There are a few wonderful balance changes and fixes coming to Mercenary | Commando and Powertech | Vanguard. Well, some of you won’t find all of them to be wonderful, but they are healthy for the game.
Patch Notes have been rewritten for clarity and consistency.
Update 7.8.1 launches on March 10th, 2026. In addition to the combat balance changes, which we will discuss in detail here, it also brings a new story, date nights, Galactic Season 10, the return of Spring Abundance Festival, and bug fixes.
Mercenary | Commando
Mercenaries | Commandos are getting a buff to Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line and a fix to Trauma Regulators | Trauma Stabilizers so it builds stacks when you take AoE damage.
Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line now increases your movement speed to 60% (down from 75%)
Taking damage while under the effect of Energy Shield | Reactive Shield now causes you to build a stack of Trauma Regulators | Trauma Stabilizers whenever you take direct damage, including AoE damage.
The fix to Trauma Regulators | Trauma Stabilizers is pretty major for raiding, and it is a fix because the ability description never mentioned that it only applied to single-target damage.
Since most boss attacks deal AoE damage, this core piece of Mercenary | Commando survivability was super inconsistent in operations.
Along with the addition of 35% AoE DR to Chaff Flare | Diversion, Mercenary | Commando survivability should now be in a balanced spot for PvE.
They are a bit stronger in PvP now as a result since AoE damage was their Achilles heel, but channeled AoEs are nothing compared to spike damage from PvP builds, and if you’re getting hit by rotational AoE, you’re not standing where you should be anyway.
Mercenary | Commando mobility is also in a better spot, but accessibility (and general usability) remains a major issue for Rocket Out | Propulsion Round. At this point, I expect we will just have to wait until 8.0 for a redesign, but I’d love to be wrong about that.
Powertech | Vanguard
Powertech | Vanguards are getting a nerf to Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line and a fix to Hold the Line so the VFX stays visible for the duration of the ability.
Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line now increases your movement speed to 60% (down from 75%)
The visual effect animation for Hold the Line once again persists for the entire duration of the effect for Vanguards.
Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line finally offers the same benefits for both Mercenary | Commandos and Powertechs | Vanguards. Previously, the ability was significantly and quietly better for PTs | VGs, and over the past couple patches, Broadsword has been narrowing that performance gap.
The unified effect of Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line grants partial CC immunity and increases movement speed to 60% for 8s on a 40s cooldown.
Compare that to Mercenaries | Commandos having a 35% movement speed boost for 6s on a 45s cooldown vs PT | VG getting a 75% boost for 10s on a 35s cooldown, while PTs | VGs had access to a leap and pull and Mercenaries | Commandos had to spec into Rocket Out | Propulsion Round for any extra mobility.
This performance faultline came about because of the shift to ability trees with 7.0. When an ability gets locked away in the tree, taking it also means that it comes silently bundled with all of the former utility effects that buffed said ability.
For Powertechs | Vanguards, this included utilities offering +45% movement speed, 4s duration increase, and 10s cooldown reduction, none of which was ever offered to Mercenaries | Commandos.
This discrepancy was made worse after the devs slapped a Band-aid on the Rocket Out | Propulsion Round accessibility and usability issue by locking it in the tree, swapping it for Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line, which then had none of the Mercenary | Commando utilities.
To top it off, utilities weren’t designed to be equal. They were split into 3 tiers, and it just so happened that PT | VG had 2 top-tier utilities for Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line. This approach still causes balance issues elsewhere, but they aren’t as severe as the one with Hydraulic Overrides | Hold the Line.
