Hi Swtor-community =)

 

I hit level 50 about 2-3 weeks ago, but have almost stopped playing that toon, primarily because I feel like i have hit a wall. I now realize I was a poorly equipped level 50, as I didn't understand the game well enough to be better prepared.

 

I want to be able to grind hardmode FP and other not get laughed at, if I got invited to an operation =)

 

I am a tank and now have up to 16,500ish health. Is that enough for hardmode Flashpoints?

 

From what I have been able to figure, I need to do dailys so I can get the 240 commendations for the elite implant and earpiece.

 

But, where do I get the other pieces from? =)

 

Thanks,

 

Darth Lindner

http://dulfy.net/category/swtor/endgame-gearing/

1) Use your pvp token to buy a set of Recruit tank gear

2) Run dailies a while to buy R23 Armorings/Hilt/Barrel and get purple mods/enhancements (the lvl will be equal to Recruit gear, but the allocation will be better).

3) Run HM FP's.

 

Most other people you meet in FP's will be using a mix of Columi/Rakata/BH and it will be difficult to maintain agro from the healer and dps if you're in (sub)50 quest green/blue gear. No need to run dailies until you can afford the Rakata implants/earring, just get the other stuff for now.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Rhaphael

Hi Swtor-community =)

 

I hit level 50 about 2-3 weeks ago, but have almost stopped playing that toon, primarily because I feel like i have hit a wall. I now realize I was a poorly equipped level 50, as I didn't understand the game well enough to be better prepared.

 

I want to be able to grind hardmode FP and other not get laughed at, if I got invited to an operation =)

 

I am a tank and now have up to 16,500ish health. Is that enough for hardmode Flashpoints?

 

From what I have been able to figure, I need to do dailys so I can get the 240 commendations for the elite implant and earpiece.

 

But, where do I get the other pieces from? =)

 

Thanks,

 

Darth Lindner

 

You only wear one earpiece, and are probably thinking of the second implant. Rakata implants aren't unique though, so you can have two, if you so choose. But like the person above me said, those are nice but not completely necessary. Also, you could potentially get columi implants, which may be better stat wise, as they are craftable and tradeable, so check the GTN. Barring that, some level 49/50 purple implants and earpieces should be more than adequate to start, just make sure they're the right balance of stats, which will vary depending on which type of tank you are.

1) Use your pvp token to buy a set of Recruit tank gear

Worst idea ever, especially since he's already more hp and probably more defense than what this would give.

Worst idea ever, especially since he's already more hp and probably more defense than what this would give.

 

Not exactly. Check out the gear and see if some stuff may be better then what you currently have. Recruit offhands are better then most of the greens and blues you have found questing. Possibly the earpiece and implants. The champion relics are stat relics, which IMO are better then even on use relics for most situations.

 

Use Group Finder to Q up for HM Flashpoints, but do not do random. Try picking certain FP's your familiar with and confident on, Get some gear from those, and then start doing randoms when you feel really comfortable. Each FP drops a certain piece of columi gear on the last boss so try to farm the ones your missing gear from.

 

PvP if you can. Just try it out once and a while and get some comm's. Win or loose, after a few matches you'll have Battle master comms, buy a relic, or a piece or armor. The Armoring is on the level of columi, but the mod and enhancement are rakata identical ( with some expertise to boot).

 

Lastly- LEARN THE FIGHTS! Dont spend 10 hours a day reading strats on HM FP's and Op's, but have a pretty goood idea what to do when you get in there. Know if certain bosses have mechanics that you have to interrupt or have to avoid at all cost. Even and under geared tank can preform well if he knows how to avoid all the "DERP" stuff.

B

etween the daily and the weekly for HM FP's, and even PvP if you wanted to, you can gear out in a week, 2 max.

You don't have to PvP. I know a few people who did this and it worked for them:

 

Do Dailies until you get all purple armorings, mods and enhancements. You can also get Rakata earpieces and implants.

 

Also, do level 50 FPs. Don't forget to pick up the daily and weekly missions from the terminal on the Fleet.

 

With the Tionese crystals and commsn, you can get Tionese gear.

 

Start running HM Flashpoints and Story Mode Ops. These drop Columi gear, and you can get Columi comms for the daily/weekly missions, and Black Hole Comms, too.

 

You can also use the 320K credits from the PvP terminal mission, and the 250K credits you can make from dailies to buy implants and relics and earpieces from the GTN.

once you are in tionese and 50 purples, you can prolly offtank EV and KP story mode, and main tank teir 1 hard modes (get as many black hole comms as you can). ev and kp will get you geared mcuh faster if u are being carried (which most are since even people in bh gear just want the comms). once in columi and some bh (from doing lfg hmfp and ops) try to find a guild that does hm kp and ev gear runs to get you in rakata, and maybe try to fiond a group willing to teach you lihm... then u can start doing lihm and kaon for more black hole comms... and even ecsm at this point. when you get into full rakata try to get into a nightmare pilgrim group and start echm (dont suggest pugging it)... and get yourself some capaign so u can stop wearing the silly clothes with the stat bonus...

If you're decently geared after getting to level 50 (nearly all blues), attempt to run SM EV and KP. Do your group the kindness of looking up fight walkthroughs beforehand.

 

If you're still in obviously low level greens, either:

- Buy the Recruit set, go immediately into a SM EV and KP

- Grind Dailies for armoring mods and level 50 Prototypes, go immediately into SM EV and KP

 

Buying the Recruit set is faster, yet you get more money grinding out Dailies to finish getting level 50 Prototypes.

 

Your gear progression should be like this:

 

At least get level 50 Prototypes for everything -> Columi (Run SM EV and KP, then run HM Flashpoints to fill the gaps) -> Rakata (HM EV and KP, SM Denova) -> Black Hole/Campaign (Grinding LFG tool and other stuff, plus HM Denova)

 

Getting as many BH comms as you can also help in getting ready for the next tier faster.

Edited August 9, 2012 by ImmortalAlien

A good armormech/synthweaver can make purple armor with armor ratings equivalent to tionese armor and in many cases have superior stats (like defense, shield, absorb).

like other people have said get your free pvp gear and compare it to what you have. i bet you will want to use the relics if anything.

 

also you can get your datacron relic. there are sites which show what is needed as every class and faction is different.

 

as other said run dailies. do these to get credits and use the coms for ear pieces and implants first: relics last. don't use the coms for the mods as there are quests for those and you can buy the equivalent on the gtn if need be. the hilts and barrels are only slightly better than what you can cheaply buy on the gtn.

 

not sure on your faction but run teral v and any other beginning hm you feel comfortable with. do not queue up for all of them as a few can be rather a pain when you are paired with a new healer too. our guild farms teral v for new 50s as the droid everyone skips can drop columi non set bonus items. we have gotten chest, ear, implant, belts, wrists and etc off of him all columi quality.

 

make sure you get the daily and weekly hm quests for the coms and turn these in. they are at the mission terminal in the supplies area. get and do the daily every day or when you schedule permits.

 

tell people you are new and are trying to get gear and learn the fights. most people are rather helpful when told upfront. a few will be impatient and leave but just ignore them literally.

 

good luck and have fun. it is a game after all.

What I do when i hit 50 is buy the recruit set and jump into HM FPs. Usually Taral V/Maelstrom Prison/Battle of Ilum/False Emperor are the easier ones (probably in that order too IMO). You get gear so quickly from HM FPs that grinding dailies for mods is a waste of time. If you have a guild or mates that can take you on a SM Op run you should jump on one of those as an off tank. Similarly running HM FPs with a guild is a lot better than PUGing it because they're generally more tolerant and willing to help you learn.

 

Running HM FPs through LFG with Recruit gear as a tank is pretty tough. You will have a nightmare holding aggro, especially since DPS don't generally like to throttle themselves or use their threat drops. You should let your group know you are a new 50 and new tank and be prepared to be kicked a few times until you get gear. People are mean but you're a tank so you'll get (mostly) instant queue pops. I'm not saying every group will kick you, or even most, just be prepared for it to happen occasionally and don't get offended.

 

When you do get a group, Guard whichever DPS is most (over) geared and be ready to taunt for aggro. Turning on Target of Target lets you know when someone pulls off you and when to taunt which really helps. Try and establish a kill order and make sure DPS know to kill weak -> strong. If they're doing that you can just focus on the elites/strong and let the DPS mop up the rest while you build aggro on the big bads. Ultimately, if a DPS pulls something of you during a trash pull let them tank it while you keep the rest. If something runs at the healer taunt it back.

 

When it comes to bosses be ready to taunt when you lost aggro and go single target -> AoE (if single is on CD) -> single target. By the third one you should be pretty set for aggro. If you find yourself still losing aggro after that, ask DPS to use threat drops at about 20 seconds and give you a few seconds to build aggro before they go all out. It's DPS's job to kill adds, its only your job to keep them off the healer until DPS can kill them.

 

As you get more gear you can work on trying to hold all the mobs in a pull, keeping stuff off DPS and grabbing adds when they spawn but until then just focus on the core stuff: holding the big bad and keeping stuff of the healer.

This is what I tell people new to hitting 50....

 

First... Go to the PVP mission terminal and pick up "New Technology" mission. Right away click the completion box next to the mission terminal to complete it.

 

Poof.... instant Recruiter Set or 320k your choice.

 

With Full Recruiter you are set to enter high level FPs.

Now if you dont know the FPs I would do Normal FPs , and try getting gear with the 50/51 purple mods.

 

Do your dailies and buy upgrade implants/earrings. If you think your going to biuld the Black Hole comms up quickly, then I would look into useing your dailies for a relic upgrade. very dependent on your class of course.

 

Once your familiar with the FPs, start que for the HM FPs. This will net you your Tionese (51 mod leve) and Col (56 level)... thiers also Exotech (56 grade) and Exenotech (51 grade) gear that will help you along the way. You will also pick up Tionese Comms, and doing the weekly/dailies with HM FPs will get Black Hole Comms, along with more Tionese and Coliumi Comms to upgrade your gear.

 

It really dosen't take that long to upgrade to Tionese/Col/Exo/Exeno gear. Some of the FPs can be run well under 30 minutes so thier investment is pretty minimal.

 

EVs are a good source of gear as well, and manhy times I see people join that are full recuriter they do fine in it.

Not exactly. Check out the gear and see if some stuff may be better then what you currently have. Recruit offhands are better then most of the greens and blues you have found questing. Possibly the earpiece and implants. The champion relics are stat relics, which IMO are better then even on use relics for most situations.

 

Use Group Finder to Q up for HM Flashpoints, but do not do random. Try picking certain FP's your familiar with and confident on, Get some gear from those, and then start doing randoms when you feel really comfortable. Each FP drops a certain piece of columi gear on the last boss so try to farm the ones your missing gear from.

 

PvP if you can. Just try it out once and a while and get some comm's. Win or loose, after a few matches you'll have Battle master comms, buy a relic, or a piece or armor. The Armoring is on the level of columi, but the mod and enhancement are rakata identical ( with some expertise to boot).

 

Lastly- LEARN THE FIGHTS! Dont spend 10 hours a day reading strats on HM FP's and Op's, but have a pretty goood idea what to do when you get in there. Know if certain bosses have mechanics that you have to interrupt or have to avoid at all cost. Even and under geared tank can preform well if he knows how to avoid all the "DERP" stuff. Between the daily and the weekly for HM FP's, and even PvP if you wanted to, you can gear out in a week, 2 max.

 

^^^^ I agree here. I started HM in BM gear since I heavy hit the pvp and I am a main tank for my guild in both pvp and pve. However, with that said pvp and pve gear are two separate things for the high end tank. I have both sets now and started tier one with pvp gear. Don't just do tier one though, do the regular SM dailies as well via Q finder since this will add to your BH comms. It will take some time but you will grind up to Columni gear which will work for HM ops such as KP and EV. For PVE though you want to look at shield and endurance stats the most and for pvp defense and expertise (expertise is only usefull in pvp not pve) along with endurance. Your HP is rather low but in time will build. Also invest in Endurance stims. When I have all buffs on a stims I am over 25k hp (Shadow/sin tank also, others will be closer to 20K with higher armor ratings) and that is what allows for the healer to have a little wiggle room on the healing for the crowd I run in.

 

Do not just learn how to tank, but learn how to off tank also picking up adds in a fight and what not. I have been in HM with my trooper who is DPS specc'ed and had to off tank since the main tank sucked at keeping aggro of the healer, because that guy is your lifeline. I would also recommend you download teamspeak/ mumble/ and vent since a good number of ops will use them and the guy running the op will give an oratory on how the boss fight will go if you are not familiar with it. I have not been in a pug ops that this has not happened. You learn tricks such as how to taunt the puzzle droid in KP with out moving the entire fight and not get hit by the fire (where he is) or stun droid. Also there are times you have to work with the other tanks to shift aggro since debuffs are stacking on them or you.

Edited August 12, 2012 by ObscureKnight

those armorings and mods from daily quests are from belsavis btw.(if your rep anyways) If you run them with 3 friends of the same class you can be ready for hc in a day, at least if the rest of your armor is relatively up to date. Get hilt/barrel from daily vendor on belsavis, ilum or Black hole. Save the rest for implants instead of armorings imo.

 

GTN it´s cheap to get decent implants, ofc not the black hole implants but columi implants are faily cheap, and the crafted lv 49 implants usually goes for less than 50k (at least on my server)

 

relics, get your pvp relics, you cant get much better.

 

as tank i would run the FP normal before i try them hard mode. You probably have tanked D7 on your way to 50, at least i did a couple of times, so that could be a good place to start your hc adventures. Only boss i find a bit tricky is the bonus boss, but noone ever kills him on hc.

IF U GEARED BETER THEN THIS GUY U ARE SPOT ON

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b138/APOTA_Brutal/Screenshot_2012-03-31_23_45_35_083981.jpg

 

HE DID ALL FIGHT NAKED WITHOUT RUNING AWAY ON THE SOLO FIGHT PART