Okay now that the Test server came back up I got on and the first thing I did not notice was some of my gear had changed. I had four complete sets at 306 rating and now they are a mix of 302 and 304 with only a few that remained 306. My left side stuff remained at 306. Had this been a live server then I would be very upset.

My 368 set lost all the amplifiers it had it just says (nil) in the text spot.

My 306 non-modifiable lightsabers are all broken as they have no mods inside. I knew something like this would happen. Surprised you bowed to such pressure.

Now all you need to do is add Amplifiers to all the cartel market items cause it bob cant use his unstable lightsaber he will not be a happy camper.

Crafting

Nice that if I am on a toon that has a certain craft that you get mats from the deconstruction. Very nice.

The down side is that I was on my cybertech and she could only deconstruct one item at a time unlike my armstech or biochem who could do 15 at a time.

I still am highly disturbed that you have throttled crafting with the conquest and flashpoint mats. In two years I think I have gotten about 400 conquest mats with your new system I will be lucky if I can craft one piece in a month.

THIS IS IN NO WAY PLAY MY WAY. Greens have been trash crafting since crafting designed cause yo reverse engineered it to get the blue and then the purple. Having to have mats from only one single source is against the phrase play the content I want. Having to have ten toons reach conquest goals and run multiple flashpoints is counter to the way you are setting things up just to make one item.

Change crafting or change the drop rates for those items.

Direct vendors

Not much to say here but to please separate the non class set bonus gear from the class specific set bonus gear. I looked at each one and saw most of the sets repeated.

Maybe nicer if you had a second vendor just for Tacticals.

Was hoping the skins would come with armoring, mod, and enhancement even if they were random because of their cost.

The tech fragment limit needs to be raised for a bit of wiggle room. Preferably to much higher as they are not Command tokens but the replacement for un-assembled components which were made unlimited.

Takanna Vendor

This is still highly unacceptable that the random armoring, mod, and enhancements are still dropping tanking pieces more than 50% of the time for a DPS. How many people have said this needs to be fixed? It is bad enough it is all random but you put in the spec selection so I expect it to work on everything!

Overall

I have seen some improvements, but you have a long way to go to make this a manageable system. If we are stuck with RNG for everything it needs to be way better balanced then it is now.

I would like to see the armoring, mods and enhancements cleansed of all repeated stats. That the stats are balanced no matter which one you get. If one mod has a certain combined number for stat points then they all better have the same combined number.

Still

After reading other posts the prices on all the vendors are too high.

The drops in Hammer Station are fewer so fewer tech fragment. About 150 if you deconstruct everything you get. Twenty runs or sixty bosses per gear piece from direct sale? I know I can run five or six HS and hour, but that is severe grinding. Still, need to see how this will work with all the other dailies.

Reputation tokens need to remain as they are. Use on click. Bonus Renown tokens need to be the same way, and in no way should I be rolling on such a token in the first place. You are just changing this to be stingy and everyone is going to roll need on everything anyways so might as well take that option out too.

Also why are you changing things that have been in the game since inception??? If it is not broke don't fix it. I like getting my tokens and clicking on them to collect the points. I like being able to save them if I have too many for next week. I like saving my bonus tokens for toons that have a lower command/renown rank. I have many toons and I love my collect on use tokens.

Please work on the content of this game and stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Please get rid of all RNG. you would bring so many people back. Do any content you like earn currency and then buy exactly what you want, need, or desire.

So I was not on the PTS for long before it dropped out today.

What I did notice is the prices going down on mods, armoring, and enhancements from 325 to 175 making them okay. Still took thousands of tech to get a good selection of mods to work with. I gained 1.6 billion credits which is about 160k tech fragments 30000 was spent on two gear set and 3 tacticals.

I am very particular on my armoring being 471 mastery, mods having mastery/power value of 727/8 having the highest crit enhancements and just enough alacrity and accuracy to hit caps of the 1.4GCD and 110% respectively with 228 augments.

mods only dropped dps mods ya!

Armoring and enhancements were still half and half with tank specs.

5000 is enough to get all the armoring, mod enhancement, and weapon barrel or hilt in one shot if you didn't get tank stuff in the mix. Not that the stat would be any good, but it would be a start.

When it comes back up I will be running all the heroics or various missions and seeing how I like the death knell set or the berserker set. might not beat out the stimulated set I have still have to test it.

So I ran a few missions, heroics, flashpoints, and pvp both arena and battleground.

Overall it was about as expected.

Hammer Station was a tad bit more challenging at level 70 veteran. Need to see if it can still be soloed, but not too slow or too fast. The gear drops are back to 4 per boss and all for DPS no more tank gear nice.

PVP.

The rewards seem to be lacking compared to the flashpoints. A few pieces and the medpacks and one isotope in the Flashpoints I got nearly seventy isotopes. Then again I think I was the only one needing.

Quests seem to be fine.

Heroics are not dropping the supply crates not sure if it is because I am level 75 or not, but we may still want to max out our specialists.

Other than the cone head *** on the Death Knell set I like what the set bonus does for my DPS.

Still, think new assassin slash is situational at best.

I tested several things on the vendors and I am pleased the tank stuff stopped dropping on my dps, and has stopped from other sources as well.

I tested several sets with the same mods and still need to test the berserker's set.

Death Knell beat out the stimulated with the gather storm 2 piece.

The Awakened Flame beat out Blade of the elements, Rolling boil, and overwhelming offense with both sets.

I am learning what works and does not work with the mod variations. Still, don't like the RNG, but can't seem to beat it off with a stick. We're stuck.

With not being able to deconstruct anything it is hard to see how much Tech frags we get. I did the ten different things for the log and almost made it to 1500 points. Though I say I got 7 tech fragments from one of the bosses in Hammer Station. Was averaging about 160 pvp was way less.

Flashpoints over power pvp just by the shear number of drops and Tech fragments for the same or nearly the same amount of time.

Onderon still has the green gray blue map instead of the holo map it stated with. Very preschool and we all saw the proper map so no need to hide it. Fix it.

Stuff is still very hard to see and at some points I have to zoom all the way in just to see it.

Stuff that has to be found and targeted is not showing up. Could not find the armor where it should have been and the area on the cat walks had missing grannys.

Slicing nodes are still empty.

Mats gathered still not posting in chat.

Crafting.

I saw some of the numbers change and I have a good idea how many isotopes drop from fp bosses and it is not bad. Still needing four weeks of conquest mats for a green is breaking crafting. Should require ZERO!

Green for green blue for blue purple for purple. Such a simple rule.

I am tired cant think of anything else.

Best Parse so far.

APM 43.1 02:44

DPS 2508624 15271

Tested Chapter one of Kotet and the walker is still nerfed and unplayable.

Tested the decent of the Fearless and the Hemophilic tactical and got 16618 dps parse

Felt sluggish and I really need the higher GCD. that or I need to test against a target that is giving me focus from hitting me.

Force Clarity works well enough with the priority rotation a Vigilance Guardian has and it is my main. Still, I would expect that Deception could be boosted a bit or there might be a better tactical to use then Awakened Flame.

I used the same armoring, mods, and enhancements so they both have the same stats.

Ran Hammer Station solo and the bosses felt just right. needed to pay attention to the mechanics on last boss and felt I was going to die the second half of the fight. Refreshing.

The damage was about right to at 6k to 9k.

Okay tested the Berserker's set with several different toons.

Failed with my lightning sorc with only 10k Not sure what I was messing up

switched to my Balance Sage and did well 13600 normal rotation did 14400 with her using the death knell set for my assassin.

Gunnery Commando 13700 in line with sage

Deception Assassin pulled 14200

For a basic set it is consistent so far for the specs I know.

Onslaught Gearing.

Rule 1

Forget everything you know about gearing.

Rule 2

Accept the RNG gods are out to make your experience a living hell.

Rule 3

Play the game “Cough” your way “Cough.”

Rule 4

Ilevel is King, Queen, and Jack

Rule 5

306 gear is just like 230 gear. It will not give you enough points to hit every break point.

Rule 6

You must wear the gear that is the highest you have found to get the next highest piece. This will make your stats jump all over the place. If you are picky do not complain it is taking forever to get to 306 as you are gating yourself.

The first toon to level will take the longest.

Rule 7

You have to buy the set that you class needs and you must know what that set is! This will make someone very angry if you need on a piece that is not for the class you are playing!

Tertiary markers

Alacrity

1.4s GCD 1214 7.15%

1.3s GCD 3206 15.39%

Getting these numbers or a bit higher is the goal, but having 1500 alacrity is not going to affect your DPS unless all your attacks are casts.

From a reddit

Yes, Cooldowns and dot ticks are affected. That is why so far we have confirmed only classes, which are using instant attacks/dots which are not long enough for ~5-8% to be worthwhile.

For example, CD is 6 seconds, you lower it by 0.6 seconds (10%). You will still use it on the same GCD in rotation, but it will be available for 0.5 seconds not being used, so it's a waste.

For DoT case, you have 6 second dot. You lower it by 10%, and it does it's damage in 5.4 seconds. But you can use it in the next GCD, so you actually did not increase it's up-time on target.

In case you have 18sec dot, that makes 1.8 sec lower duration. So you can cast it 1GCD sooner, and that is worthwhile.

Point is, for instant attack characters, it does not matter if you have anything in range from 7.15% bonus until 15.39%. There is no APM increase. So, with the same amount of attacks, you want them to hit more to increase DPS. That's what this thread is about.

Accuracy

105% for PVP

109.99% or 110% for PVE (that one miss per 1000 is not going to hurt.)

1589 is the new target or 1349 with mk10 stim or 1323 with mk11 stim.

Critical Cap

Critical is important as the soft cap is around 42-3%, and the multiplier is at 70%. Anything more than that should be pushed into Mastery unless you power is low than power. (This can happen with the way the new mods work.)

Once you have the 1214+ in alacrity and the 110% in accuracy then every thing else should go into Critical.

For certain classes this will lead to over 3000 points. If the amount is way more than an augment worth of points then they might want to switch to the 1.3s GCD as they might do okay with their crit. This would mostly affect healer classes that do not use accuracy.

Gunnery has a 3% utility to Alacrity so their numbers are much lower so going for the 1.3s GCD will be much easier without sacrificing too much crit.

Certain specs like lightning or sentinels can gain timed boosts to alacrity and may need to hit a different number than the basic break points.

Those that use the clickable Relics with Alacrity may have a different target number as using them gives them so much up time at the higher break point so may need to adjust their base so when the Relic is used they hit that break point.

The adrenal Advanced Polybiotic or Kyrprak Efficacy Adrenal adds to your alacrity but it may not increase you DPS as much as the Attack adrenal that adds power or the one that adds critical. However, it maybe an item that will allow an increase in your burst at key points in a fight on a bursty class.

Gearing and what to wear.

You want to have a balance of stats while you play, but I have to confess that is only on how far you want to take it. In this new expansion of play your way this is the one thing that is not so play your way as it is play their way as far as getting to the higher level gear.

You have to go from 268 all the way up to 306 and the closer you get to 306 the slower the RNG gods will make your trip. Save all 306 drops or the highest five or ten you have for your other toons. The more 306 you have the faster the alts are going to level or just have a trash set for PVE conquest or whatever dailies.

The next toon just wears the 306 pieces that it can and gets the other pieces it cant to level 306 and you repeat this for every toon until you have a few sets in reserve.

Now that you are at 306 for gear you have saved the armorings, mods, enhancements and general set bonus gear skins that you have collected along the way. These can build your first set bonus.

Set armor is in the skin or shell of the slot piece. It can be a general set like Stimulated or Berserker or it can be a class specific like Death Knell for the Deception/Infiltration.

For those internal pieces that dropped they are free and not really trash until all your toons are at 306, but you don't have to save them if you choose to gear swap between toons. IE BiS gear does not matter for alts.

Just do what you want, but realize that what you do will speed things up or slow you down. This is a compromise between how fast you gear compared to how fast you gain tech fragments.

Armoring for DPS

471 Mastery 409 Endurance. Every R-1, R-2, etc changes the number. 469 M 411 E for R-2, 467 M 413 E for R-3

431 Mastery 451 Endurance is the tank BiS I think. Hard to remember since I can't look at the PTS stuff.

Mods

Mods are bit more difficult to balance or to find the bis item, but I have done a bit of looking for all the piece I have had and found oddly enough any that do not reach the 727/8 combined number of Mastery vs Power then you have a poor mod.

728 is the highest number you can find.

However, 727 or 366 Mastery 361 Power is the mod that you want as it increases you base and bonus damage the most.

High mastery and low power is okay but the closer they are together the better base. The key here is not getting exactly those numbers on each piece but to hit the combined number of 727 or 728 anything other than that and you are hurting yourself.

Enhancements

Are the funny ones.

Best tertiary number is 451, but at a sacrifice of power and endurance. 431 is what the ears and implants give you so if you have that number than you are fine with a good power number and low endurance number 285 or 313 endurance is about average.

Again the combined number between the tertiary stat and power should be considered, but not to the point it is set in stone. Finding a true unlettered Enhancement never happened as the weapon drops have varying stat spread even if unlettered.

The key here is what you need for Enhancements, and augments to reach your numbers.

You have the target numbers, 1214, 1589, 3206, 3000+ so what first?

Accuracy of course is first.

Stim 240 Accuracy and 99 critical

431 x 3 = 1533 not enough so you get an augment (228) 96 accuracy. (451X3+240=1593 but the sacrifice of power may not be good.) the 242 augment will have 58 points so 1533+58=1591

1629 is the new number but you are over so you have an Enhancement that has less accuracy on it but more power.

So you swap out a higher power enhancement for a lower accuracy of 391 to get the 1589 accuracy for a gain of power. This is different than going for the least amount of enhancement/ augment combo you can get.

MK11 augments will be better, but the chance to get them is for the long picture and not the basic easier stat balance.

Rule 8

Use what you have found or bought first to get there improve later when you can depending on how much time/credits/tech you want to spent trying to get better.

Tanking is a different subject and there are many different ways and break points to look at.

This is what I am going to do with my tank if I even keep a tank. Though I will have at least one each side. These are my basic goals and not theorycrafted numbers.

50% shield

50% Absorb

As low of a defense score as I can get (25%) and the highest power/endurance rating I can get. This means using DPS mods and even enhancements if need be.

High mastery/endurance mods versus defense if sticking to only tank parts.

Not sure if using critical will matter, but in this I don't see the need to have more than 50% in either is needed. I would rather be able to hit harder or maybe sooner if it was possible to get to 1214 alacrity on a tank not sure if it would matter much but getting a GCD to be available sooner is nice.

This will also be the place where the current 236/238 or 240/242 augments will still have use as they have a lower tertiary stat with an increase in power and endurance that maybe better to have than the absorb/shield.

Healers

I did not make a viable healer or even see much in the way it would go for stats, but in did start to look at what I would have for numbers seeing as you don't need accuracy you have 1349 to 1589 points to play with. The 240 accuracy and 99 critical gets replaced by 240 mastery and 99 power, so no real change to Tertiary stats.

228 augments 96 points 14*96=1344

Enhancements 431*10=4310

(451*10=4510, but not sure how much power you will lose.)

This give a total of 5654 plus crystals, plus relics there are static relics now not sure if they will stay in the game so I am going without either of these.

3206 alacrity

2448 left over for Critical. 3000 gives about 40% so not exactly there. The static relics may get to the 3000 plus critical, but not sure if the sacrifice is worth it.

Examples of NEW GEAR MODS IN 6.0 that do not show R-1-20 versions. It also does not show the mods that I have seen in game as being unlettered. I got from Vulkk. https://vulkk.com/2019/08/15/swtor-6-0-pts-updated-lists-of-new-armor-sets-and-tactical-items/

snip

Ty for writing this all up, i found the stat threshold values particularly useful!

I don't expect that to change. Even on live right now, green gear and blue gear from heroics are at a lower level. There's no reason to expect endgame gear from that type of content.

except that youre suppose to be able to play the way you want and get matching or better gear...