Can someone please explain to me how end-game equipment works. I've read numerous posts and other sites for this information and everyone assumes people have a knowledge of acronyms and game mechanics. For someone like me that doesn't, how does end-game equipment work? What is Tionese vs. Black Hole vs. Rakata vs. Columi? Why are some better than others? Why does one need this equipment before doing raids? What about ear pieces and supposed MK-1, 2 and 3 implants? What is my goal that I should be working towards in terms of the best equipment for PvE? How does all of this relate to each other, where does one go about getting it, where is the best place to start and the progression one should take in order to keep getting better equipment? I know this is a lot but there doesn't seem to be any solid resource for getting this knowledge that doesn't assume that a person knows everything about the surrounding context of the information it's giving.

Each type of gear is a step up the quality ladder, more or less (doing from memory .. but should be kinda close)::

 

For PVE (player vs environment)

Tionese is "starter" level 50 gear (126 rating)

Columi is better than Tionese (136 rating)

Rakata is better than Columi (140 rating)

Black Hole is better than Rakata (146 rating)

Dread Guard is better than Black Hole (150 rating)

 

PVP gear is a different ladder

Recruit is starter

BattleMaster is better than Recruit

War Hero is better than BattleMaster

 

Generally speaking, don't worry too much about what is the absolutely best, just keep knowing as you do harder content, you'll get better rewards. These rewards get you better gear, allowing for harder content, etc. And for the PVE hear ladder, you don't have to have the previous step's gear to get the next one, so if you run quests and get enough Black Hole (BH) Commentdations, you can purchase a BH piece of gear w/o ever getting the Tionese, Columi, or Rakata gear.

 

Most "comments" are how to get the best gear as quick as possible and get to the hardest content quickly. You can just as easily work your way up the ladder slowly and methodically. Do the fresh 50 content (False Emporer, Battle of Ilum, etc.) and get better gear from drops and rewards. Once it becomes easy, start running Hard Mode (FM) Flashpoints (FP) :: like Black Talon/Esseles. When that gets too easy, move up, etc. You really won't run things more than a few times before you realize you are probably ready for the next level. And if you learn you aren't, just drop back down and keep grinding for better gear.

 

As far as "where to start" :: run the Dailies on Ilum, Belsavis (the Tomb and now X as well) and Corelia's Black Hole. You'll spend a few hours everyday just doing them, and you'll get Daily Tokens, 116 rating drops on occassion, and weekly BH Comms. After a few days, you will have enough to start buying implants, ear pieces, etc. making the dailies easier and go even more quickly.

So the general Order is

Modded orange Item gear with all level 50 modifications

Tionese / exotech

Columi

Rakata

Black Hole

 

There are several Flashpoints and Operations specific for level 50 players. Some of them are much harder than others as they have heavier hitting enemies and / or the bad guys have a lot more hit points.

 

So the gist is, there is a progression of these Flashpoints and Operations and as you complete them you slowly start getting these better levels of gear. You also start getting Commendations that you would use to buy certain gear pieces from some vendors.

An example is you can buy Rakata implants by collecting 120 daily commendations for each.

The Black Hole ear piece is fairly easy to obtain from just running the black hole dailies and accumulating enough Black Hole Comms.

So as your gear gets better you will then be able to survive the more dificult Flashpoints and operations. then you'll be able to start doing these same missions in Hard Mode. Hard Mode adds additional mechanics to the mission which make it more difficult. Sometimes there are extra bosses and sometimes you fight the same bosses but they behave differently.

 

I hope this helps you understand it a bit more. i'm also still trying to gear up my first lvl 50 atm.

You can also mod your custom gear with Black Hole mods if you do not want to look like Tarzan and Jane (Black Hole gear).

I agree, it is very confusing sometimes. And opinions differ on the best way to gear up.

 

Basically, the gear rating is:

 

Tionese

Columi

Rakata

Black Hole

 

Dreadguard & Campaign are after that, but I'm not sure which comes first.

 

Tionese and Columi pieces drop in Hard Mode Flash Points, and Columi also drops in Story Mode Ops. These can also be purchased with Tionese crystals & commendations, or Columi commendations.

 

Bosses in Hard Mode Flaspoints drop the Tionese crystals and comms (everyone in the group needs to loot the bosses for these.)

 

Rakata pieces drop on Hard Mode Ops, but most people skip this and go to Black Hole. This can be done by earning Black Hole comms through running a daily hard mode flashpoint though Group Finder, running the Black Hole Weekly on Corellia, and the Section X weekly on Belsavis.

 

Daily missions are a good way to get armorings, mods, enhancements, and hilts or barrels when you are a newly minted 50. You can also use daily comms for Rakata grade implants and earpieces, and Campaign level relics. I have a list of daily mission on my guild's website that can tell you where the missions are. Guide to Daily Missions

 

Daily gear is good enough for hard mode flashpoints, which will get you into Columi and Tionese. Columi and Tionese gear comes with set bonuses, and you can have a mixture of columi and tionese, as long as it's the same name. (for example, Tionese Vindicator mixes with Columi and Rakata Vindicator and gives the set bonus).

 

As I said, opinions vary as to which is best. There is Recruit PvP gear available from the PvP Mission terminal when you hit level 50. In some cases the stats are better (Ignore Expertise which is useless in PvE), but be sure to hang on to your orange gear so you can use the mods you get from dailies.

 

I'm sure others will post their wisdom, too. Hope it doesn't get too confusing.

You can also mod your custom gear with Black Hole mods if you do not want to look like Tarzan and Jane (Black Hole gear).

 

You can now by Campaign Armoring with BH comms that carry the same set bonus as the Tionese/Columi/Rakata combos. You can use this in a custom piece and retain your set bonus.

Thanks a bunch everyone. This is all very helpful. I'm still a bit confused in some areas, but I'm sure that as I start actually doing some of what you recommended that some answers will reveal themselves. One question that I still have, though, that I'll ask here, is what are the MK-1, 2, and 3 pieces of equipment and how do those work?

Thanks a bunch everyone. This is all very helpful. I'm still a bit confused in some areas, but I'm sure that as I start actually doing some of what you recommended that some answers will reveal themselves. One question that I still have, though, that I'll ask here, is what are the MK-1, 2, and 3 pieces of equipment and how do those work?

 

I don't know specifically but I've seen them "tweak" the gear, and when they did, they increased the MK-# to #+1

-- so MK-1 was an earpiece available

-- then they tweaked some gear/stats

-- MK-1 is no longer offered, but people still have it

-- MK-2 is the new tweaked version of the earpiece

 

I think this explains only "some" of the MK-1/MK-2 type items, but in generally, don't worry about the name as much as the stats of the gear itself.

 

BTW - about the above discussion, in general, if you find a nice piece of Orange gear you like, you can [for example] remove the Black Hole mods out of that gear and put them into the Orange gear and it'll retain all benefits of the Black Hole gear with the look you preferred. This practice also allows you to add an Augment Slot to the gear only once. Note: Augment Slot MK-1, MK-2, ... MK-6 :: the MK-X refers to level Augment can fit the Slot. So a MK-6 Slot can hold Augments of ANY level, but a MK-1 slot would only hold a low level Augment :: so once you get a nice piece of gear you'll likely keep, toss in a MK-6 Augment Slot and start adding Augments as you can afford them.

I don't know specifically but I've seen them "tweak" the gear, and when they did, they increased the MK-# to #+1

-- so MK-1 was an earpiece available

-- then they tweaked some gear/stats

-- MK-1 is no longer offered, but people still have it

-- MK-2 is the new tweaked version of the earpiece

 

This is only true for the recruit gear and such.

 

 

 

As for black hole / hazmat stuff, the MK-2 are not in any way tweaked or intended to replace MK-1.

 

The MK-2 are not even necessarily better. They can be better in some cases, but not because they have more stats, since they don't, but because the stat distribution or the combination of secondary stats is more optimal, but they can just as well be worse.

The MK-2 black hole items can't be bought from vendor with commendations, but they drop in operations. For Hazmat implants mk-1, mk-2 and mk3 can all be bought. They have exactly the same amount of total stats if you count the total sum of all stats in it, but with either different secondary stats or different stat distribution.

Like if MK-1 for example had Aim, Endurance, Accuracy rating and Power (with aim being higher than endurance), then MK-2 might have Aim, Endurance, Surge rating and Power (with endurance being higher than aim) and so on, but the total sum of all stats in both would be the same.

 

Usually some of them have quite bad stat distribution that is not good for anyone.

Thank you for asking I have been wondering about this. These posts cleared almost everything up, however how do you get the commendations. No one seems to know that

Thank you for asking I have been wondering about this. These posts cleared almost everything up, however how do you get the commendations. No one seems to know that

 

Daily Commendations are awarded for the Daily Missions on Ilum, Belsavis, the Black Hole, and Section X.

 

Bosses in hard mode flashpoints drop daily comms, tionese crystals, and tionese comms.

 

The Daily Mission for a hard mode flashpoints, and the weekly mission for 3, awards Tionese and Columi Comms. (You get this mission at the Daily Mission Terminal on the fleet).

 

Black Hole comms are awarded from the Black Hole and Section X weeklies, and you can get 5 per day for running a hard mode flashpoint through group finder.

 

There may be other places, too.

Here's a list (from memory) of everything you can do to get BH comms:

 

DAILY:

 

Run a hard mode tier 1 or tier 2 flashpoint and complete it using the group finder. Note that you must have all the available flashpoints for that tier highlighted to get the daily group finder reward. If you're still working on gearing up, stick to just the tier 1 flashpoints. Tier 2 is just one flashpoint at this time and it's pretty tough. (I consider this the easiest way to get tokens)

 

Also, the supplies area quest terminal on fleet will have a daily and weekly quest to run hard mode flashpoints. If you're running a hard mode flashpoint for the daily group finder reward, you might as well hit up the quest terminal before you start and "double dip" on the rewards for completing the flashpoint. The reward is columi tokens for the quest, but they can still be useful.

 

Weekly:

 

Complete a full set of dailies in the black hole area. Make sure you pick up the weekly quest from the quest terminal there before you start. (The black hole area can be accessed by flying to corellia and looking for the shuttle just outside the spaceport. The shuttle door will have a whole list of areas you can go to when you click it and most of those areas give you the same list so it's a convenient way to get around).

 

Complete a full set of dailies in the section x area. Same notes apply as the black hole area weekly.

 

Run a story mode operation and complete it using the group finder. There are only 2 story mode operations that you can do this way (Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace) so you can technically do this twice per week. Also, you will probably not be successful finding a group for this by just signing up solo in the group finder, so what you should do is organize a group on fleet that has 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 dps and then have the operation leader sign the whole group up for a random operation. There are a few annoying details that I'm leaving out so that I don't turn this into a wall of text, but that's the important steps.

 

Get the weekly quest to kill 2 bosses in hard mode Eternity Vault or Karagga's Palace, get an 8 person operation team together and go kill the first 2 bosses of one of those operations with it set to hard mode. The weekly quest is available from the supplies area quest box on the fleet.

 

Get the weekly quest to complete hard mode Kaon Under Seige and Lost Island flashpoints. The weekly quest is available from the supplies area quest terminal box on the fleet. Be aware that Lost Island is the sole tier 2 flashpoint at this level and will take good gear, skill, and a good team to beat.

 

The harder operations can be run once per week and each boss in them drops black hole commendations. You'll need gear and skill and a good team to do them, but it is a significant way of collecting tokens once you're experienced at the game.

Here's a list (from memory) of everything you can do to get BH comms:

 

DAILY:

Run a hard mode tier 1 or tier 2 flashpoint and complete it using the group finder...

...

Weekly:

Complete a full set of dailies in the black hole area. Make sure you pick up the weekly quest ...

...

The harder operations can be run once per week ....

 

<long sigh> Gee... I was hoping for a nice distraction from daily RL, not a whole new Lifestyle -- which is what it appears I have stepped into at end game... I tend to like to solo stuff, cuz my RL "offers" so many interruptions - I hate to have to stop in the middle of a fight cuz my Companion (aka The Wife) walks in the room and (go figure) wants me to revert to husband-mode on demand. ( For the uninitiated, that's a RL Flashpoint, entitled "Pay Attention or I'll Reboot Your PC" -- all modes are greyed out but it runs anyway... I think it came with this nice Ring, packaged with the Super Deluxe Collectors' Edition ...I'm on my 4th one, btw. Heh. Don't ask.)

 

I guess my inexperience at endgame-style for a directed type of MMO game has suddenly dropped me into a new universe, populated by people with more time on their hands than I have... At least in SWG I could substitute money for time - it does not appear to me I can get away with that in this one. Which is okay, I'm just not into the whole "I'm-a-better-gamer-than-you-are" mentality that IMHO pervades the higher level players I've encountered in the past (in other games, I haven't been here long enough to say that about swtor yet). Guess I'll just have to dive in and test the waters...

I'm just not into the whole "I'm-a-better-gamer-than-you-are" mentality that IMHO pervades the higher level players I've encountered in the past (in other games, I haven't been here long enough to say that about swtor yet). Guess I'll just have to dive in and test the waters...

there will always be snobs in these kinds of games, but for the most part, people around here are patient and willing to help new ones if you let them know that you're new and inexperienced. to be honest, it really doesn't take that long to get yourself into tionese/columi, unless you're horribly unlucky when running HMs. and columi is fine for running HMs and SM Ops.