As more and more MMOs’ release, it is evident that World of Warcraft’s success has been an anomaly. Remember when SWTOR was strutted as the next “WoW killer?” But ultimately a large exodus occurred, and layoffs followed. Many have since begun questioning the success of any subscription based MMO to follow. If Bioware is struggling with a subscription model when they have the biggest IP you can attach to an MMO, what hope is there for any other MMO that follows the same model? Essentially, Bioware needs to convert to the Free-to-Play model if they want to increase their profit and player base.

The future of MMOs is Free-to-Play with microtransactions.  Playing Diablo 3 has made this evident. I know what you are thinking, Diablo 3 isn’t an MMO. Technically you are right, at least in the traditional sense. MMOs are generally defined by hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously playing in a persistent world, but there are other factors that define MMOs. Other common features include some form of progression, social interaction, in-game economy, character customization and crafting. Diablo 3 has all these traits; it allows players to group together from a pool of thousands of other players. Players are able to socialize using the in-game general chat and friends list. Also, there is an in-game economy established by the Auction House. Diablo 3 will be generating income post launch through the real-money Auction House, an alternative to the in-game gold Auction House. It allows users to sell items for cash for a modest 15% transaction fee, but only when items sell successfully. Although the Auction House hasn’t been implemented yet, the plan is to implement it soon. SWTOR can use the same model for their NTN.

The Free-to-Play is being used successfully by Everquest II, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. Many have speculated that the next MMO from Blizzard, Titan, will be Free-to-Play.  So why do MMOs still use subscriptions over the Free-to-play model?  Many publishers look at World of Warcraft’s numbers and think if they can allure away 10 percent of World of Warcraft’s subscribers they will be successful. Looking at Rift’s add campaign slogan: “You aren’t in Azeroth anymore?  Makes this prevalent. Even though many new MMOs attract a good portion of players away from World of Warcraft, most of them either go back or jump onto the next big MMO.

SWTOR would be perfect for the Free-to-Play model because of the Legacy System. One only has to look at the black market to support this. The exchange rate the day before patch 1.3 was about nine dollars for 1 million credits. After 1.3 released it went up to almost twenty dollars for 1 million credits, demonstrating that players are willing to pay real money for in-game Legacy unlocks.

With so many great MMOs on the market, bunny hoping from one to the other is becoming the thing to do. It is one group of players that play all these MMOs, and I doubt most will subscribe to multiple MMOs simultaneously, but they will likely spend a few dollars a month on microtransactions on various MMOs. Obviously, Bioware is banking on patch 1.3 to turn the tides in their favor, but if it doesn’t the Free-to-Play model would be their best option. Sound off in the forms bellow and let us know if SWTOR should stay a subscription based MMO or change to Free-to-Play.

FORCE Junkie Basics Series is an effort to help you decide and decipher between all the different Classes in Star Wars: The Old Republic. This series of video guides describes the eight basic classes in the game to help give you an idea of the classes mechanics and root abilities. Each of the eight different classes are broke up into mirrors; for example the Jedi Knight and the Sith Warrior are the two equivalent Imperial and Republic classes. Each of the eight basic classes are divided up into two separate Advanced Classes which are not covered in these guides.

So if you are new to the game and want to see a brief intro into each class, make sure you watch each video to get an idea of what you’re getting yourself into!

Introduction

Hello all, my name is Elicas and I will be writing about the Imperial Agent class, as someone mostly interested in end game PvE. There will be some PvP writing, but it will not be a focus of my articles.

This piece details my impressions of leveling and playing an Imperial Agent, from the point of view of someone playing the Medicine and Lethality trees, I will not be playing Concealment at any point in the near future. This article, and subsequent articles, will have absolutely no mention whatsoever of the story, outside of which planets you recieve your companions (excluding hidden companions, find those yourself!). I’m not here to spoil peoples evenings giving the game away.

The Imperial Agent is a suave, seductive and deadly force within the Empires ranks. Recruited and trained to carry out the most sensitive and dangerous of the Empires missions, they utilise their proffessional perfection to get the job done. At level 10 they can choose to specialise in either the Sniper advanced class, or the Operative advanced class, which is the focus of this article.

Contents
1 – Class Acronyms
2 – Class Defining Abilities
3 – The Medicine Tree
3a – PvE
3b – PvP
4 – Lethality DPS
4a – PvE
4b – PvP
5 – Companions
6 – Crew Skills

1 – Class Acronyms

Every class has it’s acronyms, and the following are the most commonly used within the IA community.

IA – Imperial Agent!
TA – Tactical Advantage
AP – Adrenaline Probe
SB – Stim Boost
RPS – Regen Per Second
KI – Kolto Injection
KP – Kolto Probe
SP – Surgical Probe
RN – Recuparative Nanotech
CG – Corrosive Grenade
WB – Weakening Blast
CD – Cooldown/Corrosive Dart (context depending)
RS – Rifle Shot
DS – Diagnostic Scan
OS – Overload Shot
FB – Flash Bang
CB – Carbine Burst

2 – Class Defining Abilities

The IA, as well as their counter class the Republic Smuggler, have several class distinct abiilities. The most prominent of these is the cover mechanic, the ability to roll/crouch in cover and gain a moderate amount of defense and extra abilities, while sacrificing mobility. When and where to enter cover will be a very large part of the learning curve for IA’s at each encounter in the game.

This system works according to your current hostile target. Should you have no target selected you will use portable cover instead. Note that you cannot roll into cover when you have a friendly target. When you have a hostile target, green silhouettes will appear that show you the positions you are able to roll into relative to your targets position.

The IA also has portable cover, though only the Sniper AC receives the funky looking portable laser screen. Operatives instead just crouch in place, the same as during levels 1-10.

The second major part of playing the IA is resource management, namely energy starvation and regeneration. This resource depletes as abilities are used, but regenerates at different rates according to how much energy you currently have.

Energy Regeneration works at a variable rate dependant on your current total energy.

To play at the maximum potential throughput of the class, you need to try and keep above 60 energy when you can, using both Stim Boost and Adrenaline Probe to keep your energy up.

Adrenaline Probe is a cooldown ability that returns 50 energy over 3 seconds. It is a clutch ability that should ideally be saved for when you have to use excessive energy during either a burn phase (dps) or when you need to put out an extreme amount of healing throughput. It has a 120 second cooldown, allowing it to be used multiple times in longer fights.

Stim Boost consumes a Tactical Advantage proc to return 3 energy every 3 seconds for 45 seconds, this buff should be kept up in any fight lasting 45 seconds or longer. In small trash pack pulls, this buff can be safely left off, unless you do not need to use TA to heal. If you’re not needing to heal, use your TA to keep this buff up between trash packs. While SB is active, your energy regen becomes;

The differences between keeping your energy at a good RPS level and keeping it the lowest RPS level are massive. Let’s have a quick look at the math behind this.

Agent A keeps his energy above 60 for the entire duration of a ten minute fight, while maintaining SB. This gives him the following;

Agent B likes to do as much as possible when fighting, he spams his abilities to try and burst as much as possible. He keeps his energy below 20 for the entire duration of a ten minute fight and doesn’t keep on top of his SB buff. This gives him the following;

Current Energy = < 20 = 2RPS 2RPS x 600 seconds = 1200 energy to spend on damage abilities In real terms, Agent A has 2.5 times more energy to spend than Agent B. Resource managment will be an incredibly important part of playing an IA, easily differentiating the really good IA players from the average.

3 – The Medicine Tree

To really shine as an IA healer, resource management is absolutely critical. Unlike when you are dpsing, there are very few situations where you can blow your energy to frontload healing and reap any kind of result other than being out of energy. Medics can only heal damage that our group members have received after all. Of course, keeping that energy level up will yield a higher throughput in the end after all, by simple way of giving you more energy to actually sepnd on healing. Though it might seem like your not necessarily casting as much, you will in fact be doing much more if you can keep your energy level around ~60.

Stim Boost is an absolutely critical ability for healing, with 2 points in the Incisive Action skill we will be gaining TA from our base heal. The simplest way to get this buff up and running is to cast a heal just before the combat pull and keep SB ticking away for the duration of the fight, refreshing as needed.

Another important resource management ability is the fully skilled up Diagnostic Scan. Fully skilled at level 26, this ability returns energy to you every time it crits. With a base crit chance of 35% before you add your crit gear (24% skill, 5% crit from our class buff and 6% from 3 points in the Lethality skill), with an IA easily capable of sitting at around 50% crit chance for this skill. This effectively means you can ‘weave’ this ability between your heals to keep your energy level high.

At level 30 you can receive the Surgical Probe skill if you have gone far enough into the medicine tree, which uses a TA to cast an instant 0 energy cost heal, further increasing your ability to heal for protracted periods without running out of energy. With your Kolto Injection giving TA, a 30% chance for your Kolto Probe ticks to give a TA and Surgical Probe giving a TA when used on a person with less than 30% health (when skilled appropriately in the medicine tree), an IA has the potential to continuously pump out instant zero cost heals.

3a – PvE

Current PvE Spec 31/3/7

The primary stats for healing IA’s at the moment are Cunning, Endurance and Presence.

• Cunning improves Tech attacks, and is the dominant stat for Imperial Agents, increasing by around 4 Cunning per level on average. Endurance improves health, and is more of a support stat for Imperial Agents, increasing by 3.5
• Endurance per level on average. Every point provides 10 health points, and every 5 points provides 1% health regeneration.
• Presence improves Companions, and is an important stat for Imperial Agents, as we rely quite extensively on our companions during leveling and solo play. providing 3.5 Presence per level on average. Every 1 point provides 2 health points to Companions, and every 20 points provides a 2% bonus to Companions’ damage.

For damage calculations, every 10 points in a stat provides 1 bonus damage to the appropriate type, and every 140 points provides 1% crit chance to the appropriate type. However, the dominant stat of a class provides this bonus to all abilities, so a Imperial Agent, and therefore a Operative, gains both bonus melee damage, tech damage & healing and crit chance from Cunning. This makes stacking cunning a legitimate choice for new IA’s learning the class.

The secondary stats of interest for healing IA’s are Alacrity, Critical Chance and Surge.

• Alacrity is comparable to Haste in World of Warcraft, reducing activation and channelling times. This stat is of reduced value, as it does not affect our energy regen. It should never be discounted however, as reduced heal cast times are never a bad thing.
• Critical Chance is the chance to score a critical strike, which improves the damage/healing of an ability by 50%, and is improved by Critical Rating and the classes dominant stat. It seems reasonable that we will want quite a lot of crit until we can get Diagnostic Scan to 100% crit chance, if that is a possibility. (currently unknown)
•  Surge increases the magnitude of critical effects, improving their extra damage/healing beyond +50%. Given that we will stack crit this will also be an important stat to us, as surge and crit will scale very well with each other. It’s important to note, that this doesn’t seem to affect Diagnostic Scan in any way, the energy returned from critical hits always remaining 2.

Our stat priority from gear is most likely along the following lines, bearing in mind things such as mods can be used to increase the viability of certain gear by boosting deficient stats in an item with more mod slots.

This can make gearing at end game an involved process.

Cunning > Alacrity > Crit >= Surge > Power > Endurance

Currently, using your TA to cast SP when a target is under 30% health, thus returning to you the TA, is the best way to heal your group when not receiving massive amounts of group wide AoE dps. This further helps us to keep our energy levels high. My basic healing priority list in Flashpoint healing goes like this.

SP Tank if under 30% health > SB > KP dps under 50% health > KI Tank > SP DPS under 30% health > Diagnostic Scan if under 60 energy > AP if under 40 energy.

Now, obviously this can’t be used in every situation, as healing is a fluid beast, but it gives you a rough outline of how I process thoughts when healing.

3b – PvP

Current PvP Spec: 33/8/0

This spec utilises our mobility to keep in the back to mid lines of battle, healing our team. Our main damage in this spec is done by CD and RS, but as we’re a healer dps should not be our main focus. Throwing a CD up on the main target, say the enemy player with the ball in Huttball for example, should never be discounted however.

This spec completely ignores DS. This is due to the fact that while useful for energy regen, it is too easily interrupted when we are usually one of the main focusses of enemy dps. Sedatives has been taken, so liberal use of Sleep Dart should be made. Note that the -50% damage debuff starts from when the sleep is broken, not at the end of the sleep. This means you can sleep someone and then start dpsing them immediately. It becomes a very useful 1v1 ability for escape as well, as any Jedi breaking out and then force leaping after you will be at 50% less damage. Add our 20% move speed to Evasion and the static -2% damage taken and we become a moderately durable healer, when we’re not focussed by more than 2 or more dps.

In a PvP environment, we need to prioritise our heals differently. In PvE I spoke about how important energy conservation would be. While still important in PvP, there is a different way we can go about healing. We still want to use our first TA to keep SB up and ticking over, however, we can now start spreading out our KP on multiple targets to proc lot’s of TA. Now, this will drain energy, so how do we maintain our energy levels?

By using all of those TA’s on SP when a target is under 30%, which gives us another TA. This is a free to use spell basically, as long as the recipient is under 30% health. Now obviously, if someone is being burst down by 2 or more dps this isn’t going to keep them alive for long, but in general PvP where you are not having to focus on someone specific, it is a more than sufficient way of keeping your team topped off. For most dps classes at level 50, a well geared IA can heal for around 40% of their health bar with one KP and one SP.

In a PvP environment, stat priority on our gear takes on a whole new slant. We still need to be prioritising Cunning, but survival stats and obviously the PvP stat expertise. This would make our stat priority list as follows;

Cunning > Expertise > Endurance > Alacrity > Crit >= Surge > Power

Unfortunately for PvP i cannot really give a healing priority list, as every PvP fight is different.

4 – Lethality DPS

The Lethality DPS tree for Operatives is currently in a strange place in my opinion. The subject is rather devisive on the forums, with people both pro and anti Lethality. Lethality is a heavily DoT dependant spec that requires good management of DoT’s and Debuffs as well as TA to maximise DPS. The devisive issue with Lethality is that many of it’s blaster abilities have a 10m range, allowing the IA to get into close cover and start dishing out the damage by getting their DoT’s rolling and then using Snipe as filler. However, one of our main abilities and arguably the main ability of the Lethality tree, Cull, requires a TA in order to activate. Lethality Operatives have three ways of gaining TA for cull, either using Hidden Strike from stealth or Shiv in melee, thus giving up on using cover or being a purely ranged class, or using the Medicine spec skill and casting the occaisional Kolto Injection. Currently, from a pure dps perspective, staying in melee range and using Shiv is the best option.

4a – PvE

Current PvE Spec: 3/7/31

A major part of playing an effective Lethality Operative is again resource management, however, we have one less thing to our advantage here than when we are healing, there is no equivalent to Diagnostic Scan to return energy. This means sensible use of our SB and AP is critical to maintain a high enough amount of energy to maintain a solid rotation.

One thing where DPS does have an advantage over healing however, is the burn phase of a fight. This means that the Operative can spend all their energy on dps abilities without having to worry about regen for the last few seconds of a fight, spending the full ~60 energy on your hardest hitting abilities to ‘burn’ the enemy down fast. This can also be combined with AP, when you spend energy down to about ~30, hit AP and keep burning as your energy regens. Doing this should give you a full 10-15 seconds of burst at the end of the fight.

One thing I have noted in many other guides is that Precision Intruments is nearly always taken for a 2/2 skill cost. However, if we maintain good energy regen then there are much better talents available to us. In the build above you can add 2 points to Precision Instruments if you wanted to make your energy regen more forgiving.

There is no strict rotation involved for Lethality Operatives, as we operate from a priority list. This list starts with our debuffs, and works down to our damage abilities. Keeping our DoT’s ticking on target will be the best way to maintain good dps as a Lethality Operative. Our priority list is something along the lines of;

Shiv for TA > SB > CD/CG > WB > Cull > OS > RS if at

In an AoE situation, substitute Carbine Burst for Cull.

As a dps operative we can afford to drop to slightly lower levels of regeneration, the 4 RPS of holding at 40-60 energy is more than sufficient to maintain this priority list without it being a strain for energy. The reason for prioritising our DoTs over Cull and WB is that our Lethal Purpose talent allows us to regain 2 energy per DoT critical tick, allowing us to use more abilities. Thus, maintaining DoT coverage will eventually equal out as higher dps overall compared to letting DoT’s drop off trying to squeeze in an extra OS/RS.

4b – PvP

In pvp, I’ve had some success using Kolto Injection and playing a close ranged dps, with some off healing support. This can be especially useful in a Warzone like Huttball, where you can drop heals on the carrier, while DoTing the opposing team.

Current PvP Spec: 7/3/31

In this build, Cull takes much more of a back-seat. This is due to the fact I play this spec as more of a debuffing DoTing off healer, than as a straight up dps class. Basically I CG and CD everything I can, relying on our high crit chance for energy regen from Lethal Purpose. CG is talented to give 100% chance of 30% reduced movement speed, always useful in a PvP environment, especially when it can hit 3 targets at once.

I generally keep my DoT’s up on everything within range, and use KI sparingly on anyone desperate for it to maintain TA and therefore my SB buff. I then try to use FB to reduce the effectiveness of enemies that are clumped up, before spending my TA’s on CB.

While I don’t get many killing blows, I generally get many, many assists from my slows and debuffs, very high damage, spread out over many people, and middle of the pack healing. While I can’t claim to have ever won a Warzone by my own contribution alone, I dare say a well played Lethality Operative can be of more use in a good team than nearly any other class.

5 – Companions

Agents receive many different varied and interesting companion characters. We receive a good selection of healers, dps and tank companions that should allow us to cherry pick the right companion for the job. Below I shall list which companions we can get, where we get them (but not how to get them) their specialities and any crew skill bonuses they might have.

Kaliyo Djannis – Hutta
Combat Style: Ranged Tank
Armour: Medium Armour
Weapon Type: Pistol and a Shield Generator.
Special: Plasma Round
Starting Kit: Grenade Kit
Crew Skills: +10 Armstech Efficiency, +2 Underworld Trading Critical
Gifts Loved: Military Gear, Underworld Information, and Luxury Gifts

2V-R8 – X-70B Phantom
2V-R8 is the Droid that comes with your personal ship, the X-70B Phantom. He is a non-combat companion, than can only craft and do missions. The 2V-R8 are the standard on all Sith Empire ships, all ship companion Droids look like this one for all Empire classes.

Vector Hyllis – Aldaraan
Combat Style: Melee DPS
Armour: Medium
Weapon type: Vibrostaff
Special: AOE Swipe Taunt
Starting Kit: Ground Slam, Shockwave
Crew Skills: +5 Bioanalysis Efficiency, +5 Diplomacy Critical

Doctor Lokin – Taris
Combat Style: Healer(Human Form)/Melee Tank(Rakghoul Form)
Armour: Light
Weapon type: Vibrosword and Shield Generator
Special: Tank Transformation Mode; Rakghoul
Starting Kit: Ground Slam
Crew Skills: +15 Biochem Efficiency, +10 Research Efficiency

Ensign Raina Temple – Quesh
Combat Style: Ranged Healer
Armour: Medium
Weapon type: Pistol and Shield Generator
Starting Kit: Medical Pack Kit
Crew Skills: +10 Scavenging Efficiency, +2 Armourmech Critical

Scorpio – Belsavis
Combat Style: Ranged DPS
Armor: Heavy
Weapon type: Blaster Pistol & Shield generator
Starting Kit: Shield kit
Crew Skills: +5 Bioanalysis, +5 Diplomacy Critical

6 – Crew Skills

Professions for the IA comes down to a choice in your playstyle. There are four main crafting professions that work well with the IA. These are:

• Armourmech – Crafting of Medium/Heavy armour for non force users.
• Armstech – Crafting of Blaster Rifles and Pistols, as well as Weapon Mods.
• Biochem – Consumables and Implants.
• Cybertech – Droid components and Armour Mods.

Certain resource collection skills work well with each of the above. Each crafting crew skill has a gathering skill and a mission skill that compliments it. Each crafting skill has a skill that is labelled as ‘primary’. This means they will gather the items most useful for that crafting skill. Each crafting skill has the possibility of having a secondary skill. Secondary skills gather items that can be used to level the main crafting skill, but aren’t necessarily only for that crafting skill.

• Armourmech – Scavenging primary and Underworld Trading secondary.
• Armstech – Scavenging primary and Investigation secondary.
• Biochem – Bioanalysis primary and Diplomacy secondary.
• Cybertech – Scavenging primary and Underworld Trading secondary.

Personally, as a high-end PvE raider, I will be choosing Biochem in addition to Bioanalysis and Diplomacy. This allows me to use Scorpio and Vector Hyllis for Diplomacy missions utilising their +5 critical Diplomacy Bonus, which gives them a +5% chance of finding something rare. It also allows me to use Doctor Lokin for my Biochem crafting, as he has +15 Biochem Efficiency. This gives him a +15% speed bonus when doing Biochem crafting.

An Imperial Agent can be many things, and can be them on command. Suave, cunning, intelligent, or possibly just detached, aloof, and businesslike. Can you ever really be sure you are talking to a persona or the person inside? Not if they are doing their jobs correctly.

Today’s article explores the Imperial Agent and some of the inspirations you can take when roleplaying this sort of character. This is also the most unorthodox article, as we’ll be exploring characters outside the Star Wars universe. Bioware has stated outright that some of their inspiration for this class came from outside the established lore, and in general it is good not to restrict yourself to one set of influences when building a character. Click past the cut to enter the shadowy world of the Imperial Agent.

Starting in the Star Wars universe, Grand Moff Tarkin was a ruthless, militaristic man whose vision of an orderly galaxy mattered more than the lives of billions of innocents. The planet Alderran comes to mind. Born of a wealthy family in the outer rim, Tarkin found that his ambition rose far beyond his family’s business and even his planet. Using his position as leverage, he managed to gain the favor of Palpatine during his reign as Chancellor. This move put him in a prime position when the Galactic Empire rose into power.

Tarkin was the kind of man who put business and ambition over everything else in his life. He did not marry, sire any children, and his only affair barely went further than pleasant conversation. No one could say he wasn’t good at what he did, commanding others through sheer force of personality. This was a man who could give commands to Darth Vader and openly disagree with Emperor Palpatine without fear of reprisal, and without any connection to the Force to speak of. As an Imperial Agent, you will deal with the likes of Sith Lords quite frequently, and often they will consider your character beneath them. Like the Grand Moff, any Agent can prove they stand equal or above the highly praised Sith by their actions alone, without using the Force as a crutch.

In 1962, one of the most iconic movie quotes was first uttered on the silver screen; “Bond. James Bond.” A sweet-talker with women, a cold-blooded killer and the worst man to have chasing you down, James Bond captured the imaginations of movie goers for decades. Spy movies have never been the same, and this hyper-masculine figure stood at the center of it. Though arguably not as qualified in stealth as other spy candidates, Bond’s strengths lied mainly in his charisma, his aim and his ability to get the job done despite extreme circumstances.

Regardless of your character’s gender, a lady-killer or a black widow style may suit you well. Many problems can be solved without conflict, and a charming personality can only help that along. Or perhaps your Agent seeks the thrill of adventure, willing to dive to the ocean’s depths, dog-fight in space or have a daring shoot-out in the cantina to complete your mission. You may be a secret agent, but that hardly means you need to be discrete. There will always be an occasion to blow a secret laboratory sky-high, and your Agent may be the type to prefer that sort of extravagant work.

Bioware had one spy in particular they noted as being an influence in the creation of the Imperial Agent, and his name was Sam Fisher, the protagonist of the Splinter Cell series of video games and of a long running series of Tom Clancy novels. He is a secret operative for the NSA (National Security Agency) and is our stealth-focused example. Unlike Bond, Fisher specialized in stealth and infiltration techniques. As an operative for the U.S. government he was sent out to handle anything from terrorist organizations to criminal organizations that could threaten America.

Despite his dedication to his job and to his ideals, Fisher was consistently cynical about the nature of his work. He distanced himself as much as he could from the red tape and political maneuvering that went on around him. He does what he believes is right and will even blatantly ignore orders to do so. As an Imperial Agent (and a member of the Empire in general) your character may have a skewed version of what is right, but that may be enough to keep them from engaging in the sadistic power trips their superiors and colleagues indulge in. Fisher’s quote from the trailer for the game Chaos Theory may perfectly encapsulate this mindset:

“… I take the lives of a few to protect the lives of many. I commit acts of war to preserve the greater peace. I take no joy in killing, but make no mistake; I’ll do what needs to be done. Because it’s my job. It’s my duty”

With the SWTOR launch date approaching fast, many roleplayers may already have character concepts ready to go. Whether your Agent is a suave, charismatic individual with the flair for the extravagant, a ruthless officer whose ambition rivals that of a Sith Lord, or just a simple person using their skills to do what is right, you will find many stories and adventures for you waiting in The Old Republic. Keep an eye out for next week’s article on the final class: The Jedi Consular.

The only question that remains is: Which style fits me? Here to help provide an answer to that question is a little playstyle guide. Rather than break down the trees by their talents and abilities, I’m going to break down the classes and trees by their unique features. If a set of features calls out to you, then that gives you a good idea of which trees to take a closer look at. Speaking of talent trees, take a look at both the Gunslinger tree and Scoundrel tree while we go through the list of features.

Oh, and feel free to take this playstyle guide into consideration for you Imperial Agents out there, as well. I’ll even add the Agent trees in parenthesis where appropriate. The applicable talent trees are the Operative tree and the Sniper tree.

Basic Class Features

Cover

The cover feature is unique to the Smuggler and Imperial Agent classes. The default version of cover works in a couple of ways. You can crouch in place without getting any defensive bonuses, which enables you to use abilities that need cover. Alternatively, you can roll into cover behind an actual object and receive defense bonuses toward any normal ranged damage you take, in addition to gaining the ability to use cover-only abilities. This isn’t explained the best in-game. Pictured here are two screenshots depicting this.

That green circle under your character appears when behind an object. You’ll also notice a green shield icon in the enemy’s name plate. That signifies that your character is protected from ranged abilities by that enemy. By choosing the Gunslinger (Sniper) advanced class a Smuggler will gain additional benefits to the cover system, and will be able to pop up a screen anywhere that provides defense on-the-go.

Cover is extremely important for all Gunslingers, so if you enjoy being able to deal damage safely from behind a protected barrier, Gunslinger is probably a good choice. If you find the cover system somewhat limiting, you may wish to look toward the Scoundrel (Operative) tree. Luckily, you’ll get a chance to play with the cover system before deciding this.

Stealth

In the Smuggler (Agent) class, stealth is unique to Scoundrels (Operatives). Gamers usually know how they feel about stealth before they approach a class – either they’ll love it or hate it. Take it for what it is, but it can be incredibly useful for PvP combat and PVE leveling.

Stealth is done well in SWTOR. It doesn’t have a timer or a long cooldown. Scoundrels and Operatives will get a Vanish-type ability on a cooldown that enables stealth during combat. Your companion will also stealth along with you, which is awesome. Stealth can be considered the main gap-closer for these classes, since most of their strongest abilities are from melee range.

Ranged/Melee Combat

This one’s pretty simple. Smugglers and Imperial Agents have both ranged damage and melee damage available to them. If you’re more comfortable with ranged damage, Gunslinger (Sniper) is most likely your style. If melee’s your flavor, Scoundrel (Operative) is probably the experience you’ll enjoy most. If you like mixing it up, both classes may have options for you, but Gunslinger offers the better ranged experience. Don’t forget that Gunslinger offers an automatic 20% extra range to most shots!

Let’s move beyond the advanced classes and into the talent tree choices. Unless specified, it is assumed that at least 31 points will go into the suggested tree. Hybrids are possible in SWTOR, but for the purposes of this guide, they will be mostly left out. After placing 31 points into the main tree suggested, consider both the rest of the talents in the original tree as well as the beginning talents in both of the other two trees. The bottom tiers often contain bonuses for all specs.

Advanced Class Playstyles

Healing

This one’s pretty straightforward. If you’re interested in healing full-time, go Sawbones (Medicine). If you’re interested in healing part-time, for a PvP build for example, it’s still best to put the majority of points into Sawbones. This is because many of the strongest healing talents are far up the tree. The least amount of points you can probably get away with is 24.

Single-target Ranged DPS

For Smugglers seeking the greatest single-target ranged DPS, the Sharpshooter (Marksmanship) tree of Gunslinger (Sniper) is probably worth a look. The tree features high-damage shots and the ability to fire them off quickly.

Single-target Melee DPS

For this role you’ll want tochoose at the Scrapper (Concealment) tree. The playstyle of this tree is similar to rogue-style classes in other MMOs. It utilizes stealth and some attacks that require being behind the target. The tree also offers poison damage and armor penetration. Hybridization may work well with this tree.

Ranged AoE DoT DPS

The Saboteur (Engineering) tree offers more flexibility than Sharpshooter. The majority of the tree’s abilities are either area-of-effect grenades, drones that deal elemental damage, or single-target elemental shots that deal damage-over-time. The emphasis is placed on ranged combat. This tree seems like it would be well-suited for Smugglers who spend more time AoE-ing than killing single enemies. There are also a small amount of survivability talents in this tree. This is another tree where hybridization would work well.

Utility/DoT/PvP

Both the Gunslinger and Scoundrel have Dirty Fighting (Lethality) talent trees. These trees provide a good mix of damage over time abilities, survival abilities, and utility abilities. There’s an awesome low-tier talent that reduces the cooldown on Dirty Kick (Debilitate) for example, which should be considered by all aspiring PvP Smugglers. Both trees have the same talents, so the main factor when considering the two are the perks that each advanced class grant. Stealth and minor healing abilities are offered from one angle, and additional range on most abilities is offered from the other.

This tree seems more mobile than the other trees, largely due to the fact that DoTs play a large part in the rotation. The Gunslinger Dirty Fighting tree, for example, might be great for a PvP player who wants to stay in the background and fire off DoTs to the entire opposing team. Hybridization definitely seems possible for these trees. The first idea that sticks out to me is a Sawbones/Dirty Fighting hybrid.

As you can see, there are a lot of fun options when it comes to Smugglers and Imperial Agents. The classes offer some fantastic utility, and some fun while experimenting with all of the options. The galaxy’s the limit. Enjoy the ride!

So, you’ve played through a beta weekend or two, you’ve got a good idea on what class you want to play but you’re struggling to make your mind up! Welcome to the club my friend, probably the most asked questions I’ve seen on the official SW:TOR forums are “Which class is the most fun?”, “Which class should I choose?” and “Which class is the best at X,Y or Z?”. In this small editorial, my plan is to give a small appraisal of each class for the Empire, what its strengths and weaknesses are and which roles they can fill.

The Sith Warrior

The Sith Warrior uses rage as it’s mechanic, with certain abilities building up rage and other abilities spending rage. Playing a warrior is a fine line between having enough rage for using abilities in emergency situations, and spending enough rage to be doing enough damage or threat building.

The Juggernaut advanced class allows the Warrior to tank or dps with a single light-sabre. It is a powerful one on one tank class that has many defensive cooldowns and good single target threat. It is able to aoe tank, but is not exceptional at it.

The Marauder advanced class is a pure dps spec for the Warrior. It utilises dual wielding light-sabres to maximise dps output. All three of this AC’s skill trees are dps trees.

The Sith Inquisitor

The Sigh Inquisitor uses force as it’s mechanic. It starts with a full bar of force power, which then depletes as abilities are used and has a moderate recharge time. It potentially has an unlimited resource pool, if you do not constantly deplete your bar to empty.

The Assassin advanced class allows the Inquisitor to both dps as a stealthy melee character with a sabre staff, or to tank through certain buffs that increase it’s threat output and defensive capabilities. It sits between the Warrior and Bounty Hunter in tanking capabilities, good at single target but not quite as good as the Warrior, good at aoe tanking but not quite as good as the BH. The Inquisitor tank is the jack of all trades tank, while probably being the easiest to learn for new tank players as it has an unlimited resource system unlike the Warrior or BH.

The Sorcerer advanced class allows the Inquisitor to dps as a ranged caster, about the equivalent of a fantasy mage type class, or to heal as the equivalent of a fantasy priest class. Both are equally viable specs to choose as the unlimited resource system and lack of real resource management beyond “Don’t spend it all!” makes them a very desirable class.

The Imperial Agent

The Imperial Agent uses Energy as it’s class mechanic. Energy regenerates at differing amounts depending on the amount of current energy you have. It is probably the most complex of the resource systems Empire side, as it requires very good management in order to play at maximum efficiency.

The Operative advanced class utilizes a mixture of close ranged stealth and melee abilities to dps, as well as opening up the Medicine tree allowing Operatives to heal. Healing operatives specialise in using their unlimited energy resource to HoT as many targets taking damage as possible, triggering Tactical Advantage, and then using TA to cast zero energy cost heals. It is a demanding play style that rewards the thinking player. It is not particularly newbie friendly however. The Concealment tree plays like your stereotypical rogue from any fantasy MMO, with stealth, melee and plenty of stuns and poison.

The Sniper advanced class is a pure dps tree. It revolves around the setting up of cover, jumping from cover to cover to keep buffs up, and outputting as much damage as possible. While not as complex as Operative healing, it still isn’t a straight up class to play as the resource management is again the first and most important consideration for the Sniper. Maximising energy returns is the way to maximise dps.

The Bounty Hunter

The Bounty Hunter uses heat as it’s mechanic Most of the BH’s main abilities build heat, with certain other abilities dumping heat. It’s a relatively simple system to use in theory, that gets more complicated in practice in the heat (pun intended) of battle.

The Powertech advanced class allows the BH to tank and dps, though at a much shorted range than the other BH AC. The Powertech is currently regarded as the best aoe tank Empire side, though with weaker single target threat than the Warrior or Assassin. They specialise in heavy armour and lots of shielding. Powertech dps is based around lot’s of fire effects and DoT’s, punctuated with Rail Shot hits that can negate up to 60% of the targets armour.

The Mercenary advanced class allows the BH to both heal and dps, with a much further range than the Powertech. Dps Mercs rely on using plenty of long range rockets, DoT’s and Rail Shot to pepper the opponent from safety. The Bodyguard skill tree allows the BH to heal, using scans and healing bullets to keep their friends alive. Specialising in the Bodyguard skill tree allows the BH to proc HoT’s from their standard heals, as well as increasing their targets armour while the HoT is active and giving their allies self healing shields. It’s a much more proactive rather than reactive healing style.

So, what am I choosing?

I hope this little piece has helped to highlight the abilities and choices of the Empire side classes, as well as possibly making some of your class choices easier. For myself the choice of which class to play was easy, my missus is playing a Bounty Hunter, so on the nights where we play together I’ll be playing an Imperial Agent so that I can level up with her from 1-50.

However, on the nights where we aren’t playing together, now that’s an interesting dilemma!

The developers created some great interaction and synergy with the design of their skill trees and abilities. This video shows you how to use them together logically to take down enemies in a fast and efficient manner. Republic scum beware, Imperial Intelligence is ready for you.