Darein's Guide: Learning the Trade of the Bounty Hunter v1.0 beta

(I had this posted on the BH forums for some time, but have reposted it here so it's hopefully easier to find.)

Table of Contents

Section 1 - Newbie skills: Marksman and Scout

Section 2 - Combat and Equipment Tips

Section 3 - Tips on Skill order

Section 4 - Investigation

Section 5 - Tools of the Trade

Section 6 - BH Missions

Section 7 - Specials

Section 8 - Player VS Player




1. Newbie Skills: Marksman and Scout

You should start the game as either a Marksman or a Scout. That way you'll already be working your way towards Bounty Hunter. A while back they changed the requirement for BH from Master Scout to just the Exploration branch of Scout.

As a Marksman, you have to become well-learned in three common ranged weapon types: Pistols, Carbines, and Rifles. (Carbines in SWG somewhat resemble guns like M-16's or sub-machine guns IRL. Pistols and Rifles are fairly obvious.)

It doesn't really matter what you do first, but you should level one whole branch at a time. Therefore, if you start at pistols, it's better to work on your whole line of Pistols (to IV) instead of dabbling with Rifles I-II or Carbines I-II.

As a scout, you'll need scouting XP. You can earn this through killing creatures and harvesting their meat (so it's nice to have marksman to kill the creatures with, and you can get two types of XP this way when you kill a creature), or by using the scout ability Mask Scent and evading creatures who are trying to detect you.



2. Combat and Equipment Tips

Combat is one of the most important parts to being a Bounty Hunter. At Marksman, one of the best tricks in combat against NPC's is going prone from a far distance (but not too far) before attacking a target. This will cause them to take more time to detect you, thereby giving you an estimated 2 to 3 extra combat moves before they even start to attack you. (If you are planning to Master Scout, it's also a great time to build some of your traps and start using them.)

In combat, planning your moves carefully can mean the difference between victory and defeat. With that said, you've got a combat queue where you can put your planned moves. It can be cleared by hitting the clear button. Also - take advantage of the toolbar! You can resize the toolbar to hold twice as many moves by moving your cursor over the bottom part of the window until the arrow shows, and then resizing it down. To use the second row, you need to hit {Shift + F#} instead of plain {F#} (being an 'F' key, like F1, F2, etc.)

The best place to put your moves or equipment that you need to access instantly in combat is the first toolbar panel {Ctrl + F1}. Make sure you save room here especially for combat. You might want to keep some things like the Standing, Kneeling, and Prone states as they affect your accuracy and defenses.

When you get the status of Bounty Hunter (be it Novice or Master, or anything between), one of your best tactics is using your specials that you've earned. If you have carbines, you'll want to use your Knock Down specials to give your target a disadvantage. If pistols, you'll probably want to put on a status effect such as Bleeding Shot or Torso Shot (which can put them on fire). Know your specials (see section 7 for more info. on specials).

You will also want to use the proper weapon in combat. If you've learned a fair amount of each weapon, you should learn that it can be very efficient to Knock Down a target (Underhand Shot), then put status effects on (such as Bleeding Shot), and finally attack them with your most powerful weapon, the Light Lightning Cannon (LLC). You may ask why not just attack with the LLC in the first place, and I'd answer that you really can't aim that well with the LLC. Therefore, knocking your target down on their back will help you aim, and the status effect (A.K.A. Damage Over Time [DOT]) will slowly eat their HAM pools while you work to finish off the rest of them. If you cannot finish them quickly, DOT's become much more important.

Know your equipment! How can I stress this point more!? You simply cannot go into battle with crappy equipment and expect to win very often. It's like using a toothpick against a pikeman - not a good idea.

Equipment has different statistics such as Damage (You want fairly high minimum and max. damage), Ideal range (shows range you will have most accuracy at), Max range (farthest you can shoot, decreased accuracy), Min. Range (closest you can shoot them, decreased accuracy), etc. The best way to know weapons is to compare them. I'd suggest going to different bazaars around the galaxy and comparing weapons until you find the best one. Then, if you can afford it, go to a weaponsmith or weapon vendor and buy an even better one! 

You can also get weapons or armor "sliced" by a smuggler to increase random statistics, and thereby increasing overall weapon quality. Also, make sure to buy at least one type of weapon for each Bounty Hunter specialization there is, and that it's one of the harder weapons to get certified for. Next - get some good armor! Right now composite is the most common battle armor, it has fairly good defenses and many armorsmiths specialize in making it. In addition to your armor, get a Personal Shield Generator (armorsmiths make these too). This will add even more to your defenses.

[Take care of your equipment. If you won't be using it for a long time, store it in your bank or house where it's safe. If you are, insure it often and make sure it's repaired to a fair condition.]

Also, make sure to take advantage of the food and drinks chefs make. They can boost various HAM pools, some for amazing amounts and even surprisingly long amounts of time. Be careful when selecting spices as they often have a "downer" period after use. Finally, visit a doctor for a "Medical Enhancement" (or "Buff"), this will help you



3. Tips on Skill order

You need the proper skills if you want to level Bounty Hunter quickly. To a certain extent, the rule I stated above applies - even for Bounty Hunters, it can be easy to specialize in one weapon first before meddling with the others. However, you will want to use some specials from other weapons in order to more effectively kill targets. Probably the most useful is Underhand Shot, which is a carbine special. I'd recommend levelling the Light Lightning Canon to IV while getting some Carbine XP here and there.

After you have a decent amount of Carbine and LLC XP, you may want to get Pistol XP before moving on to your investigation tree, since some of those missions can be tough (see the next section "Investigation" for more information.)



4. Investigation


This is what a Bounty Hunter uses most for missions. Your skills in Investigation determine what type of missions you can take, how hard they are, which informants you have to talk to, and how good you are at using your tracking droids.

At novice BH, it is probably best to get some investigation XP while working on your weapon skills. Many BHs would suggest maxing out, or at least gathering plenty of Investigation XP before learning Investigation I. You should have enough for Investigation II before bothering to learn Investigation I, since at Investigation I, you have to start taking off-planet missions and use droids to track your targets. (At novice BH, informants give you the location instead of droids, and the bounty is always on the same planet you got the mission at (or talked to the informant at?)

As your investigation skills and mission difficulty increase, you will need to talk to different informants who know more about your new bounties. They will give you a biological signature that you need to program into your droid so it can find the target. For a list of Informants and their locations, check out http://www.gamingfriends.net/swgbounties/. (It may say that some informans are for your level of Investigation when they are really for the previous/next level, but you'll figure it out I'm sure.)

For more information on droids, see the next section "Tools of the Trade".



5. Tools of the Trade

A Bounty Hunter uses quite a few differnt types of weapons. He/she starts out certified for many weapons due to his/her marksman skills. One thing you won't care for much (at least specifically as a bounty hunter skill) is rifles. You will, however, want to get a hold of some good Carbines (preferrably fast and accurate) such as the DXR6, EE3, or Laser Carbine. You will also need a fast-speed and fairly accurate pistol (and I'd suggest the Scatter Pistol, as that's what you're certified for). Finally, your LLC should have high minimum and maximum damage, and accuracy + low HAM costs are always nice. (accuracy being hard to find.) 

As a BH, droids are used in almost every BH mission you will take. Therefore, it's important to know some things about droids. First of all, a DZ-70 (or 80? or whatever...) is not the droid you're looking for. Neither is a "ProBot" droid. You are looking for Arakyd Droids (which, when examined on a vedor, appear to simply be a radio or controller-device), as well as Seeker Droids (which looks like the droid Luke Skywalker was training with on the Millenium Falcon.) You can often find these droids in droid shops, vendors, player "malls", and bazaars.

(Other droids are not directly related to Bounty Hunting, but may come in handy for various uses.)



6. BH Missions

I've already explained what equipment you need, and how to find who you need to talk to (if you can't find the informants or BH terminals on http://www.gamingfriends.net/swgbounties/, you can always just look for them, or talk to random SpyNet Ops and see if one works :smileyvery-happy - now I'm going to layout the process of a BH Mission.


Beginners:
Step 1 - Get a mission (you'll have to find a BH mission terminal.)
Step 2 - Talk to a SpyNets Ops (AKA "Informant")
Step 3 - Find and eliminate your bounty at the given waypoint.


Advanced / Experts:
Step 1 - Get a mission (BH terminals)
Step 2 - Talk to your Informant (SpyNet Ops - they'll be harder to find now.)
Step 3 - Leave the city far enough to call an Arakyd droid from orbit. Call the droid (select find or track from the droid's radial menu.)
Step 4 - The droid drops from orbit and is now called "Imperial Probot Base". Go up to it and use option 3 to upload biological signature.
Step 5 - Wait for the droid to locate the target (approx. 3 minutes).
Step 6 - Go to the planet the droid finds the target on.
Step 7 - Send out a seeker droid (find or track).
Step 8 - After seeker locates the target, travel to the new waypoint and eliminate your target. (You can start travelling to the waypoint your Arakyd droid gave you, but your bounty probably moved far away while you were travelling to the planet.) You may have to send more than one seeker to pin down their location, and the targets are often moving (trying to get to a starport or something).

(If, for some reason, the bounty is on the planet you are on - in otherwords, if you're lucky - you could potentially find the target by sending out a seeker after getting the mission and speaking with the informant, and not be required to call an Arakyd droid from orbit. Just realize that once you've started tracking, you can't keep sending out droids to track until the first one is done.)



7. Specials

The Bounty Hunter learns many special techniques and tactics to use with their available arsenal. Below I list the specials a BH has, and what they do (or can do. "Dungeons" mean any mission or quest place such as Death Watch Bunker, Geonosian Bio Labs, Squill Caves, etc.)


Carbines:

Underhand Shot - Causes good damage and target to get knocked down. Doesn't work great in dungeons.

Fire Knockdown - Causes target to get knocked down, and has chance of Dizzying the target. (Dizzy causes them to fall over if they change postures such as standing, kneeling, or prone. It can keep your target on the floor longer.) Also doesn't work wonderfully in dungeons.

Confusion Shot - This should confuse a target and can stun and dizzy it too.

Spray Shot - Causes very high damage, and can Blind/Dizzy/Stun. Due to high damage, this could be considered useful in dungeons.


Pistols:

Bleeding Shot - Causes target to bleed, thereby reducing their Health Pool over time. Note that bleeding can be stopped, but NPC's usually don't stop it. Can be useful in dungeons.

Eye Shot - Causes good damage to your target's mind, and has chance of blinding target.

Torso Shot - Causes high damage and will likely set the target on fire. (Fire is hard to put out - unless near water - and can do heavy damage over time. Can be very useful in dungeons.)

Fast Blast - This attack tends to do fairly high damage with the pistol, but over various pools. It's purpose is to attack the action pool, but seems to equally affect each aspect of the HAM bar.


Light Lightning Cannon:

L.L.C. SPECIALS ONLY WORK 15 METERS FROM YOUR TARGET, AND DO NOT WORK WHEN PRONE!

Lightning Single 1 - Causes high damage to a single target.

Lightning Cone 1 - Causes high damage to multiple targets within a "cone" area. (Basically fries anything in it's line of fire, and anything behind the original thing you are frying. Can be dangerous to use in dungeons as you will probably hit more NPC's than you intended, but may also be quite useful - if you don't.)

Lightning Single 2 - Causes very high damage to a single target.

Lightning Cone 2 - Causes very high damage to multiple targets within a "cone" area.



8. Player VS Player

PvP combat can be difficult as a Bounty Hunter. As stated earlier, you must make sure you have excellent equipment and know how to use your specials and abilities before entering combat with another player. You should also be "medically enhanced" and have eaten foods to "buff" you as most other players do so before fighting.

It is very important to know your enemy before engaging in combat. Therefore, you should study other skill trees to see what abilities and weaknesses they have. Before you fight them, it is important to realize that they are not always strongest in their displayed title's field. You may have to engage them before knowing their class, as they will then likely equip their best weapon. Then you must use your knowledge of their skill tree to attack their weaknesses. (Note that some characters "stack" skills, so though their main combat field may be in one area, they might have more attack or defenses in other areas than you'd expect.)

PvP against melee classes requires some questionable tactics. One is called "kiting", or staying out of range for their melee weapons. You want to keep 20m or more as melee classes can reach either 10 or 15 meters with their lunge attacks. Be careful not to change stance to often because you could be dizzy and you'll fall down over and over. If you fall, try standing once in a while until you are back on your feet.

PvP against ranged classes should be a bit easier. Try using knockdown to get them on the ground, then attempt to waste them with the LLC. If that isn't working you will most likely want to switch to your pistol to add a status effect (my personal favorite is Torso Shot). Make sure to stay in range so you can keep firing at them, no matter what class they are.

Jedi.  Missions are same as a MBH's regular missions. Do NOT give the Jedi /tells before you show up - they'll call in reinforcements and you'll end up fighting three jedi, which isn't fun unless you have a large group with you. It's hard to do damage to Jedi and there is little you can do to prepare in a battle with one. There is no commonly-available armor that defends against lightsaber damage, so your only chance is either staying away from them, or making them stay away from you. You can try knocking them down, but if they get back up they'll probably run at you faster than you could drop them again. Good luck.

Keep trying different things in PvP, and eventually you will get better. Don't expect to win all your battles after reaching Master. You still have a lot more exprience to earn that doesn't register in the game! Just realize what you did wrong, or could have done differently, and do what works best for you.



This concludes my Bounty Hunter Guide. I hope it helps. Thanks for reading!


- Darein Gi'Dei   (AKA - Giles)
Master Bounty Hunter, Wanderhome 

 PS - The SWG forums automatically removed some HTML code.  If this ruined part of my guide, I apologize.  Please tell me if part of it looks like it is missing so I can fix it for next time I submit one.

Message Edited by Giles025 on 10-14-2004 12:39 AM