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A Smugglers Guide
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Smuggler -- Guide to the Profession By: Wraith Alcon �Pssst�.You over there! Yeah you, come over here�I word is you have been asking a lot of questions and nosing around about certain items banned by the Empire. Am I right? Heh, okay here is the deal�go to the back of the Cantina and tell that ugly Rodian good ol� Devrik sent you. He will get you what you need�if you have the credits!� So you are interested in the dangerous profession of the Smuggler eh? Well I think I can provide a few pointers! The Smuggler profession is currently a Hybrid class with some Combat, some Crafting, and some unique skills not found in any other profession in the game. If you are looking for a good support class to another Combat class, Smuggler is a good choice. However, a Smuggler can not be an effective combat machine on his own. As a Smuggler you will find an array of Spices to buff attributes, the ability to Slice (upgrade) weapons and armor, reductions for perks/penalties in the GCW (Galactic Civil War), and some of the best Pistol skills. Starting Off: Tip#1-Credits are your friend You will need the Brawler�s Unarmed IV, as well as the Marksman�s Pistol IV in order to qualify for Novice Smuggler. Pick a Brawler/Marksman class and get to work fighting those little creatures outside of the city. Run missions as much as you can to build up enough credits to train SCOUT and MEDIC. Scout will let you harvest organics from the creatures you will be fighting and gain Terrain Navigation to help you move through the wilderness. The reason you will want those Organics is primarily to trade or sell on the Bazaar because you will not be getting many credits from running your missions. Scouting Experience is the most passive experience out there, and lets you make use of all of your opponent�s body. Medic will provide with the indispensable ability to heal yourself in combat, something that can save your life whether at the beginning or end of your career. All you need is organics (alternate reason for Scout) and then non-organics like petrochem and water (which you will have to trade for or purchase). This will also be useful when in groups and in the Medical Center so you can heal your own wounds and not wait for others (However you do NOT get experience for healing yourself, only others). Check the Bazaar for Pistols as you need them. Currently the best pistol I have seen is the DH17 PISTOL. However, not many Weaponsmith�s make them, so you might have to ask around a bit (do a search for Weaponsmith). When gaining Unarmed Experience make sure you are not tempted to use a weapon!!! You want Unarmed Experience, and even if you use a few shots you are taking away from possible Unarmed Experience. This will be the tougher of the two to acquire. So Now You Have Some Credits�WHAT TO BUY???: Tip#2-Armor is your friend What you will be spending money early on is Armor. DO NOT BUY BONE!!! Its defense vs. Kinetic nil. You want a GOOD suit of Mabari Armorweave from a GOOD Armorsmith. It should cost you anywhere from 5-8K in Credits. But it is well worth it. It will cut damage taken in melee by over 50%. If you don�t know a good Armorsmith (I.E. haven�t seen one around town) go to the Bazaar and look for Mabari there in your area. Then send a mail to the creator and see what is the best that they can make and what they will charge for a full suit. Be prepared to go through a suit of Mabari almost 1/week in the early stages. So keep the Credits saved, you will need them later. After you have some more you will want to upgrade the armor to Chitin which has even better Kinetic defense. However a suit costs around 20K in credits. You may be asking yourself, �Why is Kinetic so important?� Well the answer is simple. All of those pretty creatures we are fighting are melee creatures. You won�t be getting in blaster fights until you go to fight Factional NPC�s, or maybe also some Gang members. Phew�Master Pistol and Master Unarmed. *Sigh* I Still Have a Long Way to Go� Tip#3-Anything that is worth doing is not easy. That�s right, after cranking out ALL that pistol and unarmed experience, you are ready to start working on Novice Smuggler. But lets step back first� By now you should probably have a decent amount of credits sitting in the bank, some decent armor, and if you are fortunate possibly a house. Congratulations! But there is still a lot of work to do! The only advise here is to stay on task and keep trucking along. You will probably see other people doing a LOT more damage than you. Do not be discouraged. With a good DH17 you can whip out a decent amount of damage, but nothing as spectacular as a Commando or Teras Kasi. To help finish off the Pistol/Unarmed experience you can try to find some friends. If you have some tougher friends see about taking off-planet trips to Dantooine to fight Huurtons. You can pull off a lot of quick experience (and some nice Hides) in a short amount of time. And if you have really nice and patient friends, they might even let you destroy the lair to get all the experience from that! Remember, its only 50,000 Pistol Experience until Novice Smuggler. That is not too bad. Special Moves: Tip#4-Special Moves are your friend! By now you should have some fun little shots that damage the Health bar, as well as a fun little Bleed attack. Try to fire that off early in the fight and let the bleed be a good DOT (Damage Over Time). Unarmed wise you will also have some good moves for when things get a little too close for comfort. Nothing is more fun that using a few Spin Attacks to take out 3+ enemies. But make sure to keep an eye on your HAM bars. These specials moves do cost in the end. Novice Smuggler, AKA Now Where Do I Begin???: Tip#5-Friends are your�uhhh, well�friends. Before we go any further we should take another step back and look at what lies ahead of us. We will need 3 different types of experience to advance all the lines of Smuggler: Pistol, Spice Crafting, and Slicing. So lets look and see what we need� Pistol Experience=Killing stuff with a pistol. No Problem. Spice Crafting=Crafting some Spice using various types of specific Organics and Inorganics. Hmmm�time to throw down some harvesters (more on this later). Slicing=Playing the Smuggler mini-guessing game (more on this later). For your own benefit in the near future now would be a good time to find several types of people: a Weaponsmith, an Armorsmith, a Master Smuggler (or Slicer would work), someone who knows good spots for resources (AKA: A Surveyor), and a host of people you can go hunting tough enemies with. You may be asking yourself, �Self, why do I need to know all these people?�. We will get that right now! Advancing Smuggler (Spices): Tip#6-Spice is nice. Good news! This is the quickest and easiest line to advance. Ask any crafter and they will tell you grinding is a pain, but try and not to tease them because you can go from the bottom tier to the top in only a few hours if you have all the resources. First thing is first. You need to lay down a Flora Farm or two (purchased from an Artisan/Architect) along with a Wind Generator. The latter will provide power for the former. Now would be the time to employ the Surveyor friend to find you a good spot. ANY organic will do and quality will not matter since Spices can not be experimented or enhanced at all. We need quantity, not quality. Next get your self 2-4 crafting tools (Generic or Food and Chemical). I used 3. You will also need some metal, any will do, and you can just get that from the Bazaar. Then wait for the Flora Farm to rack up some Organics. Now sit back and start crafting�SHADOWPAW. This spice gives the BEST experience for the least amount of resources (30 total). You will receive about 120 experience when you set the station to practice. Before you know it you will be a Fence! Then you will be able to craft any Spice there is! Congratulations! Grey Gabak- (15 Vegetables/5Organic) Focus +500, 500s Scramjet- (10 Meat/10 Reactive Gas) Strength +300, 700s Shadowpaw- (25 Organic/5 Metal) Action/Quickness +250, Strength �100, 600s Yarrock- (10 Wood/5 Cereal/5 Chemical) Mind +200, Focus/Willpower +100, 600s Giggledust- (10 Organic/5 Bone/5 Flower) Action/Quickness +300, Focus �100, 600s Sweetblossom- (10 Flower/5Water/5 Metal) Health +100, Constitution +600, Action/Quickness �100, Focus �200, 600s Zypolene Droid Lubricant- (10 Chemical/10Gas/5 Metal) Health/Strength/Constitution +250, 600s Pyrepenol- (10 Water/5Chemical/10 Metal) Strength +300, Quickness �100, Focus �50, 600s Sedative H4b- (10 Organic/10 Meat/5 Metal) Health +400, Constitution +300, Mind/Focus �100, 600s Crash �N Burn- (15 Fruit/15 Vegetables/5 Metal) Mind +400, Focus +200, Action/Constitution �200, 600s Gunjack- (15 Cereal/15 Meat/1 Carbosyrup) Strength +500, Quickness �200, Focus �100, 600s Thruster Head- (15 Chemical/5 Meat/15 Gas) Mind +600, Focus +200, 400s Booster Blue- (15 Copper/15 Chemical/15 Metal) Action/Quickness +400, 600s Muon Gold (AKA-Bounty Hunter�s Bane)- (15 Water/15 Radioactive/15 Metal) Mind/Focus/Will +500, 600s Neutron Pixie (AKA Commando Killer)- (15 Gemstone/15 Mineral/15 Fruit) Health +1000, Strength/Constitution +200, Action +500, Quickness/Stamina +50, 800s Advancing Smuggler (Slicing): Tip#7-Its good to know people in high places. Slicing is a pain in the butt early on, but if you know the right people it can be a little less of a pain. There are several tools you will need as well, the most important being a Laser Precision Knife. Don�t worry you can craft them with 10 uses at Novice for 14 Metal. The Slicing Mini-Game is this. When you begin to Slice you are given 2 choices. Cut the Red or the Blue wire. Guess wrong and you will fail and the item will NEVER be able to be sliced again. Guess right and you then cut the other wire and you are home free. Smugglers get 2 items to help them guess though. The first is granted at Slicing II, and is a Flow Analyzer Node (FAN), and takes 20 Metal/20 Copper. The FAN will grant you a roughly 70% success rate which is helpful. At Slicing IV you will get the Molecular Clamp, 50 Metal/40 Non-Ferrous, and will grant 100% success rate. Remember that Master Smuggler/Slicer you befriended? Well now is the time to buy some crates of either of these off of him. They will make your work much easier. At Novice Smuggler you will have the ability to slice containers. If you are like me you probably thought that meant Backpacks and such�nope, it�s those randomly dropped Locked Containers. If you had some foresight you would have been collecting those things and telling your friends to save them for you until now. Containers will give you 250 experience/successful slice, so that means 20 slices for Slicing I, and 40 slices for Slicing II. To reach Slicing II your best bet is to load up on Knives and Clamps and head to a crowded place like the Coronet Starport. Sit down and shout out that you are Slicing Locked Containers for free (you might want to make a Macro). It will take awhile, but you only have to do it once. At Slicing I you gain the ability to Slice Terminals. I have not found this useful at all. Ideally you will receive more credits from the missions, but unfortunately if you like to refresh a lot to find the perfect direction/distance and enemies this will not be a big help. You can only slice a terminal once every two minutes, and a successful slice gives you 100 experience. Slicing II is useful when sitting around slicing Containers in between clients. At the Coronet Starport you can slice some terminals while you wait for someone to bring you their Containers. At Slicing II you can say goodbye to the Container grind, and hello to a new grind. You will now be able to Slice Weapons, but now you also need a new item�a Weapon Upgrade Kit (WUK) along with all your old toys. Remember your Weaponsmith friend? Well now is the time to convince him to somehow pump out crates of WUK�s and Weapons for you to Slice. Each Weapon gives 250 experience, just like Containers. This process will have to be repeated several times to reach Slicing III, but much quicker than standing around and shouting that you are Slicing Weapons. Also, now you will be able to make FAN�s on your own. At Slicing III you will be able to also Slice Armor. So now you find your Armorsmith friend and repeat the same process with the Weaponsmith, except now you get 100 Armor Upgrade Kits (AUK�s). Like Weapons, Armor gives 250 experience per Slice. But since people can wear up to 9 pieces of Armor and generally only carry 1-2 weapons, you will probably get more business by the person. However, grinding wise, you could still just have that Weaponsmith pump out more low-end Weapons for you. Slicing IV�FINALLY! Congratulations, you are a Slicer! You can make Molecular Clamps on your own and can now get greater Slices on Weapons. The grind is over! A Slicer and a Spicer! Tip#8 Business is Business As a Slicer and a Fence you are now set up to make some real credits off of other players. Although not many will order Spice from you, everyone and their grandmother will want their Equipment Sliced. Now you may be asking yourself�what do I charge? Well that is up to you. Unfortunately there are no standards, only 2 general guidelines: 1) Charge a Flat Rate: Generally 1-3K 2) Charge by the % Increase: Generally 50-300 Credits/Percent Increase Some Slice for free, some charge WAY too much, some don�t charge for a bad Slice, some ask for more for a GREAT Slice, but it is all up to you. If you want to be a Business man then make the customer happy and he will ALWAYS seek you out first, and if anyone asks him if he knows a Slicer you will be the one mentioned. But if you don�t want to Slice anyone�s equipment except your friend�never put up the Slicer title on your character! You will get bombarded with Tells. Advancing Smuggler: Underworld�Its Not Just For Vampires or Werewolves Anymore! (That�s a Joke) Tip#9 It is good to practice PvP with your friends first before trying to take on that Bounty Hunter with the Krayt Pistol. Underworld is a unique line that gives some very interesting perks to the Smuggler. Many will say it is the most useless line, and unless you are big on the GCW (Galactic Civil War) it is. From reading the Official Forums, however, I have found that the Development team does wish to completely change this Line�but they are just not sure to what yet. All of Underworld is based off of Pistol Experience. So I hope you enjoy shooting and killing! The following is a breakdown of what you get at each Rank. They are all unique skills and it is up to you to determine how you can best use them: Underworld I: Know all spoken Languages. (most people already do, however, within their first few hours playing the game). Plus a 10% reduction in the cost of all Faction Perks (anything you can buy from a Recruiter). Underworld II: At this rank in PvP against other Overt Faction Members you are only worth � the Faction Points for a Death, and when you die you only lose � the Faction you would have. Underworld III: Sell Out!!! This is one of the more worthless ones in my opinion. With this you are able to visit the opposing Faction Recruiter and sell your Faction for credits (I.E. Rebels would visit the Imperial Recruiter and sell Rebel Faction). If you are like me you are scrambling to get as much Faction as possible, and selling it for a few measly credits is worthless. Currently the conversion is Underworld IV: Another worthless skill in my opinion�this one allows you to BUY Faction. Of course you can only buy up to 500, and the conversion is currently Advancing Smuggler: Dirty Fighting (AKA The Coolest Line in Smuggler) Tip#10 Don�t stand up while using Feign Death if you are at negative life. This line holds within it some of the best pistol moves in the game currently. The downside is that there is no increase in any pistol skills such as Accuracy or Speed. Once again this is an issue that the Developers are looking into. Ideally they would like to add some Unarmed abilities in here as well as adding some of the aforementioned Accuracy/Speed/ect. skills. Like Underworld, all of the Dirty Fighting line is based on Pistol Experience. Dirty Fighting I: Here you get a really neat ability called Feign Death. What this does is, on the next hit to you, you fall down and act to be unconscious until you decide to stand up. PvE this means most creatures will stop attacking you. PvP this means you CAN NOT BE DEATHBLOWED. Sounds good eh? Well there is one catch�you can still be attacked. That means someone can continuously deal you damage and wounds, only can not kill you. So essentially if you are patient enough you can wait out your attacker, get up, and heal up. PvP I don�t see much use for this except to piss the guy off so he can�t DB you. Dirty Fighting II: Panic Shot. Here we get a cone effect in which blasts are sprayed to everything within, ideally �stunning� them for a few seconds. The stun is actually a delay of 5-10 seconds. Just as the name implies this attack is intended to be used if you get jumped and need a few seconds to settle down and prepare yourself for combat�although chances are by that time the fight is half way over, but you never know! Dirty Fighting III: Now we are getting into the two best Smuggler combat abilities. The one at this level is Lowblow. This is the shot aimed at the kneecap, which consequently results in a knockdown. That�s right, the only pistol Knockdown there is! This is GREAT news for our Teras Kasi/Smugglers since it is a way to combat kiting. But it gets better�Unarmed Knockdown and Lowblow run on 2 separate timers! I will let your imagination run wild� Dirty Fighting IV: And here we are you Rogue! The cr�me de la cr�me: Last Ditch, arguably the greatest and most beneficial pistol skill in the game currently. With a decent pistol you can do over 4000 damage in one hit. And for our PvP enthusiasts that can translate to a potential 1-hit kill. If you are like me you are cleaning yourself up right now and maybe getting a new pair of shorts! :D But there is a downside�the delay for your next action is DRAMATICALLY increased. But it is a give and take, and worth the risk if in a scenario where this attack would be�well�your LAST DITCH effort! Master Smuggler! Tip#11 Be happy with what you have, because chances are the grass is not as green as it seems. Now that wasn�t such a hard grind now was it? A little combat, a little crafting�and look at you now! You�ve got combat skills, buffs, money making skills, and some decent GCW bonuses. Did I mention that at Master level your 10% reduction of Faction Perks is upped to 25%? That�ll come in handy for buying that Armor, Pets, or Base you always dreamed of� Okay so Master Smuggler is not something EVERYONE will enjoy. And it is also one of the things looking to be revamped to included possibly some passive bonuses. But for now this is what we�ve got, and it is up to you to decide if it is something you can use, or if your skill points are better spent elsewhere. What Else?: Tip#12-Love what you do and do what you love! So you are a Master Smuggler right? That means you have 129 Skill points to play around with. What else do you want to be? You can be pretty much anything with that much to spare. Pick something that you will enjoy though. Nothing is worse than playing something you HATE. Although the three obvious paths are Pistoleer, Commando, and Teras Kasi. Personally I have tried as many professions as I can to see what I like. Doctor, Bio Engineer, Creature Handler, Weaponsmith, Architect, Teras Kasi�Currently I am enjoying the devious route of the Smuggler and the art of the Teras Kasi. Smuggler lets me help out my Guild, while at the same time being a solid hybrid class to balance with Teras Kasi. But the key is to find something you enjoy doing and then do it. If you end up not liking it (like I didn�t like Bio-Engineer) then quit out. Even if you pick up another class and like it better, don�t be afraid to quit out of Smuggler. Better you are happy than not. PvP: Tip#13-Strategy! Gain personal experience first by �playing� with friends of different professions. We have a class that contains some great skills, but no combat abilities. It is best to know what you are capable of before trying to take out that Overt guy hounding the Faction Terminals or Starport. Obviously your big ones will be Lowblow and Last Ditch, plus whatever other tricks you have up your sleeves. And by that I am most certainly referring to the crates of Spice you should be carrying around for those �emergency� situations! |
