New to SWTOR

[CreepySeagulls]

Hey guys, I'm currently patching the game as we speak, I can't wait to play. I'm already struggling with whether to play a Jedi Knight or a Consular, they both look so cool. D; Anyone fancy nudging me in the right direction?

[Lord Krankenhaus]

Hey there! I haven't played in a while, but I went with a Knight. My only complaint( and it's a silly one) is the blue lightsaber you get. Don't like the shade, but I luckily ended up with a red crystal. I think the Knight is a great class. However, I also like the Sith Inquisitor, which I would assume is similar to the Consular. I don't think you can go wrong either way.

[CreepySeagulls]

Haha, awesome. I'll probably try both out, see which I prefer. You do get to change the colour of the sabre, right? Like, how hard is it to come across new crystals?

[Racona Nova]

Mostly you can get them from looted sabers, but you can also craft new crystals. Color crystals as well as Power crystals.

[Lord Krankenhaus]

Potential spoilers here, nothing major...
After building your first saber, a creature called a Force Beast appears. Fighting it is optional. I decided, why not? Needed to try out my new saber, so I fought it. Part of the loot was a red saber. Took out the crystal, since it was darkside only, put it in my main saber, and bam!
I found a yellow one somewhere between Tython and Coruscant, but I don't use it.
Something tells me they're uncommon, but I'm pretty sure there are vendors. Consulars would get a green crystal upon building. I think Sith get red, regardless of class.

[CreepySeagulls]

Sweeeet. I'm so excited. Can you get other colours? Or is it just red, green, blue, yellow and I'm assuming purple?

[Racona Nova]

No, there are other colours, too ^^

[CreepySeagulls]

If I had a social life, I'd wave it goodbye. I'm gonna be immersed in this game for a while.

[Darth_Phobius47]

Hey what server do you play on? Looking for friends for superawesomefunsocial time and such lol. Also you can make your own color crystals through Artifice crafting skill. And of course there is always the awesome crystals you get through the Cartel packs! I have Derelict Purple, Pink-Purple, Silver-Blue, Blood Red, and Charred Orange (black core orange, really matches my Tiger looking Cathar Sith Juggernaut)

[JEStucker]

Used to be quite a few of us on Ebon Hawk, I'm still there as time allows, though I mainly play a Sith Assassin.

[Vyk]

For the record, having tried both Knight and Consular in the past few days:
At least up to level 10, Knight seems to win at DPS and also gets into the fight faster.  (In the first few levels, Knight gets a 30m jump which Consular lacks; it takes until level 8 or so before Consular can attack at 30m, and then only with a single attack type and after casting a 20sec buff.)  Knight also can wear medium armor, while Consular can only wear light.  However, Consular is better at avoiding damage; a huge chunk of his/her attacks have stunning or slowing effects.  In a heroic mission last night with two Knights and my Consular, I was responsible for less than 33% of the kills--about 25%, I'd guess--but took far less damage and was able to keep some enemies stunned and out of the fight while the Knights took care of business.  In medieval-fantasy terms, Knight's a, well, knight (melee fighter), and Consular is a cleric.  (Not a perfect parallel, but it gets the idea across.)

Personally, I had expected to like Knight better, but made a Consular to see how different the stories are.*  I think I may actually end up preferring my Consular, though; she's a bit more fun so far.  (She's also nicer to look at; she's a pretty female Twi'lek, while my Knight looks close to how I look IRL.)  I wouldn't go so far as to call the Knight "formulaic hack-and-slash", but my attack patterns are certainly less varied with him than with my Consular.

*For the record, the side quests are the same, but the main plot is completely different.  Would I make a char just to play through the second story?  Well, I would; I don't imagine that's for everybody, though.  This time I played them back-to-back, but I think in the future I'll wait some time between playing characters from the same starting world, so that the side quests don't feel quite as repetitive.  Incidentally, if you care about achievements, note that all characters in a legacy count toward a common set of them, so don't go out trying to kill every last horranth until your second character.

[Darth_Phobius47]

All my characters are on Ebon Hawk server.
Lvl 27 Knight-Shyy'ran (Human m)
Lvl 22 Inquisitor-Krullus (Sith pure blood m)
Lvl 16 Consular-Krulak (Sith pure blood m)
Lvl 15 Warrior-Mu'kata (Cathar m)
Lvl 15 Agent-Czathina (Chiss f)
Lvl 8 Smuggler-Mo'Garth (Miraluka m)