Rakata/Black Hole or Recruit?

[Hyryu]

Expertise effects every single function of PVP. You can have the best PVE gear for endurance or strength but you lose all the healing buffs you get from Exp. Most healers will stop trying to keep you alive if you don't have much Exp. since it is almost fruitless. I know it stinks to have spent all that time getting the high end PVE gear only to buy some cheap Recruit stuff but it honestly makes a huge difference.

 

Damage dealt, damage taken, healing done, healing done to you....all effected by Expertise

 

There are a few people in here that have done a ton of research on this though so I would strongly consider digging through some of the threads here and also trying things out for yourself. My Exp is around 1200 which is about as high as I will probably keep it. I can tell a substantial difference from what it is now and what it was say around 900.

Edited June 6, 2012 by Hyryu

[Yeochins]

Expertise:

• Increases damage dealt to others
  
• Increases damage mitigated from others
  
• Increases healing done to players
  
• Increases healing received from players
  

 

 

Top tier PvE in comparison to recruit gear will grant you similar improvements to the first two points. It will gimp your team by causing healers to dip deeply into their resource pool to heal you because you're too stubborn to buy recruit gear.

 

In most cases they wont heal you because of resource and time constraints in PvP. So you essentially become deadweight when people discover:

 

"Oh ****! I can crit this bloke for over 9000!"

 

You'll be spending your time behind a door and your team will hate you for making an 8vs8 an 8vs7.

[L-RANDLE]

Expertise:

• Increases damage dealt to others
  
• Increases damage mitigated from others
  
• Increases healing done to players
  
• Increases healing received from players
  

 

 

Top tier PvE in comparison to recruit gear will grant you similar improvements to the first two points. It will gimp your team by causing healers to dip deeply into their resource pool to heal you because you're too stubborn to buy recruit gear.

 

In most cases they wont heal you because of resource and time constraints in PvP. So you essentially become deadweight when people discover:

 

"Oh ****! I can crit this bloke for over 9000!"

 

You'll be spending your time behind a door and your team will hate you for making an 8vs8 an 8vs7.

SMH

1. Healing and Damage operate on a similar scales and the same type of tradeoffs. So if you give credence to damage, how does healing not get any?

 

2. Your toons EXP has nothing to do with "healing received" from other sources. Unless they outright refuse to heal you.

 

If you could really crit someone for 9000 (which I call BS BTW unless your talking pre-surge nerf) in Recruit gear means you mitigate 15%>>>>>7650K.. Now subtract 13.5K recruit gear HP= 5,850 recruit gear is AWESOME!!! /sarcasm.

 

 

Here is a RL comparison:

LVL50 Purples= Fresh Twinkie

Recruit Gear= 2yr old petrified Twinkie

Me= Acme Anvil.......Derp

 

Hope that 350k was worth being a petrified twinkie...

[Klapton]

There is only one correct answer. There is only one correct build. There is only one set a gear.

 

They designed a game with super cool customization features to the gear FOR NOTHING. Why even bother, when there is only one stat that even matters. But WoW has the magic "I'm automatically better than you at PvP" stat, so everyone else has to do it too.

 

What a massive disappointment this game has been.

[Astarica]

I'm totally for Expertise but there is a point where you can get enough non Expertise stats to make up for it and the difference between Black Hole and Recruit is very large. I'm not sure if Rakata is enough to make up for the expertise loss, but Black Hole should be enough.

 

Note that with PvE gear you're better at guarding someone than even a PvP geared guy because the shared HP uses the guarded target's mitigation, so be sure to guard anyone that's remotely useful with your extra HPs because they won't really hold up against any direct attack, but they sure work fine as extra HPs to donate to someone else's cause.

[L-RANDLE]

I'm totally for Expertise but there is a point where you can get enough non Expertise stats to make up for it and the difference between Black Hole and Recruit is very large. I'm not sure if Rakata is enough to make up for the expertise loss, but Black Hole should be enough.

 

Note that with PvE gear you're better at guarding someone than even a PvP geared guy because the shared HP uses the guarded target's mitigation, so be sure to guard anyone that's remotely useful with your extra HPs because they won't really hold up against any direct attack, but they sure work fine as extra HPs to donate to someone else's cause.

I didn't think about that one. Good point. I will add it to my list of why EXP is overrated.

Just to clarify:

On average recruit gear performance is:

WAY worst than BLH

Worst than RAK....

Slightly worst than COL...

Slightly better than TIO/51 epics/49 aug-epics(ears/imp).

 

What does "worst" mean? Triple to Double-digit swing on HP/HEAL/DMG(and actually could be a detriment, i.e. triple-digits the wrong way). Everyone is well above 13K, So even a triple-digit swing don't mean much..

 

If you have any of the above PvE gear, save your credits and buy some aug-oranges or 50 epic augs that you can use later on.

Edited June 6, 2012 by L-RANDLE

[Astarica]

I didn't think about that one. Good point. I will add it to my list of why EXP is overrated.

Just to clarify:

On average recruit gear performance is:

WAY worst than BLH

Worst than RAK....

Slightly worst than COL...

Slightly better than TIO/51 epics/49 aug-epics(ears/imp).

 

What does "worst" mean? Triple to Double-digit swing on HP/HEAL/DMG. Everyone is well above 13K, So even a triple-digit swing don't mean much..

 

If you have any of the above PvE gear, save your credits and buy some aug-oranges or 50 epic augs that you can use later on.

 

The design of this game is that PvP beats PvE for same tier, but PvP beats PvE (or vice versa) even in the field it's not supposed to if the PvP gear is one major tier higher. While the budget for Rakata versus BH (or their PvP counterpart) is not a major tier, the BH/WH itemization is far superior to the tier below so you can basically consider them one tier above, at least for some pieces.

 

Rakata is most likely still superior to Recruit because you're looking at rating 140 versus 128. I estiamte the specilizaiton for PvP/PvE makes up for about 6-10 rating differences. For example, looking at Rakata (140) versus WH (146) I'm indifferent to which to use in PvE. It's certainly not something I can tell without doing some serious number crunching.

 

Expertise is godlike in PvP because it makes up somewhere around 6-10 points of base rating stat, but you still can't fight the base rating of an item that is the real godstat. If there are rating 160 PvE gear, you can almost be certain this will easily outperform the rating 146 PvP WH gear in PvP even if it has no expertise on it.

[Pekish]

Rakata VS Recruit in 1vs1 pvp they are almost on par (with a little edge of rakata, rakata is 1 step under BM and half step over Recruit)

 

but if at the equation we add an healer 2vs2 (with healer)

 

each healer will heal 3000 to you and your enemy

 

but your 3000 will be 15% less effective then the recruit guy because the STARTING PULL is that a STARTING PULL when people refill it they refill it not in percentage but with a fix number

 

so if u are at 2000/20000 or 2000/14000 doesnt make any difference if he heal you for 3000 you both go to 5000 but the one with RECRUIT will mitigate 15% of ur damamge so his 3000 are worth 15% more

and dont let me start if someone is guarding you... you get bigger nummber and half of that bigger damamge go to the person guarding u

 

end of story

STOP FIGHTING IN PVE GEAR IN PVP

(on the positive side if u waste commendation for PVP healing thing that one work in % of max heal that why in 1vs1 rakata is half step ahede)

Edited June 6, 2012 by Pekish

[Astarica]

Rakata VS Recruit in 1vs1 pvp they are almost on par (with a little edge of rakata, rakata is 1 step under BM and half step over Recruit)

 

but if at the equation we add an healer 2vs2 (with healer)

 

each healer will heal 3000 to you and your enemy

 

but your 3000 will be 15% less effective then the recruit guy because the STARTING PULL is that a STARTING PULL when people refill it they refill it not in percentage but with a fix number

 

so if u are at 2000/20000 or 2000/14000 doesnt make any difference if he heal you for 3000 you both go to 5000 but the one with RECRUIT will mitigate 15% of ur damamge so his 3000 are worth 15% more

 

end of story

STOP FIGHTING IN PVE GEAR IN PVP

(on the positive side if u waste commendation for PVP healing thing that one work in % of max heal that why in 1vs1 rakata is half step ahede)

 

But in this case, the Rakata has a significantly higher base armor compared to Recruit which wipes out a good part of the expertise mitigation bonus.

 

In equal base comparison rating item comparison Expertise obviously wins. In this case, the higher base rating means higher base mitigation as well. Most likely the Recruit guy will still take slightly less damage, but the advantage is no longer as big simply because the guy wearing Rakata has more armor too. Here taking slightly less damage might not be worth having significantly less HPs and a considerable deficit at damage.

 

Base item rating still trumps expertise. Normally we don't worry about that because there's no rating 160 gear to get instead of your rating 146 WH.

[L-RANDLE]

Rakata VS Recruit in 1vs1 pvp they are almost on par (with a little edge of rakata, rakata is 1 step under BM and half step over Recruit)

 

but if at the equation we add an healer 2vs2 (with healer)

 

each healer will heal 3000 to you and your enemy

 

but your 3000 will be 15% less effective then the recruit guy because the STARTING PULL is that a STARTING PULL when people refill it they refill it not in percentage but with a fix number

 

so if u are at 2000/20000 or 2000/14000 doesnt make any difference if he heal you for 3000 you both go to 5000 but the one with RECRUIT will mitigate 15% of ur damamge so his 3000 are worth 15% more

 

end of story

STOP FIGHTING IN PVE GEAR IN PVP

(on the positive side if u waste commendation for PVP healing thing that one work in % of max heal that why in 1vs1 rakata is half step ahede)

 

Cmon P.

You can't just add it that way. You can't control what other people are wearing. If they have recruit gear on then yes they mitigate 15%, but......

 

So if I am in recruit:

18% damage on an TT attack rating of 1K mitigated by 15%= 1003.

 

So if I am in Columi:

TT Attack rating of 1.2K mitigated by 15%= 1020.

I respect your observations, but do you account for this before advising someone to buy recruit gear?

[L-RANDLE]

But in this case, the Rakata has a significantly higher base armor compared to Recruit which wipes out a good part of the expertise mitigation bonus.

 

In equal base comparison rating item comparison Expertise obviously wins. In this case, the higher base rating means higher base mitigation as well. Most likely the Recruit guy will still take slightly less damage, but the advantage is no longer as big simply because the guy wearing Rakata has more armor too. Here taking slightly less damage might not be worth having significantly less HPs and a considerable deficit at damage.

 

Base item rating still trumps expertise. Normally we don't worry about that because there's no rating 160 gear to get instead of your rating 146 WH.

 

Just to add Pekish.. Your numbers also dont take into account that it will take the additional attacks it took to make up that 6k difference to start. That is why I showed my example. The "PvE" player is burning more HP per hit, and they would require a higher quantity of attacks to down. So as a healer, recruit geared players are actully more needy than PvE players. Its like filling up once a week versus getting a .25 tank 4 days during the week. Your empty at the end of the week either way.

Edited June 6, 2012 by L-RANDLE

[DarkDruidSS]

You guys really are bored huh?

 

Long winded discusion to prove how near top end pve gear compares to lowest tier pvp gear.... which is all fairly moot the second he starts picking up battlemaster gear. If you have the cash for it then why not get the gear? Once you are full recruit with some BM pieces then you should be surpassing any PvE gear in PvP anyway.

 

He can play in his skivvies for all I care on my server. Hell at least I would get 1 more person in queue so I can get pops faster. In a few days they should have enough BM gear to stop being a waste anyway. In the mean time that is a few days with at least some games going.

[L-RANDLE]

You guys really are bored huh?

 

Long winded discusion to prove how near top end pve gear compares to lowest tier pvp gear.... which is all fairly moot the second he starts picking up battlemaster gear. If you have the cash for it then why not get the gear? Once you are full recruit with some BM pieces then you should be surpassing any PvE gear in PvP anyway.

 

He can play in his skivvies for all I care on my server. Hell at least I would get 1 more person in queue so I can get pops faster. In a few days they should have enough BM gear to stop being a waste anyway. In the mean time that is a few days with at least some games going.

 

Cash? Check

Rakata? Check

Buy recruit? DO NOT COMPUTE

 

Not to prove, just show that it means little difference in a PvP match...

 

So for all you part timers out there: Just start buying BM pieces since it is easymode now..

 

?

[DarkDruidSS]

Cash? Check

Rakata? Check

Buy recruit? DO NOT COMPUTE

 

Not to prove, just show that it means little difference in a PvP match...

 

So for all you part timers out there: Just start buying BM pieces since it is easymode now..

 

?

 

Yea unfortunately the majority of the PvP community usually focuses on PvP. So I don't have any tionese, columni, rakata or higher gear on any of my characters. Recruit works for what it is intended for which is a entry point for low gear players. That was the only reason it was created.

 

Battlemaster and War Hero far out weight what PvE armor brings to the table by itself. Lately I have seen certian classes mixing rakata/war hero gear though. Usually operative healers and they usually stay within the 1-1.1k range in expertise too.

[Dracosz]

So my alt Tankassin was mainly PvE until now. I've bought both the Survivor & Stalker recruit sets.

I also have full Rakata Survivor & Stalker, with a few Black Hole tanking mods/implants.

 

Which would make me more of an asset to a team? Rakata/Black hole mix, or full recruit?

 

Recruit with a mix of BH gear if you can afford the expertise drop. BM gear replaces all of it the moment you acquire some though.

[L-RANDLE]

Lately I have seen certian classes mixing rakata/war hero gear though. Usually operative healers and they usually stay within the 1-1.1k range in expertise too.

Exactamundo!!!!

L-Randle<----20K HP 588EXP.

 

[EDIT] and this is by choice BTW. I got about 20 BM pieces and could easily get in the 1300+EXP range.

Edited June 6, 2012 by L-RANDLE

[Ghostuka]

Huh.. Nice, someone pointed out about the damage received, also screws up the person guarding a PVE geared dude.

 

I am not going to be guarding a PVE geared dude from now then. That is a relief.

[Darth_Philar]

Huh.. Nice, someone pointed out about the damage received, also screws up the person guarding a PVE geared dude.

 

I am not going to be guarding a PVE geared dude from now then. That is a relief.

 

According to this article...

http://www.tankingtor.com/2012/05/swtor-tanking-specific-interview-with.html (go to the part that says In PvP)

...that is not true. The attack is split in half, not the damage. You will have the attack applied to you as if the enemy had hit you instead, then it will be cut in half.

[richardya]

That guy in recruit gear is going to tear through your 25k hp cause he's doing +12% additional damage to you and taking 10% less damage from you.

 

22K HP is more than 22% increase from 14K HP. I am not sure if there is a heal bonus or if it is a healer bonus.

 

I wish people would test it out. Put someone 1v1 vs Rakata. I don't know.

[sithterror]

Until you are sitting above ~1100 expertise you can not afford to have 1 single pve item (maybe matrix cube).

 

All your extra damage from stats gets negated by enemy player expertise, and you just melt when attacked.

 

Sentence 1 is true with the right augment on the cube.

 

Sentence 2 is true to a point. I get the same damage, kills, protection and objective points wearing rakata-bh gear, but your right you die way to often. The reason is the expertise defense. So if you can avoid having to play in PvP g3ar then do so, if u wanna tick off teammates and redrawn frequently to get bm gear then wear your raid gear.

[Senul]

I did physical testing of recruit vs fully augmented rakata, Another vigilance Guadian and i had a few duels, I came 29% short of beating him every duel. I tested this because of the really common argument, and so through multiple duels and coming 29% of beating him every time, id say fully augmented Rakata/Blackhole is better than Recruit gear.

[Darth_Philar]

I did physical testing of recruit vs fully augmented rakata, Another vigilance Guadian and i had a few duels, I came 29% short of beating him every duel. I tested this because of the really common argument, and so through multiple duels and coming 29% of beating him every time, id say fully augmented Rakata/Blackhole is better than Recruit gear.

 

It is better, but just like Recruit gear it is not very good lol. The problem that most PvPer have with PvE geared players isn't with the guys in top end PvE gear, those guys are pretty much the same as the Recruit geared people. The problem is the people still wearing their leveling gear we are way worse than the Recruits.

[Nolenthar]

1000 expertise grants you around 15% bonus damage, 10% damage reduction.

 

However recruit gear will decrease your HP by roughly 30% over BH, and your bonus damage by probably the same amount (aka 30%).

 

It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to understand that someone hitting you with 1000 expertise will deal around 15% damage to you, it would have been only 5% if you had 1000 expertise.

 

However, you'll hit 30% harder, mitigated 10%, which means 20% harder than if you had recruit gear on him.

 

Technically, if you have 23K HP with PvE gear and 550 bonus damage, it's way better than 14K with recruit gear and 300 bonus damage.

 

Don't believe me, do the maths.

[Elear]

Technically, if you have 23K HP with PvE gear and 550 bonus damage, it's way better than 14K with recruit gear and 300 bonus damage.

 

It is true, until wild healer appears. Your PvE gear does not icrease healing recieved, so it takes even 25% more healing to counter incoming damage. It could be better for Watchman/Anni Sent/Mara that goes mostly solo and heals for more if he stacks endurance, but in any decent teamfight with heals flying, guy in PvE is not worth healing, dies easly, don't do damage, wasted slot.

[CRNphg]

Doesn't really matter recruit/top end PVE just get BM gear in a week and everybody's happy.