SWTOR 5.10 Masterwork Gear Changes with PvP in Mind

BioWare announced a few key improvements and changes to the gearing process for players, who want to obtain 252 and 258 Masterwork Tier 5 Gear through PvP

Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Update 5.10 Jedi Under Siege releases in December and brings a brand new Tier 5 gear. I have already shown you in a previous post the stats and design for every single class and role. Today it’s time to bring some light on the gearing process – how will you obtain the new gear pieces through PvE and PvP gameplay.

Community manager at BioWare Austin Eric Musco posted on the forums a lenghty text detailing how the gearing process will change from the originally planned and announced. Based on players feedback, the developers realized that the PvP side of the gearing process is much slower and harder, so a few tweaks and new features are being introduced in addition to the already announced changes.

Did you think it has been too long since we’ve seen a new currency introduces to the game (/sarcasm)? Me too! Good news! The Masterwork Tier 5 Gear will be obtainable through Masterwork Data Cristals. These can be found and earned in both PvP and PvE in one of the following methods:

The 252 and 258 gear pieces can be purchased on Ossus in the base camp on the ground.

252 Tier 5 Gear (Artifact) – Lord Fural / Major Pucenisco on Ossus:

• Requires Ossus Reputation rank between Outsider and Hero, depending on gear piece
• Each piece costs 2 Masterwork Data Crystals

258 Tier 5 Gear (Legendary) – Lord Bay’lor / Captain Anfel:

• Requires Ossus Reputation rank of Champion or Legend, depending on gear piece
• Each piece costs 3-4 Masterwork Data Crystals and a matching piece of 252 gear

As you can see, you will have to grind some (or a lot) Ossus reputation if you want your character to be equipped with the shiny new 252 or 258 items.

258 gear can be crafted by gathering materials from a variety of sources, including Master Mode Gods from the Machine. This ensures that the new MM in 5.10 is a very valuable source for progression Ops players. Outside of crafting, there are two ways of acquiring MW gear, by turning in MW Data Crystals to a vendor for 252 / 258 or by receiving 252 gear directly.

The MasterWork Data Crystals can be obtained through one or all of the following methods:

From PVE:

• 1 Crystal – [Weekly] Masterwork Data Crystal – This Mission is to defeat both world bosses -or- earn 50 Group Ranked Arena Points
• 1 Crystal – New rotating Weekly Mission (50% chance of being a PvE objective)

From PVP:

• 1 Crystal – [Weekly] Masterwork Data Crystal – This Mission is to defeat both world bosses -or- earn 50 Group Ranked Arena Points
• 1 Crystal – New rotating Weekly Mission (50% chance of being a PvP objective)

From Both:

• Rare chance of MW Data Crystals dropping out of Command Crates at Tier 3 and up
• 1-2 Crystals – Turning in Unassembled Components

This new system attempts to resolve the issue of gearing through one method or the other by giving you as much freedom as the developers could think of at this point. Remember, nothing is final until 5.10 is released (in December).

In addition to being able to purchase the 252 and 258 from these vendors (video overview of their contents in the featured clip at the top of the post, by the way!), you will be able to directly obtain a random 252 gear piece. Once you are in Tier 3 of Galactic Command there is a chance that an Artifact Lockbox containing one random 252 piece can drop from Command Crates. Also the [Weekly] Daily Area Ossus will allow you to choose one of the 3 Artifact Lockboxes:

• Artifact Lockbox (Lower Body): Waist, Legs, Feet, or Relic
• Artifact Lockbox (Tech): Main Hand, Offhand, Head, or Ear
• Artifact Lockbox (Upper Body): Chest, Wrists, Hands, or Implant

Lockboxes are back! D’OH! I mean… nevermind, let’s continue with the news and facts!

A few additional changes are also being introduces to further enhance the gearing process and help players get what they are after:

• Increased the current 252 disintegration rates from PTS. 252 gear will disintegrate into 175 Unassembled Components in 5.10 (up from 9 to 45).
• To help PvPers get the required Reputation for the MW Data Crystal vendors (without having to farm PvE Ossus missions), the devs have decided to add Rep rewards to Ranked PvP Missions:
  • [DAILY] Arena of Death!: 2 Geonosian Power Cell
  • [DAILY] My Kind of Scum: 1 Geonosian Power Cell
  • [WEEKLY] Go Berserk!: 4 Encrypted Data Disks
  • [WEEKLY] Time for Pain!: 2 Encrypted Data Disks

If a player does two Weekly Missions of their chosen playstyle they will be able to acquire a minimum of two 252 pieces per week (or upgrade one 252 piece to 258). This does not include crossing over into both PvP and PvE, any MW Data Crystals or drops from Command Crates, or purchasing any crafted versions of this gear, which can speed up your acquisition rate of MW gear.

So, to summarize, the main problems tackled by these changes, as stated by Musco himself are:

• Getting Masterwork gear solely from PvP was more difficult than they would like.
• The implementation encouraged working directly to 258 while skipping 252. BioWare had no problem with this, but it made getting any gear upgrades more challenging and expensive than desired. By “stair stepping” up to 252 and then 258 there can be constant progression that isn’t as expensive as trying to jump straight to best in slot.
• More opportunities for players to get Masterwork Data Crystals and gear overall were demanded by the community.
• Players had no long term value in getting 252 since they could not be upgraded to 258.