Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: Frustrated with TKA.. Advice requested
OK, I am about ready to give up TKA and I really don't want to...
I stared out a brawler in BETA because I knew it would be more of an elite class as I assumed a huge majority or players would go the way of ranged weapons, which turned out to be true. I started an unarmed char the day the game went public and was proud that I chose a profession that was tougher to achieve than most.
At this point, several months later, I have four, yes four boxes filled in TKA (0/2/1/1). No, I have not beenexclusively working on this skill, as I am a novice weaponsmith and close to master Ranger, but have been working on TKS the entire time. I have almost made Master Ranger (AND Master Scout) from no skill, in the time it has taken me to get just those 4 boxes in TKA. That seems just a little out of balance to me.
I cannot group because groups tend to go for large mobs, such as Krayts, and I either get no xp or get incapped from one or 2 hits. No fun. Even hunting lower level mobs it seems like I am lying on my back half the time, and am the only one constantly getting incapped (assuming no other brawlers present). Last week I went out with a group, we hunted and killed 5 krayts, I was incapped on each one, and averaged 600 xp points for each one. 600??!! I can solo mobs for 1.5-2K on my own. I was to assume a TKA is not meant for groups, even though we are considered tanks. 
On fighting, I have tried every combo available to me (KD, stun, blind, hits, etc.) and tried many suggestions from this forum. I can not find anything CLOSE to just spamming zerk, and find all the other special moves worthless, except for in dueling and PvP. (Don't do much PvP for obvious reasons either.)
I have a friend who just started SWG a few weeks ago and will hit Master Pistoleer very soon, WAY before I will even come close to TKM. I can't even describe how frustrating this is. No, I am not a hardcore grinder and only average 2-3 hours a night playtime, so I don't expect miricles, but come on!! I really don't see how people have even made TKM without spending all day every day just grinding, and that sucks. Hell, it was easier to grind through higher levels in DAoC, than these low levels in TKA.
Anyone else run into this frustration, or am I doing something wrong here? I really don't want to throw away my TKA, but living as a full-time solo'er is no fun either. The way it is going, I can see it taking another 4 months to get to TKM, and that just does not seem right.
Any advice is appreciated.......
I feel your pain. I was desperate just trying to get to Novice TKA. Took me a long time, just got it even though I started on day one. But now I have Novice TKA and after they nerfed the VKs. So now I am happy and proud. I know that moving up to TKM will be a long arduous journey. I will be frustrated just as you are but when I get there I'll be happy and even more proud once again. I group a lot so here's a couple of hints:
1. Find a medic to be your buddy and watch over you. With armor and a personal shield you can take a few hits from most creatures that hunting parties go after and your medic buddy can heal you instantly.
2. Always follow the big creatures into battle and let them hit first.
3. You can get mad xp is you have something like pistoleer and this can help you up the precision branch. Combat xp is combat xp no matter how you get it. This way you can almost gain two boxes for the price of one.
4. Don't think about the end. Live only in the present and before you know it you'll be TKM. And maybe you'll get a Jedi character on the way!
Just my thoughts. I'm going to try and find some TKA related NPC missions to run and hopefully that will spice up the game a bit for me. If anyone knows of some good ones I'd love to hear about them. Thanks
The thing that I have found with TKA is that you need something to fall back on. Using TKA skills for combat means you have to choose your prey wisely. Hunting Krayts is not the best place to use TKA skills (nor should it be). Krayts are really ranged only prey (not counting CH pets) and that will never change. The stuff that I get to use my TKA skills most often would be Tuskan raids or Squill cave raids (for tatt anyways...I solo Doth all the time with little difficulty). Using TKA with a high power tree againsts a rifle wielding tuskan makes for a quick fight :-). I personally have combined my TKA skills with pistols\smuggler skills, which gives me something to fall back on when hand-to-hand combat just does not work (or make sense).
Is there an inbalance between the ranged professions and the melee in terms of speed of progression? Maybe, but I think that is fine. The rewards for going up the TKA tree are well worth the time it takes (IMHO). I am not a power gamer at all and it took be 1/3'rd the time to get pistols 4 then it took me to get unarmed4...so I know what you are saying, but in the end there is a price for choosing the "long" road to TKA, but I believe it pays well to those who push through it.
As for combos....debuff, debuff,debuff. I never really knew how useful this stuff was until I hit unarmed4. Once intimidate sticks and then you get blind and stun to stick, most red con mobs that I fight go down in no time (normally have to stick intimidate once or twice before they end up going downbecause it runs out). As it is right now I almost never use zerk. With a good pair of vbks zerk is a waste of HAM when I can debuff and put on the knucklers for 400-500 damage per hit ever second.
I really don't think you are doing things wrong per say, but TKA may not fit your playstyle. It is not an easy professions to play (let along get to) and once you get it, it does not stand on its own (when refering to large one-hit-wonder mobs). For me TKA has been excellent when I want to solo or PvP (caught a master BH dozing off in the cantina the other day...that was fun...came back and got me with his LLC...but hey..at least a low level TKA took out a master BH), but when the Krayts hunts happen, I put my vbks in the backpack and whip out the pistol and keep my distance. If anything I will be not only getting pistol xp..but combat xp, which I can use to go up the precision line.
Anyhow...I know your pain. When I feel a little burnt from TKA stuff I work on my other skills (generate another 50k by slicing or run Krayts raids). Either way it is all about having funright? If you are not having fun try something else (another skill or even another character). My thoughts anyhow.
What id do if i was you, is to join imperials, and do faction missinons before they are nerfed. ping pong the missions, then you gain TKA skill. infact id stick with rebel resistance missions.
After about a week you will be perhaps a tier of TK skill and 20k faction points ore greater. Use those points to buy an AT-ST, then go to dathomir, the science outpost and get bitz natch missions. Once you have gotten those send your AT ST at the lairs, then tell it to stay, it will not attack, and stand there letting things hit it. simply run up behind the AT ST and start wacking away with berserk. you will be master in no time.
also the AT ST thing isn't a huge deal, infact you could do just as well with a sludge panther tanking for ya. and some medic skill. like novis creature handler, and you already seem to have the prereqs. might as well get novis get a GSP and have it tank for you.
id get greater sand panthers on corillia. the missions. if you luck out you get a lair that spawns 2 females at a time. about 3k exp per cat only 5k hps, have the GSP tank for you while you attack, then heal pet, and finish off the lair, you could ping pong this too, and get the lair to respawn.
OR..........they are making KD timer 5 seconds so you could just wait tell the new patch comes in.
in 2 days, i got tka novice and 0/1/2/1. not bad id say. id hunt with groups on dant. or, id hunt outskirts of naboo. naboo?!?!? yes, believe it. i found a very good hunting ground full of gualamas, kaadus, shaupaut hunters, tusk cats, etc. and they are all over the place. group with a pet. or,if you dont want to waist skill on CH at all, use a droid. dappled gualamas give about 700 w/o a pet but they give 900+ with one. on dant, i can get about 1.5-2+K per creature. yeah thats good. but the amount of time it takes me to get ina group, find, and kill creatures, it started to make more sence to go the easy creature route.
example....on naboo, i found a group of shaupaut hunters. bout 5 of them. drew em out one at a time (sometimes 2 if they were close), and killed them for about 1.3K a piece if i got that right. so there is around 6K exp. right there in about 5 mins. not much farther down the beach, i see a gualama lair. killed elder, maverick, dappleds for about 10 minutes till the lair ran out, then killed off the lair. bout 800 exp for each creature, plus 3K for the lair. lots came out so i got probably 10K exp right there, in about 10 mins tops. went back to where i was before, and behold, the shaupaut hunters respawned. so, if you find a good hunting ground like i did, you can gain levels faster by killing many creatures worth about 600-1.2K rathur then trying to always kill big creatures, risk getting incapped, having to rest, all for 2K a piece.
combat tactics......intimadate, blind, stun, auto-attack. for most part, you will kill teh creature/npc before intimadation wears off. intimadate has a tendencey to fail often though, so if you try it twice and dont get the intimadate, just blind, stun, auto-attack. leave zerk in the bag. allthough dont get me wrong, zerk is very good and basically required at low unarmed levels. but once you hit tka novice, drop it.
oaksilencer wrote:
in 2 days, i got tka novice and 0/1/2/1. not bad id say. id hunt with groups on dant. or, id hunt outskirts of naboo. naboo?!?!? yes, believe it. i found a very good hunting ground full of gualamas, kaadus, shaupaut hunters, tusk cats, etc. and they are all over the place. group with a pet. or,if you dont want to waist skill on CH at all, use a droid. dappled gualamas give about 700 w/o a pet but they give 900+ with one. on dant, i can get about 1.5-2+K per creature. yeah thats good. but the amount of time it takes me to get ina group, find, and kill creatures, it started to make more sence to go the easy creature route.
example....on naboo, i found a group of shaupaut hunters. bout 5 of them. drew em out one at a time (sometimes 2 if they were close), and killed them for about 1.3K a piece if i got that right. so there is around 6K exp. right there in about 5 mins. not much farther down the beach, i see a gualama lair. killed elder, maverick, dappleds for about 10 minutes till the lair ran out, then killed off the lair. bout 800 exp for each creature, plus 3K for the lair. lots came out so i got probably 10K exp right there, in about 10 mins tops. went back to where i was before, and behold, the shaupaut hunters respawned. so, if you find a good hunting ground like i did, you can gain levels faster by killing many creatures worth about 600-1.2K rathur then trying to always kill big creatures, risk getting incapped, having to rest, all for 2K a piece.
combat tactics......intimadate, blind, stun, auto-attack. for most part, you will kill teh creature/npc before intimadation wears off. intimadate has a tendencey to fail often though, so if you try it twice and dont get the intimadate, just blind, stun, auto-attack. leave zerk in the bag. allthough dont get me wrong, zerk is very good and basically required at low unarmed levels. but once you hit tka novice, drop it.
Then id say you got lucky in your time as a TKA, the majority of people often go through problems leveling with others, and the exp is often worse then simply soloing. '
based off of many vairables, and class combinations.
for instance, if your with some guy with an AT ST and everyone is working up riffle/pistol, and the AT ST runs around, hehe your either gonna get hit alot, with less exp, or get next to no exp at all.
The time it takes to run to a target, somone gets off 2 shots, most groups kill through things pretty fast, that makes exp for a TK less, and not very fun.
really depends though. If you have say you, the tk, a medic of some sort healing you, and some other random guy, then the exp will be usualy better then the exp the other guys get, cause your the main tank.
Thanks guys, a TON of good advice and no flamers! 
You have restored my faith in the TKA profession. I have even put an "ad" up on the medic profession boards looking for someone to help out and get xp and free resources in the process.
Thanks!
Dude it is nice to finally hear someone who is new expressin what the dumda** devs will not hear.
Yes, as TKA you will be on you back half the time becaue we cannot do like the other wimps and send in pets whilst they sit back at a distance and blast for 2000-3000 damage and never get hurt....no we have to grin it and bear it and get our arses kicked more than not becaue the DEVS do not know what the Teras are or supoosed to be....when we fight we ARE GOING to take damage because we cant sit back at a distance but the IDIOT and CARELESS and APATHETIC devs dont really think it is necessary to up our defense dramtically like they should....so I suggest you move into Pistoller or Commando since the Devs get sexually aroused over these guys and then you have fun....I am probably going to leave Teras myself.
Glad to hear that you are staying with TKA. I started first week and just made TKM a few days ago. I still love it. Although I think that the road is very hard, I think it should be.
I hunt mostly solo so picked up medic and CH. I use Ubese Pants and sometimes Jacket along with Muon Gold to buff mind stats and Stim-B to keep me healthy (or atleast alive). I pick my prey and pick the target. Can usually take one red con but if there are more than one, I take out the pet to dely the others so I can finish them one at a time. Dropped Master Marksman and Pistoleer to get the skill pts to finish TKM and am still glad that I did.
Good luck and keep on swinging.
its a long road to the top but so far its worth it but i'm not to the top yet so can't say for sure, however i do hunt with a group, we've been to endor and dath and i made respectively 80k anf 50k unarmed xp in just a few hours work, not to mention the amount of hides i collected, its usally a group of my pa buddies and we take a master doctor and or a master combat medic they work wonders for me, usualy the ranged people draw the beasts and then i intercept them a go to town while everyone stands back and shoots at it, sure i die a lot but not as much as u think i should
sisko
tka 0/1/1/0
marksman 1/2/0/4
scout 4/0/4/2
brawler 4/3/3/2
It took me 3 weeks to master TK go to dath with a ch friend and jsut beat the h out of giant baz nitches