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Thunn

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  1. Good to see you're still amongst us, L-Randle. I guess I wasn't especially clear in my brief post, but I agree. Was trying to point out that the set bonuses (which are right-side items) and augments are the most important. Since MH/OH and left side don't have set bonuses, those are a lot more flexible.
  2. Assuming augmentations are in place, full sets of PVP gear are going to be superior to even the best bolstered PVE gear, just for the set bonuses. The biggest differentiators are augments and the set bonuses.
  3. I did mess around with that. I have a character (parked for a long time) that had a full Partisan set. Oddly enough, it bolstered pretty much identically to the ideal pve stuff I posted. In that situation, the pvp crystals were best. However, that was the ONLY situation in which I found them to be best...where everything else already had expertise on it anyway. Trying to throw in the crystals to a pve mix just to make cap expertise actually has the opposite effect, in my experience. And yes, as the above poster indicated...currently gear in your ship slots is being bolstered as well, strange but true. If those spots are blank, you're losing ~5000 HP and 5% damage/heals. You can fill in all but 4 of those slots for a few thousand credits from the fleet ship vendor to get most of this, I wouldn't recommend trying to do ship missions to fill in the other four unless you have many, many hours to kill and/or masochistic. It's good to have for now, but as it's obviously unintended behavior, I expect BW to swiftly issue a fix, likely this coming Tuesday.
  4. This was...well thought-out and presented, and would make a big difference in the game. Are you sure you shouldn't be asking for nerfs to operatives, sir?
  5. I've given some thought to the situation, but my conclusion is...working as intended. Bioware wants as many people as possible grinding away at the wall of top-level PVP/PVE. That's where the most Cartel coins get spent, and therefore the most $$$ for them. For those of us who enjoyed just playing and being away from the rat race, mid-level PVP was it. Someone who enjoyed crafting could actually *gasp* do useful crafting for their characters! If you enjoyed a particular character type, you could even pass gear down to them at little cost. We can't have that! So rather than flat out pushing us out of the mids, Bioware has simply made it so unpleasant that no one will want to be there. Problem solved. Reminds me a lot of how most companies go about firing someone these days. There's a lot of liability and headaches involved in actually firing someone, so this is rarely done. Instead, you simply make the employee's life so miserable that they leave on their own. For Bioware, that last part is the kicker. They're hoping that "leave on your own" means people will get back into the end-level grind. What I rather think will happen instead is that people will finish up the storylines they like, and just leave entirely.
  6. L-Randle, this thread has always been a big help to me. In the interests of showing my appreciation, what follows is the results of exhaustive testing of the Bolster system as it currently stands. Hopefully this will be helpful to all and sundry. (This information is targeted at those who do not have full Obroan gear or a set of operations gear. Both of those have set bonuses that make them more desirable.) Biggest Gotchas: Avoid any item modifications over 162, as they will hurt your expertise far more than they'll help your other stats. Mainhand/offhand are a special case that have their own rules (see below). Level 55 and higher relics with the exception of Obroan are also not worthwhile. General note on augments: Everything now bolsters with the equivalent of fortitude augments. This means that it's not as critically important as it once was to be fully augmented all the time. Note that if you start adding power or mainstat augments, while this helps your damage it is effectively lowering your endurance/hit points. Also, with the removal of the option to take the skill tree option that boosts mainstat by a certain %, in most cases now power/end augments are more desirable than mainstat/end. Right side gear + bracers: This actually turns out to be very easy and adaptable. For the 55 crowd, many things work. Full 162 purples, full 156 purples, full 148 blues...all of these bolster within a few points of each other. If you have the full 162s, great! But if not, don't bust your butt and waste a lot of time/comms/money on getting them. A full set of 148 blue modifications in these items is just fine. Earpiece/implants: It used to be that taking purples here was bad, but this really isn't the case any more. Much like the right side gear, blue 148's through purple 162's are very nearly the same here. Get whatever's the most convenient for you. Relics: This turned out to be more complicated. Augmented Obroan is still more or less the best, but only because of the procs. Overall, the good ol' reliable level 50 matrix cube relic comes out the top for consistent stats. Level 55 and higher relics, drops or crafted, do not bolster as well. You can shell out a lot of money/comms for a level 50 purple if you wish and they work well, but outside of the proc effects a blue 50 you can buy for a couple thousand credits works just as well. So if you have Obroan/matrix cube relics use 'em, otherwise a 50 blue is your best bet. Mainhand/offhand: This is where some alchemy comes in, and if you get it wrong, these two items can cost you the most expertise. Long story short, your best combo is a 162 hilt/barrel (operation drop if you have it, otherwise the entry-level Revan quest series provides a green weapon, the barrel/hilt of which is nearly identical when bolstered), purple 156 mod (cybertech crafted level 53 of your stat type), and a 140 purple enhancement (4 basic comms at the level 50 modifications vendor). Deviating from this formula will cost you, either in expertise or other stats. Same or slightly below-level blues will still work reasonably well, but this combo is the best. You must have this right if you want to hit 2018 expertise. For the sub-50 crowd: Stick to same or slightly below-level blue item modifications and you'll get the best results. As long as you fill all of your slots, you'll still hit 2018 exp, even if your overall stats aren't quite as good. Simple fact is though, you ARE at a significant disadvantage, if not from stats, then from available abilities. At the end of the day, if you're facing someone in full augmented Obroan or 55 raid gear, you're still going to be at a disadvantage. However, if you follow the instructions here, you will be in the most competitive position you can be. To give you an idea, my PT/Vanguard when following these instructions and using mainstat augs (left over from before) ends up with around 37K health, 2018 exp, 2020 main weapon damage, and 980 or so bonus damage. My assassin has 162-level gear unaugmented, and comes in at 42K health and 2018 exp, but lower damage numbers, although not hugely so. Hope this is helpful to all and saves you the time/money/comms investment of figuring it out for yourselves.
  7. Shows you what I know, didn't even realize you could buy decorations with PvP comms. Might be worth it, to sell for spare coin for new augments later after patch.
  8. Gonna be that bad, huh? I already have a bank full of those. :-/
  9. From what I read, it looks like the couple of extra PvP weapons I have stashed are about to auto-bind with the patch, so I figured I'd spend a bit now. What makes the most sense to buy, PvP-gear wise? As much of an armor set as I can afford, for the set bonus?
  10. Hei_Atzfel, sorry to get you riled up...I'm honestly just trying it to see what it's like. What's ironic in all of the hate is that I'm likely to eventually go middle tree anyway, because that plays the most like my beloved, now-mothballed scrapper. I'm more about focusing on a single target than on a lot of DOT abilities. In the meantime, having fun learning how balance dot-spec works. Thanks again to the folks that have had good advice here and in PMs!
  11. That is another thing I've noticed, once I'm out of stealth I better have an exit plan or any halfway decent team will stun and melt me in three seconds flat. I can't blame 'em though, you just don't want to let this spec hang around.
  12. It was hard to tell, you both bein' so subtle 'n all.
  13. Thanks again for the feedback, folks. It's fun to try out something different for a change, if nothing else.
  14. Thanks Altheran, this makes sense. And yes, everything changing in a week, for sure. Hahaha guys, thanks for the chuckle. In fact, this is quite literally the only class/spec combo that I have not yet tried. I run up against them so often on my Pyrotech/Vanguard that I wanted to get an idea of what makes 'em tick. So far I'm not all that impressed, I think a balance/madness sage/sorc is a lot more effective. In fact Exosasa, one of my first and longest-played characters was a shadow tankassin. Once I stopped raiding though, he's mostly turned into my stimbot.
  15. Good day, I am leveling a PVP balance shadow right now, and thought I'd ask the advice of those who have gone before me. I see a couple of different ways to go on placing my talent tree points. Biggest question...is it worthwhile to eschew Sever Force and instead go for Mind Over Matter in the Kinetic tree? Probably the #1 issue I have with this class so far in PVP is being knocked back and rooted, and the ability to purge the movement impairing effects would be quite welcome. Sever Force looks very nice, but don't know if it's worth taking if I have to give up MoM. A final spec along these lines might look something like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601bf0soZZcMfRrbkrfMM.3 If Sever Force is the way to go, just curious as to how folks would place the rest of the skill points. For me, it would look like you'd shoot straight for SF, then go up to 2/2 Misdirection in Infiltration (for the speed increase), and your last three points in Technique Mastery, since taking increased armor isn't all that useful in PvP. Final spec would look like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#6010cZdrZcMfRrbkrfRR.3 Or I could be completely off, who knows. Look forward to hearing comments/feedback/suggestions. Thanks for reading!
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