GS5 Review: Star Forge

The surprise launch of the Shae Vizla server has (understandably) been hogging a lot of my attention, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been up to anything else. As it happens, the devs hardly could have timed things any better for me personally, as last week was also the week I hit season level 100 on Star Forge, Leviathan, Tulak Hord and Satele Shan (in that order) - meaning I'm now freed up to focus on wrapping up the last couple of achievements on Darth Malgus and... sure, why not start from scratch on a brand-new server as well?!

But first, let's review what I achieved on the other servers during Season 5, starting with Star Forge. At the end of last season, I got all my characters invited to fellow blogger Intisar's little guild. I had no great expectations surrounding this; I just wanted them to be housed somewhere where I could trust I wouldn't be kicked for inactivity when I stopped playing between seasons. And I knew that due to time zone differences, my actual interactions with other guildies were always going to be limited.

That said, things turned out better than I expected in that regard. First off, I'd completely forgotten what a difference it makes to actually earn guild Conquest rewards every week, so that was pleasant from a practical point of view, but I also got to see more of my new guildies than I'd initially anticipated. I joined their Discord and said hi, followed the daily conversations there, and one time when I stayed up until silly o'clock in my time zone on a weekend, I even got to join them for one and a half operations (finishing off Dread Master Styrak on vet mode, followed by a full Eternity Vault on the same difficulty setting). When Intisar asked me whether I was sufficiently geared to raid I immediately replied in the affirmative, but I've got to admit the difference in output at gear level 330 compared to my main's 339 was very noticeable. I actually had to work for it!

There was also another time when I was invited along to a casual run hosted by Swtorista, where I got to kill Xenoanalyst on 16-man, the two Gree open world bosses, and the Coruscant world boss. It's not much in the grand scheme of things, but compared to never really having any meaningful interactions on the secondary servers, it felt like a massive improvement that made me feel more grounded and happy to be playing there.

In terms of progression, my Sorc/Shadow Shintoo was once again the character that got the most done, as I played through the Onslaught base story on her to get access to the Onderon dailies and tick Objective Meridian off my weekly objectives list one time. I also completed the Eternal Championship on her, something that hadn't even really registered with me as something that I had access to on a boosted character. It wasn't until Intisar asked in guild chat whether I and another guild member needed help with the Championship for seasons that it hit me that I could indeed just go and recruit Yuun and Bowdaar to unlock access to that feature. So I did that, and promptly got the Cybernetic Rancor mount out of it.

My Commando main on this server didn't get to do much this season other than come along to ops, though she finally finished Voss (except for the bonus series), which means she's at least approaching the end of her class story by now. Maybe I'll get there by the end of Season 7...

I don't think I did a significant amount of PvP this season, which is also why my trooper's gear rating didn't really increase, as she's mostly in Thyrsian gear and I didn't earn enough commendations to upgrade it any further (plus I couldn't be bothered to try and swap it out for Noble Decurion either).

Overall I gained five legacy levels, which brings me up to legacy level 45 on Star Forge. Not long now until I hit that cap as well! Would be funny if I got there before finishing even a single class story...