Game Play and Class Function

SWTOR's core combat mechanics may seem very familiar if you have played other MMO/RPGs.  The game has seen a massive rework of its starting game experience, now allowing the player to choose from any force class for any of its force class stories, and likewise any tech class with any tech class story.  To put that to an example, you can play as a Sith Juggernaut in the Jedi Consular Story.  As your story progresses you are also able to choose a second class, allowing each of your characters to swap to/play up to 6 advanced (sub) classes.  This bring each of your characters a great deal of versatility at the end game as well as allowing you to much more easily try out multiple advanced classes without the need to make an additional character.

For clarity the game has 4 Classes to choose from, each has 2 subclasses, each has 3 advanced classes.  Jedi Knight (Class) -> Guardian or Sentinel (Subclass) -> Defense, Focus, Vigilance (Guardian advanced class options).  Keep in mind that the Republic and Empire classes are mirror to each other.  While their abilities look different everything  mechanically is the same, though some animations can be much more annoying on one vs the other.  Note that I often refer to advanced classes as "disciplines".

As with most MMO games, the game presents a vertical leveling platform.  As your character levels up, it gains new passive and active abilities.  At certain milestones, level 23 for example, your character will have a choice of three passive, or active abilities to choose from.  These choices can have HUGE effects on the play style or effectiveness of your chosen advanced class and can  thankfully be freely toggled on the fly, meaning that we are free to experiment with each available choice and can swap to each situationally.  Personally I find this system rather odd from a role based experience, but I guess its possible for our character to forget and relearn skills on the fly :D.  As far as game utility goes, I typically find myself locking in the same choices and only occasionally swapping to something else as I see the advantage of a different active or passive skill.

Keep in mind that the guides on this site are written with the end game in mind (currently level 80).  Much of what is listed on each class guide will not work as intended until that class has all of its passives and active abilities.  As your character levels up closer and closer to 80, more and more of the guides here will begin to line up with how that class performs at the end game.  I highly encourage reading tool tips for each new ability you unlock as well as the passives down the right side of your skill/utility tree.  I do not bloat my guides with what you the player can read in the game.

My main advice, do not judge SWTOR's advanced classes by how they play during the leveling experience.  I find snipers, for example, a struggle to play at low level.  We are plagued by poor energy (yellow bar) management and being forced to pew pew at something until I recharge.  I highly encourage you not to judge a class by its feel during the leveling experience.  If you want to play a sniper spec, and do not find it fun as you level, bite the bullet (so to say), get to 80, gear it out and give it a chance.  I find very few classes "fun to play" in the early levels.  Most can be quite "spam basic attack", but that is all you really need to get through story level content, where everything dies in two shots.

I feel that each of the 8 classes have one advanced class that is really fun and easy to push through the story content on.  The other 2 may be a bit more of a challenge and only serve to make you take more time to get to end game.  As an example, for guardian Focus is great for leveling.  I'd never recommend a player play as Defense to level.  There is simply no reason to play anything but a damage class for the story leveling experience.  Leveling as a tank or heal  advanced class only makes everything take longer to die.  Certainly if that's your hill, go for it.  I'm a tank main, but infiltration shadow is my advanced class of choice for quick story progression.

Once you hit max level, if you have any desire to get into the end game, whether it be PvP, or operations content, you will want to begin mastering the content collected on this site for your chosen advanced class(es).

SWTOR operates on the "holy trinity":

Tank's soak up damage that would kill damage and heal classes
Damage classes kill bosses before they enrage and wipe your party. (no enrages I know of in story mode)
Healers keep everyone alive as well as cleanse curable afflictions.

Damage classes can be further broken down into 3 damage subclasses:

• Damage w/Taunts (DwT) (more tankish damage classes) rely more on use of their Defensive abilities to keep them from taking as much damage from a hit "mitigating" as well as the ability to jump in as a short term tank, should the main tank fall or a tank swap be needed.  If your class has a taunt, you fit this mold (basically any class that has a tank advanced class as an option).  Taunt should be on your bar, but never used unless called upon.

• Damage w/Heal (DwH) classes have a few healing abilities that they can use to support the healers, when their primary role of damage is not needed, or in an emergency if a healer gets behind.  Note that they should never be attempting to be a healer.  Play a healer if you want to heal, damage is your main responsibility ALWAYS.  These "DwH" classes all have cleanses they can use on themselves or their teammates as well, which can be just as critical as being able to taunt an enemy to support the tank.  Basically, if your class can also be a healer its dps advanced classes are "DwH".

• Raw damage classes like snipers and sentinels have no ability to taunt, and no abilities to self-heal (though passive heal choices exist).  Their defensive abilities are many and their utility in raiding vast.  You might note that these classes have no options to choose anything but DPS advanced classes.

Raids go well when everyone is doing their role as they have elected.  If a healer were to try to tank, things would go very wrong.  If a damage player tries to soak damage, it's unlikely that the healer will be able to save them under long bouts of punishment or burst damage.  It is important to pick a class to suit your play style.

SWTOR gearing provides us the flexibility to use any and all gear on any advanced class.  So if you wanted to, you could 100% put your healer in gear with defensive stats.  Only classes with the tank advanced class will be able to use the shields, but nonetheless you can do it.  (please don't).  It is, however, fairly common for tanks to run with DPS gear.  They do not need any accuracy in their gear, but having power vs defense or critical vs shield does make a lot of sense in some operation content.

Keep in mind that raid teams or pugs often need damage class players more than other roles.  Story mode raids typically only need 1 tank and 1 healer.  If you want to only play tank spec, you may have a harder time fitting into a raid forming up.

I recommend players that wish to tank or heal, to also work on mastering a dps class as well, to increase their chances of joining a raid team or pug.  Learning a fight as a damage class can help give you experience of how to move and position a boss, so that tanking later, a job that can wipe the team if done incorrectly, is less stressful.

Below are some common abilities to ALL classes in SWTOR that the game does not go into too much detail explaining.  Give it a review before you move on to learning more about your chosen advanced class.

Each class has a number of abilities that can stun targets.  There are in fact quite a number of stuns in the game.  Some disciplines get more than others, some have none unless they pick them from the skill tree.  Stuns usually have very little use in operations, as most bosses have stun immunity.  They are however very useful on most mob pulls between bosses and in some instances can be used against adds in a boss fight.  Stuns generally come in 4 flavors:

Hard stuns - The Target is stunned for "x" seconds.

Soft stuns - The Target is stunned for "x" seconds, damage will break the stun.

Sleeps - Shadow/assassins and Scoundrel/Operatives can "Sleep" a target.  They must be out of combat to do so, and doing damage to that target will wake them.

Lifts - Similar to sleeps, but these can be used during combat.  Sages and Commandos have these actives available or available in a skill selection.

Stuns, particularly sleeps, can make it an entirely different ops experience as raid teams with several stealth classes can sleep entire mobs and the group can sneak past them.

Some classes have abilities that will knock enemies back.  Each class's is a little different.

The Guardian/Juggernaut can push back a single target.
The Counselor/Inquisitor's Force wave/Overload is a cleave-like conal pushing targets back and rooting them in a 90-degree arc in front of them.
The Commando/Mercenary is a 360 knock back, as is the gunslinger/sniper's cover pulse.

Knock backs can serve a purpose in operations.  Mobs in particular and sometimes adds in a boss fight can be knocked back.  A nearby cliff is always a good option, though sometimes the mobs will glitch out and come back.  In general, AVOID using knock backs.  These tend to do the opposite of what your tank is trying to do, which is to group everything up for your DoT DPS advanced classes to be able to spread DoTs to them easily.  Knocking baddies out of the stack, while fun, is counterproductive to dps.