Someone explain to me the Advanced Class system

pmunkey95

ok i was looking at the SWTOR info page and wiki page and i like being a healer but i dont like being pigeon-holed (spelling?) into doing only that. when i solo i want to do mediocre to good dps. 

I was going to pick a Jedi Consular Sage but i am wondering in groups will i have to heal all the time or can i dual spec and have a dps version of the advanced class also. or is that only for the Shadow Adv Class.

 

any help?

Mazin

Bioware has not put out much information on this subject.  But, in saying that, I don't think you have to worry about being pigeon holed into a class that will not be able to do damage.

They have said from the get go, they want everyone to feel heroic in the sense that  you will be taking on multiple enemies at one time.  So i don't believe it will be like Holy Priest in WoW pre-BC.

Also, I don't know if you can respec or not, I have gotten the impression that you are kinda stuck with the choices you make.  That assumption is most likely wrong, since it would make a lot of folks very upset.  But that is the vibe they give off.

whilan

From what little we know of the advance class system. it works as such

You start off as a particular class.  We'l take the consular as thats what we are basing it off of.

As a consular you can do damage and do heals.  Your good at both but not great at either.

When you hit the advance class however, you can decide if you'd prefer to be more of a dps or support type person instead.  Both are rumored to play differently then each other as they are two seperate classes.  However you also have the skills of each set that will decide how well you do at certain things.

I won't say for certain if you can do decent damage while being a healer spec but your not really pigoned holed either.  Granted some advance classes will be better at things then others but your skills that you select while leveling up will determine which things you are better at then others. Kinda like how wow does it skill tree.  You have 3. 2 specific for your class and 1 general. So you can determine how your character sets up.

Wish i could tell you more on advance classes but there isn't really much out yet.

slpr

The advanced class system is very simple to understand. You have 8 classes and the advanced classes system divide each one into two, making a total of 16 classes. Inside each AC, you have two trees plus one that is shared by both AC's of a class... meaning you can select talents from three trees.

The big difference between this system and other games, is that you have almost total freedom to choose talents. Normaly in other MMO's you have to spend X amount of points in one tree in order to advanced in a tree and reach one powerful skill   (example WoW)... in SWTOR theres only  like two/three skills per tree and they are really easy to get cause you don't have to spent X points to reach it.

In your case (consular), you have the sage which is a control/dps/healer advanced class and you have the shadow which is more a melee dps but they can still heal but they are not as effective and the sage. Like i said, both AC's share one tree... possibly in that three you will have some talents that improve your healing.

Keep in mind these things are constantly changing, and may not be in the final version in the way i just described them. In fact until recently there were only two advanced classes per faction that could heal, and that recently changed... they introduced one more per faction.