SWTOR 7.5 Changes Overview and full patch notes (2024)

SWTOR Update 7.5 “Desperate Defiance” releases on May 29th, 2024. It features new solo story content that takes place on Hutta, a droid companion that introduces us to the Ventures system, a new annual spring festival event on Dantooine, and PvP Season 6.

How game updates work in SWTOR

Game updates in SWTOR are pretty consistent and predictable these days. SWTOR’s update schedule features alternating major and minor updates released roughly every three months, typically on Tuesdays alongside server resets.

Expansions are released every few years for free to subscribers and contain a substantial amount of story, 1-2 new planets, group content (often including a new raid), and some significant improvements to gameplay and related systems. Expansions are denoted by the first number in the build version (5.0, 6.0, 7.0, etc.).

Major updates always contain solo story content that takes place on a new planet or a new landing zone on an existing planet, often accompanied by a daily area. They also always mark the beginning of a new PvP Season and typically include some sort of non-story content, along with a bit of modernization to the game. The second number in the overall build version denotes major updates, so 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, etc., are major updates.

Minor updates always contain a new Galactic Season, which is SWTOR’s implementation of the Battle Pass system. They also include bug fixes and sometimes smaller features. The devs have also expressed their intent to include new date night missions for a couple of companions with each minor update, though it remains to be seen if they will stick to that. The third number in the overall build version denotes minor updates, so 7.1.1, 7.2.1, 7.3.1, etc., are major updates.

In other words, we will typically get 2 story updates, 2 Galactic Seasons, and 2 PvP Seasons per year, along with a bunch of other stuff.

Lettered patches (7.1a, 7.1b, 7.2a, 7.3.1c, etc.) are hotfixes for their associated major or minor update. They never contain new content or features and are typically meant to fix an immediate issue that was discovered after the update was released or allowed to exist in the live game for a short period. They are typically released within 1-2 weeks of a major or minor update.

Desperate Defiance Solo Story in 7.5

The solo storyline for 7.5 will continue to focus on what was introduced at the end of 7.4’s “Chains in the Dark”. We’ll be working directly with Padawan Sa’har Kateen to aid in her betrayal of Heta Kol and retrieve the Holocron from Elom. She’s the one being desperately defiant.

The devs were pretty tight-lipped about the story beyond that, but it seems like they’re trying to do a more nuanced version of Jaesa Willsaam, where you have an impressionable Padawan | Apprentice that is shaped by your decisions.

New Landing Zone and Updated Visuals on Hutta

Desperate Defiance will take place at a new landing zone on Hutta called the Minboosa District and features a labor disagreement. The workers are represented by an Evocii and a Rodian against a Hutt who runs a facility that handles Tibanna gas.

We suspect the disagreement is about a different type of gas creating a hostile work environment, one whose production requires more direct involvement from the Hutts, but we have yet to receive any official confirmation from labor union officials.

Hutta is not the first planet to receive visual modernizations, nor will it be the last. We’ve gotten them on every planet we’ve revisited in 7.0, though these are arguably the most eye-popping thus far. Speaking of which, why haven’t we ever seen a Sith use Force Squish?

Dantooine Spring Abundance Festival Event

There’s a new seasonal event that will take place at a new farmstead landing zone on Dantooine called the Spring Abundance Festival.

Despite taking place in the weeks immediately preceding summer this year, the festival is meant to complete a set of four events that take place over the course of a year each season. Future years will probably start closer to the middle of Spring.

The other seasonal events are Nightlife (Summer), Feast of Prosperity (Fall), and Life Day (Winter). Each of these seasonal events sets itself apart from Conquest events (Rakghoul Resurgence, Relics of the Gree, All Worlds Ultimate Swoop Rally, and Pirate Incursion) by:

• Being annual and tied to a specific season
• Lasting more than 1 week (usually 3+)
• Not having a Reputation track
• Offering new rewards each year (at least recently)

To learn more about the event, read our detailed guide. It will show you how to start, walkthroughs for all missions you can complete daily and weekly, rewards you can earn, vendor items and achievements!

B3-S1 Companion and Venture System

Lane Vizla’s storyline is coming to an end. I was hoping we’d get to spend a little more time with AstromecHK-24, but we’ll be getting a positively ADORABLE robotic murder pupper named B3-S1 (AKA “Bessie”) as a new companion.

Bessie is the result of Lane’s hard work to restore a Mandalorian Basilisk War Droid, but unlike other companions, you’ll need to raise her influence and expand her abilities by taking her out for daily walks to obtain combat training data.

Her training progress will be tracked through the new Ventures system in a dedicated tab in the Legacy window.

Ventures are long-form quests that offer especially prestigious rewards that allow you to show off your dedication to the game. In the livestream, the devs compared it to something like the Wings of the Architect mount from defeating Dread Master Brontes in NiM.

To be clear, earning B3-S1 will take a lot of time, on the order of months, but not a lot of skill like you’d need to get the Wings of the Architect or Crest and other cosmetics needed to become a Dread Master.

We have a full guide to the new Basilisk Prototype and the Ventures system, if you want to learn how to unlock and train your own B3-S1 doggy companion!

PvP Season 6 “Great Pirate Hunt”

The theme for PvP Season 6 is “Great Pirate Hunt” and features some of the sickest drip I’ve seen since the PvP revamp in 2022.

PvP Seasons are being lengthened to 16 weeks (up from 12) and will be synchronized to begin with major updates in order to make them more predictable and marketable.

The marketability bit might sound concerning, but the whole point of the PvP Season is to increase participation. Given that PvP Seasons require such consistent involvement each week, it’s discouraging to those players who come back for an update. They aren’t going to bother participating in a Season that’s halfway done.

Each season’s duration is being increased by more than the requirements to complete it, meaning you won’t have to do quite as much PvP as you used to, though you aren’t really getting more rewards for completing 5 additional levels.

Rather than divvying up the 2x PvP Seasons Tokens into individual levels, we’ll be rewarded with more Warzone Medpacs and Adrenals to add to a likely separate, legacy-bound pile. Yes, it’s ridiculous. Everyone’s been saying it since they said it, but they haven’t announced plans to change it.

Combat Style Balance Changes (or Lack Thereof)

There aren’t any! The only changes that are related at all are a supposed trio of minor bug fixes that seem to be more like typo fixes to me:

• Lightning Sorcerer: Corrected an issue causing Thundering Blast to deal unintended damage while using the Level 39 talent Dark Embrace.
  • No idea what they’re referring to. Dark Embrace has a typo, that’s it.
• Advanced Prototype Powertech: The Level 43 talent Advanced Yield now correctly reduces the cooldown of Power Yield.
• Pyrotech Powertech: Fixed a typo in the from the debuff applied by Whistling Birds.
  • This is legitimately just a typo. The ability trees are littered with typos and wholly inaccurate effect descriptions. They stopped conforming to a standard writing style and level of specificity for effect text as well, resulting in crucial information being left out.

This is the second update in a row without any combat style balance changes, and given that the number of changes has been dropping steadily over time, I fear tha3t they may be finished with balance changes for the foreseeable future.

I wouldn’t expect anything significant until 8.0 (assuming we get that to begin with), which is unfortunate because there are still a bunch of significant issues, some of which are recent discoveries:

• The accuracy debuff from Advanced Terminator Droid | Suppression Droid (PT | VG Stealth Scan) is mind-bogglingly overpowered in PvP in numerous ways that are hard to notice. It’s on par with things like 60% Force Speed DR and Meteor Brawler.
• Guard is hideously overpowered in PvP and is the most likely culprit behind problematic role balance issues
• Insufficient survivability for Operatives and Scoundrels in Operations and comparatively lackluster combat performance in solo content.
• Extreme disparities in single target sustained DPS performance. Specs without competitive single-target sustained DPS don’t get brought to raids nearly as much because they make the player (and/or the rest of the group) work harder.
• Extreme disparities in AoE potential, which is more problematic now that burst potential is consistent across an entire combat style, so you have burst styles instead of specs, but AoE performance is still determined by whether the spec deals direct or DoT damage.
• Game-breaking abilities and effects. These are any ability or effect that uniquely defies a design standard followed by every other ability in the game. You probably recognize many of them as being lumped together with group utility, and while every combat style has some, they aren’t distributed evenly and have defined SWTOR’s meta for years.
• Biochem items, especially Medpacs and the Tank Adrenal, aren’t balanced for level 80 content, severely diminishing their effectiveness and usefulness. Broadsword has us using expired meds!
• Battle Rez is Broken

Smaller Changes Spotlight

These are smaller changes that I find to be particularly noteworthy.

• The Cartel Market window has been redesigned with a few new tabs, including one for all of the armors inspired by hit shows on Disney+!
• There’s a new Game Update summary window that will pop up with info about the most recent update.
• One of the new CM armors has a hood that shows your hair!!!
• All of the missing Flashpoint Decorations have been added back, usually to the final or bonus boss.
• Daily missions no longer require story completion on 1 toon in your legacy to access (Subscriber only)
• No more floating turrets!
• Supposedly, the cooldown timer on tooltips works again, though this was not listed in the patch notes, only observed on the PTS

Cartel Market Additions

We got a few teasers from the stream and an announcement today for several items inspired by The Acolyte coming soon to Disney+!

Dark Harbinger Armor Set

The Dark Harbinger armor set is a SWTOR replica of Mae’s outfit. It has a unique new feature that may suggest Space Barbie’s wish has come true.

The helmet is the hood + bandana for the outfit, and it comes with a version that has hair and another version with the usual nonsensical baldness.

They only showed this with a hairstyle, so it’s unclear if you’re locked in or if it will match your toon. We’ll have to wait and see until tomorrow.

Serpent’s Tongue Vibroblade

The Serpent’s Tongue Vibroblade is one of the swordiest swords we’ve ever had, and it looks like it would work well as the mainhand to the Centurion Defender’s Vibrobutterknife’s shoto.

Wookiee Jedi-Inspired Hairstyle and Beard

We don’t have Wookiees as a playable race, but there’s one that’s a Jedi in The Acolyte, so they decided to make a new beard and hairstyle inspired by them instead.

Refined Mentor’s Armor Set

The Refined Mentor’s armor set is haute couture for the Jedi Order from the High Republic era. I hear these robes have been designed by the galaxy-renowned Balenciyoda.

Fallen Master Beard

We only have this WIP shot from the stream, but we are getting a new beard and hairstyle inspired by Baylan Skoll from the hit show Ahsoka^TM now streaming on Disney+!