Going through all the blog posts and tweets and everything else has left me exhausted. The amount of information given in this last Friday Update is staggering if you think about it, as it is something actual about our classes we are playing at launch. In the bigger picture, if you look at it like I do, it really breaks down class roles, and that leads to the reality of how close we actually are to finally playing this game. With all of this, I am going to try to dissect some of this information in relation to the Bounty Hunter.

Diving straight in, I am going to start with this quote below:

Choosing an Advanced Class is very important in The Old Republic, as within your Advanced Class, your character will reach their full potential. Your Advanced Class choice dramatically alters the gameplay experience of your base class by providing access to two exclusive skill trees per Advanced Class, with a third being shared between both Advanced Classes.

So how I take this is that this plays out like any other MMO so far, even the venerable Warcraft and how their Talent trees used to be when it wasn’t so restricted. This basically say “Hey, pick the AC you want, you still get the base class abilities of the class itself, thus this being the Bounty Hunter. You can even place some points in the other AC. So, just like WOW, we get 3 talent tress to mess with to fine tune the type of player we want to be and how we play.

Now, as much as I hate “cookie-cutter” builds on classes, I don’t see a way Bioware can stop this. Some abilities are going to be better than others and there will be those that will probably force those upon you depending on the role you pick. With this in mind, I hope that Bioware gives us the “Dual Spec” option so that we can have 2 builds based on what we are doing (Soloing/Group).

Something else I picked up on is this:

As you level up, your character will gain abilities from three sources:

• Through trainers, from their base class (e.g. Sith Warrior)
• Through trainers, from their advanced class (e.g. Marauder)
• Through skill points spent in the skill trees of their Advanced Class

So no longer is it the run to one trainer and you’re done. We now have to hit up the Base Class (Bounty Hunter) but we also have to fine the AC trainer that we are playing, in my case which will be the Mercenary. This is interesting as unless these are always grouped up, you have to make sure to remember where each are to make sure all of your abilities are up to par.

Now the fine folks over at Bioware even gave us the break-down on the roles for the Bounty Hunters:

Bounty Hunter Advanced Classes

Mercenary (Roles: Mid – Long Range Damage Dealing, Healing)

PowerTech (Roles: Close – Mid Range Damage Dealing, Tanking)

• As previously announced, the Bounty Hunter’s Mercenary Advanced Class now features the ‘Bodyguard’ skill tree, allowing this iconic class to fill the role of a medic if desired.
• The ‘Advanced Prototype’ skill tree, shared between both Bounty Hunter ACs, now features an upgrade to the base class flamethrower, which allows the player to rotate while using the ability.

We now see how the Bounty Hunter breaks down. Mercenary breaks down into a DPS/Healer role and the Powertech breaks down into a DPS/Tank role. Now for all you WOW’ers out there, Bounty Hunters look to have the possibility of being Paladins of Swtor.

Those that are going the Tank Bounty Hunter will also have that DPS chance of speeding up their leveling without sacrificing the Tank aspect of it. It also plays

I, like many, think this last update was a great one. it really moves use one step closer to that fateful date where we all get to jump in game and put all this information we have been hoarding for so long to the test. In regards to the Bounty Hunter, playing a main healer and knowing I have DPS choices to help in the leveling process make me very happy as well.