sam2h
New member
Hello there, my name is Sam-2H. I'm a former smuggler senator and, as of writing this, an active player senator. You have possibly seen my original guide if you have been on these forums before, and now it is time to make one final, in-depth guide. This guide will go past (but not leave out) general tips and dive more into 1v1 match-ups, ideal armor combos, and what works and what doesn't work. I will also showcasing a guide for MUS (Master Underworld System) in this thread, which will help with any questions in regards to grinding and efficient IPM acquisition.
Table of Contents:
I. The Smuggler's Role
II. Equipment Check
III. Jewelry Sets
IV. Expertise Abilities
V. Suggested Templates
VI. Master Underworld Smuggler
VII. Small/Large-scale PvP tips
VIII. 1v1 Match-up tips
I. The Smuggler's Role
The role that our profession plays was intended to be solely crowd control, however, we turned into more of a damage dealing and single target debuff profession as time went on. Our only true crowd control abilities are nerf herder and false hope, with coverfire/pin down/dirty trick being our AoE snares. In regards to single-target debuffs, only 2 out of the 4 work!
That said, the role of smugglers as of now is 65% damage, 10% utility, and 25% crowd control or debuffs. Cloak other, junk dealer, and bounty check offer a fun and unique option of utility to other professions, while break the deal, nerf herder, and false hope offer decent CC and debuff ability. Our damage, however, is second to only spy in PvE (slight edge to smuggler when lucky break is active) and third behind spy and devastation commando in PvP. This is a difficult profession to play since we do not have a special ability like standfast or shields, and must rely on playing dirty through the use of line of sight and trickery to make our opponents waste their precious special abilities, and strike when they are at a disadvantage (sort of like spy almost, but without cloak!).
II. Equipment Check
Food: Breath of Heaven for small and large scale group PvP, Accaragam for everything else. Accaragam works better for small scale PvP without an officer as well.
Powerups: Pistol damage 8's ideally; 7's can work too if on a budget. No action cost powerups are needed and they are not recommended.
Exotics: Pistol action/pistol crit/pistol damage for when you are solo or in a small group without an officer. PvP crit/Pistol crit/pistol damage when you are with an officer.
Armor: I prefer primus battle for smuggler, but you can still get away with using primus assault. Do not use unlayered if you can help it. You can also go to recon armor for the bleed resist and with have an assault armor chest plate to balance your armors out. Having 10k armor is usually the goal and you can achieve it pretty closely without the need for an ent buff armors.
Cybernetics play a part in this profession as well, as they can give a 1350 health or action bonus for -600 to your armor, thanks to how the armor in expertise calculates innate armor. It is recommended you get Cybernetics with health mods so you can increase your overall survivability (the character sheet screenshot above does not reflect cybernetics). Cybernetics take 9 attachments and can have pistol damage built into the chest piece. This is what capped cybernetics look like.
Attachments: Con/luck/agility is the way to go for attachments. Some people like Precision instead of agility, but it comes down to if you want 3% dodge/evasion or 3% crit and strike through. We already have enough offensive capability without precision, so its best to focus on survival since we have no defensive button to press when things go south.
Weapons: P-8 Lamprey, DL-T Heavy, the Rebel DL-44 (from the recruiter, general rank) and the DD6 (from the contraband collection) all have 2% damage bonuses in their skins and most importantly, a 3m range bonus over other pistols. I recommend these if you want to make the most out of your character, but there is nothing wrong with using the pistol you like the best...especially now that PSG's are now a coin toss between having kinetic or energy resists (or both). Acid and Heat are the only elementals you will need.
Entertainer Buff: For solo and small scale pvp, I go with 2 second chance/6 con/action cost/crit. For large scale PvP, its always 10 con/crit/crit hit reduction. Constitution is vital since you have no purely-defensive abilities in mass pvp. Also, armor via the ent buff (or any buff that gives armor) does not work well with smuggler because of how hidden pockets/lined padding affects armor calculation.
Misc Items: Most of these can be extremely vital to success.
Hoth Radio (this + lucky break + cuys + gcw base damage buff = insanity)
Lair crystal
Invasion binocs
Recruiter detect binocs
Multiple vehicles in your datapad
Serpent shard
Sprint Stim
Synapse/Bio crystals
Officer heal and tactical stims
Heal over time stims sold by crafters
Dented IG head
Rancoraid (not super important)
Ice Cream 4k heal/debuff cleanse (not necessary but nice to have)
Gackle bat familiar or the YT-1300
GCW base stims/last chance heals/armor powders
Witches of Dath sprint stim (separate c/d)
III. Jewelry Sets
I'm going to explain the general idea behind these sets, as I will mention their exact application in the section where I talk about profession match-ups later on.
Rogue's
https://i.imgur.com/TTk41wS.jpg
This set is probably the most popular set with smugglers. This allows you to crowd control your opponent with a dire snare that prevents your opponent from breaking the snare through usual means. This set provides us with an important offensive and defensive tool...when you have to close the gap or prevent your opponent from running away, you can dire snare them. If you need to get away, then just simply dire snare them. It also provides a freeshot to concussion shot, meaning there is a chance you can fire off conc shot for no action cost. Seems to work 70% of the time; other times it bugs out. The cooldown reduction is a welcome addition too, because there are times where you will need to "tab dire" (see general PvP tips). the +400 total luck is also a nice bonus to stats and strikethrough value. Definitely the go-to set for a smuggler who wants to get into PvP.
Gambler's
https://i.imgur.com/0k7QzzN.jpg
This set has potential but is overshadowed by the utility of the Rogue set. However, there are merits to this set that should not be overlooked! This can be a dangerous set if you have enough CC in your group and all you want to do is massive damage. The +3% lucky break chance may seem like a small bonus, but the stat change is very noticeable due to how often lucky break can fire versus the requirement buff, feeling lucky. The false hope bonus is definitely noticeable too, as it cuts the cooldown from 1 minute to 35 seconds. This is actually a very fun PvE set as well (and the one I'd definitely recommend for PvE) because of the ability it grants. The ability drops combat with any and all npcs you are fighting, and reduces the hate if they are dotted up.
Scoundrel's
https://i.imgur.com/QnxxYyG.jpg
This is probably the most underwhelming of the smuggler sets. It is nice for a unbuffed smuggler trying to do PvE, but outside of that...it offers very little. Compared to the other sets, the only thing you can hope for is a bunch of fast attacks from fast draw. Even then, the only real use I see it having in PvP is if you went into a fight with a DOOM medic 1v1 or a block commando 1v1. It's not bad to have in your back pocket for those (rare) scenarios if you have the extra
tokens.
IV. Expertise Abilities
In this area we will look over abilities that will be vital to your future success as a ranged smuggler, and abilities to avoid as well.
This has never worked at all since it was introduced, only used for protecting important debuffs on a target from serotonin boost.
This has never worked at all since it was introduced, only used for protecting important debuffs on a target from serotonin boost.
Pistol whip is the ability that made smuggler flavor of the month when it was introduced all those years ago. It's a 30 second cooldown, moderate damaging ability that can be upgraded into a stun via expertise. The stun will last for 2 seconds, and it will prevent your target from doing anything except using heal stims. It also strips your target's defensive stats and basically is a mark for death. The stun can be upgraded to 3 and 4 seconds total as well. This is probably the most powerful ability smuggler has. Also, it has a 4m range built into the ability.
This grants you the medic that you may see smugglers call out every so often. It has a 5 minute cooldown and the medic expires after what seems like 3 minutes as well (his comlink went off; has other patients waiting). It does have a limited action pool, so it can only get 3-4 heals off per fight and they heal for 3500 each. It does also stick a poison dot on your target from time to time, but the dot is pretty weak. This is something you shouldn't really rely on because the medic is pretty dumb for an npc (you probably didn't have insurance). He likes to get stuck and waste his action on trivial npc special attacks (he's a doctor, not a commando). The medic is a great way to keep your opponent in combat though, while you can break it and get on a vehicle if need be.
False hope is an ability that hasn't aged all that great. It was pretty insane back in the day, when block was all the rage... but now its mediocre. However, now that it is unlinked, its actually a great ability to have if you can get it. It can strip parry and block chance off a target by -100%, and also provide a trivial hit chance debuff for 100%...did I mention it can root your target in place as well? It lasts 3 seconds with the basic ability, but can be upgraded to 4 and 5 seconds. Also, the box that upgrades the duration also (more importantly) decreases the time it takes for the effect to take place. With it unbuffed, it takes about 3-4 seconds to see results on the target. Upgraded, that number is improved to 1-2 seconds after throwing it. It also is an AoE, with a radius of about 20m from where you threw it. Think of this ability as a grenade: your target can outrun the blast radius, especially if you haven't buffed the ability. The action cost is also heavy with this ability too, so use wisely. 1 minute cooldown.
Bounty check is an ability that tells you the amount you are worth and if you are being hunted. It can be used on other people, but only on the same person every 10 minutes (compared to using it on yourself every minute). It can tell you how many bounty hunters have your mission if you are within 1000m of them, and give them how many meters they are from you as well. It makes it possible to hunt the hunter.
Shoot First is a high action cost, high damage ability that has a 30 second cooldown. It can initiate combat with a bounty hunter that has your mission. It's actually not a bad ability just for DPS, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it if it wasn't for the bounty hunter aspect.
Off the books gives the smuggler the option to provide his or her group with a +50 luck buff and a way to sell junk off. The buff activates when the junk dealer is sent away and lasts 10 minutes. The buff can be upgraded to +50 precision and 6% damage reduction, which can be useful for your group. You will have to sacrifice some good things in the expertise to get this buff, though.
This isn't an ability but deserves a mention. This box will increase your damage with pistols by 72 points and 180 points with a melee weapon, regardless if its a special attack of default attack. I highly recommend getting this box. How this formula works:
Pistol - 180 (level 90, 2 points in box) times .4 (weapon speed) = 72
Melee - 180 (level 90, 2 points in box) times 1 (weapon speed) = 180
This ability puts a -75% damage modifier on all your targets outgoing attacks for 5 seconds. This calculates any damage buff they may have on them as well. BtD is a great ability to have since it can nullify one SFP volley from an officer if timed well, but as a solo ability...its not that great. The action cost is extremely heavy with this ability, as well as the point investment. It has a 1 min cooldown.
This 10 second ability makes it so you can have your next ability crits. It is dispelled after you fire your next special as well, so it is best used with proper intent. It works well with the next ability, End of the Line...and works hand in hand with nerf herder as well. 30 second cooldown
This ability makes it so your next critical attack will do double damage. Works extremely well with cover fire and fan shot, although the former does a little bit more damage than fan shot. Use OtC+EotL+tactical binocs+cover fire for best results on a group of enemies. If you want to save your cone attacks, than it can make for one dirty shoot first (highest single target ability we have). 1 minute cooldown
This is a wonderful ability where you can have your next critical attack root your opponent. You have 10 seconds to do so, with a 30 second cooldown on the ability. It is dispelled when you get a critical hit...and as you can probably imagine, this is best used with cover fire or fan shot on a group of enemies. Scatter from officers, force run, and spy's razor cat set are the only abilities that can resist the root. Definitely a must of have for any smuggler, in my opinion.
Narrow Escape is an ability that likes to bug out if you activate it too quickly. What I mean is that if you just hit a special and go right to narrow escape, chances are it will fail on you. Take your time with this ability to make sure it goes off...I usually give it 1-2 seconds after my last special. That said, its a snare break that lasts for 10 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown...with a 20% movement bonus as well. Pretty vital to have as a smuggler, but if you only log in for group pvp...then not so much.
Spot a sucker, or SaS, was improved at the beginning of last year by having it's modifiers updated and actually work. The core attack only takes away precision by a trivial amount, but the modifiers down the expertise tree are what make this ability relevant. -50% crit hit chance and 50 trivial hit chance on your target is pretty decent for 1v1's...especially since it can't be boosted off with serotonin boost or the officer self-clear. It currently suffers from a very poorly coded (on SOE's end) scheme for its tier 5 box, where the damage decrease is limited to a random number generator (more on that here). If it wasn't for that, I would recommend this ability, but as it stands it can be passed on. It has a 10 second duration, 1 minute cooldown. Use mark 1 of the ability instead of mark 4 - does the same thing essentially and saves you a bunch of action points!
Not an ability, but would like to talk about this one. Hidden Pockets and Lined Padding are great boxes to have because they can free up points in your entertainer buff and mitigate the effects of armor break. It also allows us to use Cybernetics effectively. You don't have to get these boxes if you wish, but the trade off is essentially 2 expertise points elsewhere for 10 points going to armors in your entertainer buff. That scenario is not for me, personally.
V. Templates
In this section I will be showcasing various expertise templates that I recommend looking into.
Sammyboy's Smuggler
http://swg.elour.io/expertise/index.html?e=12b6a48dd428d6-e50db34a258493-0-7
Comments: This is the template I enjoy using on my smuggler. It offers tools for solo and group PvP, as well as the fun of shoot first and bounty check. I usually pair this with rogue set. The Pistol whip duration is not improved because I use it tactically...meaning if I need to get a jedi off of me, I'll use it, but usually won't sacrifice my footing to throw a 2 second whip on someone. Same if a spy is attacking me. I also have the whip for spies in group PvP, so they become deterred from coming out of cloak. With this template as well, I try to get CUYS (card up your sleeve) to proc on targets like commando, jedi, and medics in 1v1's.
All-Around Smuggler
http://swg.elour.io/expertise/index.html?e=12ba1e276b26df-e50db1de416b26-0-7
I'd like to use this template as well, but currently it would not work that well because of how spot a sucker is still underwhelming as a whole. This template basically takes 5 points out of the CUYS line and puts them into SaS for increased survivability. The downside is that you lose a lot of damage potential in group PvP and it will be much, much harder to kill off medics and commandos in a 1v1 situation. This template would make fighting a spy and bounty hunter much more easier, though. This template has a little bit of everything and is best used with the Rogue set.
Group Smuggler
http://swg.elour.io/expertise/index.html?e=12ba1d95e63f38-e50db08102eda9-0-7
Comments: This template offers the smuggler with a lot of tools to be used in a group setting, at the expense of not having the full armor line, CUYS, lined pockets, and narrow escape. That means you will have to be in group with an officer if you want snare breaks. It does come with the junk dealer buff to its fullest, and break the deal...which is best used on officers going in for an SFP volley. If you have a lot of CC, gamblers can compliment this expertise pretty well. You can also move the point in bounty check elsewhere, but I left it in because its more than likely people in your group will be asking for checks. You can also move the 2nd point in false hope duration elsewhere, if you wish.
Debuff Smuggler
http://swg.elour.io/expertise/index.html?e=12ba1d95eb0405-e50db1de415ef0-0-7
Comments: This template encourages the use of debuffs and staying in a group, due to no narrow escape. You can move a point from the false hope duration if you want narrow escape or both points if you want lined pockets. Either way, this expertise is set up to put down officers trying to SFP. It will be a much better template when the "poor prospect" modifier box is made into something better. I left in pistol whip because it can be useful to nullify an annoying spy or jedi with it, but you could easily dump it to max out CUYS instead if you wished to stay in the back.
VI. Master Underworld Smuggler
Achieving Master Underworld Smuggler (MUS) comes with time and patience. Even if you go the quick route with group pick up points, it will still take time to get the necessary 3000 faction points. I will be showing tips and tricks here to make this process as quick and painless as possible.
Before I begin, I would like to list what you actually get out of MUS and why its important. At each tier of the system (there are 3 tiers), you get:
1) 1% damage bonus
2) 1m range bonus
3) 200 armor bonus
You also get access to Illegal Weapon modules, which can be used with the ability "Modify Weapon" to give yourself a 4/8/12% bonus in damage (depending on the ability rank that is available to you). As a bonus, each 1,000 faction points will reward you with an item of your choosing. Choose wisely for the last one, as that weapon may be deconstructable in the future. Each 1,000 faction points also gives a title the player can show off.
Rank 1: "Bootlegger"
Rank 2: "Pirate"
Rank 3: "Master Underworld Smuggler"
Now lets talk about how to grind up efficiently, and what contraband to expect:
Tier 1: Tatooine
Contact: Barak (/way -1048 -3538)
Destinations: Mos Eisily, Mos Espa, Mos Entha, Mos Taike
Looted Contraband: Enhanced Weapon Cartridge / Imp Rank Cylinder / Chak-Root / XJ9 Hypercharger / Chemical Warhead
Notes: This is the only part of the grind where it is clearly more beneficial to loot the contraband and turn them into the contact that Barak will give you. Doing this will give you 100 fp over the basic 50 fp from doing missions with Barak. You need to have 5 stacks of the same tier 1 contraband to converse with Gotan (/way -5943 -6043). If you have any left over tier 1 contraband, put it away in a house or your bank, because you will not be able to progress to tier 2 with it in your inventory.
Tier 2: Naboo
Contact: Ogden (/way 1907 2352)
Destinations: Theed, Kadaraa, Deeja Peak, Moenia, Lake Retreat
Looted Contraband: Enhanced Weapon Cartridge / Imperial Grade Detonators / Unlicensed Inert Gas Mixer / Faleen Pheromones / Kessel Tea
Notes: This leg of the grind will start the incorporation of group pick up points with 2 of your alts. The farthest city from Keren would be Theed, so that is where I place my 2 alts with a group pick up point macro (set them at shuttle C). It really helps if you have friends available to lend you 2 characters for another group pick up point at another city. I recommend the Moenia shuttleport for the 2nd placement, and kadaara if you can get another pair of characters to help you out. Deeja Peak and the Lake Retreat aren't too bad to drive to from Keren. Contraband missions can give you 35 points over the 25 points you will be getting with Ogden. Again, don't have any tier 2 contraband in your inventory when you try to begin tier 3...you will get stuck in an endless loop of being sent back and forth.
Tier 3: Lok
Contact: Baldwin (/way 400 5226)
Destinations: Corsair Stronghold, Downed Blood Razor Transport, Imperial Stronghold, Mount Chaolt, some random place 5.5km east of Nyms
Looted Contraband: Turgur Gas / Rigged Cargo Scanner / Modified Vibro Power Cell / Sarlacc Spore / Imperial Communications Device
Notes: This is the worst leg of the grind. You will need group pick up points and camps at the corsair stronghold and mount chaolt, as they are the worst. If you are short on people, you can use a g9 rigger to your advantage. Have another character store the locations in the G9, and then have that character take your smuggler to those locations in the G9. You can do that by bringing up the G9 location menu and mounting a passenger-friendly vehicle. This method would save a boat load of time.
Tier 4: Endor
Contact: Harding (-838 1617)
Destinations: 7km northwest of smugglers outpost, Marauder Stronghold, Research Outpost, Space (PvE)
Looted Contraband: ISB Decryptor / Credit Counterfeiting Machine / Imperial Master Key / Arachne Venom / Imperial Scientist Badge
Notes: PvP missions are introduced here. If you are looking for the quickest way to grind, I would advise doing these for 2 reasons: They give 35 fp (compared to 25) and they give an increased IPM award. If you are worried about player bounty hunters, than make sure you have bounty check and lead them astray if you are getting hunted. For each contact, they will only accept the goods when the mission has 2 or 3 minutes remaining. If you would rather do PvE, be prepared to go into space and set up camps and group pick up points.
Tier 5: Dathomir
Contact: Russell (/way 542 3053)
Destinations: Science outpost, Nightsister Stronghold, Imperial Prison, Yavin Labor Outpost (space/PvE), Endor Smuggler's OP (space/PvE)
Looted Contraband: Max Reebo's Hits / Widow's Rebreather / Disintegration Weapon / Restricted Melon / Radioactive Weapons Core
Notes: Like with Tier 4, this final part of the grind will go by the best with PvP missions. You can also do group pick up points if you wish, which will get this done much more quickly... but you get close to 30 more IPM's if you only do PvP missions. My best advice for PvP missions on this planet is to misdirect the bounty hunter where you are going. A lot of bounty hunters will wait at science outpost, so if your mission is there, make them think you are going to the stronghold...time it right and you can turn it right away at the science outpost. It also helps to have a command barc or something of equal speed, because you don't want the bounty hunter to gain on you.
VII. General PvP Tips
Here are some tips for mass PvP and small group PvP:
Positioning
This is the first thing that comes to mind for me when I think about whats important to give advice on. Stay ~45m away from the closest player of the opposing team. You do not want to be caught in the front as a smuggler. It's a delicate balancing act of dire snaring the closest person while not becoming a target yourself. Also remember that fan shot and cover fire have a maximum range of 48m. Feel free to spam fan shot, but cover fire (longer CD and more damage) should be used for maximum damage potential. Don't get complacent and keep scooting and shooting...I know a lot of my deaths have come from getting greedy and staying in range of my enemies for too long.
Pistol Whip for Defense
Consider using pistol whip for defense. Going out of your way to pistol whip someone can take you away from line of sight you need to keep close by. The only time I will pistol whip offensively is if a spy is giving a medic a hard time or if we are about to win and i dont wan't this jedi to get away. Also, if you learn to use pistol whip for defensive purposes, it will make you a better player overall...instead of a predictable one trick pony that can be easily killed.
Line of Sight
Similar to the importance of positioning, line of sight is what keeps us alive since we don't have any true defensive abilities. Have a fall-back plan to line of sight in all fights, especially versus commando and spy. Your success as a smuggler (especially versus better players) will depend on your use and knowledge of how line of sight works in this game. There is a slight delay in the communications between server and clients, leading to people looking like they are attack-able but are actually 10 meters around the corner already. Learning how to cope with this is key to understanding how line of sight works and how to use it your advantage (and understanding/guessing where your opponent truly is as well). My best advice is to practice fighting with the use of line of sight, to get a feel for it.
Dire Snare
Dire snare is probably our most important utility we can offer to the overall fight. Unlike bounty hunter, its a 100% chance to snare some poor feller. Using it wisely is the key though. Hold you dire snare for someone that is clearly out in the open and not near line of sight. If you give someone near line of sight a dire snare (and your team is not in position to pounce), you just gave that person free reign for ~20 seconds after it wears off. This can be devastating to do on a bounty hunter, because they can just run in and trap you without much worry. Practice withholding concussion shot too, because if you keep spamming concussion shot possibly won't have it for a pvper that strolled too far from line of sight.
Tab Dires
Tab diring is what needs to happen if your opponents are falling back to a new line of sight position. This will create stragglers and put pressure on opposing medics. Essentially, like the name suggests, you are trying to dire anyone in range, regardless of profession (preferably a medic or two though).
Throwing False Hope
False Hope can be a little tricky to stick on a target, and I'm going to explain why it misses. Imagine yourself throwing false hope on a moving target. When you activate the ability, it's like throwing a grenade with a 20m radius right where that enemy was. Since it takes some time for false hope to explode, your opponent can outrun it. They can outrun the blast radius very easily with accargam or an officer run, so I highly suggest saving it for a target that is snared. It works best for eliminating a jedi upfront that has saber block up and his dire snared, or stacking it on a nerf herder that is about to wear off.
Professional Nerf Herding
Nerf Herder is probably the most satisfying special smuggler can get off in PvP, but it takes patience to do it right. Nerf Herder is really only applicable if the enemy officer put a "charge!" up for his group. Scatters will break nerf herder and resist it. As a smuggler, identifying when you can use nerf herder and having off the cuff available can turn the momentum of a fight. If there is lag present as well, there is a good chance either off the cuff or nerf herder won't apply to your character buffbar, so you need to take your time when firing those off. I usually wait a good 2 seconds between those specials in lag so I can make sure they apply.
Debuffing
Using break the deal on an officer with SFP can be pretty annoying for said officer, but break the deal can be boosted off quickly by the officer or a medic watching over them. Seal the deal with debuffs by using impossible odds and skullduggery after using break the deal...it will be much harder for break the deal to be boosted off because of those debuffs as well. The debuffs IO and SD offer nothing else than that currently, because they have been broken since...forever. Speaking of debuffs, spot a sucker cannot be boosted off at all, which is pretty neat.
Bleed 3 instead of 4
Using bleed 3 instead of bleed 4 is a great way to save on action cost. The damage difference between the two ranks is actually very minimal, but the action cost is noticable. You can still use bleed 4 if you mainly group PvP (usually with an officer), but if you solo pvp or do small scale, I highly recommend bleed 3. The DoT difference is also minimal as well.
Cloaking Others
Camouflage Ally is a really neat ability and carries a lot of satisfaction when it works. I usually save my cloaks for targets that have been incapped, so when a medic can heal them, they won't get smoked right away. Cloaking a bounty hunter for dire traps is also a great tactic to use in mass pvp, so be ready to cloak them when asked. If they are out of group, remember you can have them /consent you so you can do it out of group. Camouflage Ally has a 1 minute cooldown.
Activating Feeling Lucky
Feeling lucky is a buff from the expertise that grants 100 luck, and is the first step in getting lucky break and card up your sleeve to proc. However, getting feeling lucky can be a real pain the ass. It has been known to give false-positive flytext's, and works differently than procing lucky break. To proc lucky break, you need lucky break to actually hit the target. With lucky break, its a proc on yourself, which is much easier to do. Even if the feeling lucky proc hits your target in the combat log and doesn't fire, it can still fail...had that happen to me while I was using the target dummy as of writing this. My advice is just to always try to keep attacking to get it to proc, because it's worth getting lucky break going in PvP.
VIII. 1v1 Match-ups
In this last section, I will be giving tips on how to fight other professions.
General Concepts
- Have an escape plan at all times. When you fight as a bh, you have to understand that RNG may not go your way and you will need to reset the fight.
- Never go melee distance if its not required. Keep kiting from range. You can go melee distance to pistol whip, but make sure that will be the end of the fight. If they recover, you may be up the creek.
- Use vehicles like AT-RT's and Command BARCS to your advantage. You can keep them out before combat and use mount them in combat to gain distance from your opponent, or chase your opponent. I keep about 12 of them in my datapad, and have had long fights where I burned through almost all of them.
- Use bleed 3 instead of bleed 4, for action cost purposes.
- Don't use shoot first as much in 1v1's, unless you are sure your rotation will finish your target off. Otherwise, the action cost is too large.
- Keep cover fire as your regular snare; save dire snares for when your opponent is using a snare break. Nerf herder as well, but keep dire/concussion shot in your back pocket.
Jedi
- We are the hard counter to jedi, so this is a walk in the park.
- Rogue Set, Heat
- Keep them at a distance. Don't be worrying about pistol whip until they have no where to run to and are below half health. (it's also useful to keep it for defense if you slip up)
- My favorite way to CC them is a OtC+nerf herder+ bleed 3
- Cover Fire will be your go-to snare for this fight.
- Dire snare when they hit force run...not before.
- If they cloak away, pull out a bike and start probing for a passive detect.
- LSJ can be trickier because they can root...their force throw ability is about 30m, so be wary.
- If they try to sucker you into a walled structure, just bait them out with dirty trick 6.
- With LSJ, it can be a requirment sometimes to get feeling lucky and lucky break going in order to win. Just kite them and play defensively; it will happen eventually.
- Don't waste your specials or action. Keep doing fan shot and cover fire from range for pressure. You will need your other specials and action bar for when they are false hope'd or you are proc'ing lucky break.
Bounty Hunter
- A very hard fight for the smuggler, but this fight is actually probably the most dynamic.
- Rogue Set, Acid pistol.
- Save dire snare and nerf herder for their power sprint. It's vital that you keep the bounty hunter CC'd while hoping that you will not get CC'd yourself
- Have line of sight near you. You will die if you are caught in the open 9 time out of 10, and the fight will be over before you know it.
- If you are being hunted, get the jump on them. Making them panic into shields puts the cards in your favor heavily.
- Keep a bike out too if you are being hunted. If they don't destroy it, it is an easy way to reset the fight and gain distance.
- Don't worry about pistol whipping here, unless they burnt both their prescience and shields.
- You can burn prescience by hitting off the cuff only. They may panic and expect the worst. Save your nerf herder for when prescience ends, chances are you can get it to activate without needing off the cuff. Same goes for end of the line.
- If you have a 4 or 5 stack of armor break, consider running until it wears off. Same goes for dread strike.
- If they are running from you, and trying to reset the fight themselves...call your medic. It will keep them in combat and you will be able to mount up and kill them.
- Try your best to not get dired. If you get dired, you have to snare them somehow. If they get dire roots on you, you are done.
Smuggler
- The mirror match. Can obviously go either way; dependent on skill level. Sort of like a chess match, because of the snares and roots.
- Rogue set, Acid pistol.
- The way I fight smugglers 1v1 is to find line of sight and get them in the open with a nerd herder or dire snare.
- This fight can turn into two rooted smugglers blasting away, hoping the RNG goes their way.
- I don't really advise pistol whip in this fight unless you are absolutely certain it will end of the fight. They may be able to simply pistol whip you right back.
- Make the most of your debuffs in this fight. BtD their EotL. Attack the most when they are debuffed, and when you are debuffed, consider line of sight.
FR Medic
- A fight that will require some patience and lucky break to proc off.
- Gambler's set, Heat pistol
- Keep them CC'd as much as possible. Same with DoT's. You want them burning action with serotonin boost and cure affliction.
- Lucky break will be how you kill them. They won't be able to out-heal that and card up your sleeve.
- Watch out for their gas, as the bleed dot will be the most damaging ability they have during the fight.
- Watch out for rheumatic calamity if they have it, because you could end up killing yourself as you burn action. Consider just default attacking when that is applied, unless you are about to secure the kill.
- When they stasis you, use the Gambler's set ability to escape combat and pull a bike out. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.
- Pistol whip when you can actually finish them. If you don't use it for a while, they may think you don't even have it and will be careless.
- If they have line of sight opportunities, such as a bazaar or a cloner, consider waiting for combat to end and call a bike nearby. That way, if they can tank you out and you start to hurt, you can reset the fight.
- Watch your action management, as they can take it away fairly easily.
DOOM Medic
- Much harder fight than FR Medic. In fact, chances are you won't be able to win this one.
- Rogue set, Heat pistol
- DOOM procs will overwhelm you and kill you. You need to be able to reset the fight and hope you can proc lucky break
- Once lucky break gets going, you can go on the offensive and play a little more confidently.
- Serpent shard is a must here
- If they start purging your buffs, you should re-apply accaragam.
- Hope you can get enough lucky procs in a row and that they don't have good line of sight. This is an extremely tough fight.
- Have a bike out in this fight if possible. You need to be able to have an escape plan to reset the fight if the DoT's build up too much.
- Watch your action management, as they can take it away fairly easily.
Officer
- Can be a tough fight if the officer is extremely good at the profession
- Rogue set, Heat or Acid
- Stay out of range of there grenades. Those can really add up in the end.
- Don't get snared without a snarebreak ready. You will get crippling vortex'd and SFP'd.
- They can do very good ranged damage, and keep good defense...so you may want to play for lucky break here (if they are good).
- It is possible to end this fight quickly by dire snaring and pistol whipping. That will strip their crit hit reduction and make them easier prey. Sometimes, the longer you dance with them, the more it is in their favor.
Commando
- Also another tough fight, Commando is the hard counter to smuggler.
- Gambler's set, Acid
- Since commando cannot snare break, or snare you, you can at least control the fight.
- Don't get careless with the DoT stack on you. If it gets above 4, consider waiting for it to go away.
- Waiting for lucky break to fire off is a valid tactic, as it will give you the offense needed to make them panic into standfast
- You can also lure them to you in line of sight and whip them, stripping their defenses.
- False Hope can also help with block chance, but it comes at with heavy action cost.
Spy
- Having a spy myself, I can safely say that any spy worth their salt will destroy you. It's the nature of spy versus most profs.
- Rogue set, Acid
- Not much you can honestly do here. Spies will use decoy to abosrb pistol whip, so when you see decoy...leg it.
- Dire snaring a spy is usually used for defense than offense.
- Have a bike ready to go if possible. When they cloak away, pull out a bike as soon as you can and start driving around. A smuggler running around in the open is a dead smuggler.
- Have lots and lots of line of sight opportunity, including going inside buildings. They will be wary of getting close to a smuggler without decoy available.
- Pistol whip is what usually will win the day here, and especially if you got them close to you from the get-go.
Table of Contents:
I. The Smuggler's Role
II. Equipment Check
III. Jewelry Sets
IV. Expertise Abilities
V. Suggested Templates
VI. Master Underworld Smuggler
VII. Small/Large-scale PvP tips
VIII. 1v1 Match-up tips
I. The Smuggler's Role
The role that our profession plays was intended to be solely crowd control, however, we turned into more of a damage dealing and single target debuff profession as time went on. Our only true crowd control abilities are nerf herder and false hope, with coverfire/pin down/dirty trick being our AoE snares. In regards to single-target debuffs, only 2 out of the 4 work!
That said, the role of smugglers as of now is 65% damage, 10% utility, and 25% crowd control or debuffs. Cloak other, junk dealer, and bounty check offer a fun and unique option of utility to other professions, while break the deal, nerf herder, and false hope offer decent CC and debuff ability. Our damage, however, is second to only spy in PvE (slight edge to smuggler when lucky break is active) and third behind spy and devastation commando in PvP. This is a difficult profession to play since we do not have a special ability like standfast or shields, and must rely on playing dirty through the use of line of sight and trickery to make our opponents waste their precious special abilities, and strike when they are at a disadvantage (sort of like spy almost, but without cloak!).
II. Equipment Check
Food: Breath of Heaven for small and large scale group PvP, Accaragam for everything else. Accaragam works better for small scale PvP without an officer as well.
Powerups: Pistol damage 8's ideally; 7's can work too if on a budget. No action cost powerups are needed and they are not recommended.
Exotics: Pistol action/pistol crit/pistol damage for when you are solo or in a small group without an officer. PvP crit/Pistol crit/pistol damage when you are with an officer.
Armor: I prefer primus battle for smuggler, but you can still get away with using primus assault. Do not use unlayered if you can help it. You can also go to recon armor for the bleed resist and with have an assault armor chest plate to balance your armors out. Having 10k armor is usually the goal and you can achieve it pretty closely without the need for an ent buff armors.
Cybernetics play a part in this profession as well, as they can give a 1350 health or action bonus for -600 to your armor, thanks to how the armor in expertise calculates innate armor. It is recommended you get Cybernetics with health mods so you can increase your overall survivability (the character sheet screenshot above does not reflect cybernetics). Cybernetics take 9 attachments and can have pistol damage built into the chest piece. This is what capped cybernetics look like.
Attachments: Con/luck/agility is the way to go for attachments. Some people like Precision instead of agility, but it comes down to if you want 3% dodge/evasion or 3% crit and strike through. We already have enough offensive capability without precision, so its best to focus on survival since we have no defensive button to press when things go south.
Weapons: P-8 Lamprey, DL-T Heavy, the Rebel DL-44 (from the recruiter, general rank) and the DD6 (from the contraband collection) all have 2% damage bonuses in their skins and most importantly, a 3m range bonus over other pistols. I recommend these if you want to make the most out of your character, but there is nothing wrong with using the pistol you like the best...especially now that PSG's are now a coin toss between having kinetic or energy resists (or both). Acid and Heat are the only elementals you will need.
Entertainer Buff: For solo and small scale pvp, I go with 2 second chance/6 con/action cost/crit. For large scale PvP, its always 10 con/crit/crit hit reduction. Constitution is vital since you have no purely-defensive abilities in mass pvp. Also, armor via the ent buff (or any buff that gives armor) does not work well with smuggler because of how hidden pockets/lined padding affects armor calculation.
Misc Items: Most of these can be extremely vital to success.
Hoth Radio (this + lucky break + cuys + gcw base damage buff = insanity)
Lair crystal
Invasion binocs
Recruiter detect binocs
Multiple vehicles in your datapad
Serpent shard
Sprint Stim
Synapse/Bio crystals
Officer heal and tactical stims
Heal over time stims sold by crafters
Dented IG head
Rancoraid (not super important)
Ice Cream 4k heal/debuff cleanse (not necessary but nice to have)
Gackle bat familiar or the YT-1300
GCW base stims/last chance heals/armor powders
Witches of Dath sprint stim (separate c/d)
III. Jewelry Sets
I'm going to explain the general idea behind these sets, as I will mention their exact application in the section where I talk about profession match-ups later on.
Rogue's
https://i.imgur.com/TTk41wS.jpg
This set is probably the most popular set with smugglers. This allows you to crowd control your opponent with a dire snare that prevents your opponent from breaking the snare through usual means. This set provides us with an important offensive and defensive tool...when you have to close the gap or prevent your opponent from running away, you can dire snare them. If you need to get away, then just simply dire snare them. It also provides a freeshot to concussion shot, meaning there is a chance you can fire off conc shot for no action cost. Seems to work 70% of the time; other times it bugs out. The cooldown reduction is a welcome addition too, because there are times where you will need to "tab dire" (see general PvP tips). the +400 total luck is also a nice bonus to stats and strikethrough value. Definitely the go-to set for a smuggler who wants to get into PvP.
Gambler's
https://i.imgur.com/0k7QzzN.jpg
This set has potential but is overshadowed by the utility of the Rogue set. However, there are merits to this set that should not be overlooked! This can be a dangerous set if you have enough CC in your group and all you want to do is massive damage. The +3% lucky break chance may seem like a small bonus, but the stat change is very noticeable due to how often lucky break can fire versus the requirement buff, feeling lucky. The false hope bonus is definitely noticeable too, as it cuts the cooldown from 1 minute to 35 seconds. This is actually a very fun PvE set as well (and the one I'd definitely recommend for PvE) because of the ability it grants. The ability drops combat with any and all npcs you are fighting, and reduces the hate if they are dotted up.
Scoundrel's
https://i.imgur.com/QnxxYyG.jpg
This is probably the most underwhelming of the smuggler sets. It is nice for a unbuffed smuggler trying to do PvE, but outside of that...it offers very little. Compared to the other sets, the only thing you can hope for is a bunch of fast attacks from fast draw. Even then, the only real use I see it having in PvP is if you went into a fight with a DOOM medic 1v1 or a block commando 1v1. It's not bad to have in your back pocket for those (rare) scenarios if you have the extra
tokens.
IV. Expertise Abilities
In this area we will look over abilities that will be vital to your future success as a ranged smuggler, and abilities to avoid as well.
This has never worked at all since it was introduced, only used for protecting important debuffs on a target from serotonin boost.
This has never worked at all since it was introduced, only used for protecting important debuffs on a target from serotonin boost.
Pistol whip is the ability that made smuggler flavor of the month when it was introduced all those years ago. It's a 30 second cooldown, moderate damaging ability that can be upgraded into a stun via expertise. The stun will last for 2 seconds, and it will prevent your target from doing anything except using heal stims. It also strips your target's defensive stats and basically is a mark for death. The stun can be upgraded to 3 and 4 seconds total as well. This is probably the most powerful ability smuggler has. Also, it has a 4m range built into the ability.
This grants you the medic that you may see smugglers call out every so often. It has a 5 minute cooldown and the medic expires after what seems like 3 minutes as well (his comlink went off; has other patients waiting). It does have a limited action pool, so it can only get 3-4 heals off per fight and they heal for 3500 each. It does also stick a poison dot on your target from time to time, but the dot is pretty weak. This is something you shouldn't really rely on because the medic is pretty dumb for an npc (you probably didn't have insurance). He likes to get stuck and waste his action on trivial npc special attacks (he's a doctor, not a commando). The medic is a great way to keep your opponent in combat though, while you can break it and get on a vehicle if need be.
False hope is an ability that hasn't aged all that great. It was pretty insane back in the day, when block was all the rage... but now its mediocre. However, now that it is unlinked, its actually a great ability to have if you can get it. It can strip parry and block chance off a target by -100%, and also provide a trivial hit chance debuff for 100%...did I mention it can root your target in place as well? It lasts 3 seconds with the basic ability, but can be upgraded to 4 and 5 seconds. Also, the box that upgrades the duration also (more importantly) decreases the time it takes for the effect to take place. With it unbuffed, it takes about 3-4 seconds to see results on the target. Upgraded, that number is improved to 1-2 seconds after throwing it. It also is an AoE, with a radius of about 20m from where you threw it. Think of this ability as a grenade: your target can outrun the blast radius, especially if you haven't buffed the ability. The action cost is also heavy with this ability too, so use wisely. 1 minute cooldown.
Bounty check is an ability that tells you the amount you are worth and if you are being hunted. It can be used on other people, but only on the same person every 10 minutes (compared to using it on yourself every minute). It can tell you how many bounty hunters have your mission if you are within 1000m of them, and give them how many meters they are from you as well. It makes it possible to hunt the hunter.
Shoot First is a high action cost, high damage ability that has a 30 second cooldown. It can initiate combat with a bounty hunter that has your mission. It's actually not a bad ability just for DPS, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it if it wasn't for the bounty hunter aspect.
Off the books gives the smuggler the option to provide his or her group with a +50 luck buff and a way to sell junk off. The buff activates when the junk dealer is sent away and lasts 10 minutes. The buff can be upgraded to +50 precision and 6% damage reduction, which can be useful for your group. You will have to sacrifice some good things in the expertise to get this buff, though.
This isn't an ability but deserves a mention. This box will increase your damage with pistols by 72 points and 180 points with a melee weapon, regardless if its a special attack of default attack. I highly recommend getting this box. How this formula works:
Pistol - 180 (level 90, 2 points in box) times .4 (weapon speed) = 72
Melee - 180 (level 90, 2 points in box) times 1 (weapon speed) = 180
This ability puts a -75% damage modifier on all your targets outgoing attacks for 5 seconds. This calculates any damage buff they may have on them as well. BtD is a great ability to have since it can nullify one SFP volley from an officer if timed well, but as a solo ability...its not that great. The action cost is extremely heavy with this ability, as well as the point investment. It has a 1 min cooldown.
This 10 second ability makes it so you can have your next ability crits. It is dispelled after you fire your next special as well, so it is best used with proper intent. It works well with the next ability, End of the Line...and works hand in hand with nerf herder as well. 30 second cooldown
This ability makes it so your next critical attack will do double damage. Works extremely well with cover fire and fan shot, although the former does a little bit more damage than fan shot. Use OtC+EotL+tactical binocs+cover fire for best results on a group of enemies. If you want to save your cone attacks, than it can make for one dirty shoot first (highest single target ability we have). 1 minute cooldown
This is a wonderful ability where you can have your next critical attack root your opponent. You have 10 seconds to do so, with a 30 second cooldown on the ability. It is dispelled when you get a critical hit...and as you can probably imagine, this is best used with cover fire or fan shot on a group of enemies. Scatter from officers, force run, and spy's razor cat set are the only abilities that can resist the root. Definitely a must of have for any smuggler, in my opinion.
Narrow Escape is an ability that likes to bug out if you activate it too quickly. What I mean is that if you just hit a special and go right to narrow escape, chances are it will fail on you. Take your time with this ability to make sure it goes off...I usually give it 1-2 seconds after my last special. That said, its a snare break that lasts for 10 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown...with a 20% movement bonus as well. Pretty vital to have as a smuggler, but if you only log in for group pvp...then not so much.
Spot a sucker, or SaS, was improved at the beginning of last year by having it's modifiers updated and actually work. The core attack only takes away precision by a trivial amount, but the modifiers down the expertise tree are what make this ability relevant. -50% crit hit chance and 50 trivial hit chance on your target is pretty decent for 1v1's...especially since it can't be boosted off with serotonin boost or the officer self-clear. It currently suffers from a very poorly coded (on SOE's end) scheme for its tier 5 box, where the damage decrease is limited to a random number generator (more on that here). If it wasn't for that, I would recommend this ability, but as it stands it can be passed on. It has a 10 second duration, 1 minute cooldown. Use mark 1 of the ability instead of mark 4 - does the same thing essentially and saves you a bunch of action points!
Not an ability, but would like to talk about this one. Hidden Pockets and Lined Padding are great boxes to have because they can free up points in your entertainer buff and mitigate the effects of armor break. It also allows us to use Cybernetics effectively. You don't have to get these boxes if you wish, but the trade off is essentially 2 expertise points elsewhere for 10 points going to armors in your entertainer buff. That scenario is not for me, personally.
V. Templates
In this section I will be showcasing various expertise templates that I recommend looking into.
Sammyboy's Smuggler
http://swg.elour.io/expertise/index.html?e=12b6a48dd428d6-e50db34a258493-0-7
Comments: This is the template I enjoy using on my smuggler. It offers tools for solo and group PvP, as well as the fun of shoot first and bounty check. I usually pair this with rogue set. The Pistol whip duration is not improved because I use it tactically...meaning if I need to get a jedi off of me, I'll use it, but usually won't sacrifice my footing to throw a 2 second whip on someone. Same if a spy is attacking me. I also have the whip for spies in group PvP, so they become deterred from coming out of cloak. With this template as well, I try to get CUYS (card up your sleeve) to proc on targets like commando, jedi, and medics in 1v1's.
All-Around Smuggler
http://swg.elour.io/expertise/index.html?e=12ba1e276b26df-e50db1de416b26-0-7
I'd like to use this template as well, but currently it would not work that well because of how spot a sucker is still underwhelming as a whole. This template basically takes 5 points out of the CUYS line and puts them into SaS for increased survivability. The downside is that you lose a lot of damage potential in group PvP and it will be much, much harder to kill off medics and commandos in a 1v1 situation. This template would make fighting a spy and bounty hunter much more easier, though. This template has a little bit of everything and is best used with the Rogue set.
Group Smuggler
http://swg.elour.io/expertise/index.html?e=12ba1d95e63f38-e50db08102eda9-0-7
Comments: This template offers the smuggler with a lot of tools to be used in a group setting, at the expense of not having the full armor line, CUYS, lined pockets, and narrow escape. That means you will have to be in group with an officer if you want snare breaks. It does come with the junk dealer buff to its fullest, and break the deal...which is best used on officers going in for an SFP volley. If you have a lot of CC, gamblers can compliment this expertise pretty well. You can also move the point in bounty check elsewhere, but I left it in because its more than likely people in your group will be asking for checks. You can also move the 2nd point in false hope duration elsewhere, if you wish.
Debuff Smuggler
http://swg.elour.io/expertise/index.html?e=12ba1d95eb0405-e50db1de415ef0-0-7
Comments: This template encourages the use of debuffs and staying in a group, due to no narrow escape. You can move a point from the false hope duration if you want narrow escape or both points if you want lined pockets. Either way, this expertise is set up to put down officers trying to SFP. It will be a much better template when the "poor prospect" modifier box is made into something better. I left in pistol whip because it can be useful to nullify an annoying spy or jedi with it, but you could easily dump it to max out CUYS instead if you wished to stay in the back.
VI. Master Underworld Smuggler
Achieving Master Underworld Smuggler (MUS) comes with time and patience. Even if you go the quick route with group pick up points, it will still take time to get the necessary 3000 faction points. I will be showing tips and tricks here to make this process as quick and painless as possible.
Before I begin, I would like to list what you actually get out of MUS and why its important. At each tier of the system (there are 3 tiers), you get:
1) 1% damage bonus
2) 1m range bonus
3) 200 armor bonus
You also get access to Illegal Weapon modules, which can be used with the ability "Modify Weapon" to give yourself a 4/8/12% bonus in damage (depending on the ability rank that is available to you). As a bonus, each 1,000 faction points will reward you with an item of your choosing. Choose wisely for the last one, as that weapon may be deconstructable in the future. Each 1,000 faction points also gives a title the player can show off.
Rank 1: "Bootlegger"
Rank 2: "Pirate"
Rank 3: "Master Underworld Smuggler"
Now lets talk about how to grind up efficiently, and what contraband to expect:
Tier 1: Tatooine
Contact: Barak (/way -1048 -3538)
Destinations: Mos Eisily, Mos Espa, Mos Entha, Mos Taike
Looted Contraband: Enhanced Weapon Cartridge / Imp Rank Cylinder / Chak-Root / XJ9 Hypercharger / Chemical Warhead
Notes: This is the only part of the grind where it is clearly more beneficial to loot the contraband and turn them into the contact that Barak will give you. Doing this will give you 100 fp over the basic 50 fp from doing missions with Barak. You need to have 5 stacks of the same tier 1 contraband to converse with Gotan (/way -5943 -6043). If you have any left over tier 1 contraband, put it away in a house or your bank, because you will not be able to progress to tier 2 with it in your inventory.
Tier 2: Naboo
Contact: Ogden (/way 1907 2352)
Destinations: Theed, Kadaraa, Deeja Peak, Moenia, Lake Retreat
Looted Contraband: Enhanced Weapon Cartridge / Imperial Grade Detonators / Unlicensed Inert Gas Mixer / Faleen Pheromones / Kessel Tea
Notes: This leg of the grind will start the incorporation of group pick up points with 2 of your alts. The farthest city from Keren would be Theed, so that is where I place my 2 alts with a group pick up point macro (set them at shuttle C). It really helps if you have friends available to lend you 2 characters for another group pick up point at another city. I recommend the Moenia shuttleport for the 2nd placement, and kadaara if you can get another pair of characters to help you out. Deeja Peak and the Lake Retreat aren't too bad to drive to from Keren. Contraband missions can give you 35 points over the 25 points you will be getting with Ogden. Again, don't have any tier 2 contraband in your inventory when you try to begin tier 3...you will get stuck in an endless loop of being sent back and forth.
Tier 3: Lok
Contact: Baldwin (/way 400 5226)
Destinations: Corsair Stronghold, Downed Blood Razor Transport, Imperial Stronghold, Mount Chaolt, some random place 5.5km east of Nyms
Looted Contraband: Turgur Gas / Rigged Cargo Scanner / Modified Vibro Power Cell / Sarlacc Spore / Imperial Communications Device
Notes: This is the worst leg of the grind. You will need group pick up points and camps at the corsair stronghold and mount chaolt, as they are the worst. If you are short on people, you can use a g9 rigger to your advantage. Have another character store the locations in the G9, and then have that character take your smuggler to those locations in the G9. You can do that by bringing up the G9 location menu and mounting a passenger-friendly vehicle. This method would save a boat load of time.
Tier 4: Endor
Contact: Harding (-838 1617)
Destinations: 7km northwest of smugglers outpost, Marauder Stronghold, Research Outpost, Space (PvE)
Looted Contraband: ISB Decryptor / Credit Counterfeiting Machine / Imperial Master Key / Arachne Venom / Imperial Scientist Badge
Notes: PvP missions are introduced here. If you are looking for the quickest way to grind, I would advise doing these for 2 reasons: They give 35 fp (compared to 25) and they give an increased IPM award. If you are worried about player bounty hunters, than make sure you have bounty check and lead them astray if you are getting hunted. For each contact, they will only accept the goods when the mission has 2 or 3 minutes remaining. If you would rather do PvE, be prepared to go into space and set up camps and group pick up points.
Tier 5: Dathomir
Contact: Russell (/way 542 3053)
Destinations: Science outpost, Nightsister Stronghold, Imperial Prison, Yavin Labor Outpost (space/PvE), Endor Smuggler's OP (space/PvE)
Looted Contraband: Max Reebo's Hits / Widow's Rebreather / Disintegration Weapon / Restricted Melon / Radioactive Weapons Core
Notes: Like with Tier 4, this final part of the grind will go by the best with PvP missions. You can also do group pick up points if you wish, which will get this done much more quickly... but you get close to 30 more IPM's if you only do PvP missions. My best advice for PvP missions on this planet is to misdirect the bounty hunter where you are going. A lot of bounty hunters will wait at science outpost, so if your mission is there, make them think you are going to the stronghold...time it right and you can turn it right away at the science outpost. It also helps to have a command barc or something of equal speed, because you don't want the bounty hunter to gain on you.
VII. General PvP Tips
Here are some tips for mass PvP and small group PvP:
Positioning
This is the first thing that comes to mind for me when I think about whats important to give advice on. Stay ~45m away from the closest player of the opposing team. You do not want to be caught in the front as a smuggler. It's a delicate balancing act of dire snaring the closest person while not becoming a target yourself. Also remember that fan shot and cover fire have a maximum range of 48m. Feel free to spam fan shot, but cover fire (longer CD and more damage) should be used for maximum damage potential. Don't get complacent and keep scooting and shooting...I know a lot of my deaths have come from getting greedy and staying in range of my enemies for too long.
Pistol Whip for Defense
Consider using pistol whip for defense. Going out of your way to pistol whip someone can take you away from line of sight you need to keep close by. The only time I will pistol whip offensively is if a spy is giving a medic a hard time or if we are about to win and i dont wan't this jedi to get away. Also, if you learn to use pistol whip for defensive purposes, it will make you a better player overall...instead of a predictable one trick pony that can be easily killed.
Line of Sight
Similar to the importance of positioning, line of sight is what keeps us alive since we don't have any true defensive abilities. Have a fall-back plan to line of sight in all fights, especially versus commando and spy. Your success as a smuggler (especially versus better players) will depend on your use and knowledge of how line of sight works in this game. There is a slight delay in the communications between server and clients, leading to people looking like they are attack-able but are actually 10 meters around the corner already. Learning how to cope with this is key to understanding how line of sight works and how to use it your advantage (and understanding/guessing where your opponent truly is as well). My best advice is to practice fighting with the use of line of sight, to get a feel for it.
Dire Snare
Dire snare is probably our most important utility we can offer to the overall fight. Unlike bounty hunter, its a 100% chance to snare some poor feller. Using it wisely is the key though. Hold you dire snare for someone that is clearly out in the open and not near line of sight. If you give someone near line of sight a dire snare (and your team is not in position to pounce), you just gave that person free reign for ~20 seconds after it wears off. This can be devastating to do on a bounty hunter, because they can just run in and trap you without much worry. Practice withholding concussion shot too, because if you keep spamming concussion shot possibly won't have it for a pvper that strolled too far from line of sight.
Tab Dires
Tab diring is what needs to happen if your opponents are falling back to a new line of sight position. This will create stragglers and put pressure on opposing medics. Essentially, like the name suggests, you are trying to dire anyone in range, regardless of profession (preferably a medic or two though).
Throwing False Hope
False Hope can be a little tricky to stick on a target, and I'm going to explain why it misses. Imagine yourself throwing false hope on a moving target. When you activate the ability, it's like throwing a grenade with a 20m radius right where that enemy was. Since it takes some time for false hope to explode, your opponent can outrun it. They can outrun the blast radius very easily with accargam or an officer run, so I highly suggest saving it for a target that is snared. It works best for eliminating a jedi upfront that has saber block up and his dire snared, or stacking it on a nerf herder that is about to wear off.
Professional Nerf Herding
Nerf Herder is probably the most satisfying special smuggler can get off in PvP, but it takes patience to do it right. Nerf Herder is really only applicable if the enemy officer put a "charge!" up for his group. Scatters will break nerf herder and resist it. As a smuggler, identifying when you can use nerf herder and having off the cuff available can turn the momentum of a fight. If there is lag present as well, there is a good chance either off the cuff or nerf herder won't apply to your character buffbar, so you need to take your time when firing those off. I usually wait a good 2 seconds between those specials in lag so I can make sure they apply.
Debuffing
Using break the deal on an officer with SFP can be pretty annoying for said officer, but break the deal can be boosted off quickly by the officer or a medic watching over them. Seal the deal with debuffs by using impossible odds and skullduggery after using break the deal...it will be much harder for break the deal to be boosted off because of those debuffs as well. The debuffs IO and SD offer nothing else than that currently, because they have been broken since...forever. Speaking of debuffs, spot a sucker cannot be boosted off at all, which is pretty neat.
Bleed 3 instead of 4
Using bleed 3 instead of bleed 4 is a great way to save on action cost. The damage difference between the two ranks is actually very minimal, but the action cost is noticable. You can still use bleed 4 if you mainly group PvP (usually with an officer), but if you solo pvp or do small scale, I highly recommend bleed 3. The DoT difference is also minimal as well.
Cloaking Others
Camouflage Ally is a really neat ability and carries a lot of satisfaction when it works. I usually save my cloaks for targets that have been incapped, so when a medic can heal them, they won't get smoked right away. Cloaking a bounty hunter for dire traps is also a great tactic to use in mass pvp, so be ready to cloak them when asked. If they are out of group, remember you can have them /consent you so you can do it out of group. Camouflage Ally has a 1 minute cooldown.
Activating Feeling Lucky
Feeling lucky is a buff from the expertise that grants 100 luck, and is the first step in getting lucky break and card up your sleeve to proc. However, getting feeling lucky can be a real pain the ass. It has been known to give false-positive flytext's, and works differently than procing lucky break. To proc lucky break, you need lucky break to actually hit the target. With lucky break, its a proc on yourself, which is much easier to do. Even if the feeling lucky proc hits your target in the combat log and doesn't fire, it can still fail...had that happen to me while I was using the target dummy as of writing this. My advice is just to always try to keep attacking to get it to proc, because it's worth getting lucky break going in PvP.
VIII. 1v1 Match-ups
In this last section, I will be giving tips on how to fight other professions.
General Concepts
- Have an escape plan at all times. When you fight as a bh, you have to understand that RNG may not go your way and you will need to reset the fight.
- Never go melee distance if its not required. Keep kiting from range. You can go melee distance to pistol whip, but make sure that will be the end of the fight. If they recover, you may be up the creek.
- Use vehicles like AT-RT's and Command BARCS to your advantage. You can keep them out before combat and use mount them in combat to gain distance from your opponent, or chase your opponent. I keep about 12 of them in my datapad, and have had long fights where I burned through almost all of them.
- Use bleed 3 instead of bleed 4, for action cost purposes.
- Don't use shoot first as much in 1v1's, unless you are sure your rotation will finish your target off. Otherwise, the action cost is too large.
- Keep cover fire as your regular snare; save dire snares for when your opponent is using a snare break. Nerf herder as well, but keep dire/concussion shot in your back pocket.
Jedi
- We are the hard counter to jedi, so this is a walk in the park.
- Rogue Set, Heat
- Keep them at a distance. Don't be worrying about pistol whip until they have no where to run to and are below half health. (it's also useful to keep it for defense if you slip up)
- My favorite way to CC them is a OtC+nerf herder+ bleed 3
- Cover Fire will be your go-to snare for this fight.
- Dire snare when they hit force run...not before.
- If they cloak away, pull out a bike and start probing for a passive detect.
- LSJ can be trickier because they can root...their force throw ability is about 30m, so be wary.
- If they try to sucker you into a walled structure, just bait them out with dirty trick 6.
- With LSJ, it can be a requirment sometimes to get feeling lucky and lucky break going in order to win. Just kite them and play defensively; it will happen eventually.
- Don't waste your specials or action. Keep doing fan shot and cover fire from range for pressure. You will need your other specials and action bar for when they are false hope'd or you are proc'ing lucky break.
Bounty Hunter
- A very hard fight for the smuggler, but this fight is actually probably the most dynamic.
- Rogue Set, Acid pistol.
- Save dire snare and nerf herder for their power sprint. It's vital that you keep the bounty hunter CC'd while hoping that you will not get CC'd yourself
- Have line of sight near you. You will die if you are caught in the open 9 time out of 10, and the fight will be over before you know it.
- If you are being hunted, get the jump on them. Making them panic into shields puts the cards in your favor heavily.
- Keep a bike out too if you are being hunted. If they don't destroy it, it is an easy way to reset the fight and gain distance.
- Don't worry about pistol whipping here, unless they burnt both their prescience and shields.
- You can burn prescience by hitting off the cuff only. They may panic and expect the worst. Save your nerf herder for when prescience ends, chances are you can get it to activate without needing off the cuff. Same goes for end of the line.
- If you have a 4 or 5 stack of armor break, consider running until it wears off. Same goes for dread strike.
- If they are running from you, and trying to reset the fight themselves...call your medic. It will keep them in combat and you will be able to mount up and kill them.
- Try your best to not get dired. If you get dired, you have to snare them somehow. If they get dire roots on you, you are done.
Smuggler
- The mirror match. Can obviously go either way; dependent on skill level. Sort of like a chess match, because of the snares and roots.
- Rogue set, Acid pistol.
- The way I fight smugglers 1v1 is to find line of sight and get them in the open with a nerd herder or dire snare.
- This fight can turn into two rooted smugglers blasting away, hoping the RNG goes their way.
- I don't really advise pistol whip in this fight unless you are absolutely certain it will end of the fight. They may be able to simply pistol whip you right back.
- Make the most of your debuffs in this fight. BtD their EotL. Attack the most when they are debuffed, and when you are debuffed, consider line of sight.
FR Medic
- A fight that will require some patience and lucky break to proc off.
- Gambler's set, Heat pistol
- Keep them CC'd as much as possible. Same with DoT's. You want them burning action with serotonin boost and cure affliction.
- Lucky break will be how you kill them. They won't be able to out-heal that and card up your sleeve.
- Watch out for their gas, as the bleed dot will be the most damaging ability they have during the fight.
- Watch out for rheumatic calamity if they have it, because you could end up killing yourself as you burn action. Consider just default attacking when that is applied, unless you are about to secure the kill.
- When they stasis you, use the Gambler's set ability to escape combat and pull a bike out. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.
- Pistol whip when you can actually finish them. If you don't use it for a while, they may think you don't even have it and will be careless.
- If they have line of sight opportunities, such as a bazaar or a cloner, consider waiting for combat to end and call a bike nearby. That way, if they can tank you out and you start to hurt, you can reset the fight.
- Watch your action management, as they can take it away fairly easily.
DOOM Medic
- Much harder fight than FR Medic. In fact, chances are you won't be able to win this one.
- Rogue set, Heat pistol
- DOOM procs will overwhelm you and kill you. You need to be able to reset the fight and hope you can proc lucky break
- Once lucky break gets going, you can go on the offensive and play a little more confidently.
- Serpent shard is a must here
- If they start purging your buffs, you should re-apply accaragam.
- Hope you can get enough lucky procs in a row and that they don't have good line of sight. This is an extremely tough fight.
- Have a bike out in this fight if possible. You need to be able to have an escape plan to reset the fight if the DoT's build up too much.
- Watch your action management, as they can take it away fairly easily.
Officer
- Can be a tough fight if the officer is extremely good at the profession
- Rogue set, Heat or Acid
- Stay out of range of there grenades. Those can really add up in the end.
- Don't get snared without a snarebreak ready. You will get crippling vortex'd and SFP'd.
- They can do very good ranged damage, and keep good defense...so you may want to play for lucky break here (if they are good).
- It is possible to end this fight quickly by dire snaring and pistol whipping. That will strip their crit hit reduction and make them easier prey. Sometimes, the longer you dance with them, the more it is in their favor.
Commando
- Also another tough fight, Commando is the hard counter to smuggler.
- Gambler's set, Acid
- Since commando cannot snare break, or snare you, you can at least control the fight.
- Don't get careless with the DoT stack on you. If it gets above 4, consider waiting for it to go away.
- Waiting for lucky break to fire off is a valid tactic, as it will give you the offense needed to make them panic into standfast
- You can also lure them to you in line of sight and whip them, stripping their defenses.
- False Hope can also help with block chance, but it comes at with heavy action cost.
Spy
- Having a spy myself, I can safely say that any spy worth their salt will destroy you. It's the nature of spy versus most profs.
- Rogue set, Acid
- Not much you can honestly do here. Spies will use decoy to abosrb pistol whip, so when you see decoy...leg it.
- Dire snaring a spy is usually used for defense than offense.
- Have a bike ready to go if possible. When they cloak away, pull out a bike as soon as you can and start driving around. A smuggler running around in the open is a dead smuggler.
- Have lots and lots of line of sight opportunity, including going inside buildings. They will be wary of getting close to a smuggler without decoy available.
- Pistol whip is what usually will win the day here, and especially if you got them close to you from the get-go.