Chronicles of the Old Republic II

I’ve been focusing on my Sith Juggernaut, Khusrau. She is a pretty badass tank, named in honor of the legendary emperor of the Persian Empire, the ‘Immortal Soul’ who guided Persia to its golden age. I’m finally wearing the Thana Vesh gear, something I’ve been lusting after since I first saw the incredible Thana Vesh. If you don’t know, Thana Vesh is one of the better known NPC’s in the game. Angry, powerful in the Force, always good for a snarky one-liner, Thana is the apprentice of the Commander of the Imperial forces of Taris.

Khusrau is a character I made sometime ago to help me get into endgame raiding. I have always shied away from anything that can’t be done solo. I play at all different hours of the day depending on my job, plus I play on a west coast server; it’s always been more expedient for me to solo to get the most bang for my buck.

Khusrau is pushing through the mid-30’s and I’m playing through the two part Revan dungeon quest. A sad fall for a once great legend, Revan is not the hero you remember from KOTOR. Various classes give insight on what happened but the last companion for the Jedi Knight, the former Emperor’s Wrath tells most of the story. Revan came with his closest general and friend seeking out the darkness he had felt, he learned too late that he had wasted the Star Forge’s potential on ships, it’s a sad tale but still is makes for good copy.

One of the complaints I often heard throughout the bad press on The Old Republic, was the dearth of story in dungeons after the initial one for both the Republic and Empire; it’s refreshing and unexpected then to play through such good story. The minimalist design also helps keep down the time spent on each dungeon run, it’s quite nice to finish a dungeon run in under 30 minutes, since I used to dread having to sit through a dungeon run screaming ‘spacebar’ in my head.

There is something soothing about playing a tank; a good tank is a general of the battlefield, calmly controlling the whole field of battle. A good tank leads from the front and soaks up the damage, while protecting the rest of the group as much as possible. On the other hand I’ve been playing a lot of PVP as well to switch up with the Flashpoint content.

PVP in The Old Republic as a tank really comes down to distraction. As a tank I have matches where I’m doing a high level of damage, but by-in-large my purpose is to stay alive as long as possible and keeping as many of the other team as I can distracted in trying to kill me. Whether it’s objectives my team is after or holding the fort; I help them best by being as difficult to kill as possible.

 
All in all, my last month or so of play has reaffirmed in my mind the quality of gameplay in The Old Republic, it’s a shame the game didn’t do better out of the gate. I think of the successes and failures of TOR like the scenery in the game, few people bothered to look up and missed out on all the fun. Look up!