The name Boba Fett is always the first thing that comes to mind for me whenever i think of Bounty Hunters. A cunning soldier of fortune armed with a devastating arsenal of weaponry, a gift for hunting people, and one hell of an attitude, Boba Fett is the most iconic and well known bounty hunter in the Star Wars Universe. The SW:TOR Bounty Hunter Class is quite clearly modeled on Boba / Jango Fett and (in my opinion) they couldn’t have done a better job. An interesting fact: Boba Fett doesn’t actually die when he ends up in the belly of the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi. He fights his way out and eventually becomes Mandalore and lives a long life.

You will not be running around with a light saber as a Bounty Hunter. Nor will you be throwing out force lightning or force choking your opponents. The Bounty Hunter is all about advanced weaponry, and lots of it. Advanced Classes for the Bounty Hunter are “Powertech” and “Mercenary”.  The Powertech is the “Tank Spec” Advanced Class that will mainly focus on damage mitigation, damage reduction and aggro generation. I believe the Powertech will also be more effective in close range than the Mercenary. The Mercenary on the other hand is not designed to take damage at all. He is designed to deal it. High power ranged DPS is the focus of the Mercenary with modified pistols and high damage rockets. You can also look forward to Jetpacks. Who doesn’t like Jetpacks? From what i have seen so far, the Jetpack is mainly implemented in certain attacks, but we can cross our fingers and hope that they give us a little freedom to fly around a bit. Boba’s Jetpack gave him upto a minute of flight time (usually used in short bursts) and speeds of up to 145kph. Something like this would be a really nice feature… but i can also see why they would limit such power for the sake of class balance.

So each class has a team of sorts, with a main associate. The Bounty Hunters associate is a young girl called Mako. She is a slicer, which basically means computer hacker, and is apparently the biggest Bounty Hunter Fangirl in the universe. Although you will have this team with you, Mako is the one who you will interact with the most. It is my suspicion that the main associate to each class will probably have story elements that come into play within your own story, possibly optional, possibly mandatory. It would be very true to form for Bioware to give you a choice at some point (or several throughout your path for that matter) that will have a direct impact on either the survival of your associate or at least your relationship with them. But I digress.

The ship you will be hunting your prey from as you travel around the galaxy is a D5-Mantis. It is considered to be a rare ship, not viable for mass production. What really shines in the Bioware description of this ship though is that it “is capable of safely utilizing armament intended for larger class vessels”. Whether or not this will give the Bounty Hunter an edge in space combat i do not know, but it sounds promising. This ship is not the prettiest ship available, in fact it kind of looks like a freighter or a transport with some engines and cannons bolted onto the sides and undercarriage, but if it is built to fight then most Bounty Hunters will be more than happy with it.

This is the Bounty Hunter Class Introduction Video.

Combat System.

***This game is beta and thus subject to change***

The Bounty Hunter Resource System is Heat. The Heat in your suits combat system builds up from attacks and disperses over time.

- Bounty Hunter vents all heat built up from firing weapons, and reducing heat to zero and allowing the Bounty Hunter maintain damage without waiting for heat to disperse.

- Bounty Hunter fires 4-5 shots at the target.

- Fires a rocket at an enemy, doing a high amount of damage and knockdown to the first target, and a lesser amount to enemies within a 5m radius. The ability can hit up to 3 targets.

- Fire an electro dart from your wrist at the target that causes them to be overloaded with electricity and stunned for 5 seconds.

- High damage attack that requires the target to be immobilized (for instance, after an Electro Dart).

- The Bounty Hunter uses his jet pack to gain elevation and then unleashes a series of rockets at a targeted piece of ground, causing knockdown and area of effect damage.

- Ranged charge style attack with knockdown effect.

- The Bounty Hunter crosses his arms firing his blaster. Higher rate of fire.

- Spray forth a freezing substance that will incase your target in ice.

- Blaster attack. Pretty self explanatory.

- Close range, knockback attack. Low damage, but gives you range to play with.

- Fires out a cable at your enemy that attaches to them, pulls them to you and leaves them knocked down at your feet.

- Fires flares into a designated area. Anti-Stealth move.

- Fires a rocket from your jetpack that concusses the enemy.

There are a few more abilities that are semi-confirmed, but many of them are still being tweaked. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to give it all away. The following Video was put out to showcase the armor progression of the Bounty Hunter, some of which look stunning in my opinion, but it also shows off a few of the attacks quite nicely.

-Gav.