Picking Two Mains

So no secret I’ve been playing swtor again since they I learned they made medical probes baseline back in the summer. I think I also mentioned at some point…? I had a ton of cartel coins stocked up as I’ve been playing on/off again since launch so I got a couple of the boost to 70 (which was max level until last weeks Onslaught) because not having to worry about being the right level means I can just focus on what I wanted – the story.

As I think I said at the time I was 7/8 on class stories so I boosted a scoundrel smuggler (my missing one) and a mercenary bounty hunter as bounty hunter (powertech though) had been my first character and so it had been years since I had experienced the story and my memory is faded. My intent was to get 8/8 and then see what characters I enjoyed playing the most to then go forward and do the expansion stories as even though it’s been 8 years I’ve never progressed further than the base game. Not because I don’t like the game (I do!) but there’s been a perfect storm of reasons really.

I have now done that! So what was the result?

Well force-users are out. Sure blasting lightning is fun for a bit on my Sith Inquisitor or the familiar thrum of the lightsaber ignition on the Jedi knight but I only have to play five minutes and I’m disenchanted. Why? Because Jedi Fallen Order had it exactly right when the devs talked in the interviews – lightsabers should be powerful, like one hit and sliced in half powerful, but swtor is constrained by the traditional mmo mechanics where you hit buttons and whittle that healthbar down. The immersion is ruined basically. I mean I can get into the class stories no problem, I love the roleplay part but the actual combat not so much.

That left Trooper and Smuggler on Republic and Imperial Agent and Bounty Hunter on Empire. Due to the advanced class spin they could be four classes or just two. I was careful when I picked initially to choose alternates so it was four distinct classes. When I rolled the second new bounty hunter I picked the alternate advanced class which does make it the same as the Trooper. Though to be honest Trooper wasn’t a contender for me purely for RP reasons. I adore Finn and Captain Rex etc. but in game it’s just not as compelling for me personally.

So smuggler is my republic choice. That has two great companions with Bowdaar the Wookiee and my favourite runaway queen Risha. Wasn’t intentional that was the boosted one but certainly convenient 🙂

Now I loved the Imperial Agent storyline and one of my favourite combat memories was imperial agent. The advanced class is Sniper (as the smuggler is a scoundrel) and I played it a bit tonight. The animations are as amazing as I remembered. It is very smooth. There wasn’t as much movement as I remembered. A few years ago I swear it felt more tactical. There didn’t feel like much distinction between the individual abilities either but it was certainly still a valid option.

Buuuuut then I booted up the brand new merc bounty hunter and oh boy that is laugh out loud fun. True maybe there’s an element of crazy overpowered which might not stick. However it does have cool animations and the buttons feel different. Also the Bounty Hunter aesthetic is cool and I do have a soft spot for Mako as the first companion I encountered. My Imperial Agent is level 56 as I levelled during a 12x event so its outlevelled Rise of the Hutt cartel expansion anyway so should things change it is in the wings ready.

So that means my Empire pick is my other boosted character – also not intentional but convenient 🙂

What comes next? I started typing this to say that I would continue with the Bounty Hunter story because I wanted to do both factions at the same time in order to compare and contrast (assuming they aren’t identical in which case I won’t bother). However then I wondered whether it would be possible to skip ahead and start on Rise of the Hutt cartel – I have my ship after all as after the level boost that’s where the character spawns. I was on the fleet just arrived from Hutta so it didn’t take five minutes to go to my ship and check and lo and behold the quest to start Rise of the Hutt cartel is there – and so is the interlude aka Ilum which I really should do first.

Which means what does come next? I’m guessing I’ll probably go to Ilum! After all I’m reliving the Bounty Hunter story so it’s not like I’ve never seen it, so I can come back to it later – it’ll give me an option for my playtime! Although I have chosen and trained all the professions over the 8 characters and set up the stronghold and legacy bank to share crafting mats etc. as I think a longterm project of kitting out a stronghold might be a neat thing to do. Whether I’ll ever get round to it is debatable but the potential is always there.

Anyway TLDR for the moment I’m rocking Smuggler and Bounty Hunter because the force-users aren’t OP enough.