How Bolster works on 55 lvl and how min/max it

[islander]

Get rid of bolster.

 

ding ding.

[Viper-Mist]

Bolster on 55 lvl is very good thing. Why? Because if you use it rigth, you never get bad gear gap disadvantage with your other mates or enemies. Now after 2.0 indeed, skill > gear, and it is great.

 

LOL you are a complete MORON.

 

You complain about bad gear gap then post how you think its completely ok to exploit the bolster system to gain stats advantage and how to do it.

 

Fu<k bolster and fu<k the exploiters who abuse the system to order to gain a stats advantage in PVP.

 

If you are doing better in 2.0 because of bolster, then its because you suck in PVP.

Not because bolster is good.

[VaioStreams]

Never-mind just getting rid of Bolster. Just get rid of the Expertise system all together. it was confusing as hell then and it's confusing as hell now. change the PvP bracket so it's 10-29, 30-49 and 50+. Sub 55 PvP is much more fun because no one has to worry about this gearing issue. Expertise was non-issue. it was all about skill, that's how it should be in the first place.

[KillaDeuce]

Bolster... snip...

 

/discuss

 

Thank you so much for this thread. It really needs to be stickied. I had no idea what to do gear wise at 55 for pvp with this half *** bolster system. Thanks so much.

 

Voted 5 stars.

[Maelael]

Never-mind just getting rid of Bolster. Just get rid of the Expertise system all together. it was confusing as hell then and it's confusing as hell now. change the PvP bracket so it's 10-29, 30-49 and 50+. Sub 55 PvP is much more fun because no one has to worry about this gearing issue. Expertise was non-issue. it was all about skill, that's how it should be in the first place.

 

Mostly this. I'd agree with the level tiers if there were more people queuing for warzones.

 

However, I do like going after gear, its good motivation to spec out. I actually like the idea of PvP centric gear vs PvE centric gear.

 

Either they need to implement a system that works for balance and makes sense (most importantly, not exploitable), or get rid of Expertise. Other games do fine without a PvP centric stat. Bolster honestly keeps the PvP instances fun, and it comes down to more skill than gearing.

 

Group PvP has always been about Numbers first. That was taken out of the equation. Next would be a baseline of gear. Bolster done correctly takes that out of the equation.

 

After that is individual skill and group coordination. Lastly is proper classes/specs. If Bolster is fixed, thats what PvP will come down to - and I'm fine with that. It would be nice to have a proper class/spec fix, but I think that can be done with gear swaps and field respecs just fine.

 

Outnumbered overgeared PvP blowouts are boring as hell. The QQ I can't faceroll nubs people are pathetic, however the exploitable Bolster and lack of meaning to PvP gear concerns are valid.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Maelael

[islander]

Never-mind just getting rid of Bolster. Just get rid of the Expertise system all together. it was confusing as hell then and it's confusing as hell now. change the PvP bracket so it's 10-29, 30-49 and 50+. Sub 55 PvP is much more fun because no one has to worry about this gearing issue. Expertise was non-issue. it was all about skill, that's how it should be in the first place.

 

In other words, you want all naked PvP (or PvP with no statistical differences between players under any circumstances)...right?

[stendarrs]

Why bother even having separate sets of gear for PvP and PvE at this point? Why are PvE'rs getting their gear bolstered so they can play PvP "equally" and yet PvP'rs are not getting bolstered so that they can do PvE "equally"? This game seems to be clearly PvE-centric because the PvE'rs are getting to have their cake and eat it too. I find this mind boggling as PvE consists mainly of watching youtube video, do what they did on youtube video, collect phat loots. Tired of that? No problem, just jump in to some PvP and we'll make sure that your gear works there too.

[Baedwulf]

Nice... it's so broken right now it's good to see a break down of what works and what doesn't.

 

Only thing that worries me is grinding this gear for multiple characters and then they fix bolster shortly after.

[Maelael]

In other words, you want all naked PvP (or PvP with no statistical differences between players under any circumstances)...right?

 

You just like twisting things to your viewpoint and putting words in peoples mouths to win an argument on the internet...right?

 

I would hope the poster (and thats what I read) is saying that Expertise in itself adds an un-needed layer that complicates things more than needed for good PvP.

[Kirtastropohe]

Why bother even having separate sets of gear for PvP and PvE at this point? Why are PvE'rs getting their gear bolstered so they can play PvP "equally" and yet PvP'rs are not getting bolstered so that they can do PvE "equally"? This game seems to be clearly PvE-centric because the PvE'rs are getting to have their cake and eat it too.

 

It does seem that they've bent over backwards to make PvP easier for PvEers (or at least PvE geared players). If their logic about not wanting a great gear divide is so important to them, then there should be a bolster in PvE stuff for those wearing PvP gear. Of course, that's idiotic, which points out how idiotic it is to change the whole system to implement the idea of making the PvP gear that we have to grind have only a small benefit.

[JTStarKiller]

I don't see how this is true at all. I use my lvl 50 War Hero gear with some PVE mods and get more EXP and better overall stats.

 

 

In fact, my EWH blaster does MORE DAMNG AND GIVES MORE EXP than the Conqueror Blaster Pistol (one bought with Ranked Comms). And my EWH has lvl 50 Augment, and the Conqueror has Lvl 55 Augment.

 

 

 

I pretty much only PvP. So if they don't fix this soon I'm out.

[Yelloweyedemon]

Bolster on 55 lvl is very good thing. Why? Because if you use it rigth, you never get bad gear gap disadvantage with your other mates or enemies. Now after 2.0 indeed, skill > gear, and it is great.

 

Before 2.0, when you join wz (in your full min/max ewh certainly) and see 2-3 mates in recruit 13 k hp gear.. or, if worse, in pure pve gear with 0 expertise... dunno how are you, but I always leave before these wz starts. Now all mates have much more good chances for good playing.

 

 

Part 1. Gear

 

There are 4 kind of gear pieces, which have different Bolster influence:

* earpiece and implants

* relics

* mainhand and offhand

* armor gear

 

Further some rules for ARMOR GEAR ONLY:

 

1. DO NOT USE ANY OLD PVP GEAR WITH EXPERTISE

Do not use old battlemaster and champion mods, armorings ets.

Do not use old Recruit.

Do not use old wh/ewh relics.

If you will use it, you get SIGNIFICAL LOSE of your *Bolstered* expertise.

 

2. NEVER MIX *new* PvP and any PvE mods in same piece of gear

For example, never put single Partisan armoring in shell with other any PvE mods.

If you will use it, you get SIGNIFICAL LOSE of your *Bolstered* expertise.

 

3. NEVER USE PvP and PvE gear in one set in general

You need or full PvP Armor gear, or full PvE Armor gear. If you will have, for example, PvE chest but PvP legs, you lose expertise.

 

This is things about armor.

 

But whats about earpieces and implants?

Wonderful, but Bolster practically dont affected them!

The best implants and earpieces with best stats indeed crafted 53-54 levels! You lose only around -2 /-8 *Bolstered* expertise when use these implants, but get plenty useful stats compared with Conqueror ones (but Conqueror still have better endurance).

 

What about relics?

Best relics is now new PvP ones, cuz Bolster count expertise on them *as is* and dont *bolstered* to up level. Get them first.

 

What about mainhand and offhand?

Like for armor pieces, you lose expertise when use any PvE piece of gear higher than 63 grade, but they can bring you additional damage for 66 grade, 69 or 72. Indeed, there is no significal difference in Conqueror 65 grade with crafted 66 grade purple (+10 damage, -10 expertise) or 69/72 (more damage, less expertise). Since hard cap expertise now 2018, I think *soft cap* good around ~1850, so for min/max you can use PvE 66/69/72 instead of Conqueror.

 

 

Part 2. Learn to play

 

In new rules of Bolser, there is only ~10-15% gear gap between 4 kinds of gear grind:

(old min/max WH/EWH 61/63) * Bolster (+ probably Conqueror mainhand) = (crafted blue/purple min/max 66 gear) * Bolster = (dropped fp/ops purple 69/72 gear) * Bolster = Partisan (min/max)

Stock Partisan gear worse than any min/max gear above.

Mix of Partisan and any PvE gear have awful stats.

 

Conqueror gear seems on 5-10% better than min/max Partisan gear and crafted 66 grade gear (have more expertise, endurance and mainstat, less secondary stats like power, shield, absorb, crit etc)

So, there is several ways to gear up with Bolster after 2.0 (you must have as true pvp'er 4500 ranked and 2750 wz commz when you ding 55 lvl):

* Use your old ewh min/max gear or

* Craft for yourself 66 level min/max (!!!) blue/purple gear

* Buy Partisan and Conqueror relics for your wz commz

* (optional) Buy Conqueror mainhand for your wz commz

* Buy or craft for yourself purple 53/54 lvl earpiece and implants

 

- and you will be *golden* and competitive on wz.

 

Use that gear until you get full min/max Partisan or ever full min/max Conqueror.

 

For example, yesterday on wz my *nerfed in ground* assault vanguard, with full old good ewh min/max armor, conqueror mainhand, pvp relics and crafted earpieces and implants (have overall *bolstered* 1963 expertise, 1586 primary damage) I make 870k damage + 50 k protection and was only #2 on dps scoreboard, after full min/max conqueror focus sentinel who makes 1 million damage. And yes, we win that wz.

 

Or, for another example, my guardian tank have bolstered 1873 expertise, 47% passive armor mitigation, 39k hp, 13% defence, 39% shield and 31% absorb + yet two shield proc relics which add me yet 10-15% absorb (=40-45% absorb overall) half-time. And I am very very fat and happy guardian. Have full 66 purple gear (+ old 61 wh armorings for set bonus) + pvp proc relics.

 

 

Part 3. Min/max your Bolster

 

1. Get purple crafted 53/54 lvl earpiece and implants

2. Get Partisan and Conqueror relics for Power proc if you are dps or healer and Partisan + Conqueror relics for shield if you are tank

3. Get full min/max Conqueror armor

4. Get 72 grade hilt/barrel for mainhand/offhand

5. Profit

 

Hope, this research help you in playing and may the Force be with you!

/discuss

 

In MMO's gear plays a significant role on how good a character is. If one does not care about aquiring proper gear, or does not care how to make his gear more powerfull, he IS a bad player, and he should not be playing a game with mmorpg mechanics. I'm not in favour of unlimited grinding mechanics, but here in SWTOR, getting full partisan gear requires 1 week for casual players if they start lvl 55 with 0 comms. For a semi hardcore player the 'grinding' takes no more than 2/3 days...

So we are stuck with this bolster crap, because some people do not have that one week to spend and improve their characters?! WHY?!

Players that log in 3 hours per week, should not be on par with others that play on regular basis!

 

If you do not care about gear, and you only care about skill, MMORPG isn't the game you're looking for. Try a FPS game...

 

Anyways.. if bolster stays as it is, BW will lose even more of their pvp subscribers, that subscribe and play on regular basis, (since they clearly want to lure only casual free players), and this game will die even faster than what it was meant to.

 

Adios!

[dcgregorya]

This guide is all bioware needs to see bolster is screwing up the game for a lot of people. It should always be obvious what your next goal/item to work on is, and it is not. They should be printing out this thread and have a meeting on why their customers are having to speculate what to do to improve their gameplay.

 

That's not true at all. Get PVP gear, you'll be fine. Its the people trying to swap in PVE mainhands and offhands to varying degress of success/lack of success that are getting frustrated. Just go down the progression they've laid out for you and you'll be just dandy.

[Maelael]

*snip*

If you do not care about gear, and you only care about skill, MMORPG isn't the game you're looking for. Try a FPS game...

 

Anyways.. if bolster stays as it is, BW will lose even more of their pvp subscribers, that subscribe and play on regular basis, (since they clearly want to lure only casual free players), and this game will die even faster than what it was meant to.

 

Adios!

 

Gear does play a part.

 

Two days ago: Level 43-45, my gear was level 39. I was outperforming the low 40 to mid 40s, outperforming the below 40s, and keeping up with or outperforming the 50-55 crowd.

 

Yesterday: 45, my gear was updated to 45 blues and 43 Purps. Same results, just more damage.

 

Seriously, if you're one of the faceroll overgear people that can't play well crying about how you're not pwning everything because you farmed gear that keeps my teams down (as there were several last night), get out. I'd like to have more than 20 wins on my record. It's sad when the undergeared lower level people contribute and try harder than the lazy full 50+ armor people do.

 

That's not true at all. Get PVP gear, you'll be fine. Its the people trying to swap in PVE mainhands and offhands to varying degress of success/lack of success that are getting frustrated. Just go down the progression they've laid out for you and you'll be just dandy.

 

Having bagged on the ill-played 50+ crowd, I can say there is a good amount of well geared and really well played people out there in the 50+ crowd. Hats off to you guys, you're a ton of fun to fight and a ***** to kill.

[Baedwulf]

For the love of God.... why do people insist on quoting massive posts? Especially when it's the OP.

[hobrogaming]

You still want to get min/max conqueror. They are obviously going to keep tweaking until it becomes that way.

[stendarrs]

For the love of God.... why do people insist on quoting massive posts? Especially when it's the OP.

 

^^^This

 

I felt that was short enough to quote

[JTStarKiller]

You still want to get min/max conqueror. They are obviously going to keep tweaking until it becomes that way.

 

Ya well maybe you missed my post. Cuz the conqueror gear is "currently" worse than my EWH gear. Now MAYBE they'll change it soon. But not yet.

[foxmob]

Never-mind just getting rid of Bolster. Just get rid of the Expertise system all together. it was confusing as hell then and it's confusing as hell now. change the PvP bracket so it's 10-29, 30-49 and 50+. Sub 55 PvP is much more fun because no one has to worry about this gearing issue. Expertise was non-issue. it was all about skill, that's how it should be in the first place.

 

expertise, especially with a straight "DR curve" (not curved) is actually very simple to understand and would work just fine if not for bolster. bolster ***** around with expertise. bolster makes it impossible to balance your own stats while sitting in front of the pvp vendor(s). bolster is what allows for the massive expertise exploits. it's all bolster dicking around with the expertise system. the expertise system itself is incredibly straightforward: expertise = good for pvp and bad for pve. it doesn't get more simple to comprehend than that.

[mr_ruiz]

Ya well maybe you missed my post. Cuz the conqueror gear is "currently" worse than my EWH gear. Now MAYBE they'll change it soon. But not yet.

 

The first change to bolster and some of the gear bugs is coming this Tuesday. Whether this guide will be still be relevant after the patch remains to be seen until then.

 

I have no problem with bolster, except that I believe it gives too much. I understand the gear gap, blah, blah. I just don't think it should boost the expertise as much as it does. It should just give the PvE'r a taste of what the stat can do, while not allowing them to get two-shot, and giving them a chance if they have skill.

 

And if they don't like their performance with the PvE gear, it gives them the reason/opportunity to grind out some PvP pieces.

 

Eventually PvP gear will reign supreme in PvP again. Why? Because we'll complain enough and they'll eventually lower bolster just enough to make the PvP gear a goal for anyone who wants to succeed in PvP. Maybe in a ninja fix so everyone who is use to it, doesn't see it until in a WZ.

[Darth_Vampirius]

This guide is all bioware needs to see bolster is screwing up the game for a lot of people. It should always be obvious what your next goal/item to work on is, and it is not. They should be printing out this thread and have a meeting on why their customers are having to speculate what to do to improve their gameplay.

 

This X 1000!

[Astarica]

There is a clear gear progression. Full Conqueror is better than any fancy manipulation you can do gear without considering special cases (e.g. power/surge items may be more desireable for a smasher despite taking a significant penalty). The only slot you can even optimize over Partisan is a single piece of rating 152 armor (you should not buy Partisan implants or earrings to begin with).

[KillaDeuce]

This guide is all bioware needs to see bolster is screwing up the game for a lot of people. It should always be obvious what your next goal/item to work on is, and it is not. They should be printing out this thread and have a meeting on why their customers are having to speculate what to do to improve their gameplay.

 

 

this ^

Edited May 10, 2013 by KillaDeuce

[Astarica]

I did a bit more test of microfilament (common level 53 blue drops) versus crafted 152s implants/earring. What I found is that they're basically equal in offensive stats (Microfilament will have more mainstat but crafted have more Power/Crit), and Microfilament will have more endurance but less secondary stats (likely Surge). Microfilament loses about 7 expertise compared to crafted 152, which is about 0.2% modifier. A typical example would look like +40 end -40 surge. Now the microfilament is better overall in terms of stat budget, even with a -7 on expertise, but crafted gear you can customize your stats while micromfilament's secondary stats are all over the place. If you're just starting out, it usually makes more sense to have something Power/Surge or at least Crit/Surge over say, Power/Alacrity or Crit/Accuracy or whatever random combos you'll find on the microfilament. So even though you're taking a small stat loss, having the right kind of secondary stats on crafted 152 usually outweighs the loss of stat.

 

This is even possible versus Conqueror, but Conqueror secondary mods usually makes a bit more sense than microfilament. As a reminder, there's no Power/Surge crafted rating 152 combo on implants/earrings for strength types. They exist for rating 156, but you're taking a significant expertise loss there for using those.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Astarica

[dufox]

this should be pinned.

 

if you copy/past, good find,

if you took the time to type all of that out & proof read it then you sir are a champ.

Edited May 10, 2013 by dufox