The Best Scoundrel Builds in SWTOR (2024)

Image: Electronic Arts

Since first playing Halo 2 at the ripe age of 6, Noelle Roberts has nursed a healthy love of video games. Throughout her childhood she would become... Read more

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Star Wars: The Old Republic contains a plethora of avenues for player expression and creativity. This is exemplified in the game’s class system. Each of the game’s 2 factions have 4 classes, 2 combat styles for each of those 4, and 3 disciplines for each combat style. Additionally, recent updates have unlocked every combat style for every non-force-user class. This makes it possible for, say, a Bounty Hunter to utilize what was formerly only a Trooper style.

With so many options, SWTOR is very conducive to players engaging in different styles of play. That said, it can also get confusing very quickly, even for those who are used to all the game’s systems. This in mind, we’ve been creating a group of build guides for each of The Old Republic‘s classes.

This time, we’ll be looking at the Scoundrel, which was originally a Smuggler combat style. The aforementioned updates which unlocked all non-force combat styles won’t matter too much in this guide. Just keep it in the back of your head that any blaster-wielding class can utilize the Scoundrel’s arsenal.

Ruffian Scoundrel Build

scoundrel on nar shaada in SWTOR — *Electronic Arts via HGG / Noelle Roberts*

Ruffian’s rotation is a bit like a house of cards, where removing any one piece makes the whole thing topple. Each part of the rotation relies on those surrounding it. You *really* need to know what your abilities do, when to use them, and how they synergize with each other.

Role

DoT DPS – DPS is the simplest role to explain, as well as the easiest to learn and play. Damage over Time (DoT) is just what it says on the tin. You won’t be doing a ton of damage per strike, rather you’ll be focusing on keeping a sustained stream of damage that gradually adds up.

Main Abilities

Icon	Ability
	Vital Shot and Shrap Bomb – These are your primary DoTs. You want these to be active all the time, always reapply them right as they run out.
	Upper Hand – This isn’t an active ability, it’s a passive unique to Scoundrel. It’s more of an extra resource to manage rather than an ability as other passives are. As the writers at Vulkk say in their comprehensive Scoundrel guides, you need to use 1 UH in order to use certain abilities. You generate UH charges by activating or dealing damage with certain abilities, which we will note when relevant, as well as being the one to actually kill an enemy.
	Blaster Whip – This ability generates UH. It doesn’t deal very much damage at all, so you’re mainly gonna be using this if you need some UH stacks.
	Sanguinary Shot – Doesn’t deal a lot of damage on its own. However, it will activate and deal damage whenever your DoTs deal damage. Because Ruffian is primarily a DoT class, this is gonna be popping off a lot.
	Brutal Shots – A filler that costs a UH to activate. Brutal Shots is a key example of Ruffian’s “house of cards” playstyle. It’s basically a junk ability if you don’t have your main DoTs active on your target. As well, you need to be using abilities which generate UH in order to activate it in the first place. However, if you do have DoTs active and UH generated, Brutal Shots is a very useful ability. Brutal Shots can also refund UH stacks.
	Point Blank Shot – This ability partially ignores your target’s armor, as well as dealing bleed damage from this partial ignorance. This will trigger Sanguinary Shot. Additionally, if you activate PBS from stealth, it will generate a UH.
	Bushwhack – An AoE (Area of Effect) DoT. This will trigger Sanguinary Shot and costs a UH which doesn’t get refunded like Brutal Shot’s cost can be. Because of this, it’s good to use Bushwhack when you have full (2) stacks of UH built up.

Additional Abilities to Consider

Icon	Ability
	Trick Move – Instantly teleports you close to your target, increases your movement speed by 75% for a bit, and gives you a UH stack. Although they use blasters, Ruffians are actually a melee class. Melee and ranged don’t really mean in SWTOR what they do in most other games. There are ranged lightsaber-wielders and there are melee blaster wielders. Attack range in The Old Republic is determined far more by which individual class you play than a more general weapon type determiner (as in, lightsabers=melee blasters=ranged does not apply).
	Dodge – This ability instantly gives you a variety of buffs, which are both too numerous to list here and depend on your ability tree choices. In essence, it’s a useful utility ability. You don’t necessarily need to use it, but it can be helpful in certain circumstances.
	Pugnacity – Each Scoundrel discipline gets a different version of Pugnacity. Ruffians get some Energy (which doesn’t really matter because they generally don’t have problems with Energy management), as well as a boost to damage reduction and max HP. The potential DPS boost from the Energy gain is, again, negligible. You want this for the survivability boost.
	Stealth – Of all the classes in SWTOR who get Stealth as an ability, Ruffian perhaps finds the least use in it. The only reason to use Stealth as a Ruffian is to set up for Point Blank Shot for a UH generation at the beginning of encounters.

Ability Tree Choices

Level	Icon	Ability
23		Brutal Return – This is what allows Brutal Shots to refund UH charges. One of the most useful choices in the tree.
27		Sly Surrender/Curbing Strategies – Sly Surrender is, overall, the best choice on this tier. Dodge, as said above, is a very useful ability which provides a lot of buffs. However, if you wanna play it more casual and not bother with learning what all the Dodge buffs are and how you can incorporate them into your rotation, you can just pick Curbing Strategies. No one will scold you, I promise (well except for high level flashpoint groups but casual players likely won’t be associating with that rabble anyway).
39		Critical Bomb – As well as this being a great DPS boost, neither of this tier’s other choices are particularly useful.
43		Leveraged Offense – Pretty much just a straight DPS boost. The icon’s little callback to classic KoTOR Pazaak cards is a nice touch.
51		Scar Tissue – Neither choice on this tier is worth picking up. A small general damage reduction is a pretty good pick, especially for a DPS class.
64		Med Screen – Defense Screen is Ruffian’s main defensive ability, but not really enough to warrant a place in the above sections. However, Med Screen makes it a pretty reliably useful defense tool.
68		Trick Move – We’ve already covered why Trick Move is a good ability above.
73		Scramble – This one is mostly useful for if you want to use Dodge, but if you don’t want to use Dodge very much then no choice on this tier is gonna be particularly useful.

Rotation

Note: This rotation was originally created by Endonae at Vulkk in their comprehensive Ruffian guide.

Icon	Ability
	Stealth
	Point Blank Shot
	Pugnacity
	Trick Move
	Vital Shot
	Shrap Bomb
	Sanguinary Shot
	Bushwhack
	Brutal Shots
	Blaster Whip

Gear Suggestions

Upon reaching level 80, focus on acquiring as much Gold tier gear at the highest Item Rating possible (currently this number is 336). After all of your gear has reached this level, here are some tips on how to optimize your gear loadouts:

The best Tactial Item for the Ruffian Scoundrel is Synox Shots.
The best Legendary Implants for the Ruffian Scoundrel are Tactician & Locked and Loaded.

Scrapper Scoundrel Build

Smuggler on ship in SWTOR — *Electronic Arts via HGG / Noelle Roberts*

The main thing holding Scrapper back is that they have a hard time managing Energy. For Scoundrels, Energy is the resource which fuels many of your abilities. Scrapper gets a lot of high damage, high cost abilities. As a result, many of your other abilities and passives will focus on giving you a consistent stock of Energy.

Role

Burst DPS – Focuses on dealing as much damage as possible in as short a time as possible. Burst DPS classes are designed to deal high amounts of damage on each hit. This contrasts DoT (Damage over Time) DPS classes, who specialize in dealing constant, sustained streams of damage which add up over time.