As a new Player playing a tank, I really have no chance getting into any sort of Operations. Even for 8 Man Storymode I am undergeared according to other people, while the game tells me I can play them (156 with some 162) just fine.

So I basically have to wait for an item reset, when everyone is back to par. Do we know when that will be?

I still have plenty of other content (Seeker Missions, HK51, Reputatio etc), so I can wait a bit.

No, you don't have to wait for a reset.

Do Oricon dailies. Do your weekly Group Finder quests. Do Hard Mode flash points. Get into some Toborro's Courtyard runs. Do whatever you can to collect Elite and Ultimate Commendations. You'll gear up quickly enough.

The next reset will come with the next increase in level cap which might be toward the end of this year but might be longer.

No, you don't have to wait for a reset.

 

Do Oricon dailies. Do your weekly Group Finder quests. Do Hard Mode flash points. Get into some Toborro's Courtyard runs. Do whatever you can to collect Elite and Ultimate Commendations. You'll gear up quickly enough.

 

The next reset will come with the next increase in level cap which might be toward the end of this year but might be longer.

Pugs are asking for 168 Gear and higher ONLY for any Kind of Ops. So I am looking at like 4-6 weeks of daily flashpoints, if I can even be bothered to do that many. I think I rather wait for the reset. My Guild had all their lockouts already when I came on 7 PM GMT this evening. Basically 3 hours after the servers came back.

I am not really very confident to see any sort of endgame content atm.

Pugs are asking for 168 Gear and higher ONLY for any Kind of Ops. So I am looking at like 4-6 weeks of daily flashpoints, if I can even be bothered to do that many. I think I rather wait for the reset. My Guild had all their lockouts already when I came on 7 PM GMT this evening. Basically 3 hours after the servers came back.

 

I am not really very confident to see any sort of endgame content atm.

If they are asking for ridiculously high gear numbers you most likely don't want to run with them anyways. They're more likely to be the DPS pullers and non-healing DPSing healers.

Pugs are asking for 168 Gear and higher ONLY for any Kind of Ops. So I am looking at like 4-6 weeks of daily flashpoints, if I can even be bothered to do that many. I think I rather wait for the reset. My Guild had all their lockouts already when I came on 7 PM GMT this evening. Basically 3 hours after the servers came back.

 

I am not really very confident to see any sort of endgame content atm.

Get into a guild. Don't go with those PUGs. That's the old WoW disease of, "You have to have what this operation drops to run the operation". It's moronic.

You can run any Story Mode operation in the game with the gear you'll get from Elite commendations and level 55 hard mode flash points. If you run just one Hard Mode each day, you'll get about 17 Elite commendations a day plus 20 per week plus I think 12 Ultimates per week. Plus you'll get drops that will gear you for Story Mode flash points so you don't have to use only commendations to do it.

As a tank, you should easily be able to gear yourself up for story-mode operations in a couple weeks, three tops. I've done it. It was surprisingly simple. In fact, it was so simple I didn't even realize I was gearing up for operations. I just sort of all of a sudden had the gear.

Heck, if you've done Oricon once and kept the gear rewards, you're off to a great start.

Or you can wait 6, 9, or more months until the level cap increases, if it even does that then.

If they are asking for ridiculously high gear numbers you most likely don't want to run with them anyways. They're more likely to be the DPS pullers and non-healing DPSing healers.

Yeah, if they want to be overgeared like that, they're probably just doing comm runs.

Pugs are asking for 168 Gear and higher ONLY for any Kind of Ops. So I am looking at like 4-6 weeks of daily flashpoints, if I can even be bothered to do that many. I think I rather wait for the reset. My Guild had all their lockouts already when I came on 7 PM GMT this evening. Basically 3 hours after the servers came back.

 

I am not really very confident to see any sort of endgame content atm.

I would recommend finding a guild that better suits your schedule. Running all possible ops immediately after the lockout resets is only one way of handle endgame.

Other guilds schedule ops throughout the week.

Pugs are asking for 168 Gear and higher ONLY for any Kind of Ops. So I am looking at like 4-6 weeks of daily flashpoints, if I can even be bothered to do that many. I think I rather wait for the reset. My Guild had all their lockouts already when I came on 7 PM GMT this evening. Basically 3 hours after the servers came back.

 

I am not really very confident to see any sort of endgame content atm.

I forget which rating translates to which gear, but as long as you're in 66 gear (main pieces are given for oricon questline) you're good to go. Anyone that tells you different is lying and looking for people way overgeared for the content. People were beating these out of the gate at 2.0 launch, in 61s and 63s. Even ignoring flashpoints and the like, dailies will net you 69 gear, which is the same as the gear that drops in the SM ops (rating wise at least).

I can certainly understand how frustrating it can be trying to get into PUGs with clueless people. Just this past weekend I was trying to get my newly 55 DPS into a PUG run and someone commented on my guildie and my gear just because we were around 25k health. Nevermind that we had all 66+ gear and the run went off without issues. People are so used to others being in gear 3 tiers above what's dropped in the instance, and augmented (which alone adds around 5 or 6k health, IIRC) that they just expect every new player to have top end gear already.

The real solution is to get into a guild which does runs and doesn't mind helping out new members. I find it hard to believe that 3 hours after servers opening that they've cleared all lockouts. And even if they have then either find a way to get in on their runs or find a better group.

The next time you'll find it easy to get on par with the next item level will probably be whenever they decide to raise the level cap to 60. That could happen this year, but it also might not.

You probably have the Oricon quest reward gear, so you are well on your way. If you get your 2 implants ans ear piece (HM Czerka or GTN) and then 2 relics from pvp, you'll be more than geared enough to run any SM ops. Outside Comms, there's little other reason to ever do random HM FP's

Sure, it would be nice to have a crafted mainhand, but you are looking at 1M credits or so. Not impossible, by grinding out every planets dailies, you could probably do this in a Saturday. Having such would help you a fair bit with regard to aggro, once you do get into Ops, considering nearly everyone is overgeared.

Another gearing up option is to get alts through the end of Chapter 3 and maxed out companions in all 5 specs. Finally, do you have all of your datacrons? It's amazing how few datacrons most people have found, yet they add so much (in total) to your stats.

Pugs are asking for 168 Gear and higher ONLY for any Kind of Ops. So I am looking at like 4-6 weeks of daily flashpoints, if I can even be bothered to do that many. I think I rather wait for the reset. My Guild had all their lockouts already when I came on 7 PM GMT this evening. Basically 3 hours after the servers came back.

 

I am not really very confident to see any sort of endgame content atm.

If you don't have the proper gear then do as the previous poster said... FP's, HM FP's, Oricon Quest series and dailies, anything really that will grant you Elite/Basic Commendations. You can gear yourself very easily this way to get you started. You cannot expect to jump into the best content in the game with mediocre gear.

If you don't have the proper gear then do as the previous poster said... FP's, HM FP's, Oricon Quest series and dailies, anything really that will grant you Elite/Basic Commendations. You can gear yourself very easily this way to get you started. You cannot expect to jump into the best content in the game with mediocre gear.

When did I say I expect that? I have more than enough gear to do the story mode ops.

As I said, I have everything 66 or 69er mods/armoring/hilts and 2 PvP Relics for my spec.

People see my 32k HP which is "too low" and kick me instantly.

Pugs are asking for 168 Gear and higher ONLY for any Kind of Ops. So I am looking at like 4-6 weeks of daily flashpoints, if I can even be bothered to do that many. I think I rather wait for the reset. My Guild had all their lockouts already when I came on 7 PM GMT this evening. Basically 3 hours after the servers came back.

 

I am not really very confident to see any sort of endgame content atm.

My suggestion, join another guild that run ops regularly at a time that makes more sense to your hours. Then it is just a simple matter of asking them to let you off-tank some of the SM ops like SnV, TFB, TC, etc.

Frankly speaking, pug ops are already full of variables so it is only natural for pug leaders to be more picky when it comes to key roles such as tanking. After all, good and bad tanks can literally make or break the run so that is not the place for a new-ish tank to expect people to be.... forgiving.

When did I say I expect that? I have more than enough gear to do the story mode ops.

As I said, I have everything 66 or 69er mods/armoring/hilts and 2 PvP Relics for my spec.

People see my 32k HP which is "too low" and kick me instantly.

What class of tank are you that you only have 32k health in 66 and 69 gear? Are you sure you're properly itemized? Not that health is a good measure, but that seems low.

First. Like others have said... find a guild to run with. Either a consistant raid group or just a guild that does a lot of randoms.

Most pugs (unfortunately) are not looking to help gear and are just looking to do the raid/weeklies.

Regarding the reset. If I remember correctly, the "reset" that this game had with RoTC came out, was not like the resets WoW had. In WoW even the highest level tier gear was rendered obsolete by green drops in the new leveling area.

In SWTOR this was not the case. I believe that the top 2 levels of level 55 gear were perfectly viable for SM content at level 55.

What class of tank are you that you only have 32k health in 66 and 69 gear? Are you sure you're properly itemized? Not that health is a good measure, but that seems low.

Look here:

http://i.imgur.com/f3DikW8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gfTo0ld.png

Look here:

http://i.imgur.com/f3DikW8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gfTo0ld.png

Yeah... even in 69's there should be more overall health then that. Weird. We'd have to see each piece to know what mods you're using. Is your gear augmented? That can provide a massive boost which people often forget about. Datacrons as well will add a nice chunk of stats to your character.

When did I say I expect that? I have more than enough gear to do the story mode ops.

As I said, I have everything 66 or 69er mods/armoring/hilts and 2 PvP Relics for my spec.

People see my 32k HP which is "too low" and kick me instantly.

Oh I didn't mean you specifically. I meant 'you' in a general population sense. Sorry that you took it out of context... that was not my intention.

Yeah... even in 69's there should be more overall health then that. Weird. We'd have to see each piece to know what mods you're using. Is your gear augmented? That can provide a massive boost which people often forget about. Datacrons as well will add a nice chunk of stats to your character.

I have 66's and some 69er. And no, my HP is just fine. Later Gear has much more Endurance than entry level gear. But that does not mean I can't fulfill my role properly.

edit: Working on the data chrons, but I can't do everything at once . Time is a limited resource.

Yeah... even in 69's there should be more overall health then that. Weird. We'd have to see each piece to know what mods you're using. Is your gear augmented? That can provide a massive boost which people often forget about. Datacrons as well will add a nice chunk of stats to your character.

I hope you are talking a boost to damage mitigating stats and not endurance/health... tank augments should be damage mitigating which do not provide endurance.

~32k health sound about right to me for a mix of 66/69 if the mods are correct for tanking. Which the mods should be focused on damage mitigating stats and not on endurance.

You can get elite gear from doing weekly even if you don't do operations.

Weekly-Elite

Makeb Weekly

CZ Weekly (Requires two flashpoints-can be story or hard)

Oricion

Then as others said there are hardmodes and operartions that give the weekly.

I don't have a lot of time but I have been doing the first three weekly and I have two pieces of 72 already and I know it is taking me longer but with my schedule it still works right now.

I have 66's and some 69er. And no, my HP is just fine. Later Gear has much more Endurance than entry level gear. But that does not mean I can't fulfill my role properly.

 

edit: Working on the data chrons, but I can't do everything at once . Time is a limited resource.

My DPS/Healer characters in 66/69 un-augmented with properly weighted mods (low endurance) have around 29k HP. 30k+ HP with augments. Comms gear typically has higher endurance mods for all specs if you just buy the pieces flat out and don't swap them around. Only a few pieces that you can buy over and over have proper weights for specs, and even then only for DPS heals on mods for power. Enhancements are generally high endurance across the board. Comms gear for tanking mods is generally trash with high endurance (poor mitigation).

I would totally take a 30k HP tank with mitigation gear (such as 61/63 set bonus tokens from Pre-55 Ops runs) into any story mode over someone with a bunch of 72 comms based stuff that might have 37 to 39k HP. There are plenty of people out there that vocally support high HP instead of high mitigation, but ultimately you are more than serviceable as a tank if you have high mitigation stats other than hit points.

Moral of the story: HP is not the best of indicators, and certainly not in all instances. There's an entire thread about that elsewhere on these forums. My DPS trooper is at only 32k HP and I'm constantly pulling, THROUGH THE GUARD from a tank, against more highly geared and higher HP'd sentinels that have completed DF/DP HM (sentinels who get the melee kicker onto their threat). That's sentinels, who have specs with very good burst... So yeah...rotation matters more. Skill matters more.

Hit Points are a starting point, but if I see someone with low HP, I'm going to look at their gear in a particular way, and possibly their achievements, before deciding on them. If they've got achievements for ops completion (granted maybe from other characters but experience still counts for a lot) and if their components have the proper weights for their roles, I'll probably give them a shot. If they are endurance stacked in comms gear with little to no Ops experience, and we are doing any kind of hard mode, I'll probably kindly remove them even if they have the highest HP of any DPS/Heals on hand. For story modes, they'd probably be fine even with upside down stats. They won't parse the highest, but as long as they do more than spam their basic attack, they'll probably do enough DPS to help down 9 out of 10 SM 55 bosses.