Hello galaxy! Welcome to Star Wars: The Old Republic. After you power through your home world, rush to Coruscant or the Imperial Fleet, and choose your advanced class, undoubtedly your next move will be to queue yourself for some bolstered stats, unbracketed pvp. And what a wide world you’re getting yourself into. Whether you’re a seasoned MMO veteran or a complete noob, The Old Republic has some new things to show you, for better or worse.
Queueing for your warzone:
Although one of the easiest things to do, queueing can become a major hassle. There are only 3 warzones available right now, and when you queue for pvp you are unable to choose which warzone you’d prefer. This has become troublesome for me as I absolutely loathe Voidstar, but am falling madly in love with Huttball (both will be explained later). Basically, queue up, and keep your fingers crossed for your personal favorite warzone.
The Warzones:
So your wait time has ended and your loading screen pops up with a vague map of a new place, a name, and somehow vaguer rules as to how to win the warzone. Yes, some of those aforementioned savvy MMO veterans take one quick glance at the map, comprehend everything, and continue to dominate. But let’s take it one step at a time for everyone else.
Alderaan- A ground battle where the two respective factions battle it out to take over ground turrets. While a turret is controlled, it will fire at the opposing factions’ starship, slowly reducing the ship’s health from 600. There are three turrets to be controlled at any given time, dividing the map into thirds. If your starship reaches zero, you lose.
Voidstar- The entirety of a starship is under attack! Each team will get one chance as the attackers, and one chance as the defenders, both times racing against the clock. As the attackers you have 3 seperate sets of doors you must blast through by securing bombs to the door while fighting through your opposition, all in a race against the clock to get to the datacore at the end of the tunnel. As the defenders you must defeat the pressing forces and disarm the bombs they place, keeping the datacore safe until time runs out for the attackers.
Huttball (!!!!!)- I’m sorry to those who disagree (I’ve heard a lot of Huttball hate) but Huttball is my personal favorite. Huttball is The Old Republic’s version of kill the carrier. Two opposing teams, the rotworms and the frog-dogs, face off in a pit. There is a ball in the middle of the field and your objective is to get the ball to the other side, while avoiding multiple traps set up all around the pit.
Things to know-
Before you get ready to take down some Imperial or Republic scum there’s some new things to keep in mind about SWTOR PVP. First and foremost– THERE ARE NO BRACKETS!! Yes that’s right. Your level 10 smuggler, straight off of Ord Mantell could very well be facing Darth smashurface, a galaxy tested level 50 Sith. Now to make it (somewhat) fair, all stats, damage, HP, etc is bolstered for the lower level characters so it’s AS IF you were level 50 yourself. DO NOT LET THIS FOOL YOU! Yes you will be doing some crazy damage that you haven’t ever seen before, but that level 50 over there has four different crowd control abilities, a few more abilities to negate your 1 crowd control ability, 40 talent points spread out all throughout his talent trees, and another keybound combo of all 10 of his damage abilities that’s going to rock you. Be prepared. Although I understand the low game population right now makes it necessary to have unbracketed PVP, I think it is an awful idea. You are teaching level 10 players about PVP through baptism by fire. Secondly a small sidenote that irked me- you will get an ability called sprint at level 14. Level 14. So while you’re grinding through those 4 levels you will constantly be watching the other 80% of your team fly by you while you slowly drag up the rear, only to arrive at an already finished battle. I hope that Bioware does something to remedy this… I mean how does my character know how to snipe a target 35 yards away, but still hasnt learned to run fast? Third- I do not know why, but if you play a character on the sith empire allegiance, you will be playing a lot of Huttball. I mean a lot. 3 out of every 4 of your “random” matches will be Huttball. Get used to the game, fall in love like me, or roll Republic.
Finally– PVP!!!
You’ve researched the rules and maps, you’ve learned all of your (limited) abilities and know which ones are going to burst down a level 50 Jedi sprinting at you, you’ve queued and you finally zone into your first match. Then all hell breaks loose and you forget everything. It’s ok- take a deep breath and let’s go over some more in depth strategies for each warzone.
Huttball (can’t get enough hahaha)– First and foremost- there are many, many traps in Huttball. Avoid these at all costs! These are not traps that are going to hurt you, they are traps that are going to kill you. Fire will shoot up from a number of set grates around the upper and middle platforms. Watch out! When the grate starts turning red that means don’t go. It’s about to blow!! There are also two huge pits of bright green, what I assume to be, acid or poison. These pits will slow you down and do MASSIVE damage. Avoid all of these traps as if you’re life depended on it, because it does.
In Huttball there is going to be heavy dependence on your Adanced Class as to your strategy. Big, buff, beefy tanks better get in there and grab the ball! You’re built for survival and once you pick up that ball you better believe you’re going to take a beating. The ball even kindly sends a shimmering beam of light right up to the ceiling so everyone in the stadium can see where you’re slowly headed. While on this topic, for anyone who picks up the ball, be prepared, the Huttball slows you down significantly. You will slow down to a near crawl while trying to rush the ball to the other teams side, this is just another obstacle to climb, and like I said- the tanks should be the one to do it. A quick wrinkle to this- I loved grabbing the ball with my sith sorcerer because of his force speed ability. This ability gives you a quick 2 second burst of unbelievable speed and if used correctly it can be a huge gain for your team, maybe even score a point or two!! Ballcarriers always have to remember that there is a ’pass the huttball’ option. If you notice you’re not going to make it to the other side of the room, look for a teammate ahead of you, and throw the huttball to his area. ‘Throw the huttball’ is a targeted ability so you have to make a pass to the general area where your teammate is. Next are the heavily armored damage dealers. You hybrids can take some of a beating, and give one hell of a beating out too. Support your tanks and stay in the middle of the clusterfudge that’s bound to be happening in the middle of the arena right next to the ball. Pick up the ball if you see the opportunity to help your team, but focus on killing the enemy who’s trying to kill your ballcarrier. Use your crowd control to stop an enemy from chasing the ball if necessary. Stay in the front lines of the battle and use all your resources. Now onto our squishy, cloth armored, killers. No, they aren’t also considered damage dealers, they are killers. The bolstered damage makes you squishies beasts, able to take out huge chunks of that bolstered HP everybody has. Because of your low defense and low HP, make use of the rafters. There are 4 levels of different heights in the huttball arena, and I’ve found the best place for you is all the way up on top of the fight. Set up camp up top, and start cranking out your highest damage abilities until you break the kill counter. This is going to mess up once in a while with your line of sight, but as long as you’re not attacking an enemy ballcarrier, forget your line of sight and move on to your next kill. Now healers- guess what your job is? TO HEAL!! You all know what you’re there for, so find your priority teammate (if there’s a ballcarrier, he’s your number 1 always) and keep him/her alive! Also I’ve noticed, especially with combat medic commandos and their enormous neon green ‘kill me’ sign, once the defense sees that you’re the healer they will focus you. remember to keep yourself up too! A dead healer can’t help heal anybody else so don’t sacrifice yourselves!
Now while paying careful attention to your offensive duties, make sure to keep on top of defense as well. When the other team has the huttball, everyone must do their absolute best to take down the enemy ballcarrier! All damaging abilities should be used and try to use as much crowd control as possible. When using crowd control, be selective and use it at the most opportune time. If a ballcarrier is crossing a metal grate that’s about to spew burning hot flames out of it, by all means you should be rooting, stunning, and keeping that ballcarrier right there.
During huttball you will see a timer counting down. Whichever team has listened to these basic strategies and has the most scores at the end of the timer, wins!
Voidstar-
I will admit that with voidstar being my least favorite, it is also my weakest point in SWTOR PVP. The strategies that I have seen work wonders for one random queue team have failed miserably for the next. The basic strategies that’s seen in almost all matches while attacking is to send the majority of the team to one of the first doors, and to send one or two stealth players to the door on the other side. This is hoping that when the defending team sees everybody moving to one side that they will completely forget about the other side or will send a few easily defeated players. Once you get to your respective side, fight for your lives! Keep fighting and inching towards that door, and when you’re close enough and alone start to plant the bomb. If a bomb is planted the defending team does have the ability to disarm it which takes a few seconds but the disarm is interruptable, just like the arming of the bomb is. Once the first set of doors has been breached you move onto a second room with the same layout and basically the same strategy. In the second room though, there is one little trick that a lot of people seem to be taking advantage of that is just a very rewarding feeling when pulled off correctly. In the second room there is a bridge that has to be drawn by the attackers. Once it is drawn the bridge has to be crossed but the bridge is fairly narrow. When you see opposing players attempting to speed across the bridge, go run up to them and pop whatever your respective class’ pulse ability is. If lined up correctly, this should blow all enemies back a few meters within range, and hopefully toss them right off the bridge!!
Alderaan-
When the alderaan warzone starts there will be a quick introduction by a commander from your fleet. When he’s done talking speeder bikes will appear which you have to ride down to the actual warzone itself. To your team’s left will be a turret that is very easily accessible by your team, as opposed to the relative difficulty to reach for the enemies. While listening to the commander talk, the team should designate 2 people to run to the left turret, secure that turret, and stake it out. It should be a very simple capture and at no point, barring a massive attack, should you need more than two people on that turret. Undoubtedly the opposing team will be doing the same thing so within 30 seconds the far left and far right turrets will be occupied with strong defenses. That’s where alderaan gets hectic. the remainder of your team should rush to the middle turret and begin in the epic battle that will continue for the entirety of the warzone. In most cases the faction that controls the middle turret, along with their respective side turret, will win this warzone. When attacking the middle turret remember to follow guidelines based on what your character can do. Healers remember to get a lot of AOE heals in the center as that’s where most, if not all, your melee allies will be.
Above all else- try to ignore the trolls during your matches in any warzone, have fun, and learn more mechanics of your specific class every single SWTOR PVP match. I hope these general strategies helped, and please come up with some of your own to counter what I’m saying. The best way to win, is to counter what everyone else is. See you on the battlefield!!
