SWTOR 7.8 Combat Balance Changes Explained and Analysis

As part of the 7.8 PTS, Broadsword has announced and included some mostly good balance changes for some of the most problematic issues facing combat today in SWTOR.

Powertech | Vanguard

Powertech | Vanguard is by far and away the strongest combat style in the game for endgame content thanks to a combination of overpowered and game-breaking effects, some of which are FINALLY being eliminated.

Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line

The nerf to Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line is necessary to bring it in line with the Mercenary | Commando version of the ability, though the movement speed boost remains quietly out of step.

In general, Powertech | Vanguard has exceptional, overpowered mobility, especially compared to its heavy armor compatriots, Juggernaut | Guardian and Mercenary | Commando.

Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line is super strong, and they have Jet Charge | Storm with a clunky proc (Battering Ram | Battering Blitz) or a second charge of Grapple | Harpoon.

If Broadsword were to unify Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line to have a 45s cooldown and offer a 50% movement speed boost for both combat styles, it would be balanced alongside medium armor combat styles.

I’d also highly recommend they fully eliminate Battering Ram | Battering Blitz and just give Jet Charge | Storm a second ability charge.

Advanced Terminator Droid | Suppression Droid

Advanced Terminator Droid | Suppression Droid, the Stealth Scan replacement for Powertechs | Vanguards introduced a few patches ago, is one of the most broken overpowered abilities in recent memory, maybe ever. Just so we’re on the same page, the effect is:

Advanced Terminator Droid | Suppression Droid
Fires off a Terminator Droid | Suppression Droid to scan the area for 15s, revealing stealthed opponents and immobilizing them for 3 seconds. In addition, all enemies inside the field of Terminator Droid | Suppression Droid have their accuracy reduced by 20% and are slowed by 30% [for 3s]. Operation bosses cannot have their accuracy reduced. 20s cooldown, 30m range, 8m radius.

For reference, Sniper | Gunslinger Diversion offers a 45% accuracy reduction (melee/ranged only) for 8s on a 60s cooldown (13% uptime). It has a 35m range, 8m radius, and also pulls other Snipers | Gunslingers out of cover, but it’s on a ranged class.

It’s hard to notice a few small probes it in the hectic world of PvP combat, but it was essentially balanced as an insanely powerful single-target attack rather than an AoE ability. The accuracy debuff and slow are so strong, the stealth reveal effect is just a footnote.

The revamped Stealth Scan goes beyond just a 20% average reduction in damage; it also breaks rotations because most procs aren’t granted if attacks miss, and it can still unfairly affect Force/Tech damage when all other accuracy reductions and defense chance boosts players have only affect weapon damage.

The Powertech | Vanguard able to easily remain within its area of protection and keep enemies trapped there with them due to other parts of their kit, like Grapple | Harpoon, Neural Dart, Suppressive Tools | Entangling Tools, Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line, and the built-in slow!

The debuff it applies also lasts 3s, so you aren’t even safe even if you manage to escape. This also results in an 18s effective duration, meaning the ability had an effective 90% uptime on top of being placeable up to 30m away, which is not something melee specs do on a whim, especially with an 8m radius.

The slow effect is really the only reasonable global effect it should have. The other effects are strong enough that they should have been reserved for any targets revealed from stealth, not applied to anyone who steps inside the circle.

On top of all that, it’s useful in all types of content. While it doesn’t work against operations bosses, it does work against their adds, even champion ones, and a 10% accuracy reduction is still a full-fledged DCD.

To curtail this, the revamped Stealth Scan has taken four beatings with Broadsword’s nerf bat, and even then, it’ll still be quite strong, and still win out against its competition at level 43 in all the same situations.

I still recommend removing the accuracy reduction to Force/Tech damage so it complies with game rules and updating the duration so it only applies for a second.

Mercenary | Commando

It’s better, but there needs to be parity between Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line for Mercenary | Commando and Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line for Powertechs | Vanguards. Right now, the PT | VG version still offers almost double the movement speed boost.

I’d also like to see a visual redesign of Hydraulic Overrides to incorporate the jetpack. Hold the Line could use a better visual as well, including fixing the bug that makes the visual disappear after activation, but I don’t have a clear concept for that like I do for a revamped Hover:

• Hydraulic Overrides has been renamed to Hover and now has a new animation:
  • The Mercenary engages their jetpack, slightly lifting them off the ground. Jets are flared whenever you ignore CC or are moving.
• Gyroscopic Alignment Jets | Parallactic Combat Stims has been redesigned and now triggers under the same conditions as Hover | Hold the Line:
  • Getting knocked back or being affected by physics builds 1 Supercharge, and you have a chance to build 1 Supercharge every second that your movement is impaired equal to the percentage of impairment. Whenever Hover | Hold the Line prevents such an effect from occurring, you instead build 2 Supercharge.
  • The intent is to distinguish Hover’s | Hold Your Ground’s immunities and reward you for correctly identifying them.
• Death from Above | Mortar Volley now grants Hover | Hold the Line for its duration and dealing damage with Death from Above | Mortar Volley while Hover | Hold the Line is active reduces the cooldown of Hover | Hold the Line by 0.25s.
  • Every boss in the game that uses Death from Above gets full immunity. It isn’t overpowered for an iconic ability on a 60s cooldown to offer 3s of partial CC immunity.

Improving Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line is far from the only thing that Broadsword needs to do with respect to Mercenary | Commando mobility. Rocket Out | Propulsion Round is poorly designed and needs to be replaced and Broadsword knows it.

All combat styles have 2 movement abilities. When 7.0 was released, the movement ability with the longer cooldown for each combat style was locked away at level 68 alongside either the 4s CC or 8s mez, and a flexible third ability for balance purposes.

Since Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line has a 45s cooldown next to Rocket Out’s | Propulsion Round’s 20s cooldown, it was locked away, leaving Rocket Out | Propulsion Round as the only guaranteed movement ability for Mercenaries | Commandos.

Later on, they were swapped because it’s tricky to use Rocket Out | Propulsion Round to move forward. Yes, you can do it, but it requires fast inputs and camera movement, to the extent that it’s an accessibility issue.

Now, Mercenaries | Commandos have a balance problem because their default movement ability is garbage and few people are going to bother to learn how to use an optional clunky ability you get when you’re almost max level.

Broadsword can’t effectively balance Rocket Out | Propulsion Round in its current state either because the skill floor and skill ceiling are spread too far apart. Either Mercenaries | Commandos end up with horrible mobility that’s difficult to use, or they get the best mobility in the game for players who can do the technique.

The simplest way to change the ability is to just default to the current ability behavior only if you aren’t moving, but otherwise jet | propel yourself forward in the direction you are moving.

Sorcerer | Sage

Sorcerer | Sage DPS specs are receiving buffs to their damage output across the board. While my inner Sith Inquisitor main is full of more joy than Force ghosts, I’m not happy about it, nor am I happy about the unparalleled amount of bugs that Sorcerers | Sages continue to suffer from.

Lightning | Telekinetics

Okay, sure, we got a nice little buff to single target damage and burst. That doesn’t change the fact that the spec has some of the most milquetoast and dissonant talent choices in the game, nor does it do anything to solve the survivability and AoE chasm separating Lightning | Telekinetics and Madness | Balance.

Honestly, the vast disparity in quality between some of these balance changes and ability trees is as wide as the difference between yesterday’s McDonald’s and a tasting menu prepared by Gordon Ramsay himself.

Madness | Balance

I like to think I am pretty accepting of alternative solutions, assuming they work, and one can argue that these changes for Madness | Balance largely do work, but this spec continues to get changed in the completely the wrong way.

For starters, it is unclear if the buff to Creeping Terror | Sever Force will also affect Hatred | Serenity. If the game is working correctly, it should, which is bad. I expect it will because the last round of Sorcerer | Sage balance changes had unintended side-effects as well.

Force Leech | Force Serenity needs to retain its 100% life steal, not get transformed into Force Rend | Force Melt. It’s such a cool ability that has epic foundations throughout Star Wars, most notably with Vitiate on Nathema and Ziost, and with Fmr. Emperor Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker.

Buffing DoTs is also problematic because it affects sustained, AoE, and spike damage potential. That last one is what I’m most concerned about. Plague Master | Teachings of Rajivari is already strong enough in PvP and all of these changes will only serve to further entrench the existing abomination that is the optimal static rotation Madness | Balance.

The discipline also still suffers from a bug that prevents Demolish | Vanquish from dealing full damage when finished off with Plague Master | Teachings of Rajivari because it doesn’t take into account the extended duration and additional DoT ticks provided by Lightning Burns | Rippling Force at level 60.

Due to the prevalence of clipping and perverse incentives, Madness | Balance is in need of a revamp, though it’s tricky to keep iconic attacks feeling nice and authentic while offering a balanced experience. I wrote about how to do it over two years ago.

Operative | Scoundrel

This is a pretty major change. It eliminates the Annihilation-style | Watchman-style utility that Lethality | Ruffian could provide, along with its additional survivability. Some of you may be scratching your heads about this change, so let’s clear things up.

Beyond just offering life-changing survivability to only Lethality | Ruffian, Aggressive Treatment enabled that spec to provide a massive amount of group utility in the form of free healing, as Lethality | Ruffian already benefits from using Toxic Haze | Bushwhack on cooldown.

The amount of additional healing provided by a single Lethality Operative | Ruffian Scoundrel using Aggressive Treatment can reach upwards of 10k EHPS, which, while untargeted, is 30-50% of the output of a full-fledged healer.

This amount of healing is enough to completely invalidate any and all healer checks in the game by trivializing checks that aren’t balanced around it, or demanding players bring a single specific discipline to fights with such healer checks if they were balanced around it (they aren’t).

Concealment | Scrapper can’t spare the GCDs or Energy or TAs | UHs to use Toxic Haze | Bushwhack on cooldown, nor does it deal as much damage with the attack, creating a vast survivability and group utility chasm between Operative | Scoundrel DPS specs.

Medicine | Sawbones does not contribute the same degree of group utility when using Aggressive Treatment because the value came from substantial additional healing provided by a DPS, not a healer.

Healers are already spending almost all of their GCDs on healing, not dealing damage, and a single GCD goes a whole lot farther when healing the group compared to damaging the boss or even other players.

Aggressive Treatment was clearly only ever intended to allow Operative | Scoundrel healers to deal damage and heal at the same time, which is not something that is so unique for healers.

Sorcerers | Sages have Volt Rush | Telekinetic Blitz with Storm’s Succor and Mercenaries | Commandos have Electro Net and the autocrit on Rail Shot | High Impact Bolt from Concentrated Fire.

Aggressive Treatment wasn’t an issue in 6.0 because it was attached to a 6-piece set bonus. You’d have to give up other DPS benefits to take it, namely the effects of the Tactician implant, which was a much harder sell, even for healers.

Despite this nerf being good for the game as a whole, I am concerned about Lethality | Ruffian’s viability in NiM raids with this change resulting from reduced survivability.

This nerf also eliminates the major additional group utility offered by Lethality | Ruffian, which, while valuable for the spec, especially next to the likes of Powertechs | Vanguards, the other melee tech combat style.

I do think long-term, it would be better to redesign Aggressive Treatment (and Trapper) as a tactical item, which presently lacks a consistently compelling option or choice structure like the other healer specs have, or as a level 43 talent for Medicine | Sawbones.

It is also easier to justify and present the 30m range adjustment the healer spec receives now as a passive if it were part of that tactical item (or ability replacement in the tree), as well as the combat style restriction, which only exists on implants as a band-aid because they are meant to be universal.

I recommend something like this:

Aggressive Treatment (Tactical)
Toxic Haze | Bushwhack can now be thrown up to 30m away and heals all allies inside for [amount] whenever it deals damage. In addition, it no longer costs a Tactical Advantage | Upper Hand.

It should be coupled with a redesign of Infiltrate | Smuggle (AoE stealth) involving some sort of movement speed boost and damage reduction that enable it to be used in combat so that Operatives | Scoundrels are more competitive on that front.

Marauder | Sentinel

Marauder | Sentinel is getting a couple of general changes that don’t make any sense, and some tweaks to survivability and damage output for Annihilation | Watchman.

General

This pair of changes is nonsensical and the result of a typo. Vicious Slash | Slash and Dual Saber Throw | Twin Saber Throw only deal weapon damage.

The only exception to this is Force Flagellation, which enables Vicious Slash | Slash and Sweeping Slash | Cyclone Slash to deal a small amount of Force energy damage, but that’s exclusive to Fury | Concentration, and does not affect Dual Saber Throw | Twin Saber Throw.

Unless they’re adding a small amount of Force damage to these attacks, I assume they refer to the base weapon damage dealt by these attacks, which will buff all Marauder | Sentinel specs in the following manner, though probably Annihilation | Watchman by more than they will for Carnage | Combat and Fury | Concentration combined.

Not that it matters all that much, but the buff to Vicious Slash | Slash should affect Juggernauts | Guardians as well, though the only meaningful impact will be for Immortal | Defense, as the DPS specs don’t really use it.

Annihilation | Watchman

The group healing provided by Annihilation | Watchman is getting nerfed just like they did for Aggressive Treatment, except for the part where it matters.

Annihilation | Watchman is capable of hitting 10k EHPS as well with Berserk | Zen, though it’s concentrated to only the group frame (which no other ability relies upon) and has a 40m range.

A 15% reduction in healing potential is not going to be enough to prevent this from causing the exact same problem as Aggressive Treatment. It’s still going to invalidate heal checks and the reason to bring either of the other Marauder | Sentinel specs to a raid along with it.

Annihilation | Watchman does not need the passive groupwide healing. Full stop. Predation | Transcendence, Bloodthirst | Inspiration, AoE potential, and the Internal/Elemental debuff are plenty.

I am confused about why Broadsword would eliminate Aggressive Treatment and keep Annihilation | Watchman healing. Both cause the same problem. The only reason that comes to mind is historical. Aggressive Treatment wasn’t intended, but this is, though I find that answer vague and unconvincing.

The damage boost to Draining Center | Melting Center is also a bit of a headscratcher. I suspect it’s meant to counteract the impact to survivability and improve its burst in PvP, though it still lacks proper spike damage potential.

Broadsword has always liked for Annihilation | Watchman to be on top of the DPS heap as well, and it was slipping behind Operative | Scoundrel.

Vengeance Juggernaut | Vigilance Guardian

This means that Cut to Pieces can only reduce the cooldown of Vengeful Slam | Vigilant Thrust by 1s every 3s, effectively reducing the cooldown of Vengeful Slam | Vigilant Thrust by 3s per activation, really 2s in practice because DoTs don’t tick in sync with the rate limit.

Vengeance | Vigilance AoE is the strongest in the game by several parsecs, but a 3s rate limit might be excessive and doesn’t fully solve the problem. I’m sure many of you Cut to Pieces enjoyers are furious, but this nerf is good for the game.

Tactical items that improve your AoE damage are often called AoE tacticals, but it’s a bit inaccurate to emphasize that aspect because it implies that they’re optimal more often than they are.

Boss fights are balanced around single-target sustained DPS checks buffed by associated tacticals, while built-in AoE damage is almost always sufficient on its own.

In other words, you don’t need AoE tacticals to beat almost any boss in the game and will have more trouble if you sacrifice the single-target sustained DPS for more unnecessary AoE damage. Adds don’t enrage. Bosses do.

At the same time, single-target sustained DPS is irrelevant against trash mobs because they don’t last long and you incorporate more AoE attacks. AoE tacticals usually transform your single-target abilities into AoE attacks, thereby allowing you to clear trash mobs much faster.

With these constraints in mind, it’s important that the AoE tacticals not improve your single-target sustained damage, lest they overshadow the single-target tacticals, and vice versa.

Cut to Pieces and Two-Time Trouble (Hatred Assassin | Serenity Shadow) are the only two tacticals in the game to break this rule and cause problems. Consequently, they deal the most AoE damage in the game.

If you were able to hit 2 targets on average most of the time, which is perfectly achievable in many boss fights, Cut to Pieces would contribute more single-target sustained damage than Hemophilic Slash. With Hatred’s | Serenity’s Two-Time Trouble being the only other tactical that breaks this rule

That bonus single-target Cut to Pieces damage is coming from additional Vengeful Slam | Vigilant Thrust activations. That attack is stronger than Ravage | Blade Barrage and the occasional Sundering Assault | Sundering Strikes and Vicious Slash | Slashes you’ll need to do.

It doesn’t take much extra damage to overshadow a weak tactical like Hemophilic Slash, either. Hemo only adds a few weak, additional DoT ticks every 12s and increases their uptime, which has some other minor knock-on effects.

I was concerned that the current change is too destructive to the playstyle in solo content, and while you can’t do that anymore, to my surprise from checking it out on the PTS on Ruhnuk, the rotation flows pretty well.

Instead of spamming Vengeful Slam | Vigilant Thrust until the Nerfs come home, you use all your other abilities and Vengeful Slam | Vigilant Thrust is off cooldown right when you run out of those.

Combat ends right when Shatter | Plasma Brand ends, which conveniently means it’s ready for the next trash pull just in time without needing a cooldown reset.

That fluidity feels nice and is sufficiently valuable, but the bland nature of the effect is hard to ignore, even if Cut to Pieces now matches the impact of Hemophilic Slash, especially considering that a 3s cooldown reduction on Vengeful Slam | Vigilant Thrust would achieve the same result in a less convoluted way.

Even if Cut to Pieces is balanced, we can’t forget the other half of the problem, Bloodbound | Critical Conditions, which reduces the cooldown on Bloodrage | Burning Focus each time a DoT crits.

When a lot of adds are present, you can spam this as fast as you can press the button for effectively unlimited AoE damage, and Cut to Pieces has no bearing on that.

Take the Nihrot hallway in R-4 Anomaly for example; Vengeance Juggernauts | Vigilance Guardians can hit 200k DPS, as in two hundred thousand damage per second.

Bloodbound | Critical Conditions could just be changed to offer a flat 30s cooldown reduction, so it no longer scales with the number of targets, but something needs to be done to restrain the off-GCD spammable AoE damage.

I’m not sure exactly where that would land Vengeance | Vigilance in terms of sustained AoE performance, but it still has Shatter Burst | Branding Burst and DoT spread and Bloodrage | Burning Focus, so it should be fine. Hatred | Serenity will be the new AoE spec on top thanks to Two-Time Trouble.

Marksmanship Sniper | Sharpshooter Gunslinger

It’s a nice little buff, perhaps meant to bolster non-Energy Barrel | non-Energy Barrels talents to shore up their viability, though I think redistributing some of the damage from said talent is a better way to go.

Still, I think this is a great way to plainly indicate to some players that supercrit exists. Hopefully, it doesn’t break anything because supercrit only converts all excess critical chance to critical damage if you get +100% critical chance from a single ability…