Thanks all for the replies! Let's see how the next expansion plays.

I'm on 'Ebon Hawk' now, the pop's for WZ are fast for PVP but I can't abide walking in the Open World, seeing the opposite faction and not being able to fight. Which of the PVP servers has the better population at the moment?

ObamaCare!

That's a good question and one I'd like to understand as well. I'm running around 27K health in my Partisan with 2 Overkill 28 Augs. I'm thinking Conq may be the how of having over 30K health?

I very rarely remember a name from a match. Ivy fighting with and against has stood out as an Operative. Wouldn't say I fear her, but as someone else said, if she's in the opposing team, one needs to pay more attention.

I'll do an SS later this evening. It should be easy to replicate. Wear PVE gear in the L50 region and have 'zero-expertise'. I recall the Dev's said not to mix / match PVE / PVP gear; and this still seems to be true. I'm sure other PVE'rs are finding the same thing 2018 Expertise. My health is probably around 24K, though remember I'm nowhere near geared. I upgraded to a 25 purple barrel, it added about 96 pts of damage and didn't effect my 2018. Here's the advantage for capped out PVE, is you can focus on other stats, primaries and secondaries. I don't know how my damage compares to others (L52 and undergeared but bolstered), FWIW: Primary Damage: 944-1398 Expertise: 2018 PVP Boost: 60% PVP Damage Reduc: 37.5% PVP Healing: 20.83% These are my stats using two expertise +41 barrels as my only experrtise Damage: 978-1302 Expertise: 1718 PVP Boost: 51.08% PVP Damage Reduc: 33.81% PVP Healing: 17.35% It's a big difference. Maybe with full PVP gear it'll improve but the main stats and secondaries would have to exceed PVE gear, if I stay capped at 2018?

I have L50 PVE gear. I put two expertise barrels +41 (or thereabouts) into my blasters. Using these my EXP went to 1890. I swapped these out for two blasters with a damage of about 170-240, low level guns. My EXP went to the cap of 2018. Why would I bother with conq' gear when I can hit 2018 EXP with PVE gear (and zero-expertise capping me?). My kit it's all orange with commendation mods, and blues only. I'd rather stack nice PVE attributes on top of my 2018 expertise.

Seeing as you've got HS in the rotation, you've got a bunch of other skills as well -- I can power surge two tracers instantly, so I'm on the move. Then I can instant HSM. Rail shot. I'm still gap closing so there's no issue with runnes. I can rocket-punch and root. Then use a channeled like unload or flamethrower. Pop a barrier shield. Then tracer (vent) and repeat. At L21 life is different though, but it still leads with Tracer for Unload / Rail Shot.

I'm leveling a PT at the moment, and I have a 50 Merc. Merc As Turret This is much less true now, with Power Surge, on the heel I can fire off two tracers instantly, which gives me a rail shot and a heatseeker, all instant. By this time, I can be on top of my enemy, rocket-punch, instant, and then stun and issue a channeled flamethrower or unload. Merc As Heal Tank I heal tank a lot in WZs. I can drop a shield, a kolto missile, then power surge two rapid heals, drop another kolto, a warzone stim, and by this time my enemy has used all their heavy offensives, and I can begin my rotation (and my heals will already becoming back off cool-down). Throwing in a vent heat gives me another lease on life and a nice alacrity boost. I can heal-tank a lot of pain, several people for a good 10-15 seconds and jet boost some space if I need it. PowerTech My PT is only 24, so there's not much for me to go on personally. I can guard (and will be able to taunt). Guarding gets me some medals in a WZ... I can grapple someone in close, and then I can use a flamethrower or rocket-punch. Not a lot of options. In terms of absorbing damage, I can't take anywhere near what my Merc can via heal-tanking (even at low levels, I had rapid heal, shield and kolto missle). In terms of value over my Merc's Healing or my PT's guard, the Merc I can switch from offensive to heals, reinforce a Sorc's Health and then get back into the melee. I don't see a lot of difference here between a healer reinforcing a tank, and my switching from offensive to healer to support the core-healer. PT has some fun skills, it might get more useful later on, but the Merc is so durable and versatile compared.

In the 30-54 bracket, I fought the same DPS Operative across 4/5 warzones I played today -- I was consistently decimated in each encounter; it's stun and then 'whap / whap / whap' -- followed by dead. Incredible burst. This isn't a call for a nerf, more for suggestions as to how to counter a DPS Op. Is it a case of surviving that first wave of burst? In most fights, I can throw down a Kolto, fire off all my instants and in close quarters rocket-punch, flame thrower. None of these burst as such but they're good steady damage, against a high-burst melee DPS Op, whatever I throw back won't mitigate how fast I burn down. If anyone's got any strategies -- please share. Reviewing an encounter like this, it's a good way to improve.

One of the things, as a PVP server, the world-design seems to lack is 'friction'. I was doing some quests on Nar Sheddar, it's easy to get tunnel vision doing quests, and miss how stunning the world design is. I was in the Casino area (contested territory) and it would make such a great area for PVP. Nar Sheddar as a whole, lots of objects, great environment, multiple city layers. There's an 'odd-lack' of skirmishes, that is smaller groups of opposing faction players, rather than mass oPVP -- skirmishes are more viable given the limitations of the engine. If that's the objective of your 'occupy Alderaan', I can understand that, build some friction, wait for more enemy faction to be called in (as opposed to a lowbie gank-fest) and kick off a fight.

Agreed. I stack my queues and sometimes forget to grab a fresh batch of WZ stims -- it's not a deal breaker but would be a nice convenience. WZ bans don't work as the other poster said -- zoning in and booting before the load-screen clears happens too often.

Thanks Kyanite!

One of my purple-off hand generators allows me to 'mod' that is remove the purple items from it, whereas crafted purples don't appear to (so far in my testing). Is it only 'looted' that can do this? Or is there another 'force' at work? Cheers for any light-shed?

Checked the Developer Tracker on that one, apparently as of Patch 2.0.1: "That's what she said"

I'm'a go with: 'teamwork' rather than 'healers'. Bad teamwork will lose a battle every time.

True. Other than augment slots and augments nowadays. Though I've kept a lot of my alts on a slow-grind to 50 (nee-55) during which pre-bolster, they had a use.

Alacrity being useful isn't bad; it's good actually -- a Merc is a turret / caster. More the point that the game mechanics have been so overtly complicated, I became snow-blind by the debated metrics. I probably will sit down with an XL sheet; as one has to weight many values now -- pending on how bolster effects attributes, i.e how much my gear effects secondary stats in a PVP setting when I'm bolstered.

Yeah. You are probably correct there, crafting's only role is 'orange schematics' for particular looks, in order for Cartel to have revenue channels, the high-demand goods (must-haves) so it doesn't become pay-to-win, have to be only accessible there. Realistically, they should remove 'crafting' from SWTOR -- although it's a play-style I personally derive satisfaction from, it doesn't fit in the SWTOR schema whatsoever; again because there's no integration between play-styles. If there was, i.e high-value schematics equal to new Makeeb gear, that gear would be available to people who haven't purchased Makeeb via credits; technically the later shouldn't be an issue but we've moved to a hybrid micro-transaction / subscription.

That is actually very helpful & thanks!

I get that. Really I do. 30-49 WZs I've been having a riot of my time. Partly because my Mercenary is playable again, and no longer ornamental. It feels skill orientated. It's much better. The 55 and beyond is where I am being thrown. It's more the massive amount of data that hasn't been compiled and an unknown end-game, with a lot of changes happening frequently (which are probably for the better). So we have new end-game content which in a lot of senses, no one really knows the implications thereof, and in the sea of half-baked data, I'm going snow-blind from analysis mixed with hyperbole. I may be one of the few, but I quite like crafting and the whole process of crafting for PVP now, seems senseless pre-55 and post-55 doesn't exist, as new gear can't be crafted. My last post, about models, is kind of it -- I can't see an underlying model here that binds the world and therefore the community; it's all band-aids at this point. If there's a model, then there's clarity to gane-play direction, and player-rewards (be it items, achievements or satisfaction).

I'm being nostalgic but you know they had a logical premise underneath SWG. Crafting and the Resource System. It determined the values of everything and it had scarcity (decay and resource shifts). That logic could be applied to everything, houses, clothes, space-craft and even food. SWG's character progression system also the same; a solid logical footing. It's glaring issues in retrospect weren't that major. The reason it failed I believe was because the economy wasn't established, that is early players weren't balanced against mobs, with a CDEF pistol and no resources in the market, and no high-level crafters who provide all the goods, a couple of womp rats would destroy a character, for new players starting out, this probably drove them away before the world established. SWTOR lacks a consistent paradigm; it's a single-player RPG that's been given an MMO Lobby (fleet) -- with XBOX scale grouping available 8-16 people and a chat system... SWTOR is trying to deal with 2 different play-styles, PVE and PVP, without giving the players a unified game. Hmmm...

I have all crafting classes across several alts, I like crafting (being a second class citizen in MMOs aside). With bolster, I'm trying to understand, does crafting have a role, if underpowered items get elevated? The satisfaction of grinding out purples was something I really enjoyed but it's probably having a negative impact on my characters in terms of performance and their fiscal well being... Am I missing something?

Reading the PVP Forums I am completely lost: 1) Level 55 PVP is awesome / Level 55 PVP is not awesome 2) PVE gear is better than PVP gear (Underworld) 3) Underworld > Conquerer > Partisan 4) Green mods in oranges will give the best bolster (what's the point of crafting purple's? Is crafting even relevant?) 5) Don't mix mods with expertise and mods without expertise because it'll reduce Bolster 6) TTK is too fast / TTK is too slow 7) Crit and Surge are nerfed.. 8) Alacrity has been buffed... 9) We need PVP specific gear with Expertise / We don't need PVP gear with Expertise Do I even want to play 55 WZs or grind all my alts to 54. I've got a headahce trying to understand all this... . Simplify this... I shouldn't need an XL Sheet and an intern from MIT to plan my gear! PVE Content / PVP Content & Crafting Content, Equalise it. Crafters are subject to market forces, scarcity of resources which translates into credit cost, which is based on generating income via WZs or PVE. People PVP hard in SWTOR so why should any game format be more valid over the other. :: Boots up SWGEMU ::

Join a guild. Queue as group. Sorted.