Newbie Marauder/Inquisitor: questions

Lithuanian

Hello everyone. Not to anoy others - starting new threat.

Long story short - downloaded Swtor, playing (as usual for me) as free player. facing tons of restrictions, some of them (unable to use non-starter planet chats) just leave me feel like it's mostly solo-rpg with tons of animations.

Picked the Empire. It's good to fight the right guys.

Then it came to classes. Initially - Sith Marauder. Enjoyed his ability to jump to enemy and then make mess from enemies. Enojyed even that (bit annoying) Vette.  In the name of love - making mostly light side choices.

But there are "but". First of all - attacks. I quickly mrun out of mana/power/whatever that is called. Some attacks may build mana, but there are zero hints at descriptions. It's all like "Stomp-to-the-ground attacks enemies within 1 meter radius hitting 7 enemies and dealinf 100-101 damage". First question: how to survive this problem? because I ran into one self-healing machine, Rebel commander who outheals me and Vette, I am out of power/mana for attacks and each time I fail. Cannot use chats to call for help, thanks to EA. Cannot use EA forums.

Second question: I noticed some specializations, three trees. Any sense to choose one and which one for pure dps?

Third question: inventory. I notived that when I bought more slots on clone toon - other toon received increase. Are these for account?

Fourth question: so-called Heroic (i.e. suicide) missions. There are some I fail each time. Cancelled some. Are they a must or could I do them when I am lvl.49?

Fifth question: are there any chats I could use as free user? And is there a away to customize to team members with cosmetic dresses as f2p?

Sith Inquisitor. Better class. More intriguing storyline, even if Desad is ultra-ugly and cynical ("I will eat you, little Sith").

Once more about attacks: what efficient circle of them to use?

Sorry for noob questions, but I do need answers. May the dark side of the Force be with yoiu.

Nebless

Lithuanian said:

First of all - attacks. I quickly mrun out of mana/power/whatever that is called. 

--- When I played force users I found that I needed to use the smaller attacks first and save the big one's for use as finishers.  Kind of sounds like you're doing it the other way around.  My way would empty the power level at the end of the fight and by that point who cares.

Third question: inventory. 

--- Yes I believe the inventory purchases are account wide.

Fourth question: so-called Heroic (i.e. suicide) missions. There are some I fail each time. Cancelled some. Are they a must or could I do them when I am lvl.49?

--- I don't believe I've EVER done any Heroic missions and I'm lvl 51.  They've made big changes to XP gain and now all you really need to do is your class mission and the main planet one and just from those you'll end up out leveling the planet.  Any of the rest is fine if you just want to suck up time, but they're not needed.

Fifth question: And is there a away to customize to team members with cosmetic dresses as f2p?

--- I'm pretty sure NOTHING that you put on your companion's effects their stat's anymore.  If you hover over the slots it should tell you.  I know weapons don't and I was going to do a belt and it didn't either.

Not a big fan of the force users although I've played mine up to getting their first companions.

Lithuanian

Well, lame and not suitable for real combat Sith marauder - almost scrapped. Rests peacefully at Balmorra.

Picked Sith Inquisitor, Assasin subclass. Outperforms all marauders in known galaxy. I could imagine 10 marauders dieing at one boss, then Inquisitor soloes and goes further.

Still, there are things I do not understad.

My companions: how the *** do I give them better weapons/equipment? I mean, this stuff takes place in my inventory, it could be used for companions.

Skills. There are so many unusefull ones, like temporaly increase somethign for, say, 1%, interrupt some action etc. The only thing I understood was: use small attacks, then normal ones, repeat.

Mission impossible on Hoth. One where cursed archaeologist wants to open door. Three waves of droids: first easy, second hard, after second immediately comes third, ultra-hard boss and I am dead. I cannot pick normal companion, since that lame archaeologist is needed to open cursed door. Khem Val would be great, but can't summon any.

Equipment: how do I know which piece of armour is better? And is there any use from crafting, except taking place in inventory?

Sevenstar61

The gear and weapon on companions is strictly cosmetic, upgrading companion is through conversations or gifts (up to level 50 so far.
In preferences you can check the option to compare the gear. 
For leveling to gear best to do the heroics. They will drop blue gear and accessories. 
Check Dulfy or other website for the optimal builds and rotations unless you want to experience by yourself. Many useful information there. Or just SWTOR website.
My favourite character right now is Sith Assassin in Deception. Though Marauder in annihilation is probably by second favorite. 
On October 22 there will be lot of changes coming, hopefully for the best. 
I play as sub so can't comment on FTP.

moshra

Did they disable tutorials for free players or something?

Nebless

Lithuanian said:

Equipment: how do I know which piece of armour is better? 

Make sure you have compare tool tip or whatever they call it on so you'll see both the current and what you're hovering over.

Down at the bottom you'll see a bunch of stat's some in red (-Y), others normal (+X), that's telling you if the new stuff is better and in WHAT AREA's it's better and with the red, worse than what you have on.
 
Basically they've taken the standard 'my armor is 123 and new is 124', 'new better' and made it harder to decided.  You'll need to look at all the numbers and take the trade off that works best for you.  Yes that 124 armor might be stronger, but look you've lost points in all the others with those red - numbers, so you should skip it after all.

vegetableoil

Marauder(dps) and juggernaut(tank) = Wow warrior, you need to hit the enemy and build rage before you can use any skill after you level up you have min rage then you can use skill without hitting them first. Btw if you build marauder and not maximizing dps, you will find your self die pretty quickly it's pretty squishy. Inquisitor(dps/healer) and assassin(dps)  = mage, yes even assassin use mana for skill. btw for armor the most important is the mods inside your armor, armor itself is just cosmetic.

Lithuanian

Thanks for lots of answers.
Armour: well, I am not that picky. I get armour, see that all figures are green ("gimme more", as Britney said...), pick this. So far my Inquisitor goes well (unless fighting something heroic 2 levels above...). Not sure where to look for what. In Lotro there are clear things, game itself writes "NN status is very important to you". SWTOR lets you guess blindly.

Marauder: yeap, i understand two things:
1) use small attacks, they build secondary stuff (power/force/mana...), then finish with Big Ones. Works perfectly in Inquisitor. Does not work in Marauder;
2) Could be my problem I did not pick specialization on Marauder. I understand I have 3 of them (tank-dps-dps?) Could this be The Problem?

Mods for armour: did not use yet. Used only one for lightsaber, now have 2 boxes with some statuses that I cannot use on any piece of equipment.

Mendel

Oddly enough, this thread prompted me to reload SWTOR and give it another try.

I reloaded the game and let the launcher patch itself.  I realized I had forgotten both my Display name and Password.  I tried (several times) to recover the Display name.  The system said it was sending an email.  It didn't.  I have used the same games-specific email for almost 15 years now.

So I tried to create a new account/Display name.  Also no good.  Everything I put into that field was immediately rejected as "invalid or already in use".  I tried several dozen sequences of letters and numbers including a mix of lowercase and capitals (pretty much very secure, modern logins).  All immediately rejected.

This problem seems to be originating with their F2P website, in conjunction with the launcher.

Sorry, but I gave up.  I'd like to take a look at this game again, maybe play along and try to help out.  I'm just not into jumping through hoops needlessly these days.