Recruit vs. Rakata for starting PvP

[DomanSheridan]

So I hopped into a Warzone the other day. I notice someone is in full PvE gear - raiding rewards of some sort, not greens or blues - but an expertise of 0. I politely send them a whisper informing them of the existence of Recruit gear, thinking they hopped into PvP unaware of the importance of the Expertise stat, or where to get it.

 

Their response was basically "I've tried it, didn't like it, and sold it. My Rakata stuff is better. I raid a lot more than I PvP, too."

 

I'm skeptical, but I'm actually really curious and willing to admit I might be wrong sometimes - is Recruit a worse option than Rakata in PvP? Or were my initial instincts which prompted the whisper right? (if class matters, the person was a sniper in this case)

[Darth_Philar]

So I hopped into a Warzone the other day. I notice someone is in full PvE gear - raiding rewards of some sort, not greens or blues - but an expertise of 0. I politely send them a whisper informing them of the existence of Recruit gear, thinking they hopped into PvP unaware of the importance of the Expertise stat, or where to get it.

 

Their response was basically "I've tried it, didn't like it, and sold it. My Rakata stuff is better. I raid a lot more than I PvP, too."

 

I'm skeptical, but I'm actually really curious and willing to admit I might be wrong sometimes - is Recruit a worse option than Rakata in PvP? Or were my initial instincts which prompted the whisper right? (if class matters, the person was a sniper in this case)

 

The increased armor, endurance, base stat, and secondary stats from Rakata put it on par with Recruit gear for PvP. Healers see more benefit from Recruit's Expertise though for the Healing buff it gives.

 

Neither Recruit or Rakata are good for PvP, but both are VASTLY superior to leveling gear.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Darth_Philar

[iNeXxS]

If you have augmented Tionese/Columi/Rakata armor with Black Hole mods (very easy to get) as a DPS, you're looking at around 20-21k health vs the sub-14k health of Recruit. You're going to have about 700-800 more main stat and much more Power/Crit/Surge. I'd say gear like that is much better than Recruit and on par with regular Battlemaster. Edited August 16, 2012 by iNeXxS

[DomanSheridan]

Thanks for the quick response, Philar and iNeXxS!

 

When the match ended, they pointed out their end-of-match stats were better than mine, despite my higher-tier PvP gear. I'm a Concealment Operative BM with a few WH pieces, and they're a Sniper in full Rakata, which really prompted my curiosity. I'm wondering where the disparity lies and how game mechanics can affect your results more than gear. (Not just in damage - more kills, less deaths.)

 

I mean, obviously playing for the objectives is more important than bloating your stats, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were also playing with objectives in mind more than stats.

Edited August 16, 2012 by DomanSheridan

[TheronFett]

I would venture to say that Rakata is superior to Recruit gear for most classes, especially melee DPS. Healers, probably not so much.

 

All Expertise does is replace other stats, so it makes sense that at some point, a certain amount of high end PvE gear will equal or be better than PvP gear.

[Pistols]

I mean, obviously playing for the objectives is more important than bloating your stats

 

You would be shocked at how "not obvious" this is for many who queue for WZ's.

 

[Ybini]

So I hopped into a Warzone the other day. I notice someone is in full PvE gear - raiding rewards of some sort, not greens or blues - but an expertise of 0. I politely send them a whisper informing them of the existence of Recruit gear, thinking they hopped into PvP unaware of the importance of the Expertise stat, or where to get it.

 

Their response was basically "I've tried it, didn't like it, and sold it. My Rakata stuff is better. I raid a lot more than I PvP, too."

 

I'm skeptical, but I'm actually really curious and willing to admit I might be wrong sometimes - is Recruit a worse option than Rakata in PvP? Or were my initial instincts which prompted the whisper right? (if class matters, the person was a sniper in this case)

 

               Rakata     Recruit   Difference
Cunning    554          315          239
End             574         325          249
CritR          144          126          18
Acc             255          126          129
Pow           114          114           0
Surg                              84           -84
Exp                              345          -345

Would seem to me that it would make the most difference against higher expertise PVPers than it would new recruits.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Ybini

[oredith]

i tried recruit gear when i first started pvp'ing. and then i tried it with my fully augmented campaign / blackhole gear - and immediately banked my recruit gear.

 

expertise is not always better - that's just the sheeple talking.

[HaibaneRenmai]

Is anyone actually arguing that Recruit is better than augmented Black Hole/Rakata gear? Recruit is starter pvp gear, for the fresh 50s to get out of their leveling greens and is replaced pretty quickly by Battlemaster for pvp. Rakata/BH are middle/high tier PVE gear that takes quite a bit of time to acquire a full set. What I want to know is Battlemaster vs Columni, Warhero vs Rakata/BH.

[oredith]

Is anyone actually arguing that Recruit is better than augmented Black Hole/Rakata gear? Recruit is starter pvp gear, for the fresh 50s to get out of their leveling greens and is replaced pretty quickly by Battlemaster for pvp. Rakata/BH are middle/high tier PVE gear that takes quite a bit of time to acquire a full set. What I want to know is Battlemaster vs Columni, Warhero vs Rakata/BH.

generally 1 tier offset.

 

ie, for pvp,

recruit >~ columi

battlemaster >~ rakata

war hero >~ campaign

 

for pve

columi >~ recruit

rakata >~ bm

campaign >~ WH

[L-RANDLE]

I'm wondering where the disparity lies and how game mechanics can affect your results more than gear. (Not just in damage - more kills, less deaths.)

 

The disparity lies where the trade off between main/end meets expertise. While Darth P and I somewhat disagree where the point is, the basis for our reasoning is similar:

 

If you line up two "same tier" pieces next to each other, one PvP and one PvE, what are the gains based on attack/heal ratings given by the tooltip? If the PvE rating is higher than a "calculated" PvP rating (tt rating * EXP bonus), then wear the PvE gear.

 

Your example illustrates that from a damage perspective, tier for tier, there is little difference between PvP and PvE gear (albeit, hard to convince the "PvP" crowd as such). So then you look at survivability and say, "Was mitigation really helping me?" Once peeps open their eyes to the notion that PvE is just as good, then they will also see you don't have to get "trucked" in recruit gear for a few weeks (which is a joke compared to the way it was BTW). There are multiple ways to get geared up for PvP. Run some dailies, buy some high level stuff off the GTN, (I know the "PvP" people will hate the next one), and run some HM FP/OPS (Blasphemy right?). All while PvPing to get critical PvP pieces, and skipping straight to WH in some cases (On my new alt, I have two RAK implants already. My next REAL upgrade is the WH ones, not the BM ones because Rak~=BM, follow the link on my sig line, note 262).

 

 

Darth P and I have continued to try to educate people on PvE gear as it relates to PVP. Glad to see some people seeing the light...

[DomanSheridan]

Is anyone actually arguing that Recruit is better than augmented Black Hole/Rakata gear?

 

I wasn't arguing for it, but it was my initial instinct. Given that it's "the" PvP stat, people make a quick rule of thumb that that's what's important. And sometimes (like in my case!) they just assume that "in the context of PvP, any gear with expertise is better than gear with no expertise."

 

I mean, it falls apart when given close scrutiny! But it's an easy bit of misinformation to pick up.

[Jadescythe]

The disparity lies where the trade off between main/end meets expertise. While Darth P and I somewhat disagree where the point is, the basis for our reasoning is similar:

 

If you line up two "same tier" pieces next to each other, one PvP and one PvE, what are the gains based on attack/heal ratings given by the tooltip? If the PvE rating is higher than a "calculated" PvP rating (tt rating * EXP bonus), then wear the PvE gear.

 

Your example illustrates that from a damage perspective, tier for tier, there is little difference between PvP and PvE gear (albeit, hard to convince the "PvP" crowd as such). So then you look at survivability and say, "Was mitigation really helping me?" Once peeps open their eyes to the notion that PvE is just as good, then they will also see you don't have to get "trucked" in recruit gear for a few weeks (which is a joke compared to the way it was BTW). There are multiple ways to get geared up for PvP. Run some dailies, buy some high level stuff off the GTN, (I know the "PvP" people will hate the next one), and run some HM FP/OPS (Blasphemy right?). All while PvPing to get critical PvP pieces, and skipping straight to WH in some cases (On my new alt, I have two RAK implants already. My next REAL upgrade is the WH ones, not the BM ones because Rak~=BM, follow the link on my sig line, note 262).

 

 

Darth P and I have continued to try to educate people on PvE gear as it relates to PVP. Glad to see some people seeing the light...

 

I think all of the work for PVE gear is worthless if you don't plan to do PVE at endgame. You still have to collect all the BM pieces except for implants/earpiece/relics, so how is this helping? I can get BM in less than 2 weeks that is just as good as Rakata. Without the right drops, how long am I going to have to run HM OPS for Rakata gear with a lockout after one attempt per week? Suffice to say, you're better off spending 2 weeks in recruit gear getting BM gear than wasting time on PVE gear and having to go through the BM progression anyway.

[HaibaneRenmai]

I wasn't arguing for it, but it was my initial instinct. Given that it's "the" PvP stat, people make a quick rule of thumb that that's what's important. And sometimes (like in my case!) they just assume that "in the context of PvP, any gear with expertise is better than gear with no expertise."

 

I mean, it falls apart when given close scrutiny! But it's an easy bit of misinformation to pick up.

I dunno, the impression i got from reading the pvp forums is that people in PVE gear get blown up pretty fast in PVP, that the main stats might be similar or superior, but taking less damage and getting healed for more makes pvp gear more desirable assuming similar tiers of pvp/pve armor (recruit vs columni).

[DomanSheridan]

I dunno, the impression i got from reading the pvp forums is that people in PVE gear get blown up pretty fast in PVP, that the main stats might be similar or superior, but taking less damage and getting healed for more makes pvp gear more desirable assuming similar tiers of pvp/pve armor (recruit vs columni).

 

Yeah, the key phrase in there is "assuming similar tiers," which was not the case in my OP - recruit vs. rakata, for instance.

[oredith]

I dunno, the impression i got from reading the pvp forums is that people in PVE gear get blown up pretty fast in PVP, that the main stats might be similar or superior, but taking less damage and getting healed for more makes pvp gear more desirable assuming similar tiers of pvp/pve armor (recruit vs columni).

i assure you, my 27k HP was not getting "blown up" pretty fast, compared to my 14k HP in recruit gear.

 

you have to learn to find your own filter when reading the forums, and try to get at the motivation of the person behind the post.

 

why do they want you to wear recruit gear when you have campaign gear? why do they ignore all the math, and just flat out promote "expertise > all". could it possibly be because it's easier for them to kill people in recruit, than in BH/campaign gear?

[Twickers]

On the rare occasion I go into 50WZ's I keep my rakata/BH gear on and just equip the PVP relics, gives a nice little expertise bump and my health sits at around 22K, I'm certainly nowhere near as durable as someone in full War hero gear, but I can certainly take a fair beating before dying and my damage isn't too bad either. Helps till I can get a decent PVP set.

[L-RANDLE]

I think all of the work for PVE gear is worthless if you don't plan to do PVE at endgame. You still have to collect all the BM pieces except for implants/earpiece/relics, so how is this helping? I can get BM in less than 2 weeks that is just as good as Rakata. Without the right drops, how long am I going to have to run HM OPS for Rakata gear with a lockout after one attempt per week? Suffice to say, you're better off spending 2 weeks in recruit gear getting BM gear than wasting time on PVE gear and having to go through the BM progression anyway.

I agree, getting BM is super EZmode right now, but for the "casuals" that might play two WZ a week, PuGin' a HM FP for Columi/BH tokens is a better option to bridge the gap between Recruit and BM. If you are "sick of dying" (a commom complaint to newbs) T1 HM FP are like 20 mins? And since Columi/BH>Recruit, it gives a nice resbit from the "slaughter". Just saying there are options.

 

Here is a post i did a month ago showing what I mean. I didn't have 100% columi, but you get the point.

 

Here I am with 5RAK/7COL:

http://s1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh590/ldogg1579/?action=view&current=SWTORCOLUMI_RAK-1.jpg

Force in Balance rating: 1520-1584

HP: 16322

 

 

Here I am in Recruit:

http://s1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh590/ldogg1579/?action=view&current=SWTORRECRUIT.jpg

Force in Balance: 1249-1313 *1.1662= 1457-1532

HP: 12352

[Twickers]

I think all of the work for PVE gear is worthless if you don't plan to do PVE at endgame. You still have to collect all the BM pieces except for implants/earpiece/relics, so how is this helping? I can get BM in less than 2 weeks that is just as good as Rakata. Without the right drops, how long am I going to have to run HM OPS for Rakata gear with a lockout after one attempt per week? Suffice to say, you're better off spending 2 weeks in recruit gear getting BM gear than wasting time on PVE gear and having to go through the BM progression anyway.

 

Here's a crazy thought, maybe people do both

 

I'm one of them, I just do PVP very, very casually.

[Yeochins]

As a generalization:

 

War Hero > Battlemaster > Campaign > Rakata which is on par with recruit.

 

If you factor in the expertise bonus for War Hero and Battlemaster they outperform Campaign and Rakata. Soo many PvE'ers are under the incredible dilusion that more main-stat is better than the percent bonus granted to your damage output directly. Main-stat only provides a 0.20 point boost on damage. It takes well over 2500 points of your main-stat to make a comparable bonus to the expertise gains for damage provided by Battlemaster and War Hero gear.

 

On top of that the incredibly foolish PvE'er dont realize that the damage mitigation from the defensive portion of expertise applies to all damage types. You are taking 18+% less internal/elemental damage. For energy and kinetic damage that can be a whopping 38% damage reduction for light armor users, and even higher for medium and heavy armor users.

 

More importantly certain classes are inherently better in recruit gear. Marauder/sentinel being one of them. With undying rage the extra damage mitigation from expertise makes a huge difference on how low you can let your HP get before popping Undying rage.

[Zunayson]

The increased armor, endurance, base stat, and secondary stats from Rakata put it on par with Recruit gear for PvP. Healers see more benefit from Recruit's Expertise though for the Healing buff it gives.

 

Neither Recruit or Rakata are good for PvP, but both are VASTLY superior to leveling gear.

 

See, how can the free PvP gear be on par with gear that can take weeks to get for pvp? Sure, ones better for PvE, but they're on totally different tiers.

 

PvP gear is flat out better; there should be a second stat seperate from expertise that's a PvE stat. At no cost to anything else (Like main stats and what not).

[Carnaje]

As a generalization:

 

War Hero > Battlemaster > Campaign > Rakata which is on par with recruit.

 

If you factor in the expertise bonus for War Hero and Battlemaster they outperform Campaign and Rakata. Soo many PvE'ers are under the incredible dilusion that more main-stat is better than the percent bonus granted to your damage output directly. Main-stat only provides a 0.20 point boost on damage. It takes well over 2500 points of your main-stat to make a comparable bonus to the expertise gains for damage provided by Battlemaster and War Hero gear.

 

On top of that the incredibly foolish PvE'er dont realize that the damage mitigation from the defensive portion of expertise applies to all damage types. You are taking 18+% less internal/elemental damage. For energy and kinetic damage that can be a whopping 38% damage reduction for light armor users, and even higher for medium and heavy armor users.

 

More importantly certain classes are inherently better in recruit gear. Marauder/sentinel being one of them. With undying rage the extra damage mitigation from expertise makes a huge difference on how low you can let your HP get before popping Undying rage.

 

Thank you for posting this sir. This is the best way i have seen this phrased yet. Lol, the other one i have a hard time explaining to people is how experiences sort of equals out (not soft caps) at 1200 +/-.

[L-RANDLE]

Main-stat only provides a 0.20 point boost on damage.

True.

 

It takes well over 2500 points of your main-stat to make a comparable bonus to the expertise gains for damage provided by Battlemaster and War Hero gear.

Not True.

 

Here I am with 5RAK/7COL:

http://s1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh590/ldogg1579/?action=view&current=SWTORCOLUMI_RAK-1.jpg

Force in Balance rating: 1520-1584

HP: 16322

 

Here I am in Recruit:

http://s1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh590/ldogg1579/?action=view&current=SWTORRECRUIT.jpg

Force in Balance: 1249-1313 *1.1662= 1457-1532

HP: 12352

RECRUIT MAIN= 1099

PVE MAIN= 1530

+431 MAIN difference = a 3.4% increase over the Recruit set (which has 16% EXP bonus). So if both has relics I would say +450 main would have each set on par.

 

So I didn't need 2500 main to make up for 16% increase in this case. From a damage persepective, I am on par with recruit with 7 columi/5rakata pieces.

 

BM main stat is about 1400 and the difference in EXP is 4% for damage going from recruit to BM. Bump my recruit numbers accordingly.

(1313 + 60)*1.2= 1648 TT rating for BM versus 1584 TT rating on PvE

Only a +64HP difference in attack potential from the cobbled PvE version I had available without spending credits to make it even more lopsided and that is with 7 pieces being un-optimized columi grade (as evident from the ridiculous HP difference). This is where is myself and Darth Phil disagree somewhat because I suggest that Rakata is on par with BM, and recruit is a joke. The OP's eveidence, while somewhat anecdotal, shows that the 0 EXP player's performance was not dependent on EXP, and would not become outlandishly better if he carried any EXP. He outperformed the OP, a 1200+ EXP player. That should never happen according to yourself and others, but the OP saw it, and here I am, showing up to WZ with 741EXP(by choice), telling you the same thing...

 

On top of that the incredibly foolish PvE'er dont realize that the damage mitigation from the defensive portion of expertise applies to all damage types. You are taking 18+% less internal/elemental damage. For energy and kinetic damage that can be a whopping 38% damage reduction for light armor users, and even higher for medium and heavy armor users.

 

You are trading HP in the thousands for mitigation in the hundreds.

Lets say your calculated internal attack rating is 3500(Sage/Sorc have to crit on FiB, and as far as I know, no other class has this magnitude of internal attack). How would I see it.

Reduction= 2870(12352-2870= 8852)

No reduction= 3500 (16322-3500= 12822)

+630HP, but......in the process you lose 3 or 4k of HP. TTK being what it is, its equal at best, but that's not equal in my book. The only time mitigation matters is when you have a dedicated healer, which never happens in PuGs.

 

 

 

 

TL;DR

1. You only need around 450 MAIN from PVE to outpace any PVP gear to make up for the EXP difference from the damage/heals (sort of)perspective.

2. Mitigation is questionable at best.

3. Not surprising that BM/WH saw a RAKATA player pimping like a boss, because the differences are minor when even comparing RAK to BM.

[Daiyukie]

Have you calculated optimized WH versus optimized Campaign though? The optimal PvP setup afaik is high end PvE armoring in bracers and belt with WH mods, since Campaign and WH bracers and belts are a little lackluster.

 

I need another Skill Armoring 26 for my belt, got the bracers, but other than that I have completed m optimized WH set. I can squeeze about 25 more power and a dozen mainstat with another like 5000 ranked comms, but at this point it doesn't seem worth it.

 

Off the top of my head, it equates to 1850 main stat, 806 power, 1260 expertise, 78.8% Surge and 30% crit, 0 accuracy 0 alacrity for Scrapper Scoundrel. I know not many Scrappers go high end raiding, but do compare that stat effectiveness to optimized Campaign if you can, I'm quite curious, since you stipulated you'd need only about 450 mainstat to have the same damage potential. Unless I misunderstood.

[L-RANDLE]

Have you calculated optimized WH versus optimized Campaign though? The optimal PvP setup afaik is high end PvE armoring in bracers and belt with WH mods, since Campaign and WH bracers and belts are a little lackluster.

 

I need another Skill Armoring 26 for my belt, got the bracers, but other than that I have completed m optimized WH set. I can squeeze about 25 more power and a dozen mainstat with another like 5000 ranked comms, but at this point it doesn't seem worth it.

 

Off the top of my head, it equates to 1850 main stat, 806 power, 1260 expertise, 78.8% Surge and 30% crit, 0 accuracy 0 alacrity for Scrapper Scoundrel. I know not many Scrappers go high end raiding, but do compare that stat effectiveness to optimized Campaign if you can, I'm quite curious, since you stipulated you'd need only about 450 mainstat to have the same damage potential. Unless I misunderstood.

 

I was trying to limit this to the topic at hand, Recruit V Rakata, but I would suspect WH v CAMP has similar results as WH probaly has a slight advantage in PVP, but not "miles" away as some suggest because if WH is not a vast improvement over BM, BM is not a vast improvement over Rakata, then BH/CAMP is probably pretty close to WH as well.

 

 

I have both orange bracer and belt. I don't have the CAMP Armoring, but do have RAK grade armoring for DPS, and a WH power heavy mod, which is better than BH and almost identical to the WH(when calcd for PVP).

 

 

Oredith,

If you are still active in this disco, will you please let us know what your main is with 100% CAMP.

 

Or if someone else has 100% CAMP, is your main over 2.3K?. I suspect it is, because mine is over 2K with BH/RAK armorings.

 

On a side note:

If I use your logic, in addition to mine. If PvE armoring with PvP mods is BiS for belts/bracers, it is for everything else too(meaning items that are able to be modified). Which also means you are effectively lowering your EXP number for BiS. Some say EXP>MAIN, but really its EXP>MAIN

 

Tier for tier: Vanilla, they are about even. If you optimize both, they are about even. If you augment both, they are about even. A better way to calc it is to strip down and put on the WH belt, and calc the PvP attack according to EXP rating, then put on your orange belt(with the equiv BH mod) and check the rating.