Star Wars: The Old Republic is quite a huge game, and a new wanderer in its engaging universe can easily become overwhelmed with how much to do, particularly the character development system. To build on that, we made a SWTOR Gunslinger Build and Spec guide.
I’ll be explaining the specializations of the Gunslinger in this guide, focusing on the respective rotations and builds for PvE and PvP games.
For more help on Star Wars: The Old Republic, read our Companions, Respec and Tweak Guide.
SWTOR Gunslinger Build and Spec
The Gunslinger has the following specializations:
- Sharpshooter
- Saboteur
- Dirty Fighting (shared)
Utilities
The Gunslinger’s Utilities are divided into three tiers namely Skillful, Masterful, and Heroic. You will have a total of 9 utility points to allocate to the best of your knowledge. We will be seeing what abilities you can use in each tier to get the best Commando on the field.
Skillful
- Ballistic Dampers – Three charges of dampers and each charge reduces incoming damage by 30% with a cooldown of 1.5 seconds. Time your attacks keeping the cooldown in mind and you will have great survivability in the battlefield.
- Hot Pursuit – Able to cast 4 Dirty Blasts moving out of cover. Great boost to mobility.
- Snap Shot – Pair this up with Hot Pursuit, and you can cast a Dirty Blast instantly after moving into cover.
- Cool Under Pressure – Heal 2% HP every 3 seconds.
Ballistic Dampers is a must have, select Hot Pursuit as your second ability from Skillful and choose between either Snap Shot or Cool Under Pressure. We would personally recommend you use Cool Under Pressure as that extra tiny bit of health can certainly accumulate to something useful towards the end; and give you that slight bit of advantage in firefights.
Masterful
- Heads Up – Gain a speedboost once Hunker Down finishes or when you leave cover with Hunker Down active. Can be used to greatly improve mobility, allowing you to reposition on the battlefield effectively.
- Reset Engagement – An alternative speedboost to Heads Up, you gain a 75% speedboost after Surrender. You can use this without having to perform a series of actions, thus making it much more reliable than Heads Up.
- Hold Your Ground – Reduce the cooldown of your Pulse Detonator and Defense Screen by a total of 5 seconds; and that of your Stun Breaker by 30 seconds. You also get 20% increase in ranged Defense immediately after exiting cover.
- Pandemonium – Using Pulse Detonator activates Dirty Blast and increases your chance to resist Force/Tech damage by 20% for 5 seconds.
Definitely go with Reset Engagement for the speed boost, and use Hold Your Ground to make your abilities more readily available for all situations. Pandemonium is a great addition to mobility as well.
Heroic
- Lay Low – Reduce cooldown of Hunker Down and Pulse Detonator has an even increased knockback.
- Holed Up – Reduce damage taken from AoE attacks by 60% with Hunker Down active.
- Opportunity Knocks – Increase Armor penetration for all targets affected by Diversion.
- Shield Reserve – Immune to pulls and knockback, heals you if you are under Scrambling Field and gives you damage reduction proportional to enemies influenced by it.
- Bait and Switch – Heals you, dodge extends for 2 more seconds.
Lay Low and Holed Up are must-have abilities. You can pick the one you like from the remaining 3 abilities. We would recommend you take Bait and Switch as it can be used to evade enemies in close quarters fight and gain the upper hand.
