5 Things to Love About the Gree Event

When the Gree last visited back in July, I groused a bit about how the event didn't turn out to be as much fun for me as I had hoped. This week I had a much better time, killed Xenoanalyst II several times and earned a fair amount of Gray Helix Components in the process.

A guildie of mine couldn't understand why I and others were still interested in the Gree event, considering that it was originally introduced over two years ago and hasn't received any updates since then other than two level cap increases and a few additional rewards. So I thought I'd make a post about five reasons why I still love the Gree event:

1. Irregularity

This isn't just too true of the Gree event, but I love that SWTOR has world events that are on an irregular schedule. It keeps things interesting and creates a certain feeling of wanting to make use of the event's "limited time offer", purely because you don't know when exactly you'll get another chance to play this content. Plus the devs are pretty good at choosing "sensible" times to put events like this one or the Rakghoul event live, so that they help bridge content gaps between patches instead of overwhelming people with too many things to do at once.

2. Diverse Content

Whether you like to solo, play with your close friends or with a large group, or love to PvP, the Gree event has something to do for everyone.

3. Rewards

This may sound weird, but I like that the Gree event has worthwhile rewards that require a certain amount of grinding. The legacy weapons and off-hands are not exactly a "must-have", but they are certainly damn useful if you're a dedicated player, and worth coming back for even once you've maxed out your reputation. At the same time the Gray Helix Components required to buy them are relatively hard to come by and their acquisition is limited by lockouts, so that you can't just buy everything you want after one intense week of grinding. It gives you a reason to come back to the event repeatedly.

4. PvP

I've become a pretty casual PvPer these days, as it's never been at the top of my priority list and my now more limited playtime pretty much prevents me from ever getting far enough down the list to actually want to PvP much. However, I still like what the Gree event does to Ilum in terms of world PvP. Back in 2013 I wrote about why the event's dedicated PvP area was fun, and even though I didn't even set foot in it this time around, I still saw it spill out into the PvE area whenever people forgot or decided to move on to PvE dailies while they were still PvP flagged, which could cause random brawls to erupt all over. I honestly find these fun to watch even when I'm not personally involved!

5. Xenoanalyst

Xenoanalyst II was the first single boss that Bioware decided to put into an instance of his own and I think that he may well still be the most fun one in this category. I don't know of another raid boss that is genuinely happy to be beaten, which makes his dialogue funny. And mechanics-wise the encounter is just involved enough to remain interesting even when you repeat the fight several times in a row (I'm still waiting for the day I'll see him spawn Jawas for the species comparison), but at the same time straightforward enough that he's not too difficult to pug.