SWTOR Black Talon Flashpoint Guide

The Black Talon is a Flashpoint in Star Wars: The Old Republic that you can run alone, with friends, or with other random players through the groupfinder. It’s the very first Flashpoint Imperial players will run into, as all Imperial class stories will lead you to optionally complete this Flashpoint before moving on to Dromund Kaas!

The Black Talon

On the edge of the Empire’s borders, a small skirmish has taken occurred between Imperial cruisers and Republic forces. During the battle, a Republic warship carrying an Imperial defector slipped away and is now on a direct course for Republic space. The Empire refuses to risk letting valuable military secrets fall into enemy. But the Captain of the Black Talon has refused the order, and now Imperial command has turned a group of loyal imperials who have procured transport on the ship. Their orders: take control of the Black Talon from the rebellious Captain, hunt down the damaged Republic warship and recapture the defector.

How to Start

The Black Talon is a Flashpoint meant to be played quite early in the story for Imperial characters, but if you missed it, you can always come back to it later. You can encounter it in the story after your first planet, replay it alone in Story mode, or play it outside of the story with a group in Story, Veteran or Master mode.

• Levels
• Story (Pub)
• Solo (Pub)
• Veteran (Pub)
• Master (Pub)

Bosses

This Flashpoint has three boss fights – The GXR-5 Sabotage Droid, Commander Ghuli the Mon Calamari, BONUS: GXR-7 Command Droid and finally Yadira Ban the Jedi Padawan..

In story mode, and in Veteran Mode when you have multiple players you can use the medpacs scattered around the bosses. Right-click them to heal yourself.

The following boss info is mainly for story and Veteran mode – Master Mode tactics are not covered in this guide.

GXR-5 Sabotage Droid

The Sabotage Probes will explode if you don’t kill them before their timer runs out.

Little enemies will show up, but most groups will ignore them in favor of killing the boss.

You can interrupt Full Auto from this boss if you want.

Commander Ghulil

Fight the medics in the back first.

Step out and stay out of the red fire circles.

BONUS BOSS: GXR-7 Command Droid

You can interrupt his Power Blast if you want.

Yadira Ban

Yadira has a fun attack called Cyclone Nova that you can see her casting with a blue icon. The game suggests you run away from her by the time she finishes this casted attack. Most groups and individuals  ignore this and keep attacking her.

If you do walk far enough away though, you will avoid her cyclone ground smash attack.

Skips

What follows are a quick gallery of images depicting specific walking routes that may save you some time by avoiding enemies during the flashpoint – certain routes will be highlited as the main “community routes” that you’ll probably see players in random activity-finder groups try to do – if you only practice one skip out of all of these, make it the community one! All of the following images are done without stealth or without a sleep dart/mind maze from a stealth character, so anyone can attempt them. If you fail to slip by unnoticed or see your team has attacked the enemies – always pull back from these routes and go back to help them defeat them! These may save time if everyone does them, but nothing makes a flashpoint slower than running ahead and not helping others to get out of combat again.

Solo Stealth: If you are playing The Black Talon alone and are on a Stealth character, or are in a group of all stealthers, you can skip almost all of the enemies except the bosses. A fun thing you can do is when you talk to the Imperial Lietenant who attacks you in front of the red door, if you stealth out fast enough after the cutscene you can keep going without fighting!

You can also mount up during much of this Flashpoint.

Skip #1

Unlike Esseles, the first little hallway pulls in Black Talon aren’t really skippable without stealth as they’ve placed guards in better positions. They all die fast though. Once you reach the first wider open room however, you’ll see a group of 5 guards positioned around the ramp you’re meant to go up. You can skip them by jumping at the right-hand corner of the room, and from there jumping again over the railing. All of these enemies are very fragile so it doesn’t save a ton of time, but regardless you’ll see a ton of players do it in random groups. NOTE that although companions will jump it fine, if you have a combat support droid, it will pull the enemies even if you try the skip.

Skip #2 

After taking control of the bridge and listening to the “empty pods” attack the Black Talon in the cutscene, you’ll head down a new hallway out of the command deck. MOUNT UP and run down this hallway straight to the elevator without stopping – the invasion pods will dramatically slam into the hall, but if you drive by before the droids hop out of it, you won’t have to fight anything. Keep in mind skips like these rely on your whole group going across at the same time – anyone lagging behind will get caught by droids. Right after the elevator, you can do it again in the next room if you’re quick.

Skip #3 

After the elevator (and maybe skipping by a group of droids by rushing through the first room) you’ll enter a more open room with a few silver-level droids in it. You can hop on the box in the back of this image and stick to the edges to get around them.

Skip #4 

After skip 3 you’ll see a third silver droid on the landing. Just hop over the railing early and you won’t get into it’s aggro range. Even the combat support droid should leave it alone.

Skip #5 

Once you’ve landed on the Brentaal Star, you may notice that despite all the spacious room to move, you always aggro the first three enemies. They’re programmed to attack pretty much the moment you move forward after boarding, so can’t be skipped. This SECOND group behind them however, aren’t hard-coded the same way, and you can just stick to the wall and attack the guards at the entrance to the hallways.

Skip #6 

Lots of room to move in this area, so you won’t have to fight either of the gold droids so long as you give them a wide berth. Much faster to dive into the 3 fragile enemies in the middle than pulling gold-level enemies.

Skip #7 

Right after defeating the 2nd boss, commander ghulil, you’ll take a tram to another part of the ship. Once you get out and head towards the munitions depot there will be groups of enemies around each bonus objective consoles – you can squeak by these.

Skip #8

In fact, after skip 7 you can really just walk by this entire room.

Skip #9

After skip 8, you’ll beat up another group of easy mobs in the hall and come to a larger area with silver-ranked corporals. Stick to the right-hand wall and you can avoid the first group so long as you drive right into the unavoidable 2nd (and 3rd) group.

Skip #10 – Kickflip

Alright so maybe it doesn’t skip any enemies and you’ve already beaten the flashpoint but if you aren’t jumping the railing here on the way out, you aren’t maximizing the amount of fun you can have.

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Bonus Quest

Engine Trouble

Engine Trouble is a really simple bonus quest that is only for xp and credits, it asks you to Destroy Sabotage Droids 0/25 and kicks in when you first kill a droid in any mode, Story, Veteran or Master.

Crippled Defenses

Crippled Defenses leads to the bonus boss, and is available in any mode, Story, Veteran or Master. It shows up the first time you kill an enemy on the Brentaal Star. Your goal is to defeat 50 Brentaal forces before you reach the tram after Commander Ghuli.

• Stage 1: Defeat Republic Forces 0/25
• Stage 2: Defeat Republic Forces 0/25
• Disable Munitions Power Consoles 0/4
• Final Stage: Defeat the GXR-7 Command Droid

After the tram, and defeating a total of 50 enemies, look for the glowing blue power consoles.

When you find the fourth console, the bonus boss will show up!

If you do not unlock and do the bonus quest, the bonus boss will not be available and his area will be locked behind a glowing red shield.

Rewards

In addition to the usual rewards of XP, credits, gear and end-game currency, The Black Talon has the following rewards available.

The Power Transformer (Imperial) decoration is an automatic reward for completing the repeatable solo-friendly [STORY] mode, picked up through the Activity Finder. It can also be bought and sold on the GTN.

Objectives

• Board the Imperial Transport Black Talon
• Talk to Lieutenant Sylas
• Talk to NR-02 in the Lounge
• Talk to the Imperial Lieutenant
• Talk to NR-02 on the Bridge
• Destroy the GXR-5 Sabotage Droid
• Return to NR-02 on the Bridge
• Defeat Sergeant Boran and His Squad
• Return to NR-02 on the Bridge
• Board the Brentaal Star in a Transport
• Contact the Black Talon via Holoterminal
• Get to the Engine Deck
• Get to the Escape Pods
• Defeat Yadira Ban
• Talk to the General
• Contact the Black Talon via Holoterminal
• Return to the Black Talon in a Transport
• Return to NR-02 on the Bridge
• Plot the Ship’s Course via the Navigation Terminal

Board the Brentaal Star in a Transport: following the quest markers, your can board the shuttle by right-clicking the door glowing blue up the ramp

Contact the Black Talon via Holoterminal: a glowing blue computer you can right-click

Get to the Engine Deck: After fighting Ghuli, you take a tram which looks like a glowing blue elevator button – you don’t click the door

Get to the escape pods: a glowing blue door you can right-click

Contact the Black Talon via Holoterminal: After fighting Yadira, you take a tram which looks like a glowing blue elevator button – you don’t click the door

Then you can right-click the glowing blue computer.

Return to the Black Talon in a Transport: Board the Brentaal Star in a Transport: following the quest markers, your can board the shuttle by right-clicking the door glowing blue up the ramp

Lore Object

There is a glowing computer you can right-click in the Engineering Deck of the Black Talon called Black Talon Computer for the codex Gage-class transport.