SWTOR Jedi Sage Comprehensive Guide

SWTOR Jedi Sage Comprehensive Guide by AstralFire

INTRODUCTION

This handbook is intended to be a comprehensive guide to gameplay competency with the Jedi Sage. As such, it will provide data on effective Player-versus-Player gameplay, Player-versus-Environment gameplay, and some general tips on leveling as a Jedi Sage. It is not intended to be a walkthrough or guide to any specific World, Flashpoint or Operation, and will only contain some brief looks at specific Warzones and Conflict Regions. Skill Calculator builds are merely my opinion, and though I do my best to learn as much as possible, I cannot know everything. If you have contradictory ideas, please post them here. While this guide will never be perfect, it will be more perfect with each version than the last. We get better through sharing ideas, after all.

This guide will also go over the basics of gearing as a Jedi Sage, and highlight some notable pieces of equipment.

The version numbering will correspond with that of the most recent live version of the game, followed by a letter indicating a major revision to the guide’s contents. e.g. 1.0.1c would be the third major version of the guide intended to correspond to game version 1.0.1. Minor wording changes and stylistic editing will not be considered.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01. [Introduction]
02. [Table of Contents]
03. [Sage Basics]
04. [Specialization: Seer]
05. [Specialization: Telekinetics]
06. [Specialization: Balance]
07. [Sage Companions]
08. [Equipping a Sage]
09. [Crew Skills]
10. [Appendix: FAQs]
11. [Appendix: MMO Glossary]
12. [Appendix: Keybinds]
13. [Appendix: Sage Sorcerer Dictionary]

SAGE BASICS

Parent Class: Jedi Consular
Mirrored by: Sith Sorcerer.
Primary Weapon: Lightsaber, Vibrosword
Off-Hand Items: Force Focus
Armor Class: Light
Aesthetic Inspirations: Yoda, Emperor Palpatine, Jolee Bindo, Kreia
Story Inspiration: Obi-Wan Kenobi. “We wanted to capture the journey of Obi-Wan Kenobi – someone who begins with unusual insight and talent, but who is still growing into those powers.”
Skill Trees: Seer (Healer), Telekinetics (Striker), Balance (Striker)
Resource: Force Points. (Base Max: 500; Base Recovery: 8 Pts/Second)
Playable Species: Human, Miraluka, Mirialan, Twi’lek, Zabrak
Voice Actress: Athena Karkanis
Voice Actor: Nolan North

The Sage has been described by the developers as their most perfectly balanced class, able to contribute in every situation, and having a good mix of enjoyable play that still benefits and reflects a more skilled controller.

The Jedi Sage has the largest resource and lowest relative regeneration of any class in the game, lending itself to a playstyle that is punishing in the long-term for mistakes, even if the short-term outcome is positive. The challenge in playing the Jedi Sage is in knowing your limitations well. A Jedi Shadow must place a bulk of thought on tactics, while the Sage must emphasize strategy.

There are no methods of rapid Force regeneration – there is nothing in the game similar to a Mage’s Evocation from World of Warcraft. You are able to sacrifice some of your health for Force, but non-healers will get a maximum of 28 net Force per use – not even enough to use a full extra power, typically. Sacrificing is best done early in a fight, spaced out so that you can receive residual healing from Area of Effect heals or healing over time. Overhealing is not common or accidental, so don’t think that you can just Noble Sacrifice willy-nilly, unless you want your healer mad at you.

Among all eight advanced classes, the Jedi Sage shares with the Commando the rare ability to perma-incapacitate any non-boss enemy in the entire game, regardless of whether it is a droid or a living creature. A Sage’s Force Lift lasts 60 seconds, and can be used on any one enemy. Regardless of the encounter, you can always depend on being able to remove one enemy from the fight until you are ready to deal with them.

She is also the only class which can reposition her own party members, through the Rescue ability, as well as being only one of two classes that can perform an in-combat revive. None of these tools makes the Sage superior to her counterparts as a healer, but they do emphasize the Sage’s strength as a healer – control.

Those coming from World of Warcraft will not find a direct analogue to the Sage. The Seer bears strong resemblance to a Discipline Priest, but with more control and less emphasis on damage prevention. The Telekinetic bares some similarities to the playstyle of an Elemental Shaman, but without the central totem mechanic, the feel will necessarily be very different. A Balance Sage constantly regenerates health and constantly pressures the opponent’s health down like an Affliction Warlock, but has longer cooldowns, different AoE behavior, and uses channeled abilities with regularity.

At level 15, you get the ability Channel the Force, which is the power-up music ability for the Jedi Shadow and Jedi Sage. Channel the Force has a 20 minute cooldown and lasts for 1 minute; it is extremely powerful, and can allow you to solo otherwise impossible challenges. At a minimum, let me say that you should make certain that you have this ability before embarking on the mission Ancient Secrets in Coruscant. It will be very handy towards the end of that mission.

SEER SAGES

Playstyle: Preventative, control-based healer.
PvE Builds: Standard (32/7/2), Offensive Leveling (30/9/2)
PvP Builds: PvP Standard (32/7/2)

I know: you’re a healer. That doesn’t matter. Your first five points should be in the Telekinetics tree. Everything else can be taken as you please, but those first five points are the most important five points to any Sage. In fact, I personally think that this makes them bad design, as they essentially become a skill point tax, but that’s another issue.

Healing Specializations are unique in this game because the role of each ability you use is greatly altered as you go up the tree. By level 14, you have access to three of the seven heals that you’ll eventually be using, but the way you use them will be radically different in the mid-30s, and radically different again at level 50. So I will discuss each ability over the course of your development, in broad terms. (Note: This is not the guide for deep, advanced numbers. I did a lot of deep, advanced number work to arrive at my results, but I recommend that you go to Advanced Reading if you want to actually see them. The purpose of this guide is to cover the basic principles in a friendly manner.)

Benevolence: It will initially be your only heal, so there’s not much to discuss there. You’ll be able to chaincast it a maximum of about 14 or 15 times in a row at these levels, which might sound like a lot, but it isn’t.

– Once you’ve picked up Deliverance, you should stop using this ability except to deliver a quick heal to someone about to die, otherwise.
– When you get Force Armor, you can stop using Benevolence for emergency heals unless your heal target can’t be rebubbled yet.
– When you get Rejuvenate and the Conveyance skill, Benevolence becomes your efficiency direct heal. Use it to top someone off who’s in good shape. If no one needs to be topped off, just hold the Conveyance buff until they do, then respond with Deliverance or Benevolence as appropriate.

Disturbance: This is an offensive ability. In leveling content, I recommend using the Offensive Leveling (30/9/2) build. Disturbance will never be more effective at Force Point Recovery, even with Concentration, than just not attacking. However, the damage output that you add – even as a healer – is more important than just not doing anything at low-level content. At higher levels, if you’re in a position where you have more Force than you need, Disturbance is usually a better idea than auto-attacking, due to time lost in positioning and the chance that you’ll be damaged by a point-blank area-of-effect. This is true even outside of the Offensive Leveling build.

Deliverance: This is a slow, high efficiency heal. It will always be your primary spam heal. In PvP, this should usually remain your spam heal; if someone uses a hard interrupt on you, you’re cool with it because that won’t lock out any of your other heals. This ensures that you have Healing Trance available when you need a high speed heal.

– Once you get Rejuvenate and the Conveyance skill, you can use Deliverance as an emergency speed heal. If no one needs to be topped off, just hold the Conveyance buff until they do, then respond with Deliverance or Benevolence as appropriate.
– Deliverance is completely eclipsed as an emergency heal by Healing Trance; Healing Trance’s Resplendence benefit allows it to supercede Deliverance as an efficiency heal as well. After getting Healing Trance, Conveyance+Deliverance is used very rarely – only when the target’s health is in sufficient danger that you do not have time to spend a GCD on Noble Sacrifice, but they are not going to fall over and die the next second. This does not happen a lot.

Force Armor: Fairly efficient, Force Armor can be looked at as either the single fastest big heal that you possess, or a constant buffer to keep up on the tank. Both are absolutely true. Always keep Force Armor refreshed every twenty seconds on the defender, and if you’re concerned about someone else dying to spike damage, this should be the first thing you cast – it lacks a cooldown once skilled up.

Rejuvenate: A direct heal with a periodic heal component. It is the most efficient heal that you possess. Once you get the Conveyance skill, it completely changes how you look at every other heal. You should almost always keep Rejuvenate on cooldown if possible, just for Conveyance. The fact that Rejuvenate improves the armor of its beneficiary is great, too.

Restoration: It removes up to 2 debuffs and, properly skilled, gives a minor heal. The heal is very high efficiency, but very weak. You will never use it primarily for the heal, it’s simply a nice side benefit. It has a 4.5s CD.

Healing Trance: An instant healing ability with a channel that heals once a second for three seconds. It’s pretty awesome. It gets more awesome when used in conjunction with Conveyance (which you should almost always do) as that adds 25% critical effect chance. Under Conveyance, it is very simple to get 50% crit with Healing Trance, which greatly improves the average healing which you can expect from Healing Trance, as there are four chances per each cast of HT to critical.

It gets better. Resplendence allows any of these criticals to cause your next Noble Sacrifice to have absolutely no negative effects. You heard right. Once you get Resplendence, there is only a one-in-sixteen chance that a Healing Trance will not allow you to have a free + 48 FP. When you include the 48 FP regenerated naturally during the activation time of Rejuvenation + Healing Trance + Noble Sacrifice, each use of this trio returns 33 more FP than was spent.

Salvation: It’s your big AoE heal, best for grabbing either all the ranged, or all the melee. It has a maximum of eight targets. If you can, announce prior to its usage, as it creates a heal-over-time circle on the ground. Most of the healing is on the initial hit, and anyone who is not there for both the initial hit and the full duration after is wasting health. Over 10 seconds, Salvation will be faster than conventional healing for even two or more targets, but it won’t be efficient – even after Conveyance – until after it hits three or more targets. I don’t recommend using it unless you can grab at least three targets.

Weaken Mind: This is the most important damage ability which you have in PvP. It does good damage constantly at low cost – it is slightly more efficient on a long lived target than Disturbance – and with the PvP Standard (32/7/2) build, will ensure that you’re moving faster than your opponents, particularly pesky melee opponents, afflicting them with a -20% speed debuff. It also has no cooldown, meaning that it can be spammed faster than a healer’s cleanse can. In conjunction with the much cheaper Force Slow or the powerful Telekinetic Throw, it basically can lock down a target’s motion entirely.

In PvP, Seer’s considerations for healing spells are mostly the same. You will start using Project and Telekinetic Throw for instant damage, though try not to use Project a lot; it’s very cost inefficient.

GEARING

As with all Consulars, Willpower is your primary stat, and Critical Strike Rating greatly improves the reliability of your Healing Trance triggering a free Noble Sacrifice, so it should be your most important stat until you have 20% crit rate from gear. After that, it becomes a matter of preference:

Surge Rating will greatly increase the throughput of your Healing Trance, Rejuvenate and Salvation, while it will be an unreliable bonus for your other abilities. Getting a small measure of it is a good idea, but I wouldn’t focus on it.

Alacrity increases the speed of your two most important abilities – Deliverance and Healing Trance – but exhausts your Force more quickly. Alacrity is probably a stat of interest to a PvP Seer, but a PvE Seer will rate it of low concern. Raw Force Power will improve all of your abilities and your efficiency, but at a very slow rate. This steadiness is probably of most interest to a PvE Seer.

In PvP, Expertise Rating will be your single most important statistic. Accuracy Rating will also come into consideration; while you previously could only miss with your basic Saber Strike attack, every class has a minimum of 5% defense, and tanks can have much more. I would strongly consider getting at least 2% accuracy from gear – you get 3% from skill points – to make sure that you do not miss with a vital Crowd Control or interrupt.

TELEKINESIS SAGES

Playstyle: Spike damage striker, area damage and control.
PvE Builds: Standard (3/31/7)
PvP Builds: PvP Standard (3/31/5)+2

Single Target Priority List:

0. Weaken Mind (if not active)
1. Disturbance (Less than 3 stacks of Concentration)
2. Mind Crush
3. Turbulence
4. Telekinetic Wave (Tidal Force active)
5. Telekinetic Throw (Psychic Projection active)
6. Disturbance

Area Priority List:

0. Weaken Mind (if not applied)
1. Turbulence
2. Telekinetic Wave
3. Forcequake

Low Intensity List:

0. Weaken Mind (if not applied)
1. Telekinetic Throw (Psychic Projection)
2. Disturbance (Less than 3 stacks)
3. Telekinetic Throw (cooldown)
4. Disturbance

PVE

The priority list pretty much holds true while leveling. Telekinetic gets an early lead on the other two specs while leveling simply because all three specs absolutely need their first five points in Telekinetics. They’re too good, as I bemoaned upthread, and it’s the only Sage specialization with significant multitarget damage, able to keep up with Commandos; you can cast Weaken Mind on multiple targets for sustained damage, and Telekinetic Wave is high enough damage to make it into your single-target rotation.

You’re probably wondering how Mind Crush got on here; I know that I still kind of am. But it’s true! You don’t just crush things telekinetically, you crush things psychically. Your name is Master Crushestro Crushington. It’s an extremely powerful ability that ticks very rapidly, which is why it’s viable even with only one skill in the entire tree which directly relates to it.

I should re-emphasize that the above are priority lists and not rotations. However, you should be able to to get all the way through steps 2 through 6 in a single cycle if everything activates, which it usually won’t.

Critical hits are your lifeblood – not only do they do a considerable amount of damage for you, but they directly tie in to your longevity, as a result of a Telekinetic Effusion. You should try to avoid using Disturbance, Telekinetic Throw or Weaken Mind, and prioritize Telekinetic Wave and Turbulence when this occurs, within reason. And if you’re using Forcequake, you should definitely prioritize that, making it the second force ability used. Even so, unless literally every ability you use is under the effect of Telekinetic Effusion, you will eventually run out of Force if you continue your cycle without stopping.

During phases when damage is less crucial, you can switch to the low intensity list instead, and essentially never run out of Force. You also will not gain any substantial amount of Force, however (you’ll end up with a very slight positive rate of return) making it just a holding pattern.

Mental Alacrity is best used immediately after a Tidal Force Telekinetic Wave, as it is the only ability on your priority list which does not benefit from an Alacrity increase. During Mental Alacrity, you should try to avoid using Tidal Force Telekinetic Wave unless it would require you to use Disturbance when you already have a full stack of Concentration in no danger of slipping. I don’t currently know if increasing Alacrity affects periodic damage already in effect; I’ll update this section once I have found out.

PVP

The PvP Standard (3/31/5)+2 requires some explaining. Two points are left over. These last two points should go in Critical Kinesis or Blockout, and it’s a choice between burst damage or slightly more control. Your Force bar’s longevity is simply not as crucial a point as in PvE, which is why this is even up for discussion at all.

In my point of view, Critical Kinesis is superior, because being able to lock out for longer is not as important as being able to lock out more frequently; one must remember that a hard interrupt only affects the ability it interrupted, and nothing else, making it a less compelling option than in other games. Other ‘two point’ locations are not nearly as debatable.

You might think that you would want to pick up both Telekinetic Defense and Kinetic Collapse, rather than only Kinetic Collapse. The two don’t belong in the same build when you’re this point-starved, though – you should have one or the other. They’re not at odds, precisely, but they serve two different ways of using your Force Armor in PvP. Telekinetic Defense assumes that you use your bubble defensively as a constant barrier, either on yourself or your teammate; Kinetic Collapse assumes that you’re using your bubble offensively. To explain, it’s useless if it explodes when the wearer is being range attacked, it’s potent if it explodes when being brawled. Because there is a cooldown as well as a preventative debuff, it’s best to only have one or the other. I personally prefer Kinetic Collapse, but your mileage may vary.

Force Wake is the only other debatable 2-point allocation. It may seem redundant with Kinetic Collapse, but they serve two different, but related, purposes on moderately long cooldowns. The best way that I can put it is that knocking someone into a hazard in Huttball with this will be beyond brutal, and it doesn’t require predicting who they’ll attack. You can use it in conjunction with Force Armor to disable half of an unprepared team chasing after your ball carrier. Force Wake can be used on anyone around you, regardless if you’re being attacked or not; Kinetic Collapse can be used on any teammate, even if you’re not there.

GEARING

As with all Consulars, Willpower is your primary stat. When given a choice between Power and Force Power, you prefer the latter; both improve your Force output, but the latter may be itemized to come in larger amounts than Power does. Critical Strike Rating jockeys with Alacrity for your most important secondary stat; critical strike increases the frequency of your very large crits, as well as improving your efficiency. Alacrity improves the cast time of your abilities, and improves the rate at which your periodic damage abilities tick – but at the expense of your efficiency. Surge rating is helpful, but less important, because +50% critical damage on your direct damage abilities is already built in. This hierarchy of damage stats holds for both PvE and PvP, although in PvP, two other scores also become of note.

In PvP, Expertise Rating will be your single most important statistic. Accuracy Rating will also come into consideration; while you previously could only miss with your basic Saber Strike attack, every class has a minimum of 5% defense, and tanks can have much more. I would strongly consider getting at least 10% accuracy, to make sure that you do not miss with a vital Crowd Control or interrupt against enemy Jedi Sages and Sith Sorcerers, who have a base defense of 10%.

BALANCE SAGES

Playstyle: Periodic damage, self-healing, high efficiency.
PvE Builds: Sever Force (3/7/31), Hybrid Telekinetics (0/13/28)
PvP Builds: PvP Sever Force (3/7/31)

Priority List:

0. Force in Balance
1. Weaken Mind
2. Sever Force
3. Telekinetic Throw (Psychic Projection)
4. Mind Crush (if no DoT present, or Presence of Mind is active)
5. Telekinetic Wave (Presence of Mind active)
6. Project
7. Telekinetic Throw

PVE

First, a moment of silence for those few months in beta where the Jedi Sage’s Balance tree made it into a semi-melee hybrid. We barely knew ye, single-bladed saber warrior.

The Balance Sage is a completely different beast from the Balance Shadow. Both are periodic damage based specializations, but the Balance Sage has less effective burst, is considerably more FP efficient, and can easily DoT down several opponents at once. While your fire-and-forget DoTs are not effective at bringing down weak opponents, your Telekinetic Throw and Force in Balance abilities are – and the DoT debuffs strike with a vengeance when you’re up against difficult foes.

For the sake of solo missions in a specialization with so many stuns, you may be the only Sage that actually uses the Tumult skill, an oft-forgotten, powerful kick that only works on NPCs that are Strong and weaker, who have been stunned. You probably would do the best of any Consular specialization for being without even a companion, as you have strong self-healing, and the ability to AoE control multiple enemies at once. Imagine: You can take a group of two elites and five normals, Force Lift one elite and two of the normals, deal with the rest and just daisy chain Force Lifts at the trapped elite every minute.

Then when you deign to deal with him, you drop some DoTs and hammer them with a Force in Balance to wake them up. And immediately upon waking up, they spend two more seconds trapped in a stun. The Seer Sage might be a little bit more soloable, but the Balance Sage has more fun doing it.

Note that you should only waste PoM on Disturbance if you took the Concentration skill; otherwise, do not cast it at all, it’s pretty bad for you. Use it on Mind Crush, even if a DoT is present.

I recommend using the Sever Force (3/7/31) build for leveling, but at endgame, it’s up for debate Sever Force is a little less than whelming. It deals less damage per cast than Weaken Mind (though it is slightly more efficient), has a long cooldown, and an irrelevant stun in PvE Endgame. The proposed Hybrid Telekinetics (0/13/28) build needs testing, but may well prove superior; Presence of Mind Telekinetic Wave deals almost as much damage and has an AoE effect, and in a build so dependent on Telekinetic Throw, getting one in three or four to be cast at double speed is enticing.

I am personally of the opinion that Sever Force will pull ahead, not necessarily on the merits of Sever Force itself, but on the merits of the extra 3% critical that the Sever Force build has room to pick up. Both should do pretty good damage, however, so until we have more numbers and simulations out there, either one will do.

PVP

PvP Sever Force (3/7/31) is the only way to go, for Balance. You need multiple debuffs on your target in order to give you dispel protection against enemy healers, and Sever Force’s stun adds just that bit of control that we find useful. Instant cast Force Lift will be brutal on your opponents in PvP, but you should exercise caution – it will also be brutally generous to their resolve bars, instantly maxing them out. Force Lift should only be used as a last resort to catch or stop a runner, and not as an opener.

Once you’ve got your DoTs and Force Suppression in place, spam Telekinetic Throw like it’s going out of style. Your slow is maddening and cannot be simply broken out of, giving you the title of most annoying long-range jerk on the field. And you do great damage with it, too.

GEARING

As with all Consulars, Willpower is your primary stat. When given a choice between Power and Force Power, you prefer the latter; both improve your Force output, but the latter may be itemized to come in larger amounts than Power does. Critical Strike Rating jockeys with Alacrity for your most important secondary stat; critical strike increases the frequency of your very large crits, as well as improving your efficiency. Alacrity improves the cast time of your abilities, and improves the rate at which your periodic damage abilities tick – but at the expense of your efficiency. Surge Rating is valuable as well, because the built-in diminishing returns on Surge do not account for your flat bonuses to critical from your specialized skills. You can easily sport another +20% critical strike damage from gear.

In PvP, Expertise Rating will be your single most important statistic. Accuracy Rating will also come into consideration; while you previously could only miss with your basic Saber Strike attack, every class has a minimum of 5% defense, and tanks can have much more. I would strongly consider getting at least 10% accuracy, to make sure that you do not miss with a vital Crowd Control or interrupt against enemy Jedi Sages and Sith Sorcerers, who have a base defense of 10%. Surge Rating is decreased in importance relative to Critical Strike and Alacrity, because the latter two improve both your self-healing by giving you more crits faster, and do not simply improve your damage output.

SAGE COMPANIONS

To assist you in your missions, you’ll build a small team of helpers over time. While they will remain with you regardless of how you treat them, making sure that they like you is important; a companion who likes and respects you will craft faster and perform skill missions more successfully. To avoid accidental spoilers, each companion is listed in a dropdown beneath their planet.

TYTHON

CORUSCANT

NAR SHADDAA

BALMORRA

HOTH

BELSAVIS

SECRET COMPANION

EQUIPPING A SAGE

Handling your way across your starter world of Tython as a Jedi Consular should be pretty simple, for the most part. However, your masters and lessons do not really explain a lot about gearing, and I feel that it is useful to have a reference list available here. If you’re looking for specific gearing instructions per specialization, look back at the final paragraph for each specialization instead. This is general information.

All characters use one primary ability score of Aim, Cunning, Strength or Willpower. All four of these abilities has a specialized purpose. Aim will only increase your ranged damage and critical chance, Cunning will only increase your tech damage and critical chance, Strength will only increase your melee damage and critical chance, and Willpower will only increase your Force damage and critical chance. Normally, anyway.

Each base class has a different primary ability score. A primary ability score equally improves both of the damage vectors which your class will use. Through the Force, all things are possible; Willpower is the primary score for Consulars and Inquisitors, and grants both Melee Damage and Force Damage, as a result.

Presence measures your ability to inspire, lead, and guide your companions. A higher presence score will increase your companion’s health, damage and healing. Companions take up the party slot of a player, but are less effective than a player; if you intend to do a lot of content which requires full or nearly full groups, it’s not wise to invest much into presence.

Endurance, simply enough, improves one’s raw health.

Secondary stats are available, which add more complexity to the matter.

Absorption Rating: Increases the amount of damage blocked by a successful shield reaction. More rating is required to achieve the same percentage bonus at higher character levels.

Accuracy Rating: Grants additional hit, and then reduces the opponent’s defense once past 100%. More rating is required to achieve the same percentage bonus at higher character levels.

Alacrity Rating: A secondary stat which improves the speed of activation time for non-instant abilities. It does not affect the Global Cooldown for instant abilities for instant abilities. More rating is required to achieve the same percentage bonus at higher character levels. It may also increase the rate at which periodic abilities take effect.

Critical Rating: Improves the chance of a critical hit. More rating is required to achieve the same percentage bonus at higher character levels.

Defense Rating: Improves the chance of a avoiding an attack. More rating is required to achieve the same percentage bonus at higher character levels.

Expertise Rating: Increases damage and healing done, and reduces damage taken, but only in PvP. A maximum of 10% effectiveness. More rating is required to achieve the same percentage bonus at higher character levels.

Force Power: A secondary stat which improves Force Ability damage and healing only.

Power: A secondary stat which improves damage and healing from all sources.

Shield Rating: Increases the chance that a shield reaction is triggered against an attack. More rating is required to achieve the same percentage bonus at higher character levels.

Surge Rating: Improves the effect of a critical hit. Base Surge is +50%. More rating is required to achieve the same percentage bonus at higher character levels.

Tech Power: A secondary stat which improves Tech Ability damage and healing only.

CREW SKILLS

Money can get you everything.

Those of you coming from World of Warcraft post-Classic are familiar with the skill layout of that game, where every single craft skill had to have a mechanically advantageous thing that it ‘owned’ (each of them being roughly as good as the others). Several of the crafting skills in that game effectively were worthless to anyone besides the wielder, to boot.

That is not how this game works, mechanically. Every single crew skill mechanical perk originates from the fact that you’re getting the benefit cheaper or earlier than someone who does not have your craft skill. For example, anyone can use medpacks; only a Biochem producer can get a reusable medpack, which costs more to craft but will never get used up. You do not need to be an artificer to upgrade your lightsaber; artificers make the upgrades, you just buy them and insert them into the lightsaber yourself. Etc. The other thing is that all of the crafting skills have some sort of aesthetic option which is unique to them, and these are among the rare bind-on-pickup items that cannot be given to anyone else.

Therefore, there are three approaches to take when choosing your Crew Skill layout: Do I want to get something that will save me money on a reusable I want a lot of, do I want to get something that will make me a lot of money, or do I want to get something that will give me a unique visual perk? It cannot be stressed enough that crafting of any kind while leveling up will only be of limited use; you will always end up ahead in credits while leveling by not crafting anything. It becomes a question of time and money spent now, versus time and money spent later to either level up your own craft skill or constantly purchasing everything you need.

To make your decision, you need to have a good grasp of what can be made by each craft skill. You have access to three crew skills per character; a maximum of one may be a craft skill, and it’s recommended that the other two be a gathering skill and a mission skill which support that craft skill. Everything is oriented around the crafting skills; mission skills provide a nice little bit of flavor, but are essentially a second gathering skill oriented around the rarer materials that cannot be obtained through direct gathering.

It’s important to note that you will not automatically get all of the important recipes for Craft Skills from the skill itself, even by reverse-engineering; you will need to get some of these schematics from the Galactic Trade Network. It’s also important to note that you will always lose money by sending crew members to do missions, as the point is more to raise your skill and gain materials while not being out in the field yourself. If it was strictly superior to self-gathering, no one would ever do it.

I’ll go over each of the Crew Skills in brief – each section will contain the Crew Skill’s codex entry, followed by my input.

CRAFTING SKILLS
You may only have one of these skills on your character. If you take one of these, it is your most important skill. As noted above, once you get to endgame, you are not getting unique mechanical perks from what you make via these skills; you’re just getting it cheaper, easier, prettier, faster, or reusable. For leveling content, they do create some unique stuff for lower levels, so rich rerollers will make purchases from dedicated crafters a lot.

Codex: Armormech is the ability to work with hard metals, alloys and synthetic materials to construct armor for non-Force users. Vendor-purchased fluxes are used during the armor creation process to refine the materials to ensure suitability. Armormechs can reverse engineer their crafted armor and possibly discover new ways to improve armor creation. The gathering skill Scavenging provides crafting resources for Armormech.

Comments: Armormech is not your typical choice for a force user, because it provides no mechanical benefits to the Jedi or Sith whatsoever. It also has no aesthetic benefit to the Shadow or Assassin, who cannot wear its armor. I do not recommend it for you for any reason. The materials from its Gathering skill will be in high demand, and non-Force users are going to be a smaller clientele than Force users in this game, I can guarantee that. There is potentially some money to be made off of Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior ACs who want an unconventional look for their character, but that’s not a compelling enough reason on its own to take this skill. For both making money and saving you money, this flunks the test.

Rating:

ARMSTECH
Recommended Skills: Scavenging, Investigation (Compounds)

Codex: Armstech is the ability to work with hard metals, alloys and synthetic materials to craft blasters, blaster modifications and melee weapons. Vendor-purchased fluxes are used during the weapon creation process to refine the materials to ensure suitability. Crafted blasters include blaster pistols, blaster rifles, sniper rifles, assault cannons and shotguns. Blaster modifications include blaster barrels. Melee weapons include vibroblades and electrostaves. Armstechs can reverse engineer their crafted items and possibly discover new ways to improve their creation. The gathering skill Scavenging provides crafting resources for Armstech.

Comments: What it does not tell you is that everything it makes sucks, except for the blaster specific mod (the gun barrel), and the many, many unique models of blaster that it can make. Endgame Vibroblades and Electrostaves (if they ever intend to make the latter useful to a player rather than a companion) are obtained via vendors, to prevent this from being the potentially most universal skill ever. Instead, it’s possibly the only thing worse than Armormech, unless you really, really need to make sure that keeping Qyzen equipped is easy. Since, hooray, it can make Techblades.

Rating:

ARTIFICE
Recommended Skills: Archaeology, Treasure Hunting (Gemstones)

Codex: Artifice is the delicate skill of constructing lightsaber modifications, enhancements, generators and focii. Lightsaber modifications include color crystals and hilts that augment a Force user’s combat attributes. Color crystals determine beam and bolt color for lightsabers and blasters. Enhancements are modification upgrades for weapons and armor. Artificers can reverse engineer their crafted items and possibly discover new ways to improve their creation. The gathering skill Archaeology provides crafting resources for Artifice.

Comments: An important skill, as it creates the color crystals used by every weapon in the game, upgrades your personal weapon, creates multiple slots (force-user off-hands, shield generators), creates endgame relics, lightsaber hilt mods, and the enhancement mod which can go on all major body parts and weapons. They can also create their own lightsabers at maximum skill, though the lightsaber hilt model is usually not as important to players as the blade color. The relics, along with the unique lightsabers, are their ‘self only’ perk, as these relics can also be bought from stores. Until everyone is geared up, the BoE relics are likely to sell well for the people who can get their skill up high enough quickly. Because it is ‘exciting’, I expect this skill will be picked up by many players, including many non-Force Users. It may suffer from market dilution, and does not have a consumable to keep it useful once the economy settles, so I tentatively rate it well.

Rating:

BIOCHEM
Recommended Skills: Bioanalysis, Diplomacy (Medical Supplies)

Codex: Biochem is the skill involved in crafting medical supplies, performance-enhancing chemical serums and biological implants. Biochemists can create medpacs to restore health, stimulants (single-use injections) that provide a boost to physical abilities, and biological implants that enhance combat prowess by stimulating neural networks and regulating brain stem functions. Biochemists can reverse engineer their crafted implants and possibly discover new ways to improve implant creation. The gathering skill Bioanalysis provides crafting resources for Biochem.

Comments: Medkits, Stims, Adrenals, and the only skill that can make implants. Similar to Artifice’s relics, these can be obtained without being a Biochemist, but it will be easier for them. Until everyone is geared up, the BoE implants are likely to sell well for the people who can get their skill up high enough quickly. The real prizes for the biochemist for self-use are the reusable stims and adrenals. They will be expensive as anything to manufacture, but once they are, you’ll be set for life. One of my two top picks for your one craft skill.

Rating:

CYBERTECH
Recommended Skills: Scavenging, Underworld Trading (Underworld Metals)

Codex: Cybertech is the skill to assemble droid armor, earpieces, grenades, armoring, mods and miscellaneous gadgets. Armoring and mods are upgrade modifications that augment combat ability. Earpieces are external mini-computers that are worn on or near the ear. They enhance combat prowess by giving audio and visual feedback to the wearer or through direct neural feedback via an external nerve relay. Cybertechs can reverse engineer their crafted items and possibly discover new ways to improve their creation. The gathering skill Scavenging provides crafting resources for Cybertech.

Comments: The other of my two top picks for your one craft skill. As with Artifice and Biochem, it has exclusive crafter access to improving your ship, as well as two item slots (earpieces) – both of which can be obtained in other ways for more money. Until everyone is geared up, the BoE earpieces are likely to sell well for the people who can get their skill up high enough quickly. What makes Cybertech so fantastic is that it crafts the two of the most common upgrade items – Mod and Armoring, which can go on nearly every piece in the game – as well as five different consumable grenades which each have an unshared 5m cooldown. And these grenades can be made in reusable varieties for the Cybertech.

That’s right, you gain access to moderate to low damage ranged AoE attacks, which each carry a useful secondary effect: A slow, a stun, an immobilize, an immobilize, and a damage-over-time effect – periodic damage can ruin capturing objectives in PvP as well as attempts to use Force Cloak. That’s pretty huge in PvP, and even in PvE, as AoE abilities which do not sap you of precious, precious Force? They’re pretty awesome.

…And if that wasn’t good enough, Cybertech can make you a custom speeder bike, too.

Rating:

SYNTHWEAVING
Recommended Skills: Archaeology, Underworld Trading (Luxury Fabrics, Underworld Metals)

Codex: Synthweaving is the process of fabricating synthetic materials out of crystals, various chemicals and artifact fragments to construct armor for Force users. Vendors provide premade solutions, suspensions and composites that are used during the Synthweaving process. Synthweavers can reverse engineer their crafted armor and possibly discover new ways to improve armor creation. The gathering skill Archaeology provides crafting resources for Synthweaving.

Comments: It’s essentially tailoring, and every Force User will rely on this skill; you also will probably get a little bleedover from non-Force Users who want to have an unorthodox look. I think it’s likely to be a little more valuable than Artifice on the market, because there are far more armor slots than weapon slots, and a lot of Force Users, and a lot of people will look at Synthweaving and go, “Ew. It’s tailoring,” which sounds boring and not bother. However, its mods currently cannot have expertise on them – the principal PvP stat – limiting its usefulness for PvPers.

As of the most recent build, these items no longer come pre-installed with mods, which has greatly degraded the rating for the purposes of anything but simple aesthetics. Its value is principally in early access to having as many slots as possible on your gear.

Rating:

GATHERING SKILLS
Gathering skills are skills which you or your companion may employ in the field, when you see an appropriate resource. They supply the basic materials used in crafting skills. You may send your companions on gathering missions which cost money, but provide you with skill-point appropriate resources. There is a chance for your companion to fail when deployed on missions (I believe it is related to their affection), but it will always give you a skill point even if they fail. Out of your maximum of three crew skills, all three may be gathering skills.

Codex: Archaeology is the study of crystal formations and archaeological finds. Crystal formations contain crystals that an Artificer can use to construct lightsaber modifications and armor for Force users. Archaeological finds contain artifact fragments of Force-imbued technology. These valuable items contain ancient formulas and algorithms used in the crafting skills Artifice and Synthweaving. Archaeologists can send their companions on missions to gather resources.

Comments: Archaeology is an essential skill for Artifice – the craft skill that everyone wants – and is easy to level up. Synthweaving will be high in demand as well. My personal experience is that you get Archaeology materials faster than needed to keep up with your mission skills if you’re going at a good clip of leveling speed, so it may be a less satisfactory choice for a pure gatherer.

Rating:

BIOANALYSIS
Recommended Skills: Biochem

Codex: Bioanalysis is the practice of collecting genetic material from creatures and vegetation. Genetic materials include cell fibers, bacterial strains, toxic extracts and medicinal fluids. Biochemists use these materials to create medpacs to restore health, stimulants (single-use injections) that provide a boost to physical abilities, and biological implants that enhance combat prowess by stimulating neural networks and regulating brain stem functions. The crafting skill Biochem utilizes Bioanalysis resources. Bioanalysts can send their companions on missions to gather resources.

Comments: Let’s be clear right now: Biochemistry is going to be very important, so even though this is only tied to one skill, gatherers may wish to take it anyway, to either sell their goods or trade the materials to a Biochemist in return for manufacture of goods. Also, Bioanalysis can be performed by you or your companion on many dead creatures, so while you won’t get to use this skill much on your capital, it’ll catch up pretty quick on Taris.

Rating:

SCAVENGING
Recommended Skills: Armormech, Armstech, Cybertech

Codex: Scavenging is the art of salvaging useful parts and base materials such as metals, alloys and synthetic compounds from potential technological resources–junk piles, fallen droids, abandoned cargo and broken-down vehicles. The crafting skills Armormech, Armstech and Cybertech utilize Scavenging resources. Scavengers can send their companions on missions to gather resources.

Comments: You can easily progress your scavenging by killing everything in sight when you see droids – which dovetails nicely with roleplay for lightsiders, who are more hesitant to kill fleshies, and the fact that stealthing through droid missions is slightly more difficult and annoying since Mind Maze won’t work on droids. Along with Diplomacy, Slicing, Investigation and Underworld Trading, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters. It also fuels one extremely critical and two useful tradeskills, so it’s a strong recommendation.

Rating:

SLICING
Recommended Skills: Cybertech

Codex: Slicing is not a skill required for crafting. Slicing is the art of accessing secure computer systems and lockboxes to acquire valuable items, credits and rare tech schematics. Common slicing targets include electronic safes, data stations, security mainframes and biometric footlockers. These targets contain credits, rare tech schematics used to construct Cybertech gadgets, vehicles and space upgrades, and mission discovery objects that unlock challenging missions that can potentially yield great rewards. Slicers can send their companions on missions to retrieve these valuable items. Other possible mission rewards include augments that can be slotted into exceptionally crafted items.

Comments: It’s Investigation’s cousin, more or less. Getting schematics from slicing missions is a rarer occurrence than in Investigation, so I wouldn’t worry about taking Slicing as part of a normal set of three as a crafter, but it’s basically an essential for people just looking to make a buck. You still have a net loss of money by sending companions on Slicing missions, as the point is to raise your skill without doing any work for it.

Rating:

MISSION SKILLS
Mission skills function identical to Gathering skills which cannot be personally collected; you need your companion to do them. They provide the rare resources used in crafting skills as well as providing a host of other benefits, such as giving you companion gifts to raise their affection, rare schematics, and sometimes rare equipment. Out of your maximum of three crew skills, all three may be mission skills.

Codex: Diplomacy is the art of conducting and managing negotiations. Sending your companions on diplomatic missions can influence your light side or dark side standing. In addition to light side and dark side influence, possible Diplomacy rewards include medical supplies used to construct prototype and artifact implants, medpacs, stimulants, adrenals and gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: Gets you materials for one of the two most important skills in the game, gives you Light Side/Dark Side farm points, and can still be used to get gifts. What else do you need? Along with Investigation, Slicing, Scavenging and Underworld Trading, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters.

Rating:

INVESTIGATION
Recommended Skills: Armstech

Codex: Investigation is the skill of researching, gathering, analyzing and decoding secret information. Sending your companions on Investigation missions can yield valuable items in the form of researched compounds used to construct prototype and artifact weapons and blaster barrels, prototype schematics for all crafts, and gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: Investigation finds rare schematics for every single type of crafting skill, as well as materials for Armstech. Along with Diplomacy, Slicing, Scavenging and Underworld Trading, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters. It could substitute for a normal mission skill, since you rarely need the normal mission skill to simply level up your craft, or a gathering skill if you’re willing to purchase those materials off of the Galactic Trade Network.

Rating:

TREASURE HUNTING
Recommended Skills: Artifice

Codex: Treasure Hunting is the ability to track down and recover valuable items by following a series of clues. Companions sent on Treasure Hunting missions can return with rare gemstones used to construct prototype and artifact enhancements, hilts, color crystals, focii and generators. Other possible rewards include lockboxes that can contain valuable items or credits and gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: It only goes with one craft skill, and everything that it is used to make is pretty much reusable. Great if you’re going with Artifice, I wouldn’t bother otherwise. It can be fun to randomly receive relics or other rare items from this skill, but it’s a constant gamble.

Rating:

UNDERWORLD TRADING
Recommended Skills: Armormech, Cybertech, Synthweaving

Codex: Underworld Trading entails the exchange of goods and services on the galactic black market. Sending your companions on Underworld Trading missions can yield luxury fabrics and underworld metals used to construct prototype and artifact armor, earpieces, grenades, space upgrades, and weapon and armor modifications. Other possible rewards include gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: Covering both armor creating professions as well as one of the two best professions in the game, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters. Diplomacy, Slicing, Investigation and Scavenging are good partners for that.

Rating:

If you read all that and are confused still – or didn’t read all of that, because it’s a lot to chew through, that’s okay. You just want the bottom line on which three crew skills I recommend, right? I’ve arranged them into sets of three based on what your main selling market is.

PvE Endgame: Biochem, Bioanalysis, Diplomacy.
PvP Endgame: Biochem, Bioanalysis, Diplomacy // Cybertech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading
Self-Leveling: Cybertech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading // Artifice, Archaeology, Treasure-Hunting // Synthweaving, Archaeology, Underworld Trading
Simple Money-Making: Pick any three: Slicing, Investigation, Diplomacy, Bioanalysis, Scavenging
Selling to Roleplayers: Armormech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading // Synthweaving, Archaeology, Underworld Trading // Artifice, Archaeology, Treasure-Hunting
Do not pick: Armstech

APPENDIX: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: How do I become a Jedi Sage?
A: Reach level 10 as a Jedi Consular, and find Master Ostar-Gal in the Republic Fleet or on Coruscant. He’ll give you a mission that will further your class training.

Q: I just became a Jedi Sage. Where do I train my Sage skills?
A: Same trainer as your base class. Click the tab at the bottom to select your list of trainable Adv. Class abilities.

Q: Where can I respecialize my character?
A: There is a respecialization trainer standing in the banking area of Coruscant, as well as in the Class Trainer area of the Republic Fleet. In both locations, he’s a Rodian by the name of Leuro-Khian, and is titled as . He’s near the person who accepts Guild Charters.

Q: When can I get my speeder?
A: After turning level 25, purchase Speeder Piloting from your trainer for 25,000 credits, then go to your fleet. Barik, the Speeder Vendor, is located in the Northeast-most room in the fleet’s main deck. (Part of the Galactic Trade Market area.) You can also purchase them on Tatooine. Your first speeder will cost you 8,000 credits; you can get upgrades at level 40 and 50.

Q: I’m coming from WoW. Do these skill specializations have any resemblance to stuff from there?
A: The Seer tree plays a lot like (though not identical to) a Discipline Priest with a bit more control. Telekinetics is loosely similar to Elemental Shamans, and Balance is loosely similar to Affliction or Shadow.

Q: I’m coming from Star Wars Galaxies/other MMO. Do these skill specializations have any resemblance to stuff from there?
A: I am not sufficiently familiar with most of those games to say. If someone would like to suggest things for me, I’d appreciate it. Games like City of Heroes are too different from your average MMO, and thus don’t really bear comparison well.

Q: Do I have to use a Single-Bladed Lightsaber?
A: Yes and no. You cannot use a Double-Bladed Lightsaber, and you cannot use two Lightsabers, but you can equip and retrofit a vibroblade with mods to give it mostly Sage-beneficial scores.

Q: Do we have to wear robes? Can we wear pants?
A: Pants are rare, but exist. If you want to keep the pants look, find a moddable pair and you’ll be able to keep them all the way up into endgame.

Q: Can we really keep stuff the whole game and just keep modding it?
A: Yes and no. As soon as you find a chestpiece, pants, hat, weapon, gloves, and shoes – the most important stuff – with four upgrade slots, you can keep modding it for the whole level up game. It is rumored that Endgame, however, starts getting items with extra slots, and PvP gear has its expertise as a built-in, rather than a mod granted, stat. So you can keep it for most of the game. Endgame is where you will have more difficulties.

Q: Do I ever get to use my Lightsaber for anything?
A: You get to watch it deflect attacks, but it’s pretty much a stat stick.

Q: What’s the best Skill Specialization for leveling?
A: All Sage specs are very strong for leveling, but Seer is probably the strongest overall, thanks to the companion system. Balance is a close second due to its control and self-healing, and Telekinetics, while last, is still pretty awesome. You can’t go wrong, here.

Q: What’s the difference between Jedi Sage and Jedi Shadow in the Balance tree?
A: They are both proc-heavy, DoT self-healing builds. It’s a question of whether you want to use your lightsaber and Project, or Telekinetic Throw and Disturbance. The Shadow gets better procs to compensate for its lower range and smaller Force Pool.

Q: Is the Jedi Sage the best healer?
A: No healer is the best – they’ve each been designed to heal in different, and complementary, ways.

Q: What’s the difference between the three types of healers?
A: In brief, the Smuggler has escape options and has to tactically manage its healing due to its resource, which prevents it from ever being permanently tapped – but short-term burst healing will screw you over for a while. It has a healing combo point system, and is based around periodic, constant healing with reserved upward spikes. The Commando is the most versatile healer, and pivots on the Supercharge Cells mechanic, which gives it a brief healing ‘supermode’ when needed. It also has a short-term resource management focus. The Jedi Sage reacts best to sudden spikes in health and has to manage its resource long-term.

Q: I’m going to do PvE. Does the Balance or Telekinetics tree do higher max DPS?
A: Telekinetics is generally accepted to do more damage, but Balance is competitive with it.

Q: What’s the difference between a Sage and a Sorcerer?
A: There are the obvious ones – different stories, companions, and titles. Visually, a Sorcerer’s Force Powers are centered around violet lightning, while a Sage is reliant on golden energy and rocks or other environmental elements. Late game, the Sage obtains Unity, while the Sorcerer gets Sacrifice. I’m of the opinion the Sage’s ability is a bit better for the class.

Q: I want to play a Movie Jedi; is this the class for me?
A: You can do a good imitation of Yoda in the original trilogy, that’s about it for Movie Jedi.

Q: What’s the story like?
A: The story is unaffected whether you are a Jedi Shadow or a Jedi Sage. The Jedi Consular’s storyline is based around suspense and philosophy, and is not to everyone’s tastes. You’ll find more energetic and boisterous stories among the other classes, but this storyline is – in BioWare’s words – supposed to be more along the themes of KotOR 2 than KotOR 1.

Q: Do we get any evil companions?
A: Not really. Consulars get many companions who are not perfectly light-sided, but grayish white is the best overall depiction.

Q: Which abilities are off of the Global Cooldown?
A: Force Potency, Mind Snap, Force Speed, possibly others. Need to test more later.

More questions to be added as needed later.

APPENDIX: MMO GLOSSARY

Activation Time: The amount of time used before an ability finishes its animations and triggers. Generally, being attacked during an activation causes pushback, and movement will cancel the activation.

AoE: Area-of-Effect ability. Refers to an ability that strikes an area, hitting all targets within that space. AoE abilities which only affect targets in melee range of the user are called Point-Blank Area-of-Effect, or PBAoE.

CC: Crowd Control. In the MMORPG context, it is used to refer to abilities which can reduce the number of opponents being faced at a given moment, without actually defeating one of them. Several abilities have crowd control effects which only trigger on Weak and Standard enemies, and will not work on Strong, Elite or Boss NPCs, or enemy players.

Channeled Ability: An ability of this kind begins triggering immediately, but does not finish until the activation bar is entirely depleted. If this ability is ended early for any reason, then you will not get the full effect of the ability, even though you have paid the full cost. Pushback on a channeled ability will cause the ability to end early. Moving, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, will always end a channeled ability prematurely. Alacrity does not affect channeled abilities.

Defender: See TANK.

DOT: Damage-over-time. See PERIODIC DAMAGE.

DPS: Literally, damage-per-second. It is also commonly used to refer to those characters who have damage-dealing as their primary mechanical mission. See STRIKER.

Global Cooldown: A 1.5 second delay after activating any instant ability, preventing you from activating the majority of other abilities. Successfully triggered non-instant abilities do not induce a global cooldown (or if they do, they generate one that is too low to reach via current alacrity values.) A rare few abilities are not affected by the Global Cooldown.

Interrupt: Broadly, any reason that an ability with an activation or channeling time is suddenly cancelled. More specifically, an ability that always causes cancellation of the target’s non-instant ability, and adds a cooldown before the target can attempt that ability again. They are sometimes sorted into the mutually exclusive categories of Soft Interrupt (which does not add a cooldown to the targeted ability) and Hard Interrupt. Mind Snap is a Jedi Shadow’s interrupt, and Jolt is a Sith Assassin’s.

Kiting: Using abilities and careful positioning to force a melee-primary opponent to follow another person at a distance like a kite – a successful example of kiting minimizes the amount of close-range time the melee-primary character is able to get.

Knockback: Not the same as pushback, knockback refers to a character being forcibly moved by another character (usually backwards).

OOF: Out of Force (points.) When you’ve exhausted your resource bar.

Periodic Damage: An effect which causes damage over time on a regular basis, such as every second or every three seconds, without further input from the user.

Proc: A “Programmed Random Occurence.” Essentially, a proc is any ability which activates randomly. If you have an ability which has a 10% chance to heal you in addition to its primary effect, that heal effect would be considered a proc.

Pushback: Not the same as knockback, pushback refers to an unexpected delay during the activation of a non-instant ability, or causing a pulse on a channeled ability to fail. Pushback is caused by taking damage from any hostile source during the activation of the ability. Several skills mitigate or remove pushback on specific abilities.

Resolve: A bar which fills up whenever a character is limited in their actions against their will by another player character, in any way, proportional to the severity of the limitation. It slowly depletes when not recently increased. When the bar is completely filled, the character becomes immune to all limiting effects for the next eight seconds, before the bar drains entirely.

Root: An ability which forces a character to remain stationary.

Snare: An ability which slows down a character’s movement speed, but they are still capable of moving.

Striker: A character whose primary role in a group setting is to deal damage to the opponents. See DPS.

Tank: A character whose primary role in a group setting is to attract the enemy’s attention and keep harmful damage away from other squad members.

Utility: Reference to abilities which do not directly relate to healing, damage dealing, or tanking but are combat-useful nonetheless.

KEYBINDS

If someone would like to offer their own bindmaps with common mice (incl. the standard two-button), I might post them. I don’t currently have a finalized bind setup for any specialization.

SAGE SORCERER DICTIONARY

If an ability name isn’t included, it is identically named across the two classes. Some of the more common skills are included as well.

Sage to Sorcerer

Sorcerer to Sage