Optimising Your PvP Gear

[Omnistarr]

Hey Guys,

 

I have a new feature up at mmo-mechanics.com on how to optimise your PvP gear using the mods available in the gear for your class and the enhancements from any other class' gear. Head over and check it out. Let me know what you think, and, as always, questions and comments are welcome. Enjoy!

 

--Starr

[whatthefett]

I like it but Im not sure. I have an Annihilation Marauder full Battlemaster gear and I think I have these stats in correlation with yours- as is with no changes:

 

Surge 102 + 14% bonus

Crit Rating 379

Endurance 1304

Expertise 1179

 

All the BM gear has the mods and enhancements you listed. How could I possibly get to Surge >= 300? Can you give an example of the change that would be made? I always thought getting mroe Power would help Anni Mara but I dont see how I could even get any more of that.

 

Can you also provide an example of why pvp stats are "homogeneous"?

[itsmymillertime]

how is accuracy in all of this?

[Foodaddy]

AWESOME THANK YOU!!

 

too bad the best enhancement (power/surge) comes from an expensive item

[Midden]

- Disappointed!

 

I have chosen and slotted Tank "War Leader" battlemaster gear so far.

 

Why is it two shades less than useless? Is it a bug that they are fixing? Why provide a tank set at all if it is useless?

[SWGElder]

- Disappointed!

 

I have chosen and slotted Tank "War Leader" battlemaster gear so far.

 

Why is it two shades less than useless? Is it a bug that they are fixing? Why provide a tank set at all if it is useless?

 

/agreed...This is why I went all dps gear

[itsmymillertime]

is there any surge enhancements? my sniper meets all requirements and I need to lower my accuracy and gain surge. I am full battlemaster and only do 400k damage in a warzone.

[Omnistarr]

I like it but Im not sure. I have an Annihilation Marauder full Battlemaster gear and I think I have these stats in correlation with yours- as is with no changes:

 

Surge 102 + 14% bonus

Crit Rating 379

Endurance 1304

Expertise 1179

 

All the BM gear has the mods and enhancements you listed. How could I possibly get to Surge >= 300? Can you give an example of the change that would be made? I always thought getting mroe Power would help Anni Mara but I dont see how I could even get any more of that.

 

Can you also provide an example of why pvp stats are "homogeneous"?

 

Yeah, Marauders/Sentinels got the long straw for out-of-the-box set stats. My suggestion for you would be to replace your feet and chest pieces' mods to Deft or Potent 25A. This way you get the most Strength and Endurance out of your mod pool. Strength is key for Marauders/Sentinels because, in addition to increasing power, has a much less dramatic diminishing returns curve and can net better returns per point (for crit) after ≈400.

 

You've got to look at the enhancements page to find the Surge addition. Unfortunately though, there are only two enhancements in Batlemaster gear that have Surge and they're both found on Commando Assault Cannons. The Empire equivalent (Mercenary Blasters) don't have the same enhancement. So, it seems that -- at the Battlemaster level -- only Republic players have access to an enhancement with Surge. That said, I believe that most of the War Hero sets have a few Surge pieces in them in cheaper pieces. So, that might be an option.

 

The stats themselves aren't homogeneous. What I meant by that is that, regardless of class or role, the stat priorities are pretty much the same. Meaning that any PvP player should (generally) be trying for ≈300 Surge, ≈450 Crit, then stack power whilst trying to keep as much Endurance and Main Stat as possible.

 

I hope this answered your questions. Thanks for reading!

[Aetou]

Hey Guys,

 

I have a new feature up at mmo-mechanics.com on how to optimise your PvP gear using the mods available in the gear for your class and the enhancements from any other class' gear. Head over and check it out. Let me know what you think, and, as always, questions and comments are welcome. Enjoy!

 

--Starr

 

It would be nice if you justified why you were stacking Surge and Crit so high, most of the math done prior to 1.2 suggested that the break-point to switch to Power was considerably lower than you're suggesting. It would be nice to see an explanation of why those are the magic numbers instead of just stating that they are.

[Omnistarr]

how is accuracy in all of this?

 

Accuracy (as well as alacrity for casters) is sort of an "evil of necessity". That is to say that, as a stat, it doesn't do that much for you in PvP, but there's really no way of getting rid of it. So, since you're pigeon-holed into having it, you may as well make sure that you've got enough to where it will make some difference. That's why I've got it at the end of the priority lists. I hope this answered your question. Thanks for reading!

[Omnistarr]

- Disappointed!

 

I have chosen and slotted Tank "War Leader" battlemaster gear so far.

 

Why is it two shades less than useless? Is it a bug that they are fixing? Why provide a tank set at all if it is useless?

 

No, it's not a bug. It's only been rendered useless by the metagame. That is, PvP is so bursty now that (generally speaking) tanks won't be alive long enough to have time to do what they do best — outlast cockroaches and twinkies. Also, because of the combat mechanics at work, only melee and ranged "white damage" can trigger a tank's shield. So, since the majority of "big boom" abilities in SWTOR aren't "white damage", and since tank PvP gear tends to slap on Absorption and Shield Rating, I'm sure that you can see where the problem lies.

 

I've actually got a column in the works regarding tanks and PvP. Specifically, how to utilise them effectively. So, I'll have more info on this topic after a bit.

 

Also, tank specs are still (in my opinion) fantastically effective if played in role in PvP. Just not the gear. I hope this answered your question. Thanks for reading!

[Omnistarr]

is there any surge enhancements? my sniper meets all requirements and I need to lower my accuracy and gain surge. I am full battlemaster and only do 400k damage in a warzone.

 

Yup! The two at the top on the enhancements page. Unfortunately for Empire players, though, I've only been able to find them on Commando Assault Cannons and not the Mercenary Blasters. But, they do exist. I hope this helps. Thanks for reading!

[Omnistarr]

It would be nice if you justified why you were stacking Surge and Crit so high, most of the math done prior to 1.2 suggested that the break-point to switch to Power was considerably lower than you're suggesting. It would be nice to see an explanation of why those are the magic numbers instead of just stating that they are.

 

To keep this short: as a physicist, I would love nothing more than the delve into the figures and functions that dictated why I chose what I did. However, I have made it a habit not to get too "mathy" on people. Because, when I do, it's as though I board a mathematics bullet-train to Rantville, and the vast majority of people neither care nor want to know about the maths involved in much of anything. Also, the only people who like to board train are other physicists, scientists, or mathy types.

 

That said, I assure you that I didn't pick the figures out of thin air. You can find oodles of functions and graphs on our forums (formerly sithwarrior.com) that will show why I chose the points that I did. I hope this helps. Thanks for reading!

[Tons_Of_Fun]

Hey Guys,

 

I have a new feature up at mmo-mechanics.com on how to optimise your PvP gear using the mods available in the gear for your class and the enhancements from any other class' gear. Head over and check it out. Let me know what you think, and, as always, questions and comments are welcome. Enjoy!

 

--Starr

 

Hey, thank you for putting in the time with this. This helps me stay in easy-street, as you have clearly done the hard work for me, so again, i say thank you.

 

One thing though, the Imperial Agent link is broken for me unfortunately. Every other link works fine. Just my luck!

Edited May 1, 2012 by Tons_Of_Fun

[Omnistarr]

Hey, thank you for putting in the time with this. This helps me stay in easy-street, as you have clearly done the hard work for me, so again, i say thank you.

 

One thing though, the Imperial Agent link is broken for me unfortunately. Every other link works fine. Just my luck!

 

lol nice catch! Sorry about that. All fixed now — have at it! Thanks for reading and letting me know about the link, btw. I appreciate the comments here and on the site.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Omnistarr

[Bugattiboy]

Just read this. It was pretty good read. I need some help on some things though.

 

I prefer to stack enhancements with +40 Endurance, Critical Rating, and Accuracy/Alacrity;

You have this in your write-up, yet the enhancements link you below have no such setup. The 2 enhancements on your page that do +40 END have power and not crit rating.

 

V. LINKS TO BASE CLASS MOD LISTS

This part where it has links to mods for the classes, are you saying each respective class should one of mods listed in every single piece of gear?

[Omnistarr]

Just read this. It was pretty good read. I need some help on some things though.

 

 

You have this in your write-up, yet the enhancements link you below have no such setup. The 2 enhancements on your page that do +40 END have power and not crit rating.

 

 

This part where it has links to mods for the classes, are you saying each respective class should one of mods listed in every single piece of gear?

 

Typos and misstatement on my part, I'm afraid. After going through so many enhancements and mods I suppose that it was bound to happen.

 

To clarify: I mean to reference the +40 End enhancements with Power and use the mods to augment Critical since you have more variability in how much crit you're adding (+37 or +11). So that, as you get closer to your critical rating target (be it 450 or 200 lol), you can switch to the "A" version of the critical mod and stack on some extra Endurance and Main stat in addition. The logic being that, since power increases linearly, you can pile it on without sacrificing much (or anything if you stack power in enhancements) in the way of main stat and endurance. The drawback being that you're also stacking on Alacrity/Accuracy, but we haven't got much of a choice in that. Critical Rating, however, increases at an exponential rate, and therefore we want to add as much as we can while the benefit received per point is increasing at an increasing rate and reduce the amounts that we're adding (switching to the "A" mods in this case) as the benefit return per point diminishes since we will gain more overall from the additional Endurance and Main stat than we would have from the amount of critical that we're sacrificing.

 

No, I'm not implying that. The lists are simply reference tools for you to see which pieces of gear have the modifications and/or enhancements that you want. You could look on the PvP vendors a bunch, but I find it easier to type in a URL. . Ultimately, the mods and enhancements to be used are completely up to you and your playstyle.

 

Lastly, would it be helpful if I included an askmrrobot.com armory profile for each advanced class to demonstrate the concepts that I'm trying to convey here? Perhaps even they could be used as templates? If I can get some feedback on this, I'll add them tomorrow. I hope that I've answered your questions. Thank you for reading!

Edited May 1, 2012 by Omnistarr

[Golren]

For the tanks in tank gear (a rare breed) - the War Leader (Jugg/Guardian tank) boots have a defense-surge enhancement, so you can replace the excess Accuracy in the Battlemaster pieces. This is particularly useful for Darkness Assassins / Kinetic Shadows, where Accuracy is next to useless and Crit isn't great (whereas Surge is nice with Energised and/or Recklessness etc).

[Kontraz]

As a Powertech, the most I'm seeing is in Surge is 150, and that's through implants and earpieces. Should I just cap it there and move on to crit?

[Dmasterr]

So, since the majority of "big boom" abilities in SWTOR aren't "white damage", and since tank PvP gear tends to slap on Absorption and Shield Rating, I'm sure that you can see where the problem lies.

 

So marauders, snipers and rail shot do not exist on your server?

 

The other "big boom" abilities are rage specced smash and operatives... (madness sorcs have steady easy to heal damage).

 

But if you think being vulnerable to every single dps rather than just your counter (rock,paper,scissors) be my guest.

 

But don't come on the forums whining for a nerf for them since it is your choice of gear that is empowering them.

 

If you play a marauder or sniper a 23k+ hp tank in tank gear is your worst nightmare, luckily most ppl are bad and gear for dps while in tank spec so you can melt them.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Dmasterr

[whatthefett]

Yeah, Marauders/Sentinels got the long straw for out-of-the-box set stats. My suggestion for you would be to replace your feet and chest pieces' mods to Deft or Potent 25A. This way you get the most Strength and Endurance out of your mod pool. Strength is key for Marauders/Sentinels because, in addition to increasing power, has a much less dramatic diminishing returns curve and can net better returns per point (for crit) after ≈400.

 

You've got to look at the enhancements page to find the Surge addition. Unfortunately though, there are only two enhancements in Batlemaster gear that have Surge and they're both found on Commando Assault Cannons. The Empire equivalent (Mercenary Blasters) don't have the same enhancement. So, it seems that -- at the Battlemaster level -- only Republic players have access to an enhancement with Surge. That said, I believe that most of the War Hero sets have a few Surge pieces in them in cheaper pieces. So, that might be an option.

 

The stats themselves aren't homogeneous. What I meant by that is that, regardless of class or role, the stat priorities are pretty much the same. Meaning that any PvP player should (generally) be trying for ≈300 Surge, ≈450 Crit, then stack power whilst trying to keep as much Endurance and Main Stat as possible.

 

I hope this answered your questions. Thanks for reading!

 

Thanks for sharing this. Now I need to overcome the diffucluty of getting such items on my low pop server

 

I had one other question that maybe you had some insight on:

 

Do you have any opinion as to the order that gear should be purchased due to the temporary imbalance created while obtaining a full set? For example, for my next level- the War hero gear- I just bought the boots as my first piece because they provide some immediate all over stat improvements with no real losses, but the Chest temporarily reduces my Crit dramatically until I get another piece to balance it out. Any theory crafting thoughts on gear progression from a purchase standpoint? I am sure they are all working pretty much the same.

 

Thanks and this is great!

[Bugattiboy]

Lastly, would it be helpful if I included an askmrrobot.com armory profile for each advanced class to demonstrate the concepts that I'm trying to convey here? Perhaps even they could be used as templates? If I can get some feedback on this, I'll add them tomorrow. I hope that I've answered your questions. Thank you for reading!

Sure. It couldn't hurt. Knowledge is power, and I like power.

[Omnistarr]

As a Powertech, the most I'm seeing is in Surge is 150, and that's through implants and earpieces. Should I just cap it there and move on to crit?

 

As a Powertech, yes. I'm going to modify the post to be a bit more explicit about this, in fact.

 

The only enhancements containing surge that can be found in Battlemaster gear are in Commando Assault Cannons. So, it seems that only Republic players will have access to them. Therefore, it would be best for Empire players (unless they can find some surge enhancements/mods in PvE) to forego the surge boost phase and skip straight to phase II.

 

Thanks for reading and bringing this up!

[Omnistarr]

So marauders, snipers and rail shot do not exist on your server?

 

The other "big boom" abilities are rage specced smash and operatives... (madness sorcs have steady easy to heal damage).

 

But if you think being vulnerable to every single dps rather than just your counter (rock,paper,scissors) be my guest.

 

But don't come on the forums whining for a nerf for them since it is your choice of gear that is empowering them.

 

If you play a marauder or sniper a 23k+ hp tank in tank gear is your worst nightmare, luckily most ppl are bad and gear for dps while in tank spec so you can melt them.

 

Of course Snipers/Gunslingers, Marauders/Sentinels, and Powertechs/Vanguards exist on my server. In fact, I would assert that they exist on every server. So, it's sort of a ridiculous question, isn't it? That solved, let's get to what I'm assuming is the point that you're trying to make: several DPS classes that do big burst damage have "white damage" heavy rotations. I'll break it down by the classes that you've mentioned. Keep in mind that there4 are 4 attack types: Force, Tech, Melee, and Ranged. Force and Tech attack types are "yellow damage" and Melee and Ranged are "white damage". Also, there are 4 damage types: Kinetic, Energy, Elemental, and Internal. Kinetic and Energy are mitigated by armor and Internal and Elemental are not.

 

Operative:

All of the Operative's main damage abilities (Hidden Strike, Backstab, Acid Blade, and Shiv) are Tech abilities. So, even if your shield chance was at 100%, it wouldn't trigger on their main abilities. However, since all of the abilities are also kinetic save acid blade, their damage is mitigated by armor rating of which a high number may be achieved simply by wearing heavy armour of any type (tank or DPS). So, there you have it. But, If I'm honest, I'm not sure why you decided to bring this class up.

 

Rage Spec Juggernauts:

Smash (the big damage ability for this build) is a Force ability dealing kinetic damage. So, again, the ability won't trigger a shield and is mitigated by armour rating. Not sure where you were going with this one, either. NEXT!

 

Sniper:

The majority of the Sniper's main damage abilities (Ambush, Followthrough, Takedown, etc) are Ranged (white damage) and are from sniper rifles, therefore dealing energy damage. Meaning that they can trigger shield and are mitigated by armour rating. So, yes, this is a good example of a class that will not do well against a tank-geared opponent.

 

Powertech:

I'm not sure what kind of Powertechs you've been going up against, but, regardless of gear, Rail Shot is brutal for tanks. Although it does white damage and therefore can trigger a shield, it also has (properly specced) +50% amor penetration, +30% critical damage, and +9% damage to burning targets. I don't know what else to say about this, really. Rail Shot is just nasty for tanks and isn't made any less so by tank gear.

 

Marauders:

I'm skipping over this one because it is completely asinine. Marauders tear through every class with varying degrees of effectiveness. The only difference between a DPS and Tank geared player is the length of time it takes the Marauder/Sentinel to kill them.

 

To summarise: I'm sticking with my original assertion — that tank gear is two shades shy of useless in PvP in its current state. If it gave significantly higher boosts to HP, Armor, and perhaps even Defense rating, it would be more useful. But, Shield and Absorption Rating only shine in PvE. In PvP they are, again, two shades shy of useless.

 

Moreover good sir, I would counter your final assertion with one of my own. Indeed, I assert that the "bad" player is the one who gears to counter one relatively uncommon class out of the eight possible. Not the one that gears DPS to maintain effectiveness against the other seven. Furthermore, I suggest that if you want to post criticism of ones work, you perform far more in-depth research than you have here — and be a bit less rude when going about it. To offer some constructive criticism of my own, might I suggest that, perhaps you consider not posting the first things that come to your mind in the order that they arrive. That said, I do thank you for comments and giving me a chance to clear this up and, of course, for taking the time to read my article.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Omnistarr

[CitizenFry]

One of the assertions you make is that "more endurance is always better than less." Can you elaborate on this? I would think that there could be value to trading off some HP for even more damage output.

 

Also: nothing wrong with being mathy. Be mathy if you feel mathy. You can always write a tl;dr version after.

Edited May 1, 2012 by CitizenFry