Bounty Hunter Archive

Well I've just finished Chapter 1 of my re-levelling of Bounty Hunter. I set out with Novice with the intention of hitting the 10k Investigation cap before I took any boxes in it. Here's my story, with a list of pretty much everything I looted along the way....

Okay so my choice of destination to run missions it Keren. There's a cantina to self-buff, 2 terminals, a novice level Spy and a shuttle port, all within 50m of each other. I discovered quickly that missions varied drastically in their range - best one was 215m (within Keren) further being around 9k. With 30 second shuttle port waiting times, I find that most were within 2-3k of a shuttle port, so I took every mission I could. I only ever cancelled 3 missions - 2 spawned in the sea to the north, one spawned under a bridge in Theed and I couldn't get line of sight.

Part 1: CL 25

Skills of note - I have Novice BH, Novice Smuggler, Novice Pistoleer, Novice Entertainer and a few medic skills... perhaps one or two other boxes. Investigation xp comes in at around 140 xp per kill with inspiration, missions earn me circa 7k.

Loot:

17 Simple Toolkits - all looted from seperate missions (yey I need these for Smuggler Slices )
3 Jars of foraged berries - junk

All going well. My tactics were simple - I wore no armour, had no doc buffs... all marks were yellow (ie no aggro). To begin I would pistol-whip (Firearm Strike), then they were literally 2 hits to kill. Easy peasy So I thought, let's step up the combat level, see if things get more difficult...

Part 2: CL 39

Investigation xp comes in at around 200 xp per kill with inspiration, missions earn me circa 9k.

Most of my levelling was done at this level - simply because it was such fantastic fun! Immediately I discovered the marks were much tougher... No longer could I afford to stay within melee range, if my pistol-whip failed and they hit me, it hurt. Plus they took a fair bit more to kill. I would use Underhand Shot to open up with a KD. I'd flick between 3-4 powershots before I'd need to heal... at which point I'd use Concussion shot. This fantastic little shot would root them and render them unable to attack for I think approx 15 secs at novice - long enough for me to heal, and catch my breathe (ie action!). I could also use Panic Shot at Smuggler 1-0-0-0 - it didn't root them but they were shooting my anyways so it didn't matter. I also found that I'd get the occasional "Silver Arrows Boss" mark...more on that in a sec...

Loot:

Clothing Attachments
i) Carbine Defense 2, 1-h Lightsaber Speed 1, Terrain Negotiation 6
ii) General Ranged Accuracy 3, Defense vs Stun 4
iii) Force Power Max 9
iv) 2-h Melee Defense 9

Armour Attachments
i) Defense vs Initimidate 2, 1-h Melee Defense 3, Polearm Speed 2

Smuggling Loot (for slicing)

2 x Reactive Micro Plating - looted from 1 mark
1 x Delicate Trigger Assembly
1 x Illegal Core Booster
10 x Trandoshan Intraframes - all from seperate marks
1 x Mandalorian Intraframe (from "Silver Boss" mark)
9 x Finely Crafted Toolsets - all from seperate marks

Schematics
2 x Appearance Schematics for BH Leggings - both from seperate marks (both from "Silver Boss" marks)
Fat Bottle Draft Schematic
Throwpillow Draft Schematic

Tailor Stuff
8 x Heavy Duty Leather - looted from 1 mark
7 x Heavy Duty Clasps - looted from 1 mark
8 x Heavy Duty Clasps - looted from 1 mark
6 x Crystalline Clothing treatment - looted from 1 mark

Misc
A warm hat (looted from "Silver Boss" mark)
A Maroj Melon (looted from "Silver Boss" mark)
A Blue Crystal (looted from "Silver Boss" mark)
2 x Aakuan Rings - both from seperate marks
A jar of foraged fungus
8 x Advanced Assault Core (Kinetic 4797, Energy 2797, Special 3797)

The boss marks pretty much had double the health (10k health) of the regular marks (5k health), and hit hard. On a few occasions I'd take one incap, but I was never death blowed. Then I came across a tough one! I died (triple incapped) at least 10 times trying to kill the same mark... but I was determined to do it! He just hit me too hard and my delaying tactics were failing me.... eventually I gave in and got some doc buffs and some very basic armour I had lying around, and I disposed of him without too much trouble. That was the only time I needed to use this equipement. I was so pleased to finally kill him... but also quite intrigued at how tough a "gold boss" mark could be...So I figured I'd see if I could increase my odds of getting one with an even higher level...

Part 3: CL 52

Investigation xp comes in at around 250 xp per kill with inspiration, missions earn me circa 11k. By this point I'm pretty uber, with Improved Underhand shot, and a much better Panic Shot (delays for around 25 secs). I also realise that I've earned around 750k, give or take, so far... pretty sweet!

Now it's all too easy... my delays are much better, but I have dropped a little medic so my healing isn't quite so good...no bother really though. I plough through the final few marks of investigation...

Loot:

1 x Aakuan ring
4 x Finely Crafted Toolits - all looted from seperate marks
7 x Advanced Assault Core (Kinetic 6330, Energy 4330, Special 5330) - all looted from same mark
Armour Attachment: Cure Efficiency 13

One of my marks was the easiest yet - he didn't have a gun hehehe. I just ran around a bit so he didn't come in melee range, easiest kill so far. All the marks I'd faced thus far had used pistols or carbines, of varying strength - some would only hit me for 50 damage, others up to 400. I used a pistol all the way through, and never left pistol range - so I don't know if they'd have pulled a rifle out should I have used one. Also reading the stickied post by TheWildJedi, I really did get a feel for where the marks would be - I was always travelling to the same 4 or 5 different cities to pick up my marks - but I'm not such a nutter as to record things as accurately as in that post

Capped 10k Investigation xp

Part of the reason I recorded much of this is that the whole thing was a lot of fun. I had a spare /respec option but I wanted to re-level and see how things were... and it was a lot of fun. I also wanted to put myself in the shoes of a new player, who maybe didn't have a lot of money to get started with... so I used buffs once and relied on armour once - never used any food. Not bad going I think I always took the most expensive missions and found that for regular missions at my level, you could earn 2-3 times as much, any you're only having to kill one person. When I levelled up in between, I did this with friends in creature groups... very interesting to see how the loot was adjusted at my different levels!

The main thing is, this has been a heck of a laugh, the diversity of the loot feels so right, I hope it doesn't change - more that other npc missions are brought into some sort of scale. Of course, not every mission should give uber loot, but it felt great to get a diverse range and know that you had a chance of getting something handy

Now I'm almost scared to take my boxes in Investigation... but I guess I'll have to if I ever wish to finish it... So watch out for the next installment of my progress

Fin

That's a good read, sir. Well written too. Thanks very much. I did basically the same thing but in a different way as in i worked from Bestine and i was going out loaded with food/armour and the best gun i could find/slice. But i did it with master smuggler, BH 0-4-4-4 and pistols 0-0-0-4 before i even took my first mission so it was a little tougher to say the least with no heals.

Thanks a bunch You had the template I'm going for hehe...

I'm not fully decided where every single skill point is going, but I'll Master BH, I have the combat line of Pistols and won't likely take any more, and I'm undecided on Master Smuggler or just to take the first 3 lines and leave out spices.

As regards the levelling of it, I figured it would be fun to just bin my entire template and start again...I'll have to drop something soon as I actually have 9 professions on the go (Brawler, Medic, Marksman, Entertainer, Scout, BH, Smuggler, Pistoleer, Squad Leader). Sadly SL will be the first to drop then at some point I'll have to let go of Entertainer.

I started out with 0440 Medic - and I've since dropped to 0400 - it's amazing how much my heals have dropped, so I may choose to invest a little more in there again... but I'm kind of hesitant to go the way of CM.

When I'm up to template I think I'll be using a Proton Carbine and I'll be looking out for Carbine accuracy mods... might sound a bit silly given that I have some Pistol mods but I've always preferred Carbines as I think they're quite Star Warsy.

Update:

Just finished Investigation 3, yeys

Did this with CL65. Sadly my template is more or less in place now, just requiring the final Investigation Box. I have the combat line of Pistols (which gives me Fan Shot - another area but primarly Stopping Shot - root), I have Smuggler 4-0-4-0 - as much Feign Death as possible, Last Ditch, Low Blow and the often life-saving Improved Panic Shot. I have the healing line of medic. I wish I'd have had enough skill points to keep the slicing line, but I'm dropping that as I go along now

I have found that armour is a must, so invested in some Ubese with about 7k energy resists, 5k kinetic. I might get hold of some with more bias towards kinetic for those marks with FWG5 guns... they hurt. I've bought some bacta spray and bacta toss enhancers, plus some Stim D. I've found that for most marks I really do need the armour and the heals.

Sadly I've stuggled very much with the silver chevron marks... the only way I've killed them so far has been kiting with a rifle I'm yet to come across a mark that has a rifle, although I prefer to use pistols and carbines. I think template wise I will really struggle with silver chevron marks... and I've not yet got a gold one, but I guess I'd be toast if I did. Regular marks have not been a problem.

Missions earn me about 22k at the moment, loot is more or less on par with what I've been receiving since CL50. I've got a couple of other tasty CAs in my loot bag

I might consider changing to a MBH/MCarbs template if I find I can't kill certain marks, and of course it would be nice to be able to hit CL80 - I don't think my template will get me to 70, or if it does it won't be my much. Oh yes, and incidentally the marks all seem to be 6 levels above me. Without inspiration I get 448xp per kill, with it I get 498 - so to complete this third box I've had to run about 15 missions (half of which were on Dath hehe).

Best loot in this stint has been a +7 Unarmed Speed CA, and +5 Pistol Speed CA.

Roll on final Invest box! Glad to have Droid track and faster droids...looking forward to Advanced Duelist Stance

/cheer

Woohoo

Finally got around to finishing my last 15 missions this week... now once more a Master

Full Template:-

Master Bounty Hunter
Smuggler 2020
Pistoleer 0004
Medic 0410
Brawler 4000
Marksman 0404

Character Level 71

Nice, Rock Star!