Hello all,

 

So I recently got to Level 50, and started playing around with endgame content. But it's all so different from regular gameplay, that I'm not too sure where to begin.

 

I claimed my new/free PVP gear (which I put right on, because almost all stats were better than my old PVE gear, until I can get new stuff for PVE). And I unlocked the dailies on Belsavis and got the quests to open dailies on Ilum and Corellia (are the Corellia ones daily?)

 

Also, I've tried reading some things online about gear (and what gear you need to run Operations). But there's just so much. I keep hearing about Tionese, Columi, and Rakata gear, but what's better than what?

 

So my questions are:

 

1- When it comes to gear, what progression should I do? What should I work to replace my Recruit gear with, for PVE and PVP (separately, I presume)?

 

2- My Daily Commendations: is that what I use to buy this gear? Or are there other commendations that I need too? Where do I get those?

 

3- Can I start doing HM Flashpoints now? Or should I wait until I get a new type of gear?

 

4- What type of gear should I have before trying story mode Operations?

 

Thank you guys!

1- When it comes to gear, what progression should I do? What should I work to replace my Recruit gear with, for PVE and PVP (separately, I presume)?

 

For PVE:

If you're comfortable with your role on a team and are decent with your rotation/skill usage, queue up for HM flashpoints and get the BH comms and some columni gear.

 

Focus on the Black Hole dailies for the BH commendations. Those give you access to the 2nd best gear in the game currently but it takes a while to earn enough to buy it.

 

You can also do storymode EV. Just watch some Youtube strategy videos of the fights so you know what you're doing. Recruit gear is enough to do EV, it's just at the low end and if you don't know what you're doing it'll drag the team down.

 

Gear progression is

fresh 50 -> recruit/tionese -> columi -> rakata -> black hole -> campaign

 

Black hole gear is basically the same as campaign, but lacks the set bonuses.

 

For PVP:

the gear progression is recruit -> Battlemaster -> War hero

 

2- My Daily Commendations: is that what I use to buy this gear? Or are there other commendations that I need too? Where do I get those?

 

You can buy gear and modifications with daily commendations. The mods are slightly better than what comes in the recruit gear, but hardly worth the effort to replace most of them. The implants/earpieces for daily commendations are pretty good but expensive (IIRC you can get all of them with daily comms)

 

Black Hole commendations are much better and can be used to buy some of the best gear in the game for PVE. You get them from the group finder and black hole weekly missions.

 

3- Can I start doing HM Flashpoints now? Or should I wait until I get a new type of gear?

 

Do it now, as long as you're competent with your class and group role. Just avoid Lost Island and you should be able to do all the other hardmode flashpoints. It'll gear you up faster w/o the need to stockpiling daily commendation based modified orange gear, which is slow to earn and quickly replaced.

 

4- What type of gear should I have before trying story mode Operations?

 

Story mode EV can be done with recruit gear, but it's at the low end. Pick up groups are sometimes wary of taking a person in recruit gear. Any rakata or columni you get from the hardmode flashpoints or BH gear will help you out and make it easier.

 

At any rate, you should watch youtube videos of the operation boss fights to get an idea of the strategies. They are more complex fights than any of the others in the game and have multiple phases and reactions you need to execute. Knowing the fights is a big part of success against these bosses and that much more important in lower end gear.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Infalliable

That was a great help , answered many questions that I had but never thought of asking!

Thanks go to the man with question and the man with the answer!

To place a little more emphasis on question #2, do not forget to pick up the daily and weekly missions from the fleet. Until 1.4 comes out, you will be getting 7 Tionese & 6 Columi commendations for the completion of the hard mode daily, 20 Tionese & 10 Columi for the Hard mode weekly. In order for you to be eligible for the black hole commendations threw the group finder, all the flashpoints need to be selected for the area you are queing for. If you only have 1 or 2 selected, you will notice that the black hole commendation reward to the right of the panel will be saying that it is not available for the selections you have made.

 

And I unlocked the dailies on Belsavis and got the quests to open dailies on Ilum and Corellia (are the Corellia ones daily?)

The Corellia dailys are accessible threw another shuttle when you enter the planet. The new shuttle will take you to an area called Black Hole. Or you could just spend the 200k credits threw legacy to just take you directly there. Yes, the black hole area has dailys which will give you the daily commendations also but it also has a weekly. The weekly is a heroic 4 which can be done with only 2 players in pretty much any setup (ive done it as Tank/DPS, Tank/Tank, DPS/DPS) and that weekly will give you 6 Black hole commendations as a reward.

Edited September 14, 2012 by haliy

Thank you so much guys! Much appreciated!

 

One thing that was mentioned was getting the Daily Commendation bonus when using the GroupFinder. I did notice that I only get the GroupFinder dailies if all Flashpoints are selected. But I've never clicked a "quest complete/accept reward" button for those. Is it automatic? Do I suddenly have more dailies in my bank because I did a Flashpoint? Or am I missing out?

 

Again, thanks guys!

The group finder reward will automaticaly be givin to you once you complete the flashpoint. no need to click on anything. The dailys will reset at the start of the next day (8am EST) and the weekly will reset itself at the same time on tuesday. You are not missing out on anything. Edited September 14, 2012 by haliy

To place a little more emphasis on question #2, do not forget to pick up the daily and weekly missions from the fleet. Until 1.4 comes out, you will be getting 7 Tionese & 6 Columi commendations for the completion of the hard mode daily, 20 Tionese & 10 Columi for the Hard mode weekly. In order for you to be eligible for the black hole commendations threw the group finder, all the flashpoints need to be selected for the area you are queing for. If you only have 1 or 2 selected, you will notice that the black hole commendation reward to the right of the panel will be saying that it is not available for the selections you have made.

 

At what point is it good to start to try and queue up for the hard mode dailies gear wise? Is this something you can jump into with the recruit gear? Or do you need to have some of the better 'end game' gear?

 

I always avoid joining these because I figure I am under geared with recruit gear.

You are geared enough to enter any T1 Hard mode Flashpoint with recruit gear. Now if your playing a tank class and enter the flashpoint just in recruit gear, expect not to be able to hold any aggro from the dps in Columi, Rakata, Blackhole, Campaign, or a mix of any of the above; even after taunting. We would slow down our dps in order for you to keep aggro on the bosses however, we would then probably hit the enrage timers and end up wiping.

 

Now when it comes to custom gear, you could honestly have a fully modded chest peice in 1 day with the 49 purple mods in minimal time. Head over to Ilum and only do the Heroic 2+ (gives you the enchancement). Head over to Belsavis and do the Heroic 2's there (these will give you the armoring and mod). From there, head over to the black hole area on Corellia and do the Heroic 4 (this will give you the Custom Chest peice). Once those are completed, take the armoring/enchancment/mod you just received and place them into your newly acquired chest piece. That new chest peice will have better stats than the recruit chest piece and you just made yourself over 50k credits by doing it.

Edited September 14, 2012 by haliy

If you like to pvp then take a couple of days to do only pvp and get some battlemaster, then start queuing for the HM flashpoints for daily BH comms and pve drops. It'll go a bit smoother than recruit and you won't be as sad to see another person in the group get a drop you wanted.

At what point is it good to start to try and queue up for the hard mode dailies gear wise? Is this something you can jump into with the recruit gear? Or do you need to have some of the better 'end game' gear?

 

I always avoid joining these because I figure I am under geared with recruit gear.

 

From a healer's perspective, if it's all you have, you should go in as DPS. As was stated, you won't be able to hold agro as a tank, and you won't be able to heal as well, either. It's not so much that you CAN'T fill those roles. But over time you'll be able to spot a fresh 50 more often than not, simply by the HP count. And by that, you know who in the group will likely get killed first, and often.

If you've done the story-mode dailies, and are confident with those fights, then you are ready to step up to hard mode.

When I hit 50, they hadn't released recruit gear yet, so I made do with what I was able to piece together. I bought commendation armorings and discovered that one of the Belsavis heroics gives you a blue modded weapon specific to each of your companions. I mod ripped them to make a complete set of gear.

Bear in mind, this was on an abandoned server so grouping was non-existant, but scoundrels have stealth, and I didn't mind dieing 3 or 4 times to get it done.

If you get into a raiding guild, things will pick up significantly. Look for one that has ventrillo or teamspeak, and has the patience to teach you each fight.

It also will get easier with each toon. My gunslinger had a partial set of rakata gear (rakata mods in legacy gear), implants and a columni earpiece ready the moment she hit 50.

Edited September 16, 2012 by JacksonMo

You can buy gear and modifications with daily commendations. The mods are slightly better than what comes in the recruit gear, but hardly worth the effort to replace most of them. The implants/earpieces for daily commendations are pretty good but expensive (IIRC you can get all of them with daily comms)

 

don't forget the relics you can buy with 200 daily coms. those are nice to grab too if you don't mind grinding for them.

Hi guys,

 

First off, thanks for helping with the questions above.

 

I've got another one. I'm a Juggernaut, tank-spec'd. I've been earning commendations and want to buy gear, but I'm confused about where.

 

I noticed on the fleet that there are four clusters of vendors, each of which contains a vendor for Tionese, Columni, Rakata, Black Hole/Campaign, and a higher one (Dread Guard and one more, I think). I also noticed that one of the clusters all sells things with Willpower, and another cluster all Cunning, etc.

 

As a Juggernaut, I went to the one that had Strength, and looked at the pieces that were higher endurance. BUT: the pieces I looked at seemed to be DPS-based. Even if the Endurance was higher than the Strength, the secondary stat choices were Power or Critical Rating (for the record, I was looking at wristguards from the Black Hole vendor).

 

So am I missing something? Is there another place I should go to for tank gear? Should I buy somewhere else (including from the Cunning/Willpower/Aim vendors) to get gear that has things like Shield, Surge, Defense, Absorption, etc.?

 

Thank you!

You should be able to scroll down farther and find the tank gear. It's there. I dont have a strength main stat character but I know on my sorc I have purchased columi strength gear for a companion and I remember seeing the tank gear. I almost bought the wrong kind! Ashara wears medium armor and I almost bought the strength heavy armor, so I definitely remember it being there. Hope this helps. Good luck!

Each cluster you are referring to are the class specific sections.

 

Strength - Juggernaut / Marauder

Willpower - Sorcerer / Assassin

Aim - Mercenary / Powertech

Cunning - Operative / Sniper

 

The same vendor you were looking at (the ones with strength) actually has 3 different sets of armor in his inventory. A dps set for marauders, a dps set for Juggernauts and a tank set for Juggernauts. Just scroll down to take a look at everything he has.

The gear you want is called "Columi War Leader's (Insert slot name here)" That is the one that has shield/absorb/defense rating on it, which will help with your tanking and damage mitigation. I believe the black hole equivalents are called "Bulwark's" instead of "War Leader's". On another note, some of the rakata pieces have accuracy on them, because apparently it helps with damage, which increases threat generation, according to BW. Most people just replace it though

Thank you guys so much!

 

What I had done was gone to the Strength vendor and looked at only the ones that I could afford (I only had 31 BH Comms, and the wrist bracers are 30). There were three available: one had strength more than endurance, and the others were Power or Crit.

 

I know for the rest now!

 

Thank you guys so much!

Some blackhole items and even hazmat gear are poorly itemized on purpose (high endurance with dps secondary stats, accuracy on a tank piece, etc...). This is to force people to optimize their gear by buying two different blackhole/hazmat pieces and combine their mods in order to obtain the best of the best.