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Gearing up my lvl 55s. Talk about confusion.


varactylking

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So here it is, for the first time in a VERY long time, I have 2 endgame characters (A Guardian and Sage). Now comes the part that has me baffled. Getting them all nice and geared.

 

PvP, I have it all figured out. That's pretty simple.

 

PvE....now that's a whole different beast. On my guardian, I did the Oricon and CZ-198 dailies until I had a full set of 69s and now, through 55 HM Flashpoints and Oricon/CZ-198 weeklies, he almost has a full set of 72s, but this is the first time I've ever attempted to get all endgame geared in any game. I've read dulfy and a couple of other guides, but I still walk away unsure of what I'm supposed to do and possibly even more confused.

 

Maybe the answer is extremely simple and staring me right in the face, but I figured I would ask here for some help regarding the simplest form of getting nice and geared for endgame when it comes to gearing up multiple characters. I can only hide behind my alt-o-holic tendencies for so long before they get to 55 and find themselves stumped (and I'm getting pretty close on the next two).

 

Thanks for any insight you can offer, and May the Force be With You All.

Edited by varactylking
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since the gear you got have no set bonus (though you have 72 gear which is nice) you shold definately do operations.

 

Start with some of the easier ones: Scum and Villany and (though this might just be my opinion) Terror From Beyond.

 

They give lvl 69 gear, yes, but they will have armoring that will give set bonus and they are pretty good. Plus if oyu are doing 16 man (which a lot of people do unless guild run for some guilds) you will get ultimate and elite commendations. (elite you can ignore as they are 72 gear but ultimate is 78)

 

Now. the thing is that the commendations will give you a good set but they won't give you armorings with set bonus. Those are dropped by bosses from operations. And since you have read on dulfy about these things I can assume that you know what they drop and how it works.

 

Ask in general chat LFg for *insert operation here* and see if you get invited.

 

Good luck and a little tip:

Don't know what to do at the boss, ASK it will be appreciated instead of just ugnoring everything and think that you can just attack everything whenever you want.

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Now comes the part that has me baffled. Getting them all nice and geared.

 

Well, ask yourself this: what PVE endgame are you going to ACTUALLY do?

 

Level 66/69 gear is completely sufficient for the dailies in any zone, the 55 HM FPs, and SM operations.

 

So, unless you are going to do HM operations (or further on, NiM operations), you don't NEED anything else.

 

But, by doing HM FPs and the SM operations, you will get Elite comms, which can buy the Verpine-flavour of level 72 gear, and Ultimate comms, which can buy you the Oricronian (spell check!)-flavour of level 78 gear. (Mainhand weapons are a different story, by the way. The best, if I recall correctly, is comm-bought level 69 main hand. Though you can buy a level 72 hilt/barrel off the GTN and use Elite comms to buy gloves [the cheapest item at 100 comms that has all 3 mods] for a mod and enhancement. Or buy those off the GTN too.) You can also buy up to level 72 gear on the GTN. (The top tier of gear [78 at present] is never craftable).

 

8-man SM operations will also drop Arkanian (level 69) gear and the later bosses of the newer 16-man SM operations will also drop Underworld (level 72) gear. These have the 'set bonuses,' which depending on your class and role, may be quite good.

 

So, really, it's up to what you are going to do to determine what gear you need - anything past that is gravy and your own min/maxing.

 

Good luck!

Edited by thewitchdoctor
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So here it is, for the first time in a VERY long time, I have 2 endgame characters (A Guardian and Sage). Now comes the part that has me baffled. Getting them all nice and geared.

 

Now from my post on my guild's website(Greater then signs abound):

 

General

69 non-set bonus armoring>66 non-set bonus armoring

69 set bonus armoring>72 elite comm armoring

72 set bonus armoring>78 ultimate comm armoring

75 set bonus armoring/mod>78 ultimate comm gear

78 set bonus armoring>all until april 8th, 2014

 

MK-2 Mods>MK-1 Mods in most cases

Mk-1 Enhancements~MK-2Enhancements variable by piece

 

Best pieces to downgrade for 2 piece set bonuses are gloves and boots as those affect your armoring less.

 

Sorcerer (Sage)DPS

2 piece Force-Master set bonus beneficial to performance(72set>78non)

4 piece highly beneficial but not essential(72set>78non)

 

Sorcerer (Sage) Heals

2 piece Force-Mystic set bonus essential to best performance(69set>78non)

4 piece not worth downgrading armoring(78set>78non)

 

Juggernaut (Guardian)Tank

2 piece War Leader set bonus worth 3 tier downgrade(69set>78non)

4 piece War Leader set bonus worth 2 tier downgrade (72set>78non)

 

Juggernaut (Guardian)DPS

2 piece Challenger set bonus in adaptive gear highly beneficial (69set>78non)

2 piece Vindicator set bonus useful (75set>78non)

 

A general rule in balancing power vs crit for dps ~300crit the rest power mods/enhancements

 

For the Sage DPS, Alacrity is a low priority but beneficial, Accuracy similarly, I believe you want a little accuracy (though it's not a must for sage) and most of the rest in surge, if the choice is between Willpower and Surge/Alacrity/Accuracy, always choose Willpower.

 

For any of the above except Tank, you should always augment Main-stat (Willpower for Sage, Strength for Guardian)

 

For the Sage Heals, Alacrity is highly beneficial, my personal preference is around 700 alacrity and the rest in surge, though most suggest 450 alacrity and the rest in surge.

 

Now the Guardian tank, which in all reality is the hardest to gear balance properly. Ideally none of your gear will have Accuracy or Alacrity, though they are useful to holding aggro, endgame your main priority is survival. I personally am still trying to properly balance my Juggernaut's mitigation stats as the balance effectively changes with each gear piece you acquire. Ideally, you'll want 4/5 pieces of your gear to be set-bonus (see above scaling) and that's the easy part, the hard part is balancing the modifications and enhancements along with your earpiece and implants. For me it's Oboran MK-1 War Leader's Earpiece, Oboron MK-2 Implants, 4 Mods with the highest defense available, the other 5 mods with the highest absorption available to you. All of your Enhancements will ideally have Shield Rating (understand you may have to get them off different pieces of gear than you put them on) and depending on your preference either absorption or defense rating. Ideally, I'd suggest about 850-1000 Defense rating (at the 78 tier) and the rest that it's a choice between absorb and defense in absorb.

 

Remember this, none of the gear was made for you to have the best piece by just getting each specific piece once. For example, only the 78 comm belt and wrists have defense rating mods of all the comm purchasable gear, this gear has 55 defense rating on the modification. Some of the 78 set-bonus(Dread-Forged) gear will have mods with 69 defense rating. Additionally some of the MK-2 gear will have mods with 69 as the mitigation stat and some will not. My ideal, all mitigation mods at 69 rating.

 

There is always a degree of variability on the benefits of one stat vs another on mods and enhancements based on your individual play style, so, what is above is advice not law, and should be tweaked slightly to the points that you see as benefiting you more.

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That's not 100% correct. BiS for a Juggernaut / Guardian DPS would be the two piece Marauder / Sentinel set bonus and the two piece Juggernaut / Guardian set bonus. Set bonuses are great but not always worth trading higher rated armorings for them. The Operative's 5 energy bonus isn't a huge deal as energy management isn't all that tough for the class in most specs.

 

As for the above, you need to get the crafted Varacity implants. The PvP ones have far worse mitigation stats. Of course the Oriconian commendations vendor ones are garbage. You need the Dread Forged pieces or Oriconian MK-2 pieces to get closer to BiS though as far as mitigation goes the Varacity ones are amazing.

 

For tanks gearing is more complicated as you can optimize differently for Dread Palace or Dread Fortress. You want closer to 800 Absorb if you can for DP and 1100 Defense for Dread Fortress. You can split between the two effectively, but it depends on your stat budget. Threads from Keyboard Ninja will tell you what you need in terms of stats. There are also a few online calculators etc. which work pretty well.

 

All commendations vendor gear has terrible enhancements. You can sometimes get a BiS power+alacrity, or crit surge or whatever but those aren't generally going to work but in small amounts for some classes. For everything else the commendations pieces (Black Market, Verpine, Oriconian) are all high endurance and low on power. Accuracy or surge rating or whatever will be right on the money but they trade power for endurance which isn't something you want on any class. You can at least get BiS mods for most classes excluding tanks. For tanks you can get the "B" mods which have slightly lower mitigation than Underworld/Verpine but they trade two points of mitigation for a crap ton of endurance. Which on a tank isn't so bad. Some tanks prefer B mods to unlettered mods for the added endurance, especially for 16 man operations but ordinarily BiS are unlettered mods. BiS mods have 62 Endurance, 69 Defense or Absorb and 82 mainstat for the base class. (Strength, Willpower or Aim.)

 

On the other hand for DPS classes sometimes Oriconian enhancements aren't always so bad. Ordinarily in 72's you'd need more accuracy enhancements to reach the target you should be aiming for. In Oriconian enhancements you can use less accuracy enhancements and pick up a higher surge rating. You have to parse it and play with the numbers but usually you end up with some of these enhancements at your disposal because you get enough commendations gear from trying to get armorings and mods.

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