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Hyperspace Beacon: Find your focus

Larry Everett
- Columnist
Updated ·6 min read

Thanks to the new advanced class page on the Star Wars: The Old Republic website and MMORPG.com's interview with Georg Zoeller, we now know quite a bit about the skill tree breakdown of each advanced class. However, over the next few weeks, I want to take a look at a few of the classes and read between the lines of text. Several abilities are listed for each class, but how do they fit together? What does the complete package look like?

The Jedi Knight looks to be one of the most popular classes to play. After all, what kid growing up didn't have a fantasy of wielding a lightsaber just like Luke Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi? I'd like to give a general overview of the advanced class abilities and collate a comprehensive list of the announced abilities. Follow me beyond the cut to see how these puzzle-pieces fit together in SWTOR.




The Jedi Knight has an interesting mix of damage and tanking abilities. We know that the class is split between the Guardian, which is the tanky/damage-absorbing class, and the Sentinel, which is the dual-wielding, damage-dealing class. The announced basic attacks for the Jedi Knight are focused on leaping into the heart of the battle and hitting as many targets as possible within melee range, which is beneficial for a tank and DPS class.

  • Sweep (Instant): An arcing area-of-effect melee attack.

  • Force Leap (Instant): A powerful force Jump to engage enemies from up to 30 meters' range.

The Guardian

On the official website, the Guardian is described as "a wall between the good people of the Republic and their enemies." This advanced class, like all advanced classes, has three trees: two focus trees and one tree shared with the other advanced class. The Guardian-specific trees are Vigilance and Defense, whereas the tree shared with the Sentinel is the Focus tree.

Taken as a whole, the Guardian appears to be a very active tank. Unlike tanks in other games (whose main job is to just hold aggro), the Guardian will have abilities that allow him to crowd control as well as deal a bit of damage when he's not the main tank. The Shien Form (taken from lore) paired with Force Exhaustion imply that DPS could be a secondary role for the Guardian. Abilities like Force Exhaustion, Hilt Strike, and Force Clap are clearly crowd control abilities that not only reduce the potential damage a Guardian will take but also reduce the chance an enemy will attack someone else in the group.

  • Vigilance tree

  • Defiance (Passive): A passive ability that grants the Guardian additional focus whenever an opponent manages to stun him.

  • Shien Form (Instant; Cooldown: 1.5 secs): Enter an offensive Lightsaber form, increasing all damage dealt by 6%. All attacks that cost focus will refund 1 focus when used. In addition, taking damage generates 1 focus, but this effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds.

  • Force Scarring (Passive): Sundering Strike lowers the target's Internal and Elemental resists by 10% on its first application.

  • Defense tree

  • Soresu Form (Passive): A combat stance that reduces damage taken and creates additional threat on those engaged in combat.

  • Hilt Strike (Instant): An active attack that involves smashing an opponent's face with a lightsaber hilt for a stun.

  • Forceclap (Passive): Force Leap now stuns targets for 2 seconds.

  • Endure (Instant; Cooldown: 3 mins): Temporarily increases your maximum health by 30% for 15 seconds. When the effect ends, the health is lost.

  • Focus tree (shared)

  • Force Exhaustion (Instant; Cooldown: 21 secs; Range: 15m): Progressively slows the target from 60% to 10% movement speed over 5 seconds and deals 180 kinetic damage each second. At the end of the duration, the target is crushed and takes an additional 553 kinetic damage.

  • Zephyr (Passive): Reduces the cooldown of all Force abilities while in Shii-Cho Form by 3 seconds.

The Sentinel

Although the official description of this advanced class says that "control and focus are the hallmarks of the Sentinel," I don't see a lot of control abilities, and with all the leaping about, there does not seem to be much focus either. Maybe that is just a fancy way of saying that he is the front-man for melee damage-dealing. I don't know.

Watchman and Combat are the two class-specific trees for the Sentinel. However, given the abilities that we know for these trees, I'm having a bit of difficulty telling the difference between them. The Watchman tree grants abilities to increase damage, such as Juyo Form and Overload Lightsaber. The Combat tree seems to perform a similar function with Blade Rush and Opportune Attack. Both trees also give the Sentinel a way to recover health with Merciless Zeal for the Watchman tree and Force Camouflage for the Combat tree. Perhaps the two trees appeal to two different playstyles yet perform the same function: a steady stream of DPS.

  • Watchman tree

  • Juyo Form (Passive): A combat stance that grants a stacking melee damage bonus.

  • Blurred Speed (Passive): A passive ability that reduces the cooldown on the Force Leap ability.

  • Overload Lightsaber (Instant; Cooldown: 12 secs): Charges your Lightsabers with deadly energy for 15 seconds, causing your next 3 successful melee attacks to make the target burn for 491 elemental damage over 6 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds.

  • Merciless Zeal (Passive): Critical hits with burn effects heal you for 2% of your maximum health.

  • Combat tree

  • Blade Rush (Instant; Range: 4m): Strikes the target with both weapons for 647-729 weapon damage and automatically triggers an Ataru Form strike. For 6 seconds after using Blade Rush, your Ataru Form has an extra 30% chance to be triggered. Requires two Lightsabers.

  • Force Camouflage (Instant): An ability that enables the use of a short duration combat stealth with additional threat reduction upon defeating an enemy.

  • Opportune Attack (Passive): Your Ataru Form hits have a 100% chance to make your next focus spender deal 10% more damage.

  • Focus tree (shared)

  • Force Exhaustion (Instant; Cooldown: 21 secs; Range: 15m): Progressively slows the target from 60% to 10% movement speed over 5 seconds and deals 180 kinetic damage each second. At the end of the duration, the target is crushed and takes an additional 553 kinetic damage.

  • Zephyr (Passive): Reduces the cooldown of all Force abilities while in Shii-Cho Form by 3 seconds.

Let me know what you think of the Jedi Knight class in the comments below. Are you likely to play this class? Based on polls, this will probably be the most played class in the game. Does knowing these skills help you decide what you want to play? We will talk about the Jedi Consular next week. Perhaps that will change your mind. Until then, may the Force be with you.

The Hyperspace Beacon by Larry Everett is your weekly guide to the vast galaxy of Star Wars: The Old Republic, currently in production by BioWare. If you have comments or suggestions for the column, send a transmission to larry@massively.com. Now strap yourself in, kid -- we gotta make the jump to hyperspace!