“Republic or Empire?” I stared at my friend with a look that only a rage face could express.

“What shirt am I wearing?”

“Oh…Republic…” We stood in silence for a while. “What class?”

Last week as many of you know the press NDA was lifted for levels 1-16 for The Old Republic testers. So this week we’ll be going over the Jedi Consular, and it’s advanced class the Jedi Sage. We’ll try and cover all of the classes before release, but there is a lot to do so let’s dive right in shall we?

The Jedi Consular’s story is rumored to be the best one in the game . The story starts you off by doing various padawon duties, until your master falls ill and you find yourself thrown into the status of Jedi and stumble upon something much greater than you had anticipated. I won’t give any spoilers, but it was rather hard to keep my focus on leveling with such an intreging story set down before me.

I decided to play the light side of the Jedi Consular story line which lead to me letting various people live, and losing out on a lot of credits. Though I felt this was the best way to play a consular, someone who searches for peace instead of looking for violence. As I decided to go down this route I felt like my decisions should be made similar to Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope.

The voice acting for all the characters in the Consular’s story line is phenomenal. I was rather pleased by my consular’s voice. It had a soft kindness that seemed to go with the jolly giant I had created.

Combat:

The combat with the consular is right up my alley. The early levels before picking your specialization has you combining force powers and attacks with your lightsaber to deal damage. Moves range from throwing giant rocks, to lifting people off the ground, and launching opponents away from you with force blasts. The Jedi Shadow continues down this path with combining force powers and attacks with your lightsaber, though you will eventually be using your lightsaber over your force powers.

The Consular only gets healing and supportive abilities after advancing into the Jedi Sage. The sage has an interesting healing style with a few twists and turns that most MMO veterans will enjoy. To deal damage as a sage you resort to various force powers, making them some of the deadliest ranged attackers in the game.

Both Sages and Shadows use force points as their resource. Force points slowly regen as combat goes on. Both classes can regain it faster by using various abilities. When using your force you have to be careful to not use it all at the beginning of a fight, and learn to manage it well since it takes a while to regenerate while in combat.

Companions:

Since I can only explain the first 1-16 levels of consular only one companion will be talked about, Qyzen Fess a Trandoshan hunter. You’ll get him on your first planet. He’s an interesting character. He is a devout follower of Trandoshan religion, and is following you to find more kills. This is to say he doesn’t like murdering everything and everyone, but he does enjoy fighting. He’s a rather big teddy bear…lizard…thing. He and I have had some very interesting conversations, mostly about why I chose to let bad guys who blew up an orphanage go. (this didn’t happen)

In combat Qyzen is supposed to be a tank, which he does pretty well. His limited skill lists made him good for various harder quests, but when flash points came around he was sitting back on the ship.

Overall:

Over all I enjoyed the Jedi consular, and will probably be playing that as my main when The Old Republic launches in December. There were a few issues that I did have with the class, mostly dealing with force powers and how un-uniformed the consular is compared to other classes, but there still is about two months until The Old republic launches and with a new build on the way maybe my few issues will be addressed.

Next week we’ll swap over to the Imperial Agent, and give my Republic propaganda a rest for a while. Until then may the force be with you.

Intergalactic Intel, information, opinions and guides from an experienced, and seasoned Gamer. Updated Saturdays.