Not sure exactly why I am posting this...I guess it is partially because I see the occasional complaint about the grind, the loot, or whatever. The other part is probably the vain habit I have of chronicling my own journey.
First, a little background: This toon is my alt, with my main obviously being a Jedi. I generally like this game very much, and am not one to complain about things too much. While I do think that Jedi are generally underpowered, I have made my main into a fairly formidable hybrid (an un-nerfed variety). He has his weaknesses, but they are not the same ones most Jedi suffer from. Or maybe they are.
My single biggest complaint about this game since CU can be stated in one word.Loot. I am not talking about uber loot necessarily, just the whole system in general. The quest related loot is decent, but the random stuff stinks. With the relatively little time I have to play the game (compared to some anyway), I just didn't feel like the invested time was being rewarded with the appropriate amount of loot. Go kill a bunch of NS? Nothing. Kill Black Sun? Zip. Krayts? Nada. CL111s on Dantooine? Shoes, glovesand pistols. Canyon Corsairs? A few crystals, most of which tune poorly. I do realize that one has to put in hours and hours before expecting to get good loot from these things, and some of it can be attributed to bad luck. But still the fact remains, I wasn't really getting anything for what time I was able to put into it.
So surprise, surprise, I decided to turn my lowly crafter alt into a bounty hunter. I am not into hunting Jedi, and if I ever do it I don't think I will have the stomach to DB them. Say what you want, but that is just me.
The Template
My main toon has been a rifleman ever since I started playing this game. So it was a natural choice to continue that fine tradition, and has the added benefit of sharing equipment. I flirted with the idea of going up the CM4000 line, but since I intend to do mainly NPC marks, I think this may be overkill. I decided to invest the points (for now) somewhere else...this may change if the double gold boss marks prove to be too much.
So, I am MBH, MRM, Master Marksman and Medic 0010. The extra speed and accuracy from MM is real nice, and the healing has been adequate so far (I have a plus 19 HE shirt and will probably pick up a droid)
The Equipment
Nothing fancy here. I find that 7k Recon armor and a good PSGprovide enough protection. No AB slices needed for NPCs. Having my ADKed ALR from my main toon (max damage, nearly maxed SAC and okay speed) helped a ton once I got up to CL54.
The Grind (Investigation)
I have heard time and time again about how horrible the Investigation Grind is, withpeople moaning and complaining, and asking for tips to make it easier (like jamming bases). I simply don't understand the problem. I suppose much of this has to do with thepre-CU grind, even going as far back as to the times when shuttle waits were longer and there were no mounts, and maybe even fewer cities to shuttle into and missions that bugged more frequently. I suppose it is possible that the newer crop bounty hunters have picked up on these complaints from the older generation of BHs, and have tried to make the gripes into their own.
I suppose my view on this may be tainted a bit, owing to the fact that I have (onmy main) ground out 6 full trees at the village (no unlocks for me) and millions of Jedi xp. But there is no question in my mind that the Investigation Grind is FAR easier than the FS/Jedi grinds. I did the Investigation Grind MUCH faster than any FS tree, and certainly faster than Jedi grinding as well.
But that is a very narrow view of things, in any case. More important than the above regarding the difficulty (or time) is the fact that I found the Investigation Grind to be both more fun and more rewarding. I'm sorry for anyone that doesn't agree, but random NPC marks on different planets, at different levels of difficulty, and where you actually have to track the mark - well, this is just vastly more interesting than slaughtering gurks or pikets for days on end. Not to mention the loot (which comes below...). I can only imaginethat anyone who complains about this grind is either in too much of a hurry, or simply hasn't tried some of the other mindless grinding that can be found once you become force sensitive.
There are also many tips going around about the "best" or "fastest" ways to grind. I am going to be a bit of a hypocrit now, and post some of my own thoughts, some of which are in direct conflict with some of the other advice floating around. Of course I didn't want my grind to take forever, so I tried to do things as efficiently as possible:
-Get your entertainer buffs. Make sure you always have one. At the speed which your droid locates the planet of your mark, you can easily find time either for a doc buff or an entertainer buff. Use that time. An extra 10% of BH experience will add up.
-Grinding out of Kaadara seems to be very efficient, as many people will agree. Everything is in close vicinity. I am sure other places are decent to, but since Kaadara is such a hotspot on most servers, you have the added benefit of having buffbots next to the space terminals, and you probably have some player cities right outside sellingall sorts of BH related stuff. All this factored in made Kaadara the clear choice, and I ground every mission from there.
-Once you hit Novice BH, grind out the xp for the first TWO boxes before you train them. This is also common advice, and seems to be pretty sound. The advantage is that all your marks will be on the same planet you took the mission from, and you do not need to use seekers. Another benefit is that you will be able to see very early on if you are going to get a mark that spawns in the water. All in all, this means you will be able to grind out these two boxes fairly quickly.
-Many people will tell you to drop a mission that appears on one of the high end adventure planets (Endor, Dathomir, Yavin). I completely disagree, for several reasons. At least travel to the planet first to see where the mark appears. If it is more than 8k from civilization, then yeah, you may want to drop it. Otherwise...
- If your mark is less than 8k away from the nearest SP, launch your seeker and start heading towards the mark. Very often, the mark will be on the move, and will actually move much closer to you. What looks like an 8k drive may end up being 4k.
- Marks on these planets do not seem to bug very often, partially explained by the fact that there are no huge NPC or player cities for them to get stuck in.
- On several occasions, my marks would be at the SP I flew into.
- Marks on other planets, although they are closer to civilization, make you end up wasting time shuttling back and forth to player cities. Sometimes a mark 6k away on Dathomir can be completed faster than one 3k away on Dantooine.
- Endor is a great planet for auto-driving to a mark. On many occasions, I have simply hit my Num Lock key,took a break (coffee, toilet, smoke),and drove in a straight line. There is nothing to get in the way. You can even auto pilot back to the outpost and smack into the fence until you get back to the keyboard.
-Bugged missions...to be honest, I really didn't get many - maybe 5 or 6 total. Most of the ones I did get were during Invest 1 and 2, but that is because Kaadara is so close to the beach that many will spawn in the waters up north. Partly I think this can be explained by the fact that I did not abort the missions on the adventure planets. Some part of it may also have been luck. There were also a few that bugged in NPC cities, but I found out later that I could usually get the mark to show up eventually if I just launched a seeker to "Identify" instead of track. I don't have enough evidence to conclude anything, but I suggest at least that you try a few more droids before you assume your mission is bugged.
Lastly, there was one more thing I enjoyed about the grind....but this wont interest many of you. Even though I have been playing this game for more than a year, there are many places I have never been. The random generation of NPC marks has led me to visit many of these places recently, and although this isn't a major incentive, it is something.
The Rewards (credits and loot)
I have not looted anything fantastic yet at this point - keeping in mind that I only just trained my master box yesterday. A bunch of smuggling stuff, a single BH schematic, some strange paintings, acouple of crystals, and 5 or 6 decent SEAs (but nothing special). That being said, this is far and wide the best money making gig in this game, and the loot itself is interesting.
The cash rewards alone are good. If you do them at a decent rate (say once every 15 minutes), you will earn more cash than the best spin groups can pull of (or similar amounts anyway), and in a far more interesting fashion.
On top of that, this is without question the best loot in the game. Even the crap you get is more valuable than what other professions are able to loot. Although I have not catalogued it, the "junk" I have looted so far is worth millions if I decide to take the time to sell it. And this is not even the good stuff. I am a little shocked when I see posts on this board questioning the loot, wondering if it has been nerfed, and so on. Regardless as to whether or not you are looting the uber LS speed tapes (or whatever), the loot you get from this profession is second to none. And it is guaranteed loot...every single one of them drops something.
Maybe its just me, but the feeling you get when you approach the corpse, not knowing what you are going to loot this time...is it a jar of bugs (I eat these immediately), yet another toolkitor a fantastic SEA? That is what I wanted from this game, and that is why I am playing this profession.
That's it. I don't know what I was trying to achievewith this post, but I had to write it anyway. Hopefully some of you can use this for something, if only to help you put things into perspective and realize how good you actually have it. This profession gives you so many options, and so many potential rewards - not to mention how powerful a build you can achieve.
Happy hunting.
____Cyrrex____________________________MASTER ROFLMAN
The greatest human being ever. ROFLYes, even better than you. ROFL