The Bothan Spy is one of the two special units only accessible to the Rebel Alliance. They are built for stealth, as they have very little health, only as much as the Marksman, but have powerful weapons. Bothans have Stealth, which lets them turn invisible, as well as regeneration, which heals nearby allies (and themselves, but it only works if used near at least one ally). You can use this sneaky unit to creep behind your opponents and incinerate them or place a Time Bomb and run.
The Bothan Spy, however, suffers serious disadvantages. First, the friendly team will sometimes shoot at you when you're invisible, unaware of your presence, even if you didn't bump into them. This can get annoying if you are trying to sneak by enemies.
Second, using a time bomb or your incinerator requires you to de-cloak. This means you will have to give yourself away in order to kill a few enemies.
The only upside to the Bothan is that they make great tank combatants. The time bomb deals more damage to a vehicle than a rocket launcher, even with the damage increase bonus. Bothans are most effective when used by the ai, and can be quite deadly when at close range, capable of causing massive damage to villains.
Like all the officer and special classes (with the exception of the Wookiee Warrior/Wookiee Smuggler), the Bothan Spy has no skin differences on any map.
Tactical Analysis[]
While the Bothan has low health, it can be very useful defensively; an invisible Bothan camping at a choke point can annihilate entire groups.
Always have one teammate at hand; as with all other area buffs, if no teammates are buffed by it the user is not buffed by it either, but if at least one teammate is buffed by it, the user gains the effects too. This can be very useful in defensive positions, as the user can regenerate health while waiting for enemies to pass by.
Bothans are essentially useless if not invisible or near a group of enemies; a careless Bothan can quickly be picked off by a sniper.
Bothans should be used to take out groups of enemies, as their Incinerator has infinite penetration. If a Bothan attacks a single enemy, they could reveal their position to upcoming groups of enemies.
Invisibility can last 30 seconds if not moving, or 17 seconds if walking. If you sprint while invisible, your invisibility will only last around 5 seconds and you'll be partially visible while sprinting. Jumping or rolling will also make you more visible
In Multiplayer, human enemies can hear the Time Bomb's characteristic high-pitched whine and ticking and flee. This can be circumvented by allies distracting them with automatic fire, covering the sound of the Time Bomb.
In online Multiplayer, the Time Bomb can be placed at enemy spawn locations seconds before spawn to quickly kill enemies when they spawn. If the server you're playing on has a 2 second spawn invincibility, try and place the bomb 3 seconds before spawn so that they aren't immune from the explosion. They can also be used on vulnerable Imperial Officers who are using recon droids and provided you get away from the scene before the explosion, they will not know that they were killed by a Bothan Spy.
Regeneration lasts 30 seconds and can be used again around 10 seconds after picking up ammunition.
After placing a Time bomb, Invisibility cannot be used for around 3 seconds.
If you sneak into your enemy's base in Capture the Flag or an enemy command post in Conquest without any backup, you can drop a time bomb before using your incinerator. Enemies not killed by your incinerator may suffer from the explosion of the time bomb. But try to make sure you're out of the range of the bomb before it explodes.
Bothans can also be used as the first wave in an attack on a Command Post, to wipe out entire groups of enemies.
As Bothans have no back-up weapon such as a pistol, Bothans are useless in long-range warfare and could find ammo a problem.
If you have low health and there isn't a Health Droid or health pickup to be found, go out fighting; even in a few seconds, a Bothan can bring a whole group of enemies to its knees.
Bothans seem to be more proficient than other classes when it comes to the hit and run tactic.
Trivia[]
With the Rebel Team, it is not certain whether the Bothan Spy or the Wookiee Warrior, or in the case of Battlefront 1, Wookiee Smuggler, is the Officer class and which is the special class. Most would think that the Bothan Spy is the officer based its Position in the "Class lineup" while some would think the Wookiee Warrior is the officer as it has the Recon Droid.
However, the files of Battlefront II list this class as "all_inf_officer", confirming that this unit is in fact, the officer class for the Rebellion. It can't be referring to the Wookiee Warrior because that unit is listed as "all_inf_wookiee".
Bothan Spies can have their cover blown if a friendly team mate fires across the map, unaware of your presence in the middle of the map.
There is a glitch with Stealth on single player. CPU characters of any kind will still notice you and therefore will start firing, making invisibility (and therefore the Bothan Spy in general) completely useless.
The Rebel Alliance