How serious is the gear gap?

[Senatorial]

OK, so all the whiny and complaining threads aside...this game has a gear gap. I've seen conflicting evidence, however, of how severe it is. I want to find out, in a flame-less and logical thread, from some more experienced people how much gear differences really impact gameplay, and how much of the complaining is legitimate.

 

I have a Carnage marauder who just hit 50 maxed out on comms. I bought a BM mainhand, put the mods in an offhand and bought the WH mainhand as well. Augmented those, rest is Recruit. In my very first warzones, the Gore > Ravage > Scream combo (with crit on Scream) could take at least half health off a guy with no cooldowns on. I now have 4 of my BM armor set (unaugmented) and 3.5k+ crits with Force Scream is very common.

 

I haven't looked at full combat logs yet, but I've seen killing blows between 2k and 4k on me from most DPS classes. Never seen a Sent Force Sweep hit for as much as half my health. I sometimes win, sometimes lose 1v1's with other DPS classes (in warzones, not duels, so I can't see their gear).

 

Is it that:

1) I'm only doing that well against low-geared (partial BM) people.

2) I'm playing an OP class.

3) The gear advantage that people in WH (full or partial) have on me is much less significant than often insinuated.

[Yeochins]

OK, so all the whiny and complaining threads aside...this game has a gear gap. I've seen conflicting evidence, however, of how severe it is. I want to find out, in a flame-less and logical thread, from some more experienced people how much gear differences really impact gameplay, and how much of the complaining is legitimate.

 

I have a Carnage marauder who just hit 50 maxed out on comms. I bought a BM mainhand, put the mods in an offhand and bought the WH mainhand as well. Augmented those, rest is Recruit. In my very first warzones, the Gore > Ravage > Scream combo (with crit on Scream) could take at least half health off a guy with no cooldowns on. I now have 4 of my BM armor set (unaugmented) and 3.5k+ crits with Force Scream is very common.

 

I haven't looked at full combat logs yet, but I've seen killing blows between 2k and 4k on me from most DPS classes. Never seen a Sent Force Sweep hit for as much as half my health. I sometimes win, sometimes lose 1v1's with other DPS classes (in warzones, not duels, so I can't see their gear).

 

Is it that:

1) I'm only doing that well against low-geared (partial BM) people.

2) I'm playing an OP class.

3) The gear advantage that people in WH (full or partial) have on me is much less significant than often insinuated.

 

The answer is you probably haven't been playing fully tweaked out characters.

 

Most of them have quit due to boredom. The others find it frustrating to queue with people who have no idea what their doing. And for the rest that don't fall into the two categories, probably don't hit you much because they're too busy saving their team from their own stupidity.

 

In the rare event they get a competent team you'll see Force scream critical hits, smashes, railshots, deathfields of 4-8K because they've expertly timed bloodthirst. But since you're in recruit gear and not-a-light-armor user you wont see the blunt of the complaints.

Edited August 5, 2012 by Yeochins

[vwsupra]

I would choose number 2, mara are op and fotm. Skill being equal a recruit/bm geared mara could take down a full WH geared player (besides a pt/vanguard) Edited August 5, 2012 by vwsupra

[HeavensTerror]

The gear gap been BM and WH isn't really that big. A more skilled BM will beat a WH, but when you start factoring augments then it's starts to get larger.

 

Gear is fine imo.

[Senatorial]

I would choose number 2, mara are op and fotm.

 

That reminds me, I forgot to sig your post from the "Remove undying rage" thread.

 

There, it's done!

[Skolops]

There's a gap, but it isn't as bad as the whines claim or believe. Take a look at my signature and see all of my characters. They've all been in recruit gear at some point, with 2 having worked up to nearly full WH, one to 1/3rdish WH, another to full BM with some WH, and the other one is still in recruit.

 

I am certainly more effective on each character once I get some gear than I am before I do, but I have also been able to be perfectly effective without the gear, though in different ways than I can with the good stuff, of course. I've topped DPS charts, been the uber defender or scoring player in Huttball, and even healed and tanked (with guard) effectively enough.

 

The biggest difference that does exist is that I have certainly found myself far easier to kill in the recruit gear than once I gear up. Oddly enough, it doesn't usually seem to be a real spectrum, either. There's typically a single piece of gear I get after which I suddenly feel tremendously better about my survivability.

 

The utility and even DPS, though, has never really been an issue.

[Skolops]

That reminds me, I forgot to sig your post from the "Remove undying rage" thread.

 

There, it's done!

 

Not the right thread, but marauders don't have a knockback.

[vwsupra]

That reminds me, I forgot to sig your post from the "Remove undying rage" thread.

 

There, it's done!

 

troll troll go away, come again some other day

[Senatorial]

Not the right thread, but marauders don't have a knockback.

 

Yes, that's why I quoted it. He was the one complaining about marauders.

 

...or was he?

[kronomandar]

Yes, that's why I quoted it. He was the one complaining about marauders.

 

...or was he?

 

yes, he was complaining about godmode marauders doing that leap -> knockback -> leap again thing.

i was expecting him to also mention the rain of pebbles ability they always seem to use right before they stunlock you and orbital stike you to death while they hide in portable cover that renders them immune to CC.

[Skolops]

yes, he was complaining about godmode marauders doing that leap -> knockback -> leap again thing.

I was expecting him to also mention the rain of pebbles ability they always seem to use right before they stunlock you and orbital stike you to death while they hide in portable cover that renders them immune to cc.

 

i hate that class.

[heechJunzi]

The gear gap is very serious at the extremes.... Equally skilled WH versus recruit, the WH will win 95 times out of 100. But WH versus BM, it's probably a 70-30 thing.

 

Marauder/Sent does bias your view a little, since you have a lot of tools for survivabilty. You only engage when you want to, and hide when you want to. But at some point when you start wanting to contribute more, and you're aggressively trying to win or defend an objective, you'll see the gap.

 

And if you ever play 8 WH vs 8 BM... It's not pretty.

[Skolops]

The gear gap is very serious at the extremes.... Equally skilled WH versus recruit, the WH will win 95 times out of 100. But WH versus BM, it's probably a 70-30 thing.

 

Marauder/Sent does bias your view a little, since you have a lot of tools for survivabilty. You only engage when you want to, and hide when you want to. But at some point when you start wanting to contribute more, and you're aggressively trying to win or defend an objective, you'll see the gap.

 

And if you ever play 8 WH vs 8 BM... It's not pretty.

 

I wouldn't really agree with this. To a degree I would. Full WH vs Full Recruit can be bad, but I would put Full WH vs Full BM at closer to 60 - 40, maybe even 55 -45, though that does seem a bit too close. Even just looking at the stats, though, you can tell that the difference just isn't that great. The biggest difference is honestly in the weapon ratings.

 

The other thing is that I would have to say it's when focusing on objectives that you'll find the least difficulty. It's when trying to deathmatch that it becomes especially noticable.

[dcgregorya]

As a recruit geared person you can put close to as much damage as other people. You lack survivability. That effect is probably less pronounced on marauders/sents because of good defensive cooldowns.

[Crystus]

It is hard to isolate because recruit level people tend to also be unskilled.

 

However, as an operative healer with about 1/3 augmented WH and the rest BM, I can almost completely ignore 3-4 recruit level geared people beating on me. Interrupts or properly timed stuns might make a difference, but I can generally survive the random stuff they throw at me without even using my stun break.

 

If I don't have cooldowns, a guard or taunt, a single WH geared dps can typically stun me to death from about 50% (and can get me to that 50% point through a well executed opener, a timely interrupt or just a couple of lucky crits in a row).

 

My melee attacks (as a medic) tend to fall in the range of the dps classes you mentioned and I can occasionally 1v1 recruits without even stopping to heal myself.

 

But it isn't just damage dealt. It is health. A recruit is around 13k health. An fully augmented WH is 20k+. Frequently, I can't even get a heal off quickly enough to save a recruit who is being attacked. I can actually use an energy conserving rotation healing a wh geared person and have infinite energy.

Edited August 5, 2012 by Crystus

[Tankqull]

The gear gap been BM and WH isn't really that big. A more skilled BM will beat a WH, but when you start factoring augments then it's starts to get larger.

 

Gear is fine imo.

 

only if it would be allowed to farm the commendations to buy BM before lvl 50 and no 2000/3500 is not enough to lessen the gear gap at 50.

[Tyrias]

I find that BM -> WH doesn't make too much of a difference (but is still noticeable), but it tends to be massively obvious in a warzone when someone is still in Recruit gear. Of course, that's not the only thing that affects it. It also seems that:

 

1: People are more likely to start picking up augmented gear to slot stuff in the higher up they get. This will heavily skew the perception as to WH being better than BM, because a lot of people with Full WH will also have full augments, and a lot of them will also care enough about their gear to have re-modded it. People with "just" BM are much less judicious.

 

2: Your class will make the difference less obvious. I know there are a lot of people who say Marauder is OP (and I do agree), but setting that aside, Marauder is a class that Deals good damage, has a couple of good methods to stay on their targets, and has some nice survivability cooldowns. There aren't many classes that boast as full a package as Marauder, and so recruit geared Marauders can perform relatively well.

 

3: You're probably (although I can't say for certain) not playing against people who are all that great. Its typical to find that an average-or-above skilled player can enter into an Unranked warzone and make a difference, given the number of shockingly bad people. A lot of people who are at Full WH also tend to group up to play, meaning that they'll often be pitted against other groups. IF you end up against a group of them, however, you'll know about it.

 

4: Its also worth noting (albeit a minor point), that its predominantly Sages who bring the large portion of complaints about Marauders. While it IS only 5% less mitigation than a medium armour wearer, its still the difference between 4.8k on a medium armour, and 5.2k on a light armour wearer (or somewhere in that region). People are inclined only to look at the first digit of a large number, and so they'll be the ones touting large the hits on them on a regular basis that other classes find unbelievable.

 

That's why whenever you go shopping for expensive stuff, it's all £499.99. Simple people don't see ~£500.00., they just see "Less than £500, more than £400".

Edited August 5, 2012 by Tyrias

[Soapland]

Recruit to WH, yes the fear gap is big. BM to WH is really small and some BM pieces are actually better itemised statwise. However if you factor in augments then the gear gap does become pretty insurmountable. Especially since most people don't augment BM gear because of the cost.

[AKfourtyseven]

Stock BM --> WH = Small gap.

Stock BM --> Augmented WH = Big gap

Stock BM --> Customised WH = Big gap

Stock BM --> Customised, augmented WH = Gulf.

 

The key to closing the gap is put your hand in your pocket and augment your BM. The gear gap pretty much vanishes once you do that.

Edited August 5, 2012 by AKfourtyseven

[Draekos]

Recruit was doable, now that my alt is in full BM+ it's beautiful, took a week and my VG is blowing up people in any gear. Love the PvP lol.

[Draekos]

Stock BM --> WH = Small gap.

Stock BM --> Augmented WH = Big gap

Stock BM --> Customised WH = Big gap

Stock BM --> Customised, augmented WH = Gulf.

 

The key to closing the gap is put your hand in your pocket and augment your BM. The gear gap pretty much vanishes once you do that.

 

If you dont augment your BM gear you are just lazy. Then again we have threads for players who take the cash instead of recruit gear. Credits flow like rain if you acually play this game.

[Senatorial]

If you dont augment your BM gear you are just lazy. Then again we have threads for players who take the cash instead of recruit gear. Credits flow like rain if you acually play this game.

 

I did take the cash I spent nearly all of it on Recruit anyway, except for my sabers.

 

I'm apprehensive about augmenting BM though. When I get WH, that'll mean either extracting all the WH mods (90k per, is that about it?) or re-augmenting the new stuff (bit over 100k per unless I get some from guildies.) And that's after already having augmented BM.

 

Thanks for the responses.

[AngusFTW]

OK, so all the whiny and complaining threads aside...this game has a gear gap. I've seen conflicting evidence, however, of how severe it is. I want to find out, in a flame-less and logical thread, from some more experienced people how much gear differences really impact gameplay, and how much of the complaining is legitimate.

 

I have a Carnage marauder who just hit 50 maxed out on comms. I bought a BM mainhand, put the mods in an offhand and bought the WH mainhand as well. Augmented those, rest is Recruit. In my very first warzones, the Gore > Ravage > Scream combo (with crit on Scream) could take at least half health off a guy with no cooldowns on. I now have 4 of my BM armor set (unaugmented) and 3.5k+ crits with Force Scream is very common.

 

I haven't looked at full combat logs yet, but I've seen killing blows between 2k and 4k on me from most DPS classes. Never seen a Sent Force Sweep hit for as much as half my health. I sometimes win, sometimes lose 1v1's with other DPS classes (in warzones, not duels, so I can't see their gear).

 

Is it that:

1) I'm only doing that well against low-geared (partial BM) people.

2) I'm playing an OP class.

3) The gear advantage that people in WH (full or partial) have on me is much less significant than often insinuated.

Well force sweeps dont do as much dmg to sentinels who have the 30% aoe reduction talent specced. that is huge. Also if you have rebuke up another 20% you'll get hit for 4k on a good day by a focus/rage spec warrior/knight.

[Kingkabuki]

The answer is you probably haven't been playing fully tweaked out characters.

 

Most of them have quit due to boredom. The others find it frustrating to queue with people who have no idea what their doing. And for the rest that don't fall into the two categories, probably don't hit you much because they're too busy saving their team from their own stupidity.

 

In the rare event they get a competent team you'll see Force scream critical hits, smashes, railshots, deathfields of 4-8K because they've expertly timed bloodthirst. But since you're in recruit gear and not-a-light-armor user you wont see the blunt of the complaints.

 

...this is BS, I am constantly running into warriors that I can't even hurt and then I'm done in 2 hits...I used to think rift was bad but this game makes rift look good...when I can't even scratch someone in pvp they could be 6 years old and I don't have a chance...this game came and gone faster then any other game I have played...but the good news is wow is back next month...

[Kingkabuki]

The gear gap been BM and WH isn't really that big. A more skilled BM will beat a WH, but when you start factoring augments then it's starts to get larger.

 

Gear is fine imo.

 

...skill?...LOLOLOL...there is no skill in pvp, only better gear...