Welcome back to yet another installment of the Darth Hater PvP column, where we’ll collect and update the news about PvP that matters to the PvP community. This thread will be updated periodically as necessary throughout the week, so you can refer back to it for new information. If you have any tips on current content that should be featured, or if you think your PvP video or PvP guild should be featured in a future column, send them to me via PM.
News
Official SWTOR Posts
No official posts, but Patch 1.6 has been confirmed to be launching tomorrow after scheduled maintenance.
An an interview with TORWars, Senior Designer Rob Hinkle confirmed numerous upcoming changes to PvP, among which is a confirmation that expertise will be equal across all PvP sets.
Devtracker Highlights
Allison Berryman responds to criticism that advanced class balance is not as previously mentioned in the Q&A.
PvP Patch Changes
Ancients Hypergates will be available, beginning tomorrow, with the release of Patch 1.6. The patch does not contain balance changes for PvP, but you can get the Patch notes here.
Community Highlight
Around the Forums – Discussion Highlights
Lesrac asks for the inclusion of “assists” to be displayed in Huttball on the scoreboard.
Twighead asks if we couldn’t get a better tiebreaker for Huttball.
Rhyn starts a discussion on the PvP interview with Rob Hinkle.
PvP Video Spotlight
Another great video from Shinarika, who I’ve pointed you to before in previous columns. Coming back for F2P, we get a fresh take from Shinarika on how the game has changed since they departed. An entertaining video from a skilled player is definitely worth your time.
Op-Ed: Your particular expertise
So from the TORWars interview, we’ve learned that in the future, PvP sets will all have the same amount of expertise on them. This doesn’t mean PvP gear upgrades will go away – you’ll still get more of other stats by upgrading your gear. However, the expertise disparity we’ve seen (especially when considering new players) should go away, making gear matter significantly less in PvP.
A lot of responses indicated that gear felt like it mattered too much in PvP last week. However, I can’t help wondering if the decision to keep expertise the same across the board will take some of the excitement of upgrading gear away from players. Gaining more expertise always seemed to make you feel stronger; it was palpable and you could tell it was making a difference. With the change to itemization, will we lose this feeling?
This past week’s poll:
Gear and PvP – Single Choice
Gear is too important in PvP 81.8%
Gear is fine the way it is 9.1%
Gear is not important enough in PvP 9.1%
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