Over the past few weeks I decided to make a couple of characters that would get to L10 and PvP. I started with a soldier, using a QL22 Sunburst Mk3 and a few other weapons that were all fairly useful for an L10 soldier.
I got owned.
So, I thought I'd start an Agent and try to use a QL50 Gripo. I sat down, did the math, made the spreadsheet for buffing/implanting/etc and started. A day or so later I had an L10 Agent with 700AC, 170~ in Rifle and AS, a QL50 LLTS, and QL50/30 implants in, and a QL50 Gripo in my hands.
Off I go to the arena, filled with confidence that I'm going to do fairly well.
Started really well, and dropped a few people, but then came up against another agent using a Tsak. Next thing I know we're having a running battle and are half way to the southern grid point. I was running SG along with the best Essence to fit into 56 NCU, yet I was taking 40-80 damage per shot, and was dealing out 5-10 damage per shot, with crits around 100~. After 5 minutes of us shooting each other I went down, but their HP was still as close to max as you could get.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind being taken down. I've gotten used to it on Powervault and Poweredge, but how on earth are people being able to drill me, when I've spent a massive amount of time, money, and maths on making sure that my character is as good as it gets.
Is it the fallout from previous patches not affecting changes onto chars that existed at that time, or just the lengths that people will go to to get an edge?
What bothers me tho, is the chances of new players in the game being able to PvP whatsoever. If the fall out from previous patches is causing me grief for my efforts then I feel immense sorrow for new people getting to grips with a massive part of this game.