Armoring & Set Bonuses

[Tecknik]

As Mharz and I found out yesterday, set bonuses are not attached to the Armoring pieces as it was assumed they would from the original patch notes.

After looking around on the SWTOR forums today, I found this thread:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=402764

According to the Devs, this information was posted in threads in the PTS forum but apparently was never properly reflected in the Live Server Patch Notes.  That is being rectified.

Below is a quote taken from the thread I linked, and is originally from a Dev post that was in the PTS forum.

Hi,

There have been quite a few threads where you have voiced confusion regarding the end game itemization in 1.2 and I want to take the opportunity to clarify what you are going to see in the game when Game Update 1.2 goes live on Thursday.

One of the issues we are dealing with on the PTS Forums is that we are not only introducing changes from the current state of the game (1.1.5x), but also several changes a week. Without wiping our Forums weekly, it is inevitable that these updates cause significant confusion about what it is in the game, what is intended to be in the game, etc.

So, without further ado....

PvE

Tionese / Columi / Rakata Gear

These sets are not changing. Their stats have not changed from their pre 1.2 state and they are acquired in the same way as they were before 1.2, except for the following changes:

- The drop rate for Tionese commendations has been increased from all the existing sources.

- Columi can now be acquired, in addition to the existing sources, from the new Lost Island Flashpoint (Hard Mode) and their distribution rate has been slightly increased, mostly through weekly quests.

- Rakata can now be acquired, in addition to existing sources, from the final Boss of the new Lost Island Flashpoint (Hard Mode) and the story mode of Operation: Explosive Conflict on Denova.

A temporary change on PTS that modified some existing rakata gear has not been taken into the final version 1.2 based on testing feedback.

"Campaign" and "Black Hole" Gear

Campaign gear is the new tier of PvE set items we are rolling out with the Explosive Conflict Operation. It shares the set bonus with Rakata, allowing seamless equipment upgrades and is acquired through tokens acquired in Hard Mode of Operation: Explosive Conflict and the new World Boss on Belsavis.

All Campaign gear can also be reverse engineered for a chance to learn the associated schematic. For armor, this means a chance to learn the custom (orange) appearance of item, for implants, earpieces, mods, etc. This means learning to craft the item itself. All of these may be crafted critical for an additional augment slot or, in case of a mods, additional resulting items.

Campaign gear uses a different stat distribution from previous sets with greater variety of available stats and better base stats.

Unlike Rakata, Columi and Tionese gear, Campaign gear carries it's set bonus on the armoring of every piece. This means that players may transfer all mods and armoring out of campaign gear into any custom (orange) appearance available without losing the benefit of the set bonus. Please note that moving an armoring with a set bonus into a pre 1.2. item shell with a set bonus (e.g. a Rakata Shell) will be resolved with the armoring taking precedence (Sorry, no stacking here )

As mentioned previously, all armoring found in endgame gear now 'binds to slot' upon extraction - Armoring removed from a pair of gloves will only fit into another set of gloves. However, there is the possibility to acquire 'universal' armorings that fit into any slot through direct drops (e.g. not contained in an item). Those however will never carry a set bonus.

Black Hole Gear is similar to Campaign gear, but lacks the set bonus. It does however offer additional stat distribution options not available on Campaign gear. It also cannot be reverse engineered into appearances (although mods / earpieces, etc. can be learned).

Black Hole gear, unlike Campaign items, is acquired from trading in Black Hole Commendations found through weekly quests in the new Corellia area as well as the weekly quest for the Rise of the Rakghoul flashpoints (Kaon/Lost Island). It also drops on bosses in Operation: Explosive Conflict on all difficulties.

Two new color crystal variations may be found as part of the random drops in the new Operation: Black Core Purple and Black Core Orange. These colors are introduced separately from the weapons, which now come by default with more traditional colors available. It is worth noting that we are not extending the stat progression on crystals, meaning the existing +41 crystals found in 1.1.5 continue to be the top end of the crystal progression.

With that being said, there are people in the thread I linked claiming that older gear (NOT Campaign) they have purchased AFTER the patch does have the set bonuses linked to the Armoring.  Since I can't get into the game right now and check for myself, I'm taking these posts with a grain of salt but does seem like something that should be looked into.

[Tbone]

That's correct. About a week ago I delved into this, and it did take some research to get a clear answer, but I thought they made a dev blog post that explained it.

You do NOT retain set bonuses from Rakata/Columi if you move the armorings around. You ONLY can do that with the NEW tier of gear (Campaign/Black Hole). I believe the same goes for Battlemaster v. War Hero.

It feels like lazy coding, but it might be on purpose to provide an extra incentive to grind out the new gear. It was never a big deal to me since my set bonuses are horrible.

[Tecknik]

When it comes to my Consular set bonuses, I feel the same way.  They just seem worthless.

However my Trooper set bonuses, I love.

[victoriah]

So what about the ranked PVP gear without the mods?  Can you take them out of battlemaster before you trade it in?

[Tbone]

Yes, but it costs 37k a mod that you extract. So far I've got my Battlemaster lightsaber mods extracted into lightsabers that have the white crystal and augment slots.

The problem is once I get War Hero gear, I'll have to switch the mods out all again, so I'm debating whether to convert all my gear to augmented stuff now, or do it piece by piece as I get the upgraded gear. Set bonuses aren't really a priority for me.

[victoriah]

so is this the thing to do?  take your expensive mods out and put them in the war hero gear, piece by piece?  otherwise idk what i'm doing

[Fuse]

Take the WH mods out of the WH gear and put them into crit crafted (augment slot) gear.

[victoriah]

but i thought the unmodified wh gear was better...so lost...  

[Fuse]

what do you mean "unmodified WH gear" ? You take the mods form the wh gear and place it into a shell that has an augment slot. That way you get the same exact stats as the original wh item, plus an augment slot.