To all the people upset about the new gearing system

[Andryah]

You logic is completely flawed. .25 cents over a course of year is enough of difference to most people coming in at $500.00 or so. Set bonuses matter on long encounters is the point and you can right 7 more paragraphs on how it does not matter but you are completely incorrect.

 

Thank you for completely ignoring my point and standing your ground on principle instead. Very productive.

 

Again... set bonus is not enough to overcome the variations of RNG in combat cycles with any certainty. Sometimes it may, sometimes it may not. This is more true on long fights then short ones.. which invalidates your insistence here.

 

Now... if the gear is free/easy-t-get and requires little effort, of course you stack everything in your favor you can. But it's not.. and so it is prudent to look at what you are actually getting for what you are investing.

 

Set bonus is nice, but in the total equation of your characters powers... its quite small, and easily swamped out by simple variations in combat results. Fixation on having to have it is exaggerated.

 

I repeat: Set bonus is nice, but in the total equation of your characters powers... its quite small, and easily swamped out by simple variations in combat results. Fixation on having to have it is exaggerated.

 

I'm not arguing that set bonus is not desired, only that it's actual value in combat is not nearly what some players are conflating it to be. It's marginal, particularly what I see in the 5.0 set bonus. Your energy would be better served making a case for better set bonus in my view... so it does have some material and measurable benefit worth the effort required to obtain it.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Andryah

[Veceam]

Keep going! You're exactly right on this. The bonuses DO matter.

 

I don't think anyone has claimed that the set bonuses don't matter. They obviously do. All that has been pointed out is that they don't matter a lot for most classes.

 

I don't know if any of the current nim bosses are that tightly tuned to require the bonuses, but from what I've seen so far that doesn't seem to be the case

[Andryah]

i don't think anyone has claimed that the set bonuses don't matter. They obviously do. All that has been pointed out is that they don't matter a lot for most classes.

 

I don't know if any of the current nim bosses are that tightly tuned to require the bonuses, but from what i've seen so far that doesn't seem to be the case

 

exactly.

[Soljin]

Keep going! You're exactly right on this. The bonuses DO matter.

 

They do matter...their level of importance is somewhat related to how close the player is to maxing the potential of their class.....

 

For instance a player that utilizes sub optimal ability timing and usage and does not track when their set bonus procs are firing etc....the bonuses are adding negligible increases to the players performance.....

 

On the flip side A player that is maxing the potential of their class on a consistent basis and is in fact watching and timing procs etc....the set bonuses do provide considerable benefit which could tilt a conflict or gains in the players favor.....

 

AKA set bonus importance is relative to the players ability....they can be quite a decent advantage if used properly and efficiently.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Soljin

[Andryah]

you and others act like it makes no difference when it does.

 

Never said that. Please re-read what I actually said. I said the benefit is small and the effort to get it is disproportionately high .. so why chase it. But if you do chase it.. do so with open eyes.. recognize you are investing disproportionate effort for the gain returned.

 

Personally, I'll wait until they get GC and Cxp settled down and tuned.

 

You are obviously white-knighting EAWare's banner.

 

Setting aside the fact that I am a critic of the current state of GC.. and Cxp earnings here in the forum ... yes yes by all means.. jump the shark and resort to name calling to make your point. That's productive in the discussion.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Andryah

[TUXs]

I don't think anyone has claimed that the set bonuses don't matter. They obviously do. All that has been pointed out is that they don't matter a lot for most classes.

 

I don't know if any of the current nim bosses are that tightly tuned to require the bonuses, but from what I've seen so far that doesn't seem to be the case

I'm genuinely curious - which ones "don't matter a lot" exactly?

 

Here's a link with the bonuses per class.

 

I generally only play my Mandos, so I sincerely am asking you, not trying to be a smart ***. In PvP, every one of those bonuses for Mando has extreme value, especially in 5.0.

[KendraP]

Being honest I find crafting at least as grindy as the cxp system. I have to level the skill, farm the mats (since they're not a the jawas), wait for the item to craft, RE it and hope I get the better one, then craft the better one. Its a very annoying process to me. To me crafting is tedious, boring, and mind numbing. Note I say "to me". If crafting is your thing more power to you. Also the gear that you can learn without using cxp boxes has no set bonus. Most of my toons have a set bonus already. Especially the one I'm trying to gear now.

[Kawiki]

I said the benefit is small and the effort to get it is disproportionately high

 

The bonus can be significant, but we can disagree on that. The above sentance is why so many are irritated with the new gearing system. Whether YOU want to be the best you can be or not is not my concern, but the simple fact is there are many many people that do want that.

 

And whether you believe it or not these people are typically the people that set the enjoyment level for others whether directly or indirectly. The way EAware is going is you may very soon have severs stacked with a bunch of solo players watching cut scenes. And nothing against solo players, I like to solo also at times. But anyone that likes to group for any activity in this game should be very very worried about the command system and the Grind/RNG associated with it.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Kawiki

[ludoviccb]

I don't think anyone has claimed that the set bonuses don't matter. They obviously do. All that has been pointed out is that they don't matter a lot for most classes.

 

I don't know if any of the current nim bosses are that tightly tuned to require the bonuses, but from what I've seen so far that doesn't seem to be the case

 

It matter for the progression groups. Even a 1% dps increase in a boss fight can make the difference between a wipe and killing the boss with 1-2 people left standing. It's not a pretty way to kill a boss, but when it's the first time, the group will take any win it can and it will boost the confidence instead frustating the group since they got so close and wiped.

[MasterLiuerbud]

They do matter...their level of importance is somewhat related to how close the player is to maxing the potential of their class.....

 

AKA set bonus importance is relative to the players ability....they can be quite a decent advantage if used properly and efficiently.

 

Exactly! Honestly, when i play without my set bonus on all my classes, i feel lost. Searching for my procs, wondering why such ability is still on CD, etc. This is probably because of having played too much NiM. And yes the NiM bosses are tightly tuned. In HM, who cares about set bonus as long as you know your rotation and the mechanics. ATM all HM bosses are doable in 224s and a couple of easy NiM are also doable in 224s but forget about TFB, forget about tanks, forget about Bestia, Brontes and Styrak and so and so.

 

IMO if we could craft set bonuses armorings, it would be good as a whole cause everyone could have them. But then again, this would defeat the purpose of GC and CXP.

 

But i agree with the first poster: the gearing progression now involves crafting. And that feels really different. 4.0 made us lazy farming TFB offhand lockouts, EV council Relic lockouts, Underlurker headpiece abuse, etc. THAT was a grind in itself. The grind is different now. We have to grind a little bit of crafting now.

[TalonVII]

#RemoveRNG

 

Go play war gamming games. You ain't seen nothing yet on RNG.

[Jamtas]

Thank you for completely ignoring my point and standing your ground on principle instead. Very productive.

 

Again... set bonus is not enough to overcome the variations of RNG in combat cycles with any certainty. Sometimes it may, sometimes it may not. This is more true on long fights then short ones.. which invalidates your insistence here.

 

Now... if the gear is free/easy-t-get and requires little effort, of course you stack everything in your favor you can. But it's not.. and so it is prudent to look at what you are actually getting for what you are investing.

 

Set bonus is nice, but in the total equation of your characters powers... its quite small, and easily swamped out by simple variations in combat results. Fixation on having to have it is exaggerated.

 

I repeat: Set bonus is nice, but in the total equation of your characters powers... its quite small, and easily swamped out by simple variations in combat results. Fixation on having to have it is exaggerated.

 

I'm not arguing that set bonus is not desired, only that it's actual value in combat is not nearly what some players are conflating it to be. It's marginal, particularly what I see in the 5.0 set bonus. Your energy would be better served making a case for better set bonus in my view... so it does have some material and measurable benefit worth the effort required to obtain it.

 

Can we at least agree that what you are meaning to say is that set bonuses don't matter for doing things like chapters, uprisings, SM operations & heroics, but in cases like hm/nim operations they do matter?

 

If so, then I'd agree with you that for those types of things crafted gear is just fine.

[Andryah]

Being honest I find crafting at least as grindy as the cxp system. I have to level the skill, farm the mats (since they're not a the jawas), wait for the item to craft, RE it and hope I get the better one, then craft the better one. Its a very annoying process to me. To me crafting is tedious, boring, and mind numbing. Note I say "to me". If crafting is your thing more power to you. Also the gear that you can learn without using cxp boxes has no set bonus. Most of my toons have a set bonus already. Especially the one I'm trying to gear now.

 

As crafting goes in MMOs.. this one with it's crew mission approach is much less tedious in my experience. It only takes minutes to skill up from 550 to 600 if you were actively crafting in 4.0, and materials are not that bad in terms of effort and grind by the player.. as the crew does all the work.

 

When a new expac drops, I put all my available crew across a half a dozen characters on gathering missions, while I go off and play the game. It only took a few days of this before I has sufficient materials, including purple components.

 

But yeah.. crafting is not for everyone.. but in 5.0 it is far superior to riding the current grind-mill of GC.

 

I'll eventually do the work (once the fine tune and adjust how GC works, not before) on my main and an alt or two for set bonus gear. For now they are fine in augmented 228s.... and my guild is taking the same approach and it's not freezing us out of any group content for doing so. Some content is more challenging right now.. but so what.. it's not like there is some need to put OPs on "farm status" and rotate members through it for gear any more. OPs now are played for the challenge. For all my various alts though.. they will do just fine with fully augmented 228 gear until 6.0.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Andryah

[Vember]

Personally, I think you guys are inflating the value of set bonuses just to validate your claim. I like set bonuses (boni?) but they aren't as huge a boon as some would have you believe.

[Hichitsuki-hime]

Can we at least agree that what you are meaning to say is that set bonuses don't matter for doing things like chapters, uprisings, SM operations & heroics, but in cases like hm/nim operations they do matter?

 

If so, then I'd agree with you that for those types of things crafted gear is just fine.

 

and don't forget PvP =):D:D

[Hichitsuki-hime]

Personally, I think you guys are inflating the value of set bonuses just to validate your claim. I like set bonuses (boni?) but they aren't as huge a boon as some would have you believe.

 

it depends really. on :

1) content u do (if u do SM no u certainly don't NEED it, if u do HM/NiM - YES YOU DO!!!)

2) on the person's skill (if u're a good players u can get most out of ur set bonus, if u are a glorified scrub, no amount of set bonus will do any good for you)

3) as for PvP i'm not sure if we get the same bonus as for PvE now really cause haven't seen a single token yet either way lol. but in PvP every advange u can get u definitely should get hehe.

4) and then there is RP and there i'm pretty sure u don't need much more than fitting shells lol

 

so all in all you can't 100% say that YES having SB will break or make your game. but u can't also claim that it doesn't matter :D:D:D:D

[Paulsutherland]

#RemoveRNG

 

#RemoveRNG

[DawnAskham]

I'm genuinely curious - which ones "don't matter a lot" exactly?

 

Here's a link with the bonuses per class.

 

I generally only play my Mandos, so I sincerely am asking you, not trying to be a smart ***. In PvP, every one of those bonuses for Mando has extreme value, especially in 5.0.

 

Define 'extreme' as the newer (3.0+) set bonuses have always seemed a bit meh (specifically dps ones - I never heal and haven't tanked in quite some time), to the point where some classes could eek out better performance using at least portions of the old 2.0 and / or PVP set bonuses.

 

I'm not saying they aren't important, nor that all things being equal a player with set bonuses would not outperform one without, but I am questioning some of the more outlandish comments where some posters want everyone to believe they are unable to complete any content without a full set, which just isn't true.

 

It would be interesting to see some actual facts and math around the output of each class with and without set bonus to show how much (or how little) they matter, but I haven't seen anything like that in quite some time.

Edited December 8, 2016 by DawnAskham

[Alloou]

Personally, I think you guys are inflating the value of set bonuses just to validate your claim. I like set bonuses (boni?) but they aren't as huge a boon as some would have you believe.

 

Well based on the link from TUX, the 2 set bonus alone is a standard 2% damage increase and its static. The 4 set and 6 set only add on top of that.

From what i remember years back, BW said something about wanting the set bonuses to provide ~5% dps increase overall. I will need to search for that to confirm so take this with a grain of salt.

 

EDIT: Found it.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=823285

 

Their intention for the sets was to not exceed 5%.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Alloou

[DawnAskham]

Well based on the link from TUX, the 2 set bonus alone is a standard 2% damage increase and its static. The 4 set and 6 set only add on top of that.

From what i remember years back, BW said something about wanting the set bonuses to provide ~5% dps increase overall. I will need to search for that though so take this with a grain of salt.

 

Wrong - it's a chance on usage of a specific ability to have a 2% increase for 15 seconds with a 30 second cooldown, so at best it would be a 1% increase assuming perfect timing of proccing the bonus when the cooldown expired.

 

The 2 and 4 are usually an extra % chance of crit on abilities which will already crit a good portion of the time without the extra chance, and / or guarantee an auto crit, again on an ability that may already crit anyway, as well as the auto crtt bonuses all seem to have a cooldown of once per minute.

 

Again, not saying they aren't desirable and better than not having a set bonus - but without actual parsing and math showing the actual real world benefit of a set of the same rating with and without set bonuses, it is hard to take seriously comments that use adjectives such as 'massive' to describe their importance.

Edited December 8, 2016 by DawnAskham

[Alloou]

Wrong - it's a chance on usage of a specific ability to have a 2% increase for 15 seconds with a 30 second cooldown, so at best it would be a 1% increase assuming perfect timing of proccing the bonus when the cooldown expired.

 

The 2 and 4 are usually an extra chance on crit or an auto crit on a specific ability, many of which will already crit, and for the auto crit, again has a cooldown of once per minute at best.

 

No sorry, there is no chance involved:

2-Piece: Battering Assault or Zealous Strike increases damage dealt by 2% for 15 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 30 of seconds. Its a flat 2% dps increase happening twice a minute for 30 seconds.

[Tsetso]

Well based on the link from TUX, the 2 set bonus alone is a standard 2% damage increase and its static. The 4 set and 6 set only add on top of that.

From what i remember years back, BW said something about wanting the set bonuses to provide ~5% dps increase overall. I will need to search for that to confirm so take this with a grain of salt.

 

Yes, i've seen that mentioned too. That being said 5% might seem low but on a 3.5 minute fight it's 10s which could be the difference between a clear and enrage and wipe.

[DawnAskham]

No sorry, there is no chance involved:

2-Piece: Battering Assault or Zealous Strike increases damage dealt by 2% for 15 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 30 of seconds. Its a flat 2% dps increase happening twice a minute for 30 seconds.

 

The math is correct even if my wording of chance is off - the 2% is still for 15 seconds every 30 seconds, and still requires use of an ability to activate, so again the best case is a static 1% buff assuming perfect timing of the triggering ability usage the second the cool down expires.

 

All this angst over set bonuses (though I agree the GC RNG gearing system is total crap) is a lot like the fat man at the bike store spending crazy amounts of money to get the lightest bike when simply losing 5 lbs would provide them a much larger benefit in performance than any super light bike would provide.

 

The vast majority of players I've seen in this game would get far more benefit out of spending some time parsing and perfecting their rotations than they ever will by having a set bonus.

Edited December 8, 2016 by DawnAskham

[Alloou]

The math is correct even if my wording of chance is off - the 2% is still for 15 seconds every 30 seconds, and still requires use of an ability to activate, so again the best case is a static 1% buff assuming perfect timing of the triggering ability usage the second the cool down expires.

 

Once again no, it is 2% flat.

In the case of Battering Assault there is no cooldown so you can pretty much spam it. Assuming you activate it as soon as the 30 seconds pass it means that you get 2% damage increase for 15 seconds every 30 seconds. So the uptime is 1% every 30 seconds x twice per minute = 2% over 60 seconds

 

EDIT: Sorry, i stand corrected. So much for my math tonight. You are absolutely right. It's a flat 1% across.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Alloou

[Tsetso]

The math is correct even if my wording of chance is off - the 2% is still for 15 seconds every 30 seconds, and still requires use of an ability to activate, so again the best case is a static 1% buff assuming perfect timing of the triggering ability usage the second the cool down expires.

 

You're wrong. Carnage is a burst spec. That 2% increases the burst damage he does which is probably ~75-80% of the spec(or at least was - haven't played it in 5.0).