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Expertise


Jaren_Kincaid

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What is expertise? Specifically, as a Jedi Shadow using the infiltration skill tree, which is better for me, expertise or critical hits as a choice for my lightsaber blade?

All advice welcome.

 

Mouse over the expertise stat. It's a pvp-only stat that effects damage done, damage taken, and healing done. Works in open world pvp. As to your question, it depends on whether you already have enough expertise. Although frankly I'd choose power vs expertise, not critical. Crit is easy to max imho, but ymmv depending on other gear.

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If you just hit 50 than you should still have the Recruit gear. After Recruit comes Battlemaster Gear and after comes War Hero Gear. BM has better stats than Recruit, same goes with WH. So as you play more games you'll get more comms and better gear. The people you are seeing with double your hit points have probably been playing PvP for a while now and have gotten War Hero gear.

 

Also in PvP you should always choose more expertise above everything else. So choose Recruit instead of Tioneese. Battlemaster instead of Columi etc.

 

Hope that made sense :)

Edited by dosadnik
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To answer Mthros, I'm a Jedi Shadow with the Infiltration skill tree, so it's all light armor. I'm also the only one of the 24 Republic specs without a ranged attack, but that's a niggle for another day.

I'm level 42 valor now, but game lvl 50 PvP is insanely difficult, so I have no idea if I can continue.

All these gears that you mention, like Tionese and battle Master; are they moddable? Is it the mods that make them so powerful?

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To answer Mthros, I'm a Jedi Shadow with the Infiltration skill tree, so it's all light armor. I'm also the only one of the 24 Republic specs without a ranged attack, but that's a niggle for another day.

I'm level 42 valor now, but game lvl 50 PvP is insanely difficult, so I have no idea if I can continue.

All these gears that you mention, like Tionese and battle Master; are they moddable? Is it the mods that make them so powerful?

 

Sorry, I'm haveing difficulty with the notion that you ground your way to 50 and have lvl 42 valor, yet are utterly ignorant of PvP gear, and apparently never touched any of the rest of the game. Is that about right?

At 42 valor you should be at a minimum in full Battlemaster. Has no one shown you where the pvp vendors are on fleet?

They are in the southwest quarter towards the center hub.

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Sorry, I'm haveing difficulty with the notion that you ground your way to 50 and have lvl 42 valor, yet are utterly ignorant of PvP gear, and apparently never touched any of the rest of the game. Is that about right?

At 42 valor you should be at a minimum in full Battlemaster. Has no one shown you where the pvp vendors are on fleet?

They are in the southwest quarter towards the center hub.

You need valor 50 to buy the gear. When I reached level 50, I received a special box containing two new relics and an earpiece that I didn't need because the stats for my existing earpiece were better. The box also contained some warzone adrenals. I was advised never to purchase any gear until reaching valor 50 because if you impatiently purchase inferior (sub-valor 50) gear then you won't have enough warzone credits (tokens) to purchase anything serious upon reaching level 50.

Is this not right?

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I don't think it requires Valor 50 only Level 50. Also when you got to level 50 you should've gotten a quest that gives you a free set of Recruit gear which is what you need to have to even stand a chance in lvl 50 PvP. You couldn't have had better gear before that because there is no gear that has expertise before level 50. The 3 sets that do are Recruit, Battlemaster and War Hero. And maybe some crafters can make some but it would be equivalent to those 3.

 

If I recall correctly, Recruit isn't moddable, but Battlemaster and War Hero are, so you can take the mods out of those two and put them into any custom gear you want to. However you won't find anything better than War Hero as it is the best PvP armor there is.

 

Tioneese and Columi gear are the endgame PvE gear. I was giving an example before that you should always choose more expertise for PvP and I used those two pieces for comparison.

 

Basically what you want to do in level 50 PvP is: 1. Get the Recruit gear from the quest. 2. play a lot of PvP to get a lot of warzone commendations. 3. buy the Battlemaster gear. 4. play more PvP to get more commendations and also play ranked warzones to get ranked warzone commendations. 5. buy the War Hero gear. 6. Become the best PvP player out there. ;)

Edited by dosadnik
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Battlemaster is moddable.

Since he's never bought any gear OP is probably maxed out ages ago on wz comms.

Either miss understood, or were so grossly miss-informed the person who told you that should be banned from any game even board games, and put on a diet of brussel sprouts.

Edited by JacksonMo
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Battlemaster is moddable.

Since he's never bought any gear OP is probably maxed out ages ago on wz comms.

Either miss understood, or were so grossly miss-informed the person who told you that should be banned from any game even board games, and put on a diet of brussel sprouts.

 

Ok so BM and WH are both moddable. Fair enough.

 

Brussel sprouts, yuck. Broccoli on the other hand... :p

Edited by dosadnik
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You need valor 50 to buy the gear. When I reached level 50, I received a special box containing two new relics and an earpiece that I didn't need because the stats for my existing earpiece were better. The box also contained some warzone adrenals. I was advised never to purchase any gear until reaching valor 50 because if you impatiently purchase inferior (sub-valor 50) gear then you won't have enough warzone credits (tokens) to purchase anything serious upon reaching level 50.

Is this not right?

 

It's completely false :(

 

First of all, your commendations cap at 2000, so essentially you've by now wasted easily 10s of 1000s of commendations at valor rank 40something. Secondly, you can purchase gear (except maybe war hero) at valor rank 0.

 

The first thing you do when you reach level 50 is go get your FREE recruit set. The next thing you do is work towards battlemaster (warning, 1 or 2 pieces of recruit may have better stats than battlemaster, also some items have better stats than others, pick and choose, but with an eye towards war hero, since you often need the battlemaster base item to get war hero)

 

PvE gear (rakta/columni/black hole/etc) gear has often better stats, but no expertise. Do not fall for the trap, you need expertise, and lots of it. Having one non-expertise item isn't a big deal if you have a truly exceptional non-pvp item (say 1 black hole off hand thingie when you're starting out with recruit gear) but in general, work for battlemaster asap, prioritizing the set bonus if it's very good (some are, some aren't) or the items which yield the greatest benefit to your class/role.

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Just to add. When you reach level 50 you have the option to get a full set of recruit gear OR the equivalent of recruit gear in credits.

Take the credits!

If you have even one item that is better that recruit you can not buy that part and pocket the credits.

Best case you save some money, worst case you still get a full Recruit set.

 

I'm not sure but if you're a PvE player you could just run over to the PvP section, grab the money and be about 300k richer. As long as you don't ever plan on changing to PvP in the future (because you want all that expertise the recruit gear gives you for PvP).

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Just to add. When you reach level 50 you have the option to get a full set of recruit gear OR the equivalent of recruit gear in credits.

Take the credits!

If you have even one item that is better that recruit you can not buy that part and pocket the credits.

Best case you save some money, worst case you still get a full Recruit set.

 

I'm not sure but if you're a PvE player you could just run over to the PvP section, grab the money and be about 300k richer. As long as you don't ever plan on changing to PvP in the future (because you want all that expertise the recruit gear gives you for PvP).

 

didn't you used to be able to buy Recruit gear from a vendor? did they take that out? i never really looked at the pvp vendors much as i don't really pvp, but i coulda sworn you could buy the set with credits.

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didn't you used to be able to buy Recruit gear from a vendor? did they take that out? i never really looked at the pvp vendors much as i don't really pvp, but i coulda sworn you could buy the set with credits.

 

That is correct and they cost credits so no need to play warzones to get the set. So if you at some point decide to play some PvP all you need is to get some money and you're all set.

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Thank you.

BTW, what is adaptive armor?

 

It's a type of armor that adapts to your armor proficiency. All social gear is this type of armor. For example. You are a Jedi Sentinel and you have the medium armor proficiency. You find the Amazing Chestplate of Awesomesauce that is of the adaptive armor type. When you wear it it will adapt so that it's stats correspond to that of a medium armor. However if a Jedi Sage, who has light armor proficiency, finds the same chestplate it will adapt so that it has stats that correspond to light armor. This was implemented because before all social gear was light armor and that was less than perfect for Medium and Heavy armor wearers so now everyone can wear it with no stat loss. Hope that made sense. :D

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Ok so BM and WH are both moddable. Fair enough.

 

Brussel sprouts, yuck. Broccoli on the other hand... :p

 

I was refering to the person who initially told him he needed Valor 50 before buying PvP gear.

That person probably is the reason my PvP loving guildies gripe about people showing up in random trash gear against pre-made Imp teams in full war hero. Several of my guild friends are quite good at PvP, but they can't carry an entire team vs. a pre-made.

 

Furthermore, that kind of misinformation can cause tremendous frustration and aggravation leading to good people leaving the game all together.

The information provided by Bioware is minimal at best. And not permitting add-on apps the way WoW does makes it that much harder for the few web sites who try to give you the missing pieces of the puzzle to even FIND it, much less ensure it's accurate.

I understand the security concerns behind not allowing them, but it really drags the game down not knowing where to find Items, whether they are dropped by this mob or that, or sold by a vendor on the back side of Balmorra hidden behind a rock. But I'm vearing off topic.

Edited by JacksonMo
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