SWTOR 5.10 PTS Is Up! Here is What You Can Test Now

BioWare opened up the SWTOR 5.10 PTS. The initial phase allows you to test Gods from the Machine Master Mode. Daily Area, Guild Changes and more coming later

Yesterday during the Cantina Live Stream BioWare announced that the public test server will come online with Master mode of Gods from the Machine Operation loaded on it. Tonight this is a fact. In this first stage of PTS you can only test the Operation. Soon more features from Jedi Under Siege will become available.

For the coming weeks you can expect the Guild Changes and PvP Challenges, the Ossus Daily Area and the Conquest changes to be added as well.

The one thing you can be certain will never be accessible on PTS for testing is the Jedi Under Siege storyline. If you want to stay away from spoilers, you should also avoid datamined information. It has already been made available. Even though I do not discuss datamining on VULKK.com I follow what is happening and what is revealed. If you are afraid of story spoilers, definitely stay away from the batch of mined information that surfaced today :)

So, let’s focus on what you can do today.

As I mentioned, PTS 5.10 has begun and Gods from the Machine Master Mode is available on it. The Story and Veteran are available too, of course. In fact significant changes have been made to the latter two modes as the Patch notes listed further below in this article suggest.

You can jump right into the test environment with one of your characters or create a brand new one on PTS. There are quick transport terminals located close to the spawn points on all of the starter planets. They can take your fresh level 1 character to Odessen, which is the main hub once again for GFTM testing. Right at the platform you will find several NPCs selling extremely cheap all kinds of gear, mods and augments. You can also boost your character for free to level 70 here. A special portal will lead you right to the entrance of the Operation.

The available gear is from Tier 1 to Tier 4 Artifact quality. Augments are up to 240. You can also stock up on Stims, Grenades, Adrenals and Medpacks – the usual arsenal for every raider.

Reminder: Only active subscribers can access PTS. You can check out all the subscriptions deals or click on the link below and get a six months game time for a good price. Doing so you will also support VULKK.com, because this is an affiliate link. Thanks

The following patch notes were posted on the SWTOR forums earlier tonight. These are the expected changes to the Operation for 5.10. They are not final, though.

TYTH

Tyth’s encounter is a tug-of-war for the raid’s time and attention between Tyth and his waves of drones. We’re going to lighten the load a bit there, focusing more heavily on the drone side of the equation. Additionally, we’re reducing the effectiveness of the Grace Heal (Aivela’s Restoration) to decrease the cost of letting heals through (both accidentally, and intentionally for rage management).

The direct reduction in Tyth’s health is going to slightly accelerate the encounter, but more specifically cut just a few seconds off the final burn phase (which will turn some near wipes into kills).

Lastly, double grace waves are now illegal in Veteran mode. They were a particularly sharp pain point, and the fact that they appeared unpredictably demanded a tactical reactivity that is inappropriate for Veteran mode.

Story

• Tyth HP reduced ~5%
• Drone HP ~7.5%
• Transition Threshold in Phase 2 decreased from 65% to 60% HP

Veteran

• Tyth HP reduced ~5%
• Drone HP reduced ~10%
• Transition Threshold in Phase 2 decreased from 65% to 60% HP
• Tyth’s drone summon cooldown increased 4s (32->36) in Phase 2+
• Aivela’s Restoration heal amount reduced by 1/3 (3% -> 2%)
• Veteran Mode can no longer summon drone waves with two Graces.

AIVELA AND ESNE

A&E is a wonderfully unique encounter with a lot of layered mechanics. Unfortunately, a lot of layered mechanics create a lot of points for failure and derailing. Even in Story Mode, this encounter can be a little meaner than we’d like.

While no one thing in Veteran mode is necessarily problematic for Veteran players, the full set of everything together puts a lot of coordination stress on groups and can punish breakdowns in an inappropriately severe manner (we’re looking at you 128,000 DPS death beams).

The changes to this encounter are focused on decreasing the severity of avoidable damage, while also providing some longer windows to prepare for / react to mechanics cues. This will hopefully create additional room for the occasional mistakes that Veteran mode should allow.

Lastly, we’ve walked back certain places where the damage in 16-Person modes was needlessly higher than 8-Person.

All Difficulties

• The “sweeping beams” will take 6 seconds longer to start up initially at the beginning of Phase 3. This will give groups a little extra time to recover from Phase 2.
• Glares:
  • Decreased polarized damage bonus to +50% (was +100%) – This means that their polarized Pulse Fires will deal 25% less damage than before (2.0x -> 1.5x).
  • Charge Fire cooldown increased by 4s (16->20)
  • Purification cooldown increased 6s (30->36)
  • Charge Fire / Purification damage in 16-Person modes decreased to that of 8-Person modes.
• Aivela & Esne:
  • Polarized Energy Burst damage in 16-Person modes decreased to that of 8-Person modes.
  • Polarized Energy Burst damage decreased 10%
  • Polarized Energy Burst’s primary target now gets a 50% run speed buff for the duration of the channel to match the target player’s real-world adrenaline rush, increasing immersion while conveniently making it easier for the target to get away from others.

Story

• Glares:
  • Charge Fire / Purification damage reduced by 25% (~28000 -> ~21000)

Veteran

• Countermeasure Prioritize cooldown increased by 10s (30->40)
• Remote Access / Spike mechanics adjusted to be more recoverable:
  • Spike duration reduced by 15s (30->15)
  • Spike consumes the matching Remote Access debuff when applied.
  • Spike now also places Remote Access on cooldown
• Radiance damage reduced by 25%.
• System Shock damage reduced by 10%
• Glare:
  • Charge Fire channel duration increased by 1.0s (5.0s -> 6.0s) – this means 1s of additional warning before it fires.
  • Charge Fire / Purification damage reduced by 40% (~64500 -> ~38500).

NAHUT

Nahut’s stealth and burst damage potential create a background threat that runs throughout the encounter, and create an environment where everything can be going great until a single mistake blows everything up. This problem extends into Story Mode as well; the damage values don’t sufficiently tolerate the lack of organization that is to be expected of PUGs

We’re going to relax the complexity of keeping Nahut visible, by requiring fewer players in the candle loop. We’re also going to decrease the AoE damage of the encounter, to try and ease some of the situations where intersecting mechanics can blow people up for minor positioning errors. We’re trying to hold the single target damage constant, because given what Nahut is, the current levels are appropriate.

We’re also going to decrease the rail turrets’ HP by a fair amount to decrease the time investment required to feed rail turrets into the singularity in Phase 3 (another common point of breakdown in Veteran mode). We’re making this change over removing the CC requirement on the process, because we think the CC requirement is a more interesting mechanic, and every class has at least one ability that can get the job done. If testing reveals that we’re wrong, let us know and we can readjust.

Story

• Suppression Burst (Candle Reveal) cooldown decreased by 20s (60->40)
• Decreased Energized Slice’s AoE damage by 30% (Primary target damage unchanged)
• Nahut no longer becomes immune to taunts for 6s when a player steps on a mine.
• Decreased the pull-in power of Gravitic Shockwave during the coupling phase.

Veteran

• Suppression Burst (Candle Reveal) cooldown decreased by 20s (60->40)
• Decreased Energized Slice’s AoE damage by 15% (Primary target damage unchanged)
• Decreased Mass Distortion Field’s damage by 20%
• Rending Cloud damage growth per stack reduced by about 1/3
• Decreased the damage of Extermination Droids’ Energy Burst by 20%.
• Rail Turret HP reduced by 20%.

SCYVA

There’s just a whole lot going on all the time in this visual love letter to the 80’s, and it wound up being generally overwhelming.

The encounter’s current balance is underestimating just how disruptive its various mechanics are for players, and we’ve made the following adjustments to better account for what we’ve been seeing. We’re going to make just these changes for this first PTS cycle, and see what still needs to be done.

All Difficulties

• SCYVA now has a 3 second cast warning before her first use of Extinction Protocol called Initializing Extinction Protocol
• The deflected blast from the Omega Protocol Droid now damages the Shield Generators more reliably (it is still possible to miss in Veteran and Master mode)
• Reduced the health of Ignition Catalysts by ~20%
• Reduced the health of CFA-Railguns by 30%
• Deflected beams now destroy generators with a single hit
  • NOTE: There is a 4 second delay before generators enter the destroyed state after they’re hit.
• Doubled the damage taken by the Omega Protocol Droid when it deflects a blast (to go along with the Shield Generators taking half as many hits to destroy).
• Reduced snare on Amplify Gravity to 15% (down from 25%).
• *cheval can now be Interrupted*

Veteran

• Upheval’s timings have been adjusted slightly for reasons.

IZAX

Now that we have a Master Mode, Izax’s Veteran Mode should no longer have Master Mode numbers, and needs to be considerably walked back. Story Mode is also likewise due for a walk back, if for no other reason than to reduce the duration of the encounter to something a bit more practical for pick up groups.

The encounter should take about 3-4 minutes less time than it did before. In Veteran Mode, most of this time has come out of Phase 3. In Story Mode, there’s a bit of time shaved off of many phases.

All Difficulties

• Increased the physical size of Tether drones by about 50% to make them a bit easier to see (and click!).
• Refactored Phase 5 Mines slightly. They now have a detonation delay, with a “closing ring” VFX effect that visually indicates the delay time (3.0s in Story Mode, 0.5s in Veteran).
• Izax’s Phase Transition thresholds adjusted:
  • Phase 2->3: 85% (was 80%)
  • Phase 3->4: 65% (was 60%)

Story

• Izax Melee impact damage reduced 20%
• Induction Cascade damage reduced by 20%
• Izax is can now be pushed out of Phase 2 after a single Amplified Beam if the beam is stacked or the raid contributes a bit of damage afterwards. Otherwise, 2 Amplified Beams will do it.
• Reduced Adaptive Shrapnel’s vulnerability debuff to 5%/stack (down from 15%)
• Combat Mines:
  • Detonate damage radius reduced from 7m to 5m.
  • Mines now have a detonation delay as noted above.
  • Health reduced considerably. It should now be viable in story mode to deal with mines through direct damage (and have enough time to run out of the blast, due to the new delay + decreasaed radius).

Veteran

• Player performance targets changed to Veteran (from Master). This implies a whole bunch of additional numbers changes.
• Izax’s HP reduced by ~20%.
• Tether HP reduced by ~25%
• Izax can now be pushed out of Phase 2 after a single 4-Stack Amplified Beam if the raid contributes damage afterwards, otherwise two 3-stack beams will do it.
• Phase 3 pacing restructured. Izax’s Omnicannon charges faster (5%/channel up from 4%), and his absorb shield is stronger (by about 33%), but players are not expected to punch the shield nearly as many times as before, drastically accelerating this phase. The damage dealt to Izax by Discharge Overload has been increased to account for the loss of player DPS uptime.
• Izax’s total DPS out in Phase 5 has been decreased by ~10%.
• Combat Mines now have a detonation delay as noted above.
• Energy Sphere damage profile has been adjusted (net decreased):
  • Damage type changed to Elemental (from Energy, so it now bypasses armor)
  • Damage versus players decreased ~50%.
  • Damage versus Scyva decreased ~58%.

If you don’t know how to Install PTS, I have a handy guide linked below. It will also help you copy one or more of your existing characters from the live servers: