Today’s Friday Feature showcases a write-up by community member Gin’bilu’alelu about the Smuggler Profession. Learn tips, tricks, and more! Thank you, Bill!

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Quick with a joke, but quicker with a blaster.

Taking the jobs and the risks that the others won’t.

Star Wars-y and iconic.

Smugglers are as integral to the Star Wars galaxy as the Jedi Knights and X-Wing pilots are.  After all, it was not Ben Kenobi that made the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs, nor was it Princess Leia that conned her way into ownership of Cloud City.  But take heed as you begin your journey into scum and villainy, newcomer; even the best Smugglers get boarded sometimes.  And when that day comes, you had best be ready.

Combat

In a nutshell, Smugglers are all about fighting dirty.  In Empire in Flames, this most directly translates to hit-and-run tactics and state stacking (you’ll have access to several good bleed and state effects).  A Master Smuggler has terrific Burst Run and Terrain Negotiation modifiers, ensuring a quick and clean getaway on every battlefield while simultaneously stacking enough debuffs to make their target go home and rethink their life.  Smugglers also get exclusive access to the Scattergun, bringing the pain to all targets within a cone of fire rather than individual targets and doing more damage to each of them than any ranged weapon that doesn’t look like a bazooka.  For this reason, Smugglers are a terrific choice for crowd control right out of the box.

You can pair this profession with any weapons skill you would like (as has oft been said here, there are no truly bad builds on Empire in Flames), but as your bleeds and debuffs hit independently of damage dealt, Pistoleer greatly complements the Smuggler’s natural abilities, will allow you to rapidly stack states, and maximizes your crowd control potential and burst DPS while also giving you respectable kiting distance so you can keep the pain going.

To give you an idea of what you will be capable of, let’s take a look at the Smuggler special abilities.  Specials with particular PvP utility are highlighted.

• Lucky Strike
  • An attack with the potential to do exceptional damage if Lady Luck is on your side.
• Feign Death
  • A move that deals no damage and drops you to the ground, but has the potential to stop enemy attacks if successful.
  • Great if PvE combat isn’t going your way.
• Panic Shot
  • An attack that does damage and has the potential to Intimidate your target. Not to be underestimated or underused; Intimidate is one of the best debuffs you can ask for and one of the hardest for your target to shake off.
• Low Blow
  • An attack that does damage and has the potential for knockdown, delaying your target (and by so doing, preventing them from hitting back).
• Last Ditch
  • A high-risk, high-reward attack that will do fantastic damage, but has a low chance to hit.
  • Available only when you are under 1500 health, and as such is incredibly situational (but if you’re about to die anyway, what’s one last roll of the dice, eh?).
• Shoot First
  • Start the combat encounter with a bang; an attack with high-damage and the potential to Stun your target, delaying them and preventing return fire.
  • As the name indicates, can only be used when out of combat.

In addition to the above, Smugglers also have access to Scattergun special attacks.  Be advised: as Scatterguns qualify as Heavy Weapons, so while your Profession specials will work just fine, Skills-based weapon special attacks will not.  Scattergun specials have the potential to drop states en masse, with potentially everyone in the cone of fire being slapped with a status effect.  These will not be highlighted; all of these are useful in a PvP scenario.

• Gut Shot
  • A cone attack that drops the Bleed state, causing heavy damage over time.
• Overheat Shot
  • A cone attack that slaps targets with the Burn state, causing damage over time and wreaking havoc on the target’s stat pool.
• Choke Shot
  • Greatly narrows the cone of fire to almost a single target, bringing the full might of your Scattergun to bear on them specifically.
• Sweep Shot
  • Spread the love even further with a high-damage attack in a wider cone.
• Breach Shot
  • Will break armor if successful, greatly reducing your target’s ability to soak up follow-up hits.

Invasions

What would any Star Wars Galaxies server be without inflicting mass casualties on your fellow players in the name of your chosen political alignment?  Empire in Flames is different in many respects to other servers, but in this it marches in lockstep.  This section will focus on the context of GCW Invasions, where most (if not all) of the server’s PvP happens.

As a Smuggler myself, I will tell you right here and right now that you are functionally a support class masquerading as a combat class.  While you can certainly make an effective build with the Smuggler profession as a base, you won’t have the healing capabilities of a Doctor, the tanking ability of a Light Jedi, nor the raw DPS of a Bounty Hunter (nor can you sic a menagerie of creatures named after the Beatles).  What you can do, however, is play to the Smuggler’s strengths; crowd control and bleed stacking.

Naturally, your Scattergun will be your best friend to this end.  Instead of trying to play the hero, focus on keeping steady, consistent damage to as many people in your cone as possible.  As Scatterguns are not particularly fast, save your specials for the team lead’s intended target (though don’t hesitate if an opening presents itself, nothing wrong with sending someone’s Mind pool into the gutter with a Burn).

Scatterguns have the same accuracy range mods as pistols, which means that they are ideal at closer ranges so use it often when you are facing off in close combat. You can stay back and help protect the healers, or help your heavy hitters do even more damage by using armor-breaching and bursting them down. Or, you can even follow after the Teras Kasi master on their fifth bottle of Vasarian Brandy while you both tear the defensive line apart (though you can use /aim to even the odds if time permits).

If you are on the offensive end of a planetary invasion and you manage to breach the perimeter, you’ll be tasked with a slice.  To this end, the only thing you should be spamming is the “Peace” option on your combat menu, as any attack will force you out of the slicing action.  Once you manage to Peace, proceed with the slice in a calm and collected manner (for all that’s good and true, have a Molecular Clamp and Precision Laser Knife ready).  Let your companions focus on keeping the enemy off your back.

As a Smuggler, you will not be the hero; you will, however, make the hero’s job much, much easier.

Slicing

Now that we have covered combat utility, let’s focus on the Smuggler’s bread and butter.

While an Armorsmith or Weaponsmith can make the best kit the galaxy has ever seen, the Smuggler can make it just that little bit better (making it lighter, making it faster, making it hit harder, etc.).  A good equipment slice can be worth a hefty sum of credits to the discerning buyer.  But as a caveat, you have absolutely no control over what a given slice will provide a given piece of equipment; with one very event-specific exception you are at the mercy of the will of the Force.

But if you are willing to get your hands dirty, you can also slice Mission Terminals for a higher payout.  While you will be limited to the first screen (refreshing the screen will negate the slice), working efficiently and grouping with a max-level pet or trooper can net you over 100,000 credits in an hour, and a solid afternoon of grinding could put you well over a million.  And as Empire in Flames’ economy has not suffered the horrific inflation that plagued the live servers, that is no small chunk of change.

All else being equal, nobody will outpace a Smuggler’s earning potential at the terminals.  Nobody.

The best part of this?  Unlike the Weaponsmith and Armorsmith (or any crafter class, for that matter), the tools of the slicing trade – the Precision Laser Knife, Flow Analyzer Node, and the Molecular Clamp – can be made using the humble Generic Crafting Tool with metal of any quality without losing effectiveness, with incredibly few restrictions as to the kind of metal used; low-quality copper or server-record beskar, it matters not.  As you can cut costs for the best material money can buy, you can spend your ill-gotten credits on things that make you happy.

Like a Scattergun!

 

Miscellaneous

• Smugglers can outright buy faction points from recruiters; a great way to move up the ranks quickly (and get your friends in low places there too, for yet another side hustle).
  • Do note, however, that this will require you to be in person and pay in cash.
• Smugglers have access to the Language Comprehension skill. When maxed out, this allows you to understand every language in the game without the requisite skills being taught (even the race-specific and ordinarily unteachable languages like Lekku and Binary).

 

Final Thoughts

This is but a short introduction into all the Smuggler profession has to offer.  Between utility in combat and non-combat scenarios and unique benefits, there will always be a place in the galaxy for those willing to act outside the law.  The Empire in Flames staff has even more in store for the criminal element of the galaxy coming up, so stay tuned, fly casual, and happy slicing!