PVP: Tactics and Terminology

[Clusterfact]

I've updated with a few tidbits about PvP within TOR. Again, if anyone can think of something to add to the guide please speak up! This guide is by PR for PR.

[Aveyn Tamai]

I'd like to add, while it's always nice to know every class as in depth as possible, it isn't always practical (at least at first).
I would however make an effort to at the very *least* learn the potential cool-downs of the classes you may be going up against. Know what they do, how long they last, and what the re-use time on the skills are.

With this knowledge in hand you can better exploit weaknesses in your enemy, and better time your own skill usage.

[Foriamlord]

Okay, this topic was touched upon before but I'm gonna go over keybindings in a little more detail. I'm sure you are all aware that you can place any ten skills you like on your number bars but which skill should go in which number slot?

Key Ability

1 A quick reaction ability, usually defensive.
2 Your most commonly used (spam) attack or heal
3 Your second most commonly used attack or heal
4-10 Your situational abilities. Things like group heals, disarms etc.

Now here's the trick in most games you can actually bind abilities directly to any key on your keyboard. PVP is very fast paced and often the time it takes to push a key can be the difference from victory of defeat. That being the case, the closer the key is to your WASD movement keys the better.

So you should be looking to bind abilities to your Q E R T F C V
keys.

Now binding the correct abilities to these keys is crucial to your success in PVP! Let's look at which abilities you should be binding here.

Interrupts: anything that prevents someone from charging up a super ability or prevents a healer from casting his / her heals.

Crowd Control: CC is arguably the most useful ability in PVP. This includes anything from stuns to fears, disorientates, basically anything which prevents a player from controling their character.

Debuffs: Abilities that hinder your opponents abilities. These are usually things you want to do at the beginning of a fight.

Snares: Abilities that hinder you opponents movements. MELEE TAKE NOTE: YOU NEED TO BECOME FAMILIAR WITH SNARES.

CC Breaker: In SWTOR every class has an ability to break crowd control. Knowing when to use this ability is the key to PVP but it must be bound in a place where you can use it instinctively.


Every ability you have that is useable in PVP should be bound to your keyboard somewhere. "Wait, I have thirty abilities!! How can I possibly bind them all you say?" Answer: shift+ and Ctrl+. In most mmos you can bind abilities to your keyboard using shift + 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 . Same goes for ctrl.
TO use it you simply hold down shift and push the number . Easy.

Last point for this post. You must unbind pan left and pan right from your D and A keys and replace them with strafe left and strafe right. You should turn your character by using your mouse.

Trust me there is nothing that delights me more than seeing my opponent standing still and slowly turning around trying to target me. We call this key turning and it is useless. Mouse turning takes a little getting used to but once your comfortable you will never key turn again. I advise you to set this up as soon as you create you character to get used to it.

Hope you found this helpful

P.S
Somone should probably write up a guide on macros after the game has released.

[Xorix]

Ahh keybinding is something very near and dear to my heart.. Almost in a week it turned me from a mediocre pvp'r into someone that belonged on the battle field.. It takes a little getting used to if you've been a clicker or a number pad user, but it will change your game

Solfurion explains the art of keybinding very well.. here is visual representation of how I learned how to keybind



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W, S, A, D : standard keys for moving. Some might use E, S, D, F for more keys on either side to bind but in the end its up to you.

Tab key: by default in most MMOs it is used to switch to your nearest target enemy, and I don’t recommend changing it. Sometimes you just can’t click on the player

R: key I use to team tell in case we're not in vent.

Green keys: the most accessible keys and most easy to start with for spells or abilities.

Yellow keys: less accessible but still close enough.

Purple keys: keys I use to target party members.

Shift, Control, Alt: these are the modifier keys marked with red color on the image which can be used in combination with other keys. For example, you could use “z″ for power shot, and “Shift+z″ for flurry.

I hope the visualization helped a little..

Oh and for the love of good learn to mouse turn.. so much faster than keyboard turning

Observe



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[Landscaper]

^Very nice info guys, thanks a bunch, I well certainly try that mouse turn thingee! (although I use the G-13, it's not promised to work in TOR, especially at the beginning. )

I enjoy communication as much as the next guy, but shouting: 'WATCH OUT, There's a bad guy hiding in those bushes over there!' is not really useful and just adds to the confusion. Better to just say, for example: 'IA 25' west of A, my ping.' = Imperial Agent about 25 feet west of flag 'A' and I've marked the approximate location on the map with my way point marker.'

Less is more, especially when communicating in a raid imo. Anyway, here's my contribution to the conversation:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=318815

[Dorobbo]

1 more thing that is super common in pvp is cleanse. My most recent mmo i played was DCUO and the tank had a cleanse ability that would take the debuff off of healers and if wasn't performed properly the healer would be super screwed.

The debuff was performed by the controller of the opposing team and would render the healer's heals worthless while the debuff persisted. As i recall from a long time back in WoW there was similar aspects to pvp as well.

[Kayllek Veran]

Nwahs Nirom wrote:

I love guild nostalgia!