Star Wars The Old Republic: Journey of a Sith Episode 2
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist
In last week’s SWTOR column I reached level 10 and had chosen my advanced class at last. I decided to go for the Sith Assassin to better roleplay as a sneaky backstabber. If you read the opening of this series last week you will know that I left off just as I stepped aboard the Black Talon flashpoint with a group of random players!
After looking at every store in the Imperial Fleet and visiting the VIP store which is specially made for players that preordered a Collector’s Edition or the Digital Deluxe version, I found a group that was ready to go on its first adventure through space doing the Black Talon flashpoint. I went there together with a Sith sorcerer and he got the role of the healer and helped us a lot in the battles to come. We also brought with us a Sith marauder for the extra DPS and off tanking if needed. And the last player that joined our party of four was a Bounty Hunter that had the defensive abilities to help us out as a tank.
When we got into the Black Talon we all had to join the first conversation so it would start the checkpoint, when everyone was gathered around and buffed up we began the first scene of the flashpoint. We thought it was just a small flight through space to our destination but our hopes were crushed as a republic ship came into view. Teamwork was the key to surviving this flashpoint but unfortunately we figured that out too late as our party was decimated on the first boss because everyone just tried to DPS him down. This Flashpoint wasn’t your average MMORPG walk in the park dungeon and required us to establish some party roles before our second attempt. After our second try everything went much smoother and we didn’t have any trouble at all dealing with the first boss.
An interesting note of the Flashpoint is that in each conversation every player will automatically roll some sort of number to get the right to represent the group in the cutscene conversations. Luckily if you get a question where you can answer between Light and Dark, each player will always get his Alignment of choice regardless of what the party leader decides. But you will see the different outcome if a person with the other Alignment has won the higher roll. This will make each conversation a unique outcome for every experience if you go through the Flashpoint again.
After killing a lot of trash mobs along the way to the second boss it was time to discuss tactics. Since I had done the Flashpoint before during beta, I knew we had to kite the upcoming boss to prevent our marauder from getting destroyed in melee combat. Thanks to my superior education in the ways of the Sith, we were able to dispatch the second boss with no problems. Our coordination was growing rapidly and by the time the third boss came around he was no match for our deadly synergy.
The last boss we had to face was a Jedi Padawan with the name Yadira Ban. She is a really hard boss to tackle if you haven’t experienced her abilities before as her skill set is a real trip. The key is learning her skills and then calling out the signature animations and defending yourself appropriately. After a brief huddle our Sith superteam charged in. Unfortunately someone wasn’t paying attention and met a swift end at the hands of Yadira. This early handicap made the entire battle a struggle for survival and our marauder finally fell in exhaustion. Luckily the sorcerer had paid close attention to my prebattle lesson and kept out of reach of Yadira while I assumed the role of tank. It was a photo finish but Yadira finally fell with my hp bar barely visible! We quickly resurrected the other players and enjoyed a trial free ride to our destination of Dromund Kaas.
When I arrived at Dromund Kaas I did a few quests before heading to Kaas City in order to help the residents with their problems. Because the Black Talon was such a big Flashpoint I got to level 11 and was halfway through to the next level. My random and uncharacteristic acts of kindness in Kaas City leveled me to 12, and I decided a shopping spree was in order to celebrate. After fitting myself with some gear fitting a great Sith like myself I arrived at my new master’s office to report in.
I was tired of questing however and decided I would test my strength in some warzones because I am always up for some PvP. I got matched against some fellow players of the Empire in a game of Huttball and experienced the result of an addiction. After successfully winning the first warzone I was invited by a group of three players from the previous game to do some more games as a group. I thought why the heck not and played some warzones for several hours. I got to know each player and really kicked things off as we went undefeated throughout the evening. It wasn’t so much superior gear but superior coordination and focus on objectives that made us an unstoppable team.
Because of this successful group I leveled to fifteen without doing any quests and was behind on the story. Mobs don’t level up to match your level in SWTOR so the next few missions I ran were a breeze. After rushing through the quests I was still way ahead of the level you had to be for the quest zones I was in which was quite frustrating since my addiction to jump back into more warzones was nagging at me. After completing all the quests on Dromund Kaas my master informed me that it was time to go intergalactic with my quest to collect special Artifacts…
