Thursday, September 6, 2012

Legacy and Career Updates

SWTOR patch 1.4 is right around the corner, as shown by the recent outbreak of developer blog posts.  However, we don't have to wait for 1.4 to see one small, yet important change.  I'm sure it'll be a controversial change to some, and a godsend to others.

From 1.3.7 yesterdays patch:

Legacy names are no longer unique. New Legacies that are created are now able to use a name that is already in use on the server. All players will be able to rename their Legacies once, at no cost, in a future update.

This was a dealbreaker to some when the server mergers occurred, as they had grown quite attached to their Legacy name.  So attached, that it killed their motivation to play when they had to make the change.  I was lucky and my legacy was still available.

Personally, this change doesn't mean much to me.  I actually have nameplates turned off in a lot of situations (except PvP).  To those who want their original legacy names back, I imagine they'll be pretty happy when the team institutes a reset.

Career Updates.  A developer blog was recently released discussing career changes in 1.4.  The focus of the blog seems to be on the Resolve (CC immunity), Trooper/BH,  and the Consular/Inquisitor.  It's a long read, so I'll only go over what is important to me.

Mercenaries and Commandos now have a 30-meter interrupt, Disabling Shot. This ability interrupts the target's current action and prevents that ability from being used for the next 4 seconds. This ability can be trained at level 18.

Prior to this change, Commando's did not have an interrupt ability.  Well, that's not really true.  We had a couple of hard CC stuns but they are on long cooldowns and only worked on specific enemy types.  This interrupt will be extremely useful.

I especially like how it prevents the ability from being used for the next 4 seconds, the NPC's who use that are rather annoying.  Now I get to be too.  We don't know what the cooldown on this skill will be, but I can't wait to use it in PvP on some healers.