*Sorry for bringing back up this old thread but I feel it's often better to use previous knowledge for context instead of creating a million new threads.* Anyway, my question is simple: if I receive a renown crate when my Gear Rating is 260, and I keep it aside and only open it when I am around 300, will I get 300+ rating content, or is it locked to the rating I had when I received the crate? Point of the question is that I am not in a hurry to open lots of crates now when I am still looting plenty of things from flashpoints, and I'd prefer to keep them for when I am closer to the cap to open a bunch all at once to get higher value per crate instead of the now useless 260 green stuff. Would it work?

BM has more Power AND Surge. 51 Surge that the WH one doesn't have. That's why I am reluctant. I can't see how you don't lose in damage by switching to the War Hero. Even the aim buff from talent tree and sin/inquis is not gonna make up for the missing 27 power. Let alone the Surge trade off for Accuracy.

I am sitting at 1290 expertise without the War Hero generator. I cannot convince myself that giving up 27 power to get 37 tech power and 5 aim is going to be a good idea. Our spike damage, mostly the Railshot, is based on Power, not tech power, so the loss is significant. Can the expertise make up for it, when you are already as high as I am? Also, there's a hit on surge. My BATTLEMASTER Power Generator has surge, while the War Hero one doesn't, so it's 51 points lost in surge. For freakin Accuracy. Seriously? I mean, my question was not theoretical, it was actually very practical: are you actually using the War Hero one? I am under the impression the very good Powertechs/Vanguards are definitely skipping it and keeping the BM one, but I can't get a reasoned confirmation.

Seriously, no one? Are you all "keeping the secret"?

No one?

What do you put in there? War Hero or Battlemaster power generator? Seems to me that the War Hero hurts our dps, taking damage away from HiB. Opinions?

The real question is: War Hero or Battlemaster? Seems to me that the War Hero piece hurts our RS/HiB spike. What do you think?

After looking around for a while, I found this thread which pretty much answers all my questions. Thanks. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=427724

I've been looking around a lot, and I gotta say that I am very satisfied with my current situation. But sometimes i read around discording opinions from very efficient DPS PVP Vanguards, so what I gathered is that, ultimately, the ultra-fine min-maxing isn't that important provided that you have the best equip out there and you know what you are doing with a good team behind your back. STILL... I am curious. ** Please refrain from commenting if you are not in full War Hero gear. Your opinion is valued and respected but this is a ballpark you haven't stepped into yet so your theoretical comment is probably not going to add much. Needless to say you are FREE to comment as much as you want, just trying to give you perspective on why it's probably not so helpful <3 ** So, at full War Hero level, do you favor Aim or Power for your augments? I read a lot about stacking power in order to get bigger burst and higher crit numbers, but I don't really understand why that should be the case. Reading and doing some napkin math on my character page, turns out that 1 point of Aim provides me roughly 0.20 bonus damage (and some spare crit chance) whereas Power (and Tech Power) provide 0.23 bonus damage. Are those values hard values, same for every Vanguard across the board, or do they have diminishing Returns, o change and fluctuate based on other eolements I am not aware of? a) your personal opinions and experiments b) the official explanation on why Power should ever be preferred to aim, if it should. Is it for the 0.02 damage per point bonus over aim? c) Knowing if my calculations are completely off (aim = 0.20 bonus damage per point/ Power = 0.23 bonus damage per point), or if they have diminishing returns, hence providing different bonus based at different levels.

My server is the second most populated in Europe and we struggle to ha ve any WZ start in peak hours. My friends on some less populated servers say it NEVER start. It's not that Ranked Warzones are a joke. PvP is just not happening at the moment. With the official murder of Ilum and open PvP (removing the need to go there altogether) there is only Warzones, and not enough people is around to make them start. I know of so many players that just canceled becuase their nights are spent waiting for a WZ starting. This is Bioware's fault for not rushing crossserver queues or server merges. And definitely for killing open pvp. Me and my friends spend EVERY SINGLE NIGHT on Ilum, because we don't do PvP for gears, we do it for fun. And every single night, on the second most populated server (Niman, PvP), there is NO ONE except us. Enough said. This game needs crossserver queues, server mergers, and open pvp. But I think it's probably too late, how many pvpers will wait 3 or 4 months for a 1.3 patch?

/signed! Yes please, I've been asking this since day one, and I can't find a single reason why they didn't think of it before launch.

You clearly read the whole gear upgrade wrong. The PvP is becoming MORE skill based and LESS gear based. The difference between Recruit and BM is big but earning a full set of Battlemaster gear now is about 25 times faster than before. I mean it, it's about 25 times faster and easier. So in a few weeks everyone will be Battlemaster, and we'll finally be able to mind the PvP, not the gear grind. Seriously, do your research before posting. Or ask.

Yes, the good part is that everyone will reach the max level of PvP equip very quickly. The PvP playing field will be leveled in no time equip wise. So no reason to cry about equipment nerfs. What took 3 months to get before 1.2 will now took a week or so. The bad part is that the PvP players that love to have an equipment edge rather than a skill edge over their opponents are very unhappy about it, since newcomers will have their same equip and stats in no time (hence threatening their equipment-inflated win ratio). While I understand these unghappy players' reasoning, which is tied to their playstyle, I am surprised and quite surprised that Bioware took such a u-turn and decided to go for skill-driven PvP over Euip-driven PvP for their ranked/competitive portion of the game.

Correct. You can now hoard up to 2000 WZ commendations. Yes. This is official. Combat Dev Georg Zoeller stated that in a post. I disagree. Sure, it feels unfair that people we "worked" to put behind us in the evolutionary food chain are now so easily on par with us, but you didn't waste your time as you had about 3 months of fun in PvP while being at the top of said chain. Unless you play for the constant item dominance over other players, which you can still pursue in PvE, I think it's only fair that they level the field a bit and give everyone a fresh start to prove who is good at PvP from who just had more time to catass his/her way up to best equipment and perform better than their skill only due to more time invested/available. I am sure some here will disagree, but I personally prefer PvP to be about human skills and tactics than the time spent to get better items. Time should only give titles and looks, not power. See Guild Wars or any FPS, or Ultima Online, or DAoC. That's what PvP is.

Let's face it. PvP equip is going to be very easy to get, for EVERYONE. Including the top equip. This means this game is going towards a non-equip driven PvP. How is that bad? I like the Guild Wars approach. Give everyone the same tools and let them melt each other with skills, tactics, teamwork, and a bit of builds and minmaxing. That is PvP. Itemization over Players in PvP? Bad thing. So while it hurts for a moment to know that all the stuff I earned so hardly over the past three months is going to be pretty useless as in about 30 days (top) everyone will be wearing full WAr Hero gear, I think this is good for real PvPers and bad only for achievers with a PvE mindset. They can still play the "epic loot" game against AI. But PvP? Levele the field please and let Players, not items, rule the field.

It's not really a problem since BattleMaster gear now costs from 875 to 1400 Warzone comms A PIECE, which means it takes two days to get the whole set back (the five moddable pieces anyway), but yes if you put back the original mods they will upgrade to the new versions. Check the quoted Dev post about it in page 11 of this thread. 1.2 Battlemaster Set cost in WZ Commendations: Chest 1400 Legs 975 Head 1050 Gloves 875 Boots 875 Total 5175

What is going to happen to MERCENARY commendations? I have 1000 of them. Should I get rid of it? Any use? Any new use? Any old use?

Dev Georg Zoeller stated that it will update correctly. It doesn't matter if it is exactly the mod you removed from that item, it has to be the same kinf/type of mod, meaning same name and stats. Then it's ok, no matter where you got it from. If you look back a couple of days in the Dev Tracker you can find this, so yes as long as you restore your BM gear to look exactly as it did when you purchased it, it will update to the new version with all its installed mods. Here's the post: Same type. Georg "Observer" Zoeller Principal Lead Combat Designer Here's the link: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=3557924#edit3557924

PvP class? Care to elaborate? It's a terrible pvp class if you ask me.