Huttball is a player-vs-player Warzone in Star Wars The Old Republic. In this guide we’ll be going over how to score points in Huttball, how to pass the ball, and how not to kick the Huttball, because Hutt’s Don’t Have Feet!
There is actually three different types of Huttball maps – but the rules are the same for each one, only the layout and traps change for each map.
Objectives
In the Huttball player versus player match type, there’s really only one objective: score the Huttball by bringing it across the other team’s endzone line, or stop the other team from bringing the Huttball into your team’s endzone.
Picking Up the Huttball from the Center
In the beginning of the match, the Huttball will start off in the center, and both teams will race to get the Huttball first.
To pick up the Huttball, you just right-click the glowing blue Huttball floating in the center of the map. The first person to right-click it gets it.
You can help your team get the Huttball by either rushing to get it yourself, or by stopping the enemy from getting it first – you can pull, push, or stun nearby enemies until your team gets the Huttball.
Once someone does have the Huttball, the fight really begins! The player who gets the Huttball should start running it towards the enemy’s endzone. They will try to stay alive as long as possible, and more importantly, try to pass the Huttball to a team mate who is further forward than they are.
Who has the Huttball?
You can see who currently has the Huttball by looking for either a yellow or purple beam of light. If the beam matches your team’s color, your team mate has the ball. If it doesn’t match your team’s color, the enemy has the ball.
The character holding the Huttball also glows the color of their team if they have the ball.
You can also see the Huttball moving on the map – it’s the yellow swirly icon.
The scoreboard also shows which team has the ball, with a spiky-ball shaped icon lit up in either yellow or purple, or with neither lit up if no one currently has the Huttball.
Yellow team has the ball:
Purple team has the ball:
No one has the ball, it’s likely in the center of the map:
You can see which color your team is by looking at the scoreboard on the top right of your screen. Your team will be labelled as “Your Team”, and the other team will be labelled “Enemy Team”.
Your Team Has the Huttball
If your team has picked up the Huttball, you can help your team in many different ways:
- Slowing down, pulling, pushing, stunning or killing enemies who are trying to hurt your ball carrier
- Attacking enemies so they get distracted and attack you instead of your ball carrier
- Killing enemies so they get sent back to their respawn point
- Protecting your ball carrier any way you can, including guarding, taunting enemies, or healing your ball carrier
- Getting ahead on the map closer to your enemy’s endzone, so your team mate can pass the ball to you
- Getting into the enemy’s endzone so you can accept a pass from a team mate and score the ball
As a newer player, you can contribute by simply slowing down the other team as much as you can.
As an experienced player who is familiar with how the Huttball works, you especially want to get ahead for your teammate to pass to.
The Enemy Has the Huttball
If the enemy has the Huttball, your ultimate goal is to stop them from getting to your team’s endzone.
There are lots of ways you can help your team if the enemy has the Huttball:
- Slowing down, pulling, pushing, stunning and killing the enemy ball carrier
- Pushing, pulling or stunning enemies in traps like acid pits or fire
- Catching enemies in stealth who are in your endzone so they are exposed
- Pushing enemies off ledges, or pulling them down from ledges, so they can’t accept passes up high in your endzone
- Not being in your endzone in an area where the enemy can leap to you to get ahead
You Have the Huttball
You can get the Huttball a few different ways:
- Picking it up from the center by right-clicking it
- Killing an enemy who had the Huttball
- Having a teammate pass you the ball and successfully catching it
- or intercepting a pass from one enemy player to another
If you have the Huttball, your goals are to:
- Stay alive (if you die with the huttball in your hands, the other team gets the Huttball)
- Pass the ball to a team-mate without missing, ideally to a team mate who is closer to the enemy’s endzone
- Run forward with the ball if there is no one to pass it to, and no one is killing you
- and lastly throw the ball onto empty ground if you are going to die so at least the other team doesn’t get it
When you are holding the huttball, you are automatically slowed down, and it will feel harder to run than normal.
Lost and confused? Look at your map, as it will show you arrows in your team’s color to show you which way to run!
Huttball Explosion
If you hold the huttball for more than 45 seconds, it will explode, and kill you, giving the next nearest enemy the ball. At 35 seconds, a warning will flash saying “The Hutt is becoming angry!”, letting you know that you should either pass the ball to a team mate or onto the ground soon, as the Hutts are getting bored of watching you with the ball! As a bonus, this also knocks back everyone around your exploding body.
Passing the Huttball
To pass the Huttball while you have it, left-click the “Pass the Huttball” ability on your temporary ability bar – it will appear above your other abilities. It looks like a grey spikey ball on a blue background.
You then select an area on the ground to place it. You can throw it up to 30 meters away.
You can either try throwing it to a teammate, or throwing it onto the empty ground, which will reset the Huttball.
Be careful though, if a team mate moves after you throw the ball and they move outside of the blue circle placed on the ground, they will not “catch” the Huttball.
Even worse, if they move, and an enemy takes their place, the enemy will catch the ball instead. If you aim poorly you can also accidentally just throw the ball to an enemy.
If two players, either enemies or on the same team, are in the huttball’s passing circle, the player who is closest to the center of the huttball’s circle will “catch” the ball. So if your teammate is fighting with an enemy, if you try passing it to them, it’s likely that the enemy might catch the ball instead of your teammate.
Players who are stunned also can not catch the Huttball. So if you throw the huttball to your team mate, and an enemy runs up and stuns them, the enemy will catch that ball instead.
Players who are in stealth can not catch the huttball.
However, if a player is waiting in stealth for you to pass it, they can quickly unstealth and catch the ball if they are paying attention.
This is a very important part of most Huttball tactics – a “stealther” will stay stealthed in the endzone and wait for a pass, strategically unstealthing only once the ball has been passed and the huttball circle is on the ground, but not before then, so they don’t get seen in the enemy’s endzone.
It’s usually a bad idea to pass the ball to a team mate who is almost dead, as if they die with the ball, the enemy will get it. If you are worried you will die soon, and you don’t see a suitable teammate to pass it to, you can throw it on the ground away from enemy players.
Getting Ahead for the Huttball
“Getting Ahead” is the act of running ahead on the map towards the enemy’s endzone, so that your teammate with the Huttball can pass it forward to you.
Each map has some general locations that are especially good for catching the Huttball from.
If you are ready to catch the ball, you can use body language to let the ball carrier know – jumping up and down in place is a general way of saying you’re ready for a pass. If you’re in stealth, still jump, but make sure to unstealth the moment you see the blue Huttball circle appear around you.
If there are any enemies nearby – beware! If you are on a ledge, it’s common for enemies to try and push or pull you down from your position, so you can’t catch the ball. If an enemy is attacking you, don’t indicate that you are open, as the enemy will likely catch if unless you are very skilled and stun them when the ball is passed to you.
Huttball Reset
Whenever the huttball is thrown on the ground, accidentally dropped, or when a point is scored, the Huttball is returned to the center, sometimes known as “mid” for middle.
Player can accidentally or purposefully drop the Huttball they are carrying and return it to the center by…
- Stealthing out (Operative/Scoundrel/Shadow/Assassin) – makes you hidden, but also makes you drop the ball.
- Force Barrier (Sage/Sorcerer) – makes you invulnerable to all attacks… but you drop the ball.
- Teleporting (Sniper/Gunslinger/Sage/Sorcerer) Phase Walk, Hololocate, Hideout – Using the “Teleport” abilities will make you drop your ball as you change locations
- Force Camouflage (Marauder/Sentinel) While it’s not a true stealth ability, Force Camouflage will cause you to drop the huttball if you use it.
You also can’t pass the ball to any player who is actively using any of this abilities, until they are completed (so don’t throw the ball to a team mate with Force Barrier up, they won’t be able to catch it!).
If you don’t see any yellow or purple beam of light in the air, the Huttball is probably being reset.
Teams can “control mid” by having team members there ready to get the huttball, and killing any nearby enemies. That way, when the huttball resets, they are ready to grab it and start running it forwards.
Maps
There are three different Huttball maps you might get, though the rules for all of them are the same:
- Original Huttball (Nar Shaddaa, horizontal/flat map)
- Queshball (Quesh Huttball, vertical map with an orangey color terrain)
- Vandin Huttball (Vandin gas planet map, horizontal map with a dark green color)
They each have a different set of traps to be wary of, different layouts, and different ways to get around, but all the rules when it comes to passing and scoring the huttball are the same on all three maps.
Passing Through Traps
Different classes have different tricks when it comes to passing safely through traps, whether they are trying to get forward quickly without waiting for the traps, or are carrying the ball. It is important to know how the different traps work.
- Fire traps only damage you while you are standing in the fire.
- Acid traps only damage you while you are standing in the acid waterfall.
- Gas/poison traps gives you a debuff that kills you over 5 seconds, taking you from 100% health to zero over those five seconds. Even if you step out of the trap, you will still die once you are out if you got poisoned – so you don’t want to touch the poisonous gas at all.
- Electricity traps will stun you whenever you pass through or touch the electricity – and you can not use your stunbreaker to get out or roll through them safely. If you get stunned, you’ll just have to wait until you are unstunned long enough to run out.
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Scoundrels and Operatives can roll through the fire traps mostly unscathed, even while it’s lit, using their roll ability (Scamper/Exfiltrate passive at level 68+.) You’ll either take no damage or “one tick” of fire damage for 25% of your health, rather than the full blast.
Gunslingers and Snipers can use their roll as well to the same effect (Covered Escape / Hightail It) – make sure to jump after you finish your roll to quickly keep moving forward.
All of those, Scoundrels, Operatives, Gunslingers and Snipers can use their stunbreaker called Escape, and you can use it if you get stunned and hopefully run out of the trap in time.
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Sages and Sorcerers can use their Force Speed to go fast and not be stunned while using it (Level 73 choice called Egress.) They’ll still take some damage if they get caught in the trap though – but since they go through faster, they take less, around 30% of their health.
The Shadow and Assassin can also use their Force Speed to go fast and not be stunned while using it (Level 64 choice called Force Phase.) In addition, they can use their Force Shroud / Resilience before going though an inactive trap, as it will give them 3 seconds where they can’t be stunned.
All of those, Sages, Sorcerers, Shadows and Assassins, have a stunbreaker called Force of Will / Unbreakable Will, and you can use it if you get stunned and hopefully run out of traps in time.
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Vanguards, Powertechs, Commandos and Mercenaries can use their ability that allows them to run fast and not be stunned when passing unlit fire zones with enemies nearby. (Hold the Line / Hydraulic Overrides, lasts 10 seconds, immunity from movement effects.) In addition, your stunbreaker is called Tenacity / Determination, and you can use it if you get stunned and hopefully run out of traps in time.
Commandos and Mercenaries can also turn around and jump through inactive trap areas to avoid them all together, so they can’t get stunned while passing through. (Propulsion Round/Rocket Out, level 68 choice.)
Sentinels and Marauders can use their speedy ability to dance through the fire trap. This will let them also safely pass through inactive traps without getting stunned. (Blade Blitz / Mad Dash, Level 68 choice.)
Sentinels and Marauders, Guardians and Juggernauts can all use their stunbreaker if they get stunned on a trap, and hopefully get out on time. (Resolute / Unleash)
All of these are also very useful for when it comes to carrying the ball, so being familiar with your movement abilities for your class can be really useful!
Original Huttball
The original Huttball map is the one that has been around since the launch of the game – the easiest way to recognize it is that it is set inside a building on Nar Shaddaa, is mostly horizontal, and there are bright green acid pits near the center where the ball spawns.
Huttball Map
Start Point
At the beginning of the match, the two teams will start on opposite sides of the field. If you look out the window of the original Huttball map, you’ll be able to see some of the ramps leading forward, possibly some fire traps going off, and a sign in the distance showing the enemy team’s logo, where their endzone is.
You’ll either want to run up the various ramps forward, waiting for the fire trap to go away, or to jump down into the pit below and up the ramps on the side and run forward, though most people usually take the ramps to get to the center of the map faster.
Huttball Spawn
The Huttball is located in the very center of the map, between the two team’s endzones, and is surrounded by acid pits.
Endzone
The colorful arrows on the floor lead to the matching team’s endzone. Yellow leads towards the Frogdog’s endzone, and the pink-purple arrows lead to the Rotworm’s endzone.
If you are on the Yellow Frogdog team, and have the ball, follow the pink-purple arrows to score into the purple Rotworm’s endzone.
If you are on the Purple Rotworm team, and have the ball, follow the yellow arrows to score into the yellow Frogdog’s endzone.
To get to the endzone from the center where the Huttball spawns, you can:
- Pick up the ball and pass it to a team mate who is farther forward.
- Run across the middle ramps to the endzone.
- Take the air vent, then run up the high ramps if it lands you somewhere useful.
- Run down into the pit, and pass the ball to a team-mate in the endzone.
Acid Pits
Near the center of the map, surrounding the spot where the Huttball spawns, are two large acid pits.
Stepping in these won’t damage you a lot – so it’s ok to quickly run through them, or step in them accidentally. But, if you stand in them for more than a few seconds, your health will fall fast.
Fire Traps
The fire traps are more dangerous than the acid pits – you’ll likely only survive for about half a second inside a lit fire trap.
The fire traps are dormant by default, and over time will start glowing red like a hot stove as a warning, then will catch on fire and bar-be-que any players who are standing inside of them. Another way to see if they are about to light up is if the four posts surrounding them are glowing orange.
If you are stuck in front of a fire trap on a ramp, you can either wait for it to finish going off, or try jumping down elsewhere to move forward.
It’s common to be pushed into the fire – or even to be pushed and then stunned in the fire.
If you are carrying the ball, and need to go through a fire trap spot, be aware that someone will likely try and stun you in it! So be ready to either use your stunbreaker, or pre-emptively use an ability that will let you pass through it safely.
Air Vents
On the left and the right of where the Huttball spawns, there are two air vents that will shoot you up into the air if you walk onto them.
Unfortunately, where you land is totally random – you might go forwards, sideways, high up or down low. You’ll land somewhere vaguely near the middle, and there’s no way to tell before hand where you will land. Even if you follow someone on to an air vent, you might not land in the same spot as them or even go in the same direction.
Getting Ahead
There are a couple of useful spots you can get ahead to catch the Huttball at on this map.
Just up the ramp, past the acid pits in the center.
Up the ramp, past the fire trap, and onto the corner of the middle ramps.
On the higher ramps, which you can get to from the side of the maps or from a lucky gust from the air vent.
Further ahead on the middle ramps, especially past the fire traps.
In the actual endzone.
Buffs
Damage Boost (red, above) – 15% bonus to damage and healing, while fighting other players for 25 seconds. Hidden near the outer walls of the middle of the map.
Health (aqua colored, above) – Walk over it to heal 75% of your health. On the left and right of the map of the pit area near the endzone, just up the ramp.
Speed Boost (green, above) – Run at 200% speed for 15 seconds. Only in the pit in front of the endzones.
Queshball
Dubbed “queshball” by most players, the Quesh Huttball map is one of the most confusing to learn the layout of due to its vertical shape. This one is easy to recognize when you load into it as you’ll be looking down from your team’s start point, and won’t even be able to see the Huttball, as its hidden further down below you on the map.
Quesh Map
Unfortunately, the map for Queshball is almost useless due to the vertical shape of the map.
Start Point
When you wait for the match to start, you’ll be at the highest point of the map – this is also your endzone, at the “top” of the map.
There are essentially three levels – the top, the middle, and the bottom. No matter how you want to start the match, you’ll not want to stay up on the top level in your endzone, so feel free to fall your way down.
Huttball Spawn
The Huttball spawns in the center of the bottom floor of the map.
You’ll be able to see its blue light from where you start the match, but the Huttball spawn point itself will be hidden by the middle floor level.
To get down to it, you can jump down to the middle floor below where you start, and then run to an edge and then jump down again.
Endzone
The endzones for the two teams are across from each other on the “top” level.
There are multiple ways to get up there from the bottom – in general, you need to get the ball there in two steps – first get it to the middle level, then from the middle level up to the top.
When your team is in possession of the ball, the arrows on the floor and walls will lead you to the enemy team’s end zone. So if you’re on the Yellow Frogdog team, and your team has the ball, look for the yellow arrows – they’ll point away from your endzone, and towards the enemy team’s goal line, where you want to bring the ball. If you’re a Purple Rotworm and your team has the ball, look for the purple arrows to follow. Be aware that in Queshball, the arrows change both color and direction depending on which team has the ball!
If no team has the ball, both arrows will be visible, and pointing downwards to indicate both teams should be trying to grab the Huttball from the bottom of the map.
The hard part about this match it getting the Huttball from the bottom level back up to the top level to score it!
Bottom Level to Middle Level: There are multiple ways to get the Huttball from the bottom level to the middle level:
- Acid Trap Ramps in all four corners of the bottom level
- Grapple Hook on all four walls of the bottom floor, if you are not holding the Huttball.
- Passing the ball up to a teammate who is already waiting up on the edge of the middle level
- Using a leap ability to jump up to an enemy on the edge of the middle level, or other movement ability to get up there
Middle Level to Top Level: Getting from the middle level up to the endzone top level is easier:
- Go up the thin ramps on both sizes of the endzone (making sure you are going up to the correct endzone, and being careful not to get knocked off) and carefully passing the Acid Traps
- Passing the ball up to a teammate who is already waiting up on the edge of the enemy’s endzone
- Using a leap ability to jump up to an enemy on the edge of their endzone, or other movement ability to get up there
- If you happen to have the ball near your own endzone, you could also carefully cross the pipe between the two endzones
Acid Traps
If you are trying to get from the bottom level to the middle level, he main way to get up while holding the Huttball is by going through the acid traps.
You can tell it is getting ready to fire when green liquid start to drip down from the large pipe – make sure to get out of the way when that happens.
If you are caught in the acid traps once it fires, you will die almost immediately, so you don’t want to get caught in it.
There are also acid traps on the ramps leading up to each endzone.
If you are stuck waiting in front of an acid trap while it’s firing, you can either wait for it to finish going off, or try another method to move forward, as going through it will kill you.
It’s common to be pushed into the acid pit – or even to be pushed into it and then stunned.
If you are carrying the ball, and need to go through an acid trap, be aware that someone will likely try and stun you in it! So be ready to either use your stunbreaker, or pre-emptively use an ability that will let you pass through it safely.
Grapple Hook Tables
The grapple hooks in Queshball give you another way to get around the map.
You right-click the glowing blue tables that are on each of the four walls around the bottom floor, and they will teleport you to the edge of the middle floor, which allows you to bypass the dangerous acid traps.
However, you can only use the grapple hooks when you aren’t actively carrying the Huttball. So a good way to use them, is if a team mate is trying to carry the Huttball from where it spawned up to the middle floor, while they can’t use the grapple hook, you can use it to “get ahead” and then jump up and down to let them know you are ready for a pass.
Pipes & Platforms
Queshball also has all kinds of funky pipes and platforms you might occasionally find yourself on.
If you are a long-ranged player, like a Sniper or Gunslinger, there is a neat pipe on the top level that you can position yourself on and hit everyone down below without letting them reach you.
There’s also some interesting platforms underneath the middle level – you can actually run around down there if you fall down on to a small platform on the edge of the middle level.
Getting Ahead
In Queshball, due to the vertical nature of the map, having teammate get ahead so they can have the Huttball passed to them is even more important than all of the other matches.
The first spot to get ahead and wait for the ball is on the edges of the bottom floor, anywhere that’s 30 meters or so away and doesn’t have enemies nearby.
A great and common spot is on the edge of the middle floor, so you can catch a pass from down below – but you’ll have to pay attention to where the ball carrier is going and what direction they are heading, as you won’t be able to actually see them from the middle floor if they are down on the bottom floor. While standing on the edge, be aware that the enemy will try and push you off – and that if the enemy team gets the ball, they may be able to use one of their jump abilities to jump up to you and bypass the traps.
A third spot is on the ramps heading up to the endzones. The catcher can then quickly run it past the acid trap and into the goal line if they are lucky. Be careful, you can get pushed off the ramp!
Another place players can wait for the ball is up on the pipe between the two endzones of the top floor – but only long-range player can actually be useful while up there, and it’s a bit tricky to get up there and stay up there.
The endzone is where stealthers hide and wait for a pass – but it’s a very small endzone to hide in.
Buffs
Damage Boost (red, above) – 15% bonus to damage and healing, while fighting other players for 25 seconds. There’s a couple of four of these hidden around the map.
The first is immediately to the left of where you start off before the match starts.
The second set is to the right of where you spawn – it’s just off the edge of the middle level, on a tiny platform – you can hit it on the way down to the lower level where the Huttball spawns.
Health (aqua colored, above) – Walk over it to heal 75% of your health.
There’s two of these health packs near the corners of the middle platform, these ones aren’t hidden at all.
The third is hidden in an almost secret place – off the edge of the middle level there is a little platform. If you fall down on to it, you can then run across a pipe that runs underneath the middle platform and has a hidden health boost in the very center.
Speed Boost (green, above) – Run at 200% speed for 15 seconds. There is six of these hidden around the map.
The first set is to the left of where you spawn – it’s just off the edge of the middle level, on a tiny platform – you can hit it on the way down to the lower level where the Huttball spawns.
The second set is in the area where the Huttball spawns – there are two across from eachother, in front of the sewer grates.
And the final set is on the bottom floor, in the north and the south end of the map near the grapple hooks points.
Vandin Huttball
The newest of the three Huttball maps, Vandin Huttball is mostly horizontal but has a lot of obstacles and traps to get around, so you can’t just pass the ball forward like you can in the original Huttball map. This match takes place on the the Sky Shredder, a flying barge.
This map for whatever reason tends to have worse lag than the other warzone types – so animations and sound queues, particularly when it comes to figuring out where the ball is, may play after the ball is actually passed or scored. This can be frustrating, but is just an unfortunate part of the match.
Vandin Map
Start Point
You’ll start off on the opposite end of the field from the enemy team. You’ll be able to see lots of ramps and traps, but a large chunk of the playing field will be blocked by a large force field in the center – this is an obstacle you’ll have to work your way around as you try and score the Huttball with your team.
When you start the Vandin Huttball match, the simplest way to get forward is simply to step forward into the air vents, as they’ll give you a boost closer to the center of the field. The left vent will push you towards the left side of the field, and the right vent will push you towards the right side. Unless you have a specific strategy with your team, it doesn’t matter which you start with.
There’s also another less-well-known route, to the immediate left and right of where you start, where the big arrows are pointing.
It will lead you to a glass platform with an air vent at the end you can walk on to, to be pushed forward.
The air vent will land you somewhere on the side of the map.
Huttball Spawn
The Huttball spawns in the center of the map, surrounded by four acid pits.
If you took the obvious air vents from the start point, you can run forward on the ramps, and then jump down diagonally to get to the Huttball.
Endzone
The endzones in this match can be hard to see, as they are partially obscured by the colorful holographic fences that prevent you from passing the ball straight to the endzone from the middle of the map.
If you are on the Purple Rotworm team, you’ll want to take the Huttball towards the yellow glowing fence, and the endzone is behind there – follow the yellow arrows.
If you are on the Yellow Frogdog team, you’ll want to take the Huttball towards the purple glowing fence, and the endzone is behind there – follow the purple arrows.
These arrows appear and disappear depending on which team currently has the ball – they disappear all together if no team has the ball.
Be aware that the arrows on the walls near the vents are different – they instead indicate which way the vent will blow your character if you step on it. The usually blow you back towards your own endzone – backwards, not forwards. [[question – is this always true?]]
The hard part about this match it getting the Huttball from the center to the enemy’s endzone, past the holographic fence and all the traps! This match, even more so, relies on “passing the ball forward” to win, rather than running it yourself.
Acid Pits
Near the center of the map, surrounding the spot where the Huttball spawns, are four acid pits.
Stepping in these won’t damage you a lot – so it’s ok to quickly run through them, or step in them accidentally. But, if you stand in them for more than a few seconds, your health will fall fast.
Fire Traps
The fire traps are more dangerous than the acid pits – you’ll likely only survive for about half a second inside a lit fire trap.
Running through a lit fire trap without stopping takes about 50-70% of your health in one go.
The fire traps are dormant by default, and over time will start glowing red like a hot stove as a warning, then will catch on fire and bar-be-que any players who are standing inside of them.
If you are stuck in front of a fire trap, you can either wait for it to finish going off, or try jumping down elsewhere to move forward. The Fire traps in Vandin often have alternate routes below them.
It’s common to be pushed into the fire – or even to be pushed and then stunned in the fire.
If you are carrying the ball, and need to go through a fire trap spot, be aware that someone will likely try and stun you in it! So be ready to either use your stunbreaker, or pre-emptively use an ability that will let you pass through it safely.
Electricity Traps
The electricity traps are unique to the Vandin Hutball map. While they don’t hurt very much, they will stun you for a long time if you get stuck in them when they go off. These are my least favorite type of trap, and they can be very frustrating.
When they are lit, you’ll see lightning in them and a blue ring. You can tell they are about to become active when there’s electricity but not blue circle, and the four posts are glowing aqua colored.
If you pass through one or touch one, even if you try using a special movement ability or a stunbreaker, you will be stuck in them for a 6-second stun.
The worst part is if you get stunned near the end of the trap’s cycle, you’ll still be stunned for 6 seconds, and the trap might turn off and turn back on, stunning you again, before you can run out. You may have to wait a couple cycles before you can get the timers to line up enough to run out.
In general, try your best to just not touch these traps at all!
Gas/Poison Traps
Poison traps are unique to the Vandin Hutball map. They are similar to the fire traps but have an important difference. Fire traps damage you while you stand in them, but the poisonous gas will continue to kill you even after you step out of it.
Gas/poison traps gives you a debuff that kills you over 5 seconds, taking you from 100% health to zero over those five seconds. Even if you step out of the trap, you will still die once you are out if you got poisoned – so you don’t want to touch the poisonous gas at all.
When the poison trap is safe, you’ll see no gas and no lit up posts.
When the gas is about to turn on, the posts flow with four green glowing rings. This means the gas will turn on very soon.
When the gas trap is active, the columns won’t glow, but there will be a solid green ring and lots of gas visible. If you touch the trap or pass through it during this time, you’ll die shortly afterwards, even if you are out of the trap.
If you started with full health, and get stuck in a gas trap and get Toxified, you’ve got about five seconds to live – so you might make it to the endzone, if you’re lucky!
Poison traps are much like fire traps – you don’t want to be stunned inside of them, or pushed into them, especially if you’re carrying the ball.
Air Vents
There are two sets of air vents in Vandin – some near where you run into the match, and two near the center of the map. The air vents where you start simply push you forward so you can start the match quicker.
The air vents in the center of the Vandin map are different than the air vents in the original Huttball map – these ones will ALWAYS blow you backwards, towards your own team’s endzone. The air vents know which team your character is on, and blows different ways for different teams – the arrow above the vents indicates which way your character will be pushed if you step onto them. [[question – verify.. is this always true?]]
Since they blow you backwards rather than forwards, one way to use them is to push yourself up onto the ledges, allowing you to take the upper path while running with the ball or trying to get forward.
Grapple Points
There are also grapple points on the Vandin map, though they aren’t as useful as the ones in Queshball.
The grapple points are located in the endzones, and bring you up to the nearby endzone – but you can not use them while carrying the ball. [[question – can i use these to get in the enemy’s endzone if i don’t have the ball? i think no but unsure]]. To use a grapple point, walk over the glowing blue circle, and click the Gravity Grapple temporary ability button that will show up above your other abilities. You can only do this once every 45 seconds.
During the rest of the match, the gravity grapple will be greyed out and unuseable.
Edges
Unlike the other Huttball matches, Vandin takes place up in the air, and has actually cliffs and ledges that you can accidentally walk off of, or push enemies off if they are close enough to them.
The only other time you can use the gravity grapple is if you jump or fall off the edge of the map where the ledges are – the gravity grapple will light up if it’s not on cooldown, and clicking it while falling will bring you back up safely onto the map, as long as you aren’t carrying the ball!
Getting to the Endzone
The Vandin Huttball map is the one I have the hardest time understanding how to get to the endzone on, whether I’m carrying the Huttball myself or trying to figure out how to get ahead for a pass.
There are essentially two paths to get in to the enemy team’s endzone, either with the ball or to get ready to catch a pass – the high road and the low road.
The high road:
The high road is the most visible path from the center of the map, if you’ve just picked up the Huttball. It starts with two ramps that join together just past the acid pits, leading to a fire trap.
If you look down from the fire trap, you’ll notice there’s another set of ramps below you. That’s the low road – it also has traps on it, it’s just a different route.
Once past the fire trap, you can either go left or right but either side has a stun trap you’ll need to not get trapped in. You’ll notice you’re directly in front of the holographic fence, which makes it so you can’t just pass the ball immediately to the endzone.
Once past the stun traps, you’ll have a walkway and a poison trap to get through, and then you’ll be able to run into the left side or right side of the endzone, depending on whether you picked to go right or left earlier.
The low road:
The low road is less obvious about how to get up on to it, if you just picked up the Huttball.
There are two different ways to get on to it:
- At the beginning of the match, or when you die and respawn, instead of jumping down into the area where the ball spawns, you can just keep running forward on the ramps on the far left or right, past the fire traps.
- If you are already down in the middle of the map where the huttball is, you can take the central air vents backwards, which will then allow you to take the low road from the left or the right.
Once you are on the low road, and past the fire traps, there will be two stun traps right beside each other. This can be a hard area to get past if there’s enemies stunning you or pushing you, but once you do get past, there’s just a poison trap and then you’ll be in the center of the endzone.
The pit:
If a teammate has managed to get into the endzone, and is waiting for a pass, instead of bothering with the ramps, just jump right down into the giant pit in front of the endzone.
You can also jump down into the pit at any point from the high road or low road – you don’t need to stay on the ramps if you don’t want to.
Getting Ahead
Once you understand the ramps, you can then start working on getting ahead to accept passes from your teammates.
The simplest way to get ahead is to get up on the ramp near where the Huttball spawns, and get ready for a pass.
If the Huttball is already heading up that way, you can get a little more forward past the fire trap, on the “high road”.
There’s also a really amazing corner just past the electricity trap on the “high road” – if the ball carrier runs to the edge, they can pass it to you all the way up there!
You can also be ready on the edges of the Huttball pit – though the ball carrier is often looking forward, not sideways, and may not see you.
Another great place to be is on the corner of the “low road”. This requires a bit of set up, since you’d need to come in from the side to get up there.
As always, the endzone is a great place to catch a pass and score – but this endzone is one of the hardest to get to in the first place.
And lastly, stealthers can be ready for a pass in the endzone.
Buffs
Damage Boost (red, above) – 15% bonus to damage and healing, while fighting other players for 25 seconds. There are two of these on the map – on the outer edges of the map, on the glass ledges.
Health (aqua colored, above) – Walk over it to heal 75% of your health. There are four of these on the map – on the outer edges of the map, on the glass ledges.
Speed Boost (green, above) – Run at 200% speed for 15 seconds. There is one of these hidden in the pits in front of the endzones.
Points
Scoring in Huttball is quite easy!
You can see the current score and the timer on the scoreboard on the top right of your screen.
Scoring the Huttball gains your team a point.
The team with the most points when the timer runs out wins. The timer is 10 minutes long once the match starts.
The match can end early if either team gets a 6-point lead. So if you get a 6-0 match, it will end early, and a 7-1 match will also end early.
If any team reaches 10 points total, the match will also automatically end and they’ll win the match.
More Info
- How much are you slowed down by the Huttball? You get set to 60% of normal speed!
- Is there a channel ability to pick up the huttball? Nope, it’s immediate (server lag/ping/desync will affect it though.)
- What hapens if you explode and no one is nearby? If you hold the ball for 45 seconds or more, and you explode, and there’s no enemies within 30 meters, the ball will also reset to the center of the map. This is quite uncommon.
- What is kicking the huttball? There is a fun Cartel Market item call “Kick the Huttball” – you can sometimes find it for sale on the Cartel Market, in Cartel Packs, or on the GTN with credits from other players. If you have the item and right-click it to give yourself the “Kick the Huttball” buff, the next time you throw the huttball in a huttball, your character will “kick” it instead. This does not change how the game is played – but it plays a fun animation and makes the announcer scream at you about kicking the ball. Frequent PvPers often really enjoy having this item available during matches due to the announcer’s strong comments about kicking the ball that the entire team gets to hear.
- “Queshball” is not the official name for Quesh Huttball, but it might as well be.
- Players have a lot of trouble remembering the names of the different maps if they are new to PvP. The dark horizontal one is the original Nar Shaddaa Map, the orange-red-green vertical one is Queshball, and the green gassy one is Vandin Huttball.
- Opinions on Huttball are very divided amongst the playerbase. Some players love it while others hate it. How the teams are composed and how organized each team is before the match usually makes a huge difference – playing against a group of friends on voice chat with a disorganized random team can be really unfun as they will likely pass the ball to victory if your team doesn’t control the middle! This can lead to brutal 6-0 matches where one team barely feels like they got to play.
- There are twelve different cosmetic Cartel Market armor sets considered “huttball” sets. There’s both Frogdog / Rotworm jwerseys and uniforms, as well as Republic / Imperial uniforms and practice jerseys. These are not officially a part of Huttball nor are they required or give any boost – but frequent PvPers sometimes like to dress up in them to match the match.
- Vulkk.com Huttball Guide
Thanks
This guide took a lot of help from friends to get into Skirmish matches to test things and answer questions! Some of the wonderful players who took time out of their day to test include Zahk, Pathrik, Geordey, Lala, Valwinter, MontagoHalcyon, Fooj, Dlique, Mav, CRobin, and DCH, as well as any player that asked questions during our guild Q&A night!
Hello all, very excited to launch my #SWTOR Huttball guide!
With PvP Season, Season 3 starting tomorrow, I really wanted to dig deep and finally understand how all three maps works so I could share it with you, including over 100 screenshots + maps! 😱https://t.co/Rca6pTfv6G
— Swtorista (@swtorista) July 17, 2023