BioWare has announced that a bunch of tacticals and a few other items will be removed when SWTOR 7.0 is released on February 15th!
This is almost entirely just a cleanup of things that will no longer be relevant.
UPDATE: BioWare has answered a few common questions players had in response to the announcement:
“Tacticals listed are being removed because their effects moved into Class Ability Packages, are not working as intended, or encouraged negative gameplay such as Go to Sleep and Fanged God Form respectively. Because Class Abilities will be receiving the effects of the Tacticals being removed, new Tacticals will not be added. Crystal of Nightmare Fury is being removed because players have the ability to become stronger in 7.0 more than they have been able to in previous updates. The Spoils of War achievements requiring Tacticals that will be removed have been adjusted to no longer require said Tacticals. The schematics that would be needed to craft Tacticals will not be able to be purchased from Kai Zykken.”
I think tacticals will still be added to replace single-target and AoE ones like Energized Blade, Powerlode, and Fanged God Form.
Tactical Items that will not be available in 7.0
The following tactical items will be removed once 7.0 is releasedI have slightly reordered the list so that all tacticals for a given combat style are listed together and noted which combat styles would use each of them. If you do not sell or disintegrate these items by the time 7.0 is released, BioWare will give you 100 credits for each one, so it’s slightly better to get rid of them yourself:
Second Contract (Powertech / Vanguard)
Energized Blade (Powertech / Vanguard)
Powerlode (Powertech / Vanguard)
Missile Backblast (Mercenary / Commando)
Rocket Fuel Vapors (Mercenary / Commando)
Thermonuclear Fusion (Mercenary / Commando)
Magnetized Shrapnel (Mercenary / Commando)
Higher Focus (Juggernaut / Guardian)
Grievous Wounds (Marauder / Sentinel)
Fanged God Form (Marauder / Sentinel)
Frenzied Power (Marauder / Sentinel)
Slow Mercy (Sorcerer / Sage)
Go to Sleep, Go to Sleep! (Assassin / Shadow)
Artistic Insights (Operative / Scoundrel)
Technical Debt (Sniper / Gunslinger)
We have built a gigantic complete catalog of all Tacticals in SWTOR 7.0 with recommendations of every single one of them. If you want to learn what is the best for each combat style and individual build, check it out.
Don’t freak out, almost all of these tacticals are either related to an ability that has gotten pruned, changed, or integrated into the discipline either directly or through an ability tree choice. I expect that many of these will be replaced, at least so that every discipline will continue to have a viable single-target and AoE tactical.
I don’t think it’s very likely that less useful tacticals like Grievous Wounds, Missile Backblast, and Frenzied Power would get replaced without a significant rework.
There are a few tacticals including Energized Blade, Rocket Fuel Vapors, Fanged God Form, and Go to Sleep, Go to Sleep! that seem to be getting removed for some other unknown reason. I can only offer some speculation as to why these might be going away.
Energized Blade stopped being BiS for PTs / VGs early in 6.0 when Powerload got buffed, but Retractable Blade didn’t receive any changes, so it’s unclear why BioWare would remove Energized Blade unless they plan to significantly rework it. Perhaps they’ll stick with a tactical item centered around Retractable Blade since you will get to pick between 1 of 3 ways to buff that ability in 7.0. Rocket Fuel vapors is in a similar boat. I assume it will get another rework.
Many players have complained about Fanged God Form making Carnage / Combat too easy, and it had a couple of problems too, like making Dual / Twin Saber Throw obsolete and incentivizing a super clunky, but potentially higher DPS, rotation in order for a single extra non-Massacre ability to benefit from the increased critical chance. Since there isn’t a viable alternative single-target tactical available to Carnage / Combat, I would be shocked if a replacement isn’t made available for 7.0.
Go to Sleep, Go to Sleep! is the final tactical that seems a bit odd. My guess is that BioWare doesn’t want people skipping so much trash and possibly want all ability-oriented tacticals to actually increase your effectiveness in combat in some way. You never wanted to use that tactical in actual combat. It’s possible that this tactical will not be replaced, and if it is, the effect will likely be quite different. There are several potent Assassin / Shadow utilities centered around PvP and CC that will not be making their way into 7.0, so perhaps one of those will make a return as a tactical.
Remember to save up 11,000 Tech Fragments for 7.0 so that you can immediately purchase several new tacticals that will almost certainly replace the good ones that are going away. Kai Zykken will have a rotating selection of tacticals available on sale each week and there will be a vendor that sells all existing tactical items.
It is unclear at this time what will be happening to the tactical items achievements. It’s possible that those specific tacticals could be removed from the list of required tacticals or the entire achievement could be moved to the Feats of Strength section.
Other notable items getting removed from SWTOR in 7.0
The list boils down to anything related to Social Points or Renown, including all boxes, boosts, and consumables. Once 7.0 is released, these will all be converted into 100 credits each, except for a couple that will be converted into slightly more. Here is the full list of other items:
Renown items:
- Renown Cache
- Chapter Renown Trophy Small/Medium/Large
- Bonus Chapter Renown Trophy Small/Medium/Large
- World Boss Renown Trophy Medium/Large
- Exploration Renown Trophy
- Flashpoint Renown Trophy Very Small/Small/Medium/Large
- Bonus Flashpoint Renown Trophy Small/Small/Medium/Large
- Bonus Renown Trophy
- Badge of Renown – 5000 Credits
- Operation Renown Trophy Small/Small/Medium/Large
- Bonus Operation Renown Trophy Small/Small/Medium/Large
- Uprising Renown Trophy Small/Small/Medium/Large
- Bonus Uprising Renown Trophy Small/Small/Medium/Large
Boost:
- Minor/Major Social Boost
- Complimentary Minor/Major Social Boost (Major – 800 credits)
- Renown Boost – 1000 credits
- 5-Pack: Renown Boost
- Complimentary Renown Boost
- Superior Renown Boost
- 5-Pack: Superior Renown Boost
Others:
- Token of the Cordial
- Token of the Sociable – 5000 credits
- Crystal of Nightmare Fury
- Schematic: Crystal of Night
Regarding Nightmare Crystals
The most notable item from this list is the removal of Nightmare Crystals and their schematic. Their removal means that sale runs for NiM raids will become far more difficult and likely impossible for some bosses.
For those of you that aren’t familiar, sale runs are where incredibly skilled NiM raiders are capable of beating a relevant boss with less than 8 (or often 16) players, so they charge exorbitant amounts of credits to anyone that can pay it in return for things like achievements, NiM-exclusive cosmetics like mounts and decorations, gear, and timed run titles.
Popular sale run items include Wings of the Architect mount, Crest of the Dread Master mask, and the Dread Master title.
It is unclear what this will mean for the future of sale runs. BioWare has said that they plan to release new gear tiers but not rebalance old raids for the new gear, so old raids will become easier and more sellable over the course of 7.0, if they stick to that plan. In the short term, sale runs will become unavailable while raiders are gearing and may not be possible for some time depending on how difficult BioWare makes them and how much easier they will become with new gear.
It may be possible to hold onto existing Nightmare Crystals by storing them in the Legacy Bay. As far as I know, when BioWare has removed items in the past, like Operations Passes, ones that were in Legacy Storage were not always removed. Even if some Nightmare Crystals remain, it will be a finite amount and they are not tradable, so if the crystals enable certain sale runs, a few final people might get them, but the price will be astronomical to reflect the scarcity of the crystals.
Source: BioWare.
