#swtor flashpoints

[coruscanti-real-estate]

I personally think if you play as a Jedi Knight, you have to do the Esseles flashpoint, if only to explain why, despite leaving Tython after you, Master Orgus is already waiting for you when you arrive on Coruscant.

[rangerslayer-97]

When you intended to leave Asara behind, but your Consular Shadow friend disagrees with what you're about to do XD

[rainofaugustsith]

The Black Talon OMG.

I'm still working my way through the flashpoint achievements I can do. I did the bonus bosses on both Imp/Rep sides of The Meridian Complex, finished up the "defeat ___ 25 times" achievements on Directive 7 and a few others. My stealthers Jenari and Suvia have been invaluable in getting these done. I didn't have the achievement on The Black Talon for killing the captain so I sent Suvia in, and...OMG. That is horrible. Like, absolutely horrible. WHY. You're basically surrounded by bodies at the end with that awful droid, and it's just...bad. I don't think it's reasonable for most people to kill the captain in TBT anyway. I'll be honest, I just don't kill him because I think it's awful. But: 1. Even if your character has no ethics - Kilran is obviously using the PC as a pawn and threatening them that they won't survive if they don't do his bidding. Even if you are playing a terrible character, that might rankle them, ie, "nobody tells me what to do." Doubly so if you're a Sith, you're going to listen to some damned Moff? 2. If your character is cunning and trying to establish the foundations of a power base/allies, here's your chance. Working with the captain and officers instead of massacring them could win you some allies, or at least some respect. If you're a Sith, hello, resources to use later, if you don't kill them. I still think the end decision in the Black Talon makes no sense. It's LS to turn over the General to the Empire to be tortured and DS to kill him. Frankly I think killing him to stop him from being tortured is far more merciful, but nobody in the writing team asked me. I also did the Esseles one - in that case I didn't have the achievement for keeping the Ambassador. Frankly because she wants to sacrifice the entire engineering floor, I have no issue turning her over to the Empire. I remembered that the Cartel Bazaar on the Fleet sold some neat stuff, so I felt Suvia deserved a Hoverchair for her efforts. Now she and Viri each have a different one. Suitable, yes.

(This is also the PSA that the Cartel Bazaar Underworld vendors sell armor, pets and and mounts that cost $$$$$ on the GTN or Cartel Market for cheap + some cartel certificates. If you don't have enough Underworld rep to buy stuff, feel free to drop by my Manaan stronghold on Star Forge under Viridana Dragoi to play the contraband slot machine and earn rep. I'm still figuring out where it will go on Satele Shan, but probably my Yavin 4 SH).

[rainofaugustsith]

Rain Plays SWTOR: Crisis on Umbara

We're continuing with our "play it before 7.0" series with Crisis on Umbara. This is the first post-KOTFE/KOTET flashpoint, and it's got a few changes from the older flashpoints. We're not going to discuss the story of Crisis on Umbara - it was very deeply upsetting to fans of a specific character, and even if that isn't my personal fave, I fully respect and want to show sensitivity that it was upsetting to that character's fans. It was another tired betrayal storyline (as though SWTOR hasn't already had about 500 of those), so beyond the character issue, it took the story back into boring territory IMHO. We're talking strictly about the gameplay here. 

Crisis on Umbara is a train heist that turns into a (literal) train wreck. The design of Umbara is spooky and intriguing. This is another planet I wish we'd get to visit again, because running around in this gothic sci-fi landscape is pretty amazing. 

From this flashpoint onward you will not have the assistance of a combat droid, even in story mode. However, if you are playing this to get through the story, you will have two of your own companions (no choice; the story dictates who joins you) to help you through the section with mobs. One of the companions will leave after the train section, but the rest of it is honestly like an open world planetary area. You'll also have access to a flamethrower and a lot of incendiary barrels to help you along.  This flashpoint will occasionally drop holo decos of the bosses, but they are not guaranteed.

Basic caveats: 

1. This is a very short flashpoint. With Viri and Lana moving right along at level 75/306 gear rating in solo mode, it took about 25 minutes. If you're going through the story you will have some cut scenes before, during and after, but it's still not a very long stretch of story.

2. In my own experience, the section on the train tends to have a fair amount of lag. Be aware that enemies may take a second or two to render, your character may be moving slowly, and it may look very choppy. 

3. You know what to do to the medics, right? There are some in just about every group on the train and in the part of the wreckage where you're dealing with the Umbaran soldiers. They should be your first priority to dispatch!

4. You will have a lot of exploding barrels to work with in this flashpoint, and they can significantly cut down on your fighting time. 

5. From this flashpoint on, there is a new type of kolto station that you may not have seen before. They had these in the Uprisings, but if you've played through story you may not have seen these yet. You need to run through them instead of clicking them. They also tend to be a little more hidden than they were in the older flashpoints, but they're still there.

6. On the train only, there will be one room with kolto barrels you can click on to receive some heals.  

7. There is no combat assistance droid in this flashpoint, or any of the ones to follow.

If you're doing this as part of the story, you will have two specific companions that you cannot choose or change who accompany you on the train, but will lose one when the train wrecks. If you're going through the flashpoint as a standalone, you will have one companion of your choice. 

How do I get it? 

1. If you are doing the story progression, the mission with cut scenes is granted after you finish Iokath, ie, Fractured Alliances/the Forgotten World. 

2. If you are doing the flashpoint as a standalone, pick it up by going to your activities panel, choose the solo tab and scroll down to Crisis on Umbara. 

3. You can also pick up the standalone flashpoint on Odessen. Go to the base elevator all the way on the side of the Odessen plaza, near the two Star Fortress quest givers (Lt. Marko is one). Take the elevator to the Alliance Staging Area level. The terminal for Umbara is on the lefthand side of the room before you go up the stairs. Go to the little blue terminal, click, choose difficulty level you want, and then go through the blue curtain into the instanced area which is right there. 

Section 1: Great Train Heist (or not)

You will be fighting to the front of an Umbaran train. BUG: The game often is very laggy here. Also remember that you are on a train that has wide open gaps on both sides - you absolutely can be thrown over the side or fall. Conversely, if you have any skills that will yeet enemies over the sides, they will work here. 

The mobs here are not particularly challenging if you are max level. Remember to give the medics your undivided attention first. 

You will notice that a lot of the rooms have explosive barrels. You can't just click them; you have to target them with a skill to get them to break. They explode, and if you are strategic about this, you can get rid of a lot of your enemies very quickly. 

Several of the rooms also have trip wires and red areas on the floor. If you step on these, a turret will appear. You can use skills like Force Charge or use the boxes and crates around the train to get across without touching them, but honestly, the turrets aren't a huge deal and stepping on them isn't likely to be the end of the world. 

When you get to the part of the train that appears to be a dead end, after you dispatch the three NPCs, mouse around on the boxes to find a datapad to click. Now click the console in front of you that has turned blue. That will make a grapple box flashing green appear on the next train car appear. Click it to grapple across. 

In the last room before the bosses, you will notice four kolto barrels in the corners of the room. These are your kolto stations, more or less. Click on them to kick them open and heal yourself and your companion(s) if needed. This is a challenging room with heavier mobs and a lot of trip wires and turrets, so you may need the kolto, and they're fun to smash at the end of the fight regardless/ 

You can also pick up a flamethrower in an early room. Why not? The more help you have, the better. It will stay as a temporary ability for the entire flashpoint and you can keep using it. Look for the clickable red/blue bottle on the crates. If you don't get one here, you'll have another chance just before the final boss.

Bosses #1 and #2: Technician Canni and Assassin Elli-Va

Canni's big claim to fame is his ability to summon autoturrets. Elli-Va is a Force user who will disappear and reappear at will. There's a knockback, so be careful and mind the edges of the train. I find the easiest way to handle this fight is to anchor my character against the train door, so if they are knocked back, they're not flying over the edge. Let your companions work on Canni and concentrate on Elli-Va while you are in your corner, who will come to you and stay on your character until she is defeated.  After Elli-Va is dead, join your companions in fighting Canni, who will keep calling turrets. After both bosses are defeated, you will have to also defeat any remaining turrets; they will not vanish on their own. 

Trainwreck time!

2. Great Train Fail 

So your great train heist...sort of failed. A lot. This section will have you going through the train wreckage. Run up the hill and stay to the right to avoid pulling every mob in the joint. There's an achievement for defeating a certain number of Injured Umbaran Soldiers. They appear as neutral yellow-name plate NPCs but you may find that you accidentally pull them very quickly  while fighting other enemies. 

In the second section, you will be gathering six canisters of Umbaran crystals. Veer left to avoid the heaviest mobs and look around the back of the train. There are a bunch of crystal canisters at the back around the train cars with minimal enemies. When you have enough, you will find an opening about halfway through the wrecked train cars so you can get to the other side and toward the next section. 

An Alpha Slybex is also at the back of the train. There's an achievement for defeating it, but if you want to skip it you can easily do that too. 

After you have enough crystals, run up the next hill to Boss #2. 

Boss #2: Vixian Mauler

The Mauler stomps and pounds its fists. It has a knockback, which should not be a problem so long as you don't position yourself near the train cars that are on fire. No real tricks. Stay out of the nasty circles and cones and mind the knockback. 

Now walk along this train car, carefully avoiding the trapdoor, and jump down at the end. You will be walking through another short area, this time with angry Umbaran wildlife. At the fork in the road, veer left to the huge angry mob of critters and soldiers. Steer clear; a lot of them will kill off each other and you can take out many with the two explosive barrels. You will get a message telling you that you need to find a way through the rubble. 

Go back to the fork in the road and veer right. At the dead end of the path, you'll find blue clickable boxes. It doesn't matter which one you choose, they are all the same. You will get a temporary ability for a missile launcher. Go back to that critter-soldier mob area. You will see a green circle light up. Stand in it and press the temporary ability button on your screen to fire your missile launcher and clear the path. Now head up the hill. If you need a repair droid, there's a poor one stuck IN the metal scrap to the left. 

It's another short run up the hill, past angry Umbaran fauna, to the final boss. 

Boss #3: Spider Droid 

If you have not picked up a flamethrower, get one here - there are some on the table on the righthand side of the area. by the repair droid. Visit the repair droid before you start the fight so you're at your best. 

The Spider Droid does not move, but it summons huge mobs of soldiers and assassins. I usually like to start by throwing Heroic Moment Orbital Strike at it, and then the Heroic Moment grenade, and then jump in, doing as much damage as possible before the first wave of mobs shows up. Stay out of the fire circles; the safest place is often under the droid. 

The droid calls huge mobs, and if you are underleveled, they can easily overwhelm a companion. But remember that flamethrower? Use it! Or lead the mobs close to the barrels and use that, or your other skills, to explode the incendiary barrels around the perimeter of the fight area. You can take out a lot of the mobs and do a lot of damage to them. There are some barrels right around the droid as well; make sure you ignite them to cause more damage. 

After the spider droid is defeated, you will still need to ignite all the barrels AND defeat any remaining mob NPCs to get out of combat and end the fight. Now click that blue tower on the right or press exit area, and voila, you're done.

[rainofaugustsith]

Rain Plays SWTOR: False Emperor

As we continue the "play it before 7.0" theme, I'm going to talk about False Emperor, the second of the two flashpoints at the end of the Ilum story arc. The Ilum flashpoints are long. As in, Suvia (Sith Inquisitor Assassin, level 75 with 306 gear and a companion at level 50 influence,) stealthed her way through, watched all cut scenes, made steady progress and had no deaths, and False Emperor took her more than 30 minutes. If you are actually fighting the mobs, count on being there for far longer. This flashpoint and Battle of Ilum the predecessors to Spirit of Vengeance: long, tedious and boring. It's mob after mob. I only do this flashpoint now as part of the story on Viri's clones (my main) or stealthers. Quite frankly there are IMHO only probable five reasons you'd want to play this: 1. You haven't and want the achievement. 2. You really want the deco offered at the end (a large statue of a hooded man - could be the Emperor but also could be headcanoned as another Sith) 3. You want your main to do all the story content. 4. You are doing the HK-51 quest. There is a component in this flashpoint you need and cannot get anywhere else 5. You have a stealther who can skip most of the enemies and walk through Have I scared you off? No? You need to do this for the story? Here we go. Where do I pick this up? If you're doing the story quest that began with "Crystal Ball" (it was granted to you at the end of the class story) this flashpoint is the culmination. It will be granted automatically when you complete "Battle of Ilum" in the story AND the subsequent cut scene. If you are doing this as a standalone, go to your activities tab -> solo -> scroll down to flashpoints and choose "The False Emperor." The mobs are mobs. They're there. They are large in numbers and tedious. There isn't much I can tell you about them, so we'll concentrate on the bosses. Like Battle of Ilum and Directive 7, this has a lot of mini-bosses you cannot skip. This flashpoint also has a lot of platforms. With one exception all the bosses and mini-bosses you will fight will be in areas where you can get yeeted over the edge, and so will most of the mobs. Mind your step.

Mini Boss #1: Tregg the Destroyer

You're on a very narrow bridge here, and Tregg's got a knockback. One part of the bridge (shown above) has walls on both sides. Try to stay in there so Tregg can't send you flying to your doom. Otherwise, no tricks.

Boss #1: Jindo Krey Jindo Krey is a Mandalorian and he will get increasingly more damage as the fight goes on. As the screencap here shows, there's also a ship that looks like the bounty hunter's ship (IT ISN'T, AFAIK!) that will be firing missiles at you to complicate things. Run up to the console pictured in the second screencap and click it to temporarily send that ship away. Other than that: once again, you're on a platform with open sides so mind your step.

Mini-Boss(es) 2: Prototype B-16 and Prototype A-14

Eh. Droids. Just kill B and then A. That's how it usually shakes out for me. No major tricks. You're on a platform again. Boss #2: HK-47

If you are doing the HK-51 quest, HK-47 will drop a part you need when you defeat him. He should have a yellow loot "ray." YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS FLASHPOINT ON VETERAN OR NiM TO GET THE PART! I can personally vouch that it drops from HK-47 in story mode. HK-47 is not quite as lethal as he was when you faced him in The Foundry, if you did. He doesn't have the insta-kill or any panels to frantically click. He mostly stays in the center for this entire fight. Just stay out of his line of fire and keep moving around him. And guess what? You're on a platform! Surprise! When HK-47's health gets low he will vanish and reappear to hit your character with a very long stun. This is his most formidable trick in this flashpoint. Mini-Boss #4: Chondrus Berani

This is the only boss/mini-boss you will fight in this flashpoint who is NOT on a platform where you're in danger of falling over the edge. Enjoy it while it lasts. Chondrus does have a knockback but the most he can do here is throw you around the hallway Final Boss: Darth Malgus

BUG: If the fight goes on too long, or you get too far away from Malgus, he has been known to reset. He will return to the bottom of the stairs and reset himself back to 100% HP. That's not fun. So make sure you stay close.

Malgus has a nasty knockback that will toss you right into the air shaft if you are unlucky. He also throws Inquisitor skills like Force Storm as well as single lightsaber skills. There are a few on-screen announcements about how you will have to face Malgus alone or whatever - just keep fighting. The trick for this fight is to anchor yourselves on the stairs, with your back to the wall, so that Malgus cannot throw you anywhere. He will actively try to do that. He will also sometimes end up fighting your companion and the combat assistance droid at the bottom for the stairs, so taunt him or put your companion on passive to pull him back to you. Remember: when Malgus is defeated the loot will not be on his person. It will be in this box that appears at the bottom of the stairs.

Make sure you click that little blue console at the bottom of the stairs to wrap things up. You're done! Yay! Press "exit area" and escape. If you are continuing the story arc, you will have a cut scene in the instanced area when you are back on the Ilum base.

[rangerslayer-97]

Any SWTOR players who did this FP, feel free to agree or disagree. I mean, the parallels are uncanny! XD

[rangerslayer-97]

Don't mind Alexest 'Alex' (my character) and Anahra Darr (@swgoji2001) dancing over FORMER Grand Moff Kilran's body after his untimely demise during Maelstrom Prison flashpoint XD

[rainofaugustsith]

Someone mentioned on Reddit that the two starter flashpoints, Black Talon and Esseles, have been refreshed a little. I took a look and yeah, definitely. 1. There are sharper camera angles and more reaction shots of the PC.

2. There are medics in the mobs and I swear I don't remember seeing those before. But maybe they are trying to get players in the habit of killing the medics first for future content. 3. It seemed slightly easier. Not that it wasn't already very easy if you are approaching it at max level, but Ydira Ban went down a lot faster. 4. There's a little more violence - shots of the soldiers dead on the floor, for instance. When Viri pushed down the door before the Ydira Ban fight, they showed her taking out two soldiers along with the door. And when she killed the general - that was definitely longer (I always kill the general because let's be real - if you turn him over to Kilran and his MurderDroid, he's going to be horribly tortured and still not live. He mentions he has the plans in his implants in his body - even with very little imagination, it doesn't sound good. A quick death actually seems more merciful in that particular situation).

5. I noticed that they made a point of showing Viri's reaction when the Black Talon drops out of hyperspace and encounters the first Republic ship. And it actually did bring my attention to a specific point I had not considered before - that would really be my girl's first actual battle. Her first time actually being part of space combat. She'd have a lot to think about and take in there. Especially Viri, given that her parents were on a cruiser for a while.