stories and then unsub. My first touch of PvP in TOR and it was so friggin disappointing.

I'm newb here (first time playing TOR, around 20 lvl sorc/healer), but the most pissing moment for me is when I'm on the end of my force points, throw some heal and that guy just in the same moment (or second later) uses self heal. That's in combat. Outside of it... well, if the group rushes away when I'm still regenerating my force points it is pissing, casue half of them is usually dead before I catch up. But I do not care if they heal themselves. It makes the game more interesting for healer if there is something to do outside of keeping the rest of the group at 100% health.

People were not complaining about me when I was a healer in PvE group mission so I think I have at least some idea about playing healer. I really like this profession, was always a healer in STO. DPS and tank is not as much fun as hearing "frack, I cannot bring this guy down, ***?" from enemy team ganking some of my team members. Anyway - I have not thought that there is respec possibility in TOR. Ok, free one, as in STO it's 5$ per respec so I rather create new character. Thanks for answers, but will probably go with two characters. Full healer for PvP and mix for PvE. Some DPS is needed to go smoothly through PvE solo missions. Well, DPSers, healer is comming