Easiest Classes to Play in SWTOR

Star Wars: The Old Republic has eight Combat Styles you can choose from, and each Combat Style has three Disciplines within it you can swap between. In the guide, we’ll be going over which disciplines are easiest to play at a basic level, so you can find a fun class that requires minimal button pressing.

Which class is easiest in SWTOR?

While how easy each class is is subjective, here’s my picks for the easiest Disciplines for each Combat Style! These may not be the highest-hitting choice for each class, but they do have the least amount of abilities needed for a basic skill level, and the least amount of abilities to track.

  • Sentinel/Marauder Watchman/Annihilation
  • Guardian/Juggernaut Vigilance/Vengeance (great for button mashing!)
  • Shadow/Assassin Infiltration/Deception (fun to click the sparkly abilities and not think!)
  • Sage/Sorcerer Balance/Madness for leveling or many enemies, or Telekinetics/Lightning for single-target
  • Commando/Mercenary Gunnery/Arsenal
  • Vanguard/Powertech Tactics/Advanced Prototype
  • Gunslinger/Sniper Saboteur/Engineering
  • Scoundrel/Operative Scrapper/Concealment (my easiest pick!)

If you’d like to learn more about what options you have, keep reading, and I’ll go over all 48 disciplines in the game and you can find one that’s a good mix of easiness and fun!

Roles

Let’s start by talking about roles. There are three roles – DPS, sometimes known as ‘damage’, Tank, and Healer. DPS players do damage to the enemy, Tanks can soak up a lot of damage and have more defensives and protect their group in group content, and Healers heal themselves and their group or companion. When you are creating a character, you can see a summary of the three Disciplines each Combat Style has on the right, and they’ll be clearly labelled on whether or not they do damage, tank or heal.

Group

When it comes to group content, the easiest role is DPS. Damage players usually just have to focus on killing enemies, and don’t have to worry too much about watching what the boss or the rest of the group is doing. As a damage character, your main focus will be hitting the boss as hard as possible, and staying out of any ‘bad stuff’ that shows up on the ground. Tanking and healing are both more difficult to learn and pick up in group content, as you have specific expectations to meet, and you can actively let your group die if you aren’t doing your job.

Solo

For solo content, it’s a little different. Damage roles are considered the default for levelling or running around the planets, as they can defeat enemies quickest, allowing you to move quicker between quests. Many players suggest that even if you want to play a tank or healer, you should level as a Damage discipline, as it’s faster. However, you may find tanking or healing easier, and may not mind going a little slower. If you play as a tank, you’ll have more health and can take bigger hits from enemies, and have your companion heal you. If you play as a healer, you could have your companion tank or damage, and just focus on healing them and yourself.

Stealth

If you are playing solo, another big factor to consider is stealth. Stealth allows you to sneak past most normal enemies, so you don’t have to fight them at all, making everything easier and faster. There are only two types of Combat Styles that can stealth: The Shadow and its mirror the Assassin, and the Scoundrel and its mirror the Operative. Many players choose Combat Styles with stealth to make things easier, but it comes at the cost of not being able to choose from the full selection of Combat Styles.

Ranged vs Melee

When doing more difficult content, especially Operations, it can often be easier to play a Ranged class, that can shoot things from far away, rather than having to be directly beside the boss to hit it. Ranged is also good for solo players who struggle to find or see enemies – you can often shoot enemies without even knowing exactly where they are. Melee classes, like most of the Jedi and Sith classes, do have some abilities that help them move around quicker, likes leaps and speed boosts, but Ranged still tends to be considered easier to move around with.

Tanks/Healers

For this guide, we’ll only be looking at the damage classes. In my personal experience, all the healing classes are on even footing when it comes to difficulty, with the Sage / Sorcerer healer being slightly easier to keep track of. The tanks are a different story, and they each have their own special differences that make them unique. I consider the Shadow / Assassin tank the hardest of the three types to learn, and the Vanguard / Powertech tank the simplest, with the Guardian / Juggernaut tank right in the middle, but Guardian and Jugg tanks have a key ability that allows them to completely reflect some types of big damage attacks.

Playing with Lag

If you’re playing on a server that’s far away from where you live, or have slow internet, you may want to choose a class that has lots of slower cast times for their abilities, like Lightning (Sorcerer) / Telekinetics (Sage), Marksmanship (Sniper) / Sharpshooter (Gunslinger), or Arsenal (Mercenary) / Gunnery (Commando).

Sentinel/Marauder

Let’s start by talking about what’s NOT the easiest class to play. While checking out all the different disciplines at a beginner level, the Sentinel’s disciplines and its mirror the Marauder were by far the least newbie-friendly when it came to finding a simple and easy-flowing rotations.

Combat/Carnage

Combat and its mirror Carnage, is one of the most complicated disciplines in the game – it’s basically a series of 19 abilities, that when used in order, do big damage. If you can master this long rotation though, you can do big damage, without having to understand well how or why it works. The down-side of this big 19-button insanity is that if you make a mistake or get interrupted, it’s not very easy to get back on track, and the whole rotation is very tightly packed. Luckily a nice quite skilled Carnage player helped us put together a simpler version that’s easier to recover from, but Combat and Carnage still makes the top of my personal list for most difficult classes to play. Oh, did I mention it’s required to get two special pieces of equipment first, to make this discipline play smoothly?

Concentration/Fury

Fury, and its mirror Concentration, are kinda similar, in that they also don’t have any kind of simple rotation – you just need to memorize a sequence of 13 abilities in a row. The big difference is that you can easily fix things if you make a mistake while playing Concentration or Fury. When I was learning Fury, I basically put all of them on my bars in order and clicked my way to victory.

Watchman/Annihilation

Of the three Sentinel and Marauder disciplines, Watchman and Annihilation are by far the easiest and the most simple. You won’t get very far with these disciplines if you are button mashing, but if you know and understand a few of their key abilities, you can do a nice chunk of damage without too much skill. Of all three disciplines for the Sentinel and Marauder, Watchman and Annihilation are the only ones that can be played with a 5-button rotation.

Guardian/Juggernaut

The Guardian and Juggernaut is similar to the Sentinel and Marauder in that it has an easier and a harder damage discipline to choose from, and I’d rate both of them at a medium difficulty to play at a basic level.

Defense/Immortal

Tank!

Vigilance/Vengeance

After learning to play Vigilance, it’s quickly become one of my new favorite classes to smash buttons with. On the surface, it looks difficult, as it has ten main abilities to use as part of your rotation. The fun part is that the first five you just memorize (or put them in order on your bars like I did), and the other five you just use based on if they are available or not. Once I had my quick bars all set up, I found this a fun and easy class to play.

Focus/Rage

Focus and Rage are a bit more complicated. It also has a 13-ability rotation you can memorize, and when done perfectly, you can hit hard without too much skill. If you do make a mistake, all you can do is use your basic attack until you can pick things back up again.

Shadow/Assassin

If you’re looking for an easier Jedi or Sith set of Combat Styles to play, the Shadow and Assassin are great picks, and you get access to stealth.

Kinetic Combat/Darkness

Tank!

Infiltration/Deception

With all of these more complicated disciplines we talked about, Infiltration and Deception have become my go-to disciplines to play when I want to keep things simple and not have to think too hard and just click buttons. Infiltration and Deception’s rotation is pretty funny – you can get away with using just using 5 abilities, and you just click whichever ones are glowing. There’s also a lot of fun tricks you can add on to this class over time, to gradually get better at the class a little bit at a time.

Serenity/Hatred

Serenity and Hatred are slightly more difficult – but not by a lot. You’ll have to watch two damage-over-time abilities on your enemy, and remember to re-apply them as they run out.

Sage/Sorcerer

The Sage and the Sorcerer’s damage disciplines are quite interesting, as one is more for single enemies, and the other excels at attacking multiple enemies, but both are pretty simple to play at a basic level, which makes the Sage and Sorcerer a great pick for players who want to be able to swap between those two playstyles.

Seer/Corruption

Healer!

Telekinetics/Lightning

Telekinetics and Lightning are the single-target disciplines for the Sage and Sorcerer, and while I wouldn’t say they are easy, I would say they are not too hard to learn. Telekinetics has a mix of different types of abilities, and also can be learned a little bit at a time, and gets more satisfying, smoother, and faster the better you learn to play it.

Balance/Madness

Balance and Madness are the multiple enemy disciplines for the Sage and Sorcerer, and is pretty easy to pick up, and easy to switch between attacking one enemy or multiple when you need to. This is a fun and easy class to level or run around and do dailies or heroics with.

Commando/Mercenary

While the Commando and Mercenary’s disciplines are both pretty easy to play at a basic level.

Combat Medic/Bodyguard

Healer!

Gunnery/Arsenal

Gunnery is great if you just want to shoot things – you can very easily get away with just using five abilities, and it doesn’t get much more complicated than that to play at a higher skill level.

Assault Specialist/Innovative Ordnance

Assault Specialist and IO are my favorite classes for when I want to set things on fire, and also doesn’t require a ton of abilities to play. Unlike many other disciplines, you can use a set rotation of just 9 buttons in order to memorize – just set them up in order on your bars, and click your way across.

Vanguard/Powertech

The Vanguard and the Powertech are both pretty simple to play at a basic level. Both discipline types are those interesting classes that you can really add on to over time, and increase your skill a little bit at a time.

Shield Specialist/Shield Tech

Tank!

Plasmatech/Pyrotech

Plasmatech and Pyrotech are slightly more difficult, as you will need to keep your eye on your two damage-over-time abilities on your enemy, and make sure to re-apply them when they run out.

Tactic/Advanced Prototype

Tactics and Advanced Prototype have a a mix of abilities, and you can get away with just using 5 abilities if you want.

Gunslinger/Sniper

While the Gunslinger and the Sniper may not be the hardest to learn, I find them some of the most difficult to play because you need to “stay still” with your special crouch ability.

Sharpshooter/Marksmanship

Sharpshooter and Marksmanship are considered the most classic or iconic disciplines for the Gunslinger and Sniper. When you first glance at it, there seems to be a ton of abilities, but once you understand what they are for it’s pretty easy and intuitive to play. Sharpshooter and Marksmanship are unfortunately really low on the damage charts at the time of making this guide.

Dirty Fighting/Virulence

Dirty Fighting and Virulence are pretty simple and don’t use too many abilities, but as they are damage-over-time disciplines, you’ll need to pay attention to your damage-over-time abilities and remember to re-apply them when they run out. If you can manage watching out for those, this class is pretty easy to play.

Saboteur/Engineering

Of all three Gunslinger and Sniper disciplines, I found the Saboteur and Engineering disciplines the easiest to play at a basic level. It does however seem harder to get really good at compared to the other two.

Scoundrel/Operative

Scoundrel and Operative have two discipline types that are pretty different from each other, but both are pretty easy to play at a basic level. They both also have stealth, letting you sneak past most  enemies.

Sawbones/Medicine

Healer!

Ruffian/Lethality

The more complicated of the two disciplines, Ruffian and Lethality are another one of those discipline types that require you watch your damage-over-time abilities, and re-apply them when they run out. It is however much more suited to attacking multiple enemies than the other discipline available.

Scrapper/Concealment

And here’s my number once choice for easiest damage discipline to play! Not only do Scrapper and Concealment have stealth, but they also have an extremely simple rotation that really packs a punch. Or a stab. When we were first writing our 5-button guides, we were actually struggling to figure out what the final ability should be, because this class at a basic level is so simple you can get away with playing with with just four abilities with your basic attack thrown in here and there. Concealment also doesn’t get a lot more difficult when it comes to playing at a higher level of skill – you add in a few extra tricks, but even the most complicated rotation is still easier than some of the harder disciplines we talked about!

Summary

I hope this guide helped you pick a fun and easy Discipline to try if you’re choosing a new class! My top three picks for easy classes to play are Scrapper Concealment, Infiltration/Deception, and Vigilance/Vengeance. In the end though, what might be easy for me might be hard for you, and you may find the playstyle of a discipline marked as hard works great with how you play. The only real way to know which class will be easiest for you is to try them out! Don’t forget, if you are a subscriber, you can unlock a second Combat Style for your character, so you’ll have a total of 6 disciplines to choose from if your first choice wasn’t a good fit.