I've been away from the game for awhile and I'm currently wearing my old 55 gear with expertise in warzones. I'm curious if it's better to use gear with no expertise as I recall the bolster system used to get a bit wonky if some pieces have expertise and some do not. I'm starting to pick up higher level gear with better stats but I'm not sure if it's okay to mix/match or if I need to find a full set with no expertise. I know it's only lowbie but I'm trying to gauge my performance comparatively and just want to make sure I'm not gimping myself with poor gearing. TIA

I’m looking for allies on the Republic side that are interested in grouping for ranked WZ’s. I know that there are a good amount of skilled players out there that may be in a smaller guild and have a hard time fielding enough players (or putting together the right composition) to play ranked matches. I also know that there are some players in some of the more well known guilds who may not be playing on their 2 ranked teams but would like to play in some ranked matches. I would like to find & create a group of friends/allies/mercenaries/pals/whatever so that there can be a pool of players that are familiar with each other to run ranked matches without necessarily running some big recruiting campaign for a new guild. A lot of people are happy in their smaller guilds and I can relate to that. This is not an attempt to absorb a smaller guild or poach players from larger guilds. This is merely an attempt to find quality, like-minded players who are interested in playing ranked matches (or even unranked) with some new people. I feel that this would also give some folks an opportunity to pool their knowledge and maybe expand their understanding of how to play the game. I don’t claim to know everything about all the classes and certainly won’t claim to be the most leet skillz playa on the server. However, I’m a player who understands how to play objectively and can play my class well. I’m up for discussions regarding strategy, gear, rotation or just BS’ing in chat. If you would be interested in grouping up for some ranked and/or unranked WZ’s, then please feel free to post here with your name/class/role or contact me via PM or in game. Shatterstarr-x Sentinel - DPS

I'm gonna have to disagree on this one. People using the crafted PvE 54 gear are getting bolstered to the point where you can see an increase in bonus damage of roughly 20 to 25% above min/max PvP gear while only losing a few points of expertise. That's a pretty huge gear gap as far as I'm concerned. Obviously, this bug is known and has been discussed at great lengths. It's disappointing to see that nothing has been done to either fix it or clarify that this is "as intended" so that we can all use the exploit without having to feel like cheaters. Bottom line is: PvP gear should not be as good for doing PvE as PvE gear; PvE gear should not be as good (or better) than PvP gear for doing PvP. Right now bolster is failing miserably in the 55 bracket and I'm starting to hear people talking about quitting the game that I never thought were even close to quitting.

winner !

^^This Ranked is dead right now because bolster is so jacked up that you've got guilds running around in crafted purples increasing their stats by sizeable percentages while tacking almost no hit to expertise. It's creating an even larger gear gap than what already existed and people just don't want to deal with it. If bolster was removed from ranked it would at least establish an understandable baseline for gearing and more people would be interested in doing ranked matches. As it is, bolster seems to have mostly killed ranked matches (servers may vary) and there's no end to it in the foreseeable future. Top guilds have even publicly stated that they're exploiting the broken bolster system because they see no reason to "gimp" themselves by using PvP gear when the system is broken. In the end, the answer to the question seems really obvious.

PT/VG can still put up good numbers in WZ's, but anyone who claims that their class is as effective now as it was pre 2.0 is just posting BS to make themselves feel better. A good PT/VG in an unranked match against average/baddies can still do quite well. However, put that same player in a ranked setting (against quality opponents) and the effectiveness drops considerably. Perhaps that shouldn't be the measuring stick for the quality of a class, but if you want to do ranked then you're going to want to gear the character(s) that you're going to take in to ranked matches. PT/VG are still fun to play, but you don't see them as much because a lot of people are gearing for ranked and at this point a DPS PT/VG would be a liability in a ranked match unless your team simply doesn't have enough players. When stating this, I'm basically asking...would you rather have an equally geared/skilled DPS sniper/GS or PT/VG on your ranked team? Yup, that's what I thought

I'm gonna go with the fact that bolster isn't "fixed". They merely fixed a glitch that was painfully obvious for a few weeks and that many people were using to exploit. Even with full partisan/conqueror your stats change when you load in to a warzone. Also, mixing in some PVE gear will give superior stats. But on the flip side, you probably gave some dev a real confidence boost when he read the title of your thread and said "HA!, they think it's fixed! Now let's get back to making more stuff for the Hello Kitty dress-up simulator".

Waitaminute...hold on hold on hold on....I got confused at the part where Churb claimed to have a girlfriend When you say "girlfriend", are you talking about your mom? Cause that totally doesn't count...neither does your hand...or that girl you once chatted with from facebook. I always love reading Churb posts because I imagine a pale chubby teenager sitting in his mom's darkened basement, furiously typing away his rants while his mommy is upstairs making him his sammiches for the day. Keep on posting bro so that I can always keep that image in my head And I hope you were expecially nice to your mommy for mother's day.

I'm not sure how any one could question the way the game has turned in to a cash grab for EA. Just read the patch notes for 2.1 and tell me how many items deal with in-game issues and how many items deal with the cartel market. I will applaud EA for not making the cash store a pay to win scenario. However, it seems that they quickly realized that it's more profitable to provide a bunch of new outfits to play dress-up than it is to provide a functioning game. That's not tin foil hat talk, that's just looking at the bottom line. As long as people stay subbed and continue to buy cartel crap, they'll continue to focus the majority of their energy on making cartel crap. It's called capitalism, maybe captain conspiracy can look in to it some time.

I will gladly take this in 2.1a thank you very much....

I'm not sure if this comment is in regards to 2.1 or if you're just noticing the changes from 2.0. Assault tree got nerfed in 2.0 which I think is most likely what you're noticing. Plasma cell get nerfed, assault plastique got nerfed and HIB got nerfed with reduced armor penetration. The changes are quite noticeable. Basically, post 2.0, switch to gunnery.

Of course it was valid in PvP before the nerf, what joker would think or imply otherwise? The vanguard nerf would be the equivalent of taking a smasher, cutting his smash damage in half while making it single target damage. They would disappear from the game...period. Sorta like vanguards. The thread title and tone is almost an exact copy of the commando/merc thread that has been around for months. I don't understand people's logic that because a class has been effective that it needs to be nerfed. Anyone having trouble defeating a "2 button" vanguard needs to learn to play the game. The class worked fine as it was. It had high potential but could be easily shut down due to lousy defensive CD's. The range got nerfed (rightly so imo) and it was performing well. Now it's just a lame mellee dot class with a little utility. I think I'd rather have a watchman sentinel than a vanguard at this point. It's not QQ, it's just the truth. I even stated this previously, the trooper level 5 sticky grenade does higher burst damage than the top skill of the assault tree. Please think about that long and hard before posting anything else regarding VG's and PT's. And just for the record, any vanguard worth anything would have been using hammer shot, ion pulse, HIB, sticky grenade, assault plastique, single target taunt, area taunt, incendiary round (situational), cryo grenade, AOE stun, harpoon, mortar volley, stockstrike, hold the line, shoulder turret (new ability), reload, reserve cell, adrenaline rush, reactive shield, stealth scan, explosive surge (occasionally), interrupt and probably a few other abilities that I can't recall off the top of my head as I'm not in front of my UI. So, let's just get over the whole "2 button" BS, I know some players like that and their numbers are crap and they are basically free kills so you should be sad that they are no longer playing their "easy mode" class.

Burst is king in PvP and that's what got taken from the VG/PT. Sticky grenade hits as hard as the top tier talent for pyro/assault now. The DOT on the back end of AP is like tickling it's so weak. So, let me just go ahead and say that again....a level 5 ability that every trooper gets hits as hard as the top tier talent in a skill tree. The top tier talents should be desirable, this one is just a turd that isn't even worth looking at. I don't know what they were thinking. Sure, you could still put up some nice fluff numbers in a WZ, but a 6K railshot crit feels pretty weak compared to a 9.5K smash hitting with a 100% crit chance that also happens to be an AOE. Right now VG's are rolling with 3 fresh damage nerfs (4 if you consider the fact that the ion pulse crit in the assault tree is broken), with only a 10m shoulder rocket launcher added to balance it out. VG/PT have pretty lousy defensive cool downs so anyone having huge problems with them just didn't understand how the class worked. Right now VG/PT simply aren't viable for high end PvP. Overall, however, I think that BW did a good job of bringing some forgotten classes back in to the game. Right now, with the exception of both the trooper/BH AC's, I think that there is at least one tree for every AC that could fit in to a ranked WZ. The bottom line is that you pretty much have to have at least 2 (or more) classes if you want to PvP because eventually you're going to get smacked by the nerf bat or watch the other classes get buffed to the stratosphere.

Just do like Churb and put low level greens in your ear and implants.

Point taken, and quite right at that. Well said by the OP, my bolster QQ should have been more direct in regards to time spent on the things that need fixing. I thought PvP was quite fun at the end of 1.7 and was excited to see some new abilities implemented. It now feels like a step back due to some imbalance and the aforementioned gear/bolster issues. I'm afraid there's so much to fix now that it may be a long time until anything new is brought to the PvP world. But on the plus side...you can finally change your hairstyle

Read past the first 2 lines. BTW, I've never played World of Warcraft so I have no idea what you're talking about. The "gear treadmill" was driven by the expansion and the decision of the developers. Since PvP gear is not intended to be used in PvE, they could have left the PvP gear "as-is" with no bolster. I'm not asking for a gear grind, but if they're going to make new PvP gear and then steal the expertise off my old PvP gear, then it better be for a good reason. I was honestly happier with the naked PvP, at least you knew where you stood and didn't have to try to figure out what kind of crazy **** is going to happen when the guy on the other team starts switching out enhancements and augments. BTW, I have 6 toons and it's really not that hard to put gear on them. Don't presume to call me out and then end your post with some "learn to play" BS. First, learn to read, then learn to comprehend.

/signed Paying customers have become beta testers for a development team that's too small to fix anything in a reasonable amount of time. I can understand some bugs at launch, but this has turned in to a joke. Put bolster back on the PTS and give the beta testers some incentive to spend their time there.

^^^This I felt that was short enough to quote

First of all, you really need to get over the "you're a baddie....ignorance must be bliss" not-so-passive-aggressive (though quite amusing) crap that you're spewing. You do realize that you're playing a MMORPG and not a pew pew shooter, right? Though, I'm sure you do more than your fair share of playing pew pew kid in the WZ's. Gear is one of the biggest driving forces for many of the people that play MMO's. If you'll read my very first post over again, you'll see that I said I would be okay with bolster if...IF... it worked the way that it was intended. However, I'm not willing to pay/play a broken game for who knows how long it will take for them to fix the bolster system. The PvP development team is clearly a small one, and they seem to be spending a very large part of their time on a bolstering system that for the most part is neither wanted or needed. The only problem with the previous system is that the recruit gear just needed to be reworked to reduce the gap. The bolster system makes gearing feel obsolete and people lose interest. Look no further than the hundreds of other posts on the board to see how most people feel about bolster. Some guy just posted a small novel on how to min/max with the bolster system. Please tell me, how is that healthy for the PvP community? Every time you go in to a WZ your stats get skewed the way BW thinks they should be. All people have to do is figure out the equations they are using and game the system for better stats. The bottom line is that bolster is broken and it would appear that there's no timeline for when it will be fixed. I'll take gear...even put me in recruit for all I care...over a system that's so broken. As a matter of fact, I think playing in recruit gear was a good thing because I had to squeeze as much potential out of my classes as possible. In the end, it made me a much better player, a not-so gear reliant player. A player that still topped the charts and played a vital role in winning WZ's even in recruit gear. So, there it is....pew pew....pew

You don't get it. The fact that PvP gear even still exists means that people are still going to cry foul over the "humongous gear gap". Why not just give everyone a free set of something called...oh i dunno...let's just call it "recruit" gear for fun and make it 90% of partisan? Then you remove the equations/bugs/manipulations of the bolster system. The only....and I mean ONLY...benefit of having a bolster system is not having to augment 2 sets of gear. If people want to cry that hard over augments then build an augment slot in to the new recruit gear. If people can't be bothered to buy or craft some augments, then you have to wonder why even have gear at all. As soon as people hit 55, just "bolster" them all to exactly the same and let's all have a big group hug.

Why bother even having separate sets of gear for PvP and PvE at this point? Why are PvE'rs getting their gear bolstered so they can play PvP "equally" and yet PvP'rs are not getting bolstered so that they can do PvE "equally"? This game seems to be clearly PvE-centric because the PvE'rs are getting to have their cake and eat it too. I find this mind boggling as PvE consists mainly of watching youtube video, do what they did on youtube video, collect phat loots. Tired of that? No problem, just jump in to some PvP and we'll make sure that your gear works there too.

The lolbolster was the final slap in the face for me. It should not even exist in 55 WZ's and yet they went 2 weeks without patching the painfully obvious bugs that a lot of people were using. If casual 55's want to PvP and not have to worry about gear, then they should make a separate queue for bolstered PvP so the care bears can run around naked face-tanking each other. These WZ's would provide no commendations since the people playing them don't want PvP gear. This would really solve multiple problems by separating the casuals from the "hardcore" PvP'ers which should (in theory) make both sets of WZ's more competitive. Then, the casuals would have nothing to complain about because there is no "giant gear gap" causing them to lose all the time. Bring back recruit gear for those that want to play unbolstered and get started with gear, problem solved. As it is, I'm out until bolster is gone or fixed to the point that it works properly (so maybe I'll check back in about 6 months).

I don't PvE with my vanguard and (no offense) I get the feeling that you probably don't do ranked PvP. Unranked WZ's?? Pick a tree or hybrid and you'll put up "good" numbers. High level PvP requires a lot more than that and right now Vanguard just doesn't have it. By my count we're sitting on 4 damage reductions after 2.0. Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken by one of these items: 1. Plasma cell damage reduction which reduces damage across the board. 2. AP got turned in to a dot which killed the burst and isn't even worth having any more. 3. HIB armor penetration got reduced so HIB hits for less while most other classes are hitting harder. 4. Ion Pulse crit damage is apparently just broken. (assault class talent) I have personally run 8 different variants for builds trying to find something that will work for a ranked team. The results are to forget about DPS and run as a tank in case your team happens to be missing their guardian that night. The pendulum has swung and anyone with a VG/PT is left with the boobie prize of 2.0. Thanks for playin'

Kind of a big deal..../sigh Are we sure they didn't just "adjust" our damage and forget to put it in the description. This is getting ridiculous

Sorry, I should have been more clear. Main stat = aim, so main and then power. The other great part about stacking aim is that you should have the 9% increase from steely resolve. Until a DR number is determined I believe this is the way to go.