So people complain about things I normally don't agree with them or the whining about it but for once I am going to complain to you Bioware and more importantly the developers. I've even talked to other players and they seem to agree with me. So here is my complaint and what I have to say...

I've been here since pre-release and see a lot of sets come and go yet recruit gear the most worthless of them all is still here. If you are going to be deleting PvP gear then get rid out that outdated useless no good crap and bring back Battle Master.

Not only does this close the MASSIVE gap between the gear levels such as War Hero and your newest toy the Elite War Hero it will make it easier to survive in PvP for fresh 50 players and make an even better middle ground then having to grind though all the crap to get full War Hero before we can get Elite War Hero.

So please get rid of the recruit gear garbage and bring back the Battle Master.

To all the players that are going to be reading this feel free to voice your opinions but be intelligent and contribute to the conversations. If you are just here to bash people the go to another thread.

I think that one of the potential problems (or benefits) of giving people Battlemaster gear instead of Recruit Mkx gear free is that BM gear is moddable, some people would be able to optimise their starting PvP gear with credits rather than WZ comms (unless you can RE WH/EWH armourings/etc for the schematic).

I can only assume that BW would think this is a bad thing, though I think it would be a good thing since, as you say, it would let people reduce the gap between a fresh 50 PvP character & WH.

I think that one of the potential problems (or benefits) of giving people Battlemaster gear instead of Recruit Mkx gear free is that BM gear is moddable, some people would be able to optimise their starting PvP gear with credits rather than WZ comms (unless you can RE WH/EWH armourings/etc for the schematic).

 

I can only assume that BW would think this is a bad thing, though I think it would be a good thing since, as you say, it would let people reduce the gap between a fresh 50 PvP character & WH.

This could have been circumvented by keeping the recruit gear, but updating the stats to be equivalent to the BM gear that was taken out of the game.

While technically recruit is better than level 40 greens by the numbers, the practical difference is not that great. Either way, a player in such gear is useless to his team because the gear gap has been allowed to inflate so much. And it's insanity to expect a ftp "sample" a warzone in gear proclaiming "RAPE ME" and actually pay to unlock unlimited warzone access--especially when the recruit gear set will cost nigh all of the credits a ftp is allowed to have, yet return so little performance for the credits spent to buy it. Yes, we're back to the days before recruit was handed out to fresh 50s again--if you're ftp, you don't get access to the quest that gives you the gear set, which is asinine for reasons listed below.

I don't care that the cost of recruit gear can be made back with a couple days' worth of dailies, for two reasons:

1. FTPers are restricted from at least some of the daily areas, and it wouldn't surprise me if they're restricted from all of them.

2. Normal human psychology dictates that people will be extremely cautious before expending 100% of the resources available to them at that very moment. Recruit gear is simply inadequate to overcome this hesitation; it provides poor ROI because it doesn't have enough endurance, mitigation, or damage stat on it.

In contrast, BM is at least good enough that a competent healer has a chance to heal you when you're targeted, thus giving you time to contribute to the warzone. Recruits just melt almost as quickly as the level 40 greens, and it's an experience that's not likely to entice them to buy warzone access unlocks.

While technically recruit is better than level 40 greens by the numbers, the practical difference is not that great. Either way, a player in such gear is useless to his team because the gear gap has been allowed to inflate so much. And it's insanity to expect a ftp "sample" a warzone in gear proclaiming "RAPE ME" and actually pay to unlock unlimited warzone access--especially when the recruit gear set will cost nigh all of the credits a ftp is allowed to have, yet return so little performance for the credits spent to buy it.

I checked one of the pieces of Recruit Mk2 against my old battlemaster gear (can't remember which slot) & it wasn't much worse. Plus the Recruit gear does at least have expertise on it (though I can't seem to find a link to stats at the moment).

Also, don't F2P get the quest to get the free Recruit gear?

I checked one of the pieces of Recruit Mk2 against my old battlemaster gear (can't remember which slot) & it wasn't much worse. Plus the Recruit gear does at least have expertise on it (though I can't seem to find a link to stats at the moment).

 

Also, don't F2P get the quest to get the free Recruit gear?

I'm subbed, so I can't readily check the veracity of this information, but it was reported on another thread about how much recruit gear sucks that ftp can't claim the quest and/or the gear for the quest reward.

And just because one piece of recruit gear might have decent itemization on it does not a decent recruit set make. Sure, the recruit has expertise on it, but it has so little endurance that I, as a healer, don't even have time to switch targets and get a heal off. At least BM can actually survive a doublesmash so I can get my bubble up and commence healing. This is why I say there is little practical difference between recruit and 40 greens--sure the stats on recruit look prettier, but recruits just get overwhelmed by the --2.5k leap, -7k smash, -5k maul from a second dps.

The recruit is dead basically in 1 GCD from my perspective as a healer. While in theory, I can catch the recruit when he gets leapt to, in practice it's unrealistic for me as a healer to babysit one player that closely when there are five other people on the node, most of whom also need heals at any given moment. In contrast, a BM would survive that (albeit with a sliver of health left), so I actually have a chance to bubble him and follow up with heals.

Meanwhile, the recruit geared player can't contribute dps from the spawn box, while I am able to buy the BM geared player at least some time to perform before he goes down.

Recruit has somewhere around 13K HP, IIRC, while BM is around 17k. That's almost a 30% difference.

If they want to even the playing field for fresh 50s then raise the cap on warzone comms to 12000. Anyone serious about PvP at 50 would have the ability to save the necessary comms and buy a near full set of War Hero upon leveling to 50 through PvP starting at level 10. It wouldn't be a hand out since you had the opportunity to work for it for 40 levels.

You can get 5 pieces of armor, your weapon, and an earpiece or implant from capping both ranked and normal comms from 40 to 50. Converting ranked to normal after buying pieces with normal at 50 and continuing until you have those pieces. Fill in the gaps with Recruit and you will be better off. Maybe they should make it apparent to people oblivious to this tactic (many, if not the majority of players), through popup or mission tutorial. Most people I see complaining are people who hit 50 and have never done a single WZ prior to level cap PvP. Or they could make WH purchasable pre-50 but perhaps at 45 or 40.

Yes, the gap between recruit MK-2 and War Hero is tremendous, but there are a couple of mitigating factors:

1. War Hero is relatively easy and quick to obtain, and almost as good as EWH

2. There is just as good a chance that the other team will have recruits.

The other concern is that making starting PvP gear too good will break PvE progression. However, I completely agree that we should do whatever we can to make entry-level pvp as attractive as possible while maintaining some pvp gear progression.

The solution, IMO, is to tweak expertise so that it becomes even more important, and buff the expertise on the starter set. This way you can shrink the gear gap without breaking pve. The only consequence is that anyone stupid enough to enter pvp in pve gear will be royally punished.

I have a shadow that will hit 50 in the next two days. At 50 I will have (all augmented)...

1. War Hero pieces - Min/maxed - Head/Chest/Hands/Legs/Feet/Off Hand

2. Modded bracer & belt

3. Maxed Ranked and WZ coms. I am still unsure of how I will spend this. Either EWH main hand or WH main hand and 3 EWH left side items (ear/relics/implants).

Being well geared at 50 was not possible prior to the last patch. As the game stands a player can skip recruit all together. As long as he/she has another 50 lvl toon.

Edit: If you lvl a commando/merc, slinger/sniper, or smug/oper you can also have the WH mainhand at 50 without spending the toon's coms.

Yes, the gap between recruit MK-2 and War Hero is tremendous, but there are a couple of mitigating factors:

 

1. War Hero is relatively easy and quick to obtain, and almost as good as EWH

2. There is just as good a chance that the other team will have recruits.

 

The other concern is that making starting PvP gear too good will break PvE progression. However, I completely agree that we should do whatever we can to make entry-level pvp as attractive as possible while maintaining some pvp gear progression.

 

The solution, IMO, is to tweak expertise so that it becomes even more important, and buff the expertise on the starter set. This way you can shrink the gear gap without breaking pve. The only consequence is that anyone stupid enough to enter pvp in pve gear will be royally punished.

The problem with just tinkering around the edges with expertise is that it's a single stat that affects both offense and defense.

The 3 or 4% mitigation difference the expertise difference between what recruit gear and the old BM gear provided isn't really the gear gap dealbreaker here. The difference is that the BM gear gave about 25-30% more HP over full recruit, which means a LOT to healers in terms of time to react to huge and sudden damage spikes that this game's generally short TTK throws at us.

And no, the other team does not always have just as many recruits. I can only take so many matches where I'm stuck solo with 4-5 recruits against a premade or double premade, before I simply switch factions and join the premades.

Yes, WH is now easy to maintain, so easy in fact that I'd cringe even as I tell the ftpers to lose their way to WH in their level 40 greens rather than waste 100% of their credits on the steaming pile of bantha dung that is recruit. I just won't waste my heals on said ftpers. TTK is generally short enough to make the numbers difference between recruit and 40s gear an academic exercise from my perspective; the difference between 40s gear and the old BM is where the difference starts to become pronounced enough to make a fresh 50 actually worth healing.

In fact the current ease of obtaining WH also breaks PVE progression. That's a concern of yours that has already come and gone. When I do HM dailies, I run them in my PVP gear, and often in my PVP spec (I field respec for certain fights and advise the group of this, but I don't need my PVE spec that much). I know I can run the KP/EV ops dailies in my PVP gear, though I don't do it because it's too much of a time commitment for a pug. Though I have my Rakata gear from pre-1.2 (I left and came back months later), the augmented WH/EWH serves me just as well.

So yay, after a couple days of grinding PVP, I can skip straight to HM KP/EV. That's almost half of PVE progression right there. Closing the barn door after the horses have gone, perhaps?

I don't care that upgrading the stats on recruit gear to keep up with gear inflation breaks PVE gear progression, because PVP already has broken PVE gear progression. What I do care about is having pugs in my warzones who can survive 2 DPS for longer than one GCD, so I actually have a little bit of time to do my job and heal them. Gear inflation (and unfortunately its evil cousin, class balance, but that's a whole 'nother thread) has reached the point where this is no longer the case.

BM equivalent->WH->EWH is stlll gear progression. It's just flattened enough to allow for skill to become relevant.

Also, telling ftpers to upgrade to WH doesn't help when they need to pay EAware to unlock artifact gear, while letting them "sample" 5 warzones per week when they are locked out of equipping the gear required for even a basic proficiency at pvp will not entice them to buy weekly PVP passes. It will entice them to stop PVP rather than hand EAware the cash to unlock minimally functional (i.e. geared) warzone access. Therefore, yes instead of blue 50 gear, recruit should be more like blue 58-59 gear, not far off from the old BM, to at least give the ftp recruits a chance worth having in the weekly "sample." In the meantime, thanks for saddling subs with this heaping load of FAIL in our warzones, EAware.

I have a shadow that will hit 50 in the next two days. At 50 I will have (all augmented)...

 

1. War Hero pieces - Min/maxed - Head/Chest/Hands/Legs/Feet/Off Hand

 

2. Modded bracer & belt

 

3. Maxed Ranked and WZ coms. I am still unsure of how I will spend this. Either EWH main hand or WH main hand and 3 EWH left side items (ear/relics/implants).

 

Being well geared at 50 was not possible prior to the last patch. As the game stands a player can skip recruit all together. As long as he/she has another 50 lvl toon.

 

Edit: If you lvl a commando/merc, slinger/sniper, or smug/oper you can also have the WH mainhand at 50 without spending the toon's coms.

how exactly did you go about doing both these things? if you don't mind me pestering.

Just buy the war hero pieces and puts the armorings into legacy gear?

how exactly did you go about doing both these things? if you don't mind me pestering.

 

Just buy the war hero pieces and puts the armorings into legacy gear?

Exactly. During the treasure hunt event I picked up a couple sets of the legacy/adaptable sand people gear and a cross bow. I min/max a lot on my 50s so I also have two cargo holds full of various lvl 26s mods/enhancements, with an ever growing library of 27s.

You can still use the legacy gear bought on your home world, but that gear needs to be class specific.

The cargo hold on my shadow has everything lined up and ready to be popped into my current orange gear. Which is already purple augmented being lvl 49.

Right now there are no legacy sabers so pvp hilts can't get passed around.

Last thing. Anyone going this route. The pvp offhands are not purchasable by those without the corresponding "skill". Meaning that an operative cannot buy a shield generator from a pvp vender. This may be a bug because you can buy them from pve vendors. Either way, it's not currently possible.

Exactly. During the treasure hunt event I picked up a couple sets of the legacy/adaptable sand people gear and a cross bow. I min/max a lot on my 50s so I also have two cargo holds full of various lvl 26s mods/enhancements, with an ever growing library of 27s.

 

You can still use the legacy gear bought on your home world, but that gear needs to be class specific.

 

The cargo hold on my shadow has everything lined up and ready to be popped into my current orange gear. Which is already purple augmented being lvl 49.

 

Right now there are no legacy sabers so pvp hilts can't get passed around.

 

Last thing. Anyone going this route. The pvp offhands are not purchasable by those without the corresponding "skill". Meaning that an operative cannot buy a shield generator from a pvp vender. This may be a bug because you can buy them from pve vendors. Either way, it's not currently possible.

Did you actually try to buy it? Gear I can't use on my shadow from other vendors is often greyed out like I can't purchase it (though the price is also grey instead of red) yet when I try to purchase it.

Not saying you're wrong. I've never tried to do this so I was just wondering =)

The OP is 100% correct.

Close the gear-gap so that <gasp> PvP can be about skill and not gear! (Crazy idea--I know!)

And to all the people that say, "But it's easy to grind out blah blah blah gear" --maybe I don't want to grind at all? (Yes, another crazy idea: minimizing grinding!)

Did you actually try to buy it? Gear I can't use on my shadow from other vendors is often greyed out like I can't purchase it (though the price is also grey instead of red) yet when I try to purchase it.

 

Not saying you're wrong. I've never tried to do this so I was just wondering =)

Yes you can do this, I've bought WH Force Master items on my Sent and Mara, ripped the mods and sent them to my Sage through legacy gear.

Did you actually try to buy it? Gear I can't use on my shadow from other vendors is often greyed out like I can't purchase it (though the price is also grey instead of red) yet when I try to purchase it.

 

Not saying you're wrong. I've never tried to do this so I was just wondering =)

If you mean the off hand, yes I could not buy it on the oper. I think it's a bug on the pvp vendors. When you attempt to buy it without the below linked ability you get told you are not able to use this item (which doesn't seem to be the correct prompt even). You are able to buy armor that you cannot equip but not this, at least not when I was on my oper. I could/did buy it on my jugg though.

I was home with the flu and a fever yesterday so I could have misread something but I'm 99% sure

http://www.torhead.com/ability/7VZVWpV/armor-proficiency-shield-generator

The rest of the gear can be purchased even if it cannot be directly used.

Yes you can do this, I've bought WH Force Master items on my Sent and Mara, ripped the mods and sent them to my Sage through legacy gear.

No, he was saying he couldn't buy a shield generator on a toon that lacked the ability to use them. I was wondering if he thought that because the shield generator was greyed on on the vendor screen or if he actually tried to purchase it and it wouldn't let him.

My shadow was put in almost full campaign gear on the hard work of my commando

If you mean the off hand, yes I could not buy it on the oper. I think it's a bug on the pvp vendors. When you attempt to buy it without the below linked ability you get told you are not able to use this item (which doesn't seem to be the correct prompt even). You are able to buy armor that you cannot equip but not this, at least not when I was on my oper. I could/did buy it on my jugg though.

 

I was home with the flu and a fever yesterday so I could have misread something but I'm 99% sure

 

http://www.torhead.com/ability/7VZVWpV/armor-proficiency-shield-generator

 

The rest of the gear can be purchased even if it cannot be directly used.

Ah kk. Yeah that should be reported as it doesn't seem right at all. For that matter I wonder if I'd be allowed to buy smuggler offhands and send them to my sniper now. Not important, at least for now. Hope that gets fixed soon, cause I agree with you that sounds like a bug.