Hey there TORWarriors! My name is Jacob and welcome to the first submission for my new column focusing on PvP in the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Player vs Player is sometimes shunned by a great many MMO gamers, but I think that it can be quite enjoyable if you have the right strategies and the right gear. That’s the focus of this column. It’s here to help you understand the ins and outs of PvP and to make it a fun and entertaining addition to your game play. I do hope you enjoy reading it as much as I like writing it.
Introduction
So you want to become a PvP’er? While PvP can be one of most enjoyable game-play types in Star Wars: The Old Republic, it does present some challenges. One of those is obtaining gear. Gear doesn’t make a player good, but it does augment ones abilities. This guides purpose is to outline some ways for players to obtain gear prior to hitting max level 50.
Currently, I suggest two paths to preparing for level 50 PvP. The first suggested path would be having a level 50 character already fully geared that can obtain commendations (or comms as I lovingly like to refer to them) and buy gear. Second, would be storing those comms as your first character is approaching 50.
What Are Commendations? How do I use them?
Star Wars: The Old Republic uses a two tier commendations system for obtaining gear: ranked and unranked. Moreover, there are currently three gear sets, Recruit (obtained upon turning 50), War Hero (WH), and Elite War Hero (EWH). One obtains comms by competing in Warzones or SWTOR’s instanced PvP zones. You can earn more comms by winning, earning medals for certain performance criteria, and also Most Valuable Player (MVP) votes from fellow team members. For a complete list of medals, visit this site.
War Hero Prices:
| Piece | WZ Comms |
| Relic | 550 |
| Implant | 625 |
| Ear | 625 |
| Bracers | 550 |
| Belt | 625 |
| Boots | 875 |
| Gloves | 875 |
| Pants | 975 |
| Helmet | 1075 |
| Chest | 1425 |
| Offhand | 1550 |
| Main-hand | 1550 |
As stated previously, there are two types of comms, unranked and ranked. Warzone comms are awarded playing normal unranked PvP. Ranked can be obtained by playing ranked PvP (full pre-made 8 man groups) or trading in three unranked comms for one ranked comm. These tokens are used to purchase gear listed below. Here’s a look at a commendation price guide provided by our friend Dulfy.
Elite War Hero Prices (trade-ins are aptly named the same):
| Piece | Ranked Comms | WZ Comms | Additional Trade in |
| Relic | 1250 | 550 | |
| Implant | 1425 | 625 | |
| Ear | 1425 | 625 | |
| Bracers | 1250 | WH bracers | |
| Belt | 1425 | WH belt | |
| Boots | 2000 | WH boots | |
| Gloves | 2000 | WH gloves | |
| Pants | 2225 | WH pants | |
| Helmet | 2425 | WH helmet | |
| Chest | 3200 | WH chest | |
| Offhand | 3475 | WH offhand | |
| Main-hand | 3475 | WH mainhand |
Path One – Legacy
Did you know that you can buy items for another character and mail them those items? While not cheap, the Legacy system allows for instantaneous routing of gear to different characters in your legacy, regardless of faction. This is the easiest method for obtain gear, assuming you already have a level 50 fully geared for PvP. Here’s what you do:
- ● Buy a full set of legacy gear for your home planet (Coruscant for Republic and Dromand Kaas for Empire)
- - Full set should include Head, Chest, Gloves, Boots, and Leggings. You’ll need these specific parts because armoring ripped from other gear is bound to that type of piece. Meaning, if your level 50 Inquisitor buys a chest piece for a Guardian, the armoring (regardless of heavy, medium, or light), must be sent thru a Chest legacy piece.
- ● Plan out your dream gear set using Ask Mr. Robot.
- - This site allows you to put every piece of gear into a wish list and see the exact stats you would have.
- ● Start collecting gear.
- - Assuming you’re a Force user and are using moddable gear (orange belt and bracer), you’ll need nine Mods, seven Enhancements and eight Armorings. (Hilts cannot be sent through your Legacy, but Barrels can if you did the world event previously.)
- - As you are collecting, go ahead and ship these over to your pre-level 50. If you do so, be aware you can’t send them back before turning 50, however, it’s a one way trip. How do you do this? Keep reading but be warned that this will cost a lot of credits, however, hitting level 50 with 19k health is worth it. So, to rip mods from gear, socket them in, send them through the mail, and then remove them. To give you perspective on what I’m talking about – using this system, my first day at level 50 I had 19k health Guardian and hit someone for 7k on a Force Sweep.
- - Once you hit level, make sure you have orange gear (legacy or not) for each piece including belt/bracers and off hand.
Path Two – Storing Comms
You can do this in addition to already having a fully geared level 50, though it takes a lot more time. While leveling your character, try to keep your valor rank equal to your current level. You have a max of 2750 comms you can store, if you are about to hit max, just buy some med packs. Once you get around level 35 or so, start saving comms.
PvP can be quite fun, once you have the tools to win.
Upon hitting level 40 with a valor ranking of 40, you can turn all you unranked comms into ranked comms (up to 4,500). From this point forward, you should stop leveling thru normal means and just do PvP. Keep obtaining comms and converting them to ranked until you hit 50.
This will net you around 4,500 ranked, and 2750 unranked. I would suggest buying the following items to make the biggets impact:
- ● WH main hand
- ● EWH Ear/Implants
- ● WH Boots
I suggest this set because your main hand will give you a free expertise crystal and impact your game-play significantly. I’d also do the EWH Ear and Implants because it doesn’t require you to turn anything else in to obtain them, it’s an immediate Best in Slot (BiS) pick-up. Finally, I recommended getting the boots because you’ll be well on your way to obtaining your four piece set bonus which will help your overall performance.
Summary
PvP is my favorite game-type because there are so many uncontrolled variables. You can’t predict what the team is going to do, it’s the same and it’s always changing. Hopefully this guide will give you some insight on how to make the transition from pre-50 to end-game PvP a easy one. A little time, preparation, and vision goes a long way in order to dominate the PvP landscape.
If you have questions or comments, please let me know in the comments section below or you can look for me on the Prophecy of the Five East Coast PvP server where I will be happily PvPing to my hearts content! Thanks for reading!
SWTOR Community Cantina Audio: Q&A Live With Musco, Hickman, And Schubert
First off, nicely done article.
I’ve got a toon that I like in PVP and have been thinking about making it my go to PVP toon going forward. I’ve dabbled in PVP up to this point but haven’t really made a “full on” PVP toon – and I’ve never set foot in a Lvl 50 warzone. Mainly due to the disparity I’ve heard about between new 50′s (fresh meat) and geared 50′s.
Knighthammer,
Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I love PvP, thought it can be a pain to gear your first level 50. If you’re looking for some friendly and hardcore PvP’ers to help you, stop by the Prophecy of the Five, Republic side and ask for Transcendence guild. We’d be more than happy to show you the ropes.
Our guild site is here too: http://thetranscendenceguild.com
Thanks again,
Jacob
Nice article. Thanks for the explanation.
You may want to note that any toon wanting to go through your second option (me because I’m still leveling my first toon) should mostly level through PVP. I’ve done occasional warzones, but by the time I hit level 40, my Valor rank was way behind. I’ve maxed out my unranked comms, but even at level 47, I can’t trade them for ranked comms because I still haven’t hit 40 Valor.
Nicely done. I have leveled four characters to 50 thru exactly the strategy you describe – it works! Good job, keep the articles coming
There are just 2 things about this article, first off the legacy step while costing a lot of credits also has another major drawback. Without the shells you can’t trade the gear up to the next tier as while you can send mods what you cannot do is send the shell, which you need to purchase your new gear.
There is also a much better way of storing comms than the way you suggested. Assuming you start to PvP at level 10, once you earn 900 warzone commendations go to the PvP Weapons vendor and buy a weapon. Your new weapon has a 2hr timer from which you can sell it back to the vendor and get your commendations back. So what you do is when the timer is getting low, you one buy one return the weapons to the vendor and buy a replacement thus resetting the countdown. I tried this on my marauder just from level 44-50 and got full war hero gear plus my first EWH piece as soon as I hit level 50. I also have an assassin at lv23 who already has enough weapons saved for her WH gear and is already starting to earn towards her EWH.
Sorry, should have said, great article btw.
I’m not 100% sure I understand what your strategy is. I get that you can use the 2 hour timer to essentially store comms in the form a weapons. The problem I see is that you could never log off as you are constantly having to sell items back to reset the timer, otherwise, you end up with nothing more than a bag full of junk and lost comms. I could maybe see grinding out 44-50 non-stop if you have the time but going from lvl 23 to 50… do you sleep man?! Am I missing something here? Great article Jacob!
Yay! A new PvP based article! Nice first outing Jacob. I look forward to seeing more class balance/imbalance observations. I’ve always been more into the PvP aspect of MMOs because it frankly fits my time schedule. I can gear up in short spurts and have a blast. Plus I enjoy the challenge of competing against another individual. Going against a computer controlled mob, while fun, is predictable. To really stay on your toes, go against a real person. I believe becoming a good PvPer makes one better at PvE.
The timer does not tick down while you are logged off. The weapons are the most expensive things you can buy under level 50, so it works well as long as you don’t accidentally mess it up.
Ahhhh, that’s cool, I’m going to try it, thanks for the info!
Great article. I still don’t understand the reasoning behind capping comms or why you can’t start buying WH gear before level 50.
You have to be 50 to buy WH gear
The legacy trick seems like an awful waste of credits. Getting a full war hero set at 50 really doesn’t take too much time. Maybe 2-3 weeks of dailies and weeklies. Besides, getting destroyed as a newbie builds character, and helps you appreciate it more when you’ve finished your set.
Not aimed at the OP, but buying gear just to continually use and return it seems a bit exploitive. Like someone I used to know that would buy a new set of bed sheets every year, put her used set in the new packaging, and return it to the store for a “refund.”
Rather than giving us reasons to stockpile, it would be nice if they offered more items for players that want to level via PvP exclusively and also keep their toon geared. I’m leveling a couple of alts, and would prefer to just PvP, but I still have to run FPs to stay geared.
If you are not a dual wielder, I still think the way to go with capped comms when you hit 50 is to buy your WH off-hand and strip out all of the mods, then trade it in for EWH off-hand. The armoring for off-hands is not bound on slot, so you can use those to make yourself an equivalent piece of WH gear for your armor.
Upgrading immediately to EWH main hand is fine, if you can reuse the mods and whatnot as a dual wielder, but you have more flexibility with an off-hand, and save yourself a very expensive chest piece.
Unless things have changed since I did this last, in which case, ignore me.
I find it quite disappointing that even after all this time, writers of articles like these, like most of the subs (players) refuse to even acknowledge the existence of free to play & premium players.