[2022] 7.1 Balance Changes and Plan

Hi all,

I'm Chris Durel and Im a Gameplay Designer on the SWTOR team! I wanted to take a moment to speak about some upcoming changes were going to be making to class balance in 7.1 and future patches. The plan is to focus on those combat styles most in need of adjustment for 7.1 and then branch out from there to the remaining combat styles in future patches such as 7.2 and 7.3. Balance is, and always will be, an ongoing process, and we want to take our time to do our due diligence before making any changes.

With 7.1 comes changes to Marauders, Juggernauts, Snipers, and Mercenaries, in the form of balance adjustments, passive mod redesigns and quality of life improvements. The goal here is to bring these combat styles closer to their intended experiences and make disciplines more competitive with one another. Of special note, and after listening to lots of feedback and gathering data, are the changes to Fury and Carnage Marauders (Concentration and Combat Sentinels) and Arsenal and Innovative Ordnance Mercenaries (Gunnery and Assault Specialist Commandos).

It is important to note that these changes will be available for testing in an upcoming phase of PTS! What some of these changes look like:

Spoiler
Marauder / Sentinel

• Bloodthirst / Inspiration is now granted at level 51 instead of level 60
• The Defensive Roll passive mod has been redesigned to do the following:
  Increases internal and elemental damage reduction by 3%. In addition, activating Bloodthirst reduces the damage you take from area effects by 30% for 20 seconds.
  This is now only available for the Carnage / Combat and Annihilation / Watchman disciplines.

Carnage / Combat

• Increased the damage bonus from Execute given to Devastating Blast from 5% to 10%
• The Quickness mod has been redesigned to the following:
  "Dealing damage with an Ataru Form strike reduces the cooldown of rage spending offensive abilities by 1 second. Ataru Form deals 3% more damage."
• Redesigned the Blood Frenzy passive to do the following:
  "When Execute is consumed by Force Scream or Devastating Blast, you build 1 rage. In addition, you are immune to interrupts and all controlling effects for 6 seconds after activating Ferocity. The immunity effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds."

Fury / Concentration

• Reduced the critical chance and critical damage bonus received from the Dark Synergy / Zenith passive mod from 20% to 15%
• The Gravity Vortex passive has been redesigned and is now a Level 51 mod choice for Fury / Concentration, replacing Defensive Roll, it reads:
  "Force Crush / Force Exhaustion triggers Gravity Vortex, granting immunity to interrupts and all controlling effects and reducing damage taken from area effects by 15% for 6 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds"
• Changed the Level 60 passive to Gravity Defiance / Gravity Manipulation, which reduces the Rage / Focus cost of Obliterate / Zealous Leap and Force Crush / Force Exhaustion by 1

Juggernaut / Guardian
Rage / Focus

• Reduced the critical chance and critical damage bonus received from the Dark Synergy / Zenith passive mod from 20% to 15%

Mercenary / Commando
Arsenal / Gunnery

• Increased the critical damage bonus given by the Target Tracking / Deadly Cannon passive from 15% up to 30%
• Increased the critical hit chance bonus from Riddle / Rotary Cannon form 5% up to 10%
• Blazing Bolts / Boltstorm heat cost has been reduced from 20 down to 16
• Priming Shot / Vortex Bolt heat cost has been reduced from 12 down to 10

Innovative Ordnance / Assault Specialist

• Increased the periodic damage of Serrated Shot / Serrated Bolt by 16%
• Changed the functionality of the "Incendiary Ignition" mod from giving more ticks of Combustible Gas Cylinder / Plasma Cell to increasing its damage on targets affected by Incendiary Missile / Incendiary Round

Sniper / Gunslinger

• Redesigned the Augmented Shields / Hotwired Defenses passive mod to additionally give: When taking damage while Entrench is active the cooldown on Meticulous Preparation / Bag of Tricks is reduced by 2 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 3 seconds.

Virulence / Dirty Fighting

• Viral Targeting / Blood Sights no longer increases poison effect / bleed effect damage by 10%
• Decay / Nice Try damage bonus decreased from 5% to 3%
• Critical Grenade / Sharp Objects applied critical hit damage bonus from periodic effects is reduced to 5% down from 10%, and its effect has been fixed so it correctly applies the critical hit damage bonus

Engineering / Saboteur

• Redesigned Custom Auto Loaders / Jury-Rigged Mods to additionally give:
  Snipe / Charged Burst deals additional elemental damage to targets affected by Interrogation Probe / Shock Charge
• Increased Electrified Railgun / Blazing Speed damage by 25%

In addition to class balance for 7.1, some disciplines are also receiving new Tacticals. With 7.0 we removed a handful of Tacticals from specific disciplines, and in many cases, rolled their functionality into the disciplines ability tree. This created a bit of an imbalance between combat styles access to Tactical items, as some disciplines simply had more Tacticals to choose from than others. In 7.1, we are filling these gaps by introducing a few new Tacticals into the game for certain disciplines.

Carnage Marauders are receiving a new Tactical to replace Fanged God Form

• Shard of Mortis - Using Massacre / Blade Rush adds Hyper stacks to you, increasing your critical chance by 25% per stack and increasing the cost of your next Massacre / Blade Rush by 1 rage / focus per stack, up to 3. When you deal damage with another ability, Hyper is removed.

Arsenal Mercenaries will receive a new Tactical to replace Thermonuclear Fusion

• Unstable Fusion - Activating Supercharged Gas / Cell accelerates heat out from you, dealing elemental damage to up to 8 enemies within 8 meters and applying Heat Signature to them. Targets with Heat Signature are vulnerable to Rail Shot / High Impact Bolt and take additional damage from Heatseeker Missiles / Demolition Round.

Innovative Ordnance Mercenaries will received a new Tactical to replace Magnetized Shrapnel

• Magnetic Resonance - Exploding Thermal Detonator / Assault Plastique early with Mag Shot / Mag Bolt causes your next Power Shot / Charged Bolts to deal additional Elemental damage.

Bodyguard Mercenaries will receive a new Tactical based on their old Rocket Fuel Vapors item

• Kolto Vapors - The Kolto Pods left by Kolto Missile / Kolto Bomb last a second longer and heal for an additional 5%.

Another important note, our intention isnt to introduce new Tactical items at a steady cadence into the future; instead, we are looking to balance access to Tactical items. You can expect a few more discipline-specific Tacticals in the next patch to further balance what is available for each discipline, but moving forward from that, there are no immediate plans of introducing more.

To reiterate, all of you will have a chance to try out the above changes on PTS soon! The PTS forums will have an updated Changelog, so you can see everything thats been updated since the last phase of PTS was live. Wed love to get your feedback on everything. Please play around with the class changes and new Tactical items and give us your thoughts.

Thanks!