SWTOR The Esseles Walkthrough and Guide
In this SWTOR The Esseles Walkthrough and Guide, you will discover a complete walkthrough for the The Esseles flashpoint as well as a guide for every boss.
We will start with an overview of the dungeon and recommended group compositions, progress into bosses and then finally side-quests and a discussion on light side and dark side points.
SWTOR The Esseles – Flashpoint Overview
The Esseles is the first Republic flashpoint and is available to players as soon as you leave your starting planets. On your way to Coruscant for the first time, you will be offered a quest to take The Esseles ship to Coruscant instead. Of course, when you board the ship for Coruscant, you end up in the flashpoint.
You may enter the instance at the Coruscant Departures section of the Republic Fleet. This the area you wind up in when you are tasked with taking the shuttle to Coruscant. The entrance to The Esseles is marked on the map, and a nearby quest giver will give you the quest to board it.
You can repeat this flashpoint as many times as you like, and you can always form a group elsewhere (i.e. on Coruscant) and then fly back to the Interfleet Transport (this is what it is called if you fly from Coruscant) to complete the Flashpoint.
Another thing to note is that in many other MMORPGs, the standard rule is to have the first instance in the game to be fairly short. This is not the case with The Esseles. Between the interactive quests, getting to and fighting five bosses, and the occasional AFK, this instance took our group probably around 1.5 hours to complete. While we did only have three players and it wasn’t exactly a speed run, be sure you have enough time to complete the actual instance before starting!
The Esseles – Group Composition and Level Range
The easiest place to get a group for this instance is the Republic Fleet itself, where the zoneline is for the flashpoint, as you do not need a balanced group (or even a full group) to complete the flashpoint.
I recommend going to this instance between levels 10 and 12 (no level 12s necessary). The level ranges are not really a measure of difficulty but rather due to the fact that if you go at level 13 or higher than you will not earn that much XP for the actual run.
You can complete the instance with 2 players, though it will be tough. I did it in a pick-up group of 3 players – two of us level 10, one of us level 11, and had no problems. No one died during the run and we were an uncoordinated pick-up group.
I will say that you will definitely want 1 healing class for the run itself. After that nothing is really required. Do not worry about finding a tank as you do not really need one and tanking classes really do not have any good abilities at this level anyway.
If you do go with two players, make sure you are both good. Two skilled players and their companions can easily roll through the instance, but if you go with two players and one is constantly AFK or not paying attention, then you might find yourselves in trouble.
Star Wars The Old Republic The Esseles Boss Guide
There are five bosses in the instance. Our 3-person group found that Ironfist was easily the most challenging boss, and the rest were pushovers.
Note: You can loot Coruscant Commendations from bosses in this instance, which may be used to purchase level-appropriate rare equipment in the Senate Commercial District on Coruscant. These do not get rolled for as all players get them. Be sure to loot each boss to claim yours!
Here is a basic description of each boss and their abilities:
- Lieutenant Isric – The first boss in the zone, he mostly just stands there and attacks. Occasionally he will use a knock-down ability, but it only lasts a second or two and he does not change targets during this time. Additionally, 3 normal-strength adds spawn every 30 seconds or so out of the back room and attack. If you have a Jedi Knight to tank Isric right by the door entrance, you can use Force Sweep to grab them all at once, and then have your ranged damage-dealers kill them at their leisure. If you do not have a Jedi Knight, just have any class take out the adds as soon as they spawn. This boss did not drop a blue (rare) piece of equipment, but did drop multiple Coruscant Commendations.
- Ironfist – Ironfist was definitely the toughest boss for us. He regularly knocks players back and jumps to a new target. This can be a problem if he targets the healer, especially if there is already an add on the healer. The solution to this is let your melee class (if you have one) sit on Ironfist and select 1 ranged player to take out the Troopers as they spawn. Only when all adds are dead should this person focus on Ironfist. If you do that, the boss is not so bad – the fight does last awhile though as he has pretty high HP. This boss and the rest of the bosses dropped rare items for our group.
- ISS-7 Guardian Battledroid – He looks really intimidating, but is a huge pushover. He seems to have less HP than other bosses (only 8-10k if I recall correctly) with no crazy abilities and went down for us very easily.
- ISS-994 Power Droid – This is an optional side-boss which is spawned by the completing the three bonus objectives presented to you as you work through the dungeon (see the next section for details). It only has around 8k HP as well and is very easy like the ISS-7 Guardian Battledroid. He seems to do a bit of heavy damage (perhaps you are supposed to not hit him when he has the electricity around him) but his HP total is so low it is not even worth backing off.
- Vokk – Vokk is a Sith Warrior and is the final boss of The Esseles. He is also quite easy. Have 1 player responsible for taking out all the adds as soon as they can. The rest should focus on the boss. If you are tanking him in melee range, he will occasionally knock you back and throw his Lightsabers at you. Jedi Knights tanking him can simply take about 3 steps back and use Force Leap for some free combo points and this move is a non-issue. Aside from that ability and the adds, this is a basic fight.
The Esseles Side Quest & Light Side / Dark Side Points
As mentioned above, there is one major side-quest in this instance which leads to a bonus boss and there is also two opportunities to earn light side or dark side points. There is also two Lore Objects which can be added to your Codex.
Side Quest & Boss
The side-quest is unlocked by completing the bonus objectives after you beat Ironfist and board the Imperial ship. Once inside, you will get a bonus quest to defeat 30 Imperial forces. Do this and it will update to defeating 40 more imperial forces. This is easily done on the way from boarding the Imperial Ship to getting to the third boss – you really do not need to go out of your way for this.
Once you defeat the 40 imperial forces, your next task will be to disrupt the power flow. Right before the third boss, you will notice there are two terminals marked on the map. You need to clear out the enemies by each terminal, then position one party member at each one. Count down “3 2 1″ in chat, and activate both at the same time.
If they are activated within about 5 seconds of each other, the power will shut down and the bonus boss, the ISS-994 Power Droid, will spawn just beyond the third boss (he will be marked on the map). Even though the loot items in this instance are nothing special, killing the fourth boss provides 1650 XP for the kill and 1650 XP for completing the quest, which is a nice XP boost for little extra effort.
Light Side / Dark Side Points
There are two opportunities to earn either Light Side or Dark Side points here. The first is when you are on your way to Ironfist and you have to decide whether or not you want to sacrifice the Engineers to get to Ironfist. If you decide to sacrifice the crew, you will earn 150 dark side points. If you save them, you earn 150 light side points.
The second opportunity is after you defeat the final boss of the flashpoint. If you choose to bring the ambassador with you back to the ship, you will earn 100 light side points, and if you leave her, you will earn 100 dark side points.
Note that once you reach around level 15 and up, certain pieces of gear either require light side or dark side alignment to be able to use. There are ample opportunities for players on both sides of the alignment, but make sure you pick one or the other. If you are a light side player, go for light side points whenever possible. If you are a dark side player, go for dark side points. This way you will be able to earn access to better gear. If you remain neutral, you will cut yourself off some good pieces of gear down the line.
Lore Objects
I was able to spot two lore objects during The Esseles run. The first was a computer in the same room as the secondary terminal you had to destroy to save the Engineers (the middle one). The second one was a terminal next to a computer shortly after boarding the Imperial ship.
Unlocking these gives you a bit of extra experience and makes a new codex entry (for extra lore), but provides no significant tangible benefit if you missed these.
SWTOR The Esseles Walkthrough and Guide
Overall, The Esseles is a fun flashpoint and offers players ample experience points and light side (or dark side) points. You do not need a full group to do it – as long as you have at least 1 DPS class and 1 healer, you should be fine. Be sure to finish the bonus objectives and unlock the extra boss as doing so provides you with a lot of extra experience points without much additional effort.
As a final note to the power-levelers out there: I started the instance just into level 10, and by the time I finished it, I was almost level 12. So while the flashpoint did take awhile to complete, the experience point gain was definitely worth the time invested into running it, at least up until assuming level 12 or so.
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