We already have some of the information found in this guide posted previously, so I provided some links to my previous articles as well.

Those who wish to follow in the bootsteps of Han Solo, live life on the outside of the law or simply want to carve their own, fast-paced, independent way across the galaxy will want to investigate the Smuggler class in Star Wars: The Old Republic. A snarky sense of humor and oodles of self-belief will also get you off to a solid start.

Looking in the Mirror & Choosing a Species

So, you’ve decided to live life dangerously as a charming and stylish Smuggler? Good choice! After selecting your class the next thing you’ll need to do is choose a species. Options for the Smuggler are as follows; Cyborg, Human, Mirialan, Twi’lek and Zabrak.

Species has no bearing on your stats and only affects the Racial Ability (basically an extra emote) you are given. Also note that the Cyborg species is basically a human with metal bits grafted onto its face. The Cyborg Racial Ability, Scan, is quite fun though.

Primary Attribute

The Smuggler’s Primary Attribute is: Cunning.
Whenever possible, this is the stat you want to boost when upgrading your gear.

Game Quote:

“Cunning increases the damage and critical chances of the Smuggler’s Ranged and Tech powers. This remains so for both the Gunslinger and the Scoundrel Advanced Classes, while the Scoundrel’s Cunning additionally increases the effectiveness of healing powers.”

Armor, Stylish Vests & Equipment

A Smuggler wears Medium Armor and favors a look featuring a variety of leather leggings, multi-pocketed shirts and knee-high boots. Nothing screams “Back off corporate line-tower” more clearly than a nice, low-slung holster and a puffy cargo vest. Am I right?

Game Quote:

“They don’t wear fancy armor or carry high-powered blaster rifles, but Smugglers are outfitted for action nonetheless. Wearing comfortable, flexible clothing with some custom modifications, Smugglers are able to stay light on their feet and quick on the draw. Usually carrying a fast-firing blaster or two, Smugglers have everything they need to shoot their way out of trouble. Though style is rarely their intent, it seems to come naturally to Smugglers, and their dashing duds generally compliment their roguish charm.”

Starting Skills

The first three damage-producing skills you’ll have right off the bat are; Flurry of Bolts, Charged Burst, and Sabotage Charge.

You’ll also have a buff called Lucky Shots – which increases your Critical Hit chance by 5% – a self-heal called Recuperate and the ability to Take Cover (more on this shortly). Remember to use Recuperate liberally. After every battle if necessary.

At Level 2 you’ll obtain an up-close melee skill called Blaster Whip allowing you to clock mobs over the head with your pistol.

At level 3 you’ll obtain Thermal Grenade which damages up to five targets in an eight-meter radius. You will enjoy Thermal Grenade, trust me.

At level 4 you’ll learn Dirty Kick – hands down, the greatest single skill in SWTOR. Yes, Dirty Kick is a melee boot to an enemy’s groin. Humanoid or droid – they’re going down when you apply the ‘Kick! Ooof!

Level 5 brings in the Vital Shot ability. Vital Shot causes your target to bleed internally (dealing 124 damage over 15 seconds). This is a good thing. You want all of your enemies to be bleeding internally. Yessireebob.

More abilities: Here

Cover System

As a Smuggler you’ll need to find cover and use it to your advantage. You can dish out a whole lot of hurt but you aren’t the toughest toon on the block when it comes to soaking up damage.

When you have an enemy selected you will see a green silhouette appear next to an object (boulder, crate, tree, etc.) that can be used as cover. Click the Take Cover icon on your skill bar or hit the “F” key and you will stylishly roll into cover.

If you click Take Cover and there is nothing nearby to hide behind you will simply “take a knee”. Your cover-dependent abilities will then become available.

In later levels a Gunslinger can obtain a handy Portable Cover option which you’ll thank your lucky stars for.

Energy System

Smuggler skills work on an Energy system and it plays out something like this. Each time to you fire off a blaster shot or toss out a grenade you use up a bit of the Energy on your yellow, Energy bar. When your Energy bar is depleted you will no longer be able to use skills that require Energy to function.

Thankfully, right out of the starting gate, you have the Flurry of Bolts blaster shot which is free to use – costing no Energy. This is your bread-and-butter, basic fighting attack which you’ll rely on time and time again to pull your Smuggler hindquarters out of the frying pan.

Game Quote:

“Your energy regenerates faster at higher energy levels. As your energy decreases, so does the rate at which it recovers. To maintain a high amount of energy, use Flurry of Bolts regularly to allow your energy to recover.”

Skill Rotation

Let’s talk about a series of fighting actions which will help you battle your way through levels 1-10. This plan of attack may not be perfect but it worked well for me in early game.

Firstly, Take Cover. Throw out a Sabotage Charge at an enemy (preferably an enemy standing beside a few evil buddies).

Shoot the enemy with Vital Shot to get it bleeding.

Tab-Target the next enemy and throw a Thermal Grenade, Vital Shot for bleeds, fire off Charged Burst then use Flurry of Bolts as many times as needed.

Note that Sabotage Charge has a short cooldown period after use so you won’t be able to throw out these timed explosives more than once every 30 seconds. Also, keep in mind that Sabotage Charge can only be used when in cover.

To simplify even further; Cover, Sabotage Charge, bleeds, thermal grenades and flurry of shots to finish off any remaining.

Origin World: Ord Mantell & Leveling Like A Pro

You’ll first set down and begin your adventures on the wartorn planet of Ord Mantell. You’ll be assisting the local Republic troops in a battle against rebellious Separatists. The first tasks you’ll be asked to assist with include destroying some remote control stations and disabling some signal jammers. Rest assured, the local Seps will attempt to stop you.

Smugglers will also meet and learn to hate a dastardly thug who looms large in their personal story. I won’t spoil what goes down but you will be given ample reason to chase this fiend across the galaxy – beyond your Origin World beginnings.

TIP One: Grab up every side mission you uncover and get them completed before you leave Ord Mantell. You’ll enjoy the credits, gear and extra experience points they provide. There’s also plenty of fun story to be enjoyed.

TIP Two: Grab all Bind Points you come across. You will be able to use your Quick Travel ability to jump to any Bind Point you have unlocked previously.

You can grab a good Smuggler leveling guide here. It’s definitely worth checking out!

First Companion

Yeah, I know. You’d like a Wookiee as your faithful co-pilot, bodyguard and companion. Don’t worry – good things come to those that wait. Until then, you’ll be running with your first companion, a Heavy Armor-wearing fellow with a Southern American accent known as Corso Riggs.

Riggs ties-in closely with your story and Origin World play and he even helpfully provides you with your first, blue-quality blaster. Now, if we can just get him to wear a Wookiee mask we’ll be all set.

Advanced Classes: Gunslinger or Scoundrel

By the time you finish up your questing on Ord Mantell you should find yourself around level 10 or 11 (depending on how many side missions you completed). At this point you’ll be given a mission which sends you off to Carrick Station on the Republic Fleet. Here, the game really opens up before you and the galaxy is your oyster.

When you arrive at the Fleet talk to Sammo Kob and he’ll send you on your way to the Advanced Class trainers. You’ll be able to choose from one of two Advanced Classes; Gunslinger or Scoundrel.

Those inclined toward causing massive damage will want to select Gunslinger. Smugglers who prefer stealth and healing will want to opt for Scoundrel.

Game Quote:

“Gunslinger: Master of the trick shot, the first to dive for cover and able to take advantage of every opportunity, the Gunslinger and his dual blasters are the perfect team. There’s a right target for ending every disagreement, and the Gunslinger knows enemy vulnerabilities like the inside of his ship.

All Gunslingers learn how to fire two blasters at once, specializing in long-range combat and methods to keep enemies at a distance. Gunslingers can also opt to learn the skills of the saboteur, using grenades and demolitions technology that cause fire damage and ignore enemy armor; the Sharpshooter, shooting from cover and focusing on precise, high-damage attacks; and Dirty Fighting, crippling and bleeding opponents using underhanded tactics.”

“Scoundrel: The Scoundrel doesn’t have time for polite and doesn’t do fair fight. In addition to a trusty blaster, the Scoundrel packs a stealth belt, a scattergun and a medpac—everything you need to get in, knock the enemy for a loop and get out alive.

All Scoundrels learn how to move stealthily—sneaking past or surprising enemies—and various close-quarters fighting techniques that do damage at short range and prevent an enemy from fleeing. Scoundrels can also opt to learn the skills of the Scrapper, using scatterguns to deal even more damage close-up; the Sawbones, applying medicine and damage prevention techniques to heal and protect allies; and Dirty Fighting, crippling and bleeding opponents using underhanded tactics.”

Conclusion

Alright, Smuggler that should get you off to a running start in an exciting world full of new adventures. Remember to shoot first, leave ‘em with a sly wink and a snappy one-liner and hightail it to the next system before they can pick up your trail.

Keep in mind what one famous Smuggler once said and you’ll never go wrong:

“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”

Don’t miss this comprehensive Smuggler guide if you want to learn more about this class!

Torwars

1. Why pick a Sith Warrior?
2. Sith Warrior as a character
3. Species
4. Appearance
5. Primary stats
6. Armors
7. Let’s talk Rage
8. Skill rotation
9. Starting world: Korriban
10. Leveling guide
11. Summary

Why Pick a Sith Warrior?

The Sith Warrior has a number of cool things going for it. Among them:

1. Force Charge enables the Sith Warrior to leap across a rather vast distance and attack his foes. It is also, quite possibly, the coolest and most utilitarian ability in the game.
2. No matter which advanced class you choose, you’re pretty durable.
3. At level 10, you get one of the best companions in the game – Vette. She’s cute, she’s snarky, and aside from dishing out some serious DPS, she’s the kind of girl you’ll want to take home to mom.

The Sith Warrior as a Character:

As a general rule of thumb, Sith Warriors are very melee oriented with very few ranged abilities. However, they’re generally very durable, very good at straight up melee combat, and quite anxious to kick the butts of all those goody two-shoes Jedi. When a Warrior gets to level 10, he quickly learns that there are two sides to this coin: the heavily armored Juggernaut, and the damage dealing Marauder. Choose wisely.

The Juggernaut Advanced Class gets heavy armor, and wields a single lightsaber. Any build that goes deep into the Immortal skill tree can be a very effective heavy duty tank. They have numerous damage mitigating abilities but, generally speaking, their DPS isn’t great.

There are, however, DPS variants of the Jug (those that ignore the Immortal tree, and instead go heavily into the Vengeance and Rage skill trees) that sacrifice some defense in exchange for offense.

In contrast to the heavily armored Jug, there is the Marauder Advanced Class. The Marauder dual-wields lightsabers, and trades off heavy armor (he can only wear medium) for some impressive mobility, stealth, and melee DPS. The Marauder has got a number of tricks up his sleeve, enabling him to get his groove on with with some over the top hand to hand combat.

Be sure to take a look at this guide which should further elucidate the two Advanced Classes.

Species:

The bottom line is, it just doesn’t matter what species you choose. There is no statistical difference or advantage and the differences are only cosmetic. Each species does get a unique ability all their own, but these are essentially species-specific emotes, and have no effect on game play whatsoever. So, feel free to make that uber-sexy Zabrak that you’ve always fantasized about, because you’re going to be staring at her butt for a very long time.

Appearance:

Like choosing your species, appearance choices are entirely cosmetic. Choose whatever appearance you want. In this regard, the galaxy is your oyster.

There are two small exceptions to this rule, for all you super leet min-maxers out there. If you are a hardcore PVP player, you may want to choose the teeny-weeny body size because of the so-called “ghetto stealth” factor. It’s simply a little bit harder for an enemy player to click on wee little you during PvP combat because you’re so teeny. While most players don’t think this is a big deal, for some, this is the .001% advantage they’ve been looking for.

The flip side is if you’re playing a tanking Jug, picking one of the two bigger body sizes can be a good idea. In some fights, where everyone is getting knocked around and confusion reigns, it may be a bit easier for your healer to find your beefy butt in the midst of the fray. Again, you’ve got to be the judge if this is significant to you.

Primary Stats:

Strength and endurance are your primary stats. Strength affects virtually all of your abilities as a Warrior. Want more melee damage? Get more strength. Want your Force powers to be more effective? Get more strength. Want your shields to absorb more damage? Get more strength. While it’s not entirely intuitive, the idea is that strength will affect every one of your abilities far more than cunning, aim, or anything else will, ever. In fact, you could pile on all kinds of other stats, and a small amount of strength would still outperform them all combined.

Endurance increases your hit points. Want to be tougher? It’s pretty simple: find and wear the gear with lots of endurance.

From level one through level fifty, you’re simply much better served if you focus on strength and stamina than anything else (unless, of course, you want to end up as Bantha fodder). If you want more offensive power, go for strength. Want to be able to suck up more damage, go for endurance.

Armor:

Whether you’re a Maurauder or Juggernaut, armor is the thing that keeps your butt from being knocked into the next galaxy. Common sense will tell you that if two pieces of gear are statistically equal, go for the piece that gives you the most armor. Very simply, mo’ armor = mo’ better.

For Jugs, Soresu Form increases your armor by sixty – yes I said sixty – percent. Think about this for a second: bracers with 100 armor on them instantly become the equivalent of 160 armor bracers. When you consider every piece of heavy armor that a Jug is wearing, this is suddenly statistically significant. This multiplier is a huge factor, so armor becomes equally important as Strength and Endurance for tanking Jugs.

Let’s talk Rage:

The other classes in SWTOR generally start off with a full bar of force or a full clip of ammo, but not us Warriors. We have zero Rage when out of combat. We start out empty and have to fill up our unique little love tank in order to, well, tank (or to DPS, but that wasn’t all cool and catchy right there).

Thus, Warriors have a back and forth kind of mechanic going on. We use some abilities to generate Rage and other abilities that expend it. This requires a certain amount of attention on the part of a Warrior, and it’s one of the things that makes Warriors both different and interesting compared to other classes.

Skill Rotation:

Whenever possible start combat with Force Charge. Not only do you look bad ass, but it does some pretty good out-the-door damage. It also generates 3 Rage. This should be followed by an Assault (which generates 2 Rage) or two if you’re feeling plucky. One can never have too much Rage. After this, you can begin to alternate Rage building skills (which are generally low damage) with Rage expending skills (which are much higher damage).

At very low levels, your skill rotation should be:

Force Charge > Assault > Vicious Slash > Assault (then repeat as needed)

As you progress toward level 10:

Force Charge > Ravage > Assault(x2) > Smash > Assault > Force Scream > Assault > Vicious Slash (then repeat from the first Assault in the rotation)

While over-simplified, this rotation gives you the basic idea. Force Charge gets you into combat, builds a bit of Rage, and immobilizes the target. Ravage (on a long 30 second cooldown) will probably take that target out. Taking out a target at the start of a fight, even a weak one, minimizes the damage you receive and gives you an edge.

Next comes a sequence of Assaults (doing a little damage but building more Rage) mixed in with Smashes (AOE damage for fighting groups, with a nice little stun thrown in), Force Screams (single target DPS with a stun), and Vicious Slashes (high single target DPS).

The whole point is that a Warrior needs to 1) take out a weak target early, and 2) keep generating enough Rage to utilize his/her higher DPS and AOE skills every time those skills come off their cooldowns. (Master this, and you’re going to be a god among your fellow MMO gamers.)

Even Simpler:

There are some Warriors that like to keep things as simple as possible. Their “rotation” goes something like this:

Force Charge >Ravage > Assault (x4) > Smash > Force Scream > Vicious Slash (then repeat from the first Assault)

The advantage to this simple rotation is just that: it’s simple. In fact, it’s nearly mindless. The disadvantage is that the Warrior isn’t maximizing his stuns and interrupts, or optimizing his cooldowns. However, it’s really hard to screw this up.

Starting World – Korriban:

At first glance, Korriban looks like a bunch of angry Egyptians strolled over and furiously puked on this desert planet. The place is dry, hot, and sand gets all up in your naughty bits. There’s nothing but temples and tombs (seriously, how many ancient tombs could the Sith really need?) full of ravenous sand worms that want nothing to do but spit on you with their acid-laced drool. Even your Twi’lek companion says that the Sith Academy is the scariest school she’s ever been to. That being said, Korriban really sets the tone: you’re a Sith, and the Sith aren’t a snugly, cozy people. You’ll have a lot of fun killing everything that moves, and the views of the Empire ships cruising in the atmosphere are awe-inspiring.

Your primary quest on Korriban involves becoming accepted as a Sith Lord’s apprentice. Be advised, both your main quest and the side quests are basically a tutorial in how to be truly ruthless and evil….oftentimes making you, the player, feel VERY bad about the choices you are forced to make. Truly, the Dark Side will have it’s way with you on Korriban.

Leveling Guide:

Although this guide is really only designed to help you get a great start as a Sith Warrior, all these principles will help guide you all the way to level fifty.

1. Follow your main story quest. It’s not like you have a choice anyway in how many people you actually put to death, so you might as well enjoy it.
2. Pick up every possible side quest along the way and complete them. These side quests give you a lot of bang (and experience, equipment, and credits) for the buck….no matter how many sand worms or lost zealots you have to slay with your powers of evil.
3. As you’re attempting to follow rules one and two, kill every single living thing along the way. On your way back, after you’re quest objective is complete, kill every single thing that has respawned.

Follow the above guidelines, and you’ll be at level 10 in no time. Heck, keep playing according to the above principles, and you’ll be at the level cap in no time. This collection of beginner leveling tips should also come in handy.

In Summary:

We hope you’ve enjoyed this guide; it’s intended to get you off to a great start as a Sith Warrior. Instead of having you fumbling around with your class like Helen Keller (was that mean? C’mon, folks, we’re Sith, mean is our middle name) we hope we’ve been able to answer a lot of common questions from your very first day as a Sith Warrior.

Truly, we hope you find these fundamentals helpful. Of course, we’re happy if these get you to level 10, where you pick your advanced class and go out to kick the galaxy’s arse. We’d be even happier, to be frank, if these basic skills continued to help you thrive on your evil, bloodthirsty adventures as a Warrior for another 40 levels after that.

Leveling, advanced classes, quest guides, spell rotations, mechanics and more… You can find it all in this guide specifically written for Sith Warrior players!

I’ve seen all progression trailers for other classes and none of them are nearly as witty, funny and entertaining as this one. It features numerous references to Han Solo and Harrison Ford as well — see if you can catch them all. It also shows your companion Bowdaar, as well as some abilities such as the infamous groin kick and group stealth. But enough talk, watch the video below!