The problem with force users is that Malak's saves are very high and he casts force immunity on top of that. I believe his saves are +38 Fort +28 Ref and +24 Will, so you will not only need to have A LOT invested into Wis and Cha, you will have to first cast Breach and then cast Plague on him and wait for a few rounds until you can use your spells reliably. Now, while you are doing this, you will most likely receive a poke or two in the face, and his crits can be quite lethal. Also I believe he is immune to Paralysis and Mind-Affecting, so there are technically only two spells that can disable him: Kill and Whirlwind. Unless you know all that, it's very easy to make a build that will have a very hard time against Malak.
I never had any trouble with him with any build. Take out the jedi with and appropriate force power and you only have to smack him down twice. You can do that with a lightsabre using consumables to make up for your lack of skill in that area. No CC necessary, personal force fields do just as well.
Malak was pretty easy from what I recall of him (I played KOTOR again like a year ago). Even if you didn't have the force points or melee ability for him it was possible to just kill him with traps (as long as you took out the containers). Especially since the pathfinding in the game left a lot to be desired
I thought it might be fun to start posting some screenshots of runs here. These are of my current party on Tatooine, with shots of my character screens, most of which will only make sense if you can read the icons.
I've finished Kashyyk and just staring Tatooine. I've just discovered how hilarious HK-47 is. I think I might start pumping repair skill just to see what's in his memory. I'm also really enjoying Jolee. I didn't use HK-47 or Jolee much in my first run years ago. I'm starting to see that one might want to replay this game to try to draw more party banters out, just like in BG. Does anyone know if HK-47 and T3 have good banters that are a twisted parody of Threepio's and Artoo's banters in the movies?
If you can't read those icons in the posted screenshots, I am playing a scout-guardian wearing heavy armor, with Master Flurry, Dominate Mind, Force Whirlwind, Heal, and Throw Lightsaber, with well-balanced skills. All my force powers are useable with armor. I'm enjoying this character very much. He follows Jolee's philosophy of staying just on this side of the Light while working for balance and avoidance of extremes either way, a form of neutrality with tendencies to good.
Hmm, I see from preview that the character screens I tried to post are too small for most people to read unless I do some cropping and expanding. I'll probably just stick to action screenshots if I decide to post any more of these. Party posings and battle shots would be the most interesting to look at, I guess.
@iKrivetko , oh well, I haven't found a good medium armor like that. I decided to take the proficiency because I just got Calo Nord's armor on Kaashyyk, and I thought it looked pretty good. My robe-wearing Jedi companions have defense around 22-24, while mine is 30 plus immune to critical hits and mind-affecting.
Please don't spoil me on where to find the medium "heavy" exoskeleton. I want to find it myself or miss it myself.
Even if there was a better choice to make on what feat to take at that level, I like that my character has the flexibility to use any grade of armor. I usually try to build my characters with flexibility rather than maxed out power, because I hate finding cool items that I can't use because of non-proficiency.
There's a set of medium armour with about as much max AC as Calo's and it has crit immunity as well. Calo's is quite good too though, it gives you more flexibility in choosing implants and headgear thanks to the two immunities.
Here are a couple of screenshots I took tonight trying to show how beautiful this game looks in HD. I think I probably failed. You just can't capture the magnificence of what this game looks like in HD in a still shot. The real breathtaking beauty only comes out when you can pan the camera around in these kinds of environments. These shots are from outside the Leviathan in space suits, and from on the bridge of the Leviathan.
BTW, for anyone who is a power gamer, I pretty much ROFL stomped Malak with my heavy armor Guardian build.
I had forgotten the full impact of the big reveal, and the conversations with all the NPC's after. I had thought that I would be very, very angry at what was done to me,
but I actually felt way more angry at what Malak had done than at what Bastillia and the Council had done. I am also still missing any info about *why* I turned to the Dark in the first place. But, given my choices in the game so far, my character's current emotional state is a burning desire to kill Malak. Sigh. Must remember Code. Already fell once. "There is no emotion, there is only peace...there is no passion, there is only serenity."
-The final encounter with Bastilla. I wound up killing her. I gave her *every* opportunity to come back to the Light, until the final dialogue screen with her, where the "right" answer was "I trust you so much I am going to lower my defenses and make myself helpless before you", or else, "I wuv you". No, goshdurned, fracking way! That would have just been stupid. (Huge, big fat Force Awakens spoiler follows:)
Han Solo in his end stupid, because he "wuv'ed" his son. Great Greek tragedy in a story. Not something I would ever do in a million years.
Since she wouldn't yield to a clearly vastly more powerful opponent who was trying to tell her all would be forgiven if she came back to the Light, I think she deserved what she got. I know that I would tell a torturer anything he wanted to hear if I was under torture like she had been, and I would try to fake a turn to the Dark to make the pain stop, but I'd steadfastly refuse to commit any act of cruelty, and would embrace death at the first opportunity. I don't know what I'd do in those KOTOR situations where it's "Either you get horrible agony of torture, or another person does." It's actually pretty awful to think about it if you take what the game is suggesting seriously.
But, lower my defenses against someone vacillating between Light and Dark sides? Again, no fracking way!
-The final boss fight was interesting enough. It was pretty obvious what to do after it was finally possible to start destroying Malak's Jedi corpses. The trouble was surviving the first two "killings" of Malak before the game opened up the corpses as targets. I could almost but not quite hack it on hard level. On normal level, it required concentration but was pretty easy. I used Master Flurry, energy shields, lots of healing packs, and Throw Light Saber to finish off the corpses after that was possible. I can see where this battle could have been easier with a robe-wearer using Knight Speed and Force Immunity. My armor-wearing guardian definitely had a handicap here.
-The difficulty in the game has the same unevenness that is a problem in most Bioware games. The only remotely challenging battles in the whole game for me were Malak and the two Tarrenteks from the final Sith test on Korriban. All other combat was laughably easy. Again, one expects that in most Bioware games. It was the same thing in Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age.
-I think this game has very limited replayability. There is nothing I would do significantly differently in either character build or NPC use. I got to see most of the NPC stories just through their forced use scenarios. I had zero interest in the romances. There is no reason to play it again until I forget most things about it. The last time I played was when the game was released, so it was fresh again for now. I'd say it'll be some years before I play it again. Maybe I'll play it again when Disney releases Episode VIII of the movies, so at least two years.
-Despite my criticisms, I still give this game at least an 8 out of 10. It plays like a Star Wars movie. So, while the combat is interesting but easy, and the replayability isn't very good (for me), I still give it a high score as a Star Wars game, based on its epic story and character development.
I'm planning to start KOTOR 2 tomorrow. I may finally give the MMO a chance after that. We'll see if my movie-inspired Star Wars mood lasts through my KOTOR 2 run.
Comments
Face to face in a lightsaber duel, not so easy!
then kill him.
I've finished Kashyyk and just staring Tatooine. I've just discovered how hilarious HK-47 is. I think I might start pumping repair skill just to see what's in his memory. I'm also really enjoying Jolee. I didn't use HK-47 or Jolee much in my first run years ago. I'm starting to see that one might want to replay this game to try to draw more party banters out, just like in BG. Does anyone know if HK-47 and T3 have good banters that are a twisted parody of Threepio's and Artoo's banters in the movies?
If you can't read those icons in the posted screenshots, I am playing a scout-guardian wearing heavy armor, with Master Flurry, Dominate Mind, Force Whirlwind, Heal, and Throw Lightsaber, with well-balanced skills. All my force powers are useable with armor. I'm enjoying this character very much. He follows Jolee's philosophy of staying just on this side of the Light while working for balance and avoidance of extremes either way, a form of neutrality with tendencies to good.
Hmm, I see from preview that the character screens I tried to post are too small for most people to read unless I do some cropping and expanding. I'll probably just stick to action screenshots if I decide to post any more of these. Party posings and battle shots would be the most interesting to look at, I guess.
Please don't spoil me on where to find the medium "heavy" exoskeleton. I want to find it myself or miss it myself.
Even if there was a better choice to make on what feat to take at that level, I like that my character has the flexibility to use any grade of armor. I usually try to build my characters with flexibility rather than maxed out power, because I hate finding cool items that I can't use because of non-proficiency.
There's a set of medium armour with about as much max AC as Calo's and it has crit immunity as well.
Calo's is quite good too though, it gives you more flexibility in choosing implants and headgear thanks to the two immunities.
BTW, for anyone who is a power gamer, I pretty much ROFL stomped Malak with my heavy armor Guardian build.
I had forgotten the full impact of the big reveal, and the conversations with all the NPC's after. I had thought that I would be very, very angry at what was done to me,
The screenshots:
Here are some final thoughts on KOTOR 1:
-The final encounter with Bastilla. I wound up killing her. I gave her *every* opportunity to come back to the Light, until the final dialogue screen with her, where the "right" answer was "I trust you so much I am going to lower my defenses and make myself helpless before you", or else, "I wuv you". No, goshdurned, fracking way! That would have just been stupid. (Huge, big fat Force Awakens spoiler follows:)
Since she wouldn't yield to a clearly vastly more powerful opponent who was trying to tell her all would be forgiven if she came back to the Light, I think she deserved what she got. I know that I would tell a torturer anything he wanted to hear if I was under torture like she had been, and I would try to fake a turn to the Dark to make the pain stop, but I'd steadfastly refuse to commit any act of cruelty, and would embrace death at the first opportunity. I don't know what I'd do in those KOTOR situations where it's "Either you get horrible agony of torture, or another person does." It's actually pretty awful to think about it if you take what the game is suggesting seriously.
But, lower my defenses against someone vacillating between Light and Dark sides? Again, no fracking way!
-The final boss fight was interesting enough. It was pretty obvious what to do after it was finally possible to start destroying Malak's Jedi corpses. The trouble was surviving the first two "killings" of Malak before the game opened up the corpses as targets. I could almost but not quite hack it on hard level. On normal level, it required concentration but was pretty easy. I used Master Flurry, energy shields, lots of healing packs, and Throw Light Saber to finish off the corpses after that was possible. I can see where this battle could have been easier with a robe-wearer using Knight Speed and Force Immunity. My armor-wearing guardian definitely had a handicap here.
-The difficulty in the game has the same unevenness that is a problem in most Bioware games. The only remotely challenging battles in the whole game for me were Malak and the two Tarrenteks from the final Sith test on Korriban. All other combat was laughably easy. Again, one expects that in most Bioware games. It was the same thing in Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age.
-I think this game has very limited replayability. There is nothing I would do significantly differently in either character build or NPC use. I got to see most of the NPC stories just through their forced use scenarios. I had zero interest in the romances. There is no reason to play it again until I forget most things about it. The last time I played was when the game was released, so it was fresh again for now. I'd say it'll be some years before I play it again. Maybe I'll play it again when Disney releases Episode VIII of the movies, so at least two years.
-Despite my criticisms, I still give this game at least an 8 out of 10. It plays like a Star Wars movie. So, while the combat is interesting but easy, and the replayability isn't very good (for me), I still give it a high score as a Star Wars game, based on its epic story and character development.
I'm planning to start KOTOR 2 tomorrow. I may finally give the MMO a chance after that. We'll see if my movie-inspired Star Wars mood lasts through my KOTOR 2 run.