If you’re like me and you pre-ordered the Rise of the Hutt Cartel (ROTHC) expansion, then this time next week you will be playing your way through Makeb on the journey to 55. With only a week to go there is still time to clean-up house and get yourself ready for ROTHC.
Expansions are game changers, and while it doesn’t have to be a race to get to 55 you need to understand that 50 is no longer max level and you will have to work your way back to the elder game. You’re not level one per se, but you are leveling again.
Anyone familiar with the story of Sisyphus? Sisyphus is a character from Greek Mythology. He was an evil and clever king who, when he died, was sent Hades. His punishment was that he had to roll a giant rock up a hill. Just as he was about to reach the top of the hill, he would lose his grip and the rock would roll back down to the bottom, and he would have to start over. This is the nature of expansions in progression oriented MMOs. Lucky for us that Makeb is way cooler than pushing a rock up a hill.
Now that you understand that ROTHC represents a fresh start, here are some things you can do to make that climb all the more pleasant and easy.
—
Declare a Main
Expansions are a great time to switch roles and/or toons. Got roped into healing, but hated it? Switch to DPS, or become a tank. Whatever it is you like, that’s what you should do, and expansions are the perfect time to make that change. Just inform your Ops leader of your intentions ahead of time. This will allow him to plan as he may need to find a new healer, or manage an over abundance of DPS. The goods new is your Ops team is on hiatus now and you won’t be hurting them by making a change.
Level Your Crew Skills
In ROTHC there will be a new max level for all Crew Skills. If you have any that aren’t at the current max level, you should get them there so you can train to level them to the new cap. Nothing worse than going to Makeb and being unable to scavenge metals, crystals and other materials because you aren’t at a high enough level.
Ready Your Companions
Max out their affection and finish out their quest lines. Doing this will shorten the time it takes to level up Crew Skills and and you’ll get a nice increase to the Prescence stat which will help when fighting on Makeb. Decide now which companion will be at your side and make sure their gear is up to par.
Army of Alts
I have seven level 50s. Right now this is great because I have one of every Crew Skill maxed out. I’m extremely self-sufficient. Once the expansion hits I’ll have to level up each one of these toons and their associated Crew Skills. That’s not going to happen overnight. In fact, that can easily be a 2-3 month process. Additionally if you run Ops on multiple toons then you will have to gear up each of those accordingly.
Depending on when your Ops team is planning to roll, you may have your work cut out for you in getting all of your toons Ops ready. If you’re an Ops leader be prepared to have main toons only in the beginning and don’t count on any team members having alts they can bring to fill a role if someone is missing.
Clean Out Your Inventory
Organize your inventory, sell any crating materials, companion gifts, and other items that you don’t need. You’ll be getting new stuff from Makeb and you want to make sure that you have the necessary room to hold everything. You might just make a few credits in the process.
Empty Your Quest Log
You’ll want to complete and/or delete any lingering quests in your log. You want to hit Makeb with as close to zero quests as possible. One trick I learned from my WoW days is that you’ll want to used daily quests to get a wee head start. The night before the ROTHC goes live, complete a full set of daily quests, but don’t turn them in. When the expansion drops start by turning them all in to get some “free” XP.
Save Your Credits
Every purchase you’re considering, should be made with ROTHC in mind. Whatever you think you might need right now, you probably don’t. Try to bank as many credits as you can. You’ll need them in ROTHC. You’ll be spending money on new skills, new schematics, and new materials. There will be new levels of augments so at some point you will need to re-augment all of your gear. All of those one-time costs you incurred when you first leveled you will incur again.
—
Expansions are exciting and fun, and this one is loaded with lots of new content and cool things to explore. It’s also a reset in terms of gear,crew skills, talents and abilities. You’ll be spending a lot of time and effort to essentially get to the point your are at now. It’s just the nature of things, but hopefully we’ll all some fun and create some new MMO memories along the way.
So grab a rock and let’s head to Makeb!
