ewoksrule
Active Member
http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/p6ahs/explain_gearing_like_i_am_five_years_old/
GREEN/BLUE GEAR- Basics, fill out your old level 42 gear you haven't upgraded with this stuff. You can get them from commendations vendors and on the galactic market pretty easily. Don't fret too much about this stuff though because...
ORANGE MODDED GEAR- Is one of the first things you should get upon hitting level 50. There are level 50 dailies on Belsavis and Ilum that give you "Daily Tokens" these can be exchanged for rank 51 purple armoring, barrels, hilts. If your orange gear has level 41 blue mods in it, it's the same as a level 41 blue weapon. Thus if you put 51 purples in it, its as good as a 51 purple! You can also buy purple mods and stuff from the market if you have a bit of cash. This is step 1 on the level 50 gearing process, getting the purple modded stuff as much as possible, doing certain of the 50 dailies will get you mods and enhancements as well (purple level), once you get a bunch of purple modded gear, some blues and maybe a green or two (all lvl 48+ gear) you can...
PURPLE GEAR- Collect purple gear. If you've been following pvp, you should in fact be reaching level 50 with 6 pvp bags, which will yield 1-2 tier 2 pvp purples. For PvP, "Centurions" = Tier 1, "Champions" = Tier 2, "Battlemaster" = Tier 3. For T3 pvp you need valor 60 (you probably dont have it yet), but you can wear the T2 right away and its a solid piece you probably wont need to replace for a while! To get T1/T2 PvP gear, collect 800 warzone commendations from doing warzones. Go to the pvp item vendor, buy 200 merc tokens (for 600 wz), then buy a Champions PvP bag for 200mercs 200 wz. Opening it will yield either 3 centurion tokens (collect these for centurion gear) or a champions item token. For example, you can get a champions rank boots token. Take the token to the champions vendor, and pick the boots you want! Make sure you get the proper set with the set bonuses you want!
For PvE gear, there's "Tionese" =T1, "Columi" = T2, Rakata" = T3. For purple PvE gear, the main method is to run "Hard Modes" they're level 50 versions of dungeons meant for endgame. Once you have a bit of level 50 modded gear and some blues and greens (make sure you modify your weapon barrel/hilt first!) you can start running these. Each HM dungeon gives one T2 token at the end, and a couple T1 pieces. If you have a good group that's geared a bit, they can carry you pretty easily through most HM's.
Here they are by difficulty order, easy -> hardest.
Black Talon- You might be able to do this without any 50 gear to be honest. Drops T2 bracers.
FALSE EMPEROR- Lots of pulls, some can be difficult, bosses are fine though. Drops T2 chest.
FOUNDRY- Hardest boss is HK47, pulls aren't too bad. Drops T2 boots.
BATTLE FOR ILUM- Hardest boss is the third one with the adds, the pair of bosses I think it's the first main boss you encounter, can be a bit difficult too. Drops T2 Offhand.
BOARDING PARTY- Easy until the last boss. Last boss is quite difficult, you need good dps. Once anything enrages its pretty much over.
DIRECTIVE 7- Has a buggy boss that summons infinite mobs, if that doesn't happen is probably easier than Ilum/BP. Drops T2 Pants.
KAON (Skip Bonus boss, this becomes easier than Ilum)- Hard mob pulls, easy bosses. Bonus boss is IMO the most difficult HM boss I've encountered.
Once you collect a bunch of T2 PVE gear and T2 PVP (Note that T2 PVP gear can be used in lieu of T2 PVE, since T2 PVP > T1 PVE. But T2 PVE > T2 PVP) you can start running raids. Normal version raids drop T1 and T2 gear. They're pretty easy mostly. You just need maybe 50% T2 PVP/PVE gear, and 50% T1/Modded gear and you will be well geared for these. You probably don't even need that much gear for Normal OPS to be honest.
HM Ops drop T3 Rakata gear. You need to be in almost all T2's for HM Ops.
OR CRAFTED. Speaking of which, Crafted can be as good as T2 or T3 gear sometimes. You can buy them or craft them yourself (some of the best crafted ones are BOP, so you have to make them for yourself).
Steelfrog | Jedi Shadow | Deathwind Corridor 6 points 1 hour ago
You can only have a single Champion bag in your inventory at a time as well as up to 1000 Mercenary and 1000 Warzone commendations.
As you level, complete your daily PVP mission(s) and spend the Warzone commendations to buy Mercenary commendations. Once you have enough (200 of both types), buy your first Champion bag and then keep stocking on commendations until you reach 1000 in both Mercenary and Warzone. Once you hit 50, you can open the bag in your inventory and buy five more with the commendations you've stocked up.
[–]Delyius 6 points 2 hours ago
I would argue that Tionese/Columi/Rakata are more like T1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 since they share a set bonus, but otherwise spot on.
[–]netherous 4 points 2 hours ago
This should be said more often. If you come from wow, it's like the 3 different ilvls of a tier from LFR/normal/heroic.
[–]WorkdawgOp Healer | Warriors of the Shadow 4 points 2 hours ago
First, why wouldn't you be rocking pretty much full orange gear the whole time you are leveling, seems silly... anyway
This is a great post and I would only say that BUYING mods with daily commendations is a waste. The heroic dailies give lvl 49 artifact(purple) mods (armoring and mod from Belsavis and enhancement from Ilum). I suppose you could use commendations to buy a hilt/barrel if you need that upgraded. If you run them all every day, that's an entire piece of gear upgraded per day, so it should only take a week to have lvl 49 artifact quality orange gear. It's really not worth the commendations for what amounts to a couple stat points if you were to buy a lvl 51 mod/armoring. Instead, save up and buy your rakata (best in slot currently) ear or implants. You can't get them anywhere else and they cost 120 commendations. Columi stuff (from HM flashpoints) will be an upgrade from any orange gear you've got, so spending a bunch of commendations on something you'll replace once you start running hardmodes is a big waste IMO.
As a simple example (according to Torhead), The level 49 commando armoring is 124 armor, 39 aim, 41 end. - www.torhead.com/item/1oE89FW/advanced-commando-armoring-22 The level 50 commando armoring is 126 armor, 40 aim, 43 end. - www.torhead.com/item/6xPeA8g/advanced-commando-armoring-23 So you are using 8 commendations for an insignificant amount of armor, 1 aim and 2 endurance? Don't do it! Save for your Rakata ear and implants.
[–]w31uelvBelgoth's Beacon 3 points 3 hours ago
People are just starting to wrap their heads around the crafting system. For instance, I can craft a tanking bracer that is better than tionese on it's own and second only to rakata when it has an augment slot. Once people put in the time and credits to the crafting skills, more of these will surface.
[–]MikoriCheetah 2 points 1 hour ago
Great advice, but I really wish you had put a spoiler tag in here under your Foundry listing.
GREEN/BLUE GEAR- Basics, fill out your old level 42 gear you haven't upgraded with this stuff. You can get them from commendations vendors and on the galactic market pretty easily. Don't fret too much about this stuff though because...
ORANGE MODDED GEAR- Is one of the first things you should get upon hitting level 50. There are level 50 dailies on Belsavis and Ilum that give you "Daily Tokens" these can be exchanged for rank 51 purple armoring, barrels, hilts. If your orange gear has level 41 blue mods in it, it's the same as a level 41 blue weapon. Thus if you put 51 purples in it, its as good as a 51 purple! You can also buy purple mods and stuff from the market if you have a bit of cash. This is step 1 on the level 50 gearing process, getting the purple modded stuff as much as possible, doing certain of the 50 dailies will get you mods and enhancements as well (purple level), once you get a bunch of purple modded gear, some blues and maybe a green or two (all lvl 48+ gear) you can...
PURPLE GEAR- Collect purple gear. If you've been following pvp, you should in fact be reaching level 50 with 6 pvp bags, which will yield 1-2 tier 2 pvp purples. For PvP, "Centurions" = Tier 1, "Champions" = Tier 2, "Battlemaster" = Tier 3. For T3 pvp you need valor 60 (you probably dont have it yet), but you can wear the T2 right away and its a solid piece you probably wont need to replace for a while! To get T1/T2 PvP gear, collect 800 warzone commendations from doing warzones. Go to the pvp item vendor, buy 200 merc tokens (for 600 wz), then buy a Champions PvP bag for 200mercs 200 wz. Opening it will yield either 3 centurion tokens (collect these for centurion gear) or a champions item token. For example, you can get a champions rank boots token. Take the token to the champions vendor, and pick the boots you want! Make sure you get the proper set with the set bonuses you want!
For PvE gear, there's "Tionese" =T1, "Columi" = T2, Rakata" = T3. For purple PvE gear, the main method is to run "Hard Modes" they're level 50 versions of dungeons meant for endgame. Once you have a bit of level 50 modded gear and some blues and greens (make sure you modify your weapon barrel/hilt first!) you can start running these. Each HM dungeon gives one T2 token at the end, and a couple T1 pieces. If you have a good group that's geared a bit, they can carry you pretty easily through most HM's.
Here they are by difficulty order, easy -> hardest.
Black Talon- You might be able to do this without any 50 gear to be honest. Drops T2 bracers.
FALSE EMPEROR- Lots of pulls, some can be difficult, bosses are fine though. Drops T2 chest.
FOUNDRY- Hardest boss is HK47, pulls aren't too bad. Drops T2 boots.
BATTLE FOR ILUM- Hardest boss is the third one with the adds, the pair of bosses I think it's the first main boss you encounter, can be a bit difficult too. Drops T2 Offhand.
BOARDING PARTY- Easy until the last boss. Last boss is quite difficult, you need good dps. Once anything enrages its pretty much over.
DIRECTIVE 7- Has a buggy boss that summons infinite mobs, if that doesn't happen is probably easier than Ilum/BP. Drops T2 Pants.
KAON (Skip Bonus boss, this becomes easier than Ilum)- Hard mob pulls, easy bosses. Bonus boss is IMO the most difficult HM boss I've encountered.
Once you collect a bunch of T2 PVE gear and T2 PVP (Note that T2 PVP gear can be used in lieu of T2 PVE, since T2 PVP > T1 PVE. But T2 PVE > T2 PVP) you can start running raids. Normal version raids drop T1 and T2 gear. They're pretty easy mostly. You just need maybe 50% T2 PVP/PVE gear, and 50% T1/Modded gear and you will be well geared for these. You probably don't even need that much gear for Normal OPS to be honest.
HM Ops drop T3 Rakata gear. You need to be in almost all T2's for HM Ops.
OR CRAFTED. Speaking of which, Crafted can be as good as T2 or T3 gear sometimes. You can buy them or craft them yourself (some of the best crafted ones are BOP, so you have to make them for yourself).
Steelfrog | Jedi Shadow | Deathwind Corridor 6 points 1 hour ago
If you've been following pvp, you should in fact be reaching level 50 with 6 pvp bags [...]
It took me a while to understand/decipher this part, so I'll explain it case anyone else is as confused as I was.
You can only have a single Champion bag in your inventory at a time as well as up to 1000 Mercenary and 1000 Warzone commendations.
As you level, complete your daily PVP mission(s) and spend the Warzone commendations to buy Mercenary commendations. Once you have enough (200 of both types), buy your first Champion bag and then keep stocking on commendations until you reach 1000 in both Mercenary and Warzone. Once you hit 50, you can open the bag in your inventory and buy five more with the commendations you've stocked up.
[–]Delyius 6 points 2 hours ago
I would argue that Tionese/Columi/Rakata are more like T1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 since they share a set bonus, but otherwise spot on.
[–]netherous 4 points 2 hours ago
This should be said more often. If you come from wow, it's like the 3 different ilvls of a tier from LFR/normal/heroic.
[–]WorkdawgOp Healer | Warriors of the Shadow 4 points 2 hours ago
First, why wouldn't you be rocking pretty much full orange gear the whole time you are leveling, seems silly... anyway
This is a great post and I would only say that BUYING mods with daily commendations is a waste. The heroic dailies give lvl 49 artifact(purple) mods (armoring and mod from Belsavis and enhancement from Ilum). I suppose you could use commendations to buy a hilt/barrel if you need that upgraded. If you run them all every day, that's an entire piece of gear upgraded per day, so it should only take a week to have lvl 49 artifact quality orange gear. It's really not worth the commendations for what amounts to a couple stat points if you were to buy a lvl 51 mod/armoring. Instead, save up and buy your rakata (best in slot currently) ear or implants. You can't get them anywhere else and they cost 120 commendations. Columi stuff (from HM flashpoints) will be an upgrade from any orange gear you've got, so spending a bunch of commendations on something you'll replace once you start running hardmodes is a big waste IMO.
As a simple example (according to Torhead), The level 49 commando armoring is 124 armor, 39 aim, 41 end. - www.torhead.com/item/1oE89FW/advanced-commando-armoring-22 The level 50 commando armoring is 126 armor, 40 aim, 43 end. - www.torhead.com/item/6xPeA8g/advanced-commando-armoring-23 So you are using 8 commendations for an insignificant amount of armor, 1 aim and 2 endurance? Don't do it! Save for your Rakata ear and implants.
[–]w31uelvBelgoth's Beacon 3 points 3 hours ago
People are just starting to wrap their heads around the crafting system. For instance, I can craft a tanking bracer that is better than tionese on it's own and second only to rakata when it has an augment slot. Once people put in the time and credits to the crafting skills, more of these will surface.
[–]MikoriCheetah 2 points 1 hour ago
Great advice, but I really wish you had put a spoiler tag in here under your Foundry listing.
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