SWTOR: Masterwork Gear Changes in patch 5.10

Soeren Kamper SWTOR

Here is a new post by Eric Musco on how Masterwork gear will work with SWTOR Patch 5.10 Check it out:

Hey folks,

For those of you who are familiar with current Masterwork gearing plans from PTS, you will notice some changes. Otherwise, this may be an introduction to how all of this will work in 5.10. Throughout this post when I refer to Masterwork gear, I am referring to the new 252 and 258 item rating gear being introduced in 5.10. Based on our initial implementation there were a few key things we wanted to address:

  • Getting Masterwork gear solely from PvP was more difficult than we would like.
  • The implementation encouraged working directly to 258 while skipping 252. We don’t have a problem with this, but it made getting any gear upgrades more challenging and expensive than desired. By “stair stepping” up to 252 and then 258 there can be constant progression that isn’t as expensive as trying to jump straight to best in slot.
  • We needed more opportunities for players to get Masterwork Data Crystals and gear overall.
  • Players had no long term value in getting 252 since they could not be upgraded to 258.

Before we dive into the way MW gear acquisition will work in 5.10, just a reminder that 258 gear can be crafted by gathering materials from a variety of sources, including Master Mode Gods from the Machine. This ensures that the new MM in 5.10 is a very valuable source for progression Ops players. Outside of crafting, there are two ways of acquiring MW gear, by turning in MW Data Crystals to a vendor for 252 / 258 or by receiving 252 gear directly. Let’s cover each of these methods and within each, the separation of PvE and PvP where applicable.

Masterwork Data Crystals
There are two places where you can purchase MW gear:

Here are the ways in which you can acquire MW Data Crystals per week:
PvE

  • 1 Crystal – [Weekly] Masterwork Data Crystal – This Mission is to defeat both world bosses -or- earn 50 Group Ranked Arena Points
  • 1 Crystal – New rotating Weekly Mission (50% chance of being a PvE objective)

PvP

  • 1 Crystal – [Weekly] Masterwork Data Crystal – This Mission is to defeat both world bosses -or- earn 50 Group Ranked Arena Points
  • 1 Crystal – New rotating Weekly Mission (50% chance of being a PvP objective)

Both

252 Gear Drops
In addition to being able to purchase gear for MW Data Crystals, there are a two places where you can outright acquire 252 gear.

  • [Weekly] Daily Area Ossus will allow you to choose one of the 3 Artifact Lockboxes:
    • Artifact Lockbox (Lower Body): Waist, Legs, Feet, or Relic
    • Artifact Lockbox (Tech): Main Hand, Offhand, Head, or Ear
    • Artifact Lockbox (Upper Body): Chest, Wrists, Hands, or Implant
  • Once you are in Tier 3 of Galactic Command there is a chance that an Artifact Lockbox containing one random 252 piece can drop from Command Crates.

Additional Changes
There are some other changes to help support Masterwork Gear (mostly targeted at PvPers). They are:

  • We increased the current 252 disintegration rates from PTS. 252 gear will disintegrate into 175 Unassembled Components in 5.10 (up from 9 to 45).
  • To help PvPers get the required Reputation for the MW Data Crystal vendors, we are adding Rep rewards to Ranked PvP Missions:
    • [DAILY] Arena of Death!: 2 Geonosian Power Cell
    • [DAILY] My Kind of Scum: 1 Geonosian Power Cell
    • [WEEKLY] Go Berserk!: 4 Encrypted Data Disks
    • [WEEKLY] Time for Pain!: 2 Encrypted Data Disks

TLDR – If a player simply does two Weekly Missions of their chosen playstyle they will be able to acquire a minimum of two 252 pieces per week (or upgrade one 252 piece to 258). This does not include crossing over into both PvP and PvE, any MW Data Crystals or drops from Command Crates, or purchasing any crafted versions of this gear, which can speed up your acquisition rate of MW gear.

Let us know your thoughts on the changes to acquiring Masterwork gear in 5.10!