Warzones are a joke. There is no matchmaking and the queue is populated by players with a limited grasp of the game. It's not about looking down on anybody: it's about acknowledging reality. Group ranked players are, by far, objectively more skilled than the average regstar—and I consider myself a decidedly average regstar.

Everyone thinks they're an expert, sadly. If I want a medical opinion, I'll see a doctor. If my car breaks down, I'll call a mechanic. If I want an informed opinion on SWTOR PvP, I'll ask an experienced team ranked player like you or doc or Hottie—not a regstar.

Of course skilled players are in the minority: that's the case in every human endeavour. You may be familiar with the "bell curve" or normal distribution in statistics. As an example, look at how the distribution of skill ratings in Overwatch fits a bell curve: https://masteroverwatch.com/leaderboards/pc/us. This is typical of any competitive game. The majority of players in PvP lack mechanical skill, situational awareness and broader game knowledge. They typically understand their class/discipline superficially but little more. They don't know how to win a team fight, they don't know how to use their DCDs optimally, their target prioritisation sucks, their positioning sucks, their movement sucks, their decision-making sucks and their APM sucks. This is precisely why PvP should be balanced around the ranked arena format: these are the players who actually know what they're doing. Classes/disciplines don't exist in a vacuum; you have to consider them in the context of a team composition. In warzones, mistakes that would cost you a ranked arena match often go unpunished. The single biggest improvement to warzones would be the addition of matchmaking based on roles, something BioWare has long since developed the tools for (see group finder). It would improve the quality of warzone matches and gradually raise the skill floor of the PvP community.

No serious group ranked team would run without a tank. A DPS offtanking or a merc in its place would be fodder for competent opponents. We must be playing different games. You're talking about a 1 vs 2 situation. Without support or a means of escape, anyone jumped by two competent op/sin DPS will melt sooner rather than later. It's frustrating to see nonsense spread so insistently while accomplished players are ignored or outright dismissed.

No question about that. The thing about (most) RPGs is that, if you want to be competitive, you have to be willing to put in the hours. Beyond playing and practising (important), the best players spend a lot of time asking questions, being self-critical about their performance, reading widely, theorycrafting, testing, watching streams, etc. In the case of Wind Crystal relics, yes, they are nearly best in slot but they don't confer that much of an advantage over the 230–246 relics that most people will be using. My point is that, while I agree it's dumb from a design standpoint, it ultimately won't make a difference to most players. They will benefit much more from learning better positioning, how use their DCDs most effectively, how to maintain maximum uptime, etc. I'll take an undergeared but skilled and knowledgeable player over an average player with BiS gear any day of the week.

I've got gear and item modifications of mixed item rating on several of my characters and I haven't noticed anything obviously out of the ordinary. This isn't to say that there hasn't been craziness with Bolster in the past (there has). Nor am I ruling out the possibility that there is craziness with Bolster right now—but I have seen no evidence beyond the one instance you cited, which is most likely some kind of exploit. I'm happy to be proven wrong but hearsay isn't evidence. That was the whole point of this exercise: collating hard data. I appreciate what you're saying about the scope of our analysis and yes, I'd love to dig deeper in future. The fact remains, however, that most players will be wearing gear between 208 and 248 item rating, i.e., what we tested.

I'm not sure what you're trying to imply. I'd certainly like to know what's going on there too. However, as Hottie says, our attempts to replicate it effect have failed and—as far as I know—this is the only instance of it happening. If anyone has an explanation, I'm all ears.

I think Hottie's satisfactorily answered everyone's questions but I thought I'd jump in anyway. I realise people want a TL;DR and to know concretely which item modifications, etc., are best in slot. However, our motivation was simply to examine how Bolster adjusts stats across different item ratings, hence our experimental design. I don't want people to misinterpret our findings and would urge those who are confused to reread the article and take another look at the spreadsheets. If things weren't clear enough, I am sorry. To clarify, we specifically chose not to include augments in our testing. We list our controlled variables in the spreadsheets and in the article. They are as follows: no class buff no stim no utilities no augments +41 Critical Rating crystals in main hand and offhand all datacrons and companion bonuses. We tested the Sorcerer DPS and healing disciplines, equipping the default 230, 236, 242 and 248 Force-Mystic’s sets (the ratio of Critical Rating to Alacrity Rating remaining consistent between tiers) and a set comprising 208 item modifications (from the previous expansion). By controlling as many variables as possible in this way, we hoped to better identify/illustrate how Bolster works. In the article, we explain that this is why our test character in unaugmented 248 gear benefits from Bolster: Bolster seems to account for augments and sees that they are missing, despite the character's overall item level reading as 248 (on the character page). Yes, Bolster can lead to some strangeness. The level 10 Wind Crystal relics are a great example. Even in this instance, however, they perform only slightly better than 242 relics and slightly worse than 248 relics. In other words, Bolster is working more or less as intended. To the best of our knowledge, BiS is all 248 gear/item modifications and 236 augments... but that wasn't what we were investigating. I hope that clears everything up!

Hi, guys! I’ve had the privilege of working as Hottie’s editor on her updated and expanded guide to playing Medicine Operative in PvP, which has now been published: https://www.rambol.net/home/2017/12/18/medicine-operative-pvp-guide-by-hottie Hottie’s clocked up hundreds of hours healing in warzones and solo/team ranked and she’s passionate about sharing what she’s learned. The guide has been a labour of love and we’re both really proud of the result. It covers everything from gearing to ranked strategies so we hope it’ll be useful to new players and veterans alike. The author’s top priority is putting out accurate, well-researched information. If I’ve done my job as an editor, there shouldn’t be (m)any errors but in a document of this size, it’s hard to catch everything. If you have any comments, corrections or suggestions, Hottie and I will be monitoring this thread and the guide’s comments section. You can also contact Hottie on Twitter.

Alacrity doesn't compensate for or affect your ping; you're misunderstanding its mechanics. If Alacrity somehow affected your ping, you'd be a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize in Physics.

If you'll excuse the plug, Hottie wrote a short article detailing the changes and her impression of their impact in PvP. I'm also a Medicine main and my experiences since 5.5 tally with hers. Worth a read if you're an operative/scoundrel healer (or plan to be): https://www.rambol.net/home/2017/10/20/medicine-in-5-5-hotties-impressions The TL;DR is that you will struggle to generate enough TAs/UHs if you're healing fewer than three people and/or unable to keep your HoTs up and use Recuperative Nanotech on cooldown.

Thanks for the positive feedback! We're so glad you've found it useful. I am collaborating on a Medicine guide but I have no timeframe for its publication. I don't currently have any plans for a Lethality or Combat Medic guide but I'm open to working with anyone who knows the specs better than I do.

Good catch, thanks for the correction! I'll prod Knin and get round to editing it ASAP. Update: Guide is now amended.

Hey everyone, My friend and guildmate Knin is one of the most knowledgeable SWTOR players I've met: he's won a number of duelling tournaments, is active in team arenas and has consistently ranked highly in solo arenas over the seasons (including a top 10 operative in S4 and two T1 operatives in S8). He's spent weeks labouring on a guide to Concealment/Scrapper PvP and I had the privilege of working as his editor to refine the text. Now it's finally ready for you guys: https://www.rambol.net/home/2017/8/30/5-x-concealment-operative-pvp-guide-by-knin If you have any comments, corrections or suggestions, I'll be monitoring this thread and the guide's comments section (or you can drop me a message on Twitter). If you have any questions for Knin, post here and I'll pass them on to him. Alternatively, leave a comment on the guide and he'll respond to you directly.