I, for the moment have gone with all high end gear and am really happy with the result, but wonder what I'm missing out of forgoing gearsets.
I'm currently sitting at 410k dps, 387k toughness, 107k skill and 51% armor mit.
With robust on my chest piece, while in cover, my toughness goes to 530k.
So what am I really giving up not running a specific gear set, as I have never run all high end.
Just need to top it off with Barrets vest.
I will post a pic if I can figure out how to do it on an iPhone.
You are not giving up a lot except for some really good 4PC capstones, like the AB 4PC which effectively allows you to maximize DPS, or Predator's Mark which gives a lot of utility and good damage. There are some interesting gear set bonuses out there, but they are losing out on just as much.
I am curious though, if you have HE kneepads is it the new ones? Because if not, you could replace that and another item for things like 2PC AB, Nomad or FM. 2PC Striker and Sentry are also good if you desire stability and accuracy.
But otherwise I wouldn't worry - you can get a lot of utility out of HE only builds, and decent damage as well.
Running all 256 gear, that includes the knee pads as well.Originally Posted by sandpants Go to original post
I guess I wanted to try running with out gear sets because of the Skulls MC gloves, that give 16% more damage as long as there isn't a gear set bonus.
But I could swap them for savage gloves
There is a lot of versatility to be had and as was stated in the last post some two piece bonuses can synergize nicely as well. I was experimenting with a vigorous chest, specialised pack, enduring mask, steadfast holster and two piece AB setup. It wasn't quite optimized but the utility of the talents was very evident.
Enduring ensured that you almost always had at least two bars of health whilst in cover since 9 times out of ten it pushes you from the first bar to the second bar. Steadfast ensures regeneration kicks in nicely as soon as you get into cover and AB makes the health bars fill up super quick. Specialised also gave me 127,000 skill power on a balanced build so running a support station made health regeneration ridiculous on more difficult content, but it defeated the object a bit as this build essentially allows you to run without a heal so that you can incorporate two offensive skills.
Yeah if you are going for those gloves it's a tough one.Originally Posted by killer5x5 Go to original post
Personally I'd wait for those new named kneepads before I make a HE set with Skulls MC Gloves. They're awesome, but you are basically shoehorning yourself into running EXP, Credits or Item find kneepads, neither of which are really impressive unless you want to farm Caches with the first ones.
So I'd try and see if you can swap out kneepads and an another item for 2PC of some other set. Maximizing HoK is a decent option that works in both PvP and PvE. 2PC AB works well with enduring if you have high HP, etc.
But generally speaking if you are comfortable with whatever kneepads you have then HE set isn't bad at all.
I think the alienation stems from the old patch 1.1 - 1.3 days, when all gearset items had higher Gear Score and therefore had better stats overall. Now that Gear Sets and HEs have same stat ranges there is no reason not to go full HE.