A Return to Writing: Some Character Biographies

Long-time readers of this blog may remember that I used to have a page devoted to my characters. Each of them would be listed with details of their class and accomplishments, and alongside that would be a short in-universe biography.

I chose to scrap that page with the blog’s revamp, although truth be told I had long been dissatisfied with it even before that point. The biographies were fun to write, but at the same time it also felt that I simply had to come up with stories for each of my characters the moment they were listed, rather than allowing myself time to develop their own backgrounds naturally. As such, I felt I needed to scrap that altogether until such a time as I was ready to give it another shot.

I mentioned in my last post that I’m not much of a skilled artist, but I do enjoy giving drawing a shot every now and again. The same is true of writing. Over the past few years, I have been jotting down snippets of stories whenever a good idea popped into my head, and last year I was able to complete the first draft of a five-chapter long short story. It’s not going to see the light of day anytime soon, but I was ecstatic to finally complete a piece of writing at last.

Revisiting the Consular

Although I started what seemed like a recurring series of posts relating to the various goings-on on the Onslaught PTS, it eventually became clear that this sort of thing would stop being viable pretty quickly. I had already seen several things I'd reported on be changed within a day or two after a post about the PTS and changes were becoming more substantial and reasonably fast-flowing as time went on.

Besides, it's only (theoretically) a week until 6.0 launches anyway, so to make another post so soon to the apparent deadline, when things may yet still change drastically compared to where they were on the PTS, is just horribly impractical. As such, most of my thoughts from the past however-many-updates are being collated into a "The Good, The Bad, and The Eeehhhhhs" post for a few weeks after 6.0's launch. 

Today's post, therefore, is to be on a different subject altogether. For the past two months, I've been taking a brand-new Consular through their class story.

The Consular's is not by any means my least-played story or not even the one that is the most outstanding; the latter honour goes to my Gunslinger (I think) while the former honour used to be shared across five classes; Agent, Consular, Inquisitor, Knight, and Smuggler. I've played through each of these stories in-full twice each, and the only reason why my Hunter, Trooper, and Warrior have seen more is due to my relatively turbulent history with individual characters of those classes.

Two things factor into why I decided to replay the Consular storyline. The first is because, well, my current 'main' Sage is an instant-60 so therefore lacks any class titles. The second is because the last playthrough wasn't really 'mine'; I shared the majority of the story with a friend who took their new Shadow along for the ride. Apart from forever searing my eyes with how absolutely nightmarish their character was, this meant that I never really had much opportunity to really memorise the story as a lot of the time it was drowned out either by us making silly screenshots or comparing the Light and the Dark perspectives.

Of course, that's not to say that I didn't take the opportunity to recreate the aforementioned screenshot when the time came...

Both of these points also essentially means that, now that Consular companions have been trickling back into the game, I had a particularly outdated viewpoint on every single one of them. I was keen, therefore, to not only experience an individual Consular playthrough again and to see what new things I would pick up this time around to relay back to the recent new stuff.

~~~

Thoughts on 5.10: The Good, the Bad, and the Eeehhhhhs [Full Spoilers]

Fun fact: since Manaan was used to represent Copero, Ossus is the first actual new planet seen from space since Umbara.

Happy new year!

Now that that's out of the way, it's finally time for me to turn my attention to going over as much of what came with 5.10 as possible. Since this was a fairly major story patch, the most significant we've had since 5.0's nine Eternal Throne chapters, I decided to enact my "one-month spoiler-free" safety window, hence why it's taken me so long to get around to posting this.

Of course, as is the way of things, this 'safety protocol' was rendered somewhat nullified as BioWare promptly began churning out full spoilers for the appearance of a certain character on their website and social media channels. I can't say I blame them, as this move will undoubtedly attract several long-gone veterans just for this update alone.

Anyway, on with the stuff. 

300 #7

One of the things 5.6 is bringing with it next week is another Double-Rewards week. In spite - or because - of this, I was determined to get another Character to 300 beforehand, for reasons best described as "eh, screw it".

My Juggernaut, Ferok'ia, had climbed to Command Rank 271 from CR71 during the last 2xCXP Week courtesy of an absolute shedload of Command Packs, so she was rather frustratingly close to attaining the big 300. I ran her through Oricon, CZ-198, Black Hole, and Section X on Thursday - the only Daily Zones she'd unlocked until yesterday - and got her to CR 284.

Yesterday, I decided to indulge in a little experiment which I'd been somewhat-intrigued about since creating an Instant-65. Since Instant-65s are granted decisions based on their faction (Imperials get Dark-Side/'unwise' actions while Pubs get the Light Side/'advised' actions) since they have nothing else to go on, I was curious to see whether the current level of a character's Alignment and the associated Alignment they were fighting for made any difference to the allocated decisions if that same character skipped straight to Eternal Throne.

Since Ferok'ia is just one of my seven Light-Siders and was thus theoretically different from the 'stock' Imperial Instant-65, it made sense to me to use her for this purpose (and again, "eh, screw it"), and of course it meant that all remaining Daily Zones were unlocked for her as well. The bottom-line is that no matter whether you're playing a Light-Sided Sith or a Dark Jedi, your Faction is the only thing that matters for the allocated choices. You may play the most kind-hearted Bounty Hunter imaginable but should you decide to skip Fallen Empire for convenience you're suddenly scum remembered for letting countless people die on Zakuul.

The other thing which factored into my decision to skip straight to Throne was the ability to more-or-less instantly complete the Alliance Alerts, and none of the associated activities were more important in this moment in time than the Eternal Championship.

Y'know, the thing introduced in 4.3 last year with Bowdaar's Alert? Despite the fact that it has been out for well over a year-and-a-half by this point, I still needed two Achievements for it (and thus the entirety of the Fallen Empire Achievements); Eternal Warrior and Eternal Legend. The former - unsurprisingly - is rewarded for completing the Championship with a Warrior, while the latter is rewarded for completing it with all Classes.

So, that's done. Eternal Legend at long last, meaning that finally my Fallen Empire Achievements sit at 100% Completion. And I never 'need' to do the Eternal Championship again, so huzzah.

Anyway. This was followed up by runs of Ziost and Yavin IV and Ferok'ia hit 300.

So, just the one Class left; the Bounty Hunter. Since I don't yet have a lot of experience with playing Powertech, particularly in group content, and she's still going through her Class Story (and to be fair she's done a lot here, being CR33 only from all Missions through Nar Shaddaa and Tatooine), I imagine that the main things I'll be using to get Phirella to 300 will be the CXP Packs. I likely won't have enough to get her above CR100 this week, so it'll take something of a while before I finally have all eight Classes at 300.

Personalised Companion Lists I'd Create for my Characters

One thing I like doing in my spare time is finding as many ways as possible to try and diversify my characters, an act which is becoming increasingly harder now that the story has us all coming to the same basic point.

Regardless of your choices, everyone always goes to the same place, meets the same people, yadda-yadda, boring. It is the hope of many people that when the Alliance finally dies we can go back to our different factions, something which has been hinted at as a possible option (although as it's 'possible' this may imply that continuing the Alliance is itself a possible choice).

In the absence of anything more 'serious', I content myself by thinking of 'ideal' Companion teams which I'd like to construct from the available Companions if ever the choice emerges to reduce the number of characters in our over-substantive Companion lists. I am not imagining for a second that this would become an option, but it's nice to dream.

Now that talk is turning to more original Companions returning, starting with Raina Temple in 5.6, this thinking is in my mind more prevalent than it ever was, so because nobody asked for it, here are my choices for personalised Companion lists. The lists I have come up with only include those characters who could be given to use as part of the Story; Cartel Companions, Reward Companions, etc. don't count because having gone to the effort of acquiring these Companions it is unlikely that people will choose to get rid of them.

These are in no way indicative of who I think fits best with all characters as a base; my choices for my Hunter are not what I'm saying all Hunters should aim to have by their sides. Accounting for the sheer amount of options which may become illogical due to personality clashes or even disagreement with philosophies and choices is impossible.  Similarly, I am of the opinion that some characters should remain Class-specific, and I'll get to those when I get to those.

For example, all of my Imperial and Republic characters will be aligning with their original faction and not have anybody change sides; thus, all of the characters who would ordinarily despise the Empire would have no problem joining up with, say, my Jedi Knight. This would be very different from somebody whose Knight defected, thus potentially drawing the ire of staunch Republic patriots and freedom fighters.

Anyway, I've prattled on long enough. On with the list.

A Return to Sniping

When it comes to Alts, I have a distinct system in-mind. If I enjoy them and believe that they're able to hold their own in harder Group Content, they're going to get some gear and love. It's why my two designated Mains on both Factions are Gunslinger/Sniper and Guardian/Juggernaut; as much as I love Balance for Sage, I don't think it's at all viable for content like Operations, and whilst it does have good damage output I currently don't know Vanguard DPS well enough to even want to risk taking it into anything of the sort for the moment.

For Galactic Command this makes things very simple. The designated Mains are the only ones who'll be working towards getting the full endgame gear (not that the Imperial equivalents actually need it; I just want to have characters on both Factions with full endgame gear at the same time for once, is all), and everybody else will just be staying at Command Rank 300 with their gear frozen in a state of permanence until the next expansion. Currently this system has proved somewhat successful, with both Calph and Miora on the Republic side already having done the hard work and being in full 248 while their Imperial equivalents have only a small amount of catching-up to do thanks to certain spare items which they had earned.

Since the announcement that items from all Crates earned up to 5.6 will have items within that can be disintegrated into Unassembled Components, I've taken this one step further. I will be keeping the four 'background' Alts exactly where they are with their current gear - no longer upgrading as they progress as had been done previously - and everything they get will simply become Components. In the case of the Vanguard and Sorc, this means that there's 353 Crates of Components between them (199 for the Vanguard, 154 for the Sorc). This also carries over in some form to the Mains; any gear they get that they can't upgrade to something which they themselves can use will be similarly disintegrated.

This has a twofold benefit; first, it allows the Imperial Mains to quickly get 248 rating versions of their peripherals (assuming they get at least one Legendary version of each from their Crates when they eventually become eligible to receive them) and second, should Tier V be released next year with Master Mode Gods then I will hopefully have enough Components stored up by then to negate the grind completely for at least one of the Mains, with Calph as the highest priority, and just buy as much 254 (gear rating only assumed based on the gap of 6 seen between the other ranks [230 > 236 > 242 > 248], so there is a chance that I'm completely incorrect) gear as possible.

I like being prepared even if that which I am preparing for never comes.

But anyway, that was just background noise.

Over the past few months, my Sniper Pippera had been very much left behind. My Juggernaut received the bulk of the Imperial attention gear-wise since she was actually doing something regularly (in this case her Class Story) whilst Pip was doing absolutely nothing but sitting on her backside in the Tatooine Stronghold and occasionally being required to Craft something. To summarise, while she could benefit from Calph's Master Mode-quality armour, everything else was left at either 224 or 220.

The news that my Guild would finally be returning to doing a couple of one-off Ops on the Imperial side finally caused me to pull my finger out and fix Pip some decent gear for a change. She now has her own 246 Crafted Earpiece, Implants, and Relics.

As for her weapons, that solution presented itself very nicely. You may (but most likely will not) recall that in a previous post talking about Tier IV in its very early days I mentioned that I had upgraded two 242 Mainhands into 248 ones for Calph only to then receive a third from a Crate that very same day. This is something which continued to repeat itself not once but twice; she now has five GEMINI MK-5 Mainhand Blaster shells in her Cargo Bay.

Since 5.0 did away with the whole "Barrels/Hilts/Generator Armourings being bound to specific slots", that meant it was possible to gift two of these three spare weapons in their entirety to Pip, meaning that before she's even left Tier I she has a total gear rating of 247 and now only needs her Earpiece, Implants, and Relics at 248.

It wasn't just her gear needing work, either; I decided to give into my recent "make everyone look distinct" overdrive once again and give her a slight makeover. I had noticed that even though I had finally been making headway with giving everyone their own different hairstyle (basically, four characters used the Jaxo-style prior to the release of the "goth mop", Shae-cut, Lana-bob, and Senya-bun enabling me to diversify things while still adhering to my policy of simplicity over elaborateness) there was still a fair amount of repetition; five of my characters were female body-type-ones while one of these and a further three individuals used the Bright Blue eye colour.

Whilst Bright Blue is a beautiful eye colour, I decided that it was time to change things up. The only one of my characters to possess the colour now is Guardian Miorahna, while Calph has changed to having the greenish-blue option since it's closest to my own and Ziodus has been completely retired so doesn't count.

Since Pip was the only one of those who was both BT1 and utilised Bright Blue eyes, she upgraded to once again be body-type-two and now has dark green eyes. Despite initially trying to keep both her original Jaxo-cut and hair colour, I've been trialling new looks for her, resulting in her eventually becoming a Chiss. It'll take some time to get used to, but I think it works alright.

Since restarting my focus on Pip, she has become the sixth-highest in terms of Command Rank once again, having just surpassed Ferok'ia's Rank of 71 yesterday afternoon. Those two seem to be having a tug-of-war between themselves, since at the time of my previous post, Pip was ahead of Ferok'ia only to be surpassed since I decided rather impulsively to focus on the better-geared one rather than take things slowly and rationally, which has led to things being where they are currently.

Over-impulsiveness is an especially-aggravating trait of mine these days. I really need to get that fixed.

~~~

I'm pleased to have finally got over my apparent-aversion to devoting attention to Pippera. I don't quite know why exactly I was so determined to just abandon her (especially as her Republic equivalent is my full-time Main), but hopefully it shouldn't happen again.

300s #4 and #5

Since the last time I provided an update on my Legacy, two more Characters have joined the 300-crowd: my Sorcerer Vahnora and my Vanguard Jehnira.

When the new changes to the Commanding Legacy Perk were announced the week prior to 5.5’s launch, I decided to break my vow of inactivity and farm those Dailies. I’m very pleased that they’re back to normal now, though, and I am doing them again with the same enthusiasm I had from before that annoying bug.

Anyway.

I decided to focus on Vahn for this, because unlike Jehn she had immediate access to all Daily zones. Jehn is still partway through the Shadow of Revan storyline and has yet to touch Oricon or of course Ziost, so while she was fifty-one Command Ranks higher I felt I had to start with Vahn just because of this convenience. For some additional context, I started this farming endeavour two hours before the Weekly reset on Tuesday, and had managed to complete all Daily areas save for Section X before the new week began.

To cut a long story short, Vahn hit 300 last Sunday and I believed that I was a-okay to receive that lovely new 75% extra CXP since she was my fourth CR300 character.

Cue Tuesday; It’s revealed that you need one of each mirror Class (Consular/Inquisitor, Knight/Warrior, Smuggler/Agent, Trooper/Hunter) to receive the full boost, something which the Roadmap aggravatingly miscommunicated. Since Vhiallia and Vahnora are a Sage and Sorc respectively, that meant that instead of four characters I technically only had three at CR300.

So, Jehnira needed to step up to the plate. I had always been saving up CXP Packs for this week; I was just hoping to be able to squeeze the highest amount of CXP outta them before I used them, but alas it wasn’t to be. Still, she managed to get from CR101 to CR233 just by popping several cargo bays’ worth of Packs at the first opportunity, and after running nine Flashpoints over the past two days (including two selarate bouts of three FPs yesterday), she hit CR300 yesterday, finally fulfilling that pesky requirement and meaning that I had a representative from each Republic base class at 300.

So, who now? I have no exact idea, and I have three candidates to choose from.

I’m currently taking my new Powertech Phirella (the third) through her Class story, with her having gone from Level 1 - Level 70 in eleven hours on Friday, so she’s currently the most active character of the three.

There’s my Juggernaut, Ferok’ia, who - should anything happen with my Guild group-content wise Impside, has access to the highest-quality gear in general (borrowing my Guardian’s 248 Armour and Offhand and having Crafted 246 peripherals and her own individual 248 Mainhand), so she’s the best candidate to keep constantly doing stuff with of the three.

Then there’s my Sniper Pippera, who has the highest CR of all my non-300s (CR40) yet presently has the worst personal gear (peripherals, Mainhand, and Offhand) of all my characters, so she needs the most ‘help’ of the three. Then again, with the way I’m handling Crates at the moment - storing them with intent to disintegrate the Armour/Weapons inside into sweet, sweet Unassembled Components when 5.6 hits on November 28th - I don’t think she’s going to get that help she needs for some time.

I think I’m going to play it safe and go with the Juggernaut, since she can ‘carry herself’ through the Tiers without my feeling guilty about Disintegrating stuff she gets, since the Legendary Tier III version of each of her Peripherals would be the earliest ‘viable’ replacements for her Crafted 246 stuff.

The Vanguard Experiment: Secondary Results

Monday seems to be Vanguard day on Galactic Antics now. Yay, I guess?

For the past two weeks I've been documenting my progress with new-Vanguard Jehnira in a plan to see whether I could actually have a Trooper I considered "fun to play" since I realised how tedious I was finding Commando.

If you haven't read the previous entry, the current feeling is that this 'experiment' has been successful; I was finding Plasmatech much more fun than Gunnery, and doing the Trooper storyline and all Republic Quests again has allowed me to indulge in a game-long desire to see a Companion get from 0-to-max Affection/Influence solely through quests.

So, a week later, has my feeling changed or are things still on the up?

The Vanguard Experiment: Preliminary Results

Last week I wrote about how, having realised how tedious I was finding Commando, I decided to give the Vanguard Class another go with new-character Jehnira. Just to emphasise again, she is approximately the seventh Vanguard to have been created; the previous six had all failed to 'stick' at some point in their careers.

There are a few potential reasons for this. Either I didn't think there was a need to dedicate much time to a Vanguard due to the Commando's existence, or I just didn't like the playstyle as I had perceived it as being. The story being very memorable to me due to it being my first SWtOR story endeavour might also have had a part in it; certainly beyond the very first only one had reached Tatooine whilst the rest had stopped at Nar Shaddaa or earlier.

However, because I was unsure about the future of my Commando, this first potential issue had all but disappeared. This largely only left the playstyle and story issues, both of which are joined hand-in-hand in some ways; if I enjoy the playstyle of a character I tend to take them through as much of the content as I can instead of just skipping to the end and being done with it.

So, how have things been turning out?

Long-story short: so much better than I was anticipating.

Here We Go Again...

I don't know what it is about Vanguards, but there's always something which makes me want to keep giving this Class a try. I think I've probably created about seven of them by now, before ultimately writing them off for some reason or other. Either I didn't find the playstyle to my liking or I just rationalised the need to dedicate myself to the Class as pointless because, after all, I already have an established Trooper; a Commando.

Yet no matter what, without fail I create at least one new Vanguard during each Expansion, just to see whether the changes - and there have been a fair few across 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, and now 5.0 - are enough to get past my previous stigmas. Bonus points for 2.0 having two new Vanguards created and even my original 'true Main' character, the Vanguard Tank Kiratahn, resurrected.

In 5.0 I believe there are a few more specific layers to my most recent diving into the Vanguard experience.

Firstly, the changes to Jedi Guardian - which was already one of my favourite Classes, in fairness - for 5.0 - removing most channels, making it infinitely more mobile - made me absolutely fall in love with it, to the extent that I'd now easily cite Vigilance as my favourite Spec in the entire game.

Secondly, I've come to realise just how tedious I find Commando DPS. Gunnery is boring as hell whilst Assault is just all over the place and is definitely one of the most "acquired taste" specs available. Not that I'm anticipating Plasmatech being any less in 5.0...

So, since 5.0 made Vigilance a lot more fun than it used to be - even if it simultaneously neutered Master Strike Blade Dance Blade Barrage - and I've practically written off my Commando, I am very curious to see whether Vanguard can captivate my interests at long last or whether or not it will be another waste of time.

With Levelling Content being how it is, it's certainly not going to be really that easy to work out what the answer will be, but that's definitely more of a problem with how quickly things die now more than it is due to the Classes who experience the fights. That said, Vanguards are very good at demolishing packs of mobs with their Flak Shell and Ion Wave in particular, so whilst this certainly makes for a fun 'stomping' experience, it definitely doesn't help this "things die too quickly" issue in the slightest.

I'm also not a huge fan of how the Vanguard gets their Leap at Level 59, but hey-ho, it's not the end of the world. With how I do Planets - I may abhor the Levelling process since I tend to learn a Class better when I have most of my skills available but I still absolutely adore the Levelling content - it won't take that long to get 'up there', at which point I can focus on experimenting as properly as I can given the circumstances. This will take even quicker than I was anticipating since a week of Double-XP will be beginning tomorrow.

Good thing certain Heroics take some time to mow through these days.

Anyway, I've spent long enough wittering on about Vanguards and stuff and I haven't even posted a picture of the subject in question yet.

Introducing Jehnira!

Currently I'm in two minds about her. You may recall that in my 5.4 summary post I said that I was thinking of trying Lana's hair model, but it does not adapt well to either of the darker hair colours afforded to humans. I still decided to see what it was like out in the 'real game world' rather than just visible within the Character Creator, and it certainly doesn't look as bad as I was originally perceiving. Still very silver, though.

I honestly don't know for sure, though. I'll keep her with the new Lana-look for the time being and obviously I can revert back if I don't find it entirely to my liking after a few days. Anyone have any opinions on the matter that they'd like to share?

Somewhat interestingly, I believe her name finally brings an end to my apparent aversion of using all letters in a character's name except for the one which my own name starts with. Having scrapped all but one of my DvL characters I am unable to confirm whether or not this is truly the case, but I do seem to recall having used the only other outstanding letter - Q - in one of their names, in which case I've finally used every single letter of the alphabet in my characters' names.

Not that this was something which needed doing. I just found it amusing how after all these years of creating several dozen characters that there were still a handful of letters which I had never thought of using, and now it's hopefully come to a close.

Also, somewhat distractingly, without intending to I seem to have accidentally remade a former friend's Vanguard, just with darker skin (I think), different colour eyes, and potentially a different hairstyle if I decide to stick with Lana's hairstyle. Otherwise it's still different, but only because it lacks the front strands which would normally cover the left eye since it's the same base style. Amusingly, all throughout creating her I kept thinking "I've seen this character design before, I swear it", but was otherwise perfectly content with her look. It was only halfway through Ord Mantell when glancing at the character portrait that the resemblance finally clicked.

Comes to something when you remember what a character looked like from the portrait and not from an in-game cutscene.

So that's awkward. But hey, he's not around anymore to know, so it's nowhere near as awkward as it could have been. Now that I've said this, he'll turn up out-of-the-blue next week sometime. That's usually how these things work, right?

Finally, I am rather pleased to finally be able to translate this particular armour and weapon combination onto a Character of my own. The combination of the Havoc Squad Armour with the Stronghold Defender's Blaster Rifle (coupled with the Strap Tuning) has been a 'staple' look for Aric Jorgans across my Legacy for some time now, with Miorahna's Rusk even having his own variation of this style, so to finally have a Character who can use it themselves feels very satisfying indeed.

It also really helps that when this particular rifle folds up, it becomes far less of a sticking-out-eyesore on a female character's back compared to practically every other rifle out there, where - unlike on male characters - the stock invariably sticks out over crest of the character's head. Definitely one of my biggest pet peeves with female rifle-wielding characters.

Of course, keeping in with the trend, Jehnira's Aric also makes use of this style. I'm nothing if not consistent.

~~~

So, yeah. Curious to see how long this particular experiment lasts. I'm not expecting great results, but maybe I'll be surprised. Time shall tell. 

300 #2

The end-result of focusing on characters the way I do is that one or two end up incredibly far ahead of the rest due to the amount of time spent dedicated to the front-runners. In prior expansions, this has nearly always resulted in one character getting full set-bonus gear while everyone else is left with high-endurance Comm Gear, or a set composed from a mixture of PvP and Comm gear.

There have been two exceptions to this: 2.0 and 5.0. In the case of 2.0, this happened when Calph took over from then-main Ziodus the January after DF and DP came out, so both ended up in full Dread Forged gear during their 2.0 careers. In the case of 5.0, Calph is still far and away the 'leader of the pack' at roughly Command Rank 1,161, but finally as of yesterday evening I've got a second character at 300. For context, my next highest is Command Rank thirty-five, whilst Calph has been CR 300 since January 29th.

As I've written elsewhere on this blog, I've become quite a big fan of Jedi Guardian DPS. I was hooked on it as a 'main-backup' during 3.0, and since Miorahna became pretty much my favourite character in terms of looks during 4.0 and the Class is a hell-of-a-lot more mobile now in 5.0, my love for the Class has grown all the more. So, it seemed right that when it came to focusing seriously on an Alt, Miorahna would be the perfect choice. 

Whilst she didn't get full 242 despite reaching Tier III after the new drop-rates came in, she still got a fair few pieces of 240 and some 242. Combined with spare 246/248 Mods and Enhancements from Calph, that meant that by the time she reached Tier IV she was in at least full optimised 240 with one 242 Earpiece, Relic, and Implant, and the 242 Chest, Bracers, Belt, Headpiece, two 242 Offhands (the armouring from the second is used in her Boots as the offset piece), and full 246 or 248 Mods and Enhancements. 

She did also have 1,000 Unassembled Components, so I traded in both her Offhands to get a 248 Offhand Saber and the Generator as well as the Earpiece, meaning that she had three 248 pieces before even hitting Tier IV. After earning several more Components she was able to earn a 248 Relic of Serendipitous Assault yesterday by trading in a spare 242 Relic, which was then complimented rather nicely by the only good piece she received from the three Tier IV Crates she's so far earned; a 246 Relic of Focused Retribution.

I'm still not the best at Guardian DPS, but I was quite happy with how she coped in the final fight of Scum and Villainy yesterday evening; she did the worst of the team in terms of output at 6.8k but was only 900 DPS or so behind the leading Player, neither of which I'm sour about considering that I still haven't got the optimal rotation down for Guardian properly yet. I still mess up on which filler to use when. 

Then again, of the final bosses I'd argue that Styrak HM is probably one of the better ones for Melee, so it remains to be seen how this result translates across to a melee-unfriendly fight which still requires well-above-average DPS output...

It comes to something when, as a result of my growing respect for this Class, Miora's Imperial equivalent, Ferok'ia, is actually better geared than Calph's Imperial counterpart due to actually bothering to get both the Guardian and Juggernaut their 'peripheral' (Relics, Implants, and Earpiece) pieces crafted. Pippera still only has her 220 and 224 peripherals, not to mention 220 weapons. That Sniper's just been completely ousted from her post since 5.0 and I'm actually okay with that.

~~~

As much as the criticisms levied at Galactic Command are totally justified (and they better be, since I've thrown quite a few of them against it myself), it can be seen to work out pretty nicely sometimes. Ignoring the Mods and Enhancements sent over from Calph's spares, none of Miora's current gear was won during an Operation; it's all come from Command Crates and then been upgraded from there. I won't deny that this outcome was very fortuitous even with the new drop-rates, which are still a bit of a nuisance to deal with. I think she received about four 242 belts...

I'm very much looking forward to 5.2.2 bringing in purchasable set-bonus optimised 230 gear for Command Tokens; finally, for the first time in literally ever, all of my characters will be in optimised set bonus gear and I can begin to use them 'happily'. I legitimately can't wait.

Additionally, I am seriously tempted to pick up the Tank armour set for Miora (and craft the unoptimised Mods, Enhancements, Relics, Earpiece, and Implants), just so I can practice off-tanking. I'm not confident to say "yeah, I'll happily main-tank something", but I've been delegated as the off-tank for a good number of times for certain boss fights even when not on a Tanking class so I'd be happy to give it a proper shot. For example, I volunteered as the DPS-with-taunt for the aforementioned Styrak run whilst Calph has been an off-tanking Gunslinger for SM DF and DP runs which my guild did at the start of 5.0 and then again in early 5.1.

So based on that, I think I'll dedicate some time to learning to do it properly for a change. Just start, see how it goes, and go on from there. I'm someone who only learns what a bad idea is when it's pummelling me in the face, so I imagine that this will happen to me here. :P

Character Revamps: Wreaking Havoc

I seem to be on a streak of character redesigns (and annoying/bad pun-based titles) lately. As I had anticipated and previously reported on, the new hairstyles have seen some usage amongst my main eight characters, with Calph and Ferok'ia receiving the Shaecut and the "goth mop", respectively.

However, if you've visited my duly-updated Characters page recently you may have noticed another character has received something of a redesign if you have good eyes and somehow have his image burned into your memories.

So really, nobody will have noticed the redesign.

All the more reason to delve into it!

The New Warrior's Path

5.2's delay has certainly caused something of a discussion point amongst the SWtOR Community. Some are regarding it as an embarrassment or a failure, others don't mind in the slightest, and there are those who are happy with the delay since it means that, ultimately, they get a "better" patch update than they would have done otherwise.

I put myself roughly in the "don't mind" category. I'm somewhat miffed that I'll be missing the launch-day of the Patch due to being on holiday (indeed, this blog post is currently being written under the grey skies of a caravan park) until the Wednesday, but at the end of the day I'm only missing one day of 5.2. Ultimately, I can't be at all annoyed about missing the Tuesday since on this day next week I'll be visiting the Star Wars Identities exhibition in the O2 Arena before attending a concert by the phenomenal Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall.

Culture!

So, with 5.2 being delayed, I decided to turn my attention elsewhere this week, since I was particularly keen to avoid doing things on Calph for as much as possible, given that I had brought her CXP total to 4,989/4,990 for her current Command Rank. This avoidance did fall through yesterday (aggravating for my OCD) but again, can't complain because Master Mode Draxus bit the dust to make our raid group feel good about ourselves.

Instead, I focused what attention I could this week before holidays interrupted procedures to continuing the adventures of the only DvL character I have left in active use; my newest Sith Juggernaut, Ferok'ia.

A New Inmate in the Madhouse!

The Bounty Hunter Class and I have had a bit of a vast history.

Not as vast a history as Troopers (I've had eight of those!), but still; six Hunters have all come and gone during my time in-game, with each one being discarded simply because they did not resonate with me one bit. As pointed out previously, I can tend to be really rather fickle when it comes to deleting characters, with reasons for doing so ranging from not enjoying the class (more so for Powertechs) to simply not being able to come up with a good outfit/story/whatever for them (more so for Mercenaries).

So this brings me to Phirella, the fresh-faced 'baby' Hunter I started last Sunday afternoon.

Character Connections

I've seen many, many characters come and go during my years in The Old Republic. The above pictures represent a selection of past and present characters in the order of their creation and a group-shot of the 7 characters who I currently keep in active service, 2 of whom are newer whilst the other 5 have been around for a lot longer.

See which of the 7 you can recognise the levelling pics of. :P

When I say "many" characters, the 16 I chose for the collage were just those that I happened to have screenshots of from the character-select screen which showed their faces. For example, a notable absentee from the collage is my very first character; a Commando. The only screenshot I have of him is with his orange helmet on, so he's receiving no more love from me - as if he ever could.

There were other images which I had - including one for the Twi'lek Sorcerer - but added to the current 16 this total came to 19, and that's not a fun number to work with.

If I had proper shots of all of my characters, you'd be looking at an image of 40 characters (appropriately enough, only 40% of whom - not including the 3 instant 60s - have ever made it up to or beyond Level 50), so in this respect it's perhaps a very good thing that I could only find and use 16. I know for a fact that there are more, but I honestly can't remember enough details about them to add them to the list, so I'll stick with the nice round number.

We won't be speaking of the "accidental Kira Carsen Gunslinger", though...

I first thought of this subject as a minor 'fact' for the Creative Blogger facts list; I would touch on the shifting ratio of male:female characters and how I often used elements of my own personality in constructing those of the characters, yet I realised that I could do so much more with this as an actual blog post, so here we are.

In this post, I'll attempt to demonstrate what goes through my mind when I create multiple characters and what causes various ones to stick whilst others have been abandoned and deleted.