It includes every class’ Health Points, Mana Points, Damage, Defense, Movement Speed, Critical Hit, Attack Speed and Range. The stats are color coded so you can more easily see which class has average, below average or above average stats in relation to others. I hope you’ll find it useful.

You’re most welcome to share this image or post it in your guild forums, but please let everyone know where you got it from. And if you have any other info you’d like me to to add to this image, be sure to let me know. Also, do the same in case you spot a mistake or if there were any recent changes.

Note: IIQ and IIR combined is often referred to as MF – Magic Find.

What’s Increased Item Quantity?

Increased Item Quantity (IIQ) affects the number of items dropped by monsters you slay. As a basic example having 100% IIQ would mean you get twice as many items. IIQ affects not only equipment drops but also currency, and is generally considered much more valuable than IIR.

What’s Increased Item Rarity?

Item Rarity (IIR) basically determines whether the item dropped will be normal (white), magic (blue), rare (yellow) or unique (brown, orange, or whatever it looks like). Having 100% IIR would mean you get twice as many rare and magic items than you normally would.

The main difference is that IIQ increases all drops, while IIQ only increases your chance to get rare/unique items.

What about item Quality?

There is no stat that affects item quality! The wording in Path of Exile can take awhile to wrap your head around at the start but there is no stat that affects whether items dropped will have +Quality on them. Whether gems, items and flasks have +Quality on them is pure chance. Although technically having more IIQ would increase the amount of items dropped thus increasing your chances to get more +quality items.

Is IIQ better than IIR?

IIQ is generally considered better than IIR, most importantly because it affects currency drop rates as well as equipment. However if you’re focusing on high MF you should try to get a good mixture of both stats, so if you have about 50% IIQ try to get at least 150% IIR to go with it. Having a high amount of either IIQ or IIR rather than both can be beneficial but rarely as much as having both.

Do note that if you’re mostly farming in groups having more IIR is better since a full group already has +250 IIQ (excluding any map bonuses if applicable). If you prefer to farm alone then either get a mixture of both stats, or consider getting high IIR if you want an increased chance to get rare rings and amulets for the Chaos vendor recipe.

How much IIQ/IIR should you have?

Dual Spark Totem is currently the main build that focuses on high MF. Most other skill tree builds have to focus on far too many other stats to be able to afford high MF as well. Players with some of the best gear available have +150% IIQ and +450% IIR which is considered an extremely high amount. It is possible to reach high amounts of IIQ/IIR on other builds but it’s ridiculously expensive and to most first-time players well out of reach.

On most characters/builds having any MF is not considered mandatory in any way. High-level players typically farm in groups where only one player has high MF and he’s the one who finishes most monsters, while others focus on damage. You should always prioritize high defensive stats followed by damage, and any MF you’re able to get is helpful but secondary.

Yes, IIQ+IIR of the player who deals the killing blow on a monster is the only one that counts!

Typically when you hit a certain threshold where you can clear Docks or low-level maps with ease you can consider getting MF. Even having 50% IIQ and 100% IIR will give you a noticeable increase in items and currency: the easiest way to notice it is when you start running out of Wisdom Scrolls.

Conclusion

Although there are diminishing returns on high amounts of IIQ and IIR there is no sweet spot: the more you have the better. If you can choose to have either IIQ or IIR, IIQ is at least twice as valuable, but if you decide to build a character with high MF then focus on getting both not just one. For solo play IIQ is better than IIR.

I hope this short guide helps you understand Quantity and Rarity better. If you have any questions or thoughts shoot them in the comments below!

Alacrity Rating – Decreases activation time for all abilities. This does NOT affect the global cooldown, and only reduces the time on casted abilities.

Basically, if you’re familiar with the Haste attribute from WoW, Alacrity is pretty much the same. From the latest testing by players, Alacrity does in fact appear to be reducing the global cooldown (GCD) as well, but it’s still unconfirmed.

To get a 1% reduction in ability cast time, you’ll need 25 alacrity rating. Note that alacrity rating is different that alacrity percentage!

So for example, +150 Alacrity Rating would give you 10% Alacrity, at least 50% more than a +75 relic could possibly give. Global Cooldown (if affected at all) would be reduced to 1.36 seconds from 1.5 seconds. If you get 20 alacrity at level 50 it would give you roughly 13% quicker ability cast time.

Some players say alacrity affects all global cooldowns, some say it only reduces GCD on spells that aren’t instant cast, and some players claim it doesn’t affect GCD at all. Hopefully someone will do the proper testing soon and we’ll find out how good alacrity really is.

If you have your own data to contribute with be sure to post is in the comments below, and don’t forget to check out our leveling guide for more information!

Once you’ve loaded the game and chosen your server, the first thing you’ll see is your character selection screen. If you’ve created a Consular already, great! If not, click ‘Create Character’ and have fun customizing. Race and gender give no advantages or disadvantages in game, so pick whatever looks good to you. When you’re satisfied that you have the hottest looking Consular in the galaxy, you’ll be taken to the opening crawl of your story. Enjoy reading it—this is YOUR Star Wars saga!

A shuttle will fly you down to the surface of Tython, which is the origin planet for both Jedi classes. You’ll meet Master Yuon Par, who has taken you as her Padawan. You’ll also get instruction on how to move in game, find your quest log, locate taxis, and equip items. This is a good spot to click the ‘Options’ button on your top bar, and check out your preferences. If your game is running slowly, the graphics are usually the culprit. Turn shadows, anisotropy, and grass down or off. Lowering ‘ground clutter’ can help, too. Under ‘social’, check ‘allow access to same class stories’ if you plan on grouping a lot. This will let you join other JCs in their class stories. Note—only one of you will get credit if you’re grouped with someone who has the same class quest. There is a choice to auto-loot the area on right click—this is very handy. Add more hotbars, especially the bottom two. You’ll need them as you gain skills. I enabled all four bars and put the skills I used infrequently on the right bar. I set my left bar for crew member skills. There’s a tab at the bottom of the preference window for keybinds. Adjust them as you desire—there are a lot of options you can hotkey or rebind to keys you prefer. Click ‘apply’ to save all your options, and then ‘OK’ to close the window.

You’ll also notice tips on the right side of your screen from time to time–click those to open the tip windows and learn more. These are incredibly helpful, and you want to ignore these about as much as you want to be eaten by a Rancor.

People to See, Places to Go

Once you arrive at the Gnarls taxi stop, make sure to pick up the bind point. Get in the habit of unlocking all your bind points, which are usually located by the taxis and in cantinas. This gives you many more quick travel options. You’ll thank yourself later when you want to hop back somewhere to turn in quests.

You’ll find your first skill trainer and some merchants in this area as well. Visit the trainer as soon as possible after leveling up to get your new skills. You need all your Jedi powers to defeat those enemies!

Skills for Survival
The default hotkey for your skills is ‘p’. Most skills will be automatically added to your hotbars if you have an open space for them. Some are not, however. Also, passive skills do not need to be on your hotbars. They’re always active. The skills are unlocked on your bar by default, so you can move them around freely to suit your particular play style. Click the little padlock icon on the left side of the center skillbar to lock or unlock it.

I usually keep Force Wave in slot one, Project in two, Telekinesis in three, and my melee skills in four and five. Seeing items ripped out of the ground and thrown at your enemy is Very Cool, so I lean more towards using the Force skills. I have those hotkeyed on my number pad. If you prefer more of a melee style, move the lightsaber skills to slots two and three instead. The issue of mousing versus hotkeying the skills has caused many a debate and even a few nasty little flamewars. Do what works best for you and ignore the fruitcakes out there who tell you that you’re wrong for doing it that way.

Quests and Maps

Right near the Gnarls taxi, you’ll notice Master Relnex, who will have your first real quest for you. Quest givers have cut out gold triangles above their heads when they have quests to offer. The triangles will be filled in when you have a completed quest to turn into them. Why BioWare chose triangles, I don’t know. In any case, go find those students before the Flesh Raiders capture them!

Check your map periodically (default hotkey is ‘m’). This is a great way to find more quests and new areas to explore. Accept all the quests you can possibly find, including the bonus objectives that come from taking down your foes. All of those will give you experience points (XP) towards the next level and practice using the different combat and healing skills.

Tempting as it is to move your class storyline along, don’t rush through the Gnarls area. You receive XP for discovering Lore objects, unlocking new areas, and meeting new species. You’ll have your first dialogue option that offers Light Side (LS) or Dark Side (LS) points. You can role-play it the way you want, though there is currently a definite advantage to choosing one side or the other. Some gear is restricted to either LS or DS, and you have to earn a certain level of points to unlock those ranks. Your Jedi can turn to the DS, though it will be a challenging path to play. Dark Side Jedi do not turn into Sith and switch factions to the Empire, just as Light Side Sith do not switch factions to the Republic.

When you receive quest rewards, take the time to mouse over them to find out which attributes they boost. The main attribute for the JC is Willpower, with Endurance coming in a close second. Willpower raises the amount of Force power, while Endurance raises your hit points. Since you can only wear light armor, raising both is essential. Presence is useful for raising your companions’ hit points, but don’t worry about that one too much. At lower levels, you can also put points into Strength if you want to raise the amount of damage you do with your lightsaber. Gear with this stat may arguably useful for Jedi Shadows, but not for Sages, who need the extra Force points more than melee damage. At higher levels, Willpower is always going to be the better option, however. Don’t bother with Aim or Cunning.

After finishing up in the Gnarls area, you’ll be directed to the Jedi Temple. Take the time to explore the area in and around the temple thoroughly. You’ll find class trainers, several quests, a cantina, lore objects, and a variety of vendors, including one for your Tython commendations. Don’t bother buying armor at this stage—you’ll receive a number of armor pieces as quest rewards. The understudy’s foil is useful for killing the bad guys faster than your practice saber, but it’s not essential. Save up the commendations for the Consular robe that you can buy at the Specialty Vendor. That served me well through most of Coruscant, which is the planet you go to when you finish your work on Tython. Pick up a few medpacs and stims that boost your Endurance and Willpower. You can find these at Stim Vendors and Republic Medical Droids.

Health and Welfare

Make sure to use your Force Valor buff as often as it wears off. It lasts an hour. You can buff an entire party or even other players. If you buff other players who aren’t Consulars as you meet or pass them in game, you’ll find that some of them will stop to return the favor. Every bit helps!

What happens if your health drops during battle? Well, when your foes are lying at your feet, take a few moments to use your meditation skill. This will heal you and replenish your Force points. Always go into the battle with a full health bar whenever possible. What happens if your health bar drops to zero? You’ll have a screen pop up saying you were defeated. You will be presented with two options–revive where you’re at, or get revived at the nearest medcenter. If you’ve finished all your objectives and were ready to turn in your completed quests, or are in the middle of a huge mob that you have no hope of defeating, then being transported to the nearest medcenter might be more convenient. Otherwise, revive where you’re at. You’ll have 8 seconds of stealth to get to a safe spot to heal yourself and re-apply any buffs and stims. Then go finish off the bugger who defeated you and pick up those drops he so kindly left behind. Your armor takes damage during battle, but it takes a lot more damage if you are defeated. Make sure to repair your items at a vendor when you sell all those terrific drops you’ve picked up during your adventures.

Explore, Explore, Explore

Once you’re done with the Jedi Temple orientation, you will be directed to Kalikori Village to help the Pilgrims there and to solve some of the mysteries for your class quest chain. Following that, you’ll end up at the Forward Speeder Camp to foray into the ruins of Kaleth. Explore all the areas–you never know when you’ll find lore objects, new quests, security chests and crates, and the fabled datacrons. There are some gorgeous areas on Tython where you have a chance to stop and just simply enjoy.

Sometimes, you’ll receive a mission item when you accept a quest. That item will end up in your inventory (default hotkey ‘i’). Click the ‘mission’ tab. You can drag the item to your hotbar so that you don’t have to open your inventory every time you need to use it.

Enemies of the Republic are Everywhere

The enemies get tougher as you advance through the different zones, and you’ll see more challenging foes and even a few bosses. Generally, if the enemy has a name, it means BioWare cared enough about him to shower him with love, attention, and lots of hitpoints. You’ll have a better chance of surviving a boss encounter if you’re in a group or if you’re the same or higher level compared to the boss. Left-clicking on the boss will give you some of his stats so that you know what you’re up against.

Bosses often have better quality loot drops than the average enemy. Usually the drops will shine with a white light, but if you see green, blue, or especially purple, there’s something special there for you!

A gold shaft of light indicates a drop needed for a mission has fallen. Make sure to grab those up.

Dialogue Options Can Be a Lot of Fun

BioWare has done a terrific job of making the quests varied and fun. I had to laugh at the baby flesh raider quest and the subsequent dialogue choices when turning in the completed quest for the reward.

Heroic Quests

At the Forward Speeder Camp, you’ll also receive your first Heroic quest. Pay attention to the number of people it says you should have in your party before attempting it, usually 2+ or 4. You’ll need at least that many players, and companions don’t count. These aren’t called ‘heroic’ quests for nothing! These quests are also excellent spots for grouping up and earning social points. Don’t miss out on that.

Companions Join You on Your Adventures

Your first companion, Qyzen Fess, will join you on Tython. You’ll receive more companions over the course of the game. Once you have him in your party, your dialogue choices affect you in more complex ways. These choices many times give you not only LS/DS choices, but now also give affection points. If your companion likes the choice you’ve made, you’ll get rewarded with affection points. If he doesn’t like your choice, affection points will be subtracted. The codex entries in your log (default hotkey ‘l’) on your companions will tell you what they like and dislike, so make sure to read those if you’re planning on maximizing affection with them. Sometimes, your companions won’t like your LS or DS choices. This adds a new dimension to your conversation options.

Don’t forget to equip your companion with items, too, though the equipment he has when you first receive him should be sufficient on Tython. He can wear heavy armor, so give him the best you can find or buy. Despite the fact that his main attributes are Aim and Cunning (both ranged attributes), he comes only with a weapon proficiency in techstaff, which is a melee weapon. You can access your companion’s equipment in the character pane (default hotkey is ‘c’). You’ll see the companion tab right next to yours. You don’t have to worry about assigning attribute points or abilities to your companion. He automatically levels up when you do.

First Lightsaber!

Finally, the time will come for you to craft your own lightsaber. This class quest is the toughest on the planet except for maybe the heroic quest. Make sure you’ve reached at least level 8, and preferably higher. Remember to equip the lightsaber as soon as you craft it. You’ll need it! Once you’ve completed this quest, you’ll return to the Jedi Temple and learn some important news that will send you on even greater adventures across the galaxy.

By this time, you should be well past the ‘newbie’ stage and ready to tackle the advanced stuff. May the Force be with you!

Need more detailed Jedi Consular tricks and tactics? Check out this strategy guide here and learn the mistakes every new player makes!

Guide source: Torwars.

Contents:

• Advanced Classes
• Companions
• Species & Appearance
• Leveling
• Stats & Equipment
• Crew Skills
• Heat System
• Skill Rotation & Combat

The Bounty Hunter brings a lot to the table, and has the opportunity to play any three of the major class roles; they can Tank, Heal, and DPS (the ‘Trinity’). Being able to fill all three vital spots of the Trinity leaves a lot of choice for your character, as if you do decide to roll a Bounty Hunter you will have some freedom before you decide your Advanced Class and which direction you’ll take.

Advanced Classes

As with all classes in SWTOR, at level 10 you will have to select your Advanced Class. The Bounty Hunter can choose from the Powertech which favors Tanking and DPS or the Mercenary which specializes in Healing and DPS.

Each AC has two unique Talent Trees, different specializations, and different ‘Cylinders’. You can only have one Cylinder activate at a time, and each provides different “buffs” for your character – They basically function like ‘stances’ in other MMOs. Each Advanced Class gains two unique Cylinders along with corresponding Talents to enhance them. Both ACs gain access to Combustible Gas Cylinder at level 4, which has a chance to add a damage-over-time effect to enemy targets with each attack.

The Powertech gains access to Ion Gas Cylinder which increases damage and threat-generation against enemies while also lowering total damage taken, providing increased Armor, and increases shield generation chance – this is mostly for Tanking. The other unique Cylinder for Powertechs is High Energy Gas, which increases all elemental damage dealt, this Cylinder would be used mostly for DPS.

Mercenaries gain access to High Velocity Gas, increasing Armor Penetration for more DPS and also Combat Support Cylinder which increases all damage & healing output, and allows you to shoot your allies in the face to apply some minor healing. It does take a little getting used to your Rapid Shots healing allies while Combat Support Cylinder is activated, but it is handy indeed.

Companions

Companions are also an important part of picking any character in SWTOR, and the first companion your Bounty Hunter gets is Mako, a pretty little lady who will heal up your wounds and follow you around with the utmost vigor.

(**Slight Spoiler Note: She tends to enjoy ‘good’ choices, although she loves her credits – so some Dark-side choices she will surprisingly agree with, but in general she tends to disagree with very evil moral choices)

Mako is the first legit Healing Companion that any of the classes get in SWTOR, which is also an added perk. If you decide to go Powertech or DPS Mercenary Spec then Mako will be a very handy addition to your adventuring.

The combination of any class role with a nice healing Companion pretty early in the game makes the Bounty Hunter a fine choice for the indecisive and Newbie MMO player. The combination of the Cylinder system with exciting abilities revolving around explosions, fire, and missiles lend itself to an aesthetically exciting character that also proves to be very versatile. Even once you pick your Advanced Class option, you’re still left with either Tanking/DPS (Powertech) or Healing/DPS (Mercenary) – a nice combo of options.

Species & Appearance

The Bounty Hunter can be played by five of the playable species in SWTOR; Humans, Zabraks, Rattataki, Chiss, and Cyborgs. Ultimately, species and appearance have no effect on your character, but it adds plenty of flavor and each race has its own unique emote which also adds some distinction. Feel free to play around with each, and make sure to choose something that you enjoy and makes you feel like a Bounty Hunter who’s ready to conquer the galaxy.

In terms of the Racial Emotes, my personal favorite for the BH is probably the Cyborg’s ‘Scan’ emote, as it adds some nice Bounty Hunter-eqse flair to your character.

Leveling

Starting off as a Bounty Hunter will land you on Hutta, which is a planet rife with plenty of greed and immoral activity for any up and coming Bounty Hunter. Your quest is to become a contestant in the ‘Great Hunt’, which is pretty much the Superbowl for Bounty Hunters. You’re competing, in usually not a nice way, against various other Bounty Hunters and attempting to win the favor of a Hutt who can make your dreams come true.

While on Hutta you’ll naturally deal with Hutts, but also the Empire, find your first Companion and complete plenty of mayhem for filthy credits. It’s also important to take a break from ruthless Bounty Hunting and remember to pick up the Datacrons on Hutta as well for some permanent stat increases. As far as I’ve been able to discover, there are 3 available Datacrons on Hutta, one for a bonus to Aim, one for Presence, and a Blue Matrix Shard.

Leveling up for the Bounty Hunter was for the most part, a piece of cake. Once you pick-up Mako and have a Healing Companion – you’re able to tackle many of the more difficult tasks, quests, and even Heroic Two-mans become pretty manageable.

The important thing to remember in SWTOR is to follow your main class story line. It will present you with everything you need, for the most part. Following the quest will you lead on the path to get your Companion, join the Great Hunt, “acquire” a ship (which is an awesome quest-line, mind you), and get you to the hub where you’ll be able to select your Advanced Class.

Stats & Equipment

As with all the classes, Bounty Hunters have a Primary Stat which functions as the definitive, most useful stat for them. Aim is the key stat for Bounty Hunters, as it adds damage to Tech skills (yellow damage), standard range damage (white damage), and Healing Tech skills (green). It also increases the Critical Strike chance on these types of abilities as well. Endurance is the second primary stat for most BH gear, increasing hit points and health regeneration.

There are plenty of other secondary stats that will become important to your Bounty Hunter later on, such as Accuracy, Alacrity, Expertise and the like; with stats like Willpower and Strength being much less important, to almost useless for a Bounty Hunter. Accuracy will be an important secondary stat for Hunters, as much of the time they will be attacking from Range – so making sure you hit is of added benefit.

Bounty Hunters also seem to be reliant on Critical Strikes, so secondary stats boosting Crit Chance and Crit Damage will be important as well. But for the most part in early game you’ll find yourself focusing on Aim and Endurance. Also, once you get upgraded to Heavy Armor when you select your AC, don’t forget to swap out/upgrade your Medium Armor gear for the better, Heavy Armor.

Crew Skills

If you’re a big crafting fan, you’ll want to pick up your Crew Skills or Trade Skills as soon as possible and the best opportunity is probably once you reach the Imperial Fleet at around level 10. There are plenty of good crafting options for the Bounty Hunter. The two main skills that stick out are Armortech and Armstech in terms of gear construction, depending on whether or not you want to be able to craft Armor or Weaponry for your character.

The Bounty Hunter uses various guns & assorted weaponry and Medium/Heavy Armor, So Armortech & Armstech are the natural selection if you’re interested in crafting some of your own gear.

If crafting equipment isn’t your thing, then Biochem or Cybertech may be good alternatives to those skills, as having extra ‘Consumables’ on hand or crafting gear for Droids can always come in handy if you’re a big fan of the non-Organic. Depending on what crafting skills you’ve selected, you’ll most likely want to choose the complimenting ‘gathering’ Crew Skill so you will be able to provide yourself with your own materials and save your precious credits.

Below is a list of the suggest pairings of gathering skills and mission skills with the listed crafting skills above.

• Armortech – Scavenging (Gathering), Investigation (Mission Skill), Underworld Trading (Mission Skill)
• Armstech – Scavenging, Investigation, Underworld Trading, Treasure Hunting (Mission Skill)
• Biochem – Bioanalysis (Gathering), Underworld Trading
• Cybertech – Scavenging, Slicing (Gathering), Treasure Hunting, Underworld Trading

With Crew Skills in mind, remember to keep an eye on your wallet – as each mission you send your Companion out on will cost you credits. While leveling up and needing to save for a mount and pay for skills, keeping tabs on your Galactic checkbook is always helpful.

Heat System

Your Bounty Hunter uses the Heat System to execute abilities, starting off with zero Heat and slowly building Heat as you continue to use abilities, with each ability having a ‘Heat Requirement’ or Cost to use. Some abilities, like Rapid Shots (your main attack ability), do not build Heat and it will be important to use abilities that don’t build Heat inbetween the use of Heat-building skills, as to give your Heat System time to cool down.

The Heat System works on a scale of 0-100 and the system is not ‘static’ in its depletion after you’ve built heat; so the less Heat that you have, the faster your Heat will dissipate. You can see your current ‘Dissipation Rate’ to the right of your Heat Bar in-game, represented as small arrows; the more arrows you have, the faster your Heat will dissipate. With this mechanic of Heat dissipating faster the less Heat you have built up, it’s in your Bounty Hunter’s best interests to attempt ‘Heat Management’ (or keeping your Heat at a lower level) so it can continue to deplete at the accelerated rate. There will, of course, be occasions where you’re forced to build up large amounts of Heat quickly, but keep in mind that your Heat bar will not ‘cool down’ as fast as it would if your Heat was only 1/3rd full.

You also have abilities in your arsenal to either lower your current Heat level, or not build any at all. Vent Heat is a prime example of one way to get rid of some of that nasty built up Heat, by venting out 50 Heat over three seconds, although it is on a two minute cooldown so be wary with its usage.

The quicker degradation of Heat when your Heat level is lower is an interesting mechanic, as if you are able to manage your Heat well – you could, in theory, stay at a consistent level and keep using your relevant abilities. As a general rule, I attempt to keep my Heat below 25% or 50% to keep the dissipation rate quick. So, when jumping into your Bounty Hunter, learning Heat Management will be key for future encounters as you continue to level up.

Skill Rotation & Combat

In your early days as a Bounty Hunter you’ll be limited in your abilities, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t efficient at blowing things up. As you level up and continue your adventures, your skill rotation will depend more & more heavily upon your Advanced Class, its Class Roles and Talent Specs.

When dealing with groups of bigger enemies; start off with a Power Shot, Mako missile, Death from Above, or Explosive Dart. Proceed with Rapid Shots, Rail Shot, or Regular fire. Attempt to keep Heat low. If enemies close distance, Rocket Punch + Flamethrower or Vice Versa (with Rocket Punch as a finisher) is a good combination.

One very effective combination for groups, up until at least level 20 (as a Mercenary specifically,) was opening up with Kolto Missile, followed by Death From Above. This combo pretty much eliminated most groups, perhaps needing to throw down a little extra blaster fire at most.

For single-enemies or Rare/Elite enemies; I found starting off with Power Shot, Explosive Dart, and Unload was an effective combo to really start the damage; at that point if Rail Shot is triggered, use it – it’s always a nice boon to add some instant damage.

Overall, Combat with the Bounty Hunter is extremely fun, engaging, and if you’re into pyrotechnics – the BH is your pick.

Conclusion

That’s about it for now. Hopefully you enjoyed this introductory guide to the Bounty Hunter class in SWTOR. Stay tuned for further looks into the intricacies of the Bounty Hunter and other SWTOR-related elements!

See also: Skill rotations, leveling tricks, PvP tactics, credits making and more guides specifically written for Bounty Hunters

Star Wars: The Old Republic will begin early access next week (woo!), and as people begin to roll new characters in a new game they’ll be wondering exactly how they should be gearing up. This guide will explain the functions of all of the different stats in TOR (and there are a lot.) As far as what specs want what, that’s a bit murkier, but by reading through today’s post you should be able to get a basic handle on things. I’m not going to get too heavy into what the stats are, take this as a quick reference sheet.

1. Primary Stats
2. Power Stats
3. Secondary Stats
4. Gear-Defining Stats
5. PvP Stat
6. Defensive Stats

Primary Stats

There are six primary stats that you’ll find on gear and weaponry which affect your characters the most. These stats provide multiple bonuses instead of a single increase, and (depending on spec) may have up to 5 different effects for a single point. To sum it up, each stat has multiple effects, and certain ACs and classes get additional bonus effects.

• Strength – Increases Melee Damage + Melee Crit
• Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior Bonus – Force Damage + Force Crit
• Willpower – Increases Force Damage + Force Crit
• Jedi Shadow/Sith Assassin Bonus – Melee Damage + Melee Crit
• Jedi Sage/Sith Sorcerer Bonus – Healing Power
• Aim – Increases Ranged Damage + Ranged Crit
• Vanguard/Powertech Bonus – Tech Damage + Tech Crit
• Commando/Mercenary Bonus – Tech Damage + Tech Crit + Healing Power
• Cunning – Increases Tech Damage + Tech Crit
• Gunslinger/Sniper Bonus – Ranged Damage + Ranged Crit
• Scoundrel/Operative Bonus – Ranged Damage + Ranged Crit + Healing Power
• Endurance – Increases health
• Presence – Increases companion damage, companion health, and companion healing

Power Stats

When you see those primary stats above increasing damage or healing, they’re not actually directly affecting your abilities. Rather, these stats bump up your character’s power stats, of which there are three. In addition to being modified by primary stats, tech/force/power can be found on gear such as weapons and foci/shields.

• Power – Generic stat that increases the damage (and healing!) of all of your abilities, regardless of type.
• Tech Power – Increases only damage abilities considered “tech,” such as grenades or flamethrowers.
• Force Power – Increases only damage abilities considered “force,” such as Telekinetic Throw or Shock.
• Healing Power (Tech and Force) – This is actually split up into Healing Power: Tech and Healing Power: Force, but for all intents and purposes they’re the same. Increases the amount healed by all of your healing abilities.

Secondary Stats

A staple of any MMO’s gearing process is having big powerful primary stats followed by the less powerful but more varied secondary stats, and Star Wars: The Old Republic is no exception.

• Accuracy Rating – Increases your chance to hit with all attacks. Keep in mind there are separate caps for different types of attacks. If you go over 100% hit, the additional percentage is converted into defense penetration!
• Critical Rating – Increases your chance to score a critical hit with all heals and attacks.
• Surge Rating – Increases critical bonus damage with all heals and attacks. The default bonus is 50% extra damage/heals on a crit, which this rating improves.
• Alacrity Rating – Decreases activation time for all abilities. This does NOT affect the global cooldown, and only reduces the time on casted abilities.

Gear-Defining Stats

Due to the extreme amount of gear customization in TOR, developers want you to be able to take any orange item (orange = fully moddable) and use it all the way to max level if you prefer. In order to achieve this, weapons and armor both have a dynamic stat on them which changes based on the level of the mods you have placed inside the item.

• Rating – Increases the damage done on a weapon. You’ll see this listed at the very top of a lightsaber or blaster’s tooltip. The stat itself does absolutely nothing except increase the damage done — think of it as the ‘item level’ stat you’re used to seeing in games like World of Warcraft.
• Armor – Armor, which you should be more familiar with, increases Energy and Kinetic resistances (more on that later), is the dynamic stat increased on pieces of equipped gear.

So, for an example, if you take an orange lightsaber with all level 1 mods in it, compared to the same lightsaber with all level 10 mods in it, the Rating stat will be much higher, and thus so will it’s damage. Same goes for Armor on those pieces with Armor on them.

PvP Stat

Conveniently enough, BioWare has condensed all the necessary PvP stats into one gigantic unit.

• Expertise – Increases damage/healing done and decreases damage taken in PvP situations.

I’m not entirely sure what’s defined as a PvP situation, but I would imagine it’s damage done/taken to/from other characters, or healing someone who has recently taken damage from another player. Expertise is a jack-of-all-trades stat, it helps everything a little bit.

Defensive Stats

Just in case some of you care about survivability…

• Resistance – There are 4 types of resistance in the game. Energy and Kinetic Resistance are affected by Armor as well as specific resistance stats, whereas Internal and Elemental resistance are only affected by their stats.
• Defense Rating – Increases chance to parry melee attacks and deflect ranged attacks.
• Shield Chance – For those who equip a shield in their offhand slot, increases the chance for an attack to be partially absorbed by your shield.
• Absorption Rating – Increases the amount of damage reduced when an attack is shielded.

Phew – I think that just about covers everything. Most of these stats should be pretty familiar, specifically things like armor and crit, but it’s good to take a look over everything to help out your gearing needs. Keep an eye out soon for my mega-gigantor-uber post detailing the playstyles and general rotations of each of the DPS specs available to us at launch. Until next time, stay frosty!

See also: SWTOR attributes and other strategies

This guide will also tell you what the main and off-stats are recommended for all four main callings. Hopefully you will find it helpful when choosing your equipment.

Contents:

1. How to view your attributes
2. Major attributes
   1. Health
   2. Mana
   3. Energy
   4. Charge
3. Attributes explained
4. Cleric stats
5. Mage stats
6. Rogue stats
7. Warrior stats

How to View Your Attributes

Your Options Menu
Top-left button: Character View

Attribute View

• Press the hotkey “C” or the Character Button in your group of menu button at the bottom left of your default UI setup.
• The Character View will show up, press “Stats” in the bottom menu selection under your character’s name and details.
• This view now shows your character’s current Attributes.

Major Attributes

1. Health

Health (Hitpoints, HP) is the bread of all characters. When it reaches zero, you will die.

2. Mana

For Mages and Clerics, this statistic gives you the ability to cast spells.

3. Energy

For Rogues and Warriors, this Attribute gives the player the energy to execute a physical attack

4. Charge

Built up over casting spells and using abilities, this can be spent on separate spells that do not use mana.

Attributes Explained

Source: ZAM Rift Wiki

Cleric Stats

There is a very wide range of rift cleric stats, however it is important you avoid those of which are completely useless to your character. Currently, we have Dexterity, Endurance, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Strength. However, there are several other stats as well such as spell power, attack power, armor, hit rating, etc, which we will get into later in the rift cleric stats guide.

Rift Cleric Stats #1 – Wisdom

Wisdom is used for the Cleric’s mana regen, this should be heavily stacked for any healing cleric, and avoided completely for the melee dps and tanks. A little bit is okay for the caster DPS, but you shouldn’t sacrifice other stats which are better.

Rift Cleric Stats #2 – Intelligence

Intelligence is good stat for healing and caster dps clerics as it will increase the heals of the healer and the damage of the dps. Also, it provides a increase to maximum mana which is a great help for both roles. On top of all that there is even a crit rate bonus, which again, great for both roles.

Rift Cleric Stats #3 – Endurance

This is the absolute best stat for Cleric tanks, they receive a large bonus for each point of endurance (80%) so if you choose to tank as a Cleric you will want to stack this as much as possible. For other roles it isn’t very important, and other stats will be much better to help increase your character’s damage or healing.

We won’t get into Strength or Dexterity, as they won’t be used in many situations as a Cleric. We still have the secondary stats which we need to discuss however, so let’s get to that.

Rift Cleric Stats #4 – Spell Power

Very important stat for any role, it will increase healing, caster dps, and this may be a surprise but even melee dps. Clerics are able to convert their spell power into attack power, making spell power the thing to stack even for melee DPS.

Rift Cleric Stats #5 – Crit Rating

Pretty simple stat, it will increase the rate at which you score a critical strike. Useful mainly for dps roles, but heals can crit too, so it’s not a bad thing to have some crit as a healing role.

Rift Cleric Stats #6 – Hit Rating

Very useful for the cleric endgame, you’ll want to reach the hit cap as soon as you can once you have hit level 50. The hit cap is not known yet, but the information should be available when Rift is released.

There you are, we’ve covered the most important stats for the Rift Cleric and it’s time for you to start equipping your character accordingly.

Mage Stats

There is a very wide range of rift mage stats, however it is important you avoid those of which are completely useless to your character. Currently, we have Dexterity, Endurance, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Strength. However, there are several other stats as well such as spell power, attack power, armor, hit rating, etc, which we will get into later in the rift mage stats guide.

Rift Mage Stats #1 – Wisdom

Okay, the first rift mage stat we will discuss is Wisdom, this stat will increase your characters mana regen as well as spell critical strike chance. It should be noted that the crit bonus is equal to that of the intelligence stat’s crit bonus.

In rift, most mages are really not going to need a whole lot of mana regen, which makes Wisdom a lower priority statwise. The reason being is that mages are going to have some sort of mana regenerating ability already such as the Warlock soul’s Sacrifice Life: Mana, or the Necromancer’s Consumption, the Dominator’s Mana Wrench, and even the Elementalist has an ability for mana regen, Channel Elements.

It’s always good to have a little bit of extra mana regen so you aren’t using an extra ability in your rotation to regain your mana, however, it really isn’t that big of a deal to throw in an extra ability here and there if you’re gaining better stats because of it.

Rift Mage Stats #2 – Endurance

Secondly we will discuss the Endurance stat, which increases the max health of your character. For raiding you definitely will not want to be stacking endurance, you’re going to be at a good range from the fight most likely and won’t be taking much damage so you will want to make sure you have your stats more based on damage dealing or mana regen abilities.

You may however want to worry about it if you choose to PvP, you don’t want to go into a PvP situation with harldly any endurance as you will be focus faster than anyone else and it isn’t going to be a whole lot of fun. So it’s good to have separate sets of gear you can switch out when going from PvE to PvP.

Rift Mage Stats #3 – Intelligence

So I’ve talked a lot about reasons why you shouldn’t need to stack the above two stats, but there’s good news, you SHOULD stack intelligence. This is the best of the rift mage stats, you should make your decisions on gear based on if it has more intelligence than other stats. If you’re wondering why, it’s because intelligence not only increases your maximum mana, and not only does it increase your spell power on top of that, it also increases the crit rate.

So with intelligence you’re getting all of the above 3 boosts to your mage which are all great for any situation, but there’s something else to look into with it. Since your max mana is going to be higher, it will also cause mana regen spells we talked about earlier to regen more mana, making the need for Wisdom even less if you have more Intelligence.

Now, we aren’t going to discuss Strength or Dexterity as they are completely useless to the mage and should be avoided altogether, but we still need to cover those other stats such as spell power and attack power we talked about earlier.

Rift Mage Off-Stat #1 – Spell Power

As you may have guessed you will want to stack a LOT of spell power, it is one of the most important rift mage stats you will use. However, spell power seems to not be on much armor currently but mainly focused on the weapons, this may change endgame or it may not. Possibly later armor enchants will be available for spell power as well.

As we said earlier Intelligence also increases spell power, so purchasing or obtaining items that have a lot of intelligence as well as spell power will greatly increase your damage.

Rift Mage Off-Stat #2 – Spell Crit

Crit is something we also talked about earlier, basically it is used to increase your crit chance, so the more spell crit you obtain on your items the higher chance you will have of scoring a critical strike. It’s important to get a lot of this, more or less depending on your soul, however, you don’t want to get too much crit if you’re going to be sacrificing a lot of intelligence or spell power.

Rift Mage Off-Stat #3 – Focus

In a nutshell, focus is your hit rating, which is very important endgame. We don’t have the hit cap for level 50 yet but when the game is fully released your first priority at level 50 will most likely be the hit cap, and make sure you never go over the hit cap because it is completely wasted stats.

Rogue Stats

There is a very wide range of rift rogue stats, however it is important you avoid those of which are completely useless to your character. Currently, we have Dexterity, Endurance, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Strength. However, there are several other stats as well such as spell power, attack power, armor, hit rating, etc, which we will get into later in the rift rogue stats guide.

Rift Rogue Stats #1 – Strength

Strength is a decent rogue stat, it increases the Rogue’s attack power and crit rate which is two great things for DPS rogues, you won’t need much if this if you’re going to tank however some is recommended to help keep threat.

Rift Rogue Stats #2 – Dexterity

Dexterity is the top rogue stat, for rogues, it increases crit rate, attack power, dodge rate, as well as parry rate. Therefore the Dexterity stat is useful for both DPS and tank rogues, stacking dexterity is a must in any situation and you should never give up dexterity for strength in any instance.

Rift Rogue Stats #3 – Endurance

Endurance is used to increase your maximum amount of hit points, therefore it’s useful for tanks and is good to have in PvP, but you should NOT be stacking this completely if you’re tanking. Dexterity adds a lot for tanks and you should be stacking both of these, as for DPS you shouldn’t really worry too much about endurance.

We won’t cover Wisdom or Intelligence as they’re pretty much useless to the rogue and should be avoided. However we still have a few more secondary stats we will discuss that are in-fact very useful to the rogue.

Rift Rogue Stats #4 – Attack Power

Often referred to as “AP” attack power is very useful for rogues, it will increase their base damage which makes it a must-have for DPS rogues, also tanks can use it to help keep threat on enemies.

Rift Rogue Stats #5 – Physical Hit

Hit rating is very important in any MMORPG endgame. As soon as you’ve hit level 50 you will want to begin working on reaching the hit cap, it is not known currently what the hit cap will be but the information will be available when the game is released. Also, make sure you do not exceed the hit cap because that is a complete waste of stats.

Rift Rogue Stats #6 – Physical Crit

Pretty simple, increases your crit rate. This is a pretty great stat for rogues, and pretty equivalent to attack power. You’ll be hitting very quickly as a rogue and if your attacks are critting you’ll be doing a very heavy amount of damage in a short period of time. Crit chance should be stacked, but it’s important to not get too much crit to where it’s becoming a waste.

Rift Rogue Stats #7 – Dodge and Parry

Although they are both different stats, I’ve categorized them as one. They both basically do the same thing, avoid an attack. They’re great for tanks but should be avoided for any other role you may be playing.

Warrior Stats

There is a very wide range of rift warrior stats, however it is important you avoid those of which are completely useless to your character. Currently, we have Dexterity, Endurance, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Strength. However, there are several other stats as well such as spell power, attack power, armor, hit rating, etc, which we will get into later in the rift warrior stats guide.

Rift Warrior Stats #1 – Strength

Probably the best stat for the warrior in rift is strength, it gives you increased attack power, crit rate, as well as block and parry. Stacking strength is an excellent idea for any warrior.

Rift Warrior Stats #2 – Endurance

A great tanking stat for warriors is endurance, this stat will increase your health, however that’s really all there is to it so endurance should be avoided for the most part unless you are doing PvP or tanking.

Rift Warrior Stats #3 – Dexterity

The Dexterity skill, like Endurance, is more of a tanky type skill. It focuses on increases to dodge and parry while adding a small amount of crit rate, therefore you shouldn’t really use dexterity in a situation other than tanking. Possibly used in PvP but you’d be better off with strength stats honestly.

We are not going to discuss Intelligence or Wisdom as they are both completely useless to the warrior class and should be avoided no matter what. We will however go into those off-stats which we talked about at the beginning.

Rift Warrior Stats #4 – Attack Power

Often referred to as “AP” attack power focuses mainly on maximizing your warrior’s damage, it provides a boost to your physical DPS.

Rift Warrior Stats #5 – Armor

As you may have guessed Armor is used to reduce the amount of damage you receive, this makes armor very useful to takes and not very useful in any other situation except maybe PvP. If you choose the tank route, get a lot of armor, if not, try to avoid it.

Rift Warrior Stats #6 – Physical Crit

Basically a critical strike chance increase, very important to warriors as they deal a high amount of damage at slower rates, so critting helps out a lot. If your DPSing stack a LOT of crit, tanks don’t need to worry about it as much.

Rift Warrior Stats #7 – Dodge and Parry

I’ve categorized these under the same number, although they are two different stats. They both basically do the same thing, avoid an attack, it’s good to stack more Parry as you seem to get more parry than you do dodge.

Rift Warrior Stats #8 – Hit

Very important stat to any class endgame, you will want to reach the hit cap before anything else when you reach level 50. We don’t know what the hit cap will be yet but it’s very important to find out as soon as possible when the game is released.

There you have it, we’ve covered all of the important Rift Warrior Stats and you’ve got all the information you need to start building your character efficiently.

This feral druid PvP guide, written by Natz from Hellfire-EU will surely help you get familiarized with the class in the 9th arena season.

Contents:

1. Acronyms and PvP Terms
2. Reasons to Play Feral
3. Professions
4. Talents and Glyphs
5. Keybinds
6. Stats and Gems
7. Viable Arena Setups
8. Feral Playstyle
9. Macros
10. Random General Stuff

1. Acronyms and PvP Terms

Before I get started on the actual guide, you should know what certain things actually are in pvp, such as “Crowd Control” next to that, you can also find acronyms that I’ll use later in the guide here. The pvp terms im quickly explaining here are very basic, so for a more experienced pvp’er it’s best to skip these.

CC – Crowd control: This is the term that players use that describes everything that makes you loose (partial) control of your character. For example: Cyclone, Sheep, Entangling roots, Fear and Kidney Shot are all forms of CC’s.

DR – Dimishing Returns: After you CC a player, he will suffer from DR so you cant control him endlessly. DR means that the second CC you land will have a shorter duration then the first one. The first CC will have 100% duration, the second wil have 50% duration, and the third 25%. After this, the player will be immune to that type of crowd control. The effect of DR ends 15 seconds after your CC ends.

For example: You sheep player A and he is sheeped for 10 seconds. 2 seconds after that you sheep him again, and it’s now a 5 second duration.
Or: You sheep player A and he is sheeped for 10 seconds. 25 seconds later (15 seconds after he leaves the sheep) you sheep him again, and he is sheeped for 10 seconds once again.

Next to this, some spells share DR with eachother, even though they’re different spells. Fear and blind have this for example. If you blind a person directly after a fear, the DR effect will cause it to be only 50% of it’s duration. A full list of CC’s that share DR with eachother can be found here: http://www.wowwiki.com/Diminishing_returns.

LoS – Line of sight: If the direct sight of you on another player is blocked by a pillar, or something similar – you are out of LoS and won’t be able to cast on that player, and his casts wont land on you either. LoS is often used to prevent from getting CC’d. If you see a player cast a CC on you, you can quickly step behind a pillar and the cast will not land on you.

Peel/peeling – Peeling using abilities, like maim or cyclone, to control or slow an opponent. This is mostly used to prevent them from doing damage – so your team can recover from damage taken.

GCD – Global cooldown: The GCD is the time it takes for you to be able to use your next ability after using an instant cast. The GCD is 1.5 seconds for everyone exept: Rogues, Ferals in catform and Death knights in unholy presence.

Then some feral acronyms that are often used ingame and on forums:

• FB – Ferocious Bite
• SI – Surviving Instincts
• SR – Savage Roar
• BS – Barkskin
• FR – Frenzied Regeneration

2. Reasons to Play Feral

Feral has always provided a unique playstyle, combining the attacks from a rogue with the utility from a frost mage. Ferals are, and have always been, an amazing support class. Now, in Season 9, ferals have also gotten tools so they can play very aggressive, and drop healers on their own.

If this isn’t enough reason, feral druids also have one of the most awesome communities of all specs. If you plan to play a feral, don’t forget that old school ferals don’t play a feral, but ARE a feral. This is mostly because of ferals being dogshit for a very long time. Unfortunately, the spec is good now and was pretty good in Wotlk as well, so this is slowly changing.

3. Professions

There’s not a big difference between professions anymore, but these are the ones you do NOT take.

• Herbalism: Haste isn’t very good for feral, so you don’t want to take this!
• Mining: Stamina is nice, but it’s definitely not great.
• Skinning: Crit is a great secondary stat, but it’s just not good enough with other professions giving agility.

Next to this there is a debate of engineering at the moment. The main use of it seems to be rocket gloves, wich do quite low damage. I personally still really like rocket gloves though, but not for the damage component. You can use the rocket gloves to quickly kill a grounding totem, or maybe get down a spell reflect. This can save you a GCD, and getting a cyclone off 1 GCD sooner can be game breaking.

I think all other professions are a good choice as well at the moment. But Leatherworking seems to give the biggest benefit to ferals at the moment.

4. Talents and Glyphs

Ferals only have a few floater points at the moment, but we all start of with the same basic talent spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrMcRzrdbczMcz

There’s dozens of small variations possible though. Some people prefer not to take “Primal Madness” and get some extra survivability instead. I’m personally running with the following spec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrMcRdrdrczMcz. If you are facing a lot of wizard cleaves on your battlegroup, and you are dying against them, I would recommend the following spec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrMckdrzrczMcu. In the end it really comes down to what talent you prefer though!

For the glyphs, it’s quite straightforward as well, but there are always options to be made!

Prime:

• Glyph of Berserk: Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 sec.
• Glyph of Mangle: Increases the damage done by Mangle by 10%.
• Glyph of Rip: Increases the periodic damage of your Rip by 15%.
• Glyph of Savage Roar: Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 5% bonus damage done.
• Glyph of Shred: Each time you Shred, the duration of your Rip on the target is extended by 2 sec, up to a maximum of 6 sec.
• Glyph of Tiger’s Fury: Reduces the cooldown of your Tiger’s Fury ability by 3 sec.

Again it’s a bit dependent on your personal preferences which ones you take here. Two of them are really standard though. Almost every feral you see will be using Glyph of Berserk and Glyph of Rip. Glyph of rip speaks for itself, extra damage on our top damage ability. Glyph of Berserk is something that you’ll only see in PvP though. In PvE this glyph isn’t considered great, because you run out of energy after 15 seconds uptime on a boss, even with berserk. However, in PvP it’s very unlikely you’ll be able to get the full 15 seconds uptime on your target, meaning you’ll usually have energy left after those 15 seconds, that you can use on cheaper attacks thanks to this glyph. And 5 seconds extra fear immunity isn’t bad either of course!

For the third pick, I would choose between Mangle or Tiger’s Fury. The savage roar and shred glyph are both great as well, but only if you get a lot of uptime on targets, and can do a nice rotation into them, like the PvE’ers do! If you end up mangling a lot in games, use the mangle glyph – otherwise go for Tiger’s Fury.

Major:

• Glyph of Entangling Roots: Reduces the cast time of your Entangling Roots by 100%, but increases its cooldown by 5 sec.
• Glyph of Feral Charge: Reduces the cooldown of your Feral Charge (Cat) ability by 2 sec and the cooldown of your Feral Charge (Bear) ability by 1 second.
• Glyph of Thorns: Reduces the cooldown of your Thorns spell by 20 sec.
• Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration: While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 30% more powerful but causes your Frenzied Regeneration to no longer regenerate HP
• Glyph of Ferocious Bite: Your Ferocious Bite ability no longer converts extra energy into additional damage.
• Glyph of Barkskin: Reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 25% while Barkskin is active.

One easy pick here; Glyph of Entangling Roots. This glyph is so amazingly overpowered that you always want to use it! Be careful though, the roots still use your instant nature spell proc you gain from combo points.

After that most ferals go for Glyph of Charge – shorter cooldown on such an important ability is great to have. The third glyph is hardest though, Thorns does great damage – but has limited use against most teams. But if you happen to face a feral/rogue/x team it’s really insanely awesome.

Frenzied Regeneration glyph used to be horrible, but after the nerf on the healing it does, it’s something I’ll have to check. The problem with this glyph is that you usually need to use cooldowns because your healer is CC’d, and if he’s CC’d he doesn’t heal, so you don’t gain anything out of it unless you live long enough to receive heals again.

Glyph of Ferocious Bite is something that depends on the situation again. In some situations an opponent is low on HP and you want a big fat ferocious bite to finish him off. In other situations you rather save that energy to build up new combo points with. I’m planning to try it out a bit more, but at the moment it doesn’t seem to great.

And last, Glyph of Barkskin. In my opinion the best pick at the moment, purely because of the damage warriors can put out. When warrior’s get toned down I think I’ll swap it out again, because melee is something ferals can deal with very well!

Minor:

Really easy! You’ll want to use Dash, Mark of the Wild and Aquatic form. If you’re tanking in the same spec, swap out MotW or Aquatic form for Challenging roar.

5. Keybinds

Out of all specs, ferals have the biggest need for keybinds. If you’re clicking it becomes even harder to get behind your target, and shred. If you are still clicking, swap to keybinds as soon as you can! I used to click myself as well, and swapping to keybinds really makes a huge difference.

6. Stats and Gems

As a feral druid there really are 2 main stats that you want to have: Agility and Resilience. Next to these the other stats relevant for feral pvp are (in order of importance):

• Spell Penetration
• Hit
• Mastery
• Crit
• Haste
• Expertise

Your goal with gearing up is to get pieces with agility on them, strength is good as well – but agility is better (an epic strength ring is usually better then a rare agility ring). Next to this you want to avoid haste and expertise as much as you can. If you happen to get it anyway, that’s what you want to reforge into something else.

There is caps for hit and spell penetration you want to hit, so you don’t miss, or get spells resisted. For hit this is 5% – 600 hit , and you’ll also need 97 spell penetration. Once you have hit these caps, you can completely ignore these stats, because they’re now your worst. As a feral, there is no spell penetration on gear – so to hit the spell penetration cap, you’ll need to use 2x 50 spell penetration gems. Conveniently, these go into blue sockets and can be used to activate socket bonuses.

To get to the hit cap, you’ll want to reforge stats to hit. You can also gem hit – but one point of agility is twice as good as one point of mastery – so if you gem hit you’ll be wasting damage! I generally go with the following setup:

• Red: 40agility or 20agility/20resi
• Yellow: 20agility/20resi, or 40resi
• Blue: 50spellpen, 20agi/20hit or 20resi/20hit if spellpen capped, and 20agi/30stam or 20resi/30stam if hit and spellpen capped.

The metagem is the hardest to choose. The best metagem for us is the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond, but the gem requirements are hard to hit. That’s why I swapped to the Fleet Shadowspirit Diamond, giving 54 mastery and movement speed increase. If you can get the gem requirements for the Relentless metagem – use that one instead. Other options are:

• Effulgent Shadowspirit Diamond (82stamina 2% less spell damage taken)
• Powerful Shadowspirit Diamond (82stamina and 10% les stun duration on you)
• Destructive Shadowspirit Diamond (54 crit and 1% chance to reflect spells)

7. Viable Arena Setups

I’ll be updating this with the most common feral setups, and how they work, so it’s easier for you to find a combo you like. With the season just starting it’s a bit hard for me to see what comps are good right now, so I’ll list the 3 most common feral comps of the past seasons.

1: Feral/Mage/healer

This comp used to be played with a priest, but with priests being crap right now you’ll probably want to replace the priest with a paladin or restoshaman. This is my old combo, and I personally think it’s the most fun feral setup by far! This setup gets its kills out of long CC chains on the opponents healer, meaning that you will need good coordination with your teammates, about who CCs what opponent and what time. I expect this combo to do really good this season, with both feral/mage being very strong classes at the moment.

2: Feral/Warrior/Paladin

A strong combo that simply does an awful lot of damage. It’s the least CC based combo a feral can play. With the paladin keeping your warrior mobile, and your ability to shift from snares, it can always keep up a high amount of preasure, slowly forcing cooldowns and eventually get a kill.

3: Feral/Rogue/Healer

I’ve always seen this as a “pop all cooldowns in the first minute and hope something dies” kind of combo, even though it also did a good job at outlasting teams back in WotLK. In Cataclysm however, I don’t see how a rogue/feral/healer team is going to outlast players. If you want to play a zergcomp, I would go for this.

8. Feral Playstyle

Playing Offensive

Ferals have a priority system. Our bleeds a do a lot more damage if you have Mangle up you’ll want it on a target when you’re hitting it. Shred does more damage on targets that are bleeding. Don’t Shred till Rake or Rip is on the target. Our finishing moves, Rip and Ferocious Bite, are designed to be used on 5 combo points. Using Rip on anything less is a waste. If you need fast damage, a 3 or 4 point Ferocious Bite can be used instead of waiting on Shred energy.

Those are the basics. After that the talents come into play. Tiger’s Fury also increases our damage by 15% for 6 seconds, next to restoring 60 (80) energy. Bleeds applied during this increased damage effect, will profit from it for their entire duration! Meaning, that if it’s possible – you should apply your bleeds during Tigers Fury – allowing you to create more preasure afterwarts. Don’t use Tiger’s Fury for the extra damage though! It’s an energy generator, so use it on 25 or less energy. And, do not use it at all if you think it will be good to have 10 seconds later.

Another important talent is Stampede, giving you a free Ravage after you charge an enemy. There are several uses for this. If you charge someone before you open or when they’re running away, you can use it there for extra combo points. Make sure to use something else first though. If you’re on 100 energy and you use it, you’re wasting the energy that could have been regenerated if you used another global first. I generally hit Rrake first, then Mangle and Ravage after that. You can’t use it much later, because Ravage also gets 50% increased crit chance against players above 80% hp.

Next to all this it is VERY important to not just mindlessly spam abilities. It’s a good idea to keep your energy high for when you can create preasure. And even if you are creating preasure, make sure to save energy so you’re able to kick at all times.

Next to saving energy for kick, there’s another thing you should do if you’re getting used to feral PvP. Our Kick has 13 yard range, and combined with our 145% movement speed, it’s a really good kick. Always keep an eye on the opponents healer position, so you can kick his heals – even if you’re not hitting him but his partner! You should always try to keep the enemies healer partners close to him, so you can kick the heals. If you know you won’t need your kick, you can also use it as a small gap closer.

One of the most important parts of playing aggressive, is your CC. Being a feral druid, your damage has a small ramp up time. The damage starts to come when your bleeds are up. That’s why, generally, you wait with CC’ing their healer until their partner is bleeding. If you CC him before that, you wont do as much damage and the healer will be on DR, making you cause a lot less preasure. If you throw a Cyclone after you get Rip/Rake up, those bleeds are ticking already while you’re cycloning and you regenerate energy even though you’re not in catform. Causing you to hardly loose any damage, exept 3 autoattacks.

And as last point for aggressive play, Savage Roar. Savage Roar gives quite a bit of extra damage, but not enough for you to have in a standard opener anymore. However, if you have spare combo points on a target you’re not hitting anymore – use them for savage roar. If you got combo points on a target and you’re trying to restealth, use Savage Roar just before you restealth. This way you’ll get a fair bit of extra preasure out.

Playing Defensive

There are 2 categories of defensive play. The first one involves keeping yourself alive, the second one is keeping your partners alive.

As a feral you’ve got a lot of ways to peel for your partners. Your options are:

1. Cyclone
2. Entangling Roots
3. Mangle slow
4. Feral Charge immobilize
5. Cat or bear stun
6. Taunt

You can’t use everything in the same situation though. If you’re partner is running away from a melee class, or trying to LoS a caster following him – root or charge is your best bet. But when your partner is stunned by a melee that is already hitting him, rooting won’t do a damn thing! Cyclone is by far the safest peel you can use. Always be prepared for an opponent trinketting though. It’s often a good idea to cast a second cyclone immediately after your first one if your partner is in a lot of trouble. 4/5 times they’ll trinket and get right into another cyclone. After that you got some times to run up there, and use Bash. This should give your partner plenty of time to get away, especially if you give them a quick movement speed increase with stampeding roar.

And, I wasn’t joking about taunt. You can Taunt or Challenging Roar most pets, which will then attack you for the duration. It used to be like that at least, this might have been patched. Will try to find out about that as fast as I can!

Now that your partners are still alive, it’s time to look after yourself. Most of the peels described above will also work to peel of yourself. But, because you’re a feral – it gets a bit easier. The best thing to do to keep yourself alive, is to be close to a pillar at all times. This way you’ll only need a small window to pop behind a pillar on your own, and throw some quick heals to get decent HP again. If you’re far away from a pillar, a nice trick is to charge a hostile player, totem or pet that might be near a pillar, and run around the corner there. Make sure you keep your healer up to date about what’s going on if you’re doing this though!

If you can’t get away, and your healer is CCd it’s often smart to go bear form – especially against melee. You’ll take a bit les damage from your talents and higher armor, and you can use an extra defensive cooldown: FR is best used under 30% hp, because it restores hp up to 30% hp instantly. Keep in mind that trying to save it very long can kill you as well though. If your healer is free to cast, it’s usually better to stay in catform. You’ll take 20% extra healing in catform, and you also get combopoints to use on instant casts. When im getting close to dying, I often just Savage Roar on low combopoints hoping to get a lifesaving instant proc.

9. Macros

I’m using a couple of macros which I find useful myself, mostly are focus target macros. If you use other macros just leave them in a post and I’ll add them.

Kick

Uses the right kick for the form you’re in:

#show Skull Bash(Cat Form)
/cast [stance:1] Skull Bash(Bear Form); [stance:1] Skull Bash(Bear Form);
/cast [stance:3] Skull Bash(Cat Form); [stance:3] Skull Bash(Cat Form);

One click snarebreaker

#showtooltip
#show
/cast [stance:1] !Dire Bear Form; [stance:4] !Travel form; [stance:3] !Cat Form; [stance:5]

This will shapeshift you out and back in the form you where already in without delay, breaking snares.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus] [stance:1] Feral Charge - Bear;[stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat

Focus macros

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus] [stance:1] Feral Charge - Bear;[stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat

• /cast [target=focus] Cyclone
• /cast [target=focus] Entangling Roots
• /cast [target=focus] Hibernate (really helpful against resto druids)
• /cast [target=focus] Faerie Fire (Feral) – nice against warlocks to prevent Dispels from his Felhunter on, for example, Fear or Sheep
• /cast [target=name] Remove Curse – change “name” with whoever you want to be able to dispel fast
• /cast [target=name] Innervate – Because hitting the wrong target and innervating myself is just so stupid…

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus] [stance:1] Feral Charge - Bear;[stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat
#show Skull Bash(Cat Form)
/cast [stance:1, target=focus] Skull Bash(Bear Form); [stance:1] Skull Bash(Bear Form);
/cast [stance:3, target=focus] Skull Bash(Cat Form); [stance:3] Skull Bash(Cat Form);

10. Random General Stuff

Just writing random general stuff here that didn’t seem right or important enough to write somewhere else.

• Feral charge cat is an insanely fun spell. You can use it to jump up ledges if an enemy is there, and even better is that you can jump down, and charge back up while your enemy is following you. If you do this right, you’ll be on top again and he’ll be below you.
• Practice makes perfect. Hopefully this guide helped a bit as well, but in the end it’s just a wall of text. In game practice is what teaches you the most.
• Don’t forget about your racials. Unless you’re a Worgen that is, your racial is so useless you might as well forget about it!
• Duels – will add some dueling tactics after I’ve dueled more!
• Comp specific tactics I hope some other druids can add, because I myself can only play one comp on my feral due to being on a shitty realm.

If you spot anything that’s wrong, or you think should be added, please say so!