I'm not sure how much of a framerate hit I get by running through Steam, but I find the game quite playable, so I don't mind.
The game is still very playable. But I had no problems before the patch. Played on a mix of high/ultra. Since this damn patch I get some stuttering in battles and minor freezing (few seconds) and so I've done some things like close background programs, disable the overlay, and adjust the mouse smoothing and some of that has helped. The odd thing is the game performs with these hitches usually for a short period after I start it up. If I am playing for 60 to 90mins the problems usually cease before that. It's like the game needs to get going before chugging along at full speed. I think Nvidia has a patch coming soon so that will hopefully help. Steam has never been a problem for me but Origin has been slow and clunky.
Going to make getting a new gpu a priority in the next few months so that will solve some issues and future-proof me a bit.