Teras Kasi Archive

Hi there,

The servers are down for maintenance and I've got some free-time at hand, so I thought I'll give the aspiring martial artists on this board some insight on how I reached my goal of becoming a TKA master.To be honest, I'm not a Master in this most honourable profession yet, but I'm quite certain that I'll have accomplished the title by the end of the day.

My way of hunting was mainly based on tips I learned about from reading this board, so please take this more as a collection of hunting tips from all the helpful people that took
the time to share their tactics (A big thank you goes out to them!). I called it the casual player's way, because I never spend more then 1-3 hours a day playing computer games. I'm usually not a powergamer either, but the obvious weaknesses in this game's mechanics were just to tempting to make use of, so that I decided to finish the levelling aspect of the game before engaging in the fun/roleplaying parts of it.

NOTE: My approach to TKA levelling may very well be obsolote in less then two weeks. Especially the Knockdown/Baz Nitch part of it is already known to be changed quite soon. I'll try to give some suggestions on how to alter your tactics from what I've already read to be changed.

Brawler: Going from Unarmed I to III
Things I hunted: Gnorts, Nightspiders, Ikopies (all Naboo)
Moves I used: Berserk 1

I started the game in the city of Kadaara on Naboo, but it really doesn't matter if you start somewhere else, just kill critters that con blue or white to you. When you've found out what sort of creature works best for you I recommend grabbing missions from a terminal that lead you directly to a lair of that creature. It shouldn't take more then 3-4 hours to reach the Unarmed III skill. I was hunting Gnorts and stuff like that, with a bit tougher
creatures in between and the missions gave me around 2000 credits each.

You should save up the money you get from those missions and while being in town for training/healing you should ask around about who makes very good/the best vibro knucklers on your server, because you'll need them very soon. Once you've reached Unarmed III you should own at least one very good vibro knuckler, preferably sliced by a skilled smuggler for more speed. I also bought a droid at that point and I highly recommend getting at least
one pet to group with. For some unexplainable reason you get more exp when grouped with a pet, especially when it just sits there and doesn't join you in combat. I have a probot droid and I just pull it out to get the exp bonus, which can be up to 1500 points with higher level creatures.

Brawler: From Unarmed III to TKA Novice
Moves I used: Berserk 1
Things I hunted: Sentry Hermit Spiders(Naboo), Crazed Robas, Foaming Vynocks (Talus)

Now this is the first time where gaining experience can be a bit slow. I have to admit that I finished most of this part quickly by killing jax lairs on endor, which is no longer possible at this skill level (And really, I felt very bad for making all those poor cats homeless, the devs were right in fixing that ). What I know of to work very good at this point is killing hermit spiders on Naboo. You'll have very little downtime with these
and I'm pretty sure there is an equivalent of them on every planet. You could do that until you get the 70000 unarmed exp to finish Master Unarmed. After that you either stick to doing the hermit spider thing for a very long time, or you already move on to hunt on Talus. I imagine that just killing crazed robas on Talus can get you to TKA Novice pretty fast, they are easy to kill and give around 500 exp each when grouped with a droid.

On Talus I found the region north of the imperial outpost to be very good for hunting, but I'm not sure if spawn points are all the same on every server. The area south/south-west of Draerie (or whatever the town is called)
provided decent spawns as well.

I never really grouped with other people yet and the times I did join a big hunting party went very bad. But thats just my personal experience and I'm sure I'll give grouping another try at some point in the future. I imagine that grouping with one or two friends (and maybe one of them being a medic type of person) can be really effective while hunting.

TKA(finally): From TKA Novice to Balance I
Moves I used: Still only Berserk 1
Things I hunted: Giant Dalyrakes, Foaming Vynocks (Talus)

I highly recommend hunting Giant Dalyrakes at this point. They gave me around 2200 exp when grouped with a probot and you really don't have a hard time to find spawn points.

TKA: From Balance I to TKA Master
Moves I used: Knockdown, knockdown, knockdown, some Berserk and Dizzy (but really didn't see much of an effect with Dizzy)
Things I hunted: Giant Baz Nitches (and when I reach Master I never want to see a **edit**ing nitch in my SWG time again)

Now, this is subject to change. For one thing Knockdown will be nerfed once again and will probably get a higher HAM cost to it. I don't know the details yet, but I imagine that it'll be very hard to solo the Nitches. I can imagine that grouping with a medic will make it still possible to do what I did in the same amount of time (and probably with a bit more fun to it). Another thing that is likely to be changed is the reward you get for doing Baz Nitch missions. They currently get 10000 credits and I've read somewhere that the devs will cut mission rewards by 50%, which would reduce the Nitch one to 5000 credits. But I never really cared about the money aspect of doing these missions and if you are just after the exp you'll probably think the same way. Currently there is alot of people on Dathomir who fail to understand that some people actually DO KILL the Nitches and not just the lairs. I hope you have less trouble with people killing your lair and making all the Nitches despawn, then I did.

Now for the tactics. Killing a Nitch with just Balance I can be very hard. You'll need to have your knuckler equipped at the first time and executing Knockdown with knucklers on costs about 114 HAM atm. Unequipping them does you no good because you'll be very slow and if you fail to successfully knockdown the Nitch you are sure to catch a few hits, which can be deadly with this creature. Your first goal therefore is to finish the Power Tree, so you get the unarmed speed to use knockdown fast with knucklers off, which will reduce
its cost to about 34 HAM atm.

So, for the beginning, have knucklers equipped and pull a Nitch. I use Health Shot 2 for that, because it makes them bleed and doesn't generate any pistol exp. If you are not a Novice Pistoleer just use another move to pull, some use unarmed lunge, others just run up to the Nitch and start with Knockdown. If you pull from the distance I recommend hitting the Knockdown key when the Nitch is about 14-16m away, because it'll already be in range for the move and more importantly will already start hitting you. Whenever you use Knockdown you are waiting for one thing, which is the games animation of the creature falling to the ground. ONLY if you see that the Knockdown was sure to be successful. Don't be scared if Nitch jumps again after a few seconds, if you saw it flying to the
ground it won't hit back for about 15 seconds. At the beginning you'll just want to watch your guy beating the Nitch for about 10 seconds, then its time for the next knockdown. ALWAYS take into account that your Knockdown move may fail for about 3 times before having an effect. The worst I had was 6-7 failures in a row. With Knucklers on I was having alot of downtime/need for healing between two Nitches. So don't expect too much at the beginning.

As soon as you reach Power III you should start to unequip your knuckler for the Knockdown move. You are now fast enough to repeat the move with knucklers off and killing the Nitches will be alot faster. When reaching Power IV I started to use another approach, which is more expensive HAM-wise, but brings them down alot faster.Currently Knockdown is stackable, so what I would is *Knucklers off* spam 10xKnockdown, Berserk 1, attack (because my man won't attack by himself after Berserk kicks in?!?!), *knucklers on*. With that I just have to sit back and watch the Nitch go down. When Berserk wears off too soon I sometimes throw in another Knockdown at the end, just to be safe.

Currently I manage to completely milk three lairs in an hour, which is worth about 120000 exp. The numbers might be slightly different, I'm not really into counting this sort of stuff.

Final thoughts:

Again, this game changes with every patch and I dont know how long all this is possible to do. But you should be able to follow that way with some alterations like grouping with a friend and such. Also, I'd like to state that this for sure is not the most efficient way to do it, its just how I did it. I'm pretty sure you can be way more efficient with some other combos and tactics. Happy hunting everyone and thanks again to all the people who shared their hints! TKAs need to stick together!

-Temyen Freedark, Eclipse Server

ps: Sorry for the bad grammar, I'm not a native speaker/writer.

Nice guide, and the english was fine. That KD nerf is gonna HURT!

Thanks for the info.....i plan on getting a few TK skills (master meditative, and the defense one) and this will help it not take forever.

that berserk business (about you stopping fighting when you activate it) is actually being fixed! (supposedly.) the fix will probably go in when the berserk nerf does, but that's just an uneducated guess.

Some things I forgot to add:

The whole thing took me about 10-14 days, with many breaks/travels to other planets. I am quite certain that non-stop Baz Nitch hunting can drive a man insane. I also want to mention that I was going Master Marksman/Scout (Bounty Hunter) before deciding on the TKA profession. I stopped doing that when I realized that a large majority of the BH population seems to consist of 12 year olds. Nonetheless the marksman/scout skills helped me alot on my path and will be even more useful when trying to reach Master Smuggler, which I plan to do next.

I really think the TKA profession is worth getting/keeping (even with knockdown being nerfed again) and everyone who mastered it should be **edit** proud of it.

Thanks for the nice feedback!

Temyen Freedark, Eclipse Server

I've just read in a thread on the brawler board that the vibro knuckler cert is now restricted to TKA Novices on the test center. If this is applied to the other servers it'll be really difficult to get from Unarmed III to TKA Novice, as I don't think the slight increase in base damage for the brawler will compensate the loss of the knuckler.

If you play around with the thought of becoming a TKA you'd better start working on it now.

Temyen Freedark, Eclipse Server

I don't know how casual a player you can be if you went from balance 1 to Master solely on Baz Nitches. It sounds more like you are a powergamer with limited playtime. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with this, I'm just saying that most casual players would probably not level up an entire elite profession on fighting one creature. The first TKM leveled to master solely on Tuskens--he had no qualms about calling himself a powergamer. Admittedly, Tuskens are more dangerous than Baz Nitches, but this would have bored me to tears, just as your leveling on Baz Nitches exclusively would have. From the sound of it, it wasn't exactly entertaining for you either.

I'm not condemning you at all here, just saying that the title is sort of misleading. A casual player is usually defined as one who does not have too much time to "grind", likes to group, etc.---basically one who ensures that he is having fun in his limited playtime. For me, sometimes getting 5000 exp from the same type of mob for an hour or two IS fun, because exp is usually fun. But even with huge exp, it gets boring (and on Endor, lonely). I am a fairly casual player (3 hours a day, sometimes less) and I have also just reached TKA Master. I wasn't bored by anything until late in the tree when I was just trying to get my last stupid Med boxes filled. Even then, I would do Pubams for an hour or two during the day for the expand then fly back to Lok to hang out and hunt with a group.

I guess I would just like to remind people that there is more out there than just the stupid Baz Nitches. Fight Nyms and Mercs on Lok, you'll get loads of skill enhancers. I have already pimped the relative ease and massive exp of Pubams on Endor, provided you are a good puller (they're red so you have to sneak up on them slowly). The Tusken camp is nerfed, but there are still lots of places where Tuskens USUALLY spawn. If they made Baz Nitches aggro and/or reduced the mission payout to 6000 like Merc or Pubam missions, i guarantee there would be no population problem of everyone and their mothers hopping to Dathomir for those overgrown nunas.

I agree with your definition of the casual player and as I said in my posting, it was the first (and last) time I tried something like that, so I hesitate to call myself a powergamer for the simple reason that it is not my general approach towards gaming and I simply lack the expertise in doing it that way. Perhaps "A casual player's way of doing it by powergaming for 10 days" would have been a better title, but I doubt it would fit into the subject box .

Thanks for the input.

Temyen Freedark, Eclipse Server

"TKA(finally): From TKA Novice to Balance I
Moves I used: Still only Berserk 1
Things I hunted: Giant Dalyrakes, Foaming Vynocks (Talus)

I highly recommend hunting Giant Dalyrakes at this point. They gave me around 2200 exp when grouped with a probot and you really don't have a hard time to find spawn points.
"

Where on Talus are these Giant Dalyrakes located? I've been around Dearic mostly but haven't seen them.

thanks,

Baz Nitches just got nerfed on the Test Center...

They're now aggro with BAF.

So hurry up if you are planning on using them to grind

To Xarchu:

I've found plenty of them north of the imperial outpost on Talus.

To Iri:

Last time I checked the Baz Nitch nerf was already live on all servers. If you group with another Balance I TKA you should still be able to get huge amounts of experience.

Temyen Freedark, Eclipse Server

Alright there is nothing to argue in this post, the best Tk advanced forum that is out there. Onlything i can add for info will be forget baz nitches solo with yesterdays patch, goto talus and kill torturs sure it is slower but they are not social and as long as you have knockdown you are fine.

UPDATE:

For most of you its probably old news, but I wanted to update this sort-of-guide with the most recent developments. The Giant Baz Nitch is now an aggressive creature and if you try to pull it, it'll bring 1-4 friends, depending on what is currently around the lair. I was still on Dathomir when this was introduced and I hunted them for an hour or so.

The good news is that Giant Baz Nitches give more experience now. I was grouped with my good old probot and the nitches now give 5k per kill. The bad news is that you'll probably need to have mastered the Power tree before you can attempt to solo them. So, if you still want to follow this guide, you should fight something different, or get into a group until you reach Power IV.

Its now alot more dangerous to hunt Nitches and I kind of like that, because fighting them always felt sort of cheap. You now need to pay alot more attention to what you are doing, if you want to stay alive.

New tactics:
First of all, its probably better to not take a Nitch mission. The lair you get from a mission might be in a very bad position and whats the point of spending 5 mins infront of the terminal, if you are likely to abort the mission anyway.

Just run into the wilderness and look for a lair that is in a safe distance to other lairs.
You'll also want to attack a fresh lair with the standard of three Nitches guarding it.
Choose a place where you want to pull the Nitches to fight them. Now target the Nitch that is the closest to you and run up to it, until you are about 25m away. Then slowly walk up to it. From my experience a Nitch will attack you when you are exactly 15m away from it, so you can either wait at 16m for the nitch to take a step into your direction, or take the last step yourself. In any case,you should be ready run to as soon as you see the attack symbol. You'll take a hit or two from the nitch while running to your fighting ground, but you'll probably regenerate that while fighting it.

Now you have the choice to repeat the process with the other two, or you can pull them together. With some training a TKA can easily solo three Nitches at the same time, its just a matter of keeping them all knocked down, while slowly finishing them one by one. In any case, once you've killed the starting three the rest is very easy. Simply wait for the Nitches to spawn one by one and pull them as they come. You'll have one finished shortly before the next one spawns (as long as you dont attack the lair). Kill them all until the spawning stops, you then have the choice to bring down the lair for 6 more Nitches(spawning in threes), or just go and find another one (and there is plenty of them).

Hope this helps.

Temyen Freedark, Eclipse Server