Sanchpanza Posted January 23, 2012 Posted January 23, 2012 Okay, want to start off by saying this isn't a rant It's a hope to get some serious discussion going about the bolster system and such. So, what prompted me to start up this thread is that I recently started a Jedi Knight - Guardian. Now, I've played a Sith Warrior - Juggernaught and the two experiences I've had have been really really different. I've geared them both pretty much the same at level 20; They have gloves, feet, head that are mod with the best mods you can get from the first planet after the capital, and then the chest, legs and bracers are synthweaving redoubt (+defense) blue specs. Their stats are almost exactly the same, and they're both level 20. So, I got the technique down of finding our healers and getting them shielded and using my taunt to stop damage on my allies whenever I can. I try not to go charging into battle and hang near the healers to give them cover, taunt their attackers, try and annoy people as much as possible to change their target onto me. Now, on my juggy I was playing when there were still 50's with expertise rating gear playing, and you know...I really could not complain at all about it. Against most people I could at least hold them off for a while until team-mates got involved. Sure, a level 50 would pummel me pretty good, but I took the view that while they were pummeling me, they weren't pummeling the rest of the team. Okay.. So, after the 1.1 content/patch/...thingy... I rolled my Jedi Knight. Single player and group - absolutely loving every minute of it. Exactly the same as the Juggy essentially. But the real difference came in the PvP. I started PvPing with my Guardian at level 10, because I wanted to level up quickly, and I wasn't expecting to make much of an impact, nor have a high survivability, I was really looking to play just for EXP and commendtions. But what I did expect was that once I got to 20, got a good 11 skill points in the defence tree and had my defence rating up past 15% in PvP zones that I would have a much higher survivability and impact on the game. I was very mistaken. In all honesty, the squishiness factor of my knight is really astounding me. And I can't figure out why. Also, I seem to have far far less health points than I remember on my Juggy (like maybe 1.5k less). But what's really getting me is just how quickly I am dying to people at the same level. I've been dragging my feet on the levelling a bit at 20, and I've played maybe...10 matches, give or take a few, and it's been the same in every one. 1v1 versus say...a Sith Sorcerer, I'm dead in maybe 20-30 seconds unless I happen to have my shield ready to go. Bounty hunters and snipers seem to have even more of an advantage. I'd say really, the only people I can actually stand up against and do my job as a damage taker is against operatives that are specced for healing and juggernaughts. My damage is pretty much non-existant, and my health seems to drop so quickly it's not even laughable (and we're talking here when I don't have someone shielded). I can literally wail on BH Merc for like..a minute and do almost no damage to them, then they turn around and own me in very short succession. It really is quite frustrating. Now, I'm not going to claim I'm some PvP Pro. I've PvPed for nigh on a decade in MMO's, I'd say my best aspect is that I tend to have very good muscle memory, so I can be hitting someone, fingers moving on the buttons while I'm actually looking around the whole time for someone to taunt, to see if I need to switch my shield, etc. But I'm definitely not one of these people that can go into any situation and come out victorious. I'd say..competent as a rating of my own ability. So, I'm not going to deny that it could be me at fault here. But this bolster system really really confuses me. I'm seeing people at my own level, who are playing dps or healer classes yet have higher health than me. I know they can only be geared ever so slightly better than me...say if they had purple mods and purple items, then they might have a 10% increase on me at my level, but that should be lost in the bolster system surely? I was under the impression that the idea of the bolster system was that essentially, the difference between different players would be down to their skill tree's, everything else would balance out? I've also noticed as well, that the bolster system really doesn't work when you have people varying in level from 10-49. I look at a level 49 on my team, the most recent example being a level 49 shadow just now (literally just finished playing a warzone) and they had 15.5k health, while I had 11.5k. The damage a level 49 can do is also just...through the roof. On more than one occasion I've jumped a high level player and been put on my back within about 4 attacks... literally bam-bam-bosh-boff-dead. Sooo... I realise that I am waffling as I post this, I have a few questions to pose to you guys. First question - Am I imagining my knight being more squishy than my juggy? Or has there actually been a change to this dynamic in some way that I'm not aware of? Second question - Do you think the bolster system is working properly or does it need adjustements?* Third question - Do you think we need more brackets? Maybe 10-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-49? *: Okay, I just wanted to add here that one of the things that I thought would make things fairer would be to have equipment levelled up to 49 for a warzone match too. So..if I'm wearing blues for my level, then they should be bolstered up to blues at level 49. Just an idea ofcourse
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