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bolster for fresh level 70s (or returning players)


DNGDangerous

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Does anyone know, btw, of bioware provided evidence for whether the main/off hand lack of bolster is on purpose or a bug?

 

It’s always been like that since 5.0. That’s why everyone would gear up main hand to 248 as fast as possible with UCs

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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It’s always been like that since 5.0. That’s why everyone would gear up main hand to 248 as fast as possible with UCs

 

Hmm, I suppose that makes it either on purpose, or a bug they are never going to fix - no matter what might have been said or not said by BW. I didn't realize that had been the case even back for CXP gearing. It was probably stated somewhere really obvious, but my clueless self just missed it. :p

 

IMO, then, that kinda defeats the whole purpose of bolster, which is to make people competitive even against fully geared folks. By my measure, if I did it right, "bolster" alone leaves me over 10% (nearly 15% for the upper range) lower in DPS than an someone with 252 (not to mention 258). That seems like way too much. I'm kinda understanding more why some people just gave the big middle finger to the game and stopped (I'm looking at you Lhance! :D ).

 

As far as the "just do the easy 2 hours of PvE to get the 252 pieces you need" - imagine if that were the other way around. If, to be effective in basic PvE "teams" you HAD to do 2 hours of PvP first to get gear. There's just no way there would not be calls for blood from a whole lot of PvE-only people. Rightly so, IMO.

 

If there is one gear set for everyone, then I should be able to get it no matter which mode I play. Period. And I can't. I cannot get any new gear via PvP only, because I can't get the PvE reputation required to purchase it, even if I have enough UC's from my PvP matches.

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This still requires an Ops group from what I gather. Not exactly easy in my book - actually kinda a pain.

 

What do you mean by that? You just ahve to join a group, close the eyes for the fight to avoid eye cancer while the ****** engine cant handle all the effects and youre good to go:D

 

Dont get me wrong i would prefer gearing through pvp but knowing how grindy that was sometimes ill take a fast way to easy effective gear all the time:D

 

As far as the "just do the easy 2 hours of PvE to get the 252 pieces you need" - imagine if that were the other way around.

Is that even 2hours? i didnt watch the clock when i did it with my fresh jugger but im pretty sure i didnt even need 1 hour for Story and killing 2 WB (to be fair i went right from the story to the wb if you ahve to wait it might take longer)

Edited by Bilch
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What do you mean by that? You just ahve to join a group, close the eyes for the fight to avoid eye cancer while the ****** engine cant handle all the effects and youre good to go:D

 

Wait, there was some guy on Ossus gen chat today asking how to turn off all the effects so that they could see what the heck they needed to do for tanking or something... was that you!? :p

 

Is that even 2hours? i didnt watch the clock when i did it with my fresh jugger but im pretty sure i didnt even need 1 hour for Story and killing 2 WB (to be fair i went right from the story to the wb if you ahve to wait it might take longer)

 

Yeah, I can only go by my own experience. I don't do any group PvE, so really had no idea where to start. For someone who has a clue I suspect it would be quicker and easier. But I know that I fiddled around on that planet for at least two hours, trying to "do the right thing" to get the 252 pieces I need to appease the bolster monster... and failed.

 

I also saw someone, for at least a half hour that I noticed, trying to get a "group for world boss" together. They seemed mostly stuck on getting healers.

 

And, as a 230 geared player, I'm not even sure if I'm ready for a world boss fight. I tried it solo once, before I realized what I was fighting (see how clueless a PvE'r I am :o ), and then logged out. That led to, when I logged back in later I happened to zone in RIGHT when a group was starting their fight against the robot-tank-thing. I tried for a quick invite and didn't get one (they were probably full I guess) - but I was checking out gear levels, and they were all 240s and 250s already.

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Wait, there was some guy on Ossus gen chat today asking how to turn off all the effects so that they could see what the heck they needed to do for tanking or something... was that you!? :p

 

So can you turn that off?:D

 

 

Yeah, I can only go by my own experience. I don't do any group PvE, so really had no idea where to start.

 

Well that was the same for me, but as soon as you kinda get where what is its not that bad. I mean im still clueless about most PvE stuf especialy Operations. But WB is just grouping up and doing smtg while you try not to look at the mess of effects^^

 

And nobody gives a **** about gear at a WB - maybe it depends on the server but i never had any problems joining a group for the 2 WB kills

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So can you turn that off?:D

The only answer I saw in gen chat was basically "no". It's possible I suppose that someone whispered them a way to do it.

 

And nobody gives a **** about gear at a WB - maybe it depends on the server but i never had any problems joining a group for the 2 WB kills

 

Ok, that's good to know. I might give it another go when my "PvE tolerance" is reset. I was PvE'd out for sure by the time I realized what it was I needed to be doing to get that main hand. :D

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As far as the "just do the easy 2 hours of PvE to get the 252 pieces you need" - imagine if that were the other way around. If, to be effective in basic PvE "teams" you HAD to do 2 hours of PvP first to get gear. There's just no way there would not be calls for blood from a whole lot of PvE-only people. Rightly so, IMO.

 

If there is one gear set for everyone, then I should be able to get it no matter which mode I play. Period. And I can't. I cannot get any new gear via PvP only, because I can't get the PvE reputation required to purchase it, even if I have enough UC's from my PvP matches.

 

The fact that you can’t get a 252 weapon or offhand without doing world boses is bull **** IMO. then they gate the 258 weapons behind MM ops or ranked pvp. What about people who don’t or can’t do either? They will still have to face people in pvp who have those weapons.

 

There should atleast be away that those weapons can be obtained through playing reg pvp, even if it’s slower.

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Wait, there was some guy on Ossus gen chat today asking how to turn off all the effects so that they could see what the heck they needed to do for tanking or something... was that you!? :p

 

 

 

Yeah, I can only go by my own experience. I don't do any group PvE, so really had no idea where to start. For someone who has a clue I suspect it would be quicker and easier. But I know that I fiddled around on that planet for at least two hours, trying to "do the right thing" to get the 252 pieces I need to appease the bolster monster... and failed.

 

I also saw someone, for at least a half hour that I noticed, trying to get a "group for world boss" together. They seemed mostly stuck on getting healers.

 

And, as a 230 geared player, I'm not even sure if I'm ready for a world boss fight. I tried it solo once, before I realized what I was fighting (see how clueless a PvE'r I am :o ), and then logged out. That led to, when I logged back in later I happened to zone in RIGHT when a group was starting their fight against the robot-tank-thing. I tried for a quick invite and didn't get one (they were probably full I guess) - but I was checking out gear levels, and they were all 240s and 250s already.

 

If your in 230, then your more then ready. I just did a WB group and 2 dps were 216 rating and no one noticed during droid boss. It wasn’t until we got to bug that the ops leader noticed... and we still easily won

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Yep, at least from what I can see. I was going to give this a go on a low-geared sin I have. It's the only toon where I bothered to run through the Ossus story. I managed to force myself through the "do 10 dailies" weekly mission, which grants your choice of one of three random boxes. That one is NOT the guaranteed main hand. The best you can pick is a box that might have a main hand, off hand, ear piece, or... er, some fourth thing I forget. I got the ear of course, because "random is exciting" BS.

 

Yes I had the exact same experience yesterday. I also barely managed to complete the 10 dailies (zzzz) for the random 252 thing, and I can not imagine ever doing that again.

 

 

And, as a 230 geared player, I'm not even sure if I'm ready for a world boss fight. I tried it solo once, before I realized what I was fighting (see how clueless a PvE'r I am :o ), and then logged out. That led to, when I logged back in later I happened to zone in RIGHT when a group was starting their fight against the robot-tank-thing. I tried for a quick invite and didn't get one (they were probably full I guess) - but I was checking out gear levels, and they were all 240s and 250s already.

 

 

Ahahhahhahaha I did the same forking thing. Attacked that swamp lord thing and got my *** handed to me :D

 

I can't believe I miss the command system for gearing :(

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Reporting back after a headache inducing PvE grind on ossus. I only have the 252 main hand so far, by joining the WB groups. BTW I had to do 1 of the bosses twice (the droid) because I happened to take the respawn and was running back when it died - I guess that normally fine, but don't do it if the thing is near death, because if you are not right there when it goes down, it doesn't count.

 

I do not have the off hand, because it turns out you need hero status to be able to buy the 252 off hand (or main). I'm not sure I can stand doing PvE long enough to earn hero. Although I did start doing ranked, since it's off season. It's kinda ok, so thanks to whoever it was that pointed out that ranked gives ossus rep. :D

 

Anyway, from what DNGDangerous reported, I'm now thinking that it is in fact ONLY the main hand that is not bolstered. When I have all 230 gear and 228 augments, and the only change I made was to put in the 252 main hand parts, I end up with the same stats that s/he reported by having 252 for both main and off...

 

Here's my stats next to the original list, abbreviated a bit. My stats come second, in [].

 

 

B) with the following augments:

----------5x 228 Crit augments

----------7x 228 Mastery augments (for this build, I did *NOT* use 240 augments in the weapons)

----------2x 228 Alacrity augments

[banderal - same load out]

 

Item Rating 233 [232]

Mastery: 7937 [7917]

Endurance: 9278 [9263]

Power: 4401 [4417]

Critical: 2240 [2456]

Alacrity: 777 [743]

Accuracy: 349 [189]

defense: 0

absorb: 0

Shield: 0

Presence: 1073 [1147]

 

Melee:

Damage (Pri): 4254-5015 [4253 - 5014]

Bonus Damage: 2726.9 [2729.3]

Accuracy: 105.67% [103.62%]

Critical: 46.32% [47.25%]

Critical Multiplier: 73.27% [74.22%]

 

Defence

Health: 136441 [136257]

Armor Rating: 4092 [4092]

Damage Reduction: 18.86%

Defence Chance: 10.00%

Shield Chance: 5.00% [0]

Shield Absorbtion: 20.00% [0]

 

So basically the exact same damage numbers (and I think DNGDangerous put dps mods/enhances in the shield?)

 

Note though that my original, just 230 gear, bolstered damage range was 3806 - 4348. That's a difference of 12% - 15%. It's be interesting to see what a 258 main hand would be. But I'd have to grind legendary status for that I think... ugh.

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BTW I had to do 1 of the bosses twice (the droid) because I happened to take the respawn and was running back when it died - I guess that normally fine, but don't do it if the thing is near death, because if you are not right there when it goes down, it doesn't count.

 

Thats exactly what happened to my wife over the weekend. But she said she’s not going to bother doing it a second time to get it.

 

It really is the most ****ed up system to get a weapon to pvp with. Especially when it’s bugged or you don’t get credit if you respawn and can’t get back in time. Would it be so hard to put a respawn point just at the gate?

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Thats exactly what happened to my wife over the weekend. But she said she’s not going to bother doing it a second time to get it.

 

It really is the most ****ed up system to get a weapon to pvp with. Especially when it’s bugged or you don’t get credit if you respawn and can’t get back in time. Would it be so hard to put a respawn point just at the gate?

 

That's exactly it. And even when I joined the 2nd group and asked, most people didn't actually know why it hadn't counted the first time. Finally someone spoke up with the "if you die when it's at 10 or 15 percent, just stay here dead - because you have to be right here for it to count". I don't know if that's even really true. I did respawn twice during the 2nd fight, but I made it back and was there AND alive when it went down. And what a long boring fight. Watching that thing's health go down is like watching paint dry. :p

 

And I still really hate that bolster doesn't handle that gear piece and it makes such a huge difference in stats! I know, now, that I can play ranked to get that rep, but there's no way I would try that if it were not pre-season. I mean, it's a nice catch-22. You really want to be adequately geared to play ranked, but to get adequately geared you have to play ranked. So stupid. Or, well, maybe that's what pre-season is for?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I’ve inadvertently discovered some interesting results with 252 gear.

 

We already know that main hand weapons are excluded from Bolster totals. So I’ll leave that there (definitely get 252-258 MH)

 

But off hand is included in Bolster totals and works exaclty the same as every other piece.

 

In doing some dailies to get the main hand weapon, I picked up a 252 ear piece too. When I equipped it, my stats actually dropped with Bolster activated. Both my primary/sec damage dropped and so did my health. The same with the off hand.

 

This led to more testing (I only had a couple more 252 pieces, so not 100% testing yet), and my conclusion is dont equip lvl 252 or 258 until you have at least a full set of 252 gear. or you will get less stats than using lower geared items.

 

Once I get a full set of gear (in 9 months at this rate :rolleyes:... I hate grind and I’m only spending 500UCs per week on 3 Alts), I will do more testing if the game is still here and the stupid gearing is still a thing.

 

I have a suspicion that mixing any 252-258 gear or 236-240 Augments with bolstered gear is going to give you weird results and you might be better just having 230-248 gear with “some” 228 Augments (not mastery) till you get a minimum of all 252 gear. This includes putting in 248 enhancements to try and get close to the secondary stats you want (not sure how much that would affect things).

 

So, to sum up my gearing with Bolster experience :

 

* Only use 228 Augments (not mastery because I think it defaults to you having mastery Augments if you have an empty slot). Mastery Augments do not change “any” of your stats at all. It’s a waste to equip new 228 ones. If you already have them equipped, it’s doesnt matter,

* Don’t over use alacrity or crit Augments or you will start losing primary/sec damage and health. There is a cut off and only you can decide how much of a trade off you will take to get those secondary stats,

* You don’t need to equip all gear with Augments because it’s probably a waste of credits or other stats

* With 230 gear you will get 103.? % accuracy by default (with none equipped)

* Overkill (power) Augments will increase your primary damage stats and health a little bit (not much) and can affect the crit stats you would normally get from the “empty” augment slot (mastery default).

 

On my Sniper and operative I use 2 sets of gear :

 

* One set is 242-248 with 228-236 fully augmented (252 mainhand) for pve.

* Second set is purely for pvp and is 230 partially augmented (9 pieces) + 252 mainhand

 

My Mara Build under Bolster is this :

 

* 252 main hand (definitely get this)

* 248 off hand (only weapon I had other than the 252 off hand I just got)

* 230-248 armor (can’t be bothered with 2 sets on my Mara)

* 1 alacrity augment so my stats are 7.5% under Bolster. (I have a spare implant that has 1 alacrity aug that I swap out when doing pve content to get 7.5% without Bolster)

* 3 crit Augments and 5 overkill (power) Augments

 

So even now under this current gearing system, you need 2 sets of gear till you get all 252-258 gear (thats if you want to maximise bolstered gear in pvp). One for pvp and one for pve.

I personally would prefer they just bring back pvp gear so dedicated pvpers don’t need to heavily grind pve content as the fastest way to BiS for pvp. The two sets of gear is really problem to swap between doing different content (unless you forget lol). 🌈

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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I’ve inadvertently discovered some interesting results with 252 gear.

 

We already know that main hand weapons are excluded from Bolster totals. So I’ll leave that there (definitely get 252-258 MH)

 

But off hand is included in Bolster totals and works exaclty the same as every other piece.

 

In doing some dailies to get the main hand weapon, I picked up a 252 ear piece too. When I equipped it, my stats actually dropped with Bolster activated. Both my primary/sec damage dropped and so did my health. The same with the off hand.

 

This led to more testing (I only had a couple more 252 pieces, so not 100% testing yet), and my conclusion is dont equip lvl 252 or 258 until you have at least a full set of 252 gear. or you will get less stats than using lower geared items.

 

Once I get a full set of gear (in 9 months at this rate :rolleyes:... I hate grind and I’m only spending 500UCs per week on 3 Alts), I will do more testing if the game is still here and the stupid gearing is still a thing.

 

I have a suspicion that mixing any 252-258 gear or 236-240 Augments with bolstered gear is going to give you weird results and you might be better just having 230-248 gear with “some” 228 Augments (not mastery) till you get a minimum of all 252 gear. This includes putting in 248 enhancements to try and get close to the secondary stats you want (not sure how much that would affect things).

 

So, to sum up my gearing with Bolster experience :

 

* Only use 228 Augments (not mastery because I think it defaults to you having mastery Augments if you have an empty slot). Mastery Augments do not change “any” of your stats at all. It’s a waste to equip new 228 ones. If you already have them equipped, it’s doesnt matter,

* Don’t over use alacrity or crit Augments or you will start losing primary/sec damage and health. There is a cut off and only you can decide how much of a trade off you will take to get those secondary stats,

* You don’t need to equip all gear with Augments because it’s probably a waste of credits or other stats

* With 230 gear you will get 103.? % accuracy by default (with none equipped)

* Overkill (power) Augments will increase your primary damage stats and health a little bit (not much) and can affect the crit stats you would normally get from the “empty” augment slot (mastery default).

 

On my Sniper and operative I use 2 sets of gear :

 

* One set is 242-248 with 228-236 fully augmented (252 mainhand) for pve.

* Second set is purely for pvp and is 230 partially augmented (9 pieces) + 252 mainhand

 

My Mara Build under Bolster is this :

 

* 252 main hand (definitely get this)

* 248 off hand (only weapon I had other than the 252 off hand I just got)

* 230-248 armor (can’t be bothered with 2 sets on my Mara)

* 1 alacrity augment so my stats are 7.5% under Bolster. (I have a spare implant that has 1 alacrity aug that I swap out when doing pve content to get 7.5% without Bolster)

* 3 crit Augments and 5 overkill (power) Augments

 

So even now under this current gearing system, you need 2 sets of gear till you get all 252-258 gear (thats if you want to maximise bolstered gear in pvp). One for pvp and one for pve.

I personally would prefer they just bring back pvp gear so dedicated pvpers don’t need to heavily grind pve content as the fastest way to BiS for pvp. The two sets of gear is really problem to swap between doing different content (unless you forget lol).

 

^Great find here! Thank you for testing this out. I totally forgot to check mixing 230 with 252 because I avoided mixing them when set bonuses didn’t mix well.

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