Before I delve into the subject matter this is my second foray into this game. I honestly thought I'd never be back. My friends have gone to other games the grand experiment was over so I gave away all my stuff and left SWTOR never to return.

 

I come back only to find the same negative scuttlebutt about the status of PVP on this server. Let me begin by saying this is a PVE server. That being said the PVP community as a whole is a small part of the population and apparently is in a rebuilding phase as alot of the good guilds that I used to see ( Ascendency, Deadweight, Yes) and a few other notables are all but gone from what I've seen on fleet these past few days.I hope I'm wrong but this is what I've seen ( no offense to anyone those names I've mentioned have earned my respect through their superior play) I have like many of you played thousands of pvp matches lowbie, level 50 open and rwz.

 

Lets talk a little about ( lowbie pvp ) level 10 thru 49.

 

If your interest is in PVP ( even remotely) you should start here. Learn the maps, basic strategy experiment with a build to suit your playing style. Polish your rotation. Learn how your individual class fits into the grand scheme of each scenario. Above all remember this is objective based PVP which means 8 individuals acting in coordination with each other to accomplish a common goal. If you don't take the time to learn these things you will hurt any team you are part of.

 

In the beginning should you choose to begin at level 10 don't pay attention to overall damage or heals starting out.. You're not going to match the higher level characters and most often discourage yourself. Instead look at your objectives at the end of each match and use the medals as a measure of success or failure. If you average 5-8 medals a match your doing a pretty good job for the team. Your medal count should increase as you gain experience and by the time you reach the high 40's you should be clocking 8 or more medals a match. Gear isn't a super huge factor in lowbie but getting yourself the appropriate weapons ( with expertise) as you scale in level will aid your damage output as well as your individual damage mitigation, thus keeping you in the fight longer. Also investing in medpacs and adrenals for wz with coms will help you some. When you get to level 35 or so start looking at your damage or heals output you may have a flaw in your rotation that is being exploited. Have discussion with others from your class and see what their individual opinions are. I have found that most people will respond in a positive way to intelligent questions.

 

* Side note * even though there is a pvp vendor on your respective fleet that offer gear at level 20 and level 40 if you look closely they don't have expertise in them therefore not true pvp gear. * You may also choose to augment your current gear which will give you a slight edge in damage or heals output. Augments should contain your primary stat dependent on your class, endurance and any combination of crit , surge or power, depending on your level of course. When you get to 40 provided that things haven't changed you can begin to convert your base coms into Rwz coms. This will help jumpstart you into tier 2 level 50 gear ( war hero ) Once you get there that is.

 

Now I've hit level 50 what's next ?

 

Now the game completely changes especially in PVP. Remember when I said gear don't matter much in PVP in the previous paragraph well IT DOES NOW !. And in a big way . When you reach level 50 you see the mission box glowing you receive your token for 330K credits. Congratulations you can buy your first tier PVP gear and be ready somewhat to play with the big boys. Well not exactly because what most people don't know is that is the first of 3 tiers of gear that must be acquired in order to excel in PVP. Augments matter now.. if you inspect the veteran players you will see every piece of gear is augmented 3rd tier or ( elite war hero gear), their health is around 20K or better. You will take your lumps, die alot, but as your skills get better so will your pvp experience as long as you dedicate the time and earn the warzone coms to gear up. Then the guys that may have slammed you a month or two ago ( for not having gear ) might consider you a valued member of the team. Getting the right PVP gear takes time, patience, dedication and countless credits spent for augments and slots. It is not an easy path. Even though its not as hard as it once was it still will take you enough time for you to know whether or not its something you seriously want to do. And if you become good and geared and you want to give RWZ a try, Go for it. But be warned if you go into RWZ with anything less then Augmented Elite War hero gear you will die a quickly, violently and repeatedly.

 

This post was designed to be a constructive base model for a beginner I am by no means an expert so if any of you out there has anything to add feel free. This is our opportunity as a group to educate the masses and teach them what may have been taught to us at one time instead of slamming them for not knowing and potentially discouraging a good player from playing. The choice is yours Harbinger, what say you ?

Thank you...whoever you are, for taking the time to compose this...

 

BUMP x100

Those guilds your talking about are still around. Many left and brought only the best with them under a different name. Deadweight is now adroit. Cookies is now lukewarm tauntauns. And then squirtle squad has taken a lot of good players from different guilds, as well as krusty krab.

Yes, excellent points. In particular; I want to ask people to be in at least augmented and min/maxed WH gear before going into a rated WZ. It is not fun for any of us to play against a team of people in full pve gear or even recruit. I can't imagine it's fun to walk out into the fray and die with 3 seconds either. Just gear itself will make a huge difference there; use it. As well as this, it is hugely important to know how skills and specs of other classes interact with your class; both offensively and in a synergetic way. If you have a carnage Mara on your team and you see him leap to someone and use gore; stun the person getting gored so he can kill them with ravage. If you see a carnage Mara leap to you and use gore; the vice versa applies

Understanding other classes mechanics and popular specs is hugely important! An easy and quick way to learn this sort of info is to duel players that are skilled at their class! You may lose at first but soon enough you'll come back and start to know how to combat them, when to use your cc break etc.

finally, and this sounds silly, know your base rotation. If you're a healer try to focus on spatial awareness and kiting, if you're a tank try to focus on using your CC to peel for healers or disrupt enemy healers. This is important in higher levels of PvP play irregardless of role! And of course, if you're a node guard you need to pay attention to your ability to stall the enemy and survive long enough for your team to reinforce you. These are the basis of being successful in competitive play and over time you will learn them.

even though there is a pvp vendor on your respective fleet that offer gear at level 20 and level 40 if you look closely they don't have expertise in them therefore not true pvp gear.

 

Weapons you buy from the PVP weapon vendor have expertise on them starting with the level 34 ones. Just FYI if you wanna edit your post.

Mackeyla, How i so missed your trolling of our forums.. You're so quick to point out flaws in every single post you decide to read.. It's a shame you didn't read the previous paragraph where it mentions weapons with expertise without being specific. Anything else I should re-write just curious ? And btw those weapons start having expertise at level 24

 

"Gear isn't a super huge factor in lowbie but getting yourself the appropriate weapons ( with expertise) as you scale in level will aid your damage output as well as your individual damage mitigation, thus keeping you in the fight longer"

Edited February 24, 2013 by Jedibediah
adding content

Mackeyla, How i so missed your trolling of our forums..

I troll our forums? That's news to me.

You're so quick to point out flaws in every single post you decide to read..

I'd say that I'm sorry you feel that way but I actually don't care how you feel. I don't recall myself trolling and over-correcting people. I'll look through my prior posts....nope...I don't do that on a regular basis. The last post I "corrected" something was asking about a person's signature, and that had more to do with him making a possible typo than anything. Furthermore, if I post what I see to be a "correction" to a "guide" post it's so that it can be fixed, not to antagnoize the poster. Besides that, if you feel that my opinion holds no weight why get your panties in a twist? Seems pretty silly to me. Thin skinned much? Don't post on forums. Having a bad day? Coke and a smile?

And btw those weapons start having expertise at level 24

Really? I don't see expertise on any of the level 24 weapons. I see them on weapons starting at level 34. Maybe recheck your data?

 

I appreciate you taking the time to write a "guide" for people to read...and I did read it...my eyes must have glazed over during the part where you mentioned weapons specifically so I will apologise for that. (Maybe if you structured your post more like a guide than a general post with lengthy paragraphs? But then again, that's my opinion and it doesn't matter to you.)

 

If you've got issues with me feel free to send me a tell in game. I'm sure it'll be an interesting and lively discussion

 

Have a great day!

Edited February 25, 2013 by Mackeyla

Good short guide, well written.

 

However

 

 

The PvP forums have a number of stickied threads about basic healing, stats, and pvp in general, and they haven't seemed to fix the glaring issues some players have with pvp. My opinion is that they don't think they are in need of advice, or that the outcome of a warzone doesnt really matter....eventually they will win 9 matches in a week, and play atleast 4 matches in a day, and therefore dont put much thought into winning, or even participating.

 

 

Im afraid this will fall on deaf ears.

 

 

Also Momma said spell check is the devil.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Haystak

Current problem in 50's is to do with the fact that 10-49 WZ is nothing to do with gear.

 

Most people have War Hero, but lack of effort to try and just herp derp do random **** in WZ thinking its more fun that way. What happens is they get farmed like a ****** and go into turtle a side because its more fun or quit WZ becuase they cant do random DM.

 

Its further exacerbated by premades because they go into stupid thinking omg its premades by a <insert guild name> and go I give up mode. Nobody wants to fight anything because everyone wants instant wins. Look at *********** Ilum either its a Free For all by a whole guild or a "line" where nobody fights because nobody wants to lose. Nobody seems to want to do the objectives in a WZ.

 

I seen ppl with good gear and fail to beat a Recruit gear Sorc DPS or a green geared Marauder. What I find is that they're spamming 1 attack throughout the game, which is THE problem.

 

Hell I seen green geared ppl doing 100+k and a War Hero player doing < 100k on a full offensive run.

 

What we need to do is be able to avoid these lazy useless players but ignore doesnt seem to work.

 

Truth be told I be surprised if these tools do well in PvE for that matter.

 

And the excuses that they have a job and cant apply any way to get better is absolute rubbish. Playing casual is fine but you gotta improve on End game as well, otherwise stick to story modes on other characters. Its bad enough losing, but its even worse when effort is also not applied as well.

Good post, I agree with everything here except the major emphesis on gear, yeah PvP gear is nice, but it certainly isn't the end all in 50 pvp, I can take my BH/DG PT into 50 PvP in his PvE gear and put out top or second to the top dmg and pull 10-18 medals, 50 PvP has more to do with skill than gear level.

 

P.S. Nuking people in full EWH in PvE gear is crazy fun as well cause they don't think you should be able to beat them by having 600+ more MS

Good post, I agree with everything here except the major emphesis on gear, yeah PvP gear is nice, but it certainly isn't the end all in 50 pvp, I can take my BH/DG PT into 50 PvP in his PvE gear and put out top or second to the top dmg and pull 10-18 medals, 50 PvP has more to do with skill than gear level.

 

P.S. Nuking people in full EWH in PvE gear is crazy fun as well cause they don't think you should be able to beat them by having 600+ more MS

 

This post was designed to help people who may be new, who wants to learn.. If you want to convince me that gear don't matter then go into a rwz and duplicate that feat. doing 600K dps in a wz with the quality of the pug groups I've seen and or heard about so far with a class that has been OP since launch.. not impressed.

This post was designed to help people who may be new, who wants to learn.. If you want to convince me that gear don't matter then go into a rwz and duplicate that feat. doing 600K dps in a wz with the quality of the pug groups I've seen and or heard about so far with a class that has been OP since launch.. not impressed.

 

Well if you think PT's are OP I could mention taking my Operative healer into 50 pvp with no PvP gear and putting out 700k healing, 3k behind the full EWH sorc healer... (and no I wasn't just spamming my <30% heal, and yes I was being constantly targeted by the other team) I was only saying that gear isn't as important as skill or knowledge in PvP, what I got from your post was that gear conquers all if you are a nub in PvP at lvl 50, if you aren't good at the game or don't understand how the classes work then no amount of gear will help you.

I never said that skill and knowledge in wz's were not important but they come with experience. If you dont know the objectives and work with your team you fail. Regardless of your individual stats. But nobody gets to be good overnight. Most people when they hit 50 especially the first time are learning their final rotation.. experimenting with builds etc to get the most out of their characters. The only constant at that point is the gear.

I never said that skill and knowledge in wz's were not important but they come with experience. If you dont know the objectives and work with your team you fail. Regardless of your individual stats. But nobody gets to be good overnight. Most people when they hit 50 especially the first time are learning their final rotation.. experimenting with builds etc to get the most out of their characters. The only constant at that point is the gear.

 

Yet it really isn't, as i've pointed out gear isn't that important as BiS pve gear will make you just as powerful in pvp, it takes time to get BiS pvp gear, recruit gear or even reg war hero isn't going to match up to EWH and i've seen plenty of players that have just pvp'ed enough to get EWH and suck at pvp so it wouldn't make any difference if they had recruit, WH, EWH or just went in with no gear on as they are horrible and have no skill.