SWTOR 7.0 Powertech Changes Preview and Analysis (PTS)

BioWare added the Powertech Combat Style to SWTOR 7.0 PTS. This is an overview of the changes and analyzes how all of this will affect you!

I have also included translations so that Republic players can still follow along.

In addition, Sorcerers / Sages also seem to have received significant changes compared to the last PTS update, so I’ll be covering those soon as well.

Unfortunately, it really seems like BioWare just wanted to release something to the PTS because it’s been a few weeks since the last update since this set of changes seems to be fairly incomplete and unrefined. I have a hard time believing that most of these changes will resemble what we actually see in 7.0, so this will be a bit lighter on analysis than my other PTS Combat Style changes articles. 

Pruned Abilities

Thermal Sensor Override and Reserve Powercell

Just like for Mercenaries / Commandos, this ability appears to have been completely removed from PTs / VGs, meaning it has been removed from the game altogether, which is a great decision. Since PTs / VGs do not have any rotational channeled abilities, TSO / RP is a bit more straightforward to use compared to Mercenaries / Commandos, however it is still excessive to have 2 abilities that accomplish the same goal. It’s better to just reduce the cooldown on Vent Heat / Recharge Cells or tweak the rotations so that TSO / RP isn’t needed. 

Guard

This ability is actually still present for all specs on the PTS for PTs / VGs, though I am confident this will change to being tank-only with a future update. It’s clear that BioWare wants Guard to be tank-only across the board since they already did this for Assassins / Shadows and Juggernauts / Guardians on the PTS and took a step in that direction earlier in 6.0 by making it so DPS specs deal 50% less damage while guarding someone. 

Level 70 Choice

At level 70, PTs / VGs currently have a choice is between 1 of 2 abilities or a passive:

• Shield Cannon / Guard Cannon
• Hydraulic Overrides / Hold the Line (lasts 14s for AP / Tactics, 10s for the other specs, does not include the +45% speed increase from the Overdrive / Charge the Line utility)
• Electro Dart / Cryo Grenade

I have absolutely no confidence that the Level 70 choice will stay like this for the launch of 7.0. Every other Combat Style has to choose from 3 abilities, which tend to include at least 1 or 2 that are significantly more powerful than what’s offered for PTs / VGs. It’s possible that BioWare plans to revisit this for other classes and only lock abilities away behind choices when there is a clear reason to do so, like as a major balance change or to eliminate significant ability bloat, but we don’t have much evidence of that right now except for the also preliminary Mercenary / Commando changes. 

Level 35 Choice

At level 35, PTs / VGs have a choice between 1 ability or 1 of 2 passives, though besides Stealth Scan (with seems to include the speed boost and possibly other effects from the Adaptable Assailant / Strategic Supremacy utility) the passive choices seem to be different for each discipline. I’ll cover those later on in the Individual Disciplines section. 

Level 20

At level 20, there isn’t any consistency, tanks have to pick between 1 of 2 abilities and a passive and DPS have to pick between 1 ability or 1 of 2 different passives. I’ll cover this choice later on as well. 

Universal Passive Choices

For PTs / VGs, all 3 specs share 3 sets of choices between 3 passives that are all current utility effects. Unfortunately, they’re clearly unfinished. I think BioWare just threw some popular utilities into a pile and called it good for now. 

Level 80

• Enhanced Paralytics / Paralytic Augs
• Sonic Rebounder
• Efficient Suit / Tools

I don’t like this choice. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and doesn’t provide a consistently useful option for PvE. Sonic Rebounder is super strong sometimes, but in many fights, it doesn’t do anything. Enhanced Paralytics / Paralytic Augs is useful on some add fights, but a lot of adds are also immune to CC in which case it becomes useless. It also forces you to take Electro Dart / Cryo Grenade as your ability, which is poor design because it invalidates a choice. Efficient Suit / Tools is almost exclusively useful in PvP and I’m not sure that it really matches the other choices in terms of strength. Try again BioWare!

Level 60

• Reflective Armor
• Hitman / Frontline Defense
• Suppressive / Entangling Tools

The level 60 choice is pretty huge. It basically means that only tanks will be able to consistently take Reflective Armor without infuriating their healers since DPS will need to take AoE DR. I’m not a fan of that being a choice in the first place though because it’s so terrible for group dynamics:

Healer: “Why did you just get killed? Are you taking AoE DR?” 
DPS: “No, I need Reflective Armor for more DPS.” 
Healer: “Can’t do DPS when you’re dead.”
DPS: “Dude, just heal me.”

No thank you.

Realistically, most reactive-type damage needs to be done away with. It’s usually fine when it’s concentrated into a very short DCD like Saber Reflect or Responsive Safeguards / Echoing Deterrence since there aren’t too many instances where they work and those can be addressed on a case-by-case basis, but these little ticks of reflect damage with very high uptime like Reflective Armor, Lightning Barrier / Telekinetic Defense, and Cloak of Pain / Rebuke are way too powerful on many boss fights because raid-wide damage pulses are so common. 

Whether or not a Combat Style has a good source of reactive damage is the main determining factor for why some Combat Styles are more popular than others. It’s just such a huge DPS increase on many fights that you’re doing yourself a disservice by not bringing one. On some fights, I’m sure PTs / VGs could probably remove their set bonus and / or tactical item and still deliver comparable DPS to other specs that don’t have any reactive damage. 

It isn’t worth trying to balance fights around the presence of these reactive damage sources. It’s better to just get rid of these problem effects or make it so they don’t have such high uptime. I don’t think that’s really possible with Reactive Armor or Cloak of Pain / Rebuke without completely changing the effect. I think with Pyro / Electro Shield, it would be fine only if the discipline doesn’t also have access to the Energy Rebounder / Reflexive Shield passive, it would need to be one or the other. Lightning Barrier / TK Defense could just do a higher set amount of damage to whatever breaks the bubble so it isn’t any different than a regular DPS ability since it’s already on the GCD.

BioWare, please fix reactive damage for 7.0!

Level 50

• Pyro / Electro Shield
• Gyroscopic Alignment Jets / Parallactic Combat Stims
• Iron Will 

At first glance, this choice seems pretty decent. You either get something that’s situationally powerful or something less useful, but generically good. Unfortunately, Iron Will doesn’t make much sense as one of the options since you basically have to take Hydraulic Overrides / Hold the Line in order for Iron Will to be worth taking, and you don’t even have the option to get that ability for another 20 levels. Pyro / Electro Shield also should not mix with Energy Rebounder / Reflexive Shield because it gives you too much uptime on reactive damage, so AP / Tactics shouldn’t have access to both. 

Discipline-Specific Choices

Each discipline has 4 choices that are (almost entirely) exclusive to that discipline. 2 of the choices buff 2 discipline-specific abilities while the other 2 are more generic. In addition, every Combat Style now has one ability that functions differently for each discipline. For PTs / VGs, that ability is Power Yield.

Advanced Prototype and Tactics

Energy / Cell Burst 

• Dealing damage with Energy / Cell Burst grants Power Burst which increases the damage dealt of your next Flame Burst / Ion Burst (?) or Thermal Detonator / Assault Plastique by 5% per stack of Energy Lode consumed. 
• The second passive has no description or clear effect.
• Energy Burst applies a burn dealing energy damage over 12 seconds.

The person who made these seems to have forgotten how this ability works. At level 55, AP / Tactics loses Flame Burst / Ion Burst and gets Magnetic Blast / Tactical Surge instead, but this proc doesn’t affect that ability. Also, this leans PTs even more into heavy burst, which they absolutely do not need. 

The third effect is weird too because Energy / Cell Burst already applies a DoT, though that is conveniently not listed among the new discipline passives. Not sure what’s happening there. Right now it applies both DoTs with the same icon. 

As a side note, I really hope they change the animations for Magnetic Blast / Tactical Surge and Energy / Cell Burst. They look and sound really lame and no one else in Star Wars uses anything like them. 

Retractable Blade / Gut

• When the bleed effect from Retractable Blade / Gut is refreshed, you deal additional damage to 4 targets within 5m. 
• When the bleed effect from Retractable Blade / Gut is refreshed, the target takes bonus kinetic damage. 
• When refreshing the bleed effect of Retractable Blade / Gut, you gain a stack of Easy Prey, which increases the damage dealt by your next initial hit with Retractable Blade / Gut. 

I really like the idea of the third option where you don’t lose DPS while target swapping, though I think the execution could use some refinement. The damage increase at max stacks should make it equal in damage to Magnetic Blast / Tactical Surge and it should be able to proc Rail Shot / High Impact Bolt since it’s already gonna be a DPS loss because you aren’t taking one of the other options instead. 

The other two options are boring, but fine. I don’t see a super great PvP-oriented option here though. 

Power Yield

For AP / Tactics, there isn’t a description yet, but it seems to have the Powerlode tactical effect built in and it generates all 5 stacks of Power Yield upon activation, though it only lasts 10 seconds. It definitely seems burst oriented, that’s for sure.

Level 35 Choice

• Stealth Scan ability (with speed boost and possibly other effects from the Adaptable Assailant / Strategic Supremacy utility)
• A passive that seems to increase the range of your 10m abilities to 15m.
• Some other effect with an icon that seems defensive-looking

There’s not much to say about these choices yet since we don’t know what the third one is. The 5m range increase seems like it could be pretty strong in PvP since it would enable you to do nearly your full rotation while kiting completely out of range of nearly all melee DPS abilities.

Level 20 Choice

• Grapple / Harpoon gets 2 charges and finishes the cooldown of Rocket Punch / Stockstrike (same effect as the Second Contract tactical item) 
• Jet Charge / Storm with the Battering Ram / Blitz utility effect built in
• Reel and Rattle / Pull and Pummel utility effect

This choice is all about gap closers and if you ask me, that’s a pretty good theme for a choice. Seems like you’d probably always want to take Jet Charge / Storm even without the Battering Ram / Blitz utility effect built in though thanks to the much shorter cooldown. Perhaps this would change if they migrated the 10m range increase effect of Efficient Suit / Tools to one of the passives and gave a cooldown reduction to the other; it might be more competitive for PvP. Maybe this is a tougher choice already than it looks to me, I’m not an expert on PT / VG in PvP.

Pyrotech and Plasmatech

Flaming Fist / Shockstrike

• Flaming Fist / Shockstrike leaves traces of Ignition Fuel on the target, causing them to take 10% more damage from your next Immolate / Plasma Flare. 
• Flaming Fist / Shockstrike deals damage to up to 4 enemies within 10 meters of the primary target. 
• The third option has no information.

Well the effects don’t seem too exciting in text form and they definitely aren’t done on the PTS, but you could have some pretty amazing animations for these once they’re done. The one that buffs Immolate could make a big fire / lightning explosion and the AoE one could create a big fire cyclone around you similar to what Shae Vizla can do (and maybe lightning tornado for VGs?). 

Incendiary Missile / Incendiary Round

• Mandalorian Warhead – Seems to completely replace Incendiary Missile / Round with something that just deals direct damage (removes the DoT component). 
• When you deal damage with Incendiary Missile / Round, your next Rail Shot / High Impact Bolt deals elemental damage over the next 12 seconds, can only occur once every 10 seconds. 
• The third option has no information.

It’s a little too unclear what these effects are to really assess them. I guess they have one that’s burst-oriented and another that offers more sustained damage. I assume the third option would be AoE, which is in line with what other disciplines have, but Incendiary Missile / Round already gets spread with Searing Wave / Ion Wave. 

The one that has Rail Shot / High Impact Bolt apply a DoT is unnecessarily complicated, unoriginal, and doesn’t align with the timing of the rest of the rotation. Somehow, it’s also still boring. So many disciplines have something that just makes one of their abilities apply an extra DoT. I get that it fits with the spec, but it’s not very exciting. Also, the rest of the rotation lasts 15 seconds, so if BioWare keeps this effect, it should at least also last 15 seconds as well. Finally, it really doesn’t need the whole proc element, that seems to only be there because they needed a third ability related to Incendiary Missile / Round and couldn’t come up with one. 

I don’t know why it’s hard to come up with cool effects for the fire discipline. Just find reasons to include more fire and explosions!

Thermal Yield

The Pyro / Plasma version of Power Yield is called Thermal / Plasma (?) Yield. It has the current effect of Power Yield with the Combustion Chamber / Re-energizers utility effect built in that makes it last up to 30 seconds. Basically, Pyro / Plasmatech gets the version of Power Yield that DPS now are familiar with while AP / Tactics gets to use a more burst-oriented version that doesn’t offer mitigation for as long, but the damage increase from it is more concentrated.

Level 35 Choice

• When activating Kolto Overload / Adrenaline Rush, you gain Boiling Point, which allows your next Thermal Yield to gain an additional stack and return damage to your attackers or your next Sonic Missile to heal allies and grant you 10% damage reduction.
• When activating Energy / Reactive Shield, you gain 25% more movement speed and immunity from incapacitating effects for 6 seconds. In addition, when taking damage from direct attacks, your cooldown on Carbonize is reduced by 2 seconds. Can only occur once every 3 seconds.
• Stealth Scan ability (with seems to include the speed boost and possibly other effects from the Adaptable Assailant / Strategic Supremacy utility)

I feel like the Kolto Overload one is way better for Pyro / Plasmatech since you get the cooldown reduction for it while the Energy / Reactive Shield one would be much better for AP / Tactics since they get the cooldown reduction on that ability. Perhaps they should move the Energy / Reactive Shield one to be an option in the other spec instead and come up with something new. Also, I can’t see why you’d ever take Stealth Scan over either of those options unless you were against a ton of stealthers in PvP. 

Level 20 Choice

• Grapple / Harpoon gets 2 charges and finishes the cooldown of Rocket Punch / Stockstrike (same effect as the Second Contract tactical item) 
• Jet Charge / Storm with the Battering Ram / Blitz utility effect built in
• Has the same icon as the Accelerated Reel utility that reduces the cooldown on Grapple / Harpoon by 10 seconds, though it doesn’t seem to have any effect right now.

Two of these options are the same as they were for the other DPS spec and they’re all still themed around gap closers. I’m not sure why the third isn’t the same as the other two. Maybe they plan to combine the effects of Accelerated Reel and Reel and Rattle / Pull and Pummel?

Shield Tech / Specialist

The trend continues that the DPS specs are pretty similar to each other when it comes to choices and then BioWare has to change things up a bit for the tanks. 

Firestorm / Ion Storm

• FLAMETHROWER CHANNEL IS BACK, BABY! We don’t have any details yet, but one of the options for the Firestorm / Ion Storm buff replaces the ability with the old channeled animation.
• We have no information on what the other two passives do, but honestly who cares? WE GOT THE FLAMETHROWER CHANNEL BACK!!!!

The Flamethrower channel can’t be used while moving, I hope they find a way to fix that. It isn’t good to be stuck in one place for 3 seconds as a tank. I think the best ways to do it would be either make it a targeted ability and have each tick get sent out like Dual / Twin Saber Throw or have a reticle you place on the ground like Deadly Onslaught / Artillery Blitz. Hopefully BioWare gives IO Mercs something like the former instead of Unload. 

Heat Blast / Energy Blast

None of the choices are working for this ability yet and none of them have any description. Hopefully they improve the animation for this ability and the Heat Screens, I’d like to see a red version of the distortion effect they use when your shield triggers.

Energy Yield (excellent name)

This is the tank’s version of Power Yield, it’s the same as the base version of Power Yield that tanks currently use, but with the added effect that each time you gain a stack, you are healed for 6% of your health, so 30% total. This is fairly similar to the amount of healing provided by Overcharge Saber / Battle Readiness, though I think it might be more appropriate for the ability to increase your shield chance instead of healing since that would synergize better with Heat / Energy Blast’s increased shield absorption. That said, I do not have nearly as much experience with tanking as I do with the other roles and I know that the healing will be more consistently useful. I’m interested to hear what tank players think about that idea.

Level 35 Choice

• Stealth Scan ability (with seems to include the speed boost and possibly other effects from the Adaptable Assailant / Strategic Supremacy utility)
• When receiving redirected damage from Guard, the cooldown on Sonic Missile / Round is decreased by 2 seconds. This can only occur once every 3 seconds. 
• Some other passive, no information given.

The Guard passive seems very interesting, though I’m curious how useful it will be in PvE, if it is at all. I do occasionally see the Guard animation trigger in PvE, even though no damage is actually redirected, so maybe it still triggers the cooldown reduction? At the very least, the behavior will be quite inconsistent in PvE if it works at all due to Guard only being active if the two players are within 15m of each other. Since it specifies damage redirection, I imagine it probably doesn’t work. I really like the idea of providing some major benefit to the tank for Guarding someone. Far too often do tanks forget to use their Guard, and reducing the cooldown on the AoE Taunt is an incredible incentive. 

Level 20 Choice

• Grapple / Harpoon gets 2 charges and finishes the cooldown of Rocket Punch / Stockstrike (same effect as the Second Contract tactical item) 
• Translocate / Transpose ability
• Grapple / Harpoon (I think)

There isn’t a name for the ability given as the third choice, but it has the same icon, range, and cooldown as Grapple / Harpoon, and it makes sense given that PT / VG tanks get Jet Charge / Storm baseline, so they most likely swapped it with Grapple / Harpoon for the ability choice. I think that’s reasonable, though it doesn’t seem like BioWare put any thought into this choice yet since the first option in the choice requires players to have Grapple / Harpoon in order to provide any benefit whatsoever. 

In general, I think it would be smarter for all PTs / VGs to have Jet Charge / Storm as a baseline ability, not just tanks. It doesn’t make a huge difference, but a leap is more universally useful than a pull in the context of gap closers since almost all enemies in the game can be leapt to, but a good chunk of them can’t be pulled. It’s not a huge deal either way though. 

Concluding Thoughts

As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, these changes definitely still need a while in the oven. Most of this is gonna change again before we finally see it in 7.0. Don’t think the world is ending if what you saw today wasn’t what you were hoping for.

I know I’ll be happy so long as BioWare gets rid of high-uptime reactive damage and figures out a different signature mechanic for PT / VG DPS besides insanely high burst. Honestly, a signature mechanic doesn’t even matter that much when you can spew fire (and lightning) in the form of channeled attacks. 

If you like the Bounty Hunter Class overall, check out the Mercenary and Commando Combat Styles Changes, they were released to PTS at the same time with the Powertech and Vanguard.

You can also follow along with our full SWTOR Update 7.0 coverage, starting from the Legacy of the Sith Expansion Reveal and all the rest of the updates to PTS and announcement from BioWare.