(From Taugrim.com)SWTOR Has Repeated RIFT’s Mistakes in Endgame PVP

[Bartes]

To everyone QQing about him buying the WH mainhand first: He is talking about his Gunslinger and buying a weapon with a 61 barrel is the single best way to get a DPS increase when you're a class that does mostly white damage.

 

Also, Taugrim may not be the single greatest PvPer in the world, but he knows more about the game than 98% of the community , that's why he's considered a good player. On our server, playing against a Maven pre-made with Taugrim is almost always loss and playing with them is almost always a win. I like to think of it like sports. Most professional sports coaches were not superstar athletes when they played the game, but they could understand the game and take advantage of their knowledge.

 

I beg to differ. Buying WH gun first is not the best way for GS to increase his damage at start but it comes down to personal playstyle and spec. As must as I respect Taugrim posts/blog (followed it thrgough many games) the part about his GS made me doubt his reasoning.

[Lithy]

I still don't understand what you're saying. With the RWZ comms he had the second he got level 50 (3500), instead of buying a single WH set peice, he bought the WH mainhand (most likely Field Medic) , which granted him more expertise and stat gain than the first option.

 

*irrelevant numbers*

 

The weapon isn't the point. its the amount of coms spent for the gain. Weapon, jacket, offhand, all terrible starting choices. it's the most expensive. Fresh 50. With 2k Warzone coms you can buy TWO BM pieces. You buy those. You don't spend the ranked coms yet unless you want a warhero of one of those pieces. Next time you get to 1500 THEN you go buy the weapon and upgrade it to warhero. The entire point is to start off with more than one piece as has been said multiple times.

[justntrue]

Actually, if you buy WH main hand, and change the crystal to the red crystal offered by the PVP vendor, you get a massive 192 expertise off of just one piece of gear. increase over recruit in this case is I think ~130.

 

I did that for my BM main hand/offhand and it's hugely competitive with other investments of much higher expenditures.

 

I don't think his choice was bad at all. 2k WZ comms -500 for the crystal = 1500 remaining which is enough for pants (71 crit), or gloves/boots both reasonable, I stayed with recruit hat for a long time for the surge offering.

 

The recruit pistols are in fact one of the weakest slots, and, in retrospect, if I had been leveling I probably would have done the same.

 

People talking about survival are ******s. GS survives by not letting people in range, and by playing using defensive positioning and LOS, and being smart enough to not stray outside the healers range.

 

If you're getting pounded on by a Mara, a piece or two of BM over recruit is going to make as much difference as pissing in the pacific.

[LenrocNewDawn]

Just an update. Since dinging 50 on last Friday with my alt (18.05) I've got all my main armor pieces to BM and 2 WH pieces (implant+earpiece). I'm employed and have a wife and kid and I admit I pushed maybe 8 hours over the week-end (mostly at expense of sleeping). So much for grinding to be competitive. And the experience was way more forgiving if I compare it with my main first experience in the 50 bracket. Not to mention that I've spent about 600K to get purple mods for my main while I've spent less then 250k to buy recruit (yeah I had the coms maxed out in both cases).

[flem]

Actually, if you buy WH main hand, and change the crystal to the red crystal offered by the PVP vendor, you get a massive 192 expertise off of just one piece of gear. increase over recruit in this case is I think ~130.

Eh? WH mainhand *comes* with a +41 Expertise crystal built in -- in the Slinger's case, an orange one. You can't stack in more than the 151 Expertise it comes with, making for an 82 point increase over Recruit.

 

I do think getting the WH gun first is wise, but it's an investment that will pay off three days later when you have the five BM pieces without having to waste your 3:1 trade rate. (*That's* when he should have posted.) It won't make you awesome right off, and Taugrim took a surprisingly blinkered short-run view in this post.

Edited May 22, 2012 by flem

[nokizaru]

To PvP for 20 years, and never rise above average status. Is the epitome of fails.

 

That alone is reason enough for not caring what he has to say about balance in any game related issues.... ever

 

Well that's right - anything he says is not worth the time sifting through until he's been recognised as belonging to the MMO "PvP Elite Club". And how does one gain access to such a prestigious club? Well, much like you've demonstrated - lay on as much F.I.G.J.A.M as possible and talk your way into "elite" status. The epitome of pathetic is to consider yourself "elite" while playing MMO's.

 

Instead of offering up nothing more than an ad hominem attack, how about critiquing what he has to say in his latest post. He pretty much sums up everything I believe is wrong with end game pvp, and so far most of the 'counter arguments' centre on his lack of "leetness" or his decision to purchase a WH main hand weapon.

 

Georg Zoeller was right - most gamers really are idiots.

[Pekish]

main hand WH cost 3250 ranked comm = 10000 normal comm

 

10000 normal comm u get all BM + red gem + left over for something esle

 

it's just idiotic going directly for WH lack of math knowledge and any sense

 

a decent pvper would never do that

[Exilim]

To PvP for 20 years, and never rise above average status. Is the epitome of fails.

 

That alone is reason enough for not caring what he has to say about balance in any game related issues.... ever

 

Lack of ability does not mean lack of knowledge or understanding.

[flem]

main hand WH cost 3250 ranked comm = 10000 normal comm

 

10000 normal comm u get all BM + red gem + left over for something esle

 

it's just idiotic going directly for WH lack of math knowledge and any sense

Speaking of lack of knowledge...

 

There's a commo cap. You can't accumulate 10k wz commos, period. You can't spend 10k commos on BM because you're not 50. All you can do is pile up ranked commos.

 

[Pekish]

you can buy thing while you play and i am talking at 50s not at 1-49

 

i doubt he saved 3325 ranked comm doing 1-49 if he did really he has no place in commenting PVP since he has beeing playing the bad guy at lvl 40+ vs new player

(keep in mind ranked commendation come out only 2 month ago so *** did he do the first 4 month in game??? didnt even get 50????)

 

obviously he saved the ranked while he was at 50 so you make no sense u can buy piece by piece while you pvp u dont need to buy it all at once

 

yes you luck understanding

Edited May 22, 2012 by Pekish

[flem]

i doubt he saved 3325 ranked comm doing 1-49

He did exactly that. Try reading the post before you sound off.

 

[Pekish]

well i dont need to read a blog of a player that pretend to be a pvper and play 1-49 for 6 month and then write a blog about PVP at 50s... he just a bad player i agree with the other guy that said if in 20 years he is just a mediocre pvper perhaps he should stop played the OP lvl 40+ in 1-49 and join the big guys at 50s instead of gather 10.000+comm in 2 mounth 1-49

 

lame that guy is lame

Edited May 22, 2012 by Pekish

[Mrcheezle]

After playing against Taugrim on WaRhammer, I can tell you that he is a much better PvPer than 99% of the lemmings that I ran across in swtor. Any half decent PvPer has already unsubbed from this crappy game.

[Bartes]

After playing against Taugrim on WaRhammer, I can tell you that he is a much better PvPer than 99% of the lemmings that I ran across in swtor. Any half decent PvPer has already unsubbed from this crappy game.

 

I did play against him in WAR and he was good but what class he played there again? Wasn't it some fotm class?

 

I must admit it takes good pvp experience to take advantage of anything in MMO that helps you to be good PVPer but what he wrote about GS was all wrong. Or maybe I should start to think that GS is new FOTM since Taugrim decided to roll that?

 

Or... Taugrim is.... CHUCK NORRIS!!! That would explain his awesomness!

[nokizaru]

well i dont need to read a blog of a player that pretend to be a pvper and play 1-49 for 6 month and then write a blog about PVP at 50s... he just a bad player i agree with the other guy that said if in 20 years he is just a mediocre pvper perhaps he should stop played the OP lvl 40+ in 1-49 and join the big guys at 50s instead of gather 10.000+comm in 2 mounth 1-49

 

lame that guy is lame

 

Perhaps you'd like to point to a specific instance of his 'mediocre' ability. I've had the pleasure of playing with and against Taug in multiple MMO's since Lord of the Rings Online, and he's still one of the better all-round players I've seen. It's typical of gamers to equate a lack of demonstrated grinding to an absence of skill or knowledge.

 

Also, for the sake of everyone here, have a look at these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation

[nokizaru]

After playing against Taugrim on WaRhammer, I can tell you that he is a much better PvPer than 99% of the lemmings that I ran across in swtor. Any half decent PvPer has already unsubbed from this crappy game.

 

This.

[nokizaru]

I did play against him in WAR and he was good but what class he played there again? Wasn't it some fotm class?

 

I must admit it takes good pvp experience to take advantage of anything in MMO that helps you to be good PVPer but what he wrote about GS was all wrong. Or maybe I should start to think that GS is new FOTM since Taugrim decided to roll that?

 

Or... Taugrim is.... CHUCK NORRIS!!! That would explain his awesomness!

 

His main on Warhammer was a Swordmaster - that game's equivalent to the Guardian/Jugg. So is it your modus operandi to spew forth vague suppositions and run with them? Too lazy to do 60 seconds of research?

 

This is why I typically avoid forums like the plague.

[AmorphousCro]

On my commando, i bought the WH assault cannon as soon as i hit 50. i saved up 3480 RWZC, and was almost recapped on WZ comms. The reason i did this was because, even if i NEVER stepped foot in 50pvp, I had a better weapon than tionese or columi. It's more than just a choice for PvP, it's a pretty decent global boost to DPS.

 

I did grind out my battlemaster gear. It took 4 days. The "didn't have a 2 piece set bonus" issue was wiped out in about 6 hours. After those 6 hours i was still being mangled by warheroes.

 

Calling Taugrim out for buying his weapon first is nitpicking. Two pieces of battlemaster gear makes almost no difference. So next you'll say it would have taken him 6 hours to get his 4 piece set bonus. Yep, but even in 4 pieces, you'll still get mangled by augmented warheroes. It goes back to his blog post about expertise being tiered along with stats. When you hit 50, no matter what gear you have, be it recruit or partial battlemaster, warheroes in augmented gear will make you into a fresh fish prison sissy. If all stats were identical between tiers and expertise trended up, fine. If all expertise was normalized and stats trended up, that works too. His issue is that stats AND expertise trend up.

 

The best way to combat compounded tiering is getting the weapon with the highest min/max damage and the highest tech power. As you acquire battlemaster gear, your POTENTIAL damage is exaggerated by having a warhero main hand.

 

Also, if a friend says "Hey now that you're max level, lets run some HMFP", an augmented warhero main hand is a beast for a fresh 50. I don't regret getting it at all. Malgus and Ironfist probably have an issue with it though. I can't ask them, they're dead.

[flem]

well i dont need to read a blog of a player that pretend to be a pvper and play 1-49 for 6 month and then write a blog about PVP at 50s...

LOL you're digging yourself ever deeper. He did this in the last month or two, after having a Battlemaster Vanguard for a long time... which is all the more reason it's odd that he misremembers the pre-1.2 grind so badly.

 

But never mind, between the anti-Taugrim posts that don't read what *he* said and the pro-Taugrim posts that don't read what those correctly shredding his actual argument said, this thread is classic forum fodder.

 

Just an update. Since dinging 50 on last Friday with my alt (18.05) I've got all my main armor pieces to BM and 2 WH pieces (implant+earpiece). I'm employed and have a wife and kid and I admit I pushed maybe 8 hours over the week-end (mostly at expense of sleeping). So much for grinding to be competitive. And the experience was way more forgiving if I compare it with my main first experience in the 50 bracket. Not to mention that I've spent about 600K to get purple mods for my main while I've spent less then 250k to buy recruit (yeah I had the coms maxed out in both cases).

Yep, exactly. Taugrim's actual post has things exactly backwards. 1.2 drastically shortened the grind to competitiveness.

[Raggok]

LOL you're digging yourself ever deeper. He did this in the last month or two, after having a Battlemaster Vanguard for a long time... which is all the more reason it's odd that he misremembers the pre-1.2 grind so badly.

 

But never mind, between the anti-Taugrim posts that don't read what *he* said and the pro-Taugrim posts that don't read what those correctly shredding his actual argument said, this thread is classic forum fodder.

 

Yep, exactly. Taugrim's actual post has things exactly backwards. 1.2 drastically shortened the grind to competitiveness.

 

It wasn't a grind if you were a lucky SOB. I was a lucky SOB and got my full BM relatively quickly. Of course, being ahead of the gear curve gives you the luxury of not noticing gear progression issues. Being on the other side of that coin tends to make you notice how much difference gear makes.

 

Also, you need to compare the right things. You should not compare the old BM grind with current BM progress. You should be comparing the old BM grind with the current War Hero grind.

 

And I wouldn't point at getting the WH ear and implants. IIRC they were incredibly easy to get as BM quality pre 1.2.

 

Getting BM then should be compared to getting WH now.

Getting Champion then should be compared to getting BM now.

Getting Centurion then should be compared to getting Recruit now.

 

It's easier to get Recruit and BM now than it was to get Centurion and Champion then. I can't really speak about getting BM then compared to getting WH now since I've not partaken of the WH grind. But the comparison would be heavily dependent on your RNG luck with BM gear pre 1.2.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Raggok

[flem]

Two pieces of battlemaster gear makes almost no difference. So next you'll say it would have taken him 6 hours to get his 4 piece set bonus. Yep, but even in 4 pieces, you'll still get mangled by augmented warheroes. It goes back to his blog post about expertise being tiered along with stats. When you hit 50, no matter what gear you have, be it recruit or partial battlemaster, warheroes in augmented gear will make you into a fresh fish prison sissy. If all stats were identical between tiers and expertise trended up, fine. If all expertise was normalized and stats trended up, that works too. His issue is that stats AND expertise trend up.

If you're Commando DPS, I hate to tell you but *everyone* in the 50 bracket will make you a splat on the ground. It's just a hard sell in PvP.

 

The stat difference between BM and WH is really small, and the expertise difference comes out to maybe 2-3% damage if you replace the BM crystal(s). It's comparable to the Champ/BM gap from before.

 

Two things *do* make a gap, though: (1) Better DPS statting. BM has crap surge, WH has a much better allocation. (2) Augments. +18/+12 times 6/7 is nice.

 

(1) means you won't do so well in a mirror duel, but on the battlefield it isn't going to decide the engagement. (And oh yeah, your Commando BM gun had a Surge enhancement that you should have ripped and put into a different piece.) Most of the WH-geared folks on my server have an alt or two in vanilla BM, and the effectiveness gap between their chars is a *lot* less than you're suggesting. BM gear gives you the tools to put your skills into play. Of course, there are also BM-geared folks who are totally useless, but putting them in WH wouldn't help either.

 

(2) you can correct just by augmenting based on BM gear. Yeah, you lose the set bonus, but so what? With 1.3 you won't even have to lose that.

 

It wasn't a grind if you were a lucky SOB. I was a lucky SOB and got my full BM relatively quickly. Of course, being ahead of the gear curve gives you the luxury of not noticing gear progression issues. Being on the other side of that coin tends to make you notice how much difference gear makes..

Well yes, and I think this sums up his entire post.

 

He's suddenly on the weak side of the curve, and suddenly notices how sad and unfair gear progression is is. Meanwhile he completely fails to notice that it'll be like this for less than a week now, as opposed the ages it often took to get into full Champ before.

 

I don't think the current WH grind bears much discussion, since it's *not* how the system was designed and even implemented (before they killed ranked).

Edited May 22, 2012 by flem

[nokizaru]

LOL you're digging yourself ever deeper. He did this in the last month or two, after having a Battlemaster Vanguard for a long time... which is all the more reason it's odd that he misremembers the pre-1.2 grind so badly.

 

But never mind, between the anti-Taugrim posts that don't read what *he* said and the pro-Taugrim posts that don't read what those correctly shredding his actual argument said, this thread is classic forum fodder.

 

Yep, exactly. Taugrim's actual post has things exactly backwards. 1.2 drastically shortened the grind to competitiveness.

 

For people with busy work/study lives and families, the grind is indeed still too great. Like it or not, this group of players represents a large portion of potential subscribers for Bioware. But what's of greater concern to a lot of players is the disparity between classes. If this point by Taug has been intelligently rebutted in this thread, then I'm yet to see it. Shortening the acquisition time for WH gear and addressing the obvious inconsistencies between classes should be something all serious PvPers would want to see.

[Isrem]

SWTOR is in big trouble, because GW2 allows you to roll a level 1 toon and immediately PvP with him at max level and gear. This is what PvPers want. We don't want gear grinds that artifically effect competition.

 

This is what pvpers who dont like RPG's want.

 

Sorry, you draw conclusions from yourself to others. I like RPG very much, but I hate grinding and I hate gear difference when people should just compete about skill. I want to create a toon and just jump into the fight with or without my friends. PvP below 50 is perfect. PvP afterwards needs lot of polishing, Taugrim is right about this.

[Orangerascal]

I love all the ad-hominem attacks against Taugrim. This are started by people that can't argue their point so they attack the person and not the argument. He could, be the worst pvper in the world, he could be the best, at the end of the day only his argument matters and he hit a lot of points correctly.

 

These are swtor's PVP problems atm:

Problem: The gear disparity is too high

Solution: Rated Warzones was suppose to solve this problem as people would face against people of equivalent gear + skill level.

 

Problem: Class Balance

Solution: This one is more complicated, but my initial gut feeling is that tanking classes are doing too much damage compared to their dps counterparts. I have a guardian alt and my intuition confirms my suspicion. Most classes are free kills with the exception of the tankassassins which is a very close fight. Tanking stances will need to have some damage reduction to prevent tanking specs in pvp from dominations (vanguards, shadows, guardians). Other than that it's pretty balanced.

 

Problem not mentioned: The lack of population

Solution: Cross server pvp and Server Merges

 

Problem: The Grind

Solution: I don't think this is a problem. Character progression is suppose to take some time. The real problem is it's hard to progress when you are getting face planted by people in much better gear and skill level. Rated warzones and x-server queues will indirectly bring in gear matching. Good geared people with bad skill should theoretically fight bad geared people with good skill and other such combinations. This should bring everyone's win ratio to an acceptable 50% after you're at the correct rating level for your gear and skill.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Orangerascal

[nokizaru]

I love all the ad-hominem attacks against Taugrim.

Problem: Class Balance

Solution: This one is more complicated, but my initial gut feeling is that tanking classes are doing too much damage compared to their dps counterparts. I have a guardian alt and my intuition confirms my suspicion. Most classes are free kills with the exception of the tankassassins which is a very close fight. Tanking stances will need to have some damage reduction to prevent tanking specs in pvp from dominations (vanguards, shadows, guardians). Other than that it's pretty balanced.

 

If a poll was to be taken as to the class most needing love from developers, it would be the Guardian/Jugg. I would suggest levelling your Guard to 50 and then spending serious time in end game warzones before attributing them with "too much damage". I also have a lvl 50 Tankasin and 46 Pyro (amongst others), and they by far outclass any spec the Guardian/Jugg has to offer. There is no "free kill" with the Guardian/Jugg.