I am not here to talk about the infamous bugged rakata weapons, altho i would really like them fixed 3 weeks ago already. Let's get to the point.

it is no secret by now that the tier 3 gear in it's default state is a downgrade from leveling custom gear with the proper lvl 49 epic item modifications, if it wasn't for the higher primary stat and set bonuses it would be plain awful.

For those of you who aren't quite there yet, let me explain.

The rakata armor (tier 3) comes with lvl 58 item mods, these are n°25.

The columi armor (tier 2) comes with lvl 56 item mods, these are n°24.

Let's look at this from a sniper point of view and pick a random item :

(Don't worry, all the rakata pieces are equally bad, to the point that a modded orange belt/bracers with an ilum dailies armoring + a n° 25 mod is already superior, by +6 cunning.)

But more specifically, let's look at enhancements as i believe those are the real issue.

Rakata Field Tech's Leggings :

Enhancement n°25 (lvl 58) :

Endurance + 24

Accuracy + 51

Critical +37

You might think, what's wrong with it? In essence, nothing is wrong with it.

The problem arise when every single piece contains either accuracy + crit or accuracy + power.

Let's assume you get yourself a full set of rakata gear and leave it as is, congratulations you now have no surge to speak of and a much lower crit rate than you should, don't worry though you are way over the accuracy rating you should have. \o/

How does that make sense, it's tier 3 gear we are talking about...

So let's examine what happened to said leggings on my sniper.

I bought a columi field tech's headgear wich to my surprise contains a half decent enhancement that actually increases my dps.

Let's have a look :

Enhancement n°24 (lvl56):

Endurance + 38

Critical + 19

Surge + 48

I then proceeded to replace the almighty useless n°25 enhancement in my tier 3 legs by this n°24 one wich actually increases my dps instead ! \o/

''Get over it, you've got one lvl 56 enhancement instead of a lvl 58 one..''

Actually, that was just an example, on one piece of gear. I own 5/5 tier 3, and all but one (to reach the accuracy cap) contain the columi field tech's head enhancement.

I also wear an orange belt and bracers with lvl 49 armoring and lvl 58 mod. Both of wich give me 6 additional cunning compared to rakata equivalent.

And so if you are still following at this stage you might be interested that upon inspection of all 4 rakata gear vendors, none seem to offer even a single piece with a +crit/surge enhancement.

As i thought to myself, well if my class gets the shaft i can get other classes tokens after all my raiders are geared and use their enhancements to make myself a proper tier 3 with full l58 item mods. But nah, not even that.

it doesn't end there. (i wish it would)

Do you remember that columi field tech's head enhancement i ripped out of 5 helmets?

Turns out it's bad aswell.

Let's take a look at Columi Combat Tech's Gauntlets at the Bounty Hunter tier 2 vendor!

These contains an enhancement much superior to any i can get from the Imperial agent tokens.

Endurance + 23

Critical + 34

Surge + 48

in comparison with the best i can get from IA vendor, this enhancement would change the following:

Endurance - 15

Critical +15

Surge same

Wich, for a dps class, 15 critical surely gives much benefit over 15 endurance, especially considering a 18'500hp pool unbuffed, i'd really have to mess up badly to even benefit from 15 extra endurance.

Thanks, i ''must'' now acquiere other classes tier 2 tokens in order to improve my own tier 3 gear, makes complete sense.

(Before anyone screams ninja, i do not need to ninja anything nor get anyone pissed to get said tokens, the benefits of a guild that's farming all the content there is.)

Also, don't worry. This is not a BH OP complaint in disguisue, i have found the same enhancement on other classes tier pieces, the BH gloves were just an example.

If you've read this far, thank you. Feel free to argument with your own experiences as i can only speak from a tier 3 sniper's point of view.

TLDR: Where does one get n°25 enhancements, with both crit and surge, to fill tier 3 with!?

(And none of that high endurance/low crit nonsense please!)

TLDR2: Bioware fix your end game tier/enhancements

Carnage Marauder in Rakata here. There's hit overbloat on our gear as well, which in addition to our bonus hit rating from talents gets pretty out of hand. In many cases swapping 58 hit/power or hit/critical enhancements with 50 crit/surge was an upgrade, although I've also picked up "extra" tokens to swap enhancements from the few pieces of gear that had the right ones. We get some slight benefit from hit rating after cap because it increases offhand hit rates still, but since dual wielding doesn't scale whatsoever it's still vastly inferior to other stats after that point.

It doesn't make sense for that many pieces of T3 to still have hit rating, considering it's easy to hit cap while wearing T1. As the quality of gear improves, fewer pieces should have hit rating on account of those few pieces having more of it.

Thank you for your feedback. From what i have gathered from my own people it seems to be an issue across the board. Turns out every class out there has to rip out enhancements on their tier 3.

Would be nice if this was adressed anytime soon.

Thank you for your feedback. From what i have gathered from my own people it seems to be an issue across the board. Turns out every class out there has to rip out enhancements on their tier 3.

 

Would be nice if this was adressed anytime soon.

Not just rip em out, my Jedi Guardian's rakata tank armor has surge on it.

What in the world would a tank need surge for? The only argument that can be made is for threat, which is fine except surge only comes into play on crits. I end up with about a 13% crit rating. If they wanted to give me threat wouldn't power be the better option? Not that I'd be happy with power either, Id rather have shield, defense, and absorption rating.

Im hoping this gets taken care of when they fix the weapons, which if I recall is happening sometime shortly after 1.1.1 hits. I'm guessing that'll hit Tuesday, so hopefully not long after that. If I was a betting man, id bet it comes with the 1.2 PTR patch, they've said they wanna get that out by March, so for several weeks of solid testing we should see it on Test in the first or second week of February.

Jedi Knight is plagued with the same issue, some items seem like a direct downgrade from columi, i dont understand how any of this was ever allowed to make it to live, its atrocious

Atrocious would be the word, precisely.

And it's not like only tier 3 suffers from poor itemization, all 3 tiers are somewhat of an april's fools when you look at what stats they provide in their default state assuming a 5/5 setup.

And this would make sense in a way, it ''would'' go with progression.

Tionese should be decent but still leave room for improvement.

Columi should be on the right track but still leave room for improvement.

Rakata should be useful on all pieces.

But as of yet, only a select pieces of tier 1 and 2 seem to be proprely itemized, where as tier 3 seems to be ''gl hf gathering tier 2 enhancements (sometimes of other classes) to make your set useful''.

Currently sitting at (self buffed) :

41% crit, 85% surge, 100% accuracy.

Only one of my tier 3 items contains full lvl 58 item mods.

(Crit/Accuracy enhancement to reach acc cap.)

Other 4 pieces contain salvaged columi lvl 56 item mods.

Wearing an orange belt/bracers with daily commendation armorings/lvl 58 mods.

(better then rakata equivalent, by +6 cunning.)

Using Tier 3 offhand with terrible itemization, waiting for a Tier 2 token to drop (these have useful stats, and higher cunning!)

Yes, i am annoyed.

Keep the feedback coming guys eventually we will attract enough attention.

Hoping for this to be looked at while they are fixing T3 weapons.

Also... I did not realise T3 tank gear had surge on it, now i'm jelly.

I agree that there is too much accuracy on most of the gear (T3), but I also think people do not appreciate accuracy as much as they should. Remember that Accuracy over 100% reduces the effective defense of your targets, and if you use 2 weapons (Marauder, Gunslinger, Merc) the more accuracy you have the more your off-hand weapon hits (also for many special attacks that use the off-hand).

Obviously this is not as big a deal to people that only use 1 weapon, and for those who are not maxing out their DPS, but I just wanted to point out that some builds/classes can make good use of extra accuracy and I see some people falling into the trap of thinking accuracy is not as useful for them as it can be.

 

Obviously this is not as big a deal to people that only use 1 weapon, and for those who are not maxing out their DPS, but I just wanted to point out that some builds/classes can make good use of extra accuracy and I see some people falling into the trap of thinking accuracy is not as useful for them as it can be.

some maybe yeah, the ones that dualwield atleast but still no excuse to have accuracy swarmed gear for commandos etc.

im not even really interested in "upgrading" my character to the next tier because only boost is the armoring mod thus im not even really interested in playing anymore.

its like bioware is saying we(the people who manage to do hard/nightmare raids) are inferior customers as columi with superior mods is far easier to get.

and lets not even take into account how long the weapons have been bugged.

The rakata tank gear is rediculous, it gives SURGE....SUUUUUURGE?!?!? The rest gives accuracy as well.... I'm at 100% chance to hit and have had no problems, why, why do i need my accuracy and surge jacked up? The belt and bracers are ok, they have tanking stats, but the secondary stats are trash.

I don't know who designed the rakata gear, but accuracy MIGHT be passable stat, but surge? That's absurd.

 

Currently sitting at (self buffed) :

 

41% crit, 85% surge, 100% accuracy.

Only one of my tier 3 items contains full lvl 58 item mods.

(Crit/Accuracy enhancement to reach acc cap.)

Other 4 pieces contain salvaged columi lvl 56 item mods.

Wearing an orange belt/bracers with daily commendation armorings/lvl 58 mods.

(better then rakata equivalent, by +6 cunning.)

Using Tier 3 offhand with terrible itemization, waiting for a Tier 2 token to drop (these have useful stats, and higher cunning!)

 

Yes, i am annoyed.

The accuracy "cap" for white damage is at least 105%, possibly (but unlikely) as high as 110% - accuracy above 100% reduces chance to dodge, parry and deflect, and all mobs have a base amount of defense that can be bypassed. Idk how IA's work, but if a decent percentage of your damage is white (weapon) instead of tech (yellow) as I think it is, then you're gimping yourself with the lower level mods/enhancements.

I'd try to fully understand your class better before running to the forums to complain about itemization.

Why they couldn't of just kept the same stats just having higher ratings is beyond me.

Oh, and take the frickin' DPS stats off of the tank gear please? There is no reason why Accuracy should be my highest stat as a tank.

I agree, noticing this on my marauder and sentinel gear aswell, there is no way in hell that much accuracy is better then the stats on my t2 pieces.

Accuracy is only worth it to a certain limit, and t3 pve set goes way beyond that limit.

Who ever worked on the stats etc for bioware needs to be fired, he/them is a wasted paycheck/s, and a chimp clicking random numbers would likely offer a better end result.

Get this.. as a powertech DPS, all of my Columi gear is loaded with accuracy.. when 95% of my attacks are tech attacks.

Sure, railshot needs accuracy so it doesn't always get dodged or missed

But not THAT much!

I do so much more DPS in a custom set of 50 mods/custom gear than I ever would in COlumi, lolo

The accuracy "cap" for white damage is at least 105%, possibly (but unlikely) as high as 110% - accuracy above 100% reduces chance to dodge, parry and deflect, and all mobs have a base amount of defense that can be bypassed. Idk how IA's work, but if a decent percentage of your damage is white (weapon) instead of tech (yellow) as I think it is, then you're gimping yourself with the lower level mods/enhancements.

 

I'd try to fully understand your class better before running to the forums to complain about itemization.

No:

http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Marksman-Sniper-Compendium

100% accuracy gives us 110% for our specials (everything except our rifle shot or "auto attack").

Hard to say what would be more valuable right now of all the stats because we don't have logs and everyone is in the dark and still making guesses about how accuracy actually works. I agree with the OP as a sniper the rakata enhancements seem strange and I take them out and put 56 crit/surge enhancements. I also have a 58 enhancement that is power/surge that I got in the jarg and sorno chest (with no other loot, because yay nightmare mode bugs).

I am holding on to the 58 enhancements that came with the gear if we ever get logs and some solid evidence on what the value of accuracy is and what numbers we should be shooting for.

I am also very close to battlemaster and you see the same problems on the PVP gear. It has the same ones as the rakata. At least the weapon works though...............

I would also like to get some good info on how accuracy works in pvp. Sithwarrior is the closest thing right now to elitist jerks for this game, if anyone knows of anything better, please share and link.

So yes OP, the enhancements suck, but there are random drop ones in the ops that have cool stats, like the power/surge one I got. If you pvp you can rip those mods as well, as well as maybe buy the tier 2 pieces from other classes and rip whatever enhancements you need out.

All of this is kind of a moot point though, because when it comes down to it, none of this matters. Like you said, we are all farming the content. Nightmare modes in this game are like wrath naxx 3.0, no challenges yet. Got to love that Bioware made the only challenge to be some hard enrages and bugs. So the challenge is a hard enrage, while we have no meters to see who is pulling weight, and no logs so we can theorycraft the value of stats and our best dps......................./facepalm. It doesn't matter though cause we all just put on the gear, pressed buttons, and the bosses died.

Either they will fix/explain the itemization and give us the tools we need to min/max our characters, and give us some challenging content, or they will lose the top-end playerbase very soon.

if i read your post correctly

you're saying that tier 3 gear is not optimized for a majority of classes??

that i understand, they give stat boost you really don't need.

My ops group just started clearing out HM EV and saw the same thing with the rakata gear. Needless to say that this poor itemization has caused a major lack of motivation and increase in frustration with the way this game is being run.

Anyways, I hope this problem gets addressed, but with the way things have been going I wont be holding my breath. I'm starting to think the only way Bioware/EA are going to listen to our pleas is if we start unsubbing. Too bad by then it will be too late. MMOs don't often get a second chance.

So yes OP, the enhancements suck, but there are random drop ones in the ops that have cool stats, like the power/surge one I got. If you pvp you can rip those mods as well, as well as maybe buy the tier 2 pieces from other classes and rip whatever enhancements you need out.

Sadly we have been unfortunate with these drops, most of the item mods we get from nightmare are awful too, except for a few proper tanking ones our tank enjoys quite well. Hoping for some luck in the upcomings lockouts.

Buying other classes tier 2 pieces is exactly what i am doing right now, as this is the only way i will upgrade my gear further more, sadly. (thankfuly, or not? nightmare is bugged and give a bunch of columi tokens i can get my filthy hands on!)

if i read your post correctly

you're saying that tier 3 gear is not optimized for a majority of classes??

that i understand, they give stat boost you really don't need.

Precisely. It's like they've only took into account a 5/5 set and not the jewelry/weapons to give accuracy aswell.

The accuracy "cap" for white damage is at least 105%, possibly (but unlikely) as high as 110% - accuracy above 100% reduces chance to dodge, parry and deflect, and all mobs have a base amount of defense that can be bypassed. Idk how IA's work, but if a decent percentage of your damage is white (weapon) instead of tech (yellow) as I think it is, then you're gimping yourself with the lower level mods/enhancements.

 

I'd try to fully understand your class better before running to the forums to complain about itemization.

Pretty sure i am one of the few snipers/gunslingers out there who actually grasp the class and use a proper build, hence my complaint about itemization.

I am at 110%, since they way accuracy is accounted for white/yellow damage, i gave a 100% value assuming 110% = 100%.

Also, as a MM sniper i have never seen a dodge, deflect, or anything of that nature for the past 3 weeks in nightmare content.

Anything else you'd like to add or have you just come here to find the one possibly flawed explanation i gave and point it out?

Have you guys stopped to think that the game is designed top to bottom around the stats they are giving you? They don't want you to have an extra 10 aim and surge. If they gave you that, then they have to make the mobs harder. Endless cycle.

Stop complaining about nothing.

Oh and run the new HM FP, kaon, and just need roll helm tokens and hope they aren't agent lol. That place will drop 2 helm tokens for you each day, and you can hopefully go buy other classes helms and rip the good crit/surge enhancements out.

Don't dare need on something for another class. If you have worked it out with your group head of time, be honest with yourself and mark it as greed and beg them to pass. Calling this "need" changes the meaning of the word and certainly devalues it in the player community.

Stalk the GTN as well, as those ops enhancements are BOE, you might be able to snag one once in awhile.

I do that just fine! Sadly i've only been able to snatch two tanking mods for my alt, no cunning for main yet.

Oh and run the new HM FP, kaon, and just need roll helm tokens and hope they aren't agent lol. That place will drop 2 helm tokens for you each day, and you can hopefully go buy other classes helms and rip the good crit/surge enhancements out.

We did that for a while, definetly a good way to farm t2 enhancements once a day. Altho i would advise against joining pugs and rolling need against people who actually need the tokens, that's just rude.

Also you might be interested to know that the second boss drops poor weapons but they contain a lvl 56 color crystal. So far we've found a bunch of +41 power crystals and two endurance +41 ones. I can't confirm wether or not he drops weapons with + crit crystal.

Just rip these out and put in columi weapons.

Have you guys stopped to think that the game is designed top to bottom around the stats they are giving you? They don't want you to have an extra 10 aim and surge. If they gave you that, then they have to make the mobs harder. Endless cycle.

 

Stop complaining about nothing.

Good sir, you appear to be somewhat lacking in intelligence.

Please refrain from posting until this is remedied as it renders your opinions slightly less than correct and has a tendency to irritate more informed forum users. -IdrA©

Don't dare need on something for another class. If you have worked it out with your group head of time, be honest with yourself and mark it as greed and beg them to pass. Calling this "need" changes the meaning of the word and certainly devalues it in the player community.

This is possibly the most stupid post I have ever seen on the forums.

I really think what they need to do is make a mod vendor for all these types of gear that sells Tionese , Columni, Rakata level mods, that way the player can better customize their gear. You could buy the mods through tokens found in each level of difficulty to make sure people just don't go for the Rakata straight out. That way you have more use for those commendations just sitting in your pocket.

To clarify you would get Tionese Tokens from HM's FP, Columni from Norm OPs, Rakata from Hard Mode but say at a lesser amount, and a better amount if you can complete Nightmare.