It's not 2%-3%, with the correct 54 gear setup (mix of 54 and conq), it's FAR superior to even max/min conqueror. Which is why I agree with the removal of bolster in 55. Half a year and it's still broken, that indicates it cannot be fixed.

Agreed. Please remove.

I absolutely destroy everything with the correct setup of 54 gear (mix of conq and 54), which is why I'm complaining, it shouldn't be that way at all. I'm top of the charts every single match, even in Ranked. And I do have max/min conq to compare. Terribad would be those who don't know the setup and/or those that don't want the exploit to get fixed.

So the practically free 54 PvE crafted gear remains superior to PvP end game gear that you actually have to work for… No free stuff that you don't have to work for should be superior to Partisan, yet it's superior to even Conqueror... All thanks to the Bolster abomination that has been broken and has failed miserably for almost half a year now. I absolutely destroy everything with the correct setup of 54 gear (mix of conq and 54), which is why I'm complaining, it shouldn't be that way at all. I'm top of the charts every single match, even in Ranked. And I do have max/min conq to compare. On the other hand, out of 9 warzones I played today, 6 of them had only 7 players for the entire match. This has been going on all week... Where do you guys see this game going? Because I'm beginning to lose all hope...

I don't use it myself but I have seen it on the damage chart. Will take it when I see it again. By the way, those screenshots in this thread don't even show full 54 purples.

That significant power boost is the difference between a 10k smash and 15k smash every 12 seconds.

You don't lose expertise, you get 2008 vs 2014 and gain insane amounts of damage.

3 months and still no fix... Drop your subscriptions right now, there is absolutely no point in grinding 200 hours of PvP to get BiS Conqueror since you get far superior and much better stats with free 54 crafted purples.

Trust me, it's been reported in detail. There is a 30 page thread in the PvP section with elaborate detail and images. Devs replied to it yestarday saying they're just aware and will escalate it (even though it has been going on for 2 months with complaints for 2 months).

You both have a point. But more importantly, it is a fact and everyone knows (including the Devs) that bolster is terribly messed up and needs an emergency patch ASAP.

I'm shocked that BioWare has not released an emergency patch to fix this issue immediately. It's a huge joke. Bolster should be a natural progression and be based on player level, not tier of gear.

Not only that, but crafted gear + the flawed bolster giving you almost full expertise is better than Conqueror. So don't bother with the PvP grind. Just drop the subscription and play casually for fun with free no effort crafted gear until they fix/remove bolster like everyone else is doing.

Agreed.

Overall it's BiS, not only for the damage. It also gives you enough crit so that you can use more main skill augments for the bonus damages instead of crit ones. Dark Radiance and Elemental Trascendence do only 202 damage and like 450 when crit (with only 25% chance) every 4.5 seconds because it's just tooltip damage not influenced by your bonus damage unlike the rest of your abilities. It's better to have the roughly 50 extra bonus damage permanently that Matrix Cube gives you room for.

I wonder what would happen if you could craft level 72 PvE gear with free mats. Would people still PvE that much? Same goes for PvP and that's how it currently stands. It's fun, but there's just no point in doing it more than 1-2 times per week casually without subscription now. Why do 200 hours worth of grind now? Might as well save myself some money and just play for the fun of it casually.

So what do you guys think about this: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=646646 We might as well stop doing the PvP grind altogether, right? Might as well stop playing the game if you only PvP?

You really don't know what you're talking about. What if I told you can have 95% expertise bonus and much better stats than conqueror without wearing any expertise whatsoever? It's an exploit in the flawed bolster system that needs to be fixed immediately. Those people never did any end game grind whatsoever and they get a higher advantage than the people that worked their *** off to get full conqueror.

Several games and the reason you don't know about them is because people leave as soon there is no reason nor benefit to do the exact same thing over and over again. Doing that would cost SWTOR a lot of money and subscribers. It's a very ideal dream and utopia, just like communism. But as soon as it gets applied to reality it simply doesn't work and everything goes down the drain. Grinding for tangible benefits (not cosmetic) is the most necessary of evils. Similar to grinding for money and success in the real world.

The whole point of the OP is for them to fix the incorrect bolstering that is being exploited. Similar tier BIS end game gear is not that big of problem, but still slightly unfair. Simply because PvErs did not go through the more extensive PvP grind to get that similar or slightly higher advantage. With that being said, some basic maths now. Full conqueror requires 28,600 Ranked Warzone Commendations. Take out 100 x 7 days of the dailies and 400 from the weekly, you have 1,000 RWZ. Add 200 regular commendations per day from dailies, that's 1,400 regular warzone commendations which translate to roughly 500 ranked warzone commendations (more like 480, but let's round up to be generous). Only 27,100 to go. Considering each Warzone is on average 10 minutes and provides 150 regular warzone commendations if you win and 80 if you lose, let's average to 100 (I'm being even more generous now, because a 1:1 win/lose ratio is never the case, much less for newer players). Now you just need 81,300 regular warzone commendations to get full conqueror within one week. DIvided by 100 per warzone, 810 warzone. 8,130 minutes. 136 hours. Meaning you would need to play 19 hours on average every single day of the week. You can pull it off in 2 weeks playing 8 hours per day of nothing but warzones with one character or help with the weeklies and dailies of your alts. I have yet to meet anyone who has achieved that in even 2 weeks. The average player does not run 8 hours of 55 warzones per day, but can run 2-4 per day and get full PvE gear a lot faster. This is without considering BiS Conq, which goes well beyond these numbers.

They just need to cap the bolster to 1,000 expertise or something along those lines. At this point you don't even need to grind to have decent stats and free expertise. So why do PvP grind? Why do PvP "elder game"? Why play? They're just spitting on he hard work of others.

It's not new, I don't use it, and BioWare is well aware of it.

You cannot get full conqueror in a week, this just shows how you don't PvP much. The human body simply doesn't have that capacity, much less with real live involved. Not to mention new players will have a lot tougher time winning those weeklies and dailies also to get more ranked commendations. I'm not saying the Super Mario grind is fast, but it's definitely far easier and faster than the PvP grind. Anyway, that's besides the point. This is not about UW gear nor the tier below that, nor the tier that will come after. Those provide a slightly higher advantage to PvP gear (which they shouldn't anyway because you didn't PvP to get that advantage). It's about an exploit that takes advantage of the flawed bolster system.

The exploit has nothing to do with UW gear, not even the tier below.

Agreed 100% on everything except your last point. That would make it so that you have to PvE in order to PvP at maximum gear capacity. Some people don't want to go through the Super Mario grind. Personally, I rather do the more extensive and long PvP grind than the Super Mario grind.

There is a way of getting close to the expertise cap (around 80%) and still retain the amazing stats of PvE gear. But like I said in my OP, I'm not going to disclose how to do that. BioWare however is already well aware of that fact.