The WoW Gamers Guide to Star Wars: The Old Republic Characters
Let me start by saying that this is not meant to be an SWTOR to WOW comparison article, so it should not be treated as such.
This guide aims to compare and recommend SWTOR-classes based on which classes you enjoy playing in World of Warcraft. All information is based on available information presented by Bioware and by reviews made by the lucky few who has been allowed to try the game so far.
Everything here is subject to change while the game remains in beta.
WOW Warriors – SWTOR Sith Warrior or Jedi Knight
Roles – Melee DPS, Tank
Heavy armored damage taker and giver. Likes to give and take pain. Closest match is the Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior who both can do some considerable damage and also soak up a lot of pain from it’s enemies.
A very weak match is the Trooper and the Bounty Hunter who can tank and do DPS, but they are using ranged weapons where the warriors prefer melee. They can also heal, which can be a turn-off for some.
WOW Priest – SWTOR Jedi Consular or Sith Inquisitor
Roles – Caster, Healer
The iconic healer who also can dish out some real DPS. Closest match are the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor with the advanced classes of Sage and Sorcerer respectively. For healing there are also other classes available, but non of those are casters.
WOW Death Knight – SWTOR Sith Warrior or Jedi Knight
Roles – Melee DPS, Tank
The Death Knight is a heavy armored close-combat fighter who can DPS and Tank. Considering the class evil history, once being the servants of the Lich King, the closest match in SWTOR should be the Sith Warrior, but the Jedi Knight is also a viable choice.
For tanking the advanced classes Juggernaut and Jedi Guardian is the primary choice, for DPS one should choose Marauder or Jedi Sentinel, although both advanced classes can DPS.
WOW Hunters – SWTOR Smuggler: Gunslinger or Imperial Agent
Roles - Ranged DPS
There are no real pet-classes in SWTOR as all will have companions. For ranged DPS, the closest match are the Smuggler with the Gunslinger advanced class or the Imperial Agent with the Sniper advanced class.
Secondary match are the Trooper with the Commando advanced class and Bounty Hunter with the Mercenary advanced class, with the added benefit (or turn-off) that they can heal.
WOW Druid – SWTOR Jedi Consular or Sith Inquistior
Roles – Melee DPS, Tank, Caster, Healer, Stealther
So far there are no shape-shifters in SWTOR, but the druid-player often likes the versatility of the class, being able to fill any role as needed. Primary match in SWTOR are the Jedi Consular or Sith Inquistior, which can specialize in all roles and also have stealth.
Secondary match are the Trooper and the Bounty Hunter as they also can fulfill any roles, but they lack stealth and uses firearms for close-combat and tanking.
WOW Mage – SWTOR Jedi Consular: Sage or Sith Inquisitor: Sorcerer
Roles – Caster, Crowd Control
Mages isn’t really sci-fi, but in the Star Wars universe we have the force as a powerful ally. The Jedi Consular with the Sage advanced class or the Sith Inquisitor with the Sorcerer advanced class are as close to a caster as you can get in SWTOR. Both have crowd-control abilities aswell. They can also be specced into healing, which could be a turn-off for some, but it is the price you have to pay.
WOW Paladin – SWTOR Jedi Knight or Sith Warrior
Roles – Melee DPS, Tank, Healer
The paladin is a heavy armored melee fighter, tank and healer. The Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior are the closest match for DPS and tanking. For healing one would have to look to the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor, but they have much stronger ranged abilities than the paladin. Still, using force-powers and wielding a melee weapon is as close as you can come to the pally.
WOW Rogue – SWTOR Imperial Agent or Smuggler
Roles – Melee DPS, Crowd Control
Stealth, sneak attack, stuns, all-round nasty bugger. Primary match are the Smuggler and the Imperial Agent, but they can also heal, which can be a turn-off for some.
Secondary matches are the Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular and the Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor who all can spec into stealth and melee combat.
WOW Shaman – SWTOR Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor
Roles – Melee DPS, Caster, Healer
Medium armor, brutal melee, devastating elemental attacks or a versatile healer. Closest match are the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor, who can dual-wield, unleash powerful force-attacks or heal the team. Added bonus is the ability to stealth and tank.
Weak recommendations are the Trooper and the Bounty Hunter, who can fulfill the same roles, with the difference that they rely on ranged weapons and technology to do what the force-wielders do with the force.
WOW Warlock - Jedi Consular: Sage or Sith Inquisitor: Sorcerer
Roles – Caster, Debuffer
There are some strange aliens in SWTOR, but none as strange as a demon. But there are still classes who can unleash a fury of devastating magic *cough* force-attacks. Closest match for the warlock is the Jedi Consular with Sage advanced class or the Sith Inquisitor with the Sorcerer advanced class. The Inquisitor has a slight edge with the ability to drain life from it’s opponents.
As i mentioned above, these are top line guides and need to be expanded on, so please post any relevant feedback that will help us refine and grow this post in the comments section below.
By Fredrik Holmbom – Guest Writer
Join the Forum discussion on this post
Tweet This
Share on Facebook
Digg This
Save to delicious
Stumble it
Loading ...
Thanks for the brave attempt at pulling something like this together. Its useful and the more WOW players we can get to jump to SWTOR, the better for the game.
I cant disagree more. While the subscriptions would be nice for BW, the fact is, WoW kids with their instant gratification mode, and lvl to Max in 8 hrs and emphasis on gear and addons like gearscore and automated systems will be SO loud on the forums that the devs could cave and dumb the game down to satisfy the WoW crowd.
I think that Blizzard has "dumbed" down WoW to much, it is one of the reasons I doesn't play it anymore.
One can hope that the dumbing will make those players looking for more of a challenge to move to SWTOR and that the whiners stay in WoW.
I feel like by concentrating on the melee vs. ranged too heavily you missed out comparisons of Bounty Hunter to Paladin. The Ret/Holy/Prot trio is a pretty fair match to Bounty Hunter's Mercenary-Arsenal/Mercenary-Bodyguard/Powertech-Shieldtech.
This guide is not meant to give a full comparison between WoW and SWTOR, instead I aimed to offer a few pointers when choosing a class in SWTOR based on the playstyle one prefer in WoW.
Since the Paladin have most of it's life lacked any real ranged attacks, it felt right to focus on melee. Although the shockadin-build is quite fun, it lacks real DPS sadly.
Bounty Hunter and Trooper getting left out? Not cool.
That's all nice and good. But there is no class to match up with #WoW new #Kung-Fu #Panda class they are bringing. All too easy!
The Monk is interesting, very interesting is the fact that it lacks auto-attack like another mmo due to be released soon .. *cough*
Thanks for this!
You are welcome
Looks good! Might I suggest Assassin/Shadow for Rogue as well.
I personally see the Sith Inquisitor: Assassin being the Rogue in SWTOR.
I didn't put the Assassin as a primary match since it is a force-user, but in many ways you are much correct.
I will play the Inquisitor as my first char when SWTOR releases, but I are having a hard time choosing if I should specc for healing/caster or take the Assassin role. Assassin looks like a really fun advanced class >:-)
Some of your comparisons are a little wrong because each of the WoW classes has 3 specs which play differently. You have to look at the icon class mechanics of the wow classes before making the comparison and compare to the abilities of the Jedi class.
For example,
A Death Knight tank is more like a Jedi Shadow tank because both have self-healing and shields.
A Shaman healer is more like a Trooper healer because both have an earth shield like ability.
A Druid healer is more like a smuggler because both heal through HoTs.
A WoW rogue is probably more like a Jedi Shadow than a smuggler because the Shadow can stealth.
When I wrote this one I was perhaps focusing to much on making links between force-users and magic users, in my defence I can say that since I haven't played the beta (yet) so I do not know the "feel" of all classes and therefore all this is pure speculation.
I tried to compare roles first, tank-class <-> tank-class, then magic <-> force, melee <-> melee and so on. I think I'm not totally of the mark.
It is very fun to read all comments and see where I might be wrong, or right
Scoundrel (Smuggler AC) and Operative (Imperial Agent AC) can both stealth, backstab and heal!
A few of the comparisons I feel are off a bit. Barring the melee dps end of things I would give both the Paladin and Shaman to the Trooper/BH. When friends have asked me about a trooper the best description i can give them is "a Trooper is what you get when you give a paly a gun." The other one is Druid should definitely go to the Smuggler/IA the Scoundrel/Operative is a close range dps and healing style is most like a druids (lots of hots).
As far as complaints about WoW babies ruining SWTOR, everyone should just accept that the majority of players are going to come from WoW. they have the largest player base of any MMO, and barring a massive influx of players who have never played an MMO the most likely source of new customers will come from WoW. This is fine with me as I have played WoW myself and met alot of good players and people in the game, as well as others who have made it to my ignore list. I would love to see SWTOR be massively successful and if that means stealing away half of WoWs player base than so be it.
There is a big one reason why many WoW kids will not survive the 30 first days of SW:TOR, the dialogues, the dialogue is a big huge part of the game, they can skip it of course, but on Flashpoint and Operation they can not and it is a big part of the endgame and leveling with other people, those kind of kids just want to click press 123 and lvl up, so this is what I hope they will not fuck up whining this game.