As others have pointed out, the way these Legendaries are currently designed is way too damn unimpactful and, if you allow me to say it so frankly, borderline lame. Mercenary is the best example with it's Target Eliminator. a 2% damage increase for 15 seconds per 30 seconds is effectively just a 1% damage increase in the event of perfect upkeep timing. You might as well just remove the Legendary and give Merc a 1% damage boost across the board, it is that uneventful and unintuitive. The only classes I can say for sure to have some great Legendaries are Marauder, Assassins and Operatives, and even then the list is a fairly small one. And what is probably the most bothersome is that every single class - yes, every single one of them, has 1 Legendary that is just a flat damage boost in some way, shape or form that is... really meh. Merc has 1%, PowerTech has a 5% (10% for 15 seconds every 30 seconds), and the others have just a flat 3% with no activation requirement (Except Marauder, who only gets it during Berserk) These Legendaries are absolutely not worth it for quite a few DPS classes, as I have mentioned in a previous comment, the damage boost they give is so underwhelming that you can fully compensate for it by using a 330 Implant instead, the stats it gives over the 326 legendaries make up the difference, and with non-legendary Implants having Accuracy options, it also lowers the burden of needing augments and stims for that 110% treshold. I can only repeat what I've said before, Legendaries as they are right now are downright not worth it, they are way too unimpactful both overall and compared to just how much they cost to get. They need to be buffed, hard, and they need to come with an Accuracy option.

Almost Ironic how the one spec in this game that would have benefited from well placed Ability pruning and strength re-distribution didn't get it in any meaningful way while everyone and everything else got absolutely mauled in some way from said pruning.

Yeah it is gone now and normal rage is now back to being fury Mara's Berserk but different name. Rage Juggernaut has potential but they got no idea how to realize it.

I didn't play Rage Juggernaut beyond the minimal necessary to have a fair Idea of how it works and I really don't like that your ressource management has been greatly tied into using your new discipline-specific Enrage Ability tbh. It's made to make sure you have a lot of rage, but it only deals damage if you have 12/12 rage and consumes ALL 12 RAGE on cast for AoE damage that, while not bad, isn't really overwhelming enough to warrant the ridiculous cost. I feel like the devs don't really know how to even handle Rage Juggernaut, I don't recall a single time it's ever been in a satisfyingly good place.

From how I see it, Deception Assassin was re-structured so that Reaping Strike is the major core ability to both open up with and most frequently use. I went with the CD reset on direct force attack crits, volt slash's static stacks giving crit chance and the bonus kinetic damage on crits every 3 seconds and I do quite good damage and have no issue clearing trashies or providing the necessary DPS to get past tight enrage checks like the first bosses from both Czerka flashpoints, but the rotation is very static and fixed and abbreviating from it even a little causes serious ressource management issues. My openers so far have been (Assuming you use Shadow Craft legendary for the 6 seconds of double crit chance) Shadow Walk (From Stealth) > Reaping Strike > Discharge > Maul > Reaping Strike > Lightning Ball > Reaping Strike (By then, the 6 seconds will be over and you no longer almost auto-crit from Shadow Craft proc)> Volt Slash > Volt Slash > Lightning Ball > Discharge (Should be at 3 stacks) > Reaping Strike (if Discharge Crits) > Recklessness > Discharge > Reaping Strike > Lightning Ball > Reaping Strike > Priority Priority being 1) Lightning Ball whenever off CD; 2) Reaping Strike after each Lightning Ball or Discharge Crit; 3) Volt Slash if either Static is about to expire or everything is on a CD; 4) Maul with proc if everything is on CD and Static is alright with duration. I don't like that rotation at all, if I am honest. It does give a lot of very solid damage, but it is very crit reliant, which thankfully deception Assassin has a lot of, but RnG can get very nasty every now and then and you end up spamming Volt Slash for 3 GCDs, which really sucks. It is also pretty clear that this is a very minimal alacrity spec now because of how heavily it relies on crits, specifically direct force attack crits, which are Lightning Ball, Discharge and the 4 second hard Stun you get. You are pretty much forced into a single type of build for 3 particular Ability choices, which are as mentioned the reset on force attack crits for the Reaping Strike buff, Static giving +10% additive crit chance per stack for Volt Slash buffs and the Bonus Kinetic damage on crits every 3 second and melee attacks consuming Recklessness stacks. You CANNOT choose anything else if you want to deal damage, maybe except Reaping Strike resetting if you kill an add 3 seconds after damaging it with Reaping Strike and getting additive +40% crit chance for 3 seconds which refreshes on each new kill for non-Heroic daily areas like CZ-198, Black Hole, Ossus etc. Overall not a big fan of this power re-distribution to Reaping Strike, it pretty much shifted Deception from a PvP to a PvE spec. It serves its purposes, but I don't see this being well received at all.

110% is still the golden number, and from the looks of it Accuracy is going to remain around for a good while. If you use both legendary items, you have to use both accuracy stim and a dozen accuracy augments to get to 110%, leaving you with a secondary choice to either hit 1.4GCD or 35% crit chance, as you can't do both with the 2700 accuracy demand.

Hello everyone! As you know from my previous post, I am investing my time extensively into the PTS to get as deep and detailed a feeling as I can on all the changes they are doing, and the one thing I didn't give my feedback on is on the balancing for the classes and their disciplines. Since it would take me way too much time to seek out every single combat style specific thread and comment there in full detail, I opted to instead summarize my thoughts on all disciplines in one, single post for everyone to see. Disclaimer, of course, that this is all just my anecdotal experience and could potentially not align with what other people think, this is just my 2 cents on every discipline and what I think of it. I also very grossly summarized my thoughts on this, so it is very likely that one or the other thing for each discipline was neglected in its mention, don't Lynch me for it please. Let me know of your own thoughts about any of this and whether you agree or disagree with what I said. I will comment on all 8 classes from the Imp-side so for Rep-side reference, use the class mirror references (Like sentinel for marauder, gunslinger for sniper etc) JUGGERNAUT: Immortal Feels more damage oriented, which fuels its passive threat generation and relies less on taunts. Makes it a good tank choice for content where you can't taunt PvE bosses like most Rancors. Rage Feels a bit less similar to Fury Marauder now due to the new Enrage ability and how the discipline is balanced around it. Deals slightly less damage on its ST rotation, but with the Enrage Ability, its more heavily focused on AoE Vengeance Lost half of the defensive viability that made it such a favorite, but compensated for it with a more centered focus on its DoT damage and procs. Similar to Rage, it has a new Bloodrage Ability that consumes and detonates all DoTs, giving it a very potent AoE presence. MARAUDER Fury Has stayed more or less the same, just the problem about which type of damage you want to deal is somewhat addressed as you can either focus on your weapons damage or on your force damage. Has the Ability to rely much less on active ressource generation which makes its rotations much smoother. Carnage Really feels like you're on a rampage. Its innate damage is a bit lower, but it has some absurd tankiness for a DPS class and with many stacking movement speed buffs, you're running left and right faster than a Sorc/Assassin with Force Speed. It is very fun, but not as effective as it used to be. It definetly got toned down as the Solo-content discipline meant to have you racing around for many elite enemies rather than 1 beefy boss. But it is a lot more fun to play now. Annihilation Might become the new highest DoT parsing spec. Its damage was re-balanced to peak extensively during your Berserk duration, and when you do activate Berserk, things just escalate horrendously. Ideally, you're going to go for the beneficial choices of DoT crits and fury generation for Berserk, which means Rupture, your main DoT, deals quadruple damage during Berserk, Force Rend and DoT crits every 2 seconds generate Fury even during Berserk, where you usually cannot generate it, so Berserk is available a lot more often and in the most ideal scenario you can even infinite-loop up to 3 Berserk casts in a row without a single GCD going off without Berserk being active. It's still a very difficult DoT class to play, but mastering it feels a lot more worth the while now. SORCERER Corruption I personally like the re-balancing they have done and Corruption has received further emphasis on being the entry-level healing class. Each of its casting synergies has remained without much changes, just some abilities received more of a focus than others, like Dark Infusion now being a lot stronger and more important. The one thing I don't like is that, if you took the choice for Dark Infusion to heal 2 targets, the 2nd target is random. If it had some kind of priority for reliability, like healing the lowest health ally within X meters of your target, it would be a lot more solid. Lightning Has remained more or less the same. The only noteworthy changes are that you can now choose if you want to be a lot more AoE focused or more ST Focused, which allows for higher peak DPS numbers on each respective scenario rather than riding this admittedly awkward greyline inbetween. Madness Less damage, a lot more survivability. Madness has received a new Identity as the be-all-end-all solo content discipline with stronger healing, more emphasis on its DoT procs and more damage reductions than all Tank classes. This might be the go-to class for beginners in ranged DoT combat as it has become extremely safe to play for PvE. Of course, its safety trades a lot of utility like movement-impairment cleanses, so its a lot more sub-par for PvP by comparison. ASSASSIN Deception Has become a lot more centered around PvP viability with 2 stuns without needing to make a crippling choice and its strongest ST-Ability, Reaping Strike, has multiple ways of resetting its cooldown, making back-to-back casts possible and allowing to deal ridiculous damage in short windows of opportunity. One of the only disciplines that genuinely benefits from the Ability Pruning, thought this will not be a widely shared opinion IMO. Recklessness has also become a lot more useful as one ability tree choice makes all other melee abilities benefit from its bonuses as well, and the discipline gains 3 stacks instead of 2, so dealing crits when necessary feels more smooth. Darkness Might become a lot more popular as a tank class as it has received improved tools of reducing or resetting taunt cooldowns, making it a LOT easier to either perma-taunt bosses, taunt swap or permanently cripple PvP damage against enemies. Other than that, it plays pretty much the same as it does now. Hatred The polar opposite to Madness Sorcerer, it feels a lot more AoE focused as a DoT class, particularily with Recklessness spam since its CD is reduced by 2 seconds whenever any of your DoTs deal a crit, and by choice, by additional 5 seconds for each enemy unit your Death field hits. But it also feels a little more balanced around the spammable Recklessness usage, as its direct force damage feels a lot more meh if it does not crit. POWERTECH Shield Tech Definetly suffered quite a bit from the new stat rebalancing as it feels a lot more dependant on its shield absorption, which has taken a decent hit as well. Still a reliable passive tanking class thought with extremely high defensive stats, but its no longer as braindead as it used to be. However, it has received some self-sustain as compensation, which adds somewhat of a learning curve to the discipline, which to me feels like a healthy addition. Pyrotech Has a lot more emphasis on either being pure DoT or pure Burst and it is fun to experiment around with both. The raw burst damage it can press is amazing, but has some high heat costs in return. The DoT focus feels more rewarding for successfully pulling off your full rotation without just making your damage too high. Overall nice re-distribution of its strengths without losing out on any of them. Advanced Prototype Has become a lot easier to play and is ridiculously bursty against non-boss enemies, but suffers a lot more from proper ressource management in return. Above all else, thought, it needs new tacticals, since both of its Single Target tacticals were integrated into its Abilities, it has only a choice between the AoE tactical, ranged rocket punch or the underwhelming as hell Overwhelming Offense general tactical. MERCENARY Bodyguard Took some painful hits to its survivability, but remains the MVP of single-target burst healing. There were no noteworthy changes done to it, the rotation still feels exactly the same as before. Arsenal Lost its high-alacrity build, but can compensate for it, if you choose it, by making your main filler, Tracer Missile, a lot more spammable with flat reduced cast time and heat cost. But, overall, the raw burst of this discipline took some painful hits. Its damage relies a lot more on the tactical proc now and to me that's not exactly a healthy design. Innovative Ordnance Is dead unless it receives buffs to its ressource management. With TSO being integrated into Vent Heat, controlling heat has become impossibly challenging. If it weren't for its ressource management issues, it would be a lot more interesting, as it has received some power-shifting towards either its passive burn it applies or the strong filler rockets as one skill tree choice makes its proc ignore the 30% health cap. But none of its changes matter if the discipline is borderline unplayable. SNIPER Marksman Got hit by far the worst in its defensive trade-offs from the later skill tree choices. It is very much evident that its nerfs were aimed at its PvP performance, but it has damaged its PvE non-offensive capabilities to a degree where all of its previously desired utilities are now more risk than reward no matter the situation. Marksman Snipers are in a pretty bad place with how things look right now as they either have none of its defensive cooldowns or none of its team-wide utilities. Engineer Feels a lot less like a sniper-type discipline as it has lost its innate reliance on being in Cover, allowing it to deal its damage and execute full rotations while being constantly on the move. Might become the new favorite sniper discpline because of how little its mobility affects its rotation compared to the other two disciplines, which makes the defensive skill tree choices not nearly as impactful as intended. Virulence Has not changed at all. Its still a very long-duration on-demand burst type DoT spec that relies heavily on its filler spams, but it has the same issues of defense vs utilities as Marksman does. OPERATIVE Medicine Received a lot more emphasis on being the hardest to learn but most rewarding healing discipline. Its shift towards being more AoE heal heavy makes it more difficult to properly play but those who invest into learning Medicine Operative will probably be the most reliable healers for scenarios where a whole 8 man party needs rapid, on-demand treatment. It also feels a lot more bursty towards ST heals, but its not yet quite there at the same level as Bodyguard, but it comes close enough for the difference to be entirely negligeble and a choice of pure, individual taste. Lethality Plays a little more like Virulence Sniper, but it suffers from none of its weaknesses. Its fillers feel more rewarding to use and no longer cause as much of a dps drop if you mis-manage your ressources. Concealment No noteworthy changes here. Feels mostly still the same with a slight focus on the strength difference between opening your attack from stealth and unstealthed. Has definetly become a bit more PvP oriented thought.

Not to mention that this is probably one of the most anticipated features as far as the general player is concerned, so it not working is going to piss off a vocal number of people.

Hello everyone. First off, I am just a random player, no content maker and no one in the partner program with SWToR. However, I have been engaging most actively with the PTS and have spent my last couple weeks exclusively being active on it, and since I have not pursued the rewards, I just kept playing as if it were a live version already to get as much experience with what 7.0 currently feels like as possible. This post will be my full, unfiltered take on everything. The good, the bad, the ugly, the unnecessary, and yes, even the memes. As I am not going to be summarizing anything, this will be an extremely long take, and I will make a disclaimer that everything stems from my own anecdotal experience and might not completely align with what you have experienced, but I most sincerely believe that what I have to say should be taken very seriously regardless. There is a TL;DR at the very end, but I don't recommend skipping it, as it won't have any of my anecdotal examples or my thought processes in it. FEEDBACK ON GEARING AND LEGENDARIES LotS so far, all in all, does not seem too different from the current expansion, but that is to be expected given that the majority of what's to come is not even on the PTS, only the Flashpoint and the new gear. And as such, so far, there is nothing much to be said. But the new gearing system is... I am not a big fan of it, and for good reason. First of all, why do we change the gearing system literally every expansion? We have not once had the same gearing system, and albeit some variants just had small changes, we've never lived past 1 expansion with it just... not being touched. This forced need for change just for the sake of change is a toxic concept and a serious beginners mistake for a developer as big as BioWare. Secondly: Stats are now fixed on the items, no more item modding for customized stats and idealized, individual fine-tuning. This wouldn't normally be an issue, but it does, because the way those stats are spread out mess with both the minimal and recommended stat thresholds for almost every class, particularily damage dealers. If you play any DPS class, this is what the 318 Vendor offers you: 2x Accuracy Equipment, 3x Alacrity Equipment, 3x Critical Equipment, 1 Ear piece of each secondary stat and 2 implants of each secondary stat as well as all the offensive relic options. This becomes an issue if we just add 1 teeny, tiny, little detail: IMPLANTS ARE YOUR NEW SET BONUSES, AND NONE OF THEM GIVE ACCURACY. Any player who has even a moderately minimal but necessary knowledge with secondary stats will already see exactly why this is an issue. It means you only have a max. of 3 items that give you accuracy, which at the 326 item rating (the highest for Flashpoint-based gear) puts you at ~106% accuracy, or +2% per item roughly. For average, negligeble content like dailies and heroics, this is not an issue, but for Flashpoints and specially Operations, this is a massive deal. Not being able to hit the 110% treshold unless you purposefully neglect your legendaries and their bonuses is a self-contradicting conflict of item purpose, because now you have 2 types of items meant to strenghen you, but both of them take away a different, but just as important a strength in return. So either you have 110% accuracy but no bonuses, or you are at around 106% accuracy with legendary bonuses. This has to be fixed. The recommended, and in my opinion the only action anyone should consider is to give us a choice on the legendaries, add 3 different types for each bonus, each with either crit, accuracy or alacrity, for us to choose from. Matter of fact, I do take the extra miles of audacity to say this is the only option anyone with any amount of balancing knowledge should consider, because this solves all the problems without adding any new ones. FEEDBACK ON PVE: The scaling difference between lvl 75 and lvl 80, between current live version and PTS version, is beyond abyssmally high. What is usually a mildly challenging, but fairly and commonly doable task in current Live version is a nigh-impossible challenge on the PTS. Case and point: Just yesterday I ran an SM Karagga's Palace within the PTS to see the difference between pre- and post-7.0 operations. Well, let me summarize how bad it is in one sentence, one that you should never hear because of how horribly impossible it is to ever achieve such a condition: WE REACHED ENRAGE AT THE FIRST BOSS. Yes, you read that right. Bonetrasher, the arguably easiest and most straightforward boss due to the only challenge being moderate positioning oversight, within the 2nd easiest operation in the entire game, in story mode difficulty, and we managed to hit his enrage timer before he hit the 10% health mark. This is such a bad performance it is completely unheard of, even when KP was just released and used to be the last ladder on the difficulty climb, this was rare. Hitting Enrage within story mode Operations in either Eternity Vault or Karagga's Palace is ironically one of the hardest things to achieve, and the PTS screwed stat scaling up so badly that it has become a very common occurance. Just to re-double the point, the enrage timer on sm Bonetrasher is so liberal that most detailed guides, including Merlyn's and Dulfy, don't even have any noted timers in them. All you know is that there is an enrage eventually. This... this is not okay. This is not okay AT ALL. Oh but this isn't even the end of it. Even some flashpoints for Master Mode are completely undoable because bosses hit the enrage timer so early that no matter what you do, you don't stand a chance. Once more, case and point: Attack on Korriban, the 2nd boss, he very commonly hits his enrage mark before he is down to below 30% health, 40% or even 50% if damage is on the low end of things. And this is one of the earlier flashpoints that was released, many years ago. Newer flashpoints that pose a considerably increased challenge, like Crisis on Umbara or the Nathema Conspiracy, or even the new Elom Flashpoint, Ruins of Nul, are completely and inarguably undoable. For Nul you don't even need to hit enrage, the 2nd boss, Regnat, has such a high damage on his adds that just for the laughs I once went in with 1 tank and 3 healers and we still got wiped in under 1 minute. 1 Minute is barely the time-frame for 2 add wave to spawn, the first after 10 second of beginning the fight and the 2nd after 40 seconds. With no cores down, this means each add wave spawns only 3 adds, only 2 of which deal damage regularily, something that is expected to be rather common for this boss. Operations and flashpoints need to be looked at from head to toe and the entire balance needs to be completely re-vamped. The entire PvE content's growth difference between players and said content in itself is too large and even the best, highest geared (so far) players on the PvE are completely locked out from endgame content because of just how borderline undoable it is. Gods of the Machine has returned to pre-5.9 era where the very first add wave in the whole OP can wipe the whole squad, except this time you are lucky if you kill 1 or 2 adds before that happens. FEEDBACK ON PVP: PvP is probably the only thing that gets any positive words from me because the new combat style changes have made it much more interesting, and since the changes in the ability/passive choiced for your current discipline are instant and can be done even within an instance, it has allowed for new, creative and fun approaches that have made vast turn-arounds possible within rounds 1, 2 and 3 of unranked game modes. This has given its innate competitiveness a new level and has made it so that PvP of all things has fluctuating and exciting dynamic that makes not just each match, but each encounter slightly different, but enough to make sure no one is having it nice and easy. FEEDBACK ON LEGENDARIES: To put it short: Boring, Bland, Unimpactful and for some combat styles borderline negligeble. How do you add a new sub-system for items that promises impactful new powers, but then you tone these powers down so much that for some classes you can genuinely just not take any legendary and, if we consider earlier mentioned issue with accuracy, get an IMPROVEMENT in your performance? Not having a legendary should be undisputably a nerf to your character in all situations, and yet it isn't. Again, worse even, in some cases NOT having a legendary equipped makes you even better and stronger. If that isn't the definition of missing the mark, I don't even want to ask what is. My most aggressively negative feedback goes to how dumbed down the bonuses were. Previously, Set Bonuses from items were unique to each class and had varying degrees of frequency and just as varying methods of triggering them which made them interesting, highly impactful, allowed for a more fluid and functional playstyle and was just overall an improvement on every perspective. Now, its just boring and uninspiring "use X Ability to get Y% (Typically 2%) more damage for (typically) 15 seconds, procs only every (typically) 30 seconds". Each one of the 8 combat styles has at least 1 choice for a passive, minimal damage increase. In some cases, like the Sith Assassin, it gets even more boring, like the Force Training package which just gives you a flat 3% damage increase to everything you do. That's literally it, just "Equip this and- yap, you now deal 3% more damage from all sources you have". The only noteworthy difference is Vanguard/ PowerTech, who gets a 10% damage boost and a reduced ressource cost of 4 on the ability that triggers it, which is Rocket Punch for PT and Stockstrike for Vanguard. Why, out of all the choices, the combat style with the already highest recorded parsing numbers gets the highest, most impactful raw damage boost from the raw-damage-buffing-legendary is beyond me. And some Legendaries are even downright useless from the bonuses itself as well, such as the Dynamic Force package for Assassins, which just reduces the cooldown of Recklessness by 15 seconds. Neither spec needs it, as Deception reduces the cooldown by a full 1 minute whenever exiting combat and Hatred reduces it by 1 second whenever any DoT crits. And both of them have a secondary option via their skill tree choices to reduce the cooldown even more. Deception reduces it by 2 seconds whenever Voltaic Slash crits and Hatred by 5 seconds for each enemy Death Field damages. Meaning that Recklessness is going to be off-cooldown anytime you want and need it, and it will do such so requently that a flat 15 second cooldown decrease is... completely useless and unnecessary and nobody will ever pick it. Legendaries are a shadow of the Set Bonuses that are currently live, and its a very dimm and easy to ignore shadow as well. Some Legendaries need to be completely changed to be actually useful, others need meaningful number buffs, and all of them need to come with stat options, as was mentioned earlier. FEEDBACK ON COMBAT STYLES: Where to begin with this one... I will say it right away, Combat Styles is a nerf to every single class and completely counter-productive to the intended goal of simplifying abilities for newer players. The goal that we were told, aka the purpose we were given for Combat Styles as seen on the PTS was for an easier overall ability management for all players, particularily those less skilled in hotkeying or just new players in general. But since we have a constant and all-time-available set of choices we can switch back and forth on a whim for each situation, the thought process for which choices you take on which encounter have now legitimately reached the impossibly large void between Never Changing A Damn Thing and Radical Changes For Every Single Unit Encountered. Having to individually process or even memorize what choices you need/want for every single encounter has not simplified it at all. On the Opposite, every single Combat Style has completely lost any and all sense of what is the "recommended choices" because everything can be situational and unreliable. This is quite literally multiplied by factor N wherein N=Group Members because now you not only ask yourself what choices you want, but now you ask yourself what choices are necessary based on knowing/guessing what choices your allies made. For the more complex and strategy-necessary content, such as Dread Fortress operation, this means that any randomly assembled group will have a certain default-line of missed potential they cannot cross, meaning a certain performance difference between the perfect, most ideal squad of premades and the average squad of a random fleet assembled team is permanent and ever-present, and if you bear in mind earlier mentioned issues with the scaling difference between current live and PTS, this means that this permanent performance-gap can potentially create an impassable barrier where non-premade teams that aren't idealized to the finest detail simply cannot deal with their challenge fast enough and get wiped by enrage mechanics 24/7. But that's not the worst of it. Due to the nature of some of those changes, certain disciplines within some Combat Styles have become completely and utterly unplayable. Innovative Ordnance Mercs and Assault Specialist Commandos come to mind. Speaking from a Merc's perspective, since Thermal Sensor Override was integrated into Vent Heat, we lost an entire Ability that we had full control over with which we managed our heat. Heat Management has suffered a literal 50% blow, and it shows. No matter what you do, no matter how you play, you will always overheat too fast and too frequently, so much so that I have opted a semi-inting playstyle where I take Gyroscope choice and intentionally run into an enemy's stun mechanic just to get reduced heat at the cost of taking potentially combat-resetting damage. Heat management has become just that bad. IO Mercs and AS Commandos NEED a new tool, a complete and unquestionable, universal buff to help manage their heat ressource or else this discipline will become unplayed and forgotten. Combat Styles can stay for all I care, but they have completely missed their intended mark and have nerfed some disciplines so unforgivingly harsh that they are in need of mandatory, compensatory buffs. FEEDBACK ON GSF, UPRISING AND CO: The forgotten children given to the foster care because they didn't grow up to be rich, so to speak. GSF sees absolutely no changes whatsoever and will be even less engaging for players because its quests offer none of the ressources needed for any gear advancements. Trying to tie high Conquest Points to the Uprising weeklies was a nice try to incentivise this mode being played, but by far not nice enough. The only people who dare touch Uprisings with more than a 20 foot long, sterilized pole are achievement hunters, and now even the story mode is no longer soloable, see "FEEDBACK ON PVE" for details. If you want players to see this mode as anything more than "That what shall not be named", you will have to either: Tone down the difficulty a lot; Add a secondary ressource needed for gearing; massive increase the numbers of the primary ressource it gives, being Aquatic Ressource Matrix. FEEDBACK ON NEW RESSOURCES/GRIND: This ties in with the Gearing Feedback, but I put it last because it stretches across all modes of gameplay. The grind is ridiculous, bland and it completely forces you to participate in every piece of content all at once, which is a sure way to piss off a lot of PvP players, because they aren't interested in PvE and likewise the other way around. Why we have PvP specific gear when it is not anyhow different from Flashpoint PvE gear aside from its looks is beyond me, but if we are already going to have these arbitrary, gameplay-dependant gear choices, the very least should be for us to get the highest ratings of that type of gear with only playing that type of content. For PvP players to be forced to spend their time on heroics for those aquatic ressource matrix' to upgrade their stuff is simply unfair to them. TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ PvP is the only corner of this entire expansion that sees any noteworthy beneficial changes, but that is followed by its own set of issues that cannot be ignored. Everything else suffers horribly and if 7.0 is released the way it currently is on the PTS, there will be a large list of content that will be very literally unplayable. This expansion may be named 7.0 but with the amount of content so unplayable that it should be seen as inaccessable, it feels like we went backwards all the way to 5.0. LotS as it currently stands is the by far, BY FAR!!! biggest collective heap of virtual radioactive waste this game has ever seen and if this is what we get in 1 1/2 months, then I cannot help but very vocally advocate against getting this expansion, as the issues are so vast, so big and so far spread throughout all contents of the game that even if the developers listened to every word what I said and did everything i suggested, there'd still be enough problems left to make two dozen corners of this game unenjoyably disappointing.

There is a guy at the supply section who gives you a quest in which you need to get 100 activity points. Flashpoints, weeklies of any kind and winning PvP gives you points. Once you reach 100, you can finish the quest which unlocks a vendor for the legendaries. Weekly quests usually give 10 points, flashpoints between 8 to 16, depending on which FP and which difficulty. No idea how much pvp gives.

I primarily play Arsenal Mercenary so for me, I lose no matter which choice I make for the Legendaries because they are just so underwhelming. The only Discipline that makes even remotely good use out of any of them is the Healer spec, Bodyguard, because of Advanced Scanner and Random Charge allowing stronger and more frequent heals without messing up any priority rotations. Arsenal has it the worst, the only legendary you can make even bare use of is Random Charge because of the increased Supercharged Gas stacking and faster procs. Arsenal already gives Rail Shot a LOT of innate increased crit chance, so the guaranteed crit package is wasted. A 2% damage increase for 15 seconds every 30 seconds is insultingly meh if you compare it to the previous boost Arsenal got with the Apex Predator, which made every 6th Tracer Missile cost no heat and do 50% increased damage. The damage increase could, if anything, not have a proc cooldown so if you use Heatseeker Missile before the duration is over, it refreshes and stacks, up to maybe a cap of 6%. Right now, Arsenal does so little with this Legendary that you can very well go on your way without it or gain a naked 328 Implant and have the higher stats from it make up the difference. Innovative Ordnance has some semblance of a saving grace with the Random Charge, but it still suffers so much from heat management issues with the changes it was done, it desperatedly needs a Legendary that addresses its massive heat costs. The problem here would be designing the effect for an Ability that doesn't make it so blatantly catered towards Innovative Ordnance and can, albeit at much less functionality, be used by the other two disciplines. Something like "Whenever Supercharged Gas is activated, the next channeling Ability produces no heat." That's it, no stat bonuses or crits, just heat management. It would work for all 3 disciplines, but Innovative Ordnance would have something to actually work with. TL;DR Merc Healers are the only ones who have useful Legendary effects. Arsenal is completely shafted and Innovative Ordnance has such massive heat issues that the sheer inability to properly rotate negates any strengths Legendaries might add to the discipline.

Does the current combat rotation make this experience feel like you are playing a Mercenary? Why or why not? Depends on what exactly you want us to understand as "Mercenary"? If you mean how the current 3 disciplines feel, then there is a straight-forward answer, but if you are asking from a thematic experience, then this is going to take a while. My assumption is that you do mean thematic-wise, in which case the answer has always been no, but now even more glaringly so than before. A Mercenary in the thematic sense, given what we know about Star Wars, is someone who is the definition of "prepared for everything and so good at it they don't do it for free". Neither the feel of being prepared for any situation is there nor that you are good enough to warrant people's confidence. Mercenaries suffer arguably the most on a thematic perspective from the Ability pruning and the choice-restrictions, because now they no longer feel like they are ready for anything, but that they are so broke they are forced to choose what NOT to be prepared for. And if that isn't the MO of a horrible merc who's not worth a single credit, I don't know what is. Currently, Mercenaries just feel like Gunslingers but with a little more flashyness. Just a little. . If you have feedback on the different discipline, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it. Bodyguard Mercenary is probably the only one who doesn't need reparatory compensation of some sort. Innovative Ordnance right now is suffering extremely. Vent Heat and Thermal Sensor Override being fused hurts because you have a lot less control over your heat now, which in turn makes overheating a lot easier. One way of getting around that was being able to hard spam Supercharged Gas, but that too has been considerably lowered with the removal of Jet Rebounder. As it stands right now, Innovative Ordnance has such a ressource management issue that I see it become the least played discipline very, very quickly. There are 2 ways I would fix the heat issues. 1) Critical Damage over Time effects reduce your heat by 1 while Supercharged Gas is active. 2) just reduce the flat costs for Serrated Shot and Incendiary Missile by 5 each. Arsenal mainly suffers in its peak damage because Apex Predator's bonus is not available as a Legendary, but it has offered an alternative, if one can call it that, by making Tracer Missile a lot more spammable with a choice for 0.2s reduced cast time and -2 heat cost. The difference is still there, and still noticeable, but I doubt that it will warrant any additions to compensate on the damage loss. Arsenal feels the same as it did before, but it is no longer as bursty with parsing as it is in its current live version. . As you’re beginning from level 1, do you feel you have enough abilities that keep gameplay interesting? Leveling, at least for me, hasn't changed enough to warrant any detailed notifications on changes, so my answer is yes, I feel there are enough Abilities for an interesting leveling. . Are you able to defeat enemies at a reasonable rate? Only if I play Arsenal. As Innovative Ordnance, depending on what mechanics your enemy has, you overheat so fast and so frequently you can't even take down a single Elite NPC without the use of every defensive cooldown and a healer ally/companion. Bodyguard mercs are heals so the answer is obviously no for that one. . Do all your abilities feel like they’re working together? Since I mainly play Arsenal, yes. The synergy between all Abilities that are relevant is present. I will say that the biggest positive change is that they do so even more than before, mainly due to how Heatseeker missiles (If that choice was made) inflicts a debuff that makes Tracer Missiles deal 5% more damage, making Tracer an even better filler Ability for when all your rotational Abilities are on cooldown.

How do you feel about the boss balance? I actually think the bosses are all very decent and interesting in their own way. The first boss appears to be the weakest because his mechanics are the easiest to predict and counteract. He does punish you for being exceptionally careless or just trying to tank and spank it all thought, but he has only telegraphed Abilities (With one exception) that are all focused on one player, so if the others stand behind him, all you have to worry about is Tank survivability. The only threat happens when he starts to jump randomly across the players and knocking them back. Second boss is probably the most DPS check fight I have ever seen. Once the 4 cores are down, you go for the boss and ignore the ads entirely, as they spawn faster than you can kill them anyway. It is going to be tough for a full 318 geared squad and is the primary reason for me to say unless the whole team has at least a dozen 320 items they should not engage the FP at all. Compared to the other bosses, the second boss, Regnal, is obnoxiously punishing for low DPS groups. Bonus Bosses are a change of pace compared to the rest. Since they need to hit each others with their Abilities to lose the shield, burning them one after the other makes the fight a lot longer than it needs to be. But overall, the boss is purely time-consuming, as the damage is negligebly low and they don't have many other disruptions like Crowd Control en masse. I definetly recommend adding some punishment mechanic for people who do take them down one after the other rather than wittling down all 3 at once, and make it more rewarding to actually break their shields down. As they are right now, they take way too much time to deal with. Malgus is a strong final boss for an FP and satisfying. His Dash Mechanic is very punishing for people who let him hit the team multiple times, as the stacks he builds make his global Stun hit harder, which has resulted in me and my team getting wiped more than once before. But other than the dashes, he is exactly the same like Boss 1. Just have 3 people stand behind him so his telegraphed skills don't hit the entire team, as he focuses all his casts on one player. The by far most annoying thing about him right now thought is just how often his lines trigger. Most people I personally met play the last fight without sound because it's annoying to hear "YOU CANNOT KILL ME!" and "ARGH! YOU ARE WEAK!" every 5 seconds for 4 minutes straight. How do you feel about the trash balance? Nothing negative to say here so far. Elom feels pretty good as far as trash mobs are concerned. Are you experiencing any functionality issues? If so, please explain in detail. Second boss fight, Regnal. If he dies while adds are still active, instead of being defeated like they are supposed to, they bug out and become invisible and untouchable, but remain there on the minimap and the In Combat status remains permanently. The reason this is an issue is because the Obelisks needed for the Bonus Boss can't be interacted with while in combat. They also do not de-aggro, ever. Are there any friction points that hinder your progress? None note mentioning so far. Maybe there are but I just haven't seen them yet. Are the objectives clear and easily understandable? Yes How does the pacing of combat feel? As mentioned, the Boss fights are all time-consuming (Except Regnat, who puts you under pressure), but other than that, pretty okay. Please give us details on your experience with the stone stair segment where you need to traverse a tight path with enemies and other area dangers. It is a refreshingly new experience. I don't think there was anything like this in an FP before (The Artillery, yes, but not in combination with a narrow space with enemies in it) which is an exciting difficulty-challenge for positioning, as the footing is pretty limited and needs to be managed and the Artillery needs to be put aside so it doesn't wipe the squad. BUT it is also very peculiar about its requirements. All units that spawn need to be killed or the Flashpoint Objectives don't advance to the next stage, which means new players who try to stealth through or just run for the hills have to die and re-run the entire thing and make sure every single add is actually dead. I like this because it means no cheesing the FP with a 4 man stealth squad. It was a very annoying time when MFP groups were looking exclusively for stealthers to speed run everything to farm gear and mats, so I am happy for it. One thing I noticed, which I hope is just a bug that needs to be resolved but, every player's respective Artillery void damages ONLY them and not the other group members. I am pretty sure it's meant to damage all players, so maybe that should be noted. All in all, I am pretty happy with this new Flashpoint. It has some new and refreshing mechanics and the map is gorgeous to look at. It has small issues here and there but it is surprisingly polished so far.

This part of the game's content has been catching dust ever since the RotHC expansion came out. That's years old. Ship items were never upgraded, we never got the option for different ships that can be changed after KotFE and KotET, missions are still there for literally no reason other than to be an achievement grind, a very frustrating grind ontop of it. Some lvl 7 missions are actually undoable even with fully equipped Ship and highly advanced player skill because defined and set pathing absolutely sucks and forces you into collisions so you have to play Mr. Damage Control. The way I see it, it can only be upgraded by turning all missions fully Open World. Let us steer our ships the same way we do in Galactic Starfighter, increase the number of objectives, expand the mission by adding traps, surprise reinforcements or traitors on your own side. This would also allow us to fly different types of ships, and maybe one day even our own Flagg ship which can be steered by a high number of crew members so it will make you try to expand on Odessen much more. The other option is to just delete all traces of this game mode from achievements, the trade guy on both fleets and all missions. This is the single most untouched piece of content in the game, it's gotten so rusty that the only options are a full on dedicated patch or deletion, damage control isn't possible anymore.