As we touched on in our previous article, we believe all the developers public statements solidified BioWare's direction of class design. We searched high and low looking for clues, kicked around hypotheses, made charts and graphs, followed several
threads in the Character Class section of the
Star Wars: The Old Republic official forums and we discovered that the answer to every class two paths were possibly outlined plain as day in the Holonet.
A casual observer might think that this is simply random concept art or maybe examples of tiered gear, but we should accept the fact that every single thing officially released is done so for a very specific marketing reason. For example, if you take a look at the Outfitting section of the Sith Warrior, you see this:
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Progression through story is not without rewards for the Sith Warrior, shown here modeling a series of well earned armor upgrades. Quoted from the official site
We see these images as something very telling: an example of what you may look like prior to choosing one of two paths, what you may look like after picking a pure damage path, and finally what you may look like after picking a support path.
Jake Neri told us that as you progress, you will reach a point where you will pick one of two paths that are very distinct from one another. In the example of the Sith Warrior, it makes sense that you would start out looking like a combination of the two paths in order to get the experience of the core class. If you pick the damage path, then you will wear visually lighter armor, possibly assisted by cybernetics, to dual wield lightsabers in a quick, hack and slash manner. In contrast, if you pick the support path, then you would focus on Darth Vader-like hulking damage mitigation to aid your allies.
We believe that these two paths of damage and support is true for every single class, and the Holonet appears to support this. We found this eerie coincidence repeating in each class Outfitting page. To test our theory, we looked at the Trooper:
Reading
descriptions of the trooper concept art allows us to make a few reasonable conclusions. In this image, the base class would be the armor set on the left described as standard issue. Those wanting to play a ranged tank would pick the center concept, noted as being tested for strength and durability, while those wanting to focus more on dealing damage may choose the flexible tactical option seen on the right.
It is possible that BioWare is hiding even more clues in plain sight for months now. We were previously told of
tidbits found in other sources, and the Holonet appears to be prime real estate to find more. No matter the path you choose, it appears your look will match your play style.
