Yay I did it. And at the same time it’s all just beginning. It feels a little daunting, but at least I have a plan, albeit a half-assed one. Remember, folks, unless you’re cutting edge progression, there’s more than one way to get where you’re going.
Gear
I want to raid, so I need to gear up for that. I have a few options (or combinations thereof):
- Reverse engineer for purplez
- Do dailies for purple augments etc
- Grind cash to buy stuff off the GTN
- Do instances with guildies
My answer to this is, of course, a little of everything, but I’m focusing on crafting. I don’t have unlimited time. So I make sure to “send off the idiots” to gather stuff before I even start anything else, because a lot of the “heavy lifting” for crafting can happen while I’m not even paying attention or online. So far, I have reverse engineered purple pants, hat, and bracers within the last two days (working on boots now). Not a bad start. I haven’t finished my story quest yet so I won’t be doing dailies until I complete that.
Datacrons
All I can say about Datacrons is fucking hell. There are a ton of them and a lot are simply impossible to get to – particularly for someone who is jumping-impaired like I am.
So I’m doing the half-assed version as follows:
- Only target datacrons with my primary stat (strength) AND
- They must not be ridiculous to obtain
The one that requires a 30 minute balloon ride? Hell no. If I get all the easily-obtainable strength ones, I may start to get some for other stats. If I have time. Priorities!
A lot of the hard to get datacrons, like that 30 minute balloon ride one, have people standing at their location who will sell you a friendly harpoon pull or a dual-based knockback that will get you to the location for a relatively small fee.
Having a guild member who’s a Sage/Sorc camp a toon at the datacron location and then helping guildies who come over to it is relatively common as well. Sometime you could bring up in guild and see if you could make an event out of it at least.
I find it incredibly funny to picture some dude sitting out in the desert on a big high rock, just waiting for people to come along and ask for a harpoon.
“Hey Bob whatcha doing today?”
“Not much. Could use some cash. Think I’ll login my trooper and harpoon some idiots to the datacron.”
I can do a 30 minute balloon ride.
What I HATE is the Datacrons that REQUIRE 2+ people to get. And there’s a few. So now I have to track down someone to that not only wants Datacrons, but also wants to deal with the crap involved getting to them. Lovely. Here I thought getting someone to do a Heroic mission was a pain.
Grats on fiddy:)Got some good news and bad news for you.Bad news is those damn datacrons,the +10/all-stats takes 4 peeps and as of a few weeks ago was bugged to high hell,wouldn’t try that one til it’s fixed,altough it’s very useful and a true team effort to get,quite fun I thought,but frustration will build if the end keeps bugging out.Good news is for ops gearing;you really don’t need much HM Flashpoint gear to clear normal-mode ops,it’s very very easy at that level.Even Hardmodes are also pretty damn easy;we cleared HM Karaga’s Palace 1st time thru with only wipe coming on 1st boss.And that’s with maybe 2-3 weeks of normalmode gear,tops.You should be raidng very soon methinks:)
I must clarify that it’s the EMPIRE +10/stats datacron that’s bugged,your Pub Cron may be just fine hehe:)
I’m pretty sure I know which one you’re talking about, and I don’t think the Republic one worked as of a few weeks ago when husband’s guild tried it. There might have been swearing involved.
The ones that crack me up are the ones that are easy for body types 1 and 2 but body types 3 and 4 (males) cannot fit. That’s what you get for bodybuilding or stuffing your face!
I did my Ilum Dailies before Belsavis, but I think it makes more sense to do Belsavis first, since you will get more commendations faster.
Thankfully, I only feel like I need to run the 2+ Heroics on each planet now for the Mod and Enhancement. I am kind of done with the other ones.
And I have heard that the Green Matrix Cube on Belsavis is a giant pain in the ass. You need to get four items that spawn throughout the Tomb section. Thankfully, however, you only need to have four total in the group, so you can group up with a few others and all work on it at the same time. If you ever want to do that, let me know
The absolute best thing you can do once you hit 50 is go get your level 50 matrix shard relic. For us dirty Imps, we need to hit up Hoth, Korriban, and Ilum. For you Reps, you hit Ord Mantell, Hoth and Ilum. Here’s a link: http://www.torhead.com/item/7Xk8TrJ/red-matrix-shard#comments
I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend it! Also, know that hardmodes and raiding are on a similar difficulty level. My advice is to gear up what you can from the GTN, run False Emperor, Battle of Ilum, and Directive 7, maybe toss in a smattering of hardmodes if you like, and get thee to raiding.
Daily commendations help a lot too; 8 can get you a new hilt or armoring from the daily vendors, an you can easily earn 8 on Belsavis in 20 minutes or less.
All in all, the barrier to entry is far lower in this game than other MMOs. We dragged down Annihilator Droid the other day with a group half geared in greens.