KotFE & KotET Veteran & Master Mode Chapters Tips & Resources

I never thought I'd use that many ampersands in a post title...

While I was ultimately quite late to the party in terms of completing all the chapters on master mode, I noticed that the amount of resources on the subject of how to beat them still seems to be somewhat limited (even if things are a bit better now than they were two years ago), so I thought I might as well compile everything I learned along the way into a single post in order to help others who are still looking for help with getting these done.

First, some general notes:

Achievement vs. achievement: If you only want to complete the veteran/master mode chapters for the achievement badge, you can simply bring a friend to help you. They won't get credit for story progress or chapter completion (only the phase owner does), however they are able to trivialise the fights by helping out and you'll still get the achievement. For me it was more about the sense of achievement you get from overcoming a difficult challenge though, which is what the rest of this post focuses on.

Class matters: Your class will make a big difference to how easy or hard you're going to find certain chapters. Abilities that are useful are (in order of impact, based on my own impressions): strong damage reduction cooldowns, having a long-duration crowd control, having a short interrupt cooldown, having the ability to self-heal, stealth. The best class to complete these challenges on would therefore be Commando/Mercenary, while the weakest one is probably Vanguard/Powertech, with everything else being somewhere in-between. If you have a stable of alts to choose from that are all eligible for chapters, this is something you might want to keep in mind before choosing which character to use. Personally I completed veteran KotFE with a Sorcerer, veteran KotET with a Guardian, master KotFE with a Sage and master KotET with a Scoundrel.

Level: You don't have to be max-level to do chapters on a higher difficulty, and there's some theorising that due to the way the scaling works, they are in fact a bit easier if you do them below max level. I did some experimenting with this myself but didn't find any conclusive evidence either way. The only thing that felt reasonably clear was that going in as a fresh level 70 with not the greatest gear makes things much more difficult.

Gear: Going in with the best gear you can get helps a lot. Master mode chapters were originally tuned around the endgame gear available at the time of their release (item level 242), which is not to say that they are completely impossible with less if you're good at the game and chose to go in on a class with good cooldowns. However every little helps, and the fact that at the time of writing this anyone can get up to gear level 258 means that you can give yourself an extra edge that way. Don't forget to also add augments to all your gear slots.

Companions: Similar to gear, the intended companion influence rank for master mode chapters is 50. Again, most fights are actually doable with less, but if you find that you're struggling to survive or do enough dps, boosting your companion's influence level with some gifts is an obvious avenue for improvement.

Spec/role: Don't be afraid to experiment with different specialisations, utilities and roles. Some fights might benefit from increased AoE damage reduction while others really reward every bit of extra mobility. In terms of roles, some bosses that hit extremely hard actually have relatively little health, so the way to go in such cases might well be to have both you and your companion on dps to quickly nuke your opponent down before they have a chance to hurt you too much. If you're wiping anyway, you have little to lose from trying a couple of different approaches.

Other tools: Don't forget that you can use stims, medpacks and legacy abilities, such as your heroic moment and Unity. Basically, you'll find that on the tougher fights, players usually succeed by making sure that they use absolutely every ability in their toolbox to their advantage.

Specific chapter information:

Note that the following are not explicit guides, but blog posts documenting my experiences with various chapters. I did however make a point of describing any and all difficulties that I ran into as well as explaining how I eventually overcame them, while often including video footage of particularly tough encounters as well. I also linked to any outside resources, such as other people's videos, that I found helpful at the time. Sometimes others also added extra information in the comment section. Feel free to add your own if you think it could help someone else!

Knights of the Fallen Empire

Veteran mode impressions
Chapters 1, 2 & 3 master mode
Chapters 4, 5 & 6 master mode
Chapters 7, 8 & 9 master mode
Chapters 10 & 11 master mode
Chapters 12, 13 & 14 master mode
Chapter 15 master mode
Chapter 16 master mode

Knights of the Eternal Throne

Veteran mode first impressions
Veteran mode second impressions
Chapter 1 master mode
Chapter 2 master mode
Chapters 3, 4 & 5 master mode
Chapter 6 master mode
Chapter 7 master mode
Chapter 8 master mode
Chapter 9 master mode