This week’s update is the Trooper Progression Video.  The video starts off with a low level trooper in a standard looking cloth uniform with a backpack, charging into the action gunning down his helpless enemies. Right before the video fades to the first weapon and armor upgrade you can see orange rings rising up from the troopers to his waist – it looks like some sort of self buff. His first armor shown is very clone trooper looking, with a blue and white pattern, and it comes with a bigger gun!

The next scene is the Trooper once again charging into battle, but this time he shows off more abilities, He attacks three soldiers freezing the leader with a CryoBan grenade then blasting one with a burst of blaster fire, then runs to the next one and melees him. By now the leader has defrosted and he gets dealt a rifle grenade, blasting him off a cliff.

The next progression is for those who desire firepower and utility over survivability – enter The Commando.  The Commando’s gear isn’t much heavier looking than the second progression but has the helmet goggle combo from the Trooper’s Holonet page. He’s also packing  a blaster mini-gun like from the “Hope” trailer. This Commando is standing in an open field blasting away at enemies when a blaster bolt hits another Trooper standing beside him. The Commando moves his hand to the ear of his helmet and he emits what look like radio waves,then a a small droid floats down and heals the trooper that was shot. This clip is really showing off the Commando’s versatility to both dish out damage and help keep his squad on their feet in intense combat.

The final progression for the Commando is a very cool suit of armor that looks like a mix between a clone trooper and a Bounty Hunter, and yes for you  gun nuts this mini-gun is even bigger than the last. The commando is shown destroying some sort of console then walking into a hangar that has several soldiers and droids and a particularly large combat droid waiting to ambush the Commando. The Commando opens up on his enemies with full force sweeping from side to side as droids and men fall to the ground, and to finish off this small massacre he fires a large rifle grenade ( I would say Rifle Rocket ha ha) into the large combat droid destroying it with a fiery explosion.

Now the progression video switches to the other specialization for Troopers. The Vanguard a ranged tank or damage dealer with heavier armor and shielding capabilities, and some nice utilities of his own. The Vanguards progression starts out with a heavier looking armor and a blaster rifle with a side mag very reminiscent of the E-11 Blasters the Stormtroopers carried in the original trilogy. The Vanguard is being charged by what look to be Rakghouls, while they’re charging he taps on the side of his rifle activating the “blue ammo” ability, the animation is better looking and it seems to now add electric damage to the blaster bolts then transfers to more damage upon hitting the target. As the largest Rakghoul gets closer (but not too close) the Vanguard uses the Electric Shock ability at a much farther range than was previously shown and also has a better looking animation. The Vanguard and the other troopers are now in close combat, the Rakghouls are upon them, The Vanguard uses a new personal shield ability while the other soldiers around him fall, he taps some buttons on his wrist and activates the blast ability – we saw this in the Trooper’s class video, killing the remaining enemies.

The last set of progression gear the Vanguard is very cool like a mix between a Snowtrooper and a armored down Clone Trooper, with another new rifle. The Vanguard is walking on Hoth when he gets ambushed from a high cliff-side by two imperials, The trooper gets slammed with a few blaster bolts but takes out one of his targets quickly when a Jedi appears and takes out the other. The Vanguard then spots a Sith Inquisitor as she walks towards him then stealths, The Vanguard counters by using a new ability where several droids drop down and scan the area making the Inquisitor’s stealth kick off, leaving her in plain sight. The Inquisitor Force Lightnings the Jedi (Surprise! ) making quick work of one of her targets, but the Vanguard will not go down so easily, the Vanguard charges the Sith and melees her with a Vibro Knife knocking her to the ground then empties his clip into the downed Sith.

This was an excellent progression video, and it had a ton of great stuff, mostly what stood out to me was how with the Commando it seemed to be about damaging you enemies and healing/helping your allies, didn’t really see any crowd control from him. The Vanguards approach was to survive with weapon buffs, shields, and utility, like the AoE blast and the stealth hunting droids. I’ve known since I first started following the game my main character would be a Vanguard, because I like tanking but I’ve never gotten to range tank, or from the way things are looking have the versatility the Trooper offers. If all the classes progression videos are as good as the ones we’ve already seen I think this game could do huge things for the way MMOs are made and played.

For The Republic!