344 gear... why?

[OlBuzzard]

1 hour ago, Jdast said:

One of the annoying aspects whenever these types of threads pop up is you get players telling me what I should and should not enjoy in game, how I should enjoy content, what is engaging and meaningful, etc. With respect, I'm quite capable of making those decisions myself. 

I like pushing boundaries as a solo player in Vet and Master Mode Flashpoints, Uprisings, Chapters, etc., on all classes and combat styles. Raising the Ilvl of gear available equates to my attempting and affording me the opportunity to tackle new challenges and will keep me subscribed longer.

From my perspective, this is a very wise business strategy on Broadsword / SWTOR's part. Some people just enjoy chasing BiS even if they don't need it. If you don't want the higher Ilvl gear, don't get it. It's really that simple.

Bottom line: I neither need nor desire people telling me whether or not I'm actually having fun or what I consider content.

Dasty

IMO one of the biggest disasters in the history of SWTOR has its roots in listening to a select group of elitists (I'm certain you recall the incident).  The better the gear I have access to the more flexible I am and the wider the variety of options I have access to in different PvE areas I can enjoy.  I have little desire to spend month after month chasing after gear that will (eventually) allow me to have access to the more difficult areas.  I also welcome the latest gear changes. 

I might also add:  you concluding statement is right on! (well said).

 

[inagalaxyfaraway]

1 hour ago, Jdast said:

One of the annoying aspects whenever these types of threads pop up is you get players telling me what I should and should not enjoy in game, how I should enjoy content, what is engaging and meaningful, etc. With respect, I'm quite capable of making those decisions myself. 

I like pushing boundaries as a solo player in Vet and Master Mode Flashpoints, Uprisings, Chapters, etc., on all classes and combat styles. Raising the Ilvl of gear available equates to my attempting and affording me the opportunity to tackle new challenges and will keep me subscribed longer.

From my perspective, this is a very wise business strategy on Broadsword / SWTOR's part. Some people just enjoy chasing BiS even if they don't need it. If you don't want the higher Ilvl gear, don't get it. It's really that simple.

Bottom line: I neither need nor desire people telling me whether or not I'm actually having fun or what I consider content.

Dasty

Ok, but why not just increase the accessibility of 340 purple gear instead of raising the ilevel? That way, NiM raiders seeking a challenge will not be upset by reduced difficulty and largely solo players such as yourself will still be able to chase BiS their own way. 

When you tell NiM raiders to just not get the new gear if they don't like it, you are ignoring that they (myself included) also like chasing BiS, it's one of the primary draws to difficult content; constantly seeking to maximize your setup and skill to perform optimally in operations and do big numbers. Purposefully handicapping yourself is completely contradictory to that style of play.

 

I totally understand why you want the gear, and I see no reason why not to make it available for everyone now (I've already had it for a while from doing R4 HM, I won't be bothered if everyone is given a path to getting it). But artificially decreasing the difficulty for those seeking a challenge is not a great solution. 

 

[Samcuu]

The answer to the op's question is probably to make the newest operation accessible to more ppl. A lot of the more casual types are still working on clearing R4. It's no secret that the current player base are mostly casuals who don't consume content like a locust. They set this type of precedence in 6.0 when they released the new tier of augs, even with no new content, so raid groups could finish the Dxun op easier as many were struggling iirc. 

[Lord_Malganus]

So is this next raise to 340 Legendary implants/344 gear to help those that have not cleared R4 to do so, or is it to allow non raiders to get to 340 or both?

[sharpenedstick]

A new gear tier makes sense, because MMOs are treadmills and having to upgrade gear is content. That part I'm okay with.

What surprises me is they like the current system of 99 currencies, and the pointless Hyde and Zeek, and now an R4 trade in for Rakata.

It's painfully obvious that they have no real idea how to construct a gearing system.

[OlBuzzard]

11 minutes ago, sharpenedstick said:

A new gear tier makes sense, because MMOs are treadmills and having to upgrade gear is content. That part I'm okay with.

What surprises me is they like the current system of 99 currencies, and the pointless Hyde and Zeek, and now an R4 trade in for Rakata.

It's painfully obvious that they have no real idea how to construct a gearing system.

I'm almost certain that I wouldn't go THAT far ...  BUT it can be all too often as confusing as a termite in a yo-yo!  You know ... back when they were made of wood!

(That may have been before their time).

Never Mind!!!

🤦‍♂️

[xxSHOONYxx]

1 hour ago, sharpenedstick said:

A new gear tier makes sense, because MMOs are treadmills and having to upgrade gear is content. That part I'm okay with.

MMOs are a treadmill for gear when NEW content comes out, not whenever to keep people busy because they don't want/can't do actual end game content.

All they needed to do is let hyde and zeek go to 338-340 if they wanted to change something or "help" casuals. But it's not the reason, is just to keep everyone busy as if it was actual content and to force everyone to buy new augments to reach thresholds/not waste tertiary stats. Because if you keep your old augments your new "shiny" gear will do almost the same damage as the one you have now since the extra acuracy and alacrity of the gear will be wasted

[sharpenedstick]

23 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

MMOs are a treadmill for gear when NEW content comes out, not whenever to keep people busy because they don't want/can't do actual end game content.

This game is probably going into maintenance mode. New gear tiers will be new content.

[FlatTax]

What's up with Augments? Nothing?

[xxSHOONYxx]

1 hour ago, sharpenedstick said:

This game is probably going into maintenance mode. New gear tiers will be new content.

To each their own, this game has been on maintenance mode to me since they blew all their budget on story chapters and the player count took a nose dive. 

Call me crazy, but if people spend 15 dollars a month and the game comes out with new gear but with old content as if it was "new content" to me that is a ripoff and lowering the standards even more of what is acceptable for the devs to do

Edited October 20, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[sharpenedstick]

35 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

Call me crazy, but if people spend 15 dollars a month and the game comes out with new gear but with old content as if it was "new content" to me that is a ripoff and lowering the standards even more of what is acceptable for the devs to do

I'm not describing how things should be. I'm describing how they are.

Even before the move to Biosword, content came out excruciatingly slowly. Going to a maintenance mode company is unlikely to accelerate the pace of new story.

Stuff will probably come out in dribs and drabs, and part of that is going to be the occasional gear bump.

[ThanderSnB]

Maybe they are tuning the new daily area to assume 340 gear. If that's what they are doing, it would make sense to give everyone 340 gear.

I kind of felt Manaan story and daily area were best at 326-330. It could be done with lower item rating, but mobs had so much HP, it wasn't too fun. Ruhnuk felt too slow at 330, but not bad at 336-340.

Edited October 21, 2023 by ThanderSnB

[TziganeNZ]

19 hours ago, VegaMist said:

One toon. You can get everything on one toon. Just need to select "All" in the drop down. 

Nothing was changed - it's still the same.

And you learn something every day! Thanks for the tip!

[Darcmoon]

13 hours ago, ThanderSnB said:

Maybe they are tuning the new daily area to assume 340 gear. If that's what they are doing, it would make sense to give everyone 340 gear.

I kind of felt Manaan story and daily area were best at 326-330. It could be done with lower item rating, but mobs had so much HP, it wasn't too fun. Ruhnuk felt too slow at 330, but not bad at 336-340.

It will probably be tuned at the same level as Manaan and Ruhnuk.  They generally assume a minimum ilevel for the players going thru it which would be the 324(?) that you can get from the conquest gear vendor.  If they tuned the new daily area to 340, they will get alot of complaints from those who do not have 340 gear and/or don't intend to get it.

[ElZaguero]

On 10/20/2023 at 5:12 PM, xxSHOONYxx said:

MMOs are a treadmill for gear when NEW content comes out, not whenever to keep people busy because they don't want/can't do actual end game content.

All they needed to do is let hyde and zeek go to 338-340 if they wanted to change something or "help" casuals. But it's not the reason, is just to keep everyone busy as if it was actual content and to force everyone to buy new augments to reach thresholds/not waste tertiary stats. Because if you keep your old augments your new "shiny" gear will do almost the same damage as the one you have now since the extra acuracy and alacrity of the gear will be wasted

Uhh, the part at the end went over my head.

Because if you keep your old augments your new "shiny" gear will do almost the same damage as the one you have now since the extra accuracy and alacrity of the gear will be wasted

Could you explain that, please? How will the additional tertiary stats be "wasted" ? Mind you, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying I don't understand.

 

[Toraak]

1 hour ago, ElZaguero said:

Uhh, the part at the end went over my head.

Because if you keep your old augments your new "shiny" gear will do almost the same damage as the one you have now since the extra accuracy and alacrity of the gear will be wasted

Could you explain that, please? How will the additional tertiary stats be "wasted" ? Mind you, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying I don't understand.

 

They are mistaken. They are under the impression that any Alacrity above one of the GCD thresholds is a wasted stat by that comment. Which it is not. Many DoT specs intentionally go over that threshold by a few hundred points as it is. Even if they aren't a DoT spec it will still help a little by increasing how much they regen Force power/tech energy etc.

 

Now for Accuracy We'll adjust what augments/accuracy pieces we're using to minimize how much we go over the cap. 

[xxSHOONYxx]

5 hours ago, ElZaguero said:

Uhh, the part at the end went over my head.

Because if you keep your old augments your new "shiny" gear will do almost the same damage as the one you have now since the extra accuracy and alacrity of the gear will be wasted

Could you explain that, please? How will the additional tertiary stats be "wasted" ? Mind you, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying I don't understand.

 

Because alacrity has hard caps on gcd, your base with no alacrity is 1.5 gcd, when you reach 2054 alacrity is the first cap that is 1.4 gcd (with exceptions like arsenal or lightning), but now to reach 1.3 gcd you need 5431 alacrity. You can go a bit more of 2054 to take into account server lag but by an average of a 50-150 more, everything else between your 2100-2200 alacrity and 5431 is basically wasted since your gcd doesn't change. So to not waste those stats (with exception like virulence that is 2700-2800) is better to allocate them into crit because it takes much better use of them. 

Similar with accuracy, 2694 gives you 110% accuracy which is needed to not miss in ops. Anything above that and it's basically wasted, so when you reach that you are required to swap into crit.

Assuming you were correctly geared already, your excess of tertiary stats on alacrity and accuracy will be wasted and your only damage increase will come from the extra mastery/power/crit the gear can have while wasting all the others.

Someone ran the numbers with what the 344 gear will have (think it was the same person that started this thread), and according to that person's math people will need 2 accuracy pieces and 9 accuracy augments(gold ones). If his math and assumptions are correct, people might want to start saving/crating accuracy augments because they will be on high demand.

Now when you go into healer depending on the stats you have now, since they don't use accuracy for the most part in pve with very few exceptions like styrak or nahut, they might reach critical diminishing returns so they will also need to move critical stats somewhere else.
 

3 hours ago, Toraak said:

They are mistaken. They are under the impression that any Alacrity above one of the GCD thresholds is a wasted stat by that comment. Which it is not. Many DoT specs intentionally go over that threshold by a few hundred points as it is. Even if they aren't a DoT spec it will still help a little by increasing how much they regen Force power/tech energy etc.

 

Now for Accuracy We'll adjust what augments/accuracy pieces we're using to minimize how much we go over the cap. 

Wrong in two aspects. But lets focus on one that is the gear/stat increase.
Most people go above alacrity threshold mainly because of server lag and some to align passives of their class/skill procs.
Like virulence that goes to 2700-2800 (instead of the usual 2100-2200) and is mainly to get an extra tick of cull and help reduce the cooldown of viral targeting so it won't be delayed waiting for weakening blast to be applied. Using the same example of virulence and viral targeting, maybe your viral targeting will come off cooldown 2 seconds earlier, but you will now need to delay it and wait for weakening blast to come off cooldown. Going above what is already required and people should have now will not help and is not enough to reach the next threshold of alacrity that will help, so it is wasted.

  

Edited October 22, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[Pirana]

6 hours ago, ElZaguero said:

Uhh, the part at the end went over my head.

Because if you keep your old augments your new "shiny" gear will do almost the same damage as the one you have now since the extra accuracy and alacrity of the gear will be wasted

Could you explain that, please? How will the additional tertiary stats be "wasted" ? Mind you, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying I don't understand.

 

The numbers have been around for years, going back as far as Dulfy, now defunct regarding this game to Vulkk, which is now most commonly used. What is mentioned above is accurate, the extra stats will be next to pointless. This new grind is just that, a grind.

[OlBuzzard]

2 hours ago, Pirana said:

The numbers have been around for years, going back as far as Dulfy, now defunct regarding this game to Vulkk, which is now most commonly used. What is mentioned above is accurate, the extra stats will be next to pointless. This new grind is just that, a grind.

Ummm ... Point of clarification... The new grind is MORE than that ... just a grind!  It's a lot more than that!

Spoiler

Frankly It's bit boring as well!  (As well as tedious, monotonous and a wearisome).

 

😉

 

[psikofunkster]

9 accuracy augments(gold ones) and no new content...bahaha no thanks.🤑

Edited October 22, 2023 by psikofunkster
complaint

[Toraak]

6 hours ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

Because alacrity has hard caps on gcd, your base with no alacrity is 1.5 gcd, when you reach 2054 alacrity is the first cap that is 1.4 gcd (with exceptions like arsenal or lightning), but now to reach 1.3 gcd you need 5431 alacrity. You can go a bit more of 2054 to take into account server lag but by an average of a 50-150 more, everything else between your 2100-2200 alacrity and 5431 is basically wasted since your gcd doesn't change. So to not waste those stats (with exception like virulence that is 2700-2800) is better to allocate them into crit because it takes much better use of them. 

Similar with accuracy, 2694 gives you 110% accuracy which is needed to not miss in ops. Anything above that and it's basically wasted, so when you reach that you are required to swap into crit.

Assuming you were correctly geared already, your excess of tertiary stats on alacrity and accuracy will be wasted and your only damage increase will come from the extra mastery/power/crit the gear can have while wasting all the others.

Someone ran the numbers with what the 344 gear will have (think it was the same person that started this thread), and according to that person's math people will need 2 accuracy pieces and 9 accuracy augments(gold ones). If his math and assumptions are correct, people might want to start saving/crating accuracy augments because they will be on high demand.

Now when you go into healer depending on the stats you have now, since they don't use accuracy for the most part in pve with very few exceptions like styrak or nahut, they might reach critical diminishing returns so they will also need to move critical stats somewhere else.
 

Wrong in two aspects. But lets focus on one that is the gear/stat increase.
Most people go above alacrity threshold mainly because of server lag and some to align passives of their class/skill procs.
Like virulence that goes to 2700-2800 (instead of the usual 2100-2200) and is mainly to get an extra tick of cull and help reduce the cooldown of viral targeting so it won't be delayed waiting for weakening blast to be applied. Using the same example of virulence and viral targeting, maybe your viral targeting will come off cooldown 2 seconds earlier, but you will now need to delay it and wait for weakening blast to come off cooldown. Going above what is already required and people should have now will not help and is not enough to reach the next threshold of alacrity that will help, so it is wasted.

  

Your mistaken on the Alacrity part. I play DoT specs and 

1) Alacrity above the GCD affects how quickly your DoT tick

2) Your channeled cast still get reduced the higher your alacrity is even if it is between thresholds.

3) Your regen still continues to get quicker as alac goes higher even between thresholds.

 

If you look at the Theorcrafter Discords, there are specs they suggest using 2800+ alacrity because of this. 

 

Additional Alacrity is not a wasted stat.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Toraak

[xxSHOONYxx]

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

Your mistaken on the Alacrity part. I play DoT specs and 

So do i, in fact i cleared every op with every dps class. What does that even matter?
 

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

1) Alacrity above the GCD affects how quickly your DoT tick

Alacrity reduces the duration of your skill, the full damage of your dot abilities throughout the duration is the same, you don't magically do more dot damage with the same dot ability used once. Most specs are using a fixed rotation and some fixed with variable fillers. Even in a world where your alacrity will be that high that it moves the dot position in your rotation it will eventually hit a spot where you need to apply dots or use abilities that can't be delayed. So wasted going above what classes have now.
 

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

2) Your channeled cast still get reduced the higher your alacrity is even if it is between thresholds.

And? Not only the difference of 300-400 alacrity is minimal and only worth it for channeled skills like cull to go above 2200 that will allow an extra tick under weakening blast but that alacrity that is needed is already being used, more of that and is worthless. And even if somehow you managed to make the channel ability under 1 second the gcd still counts and you will be some time without using skills. So wasted. 300-400 alacrity is around 1 to 1.4% alacrity (on a 2 second cast ability it will go to 1.98... wow), you can't compare that reduction that is nothing to skills like polarity shift that give you 20% alacrity and the channel speed difference is noticeable. 
 

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

3) Your regen still continues to get quicker as alac goes higher even between thresholds.

Besides being minimal, every single class needs no extra regen if you use a proper rotation. So wasted
 

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

If you look at the Theorcrafter Discords, there are specs they suggest using 2800+ alacrity because of this. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VGqUApKhNqE_Tu9anwL88YEGsrzY5VXZOwkG03HTIlA/edit#gid=1233592370

Is 7.0.1 but point still stands, only 2 classes recommended above +2700. And i already said why.

 

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

Additional Alacrity is not a wasted stat.

With the same argument you could say having more accuracy is good because it reduces armor. But at the end of the day going above both is a horrible way to min max and your stats are wasted compared to allocating those extra into crit.  

Edited October 22, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[Toraak]

Clearly you have not read the various class channels then, or you would know that some specs are supposed to use more alacrity. Just looking at that chart and going by Carnage/Arsenal bonus to Alacrity buff in class does not disprove that I said some Specs use more alacrity.

 

If you looked at the class channels and read through them you'd realize that for example Virulence Sniper uses 2800+ alac, as does Madness sorc. 

 

I'm not just saying looking at the Pins, but actually read through the channels themselves.

 

[xxSHOONYxx]

2 hours ago, Toraak said:

Clearly you have not read the various class channels then, or you would know that some specs are supposed to use more alacrity. Just looking at that chart and going by Carnage/Arsenal bonus to Alacrity buff in class does not disprove that I said some Specs use more alacrity.

 

If you looked at the class channels and read through them you'd realize that for example Virulence Sniper uses 2800+ alac, as does Madness sorc. 

 

I'm not just saying looking at the Pins, but actually read through the channels themselves.

 

It seems you don' know the ins and outs of how alacrity works and the reason some specs go above, or even read what i said because i already said why that happens and even gave examples.
 

10 hours ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

Most people go above alacrity threshold mainly because of server lag and some to align passives of their class/skill procs.

I even gave the specific virulence reason with viral targeting.
With the regular alacrity most specs use on virulence you are a couple of seconds off from being able to apply viral targeting on weakening blast, so the offensive cooldown will have to wait to be used for another +10 seconds until you are back on the rotation when you apply weakening blast and that is a loss on dps. With the +2700 alacrity viral targeting comes off cooldown when you are on the weakening blast part of the rotation so you don't need to delay viral targeting by 10 seconds each time  you use it. Adding another 300-400 or whatever more alacrity the new gear will bring to those 2700-2800 will help nothing.


Those are class specific thresholds for specific reasons, is not that people think "i'll sprinkle some more alacrity here just because". There are specific reasons and going above those specific spec thresholds will be wasting tertiary stats

Edited October 23, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[akdonkey]

Dumping play how you want gear earnings to go back to this type of system with constant upgrades has made grinding for new gear pointless. Every time you get geared they will just up the levels again.