Champion Gear Bags
I felt that Champion Gear Bags deserved their own page just because I know a ton of people will have questions about them since they are pretty much the main thing players will be grinding for gear at max level. One Champion Gear Bag will have 15 Centurion Commendations in it and 7 Champion Commendations which both can be traded in for PvP gear. As I mentioned on the PvP Gear page and the comparison page, Champion gear is one step above Centurion Gear and Battlemaster gear is above Champion Gear.
With the recent change to how acquiring PvP armor works in Swtor many players will find it much easier and much less random numbers to get gear. You used to get 3 Centurion Commendations from the PvP gear bags and a chance at a Champion Gear Token. Not anymore, each bag will give you 15 Centurion Commendations and 7 Champion which then can be traded in for different pieces of gear. You can also buy Champion Commendations directly from the pvp vendors in each Warzone for 120 Warzone Commendations.
How To Make The Most Warzone Commendations Per Match (Warzone Medal Guide)
That's just an example of the loot from a single Campion Gear Bag. As I mentioned before all of the bags share the same contents. You will get 15 Centurion Commendations and 7 Champion Commendations and no longer have a chance at a random gear token.
The main way that players get the Champion Gear Bags is by buying them with 200 Warzone Commendations and 200 Mercenary Commendations. As I said before on my PvP Gear Page the Warzone Commendations can be traded in at a rate of 30 for 10 for Mercenary Commendations. This is the main way of acquiring these bags and most common as it can be done an unlimited amount of times in a single day. The other two ways to get these bags are from the PvP dailies and weekly that come from the Terminal in Combat Training on your factions Fleet Station. The two daily and weekly quests are as follow:
[DAILY] Defeat Enemies/Collect Armaments or Play Warzones 0/30
For this quest you have to Defeat 30 Enemies or Collect 30 Armaments on Ilum or play enough Warzones to complete this quest. You can do all three if you'd like to complete it as quickly as possible. The Defeat Enemies and collect armaments is fairly straight forward so there is no reason to give details there but the play Warzones part has you get credit for 3 Warzones that you play. It doesn't matter if you win or lose the Warzone, it will only and always take 10 completed Warzones to complete this Daily.
[DAILY] Win 3 Warzones
This daily mission has you win 3 Warzones in a single day. For some servers this may be amazingly annoying to do. Luckily you don't have to complete this daily each day to get the weekly done. Only 3 times in a single week and you can get both done.
[WEEKLY] Win 9 Warzones
This weekly mission has you win 9 Warzones throughout the week. It's actually quite easy to do over the course of a whole week.
[WEEKLY] Defeat Enemies/Collect Armaments or Play Warzones 0/150
For this quest you have to Defeat 150 Enemies or Collect 150 Armaments on Ilum or play enough Warzones to complete this weekly. You can do all three if you'd like to complete it as quickly as possible. Don't worry about completing this weekly, if you do the daily each day and pvp for the day even after that's done, you'll be fine.
Each of the daily missions rewards players with a single Champion Gear Bag or a Battlemaster Gear Bag. You might be thinking now, why not just always go with the Battlemaster? The answer is because the Battlemaster Gear Bag can't be opened without having at least a Valor Rank of 60. Until you reach Valor Rank 60 it is better to just get the Champion Gear Bags since you can open them (obviously) and you need the gear anyway.
The changes they made to Champion Gear Bags is one of the best changes any pvper could ask for. This allows players to gear up in ways that aren't completely and totally random. With buying gear using commendations and no random pieces it makes it much more enjoyable actually knowing and planning out how you want to upgrade your gear. Although my least favorite part about it was leveling a new character on a new server at the time and not even realizing the changes for quite awhile!
How Long It Will Take To Gear Up
This is probably one of the biggest questions anyone will ever have when it comes to gearing up through PvP. Everyone wants to know how long it will take... Well this is here to give you the best breakdown I can with each piece of gear you will need to have a full set of Centurion Gear. I'll provide you with each peice of gear, how many Centurion Commendations it takes to obtain each piece and roughly how long it will take to acquire that many. Each class may need a few more or a few less depending on your weapons.
Centurion Focus (Offhand) - 24 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Boots - 39 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Bracers - 25 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Gloves - 39 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Headgear - 39 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Legs - 39 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Chestpiece - 39 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Implant - 21 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Weapon - 72 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Earring - 21 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Implant 2 - 21 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Relic - 14 Centurion Commendations
Centurion Relic 2 - 14 Centurion Commendations
If you had to purchase every single piece of Centurion gear it would cost you a total of 393 Centurion Commendations. Since you get 15 Centurion Commendations from each bag of gear this will only take about 27 bags to get all 393 that you need. It seems like a lot but once you start doing a lot of pvp they come rolling in quite quickly. Also considering you can spend the Champion Commendations on gear as well you won't even need that many Centurion Commendations if you just want a full set of better-pvp gear, if you know what I mean.
As for how fast you will gear up through pvp, I can normally get 4 or 5 bags a day from the dailies and buying bags via the Warzone and Mercenary Commendations. When you actually get a chance to turn in the weekly quests they are 2 bags a piece which is awesome and will buff up your daily total for that day. Also as I previously mentioned you will also be getting Champion Commendations in each bag which will decrease the over all total that you need in the first place. In a single day of non-stop pvping I managed to get 6 pieces of gear.