TrixxieTriss Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Hi Hottie, When you feel you've got enough data and testing done, would you consider creating another thread with a title like "gearing with Bolster" You could have all of your data together in a thread that doesn't have so many people arguing in it, Then you could answer quick questions for people and it wouldn't be so tedious trying to sort through some of these posts that are only touching the fringe of what you've tried to help us with. Icy did this and then got Eric to sticky it. I think once it's stickied the arguing will die down and will be more about questions than than a full on discussion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoopicus Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Hi Hottie, When you feel you've got enough data and testing done, would you consider creating another thread with a title like "gearing with Bolster" You could have all of your data together in a thread that doesn't have so many people arguing in it, Then you could answer quick questions for people and it wouldn't be so tedious trying to sort through some of these posts that are only touching the fringe of what you've tried to help us with. Icy did this and then got Eric to sticky it. I think once it's stickied the arguing will die down and will be more about questions than than a full on discussion. +1, I think this is a great idea. This thread is super valuable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lhancelot Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Bolster's always been a fickle beast. Some of you might know Icykill's old gearing thread and bolster. What some of you mightn't know is Icy is my partner. I've seen her toil through the intricacies of Bolster since it was first implemented. Back in 4.0 she said it had nearly reached a perfect and easy to understand system. But there were still anomalies that she got to the bottom of and tried to answered all the questions about Bolster, at least for someone who doesn't work at Bio. I've been discussing the 5.0 system with her and got her to read this thread because she's stopped playing due to the bad implementation of the expansion. Here are somethings she's been able to pick out of the thread that Hottie has tested and others have noticed. 1. Even though if might not seem this way, she's pretty sure Bolster is working as intended and is probably still following the same system as it was in 4.0 2. The reason people are having what appear to be strange results is Bolster has always had a critical stat point that if you pass it, you will lose other stats, even if the gear level equiped is the sweet spot. 3. Now that expertise is no longer in the game, Bolster is compensating more. She thinks they may even be using the same algorithm, just with expertise removed. *Now please stay with me because I'm doing this part from memory and I may say things out of order* The way she explained it to me is that there will be built in flat caps for each stat. As you pass those flat caps it will reduce other stats. ie, when you roughly reach the Bolster gear cap you will start to see Bolster fine tune and balance based on any stats not balanced under that cap. So say the cap was 100 master or power and you went to 120. Then another stat such as crit and alacrity would get reduced to compensate for extra potential output those other stats give. But then if you try increasing those stats again you will lose some damage numbers. The reason Bolster seems more erratic this time is because people are putting in different level mods and enhancements with the gear armor in each piece of gear. Icy tested this sort of gearing in 3:0/4.0 and got similar looking results as you guys are at the moment. She tested it for weeks to lock down exactly how it worked. Her conclusions once again coincided with what I've said above about the individual stat caps. ie (Note, this is just an example and may not represent Hotties testing exactly) Say you have an armor set of say, 208 and the gear cap is 230. Bolster will increase your stats to the base stats it gives you, this is usually a little below the cap (let's say 220 for this example) and with the current gearing system it is hard to get set bonuses fast, so people are keeping in their old 208 set bonus armor piece and adding higher end mods and enhancements. ** one thing I'll quickly add here is that Bolster does take into account the bonuses a little bit, but it's hardly noticeable** Because Bolster looks at the armor lvl first, it bases the base stats off this. So when you add different lvl mods, etc, Bolster then needs to step in and adjust those stats so they balance with the base stats. I know this seems convoluted, but that's the only way Bolster can keep pieces from making a slot OP. If you put in 3 different gear lvls in the same piece you will see even stranger results. Now all of that is just for one slot piece. With Bolster balancing each slot first and then balancing the stats for all the gear after, it will give wacky looking results if you are just trying to test it for each slot or mod/enhancement change and if you have a hodge podge setup Bolster also likes it when things are simple for it to work out (lol), so if every slot is filled with the same lvl gear, you will get a much smoother and accurate representation of what the intended gear cap is for all the stats. That being said, we know the Devs rarely understand what stats are needed in pvp, accuracy is a prime example here, so this opens up the window to min max those stats to their BiS. In the past we've known that the top pvp armor is the Bolster cap, so it was easy to min max with augments or other pvp mods and enhancement from the pvp vendors. With things the way they are now and not having dedicated pvp armor, we're still not sure what BiS is and probably won't know for months of trial and error, even then it will still be contentious. Hotties testing is starting to show where and especially how to find those BiS stats using the higher gear lvl mods and enhancements. But when people are eventually able to gear all internals (with the lvl cap set bonuses) with the same lvl items and every slot filled with the same lvl, we will see much smoother results as Bolster really likes every slot to be the same level. It's from there that you be able to work out the easiest way to min max. Anyway I hope some of that made sense. Icy just skimmed through what I wrote and she said it's close enough, lol. If you have any questions let me know and I'll see if I can pick her Brain a bit more. She asked me to add this. It was much easier in 3.0 (and to a lesser extent in 4.0 because they broke it) to do all of this testing because the Bolster terminals on the fleets allowed for real WZ stat comparisons. She could just sit there with a cargo hold full of gear and test for hours. She didn't need to enter matches to get the real numbers. So she applauds all of Hotties hard work and those that have helped her Alright thanks this makes sense actually. Never read the explanation in this manner but I think it sounds logical. Tell Icy thanks and enjoy her sabbatical from swtor. (She will be back, we always come back!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kissingaiur Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 (edited) I am surprised you even are questioning the experience shared by Kurfer. Granted maybe "40%" is not 100% exact as far as how much better his gears perform when wearing 208 set gears to 208 non-set gears, but are you really implying that bolster is NOT wonky and IS working properly? Even in Hottie's thread here, she herself has mentioned inconsistencies regarding the effect of bolster when certain gears are worn compared to others and that's just on the visible character sheet! What's going on behind that character sheet is a really good question. Yellow, exactly what does Kurfer gain by making his experience up anyway? Quality post by me or not, it's pretty clear there's no concise evidence that the numbers shown when bolstered in a wz actually are in effect. Any proof you have that it is will be nothing but anecdotal on your behalf, unless you provide parses that prove so. I think there's a very good chance that not only is bolster totally skewed and out of whack, but numbers shown on the character sheet do not actually represent actual numbers that effect your numbers in the warzones accurately. The thing I really, really want to keep this thread away from is people making bold claims that might be incorrect. If you or your friend are making an educated claim to how bolster is working without proof and evidence it is baseless. Time and time again every time I thought I saw a pattern or assumed a gear piece would behave in a linear progression majority of the time it was wrong. That's why its important to test and that's why I try not to make bold claims without having evidence as a backing. No offense but in this situation I have to side with Doc. If your friend said that bolster isn't working as intended and there are "missing stats" that aren't being represented in warzones without evidence it's just words and baseless till he posts proof. Doing this thread and my bolster experience I have seen a lot of weird stuff but it all makes sense. There is no "hidden stats" or bolster adding or removing something that I was really confused about. It does seem it is working to meet some stat equilibrium which is seen in all my testing. The ONLY thing out of all my testing that is not consistent or doesn't make sense, is how relics are functioning but out of everything else, that is it. Thanks for bringing up the idea of parsing and warzones, i'm glad you brought it up. There have been a lot of players who have come to me and told me that in one warzone wearing xyz gear they did 1k more DPS or HPS than they did wearing other gear etc. Please understand that it is impossible to get bolster stat information from a warzone with treating the end results like a parse. Looking at your numbers after on the leaderboard is not an educated way to make am assumption about bolster and stats in general. Why? To get accurate parse of how stats are effecting your gear you, you need to parse using the exactly the same rotation (without using 1 ability out of place), in the exact same circumstances for at least 30 mins to deduce all the RNG that could happen to leave the most reliable DPS/HPS numbers in the end. Let me be clear, there is absolutely NO way you can get reliable information about how your numbers pan out within a warzone. It would be literally impossible. The best thing you can do is dummy parse with the bolster buff going for 30 minutes at a time with a perfect rotation. If you think there is "hidden values" go parse and show us the results. I really, really find it hard to believe that there is something magical happening with stats in warzones without concrete proof. Edited January 21, 2017 by kissingaiur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kissingaiur Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 (edited) Hi Hottie, When you feel you've got enough data and testing done, would you consider creating another thread with a title like "gearing with Bolster" You could have all of your data together in a thread that doesn't have so many people arguing in it, Then you could answer quick questions for people and it wouldn't be so tedious trying to sort through some of these posts that are only touching the fringe of what you've tried to help us with. Icy did this and then got Eric to sticky it. I think once it's stickied the arguing will die down and will be more about questions than than a full on discussion. I was already thinking about doing this weeks ago . I possibility will in 5.1. I honestly don't mind the arguing. That is the good thing about threads like this. It gives players a way to communicate/discuss and talk to each other which is good. It's good to have everyone thinking and sharing information. That's literally how I found out about the relic bugs which was invaluable information. Edited January 21, 2017 by kissingaiur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 I was already thinking about doing this weeks ago . I possibility will in 5.1. I honestly don't mind the arguing. That is the good thing about threads like this. It gives players a way to communicate/discuss and talk to each other which is good. It's good to have everyone thinking and sharing information. That's literally how I found out about the relic bugs which was invaluable information. Keep this thread alive for the lively discussions, but have the second one for easy reference. It's how Icy did it. If people got the different purposes mixed up, she just used to copy and paste the other threads link and direct them to that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Alright thanks this makes sense actually. Never read the explanation in this manner but I think it sounds logical. Tell Icy thanks and enjoy her sabbatical from swtor. (She will be back, we always come back!) Time will tell. She's uninstalled the game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eli_Porter Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) So is it safe to say that bolster caps out at 236's? Meaning that in 5.1, you just need to get your set pieces + relics to 236 with components and and buy the rest at 240 from the gtn? Edited January 22, 2017 by Eli_Porter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kissingaiur Posted January 22, 2017 Author Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) So is it safe to say that bolster caps out at 236's? Meaning that in 5.1, you just need to get your set pieces + relics to 236 with components and and buy the rest at 240 from the gtn? We will have to see if relics are still bugged in 5.1. Relics were kinda Garbo if they weren't 208 or 230. For everything else it's hard to tel which is why I am waiting for 5.1 to continue testing. Bolster is starting to decline with a mix of 230-240 gear (excluding barrels/hilts). For information in the incoming weeks when I will be testing full sets for gear. Edited January 22, 2017 by kissingaiur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedcjedcjedc Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 We will have to see if relics are still bugged in 5.1. Relics were kinda Garbo if they weren't 208 or 230. For everything else it's hard to tel which is why I am waiting for 5.1 to continue testing. Bolster is starting to decline with a mix of 230-240 gear (excluding barrels/hilts). For information in the incoming weeks when I will be testing full sets for gear. I have 240 enhancements and mods, with 240 earpiece, implants and one 240 relic with a mixture of 230 and 208 armorings and mine goes up o.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kissingaiur Posted January 22, 2017 Author Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) I have 240 enhancements and mods, with 240 earpiece, implants and one 240 relic with a mixture of 230 and 208 armorings and mine goes up o.0 What you are experiencing now is just weird bolstering in relation to mix-matched gear armor ratings. With your gear combination you haven't hit the max amount of stat gain and/or hit the bolster ceiling. With my gearing combination, I have hit the ceiling (because I am constantly replacing and testing every piece as I go). The last testing I did I hit the bolster breaking point. I have all 240 armoring/mods, when i started to put in 240/230 armorings received a large stat decline. I started testing switching back to 208s armorings and seeing what my stats looked like. Switching out like 2-3 230/240 armorings I gained like 40 crit/alacrity and 30 mastery (something like that). Think I only lost 15 or so power/end. It was kinda insane. At a certain point it does look like you start to gain more stats by low tier gear (you can see this all back with all the last testing I did). At this point is where things became really confusing because I hit a point of my gear where my stats started to decline with higher rated gear. Things like this get really confusing because you really cant pinpoint where the loss or gain from the stats are because right now, we are forced to wear a large mixer of gear. That is why I am hoping to be testing full sets of gear in 5.1 (it will make it easier to buy them to complete a set). Testing 208 full set vs. 230 full set vs. 234 full set etc. From there we will be able to see at what point a full set a gear is a gain or a loss. If, for example a 240 full set has declining from a 236 full set, we can start to balance out the gear to get the best combination according to bolster. PS. Take out your 240 relic and put in a 208 one and see what happens to your stats. Edited January 22, 2017 by kissingaiur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedcjedcjedc Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 so is there a medium though? like say for an arbitrary example 240 will bolster you up to 3k mastery (not an actual number just example) and 242 will bolster you down to 3k mastery? or does the higher teir gear actually bolster you lower than what the other teirs bolster you up to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kissingaiur Posted January 22, 2017 Author Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) so is there a medium though? like say for an arbitrary example 240 will bolster you up to 3k mastery (not an actual number just example) and 242 will bolster you down to 3k mastery? or does the higher teir gear actually bolster you lower than what the other teirs bolster you up to? From what I have seen, I believe that bolster wants to meet a hidden stat equilibrium that is effected somehow by gear rating. Edited January 22, 2017 by kissingaiur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoopicus Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 From what I have seen, I believe that bolster wants to meet a hidden stat equilibrium that is effected somehow by gear rating. I think this is right and it is in line with what I have seen. Things that change the item rating have a direct effect on things like DPS (via pri and bonus damage) and damage reduction (via Armor value) that is not "weirded" by Bolster in any way. Increasing hilts and armorings to 228, for example, will always show a DPS, Damage Reduction, and Armor increase over 208, both pre and post bolster. However, the same is NOT true of the other slots, which feed in to bolstered stats, as the testing here has shown. What it feels like to me is that Bolster is affecting mods and enhancements, looking for a specific equilibrium on a per-slot basis, tied somehow to the overall item rating, per item. And this is what makes it seem confusing. But I would need to test more to say and I kind of gave up as my gear is "good enough" for the moment, at least until I have a full set bonus; until then I figured I could stop minmaxing. And of course none of this would explain the weird mastery bump with Relics. So thanks again, as always, for this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 (edited) I mentioned this in another thread to people saying Bolster is broken and I think it's relevant here too. Bolster isn't broken, Bios communication on how Bolster works and what the stat and gear caps are is what is broken. To me it is nonsensical and idiotic that they don't communicate this with us. It's not like it stays a trade secret for long because people like and Hottie, Icykill and others dedicated to helping the community, will always test it until we know what the stat and gear caps are. But they shouldn't have to do all that testing. Bio really should provide it and then everyone could benefit from it. So many people in game never come to the forums and always have the wrong setup because they don't even have a clue about Bolster, even when it's been worked out by these dedicated people. You basically have to beg those guys to go to the forums and read it. The only thing broken about Bolster is Bios communication maybe we should start petition ping them or pestering them to give us the info. Edited January 23, 2017 by TrixxieTriss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 I think this is right and it is in line with what I have seen. Things that change the item rating have a direct effect on things like DPS (via pri and bonus damage) and damage reduction (via Armor value) that is not "weirded" by Bolster in any way. Increasing hilts and armorings to 228, for example, will always show a DPS, Damage Reduction, and Armor increase over 208, both pre and post bolster. However, the same is NOT true of the other slots, which feed in to bolstered stats, as the testing here has shown. What it feels like to me is that Bolster is affecting mods and enhancements, looking for a specific equilibrium on a per-slot basis, tied somehow to the overall item rating, per item. And this is what makes it seem confusing. But I would need to test more to say and I kind of gave up as my gear is "good enough" for the moment, at least until I have a full set bonus; until then I figured I could stop minmaxing. And of course none of this would explain the weird mastery bump with Relics. So thanks again, as always, for this thread. Augments can also have an effect, which is why you sometimes need to check your stats each time you equip them. This is especially true in pre 70 gearing. I did some testing yesterday at lvl 67 just because I'd been lvling up my synth weaving and had a bunch of them, so I put them in to see. While stats like alacrity and crit went up using those stat augments, my damage stats fell. I played a few matches to see how that affected things and I took a major nerf to my damage each match and died more. The crazy thing was I didn't actually lose a heap of damage stats. I pulled them out, lost a fair bit of crit and alacrity, my damage stats increased a little and I went back to hitting the same numbers I did before equipping them I know in 4.0 it was better to not use Augments pre 65, it seems to be the same in 5.0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedcjedcjedc Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 (edited) So I have all augmented 240 except armorings and one relic, (and barrels, but that's the point) and these are my stats atm Damage pri 3009-3512 Damage sec 176-327 Bonus 2422.4 Acc 101% Crit 45.76% Mult 73.59 Tech: 3070.6 2211.7 101 48.76 73.59 5.8 15.11% I put in the 240 barrels and gained around 450 points of damage, bonus damage, and bonus healing while losing about 2 points of crit and multiplier. so at that point, is it when i put in the armorings my stats will start to go down? and how far exactly do they go down? Edited January 24, 2017 by jedcjedcjedc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoopicus Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 So this is the last thing you're going to want to hear, but I am bolstering for significantly different amounts in 5.1 than I was in 5.0 on a Jugg in both Immortal and Vengeance. Gear is slightly different though and I am too tired to really experiment right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iam_celestial Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 Posted on the other thread but here goes again: Here is a comparison before/after in regs (i think for ranked it's the same). http://imgur.com/a/mvrcf 1st Image: 5.1 Outside of warzone (on guild ship) 2nd Image: 5.1 bolstered, unranked 3rd Image: How it was in 5.0, in a warzone (unranked) <-- Comparison here is slightly skewed, as for 1st and 2nd Image I had an accuracy enhancement where for 3rd image (before 5.1) I had a critical enhancement instead. I am leaving 3rd image just to give a general direction. Image 1 and 2 give the true picture. I am in 230-234-240 gear and versatile stim (all class buffs). If you need more details, let me know. I just hope all the work you did figuring out the bolster would not be in vain. I do receive the bolster buff (the icon is there) but the stats are practically the same, only marginal differences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoopicus Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 Yeah that's what I was seeing too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoopicus Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 Ahh, just saw the other thread. So the cap is 232. Well, shiat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedcjedcjedc Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 judging from that SS it looks like people get bolstered up to 232 but if your gear is better than you use your own stats Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 So they basically nerfed all your hard work :mad: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 (edited) judging from that SS it looks like people get bolstered up to 232 but if your gear is better than you use your own stats Massive gear gaps to come. Game becomes gear vs gear and not skill vs skill. Dedicated pvpers or people who can't pvp 40 hours a week or people who don't do operations leave the game. Edited January 25, 2017 by TrixxieTriss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedcjedcjedc Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 (edited) Massive gear gaps to come. Game becomes gear vs gear and not skill vs skill. Dedicated pvpers or people who can't pvp 40 hours a week or people who don't do operations leave the game. Not really. I have about 50 components so far already. While they definitely should lower the cost/increase the drop amounts, bolster is fine: I've gone through several WZ's, looking through stats, a lot were tanks and such so I couldn't go off that, this one is perfect though, he is the same class, a merc all below bolster while I'm mostly above bolster. He is missing 2 augments and is wearing a mixture of gear at and below 232 and is at 2,088 stat points while I have 2,677. the two augments would have 322 between them leaving a difference of only 267 between all the stats. even just upgrading that earpiece from a green would probably make it even more balanced between the two. http://imgur.com/a/eqhRu Edited January 25, 2017 by jedcjedcjedc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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