A Mercenary, when used effectively, can be one of the deadliest, most versatile classes on the battlefield. While they may lack some of the mobility, gap-closing ability, and burst damage like other Advanced Classes, their steady, sustainable output of ranged damage makes them a versatile option in almost any Operation or Warzone group. In this guide, I will be covering the Arsenal specialization. I will highlight how best to equip your Mercenary, cover the important skills on your talent tree, and discuss the viability of the myriad abilities Mercenaries possess. Let the hunt begin!
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Friday Update: Bounty Hunter Armor Progression Video

Today's Star Wars: The Old Republic Friday Update features a character progression video for the Bounty Hunter. Highlights include the general characteristics of the Mercenary and Powertech Advanced Classes, glimpses of various species, and a Jedi getting stabbed in the head.
Our working dissection is available in the media gallery below. As with all of our dissections, items noted in prior dissections will not be mentioned here again unless otherwise important. Make sure to check back throughout the day for more. Feel free to add your thoughts and items you noticed in the video. If we decide to use your find, we will credit you in the dissection.
Video embed and yellow text after the jump. -
E3 2011: Gameplay Impressions

Darth Hater once again sent a substantial team to E3 and experienced a new demonstration of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Several staffers share their personal impressions of various classes on Tatooine in the following pages, and you are welcome to ask them questions about their experiences at tonight's Q&A. Please note that even though Orionark and Emlaeh also attended, they both felt their time spent with the game was too limited comparatively to give substantial written impressions.
Individual Impresssions Pages
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Friday Update: E3 Details, Advanced Classes, and The Lost Suns

This week's Star Wars: The Old Republic Friday Update is E3 Details, new Advanced Classes Page, and on The Lost Suns with an interview Alexander Freed. As BioWare Austin's Community Manager Stephen Reid hinted at this morning, there are three updates today about SWTOR. This is all in preparation for the Electronic Entertainment Expo that starts June 6 and expectations are massive on the news coming out of the event. Stated in the E3 details post is a tidbit about what fans can expect from E3:- More to share regarding the stories from the CG trailers
- Belsavis raid content
- Alderaan political intrigue
- Tatooine -- sandpeople and something unknown
As part of this week's Friday Update, MMORPG.com interviewed Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller about the Advanced Classes we will see in Star Wars: The Old Republic. He covers abilities from almost every class including the Jedi Knight's Force Leap, the different stances of the Sith Warrior, the Bounty Hunter's helpful Kolto Missile, and the Smuggler's explosive Shrapnel Bomb.
The Old Republic: The Lost Suns previewed earlier this week on StarWars.com, and today an interview with Senior Writer and Managing Editor Alexander Freed. He covers a brief overview of the comic that follows Theron Shan, a Republic spy set out to discover what the Sith Empire's plans are for the planets newly acquired in the Treaty of Coruscant. The comic canonically at the start of the game, about 10 years after Threat of Peace and 40 years after Blood of the Empire.
Included a bit after the rest of the updates went up was a new Advanced Classes page. The page is a newly redesigned page to fit the place of the older updates. It contains new information about the trees and abilities of the Advanced Classes.
Official Dev Tracker posts follow the jump. Images from today's Friday Update are contained in the Media Gallery below. If higher resolution versions of the images become available, we will update them. Aurebesh Working translation follows the jump as well as in the Media Gallery. -
Friday Update: Advanced Classes Update

This week's Star Wars: The Old Republic Friday Update is the Advanced Classes Update Developer Blog by Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller. The update includes a deep dive from Georg Zoeller on the Advanced Classes in general, talent trees, abilities, and a few interesting tidbits from the testing program. Developer Blogs normally are not huge updates but this one is definitely not a normal Developer Blog.
Two choice quotes from the update:
Jedi Shadow (Roles: Close - Mid Range Damage Dealing, Tanking)
Sith Assassin (Roles: Close - Mid Range Damage Dealing, Tanking)
Plenty more is covered in the Advanced Classes Update. Be sure to check it out and let us know your feedback on it in the comment section of this post. The Official DevTracker post follows after the jump. -
Friday Update: Bounty Hunter Update, PAX East Details Revealed, and Deceived Novel Trailer

For this week's Star Wars: The Old Republic Friday Update, BioWare announced additional updates for the Bounty Hunter class. Additional information on the Rattataki species is now available, as well as an analysis of the Kuat Drive Yards D5-Mantis Patrol Craft, and Mako the Bounty Hunter's Slicer Companion receives an update as well. Lastly, the Mercenary and Powertech specializations were added to the Bounty Hunter Holonet page. BioWare also revealed details for PAX East via the Official Forum for fans eagerly waiting the convention.
Yesterday's Dissection of the Bounty Hunter Video is already available for those interested. Aurebesh Translations, Screenshot Dissection, and Screenshots/Concept Art from the update are contained in the Media Galleries below. Hit the jump for official yellow posts, video embeds of both of the trailers, and more after the jump.
Update: Stephen Reid's update-and-a-half comment was right with the announcement of the Deceived Novel Trailer. The post features details on the upcoming Deceived Novel as well as a tidbit of what looks like a new cinematic trailer in the making. Deceived will be available on March 22nd in US Retail Stores but if you are looking to seal your copy you can preorder the book online via Amazon and an assortment of others listed in the article. -
Dissection: Designing the Advanced Classes System
Last Friday, Star Wars: The Old Republic's Principal Lead Systems Designer Georg Zoeller provided some insight regarding how BioWare and LucasArts designed the combat aspects of the Advanced Class system. We decided it was time to take a look back at the roles we speculated about prior to the Developer Blog and update our charts with the information gathered. -
Friday Update: Starships, Fan Friday, and Advanced Classes
This week's Friday update is now online: Whether you're looking to dominate the galaxy in the name of the Empire or rescue it from darkness as part of the Republic, you wont get very far without a starship. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, your starship will be your base of operations, and it might even be your best friend. Ship models are specially designed to match the needs and tastes of each of the class types, so even though all the starships are outfitted for traveling the galaxy, each has its own character.
Study the style and specifications of the various Starships by accessing the HoloNet now!
You will notice these Starships have been dissected from the Space Combat Video that came out earlier this week. As well as Starships there are new polls available for your perusal. The poll questions are:- Which feature are you most looking forward to in STAR WARS
: The Old Republic ? - Have you played Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR)?
As always, we look forward to seeing the results of the new polls.
There is also a Fan Friday featuring artwork from community members Wraloa and Kiuas, a fan-created video from Tukor, a showcase of a community RP thread, and more new avatars.
But most importantly, the Developer Corner outlined everything announced during our Gamescom presention about Advanced Classs (where we failed the "let's see how many data points we can write down in 20 seconds and if we can read our own handwriting" test -- self-depreciating humor there folks, but you can now see why we had some stuff missing), and new concept art that seems to show HK-47, or at the least a model of his same type.
Aurebesh translations after the jump. - Which feature are you most looking forward to in STAR WARS
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Darth Hater at Gamescom
Although we haven't quite recovered yet from our time at Star Wars Celebration V, Darth Hater is turning its attention to Cologne, Germany for our coverage of Gamescom. The Darth Hater team will bring you interviews, hands-on impressions, and all the breaking Star Wars: The Old Republic news coming out of the convention throughout the week.
Vee have ways of making them talk... stay tuned.
DH Gamescom Content:
UPDATE 8/18: Advanced Class Names Revealed in Press Presentations
UPDATE 8/19: Advanced Class Names Revealed on offiicial site here.
Please note our original post included some inaccuracies specifically with the Trooper descriptions, missing information for the Bounty Hunter, as well as some missing description points. We apologize for any confusion: the slides were shown to us for about 20s each and our priority was to get the accurate names for each Advanced Class.- Imperial Agent - Operative & Sniper
- Sith Inquisitor - Sorcerer & Assassin
- Bounty Hunter - Powertech & Mercenary
- Jedi Consular - Shadow & Wizard
- Trooper - Commando & Vanguard
More information about the Jedi Knight advanced classes:- Sentinel: Dual Light Sabers; Saber Fighting Specialist; Melee
- Guardian: Single Light Saber/ Heavy Armor; Leadership/ Party Buffs; Tank
Blaine Christine gave the presentation, and these were some of the descriptions for each class. As he introduced these slides, he gave the example of how you would turn into Darth Maul: you pick your species as Zabrak, and as you level up, you are presented with the option to become a Sith Assassin. "The Assassin is going to be able to use a double bladed lightsaber just like Darth Maul. He is going to do a lot of damage, so that is his main function." He continued with a description of the Sith Sorcerer: "He is going to be a lot more like the Emperor; more ranged based. He will still use his lightsaber, but he is going to use Force Lightning and focus on that to fry his enemies from afar."
Then as a comparison, the Jedi Knight was touched on. The Sentinel uses dual lightsabers, was compared to Anakin Skywalker, and has a focus on dealing lots of damage with fast moves and action. The Guardian was described as a "traditional MMO tank" by wearing heavier armor, and the ability to soak up lots of damage.
Please note all the Advanced Class names were communicated in English along with the entire presentation, and we will update this post with more details as we receive them. We are committed to bringing you the most accurate official information coming out of Gamescom.
Shortly after the announcement of all the classes, we received another version of the multiplayer group demo that we originally saw at E3 -- but this time, all the Republic characters were playing Advanced Classes. The Jedi Sentinel was the dps off-tank, while the Trooper Commando was ranged tanking the large mob. The Smuggler had the Gunslinger specialization, and used portable cover while dual wielding blasters. The Jedi Consular chose the Wizard advanced class, and provided both healing and light crowd control.
More Updates and Media after the jump