Exploring the quirky and fun combinations with Combat Styles in SWTOR’s Legacy of the Sith Expansion

Today Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) launched its eighth expansion, Legacy of the Sith, with a new story campaign, a new flashpoint, and a new level cap of 80. Of all the new features coming in the expansion, I’m most excited about SWTOR taking their entire approach to classes and turning it on its head with Combat Styles.

Pre-expansion class architecture in SWTOR mirrored other MMORPGs

Classes in the pre-expansion version of SWTOR are similar to classes in World of Warcraft. You first pick one of four archetypes available to your faction as your Story Class. These are Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Republic Trooper, and Smuggler for the Republic faction. The Empire faction offers Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter, and Imperial Agent. Your Story Class determines your Class Story which will comprise about half your quests in the 1-60 game. The rest of the quests come from generic planet-based stories that every Class gets to experience.

From there, the customization begins. Each Story Class has two Advanced Classes you can choose at character creation. These Advanced Classes are more what you would think of as your WoW class. In the current version of SWTOR, once you select your Advanced Class, it can never be changed. Each Advanced Class has three Disciplines, just like most WoW classes — aside from Demon Hunters and Druids — has three Specializations. Your Disciplines determine what roles (tank, healer, DPS) your Advanced Class can fill, and you can swap Disciplines when you are out of combat.

For example, my main in SWTOR is Jedi Knight Guardian. Jedi Knight is the Story Class, Guardian is the Advanced Class. Guardian has three Disciplines: Defense, Focus, and Vigilance. Defense is the tank spec, Focus is a burst and AOE DPS spec, while Vigilance is a sustained DPS and DOT based spec.

Each class in SWTOR is mirrored on the two factions. These mirrors have different names and animations for their spells and abilities, but mechanically they are identical. For example, a Jedi Consular Sage is mechanically the same class as a Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer. While the Sorcerer is throwing around Force Lightning with a spell called Lightning Strike, the Sage is hurling pure kinetic force with a spell called Disturbance. While they have wildly different animations, these two spells have the exact same resource cost, cast time, cooldown, and damage.

How Legacy of the Sith‘s Combat Styles turn this whole system on its head

Now, SWTOR has introduced Combat Styles. This is a decoupling of the Advanced Class from the Story Class. With Combat Styles, Story Classes and Advanced Classes are broken down into two types: Technology (Tech) and Force. Your Story Class still determines what Class Story you experience in the 1-60 content, but now you are free to choose from any Advanced Class of that type, even ones previously not available to your faction.

The Tech Story Classes are Republic Trooper, Smugger, Bounty Hunter, and Imperial Agent. When you pick one of those Story Classes, you can then learn any of these Advanced Classes:

• Vanguard/PowerTech: Tank/mDPS
• Commando/Mercenary: Heal/rDPS
• Scoundrel/Operative: Heal/mDPS
• Gunslinger/Sniper: only rDPS

The Force Story Classes are Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Sith Warrior, and Sith Inquisitor. Their Advanced Class options are:

• Guardian, Juggernaut: Tank/mDPS
• Shadow/Assassin: Tank/mDPS
• Sage/Sorcerer: Heal/rDPS
• Sentinel/Marauder: only mDPS

On the PTS (SWTOR’s version of the PTR), existing Force user characters had to earn a specific alignment-based achievement to choose a cross-faction Advanced Class which we’ll look at in detail in a little bit.

How would Combat Styles work in practice?

For now, let’s see how this might play out with a Tech class. With the popularity of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett shows on Disney+, the Bounty Hunter Story Class is a popular choice for new characters. But let’s say you want to make a character modeled after Fennec Shand (portrayed brilliantly in both shows by Ming-Na Wen).

Fennec is master sniper, and wouldn’t you know it, SWTOR has a Sniper Advanced Class. The problem is that in the current version of the game, to play a Sniper, you have to pick the Imperial Agent Story Class. The Agent story, while one of the best SWTOR has to offer, is a story with tropes more from Mission Impossible and James Bond than The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

Combat Styles in Legacy of the Sith provides an answer to this dilemma. You can pick the Bounty Hunter as your Story Class. Since Bounty Hunter is a Tech class, you have the option to pick the Sniper Advanced Class.  Now you have a character tracking down bounties with her superior sniper skills.

Following your personal story with alignment

SWTOR has a Dark/Light alignment system for all characters. Throughout the story, you make choices that reflect your alignment and earn you either Dark Side or Light Side points. It doesn’t matter which Story Class you picked. You have full agency to make the choices you want for your character. Want to play a ruthless Jedi constantly slipping toward the Dark Side? Just make those Dark Side choices. Want to play a “simple man trying to make my way in the universe” and be fundamentally ‘good’ while also collecting bounties? Just play through the Bounty Hunter story making Light Side choices. Is it your character concept a Grey Jedi constantly walking the line between Light and Dark? You can do that, too.

For existing characters of the Force Story Classes, Legacy of the Sith will provide a new exciting addition to this system. If you are playing a Jedi Knight or Consular, but earn enough Dark Side points to get the Dark V achievement (that’s a lot of Dark Side points), you’ll have the option to switch your Advanced Class from the Jedi version to the Sith version complete with the appropriate spell names and animations. Your Jedi Consular Sage will now shoot lightning casting Lightning Strike while still being a Sage on the Republic faction. Likewise, your Sith Warrior could become a Jedi Knight, but still be on the Imperial faction.

Combat Styles provides a way to provide cross-faction play

One interesting application of Combat Styles is allowing a form of cross-faction play. If all your friends are Republic, but you want to play a Bounty Hunter, Combat Styles would allow you to play a Bounty Hunter Advanced Class like Mercenary or Power Tech on the Republic faction. All you need to do is choose either the Republic Trooper or Smuggler story. All of your combat will be quintessential Bounty Hunter. All you’ll miss is the Bounty Hunter 1-60 story.

Subscribers get the ability to unlock quirky and fun combinations

SWTOR is a Free-to-Play game with a subscription option. One of the perks subscribers will get with Legacy of the Sith is the ability to have a second Advanced Class within the overarching type. If you are a Tech Story Class, you can choose from any Tech Advanced Class for your second Advanced Class. If you are a Force Story Class, you can choose from any Force Advanced Class. You can switch between the two Advanced Classes you have chosen anytime you are out of combat.

You could have Jedi Knight Sentinel paired with a Sith Inquisitor Assassin which would give you a tank capable of Stealth. As Flan pointed out, this is basically “just a barbarian yelling ‘SNEAKING!'” I had thought about making Imperial Agent Operative paired with a Republic Trooper Commando. It’s a character that is all about stealth but when the excrement hits the oscillating cooling device, he pulls out a giant cannon and yells, “say hello to my little friend!”

Reviewing the Tech and Force options, players of a Tech Class that want to tank have to take either Vanguard or PowerTech as one of their Advanced Classes. A Force player that wants to heal would need to select either a Sage or Sorcerer Advanced Class. There are several combinations that would give you Druid-like flexibility like Power Tech/Commando or Shadow/Sorcerer. A character with those Advanced Classes can tank, heal, ranged DPS or melee DPS.

I’ve always wanted this kind of flexibility in World of Warcraft. If WoW had something like this, I would have changed my main to a Protection Paladin paired with a Beast Master Hunter long ago — it would give me everything I’ve ever wanted in one class. Players generally react favorably to changes that provide more options. 10.0 will be a key expansion for the World of Warcraft, and a feature like this could be a major selling point.

Originally published 1/31, updated 2/15