Star
Wars: The Old Republic’s (SWTOR) is in full swing, and for many of you,
that means a chance to hop into BioWare’s sprawling massively
multiplayer masterpiece alongside fellow defenders of freedom and
chokers of Imperial subordinates. However, for the ambivalent World of
Warcraft (WoW) hero, taking the leap into a galaxy far, far away can be a
daunting task.
The decision of which advanced class to play can be as difficult as
finding a Wookiee in a wig shop, but don’t freak out. These advanced
classes, unlocked at level 10, are what define your mere Bounty Hunter
as a flame-wielding torch of Republic misery or a sensitive tech-lover
hellbent on healing. We’ve put together some brief descriptions of each
advanced class’ functionality in comparison to WoW starting with the
stalwart Republic. Note that this guide doesn’t chart effectiveness but
rather provides a general overview of how similar playstyle mechanics
feel between both games.
Just like a certain whiny Tatooine farmboy learned, the choice
ultimately resides entirely within your power – but at least you won’t
have to endure through an unnecessarily long emo-stare into the sunset
to realize that.
Jedi Knight
Continuing his unmatched reign as winner of the “most likely to
strike a heroic pose on a movie poster” award, the Jedi Knight offers a
no-frills approach to the art of bashing things silly with oversized
glowsticks. Using a Focus resource system akin to the Rogue’s combo
points, the Knight’s playstyle centers around a Wampa-sized pile of
in-your-face melee combat aided by brief dips into the Force.
Guardian
Protection and Arms Warriors, meet your destiny. Specializing as a Guardian – specifically, the Defense talent tree – means “willingly stepping into harm’s way” is your idea of a relaxing hobby. You’ll access abilities closely mirroring the classic tanking repertoire of Charge, Taunt, and Sunder Armor along with a few surprises sprinkled in – Force Exhaustion, for example, deals damage over time while progressively slowing down a foe to a crawl. A sizable chunk of defensive cooldowns makes the Guardian well-equipped to thumb his nose at whatever hurtles his way.
Protection and Arms Warriors, meet your destiny. Specializing as a Guardian – specifically, the Defense talent tree – means “willingly stepping into harm’s way” is your idea of a relaxing hobby. You’ll access abilities closely mirroring the classic tanking repertoire of Charge, Taunt, and Sunder Armor along with a few surprises sprinkled in – Force Exhaustion, for example, deals damage over time while progressively slowing down a foe to a crawl. A sizable chunk of defensive cooldowns makes the Guardian well-equipped to thumb his nose at whatever hurtles his way.
Want more damage? Pour your talent points into the Vigilance tree.
Much like Arms, your one-handed attacks get souped up at the expense of
protection, although your retention of heavy armor still offers
considerable fortitude. Dig the Burning Blade and Plasma Brand talents
which augments some of your attacks with additional burning damage.
Sentinel
The Sentinel considers the notion of restraint so 20 parsecs ago. Wearing medium armor and dual-wielding two lightsabers, this specialization boils down its role into cutting down the poor fool at the end of your blades as fast as possible. Fury Warriors will fawn over the Sentinel’s multiple methods of dispensing flurries of acrobatic melee attacks with stacking bonuses to armor penetration and critical strike. Journey up the Combat tree for loads of helpful boosts to your output, culminating with the almighty Blade Rush – a devastating triple-strike combo. Alternatively, the Watchman tree offers a similar focus to damage-over-time (DoT) bonuses as the Guardian’s Vigilance tree.
The Sentinel considers the notion of restraint so 20 parsecs ago. Wearing medium armor and dual-wielding two lightsabers, this specialization boils down its role into cutting down the poor fool at the end of your blades as fast as possible. Fury Warriors will fawn over the Sentinel’s multiple methods of dispensing flurries of acrobatic melee attacks with stacking bonuses to armor penetration and critical strike. Journey up the Combat tree for loads of helpful boosts to your output, culminating with the almighty Blade Rush – a devastating triple-strike combo. Alternatively, the Watchman tree offers a similar focus to damage-over-time (DoT) bonuses as the Guardian’s Vigilance tree.
Jedi Consular
Slightly more cerebral than his flailing counterpart, the Jedi
Consular knows the intricacies of balance and self-mastery – and how to
chuck a floating rock into someone’s face really well. Both the Sage and
Shadow specializations primarily rely on a Force pool (similar to mana)
for their abilities, but that’s where the similarities end.
Sage
Sure, the Sage sounds like something embossed on a pompous librarian’s business card. Picking this specialization, however, sits you squarely in the domain of the ranged spellcaster. Heading up the Telekinetics tree offers equal effectiveness to a Fire Mage with powerful, long-casting or channeled nuking abilities laden with enough flashy effects to send even the most hardy Industrial Light & Magic engineer aflutter. Don’t renege your potent crowd-control (CC) skills along the way; Force Lift and Force Stun works wonders for culling challenging dungeons and group quests.
Sure, the Sage sounds like something embossed on a pompous librarian’s business card. Picking this specialization, however, sits you squarely in the domain of the ranged spellcaster. Heading up the Telekinetics tree offers equal effectiveness to a Fire Mage with powerful, long-casting or channeled nuking abilities laden with enough flashy effects to send even the most hardy Industrial Light & Magic engineer aflutter. Don’t renege your potent crowd-control (CC) skills along the way; Force Lift and Force Stun works wonders for culling challenging dungeons and group quests.
Nabbing the Balance tree’s talents transforms the Sage into an
efficient healer, mixing single-target and group health restoration
duties with colorful damage absorption bubbles not unlike the Discipline
Priest’s Power Word: Shield. Check out the nifty Rescue: it yanks an
ally to safety while simultaneously lowering his or her threat – if that
doesn’t help hammer home the MMO golden rule of “don’t stand in fire,”
then little else will.
Shadow
Playing a Shadow is sort of like participating in a political debate: If cornered, muttering a mysterious one-liner and disappearing in a surge of energy is your best bet. As the name implies, the Shadow keeps to the…well, shadows, pimping out with a double-bladed saber staff and employing stealth for advantageous mobility. Assassination Rogues should be nodding in recognition at the Infiltration tree’s emphasis on stealth, positional attacks, and massive burst damage helped along by Shadow Strike, your bread-and-butter backstab.
Playing a Shadow is sort of like participating in a political debate: If cornered, muttering a mysterious one-liner and disappearing in a surge of energy is your best bet. As the name implies, the Shadow keeps to the…well, shadows, pimping out with a double-bladed saber staff and employing stealth for advantageous mobility. Assassination Rogues should be nodding in recognition at the Infiltration tree’s emphasis on stealth, positional attacks, and massive burst damage helped along by Shadow Strike, your bread-and-butter backstab.
Those seeking a fresh perspective on tanking should give the Kinetic
Combat tree a whirl. Its emphasis on mitigation and dodge imitates the
Blood Death Knight’s playstyle – an observation especially prevalent
with Force Pull, an ability exactly like Death Grip. And if anything,
you’ll be the proud user of a tree that sounds like a Nickelodeon
educational game show.
Smuggler
If you’re wondering why that rocky outcropping is continually
lamenting about its stolen ship, chances are you’ve stumbled upon a
Smuggler hard at work. He brings the pew-pew from afar by using
Rogue-like Energy and taking cover behind objects (or just crouching
down), thus lowering damage received and enabling access to long-range
shots.
Gunslinger
You’re in for a special kind of warm, fuzzy feeling when delivering a friendly “hey, there” via the red-hot muzzles of a pair of blaster pistols. Like the Marksmanship Hunter, the Gunslinger specialization mixes quick, instant shots with inductive abilities thematically similar to Aimed Shot. Plunking points into the Sharpshooter tree hulks up your shots with faster cast times and more demolishing critical strikes.
You’re in for a special kind of warm, fuzzy feeling when delivering a friendly “hey, there” via the red-hot muzzles of a pair of blaster pistols. Like the Marksmanship Hunter, the Gunslinger specialization mixes quick, instant shots with inductive abilities thematically similar to Aimed Shot. Plunking points into the Sharpshooter tree hulks up your shots with faster cast times and more demolishing critical strikes.
For appeasement of your inner Demoman, set your sights on the
Saboteur tree. DoTs and grenade buffs galore beckon your points like an
unencrypted credit safe; Incendiary Grenade, for instance, immolates
enemies with a napalm AoE thrown from cover’s comfy confines – just the
ticket for Explosive Shot-happy Survival Hunters. Maniacal cackle
optional.
Scoundrel
Although the Smuggler’s trustworthy mainstay is the almighty pistol, he nevertheless won’t balk about shortening the gap for a more personalized tussle. Specializing as a Scoundrel (figuratively, of course) will have you strapping on a stealth belt for surprising enemies with the gentle love tap of a sucker punch right in the gut. The Scrapper tree advertises a risky yet rewarding style of play: sneak in, ravage an unfortunate soul with Back Blast, then dance the melee tango with careful management of costly short-range strikes. The Feral Druid’s absolutism on nailing that initial burst damage out of stealth is as crucial a requirement for the Scoundrel’s cocksure grin to see the light of another day.
Although the Smuggler’s trustworthy mainstay is the almighty pistol, he nevertheless won’t balk about shortening the gap for a more personalized tussle. Specializing as a Scoundrel (figuratively, of course) will have you strapping on a stealth belt for surprising enemies with the gentle love tap of a sucker punch right in the gut. The Scrapper tree advertises a risky yet rewarding style of play: sneak in, ravage an unfortunate soul with Back Blast, then dance the melee tango with careful management of costly short-range strikes. The Feral Druid’s absolutism on nailing that initial burst damage out of stealth is as crucial a requirement for the Scoundrel’s cocksure grin to see the light of another day.
Of course, the Scoundrel takes every advantage he gets, and that
typically includes fixing up his fellow buddies with healing medpacs
boosted by the Sawbones tree. Its periodic healing ability improvements
echo the Druid’s Restoration tree, even rubbing shoulders against Wild
Growth with the AoE Kolto Cloud.
Trooper
Heavy armor, heavy guns, and empty skulls – that’s the Trooper’s
mantra. (Maybe not the last part.) Helping him reinforce that tenet is
an arsenal worthy of a first-person shooter protagonist’s jealousy:
cannons, grenades, arc projectors, and several other remorseless pieces
of metal. The payoff is a combination of durability and a withering
amount of firepower.
The Trooper uses a bar filled with 12 steadily refilling Energy Cells
that are spent on attacks and abilities. If you exhaust your entire
bar, you’ll have to wait a moment while “reloading” more Energy Cells
before carrying on.
Commando
Remember that climactic scene from Terminator 2 in which Arnie turns a parking lot into Swiss cheese with a minigun? Yeah, that’s the Commando. Consider the Gunnery tree as the end result of a Warlock getting his hands on a mammoth laser cannon. Using a single, pivotal debuff to work with – Grav Round – Commandos increasingly crush their target’s armor before saying “hasta la vista” with a mega-shot coup de grace.
Remember that climactic scene from Terminator 2 in which Arnie turns a parking lot into Swiss cheese with a minigun? Yeah, that’s the Commando. Consider the Gunnery tree as the end result of a Warlock getting his hands on a mammoth laser cannon. Using a single, pivotal debuff to work with – Grav Round – Commandos increasingly crush their target’s armor before saying “hasta la vista” with a mega-shot coup de grace.
Taking the Combat Medic tree offers quick, single-target heals with a
chance to increase efficiency, a niche similarly filled in WOW by the
Holy Paladin. If multiple allies need healing in a pinch, toss a Kolto
Bomb their way – yes, that means bombs filled with healing gases. Don’t
ask me how that works.
Vanguard
For the Vanguard specialization, getting shot and bludgeoned is just good business. The abuse he takes just means less pressure on their allies. Coupled with the natural movement advantage of being at range, the Vanguard’s playstyle offers an interesting approach to the typically melee dominated task of keeping the enemy’s attention squarely on themselves.
For the Vanguard specialization, getting shot and bludgeoned is just good business. The abuse he takes just means less pressure on their allies. Coupled with the natural movement advantage of being at range, the Vanguard’s playstyle offers an interesting approach to the typically melee dominated task of keeping the enemy’s attention squarely on themselves.
The Protection Paladin closely resembles the Vanguard’s
absorption-oriented Shield Specialist tree that holds the line with AoE
threat generation abilities similar to Consecrate and Avenger’s Shield.
Your mitigation stems from superpowered shields shrugging off damage
while your pour on the punishment through grenades and sheets of laser
fire.
Spending points in the Tactics tree turns the Vanguard into a zippy
front-line combatant capable of armor-penetrating strikes and DoT
effects, an ability arsenal Retribution Paladins know well. Lastly, the
Vanguard’s heavy armor gives groups a second wind via a backup tank in
case things go awry.
Check back tomorrow as we turn to the dark side with part 2 of this
guide focusing on the Empire’s specializations. As always, if you have
thoughts or experiences to share, leave ‘em in the comments.
and 
I've added 15 trophies to my ever increasing total. I've placed some good distance between myself and my PSN friends.
