The Expertise stat has to go...

PVP stats are the killing stroke against competitive play. Give PVE players a special stat that helps them take less damage on boss encounters, and keep PVP competitive

Competitive players devote the time to remain competitive. Casual players struggle to remain competitive gearwise because they either don't have the time or want to RP or do missions instead. There is a difference.

I rarely, if ever, see anyone complaining about expertise in the warzones at Bloodworthy EU. If anything, the whine goes against the horrible random bags. To be fair, the grind towards a decent amount of expertise isn't even that long, and a couple of weeks is fair in most peoples eyes. The battlemaster pieces offers so low statgains that we don't even have to talk about it.

Expertise stat is fine. What is wrong is the rich getting richer mechanic with Dailies. If my side has less gear we will loose and get less gear while they will get even more gear. Stupid as frack IMO. It is so stupid to the point that there will be moment when one side may not get any dailies done at all.

you're missing the point. you shouldnt have to pvp to grind gear to compete, you should pvp because you enjoy it and there it is more of a skill based than a gear based competition.

WoW makes the gear>>> skill mistake
Rift makes the gear >> skill mistake
Aion makes the gear>> skill mistake
ToR makes the gear >> skill mistake

DAOC gave EVERYONE spellcrafting and easily obtainable items to be within that 98%+ area of competitiveness. you could roll out with a group full of realm rank 3 with a clue and destroy your average rr11+ groups with ease. why? pvp was skill based and you had to rely on your team to play together.

the biggest mistake of mmo pvp today is that most pvp is gear based victories. THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANT TO DO. if i want gear i'd go pve, because its not fun when you are at such a disadvantage.

So apparently Expertise is bad because it makes it too hard for new 50s to get in to pvp?

Solution A:
Crafted blue pvp gear.

This would allow fresh 50s to go to the GTN and purchase a full set of expertise gear so that they aren't getting completely crushed in pvp.

It also adds a huge market for for crafters, especially on PVP servers.

Solution B:
Drastically reduce the cost of Centurion gear.

Centurion gear is the lowest level pvp gear currently in the game, yet it takes far too long to actually obtain it. Currently, assuming you get unlucky opening every bag, you need to open about 12 bags (more for weapons) to obtain one piece of gear. The average pvp player can probably earn enough for one bag a day through commendations alone, maybe 2 if they are playing a lot that day. That means that it takes about 6 days to earn enough centurion commendations to purchase one piece of gear (excluding dailies). With Dailies/weeklys a person might be able to buy 2 pieces of gear per week assuming they are completely unlucky.

The time it takes to earn one piece of gear is absurd and considering how easy it is to earn champion gear it further devalues centurion gear.

Bioware could easily make a valuable place for centuion gear by making it the starter pvp set. Make it cheap and easy to obtain (like 2 weeks for the full set).

That's fine. At least everyone will have an equal opportunity to better their character. PVE encounters are static, they don't care if you leveled to 50 first week of the game, or joined the game a year after release. PVP on the other hand get progressively harder to get into for fresh 50s. If the only source of competitive gear for PVP is actual PVP due to special PVP stat, most new players will just stay away from it, and game will continue to bleed PVP players faster then replenishing them. PVP and PVE gear progression should be nothing more then two paths to same goal.

And to comment on your "leetness". In current system, if you go up against an equally skilled player who's decked out in PVE gear of equivalent quality to your PVP gear, you will win by default. Likewise if you both go into a raid, he will out DPS you. I see no reason why things should be this way. If you both put in equal effort in different aspects of the game, you should be equally viable in all aspects of the game.

Special stats just discourage people from taking part in all aspects of the game. You shouldn't want to keep "PVE noobs" out of your PVP, you should welcome the new blood. Fact is, some of them will enter with their "carebear" gear anyway, so the fact that they're at a disadvantage puts you at a disadvatage as well if they're on your team.

It's the same for pve, columi is far easier to aquire than tionese, making the bottom tier really pointless. A blue craftable/easily buyable expertise stat would be nice. Or hell, just make centurion use wz/merc tokens instead of their own special commendations and be done with it. I still think expertise does far too much for a single stat, offensive and defensive and healing instead of just 1 based on your role, but getting rid of it would not work at all; pvp does need it's own stat in some way.

This is not a good example imo... if there were no resilience stat, people who spend time playing will learn the ability of skill. Just because you drink Gatorade, wear some padding, zero weight shoes, and a headband doesn't mean you are a better athlete. Don't you guys watch those Gatorade commercials? It comes from within, but because of the PVP stat on gear it ruins things a ton. look at Jimmy Graham... was a basketball player, but is one of the best tight ends in football now... he just has skill within... you think him wearing a helmet made him better at football?

Like someone mentioned early in the post if they must have expertise, which I don't think they need, they should put it to the player for the valor levels. Also don't give huge PVP stat bonuses... even 5% of expertise is enough of a difference maker handicap. I also hate how expertise gear causes everyone to look the same as their class... Every PVPer will end up looking the same and I dislike that in a MMO.

Lastly to all these pro expertise players... you scared of getting beat by the newbies and PVE players? Maybe they need to just have a warzone where gear does not play a factor... everyone wears the same gear for their class. This is honestly probably why MMOs are slowly losing momentum to League of Legends and other Dota like games. Being good at PVP should be a skill that takes time to develop... a noob who has 10 hours+ a day PVPing could suck, but due to the gear he has... in an open field fight against anyone not PVP geared would drop like a fly.

I'm new to PVP (and MMO's), and I enjoy doing both PVP and PVE.

I've ended up doing more PVP, not because its easier to get armor or because I prefer it, but because its easier for me to get int (hit a button and wait, or spam the general chat for hours lfg)

And I've just realised that I'll eventually have a set of armor for PVP, and a set for PVE. So I guess I'll just be swapping armor a lot.

But that makes sense to me, in a way. To have different bonuses for different situations.

It's SO easy in this game to get PVP gear I cant believe we are even having this discussion really.

I hit 50 4 days ago and I already have 6 pieces of champion gear. Between the Ilum daily/weekly and the warzone daily/weekly you can get bags galor.

and I dont find that a well geared enemy makes all that much of a difference. Sure they have 5% more dmg than me but good teamwork and well timed interupts and cc usually corrects that.

Besides the actual difference between Centurion and Champion gear is pretty small.

14 slots of Centurion vs Champion is only around what 1% more dmg? I say give it time.

My only complaint is that I'm on a lower population server and there IS no or very rare L50 PVP right now.