SWTOR Classes for the Undecided, Part 3

Imperial Agent / Smuggler

Once my Jedi sentinel turned 19, I felt like it was time for a change. I brought a smuggler to level 12 on a different, highly populated server. I also had been playing an imperial agent in beta, but only to level 10. The smuggler story line was kind of dull, having to chase down my lost star ship and the companion was some geek, who gave his weapons names. The imperial agent background sounded more fun. Constant paranoia, a trigger happy, anarchic and ruthless bounty hunter as a companion and the option to throw a couple of monkey wrenches into the imperial secret service wheels certainly has more potential.

Playing a smuggler/agent comes easier to me. They usually take cover and start shooting. Throw some explosives here or there and stab, if the opposition gets to close. Damage output is paced by your energy levels, which slowly dwindle and once they are gone, you have only a few basic options and a recharge with a 2 minute recast timer. You have a few more options for crowd control, some dots and a snare. Perfect. Seriously.

Smugglers and imperial agents are damage classes. The advanced classes of smuggler/ scoundrel and imperial agent/ operative can be specced as healers or as melee/ midrange damage dealers. Gunslingers and snipers are the other options for advanced classes who deal damage from a distance, and nothing but damage. Although I like melee, healing is not my thing and the outlook of building a sniper/ tank duo with Kaliyo outweights my preference for melee. One more thing I like about the Empire side: I can play a Chiss. Blue in the face and no need for beards or tattoos.

One annoyance comes with the IA fun: The UI preference settings are buggy. By default, the UI switches between a standard and a cover bar for the main hotkeys. But I never could get used to that on WOW, nor will I opt for it here. You can switch it off using preferences, but it does not save your settings. It resets to the default every time an instance is reset. That happens after you die, when you leave a flashpoint or when you just switch instances to join your fellow group members. I’ve gotten myself killed right after a reset, where I just couldn’t make sense of my hotbar. I’ve bugged this already and might end up posting it on the SWTOR forums as well.

Likes: Cover, Kaliyo, Explosives, Laze Target, Imperial Star Ship, Chiss

Dislikes: Heal, UI bugs