The final major update for 2018 to Star Wars: The Old Republic – 5.10: Jedi Under Siege, will bring a few new features, daily area and a brand new storyline!
SWTOR 5.10 Jedi Under Siege released on December 11th, 2018. It brings a new storyline on a new planet (Ossus), massive Guild changes and system improvements, returning companions, Master Mode Gods from the Machine, a new tier 5 gear and more.
Now, let’s kick it off!
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SWTOR CANTINA 2018 REWARD
The October 11th Live stream was set to replace the canceled New York Cantina. If you type “SWCANTINA2018” in the redeem code page on swtor.com, you will receive a brand new flair In-Game. Every single player is able to claim the reward until the end of the year.
SWTOR 7th ANNIVERSARY REWARDS
There are four new items added to the Anniversary Personnel merchant on the Fleet. To celebrate the 7th anniversary since the release of the game, the developers added thematic items to reflect on the new content that was just released with 5.10 – Commemorative Statue: Return of Malgus, Weapon Display: Satele Shan, Weapon Display: Darth Malgus, and a Fireworks Celebration Backpack!
During this limited-time event, you can also move into the Coruscant and Dromund Kaas Strongholds for only SEVEN CREDITS each (normally 5,000 credits) by visiting the “Strongholds Terminal.”
The promotional event started on December 11th with the launch of “Jedi Under Siege”, 2018 and will end on January 15th, 2019, we learned from BioWare’s official announcement (link in the “Sources” section at the end of the article)
NEW PLANET AND STORYLINE
This paragraph includes minor spoilers from the set-up of the story.
The name of the new planet that is being added to SWTOR is Ossus. It is an ancient Jedi world that is new to SWTOR, but not to the Star Wars Lore (now called Legends).
Several hundred years prior to the current story Ossus was nearly destroyed by the Sith. It was left inhospitable and deadly up until the past 5 or so years. New Jedi colonists started creating settlement on Ossus in an attempt to bring back life to the planet. New farms started popping up and the life was slowly returning there.
As the Sith Empire learned of these actions of the Jedi, they made an immediate attempt to cause as much trouble as possible. Your role in this new arising conflict between the two factions, who are just on the bring of a new war, is to either help the population on Ossus survive the attack and escape (if you play Republic) or lead the attack on the planet (if you are an Imperial character.
End of the Spoilers.
The new storyline can be viewed as two story lines, in fact, because the Republic and Empire will experience different things.
The only requirement for you to play the Ossus story is to have a level 70 character. You do not need to be a current subscriber. If you want to experience it as soon as possible, you can even use the Master’s Datacron item to boost an existing character to level 70 and choose the Autocomplete option to start Ossus. Be warned, though, that the Autocomplete will finish with default choices for your class and faction absolutely everything related to story in the game so far. This includes origin stories, KOTFE and KOTET, some Alliance Alerts, some Companion Romances and so on.
In a more recent statement SWTOR’s creative director Charles Boyd explained that the studio has changed their plans regarding lockouts and auto-completion of Alliance Alerts. Starting the Ossus narrative will still auto-complete all of your class origin story, KOTFE and KOTET, but when it comes to Alliance Missions and Romances, you wont have to sacrifice everything. To learn which missions, how and why are being automatically completed, check the SWTOR 5.10 Update on Alliance Alerts, Choices and Lockouts. Keep in mind that if you have manually completed these storylines with your character already, your own actions and decisions will be taken into account, so all of the above is meaningless to you.
As promised, your choices from the end of Nathema’s story, you will now have a few minor options to demonstrate your decision to side with one faction or another. If you sided with the opposite faction, you will become a Saboteur. If you remained loyal to your original faction, you will be a Loyalist. At first with 5.10 only a few places in the story will allow you to undermine the original faction of your character, but as the prelude story to 6.0 develops, these choices will become more frequent and with bigger importance.
The following few lines are a direct quote from an article that was published on swtor.com on the evening before 5.10’s release. From it you can learn a few bits and pieces about Ossus, its role in the new storyline and more. In short – read this before you start your new adventure!
A dark shadow looms over the once-forgotten world of Ossus. Fight for the Galactic Republic or the Sith Empire as their forces battle for supremacy in the upcoming Game Update 5.10: Jedi Under Siege in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™!
Amid the desolate crags of Ossus lay the ruins of an ancient Jedi bastion. Following the devastating war against Zakuul, Jedi Master Gnost-Dural has retreated to this forgotten world and established a hidden colony, seeking to safeguard the Jedi and their teachings for the future. But the colony’s location has been discovered by the Sith, who have deployed Dark Council member Darth Malora to destroy the Jedi colony in a deadly first-strike, renewing the war between the Republic and the Empire. As the Commander of the Alliance, you will play a key role in deciding the fate of Ossus and the Jedi hiding there.
Players who have reached level 70 and want to jump into this storyline can start it by accepting the “Inflection Point” mission from the console aboard their personal ship. There will be a separate storyline for both the Republic and Empire forces.
Will you side with the Republic forces to protect this vital colony or will you side with the Sith and lay siege to the planet of Ossus? The choice is yours.
NEW DATACRONS ON OSSUS
There are three new Datacrons hidden on Ossus that will grant you +6 Mastery, +6 Presence and +2 Endurance. Each one of them is a separate journey. The stats as well as the Datacrons are legacy-shared. This means that once you pick them up on one of your characters, all of your existing and new toons will have the permanent boost.
The stats themselves are not the big value here. The Datacrons are well placed and involve interesting approaches and techniques to get to them.
The Endurance Datacron may make you hate yourself or even the game at some point. But once you get it, you will be immensely satisfied. It is a very well crafted adventure that will demand you cross Ossus from one corner to the other and explore various ancient places.
The Mastery Datacron involves a bit of rock-jumping and climbing, but is rather easy to get to.
The Presence Datacron can be split into two parts – first you need to obtain a Grapple device, then you need to go to the Datacron’s location and use the device to pull yourself to its location.
I have a step-by-step detailed guide to help you get them all, including maps, videos and walkthroughs. Check the link below!
NEW AND RETURNING CHARACTERS
Six new and returning characters have been announced that you need to pay attention to during the new story: Tau Idair, Darth Malora (Musco and Boyd played a nice trick on the audience during the live stream using a wordplay on the similarity of Malora and Malgus’ names), General Daerunn, Major Anri and Master Gnost-Dural.
For the Republic on the left side we’ve got:
- Tau Idair, who is the head of security for the colony on Ossus
- General Daeruun is a new species – Krex.
- Master Gnost-Dural is the famous Jedi Archivist, who you might remember from the Lore videos BioWare released detailing events prior to the game’s beginning. He is a war hero from the Great Galactic War and server in the Republic’s army during it. He also remained active in the years of the Cold War after that between the Empire and the Republic.
For the Empire we’ve got:
- Darth Malora, who you might remember from Korriban. She never played any significant role in that one side mission she participated in, but that may change now.
- Major Anri is a Twi’lek Special Ops Commander in the Empire’s ranks.
NEW DAILY AREA
The new daily area on Ossus becomes accessible after you have completed the storyline, also known as the Critical Path. Both factions have different experience and unique missions (some overlap, though). All Daily and Weekly missions can be picked at the same time from the Mission Board in your faction’s starting area and various NPCs spread around the Speeder Transports in the different zones of Ossus. There is no rotation like with the Iokath Dailies. The daily missions provide a ton of new decorations for you. New reputations is available as well.
Two new world bosses are also available for your team to take their chances with them. The rewards are artifact quality gear, decorations and more.
Check the massive guide I have for you! It includes absolutely all quests on Ossus with objectives and easy to follow walkthroughs for your convenience.
RETURNING COMPANIONS
Four classic class companions return with 5.10 Jedi Under Siege.
- Doc, who is currently a doctor for the colony on Ossus, will side back with the Jedi Knight. Doc is part of the Republic Storyline.
- The Concular’s Nadia is now a full fleshed out Jedi Knight and is also taking care of the colonialists on the new planet. Nadia is a part of the Republic Storyline
- Both sides of Jaesa – light and dark – will return as well. Originally only Dark Jaesa was announced to be coming back, now we know that both of them are coming to your Sith Warriors. Which Jaesa will you get and how, depends on the choices you have made in your relationship with her. The Light Side you will meet on Ossus. Dark Side Jaesa is available through an Alliance Alert
- Khem Val returns. Finally! The trick here is that you will only get him if you sided with him in the origin story of the Inquisitor.
Important note – you may encounter these companions when you play Ossus with other classes, but you will only be able to recruit them if you play the classes that they used to belong to.
For the first time ever same-gender-romance options for classic companions are being made available – for Jaesa and Nadia.
GUILD IMPROVEMENTS AND CONQUEST
A significant improvement to the Guilds System is coming to the game with Update 5.10. Here is a quick break-down of what to expect:
- Guild Progression – Guilds will be able to level up and gain Guild XP based on size, age and activity
- Temporary Guild Perks that are slotted via Guild Ship (if your guild has one). These can be purchased with a new Guild Currency (name still undecided) plus Credits. The currency will be earned from leveling the guild and completing planetary yields in the Guild Conquests.
- Conquest Improvements – More and consistent objectives across all conquest themes. Less emphasis on winning a conquest, the focus now lands on completing your weekly guild objectives. Some tweaks will allow you to tailor the guild to your needs and the conquest objectives. Specific player feedback has been taken into account and several objectives have been reworked to fit better with the player’s demands. Conquest changes will be available on SWTOR PTS 5.10, but not in the first installment, which will be 100% focused on the Master Mode of Gods from the Machine.
- Guild Heraldry was originally planned for 5.10, but will not be included in this update.
- Guild Landing Pages – special pages containing information about the guild. There will also be space for a special publicly available text – some form of an advertisement for everybody to see when they click to see the guild’s info. Good example would be info on what activities the guild participates in.
- Guild Management Tools:
- Guild Inspect – a tool that will allow new potential recruits to check the guild’s stats before they decide if this is the place for them.
- Detailed Logs – what happens in the guild, who leaves, when, why, who gets kicked etc.
- Guild Mail – the ability to send a massive mail message to all guild members or a selection of them perhaps.
- Ban by Legacy – it is important to note here that if two players have the same legacy, it doesn’t mean both will get banned. The way Legacies are visible to players, is not the same compared to how the game understands them. You are safe.
- PvP Guild Challenges – the final addition to the Summer of PvP will allow a minimum of 2v2 or maximum of “whatever the type of content is” players to face each other. The PvP Guild Challenges are in a completely separate queue from the standard PvP matches.
MASTER MODE GODS FROM THE MACHINE
At first BioWare announced that Gods from the Machine Operation on Iokath (you know, the one that took over an year to develop fully with one boss at a time :P), was not going to receive a Master Mode difficulty. 5.10 does actually disprove that. The Operation is receiving its deserved Nightmare (old name to Master Mode) difficulty.
The reason why Master Mode is happening, even though it was not supposed to (original plans were to divert attention and focus on more new content, instead of developing a new difficulty for an old existing operation.), is because of player demand and popularity, as the studio claims.
The new difficulty, obviously, will scale the difficulty even higher. Veteran mode is getting slightly nerfed to allow more players to experience this part of the group gameplay now that there is a new level above it.
Some of the Master Mode mechanics will not be easily predictable and players will have to react quickly and accordingly to survive.
The first boss Tyth will be slightly easier, but for the rest a 252 gear or extremely high experience will be required to defeat them.
The new tier of difficulty provokes new Balance Targets. Remember, last year, BioWare made series of class changes in several patches, to balance the disciplines performance. Now, because of the introduction of a new tier of gear (more on that later) and the MM GFTM, a fresh re-balance is coming.
UPDATE: SWTOR 5.10 PTS was officially brought offline on November 29th as the studio began preparations for the launch on December 11th to the live servers. Original story continues below.
SWTOR PTS for the Operation was free for all players. The whole update was never available on PTS because of story spoilers, but the operation will be and it will be available publicly to all subscribers. I have a handy guide showing you how to Install and Access SWTOR PTS. The main hub area for the Operation testing is Odessen. There are glowing terminals leading you directly to Odessen from the starting world. A collection of gear vendors are also available for you to test everything up to tier 4, including stims and other items. You can also boost up to level 70 immediately via a terminal on Odessen. There is a glowing light-bridge on Odessen’s platform that will take you straight into the operation.
Large and detailed forum posts will appear in the weeks while PTS is open informing players of the latest balance changes and tweaks. As always, you will be able to read a break down of each one of them here on VULKK.com.
On an unrelated note to Gods from the Machine, but still on the SWTOR Operations topic – game producer Keith Kanneg confirmed (wrote in the NY Cantina live stream chat) that more and new operations are coming.
NEW MASTERWORK GEAR (TIER 5 GEAR)
On the Fall Roadmap Keith mentioned the introduction of Tier 5 gear and the fact that it will be unique in the way it is obtained – through crafting. Quite a lot has changed since then. The gear will still be craftable with special rare crafting materials, found in Master Mode Operations and more, but players will be able to obtain the new 252 and 258 pieces in other ways (both PvE and PvP).
Masterwork Armor is a tier 5 gear in SWTOR – item level 252 and 258. The set bonuses are the same as the previous sets. The stats distribution is the same, but obviously each piece will give you slightly bigger boost for each separate stat.
Here’s how you can get the new Masterwork Gear:
- Crafters (Binds on Equip) – can acquire schematics from a trainer. To craft the gear you need materials from crew skills, Ossus, PvP, Conquests and Gods from the Machine bosses.
- Gameplay (Binds on Pickup) – gear can be purchases from a Reputation Vendor with Masterwork Data Crystals (new currency, yes). They can be earned from a new special Weekly Mission, Ossus Weekly, Unassembled Components, Command Crates and more
- The lower (purple) version of the new gear – IR 252, can be obtained via Command Crates as rare drop at Rank 300 and from the Ossus World Boss Weekly.
PVP BOLSTER CHANGES FOR 5.10
On a first glimpse the Summer of PvP is now over in SWTOR, but there are a few small tweaks and updates the developers have left for Game Update 5.10. Bolster is getting an upgrade thanks to the new tier 5 gear that is available for the most hard-core (or rich :P) players.
The current plan is that in 5.10 bolster will have the following item ratings. As always this is subject to change and I will let you know of any other adjustments:
- Gear – 252 (up from 242)
- Augments – 236 (up from 208)
Source ► Eric Musco, SWTOR Forums
GAME NEWS
Everything news-worthy related to Jedi Under Siege, ordered chronologically.
- SWTOR Roadmap Fall 2018: What is Coming to the Game
- SWTOR 5.10 Jedi Under Siege Will Have Different Storylines for Empire and Republic
- SWTOR 5.10 Is Up! Here is What You Can Test Now
- BioWare Brings Ossus Daily Area to SWTOR 5.10 PTS
- SWTOR 5.10 PTS Refresh #2 Focuses on Operation Changes
- SWTOR 5.10 PTS Refresh #3: New Tier 5 Gear Overview
- BioWare Announces SWTOR 5.10 PvP Bolster Changes and Future Plans
- SWTOR 5.10 Guild Leveling and Conquest Changes Explained
- SWTOR 5.10 List of All Available Guild Perks
- SWTOR Brings Paxton Rall to Active Subscribers this December
- SWTOR 5.10 Masterwork Gear Changes with PvP in Mind
- SWTOR 5.10 Update on Alliance Alerts, Choices and Lockouts
- Interview with SWTOR Lead Operations Designer Matt Pucevich
- SWTOR 5.10 Known Issues, Bugs and Fixes
- SWTOR 7th Anniversary Rewards Overview
- SWTOR 5.10a Patch Notes, New Loading Screen Revealed, New Ops Boss Added to PTS
- SWTOR 5.10.1 PTS Refresh: The Geonosian Queen Lair Is Nearly Ready
5.10 PATCH NOTES
Links to Patch Notes for 5.10 and all additional mini-updates to the major one.
- SWTOR 5.10 Patch Notes (Jedi Under Siege Update)
- SWTOR 5.10a Patch Notes, New Loading Screen Revealed, New Ops Boss Added to PTS
- SWTOR 5.10.1 Patch Notes (The Wretched Hive)
SWTOR 5.10 NEW AND UPDATED GUIDES
- SWTOR Ossus Datacrons Locations Guide (new)
- SWTOR Companions Status List (updated)
- SWTOR 5.10 New Tier 5 Gear Masterwork Sets: All You Need to Know (new)
- SWTOR Ossus Daily Missions and World Bosses Guide (new)
- SWTOR Returning Companions from Update 5.10 Jedi Under Siege (new)
- SWTOR Conquest Guide (updated)
- SWTOR 5.10 Guild Leveling and Conquest Changes Explained (new)
- Ultimate SWTOR Beginners Guide: All You Need to Know (updated)
- SWTOR Don the Exiled Knight Achievement Guide (new)
- SWTOR Operative LETHALITY Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Scoundrel RUFFIAN Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Sentinel WATCHMAN Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Sentinel COMBAT Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Sentinel CONCENTRATION Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Marauder ANNIHILATION Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Marauder CARNAGE Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Marauder FURY Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Commando GUNNERY Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Mercenary ARSENAL Guide (updated)
- SWTOR Guardian VIGILANCE Guide (new)
