I'm not going to repeat stuff that I said in my more detailed reviews of each class story, and you can probably glean much of this from reading those anyway, but one of the popular things to do is to forcibly rank the class stories available to the SWTOR player. I do recommend playing all eight of them, actually, because they all add something to the tapestry of the Old Republic, but some of them are clearly better than others.
I also think it's interesting to compare them to Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic II. I'm not going to actually put them in the rankings next to the Old Republic stories, but I'd put KOTOR about smack dab in the middle of the top four stories of SWTOR, and KOTOR 2 as a flawed yet brilliant story that'd be smack dab in the middle of the bottom four stories of SWTOR. SWTOR is, therefore, broader than either game; better when it's at its best than either, and yet worse when it's at its worst than either as well.
8) Someone has to be at the bottom and the Jedi Consular takes this spot. The boring character, the boring or even irritating companions, the confusing plot that didn't live up to its promise, the lackluster romance, and the class mechanics which I didn't even like very much all combined to make this my least favorite of all of the classes to play. (As an aside, it bugs the crap out of me that so many people on YouTube, when talking about the consular, continue to call it the counselor. Or maybe councilor. But not consular. Literacy is a sadly lost art in Current Year. Sigh.)
7) The Sith Inquisitor is the second worst. Confused and messy tone that couldn't figure out what kind of story it was, unlikeable companions, a contrived and silly plot, and the same lackluster mechanics as the consular made this the second worst of the stories for me. It's only saved a bit from the last spot by its humor.
6) The smuggler is next. The character just doesn't ring true or realistic. A cringy beta who's a successful ladies man? I just couldn't ever accept it. I also admit, like I said earlier, that I got kind of bored with the combat mechanics after a while, and I didn't like very many of his companions either.
5) The trooper is next. A boring character with mostly boring companions, saved by a pretty good story with some actually smart moral dilemmas to deal with. I liked the way the mechanics played too. I admit, though, that prior to playing either class my expectations for the smuggler were very high and my expectations for the trooper were fairly low. Had that been otherwise, they'd probably swap places in the ranking with each other.
4) The Sith Warrior is next. It's hard to rank it in comparison to the Jedi Knight; I think the Sith Warrior was a better character, but the Jedi Knight had a marginally better story to deal with. The two are probably mostly equal, but one has to sit on top of the other. Sorry, Sith Warrior. For that matter, all four of the top half are all extremely close to each other in terms of quality, although for different reasons. It wouldn't have taken much nudging to completely reshuffle their order.
3) The Jedi Knight, if he had a more interesting character, could be the top spot, but his boring personality and rocky start on the starting planet drop him slightly below the top two spots.
2) The Agent is just a very well written story, and a good character too. It gets marked down somewhat for being less Star Warsy than you'd probably want, although the fact that there are very Star Warsy options elsewhere in the game makes this more experimental story a welcome change of pace. Terrible companions also bring it down, but what it does do, unexpected though it is, it does very well.
1) The bounty hunter is my favorite. I admit that I like the concept the best, and that makes it rise more than it otherwise would, and people who aren't as in to the concept of the bounty hunter probably don't like it as much as I do. But I think it's mostly just brilliant, only marred by minor flaws like a somewhat lackluster second chapter and a few companions who aren't as cool as the others are.
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