Monday Musings: I’ll Save You, but First…

I’ve been focusing on leveling up my Sage. She’s currently level 43 and working her way through that god awful maze know as Belsavis.

• I get that Belsavis is a prison and designed to keep people in, but c’mon. No matter how many times I quest there I still get lost or trapped.

• I’ll be done with it soon, and I’m quickly approaching an important decision point. At level 47 you can go to Makeb and level there.

• I absolutely plan to finish the Consular story. The question is how much time do I want to spend doing the planetary story and side quests?

• I’m pretty sure I’ll hit 47 on Voss. After Voss it’s just Corellia.

• The nice thing about Makeb is the bolster. I don’t have to worry about gear. I’m worried that if I go there too soon, I won’t be level 55 when I’m done with all the quests. Still, once I get to Makeb I won’t have to worry about upgrading gear anymore. The Shadow of Revan prelude and expansion itself will get me everything I need to get to 60.

• That’s the one thing I hate about leveling. I have to stop and take time to upgrade my gear periodically.

• It’s this unnatural break in the process. I just want to continue saving the galaxy, but I can’t do it with crappy gear.

• I don’t upgrade at every level. I did that one time when I leveled my Jedi Knight. Every other level I equipped him with prototype quality armoring, mods and enhancements. Never doing that again.

• I know I need to upgrade my gear when NPCs are too hard to kill, and I’m too easy to kill. Also Voss. The difficulty on Voss seems to ramp up, and I always find it necessary to upgrade when I get there.

• I find that common quality armoring, mods and enhancements are enough to get me by. I just hate having to stop and craft them.

• Luckily I’m a pack rat and have piles of low level mats hanging around. I usually find there’s one level where I don’t have enough and have to buy them, which can be expensive.

• I think it’s usually grade 4 or 5 that I’m lacking. Once I get to the grade above that I usually have tons and tons of those mats. Anything that was gathered at level 50 or 55 I’m swimming in.

• I’m of course using XP boosts to level. I hate wasting them, and every now and then I reach a point where I feel I need to upgrade my gear, but I have an XP boost going.

• If I’ve stretched my gear too far, I have to bite the bullet and craft while I have the XP boost running. My Sage is a Cybertech and crafts my armoring and mods.

• It’s start crafting, logout, wait, and log back in, and try to conserve as much of the XP boost as I can.

• I think I’ve stated before that the Consular story is my least favorite. Playing through it a second time, I’ve come to appreciate it a bit more.

• I especially like the Consular’s companions. Therax, Zenith, Iresso and Nadia are quickly becoming four of my favorites.

• I like Zenith because I believe he is voiced by the same actor who does Theron Shan. He masks his voice well, but you can definitely hear Theron coming through.

• I like Iresso because he sounds a lot like Agent Fauler from the Tatooine planetary story, and I always thought that Fauler would make a great companion.

• Therax has a real Neil Patrick Harris vibe going on. I also think the whole Holiday hologram is a clever aspect to his character.

• Nadia is my second favorite Force using companion, with Kira Carsen being my first.

• I’m trying to have a bit of fun leveling this time around. I want to get to 60 fast, but I don’t feel a need to rush through everything.

• When I got to Hoth, I took the time to outfit my character in Thermal Retention gear. It’s part of my collection and I think I got it for almost nothing during one of those Cartel fire sales.

• If there’s one feature that needs some improvement it’s the Collection UI.

• Was it really that hard to build a search function?

• Was it really that hard to allow you to filter by items in your collection?

• I’m half tempted to create a spreadsheet to track what I have in my collection, because having to remember which pack something came in and click through page after page is beyond tedious.

• While I’m thinking about features, the GTN really needs to put companion gifts in their own category and subcategory. Category would be Companion gifts, and subcategory would be rank.

• One thing I won’t complain about is the free skills training. If you aren’t aware this also applies to the speeder piloting skills. There’s no reason not to pay for Speeder Piloting I at level 10, but I would hold off on purchasing the other two since you can get them for free. Yes, the Legacy allows you to get II and III five levels earlier, but I find that leveling is fast enough that it’s better to wait and get them for free. I like free.

• Anyway it was fun to get my RP on when I got to Hoth. The only thing I wish I had done was shell out the 1.5 million credits for a Tundra Tauntaun. Still fun to play the part though.

• I imagine that by this time next week I’ll have hit 60 on my Sage. If that happens you’ll hear about it in my next Monday Musings.

• Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go break myself out of prison.

May the Force Be With You!