Greetings All

 

I'm hoping to get some feed back from the forum crowd on the issue of gear level. I’ve been playing Swtor now for nine months and it’s been a blast. I’ve learned a tremendous amount since starting and am still amazed at how much more there is to learn. My first character was a Marauder which I levelled to 55 and use primarily for Elder Game content now.

 

My second character, a pure healer Sorcerer, I levelled to 55 about 6 weeks ago. I have enjoyed this character immensely. I find the “strategy” of healing to be very challenging and very rewarding. My goal has always been to try my mettle with the true test of healer, Operations Missions. To date I have done probably 6 or 7 OPs, both SM and HM. I have not done any Nightmare Mode OPs yet.

 

On the OPs Missions that I have done, until this week, the groups were fun to play with and seemed to be good people in general. However, my experience this week, has been quite a bit different. I find it hard to believe that I didn’t come across this before but I guess I was just extra lucky. On three occasions I have joined an OPs group only to be kicked and told I was “under geared”. In some cases they were not very polite about it either. That was surprising to me as I am outfitted completely with level 156 gear, all of the Modifications are level 28 Artifact. All of it is augmented with MK-9 Slots and level 28 Artifact Augments. I have had no issues in SM or HM OPs or FPs so far.

 

That having been said, it has never been my intention to stop at level 156 gear. I do see it though as a “good” plateau to accumulate the Elite and Ultimate Commendations that will take me to the next level. I assumed that was a fairly common dynamic. I figured maybe I had assumed incorrectly so thought I’d pose the question in general chat. While getting kicked from those Ops surprised me, I was totally unprepared for the virtual firestorm that my question generated on general chat. What surprised me more than anything else was the vehemence and emotion that accompanied most of the responses. In addition to the bile that overflowed in general chat, some felt compelled to pst me with commentary and "advice" I cannot print here in the forums. But for the most part the commentary was that level 156 gear was **** (my stars here) and had no place in any Ops or HM Fps. One player sent this pst:

 

“You are what has ruined this game. When you bring that **** (my stars again) wannabe gear into an HM Ops or FP, it’s a slap in the face to those of us who have EARNED the proper gear and the right to be in those Ops and Missions. You’re nothing more than a parasite that expects the rest of us to carry you through and then allow you reap the rewards.”

 

I did try to reason with the mob initially. I commented that gear was an important component of course but that a skilled player, who played well, was a significant factor. That was not well received at all. One person responding that they would rather have the suckiest player on the server in proper gear than the most experienced and skilled player in 156 **** (my stars again) gear. Several people appeared to agree. One person said that at least the suckiest player could generate the "numbers" even if they hit only by accident whereas a level 156 simply could not and thus could contribute nothing of value to the group. I finally left when someone advised the others to put "this leech" on ignore so they wouldn't get me in Group Finder.

 

In all fairness I did receive a couple of pst's that told me, that unfortunately, there was a significant group of "emotionally unbalanced" elitests whose world centered on having the best gear. Their advice was to ignore them, but this sentiment seems to have been in the minority. I am a veteran lifelong gamer and one of the older gamers on here I'm sure. While SWTOR is my first MMO, I can say I have never seen such a venomous response in any other game I've ever played. I have noticed that General Chat seems to be a bit more emotional in general rather than academic. So I figured I would post in the forums as it is a more "reflective" environment.

 

I would like to hear everyone's input on the issue of level 156 gear for HM FPs and OPs. The fact that I have played in several OPs before this with no negative commentary leads me to believe that my playing at that level was appropriate but I may be wrong. If I was in the wrong then I will certainly apologize. It wasn't intentional and there was no malice. I just thought that was the best way to earn the comms to upgrade my current gear.

 

Sincerely,

 

Suisiderf

156 purples for flashpoints are more then enough to do them as for the most part they drop 156 blues with only last boss and bonus boss dropping 162 gear.

 

storymode operations? same thing. heck - your gear was at one point THE starter gear, they just upgraded basic coms vendor few months ago. operations drop 162 gear. you are more than fine on prerequisite for those.

 

and now we come to hardmode ops. are you talking about lvl 55 ops? or lvl 50 ops? becasue it makes a difference. lvl 55 hardmode ops should be done in minimum of 162 gear (preferably with set bonuses) for SnV and TfB and minimum of 168 for Fortress/palace. having better gear makes runs easier, but those are minimums. (and hardmode Fortress is actualy pretty tricky even in 168 gear)

 

so. if you were trying to run story lvl 55 ops and hardmode lvl 50 ops and were kicked for being undergeared? you ran into one of the fabled picky elitists. though honestly, even if you tried to do 55 hardmode op, that tirade full of insults was uncalled for IMO, however... you should get your gear a bit better before venturing into hardmode ops. which is fairly reasonably easy nowadays between Story stuff and verpine/oriconian gear you can buy from com vendors to fill in the gaps.

 

which you sentiment of skill being more important - is sound. the reason for minimum requirements is that even it you are amazingly skilled, you cannot outskill math. the damage needed to be done, damage needed to be healed through is more. requiring better stats. *of course if you run with people in gear far above minimum requirement, they can and will compensate for you, but its not something one should rely on continuously"

Edited May 21, 2014 by Jeweledleah

Hope that response didn't come from my server (Jedi Covenant). We have some (fairly infamous) trolls of course but I've never heard a reaction like that. Otherwise the above poster summed up nicely that you may have legitimately been undergeared for certain content.

 

Not only lacking the raw damage or max heals, you'll take so much more area affect damage on some fights with those armorings you'll need to be carried.

Well, you make no mention of it, am I right to assume that your main-hand / offhand, implants and earpiece are also of rating 156, or at least 148, and that you have some endgame relics to go with that (at least campaign or dread guard ?).

 

If yes, they were being morons, possibily trolls. There's no way anyone would want a bad player with 'good' gear over a good player with the minimum recommended gear. The problem when you're pugging is nobody knows how good or bad you really are, so gear level is pretty much all they can judge you on. But the fact you had augmented your gear already shows some goodwill and knowledge on your part...

Even thought I can fully understand your problem I would recommend that you join a guild and learn how to raid and which mechanics that are important with them using some voice communication so it becomes easier for you. When I run PUG groups I want to clear the content fast without wipes with good players, I normally kick badly geared players unless they can link achievement. If you find PUG runs that takes you, go ahead, nothing is stopping you, but you have to understand that some players don't want take random PUG:s with bad gear on their runs. It might come as a surprise to you but there is vast amount of bad players in this game, who will wipe the raid due to stupidity and one of the ways to avoid them is to take players over a certain amount of HP (has the gear=done it before) or who has the achievement, you should be able to accept and understand that instead of calling people elitist. (All above is only directed towards Operations, I don't run Flashpoints so I don't know what gear level is appropriate, but you should be able to find that out in the missions for Flashpoints/Ops).

 

You say it's your second character, check if you have some commendations on your main which you can use to gear up this new alt, I always do that on my new characters since I hate being badly geared, save your commendations and don't waste the good ones on your companion for example.

Edited May 22, 2014 by RikuvonDrake

156 gear, especially augmented, is above par for all flashpoints and at or above par for most story mode operations. (TFB, S&V recommend 148, DF recommends 156, DP recommends 160.)

 

For flashpoints, nobody except people like the poster just above me (who has described in various threads how he revels in kicking players who are not undergeared but simply less geared/experienced than he) would object.

 

For operations, since you get 162 gear from flashpoints and ops, and you now get 162 and 168 and 180 gear from comms, it does indicate that the player (or character) is new, which makes some wary, since knowing the mechanics is important. 156 gear is certainly fine for TFB/S&V/DF, though, if you do the mechanics.

 

If you prefer to avoid confrontation, grind flashpoints for 162 drops and for elite comms (or dailies for basic comms) until you're mostly 162+ geared and then do ops. But really this isn't necessary.

 

---

 

For hard modes, the recommended gear level is 162 for TFB and S&V and more for DF/DP. It is true that there were guilds in full 150 or nearly so who did level 55 HM TFB/S&V just when it came out. But these were top notch guilds, very organized, etc. Now it would be strange to take a 156 geared player to a hard mode op unless it's someone in your guild who you are carrying and gearing out.

Edited May 22, 2014 by cxten

Everyone above me covered things well.

 

I just had a question on this:

To date I have done probably 6 or 7 OPs, both SM and HM. I have not done any Nightmare Mode OPs yet.

Have you not obtained any gear or commendations from the operations you've run?

 

After 7-8 operations, I would hope you had won some gear drops, or at the very least gotten some Elite / Ultimate commendations that you could spend on gear upgrades.

 

Make sure you are picking up the weekly quests at the fleet terminal in the "Supplies" section for all operations. Turning these in will net you commendation rewards that you can use to purchase higher rated gear.

I'd like to point out that at one point I Tanked SM Dread Palace in unaugmented 156s, and after 2 fights the group decided I should maintank because I was holding aggro better than the Oriconian-geared tank, and also easier to heal.

 

What you encountered are severe bads. Back in the day, great players were Tanking, Healing AND DPSing Scum and Villainy/Terror From Beyond Hard Mode in rating 150 gear. Granted it had a set bonus, but that was the only advantage over what you have.

 

Its most likely a case of real terrible people on your server. Im personally using a large number of pub-side toons on The Harbinger and almost everyone there is nice to people and give them a chance if they show competency in their gear and also their role (e.g. the only time I saw someone kicked for their gear was when they showed up as a Sentinel to a HM SnV with rating 108 cunning gear in light armor...) and are at the appropriate level (Had to kick a level 14 sent from a HM TC once because... well... it should be obvious )

Edited May 22, 2014 by TACeMossie

You're fine, original poster. You just ran into some jerks. -bp

 

(EDIT: Which server is this? If it's Ebon Hawk I'll be extremely disappointed. I keep telling people we have the best population.)

Edited May 22, 2014 by Sidenti

You're fine gear wise for tfb and sav story mode and the level 50 operations on any mode (maybe not explosive conflict..).

For non-elite people like me (and I guess you) I advice 162's with set bonus for tfb an sav Hard mode.

 

Df and dp story mode can be tricky, getting some 162+ gear will make it easier (obviously ). But you do not need a full set of 162+ to finish those.

 

For flashpoints you are fine. Anyone who says otherwise deserves a spot in the 'the weird people you meet in groupfinder' thread.

 

Do you happen to be on The Red Eclipse? Met a lot of rude people on my server.

(Offtopic alert) If you are on my server then I know a certain guild *cough*mysignature*cough* who gladly runs any sm op with you on their sm days

 

But seriously, find some friendly people and try to join their guild. Guild runs are so much more fun than random runs from fleet

I did try to reason with the mob initially. I commented that gear was an important component of course but that a skilled player, who played well, was a significant factor. That was not well received at all. One person responding that they would rather have the suckiest player on the server in proper gear than the most experienced and skilled player in 156 **** (my stars again) gear. Several people appeared to agree. One person said that at least the suckiest player could generate the "numbers" even if they hit only by accident whereas a level 156 simply could not and thus could contribute nothing of value to the group. I finally left when someone advised the others to put "this leech" on ignore so they wouldn't get me in Group Finder.

Welcome to the world of pug OPS

The only mistake you made is to try to reason with them There was one saying “Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

And .. . yeah, healing is only numbers as you already know :P

 

I think people are so much overgeared for SM ops that they dont remember the gear requirements. And most of the time they dont really check gear, they check hp. Have seen people that augment they healz on endurance for this reason

 

Was in pug SM TfB with my new tank (well i have 162/168 gear on companions, so my new 55s getting some stuff e.g. my new tank means 162 on gear at least, augmented, properly balanced on defense/shield/absorb, but poor mainhand, relics, implants and such) 34K HP stimed.

So guess what, one guy commented that 34K HP low for a tank and he dont want to go on this run with me tanking. ( I dont remember how much HP i had on tank when i first did TfB HM in the past, but i guess it was not much more then 34k )

If this was the group lead i will quit myself, couse you know not good indication for a successful op. Fortunately the op lead was normal

Edited May 22, 2014 by jade_de_aguilera

Augmented 156 gear is adequate for running any HM FP and SM OP (TFB/SNV/DF/DP) (when 2.0 landed a lot of people did them with 150 gear). For HM ops you will need 162 gear with set bonus.

 

Unfortunately a lot of pug groups think that you need to outgear the ops by two tiers in order to do them. I'm sad to hear the response you got from the general chat, which I consider to be wrong. I don't know what server you are on, and I hope is not the Ebon Hawk. As a healer the only problem you might have with your gear is when you have to heal people with high endurance 78 which in the first place is not truly "top gear". My advice is to join a guild the regularly runs ops they will be able to help you to learn the ops and gear up. Also as soon a you complete the TFB of SnV mats mission use the MMG to have a 78 MH crafted.

The people that kicked and berated you in general are probably the type that must overgear content to compensate for their lack of skill, wear gear full of crappy high endurance mods or mix and match random secondary stats, and prioritize tanks stacking endurance over mitigation.

 

In other words, idiots.

 

Ignore them and move on.

ok while those guys were jerks, perhaps they could have said.

 

Hey for DPS your gear would be fine but since we dont know you and your gear is a little low and you are a healer we are gonna go with a more geared healer to be safe cuz we have limited time to play and want to make sure theres no wipes, but good luck.

 

Thats what they should have said. Basically. Stupid people will always show you they are stupid, and then call you stupid. Get some 162 gear and you'll be fine.

It's just impatience in general. People only want to form and run the Op if success is guaranteed. No room for coming up short, no chances at wipes. To be honest, it's not a horrible policy. Did a quick SM DF to grab some comms before the reset, meaning it was an alt fest, or the "dregs"--just messing here, mostly anyway--of players hoping for a clear.

 

Draxus was oogly. I'm still more than unclear as to so many could end up dead. One mass affliction did get off, but what killed was multiple players standing in slams from the guardians and not bothering to move before they went off. People tunnel-visioned trying to finish Draxus, and as a result about 6 players went down, then two or so more after the boss fell. There was little damage left to do on Draxus and it was an easy burn at that point because almost everyone in there was over-geared. Almost everyone was sitting at 33K+ HPs.

 

There were issues again on Brontes, but honestly, had the second tank not gotten himself killed as he did, even down to the four or five DPS who were still up, we could have finished the fight. Ended up having to go at it a second time, hitting the salient points for the pull, and we cleared easily, despite two slower DPS getting locked out because they decided a bio was in order =p.

 

I was in an S&V prior to that where gearing and extra HP helped to make up for lackluster tanking and only two really competent heals.

 

Over-geared players don't guarantee a clear, but they make up for a whole lot of inept play. For groups trying to "one and done" everything, it's not surprising that they look at HP and let that be the final say. Most Ops leaders aren't going to sit there and inspect everyone's gear for augs and the proper mods to prove competency, nor are they going to check the achievements of up to 15 other unknown players before a run starts.

 

As someone else mentioned, if you have a number of alts, you should generally have Elites and random pieces coming out of your ears. On one toon that I just hit 55 with I was able to throw a full set bonus, along with mostly 168/180 mods from the start. That's an easy way to avoid failing the sniff test when joining pugs.

 

If you're pugging it up, you're at the mercy of the Ops leader, just how it's going to be. Also, I think there's more to this than has been presented. I doubt all of gen chat was railing on you for saying 156 gear is enough for SM Ops.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Prototypemind

Over-geared players don't guarantee a clear, but they make up for a whole lot of inept play. For groups trying to "one and done" everything, it's not surprising that they look at HP and let that be the final say. Most Ops leaders aren't going to sit there and inspect everyone's gear for augs and the proper mods to prove competency, nor are they going to check the achievements of up to 15 other unknown players before a run starts.

 

As someone else mentioned, if you have a number of alts, you should generally have Elites and random pieces coming out of your ears. On one toon that I just hit 55 with I was able to throw a full set bonus, along with mostly 168/180 mods from the start. That's an easy way to avoid failing the sniff test when joining pugs.

 

If you're pugging it up, you're at the mercy of the Ops leader, just how it's going to be. Also, I think there's more to this than has been presented. I doubt all of gen chat was railing on you for saying 156 gear is enough for SM Ops.

 

One point that many people seem not to see is that learning from wipes.

 

I've been in PUGs with 1-3 wipes. But the last run went so much more smoothly, no matter which OP or FP.

 

The learning factor is omitted when entering an FP or an OP overgeared.

 

Overgeared, you learn nothing. You only learn from mistakes. You only learn from wipes.

Edited June 3, 2014 by AlrikFassbauer

As a previous poster already pointed out, people run pug OPS for quick comms. This means that they do not want to spend the whole night wiping. As such, as a learning experience if you're new to swtor, pug ops can be ruthless. And if all you want is fast ultimate commendations, the higher geared group you can get, the faster and easier it will get. And sadly you need that extra gear since in every pug I've been in to date, probably half of the people knew what they were doing, gear level irrelevant.

One point that many people seem not to see is that learning from wipes.

 

I've been in PUGs with 1-3 wipes. But the last run went so much more smoothly, no matter which OP or FP.

 

The learning factor is omitted when entering an FP or an OP overgeared.

 

Overgeared, you learn nothing. You only learn from mistakes. You only learn from wipes.

As Cvak said above, and others mentioned before, if it's a quick run for comms, people aren't there to teach the strats, everyone is there for a quick one and done. Even if it's a normal pug, if it's not mostly a guild run with good coordination, people will have much less patience in general.

 

Pugs are what they are. If two randoms show up for a pick up softball game and there's one spot to fill with money on the line, do you think the team will take the skinny guy with the brand new glove or the built one with a broken in mitt? All people are going to go by is a cursory inspection, they aren't going to take the time to check achievements and play twenty questions to make sure players know the fights, their rotations, etc.

 

One of our guildies pulls some of the most consistent numbers I've seen from a Deception Assassin, has amazing awareness when healing or DPSing on his sorc, and is a great all around player. He pugged exactly zero runs when he was first gearing out his Jugg tank. Guilds save you that headache, take advantage of having friends in the game.

I, for one, would rather run with a skillful and quick-witted player in level 50 greens than a guy who paid a gold farmer to grind up his toon, even if he has BiS gear. To loosely quote the Trooper: "My training keeps me alive. Equipment is secondary."

I've had the same thing happen to me. 168 geared powertech tank was not accepted on a TC SM though with friends I do TC HM. The 168 jugg gets it too in SM Ops. Unfortunate because how else are you to get into better gear?

 

So using my two min/max 180 geared op healers I'm slowly grinding out 180 gear. They only have 1 set bonus and it's 162 armoring. Everything else is 180. I'm still waiting for that drop and roll win.

 

We took a few 156 geared players through TC SM/HM and TFB SM today. The TC runs twice each on alts to help them get comms and mat drops. Even a couple new to 55 players through. TFB we were down a healer but a very smooth run. So if on Shadowlands there are a few of us that won't turn you away but there are still some that do. I won't speak of those.

 

I do recommend as others have, blow through some FP HM runs with friends and gear up 162 and 168 comm gear. Set bonuses help even if it's just a two piece.

 

You don't need to run NiM as the Oricon stuff (180) gear is quicker to gain. Especially if you have multiple characters. Look at other class vendors too when you want to min/max it. Example: you can find Adept and Quick Savant Enhancements that give 62 power and 94 Alacrity/Surge at Guardian/Jugg vendor. Reg 180 stats are 39 power and 94 alacrity/surge but more endurance which you really don't need.

 

High HP doesn't mean you'll be great. Just means you can do better on the gear items. I know op healers with more HP than me but won't keep up with the EHPS when it's needed.