Hi, folks

I was curious as to whether there are any good guides to getting started doing level 50 PvE?

I'm pretty well read up on most of the game and our guild is progressing at much the rate I was hoping for and expecting. However, as we begin gearing up to take down some of the biggest and baddest that the Empire has to offer, I want to make sure I'm not making any unfounded assumptions.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Cheers,

-Vert

This is basically how it goes:

Do lots of pvp (yes, you heard me), do warzones like mad, and also the daily and weekly quests on ilum. All daily and weekly pvp quests can be fund at the pvp mission terminal on the fleet of your faction, more specific, around the combat training part.

These quests, when turned in, give you a bag (weeklies give 3 bags), that give you centurion tokens that you can use to buy centurion gear, that isnt THAT good, but: The bags can also give you a gear token for a piece of champion gear, this is very nice pieces that rivals what you get in hard mode flashpoints. The good thing about this champion token is that you only need one for a piece of gear, I accumulated about 8 or 9 bags and got 3 pieces of champion gear out of it.

You can also buy these bags, hey cost 200 warzone tokens, and 200 mercenary tokens. Warzone tokens you get from warzones (about 50-80 tokens regardless if you win or lose). Mercenary tokens im not sure how to get, its not from ilum atleast, it might be that pvp area on tatooine. But you can buy those for warzone tokens at a 3:1 exchange ratio. So one bag cost you about 800 warzone tokes (600 to exchange for merc tokens), which are about 10-20 warzone games (depending on how many you win).

There are also higher level bags (they are given from the weekly and daily quests as a alternative to the normal bags), but you require valor level 60 to open them, and you can only carry one in your inventory, so its better in the start to just pick the normal bags. Unless you plan on just mashing on to valor level 60 fast that is. The higher level bags give champion tokens instead of centurion ones, and have a chance to give a gearpiece for a piece if battlemaster gear.

With both bag types, be aware that the random chance item you can get is a token you exchange directly for a piece of gear. The "regular" 3 tokens you always get in the bag is just like any commendation in that you need a bunch to buy the gear you like, and most peices cost over 30 tokens.

after you are decently geared (lke a few days tops), you can start steamrolling hard mode flashpoints. You can arguably do this with just level 50 blue gear, but some enrage timers can be hard to beat. HArd mode flashpoints are accessed by talking/accessing the quest giver just outside the zone portal to the flashpoint in question and choosing hardmode instead of normal, these can be run once per day. Also, not all flashpoints have hardmodes (none of the ones at the dropship hangar has hardmodes, the rest do).

You can also start doing 8-man operations at the same time as hard mode flashpoints i think. They seem to be about the same difficuly, but requiring 8 people instead of four. Someone with more experience in operations, feel free to correct me on this.

Thanks for the reply,

In the week and a half since I hit level 50, I've spent my time PvPing for the Centurion / Champion sets and crafting / RE'ing my reusable Biochem items. I feel like I'm sufficiently geared for some hard modes.

However, I've heard that certain FP's have to be done on Normal mode first, or I've heard that certain bosses won't be able to be beaten without certain strategies. My considerable MMO experience leads me to believe I would prefer to be more educated on each of the individual FP's (Especially since I'm a tank and a guildmaster).

Edit: I'm on the Imperial Side. You might want to adapt the Flashpoint names if you're rep.(BT = Esseles, BP and the Foundry are the two linked instances about Revan, I gather the Republic has two same-ish Flashpoints)

Operative healer here. I skipped the PvP altogether and now I'm almost fully purple geared just by doing hard modes.

When I got to 50, I've done Directive 7, Battle of Ilum and The False Emperor on normal to get accustomed with the tactics. They also give you some decent blue gear and drop commendations that can be used to buy even more blues from a vendor in the fleet. Said blue gear is enough to start doing the first hard modes.

You should start with BT Hard mode. The tactics are substantially the same as normal mode, but remember that every boss in hard mode has an enrage timer- which means that if your DPS isn't good enough, the boss will enrage and most likely wipe your group if not taken down swiftly.

I would then move onto other flashpoints. BP is easy enough, except for the last boss. He is unreasonably tough, and that can be said to a degree for the Foundry as well. Battle of Ilum takes it a little step forward, and The False Emperor can get pretty hard at times as well. Directive 7 is kind of doable as well, but like all the other hard modes, you need to know the normal modes tactics beforehand.

There is no fixed order - remember that most strategies are exactly the same as normal mode, so there's not much to add to this, except for a very few bosses (BP bonus boss comes to my mind).

As for hard mode loot, every hard mode boss drops purple gear, together with Tionese crystals. The last boss drops a token for a piece of Tier 2 and an Alloy used by all professions to craft their best items. The piece of Tier 2 dropped depends on the boss in question (BT = Bracers , BP = Gloves, TFE = Chest, and so forth). By completing a hard mode Flashpoint and by turning in PvE dailies you get Tionese commendations as well. Tionese Commendations + Crystals can be used to buy Tier 1 gear.

And yes, some Flashpoints require to be done in normal mode before unlocking their hard mode. I'm not sure if this is true for every single one of them.

Hope this helps a little.