



Welcome to the first round of Public Test Server testing for the ‘Onslaught’ Expansion! Each round will be targeted to test something specific. For example, In this initial round we are going to be looking at changes to the Sorcerer, Assassin, Marauder, and Juggernaut Advanced Classes. These changes include new ‘Onslaught’ Set Bonuses, Tactical Items, an initial batch of Amplifiers, and the following new Abilities:

Volt Rush (Sorcerers) - Deals energy damage to your target and energizes you for up to 5 seconds. The Energize effect can stack twice, with each stack increasing Volt Rush damage by 30%. The ability has 3 charges and a recharge timer of 10 seconds.

Severing Slash (Assassins) - Strikes targets in a cone, dealing weapon damage and slowing their movement speed by 50% for 3 seconds. 12 second cooldown.

Furious Focus (Marauder & Juggernaut) - Furious Focus has 4 ability charges and recharges every 30 seconds. Activating Furious Focus consumes all charges causing your next attacks to do 25% additional damage. Ex: If you consume 3 charges, your next 3 attacks do 25% increased damage.

It’s important to note that the numbers displayed for these abilities are not yet final. With that in mind, be aware that most encounters may either seem too easy or too hard.











Feedback

To coincide with these targeted PTS rounds, we will be looking for specific feedback. This feedback will help the team not only build changes for these Advanced Classes, but help us better define the changes for the other Classes as well. What we’re looking for is:

How do the Set Bonuses look and feel while playing?

How do the Tactical Items look and feel while playing?

How easy or hard is it to understand what certain Set Bonuses, Tactical Items, or Amplifiers do?

Which Set Bonuses, Tactical Items, or Amplifiers seem underpowered or overpowered, and why?

Feel free to start your theory-crafting early, as long as you keep in mind that any numbers you see are not final. Once all Classes are made available for testing, we’ll start asking for more focused balance feedback across all Classes! Head over to our PTS Forum. to share your thoughts.





How To Get Started

(Note that character copy will be disabled for this round of PTS)

Create a new character and leave your starting phase to find a teleport terminal which will send you to Odessen. Click on the boost terminal on Odessen to jump your character to level 75 and grant you credits. Interact with the class-appropriate PTS Gear Vendor on Odessen to choose from a variety of Set Bonus gear and Tactical Items. Now test them out to your heart’s desire! Play any content you’d like to help get a feel for these changes and how they work. Whether it’s practicing on training dummies, random enemies in the wild, Warzones, or Flashpoints, the choice is yours! (Remember, most content has not been balanced for level 75 yet, so things will likely be far too easy or too hard.)





Rewards

Back by popular demand, we are happy to announce the return of PTS rewards! However, not every round of PTS will track progress towards these rewards, so keep your eyes peeled for more PTS blogs in the future. This first round of PTS will not have a reward associated with it. Once we start the second round however, there will be a new PTS-only Achievement that will require you to complete five in-game group activities. When we get into the third round, we will then have a similar PTS-only Achievement of completing 10 in-game group activities.

Completing these Achievements will earn you the following rewards:

One of the two Achievements - The Strike Team Specialist and Strike Team Commander character Titles.

Both Achievements - A new and very unique mount that will be revealed in a future PTS article.

*All rewards will be distributed with the launch of Onslaught.





What To Expect

Here is what you can expect for PTS round one, and beyond:

For this round, changes for the Sorcerer, Assassin, Marauder, and Juggernaut Advanced Classes will be available - with other Advanced Classes will be available in later PTS rounds.

There will be multiple rounds of testing on PTS, expect that we may wipe characters in between rounds.

Some rounds will allow for character copy, while others may not. Keep your eyes on each rounds’ PTS blog for details.

The PTS may not be available at all times as it is a test server. Downtime with little or no warning is possible. Please watch the PTS Forum . for details.

. for details. Everything shown on the PTS is subject to change.

At the beginning of each round of PTS testing, expect to see a new blog like this one!

The team is hard at work bringing a lot of changes to the PTS over the course of this summer, so please jump in and give us your feedback!