New to PVP

[JQJkiller]

I wanted to try PVP but im having a little trouble switching from PVE to PVP.

Should i keep trying? Any pointers?

[Maldach]

Learn the class icons. Knowing what's around you makes things easier.

Use line of sight. Ranged classes can't hit you if they can't see you.

Stick with the pack. Strength in numbers, this will help with learning class icons and which class does what.

Watch YouTube vids on the different war zones.

Don't be afraid to die. Get in there and scrap.

[Luckeyduckey]

I wanted to try PVP but im having a little trouble switching from PVE to PVP.

Should i keep trying? Any pointers?

 

Kill sorcerers for easy damage and kills.

[CBRGhostRider]

Just to add:

 

Make sure you understand what the warzones are, and how to play objectively.

Run with guildies who will show you the ropes; join a guild that PvPs to a good extent.

Roll alts on different classes/specs to figure out how they work.

Learn to keybind if you haven't already... it really really helps, especially for mobile and melee classes.

You will make mistakes and blunders since you are new... just learn from those, and ignore the jerks that scream L2P in chat.

Edited May 15, 2013 by CBRGhostRider

[KennethHoover]

It takes practice, OP. It's a little frustrating at first, maybe, but keep going and you will do fine.

[teclado]

Huttball: Make sure that you know how to pass the ball. Don't worry so much about killing or dying, the objective is to move the ball forward when your team has it, stop the other team from moving the ball when they have it. Understand that certain classes can jump to you from the pit on your side and easily score. Don't stand there and allow them to jump to you.

 

Voidstar: Again, don't worry about kill/death ratio. When you are on defense, fight on the doors. Do not let the opponents plant the bomb: if you see somebody planting a bomb, attack them. Use Area of Effect attacks on the door to prevent bomb placement. Watch your mini-map to see if you have teammates on both doors at all times. If not, go cover the other one. On offense, try to overwhelm the defense and plant the bomb. You don't have a re-spawn timer, so take advantage of it.

 

Ancient hypergate: Stealthers LOVE to hide at your pylon and wait for less than 30 sec on the timer to steal your node. This does not leave enough time for you to re-take it. Be aware of this. Generally, the team that controls the middle will win (unless said team leaves their pylon unguarded...). Get the glowing orbs in the middle and take them back to your pylon to score some points for your team.

 

Alderaan Civil War: This one is the most difficult to achieve a come-back win. When your team has a turret that is under attack (snow or grass), there are speeders that go directly to those two locations. Use them. You only need 2 of 3 turrets to win (unless you are behind), so don't get greedy. Generally, it is best to have at least two guarding a node at any given time. Don't over-respond and leave a turret with only one guy (or zero) guarding it.

 

Novare Coast: Again, you only need 2 of 3 turrets. Don't be greedy. Your base doesn't even take damage unless they have two turrets and vice-versa. Make sure that you don't over-respond and leave a turret unguarded. Watch to make sure the enemy is not capturing your turret while others are distracting you. Again, AOE might come in handy.

[JQJkiller]

Learn the class icons. Knowing what's around you makes things easier.

Use line of sight. Ranged classes can't hit you if they can't see you.

Stick with the pack. Strength in numbers, this will help with learning class icons and which class does what.

Watch YouTube vids on the different war zones.

Don't be afraid to die. Get in there and scrap.

 

Wow thanks alot

[Banderal]

Also, some *really* basic advice, don't know what you mean by "having trouble"... but don't stand in one spot unless you have to (to cast a big heal or something, for example), unless you are a sniper in cover. That's one of the reasons keybinding is so important. You need to be able to move and turn constantly, because, as you've probably figured out by now, everyone else is running circles around you. The "bad guys" don't just stand in one place and take it on the chin, like they do for much of PvE.

 

Some other random things (general rules, of course, which might be broken for special situations - before someone flames me for them ) ...

 

Use your minimap, and even open your big map once in a while. Look at where people are to decide where you might be needed.

 

If you see a mark on the other team - it's 99% likely a healer. Kill that person first, whenever you see them. (If you see a healer that isn't marked, mark them.)

 

Watch chat. You will sometimes see people type things of use up there. Like "inc 4 west" - which means, strangely enough, that a person sees 4 enemy heading to the west node on the map. Ignore the people typing trash into chat.

 

Learn west vs. east vs. south vs. mid. In Civil War, learn Snow and Grass (look at the side nodes, one is all covered in snow, one is all grass - there you go.) Learn that people with use "left" and "right" without regard to the fact that they are relative to which way you are facing. (I think they usually refer to direction when you are facing out of your spawn point.)

 

Know that in Civil War, if you hold a side turret/node, then from your spawn the speeder on the VERY FAR side that matches the node you own... that speeder takes you directly to that node, instead of to mid.

 

Someone on these forums once gave me what I thought was very good advice... pick one thing you know you have trouble with, and focus on that in the WZ. Even if you don't do so hot all around, at least you are improving that way.

 

And it's worth saying for about the 3rd or 4th time I think... ignore the ragers in chat.

[JQJkiller]

I think I got it TY just made a guild to with people that can help me thank u again guys:D

[cashogy_reborn]

Learn the class icons.

 

people actually play with those on?

[Kubernetic]

The best and most productive thing you can do at first is check out the various PVP Guides on the different warzones. Each one has its own particular quirks and strategies that will help you succeed and help you contribute to a strong win.

 

Check out this Sticky: PVP 101: How to Become a Contender

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=451701

 

That has links to several guides at the bottom.

 

(This is also for DPS/tanks primarily. Healing is a bit of a different beast and I'm not the best healer, so I'll leave that to other guides. They're out there, find them if you need them. If you're a healer and everyone is healed up, then you might bounce through a few of these.)

 

*. PRIMARY ADVICE: TALK TO YOUR TEAMMATES. You're given a minute to a minute 30 seconds depending on the time to load into the warzone at the beginning of each match. USE THIS TIME. Don't just stand there spamming your buffs. If no one else is talking, take the initiative and lay out a strategy. In Civil War, for instance, ask if anyone wants to hit Snow on the open. If not, then say "Okay, Grass and Mid", or reverse this for Imperial side (or if you're in a same-faction battle and you're on the other side). In Voidstar, pick a side that your team should focus. In Novare Coast, see if people want to hit East and West to begin with, and then send a few decoys South. It's easier to defend East and West because there's a shorter distance between these two points in Novare Coast then running back to South. But your team has to swing efficiently to do so.

 

One of the best ways to lose is for everyone to not say anything and just let everyone run their own separate ways like headless chickens hoping for a win. If the other team has discussed a strategy and you haven't, then you're often toast.

 

1. One of the most important things you can do is to learn to spot healer Advanced Classes: Sage/Sorcerer, Commando/Mercenary, or Operative/Scoundrel and map your target icons to some ALT-numbers or some other handy keystroke so that you can mark them when you find them.

 

If you have extra time, you can watch to see who these players are targeting... if they're targeting people on their own team, then the odds are they're a healer or are functioning as a healer. But I would often times just mark them as fast as I could. Better to have them marked and then remove the icon if you see they aren't healing than to not have them marked and let them screw up your defensive or attacking wave.

 

2. Once these healers are marked, FOCUS ON THEM! Mitigate this with the objectives of the warzone, of course... don't spend your time focusing on a healer when someone is trying to plant a door in Voidstar, for instance... make sure you hit the planting player to interrupt the bomb cast.. But presuming that the nodes are safe, then focus down those healers first.

 

3. If you haven't learned already, learn how to use your interrupts. Being able to interrupt healers (especially) and others that you are attacking is very helpful in stopping them from a healing function or one of their attacks and can help keep you alive.

 

4. If you are a tank, try to find a healer very early in the match, hopefully during the minute and a half before the match starts, put your guard on them, and then stick with them to assist them. You can attack the ones you need to, such as other healers, but keep an eye on your own healers, and make sure you stop what you're doing to help defend them whenever necessary. If your healers die, then your team starts to die.

 

5. Also, if you're a tanking spec, USE YOUR TAUNTS. Keep both your Area and Single taunt abilities on a key that you can hit as often as possible. Personally I map these to extra keys on my mouse so that I can constantly spam them when they come off cooldown.

 

6. Don't get flustered and blow all of your defensive cooldowns at once unless you are the last defender at a node and you are trying to stall for as many seconds as possible. Even then, you may want to pace them a bit and hit one defensive ability, wait 2-3 or 4-6 seconds, then hit another, etc. Blowing them all at once is often not useful and just hinders your performance when you respawn and re-enter the match.

 

7. If you're a stealth class, sometimes it is beneficial to serve as an "insurance policy", especially in Voidstar. There've been a number of times when I notice that there are 6-7 enemies attacking a door, and I see that our team members are being quickly focused and destroyed. If YOU rush in to help them, especially as a Scoundrel/Operative, it's quite possible they'll kill you within mere seconds, leaving them with all the time they need to plant on the door. If your team is stuck behind the respawn wall, and you see this happening, STAY STEALTHED, and sneak in and watch for them to plant. At the last possible moment, fire off an area attack to disrupt them, then activate your in-combat re-stealth and hit your stealth boost so that you can hide again. Then when they go to plant again, do the same thing.

 

I've been able to prevent dozens of plants on that second door in Voidstar by interrupting them like this just long enough for the barrier wall to drop and my team to pour out en masse to continue fighting. It's best to watch the respawn doors and make sure you're not getting stuck behind them, but your team doesn't always do this, and it isn't always possible for you to do it either. So just be aware.

 

8. Don't wait around for incoming calls from your other nodes. If you're defending a node, and you've got 5 defenders and there are 4 attackers, this means that, at best, your other node has 3 defenders and they have 4 attackers they can send at that node. If you get your node down toa 5 vs 3 situation, now they have 5 they can throw at your other 3 defenders, and so on. (Usually they'll keep one defender at their other node, but this isn't always the case.)

 

Once you get it down to 5 vs 3, it's time for one or you (at least) to peel off and head toward the other node. The worst thing you can do is stay around until it's 5 vs 3, 5 vs 2, 5 vs 1, kill off that last guy, then stand around praising each other. Because your other node could very well be getting hammered. So when you're confident that your remaining players can defend the node against attack, time to boogie it to the other node (or at least far enough to visually scan the area) and make sure they're okay or you head that way full speed to help defend.

 

9. Be patient, and learn how to lose like a champ. Every game cannot be won, and sometimes it's just bad luck and bad timing. Sometimes you hit a much more powerful enemy team, perhaps one of the best on your server. No need to start accusing them of hacking or cheating just because you lost. (If they ARE hacking or cheating, then report them.)

 

10. Don't ever get in the habit of quitting a warzone just because you don't like how things are going. You chose to enter the PVP queues, and you chose to do so either with a pre-made of your own or to do it solo and go with a Pick-Up Group (PUG). If you enter the queue, and you take the pop and enter the warzone, finish it. Quitters suck, and are selfish little children that ruin the experience for everyone else.

 

11. When gearing up... get your main hand weapon first, then get the next-level mainhand as soon after that as possible. That way you can impart maximum damage against the enemy team members. After your mainhand, get your offhand if it's a weapon or a shield, but you might hold off on it if it's a generator until after the main armor pieces. After that, I'd get your Chest, Head, Legs, Feet, Gloves, Belt and Bracers in that order, so that you have the highest possible defense rating to mitigate incoming damage. Then I'd go pick up your Earpiece and Implants and Relics.

 

While having the updated Earpiece and Implants and Relics might be nice and those might be cheapest, they don't increase your defense rating as much as upgrading those actual body armor pieces.

 

12. Finally, make sure you're using stims and buffs as often as possible. You don't necessarily have to have Exotech or the highest possible stims, maybe go back a few levels so that they're a little cheaper and you can make sure you constantly have them active.

 

And good luck! PVP is a lot of fun and exhilarating due to the human element. Take all of these rules and suggestions and realize that you may need to change them up or even ignore some on occasion to keep up with the changing scenario of the match. PVP is very much unlike PVE, and isn't a standard Lather, Rinse, Repeat operation. Sometimes predictability is a good strategy, sometimes being unpredictable can win a match. And sometimes either of these can lead to a loss. Just roll with the force chokes and above all, have fun!

 

If it isn't fun, go do something else for a while, and then come back when you can have fun with it again.

Edited May 17, 2013 by Kubernetic