Star Wars Galaxies: Exploring Expertise: Spy

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At a glance:

• General Spy Expertise
• Covert Operative Expertise
• Additional Intel: Detect Hidden
• Additional Intel: Understanding Camouflage
• Additional Intel: Camouflage vs Detect Hidden

Spies play a very interesting role in Star Wars Galaxies. These masters of silent movement and quick, powerful attacks are formidable warriors. Spy expertise really opens up the possibilities for the types of spies that you can create in many exciting ways.

Depending on your play style and how you have imagined your character, you might want to focus on melee combat, stealth and defense to become more of assassin or if you prefer you might focus on ranged combat to become a battlefield sniper for your faction.

How you choose to spend your expertise points will play a very important role in creating the type of spy you want to play, so let's explore spy expertise.

Spy Expertise

The general spy expertise tree has opportunities to improve armor, survivability, gain traps and increase the damage for their attacks outside of stealth.

Improved Spy's Fang This expertise training improves the standard Spy's Fang attack, making it a more potent acid-based damage-over-time attack (DoT).

Hidden Daggers

Hidden Daggers expertise ability is a melee attack that can be used at any time.

Once this attack is launched, stealth mode will end making Smoke Bomb a valuable skill to follow up with for hasty escapes.

Improved First Aid

Improved First Aid trains a spy in new healing techniques, increasing all of a spy's uncloaked healing abilities by 10%.

Cloaked Recovery

With this line of expertise abilities, spies have a self-heal they can use while cloaked, but only when cloaked. A helpful tip in a tough spot is to coordinate using Improved First Aid and Cloaked Recovery as you move in and out stealth mode.

Combining these heals can give you a second wind or give you the chance to escape certain defeat.

Run Its Course

This expertise purges all poison DoTs from a spies system, but be careful because you will instantly absorb 20% of the damage as you resist the poison.

Improved Arachne's Web

Arachne's Web is an attack that inflicts a poison DoT on your enemies and also reduces their movement speed (this ability is also called a snare). The Improved Arachne's Web expertise makes this valuable attack even more potent and dangerous.

Noxious Traps

Venomous Ploy is a standard spy ability allowing a spy to throw a poison gas trap on the ground. This area-of-effect attack can be made even more deadly when combined with the expertise ability Noxious Traps . For each point spent on this expertise, a spy's Venomous Ploy will increase by 15%.

Deadly Toxins

If you have Noxious Traps , you can purchase the ability Deadly Toxins . This expertise adds an additional 10% chance to get a critical hit on the Venomous Ploy line of traps up to a total of 20%.

Crippling Strikes

Another great ability that opens up in this skill line is Crippling Traps . With this expertise, all the traps in this skill line get a 50% chance to snare an enemy per point giving you a 100% chance to snare your enemy!

Protective Armor

Protective Armor increases a spy's ability to resist kinetic attacks by +300 per expertise point spent up to a maximum of 1200 points. This skill also opens up access to Glancing Armor .

Glancing Armor

This expertise ability weakens your opponent's attacks by causing a +2% chance to get a Glancing Blow versus all attacks for each point purchased.

A Glancing Blow dramatically reduces the amount of damage done to you by an enemy attack. When you see the combat fly text "Glancing Blow" it means their attack didn't do very much damage.

Cloaking Armor

Spies can dramatically improve their ability to resist being detected while in stealth mode with the Cloaking Armor expertise. For each expertise point, a spy's camouflage ability gets a +25 point bonus up to a maximum of +75 points.

Opportunity

Taking advantage of any Opportunity in combat, this expertise ability increases a spy's chance to get a Critical Hit by 1% per point spent up to a maximum of 4%.

Cheap Shots

Taking the expertise Opportunity opens up access to Cheap Shots . If carbines are your weapon of choice, this skill is a must because it reduces your action costs by 5% when using carbines up to a maximum of 20%.

Precision

Striking with deadly Precision , this spy expertise ability gives a +15 bonus to your precision attribute per expertise point.

The character attribute precision affects all offensive ranged attacks. The higher your precision is the better chance you will have to hit your targets with ranged attacks.

Sniping

The Precision expertise ability opens up a valuable skill for spies who want to be specialists in long range attacks. Sniping expertise increases all damage done by ranged weapons by 2% per point up to 6%.

Agility

The agility character attribute affects all of your defensive abilities . The higher this number is, the better a bonus you will have at surviving enemy attacks.

Agility expertise modifies your spy's agility by +15 points for each expertise point spent. This bonus is in addition to any existing agility bonuses you may already have.

Avoid Damage

If you purchase Agility expertise, the skill Avoid Damage becomes available. When this buff is activated, your opponents will get a +50% chance to get a Glancing Blow versus all attacks for 15 seconds for each point.

Strength

The strength character attribute affects all of your offensive melee attacks. By spending expertise points on Strength , a spy can add +15 to their strength up to a maximum of +60 (in addition to any other strength bonuses you may have).

Purchasing this expertise also opens up Close Quarters and Cheap Strikes .

Close Quarters

Training in this combat ability teaches a spy to use strength to their advantage with melee weapons. This expertise ability will increase all damage done by melee weapons by 2% per point up to a total of 6%.

Cheap Strikes

You can develop your character's melee abilities even further by taking this expertise ability. You will benefit from a 5% reduction in your action costs when using melee weapons. Cheaper action costs gives you more chances to attack so if you are considering a spy who specializes in melee combat, this is a very effective expertise ability to consider.

Spy Expertise: Covert Operative

Covert expertise gives spies an opportunity to enhance their stealth, reveal cloaked enemies and allow them to launch attacks from stealth mode.

Quiet Steps

Quiet Steps adds +15 point buff to a spy's camouflage ability for each expertise point spent up to a maximum bonus of +30 points.

Rapid Concealment

Smoke bombs give spies an opportunity to escape tough combat situations. The ability puts a spy in "stealth mode" making them invisible to players and NPCs (and also reduces NPC hate ).

Rapid Concealment reduces the cool-down timer for smoke bomb abilities allowing a spy to use Smoke Bomb and Without a Trace more often. For each point spent for this expertise ability, the cool-down timers for these abilities is reduced by 30 seconds.

In the line of Rapid Concealment abilities:

Smoke Screen

This ability decreases the snare movement penalty for Smoke Bomb by 10% per point.

Burst of Shadows

This ability overrides the Smoke Bomb and Sneak snare, allowing faster movement while cloaked for 15 seconds.

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Additional Intel: Detect Hidden

• Passive Detection: Players and NPCs always have a passive check to detect a cloaked spy.

• Active Detection: Some professions have special abilities that allow them to actively reveal a spy. Players may also use electrobinoculars to gain a bonus to actively detect a spy. The bonus from electrobinoculars stacks with other detect hidden abilities (such as a spy's Reveal Shadows ) giving them an even greater chance to reveal you.

Careful Observation

Trained to have a watchful eye, spies can reveal cloaked spies and players with the expertise Careful Observation . This ability is a buff that adds a +25 bonus to the Detect Hidden ability for each expertise point.

Reveal Shadows

This ability improves a spy's chance to detect other cloaked targets within a 20 meter radius.

Expose Shadows

If you choose to train this ability, it will increase the detection radius for Reveal Shadows by 5 meters, reduces the ability's cool-down timer by 10 seconds and increases the chance to detect a hidden target for each expertise point.

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Additional Intel: Understanding Camouflage

Camouflage is a spy's ability to stay hidden even when an NPC or player is actively trying to reveal them. This skill modifier can be increased by wearing clothes or other wearables that have Camouflage bonuses.

• There is always a base 1% chance to be detected unless you are using the expertise ability Without a Trace .

• There are two checks to be passively detected: 1 when an enemy comes within a 20 meter radius and another if they get within an eight meter radius.

• You are still considered in a state of cover when a player can see you. They can break a spy's cloak by using a direct attack or by using one of the abilities to actively detect a cloaked spy.
  
  If a player who can see you does not reveal you with an active attack or detect hidden ability, they will no longer see you if you leave either the eight 8 meter or 20 meter radius.

• High level players who are concealed have a better chance to stay hidden against a significantly lower level player who is trying to detect them.

Cloaked Attacks

This potent expertise ability lets a spy use the high damage attacks Ambush (melee) and Snipe (ranged) attacks from stealth mode. If you use this hit-and-run ability, you should have an escape route planned because you will be revealed.

Puncturing Strikes

Puncturing Strikes increases the damage done to your enemies while using the Ambush and Razor Slash melee lines of attacks by 10% per expertise point.

Undercover

Smoke bombs are very helpful when escaping from enemies, but the ability also has a snare that slows down the spy. With the Undercover expertise ability, a spy can reduce the snare by 5% per expertise point when using smoke bombs and by 20% per point while sneaking.

Shadow's Embrace

If you train in this expertise ability, you can increase the duration for Burst of Shadows by 2 seconds per point as well as reducing the ability's cool-down by 30 seconds per point.

Without A Trace

This improved smoke bomb makes a spy undetectable for 30 seconds means except by taking damage.

Covert Mastery

This top tier expertise reduces the amount of action points you will need to activate the smoke bomb abilities Without A Trace and Burst of Shadows by 10% per point.

Setup

Setup is a key ability and will reduce the action costs for your Ambush and Snipe attacks by 5% per expertise point.

Decoy

Decoy expertise will confound your opponents as they suffer a 10% chance to get only Glancing Blows when attacking you.

Diversion

While Decoy expertise will give you an 8 second buff, you can improve this skill with Diversion. For each expertise point, the Decoy buff will increase by an additional 2 seconds.

Cloak and Dagger

Improve your spy's Ambush and Snipe expertise lines by purchasing Cloak and Dagger. For each point spent on this ability, you will increase your melee and ranged attacks by 20%.

Initiative

Cloak and Dagger expertise also opens up additional combat bonuses. If you have the Initiative in combat, your Ambush and Snipe get a 15% chance to get a critical hit for each point.

Preparation

By purchasing this expertise, you can increase the damage of all of your attacks by 30% for 6 seconds.

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Additional Intel: Camouflage vs Detect Hidden

Detect Hidden

Being able to move and attack from stealth mode is a very valuable combat ability to have. A spy's enemies will be working to uncover them as quickly as possible in the hopes of preventing a devastating attack.

To understand how this competition works a little better, here is some basic information about how camouflage and Detect Hidden modifiers work against each other.

If neither opponent is using camouflage or has any Detect Hidden modifiers, a level 90 character using a Detect Hidden ability versus a level 90 spy:

• Has a base 15% chance to be detected at 20 meters and 45% chance to be detected at 8 meters.

• If the spy has 100 points of camouflage and the character trying to reveal the spy has no Detect Hidden ability, the chance to be detected is 5% at 20m and 35% at 8m.

• If the spy has 200 camouflage the chance to be detected is 1% at 20m and 25% at 8m.

• If the spy has 300 camouflage the chance to be detected is 1% at 20m and 15% at 8m.

• If the spy has 400 camouflage the chance to be detected is 1% at 20m and 5% at 8m.

• If the spy has 0 camouflage and the spy's opponent has 100 Detect Hidden the chance to be detected is 40% at 20m and 70% at 8m.

• If the spy has 100 camouflage and the spy's opponent has 100 Detect Hidden , it works the same as if both players had no bonus for either camouflage or to Detect Hidden.

Additional Spy Expertise Info:
The spy profession offers many different possibilites. If you're already a formidable spy, then be sure to check out some great guides written by folks in the spy community.[/p]

• Now you see me, now you see the light by Tellahane
• Spy Profession / Stealth / Traps / Rewards Guide by beastmistress67
• Kinshi's Guide, 007 style
• WornTravlers Duelist techniques against jedi
• Kinshi's Guide to spy gadgets/equipment
• Knai's guide to utilizing stealth in PvP.
• Pawe's Armor/Clothing macro guide Valds general PvP guide.