The bread and butter of Star Wars The Old Republic’s new Expansion, ‘Onslaught’, coming in September 2019, is a fully revamped Gearing System.

In a Community Livestream on Thursday (30th May), Eric Musco, Community Manager, Charles Boyd, Creative Director with special guest Keith Kanneg, Game Producer introduced the new, inclusive gearing system dubbed ‘Spoils of War’.

Basically, this system will be more about horizontal progression rather than vertical gear progression. All types of content, including Conquest and PvP, will drop gear.

The easiest way to break down this new system is to break it up into two sections. The gear items/slots themselves and how to get them.

UPDATE – I have now incorporated more information from the PTS into this article (27th August).

Contents

Items Set Bonuses Tacticals Amplifiers

Acquisition Galactic Renown Conquest Crafting New Vendors Deconstruction + Inventory Mangement

PvP Bolster Itemisation



Items

There are a number of changes and some new types of items coming with Onslaught. We’ll still have the gear slots we already have. But, we’ll be getting an entirely new one as well.

Set Bonuses

Set Bonuses are getting an overhaul. We’re still going to have them. But there are few key changes coming.

There will now be multiple, different sets for all advanced classes.

Introduction of sets for base classes and other general sets useful for all classes or certain playstyle situations.

Sets will come in a variety of sizes. Instead of all being 6-piece sets, there will be 2-piece, 4 -piece etc. sets.

Tacticals

Tacticals are a brand new gear slot being introduced into the game. Basically, this new gear item will allow you to ‘define your playstyle’. Their key feature will be modifying your existing abilities but they will have other effects as well.

There will be a variety of Tactical Items for Advanced Classes and Base Classes as well as generic ones usable by all classes.

Tactical Items will be somewhat rare, initially.

Examples of Set Bonus and Tactical Items

Amplifiers

Amplifiers are a brand new bonus stat that will appear on Shells, Armourings, Hilts, Mods and Enhancements.

Amps are purely an ‘extra’ so they aren’t taken into account for PvE balance targets (eg. Boss DPS targets or PvP Bolster).

Different Amp effects appear on specific mod types. Ie. Shells have different Amp types then Armourings.

Amps can be changed by re-rolling or recalibrating them using Credits. You can change Amps as many times as you want but the Credit cost will go up intermittently and caps out. There will likely be a cost reset of some kind though.

They are not replacing Augments.

Examples of Amplifiers

See my Game Update 6.0 Amplifiers Guide for lists of Amplifiers.

Acquisition

You’ll be able to easily get gear from doing pretty much anything in the game. All content is viable to acquire gear. However, harder content is more rewarding. You will get gear drops from the following Content

Unranked PvP – drops Tacticals and Set Items (except highest tier)

drops Tacticals and Set Items (except highest tier) Ranked PvP – drops the highest tier of gear + Tacticals and Set Items

drops the highest tier of gear + Tacticals and Set Items Flashpoints – individual loot per boss

– individual loot per boss Operations – personal loot and group loot everyone can roll on

personal loot and group loot everyone can roll on Conquest – personal and Guild Rewards drop gear

personal and Guild Rewards drop gear Galactic Renown – supplementary system replacing Galactic Command

– supplementary system replacing Galactic Command Crafting – competitive with drops but has limitations

Item Rating and Gear Drops

Item drops scale based on your character Class, Advanced Class and importantly, your relative Item Rating. This means you will always get gear drops at your level or above.

Your Item Rating also determines what Set Bonus and Tactical Items start dropping. So basically, certain Set Bonuses and Tactical Items are only accessible at higher gear tiers and Item Rating.

RNG Protection

When RNG is a factor in gear acquisition, you are protected from bad RNG. The longer you go without getting a useful piece, the chances of getting a good piece will continue to increase.

Legacy

All gear that drops will be Legacy bound including left side (relics, implants, earpiece) as well as the new Tactical items. And yes, this means all shells that drop will be Legacy bound.

Set Bonus Change

Set Bonuses are going back to being onto the Shell rather than being on the Armouring. This means once you get the Set Bonus item you want, you’ll always have it and can upgrade it as you please. It also allows for greater hybridisation options eg. skank tanks.

Galactic Renown

Galactic Command has been rebranded to Galactic Renown and will now serve purely as a supplementary gearing system.

Flat Levelling Experience

Progression will now be consistent ie. there will be no more tiers. Items will drop from crates based on your Item Level, Class and Discipline. So if you have a high Item Rating and open a low-level crate, you’ll get items based on your Item Rating rather then the lowest tier of gear.

Every Rank has a Value

Galactic Renown Levels will be purely cosmetic. You do not need to get to high renown to get good items. Again, items will drop based on your Item Rating.

Galactic Renown will be Seasonal

Your Renown Ranks will get reset periodically. Again, it’s now a purely cosmetic system and this change won’t affect the quality of drops you get.

Current Galactic Command Level will be reset with Onslaught

Any progress you’ve made on your characters will be reset when 6.0 launches. So yes, all your 300 characters will be reset to 0.

Note: you will not be able to earn the current Galactic Command Achievements once 6.0 hits, they’ll be unobtainable.

Renown Crates and XP versus Galactic Command Recap

Again, rewards scale with your Item Rating

RXP will be derived from a percentage of regular XP earned Eg. anything that grants XP, will also give you RXP

Current CXP perks and CXP boosts will roll over to RXP (current under 300 ones will change)

Again, it’s purely a supplementary gearing system

Conquest

Being introduced in 5.10.3 (Dantooine Incursion) are changes to earning Conquest Points. Anything that grants XP will also earn you Conquest points.

In 6.0, Conquest will serve as another supplementary system for getting gear.

Gear will drop from Personal and Guild Conquest Rewards. Note you do not need to be in a Guild to get Personal Conquest Rewards.

Crafting

Crafting is going to be a somewhat viable means of gearing in 6.0. Crafted Items will be competitive with in-game drops but will require significant effort and have a few min-maxing draw-backs.

Crafting Professions in Onslaught will be able to do the following

Craft un-moddable max item rating gear (which will also have fewer amps)

Craft max item rating mods and enhancements World drops roll differently for greater min/max potential

Crafted only, unique tactical items and possibly set bonuses too

New Vendors

Two new Vendors are being introduced into the game for Gear Acquisition.

Spoils of War Gear Vendor

This Vendor accepts a new legacy currency called War Commendations which will allow you to purchase items for specific slots. This currency can be earned from multiple sources such as Mission Completion, Deconstructing, Renown Crates etc.

See my Spoils of War Gear Vendor Guide for more information.

Mystery Vendor – Kai Zyyken

Kai Zykken will show up in cycles and will have a changing selection of Set Bonus Pieces and Tacticals available for purchase for all classes.

Every single Set Bonus and Tactical Item in the game will appear on this Vendor at some point.

The currency used to purchase items from this Vendor has not been finalised.

Deconstruction and Inventory Management

What do you do with all the unwanted gear you get? You can deconstruct any piece of gear you get after 6.0 launches.

Do you need a Crafting Profession?

Having a Crafting Profession is not required to Deconstruct gear. But it does have its advantages.

A new Deconstruction and Reverse Engineering Interface is being introduced which will show you what you get from what.

What do you get from Deconstructing/Reverse Engineering Gear?

Items you deconstruct can breakdown into the following (will vary/change depending on if you have a Crafting Profession)

Crafting Materials

Scrap

War Commendations

See my 6.0 Deconstruction Basics Guide for more information about this system.

More Legacy Storage

A Legacy wide Storage System is being introduced which will specifically store Crafting Materials.

PvP

Along with this new gearing system comes a couple of major changes to PvP.

Bolster

Bolster will now take you to the highest gear rating. This means, in PvP (Regular Warzones at least), vertical stat progression is more or less meaningless.

Only Tacticals, Set Bonuses and Amplifiers will impact PvP.

Itemisation

Unranked Warzones can award Tacticals and Set Bonus Items but not the highest tier of gear.

Ranked Arenas award all items including the highest tier of gear.

I will keep this updated when I can.

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