serious question. I don't know if this is the place for this post but any how my question is.

 

over the last couple of days there was a discusion about players in BM/WH armor in FP and M Ops, vs players in PVE colum/rakata/BH armor, the question is

 

the higher the expertise rating the less that that person can put out DPS or receive heals, vs someone in pve gear. is this true.

 

I tried to search for the answer on the forums but no relevent threads came up. maybe a dev or someone else can help with this.

Expertise does nothing in a PVE environment. It only effects your toon in player vs player combat.

pretty good thread going on this already.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4937175#post4937175

That thread is in the PVP forums and is about PVE gear in PVP, which is generally a nono (at least a full set).

 

The big falling point of PVP gear vs PVE gear is in the armoring/barrels/hilts.

 

Rakata DPS armorings have 61 Main stat vs 33 Main stat in Battlemaster armorings.

Campaign/Black Hole armorings have 68 Main stat vs 36 Main stat in War Hero armorings.

 

28-32 main stat x 6 pieces (5 body pieces and weapon) is a HUGE difference in PVE (though depending on class there IS an argument for using War Hero weapon over Rakata or Columi).

 

Implants, Earpieces, Belts and Bracers suffer from a similar problem losing non trivial amounts of main stat in exchange for expertise, which as mentioned does nothing for you in PVE. In addition, set bonuses are generally less focused on CC abilities and more on damage abilities for PVE (example, my 2 piece set bonus in PVP reduces my knockback cooldown. In PVP it adds 15% crit chance to my most used ability).

 

Can you do a story mode ops in full battlemaster? Sure.

 

Can you do a hard mode ops in full battle master? Possible I'd say but not optimal at all.

 

I wouldn't touch Hard Mode Denova or Nightmare KP without pretty much full rakata.