I'm gearing up to lvl 292 gear from 276 and have a few questions:

1) How does improving my gear level affect me when level sync?

2) I've heard that mastery and power are capped when level-sync so at a certain point stack crit, crit, crit. So how much mastery and power should I have? Any caps on endurance?

3) How does shield, absorb and defense work for tanks in the new system with level sync? Any capping issues? What are the new proportions in Onslaught?

To be honest, I wouldn't worry about stats till you have 306 gear. The current gearing system is essentially a mini-game to get your gear rating to 306 and then you start worrying about stats.

 

Story Mode and planetary content is generally so easy that getting the right stats isn't really that important. Even at 306 but if you want to do some of the harder content you need 306 anyway and then it does matter, but only then.

Maybe so but I'd still like to know.

Maybe so but I'd still like to know.

 

Tertiary stats are not capped. This has always been the case for level sync, even before 6.0. If you are already above iRating 270 then you already have too much power, mastery, and endurance, and you will be set at a specific level for those.

 

The reason why people are telling you that it doesn’t matter is because even if you had an item modification that had a better stat distribution, if it has a lower iRating you don’t want to equip it.

 

For example, if you have a iRating 280 unlettered Lethal Mod and a rating 290 Lethal A mod, you still want to equip the lethal A mod, because it will bring your iRating up. In fact, if you had a 292 Warding B mod, you’d actually be better off equipping that, for the same reason. The most important thing is to get your iRating up, because the loot from any crate/box you open and the personal loot dropped from any FP/OPS boss, is determined by your iRating.

 

I’m not sure if Veteran’s Edge stacks are modifying your M/P/E based solely on the number of stacks, or if they look at your uncapped numbers, but I suspect it’s based on the stacks. So that if you had a complete set of, say, lethal As versus Lethal unlettereds, but your item rating was the same, your stats on level locked content would be identical even though the unlettereds are better optimized.

 

In fact, there are some who recommend that for capped content, for even healers and dps, that it is ideal to actually use a warding unlettered high R# mod in place of lethal mods because the stats on the lethal mods are capped but the defense rating will not be. Now, personally, I don’t bother with that because I don’t want to pay 882K every time I want to swap out my gear, so I just keep the Lethal mods in my gear and forego the few % of defense chance I am missing out on.

 

Optimizing low iRating gear is about as pointless as rolling amplifiers... it’s going to be replaced very quickly.

So it sounds like that If I am going for 292 gear then I will naturally have enough endurance (even for tank?) power and mastery just from what comes naturally. Then 1203 Alacrity for the 1.4 sec GCD. Enough accuracy on my DPSs for 110%.

After that it's all stacking crit for DPS and healers? Shield and absorb for tanks? Or defense for all of them which is an interesting idea.

 

Do I have that about right?

So it sounds like that If I am going for 292 gear then I will naturally have enough endurance (even for tank?) power and mastery just from what comes naturally. Then 1203 Alacrity for the 1.4 sec GCD. Enough accuracy on my DPSs for 110%.

After that it's all stacking crit for DPS and healers? Shield and absorb for tanks? Or defense for all of them which is an interesting idea.

 

Do I have that about right?

 

Pretty much crit for dps and heals (I can’t say what’s best for tanks)

 

Once you have your alacrity and accuracy where you want them, stack crit if you don’t plan on playing any “non synced” end game content. ie, pvp or new operations or possibly new flash points (in the future).

So it sounds like that If I am going for 292 gear then I will naturally have enough endurance (even for tank?) power and mastery just from what comes naturally. Then 1203 Alacrity for the 1.4 sec GCD. Enough accuracy on my DPSs for 110%.

After that it's all stacking crit for DPS and healers? Shield and absorb for tanks? Or defense for all of them which is an interesting idea.

 

Do I have that about right?

 

Regarding alacrity:

Its actually 1213 for alacrity rating, not 1203.

 

 

 

Defense for non-tanks in capped content is interesting in theory but terrible in practice because it won't protect you from Force/Tech attacks, AoEs, and DoTs. Maybe useful in exclusive solo content, perhaps with the Taskmaster set.

 

Regarding stacking critical rating:

Its probably ok to just stack critical rating for most dps/heal professions, though I'm sure someone has done the work that at some point there is value in Versatile or Overkill augments rather than Critical augments, but this will only matter in uncapped content. There is potentially a dps loss by using Efficient R-1 Enhancements over Adept R-18s in uncapped content but it is heavily dependent upon the size of the attack, the magnitude of surge bonus, and the frequency of super-crits. Interestingly, looking at the Dxun Mutant Trandoshans in Veteran Mode, at 25k dps, using the Efficient R1s is a dps loss of around 2.77% by my napkin math (assumptions in spoiler).

 

 

 

Regarding tanks:

Don't sacrifice shield or absorb for defense. High health mods and enhancements only matter in uncapped content. Lethal mods are detrimental in capped content but have a role in uncapped content for tanks.

Recommend DECONSTRUCTING:

• Warding A mods
  
• Warding B mods with BR > 1
  
• Immunity or Sturdiness Enhancements R > 10
  
• Vigilant or Steadfast enhancements R > 1
  
• Bastion or Bulwark enhancements R < 11
  

There may be authorities who ardently recommend using the high endurance enhancements over mitigation ones, e.g. Vigilant > Bastion > Immunity. Regardless of the validity of those recommendations, they only apply in uncapped content.

See dipstik's thread for full details on how much Shield and Absorb per Advanced Class and the SWTOR Theorycrafter's Discord. Briefly,

• Guardians and Juggernauts need about even Shield Rating and Absorb Rating
  
• Shadows/Assassins need about even but a slight favor towards absorb
  
• VG/PT needs shield/absorb in a ratio of 4:3
  

 

Lastly, I personally tend to gear considering that I do both capped and uncapped content.

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by phalczen

Warding A mods

Warding B mods with BR > 1

Immunity or Sturdiness Enhancements R > 10

Vigilant or Steadfast enhancements R > 1

Bastion or Bulwark enhancements R < 11

 

What's that R factor?

What's that R factor?

 

Its after the name.

 

For example,

 

Warding 80R-8

 

or

 

Lethal 80BR-4

 

EDIT: and, this is all pointless to optimize prior to item rating 306. As I said in my first reply, even if you have a modification that would normally be on my TRASH list, if it has a higher iRating than what you currently have equipped, you should use it.

Edited June 17, 2020 by phalczen

iRating? Is that like the level e.g. 292?

And the point is not necessarily optimize my gear at 292 but then again I don't want to be stupid about what mods to build by let's say stacking power if it is not going to do any good.

iRating? Is that like the level e.g. 292?

And the point is not necessarily optimize my gear at 292 but then again I don't want to be stupid about what mods to build by let's say stacking power if it is not going to do any good.

 

iRating stands for your total gear rating, simply, 292 gear lvl is iRated at 292

 

You want to keep putting on the best iRated gear you can until you reach i306. There isn’t any point in playing around with stats too much until then because it’s a waste of credits.

 

Early after 6,0 was released I made a thread on how to gear up simply. Have a read and if you have questions that aren’t answered in the thread, just ask.

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=970390

iRating? Is that like the level e.g. 292?

And the point is not necessarily optimize my gear at 292 but then again I don't want to be stupid about what mods to build by let's say stacking power if it is not going to do any good.

 

iRating is short for item rating, which is that 292 number. 306 is the maximum. I don't like to call it "level" because it is confusing with character level and the correct in-game term is item rating in all the tooltips and the character sheet.

 

And as I said in my first reply, it actually doesn't matter if you use "stupid" mods because the most important thing is to increase your character's item rating.

 

Let's say you are a healer with an average character item rating of 292. You loot two enhancements, one is a critical rating enhancement with an item rating of 290 and the other is a shield enhancement with an item rating of 294. You actually want to equip the tank enhancement, even though you do not have a shield because you are a healer, not a tank, because the tank enhancement has a higher item rating than the critical one, and it will bring UP your average item rating. It is counter-intuitive. But because you will be doing mostly capped content, its effects on your stats will be minimal, and the benefit to your loot drops will be more important.

 

If your character's item rating is under 306, you need to be focused on raising that up, rather than whether your choice is "stupid" or not, because getting to 306 is the goal. Once you are at 306, then you can optimize.

 

EDIT: You can look at Trixxie's thread or check out SWTORISTA's guide here

Edited June 17, 2020 by phalczen

iRating? Is that like the level e.g. 292?

And the point is not necessarily optimize my gear at 292 but then again I don't want to be stupid about what mods to build by let's say stacking power if it is not going to do any good.

iRating is "Item Rating" which is the number you're calling "level". The "Item Rating" in the top left of your character sheet is some sort of average of the iRatings of your gear.

 

A more accurate assessment of stats and Level Sync is this:

* Endurance and Mastery are *capped* to at most X and Y, where X and Y depend on where you are that's capped.

* Health is capped to at most Z, but Z is a chunk lower than the Health that would be calculated from your capped Endurance.

* Power is *set* to a specific value that depends on where you are. (It is not the same in all synced-to-70 areas, for example.) If you remove all your gear into your inventory, your Power is the same, in a synced area, as it is if you equip a full set.

* All other stats are unaffected, and have their full effect.

 

So for DPS and Heal, if you can, get enough Accuracy stuff to have 110% or slightly above on your character sheet (to counter the -10% Accuracy penalty for fighting certain boss-weight foes), and enough Alacrity to reach one o fhe magic numbers, and stack the rest on Crit.

 

In unsynced content (Onderon, Mek-Sha, the Objective Meridian FP and the Dxun operation), the balance is a little different, because EMPH have their full values, but that's not what you're asking about.

 

Then again, in most synced content (the newer Ops in Master mode may be an exception), gear suitable for unsynced content will do just fine - no real need to build and carry two sets.

Also I should probably be clear, that when I say trash certain item modifications I actually mean to deconstruct them into tech fragments, not delete them or sell them to a vendor.

This all seems stupid with capping stats. Part of the argument against level-sync IMHO. What's the point in upgrading your gear then in PvE? At least in regards to power, mastery and crit. And is that real that power is independent of your gear in capped areas? I can go in naked and have the same power as someone in 306 gear?

Regarding alacrity:

Its actually 1213 for alacrity rating, not 1203.

 

The target is different if your guild has the Quickness set bonus from its flagship perks, or if you are a class like Arsenal or Carnage that has alacrity built into your discipline

 

 

Defense for non-tanks in capped content is interesting in theory but terrible in practice because it won't protect you from Force/Tech attacks, AoEs, and DoTs. Maybe useful in exclusive solo content, perhaps with the Taskmaster set.

 

Regarding stacking critical rating:

Its probably ok to just stack critical rating for most dps/heal professions, though I'm sure someone has done the work that at some point there is value in Versatile or Overkill augments rather than Critical augments, but this will only matter in uncapped content. There is potentially a dps loss by using Efficient R-1 Enhancements over Adept R-18s in uncapped content but it is heavily dependent upon the size of the attack, the magnitude of surge bonus, and the frequency of super-crits. Interestingly, looking at the Dxun Mutant Trandoshans in Veteran Mode, at 25k dps, using the Efficient R1s is a dps loss of around 2.77% by my napkin math (assumptions in spoiler).

 

Assumptions:

No augments or super crits assumed in these estimates

Base crit is 5% and base surge is 50%

12k Mastery is about 12.45% critical chance

Using all 3 Adept R-18s and Sha'tek implants/ear gives about 3206 CR which is 15.39%

Using all 3 Efficient R1s and Sha'tek implants/ear gives about 3377 CR which is 15.94%

Adept R-18s x 3 have 306 more power than Efficient R-1s.

25000 dps with a 1.4s GCD is an average of 17857 per attack.

 

 

 

Regarding tanks:

Don't sacrifice shield or absorb for defense. High health mods and enhancements only matter in uncapped content. Lethal mods are detrimental in capped content but have a role in uncapped content for tanks.

Recommend DECONSTRUCTING:

• Warding A mods
  
• Warding B mods with BR > 1
  
• Immunity or Sturdiness Enhancements R > 10
  
• Vigilant or Steadfast enhancements R > 1
  
• Bastion or Bulwark enhancements R < 11
  

There may be authorities who ardently recommend using the high endurance enhancements over mitigation ones, e.g. Vigilant > Bastion > Immunity. Regardless of the validity of those recommendations, they only apply in uncapped content.

See dipstik's thread for full details on how much Shield and Absorb per Advanced Class and the SWTOR Theorycrafter's Discord. Briefly,

• Guardians and Juggernauts need about even Shield Rating and Absorb Rating
  
• Shadows/Assassins need about even but a slight favor towards absorb
  
• VG/PT needs shield/absorb in a ratio of 4:3
  

 

Lastly, I personally tend to gear considering that I do both capped and uncapped content.

If I'm on a toon that, for example, I know I'm going to be doing mostly Onderon dailies on, I'll gear that toon with considerations for uncapped content, for example favoring Adept R18s over Efficient enhancements, and so forth.

 

As another example, I know that I am working on getting the Emergency Power set for my VG/PT tanks. This only drops from Dxun, so knowing this I'll focus on selecting item modifications that will help him tank in Dxun, even though I'll use him in capped content as well. Whereas my other tanks I won't be routinely bringing them to Dxun, so I can save high R Warding unlettered mods for them and use the lower R ones or even Warding B mods for my VG/PT. That isn't to say that I don't have Warding B mods in some slots of my Shadow, or Warding high Rs in some slots of my VG. Rather, as I accumulate item modifications I look at my TRASH list, and then divide up item modifications among my toons relative to the type of content I anticipate doing with them. Its important to remember that in terms of PVE, capped content far outweighs the amount of uncapped content, so if you are likely to do more pve than pvp you might want to focus on low R unlettered warding mods over the alternatives.

 

I would definitely argue as a dps or healer best mod for capped content is defense. At least it works against ranged and mele attacks. That’s better than doing absolutely 0 affects.

This all seems stupid with capping stats. Part of the argument against level-sync IMHO. What's the point in upgrading your gear then in PvE? At least in regards to power, mastery and crit. And is that real that power is independent of your gear in capped areas? I can go in naked and have the same power as someone in 306 gear?

 

Crit is not capped in lower content. Only power mastery and endurance. Which is why for 70 content people go with the 451 crit high endurance and low power enhancements

I guess my next two topics would be:

Doesn't this seem overly complicated? What't the reason for capping this and not capping that? And some of the gearing guides I've seen I can barely parse out.

 

How does the whole Veteran's Edge figure into this?

And is that real that power is independent of your gear in capped areas? I can go in naked and have the same power as someone in 306 gear?

No, it's not true. I just said it was to troll you. <<== Sarcastic falsehood.

 

Now that I've cleared my annoyance at the suggestion I was making it up, read this that I posted some time back on this subject:

Just checked something. I'm level 75, IR 283 with 7 stacks of Veteran's Edge, standing on Zakuul (and therefore synced to level 70).

 

In my character sheet, I'm showing 3929 Power, 7809 Mastery and 8553 Endurance. All these stats are showing *yellow*, meaning that they are below their 'natural' level, which implies they are clipped.

 

The tooltips?

* Mastery: 1000 base plus 8532 bonus = 9532 total (clipped to 7809)

* Endurance: 900 base plus 11678 bonus = 12578 total (clipped to 8553)

* Power: 0 base plus 5224 bonus = 5224 total (clipped to 3929)

 

Health is 126068 "live" made up of:

* 52295 base

* 124274 bonus (8553 Endurance ==> +11195 and Skills/Buffs ==> +13079)

* 176569 total.

* Clipped to 126068.

 

So, this confirms a couple of things:

* Health is clipped (to a different value than you'd expect from the character's level/gear/bonuses/Endurance, that is)

* The full set of EMPH stats are still clipped.

 

And it adds:

* The "From Endurance" part of health is very, very close to exactly 13 points of Health per point of Endurance.

* Specifically, 13.00070151.

* The tiny fraction difference corresponds to *six* extra Health points from I don't know quite where.

 

I then took off all my gear:

* Mastery 1140 as 1000 base plus 140 bonus from ... somewhere. (50 = 5% from the "Force Valor" class buff?)

* Endurance 993 as 900 base plus 93 bonus including 450 = 5% from the "Fortification" class buff

* Power 3929 as 0 base plus 0 bonus.

 

There you have it, folks. Zero plus zero is 3929.

 

Bounce to Fleet. Power is now zero.

Bounce back to Zakuul. Power is back to 3929 with zero stacks of Veteran's Edge.

Back to Fleet. Put gear on, take gear off. Power back to zero.

Bounce back to Zakuul. Power is back to 3929 with zero stacks of Veteran's Edge.

 

I watched Power as I added gear on Zakuul. It moved exactly not at all. It appears that in level-synced content, your Power is determined as a specific value that is entirely independent of anything you can change. It will be interesting to see if it changes when I rank up my stacks of VE.

 

Final conclusion, it's significantly more complicated than we thought, and it's more than somewhat confusing.

I just tested the following:

 

Geared on Fleet

Geared on Ossus

Naked on Ossus

 

Gear is 306 and fully augmented. DPS Sorc (Madness). Unguilded. Gathering Storm set.

 

Crit, Alacrity, Accuracy all stay the same at 2952, 1294, 1617 both on Fleet and Ossus. When stripped of all gear those do go down to zero of course.

 

Endurance is 16330 - 9171 - 1018

Mastery is 12598 - 7230 - 1552

Power is 9732 - 3393 - 3393

 

Please note that veteran levels only apply when you have gear on, so when stripped of gear there are no veteran levels. In fact when I put my gear back on I had to put everything on except 1 piece to get veteran levels to 8 and with the final piece it jumped to 30. So with up to and including equipping 12/14 pieces (tactical not counted) I have 0 veteran levels. It doesn't seem veteran levels affect crit, alacrity and accuracy either.

 

So it seems that it all revolves around Endurance and Mastery but Ossus is level 70 content. Zakuul was not. You do get synced to 70 but it was a level 60-65 planet. And my stats are HIGHER there than on Ossus. In fact on Zakuul the 3 main stats are green, but on Ossus they are coloured gold. So I also went to Iokath which is level 70 and indeed I got gold numbers again BUT not the the same as Ossus.

 

It seems therefore that it's different even for level 70 content depending on where you are.

 

Edit: I went into DF SM and again I have different main stats. It seems that there is a traditional level sync based on pre-level 70 conditions that gives green coloured stats. And then there is the level 70 sync for level 70 specific content like Ossus, Iokath and all the old OPs which gives gold coloured stats but the stats are capped DIFFERENTLY depending on where you are.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Tsillah

I guess my next two topics would be:

Doesn't this seem overly complicated? What't the reason for capping this and not capping that? And some of the gearing guides I've seen I can barely parse out.

 

How does the whole Veteran's Edge figure into this?

 

It was too much work for the developers to re-balance the old pve content for the new level cap with each expansion. Ostensibly, the level creep also made even the hardest versions of some content easier. By level creep, I'm referring to the addition of new abilities, new utility points, new set bonuses, entirely new gear items (like the tactical item slot), and the effect of higher tertiary stats. Nightmare EC isn't as hard now, as it was when the level cap was 50 and best gear was rating 156. But before 4.0, they didn't even bother to re-balance ops and FP to the new level cap, so imagine all those aspects of level creep PLUS you are five levels higher than the mobs in the op! At least 4.0 tried to make the content more challenging ... which was important at the time since there were no new ops and essentially only one new flashpoint (with a few randomized encounters to change things up). But I don't think that process of re-balancing for every level cap bump was sustainable. To make it easier moving forward, they decided to balance all the old content around level 70, and only pvp and the new content (Onderon, Mek Sha, Dxun and Objective Meridian) are at level cap. It's anyone's guess what they will do to the 75-content if and when there is a 7.0 and a bump to level 80.

 

Veteran's Edge is a way to make gear relevant when it otherwise would not be. More precisely, its a way to make the effort of acquiring item rating 306 stuff with 306-levels of endurance, mastery, and power, relevant in areas where those stats would be capped. It does not reward the effort for optimizing your item modifications, only the effort of getting from 268 to 306.

Some top-end raiders have argued that the presence of the VE stacks made nightmare content too easy, and thus it has been removed from that level of content.

 

As others have posted, there is a difference in the stats you get in certain level 70 content, depending on whether the area was always level 70 (like Ossus) or whether its boosted to 70 (like KOTFE/KOTET content) or re-scaled to 70 (like all the old ops and FPs.) There is even a difference in difficulty modes ... My health as a tank, with 30 VE stacks, is different in story mode Explosive Conflict compared to Veteran (Hard) Mode Eternity Vault. I'm sure there is some rhyme or reason to it but I haven't spent the time to try and figure it out, and the devs aren't forthcoming.

 

Fortunately, that is all out of the player's control, and the only thing the player needs to worry about are the tertiary stats: Defense, Shield, Absorb, Accuracy, Critical, Alacrity.