Legacy of the Sith

Not that I'd ever completely abandoned it, but I was shuttering towards "I've done enough SWTOR for a long while" before Legacy of the Sith came out a few years ago and decoupled the Advanced Class (which is now just your class anyway) from your story. When I first started playing, the game was quite new, and your class was your story. Partway through, you could pick an advanced class. So, for instance, my trial Smuggler later picked up Gunslinger before I decided that I didn't want to pay for a subscription and the 20-level demo wasn't worth playing.

When I joined for real after reading about how Game update 4.x had made the game considerably more solo player friendly; although I think I was early in game update 6.x at this point, so Onslaught, you no longer picked a class and then after a few levels graduated into an advanced class. You now picked a class and immediately at character creation picked an "advanced" class. So, if you wanted to play as a smuggler, before you did anything else, you had to decide if you were a gunslinger or a scoundrel rather than playing for a few levels or so as a "generic" smuggler. But Legacy of the Sith, in game update 8.x, or maybe even 8.0; the first part of it (I don't remember anymore) decoupled your story and your mechanics. Your "advanced class" became your mechanics and your actual class became your "origin story" so now if you picked smuggler, you could pick any of the tech advanced class options to run your character through. If you wanted to be a commando and carry a giant Jesse Ventura cannon while running around as a swashbuckling gunfighter, that was kind of ridiculous, but the game allowed you to do it. As minor a change as this was, I nearly doubled the number of characters that I have after it launched, because of all of the mix and match options that I wanted to try. All of whom are still "in play" status; I haven't maxed level or finished the class story (yet) with any of them, although some of them are relatively close to max level and at least halfway through the story. (Once they max level, they can do the story much more quickly, because I can focus on only doing the class story missions.)

These were my Wave III characters, and my to-be-built planned Wave V characters. My Wave IV characters, on the other hand, are two characters that are recreating specs from my original Wave I, so they are not mixed/matched characters, but are playing class mechanics that match the original class story as they did for the first seven versions of the game. 

In no particular order, except that my spreadsheet ordered Wave III as such, these characters are:

• Saxon Hettar - A sith species bounty hunter using the smuggler gunslinger advanced class and dirty fighting spec. Fairly new started character. Still on Hutta.
• Vash Galaide - A human Imperial agent using the bounty hunter powertech advanced class with the advanced prototype spec. Mid-level character, on Balmorra.
• Gändalf Greyhame - a human Jedi consular using the Sith inquisitor sorcerer advanced class with the lightning spec. Fairly new character who just finished Tython and is on the fleet waiting to travel on the Esseles as soon as I get back to him.
• Beorn Hengest - a Republic zabrak bounty hunter using the Imperial agent sniper advanced class and the virulance combat spec.
• Wulf Hengest - a human bounty hunter using the trooper vanguard advanced class and the virulence combat spec.
• Haul Romund - another human (my favorite, obviously) smuggler using the bounty hunter mercenary advanced class and the innovative ordnance combat spec.
• Gael Heckett - a cyborg (so mostly human) smuggler using the bounty hunter powertech advanced class and the pyrotech combat spec.
• Mirabeau Tane - another cyborg trooper using the smuggler gunslinger advanced class and the saboteur combat spec. (Which is one of my favorites at the moment.)
• Codon Veile - a chiss trooper using the Imperial agent sniper advanced class with the engineering combat spec.

Waves I, II and IV are all non-mixed/matched characters, but for Wave V I wanted to fill in a few holes where I didn't have characters doing certain combat specs that I wanted to do. Wave V might grow because I have more holes than I currently have plans to fill. That said, none of these characters have yet been built in the game, so among other things, I'm still messing around and tweaking their names. Given how unhappy I've been with some of the names that I've been stuck with, I'm happy to have the opportunity to play around with them before committing to them in the game itself. 

And what the heck. Because I haven't built any of these, I can go ahead and plan for all of the Force user and other holes that I'm missing; more commandos, more Jedi and Sith, etc. I'll make an inventory of what advanced class and specs I still don't have, and then make a character plan who's point is to main that combat spec. When—or even if—I getting around to making all of these planned characters is a separate issue. So far, I haven't made any of them. I'll add more "plans" in the next few days.

• Jado Vikunn - I want to try a lot of the new Mirialan colors, so some very dark color (don't know which one yet) will go here. He'll play the agent story, but be a smuggler scoundrel advanced class with the ruffian combat spec.
• Kenth Odon - another Mirialan who'll be specifically designed to look kind of like Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy; blue skin and red mohawk. He'll play the trooper story, but be an Imperial agent operative advanced class with the concealment spec.
• Gaul Pavanik - another Mirialan new color; this time a red one, like a Sith. I might, if I don't love it, actually make him a sith species character, however. He'll play the bounty hunter story and be a smuggler gunslinger with the saboteur combat spec. I already have a gunslinger saboteur, but I thought it was "important" to have a bounty hunter playing a gunslinger, so I needed another one. I've got all three specs, so his spec will be repeated. That's OK. I'm biased towards this spec and the powertech, obviously. 
• Donnall Sunn - One last new Mirialan color; this time, I want to make a pale character. What I'd like like is a rattataki that didn't need tattoos and who had hair, but I'm going to try and get as close as I can to that idea with him, I think. Because I haven't done much with the force characters, relatively speaking, this one will play the Sith inquisitor story but will use the Sith marauder advanced class (two lightsabers) with the annihilation combat spec. This will actually also round out my Sith marauder specs; I'll have one character of all three specs.
• Tycho Javand - I'll finally revisit the Jedi consular story again. TBD race, but he'll be a Jedi guardian with the cigilance combat spec.

Combat specs that are missing: 

• Jedi Sentinel - concentration
• Jedi Guardian - defense
• Jedi Shadow - kinetic combat, infiltration, serenity
• Jedi Sage - seer, telekinetics, balance

• Sith Juggernaut - immortal, rage
• Sith Assassin - darkness, deception, hatred
• Sith Sorcerer - corruption, madness

• Vanguard - shield specialist
• Commando - combat medic, gunnery
• Scoundrel - sawbones
• Mercenary - bodyguard, arsenal
• Operative - medicine

This is kind of ridiculous, though. It would nearly double my number of characters again. The changes that I'll actually make a character for all of those specs is very low. The characters I've already identified as Wave V are the ones that I see as priority.

In a pinch, I can make do with Jedi Shadows, Sith Assassins and even the last scoundrel and operative specs as my backup second combat spec on existing characters.