Use Consumables

Before you jump into a warzone, make sure you’re stocked up on consumables.  Use the warzone medpacs and warzone adrenals.  Warzones are balanced using these consumables, so not using them puts you at a disadvantage.  You can buy them at a vendor next to the PvP terminal on the fleet, or at the vendor inside warzones.  I generally buy a full stack of 99 when I have the warzone commendations, and just let my daily rewards replenish my stock until I run out.  You will probably go through about four per warzone of each.  If you have extra commendation, buy extra medpacs.  They will always be useful no matter what level you are.  I’m still using medpacs I bought from before Rise of the Hutt Cartel was released.  This lets me spend comms I earn now on gear, instead of consumables.  If nothing else you can always sell them in trade chat.

You can also use stims that persist through death for an extra boost in warzones as well.  You can get stims for your main stat (cunning, aim, etc), or endurance.

Watch The Chat Window

The chat window is the main method of communicating in warzones.  You must watch chat for calls of incoming to objectives.  There are a few strategies you can use to filter out needless chat spam.

First, go into your settings and turn on timestamp.  This will let you know if a message is recent, or something said five minutes ago.  This helps with the next strategy – giving updates.  Giving updates that your objective is clear lets other players know two things: A) You are on top of your game, and B) that your objective is clear, and they can push to capture a needed objective, or run to defend an objective under attack.  I generally announce roughly every three minutes that my objective is clear.

Another tip for warzones chat is to make your own chat window for PvP.  Eliminate all non-essential chat channels (emotes, general chat, etc) so that all you see is pur, 100% warzone chat.

Tips For Guarding Objectives

Guarding objectives is generally not glamorous.  It is a thankless and important job, however.  I see a lot of mistakes made when guarding objectives.  Here’s a few guidelines you can follow to do the best job that you can for your team.

When there are three objectives in a warzone, you need to manage your defending players carefully.  When you control one objective, only one person should be guarding.  When you control two objectives, two players should be guarding.  Along these lines, do not go for a third objective if you control two.  Defend what you have, don’t get overconfident.  This mistake happens a lot.

While guarding any objective on any warzone, do not stand near the objective.  An enemy can stun/maze you and ninja cap while you watch.  If you stand far enough away, they won’t have time to get from you, to the objective, and then cap(orange).  You should stand just standard attack range(charge for Jedi).  Even if it only buys you a second, that’s plenty of time.  You should also position yourself in a warzone so that you can watch common points of access for the enemy (yellow).  See the picture below for examples.

Huttball Warzone Tips

General Warzone Tips

• Buff constantly.  Even though you have your buffs already, a player near you may have just rezzed.  I buff during every lull in combat, or whenever i’m running to or from an objective.  It’ll quickly become habit.
• Give MVP votes at the end.  They provide extra rewards.  Don’t be that guy/gal.  It’s a game, and even if you lose, so did everyone else on the team.  This is good sportsmanship at its finest.  If you don’t know who to vote for, vote for the ‘worst’ player.  Help them gear up, or maybe give them a little encouragement they might need.  Avoid votes for people who talk trash the whole game, or who are negative from start to finish.
• If you have the means to make yourself invulnerable to control effects (Hunker Down for smugglers, Force Speed for Shadows, etc), use it before you cap.  This will give your enemy one less skill to use on you, and potentially secure an objective capture.

Good PvPers Are Always Willing To Learn

Sometimes you’ll have to improvise.  Most of the time these strategies will work, but occasionally they won’t.  The best part about PvP is the unpredictability of the other players.  Players are creative, and even in crushing you in three hits, can teach you something about what not to do next time.

Do you have any tips for warzones?