Teras Kasi Archive

Okay, so for a while I decided to go to the dark side and check out some of the ranged professions. I am one of the fortunate few who have a permanant /respec period due to some strange bug that you have to report before you are taken off /respec. Since I am not a big badge collector, I don't really care if I get credit or not as I can switch back and forth among dual elite professions every 12 hours to suit my whim of the moment.

All that said, to the point: My messing around over the last month and a half or so has resulted in one fundamental conclusion... TKM is the building block of successful and enjoyable PvE play for SWG now. What I am not saying is that it is a requirement, merely that when building a character, if you start with TKM you will be successful. The road to success might be slightly slower, but it will be enjoyable, and it will not fail you. Also, I am not saying that TKM is the best single class, the most fun single class, or the (insert adjective) class, just that it is the best place to start.

Why do I say this?

1) Being an effective TKM is easy to learn. Even the most novice player can learn to play their TKM effectively. Will they be uber? Probably not, but they can be successful and effective regardless of what other skills they pair with TKM.

2) Weapons and damage. TKM we all know, no longer does great damage unarmed. However, the damage TKM's do is reasonable considering the cost associated with thier weapons (zero/zilch/nada). When combined later with a damage profession, even unarmed TKMs can maintain good enough dps to dismantle most mobs that don't regen health at insane rates.

3) Armor and defense. We all know that TKM have 6k all round armor, but I don't think some of you realize how great this is. Regular armor is decaying now days at such a rate that if I take my BH/MCM template out to kill elite quest mobs, that within 1 day of fighting, that armor will be below 50% condition. If sliced properly for decay resistance, my BH's head, chest and leg armor literally lasts 3 days. That is three days with repair and sliced for decay resistance. So what do I have to do with him? I have to buy cheap arse armor with 4-5k resists and have a nice smuggler slice it all with the non-component slices. So now my BH is taking more damage than my TKM and has to pay money for that privilage. Note that a BH/MCM with 7k+ Battle armor and improved duelist stance still takes more damage from mobs than a TKM with Imp CoB running. More healing, more mind use, more armor decay, etc.

4) Roleplay. TKM's are a great class to roleplay. Probably the top 4 being Jedi, BH, Smuggler and TKM. Martial arts classes always lead easily into roleplay for those that are interested.

Note that at this point in time I have tried nearly every combination of profession available except entertainers, jedi,and artisan classes. I have had a lot of fun with several classes, particularly MBH/MCM and anything with commando in it . However, I always come back to TKM because of the 4 things I discussed above.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you all here the fact that I truely enjoy TKM and feel it is the class to play if you don't want to be annoyed throughout your career in SWG.

Great post. I think TKM is also a GREAT PvP building-block as well. I do alot of PvP, and armor condition can wear out veryfast. I can't stress enough how great it is to not need armor. It saves lots of time and money, youhave a wider range ofbio cloths to wear and to attach skill tapes to, and cloths look WAY cooler then armor when your in combat.

Also, Knuckles of the Katarn are major bada$$.

I think TKM will stay in my template permanently from now on, until Jedi of course.

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Dejah Thoris
Dancer, Musician, Image Designer
Kor Spera, Corellia, Naritus

I don't know if he thinks TKM is good for roleplaying for this reason... but I think alot of it has to do with you not having to wear armor. You can wear whatever you want, and make your character look totally unique in combat.

Somewhere along the lines of what Reasoner was talking about and my feeling that only a few professions in SWG are *really* roleplayable. TKM has much more roleplayable reference within the Star Wars genre than say a pistoleer. You can say that maybe some of the characters in Star Wars were pistoleers, but that is not their defining role. They were Jedi, or Bounty Hunters or Smugglers, etc. I think that TKM has the ability to be roleplayed also along the same lines as those other professions. Add to that your ability to maintain a distinctive look and style while still being effective (through use of clothing rather than armor), and I think it is an excellent roleplay class. Heck, just our ability to meditate rather than lounge on our butts makes TKM unique from a roleplay perspective.