Well, 2.0 is now on PTS, and while we cannot make the journey to Makeb, we can however check out all the other new features that will be coming to the game. Here are my initial impressions so far.Starting on the PTS

Right when you get your character copied over, which seems to be a issue with some people, the first thing you should immediately do is go to the level up terminal. This terminal will instantly make your characters level 55 and give you 300 elite comms as well as a bunch of unassembled equipment. Make your way over to the new Elite Vendor and start gearing yourself out with the new equipment, as soon as your done spending and redeeming, go back to the level up machine and click it again to claim 300 more comms. Use this to fully gear out yourself and your companions if you want (for all those 2 man EV runs).

Madness Assassin

If you know me, you know my class and spec of choice is a DPS Madness Assassin, and they have received quite the change. Duplicity (A proc that reduces the force cost of maul as well as allows it to easily penetrate armor) has been moved deeper into the Deception skill tree. Unearthed Knowledge has also been removed from the skill tree completely. What does this mean? It means that the Madness Rotation just got a whole lot more simple. That does not necessarily mean better. Although, we have gained multiple new talents to increase dot damage as well as Death Field damage, I am still unsure if this is a buff or a nerf. Only time and simulation crafting will tell.

New Operation: Scum and Villainy

This operation is one thing, that thing is long. With 7 bosses, you start out fighting.

Boss 1 – Dash’Roode
Literally the first enemy you face is a boss in a sandstorm, and the mechanics for it are quite weird. During this boss you must keep a shield around you and your party to avoid being damaged by the sandstorm around you. Naturally this boss relies mostly on knockbacks. If a player remains outside the bubble too long, they will be teleported far away from the group, with little chance of making it back alive. The initially shield is stationary and connected to a generator, on HM flying adds will come to try to destroy the generator. DPS should down these adds as soon as possible. Eventually the generator will die of its own accord. This is when Melee classes actually become useful. As soon as the generator dies, a melee class or a healer should click on the generator. After a channel, they will gain a mobile shield that follows them around. This person should stay smack dab in the middle of the group to keep everyone safe, while also staying behind the boss to avoid being knocked back. During this mobile shield phase, the tank should walk the boss to the next generator (which is north of the first one), while keeping the group under the shield. This boss basically becomes a tank and spank as soon as these mechanics are understood. One more thing to notice, is that the boss has both a 360 degree knock back, as well as a Cleave Knockback. He’s got knockbacks all around, so when you are knocked back (Which I guarantee you will be) do your best to make it to the group as fast as possible to avoid being teleported away, and to avoid the sandstorm causing more damage to you.

EDIT: Did this boss once more, you will get teleported regardless of where you are, it is a random selection. Before the start of the boss fight, there is a vendor named Shady Character that sells Personal Shields that will temporarily protect you from the storm. Grab one of these shields and save it for if you are teleported away. If you are, Womp Rats will spawn around you, ignore them and pop your shield and get back to the group as fast as possible. Kill the womp rats when you reunite with them.

Boss 2 – Titan 6
Prolly my favorite raid boss of all time. I only did it on story mode, but he has 5 Attacks, 2 phases and one of which is a DPS Race phase. One attack is a missile launching attack called Defense Sequence 2 – Lots of Missiles, during this attack the whole party must spread out, as it has splash damage. He has an attack called Air Strike where he launches missiles onto red circles around area, avoid these. Another attack (Defense Sequence Three and Defense Sequence Five) is where he starts kicking up dust, whole party must get behind rocks spread around area. He will immediately use an near instant kill right after which will hit everyone not behind a rock. He also summons adds after every major attack except Lots of Missiles, that must be DPSed down, and also launches Missiles in red circles that do massive damage. At 30% hp he goes into a burn phase kinda like kephess on TFB, must be burnt down as quickly as possible. Pretty easy fight however on Story.

Boss 3 – Thrasher and Bo Zarran
Boss can be glitched to death. It’s actually pretty funny. If you have an assassin in group, have them set a phase walk before the colliseum entrance, then walk in and aggro boss. Immediately he should teleport back while keeping aggro. In the previous room there is a sarlac pit, if you walk the boss into the Sarlac pit, he will immediately die. Fits of laughter ensue. Bo Zarran is immediately after, he is a push over and is basically just a trash mob with a bunch of HP.

 

Area: City Infiltration

This is as far as my ops group got. The mechanics are quite interesting though. The Raid mus split everyone up into groups of two. Our group split it up as so: Top 2 DPS with Tanks, Bottom 2 with healers. A Assassin Tank and I got the privilege of sneaking to the end of the city for our assignment. Basically through the city, there are 4 groups of two elite mobs in which these divided raid groups must divide and take down, if more than two people engage them, and alarm will sound and everyone will be swarmed by strong mobs and almost instantly killed. Along the way there are elite robot mobs that are there just to be snuck past, Killing these guys is a waste of time and there is a timer (They also revive). As soon as these 4 specific groups of mobs are killed, another ops boss will spawn and you must kill it before the timer that started when you entered the city runs out. At this point my pugged raid could not handle the whole don’t aggro robot mobs idea and wiped. We called it soon after.

I will continue updating as I go through.
Well anyone else play the PTS? What are your thoughts?