The PvP Resolve Guide

Ever played warzones or even did duels and wondered what's with the purple/white bar under the opposing player's health? Oh well, this is a short guide that explains just that.

Basically, the resolve bar is a visual representation on how many movement, knock backs or action impairing effects (purple bar) a player can take before he becomes immune (the white bar).

Why is this useful you ask? It helps you get a better control on your target and you can use it to your advantage if you are aware of its mechanics.


Technical details

All classes in SWTOR have abilities that stun, knockback or impair the movement of NPC's or enemy players.

All of these abilities are considered to be Crowd Control(CC) abilities.

In Player versus Player combat the number of consecutive stuns a player can receive and not be immune is visually represented by the resolve bar. This bar appears only when a player is CC'd.

This bar has 0/1000 points at start, and progressively charges up as you get CC'd. This happens the same way to you and your enemy.


1. Single stun mechanics

When a single stun is applied to the target, depending on the stun duration, it gets different resolve points.

For example:

Operative's Hidden Strike talented with Jarring Strike after the latest patches does 1,5 seconds of stun, and thus does 400 points on the resolve bar.

Sith Juggernaut's Backhand inflicts 800 points on the resolve bar, because of its 4 second stun duration.

IF the target or yourself are not CC'd again, after the effect of the stun wares of, the resolve points start to decrease once every 2 seconds in 50 point increments.


2. Consecutive stuns mechanics

When a player engaged in combat gets stunned multiple times, and gets to 1000 points, his resolve bar will become white and he will become immune to other incoming CC's for a predetermined time.

From the moment the resolve bar hits 1000 points aka white state, it stays at 100% white for 7 seconds, after that, it starts gradually to fade to 0% which takes 9 seconds.

After the stun that generated 100%, the player will be immune for a total of 7+9=16 seconds until another CC effect can be applied. (for a better understanding of the progression see the last image of the post).

Tip: Any stuns dealt during the white state resolve will deal ONLY damage and NOT stun the target, so use them wisely.

In the majority of times, 2 consecutive stuns will generate 1000 resolve points and render the target immune.

In conclusion, the resolve is one aspect of the PvP world that needs to be taken into consideration, and if you master it, it will give you an advantage over your opponent.

Depending on your skills and abilities you can calculate the efficiency of your stuns, for example:
Do a 400 resolve stun, wait 10 seconds (10=5 ticks of resolve decrease which means the target will have 250 points less resolve aka 150 total resolve) and stun him again with a 800 resolve and he will have 950 resolve, and after that you can stun him again, because he is not immune.

That's all folks - hope this answers some of your questions regarding this PvP mechanic. All you have to do now is to improve your PvP strategy with the knowledge you just acquired.