new at tor, couple a questions

[Lothar]

hi everybody, so I finally got around to testing swtor, and I ve fallen completely and utterly in love (with the rpg stuff, the rest is at least ok),
so first question I have is, what is best dps (and please give me a ranking of all the dps classes)?

started of with a consular which is going to be my main (was in kotor 1 and 2 consular too), but i am planning to get a couple classes to max, which will be depending on your answers: gunslinger or scoundrel, sentinel or guardian, commando or vanguard and ultimately shadow or sage.

i care mostly about the damage quality of each class, since i dislike tanking and healing (did both to a rather big degree in wow), but the consular is probably gonna end up as a tank for leveling.
last but not least, is there any theorycrafting place out there?
googled a bit and didnt find any forum that wasnt dead
thx guys

[Razael]

I can't answer the forum part , as im not a min-maxer.

Consular: If you're looking for dps i advice going Sage, the DPS on the Shadow conterpart is a bit lacking, compared to similiar classes. The tanking portion of Shadow is ok (i have a Sith Assassin tank), but from what i read , people prefer Juggernaut/Guardians or Powertech/Vanguards. I read multiple times on general chat calling Shadow/Assassin tanking to be equal to a paper tank. Personally i think they are awesome for leveling and for Off tanking in operations do to big AoE damage/Threat.

Trooper: I play a Mercenary in Imperial side, so the Commando on Republic i can vouch for quite some awesome dps. Vanguard might lag a bit behind but its viable.

Knight: I am currently leveling a Sith Juggernaut (Jedi Guardian in Republic) and its damage capabilities seem to be where they should be, doesn't feel like i'm doing low damage. However, played properly by someone with a decent grasp of its rotation (its very complex), the Sentinel (Marauder in Imperial side) might be the best dps in the game.

Smuggler: Normally i'd say go Gunslinger for awesome damage, but with changes in patch 2.6 to Scoundrel dps trees, they are now also quite viable to play, in fact i picked up my Imperial Agent Operative again (Scoundrel in Republic) and its my main. This one really goes down to you choice, do you prefer ranged damage, turret like gameplay from the Gunslinger, or do you rather be a melee sneaky shootin first Scoundrel?

[Lovestar]

It honestly doesn't matter for leveling, SWTOR isn't tuned tightly enough, even up through endgame.

As long as you wear the correct gear, equip a weapon, show up, read tooltips, press buttons every GCD, and are breathing IRL you can do fine as anything in any role you have a spec for up through HM Operations (raids).

Class balance matters more in Nightmare Mode but honestly, by the time you're doing NiM you will be capable of picking your own role/class/spec correctly to fit your needs.

Ask any questions you might have on the SWTOR forums. The community is much smaller than WoW, but you will always find someone willing to answer your question and the advice is usually correct (anal-retentiveness seems to be a trait of SWTOR fans, and I don't mean that in a negative way).

But yeah seriously, just play whatever sounds cool to you. Your class and AC choice will not punish you in any meaningful way until very very very late game (long after you've seen the class story to the end), because again, SWTOR is tuned very forgivingly outside the highest levels of play.

[WarpedAcorn]

The top damage dealing classes are the ones that are pure DD's. Those would be Sentinel/Marauder and Gunslinger/Sniper. However, it should be noted that they are not very far ahead of everyone else. I've *heard* that most groups prefer to bring a hybrid over a pure DD simply due to versatility. Personally though, I've played every class to 50 (the previous max level) and they all perform very well if you know what you're doing. It really boils down to finding the class(es) that have the playstyle you enjoy the most.

As for theorycrafting...there's not much. There are a few guru's that haunt the forums (main SWTOR forums) and I've found the best bet is to start up direct chats with them. Alternatively you can run into some knowledgeable people in game.

[Gelda82]

Play whatever you like story-wise, everything is viable for the first two difficulty modes of raiding, if you're not already pre-scouting a guild and server for Nightmare mode raiding you probably won't ever do it anyways; there's 1-2 guilds that even bother with it per faction per server. The community in general doesn't care for it and the game poorly supports it(tight tuning but limited in-game resources to parse and theorycraft). It's a general consensus that the sniper and inquisitor are best dps, but if you want to play something else or melee it's not too bad of a difference(with top raider parses, most classes are within 10% of one another at the moment, should be 5% or less but that's my opinion).

If you gear yourself thoroughly and use a matching companion to your build, you can frequently solo many of the quests designed for 2-4 person groups. It's also a good way to challenge yourself for harder group content in the endgame.

[Lothar]

If you gear yourself thoroughly and use a matching companion to your build, you can frequently solo many of the quests designed for 2-4 person groups. It's also a good way to challenge yourself for harder group content in the endgame.

as a shadow/ assassin tank, I've found that hard to pull off.

[Lovestar]

as a shadow/ assassin tank, I've found that hard to pull off.

Really? My first character was a Sin Tank and I brute-forced most of the H2's I came across because I couldn't find people.

H4's were a bit beyond me most of the time due to being in untwinked first-time-player gear (ie, leveling junk handouts).

Sin has a huge advantage here because not only do you have a Tank spec + Tank stance, you have Stealth, Vanish, and Sap, and a low-CD interrupt, and a ton of Stuns, and a knockback, and a snare, and a Sprint, and Cloak of Shadows, and a ghetto 8s Polymorph, and a Death Grip ...

It's actually kind of insane what a one-woman army you can be as Sin Tank. Throw in a Healer companion and you can outlast almost anything when you're geared; for the stuff you can't just use typical Stealther tactics to split the pulls and whittle them down bit by bit.

[Vankrys]

as a shadow/ assassin tank, I've found that hard to pull off.

actually, a shadow tank is the perfect class to solo group content.

You have stealth to avoid unecessary trash pack

a mez on humanoid
a 8 second lift
a 4 seconds stun
a bump
very good survivability, damage reduction, shot force tech damage imunity
and of course, if thing go sour, you have a vanish.

Perfect class to solo.

[Vankrys]

Definitely recommend the jedi knight story. As for the advanced class, sentinel has great DPS in raid, while guardian is easier to level due to the fact he is more resistant, you will die less often with a guardian.


Second i would go with the smuggler if anything for the funny and sarcastic humor in the dialog. unless you really want to be a range DPS, i would recomend scoundrel because of the toolkit of the class, you can control droid, humanoid, you can stealth, heal and dps, vanish in case of problem.

[-Superman-]

actually, a shadow tank is the perfect class to solo group content.

You have stealth to avoid unecessary trash pack

a mez on humanoid
a 8 second lift
a 4 seconds stun
a bump
very good survivability, damage reduction, shot force tech damage imunity
and of course, if thing go sour, you have a vanish.

Perfect class to solo.

I've been using this exact setup. I tried going Sorcerer to heal while letting my tank companion clear the way, but it became cumbersome running both roles. As a tank, you let your companion handle some healing and use stims / med pacs to fill in the gaps. Works like a charm.

[WarpedAcorn]

Another tool (for mobs not immune to it) is Force Slow. You can use this to kite, then have your companion either dish out damage (if a DD) or fill you back up (if a healer).

[Gelda82]

My launch character was a healing operative and as long as I and my tank companion were geared, I could regularly solo most heroic 2 and 4s with the pet tanking, my healing with a few attacks mixed in. There were a few I could not, such as some of the Nar Shadda outdoor heroics(too many elites per pack to control or heal through). My favorite was the heroic 4 in Balmorra, I solo'd that boss at level as the previous team who wiped watched on in shock.