SWTOR Esseles Flashpoint Guide

The Esseles 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 Republic players will run into, as all Republic class stories will lead you to optionally complete this Flashpoint before moving on to Coruscant!

The Esseles

The Esseles, a Republic transport that routinely carries civilians to and from the Republic capital world of Coruscant, has come under assault. Attacked by a powerful Imperial warship under the command of a ruthless Moff, the outgunned and outnumbered crew of the Esseles ready themselves to fight against the coming Imperials. Having booked passage on the transport to Coruscant, champions of the Republic now find themselves thrust into this dire situation. Taking up arms, they must now band together to battle back the Imperial boarding parties, defend the passengers and crew of the Esseles and free the transport from the Imperial warship.

How to Start

The Esseles is a Flashpoint meant to be played quite early in the story for Republic 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 four boss fights and a bonus boss – Lieutenant Isric, Ironfist, the ISS-7 Guardian Battledroid, the BONUS: ISS-994 Power Droid and finally the Sith named Vokk.

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.

Lieutenant Isric

Some smaller enemies will show up – most groups just ignore them and kill the boss – he dies really fast.

Ironfist

Ironfist will summon some smaller Mandalorian – most groups ignore them and focus on the boss.

They do have a flame attack that can stack up – if you are dying, kill the flamethrower Mandalorian Boarder first.

ISS-7 Guardian Battledroid

This boss will give you a little push, so don’t stand on the edge!

BONUS: ISS-994 Power Droid

The bonus quest Desperate Assault is required to unlock the bonus boss.

• Stage 1: Defeat Imperial Forces 0/30
• Stage 2: Defeat Imperial Forces 0/40
• Slice the Power Consoles
• Defeat the ISS-994 Power Droid

When the boss turns purple, the idea is he is doing extra damage to a specific player. If he is not hurting you, stay still. If you are dying, run away from him.

Vokk

Stay out of his purple circles as much as possible.

Bonus Quests

There are two bonus quests in The Esseles, one is for fun and xp/credits, the other leads to the bonus boss.

Mercenary Boarders (Bonus)

Mercenary Boarders is a simple bonus that asks you to Defeat Mandalorian Commandos: 0/8. It only rewards credits nd xp. There are a lot of them in the hallways of the Flashpoint, and a whole bunch in the hangar with the ship and the shipping crate once you get there.

Desperate Assault

Desperate Assault is a multi-part bonus that unlock the bonus boss. Your goal is to kill a total of 70 enemies before you reach the power core room where the bonus boss is. I think it starts kicking in sometime after defeating Ironfist – when you start seeing imperial forces instead of mandos.

Solo Mode: As long as you have killed 70 total Imperial Forces by the time you reach the rounded map called Power Core, you can then go right or left down the right and right-click a blue button on a giant battery. You can choose either one. This will unlock the bonus boss after the ISS-7 droid. In solo mode, they made it so you only need to click one button to unlock the bonus boss.

• Stage 1: Defeat Imperial Forces 0/30
• Stage 2: Defeat Imperial Forces 0/40
• Slice the Power Consoles
• Defeat the ISS-994 Power Droid

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 Esseles alone and are on a Stealth character, you can skip many of the enemies. Just don’t walk directly on top of them. Many doors look closed, but if you run towards them even while stealthed, they will open and not aggro the enemies. You can even do some of the light-side conduits while in stealth as long as you are behind the droids  conduit!

The Imperial Security Probes which are floating droids WILL knock you out of stealth – stay as far away from them as possible especially when they are using their stealth scan.

At the very end you can also put the Imperial Trooper to sleep and right-click the blue button in front of the red door as a stealther!

Skip #1

At the very beginning of the flashpoint, right after the first conversation, a whole team moving together can skip all the combat on the first floor before the command deck elevator by simply running together. The invading droids take a few seconds to run into position – if everyone runs by before they finish moving, none will pull. This won’t work if a party member was unprepared and runs slower than the rest of the team – so if they pull by accident, make sure to go back and help.

Skip #2

Right after the conversation on the command deck, you can skip 4 regular mobs by sticking to the left wall, because the enemies in the picture above don’t actually spawn unless you aggro an enemy thats on the right, in front of the dead body. If they are pulled, the explosive barrel next to them pretty much instantly resolves the fight and you need to fight the elevator group anyway, so don’t sweat it.

Skip #3

After Lieutenant Isric, you can do a similar skip to #1 by simply running by and sticking to the left wall. This is once again harder in groups as the latest member will likely trip the enemies as they reach their standing position. Once around the corner, there is a large silver-difficulty droid that you can also skip, so long as you pull the two normal sabotage droids into the next area away from it.

Skip #4

The dark side option at the conversation here does in fact skip a bit of combat. Don’t feel pressured to select the option if you don’t want any darkside points, but know it exists. Without stealth, nothing in the light-side version is really viably skippable – but it all dies really fast too.

When talking to Chief Engineer Salen, if you are playing outside of the groupfinder and watching the cutscenes, and choose the light-side option, you’ll Deactivate Secondary Conduit A / B / C. This takes longer. If you are going for speed, choose the dark-side option related to the bridge to skip this step.

Skip #5

Once you start seeing mandalorians, sticking to the walls can skip a few packs. In the wider hallways are silver-difficulty mandalorians that patrol – you can sometimes time it right and walk around them, but it usually takes more time than simply fighting.

Skip #6 – Community Common

Once near this tunnel, the three mandos in the image will run towards you. Just stick to the left wall and continue before they reach their standing position. They’ll fire blasters, but it’s completely cosmetic – they haven’t attacked yet. This leads directly into skip #7.

Skip #7

As soon as you try continuing after skip #6, another group will run at you. Drive wide out into the center of the room to get away from them, then go around them and continue to avoid patrolling commandos. Once again, these skips where enemies are running to their positions usually don’t work in groups unless you’re all on the same page. Enemies around the elevator won’t be skippable to non-stealth.

Skip #8

Once back on the command deck, the first group of mandalorians aren’t really interested in guarding the right-half of the room, so stick to the wall and jump right into combat with the 2nd group instead. Note that the commando of that pack will walk up and down the room, so pull the 2nd group around the interactable control panel to stay away from him.

Skip #9

Barely a skip, just don’t barrel forward once landing on the Imperial Ship – take a left and the three auto troopers won’t follow. You’ll definitely need to fight the gold-level droid’s pack by the doorway, though.

Skip #10, 11, 12

Once you’ve defeated the first gold-level droid on the Imperial ship, you can avoid a bunch of enemies by hugging the corners opposite of each security probe. If they aggro, they summon three more enemies to fight from nearby doors. You can immediately skip 2, one after the other, and then there will be an undodgeable group of droids in a larger room that includes a gold-level droid again. After defeating them, there will be a third probe between you and the elevator. You can usually dodge this one too by going along the left wall.

Skip #13

The group that’s meant to greet you inside the engineering power station can be skipped by just hugging the right wall as you come in. The two on the ramp and all past them will need to be fought, though.

Skip #14 – Community Common

After talking with Kilran at the power station, you’ll enter a huge room with droids spread out to defend it. Running to the right-hand side and slipping behind a fork lift will get you past a group, and if you’re quick you can hop onto the ramp in the back to continue with no combat, so long as the group in the back doesn’t run forward and aggro anyone once they stop moving. You’ll have to fight some droids already sitting on the ramp, at the very least.

Skip #15

This requires fighting a security probe, but that’s much faster than tackling the silver-difficulty enemies in the center of the room.

Skip #16

The entire greeting party into the tractor beam room can be sidestepped pretty easily.

Skip #17 – Advanced

Post tractor-beam, this room in the detention level can technically be skipped by a pro but it’s really not recommended. You need to combine dodging a moving security probe with hugging the left wall and zooming past the group of 3 regular troopers that will take a few steps forward and stop before they are pull-able. What usually happens is you either incorrectly thread the needle on the probe and pull the whole room, or take too long making sure you came in at the right angle, and pull the three guys at the back door, who also then pull the whole room. Same goes for the hallway right around the corner from this one.

Skip #18 – Community Common

Almost as if to say “sorry that last skip was hard”, the gold-level droid in this room will scamper forward but even if you’re slower and it comes to a full stop in time, you can still skip it by just hopping a box to the left and hugging the wall. On the other end of the garbage masher is a security probe that’s either super easy or impossible to skip depending on how far into the room it’s drifted.

Rewards

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

The Power Transformer (Republic) 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 Republic Transport Esseles
• Talk to the Esseles Passenger in the Lounge
• Talk to First Officer Haken on the Bridge
• Talk to Commander Narlock
• Defeat Lieutenant Isric
• Talk to Commander Narlock
• Locate Chief Engineer Salen
• Deactivate Secondary Conduit A (based on Light-side choice)
• Deactivate Secondary Conduit B (based on Light-side choice)
• Deactivate Secondary Conduit C (based on Light-side choice)
• Return to Ambassador Asara (based on Dark-side choice)
• Talk to Ambassador Asara
• Override the Bridge’s Auxiliary Power
• Defeat Ironfist
• Talk to First Officer Haken
• Override the Elevator to Access the Starboard Hangar Bay
• Board the Emperor’s Glory in a Shuttle
• Sabotage the Power Station
• Deactivate the Tractor Beam
• Find an Escape Route
• Return to Ambassador Asara in the Hangar
• Defeat Vokk
• Talk to Ambassador Asara
• Return to the Esseles in a Shuttle
• Return to First Officer Haken on the Bridge
• Plot the Ship’s Course via the Navigation Terminal

Locate Chief Engineer Salen: a glowing blue terminal at the back of a room marked on the map, all members of the group must right-click it to continue

Deactivate Secondary Conduit A / Deactivate Secondary Conduit B / Deactivate Secondary Conduit C: three glowing blue boxes protected by droids you can right-click

Override the Bridge’s Auxiliary Power: a glowing blue terminal you can right-click before the red shield

Sabotage the Power Station: a large glowing blue computer

What is the Sabacc Table for in The Esseles? 

At the beginning of the Esseles flashpoint, there is a glowing blue table. This table looks like it is useful and clickable, but is not. This strange table has been there since the launch of the game – and was never clickable, and does nothing. Player hypothesize that at some point, the developers wanted to make playable Sabacc, but never implemented it. It is not for any objective or achievement.

Why am I on Coruscant?

At the end of the flashpoint, if you are playing NOT in the groupfinder, the cutscene will ask you and any other players where you want to go: Coruscant of the Space Station (the fleet). Only one player will win the roll of where to wind up.