SWTOR 7.7d Changes Overview and Full Patch Notes

SWTOR’s Game Update 7.7d releases on June 17 and contains a slew of fixes for dynamic encounters, regular missions, character customization, and actual balance changes!

SWTOR’s lettered patches (7.1a, 7.1b, 7.2a, 7.3.1c, etc.) are hotfixes for their associated major or minor update. They never contain new content or features and are typically meant to fix an immediate issue that was discovered after the update was released or allowed to exist in the live game for a short period.

They are typically released within 1-2 weeks of a major or minor update. In today’s case, Patch 7.7d comes a little over 2 weeks after the launch of Update 7.7 “Dynamic Worlds”.

7.7d Patch Notes Overview

The most significant adjustments are balance changes and fixes to bugs with dynamic encounters, regular missions, and character customization.

The amount and types of fixes in this update seems like the kind of thing you’d expect to find in the main update patch notes, or rather wouldn’t find because the issues were fixed before the update was released.

It’s interesting to see such a clear difference that 2 weeks can make, and something that deserves more discussion. Personally, I think I would have preferred a 2 week delay to get this stuff rounded out, but I wonder if a lot of you are more ravenous for new content.

Balance Changes

There are a host of balance changes coming to Assassins | Shadows, Sorcerers | Sages, Mercenaries | Commandos, and Operative | Scoundrel healers. We’ll also be getting fixes for movement speed boosts broken by the change to Sprint. Below, you’ll find the full list of changes, slightly reworded for clarity and consistency.

All Assassin | Shadow Disciplines

Avoidance | Celerity (lvl 73 talent) now reduces the cooldown of Jolt | Mind Snap by 3s (up from 2s), Unbreakable Will | Force of Will by 45s (up from 30s), and Force Speed by 5s (no change)

Deception Assassin | Infiltration Shadow

Duplicity | Infiltration Tactics proc now increases the damage dealt by Maul | Shadow Strike by 25% (up from 20%) and it can now occur every 8s (down from 10s)
Dark Embrace | Shadow’s Respite proc now reduces damage taken by 20% (up from 15%)

All Sorcerer | Sage Disciplines

Increased the base Force cost of Resurgence | Rejuvenate to 60 (up from 50)
Increased the base Force cost of Static Barrier | Force Armor to 55 (up from 45)
Increased the base Force cost of Dark Heal | Benevolence to 85 (up from 75)
Increased the base cooldown of Unnatural Preservation | Force Mend to 40s (up from 30s)

Lightning Sorcerer | Telekinetics Sage

Convection | Clamoring Force now increases the critical damage dealt by most non-filler abilities by 15% (up from 12%)
- Convection applies to Chain Lightning, Halted Offensive, Crushing Darkness, Thundering Blast, and Lightning Flash
- Clamoring Force applies to Telekinetic Wave, Power of the Force, Mind Crush, Turbulence, and Telekinetic Gust
- The original text incorrectly implies that the critical damage had something to do with the proc applied by Force Speed
Forked Lightning | Telekinetic Momentum now has a 30% chance (up from 25%) to produce a second damage instance to the same targets for 25% damage
- The chance remains doubled while Polarity Shift | Mental Alacrity is active at 60% (up from 50%)

Madness Sorcerer | Balance Sage

Force Leech | Force Serenity heals the caster for 40% of damage dealt baseline (down from 50%)
- Parasitism | Focused Insight still brings it up to 80%

Corruption Sorcerer | Seer Sage

Reduced the base Force cost of Dark Infusion | Deliverance to 45 (down from 50)
- Rally | Keeper of Peace was not mentioned
Efficacious Currents | Preservation (passive) now reduces the Force cost of Static Barrier | Force Armor by 25 (up from 15)

Innovative Ordinance Mercenary | Assault Specialist Commando

Reduced the rate limit of Volatile Warhead | Hyper Assault Rounds to 12s (down from 15s)
Superheated Shot | Scorching Bolts now increases the armor penetration of Mag Shot | Mag Bolt by 35% (up from 30%)

Arsenal Mercenary | Gunnery Commando

Riddle | Rotary Cannon now increases the critical hit chance of Blazing Bolts and Priming Shot | Boltstorm and Vortex Bolt by 15% (up from 10%)
Target Tracking | Deadly Cannon now increases the critical damage bonus of key abilities by 35% (up from 30%)
- Target Tracking affects Rail Shot, Heatseeker Missiles, and Priming Shot
- Deadly Cannon affects High Impact Bolt, Demolition Round, and Vortex Bolt

Medicine Operative | Sawbones Scoundrel

Moderately increased the healing dealt by Surgical Probe | Emergency Medpac
The base cast time on Kolto Injection | Underworld Medicine base cast time reduced to 1.7s (from 2s)
Reduced the cooldown on Toxic Scan | Triage (cleanse) to 10s (down from from 12s)

While these changes move the needle in the right direction, they don’t get at the root of the problem.

Let’s Talk About Balance Changes in SWTOR 7.7

Dynamic Encounters

The dynamic encounters released on starter planets, capital worlds, and Ilum with 7.7 made these places feel much more alive, authentic, and unique, but they were a little rough around the edges.

Broadsword is basically putting the finishing touches on most of them in 7.7d by eliminating name discrepancies, fixing visual issues, smoothing out the difficulty level, and cleaning up edge cases.

More importantly, Republic Kolto Tank deco will finally drop as intended on Ilum.

There were a few notable encounters with more complicated problems that were not mentioned in the patch notes, like Ugnaught Engineering and Hard Target, which have long, convoluted mission structures with multiple bugs. I suspect these were omitted because they will take more work to fix.

Broadsword also fixed the issue where Dynamic Encounters on Coruscant and Dromund Kaas weren’t counting towards the “Dynamic Encounter Pinnacle” Conquest objective, though they also noted that Dynamic Encounters on starter planets do not count towards Conquest.

We reached out to Broadsword for clarification on whether it’s a bug or intended that encounters on starter planets don’t count.

Missions

Minor bugs in various missions have now been fixed. If it weren’t for the current purple quest icon debacle (that seems to be getting more attention than Broadsword selling Ranked PvP rewards for Cartel Coins through season progress), I wouldn’t have a section for this at all.

For those who aren’t familiar, with the release of 7.7, Broadsword decided to restrict the purple quest marker to be only for “crit path” main story quests. This was done in pursuit of clarity, and the main casualty in this change is planetary storylines.

Many players have been complaining that it’s more of a problem that the planetary stories don’t stand out because they’re of similar importance to the origin stories. They also offer the same amount of additional XP compared to regular side quests, something I think the devs have forgotten about.

At the moment, the community seems to acknowledge the reason that Broadsword made the change, but that there ought to be a separate color for planetary missions, perhaps a different shade of purple.

Broadsword has observed that this is causing problems and have chosen to revert the quest [Quesh Innoculation] to being purple since you can’t board a shuttle down to the planet without picking up the mission.

It makes sense that this planetary mission would need to be purple since it impedes the critical path, but that’s ultimately just a bit of flavoring. Similar obstacles exist on planets Hoth, Voss, and Corellia without a gameplay roadblock in place.

Character Cuztomization

A few bugs that came with 7.7 related to skin/fur color are getting fixed, most notably related to Dark Side corruption, which will mostly cease to be an issue after the update is released.

This is not the end of their fixes and improvements to character modernization and customization.

7.7d Full Patch Notes

Below are the full patch notes for Game Update 7.7d from swtor.com, slightly reformatted for uniformity.

General

Attempting to summon another mount while already mounted will no longer cause an unintended animation.
The top Guild Contributor leaderboard has been restored to the Guild Invasions tab.
Cinematic trailers now play at the volume that are applied in settings.

Character Customization

Corrected an issue where players opening the Character Customization window would have a random skin tone selected in rare circumstances.
Fixed an issue that changed the fur colors of existing Cathar NPCs.
Corrected the skin color issues that were present on characters displaying Dark Side corruption.
- There may be some cases where players will still see this issue present. We are continuing to investigate these edge cases.

Dynamic Encounters

General

Completing Dynamic Encounters on Dromund Kaas and Coruscant now track progress toward the Dynamic Encounter Pinnacle objective.
Note that Dynamic Encounters on the starter planets do not count toward Conquest.

Dromund Kaas

[General] Several boss enemies in Dynamic Encounters have been given the correct immunity buffs.
[Shocking Developments] Enemy waves now spawn correctly allowing players to complete the encounter.
[Shocking Developments] Updated the mapnotes to ensure they do not overlap on the map.
[Powder Keg] The failure state has been removed from the encounter to reduce mission step confusion and allow players more time to disable the air support beacons.
[Ritual Killing] Updated the missions steps to include “Defeat Ritual Master” alongside the disruption mission step to allow players to complete the encounter even if another player has defeated the Ritual Master.
[Ritual Killing] Balanced the Ritual Master by lowering damage output.
[Dark Temple] The Sith Spirits now have shared tagging.
[Venerated Relics] Players can now complete the encounter even after Nil Venerous has been previously defeated.
[Venerated Relics] The Mark of Power buff from the Symbol of Power item now correctly increases a player’s health and damage by 3% per stack.
[Lord Grathan’s Assault] Visual issues with the Grathan Sith Commander’s model have been corrected.
[Sith Affairs] The voice dialogues for Lords Apago and Cyone now trigger during the correct mission step.
[Hard Target] Balanced the bosses by lowering their levels and health.
[Rogue Droid Uprising] The description and mission steps now refer to the correct name of the encounter.
[Rogue Droid Uprising] The Speedy Systems Specialist Achievement Achievement now correctly refers to the correct name of the encounter.
[Rogue Droid Uprising] The Achievement for completing this encounter now refers to the correct name of the encounter.
[Kaas City Expansion] The name of the encounter is now consistent in the Mission Tracker and Legacy Window.
[Spire Consequences] Updated the mapnotes to clearly represent the objectives.

Coruscant

[General] Several boss enemies in Dynamic Encounters have been given the correct immunity buffs.
[Blot Out the Sun] This Achievement has been moved to the correct category in the Achievements Window.
[They’re Listening! and Vandals at the Gate] The encounters no longer overlap when they are active.
[Detention Is Over and Vandals at the Gate] The companion is now resummoned automatically when the player is no longer polymorphed.
[Understaffed] The mapnotes for these encounters now appear on the map as intended.
[Achievement] The name of the Jedi Temple Boss Achievement has been updated from its placeholder name.

Ilum

[Deflecting Their Blows] The Republic Saboreur NPCs are no longer missing their idle animations.
[Troubled Tauns] Players can no longer use the Cleaning Solvent on a Tauntaun that has already been cleansed.
[Clear the Crystals] Fixed an issue that caused a delay between the mortar ammunition impact with the ground and the corresponding visual effects.
[Shivering Stand] Fixed animation issues that were present on the Damaged Assault Droids.
[Shivering Stand] The Damaged Assault Droid is now visible.
[Frozen Front] The correct animation now triggers when the Rocket Stockpiles are destroyed.

Hutta

[Jiguuna Cleanup] Players that log out then back in during the encounter while they are controlling a droid can now interact with the terminal to complete the mission.
[Jiguuna Cleanup] Fixed an issue that caused the visual effects of the Ion Beam and Twin-linked Railgun abilities to not appear when they are cast.

Ord Mantell

[General] Corrected many instances of mission names and step progress not appearing in tooltips when hovering over relevant objects or NPCs.
[Good Mantellian] The Separatist Defector NPCs now have idle animations.
[Boss Remak] Updated the respawner timer for Ethan Remak so that he respawns more often.

Hoth

[Ice Fishing] Fixed the skin texture on the ice fisherman NPC.
[Pirate Problem] Players can now progress through the encounter regardless if other players have completed all the mission steps.

Missions

[Quesh Inoculation] The Inoculations missions icons now appear as purple on the map.
[Iokath: Lost Arsenal] The player’s companion is now desummoned when the player is polymorphed as a Factory Remote.
[Iokath: Mounted Turret] Corrected an issue that prevented the player’s companion from being resummoned after the player exited a mounted turret.
[Whispers in the Force] Players will now receive the mail “I’ll return soon” from Arcann after completing Whispers in the Force.
[Whispers in the Force] Players will no longer receive identical mail messages from Arcann when making a specific decision after completing Whispers in the Force.
[Balmorra: A Question of Motivation] All players who are in a group will now be able to loot the schematic fragments.
[Makeb: Shelter From the Storm] Added a mapnote for Shalim Avesta when the player is inside the phase.
[Old Wounds: Meet with Dr. Oggurobb] Darth Rivix/Tau Adair are now granted as guest companions during this mission step.
[Manaan: Retaliation] The conversation with Captain Jhanil no longer triggers when the player is outside the building.
[The Wretch King] A mapnote has been added for the last step in the mission.

Items

Players can no longer get stuck if they jump on the Empty Fireworks Launcher decoration.
The Propagator Core XR-53 Trophy Decoration now correctly appears in the Preview Window.
The Conspiracy Console, Ancient Kaas Sarcophagus, and the Training Bay decorations now cite Achievements as their source.
Fixed an issue that prevented the Republic Kolto Tank decoration from dropping during its respective Dynamic Encounter on Ilum.
Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented the Harbinger of Fear, Martinique Desler, and Commandant Jenarian from correctly dropping their rare loot.

UI

Fixed an issue that caused the magnifying button to lose its functionality when a custom interface is created.

Abilities

When polymorphed as Tyth, the Intensify Rage ability now generates 2 stacks of Rage as intended.
When polymorphed as Tyth, the Rage Overload ability can now be used at 10 stacks of Rage as intended.
Corrected an issue causing some abilities, such as Swiftness on Sentinels and Marauders, to give more movement speed than intended.

Combat Updates

Editor’s Note: These balance change notes have not been reworded. They have only been slightly reformatted to match the site and “/” has been replaced by ” | ” for improved readability.