SWTOR PvP Strategy Guide

In this SWTOR PvP guide, you will discover the top PvP strategies for each of the three Warzones in Star Wars The Old Republic.

In addition to discussing Warzone strategies, we will go over the best strategies for earning the most rewards possible, earning you more valor and commendations. We will also discuss all of the rewards you can earn and what all the points mean.


SWTOR PvP Strategy Guide – Warzones

There are three “Warzones” in SWTOR, which are a lot like Battlegrounds from World of Warcraft. If you have never played WoW, a Warzone is essentially an instanced PvP mini-game, where players are tasked with some sort of objective and matches on even teams of 8 players.

Each of the three Warzones has different objectives, and as a result, different strategies for completing them. Since the SWTOR PvP strategies are all different, I have put these three SWTOR PvP guides on their own page, which you can access below:


SWTOR PvP Rewards – Valor Points

You will notice that there are two types of rewards from Warzones – Valor points and Commendations.

Valor points increase your “Valor” rank. Valor levels up on its own leveling system (which you can see on your character sheet right beneath your Light Side / Dark Side meter) and Valor points are essentially experience points for Valor.

As your Valor rank increases, you can equip new PvP rewards and items. Valor caps at rank 65, and the best PvP gear in the game requires a Valor of level 50 and up to use.

Valor itself actually does not level that fast. By rank 20, it requires 3+ Warzone wins to earn one level. To get to rank 65, you will need at least 500 Warzone matches played (probably closer to 1,000).

Note that there is no valor requirement on most of the low-level gear. Valor rank does not really do much for you until you hit level 50 Valor. Also note that there is still a level requirement on PvP gear. If you hit level 50 Valor before you actually reach level 50, you still will not be able to use the best PvP gear until your real level reaches 50.


SWTOR PvP Rewards – Warzone and Mercenary Commendations

Commendations on the other hand are used to purchase equipment. From Warzones, you get Warzone Commendations. These can be used to purchase gear for a variety of levels and are ultimately used to get access to the best PvP gear.

You get the bulk of your Commendations by completing Warzones. Commendations seem to be awarded not only based on whether or not you win, but how long the match lasted. For example a 6 minute win in Huttball does not give the same amount of commendations as a 15 minute win, even if the medals earned are the same.

In addition to Warzone length, the better you do in the Warzone, the more Commendations you get. This is primarily influenced by medals (which are discussed in the section below on maximizing Warzone rewards).

At the end of a Warzone, players can vote for who is the “MVP” of the match as well. Each time someone votes for you, you get an extra Commendation. Overall in the grand scheme of things this does not amount to much, but it is fun to get a few extra commendations if you performed well for the team.

Note that the best PvP gear often requires Mercenary Commendations. The easiest way to get these is to actually exchange Warzone commendations at any PvP Vendor (found in the Warzone starting area) at a rate of 30 Warzone commendations to 10 Mercenary commendations.

The only way I know of to get Mercenary commendations at the moment is to open up the PvP chests on Tattooine or Ilum, which may contain 20 tokens, but this is not nearly as efficient as just trading Warzone commendations.


SWTOR PvP Guide – Earning More Commendations With Medals

You will notice that throughout a match, there are a variety of ways you can earn a “medal”. Each medal gives you an extra 5 commendations and 50 valor points, so getting a bunch of medals really helps speed up the rate at which you gain rewards.

While there are plenty of medals, focusing on some of the hard to get ones may cut your commendation earnings short. Instead, worry about the ones below, which are very easy to unlock:

  • Medic – 2.5k healing from a single heal
  • Demolisher – 2.5k damage from a single attack (AoE attacks do not count)
  • Trauma Surgeon – 5k healing from a single heal
  • Quick Draw – Getting a killing blow on one player
  • Combatant – Dealing 75k damage
  • Healer – Healing for 75k health
  • Defender – Earning 1k Defender Points (standing near a node which you own in Alderaan, standing near a door in Voidstar on defense, being near and attacking the opposite team’s ball carrier in huttball)
  • Warden – Earning 3k Defender Points (only easy to do in Alderaan)
  • Assassin – Killing a player in a one-on-one fight
  • Shield – Defending 5k total health in a game (i.e. using your Guard/Protect ability on another player)
  • Guardian – Defending 2k health in one life
  • Paladin – Defending 10k health in one life
  • Commando – Killing 10 enemy players
  • Soldier – Killing 25 enemy players

These are the 15 easiest medals to unlock in SWTOR Warzones. Of course, not every class can get all of these medals. Not every class has a guard ability for the defense medals whereas other classes do not have any healing ability.

There are other medals (i.e. 300k damage dealt, 300k healing performed, 5k damage in one hit, etc), but they are either very hard to unlock for most classes and or if you do try to unlock them, you are likely selling yourself short of the other, easier to grab medals. For example it is much easier for a Sorcerer or Sage to grab 75k damage dealt and 75k healing performed than it is to get either 300k damage dealt or 300k healing performed.

The trick is to recognize which medals you can get yourself very easily without really distracting from your play. An example would be imagine you are playing as a Sorcerer or Sage and are specced for damage. Even if you spend most of the game doing damage, you still want to make sure you get off a 2.5k+ crit heal to get your medal.

You could even get this just by healing yourself. Pop your crit ability and cast a big heal on yourself when you are low on health to get a quick and easy medal.

This goes for all the medals. Make sure you at least pick up the 1k Defender points every time you play Alderaan. If you have already won or lost a match and time is just running out, seek out a 1v1 fight so you can get the Assassin medal.

Unlocking extra medals goes a long way towards boosting the rate at which you gain commendations and valor. In the next section, we are going to discuss what you can actually spend these points on.


Star Wars The Old Republic PvP Strategy Guide – Spending Your Points

Once you earn your commendations, you may be wondering what to spend them on. You may have also noticed a variety of gear pieces which require currencies and items which you may not recognize.

You can trade your Warzone commendations directly for blue armor sets that are level 20 and 40. You can also buy weapons at level 24, 34, and 44. The armor slots cost 100-180 commendations for all slots, whereas the weapons cost 330 commendations.

The real draw for your commendations is the level 50 PvP gear. There are two primary methods for starting to collect your artifact PvP sets.

The first is trading your Warzone and Mercenary commendations for off-slot pieces like Implants, Earrings, and Relics. These are available on the Imperial or Republic fleet from the PvP vendors in the Combat Training area of the ship for 200 Warzone and 200 Mercenary commendations. Note that while these pieces require a Valor rank of 60, they are Battlemaster-grade, which means the stats on them are amazing and you will definitely want to get them.

Since you have to trade 600 Warzone commendations for 200 Mercenary commendations, each piece essentially costs 800 Warzone commendations.

However, for your primary and weapon slots, you have to purchase “Champion Gear Bags” at a cost of 200 Mercenary commendations and 200 Warzone commendations. These have a chance to contain an unassembled armor piece, which you can trade for the armor piece you want at the PvP vendor.

These gear bags also contain Centurion tokens, which can be exchanged for Centurion gear. However, the Centurion gear seems to be worse than the Champion gear, so Centurion tokens are pretty worthless unless you get really unlucky with your Champion bags.

Once you reach max level (50) and valor rank 60, you can also get a daily quest which provides you with a Battlemaster lockbox. Inside, this may contain unassembled Battlemaster pieces, which can be traded for the best PvP gear in the game. This takes forever to get since you cannot grind it like you can with the Champion gear. You just have to play consistently and get good drops out of your boxes.


SWTOR PvP Strategy Guide – The Commendation Cap

One thing you must know about Warzone Commendations is that they cap at 1000. If you PvP a lot like me while leveling up, you will hit the cap very quickly and not have much to spend it on. You may not even realize you are capped for a long time.

However, there are a few ways you can get more out of your Commendations so you can earn more while leveling up your rank and valor to the max level.

The first thing you can do is stockpile 1,000 Mercenary Commendations. Since each Mercenary commendation costs 3 Warzone commendations, this essentially allows you to get up to 4,000 Warzone commendations.

Once you are maxed out, you can of course buy the low-level PvP set. I picked up the level 20 and 40 sets as well as all of the weapons, simply because I participated in PvP a lot as I leveled up and had extra tokens to spare.

If you do not PvP that much while you level up, I would recommend not wasting your commendations on low-level PvP gear (aside from weapons) – you can buy prototype-level gear for the 20-40 range very cheap off the auction house.

Once you cap out your commendations and have no gear left to buy, you can start picking up the level 50 gear which is not found in champion bags. There is nothing stopping you from buying the level 50 earrings, implants, and relics which cost 200 Warzone Commendations and 200 Mercenary Commendations each. Given that there is 1 earring slot, 2 relic slots, and 2 implant slots, this is an extra 1000 Mercenary and Warzone commendations that you can spend before you hit level 50.

Additionally, you can purchase 1 Champion Gear bag (200/200 cost once again) and keep it ready for you once you hit level 50 to open it.

Finally, if you hit the 1000 Mercenary Commendation and 1000 Warzone Commendation cap well before you are level 50, you can also buy the Artifact mount which looks cool and save it until you can actually use it.

When you spend your commendations in this way, you have plenty to spend them on so you do not waste your PvP games before you hit level 50.

SWTOR PvP Strategy Guide – Conclusion

While this PvP guide for Star Wars The Old Republic is a lot longer than I originally intended, I think all of this information will really come in handy for those who want to start PvPing regularly, collect gear sets, and move up in the valor ranks! If you want the best PvP builds for your class, check out Aeon Guide, which breaks down the best PvP builds by level for each advanced class in the game:

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