Forget Chewbacca, it's Bossk racking up the massive killstreaks in Star Wars Battlefront
Why can't I play like this!
Of the two new Star Wars Battlefront heroes it looked like Chewbacca would outgun Bossk, because in the right circumstances Han's hairy friend is a beast. Sorry, poor choice of words - I mean powerful.
Chewie begins by firing one bolt from his bowcaster at a time, which does decent damage; but it's possible for him to spray out up to eight bolts at a time, which does devastating damage. It's like a super-powered shotgun at close ranges. Watch Chewbacca destroy rival enemy Emperor Palpatine in this clip. But like I said: those are the right circumstances.
To rev up to that, Chewie needs to kill a few grunts and do some damage. If he does, his passive ability will add an extra bolt each time he shoots, up to a maximum of four. Then Chewie can temporarily double that using an active ability called Multi-Bolts.
Couple that with his ground pound ability that kills regular soldiers around him, and also his buff that ups his and allies' damage and armour, and he's... awesome.
But, and to get back to the opening paragraph at last, the best Chewbacca killstreaks - after a couple of days' play following the Death Star DLC release - are around the 30-kills mark. He's being completely overshadowed by Bossk.
Bossk isn't as devastating as Chewbacca. He has thermal vision, he has a jump escape that leaves a poison bomb, and he has a micro-grenade launcher, which I suppose pumped down a tunnel full of enemies is enjoyable. But hardly any of those abilities feature in the huge killstreak videos players are posting.
The Bossk killstreaks, you see, capitalise on one very important passive ability: health regeneration. Whereas other heroes are eventually whittled down and killed by the relentless action around them, Bossk can heal himself by killing - and the effect is more powerful the more people you kill. So as long as he stays on the fringes of the action and doesn't wade directly in, he can survive an entire match. That's why the highest Bossk killstreak I can find is 301, and it's embedded below.
It's the biggest Bossk killstreak by far, but even the next biggest are way in excess of anything anyone has managed as Chewbacca. There are Bossk killstreaks of 182, 181, 160 and 100+. In short, Bossk is tearing it up - in the right hands of course.
I wish I could play like that, sigh.
I tested Bossk in the Heroes vs. Villains mode on PS4 and his effectiveness there was less pronounced. I didn't get a chance to test Chewbacca because I kept getting cast as the baddies - and I'm rather proud about that - but I didn't get the sense he was wrecking anyone either. Whether that's because players haven't got to grips with the new heroes yet, or whether that's because Chewbacca and Bossk are most useful against regular enemy soldiers and not Heroes/Villains, I don't know.
Both Bossk and Chewbacca are paid-for heroes and are included in the Death Star DLC that arrived in Star Wars Battlefront this week. Martin shared his impressions of Star Wars Battlefront's Death Star DLC yesterday on Eurogamer.