Jedi Archive

Message Edited by Harlequiin on 09-13-2004 06:13 PM

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HavelockVetinari wrote:

There have been a number of template threads popping up lately, with lots of young jedi and soon-to-be jedi curious about what their options are and what the advantages of different templates are. I've written this short overview of key skills and popular templates to offer some guidance to those who must make the big choice. As I have unfortunately learned, retemplating a jedi can be extremely tedious, so it's important to make sure you're picking up a template you'll be happy with for awhile. There is a brief discussion of Force Sensitive skills at the end, too, for those who want to know how FS skills work with a jedi template.

Four Key Skills

Heal All Self 2 (Healing 4xxx) (alternatively, Heal Health Self 2, Heal Action Self 2, Heal Mind Self 2 (Healing 3xxx): Heal All Self 2 will heal 1500 points of damage in each of your HAM bars; the individual bar heals will also heal 1500, and for slightly less force cost. The big difference is that with Heal All Self 2 you only suffer several seconds of healing delay, while with the individual heals you must sit through the delay for each bar you want to heal. If you are being hit across multiple bars, this reduces your DPS (Damage Per Second) and costs more force, so most jedi choose to get Heal All Self 2. In some hybrid templates the extra 2 skill points are required elsewhere, so a few people give up Heal All Self 2, but this should not be done lightly.

Heal States Self (Healing xxx4): This clears stun, dizzy, blind, and initimdate,even if you're lying on the ground. Jedi get hit hard when they get hit because of the lack of armor; when a jedi's on the ground, melee damage against him gets a multiplier, and on top of things he cannot fight back or run away. Dizzy/kd was the death of many pre-revamp jedi. If you go out to PvP without Heal States Self, you cannot expect to survive unless you have a competent and dedicated support group. A bonus to this skill is that its prereqs include Force Cure Poison and Force Cure Disease, both very important to have given the continuing danger posed by DoT weapons.

Force Run2 (Enhance 4xxx): Jedi often get into hairy situations. Force run 2 lets you get the heck out of dodge, outrunning your enemies and escaping to safety. While its offensive uses have been decimated in the post-gank & run era, force run 2 (or 3) is still a very strong skill. Given the penalties for dying, both in jedi xp and FRS xp, a skill that lets you stay alive in a great many situations where not having it would lead to death is a skill that many jedi appreciate. Some jedi have dropped to enhancer 2xxx for Force Run 1 since Force Run 2 no longer offers the offensive advantage, but Force Run 1 is less effective for getaways since you only move at about the speed of a burst running player.

Channel Force (Enhance xxx2): Even at knight level, a jedi can burn through force extremely quickly. Channel force lets you take a temporary hit to your maximum HAM stats in order to regenerate some force instantly. Handy when leveling, handy in prolonged fights, and a virtual necessity in one-on-one duels, Channel is also widely appreciated by the vast majority of the jedi population. While it can sometimes be risky to use, intelligent use of channel gives you access to far more force power per hour than a non-channeling jedi. As a bonus, you get Transfer Force and Force Shield I; the latter will take some of the bite out of Force Drain attacks against you in jedi on jedi action. Channel is also a prereq for Force Drain and Meditate, which many jedi view as essential and which are unquestionably useful skills to have.

Single Mastery Templates

While a jedi with a single mastered tree loses some force regeneration and force power, diversifying a template can allow for more flexibility and the ability to more effectively react to different situations.

The Brawler Variant: Master Lighstaber, 4004 Enhancer, 4004 Healer, 3000 Defender, Novice Brawler

This is pretty popular; novice brawler lets you intimidate and warcry to your heart's content without using any force, and for the time being it works - you can be a jedi knight and still have the non-jedi novice brawler skill. The devs said before that knights would not be able to have non-jedi skills, so don't be surprised if this gets fixed someday.

Another Brawler Variant: Master Lightsaber, 4004 Defender, 4004 Healer, 0003 Defender, Novice Brawler

A brawler variant with more defense but no Force Run or Meditate. This has been reported to be extremely effective against stackers as well as in PvE and PvP. The warcry and intimidate skills let you shut down an opponents offense while leaving you all your force to devote to offense and the occasional heal.

Message Edited by HavelockVetinari on 09-12-2004 08:00 AM

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Excellent Analysis. I'd add mine on the Brawler variants.

4000 Defender or 0004 Defender instead of 4004 Enhance go 4003.

You lose Meditate, which is a very useful skill, but I've found channel and wait a few seconds to work almost as well.

4000 Defender, with BE clothes and a lightweight military backpack you get your melee defense up to 105 (stun +55). I get missed some now with that. The additional 4 toughness doesn't hurt either. If Novice Brawler ever does take the nerf, I'll go 4204 Healer instead of 4004 (current).

I've heard good things about 0004 Defender as well, but have not personally tested that. A blue frog on TC2 somewhere would be a nice thing to test a few things like this with and not have to get 6 million xp (maybe 9 million if you like the first way better) just to see.

I don't know if you meant me here, but I'll toss my 2 cents in:

Bring a combat medic/doc friend with you, and a TKM/Fencer friend and you can take just about anything in the game Group play is still a lot more fun then solo play, even as a Jedi. The difficulty with this template is GETTING here in the new system since you tend to get on the terminals a lot if you have friends around.

PvP wise, you generally need to be careful about taking too much damage at once, but even if you are 80% damage - if you have really good buffs you can disengage for a minute or two and get back all your health. Force run 2 is all you need to disengage, from Jedi or non. Avoid Incap will give you the time you need to disengage, even if things go badly. I've only died twice since becoming a Knight, and in both cases it was just a simple mistake on my part.

Another variant I'm strongly considering is dropping force run for Force Armor 2. Or for a PvP template- the State defences. Master defender state defences, even with skill attachments, still seems to let intimidate, dizzy and stun through fairly easily. The real 'threat' I find to Jedi is intimidate. If you keep intimidate off you, you will likely win anyPvP engagement- especially if you have a friend to intimidate the enemy.

However, I tested Force Run 1 to see if it was useful enough for PvP - and it is. I can still catch up to a kiting CM or Rifleman. I generally only have 'trouble' with melee specialists, but was fighting 2 very well prepared Melee templates (TKM/Fencer) and basically after 15 minutes, moved on as I was about half force and expecting enemy reinforcements. Master Def/Master LS makes a very powerful template against non-jedi PvP, and regular PvE.

So the question is how to best use my 2 lines in the Enhance tree? 4400, 0440, 4004 etc? For Jedi PvP, Armor 2 would be a 'must' considering I can't heal myself. I was hoping some tweak to the defence tree would come in the combat balance to address this.

I took Master Def/Master LS/4004 Enhancer with the idea of teaming with a master LS/master healer/4004 enhancer. That would make a great combination. Sadly, that player lost a lot of interest in the game so a little 'Dark Jedi Enclave' never became a reality.

Last off I should say : Absolutely awesome post This would be a great one to 'sticky'. I kind of wish Arjun would put back a post that listed/bookmarked Jedi FAQ and reference posts. This one would be a great addition for jedi. Picking a template is a really big deal since it's very difficult to change once you have it completed.

Ren

Message Edited by Renairdor on 09-13-2004 03:22 PM

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HavelockVetinari wrote:

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Vac102 wrote:

Thanks for taking the time to write this. I was wondering since I have no plans to be a PVP jedi( I dont have the time) which is the most recommened template for an all out PVE Jedi..

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Master defender/master saber/4004 healer is good. Alternatively, if you want to PvE with a group, master powers might not be a bad call - area kd, area intimidate, area dizzy, and lightning 2 are ok for PvE.

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I think master def/master saber/4004 healer is the best 'solo' mix. The main weakness this has is against Force Drain, which you can still use while doing Force Run 2/Force Run 3. It would result in a long battle (drain is about 200 force every few seconds) but ultimately the def/saber/healer would perish since they lack run and force drain to counter.

I only tried this once though. Shocked the hell out of my enemy If you do much Jedi vs Jedi I'd recommend trying to drain your opponent at least once. Some jedi are not looking at their combat spam, or paying attention to whats happening with their force. Keeps you well prepared for the next encounter as well.

Ren

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Renairdor wrote:

I took Master Def/Master LS/4004 Enhancer with the idea of teaming with a master LS/master healer/4004 enhancer. That would make a great combination. Sadly, that player lost a lot of interest in the game so a little 'Dark Jedi Enclave' never became a reality.

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HavelockVetinari wrote:

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Renairdor wrote:

I took Master Def/Master LS/4004 Enhancer with the idea of teaming with a master LS/master healer/4004 enhancer. That would make a great combination. Sadly, that player lost a lot of interest in the game so a little 'Dark Jedi Enclave' never became a reality.

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I would love to pick up your template but I'm not sure how good it would be on Bloodfin - our battles often involve 50-100+ per side. But if I could burden a few guildlies with "heal Havel" responsibilities, it might be viable.

I had master defender and the xx4x line of enhance and I was still intimidated extremely often, even in one-on-one situations,though I was extremely resistant to stun, dizzy, and blind.

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Well the dizzy is one thing I find the most troublesome melee folks are those spamming posture down moves after getting a dizzy on me. The posture down alone usually results in a delay to let them close and use more powerful melee specials.

At least you have avoid incap.When I need to use it, or when I'm feeling particularly mischievous, it's awfully fun power. Especially in the larger battles. One of my earlier mistakes was hitting the wrong key while under mind disease/poison combo (rarely a problem now with the resist buffs) so I was mind disease incapped- with 85% force still in my pool. That was embarassing

/force drain is semi-fun in the larger battles (we had a 200 player battle a couple weeks back, likely another this Sunday afternoon) but the lag makes it less useful then say Flurry when your opponents can do with a little dizzy/blind/stun. And you'll end up incapping a large number of the unbuffed/weaker ones so you can sort out bigger targets easier.

The healing 'delay' most of my friends complain about is another reason I don't miss healer that much - especially with a good CM backing me up. Poorfellow became the target of 3 suicide rifleman last battle though. I think folks are catching on... 'kill Rens lifeline' lol. We had a plan of 'layered ' attacks.The grunts/tanks head out to start taking enemy fire, then pull back towards healers as required, and draw in the enemy to a kill zone. It worked pretty well actually. Our group was about 16 with a mix of players, including 4 jedi. We used teamspeak to co-ordinate and focus on the greatest threats, eliminating them one by one.

I'd still love a 4004 saber/master def/master healer to team up with. Make a nice duo. I ended the other battle up about 1700 FRS, without dying, and 'conquered' Anchorhead so it can't be that bad a template. Even against a few of the enemy jedi, I had little trouble beating them down. A lot of that may have to do with my lightsaber though, it's all -9's, with 45-50 dmg. That helps the most. I was hoping to fight Zina, the other jedi I know about my level, and my 'counter template' with master LS/master enhance/4004 healing but it never seemed to work out for some reason.

Those 'big fights' are just so much fun, they are one good reason I come back to keep playing. Make an alt and join Naritus on Sunday afternoon if you want to watch one. A little worried about lag though, Dantooine is notorious for it.

Ren