Life At 50: A Player's Perspective

Recently an informative post went up on our guild forums, about life at 50. This was written before Illum was ruined in patch 1.1, mind. From a Jedi Consular (so Republic side):

So you're all trying to get your characters to level 50 - can't decide which class to do, finding the adventure long. Well, to spur you along, I thought I'd give you a taster of what awaits you.

220,000 credits per day - no joke from dailies
Flashpoints that have some truly fascinating story lines. Imagine, flying in a prototype stealth fighter, killing Sith Lords...

Illum. A level 50 planet. Big Snowball. On here there is 2/3 of the playable area as a PVP warzone. The other part is dailies. You need to do the pre-chain that follows on from your class quest that you pick up from a well-rounded Twil'ek on The Fleet.

I take five dailies here - each giving just over 10k credits each.  I do an additional 2 person heroic daily giving just over 16k credits with epic Mod gear enhancements to choose from for your upgradeable gear.

Belsavis. Big Snowball with green bits - designated a prison planet. This is a lower level planet and as such the dailies here are available from level 47, but I can't say that the credits reward is going to be what I say here as they will probably reduce them in favor of giving you some XP for them.

To get access to these dailies, its done from a "Bonus" section. Go to The Fleet. There is a bulletin board box thingy that will give you a quest "Quarantine Failure." This takes you to Agent Moritt at Belsavis Spaceport near the shuttle that takes you to the surface. This then takes you to the Belsavis Bonus Series. Complete this pre-chain to gain access to the dailies. This pre-chain actually encorporates your first day's worth of dailies.

Meltwater Outpost. 3 dailies giving 7,175 credits each. One 2 person heroic daily giving epic Mod augments for your gear and 9,330 credits. One four player heroic daily giving about 10k credits. This one gives upgradeable weapons for your companions. There is an optional "lucky dip" box for when you've got all the items from the heroics on Illum and Belsavis.

Frozen Transport Center & Oasis Republic Post. 4 dailies, one as you enter from the teleporter and the other three from the blue holo transmitters in the Oasis Center. The Four Person heroic daily you picked up at the previous outpost is done in this section too. Also at the entrance to one of the tunnels you pick up a fifth daily to seal in a beast. If you fail to seal the beast in which is by no means hard - run - he can't be solo'd. There is also a second four player heroic quest picked up at the entrance to a tunnel in this area. This gives you the armoring enhancement for your gear. So in summary, these heroic dailies from both areas give you full epic mods for your gear and moddable weapons for your companions.

You also get a lot of Daily Commendation awards - 3 from four player heroic missions, 2 from 2 player heroic missions and 1 from single player missions. These can be traded in for epic gear.

Most of this area is done off story areas so you'll be going up against some rather poor level 50 gold elites. In both areas make sure you have your healer companion available (not out on a solo mission) and plenty of level 44 Exceptional Medpacs. Cheap things, and with the amount of credits you'll be making practically free.

In both areas do the bonuses that come up too - they give XP either for your levelling or for your Legacy. They haven't said what legacy rewards we are going to get yet, but they should be good.

Soloing heroic missions. Yes I do solo them, totally. I have stealth, the ability to stun mobs that haven't got the yellow buff that says they are immune to stuns, and can force cloak out of situations where I have to come out and let them hit me whilst attacking some console or disabling a console. All consoles you find on quests can be killed or disabled in combat and I would do this in combat. Frequently I've been clearing trash and someone has come up and killed the bonus objective whilst I was clearing until I learnt. I have died soloing heroic missions due to me not timing when I should force cloak or leaving the companion to attack which broke the stealth. If this happens I just run out of the story area and the aggro resets as they are only small. Companions in Heroics should be left on passive. Be aware though you're going to have to take boss aggro for a few seconds so if you're a healer with hots, make sure they are on. However, not all of you have stealth so no ability to solo these. Eventually my healer is going to be 50 too. He can't solo them. Killing is more fun anyway and a lot faster than my stealth runs. Taking any of you through is easy, and will make the dailies for those who have done the ground work to gain access turn from being a couple of hours to half the time.  However I wouldn't recommend using a companion in leveling gear as a player replacement until they have a bit of Flashpoint gear on them at least.  I tried doing a four player quest with a tank a few days ago on my healer and the healing was quite intense due to the low gear of my companion tank pet who was taking the aggro and his companion was dead mostly. We did our quest Jawa's Concern though.

Also if you've only half hour to log on and do something - prioritize the Illium soloable dailies. They give more than the Belsavis one so its a good bit of cash to put towards your character.

You're probably thinking now... I'm no mathematician but how can those few quests equate to 320k of credits? Well, what about all the cash you pick up off mobs, and the trash and maybe even unwanted greens you vendor? Keep your bags empty and when you're doing a minute's traveling time between quests send the companion off to vendor the grey's.

I used mine to do those Crew Skills that I didn't do whilst leveling my first. With this level of cash I upgraded his from nothing to max in a matter of hours play time. I did it whilst I was AFK and put the speakers on loud as the companions say things when they have finished their missions. This really is an AFK task as the end missions can take one hour each to complete. Doing it this way I had all the speeders at the various speeds to level with and this made me level up a lot faster.  In fact I am now spending my credits on the crew skills of my second character so he can level and do the skills whilst he levels as my level 50 is feeding him credits to do it this way with.

Speeder. Yes your level 50 speeder awaits! You may think this costly, or is it now you've all these dailies? Why do I need another speeder when this other one is only a bit slower? Its not about speed increase for me really. The max level speeder has a very low dismount rate if you hit mobs which means you're not constantly getting knocked off and having to waste time killing unwanted mobs. Great time saver. I also go between outposts in Illum on mine so again, no spending on taxis. I used a total of two taxi rides all on Belsavis and died only about three times, mainly due to my own stupidity doing the heroics during the whole exercise.

Flashpoints. Very intense compared to the lower level ones. Bosses have now got tactics that have to be done, and the storylines are so much better. Just to wet your appetite - the first one on Illum you are a team that has gone to capture a proto-type stealth fighter from the Imperial's. The second mission you infiltrate a Sith ship with the new Proto-type Stealth fighter. You see it leave your space dock and stealth and yes  its amazing. You finish off by killing the Lord Sith from the pre-chain.

The gear from Flashpoints is mostly moddable items, and what a player doesn't need your companions can use. Companions that are geared as well as you can be used in place of a player for when you're short. So, like me I'm a tank so my first I'm working on is the healer as that is a useful companion then I will work on gear for my ranged DPS companion. Healers could work on their tank companion.... Remember though, with companions the more affection they have for you the better they fight for you, so consider getting gifts for them if you're going to use it in raids. Also the more presence you have the better they work for you as well. So in the end you can have a whole team ready and waiting to fill up a group's slot.

So now you're 50... Life has only just begun. My alts get very little attention now.

So there is grind!