So I just resubbed and jumped on the forums to look for one of the guides that are usually stickied around here about which mods/pieces to use for optimal bolstering. But apparently I can't find any by skimming through the first few pages and searching (or googling). I'm mainly interested in gearing up a deception sin and carnage mara, and because of my work schedule I don't plan to play for more than maybe 1-2 hours a week, so if there really aren't any guides out there, would anyone mind helping me out in answering a few concerns? Which color crystals work best for burst specs in pvp now that War Hero =/= expertise? Are a mix of crit/power augments still the way to go? Is buying/crafting gear worth it or can I pvp with my old 208's and still do fine? I read that the DvL is apparently bugged and bolstering with more stats than it should. Is that still a problem? How does the upgrading gear from 230 > 236 > 242 work, and where/how do you do it (if it's even worth doing at all)?

Exactly. It'll still be endgame gear (at best, it'll be 3 tiers), so I don't think it'll be much more different than the current regular vs. advanced pvp gear gap we have.

I don't remember them saying that gear or mods will have CXP requirements. Only that at higher CXP you have "a chance" of rolling for better gear than you would at lower CXP.

According to Eric, they will be moddable. So you can switch mods around or slap them on legacy gear if you want.

They like to give it to us slowly. Lube us up properly and give it to us little by little. It'll just hurt us and make us cry if they did it all in one go

1) No one is "forcing" players to do any kind of specific endgame content for gear. They literally spent development money to make a UI for all the endgame content that can be done for that; and regs is one of them. 2) Gearing (unless you're going the crafting non-set bonus route) is entirely RNG dependent. Even in the unlikely case that people start doing NiM ops as soon as they hit 70 to get gear faster, it doesn't mean they'll get every piece of gear they need. You could very well be doing just regs, or even heroics, and be lucky enough to get a full top tier set over someone unlucky enough to grind ranked 4's or NiM and get the same BoP chestpiece over and over 3) If experience and the smack that people talk here is anything to go by, no amount of gear difference is going to save hardcore pve'ers from people who know how to play objectives, know how to play against every class, or (god forbid) premades. 4) This is just speculation since I don't think they've revealed how much CXP exactly everything's worth, but I think they did mention that basically the more people in the content you're doing, the more CXP you'll be awarded. And regs are basically groups of 16 people, so I can't imagine they'll be worth that much less than, say HM FPs or Uprisings 5) Warzone commendations are used to buy endgame pvp gear. I don't think they'll be converted to credits, and more like maybe tokens that grant a certain amount of CXP. What they did mention is that the mod vendors that sell leveling gear will use credits as currency, not endgame gear. That said, I wouldn't put it past BW to do something as lame as comms-to-credits. 6) If bolster is still a thing pre-70, there's no reason to be worrying about an item level difference from the get-go since you'll just be bolstered to 70 if you have all slots equipped anyway.

What bothers me the most is that (as far as I've seen), sins/shadows don't get a replacement for that loss. It's like they thought they were overperforming and somehow needed to lose an ability to be on par with the rest of the classes. I seriously hope I'm proven wrong when the changes come to light.

Icy, have you done any testing with the Victorious Pioneer armor set during matches? I'm interested to know if it's worth using for leveling solely through pvp or if it has problems with bolster and empty mod slots (or lack of enhancement slots) and whatnot.

/signed, for whatever good it'll do

Do they, really?

I'm all for coordinated strategies like these if they can be pulled off effectively and everything. But didn't the devs place a barricade on the south side ledge to prevent Warriors from leaping into opponents and avoid precisely this?

I got the impression that 3.3 would have a new season/pre-season with it, so the change in pvp gear tier would make it pointless to struggle getting soon-to-be obsolete Exhumed gear right now.

Damn... I didn't even know ping like that was considered terrible. I usually play warzones with a ping of 200-400, and it's ok for the most part since I've gotten used to it. Anything higher than that and I start to notice heavy delays on my GCDs. Now I feel like I'd be so much better if I used one of these services.

Clearly I must be doing something wrong with my Jugg if I'm not winning any more duels or matches than I do with my Sent if so many people think it's this good. I just don't see it.

Are you insinuating that the BW devs actually read this forum?

Is no news good news?

I agree with everything except the buyable NPCs. Putting that on a PvP-specific planet would take the focus off the PvP aspect of it, I think. Also, the low framerate when there's lots of players on screen seems like it would still be an issue if the game is running on the same engine, no?

As an average Sorc player, I can tell you this is pretty much how I'm forced to play. I still get roflstomped by melee classes in the end though.

In case you were curious, stealth, phase walk, and the invincibility buffs mentioned that make you reset the ball when used also reset orbs if you're carrying one in Ancient Hypergate.

Old PvP gear is removed because it's obsolete. It gets full expertise, but doesn't get bolstered, so you essentially have less stats. If you don't have the expansion, you can use the gear you get from running Oricon and the weapons from the Makeb comms vendor, which do get bolstered (I believe to full 2018, maybe slightly less) and have better stats than the level 50 or 55 PvP gear. See this thread for more details.

If they lowered the respawn time and maybe increased spawn locations of the chests on Outlaw's Den, maybe we could have a permanent FFA area for everyday PvP madness that's worth visiting. But, y'know... the devs only care about the Cartel Market and "unfair" slot machines to do anything about it.

It is, in fact, the first circle of PvP Hell

Personally, I don't leave when I see this happen, though I don't blame people for leaving. I simply brace myself for the inevitable loss, and assume that the opposing team has a premade to make the game go by faster. Though sometimes you'd be surprised. We won an arena the other day with 2 of the others with me having 1000-1300 expertise, and I don't consider myself good enough to carry for half the team (though maybe the opposing team was just that terribad).

Do you get expertise bolstered in Outlaw's Den? If not, the only ways to demonstrate that would be to ask someone in a wz wearing all PVE on the other team to agree to side-deathmatching to demonstrate the point (which would be hard to have both teams agree to) or duel in the fleet near the bolsterizer (which you can't do unless they changed dueling rules on-fleet)

What're you talking about? We have <AGGRESION> on imp side