Jump to content

How Bolster works on 55 lvl and how min/max it


TonyDragonflame

Recommended Posts

Bolster on 55 lvl is very good thing. Why? Because if you use it rigth, you never get bad gear gap disadvantage with your other mates or enemies. Now after 2.0 indeed, skill > gear, and it is great.

 

Before 2.0, when you join wz (in your full min/max ewh certainly) and see 2-3 mates in recruit 13 k hp gear.. or, if worse, in pure pve gear with 0 expertise... dunno how are you, but I always leave before these wz starts. Now all mates have much more good chances for good playing.

 

 

Part 1. Gear

 

There are 4 kind of gear pieces, which have different Bolster influence:

* earpiece and implants

* relics

* mainhand and offhand

* armor gear

 

Further some rules for ARMOR GEAR ONLY:

 

1. DO NOT USE ANY OLD PVP GEAR WITH EXPERTISE

Do not use old battlemaster and champion mods, armorings ets.

Do not use old Recruit.

Do not use old wh/ewh relics.

If you will use it, you get SIGNIFICAL LOSE of your *Bolstered* expertise.

 

2. NEVER MIX *new* PvP and any PvE mods in same piece of gear

For example, never put single Partisan armoring in shell with other any PvE mods.

If you will use it, you get SIGNIFICAL LOSE of your *Bolstered* expertise.

 

3. NEVER USE PvP and PvE gear in one set in general

You need or full PvP Armor gear, or full PvE Armor gear. If you will have, for example, PvE chest but PvP legs, you lose expertise.

 

This is things about armor.

 

But whats about earpieces and implants?

Wonderful, but Bolster practically dont affected them!

The best implants and earpieces with best stats indeed crafted 53-54 levels! You lose only around -2 /-8 *Bolstered* expertise when use these implants, but get plenty useful stats compared with Conqueror ones (but Conqueror still have better endurance).

 

What about relics?

Best relics is now new PvP ones, cuz Bolster count expertise on them *as is* and dont *bolstered* to up level. Get them first.

 

What about mainhand and offhand?

Like for armor pieces, you lose expertise when use any PvE piece of gear higher than 63 grade, but they can bring you additional damage for 66 grade, 69 or 72. Indeed, there is no significal difference in Conqueror 65 grade with crafted 66 grade purple (+10 damage, -10 expertise) or 69/72 (more damage, less expertise). Since hard cap expertise now 2018, I think *soft cap* good around ~1850, so for min/max you can use PvE 66/69/72 instead of Conqueror.

 

 

Part 2. Learn to play

 

In new rules of Bolser, there is only ~10-15% gear gap between 4 kinds of gear grind:

(old min/max WH/EWH 61/63) * Bolster (+ probably Conqueror mainhand) = (crafted blue/purple min/max 66 gear) * Bolster = (dropped fp/ops purple 69/72 gear) * Bolster = Partisan (min/max)

Stock Partisan gear worse than any min/max gear above.

Mix of Partisan and any PvE gear have awful stats.

 

Conqueror gear seems on 5-10% better than min/max Partisan gear and crafted 66 grade gear (have more expertise, endurance and mainstat, less secondary stats like power, shield, absorb, crit etc)

So, there is several ways to gear up with Bolster after 2.0 (you must have as true pvp'er 4500 ranked and 2750 wz commz when you ding 55 lvl):

* Use your old ewh min/max gear or

* Craft for yourself 66 level min/max (!!!) blue/purple gear

* Buy Partisan and Conqueror relics for your wz commz

* (optional) Buy Conqueror mainhand for your wz commz

* Buy or craft for yourself purple 53/54 lvl earpiece and implants

 

- and you will be *golden* and competitive on wz.

 

Use that gear until you get full min/max Partisan or ever full min/max Conqueror.

 

For example, yesterday on wz my *nerfed in ground* assault vanguard, with full old good ewh min/max armor, conqueror mainhand, pvp relics and crafted earpieces and implants (have overall *bolstered* 1963 expertise, 1586 primary damage) I make 870k damage + 50 k protection and was only #2 on dps scoreboard, after full min/max conqueror focus sentinel who makes 1 million damage. And yes, we win that wz.

 

Or, for another example, my guardian tank have bolstered 1873 expertise, 47% passive armor mitigation, 39k hp, 13% defence, 39% shield and 31% absorb + yet two shield proc relics which add me yet 10-15% absorb (=40-45% absorb overall) half-time. And I am very very fat and happy guardian. Have full 66 purple gear (+ old 61 wh armorings for set bonus) + pvp proc relics.

 

 

Part 3. Min/max your Bolster

 

1. Get purple crafted 53/54 lvl earpiece and implants

2. Get Partisan and Conqueror relics for Power proc if you are dps or healer and Partisan + Conqueror relics for shield if you are tank

3. Get full min/max Conqueror armor

4. Get 72 grade hilt/barrel for mainhand/offhand

5. Profit

 

Hope, this research help you in playing and may the Force be with you! :o

/discuss

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 138
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Nice primer. A few questions. Is there a substantial bonus to using the very expensive to craft purple 28 mods vs the blues? Would makeb 25 mods get an inferior result? What about mixing pve 72 hilt with pvp mods, is that the BiS solution for pvp weapons? Finally, in my blue 28 mod suit, lvl 53 artifact implants, crappy earipiece, conqueror/partisan relics, and conqueror weapon I manage about 1850 expertise. Would that be considered a decent bolster? What would be the damage/damage bonus to shoot for with a basic suit such as this. Edited by Aelaias
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mixing PvE hilt with PvP mods results in a weapon with less expertise due to mix mods and is strictly inferior even to just a plain old PvE weapon of the same grade which would have higher stats and higher expertise after bolster.

 

There's no special bolster to augments (unless you plan on exploiting them). The advantage of the purple augments is exactly difference in stats between them and the much cheaper blue version. Is it worth it? Well more stats is always more stats if you can afford it.

 

It's okay for mix PvP set with PvE. It generally won't be smart because the 4 piece bonus is supposed to be better than having 2 of the 2 piece bonus, but if your 4 piece is particularly bad or if your 2 piece bonuses are particularly good, there's nothing stopping you from doing that and there's no additional harm beyond that if the armor rating is above 154 (Conqueror) you take a nasty hit on expertise. So it'd be better to use Dread Guard gear than Arkanian or better even if you have access to them for the sake of set bonuses.

 

There's something weird going on with the MH/OH. One popular theory is that in a WZ all weapons are secretly bolstered to UW rating and further magic occurs behind the scenes to ensure all the PvP weapons are superior. I've someone told me they put on a BM OH in WZ and reported lower tooltip numbers than Partisan. I don't remember the exact stat involved, but if you look at the difference between BM and Partisan OH, the difference in Force Power and other stats is tremendous and it's hard to imagine this happening on its own. Note that this only happens while inside a WZ. If you put on a BM OH anywhere else, of course your tooltip damage has to go up (the stats are much better). In light of this I'm not making any particularly strong effort to obtain a high level PvE MH/OH since I already have Conqueror, so will not be able to verify this myself.

 

There's no 'ideal' Expertise level. Anything below 60% mod is too low. From the data I gathered, here's some seemingly random Expertise values and their correspoding mod:

 

2018 (max) - 60%

2016 (1 piece of crafted implant, rest max) - 60%

2004 (no idea how I got this on one of my alts) - 59.7%

 

Technically even 2004 is 'low' but it's not something I'm going to research on how to get it back up. It looks like the you need somewhere around 2010 expertise to hit the max, so technically you have 8 points of expertise you can afford to lose, but after that it's too much. Here's one simple way to think about this. 33 expertise ~= 1% mod = 1% damage + 1% HP. 1% HP of a 30K HP character is 300 HP, or 30 endurance. Item budgets endurance as equal to main stat, so 33 expertise > 30 endurance + 30 main stat (because decreasing damage is superior to increasing HP). Outside of MH/OH (which possibly have their own magic behind the scenes) you won't come close to beating this ratio at all. Black Market earring gives me about 10-15 more endurance/main stat but costs 40 expertise, as a point of reference. If you have some really good PvE set bonus that you must have, then you have to take it but you wll be behind significantly in stats. Of course if you really want a PvE set bonus you should just wear Dread Guard which should still have effectively max Expertise.

Edited by Astarica
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never paid attention to Dread Guard gear but it looks like it's rating 150 which means it is actually effectively equal to Partisan (also rating 150) because it'll still have effectively max expertise under Bolster.

 

The best set of gear for PvP is full Conqueror, and full Conqueror takes way too much time. The best set of gear to obtain QUICKLY consist of:

 

Rating 152 implants X 2, earring, chest

Conqueror and Partisan Relic of Sereneditous Assault (no PvE relic is even close to these in PvP)

Set bonus from the better set bonus of Partisan versus Dread Guard. This assumes they're both equally easy to obtain for you. If not, just pick the significantly easier to obtain set.

Partisan/Dread Guard is interchangeable on bracer/belt so just take the easier to obtain version.

 

MH/OH remains an open question, though easier to obtain version of (Partisan/Dread Guard) MH/OH is a very safe choice.

 

If you're rich and just aug this gear anyway, it is quite competitive with full Conqueror. Not better, but it'll do quite well until you can afford full Conqueror.

 

Note that crafted rating 152 crafted gear gives you rather interesting offensive options that cannot be obtained anywhere else. You may even decide it's worth taking a very small rating hit for them.

Edited by Astarica
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice primer. A few questions. Is there a substantial bonus to using the very expensive to craft purple 28 mods vs the blues? Would makeb 25 mods get an inferior result? What about mixing pve 72 hilt with pvp mods, is that the BiS solution for pvp weapons? Finally, in my blue 28 mod suit, lvl 53 artifact implants, crappy earipiece, conqueror/partisan relics, and conqueror weapon I manage about 1850 expertise. Would that be considered a decent bolster? What would be the damage/damage bonus to shoot for with a basic suit such as this.

 

Looks like there is quite mininal expertise decreasing for blues 66 mods (indeed, 66 blues = 63 purples). For 66 purples, there is -10 expertise per piece. But in case mods and enchantments is not so important, cuz min/max purple 66 mods and enchantments have better secondary stats than most in stock gear.

 

I recomend use still 63 lvl purple armorings with set bonuses with 66 purple mods, cuz armorings will be bolstered and armorings dont carry any secondary stats like mods and enchantments which cannot bolstered - i.e. power, absorb and shield, though i found what bolster some affected shield rating. And anyway crafted armorings dont carry any set bonus, what is not good.

 

However, pure 69/72 grade gear get big loss of expertise compared with 66, so I think what 66 grade purples crafted min/max gear is the best and optimal way have competitive setup of secondary stats without significant lose of expertise and can be compared with full min/max partisan gear or probably ever with stock Conqueror.

 

Personally, I dont recommend go on wz in 69/72 grade gear - you dont want lose more than -150 expertise (=5% of damage/reduction) from cap of 2018, i.e. have it less than 1850-1870.

Edited by TonyDragonflame
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This guide is all bioware needs to see bolster is screwing up the game for a lot of people. It should always be obvious what your next goal/item to work on is, and it is not. They should be printing out this thread and have a meeting on why their customers are having to speculate what to do to improve their gameplay.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

ok they don't want gear to matter, but before when someone run a WZ in columi or pve gear he was kicked and now you don't really feel the difference, and since a lot of players still keyboard turn and click people( that's why they qq about roll...) you don't feel like you need the new sets until you run in a premade in a pug..
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bolster is weird but if you simply assume that PvP gear is good and wear Partisan you wouldn't have any problem either. There are only 4 slots where it's feasible to use rating 152 gear, and 3 of those are parts where you shouldn't get Partisan to begin with (implants X 2 + earring).

 

I ran more various assortment of gear and found that wearing all low end PvE gear results an expertise in the range of 199X-200X. This is usually somewhere around 59.3% to 59.7% modifier. So it looks like PvE gear in general gives slightly less expertise but for the sake of simplicity there's really no point to dwell on a 0.3%-0.7% when you're trying to just trying to get enough gear to be competitive.

 

I reran my test and found that wearing Black Market earring over the random blue earring (Microfilament whatever that grows on trees) result a loss of 40 expertise for +13 aim, +10 endurance, and +7 power. 40 expertise is worth about 1.2% modifier, and it should be pretty obvious those stats aren't going to give you 1.2% more HP or DPS at all. So Black Market is terrible even compared to random PvE gear that grows on trees, let alone Partisan which is still slightly better.

 

I have not amassed rating 156 (purple 66) gear to test, but looking at the Black Market case, I suspect the expertise drop off must occur when item rating exceeds Conqueror (rating 154) and if it's consistent, then there's no way it could be worth it to use purple 66. It'd create a rather ironic situation where purple 66 is worse than blue 66 for PvP, but since Black Market is definitely inferior to Microfilament (equivalent of blue 66) for PvP, that's not as crazy as it sounds.

Edited by Astarica
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice guide indeed.

 

This thread goes to show, it's only a matter of time until the players figure out the optimal pve/pvp gear to wear in a game, gaining the maximum advantage, undermining BW's supposed benefit and use of a perfect Bolster system, where PVP gear is suppose to be far superior (or should be anyway...).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice guide indeed.

 

This thread goes to show, it's only a matter of time until the players figure out the optimal pve/pvp gear to wear in a game, gaining the maximum advantage, undermining BW's supposed benefit and use of a perfect Bolster system, where PVP gear is suppose to be far superior (or should be anyway...).

 

Um the point of Bolster is to ensure PvP is NOT vastly superior. If that was the goal you wouldn't have Bolster.

 

There's nothing you can do here that will make your gear better than Conqueror. What it will do is allow you to very quickly come up with a gear that is competitive against Conqueror. You still want Conqueror in the long run.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Bolster on 55 lvl is very good thing. Why? Because if you use it rigth, you never get bad gear gap disadvantage with your other mates or enemies. Now after 2.0 indeed, skill > gear, and it is great.

 

Before 2.0, when you join wz (in your full min/max ewh certainly) and see 2-3 mates in recruit 13 k hp gear.. or, if worse, in pure pve gear with 0 expertise... dunno how are you, but I always leave before these wz starts. Now all mates have much more good chances for good playing.

 

 

Part 1. Gear

 

There are 4 kind of gear pieces, which have different Bolster influence:

* earpiece and implants

* relics

* mainhand and offhand

* armor gear

 

Further some rules for ARMOR GEAR ONLY:

 

1. DO NOT USE ANY OLD PVP GEAR WITH EXPERTISE

Do not use old battlemaster and champion mods, armorings ets.

Do not use old Recruit.

Do not use old wh/ewh relics.

If you will use it, you get SIGNIFICAL LOSE of your *Bolstered* expertise.

 

2. NEVER MIX *new* PvP and any PvE mods in same piece of gear

For example, never put single Partisan armoring in shell with other any PvE mods.

If you will use it, you get SIGNIFICAL LOSE of your *Bolstered* expertise.

 

3. NEVER USE PvP and PvE gear in one set in general

You need or full PvP Armor gear, or full PvE Armor gear. If you will have, for example, PvE chest but PvP legs, you lose expertise.

 

This is things about armor.

 

But whats about earpieces and implants?

Wonderful, but Bolster practically dont affected them!

The best implants and earpieces with best stats indeed crafted 53-54 levels! You lose only around -2 /-8 *Bolstered* expertise when use these implants, but get plenty useful stats compared with Conqueror ones (but Conqueror still have better endurance).

 

What about relics?

Best relics is now new PvP ones, cuz Bolster count expertise on them *as is* and dont *bolstered* to up level. Get them first.

 

What about mainhand and offhand?

Like for armor pieces, you lose expertise when use any PvE piece of gear higher than 63 grade, but they can bring you additional damage for 66 grade, 69 or 72. Indeed, there is no significal difference in Conqueror 65 grade with crafted 66 grade purple (+10 damage, -10 expertise) or 69/72 (more damage, less expertise). Since hard cap expertise now 2018, I think *soft cap* good around ~1850, so for min/max you can use PvE 66/69/72 instead of Conqueror.

 

 

Part 2. Learn to play

 

In new rules of Bolser, there is only ~10-15% gear gap between 4 kinds of gear grind:

(old min/max WH/EWH 61/63) * Bolster (+ probably Conqueror mainhand) = (crafted blue/purple min/max 66 gear) * Bolster = (dropped fp/ops purple 69/72 gear) * Bolster = Partisan (min/max)

Stock Partisan gear worse than any min/max gear above.

Mix of Partisan and any PvE gear have awful stats.

 

Conqueror gear seems on 5-10% better than min/max Partisan gear and crafted 66 grade gear (have more expertise, endurance and mainstat, less secondary stats like power, shield, absorb, crit etc)

So, there is several ways to gear up with Bolster after 2.0 (you must have as true pvp'er 4500 ranked and 2750 wz commz when you ding 55 lvl):

* Use your old ewh min/max gear or

* Craft for yourself 66 level min/max (!!!) blue/purple gear

* Buy Partisan and Conqueror relics for your wz commz

* (optional) Buy Conqueror mainhand for your wz commz

* Buy or craft for yourself purple 53/54 lvl earpiece and implants

 

- and you will be *golden* and competitive on wz.

 

Use that gear until you get full min/max Partisan or ever full min/max Conqueror.

 

For example, yesterday on wz my *nerfed in ground* assault vanguard, with full old good ewh min/max armor, conqueror mainhand, pvp relics and crafted earpieces and implants (have overall *bolstered* 1963 expertise, 1586 primary damage) I make 870k damage + 50 k protection and was only #2 on dps scoreboard, after full min/max conqueror focus sentinel who makes 1 million damage. And yes, we win that wz.

 

Or, for another example, my guardian tank have bolstered 1873 expertise, 47% passive armor mitigation, 39k hp, 13% defence, 39% shield and 31% absorb + yet two shield proc relics which add me yet 10-15% absorb (=40-45% absorb overall) half-time. And I am very very fat and happy guardian. Have full 66 purple gear (+ old 61 wh armorings for set bonus) + pvp proc relics.

 

 

Part 3. Min/max your Bolster

 

1. Get purple crafted 53/54 lvl earpiece and implants

2. Get Partisan and Conqueror relics for Power proc if you are dps or healer and Partisan + Conqueror relics for shield if you are tank

3. Get full min/max Conqueror armor

4. Get 72 grade hilt/barrel for mainhand/offhand

5. Profit

 

Hope, this research help you in playing and may the Force be with you! :o

/discuss

 

Guys, save this text. Because Bioware probably will delete this soon, since it's a evidence of their incompetence in designing MMO's PvP.

Thanks for the guide though. Now I'm ready for Ranked Warzones as a Defense Guardian in 2 days, just 2 days.

Why so long? Because I wear full DPS gear yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Guys, save this text. Because Bioware probably will delete this soon, since it's a evidence of their incompetence in designing MMO's PvP.

Thanks for the guide though. Now I'm ready for Ranked Warzones as a Defense Guardian in 2 days, just 2 days.

Why so long? Because I wear full DPS gear yet.

 

You read my mind, already saved.

 

The whole Bolster problem has kind of turned me off from level progressing and gearing up - as it seems going in PvE gear is about even or outdoes the PvP gear, which is fail. I was close to just finishing the storyline and giving up and cancelling sub. PvP is fun except in cases where the Bolster issue/exploit is obvious (Then its like, why bother and just leave the instance).

 

Thank you for the clear-ish guide :) Now to decide if I want to enjoy some Bolstered wzs with lowbie levels or go out and level.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3. NEVER USE PvP and PvE gear in one set in general

You need or full PvP Armor gear, or full PvE Armor gear. If you will have, for example, PvE chest but PvP legs, you lose expertise.

 

Lots of great information here, but this part is incorrect. While replacing war hero with Partisan/Conqueror armor, one piece at a time, my post-bolster expertise gain was exactly 1 expertise per piece. With full war hero (except the relics -- relics were matrix cube and light side relic), I had 2004 expertise. It went up to 2006 when I got a Conqueror blaster and Partisan scattergun, 2007 when I replaced an armor piece, 2008 when I replaced another armor piece, and so on. Perhaps it is true for people with higher rated stuff than war hero, but for old non-expertise armor from back when the level cap was 50, there does not appear to be any expertise bolster penalty for mixing sets, so long the PvP and PvE mods are on separate pieces of equipment.

Edited by Dawncatcher
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about relics?

Best relics is now new PvP ones, cuz Bolster count expertise on them *as is* and dont *bolstered* to up level. Get them first.

 

Since I had 2004 expertise before I even started getting Conqueror/Partisan, or in other words 2018-14, or -1 expertise per piece of gear, I don't think this is correct. I take an expertise penalty if I unslot my relics altogether and leave them empty, or if I use old war hero relics that already have expertise on them, but as long as I have any old non-expertise relics there, bolster seems to bring them up to Conqueror/Partisan minus 1 expertise. For the record, I'm using a matrix cube and a light side relic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From my testing, using all PvE gear in all slots that are clearly below rating 152 results in an expertise range of 199X-200X. I have no idea why there's a difference, but you're looking at losing around 1-2 expertise per slot no matter what it is (as long as it's below rating 154, which is Conqueror). It results in something like 0.5% damage mod for all the pieces together, which can be treated as a rounding error for the sake of simplicity (it still matters, just not something you'd worry about). Because this amount is so small, you can simply compare the rating of whatever you use (as long as it's below 152) to whatever PvP gear you're shooting for (150 for Partisan, 154 for Conqueror). Crafted 152, under this model, is exactly 2 rating inferior to Conqueror, and crafted blue 66 gear is exactly 2 rating inferoir to Partisan. You can certainly live with a 2 rating loss while you're working toward Conqueror.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since I had 2004 expertise before I even started getting Conqueror/Partisan, or in other words 2018-14, or -1 expertise per piece of gear, I don't think this is correct. I take an expertise penalty if I unslot my relics altogether and leave them empty, or if I use old war hero relics that already have expertise on them, but as long as I have any old non-expertise relics there, bolster seems to bring them up to Conqueror/Partisan minus 1 expertise. For the record, I'm using a matrix cube and a light side relic.

 

For some reason I lose 7 expertise if I use a Dread Gear relic even though that's rating 150, while using rating 152 implant results a loss of 2 expertise soi maybe relics are slightly different.

 

But that's fairly irrelevent because Serendpitous Assault PvP relics are clearly BiS for anyone who isn't a tank. The UW counterpart doesn't even proc in WZs I believe, so even if it had 100% the expertise it'd still be vastly inferior to the PvP counterpart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am new to this thread so I have a quick question about making a guide which exploits the bolster system. Players that actually enjoy pvp farm for pvp gear but is it better to get pve gear now? Doesn't this defeat the point of endgame pvp if anyone can do it?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am new to this thread so I have a quick question about making a guide which exploits the bolster system. Players that actually enjoy pvp farm for pvp gear but is it better to get pve gear now? Doesn't this defeat the point of endgame pvp if anyone can do it?

 

You don't 'beat' the system ever, aside from one piece of rating 152 armor (because you don't need Partisan earring/implant to get Conqueror). The only thing this does is make you competitive while you're doing the very time consuming grind for Conqueror, which is rating 154. No piece of gear you use is better than rating 154 in this system, so by definition they cannot be better than Conqueror. Of course since full Conqueror takes a very long time, most people ought to be satisified to know that there's a way to be competitive against Conqueror without spending that much time.

 

Yesterday I happened to ran into someone who was wearing 2 pieces of purple 66 and rest PvP gear (crafted basic gear implants, which I'm pretty sure are 156 instead of 152) and his expertise was 1950, so it appears equipping a single piece of rating 156 gear results a loss of 30 expertise, and again you don't even need to see the stats to know that 2 rating difference cannot possibly make up for 30 expertise. Now, that guy was a smasher and the implants he was wearing was power + surge, so in this particular case he may have reasons to do this even at an overall lost of stat, as I'm pretty sure there are no power + surge combos for strength types from Conqueror (if they exist then this is horribly bad decision).

Link to comment
Share on other sites


×
×
  • Create New...