How to Create Emperor Palpatine in SWTOR: Full Build Guide

This guide shows you how to recreate Emperor Palpatine in SWTOR, covering character creation and relevant in-game elements.

The guide is designed to be as faithful to the lore and authentic as possible within the constraints of the game. You’ll find everything you need to know in order to create a toon in SWTOR and play like the Force-wielding megalomaniac Emperor Palpatine from the end of Episode 3 all the way through Episode 9, including physical appearance, outfit, abilities, and gear recommendations.

This build is not optimal for endgame content and should only be used when playing alone or role-playing with friends. It is beginner-friendly and does not require you to be at level cap to play it.

Physical Appearance

Sheev Palpatine is an old man that has no hair, sunken yellow eyes, a cleft chin, scars, and deformities. Here are the physical appearance parameters I recommend using for Palpatine as he appears after the attempt on his life that left him scarred and deformed.

How to create Emperor Palpatine in SWTOR

Sex: Male
Species: Human
Body Type: 2
Head: 10 (or 11)
Scars: 11 (or 1)
Complexion: 14
Eye Color: 11
Beards: 1
Hair: 1
Hair Color: 15
Skin Color: 1 (or 5 w/ DS Corruption)

Don’t get your hopes up too high for a perfect match on this one. SWTOR’s character creator struggles to produce older folks, especially ones as scarred and deformed as Papa Palpatine here. Many of the customization options are bundled together too, so you can’t have things like a wrinkly face and cleft chin at the same time.

If you are creating a new character, this is done during the creation process. You can use the Appearance Design Tool on the Fleet to alter the appearance of an existing character, but this will cost you Cartel Coins each time you do it.

Adding Dark Side Corruption

I don’t think it’s worthwhile to add Dark Side Corruption. It adds more detail to the face, but the eyes end up a fair bit redder than Emperor Palpatine’s and the corruption in the game really doesn’t look like what the Jedi did to him during their assassination attempt. You’ll need Dark Side IV or V to get the full effect.

Emperor Palpatine in SWTOR - dark side corruption ON — No Dark Side Corruption

Emperor Palpatine in SWTOR - dark side corruption OFF — No Dark Side Corruption

Outfit and Weapon

I recommend the Insidious Counselor’s Robes with a Secondary Black Dye and, if you have it, the Czerka Special Lightsaber. If not, the Nova Onslaught Saber with an Advanced Red Crystal. The armor set is a Cartel Market item, but at the time of publishing it is not up for sale and can only be purchased from the GTN or directly from another player.

There is no perfect match for Palpatine’s lightsaber, and to make matters worse, the best options aren’t available at all.

Of the sabers available right now, I think the most accurate option is the Nova Onslaught Lightsaber. It’s a crafted weapon and has alternate names, so flip through the GTN for one with the same model and it should be pretty cheap.

The Secondary Black Dye Module is available for purchase from the Underworld Exchange vendor named P-5C3 for 20k credits and 1 Cartel Market certificate. It only requires Newcomer standing with the Underworld Exchange.

Emperor Palpatine in SWTOR - outfit - Insidious Concelor Armor Set

The mount in the featured image is the Imperator’s Command Hoverthrone, which can be purchased from the same Underworld Exchange Vendor, P-5C3 for 120k credits and 6 Cartel Certificates.

Story, Combat Style, and Gearing Choices

This section will focus on key choices you’ll have to make in order to end up with a playstyle and story that fits Emperor Palpatine’s character.

Origin Story and Companion

Darth Sideous was the Sith Master during his time. His knowledge of the Force was unparalleled. The Sith Inquisitor is the way to go as their story delves deep into the mysteries of the Force and ascending the ranks of the Sith hierarchy.

I highly recommend using Talos Drellik as your companion equipped with the Imperial Advisor’s Robes so he looks like one of Palpatine’s Imperial Advisor buddies. You’ll meet him on Hoth.

If you want the robes to pop a bit more as they do in the picture, use the Dark Purple and Dark Red Dye Module. The robes are Cartel Market item but were not for sale at the time of publishing, so you’ll only be able to obtain them from the GTN. The dye comes from Kai Zykken’s Satchel of Dyes, a login reward.

Combat Styles, Disciplines, and Ability Tree Choices

Sith are all about passion, and if anything, Palpatine is passionate about Force Lightning, so Madness Sorcerer is the way to go for your main discipline and combat style.

Some of you might think Lightning Sorcerer is a better fit, but I vehemently disagree. Lightning has you repeatedly casting bolts of lightning at the target, which is more akin to how Count Dooku wields it. Palpatine, on the other hand, channels Force Lightning for extended periods of time, frequently to his own detriment.

Build Essentials:
Critical Movement
Cloud Mind (Usually)
Unlimited Power
Torturous Tactics
Surging Speed
Corrupted Flesh

These essentials, in conjunction with your Legendary Implants and Tactical Item, work together in order to increase your damage output, including while casting Force Lightning.

I want to note that I only consider Unlimited Power because of the name. It is not that useful in solo content since it lasts a short time and has a ridiculously long cooldown. I recommend taking Cloud Mind most of the time and only swapping over to Unlimited Power only when it’s time to shout it from the rooftops.

Cloud Mind fits quite well because that’s basically what he did to the Jedi by blocking their Clairvoyance. In a similar vein, Palpatine was quite spry for being a decrepit old man, so Critical Movement and Surging Speed embody his force-empowered mobility.

Torturous Tactics allows you to use Electrocute more frequently and make the target deal reduced damage for a little while after, which is usually what we see after Palpatine zaps someone.

Palpatine is also ridiculously skilled in lightsaber combat and has fought using both 1 or 2 blades. For the second combat style, I recommend Marauder so that you can also fight as Darth Sidious did against Maul and Savage on Mandalore; be sure to check out my dedicated Darth Sidious build guide on that as well.

Legendary Implants and Tactical Item

You gain access to legendary implants at level 80 and tactical items at level 75.

Unmatched Haste Package

The Unmatched Hatste Package extends the duration of Polarity Shift and makes it so each activation of Force Speed reduces the cooldown of Polarity Shift.

Gathering Storm Package

The Gathering Storm Package increases your damage dealt while Polarity Shift is active and activating Force Speed makes your next non-DoT attack deal more damage, so increased speed directly translates to additional attack power.

Tempest of Rho

Tempest of Rho makes it so one of your damage over time (DoT) abilities, Creeping Terror, has a chance to tick whenever you deal damage with Force Lightning, effectively enhancing the damage you’ll be dealing while channeling Force Lightning.

For more information on gearing, check out my guide on Which Mods to Buy from Hyde and Zeek. For a Palpatine build, I recommend gearing as a DPS, which means you’ll want to focus on increasing stats that boost damage output like Accuracy, Critical, and Alacrity. You can use the same generic gear for Marauder as well if you plan to use that as your second combat style.

Key Abilities

In this section, I’ll be going over specific Madness Sorcerer abilities that match Palpatine’s fighting style, including Force attacks as well as offensive and defensive maneuvers. To be clear, this is not a complete list of all Madness Sorcerer abilities, I am only shining a spotlight on the ones that are quintessentially Palpatine

Force Abilities

These are attacks that deal damage to one or more enemies. Typically, they cannot be used at the same time as one another.

Force Lightning

You’ll be able to zap foes with channeled Force Lightning to your heart’s content, just as the galaxy’s favorite Emperor loves to do. The attack isn’t quite as deadly as Luke might have you believe, but it still packs a punch and has no cooldown for Madness specifically. It also regenerates your Force, so you truly can use it as often as you want.

Electrocute

Electrocute is the more deibilitating half of the Force Lightning equation. It prevents enemies from doing anything for a few seconds, and, thanks to Torturous Tactics, makes the stunned target deal less damage for a little while. It has a fairly long cooldown, so I recommend saving it for stronger opponents.

Force Speed

Palpatine is more willing to use the Force to enhance his movement than most other Force wielders we see on screen. He uses it both to keep up with Yoda’s Ataru acrobatics and accomplish a 920º backward corkscrew flip from a prone position that is so haunting, it paralyzes 4 Jedi Masters long enough for him to take out 3 of them.

Force Speed isn’t quite so flashy but does enable you to move faster than a speeder for a few seconds. Such a maneuver is well within Palpatine’s capabilities. Thanks to the legendary implants you’ll be using, Force Speed also reduces the cooldown on Polarity Shift and makes your next attack deal 20% more damage.

Force Leech

On Exegol, Palpatine used Force Leech to drain the life force and power of their Force dyad from Rey and Ben, fully revitalizing his decaying clone body while leaving Rey and Ben nearly lifeless.

Force Leech as an ability works basically the same way here, it deals a decent chunk of damage to your target and then heals you for however much damage it dealt. If Affliction is on the target, it deals (and subsequently heals) significantly more damage.

Force Storm

After draining the Force from Rey and Ben, Palpatine unleashed possibly the most powerful Force Storm on record, causing Resistance ships to lose power and begin plummeting to the ground, shifting the battle over Exegol in the Emperor’s favor.

As a Sith Sorcerer, you’re able to summon Force Storms whenever you want, though since you don’t have a Force dyad to feed on, yours won’t be quite as powerful as what we saw on Exegol. Stick to Force Lightning unless you can hit at least 3 targets.

Creeping Terror and Affliction

Creeping Terror and Affliction are powerful psychic Force abilities that drive the afflicted insane. They’re basically the dark side version of Jedi mind tricks and as attacks, deal damage over time while healing for a portion of the damage dealt.

We never see Palpatine overtly use the Force in this way, though he’s no stranger to lies and deception, so perhaps he was attempting to influence others through the Force as part of his ascent to Emperor and convince Anakin and Luke to come to the Dark Side.

Creeping Terror fits this bill a bit better than Affliction, and Force Lightning can cause Creeping Terror to tick additional times, which makes sense since getting electrocuted with Force Lightning would be a pretty terrifying experience.

Death Field

Like Creeping Terror and Affliction, Death Field lacks a literal analog to a Force ability Palpatine used but makes a lot of sense thematically. Death Field’s notable effects include:

Dealing a good chunk of damage on its own to targets within its area of effect
Spreading Creeping Terror and Affliction if Death Field hits an enemy already suffering from those DoTs
Making all affected targets take more damage from your DoTs and all other AoE damage.
Make you steal a bit of life with Force Lightning.

Death Field is your way to spread fear and death over a large area, just as Palpatine did to the galaxy during his reign as Emperor and with Order 66. Since your ability tree buffs are more focused on buffing Creeping Terror, you need to use Death Field if you want to get the most out of Force Lightning anyway. If I didn’t sell you on Death Field’s relevance to Palpatine, think of it as him needing to feed on the death and despair of others to gain power just as Vitiate does.

Offensive Cooldowns

All of these abilities can be activated at the same time as other instant attacks and offer some sort of temporary boost to your damage output. Their cooldowns are significantly longer than that of most attacks.

Unlimited Power

This ability grants a boost to your Mastery and Endurance stats for a short time. Boosting Mastery means your damage and healing output are increased while boosting Endurance grants you a temporary extra bit of HP. This ability has a ridiculously long 5-minute cooldown, but these boosts are also granted to your group members.

Honestly, for solo content, it’s not that great, but you gotta use it because of the name of the ability.

Polarity Shift

Polarity Shift is all about speed. It boosts your movement speed as well as increases the rate at which you can activate abilities. Thanks to the Gathering Storm implant, it also makes each attack deal more damage. You’re basically channeling the Force into your own body to enhance your abilities, just as Palpatine does when facing off against a formidable adversary, like Grandmaster Yoda.

Recklessness

While Palpatine did come up with and execute complicated plots to overthrow the Republic and become Emperor, he did get a little reckless at times, especially when it came to Force Lightning. It seemed like he had a really hard time turning it off once he turned it on and it’s not clear if that was due to this being some quirk of the Force or if Palpatine just couldn’t help himself.

His inability to stop himself lead to him getting scarred and deformed as Mace Windu deflected the lightning back at him and then to his inevitable demise when Rey did the same thing on Exegol. You too can be reckless by popping Recklessness and using Force Lightning against an enemy that has some sort of reflect ability active since it makes your next 2 abilities guaranteed to critically hit.

Defensive Cooldowns

All of these abilities can be activated at the same time as other instant attacks and offer some sort of temporary boost to your survivability. Their cooldowns are significantly longer than that of most attacks.

Unnatural Preservation

The dark side is a pathway to many abilities, some considered unnatural… Yes, you too will be able to unnaturally preserve yourself with Unnatural Preservation, which is an immediate self-heal. Use it whenever your health is below 90%.

Cloud Mind

Just as Palpatine managed to cloud the clairvoyance of the Jedi Order, you’ll be able to do the same to enemies. Cloud Mind reduces your threat against all targets, meaning it will take less damage (or healing) for an enemy to switch to someone else and all enemies will be less likely to switch to you. In solo content, this component of the ability isn’t super useful, but it also grants some damage reduction for a few seconds, so if you’re getting hit by a lot of enemies or see your health dropping fast, pop Cloud Mind.

If you want more information on how to play and gear this discipline optimally for group PvE content, like Flashpoints and Operations, check out my 7.0 Madness Sorcerer PvE Guide.

This concludes the Emperor Palpatine Build Guide. If you have recommendations for tweaks or slight variations in appearance or other abilities that might fit well, or if you have a favorite character you’d like to get a build for, leave a comment.

If lightning and madness are not to your taste, but you still want to play a powerful and merciless Sith Lord, then the Darth Vader SWTOR Character Build Guide may be just what you need. Or, if you prefer to rewind even further back the timeline, take a look at the Anakin Skywalker Build for SWTOR. It matches the iconic character from The Clone Wars all the way up to the events on Mustafar in Episode 3 when the turns into Vader.