So what does everyone think was the best PVP ERA in the game.

I would say 2.0 to the 3.0 patch. It felt like every class could be dominant and way more skill expression. I guess Sorc Hybrid was king of the meta but that really didn't feel that oppressively strong.

I can’t even remember the different patches/expansions anymore, but I loved being able to spec into 3 different trees if you wanted to. Having to only pvp for pvp gear. I also member trying to get extra wz medpacs/adrenals and having to buy them from the people who just pvp’d for the quest. Hard times.

That was back in 1928 when I had to walk through the middle of the Vietnam war to play my PC.

I think it was 4.X when we had cheap pvp gear (Dark Reaver IIRC). We were able to gear out and min/max multiple characters. That’s when I really learned most of the classes and specs, which I think is essential for knowing how to beat them. I played everything, including tanks and heals, without feeling like trash because it was pretty easy to get proper stat distribution with mods / enhancements. We could experiment with various tertiary stats and buy individual mods and enhancements. It was glorious.

Then one day some giant ID10T came along and decided everything was too perfect and had to be massively WRECKED. No more cheap gear, we all had to GRIND. No more expertise because people can’t be bothered to change clothes. No more purchasing gear from vendors because RNG is FUN and players would actually prefer to open boxes and get duplicate items. New gold augments need to be made of unobtainium because who actually wants the best stats anyway. And finally, let’s do away with mods because nobody pays any attention to tertiary stats anyway, a cookie cutter setup is just FINE.

4.x

But I can see 2.x as well.

2.0 by far, But 4.0 was the easiest its ever been to get pvp gear even more than 5.0/6.0/7.0 and i could afford augments not go full whale and buy stuff off the cartel market just to get the best gold augments. And lowbies was popping because you could level all the way to cap and have a full set of gear waiting, because pvp gave you coms and alot of experience.

Lowbies was def better in 2.0. I think 4.0 was when they started shifting away from leveling. But 4.0 had better balance.

I think it was 4.X when we had cheap pvp gear (Dark Reaver IIRC). We were able to gear out and min/max multiple characters. That’s when I really learned most of the classes and specs, which I think is essential for knowing how to beat them. I played everything, including tanks and heals, without feeling like trash because it was pretty easy to get proper stat distribution with mods / enhancements. We could experiment with various tertiary stats and buy individual mods and enhancements. It was glorious.

 

Then one day some giant ID10T came along and decided everything was too perfect and had to be massively WRECKED. No more cheap gear, we all had to GRIND. No more expertise because people can’t be bothered to change clothes. No more purchasing gear from vendors because RNG is FUN and players would actually prefer to open boxes and get duplicate items. New gold augments need to be made of unobtainium because who actually wants the best stats anyway. And finally, let’s do away with mods because nobody pays any attention to tertiary stats anyway, a cookie cutter setup is just FINE.

Sums it up pretty well. Incompetent devs..

For me it was around the fall of 2012 start of 2013 when Ranked Warzones was the endgame PvP to do.

In the end Arenas did more harm then good to the PvP community and brought a lot of PvP issues from balancing to endless cheating and some still unresolved problems like class stacking.

SR as high end endgame PvP, with only 5/24 specs viable shows the developers really did lose the touch on what PvP should be.

So Arenas while it is a nice mode did more harm then good.