JC

Warden isn't really ranged -- it's a healing soul. With that said, though, its 0-point Waterjet is a spammable instant-cast spell that does amazing damage for what it is. In a rift, I'd suggest swapping your 0-point soul to warden, then just standing back and spamming waterjet at everything you can. That gives you a ton of contribution.

At level 17 you "should" have at least 2 builds now -- 1 for your leveling, which generally involves mostly dps souls -- in the case of a cleric some sort of "icar" (Justicar as 2nd soul with 11 points in the soul for the passive heals to self and group). Main soul is usually druid or shaman for the melee minded, or inquisitor for the caster minded. the 2nd build you would then make either pure dps or pure healer for use when running dungeons. TBh, I'd suggest healed and go with Purifier as much as you can for the 1st few dungeons. Purifier is a single-target healer and in the 1st few dungeons if someone other than the tank is taking damage then something's gone very wrong. In later dungeons you'd want to change this around, though, as you'll start to need more AE heals later on.

Sticking with a single role for the sake of this article really gimps you in your playing, IMO. go buy all 8 souls and play with some combos yourself and make that experimentation part of your experience. Locking yourself artificially to a single role or type of play is NOT what the game's about. I often change roles 2-3 times in the course of a single dungeon, going from pure caster dps, to melee dps/support heals, to full healer and back. And I've got a tanking role I can swap to in a pinch too, though tbh I should just dump that for a 2nd healing role. I've got a warrior if I need to tank ;-)

The Lake Retreat on Naboo in SWG. Beautiful!

@Liore -- I've been in several groups with 3 clerics and 2 rogues. Cleric tank (usually me), cleric healer(occasionally me), cleric dps (not me yet, sadly), rogue support, and rogue dps. Always worked well. Last night I was in a group with a warrior tank, 3 dps mages, and me as the 4th mage being the healer. I've healed rogue tanks on my cleric and my mage, got to "learn on the fly" how to use a warden when in Runic Descent, since I'd made a new heal spec but hadn't played it before. We never wiped and only the actual trap thingies ever killed anyone -- no combat losses.

Personally, I love the flexibility, but that RD group did have the guy just put it together and then say "Ok, what've we got? Who wants to heal?" It still worked out, though.

Food and drink last up to 5 hours and 22 minutes (or even longer with racial bonuses) and can also have other effects (stat bonuses, dps boosts, defensive buffs, etc). They're not just 30 minute auto-renewing buffs.

AA's are gained by looting certain treasure items, completing quests, and killing certain named monsters, as well as via exploration and the AAXP slider.

I realize you're just trying to give a taste to a newbie, but is it really that overwhelming to give complete information?

I'm thinking Imp Spy as a 1st class. After that, I'm liking the look of the Sith Warrior, but I'll be looking at skill trees/builds and all that before really making a choice.

I've got 3 characters on Khyber that are all still in the village. L1 Cleric, L1 Paladin, and an L2 Sorcerer. I tend to play on Thelanis, though, so I don't even remember their names. And I get home from work around 7 pm Mountain Time, then have to eat dinner, spend time with the wife, etc, so I won't be able to try to meet up with y'all. :( I'd love to, but... I'll be on later.

I run a "salva-cane" myself. The cargo hold of 2040 m^3 plus 2 Secure Cans inside to make it effectively 2400 M^3 is very nice. Plus with MWD I can go 740 m/s between wreck fields, assuming there's a need. Rarely am I not pulling something in. It's very fast and effective.

Sadly? My wife and I own a house there. Nice resort town. Excellent hot springs for soaking in too.

As to NDA's: You sign it, you keep to it. Simple.

I do agree, though, that companies are doing their betas too late in the cycle and as such the beta covered by these NDA's is often not much more than an "early look." Frankly, I almost think that they're hoping that people will play the beta, like it, and spread some word of mouth around (though not on the internet since that would break the NDA. . .).

Funny thing, though... I was in the Vanguard beta, and the devs there really did listen to our feedback as much as they could, and just before release they did a major class/combat in order to try to fix a lot of what we were constantly stating as broken combat mechanics. It was really unfortunate they had to rush the game out the door. Given a few more months of development time, I think it might have had a better launch.

I read somewhere on the main boards a couple of months ago that they'd like to make the roid belts system spanning. The pirates and can-flippers immediately started whining, since it would be much harder to find a target without actually scanning them down 1st, and who wants to use a high slot on a probe launcher when you're a pirate, right?

Loved your story on the main boards of the "living in wormhole space" btw. any chance of some sort of writeup on it here as an article instead of a forum post?

In the new expansion the laser appearance will be determined by the turret and no longer by the ammo.

But they do look a TON better. Pulse lasers actually pulse, etc etc. And the autocannon effects. . . /drool