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Tait Watson got the Combat team to write an in-depth explanation of the Bolster system. I’m raelly starting to like this bird. You can read the whole thing in it original here, or our copy paste below. If you ask me, bolster still a bit broken, its still way better then the recruit gear system they previously had, Personally I would like to see it in a place where people that did set of 66 blue’s are better for pvp then full dreadguard is lame.
Hey gang! I know a number of people have been waiting on a post about some more specifics on how bolster skill points.
To start, some quick notes on terminology here:
- Power: When I say power in the rest of the post, I am referring to a generic concept of total item power, and not the specific character stat power
- PvE Stats: Stats that are used in PvE combat. Effectively, every stat in the game except Expertise.
The Basics:
Bolster relies on the idea that we are trying to boost bolster system looks through each individual item slot a character has equipped, and if that slot is below the target item rating it gives the character enough of PvE stats to make up the difference along with a full complement of expertise (assuming the item doesn’t have any expertise to begin with). Any item that has a higher rating than the target item rating receives no PvE stat and a smaller block of expertise.
The Specifics:
For each particular item slot, the Bolster gives the character the difference between the assumed baseline set and the bolstered set of stats. For specifically the expertise stat, there is an extra step: if the item already had any value of expertise, then we totally ignore any amount of expertise that we should add regardless of any rating difference.
The amount of stat we define at each item rating level follows the exact same item creation formulas that our item guys do, and we do our best to assign out those stats to what we think an average player of that particular class/advanced class/skill tree would like in a ratio. In a perfect world, you could take a full set of item rating 100 gear and a bolster effect to 100, and you have totally identical stats if you modded the items in the same we selected stats for bolster.
This is all well and good for items that have ratings below our targets, but what about items that are above our target! Any item that results in an averaged item rating above the bolster target rating gets absolutely no PvE stats added, but it can still get expertise. See the next section for Expertise info!
Expertise (Does a Body Good):
Expertise is a multiplicative stat that only applies when you are in PvP combat. It has 3 PvP gear is always better than PvE gear (in PvP), regardless of the purely PvE stat differentials.
I hope this brings some light on just how the bolster system actually works, and I imagine it will spawn a number of follow up questions. We will try to answer what we can.
