SWTOR 5.2 Tier 4 Gear Added, Changes to Galactic Command Tiers 1-3 and Operations Gear Drops

All this new information is integrated into my updated and reworked for Patch 5.2 Gearing Guide.

I get the feeling that the titles of my SWTOR Galactic Command news posts are all starting to look similar to one another. It’s so often that Bioware announces changes to the gearing process and the dreaded RNG, that I am running out of ideas of how to fit the most important into the title :)))

Now, let’s get down to business!

Today Eric Musco explained 2 major changes to Galactic Command in Patch 5.2: Command Crates Drops in Tiers 1 to 3 are changing and Tier 4 is announced and explained. Operations will also see the long expected and asked for return of FIXED loot drops. We’ll take a deeper look to these below.

Video Overview

Tier 1-3 Changes in 5.2

Coming with Game Update 5.2 Bioware is making substantial changes to how Command Crates work, specifically focusing on drop rates for gear. Perhaps the single-most repeated comment about Command Crates is they do not feel rewarding due to the random nature of the contents of the crates. To resolve most of these issues, they’ve added ways for both PvP and PvE players to target specific gear slots and obtain those items directly.

For players looking to gear up through Galactic Command working through a Tier can feel like a grind since your rewards don’t change. You can get that same Premium belt at Command Rank 70 that you got at Rank 1, which is frustrating when you are trying to complete your class set.

Starting with Game Update 5.2, drop rates of better quality items (Legendary and Artifact) will get higher as you gain Command Ranks in a given Tier, while lower quality items’ (Premium and Prototype) drop rates will go down. What this means is you are encouraged to continue increasing your Command Rank as your drop rates of more desired items get higher as your Rank increases.

Let’s look at a Tier 2 and 3 example. Right now this is an approximation of gear drops for the entire Tier:

Premium (green): High drop rate
Prototype (blue): Medium drop rate
Artifact (purple): Low drop rate
Legendary (yellow): Very low drop rate

After 5.2, gear drops get much better as you progress through the Tier. Let’s say you were getting close to the top of your Tier, this is what your drop rates will look like:

Premium: No longer drop
Prototype: Medium-low drop rate
Artifact: Medium-high drop rate
Legendary: Medium drop rate

As you can see from the above example, after 5.2 you will be able to get higher quality gear for your characters more consistently as you progress through each Tier. This will also help in addressing concerns about the inability to get set bonus gear from Command Crates

Tier 4 is added with 5.2

Why add 100 more Command Ranks?
The 100 new levels were simply a logical next step for adding Tier 4 gear. However, since it’s already possible to rank up at Command Level 300 indefinitely Bioware decided to take players’ feedback and keep the current cap. So, starting in 5.2, Command Crates dropped at Level 300 will contain Tier 4 gear (going forward Tier 3 will stop being provided at Rank 299).

UPDATE: The additional 100 Command Rank levels were not implemented in the game after a strong negative outcome from the community.

Why a new Tier of gear?
The developers have two main goals in mind for the addition of Tier 4: The first is to act as a benefit for players who put in the time and effort to level up to Command Rank 300. The second goal is giving the most skilled PvE players in SWTOR a worthwhile reward for their coordination and gameplay mastery while also introducing gear drops needed for taking on Tyth in Veteran Mode and other Master Mode Operation bosses. PvP players will also be able to purchase Tier 4 gear for Unassembled Components as they do for other Tiers today.

Tier 4’s biggest difference from previous Tiers is every gear drop from a Command Crate will be Prototype (Blue) Artifact (Purple), or Legendary (Gold); there are no Premium (green) items. Additionally, Prototype quality items in this Tier all have set bonuses. This means every piece of gear coming from a Command Crate in Tier 4 will have a set bonus (where applicable) and be of Prototype or better quality. It’s also important to note every piece of gear in Tier 4 is better than gear from previous tiers, including Tier 3 Legendaries. As Legendary Tier 4 items are best-in-slot, they will remain fairly rare from Command Crates.

Tier 4 is primarily for the most hardcore players who have maxed out their Command Rank and are working on getting best-in-slot gear for their character. Now, with Galactic Command, every player has an opportunity to get a complete set of the best gear offered in SWTOR.

Does this mean Tier 5 and/or more Command Ranks are coming in the future?
The idea of of adding more Command Ranks (as you know) and Tier 5 has been actively discussed as well. While there are plans for new items in the future, these may or may not come with additional Ranks or through a new Tier level. Once we have more details pm the appropriate delivery mechanism, I’ll update the guide and/or post a new news article, but more than likely that’ll be much later in the year!

Changes to Operations Drops in 5.2

For a detailed SWTOR 5.2 Operations Loot Table, go to page 2 of my Gearing Guide.

The first change is specific Unassembled Gear Pieces will now drop on each Operation boss in the game (except Golden Fury and olossal Monolith). This means when you kill a boss in an Operation, you will know exactly what is going to drop and you can plan to run specific Operations if you are seeking a specific slot.

The second change is bosses will no longer have a random chance to drop Unassembled Gear Pieces. Each boss in an 8-player Operation will drop 1 piece and the last boss will drop 2; this number is doubled to 2 and 4 respectively in 16-player. Previously with Game Update 5.1, each boss except for the last boss only had a chance of dropping gear pieces.

The third change is with the introduction of a new Tier (Tier 4), it was needed to ensure Operation players had a way to acquire this gear directly. This is especially true since Tier 4 will help substantially in being able to clear Veteran Mode Tyth along with future Gods from the Machine bosses, and all other Master Mode bosses. Here is a basic breakdown of where the gear will drop:

For existing Operations (Tier 1 will no longer drop in Operations)