As I start to type this post I am about to queue for my first ranked PvP arena since season 7, which was in late 2016. It is now early 2022, so it's been just over 5 years since I last tried to work my way up the ladder. As we are currently in season 15's pre-season, my goal isn't to win every arena, although that would be great. It's to figure out what works for my class and to earn Ranked PvP Reward Tokens for the limited time replica gear which, funnily enough, a lot of is gear I would have been earning when I first did Ranked PvP. Some of them are even just before my time, where I'd have geared myself in gear similar, but not the exact same, for regular PvP Warzones.
Season 7
Back then my main class in PvP was my virulence specialization Sniper and I played primarily in the grouped queue reaching 1416 in rating, making my rank 557 overall. I'd say this is my highest achievement in SWtor as I was in a successful group, solo queue was a different story. I remember my solo arenas being hit or miss, where you'd know if you were going to win based on who was in your team, and who you were against. Players would offer other players credits to queue on the opposite faction under geared and not ready for PvP. This would give them an unfair advantage. I played on the Imperial side, and while I can't say I didn't hear of Imperial players doing just that, I would go up against Republic players who were known for doing it. I don't believe I went into solo ranked PvP for long because the few matches I did do really stole my thunder and I wasn't motivated to play when there was a decent chance the odds were severely against me winning. Because of this my solo rating was 1021, ranking me at 18526, a whole lot lower than my grouped rating.
A lot has changed since then. The expertise stat has been completely removed. Gone are the days of gearing your companions in PvP gear for some cheeky open world PvP tactics because companions now don't use their gear's stats. There isn't two sets of PvP gear, there's barely different gear for each class, mainly it's based on your role now. Using a now not up to date SWtor fan website Dulfy.net, which I used extensively for information on SWtor back then, I can even see the prices in PvP gear, which were earnable with warzone commendations, a currency only earnable within PvP. And to add to that, there was regular warzone commendations, and ranked warzone commendations, meaning you had to do PvP to get geared, and then do Ranked PvP to get geared again to be able to perform to your fullest.
Pre-Season 15
Just over 5 years later, here I am again. This time I'm playing Tactics Vanguard, and have just finished gearing myself in 326 rating Thyrsian Boltblaster gear, which is the gear given out when taking the PvP route of gearing. What's a refreshing take on gearing, is now you don't have to do primarily PvP to gear up your character to the max. Galactic Starfighter now rewards you with the resources needed to get PvP gear, and PvE players even took to gearing up their characters this way and using their now high armour rating to jump to another avenue of gearing without having to start from scratch. It was an odd way of gearing that honestly had come out of left field for players, as Galactic Starfighter barely got any attention since it's release back in 2014, only getting small updates like a new map in update 5.6.
And with all that, a day later the queue pops! I had a great team, everyone communicated and we planned ahead with the marking system. It was a great reintroduction to ranked PvP! The second arena didn't go so well however. Something I noticed is my augments aren't having any effect while in an Arena instance which is a shame because I spent hundreds of millions of credits getting the right ones, and even ones I didn't need when I was gearing in the wrong direction. Another thing I noticed was that when I was switching between my specializations, it reset my ability tree, so I wasn't performing at my fullest with my proper rotation. But the latter is my fault for not paying attention sooner.
Along with that, to make up for my poor performance afterwards with being focussed heavily when the rounds start, I've switch out my level 68 ability tree option with Guard Cannon to heal myself that little bit more while I burst damage. Before that I had Hold the Line which I don't think did very much with how small the arena maps are, and how quickly the rounds go by.
I'll let you all know how it goes another time, so look out for a possible Vanguard PvP guide in the future. I might add a Ranked section if I get enough experience. Being told to leave the ranked queue isn't the most fun I've had though, so maybe not? Who knows?
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