Contents:

• 1. Tips for New Players
  • List of Acronyms/Glossary
  • General Tips
  • Build Tips
  • Vendor & Economy Tips
  • Gameplay Tips
• 2. Game Mechanics
  • Difficulty Levels
  • Skills
  • Gems
  • Flasks
  • Classes
  • Attributes
  • Charges
  • Additional vs. Increased vs. More
  • Defenses
• 3. Links and Other Resources

1. Tips for New Players

List of Acronyms/Glossary

• Adds – Enemies that spawn during a boss encounter
• AoE – Area Of Effect
• BM – Blood Magic
• B/O – Buy Out
• CI – Chaos Inoculation
• C/O – Current Offer
• DOT – Damage Over Time
• DPS – Damage Per Second
• EA – Explosive Arrow
• EB – Eldritch Battery
• EK – Ethereal Knives
• ES – Energy Shield
• Eva – Evasion
• GCP – Gemcutter’s Prism
• GS – Ground Slam
• GM – Game Moderator – GMs can affect the game to resolve issues; synonymous with administrator
• GMP – Greater Multiple Projectiles
• IIQ – Increased Item Quantity
• IIR – Increased Item Rarity
• IR – Iron Reflexes
• LA – Lightning Arrow
• LMP – Lesser Multiple Projectiles
• LS – Lightning Strike
• Mob – “Mobile”, from old MUD games, but it means “Monster”
• Ninja – A player who takes drops that aren’t theirs (hard to determine in this game because of the loot timers)
• OBO – Or Best Offer
• Reroll – To make a new character or randomize the attributes/stats on an item (depending on context)
• RoE – Radius of Effect
• RT – Resolute Technique
• Toon – A character
• TP – Town portal
• WP – WayPoint
• WTB – Want To Buy
• WTS – Want To Sell
• WTT – Want To Trade

General Tips

• There are three acts and three difficulty types (normal, cruel, and merciless). Completing all three acts on one difficulty advances your character to the next difficulty. Each increase in difficulty and act makes the game noticeably more difficult. In Cruel your resistances are reduced by 20% and in Merciless your resistances are reduced by 60%. Note that this includes Chaos Resistance.
• If you die in hardcore your character will be moved to the regular (softcore) league and you can continue playing them there.
• AOE skills are very important for farming and killing large groups of mobs. (Almost) Every build should have an AOE skill worked in somewhere.
• You can use any gem as any class, so long as you meet the stat requirements.
• There are some reasons to not level up a skill gem – the mana cost of the upgraded skill may be prohibitive or you may not have the stats required to use the upgraded skill gem. If you don’t want to level up your gem, you can right click on the notification that it is ready to level up to hide it. You may later level the gem from your inventory screen.
• Two of the same type of support gem do not stack when linked together. However, you may link any number of different support gems.
• Dual wielding grants +10% more attack speed and a +15% block chance.
• There is a minimap. You can turn it on from the UI options menu. You can also turn on “items always visible” and “hold alt to pick up items” from here.
• To highlight items on the ground, hold down the ALT key. Alternatively, you can toggle the option of highlighting items on ground by pressing the Z key.
• There are no full respecs in this game. You can get respec points from quests and orbs of regret to “unspend” passive points, but in doing this you cannot break any dependencies. It is often better just to roll a new character if you need to make large changes.
• Instances reset between 8-15 minutes. Don’t loiter in town if you have a portal open, as it will disappear when the instance is reset.
• Control + Clicking on the entrance to an area allows you to reset an instance as you enter it.
• To link an item in chat hold control + alt and then click the item.

Build Tips

• When making new builds plan for about 80-85 skill points. You will reach this point around the time you complete Act III on Merciless and begin endgame content. No need to get all crazy with a 120 point build. By the time you have 80-85 points you’ll have a much better understanding of where the skill points should be going. Also, this keeps your head from exploding.
• Path of Exile can be unforgiving for those who neglect defenses (like elemental resistances). Sure you could make a full glass cannon build. But, would I advise that? Absolutely not.
• As a rule of thumb, try to get at least +100% life or energy shield from your passive skill tree into your build (To clarify, that is cumulative from +8%, etc., nodes. There are no gigantic +100% nodes.).
• You need elemental resistances. An easy way to build up resists is through rings. It’s a good idea to carry around different sets of resist rings and swap them out depending on the mobs you encounter.
• Keystones are major, large passives that lie on the outside of the passive skill web. They have the ability to completely change the way a character plays, and builds are usually planned around which keystones will be taken.
• Don’t know how to build your character? Check out the official path of exile forums and /r/pathofexilebuilds for ideas.

Vendor and Economy

• Control + Click quickly moves items between your inventory and a vendor/your stash.
• Shift + Click allows you to split stacks of items.
• Eternal Orbs, Exalted Orbs, Divine Orbs, Gem Cutters Prisms, and Chaos Orbs are the most valuable currencies. Your best bet is to hoard everything until you get a good understanding of values in this game.
• Pick up: all currency items, quality skill gems (hover over the gem, if it has a quality bonus, no matter how small, pick it up), unique items, items with three color links (a red, blue, and green socket linked together), superior-quality flasks, and any item with 5 or 6 links.
• White items can be insanely valuable. This is because some of the best items in the game can be crafted from a white item using the aforementioned currencies. Example: Find a white weapon with good sockets. Increase its quality by +20% using Blacksmith’s Whetstones, then use an Orb of Alchemy on the item to make it a rare with +20% quality!
• Superior items (items with bonus quality) can be hoarded and sold for Blacksmith Whetstones, Armorer Scraps and Glassblower Baubles. Any item with 20% quality can be vendored for a whetstone/scrap/bauble, and any combination of weapons/armor/flasks totaling 40% quality can be vendored for a whetstone/scrap/bauble, respectively
• Items with at least one of each color socket, all linked together, can be vendored for a Chromatic Orb.
• If you don’t have any resistance rings but really need some, you can vendor a skill gem and iron ring to get a resistance ring. Red skill gems give fire resistance rings, Blue skill gems give cold resistance rings, and Green skill gems give lightning resistance rings.
• You can vendor Orbs of Transmutation for four Scrolls of Wisdom each.
• Vendoring white items yields Scrolls of Wisdom, vendoring unidentified magical and rare items yields Transmutation Shards, and vendoring identified magical and rare items yields Alteration Shards.

Gameplay Tips

• Look out for Puncture. This is a skill enemies use that does five times more damage while you are moving. You are effected by puncture if you’re leaving a giant trail of blood behind you, and you HP is dropping like a rock.
• Look out for Viper Strike. This is a skill enemies use that does chaos damage over time to you, and it stacks. Four stacks can kill you very quickly. Run away and wait for the stacks to dissipate if your flasks and lifesteal can’t keep up with your HP loss.
• You don’t have to have an aura on your skill bar to keep it up. It only turns off if you enter town, you remove the gem, or you manually turn it off.
• Weapons/shields equipped in your secondary weapon/shield set (you can swap between two sets) can be used to level up skill gems, though you can’t cast them when those weapons aren’t equipped. You can swap between primary and secondary weapon sets with the “x” key, or from your inventory menu.

2. Game Mechanics

Difficulty Levels

• There are three difficulty levels: Normal, Cruel, and Merciless. You must complete Normal difficulty before you can move to Cruel, and you must complete Cruel before you can move to Merciless. The higher difficulties have death penalties, causing you to lose experience when you die. They are 0% for Normal (no penalty), 7.5% for Cruel and 15% for Merciless difficulty. This is a percentage of the experience needed to gain the next level, not your total experience.
• Losing experience in this way cannot cause you to drop down a level. For instance if you have 11% progress to your next level and die in merciless difficulty, your progress will be reset to 0%. There are also penalties to resistances in higher difficulty levels. In Cruel difficulty, there is a -20% penalty to player resistances, and this increases to -60% in Merciless.

Skills

• Skills currently come in two main varieties: spells, and attack skills. Any skill that uses your weapon damage counts as an attack skill, and everything else counts as a spell.
• Attack skills are dependent on your weapon, and so are affected by attack speed, accuracy, etc.. Bonus damage from rings and other gear is applied when using an attack skill.
• Spells do not draw their damage from your weapon in any way. They are affected by % cast speed, %fire/cold/lightning damage, %spell damage, and critical strikes. Integer damage bonuses on gear are not added to spells.
• Traps are very similar to spells, but are not affected by cast speed or spell damage mods. They are affected by % trap laying speed, and relevant damage mods. Integer damage bonuses on gear are not added to trap damage.
• The only exception to this is Town Portal, which is not affected by attack speed, cast speed, or anything else.

Gems

• Support gems only affects skills where it makes sense. For instance, skills that do not already do damage (such as Temporal Chains) will not benefit from Added Cold Damage. Skills that do not already have an area of effect will not benefit from Increased Area of Effect, etc.
• Gems get experience equal to 10% of the experience you earn.
• The number of gems you have equipped has no effect on the rate of XP gain. So having less gems equipped does not cause them to gain XP faster than if you had many gems equipped.
• Gems are not affected by the experience penalty when facing enemies below your level.
• Gems do not lose experience when you die.
• Gems can grant auras which need to be cast outside of town. Once cast, the mana pool is reduced by a certain amount for the aura and this shows up as “Mana Reserved”. This amount can be modified by items.
• When a gem is ready to level up, it shows up on the right side of the screen with a plus sign. Next to the plus sign are the new attributes of the gem. Before leveling the gem, mana pool of the player should be taken into consideration.

Flasks

• Flasks come in four main varieties: life flasks, mana flasks, hybrid flasks, and utility flasks.
• Life, Mana, and Hybrid flasks – These flasks cause you to regenerate life and/or mana when used. The amount recovered is shown on the flask as Life Recovery and Mana Recovery. The time it takes to recover the full amount is shown on the flask as Recovery Time. If you reach your maximum life and/or mana amount before the end of the recovery time, the flask effect will end prematurely. For example: You are at 100/300 life, and 150/200 mana. You use a hybrid flask that has 400 Life Recovery, 200 Mana Recovery, and Recovery Time of 8 seconds. After 2 seconds, you will be at 200/300 life, and 200/200 mana, and the mana recovery effects ends. The life recovery continues, and at 4 seconds, you have reached maximum life, and the life recovery effect also ends. *Flasks can have magic modifiers that provide bonuses while the flask effect is active, for example increased movement speed or resistances. These bonuses end when the life/mana recovery effect ends. *When multiple flasks are used at the same time, the effects are queued. The effect with the highest regeneration rate is always applied first. For example: You have two flasks, one that gives 500 life recovery over 10 seconds and has a 20% increased movement speed modifier, and a second that gives 500 life recovery of 5 seconds with no additional modifiers. You use the first flask and gain the movement speed while recovering life. After one second, you use the second flask. At this point the remaining 9 seconds from the first flask is queued, and the second flask begins its effect. Once the second flask has expired, the first flask resumes its effect for the remaining duration.
• Utility Flasks – These flasks give a temporary bonus for a set duration. Unlike the other flasks, the effects are not queued, each effect has its own timer that can overlap with other effects. The default effects of the flasks will not stack. For example: You have a magic Granite Flask with +25% movement speed, and a regular Granite Flask, both giving +4000 armour for 4 seconds. You drink the first flask, and one second later you drink the second second flask. The result will be that for the first four seconds you will have +4000 armour and +25% movement speed. At the four second mark the first flask ends, but the second flask still has 1 second left. So you will have +4000 armour (but not the movement speed) for another 1 second.
• Flask Charges – Drinking a flask consumes flask charges. Each flask shows how many charges are used per drink in its description, and each flask has a maximum number of charges it can hold. Whenever you or one of your minions kills an enemy, all of your flasks gain charges.
• By default regular monsters grant 1 charge each, magic (blue) monsters grant 3.5 charges each, and rare (yellow) monsters grant 6 charges each. So killing a rare monster causes all of your flasks to gain 6 charges.

Classes

The main difference between the classes is their stating location on the passive skill tree. Classes also start with different amounts of attributes at level 1:

• Marauder: 30 STR, 14 DEX, 14 INT
• Ranger: 14 STR, 30 DEX, 14 INT
• Witch: 14 STR, 14 DEX, 30 INT
• Duelist: 22 STR, 22 DEX, 14 INT
• Templar: 22 STR, 14 DEX, 22 INT
• Shadow: 14 STR, 22 DEX, 22 INT

Scion is the class added at the game’s release and starts in the middle of the passive skill tree.

Attributes

All classes begin with the same base life, mana, and evasion, and gain the same amount per level. These are still affected by the classes’ base stats. For example, a Marauder will start with 50+(30/2) = 65 life.

• 50 life, +6 per level
• 40 mana, +4 per level
• 50 evasion, +3 per level (including level 1)

Attributes are required to equip gear and skills. The three attributes also grant some passive bonuses:

• Strength grants +0.5 life and +0.2% melee physical damage per point
• Dexterity grants +2 accuracy and +0.2% evasion per point
• Intelligence grants +0.5 mana and +0.2% energy shield per point

Therefore the +10 attribute passive skills effectively grant:

• +10 Strength: +5 life, +2% melee physical damage
• +10 Dexterity: +20 accuracy, +2% evasion
• +10 Intelligence: +5 mana, +2% energy shield

Life and mana regeneration – All classes have a base mana regeneration rate of 105% of their maximum mana per minute. For example, a character with 100 maximum mana will regenerate 105 mana per minute, or 1.75 mana per second.

• “Increased Mana regeneration rate” modifiers modify the base rate. For example, 20% Increased Mana regeneration rate would result in 105 * 1.2 = 126% per minute.
• Characters do not begin with any life regeneration, but it is available from gear and passive skills.
• The rate at which you gain life from life leech is 20% of maximum life per second. If you have 1000 maximum life, and leech 600 life with a single attack, it will take three seconds for that life to be applied to your current life. You always get the full amount of life leeched, although it may take time to be applied – if you leech a large amount of life during a battle, you may find that the life gain continues long after the battle is over. Similar to flasks, the life gain from leech will end if you reach maximum life.
• The same is true for mana leech, although the rate is 12.5% of maximum mana per second.

Charges

Charges are glowing orbs that represent temporary buffs with different benefits:

• Endurance Charge (strength) – +5% Physical Damage reduction & +5% additional Elemental Resistances per Charge
• Frenzy Charge (dexterity) – +5% increased Attack Speed & +5% increased Cast Speed per Charge
• Power Charge (intelligence) – 50% increased Critical Strike Chance per Charge

Charges are accumulated by the use of certain skills and equipment, and last a short duration—nine seconds by default. Gaining a charge resets the duration of all accumulated charges. Each type of charge grants different bonuses. A charge bonus increases proportional to the number of accumulated charges of that type. By default, characters can have a maximum of three charges of each type active. This limit can be raised by certain passives and equipment.

Additional vs. Increased vs. More

When you are reading the Tool Tip of a node, pay attention to the percentages and the word that comes directly after it. It will determine how that percentage modifies your current stat. In short:

• Additional – adds directly to the base value.
• Increased/Decreased – an additive multiplicative increase in percentage.
• More/Less – a multiplicative increase in percentage.

What this means is that additive increases add directly to your current percentage. Whereas multiplicative increases, increase your current percentage multiplied by that amount.

There are two types of multiplicative modifiers. There are your increases, which are added together, then multiplied, and then there are your mores, which are all multiplied separately. For example, let’s give a character a bunch of additional damage effects from weapons:

a1, a2, a3, ... , aj.

He/She also has a bunch of passives that give you % increased damage. We will call these percentages:

i1, i2, i3, ... , ik.

You also have a few gems/items/etc that give you a certain % more damage. We’ll call these:

m1, m2, m3, ... , ml. 

They all multiply together in the following way:

(Base damage + a1 + a2 + a3 + ... + aj) * (1 + i1 + i2 + i3 + ... + ik) * (1 + m1) * (1 + m2) * (1 + m3) * ... * (1 + ml).

So there is additional, which is added directly to the base value, there is increased, which is an additive multiplier, and then there is more, which is just a regular multiplier.

Defenses

There are a wide variety of defenses in the game, and it is important that you learn what they are and how they work if you want to survive. They are:

• Life
• Energy Shield
• Armor
• Evasion
• Block
• Elemental Resistances
• Chaos Resistance
• Dodge

Life – Run out of this and you die. Your character begins at level 1 with 50 base health, and gains 4 health for each level thereafter and 1 health for every two strength you have. Your other defenses mitigate the impact enemy attacks have on your life pool. More is better, unless you focus on…

Energy Shield – ES works similarly to life, only you don’t get any bonus ES per level, you get it from gear. You cannot replenish it through flasks, and instead it regenerates itself after a short period during which you are not hit. Every 5 points of intelligence increase your maximum ES pool by 1%. Characters that choose to focus this exclusively end up taking the Chaos Inoculation keystone. Some notes: Chaos damage goes directly through ES to your health pool (which is why Chaos Inoculation is so useful), and having any ES at all confers a 50% chance to resist being stunned.

Armor – Armor provides damage reduction from physical attacks. It reduces incoming physical damage by a percentage according to the following formula:

Reduction = Armor / (Armor + 12 * Damage)

So, attacks that do more damage penetrate your armor better. It is capped at a 90% reduction. Armor is excellent for tanking large groups of weak mobs, but is somewhat lackluster against enemies that hit very hard.

Evasion – This is your chance to simply avoid being hit by physical attacks. It rolls against your attacker’s accuracy like so:

Evasion Chance = 1 - Attacker's Accuracy / ( Attacker's Accuracy + ( Defender's Evasion / 4 ) ^( 0.8 ) )

Evasion also reduces the odds that you will be hit by a critical attack, since your opponent must succeed on a second attack roll as a critical-hit check. Technically, PoE doesn’t use an RNG to determine when you do/don’t get hit with Eva, but they have a weird system in place that gives the same results as an RNG with a little more reliability for the end-user (this is buried somewhere in the Mechanics Thread, I’ll find it later). High Eva is great, but focusing only on Eva can be very dangerous as you will be 1-shot by more powerful enemies later in the game. It is capped at a 90% chance to evade.

Block – If you have a shield or are dual wielding, you will block a certain percentage of incoming enemy physical attacks. Against all physical attacks, if the attack hits you get to roll against your block chance. If you succeed, the attack is mitigated. If the attack would have stunned you had it hit, you go through a 350 millisecond block animation, otherwise the damage is just mitigated with no effects. Block chance is capped at 75%.

Elemental Resistances – Comes in three flavors – Fire, Cold and Lightning. Up until now, there has been no mention of spells. Spells (usually) do elemental damage, hit automatically, and generally can’t be blocked or dodged. However, their damage is reduced by whatever percentage your resistances are. If you have 50% resistance to that element, then you take half damage from that attack. Elemental resistances are capped at 75% without certain skills.

Chaos Resistance – Works like elemental resistances, except it’s much harder to get. Chaos damage always does DOT and bypasses ES. Chaos Inoculation provides immunity to Chaos damage.

Dodge – A special defense that only characters with the Acrobatics keystone can get. It provides an additional chance to negate attacks and even spells. It is calculated independently of Eva.

3. Links and Other Resources

• Even more tips and good explanation of controls
• List of Acronyms
• Common questions and their answers
• In-depth Mechanics of PoE
• Path of Exile Wiki
• Quest Reward List
• Accuracy Table
• Mods Compendium Thread
• Direct Link to the Mods Compendium
• Crafting Guide
• Worth Exalting?
• Life Leech vs. Life Gain On Hit calcuator
• Path of Exile currency exchange rates
• Monster Levels per Area and Difficulty

Source: Reddit

If you have any resources of your own to add to our list post them in the comments below.

A newly released 8 minute video from Funcom details this upcoming game’s 500+ skills and classless progression system. If you preordered the game and want to get into beta weekends, I’m sure you’ll find this information useful.

Video

The video shows off all abilities broken down into three main categories: melee, magic and ranged. Furthermore, each ability is broken down depending on weapons: blood magic, blades, rifles etc. You can technically learn every ability, but can only use 14 at any given time, seven of which are passive and seven active.

Your character is also limited to equipping two weapons at a time. The 14 abilities that you choose along with two weapons determine your character’s “build”, and as you probably noticed there’s an enormous amount of possibilities this system offers.

Do you like The Secret World‘s skill system? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Once you’ve loaded the game and chosen your server, the first thing you’ll see is your character selection screen. If you’ve created a Consular already, great! If not, click ‘Create Character’ and have fun customizing. Race and gender give no advantages or disadvantages in game, so pick whatever looks good to you. When you’re satisfied that you have the hottest looking Consular in the galaxy, you’ll be taken to the opening crawl of your story. Enjoy reading it—this is YOUR Star Wars saga!

A shuttle will fly you down to the surface of Tython, which is the origin planet for both Jedi classes. You’ll meet Master Yuon Par, who has taken you as her Padawan. You’ll also get instruction on how to move in game, find your quest log, locate taxis, and equip items. This is a good spot to click the ‘Options’ button on your top bar, and check out your preferences. If your game is running slowly, the graphics are usually the culprit. Turn shadows, anisotropy, and grass down or off. Lowering ‘ground clutter’ can help, too. Under ‘social’, check ‘allow access to same class stories’ if you plan on grouping a lot. This will let you join other JCs in their class stories. Note—only one of you will get credit if you’re grouped with someone who has the same class quest. There is a choice to auto-loot the area on right click—this is very handy. Add more hotbars, especially the bottom two. You’ll need them as you gain skills. I enabled all four bars and put the skills I used infrequently on the right bar. I set my left bar for crew member skills. There’s a tab at the bottom of the preference window for keybinds. Adjust them as you desire—there are a lot of options you can hotkey or rebind to keys you prefer. Click ‘apply’ to save all your options, and then ‘OK’ to close the window.

You’ll also notice tips on the right side of your screen from time to time–click those to open the tip windows and learn more. These are incredibly helpful, and you want to ignore these about as much as you want to be eaten by a Rancor.

People to See, Places to Go

Once you arrive at the Gnarls taxi stop, make sure to pick up the bind point. Get in the habit of unlocking all your bind points, which are usually located by the taxis and in cantinas. This gives you many more quick travel options. You’ll thank yourself later when you want to hop back somewhere to turn in quests.

You’ll find your first skill trainer and some merchants in this area as well. Visit the trainer as soon as possible after leveling up to get your new skills. You need all your Jedi powers to defeat those enemies!

Skills for Survival
The default hotkey for your skills is ‘p’. Most skills will be automatically added to your hotbars if you have an open space for them. Some are not, however. Also, passive skills do not need to be on your hotbars. They’re always active. The skills are unlocked on your bar by default, so you can move them around freely to suit your particular play style. Click the little padlock icon on the left side of the center skillbar to lock or unlock it.

I usually keep Force Wave in slot one, Project in two, Telekinesis in three, and my melee skills in four and five. Seeing items ripped out of the ground and thrown at your enemy is Very Cool, so I lean more towards using the Force skills. I have those hotkeyed on my number pad. If you prefer more of a melee style, move the lightsaber skills to slots two and three instead. The issue of mousing versus hotkeying the skills has caused many a debate and even a few nasty little flamewars. Do what works best for you and ignore the fruitcakes out there who tell you that you’re wrong for doing it that way.

Quests and Maps

Right near the Gnarls taxi, you’ll notice Master Relnex, who will have your first real quest for you. Quest givers have cut out gold triangles above their heads when they have quests to offer. The triangles will be filled in when you have a completed quest to turn into them. Why BioWare chose triangles, I don’t know. In any case, go find those students before the Flesh Raiders capture them!

Check your map periodically (default hotkey is ‘m’). This is a great way to find more quests and new areas to explore. Accept all the quests you can possibly find, including the bonus objectives that come from taking down your foes. All of those will give you experience points (XP) towards the next level and practice using the different combat and healing skills.

Tempting as it is to move your class storyline along, don’t rush through the Gnarls area. You receive XP for discovering Lore objects, unlocking new areas, and meeting new species. You’ll have your first dialogue option that offers Light Side (LS) or Dark Side (LS) points. You can role-play it the way you want, though there is currently a definite advantage to choosing one side or the other. Some gear is restricted to either LS or DS, and you have to earn a certain level of points to unlock those ranks. Your Jedi can turn to the DS, though it will be a challenging path to play. Dark Side Jedi do not turn into Sith and switch factions to the Empire, just as Light Side Sith do not switch factions to the Republic.

When you receive quest rewards, take the time to mouse over them to find out which attributes they boost. The main attribute for the JC is Willpower, with Endurance coming in a close second. Willpower raises the amount of Force power, while Endurance raises your hit points. Since you can only wear light armor, raising both is essential. Presence is useful for raising your companions’ hit points, but don’t worry about that one too much. At lower levels, you can also put points into Strength if you want to raise the amount of damage you do with your lightsaber. Gear with this stat may arguably useful for Jedi Shadows, but not for Sages, who need the extra Force points more than melee damage. At higher levels, Willpower is always going to be the better option, however. Don’t bother with Aim or Cunning.

After finishing up in the Gnarls area, you’ll be directed to the Jedi Temple. Take the time to explore the area in and around the temple thoroughly. You’ll find class trainers, several quests, a cantina, lore objects, and a variety of vendors, including one for your Tython commendations. Don’t bother buying armor at this stage—you’ll receive a number of armor pieces as quest rewards. The understudy’s foil is useful for killing the bad guys faster than your practice saber, but it’s not essential. Save up the commendations for the Consular robe that you can buy at the Specialty Vendor. That served me well through most of Coruscant, which is the planet you go to when you finish your work on Tython. Pick up a few medpacs and stims that boost your Endurance and Willpower. You can find these at Stim Vendors and Republic Medical Droids.

Health and Welfare

Make sure to use your Force Valor buff as often as it wears off. It lasts an hour. You can buff an entire party or even other players. If you buff other players who aren’t Consulars as you meet or pass them in game, you’ll find that some of them will stop to return the favor. Every bit helps!

What happens if your health drops during battle? Well, when your foes are lying at your feet, take a few moments to use your meditation skill. This will heal you and replenish your Force points. Always go into the battle with a full health bar whenever possible. What happens if your health bar drops to zero? You’ll have a screen pop up saying you were defeated. You will be presented with two options–revive where you’re at, or get revived at the nearest medcenter. If you’ve finished all your objectives and were ready to turn in your completed quests, or are in the middle of a huge mob that you have no hope of defeating, then being transported to the nearest medcenter might be more convenient. Otherwise, revive where you’re at. You’ll have 8 seconds of stealth to get to a safe spot to heal yourself and re-apply any buffs and stims. Then go finish off the bugger who defeated you and pick up those drops he so kindly left behind. Your armor takes damage during battle, but it takes a lot more damage if you are defeated. Make sure to repair your items at a vendor when you sell all those terrific drops you’ve picked up during your adventures.

Explore, Explore, Explore

Once you’re done with the Jedi Temple orientation, you will be directed to Kalikori Village to help the Pilgrims there and to solve some of the mysteries for your class quest chain. Following that, you’ll end up at the Forward Speeder Camp to foray into the ruins of Kaleth. Explore all the areas–you never know when you’ll find lore objects, new quests, security chests and crates, and the fabled datacrons. There are some gorgeous areas on Tython where you have a chance to stop and just simply enjoy.

Sometimes, you’ll receive a mission item when you accept a quest. That item will end up in your inventory (default hotkey ‘i’). Click the ‘mission’ tab. You can drag the item to your hotbar so that you don’t have to open your inventory every time you need to use it.

Enemies of the Republic are Everywhere

The enemies get tougher as you advance through the different zones, and you’ll see more challenging foes and even a few bosses. Generally, if the enemy has a name, it means BioWare cared enough about him to shower him with love, attention, and lots of hitpoints. You’ll have a better chance of surviving a boss encounter if you’re in a group or if you’re the same or higher level compared to the boss. Left-clicking on the boss will give you some of his stats so that you know what you’re up against.

Bosses often have better quality loot drops than the average enemy. Usually the drops will shine with a white light, but if you see green, blue, or especially purple, there’s something special there for you!

A gold shaft of light indicates a drop needed for a mission has fallen. Make sure to grab those up.

Dialogue Options Can Be a Lot of Fun

BioWare has done a terrific job of making the quests varied and fun. I had to laugh at the baby flesh raider quest and the subsequent dialogue choices when turning in the completed quest for the reward.

Heroic Quests

At the Forward Speeder Camp, you’ll also receive your first Heroic quest. Pay attention to the number of people it says you should have in your party before attempting it, usually 2+ or 4. You’ll need at least that many players, and companions don’t count. These aren’t called ‘heroic’ quests for nothing! These quests are also excellent spots for grouping up and earning social points. Don’t miss out on that.

Companions Join You on Your Adventures

Your first companion, Qyzen Fess, will join you on Tython. You’ll receive more companions over the course of the game. Once you have him in your party, your dialogue choices affect you in more complex ways. These choices many times give you not only LS/DS choices, but now also give affection points. If your companion likes the choice you’ve made, you’ll get rewarded with affection points. If he doesn’t like your choice, affection points will be subtracted. The codex entries in your log (default hotkey ‘l’) on your companions will tell you what they like and dislike, so make sure to read those if you’re planning on maximizing affection with them. Sometimes, your companions won’t like your LS or DS choices. This adds a new dimension to your conversation options.

Don’t forget to equip your companion with items, too, though the equipment he has when you first receive him should be sufficient on Tython. He can wear heavy armor, so give him the best you can find or buy. Despite the fact that his main attributes are Aim and Cunning (both ranged attributes), he comes only with a weapon proficiency in techstaff, which is a melee weapon. You can access your companion’s equipment in the character pane (default hotkey is ‘c’). You’ll see the companion tab right next to yours. You don’t have to worry about assigning attribute points or abilities to your companion. He automatically levels up when you do.

First Lightsaber!

Finally, the time will come for you to craft your own lightsaber. This class quest is the toughest on the planet except for maybe the heroic quest. Make sure you’ve reached at least level 8, and preferably higher. Remember to equip the lightsaber as soon as you craft it. You’ll need it! Once you’ve completed this quest, you’ll return to the Jedi Temple and learn some important news that will send you on even greater adventures across the galaxy.

By this time, you should be well past the ‘newbie’ stage and ready to tackle the advanced stuff. May the Force be with you!

Need more detailed Jedi Consular tricks and tactics? Check out this strategy guide here and learn the mistakes every new player makes!

Guide source: Torwars.

The following list of abilities available to the Trooper class should give you a hint on what exactly is it you’re seeing in all those videos, and what will be available to you if you decide to play this exciting class.

Starting abilities are those that every Trooper has access to at level 1, and trainable abilities must be learned from the trainer at later levels.

Starting Abilities

Trainable Abilities

Leveling, advanced classes, quest guides, spell rotations, combat, talent trees, mechanics and more… You can find it all in this guide specifically written for Trooper players!

The following is a list of abilities available to Jedi Knights that will give you a hint on the gameplay and hopefully help you decide if this class is right for you.

Starting Abilities

Trainable Abilities

There are also additional abilities that are available depending on your chosen advanced class, Sentinel or Guardian. You can find a list of those in the Jedi Knight advanced classes article.

• Jedi Sage wields a single-bladed lightsaber, has powerful telekinetics/healing and is a ranged controller with damage or healing powers.
• Jedi Shadow wields double-bladed lightsabers, and possess stealth and burst melee damage abilities. They can also tank.

Jedi Sage

The Jedi Sage’s abilities will focus on healing and removing negative effects on allies. They will also have a powerful range of force powers to attack enemies at range.

Read more about Jedi Sage (including leveling, advanced classes, quest guides, spell rotations, combat, talent trees, mechanics and more…)

Skill Trees

The two Sage skill trees are Telekinetics and Seer. The shared Sage and Shadow tree is Balance.

• Telekinetics – Affords the power to distort reality and move waves of energy, tearing apart enemies. In RPG terms, this is a Ranged DPS skill tree. The skills in this tree focus on improving the existing force abilities and conserving force points.
• Seer – Allows the Sage to master the art of the force to heal and protect allies.
• Balance – Enhances the Sage’s force attacks and augments the Shadow’s force and lightsaber abilities.

Abilities

Below is a full list of the abilities that a Jedi Sage can learn. Remember that you also have access to Jedi Consular abilities as well.

Jedi Shadow

The Jedi Shadow’s abilities will focus on dealing burst damage and stealth attacking enemies. Jedi Shadow can also tank using force powers and lightsaber defense.

Skill Trees

• Infiltration – Masters of stealth, these Shadows use positional attacks and surprise to defeat foes. In RPG terms this tree is a melee DPS tree.
• Kinetic Combat – Uses the double-bladed Lightsaber defensively to protect the Shadow and his allies. In RPG terms, this tree would be a tank.
• Balance – Augments the Shadow’s Force and Lightsaber abilities from both classes as it’s the shared skill tree.

Abilities

Below is the known list of the abilities that a Jedi Shadow can learn. Don’t forget that you also have all these Jedi Consular abilities at your disposal as well.

Leveling, advanced classes, quest guides, spell rotations, combat, talent trees, mechanics and more… You can find it all in this guide specifically written for Jedi Shadow players!

 

Learn more in: Jedi Sage guide, Jedi Shadow guide

In addition to the abilities listed below there are more which are specific to the two specializations.

Starting Abilities

Trainable Abilities

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Leveling, advanced classes, quest guides, spell rotations, combat, talent trees, mechanics and more… You can find it ALL in this guide specifically written for Bounty Hunter players!

Below you’ll find some starting abilities and those that can be trained later on for the Smuggler class.

Starting Abilities

Trainable Abilities

Recommended read: 10 Things Every Smuggler Must Know

One of them are starting abilities with which every character starts, and others can be learned later on via trainers.

It should give you a nice overview of how gameplay and combat looks like.

Starting Abilities

Trainable Abilities

Leveling, advanced classes, quest guides, spell rotations, combat, talent trees, mechanics and more… You can find it all in this guide specifically written for Sith Inquisitor players!