STILL confused about entry level PvP gear & Bolster

[BuckeyeChris]

So I'm currently playing a sage healer who will hit 55 pretty soon. I have access to a cybertech/artifice to construct whatever orange gear I like. I have read every thread I can find on bolster and still confused as to exactly which combination of mods is as strong as possible without being "too high" so as to hurt bolstered expertise. Please correct me where I'm wrong.

 

Earrings & Implants:

Crafted level 54 purples are great to start with and bolster well. Correct?

 

Relics:

Getting Obroan relics seems to be a good place to start, though I have read that the level 50 Matrix Cube bolsters up well too. I am not sure how they compare but it sounds like you are in reasonable shape with either 2 pvp relics as early purchases, or 1 pvp relic and a matrix cube. Correct me if the matrix cube is no longer a strong choice.

 

Wrist & Waist:

Armoring: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Resolve Armoring 28 (66)

Mod: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Aptitude Mod 28A (66)

Is this too high? If so, what needs to be reduced, and to what?

 

Chest, Legs, other armor spots:

Armoring: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Resolve Armoring 28 (66)

Mod: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Aptitude Mod 28A (66)

Enhancement: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Adept Enhancement 28 (66)

From what I have read, this is too much but I have read conflicting reasons/solutions. Does the armoring need to be changed to the blue version? Does the level of the mod or enhancement need to be reduced? What specifically needs to change from the straight up 66-66-66 purple setup?

 

Weapon:

Crystal: Purple level 50 - Advanced Yellow Hawkeye Crystal (+41 Power)

Hilt: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Resolve Hilt 28 (66)

Mod: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Aptitude Mod 28A (66)

Enhancement: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Adept Enhancement 28 (66)

Again, I've read that this is too much but the solutions have been somewhat unclear especially if this is the best hilt I have to start with. So what needs to be reduced, and to what?

 

Thanks in advance. I hate bolster.

[JeepWithGuy]

I think you're putting way more thought into this than you need to. You're talking about crafted level 53 & 54 purple items. That's just one or two levels to 55. The bolster stat increase of this over a level 52 blue item is barely noticeable. In fact, you'd spend more time farming out credits and materials than you would getting to the next level. You've also mentioned Obroan relics, which are 55 end game gear. At this point you'd be 55, and the rest of the gear you're trying to get here would be suboptimal.

 

Bolster is simple (finally, after a truck ton of patches). The better the gear is for PvE/PvP, the less 'bolster' increases your stats. The reason is:

1. Top level PvE gear should not be good for PvP.
   
2. Top level PvP gear needs no boost.
   

 

Here is my awesome, text-based, visual diagram .

1---------------------------2-----3

 

1. Empty piece of adaptive gear. No stats.
   
2. 3rd best PvE gear (Don't know ilevels)
   
3. Top level PvE gear
   

 

Everything between 1 and 2 is your greens, blues, purples of all levels/ranks. The closer you get to 2, from either direction, the more you get from bolster. 2 is where you get the 'most' from bolster. Bolster was designed to bring you within 25% of the stats of top PvP gear. Above 2 gets a 'penalty' for being PvE.

 

TL;DR Anything but the top two tiers of PvE gear will get the most from bolster.

Edited December 13, 2013 by JeepWithGuy

[sithBracer]

So I'm currently playing a sage healer who will hit 55 pretty soon.

 

Sage healers are horrible in arenas. I always sigh when I get one and I see the enemy has an op healer.

 

Earrings & Implants:

Crafted level 54 purples are great to start with and bolster well. Correct?

 

That's what everyone says, I personally lost some expertise when I tried this. The 148 (or level 53) blues were more than enough for me. They were just slightly below obroan.

 

Relics:

Getting Obroan relics seems to be a good place to start, though I have read that the level 50 Matrix Cube bolsters up well too. I am not sure how they compare but it sounds like you are in reasonable shape with either 2 pvp relics as early purchases, or 1 pvp relic and a matrix cube. Correct me if the matrix cube is no longer a strong choice.

 

Obroan for power and main stat boost. The conqueror main stat is pretty crappy (125 main stat boost every 40 seconds) so I would stick with the matrix cube until you have enough for obroan.

 

Chest, Legs, other armor spots:

Armoring: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Resolve Armoring 28 (66)

Mod: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Aptitude Mod 28A (66)

Enhancement: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Adept Enhancement 28 (66)

From what I have read, this is too much but I have read conflicting reasons/solutions. Does the armoring need to be changed to the blue version? Does the level of the mod or enhancement need to be reduced? What specifically needs to change from the straight up 66-66-66 purple setup?

 

I personally like the 61/66blue/69 purple setup because I get the special ability from the PvE 61 armoring.

 

Weapon:

Crystal: Purple level 50 - Advanced Yellow Hawkeye Crystal (+41 Power)

Hilt: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Resolve Hilt 28 (66)

Mod: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Aptitude Mod 28A (66)

Enhancement: Crafted level 53 purple - Advanced Adept Enhancement 28 (66)

Again, I've read that this is too much but the solutions have been somewhat unclear especially if this is the best hilt I have to start with. So what needs to be reduced, and to what?

 

I personally always received worse stats with high level purple resolve hilts/armorings. I actually received better stats with force wielder. People say 69/66blue/61 is the way to go, but since 69 MH hilts are so annoying to get, I just went with 66blue/66blue/69 purple. Your setup should be fine.

 

Thanks in advance. I hate bolster.

 

The alternative is letting fully geared people like me toss you around for 1-2 weeks, so when you consider that, it isn't too bad now is it.

[L-RANDLE]

If you use any purple level 66 armorings/hilts/mods/enh in your gear, you will not get full expertise. You can try to mix, but what I am saying is, with bolster increasing your EXP, HP, and MainStat, there is virtually no difference between wearing a blue 66 mod versus a purple 58 mod. The only things that could be impacted are secondary stats like crit, surge, accuracy, and even those are somewhat minor compared to bolster.

 

As for the ear implants pieces, yes, those items are item lvl 64 aka toon level 53/54, so you can go all the way to purple quality without geting a bolster penalty. I have been wearing them since 2.0.

 

When you hit 55 buy your Obroan relics, and if you can upgrade a weapon with Obroan/Conq parts, do it.

 

 

Keep in mind what I said last time. Your "test" as a lowbie is:

1. Is your crit multiplier north of 73%?

2. Is your HP 27K inside a lowbie?

3. Do you have your augments/kits ready?

4. Do you have gear deemed worthy to be augmented?

 

If you answer yes to all, then you are ready for 55 PvP. its not optimal, but FYI BiS is about 850 bonus damage and crit multi around 76%. If you min/max purple 58/61/63, and carry purple 53/54 implants/ears, bolster will smile upon you.

 

Use askmrrobot.com. While its doesn't show bolster, it can show what your secondary stats will be and if you get full bolster, then you will have an idea where you fall.

Edited December 13, 2013 by L-RANDLE

[Jadescythe]

This is being way overthought. The time to gear up to conqueror is miniscule. Use any planetary comms you have to get level 58 PvE gear from the Makeb vendor. Buy whatever earpiece/implants/relics you want (I choose to get these PvP pieces first, augment them, and upgrade them to Obroan last rather than invest in buying pre-55 stuff). Now you can augment all your oranges and replace the parts as you aquire gear. You will do just fine in warzones with max expertise and have a limited amount of time wasted getting your gear together that you will have completely replaced in 2 weeks. Edited December 13, 2013 by Jadescythe

[RodneyMcNeely]

The alternative is letting fully geared people like me toss you around for 1-2 weeks, so when you consider that, it isn't too bad now is it.

I'd take it back in a heartbeat.

[Aluvi]

If you aren't 55 yet, spend the next level or 2 doing lowbie PvP. When you get 900 normal WZ comms, buy any lowbie pvp weapon, but don't use it. Sell it back before the 2 hour redeem timer runs out. Keep doing this until you mass up 7-8 pvp weapons with 2 hour refund timers on them, as well as max normal WZ comms.

 

Now when you hit 55 you can spend you comms, then sell back a few weapons, spend more comms, sell back a few more weapons.. repeat till all your weapons are gone and you have a full min/max Conq set.

 

One last thing... do yourself and everyone else a favor and learn to play the two dps specs for your Sorc/Sage. Both are viable in all types of arenas when played correctly. Sorc/Sage healer on your team = high chance of loss. They are simply too squishy and don't come anywhere near the survivability of an operative. Also, queuing as a healer in solo ranked pretty much guarantees that you will be queuing against another team with a healer.. who will 95% chance be an operative, which will have a much easier time surviving than you.

[BuckeyeChris]

One last thing... do yourself and everyone else a favor and learn to play the two dps specs for your Sorc/Sage. Both are viable in all types of arenas when played correctly. Sorc/Sage healer on your team = high chance of loss. They are simply too squishy and don't come anywhere near the survivability of an operative. Also, queuing as a healer in solo ranked pretty much guarantees that you will be queuing against another team with a healer.. who will 95% chance be an operative, which will have a much easier time surviving than you.

 

Yeah, I'm not going to spec out of what I want to play. I'm just not going to queue ranked anytime soon. Geared up, as long as I perform OK in unranked that's acceptable to me until, hopefully, they fix sages. The state of sages is exactly why I am "overthinking" this since when I step into a warzone, even unranked, I don't want avoidable gear mistakes affecting my performance.