SWTOR's Advanced Classes revealed

By Oli Welsh Published 13 May, 2010

Exclusive info on class specialisation.

Eurogamer can exclusively reveal that Star Wars: The Old Republic's eight character classes will each split into two specialised Advanced Classes, giving the player a total of 16 choices of career in BioWare's MMO.

The first Advanced Classes to be revealed are those for the Sith Warrior. Choosing Juggernaut will shape this warrior into a tough, damage-soaking tank class, while the Marauder is all about channelling rage and maximising damage output.

Looking at the first exclusive screens of the two, it looks like the Juggernaut will feature the heavy body-modifications of Darth Vader, while the Marauder will be able ape Darth Maul's twin-lightsaber fighting style.

Choosing your Advanced Class is a pure gameplay decision rather than a story decision. Advanced Classes will share the same epic narrative, but have different combat styles and play different roles in a group.

Each Advanced Class will have its own skills and abilities that define its role on the battlefield, and in some cases grant access to new weapon and armour types. Choosing one means you won't have any access to the skills of the other.

'SWTOR's Advanced Classes revealed' Screenshot 1

An example of the Sith Warrior's Advanced Class chart. Disclaimer: number and type of skills may vary.

And each Advanced Class will have a further three branches of skills to specialise in (equivalent to World of Warcraft's talent specialisation options on a single class). Unlike the Advanced Classes themselves, you can mix and match these if you like, although they're all trained from the same pool of points.

The first two skill trees are particular to your Advanced Class, while the the third is a shared set of skills which expand on the core abilities of the main class.

There's much we still don't know about Advanced Classes: what the other classes will advance into, when you'll make the choice, and whether you'll be able to change your choice at a later date. But it's already clear that the range of options they'll offer the player is impressively large.

You can read more about the Advanced Classes, as well as impressions of playing as the Bounty Hunter class, in our hands on report on Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (12) 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • RodHull #1 2 years ago

    Sod all this $50m for exclusive GTA DLC, if MS or Sony want to win the console war they want to win the console war they'll whip out their cheque books and sign this up. Looks phenominal (doo, doo, do-do-do)

  • Rizo #2 2 years ago

    Have we got a release date for this yet?

  • actionfitz #3 2 years ago

    "Darth Maul's twin-lightsaber fighting style."
    huh?
    wasn't he a fan of the double ender?
    (giggle).

  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #4 2 years ago

    actionfitz - Doh, you're right. Shows how much attention I paid to the Phantom Menace.

  • Zeveron #5 2 years ago

    Yeah they have also kind of said that the Inquisitor will have a Darth Maul'ish path, haven't they?

    @Rizo They are aiming for spring 2011. No specific date set.

  • Psi #6 2 years ago

    oh dear, I hope this doesn't turn into wow with lightsabers...

    I really loved the first Starwars MMO, such a shame.

  • Retroguyuk #7 2 years ago

    "Choosing one means you won't have any access to the skills of the other."

    "The first two skill trees are particular to your Advanced Class, while the the third is a shared set of skills which expand on the core abilities of the main class."

    Be nice if things were actually read through first to see if they don't totally contradict themselves...

  • Pangscar #8 2 years ago

    Note to author of article. Darth Maul is known for his use of the double bladed saber NOT for dual wielding.

  • ArturiusKing #9 2 years ago

    This sounds and looks amazing and I cannot wait, I believe this is set for release next year which is far far away!

  • TheRealBadabing #10 2 years ago

    I wonder if EA/Bioware will trot out the same "amazed" press releases that Cryptic coughed up when all the servers melted.

    I'm sure they will have simply no idea how popular this might be!

  • Murton #11 2 years ago

    I'm yet to see anything from this to convince me that we're looking at something more than "Everquest in Space" Every MMO since EQ2 has used that same interface and setup and it's all very stale now.

    I'm also reasonably sure that Bioware have already announced that all of the classes will split into two advanced/prestige classes once you hit a certain level, so I'm doubtful that EG has exclusively revealed anything other than the screenshot and a worrying lack of proof reading before publication.

  • levitate #12 2 years ago

    This game is turning out to be instabuy as soon as it's released.