I've been a ridiculous slacker when it's come to my PvP gear but I'm curious as to just how necessary it is or what kind of difference it makes. The reason I ask is that I've been running ranked war zones with PvE gear and consistently finishing in the top 3-4 in damage. Will my DPS be even better if I start using PvP gear and has anyone done any parsing comparisons? How much of a difference is there between the two and what benefits am I losing out on if I continue to just use my PvE?

 

 

EDIT: I'm also only equipped with mostly 69s and not all 72s right now so will I be doing comparable damage to full PvP gear when I have all 72s? Thanks in advance!

Edited August 27, 2013 by Lord_Garrex

i'm curious about this too. i have a healer in fully augmented 72s, and there is one guy on my server who always tells me to get out of his warzones when i pug in. i can't tell if its because he's trying to say expertise is important, or if it's just gear envy, or what. it is fairly obvious the guy is really dumb, but he went through the grind to get top tier pvp gear and that's what's important.

 

i don't have a pvp set for that toon yet, which is why i'm wearing pve armor. i've tried putting on a few 63 pieces from a set, but my ability to heal and my survivability are noticeably reduced. a lot. i know expertise is important, but it seems to me augmented 72 pve gear still beats 63 gear. on top of that, my set bonus from pve gear helps me heal better, whereas my set bonus in pvp gear helps me stop healing and stand in a bubble for a while doing nothing more often. i would think if i could get a fully augmented 65 set, it should be better than my 72s, but i'm not positive. still, i would prefer a tank that knew what they were doing and a sniper to kill people trying to kill me, and a set bonus that helped me heal better, over a set bonus that helps me run away from the fight.

 

i don't understand why pvp players want a system where gear is more important than ability. there should certainly be a reward of some sort for people who grind. a leaderboard and titles would be enough for me. grinding for a significant advantage seems pretty weak.

Queue a WZ and see how you compare to PvP geared people. Edited August 27, 2013 by Copperheadr

It's hard to say for sure which is going to be better when 2.4 launches, I would say that optimized augmented 72's are probably better than stock Partisan gear, so ywah, you'll probably do worse in Partisan than your PvE gear.

 

The reason PvP'rs want PvP gear to be better is because the big time guys, who do it seriously don't like PvE, and without expertise then PvE Op's gear would be the best gear to PvP in, thereby forcing people who want to be at the absolute top of the PvP game to PvE for their gear. They don't like PvE much and don't want to do it.

 

Now, if we gave gear equal to the top tier Op's gear to PvP'rs to prevent the need for PvP players to have to grind operations for gear then the top tier PvE players are getting rooked, it is, in often cases easier to simply grind out the time in a bunch of PvP matches (cheaper on the repair bills to) to acquire the top tier gear than it is to learn the mechanics of new operations and then run them over and over again to get all your guild mates geared up.

 

So, with these points in mind enter the PvP stat. While its name is different in each game its purpose is the same, to make lower stat gear more effective against players (better for PvP) while making sure it's not a better choice than PvE gear for PvE content (its stats aren't as good and the PvP stat doesn't help against PvE mobs). It's an effective system right up until players who feel that they have earned the right to be great in PvP by accomplishing so much in PvE get stomped by guys in top tier PvP gear, or you get a few tiers in and a fresh player walks in and gets roflcoptered by a PvP geared player.

 

BioWARE had a good fix with Recruit gear but sadly people who didn't understand the importance of the PvP stat wouldn't use it, or said "I need the credits more" but then whined endlessly when they got stomped later in PvP, which was of course their own dumb fault, but hey, to each their own a guess. Now we have Bolster, a good idea, I guess, but so full of inconsistencies it's maddening, plus, what's the point of a PvP stat if you'll just make it not work anyways?

Get full partisan you want higher expertise then the less then 1500 in ful higher tier pve gear will give. You probs dont notice atm because ur a healer operative which is op but try playing concealment in that gear you'll drop fast in 1v1. Its about survivability mainly not output.

Full partisan would be better than PVE gear. Full partisan caps your expertise at a full 2018. The thing with expertise is that it buffs basically everything in PVP. I think with the fully augmented lvl 72's, you will do fine. Probably have great healing/dps numbers... but your survivability won't be as good.

Full PvE gear is viable in WZs, but less good than fully augmented partisan, which is less good than fully augmented Conqueror.

 

To be honest though, the difference between the 3 isn't that huge. Bolster bring's PvE gear to quite similar levels.

Short answer: yes, slightly.

 

Long answer: Don't waste your time with Partisan, since it will soon be obsolete, and since bolster is being adjusted PvE gear, specifically current raid gear will become more viable than Partisan and possibly Conq.

 

 

I got a feeling that they are going to increase bolster enough that PvP 66 purps might be BIS. So start farming those purple grade 9 mats pvp friends....

Don't buy any PvP gear now unless you plan on capping out again before 2.4 drops. Your best bet is non-55 PvE gear, from GTN. It's fairly cheap, has good stats and will bring you up to +1900 expertise. My back-up sage is currently using a mix of partisan, that I bought prior to the 2.4 announcement, and rakata mods and I'm not noticing any difference compared to my fully PvP geared sage.

depends how you play, if you can learn positioning and are just doing reg wz, then I say go with your 72's or better if you have 75's.

I have augmented conquerer gear on my gs, but my augmented 72 pve gear hits harder (and gets hit harder 11.5K heatseakers and smashes yeouch!)....so if I'm q'd with a healer (thanks Undaunted and Ayita) then I wear my pve gear for the extra dps, if I'm solo I usually put on the pvp gear.

Fully augmented 72 is better than unaugmented conqueror. But augmented partisan is better than augmented 72s.

 

You have to consider the expertise gap is roughly 30% buff loss with pve gear. Are your stats 30% higher with pve gear? No.

 

Partisan gear is very cheap, you can get it very quickly and you will do better with it. As long as you augment it.

 

If i see somebody in well-augmented 72s i'm not going to assume they suck. If they are a good player (or even decent) they will do better than a lot of pvp scrubs with the best gear.

Don't buy any PvP gear now unless you plan on capping out again before 2.4 drops.

Unless they moved the date up from October 1, honestly, if you don't plan on capping out until then, you probably PvP so little that you don't even need that gear.

 

For a player that does regular only, 35 days = 35x100 + 5*300 = 5,000 RWZ and WZ comms from 55 dailies alone.

Assuming a modest average of 100 comms per WZ and 3 WZ per day, which will average you weekly completion, +3*100*35=10,500 WZ comms.

Converted to Ranked, you would have 5,000+3,500+750= 4,500 RWZ comms plus 2,750 WZ comms plus 4,750 RWZ comms overflow.

 

You only need to do 60% of your dailies and weeklies - 3 weeks' worth - to cap out till Oct 1.

 

 

Your best bet is non-55 PvE gear, from GTN.

Yeah. Classic or below is the new Recruit - you get full expertise of Partisan with about the stats of 61 gear.

If you've got a full Campaign or Columi set, with a few augs, you'll match Partisan (that isn't meant to be augged).

 

So overall I'd suggest your PvE set from level 50. It will get maxed expertise, good stats, probably a set bonus, and you probably have a few augs in it.

As a sorc healer in fully Augmented 69 gear with the exception of the two pvp relics, I seem to heal better. The bolster takes care of most of my missing expertise and the extra power / willpower covers and goes beyond the lousy 5 - 10% heal / damage boost from expertise that im short on

 

Not owning 72 armouring's , mods and enhancements... I can't comment on that comparison.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Omisri

as i understand it omisri, pve gear will likely continue to give you a healing buff, especially if you have the set bonus. the expertise from pvp will give you more survivability. generally speaking, the survivability from the pvp set is probably more important?

as i understand it omisri, pve gear will likely continue to give you a healing buff, especially if you have the set bonus. the expertise from pvp will give you more survivability. generally speaking, the survivability from the pvp set is probably more important?

 

Well, i'm not entirely sure about the stats added by expertise i.e. Damage boost caps at 60% while you have lower % of defense and an even lower % added for healing other players. While im obviously not looking to cause damage and my defense is not missing all that much in terms of added bonus. The bonus healing is more than covered by the stats from my PvE gear with the added bolster to around 1500 exp. so i can kinda see why i don't suffer effects from it like say a DPS would.

 

I have no set bonus either with my PvE gear.

 

The way i saw it while i was playing around to see the difference was "Do i wanna sacrifice an extra 200+ Willpower and 100 or so power for an extra 5% increase to healing via exp after it bolsters me back up anyway? - That seems like madness"

Edited August 27, 2013 by Omisri

Bolstered PVE 69s = ~1500 expertise

Bolstered PVE 72s = ~1300 expertise

Either PVP set (Partisan or Conq) = 2018 expertise

 

Is your stat increase high enough that you can negate having 25 or 30% less expertise by rolling in PVE gear? Given that expertise is now on a straight line distribution, I think not. The difference between fully augmented 69s and fully augmented partisan is about 10-15%, which expertise far exceeds. It's a very noticable difference as a tank or DPS.

 

Expertise buffs damage dealt, reduces damage taken, versus someone with a lower expertise than you (it's a wash with equal expertise), while increasing your healing recieved. While healers may be less affected (as long as everyone else around them has max expertise and they aren't trying to heal themselves), they will have a much harder time surviving than if they had expertise (they also make it harder for another healer to help keep them up under focus fire).

Yes. Bringing your Kell Dragon set into a warzone is definitely going to be cool, but it's not where it belongs.

 

Lower tier gear actually performs better with WZ bolster. Expertise starts to drop off a bit at 63's, some at 66's, and then critically at 69's and 72's. Solution? I only keep a few 72 pieces, going for PvP ones elsewhere. The drop in expertise is moderate this way, but I get some optimizations that I need.

 

Overall, till you have a PvP set, level 50 gear seems to be best and competitive with Partisan in terms of balancing expertise and stats. It's not competitive with Conqueror.

PvE / PvP gear mix is terribad - you get docked stats for mingling the two together.

 

Full PvE gear is better than partial PvE/PvP mix.

 

Full PvP gear is better than that.

 

Nuff said.

PvE / PvP gear mix is terribad - you get docked stats for mingling the two together.

This is not actually completely true. What you can't do, ever, is mix PvE and PvP mods in one shell. But complete pieces can be mixed and matched.

I got a feeling that they are going to increase bolster enough that PvP 66 purps might be BIS. So start farming those purple grade 9 mats pvp friends....

 

I doubt that lvl 66 will be better than lvl 67. It will probably be comparable to conqueror.

so if i have only a few wz comms, about 3 63 pieces, plus a full set of 72 augmented gear w/ set bonus, i should spend my cred's to buy 66 gear off the gtn?

As a person who just ran through gearing two toons for PvP recently I noticed the following:

 

- 146 PvE gear and lower provide full expertise. 148 and 150 gear you lose 8-10 expertise per piece. Full 150 (63) runs similar stats as partisan, but about 70-80 lower expertise. I actually used 146-140 pieces, because they are easier to min/max on sum pieces, because some partisan pieces have garbage stats in them (jugg with alacrity..), so you are better off with lower PvE gear until you can min.max your partisan.

 

- Max sure to never mix PvE and PvP mods/enhancements/armorings in one piece.

 

- Augmented 140 is much better than unaugmented partisan. Its more important to aug your gear than having partisan, as you get full value from augs, where the difference between partisan and 140 -146 gear is around 1% overall effectiveness per piece (augs is around 2%).

 

- You are doing yourself a great disservice having any gear above 156 (lvl 66). You lose too much expertise compared to stats gained. In mostly 140-146 gear, my toon was running around upper 1,300 bonus damage auged with above 2K expertise. Another toon I have mostly in 72s and bonus damage of 1,440 ran about 1400 expertise. The loss of expertise is totally not worth compared to the damage gained from PvE gear.

 

- PvE weapons and conquer/partisan ones run around the same effect, as all weapons get mysteriously adjusted as if you have 174 MH and OH supposedly (no one even devs know how). It is best to use 156 hilt/barrel. When I switch mine from 156 to 168 I gained only 3 bonus damage in the WZ and lost about 25 expertise. I would recommend PvE weapons with 156 hilt and mods/enhancements lvl 150 or lower (not below 140). I am running 1,380 bonus damage in PvE MH and OH with 2,005 expertise. The highest I seen anyone in my class was around 1,405, and I still have much room for improvement, as all my modable gear is partisan. Once I get conqueror I should run around 1,400 and I do not have a PvP weapon.

 

- Lvl 53 PvE blue ear pieces are BiS second to conqueror. Do not buy the partisan ones. The 53 gives you best stats with only 3 expertise lower than conqueror/partisan.

 

- BiS relic is conqueror SA and matrix cube. If matrix cube is not viable, the partisan damage proc ones work fine.

 

Unfortunately all this will change when 2.4 comes out with new PvP gear tier. Basic gear will probably run close to full expertise at that time, and probably 69 gear will not lose much stats. I hope that was helpful

Edited August 28, 2013 by Ottoattack

Guys, this is one of the most useful threads full of interesting information.

 

Keep up the good work and big thanks to all contenders

I doubt that lvl 66 will be better than lvl 67. It will probably be comparable to conqueror.

 

If you use Obroan ears, implants, and relics its possible. Most people agree item level 65 is the current cutoff, the next move is to make 67 the cutoff and anything below get bolstered. As long as you use Obroan on a few pieces, I see this as a possibility. Right now you only need 11 out of 14 PvP pieces to be "BiS". If 66 purps are below the MasonDixon line, less PvP pieces will be needed..

they made this too complicated. that's probably why they keep screwing up with things like class balance and bolster and whatever else they keep messing with. maybe they should think about simplifying it.