Hi,
I'll try to be brief as I babble. I returned to game after several years away and I feel like an idiot right now. So, if someone can help answer some basic questions that would be fantastic.
My ultimate goal is to join HM raids eventually. To that end, please help me understand a couple basic things below:
I just have a fresh lv80 guardian tank. I only have one buff currently that is passive, the "Force Might". I seem to recall ages ago that if you had completed multiple class stories or were in groups with people with different classes you could get some additional class buffs and that doesn't seem to align with what I recall. When I'm in veteran flashpoints, I very often only have Force Might, and then on rare occasions I'll get one of the other class abilities like "Fortification" during another veteran flashpoint. Why is it this and how can I get all relevant buffs in group content please?
Secondly, regarding gearing as a fresh, ignorant 80 guardian tank, I seem to recall I always hated gearing in SWTOR but understand the necessity for certain content. I've looked at multiple gearing guides including Vulkk and others on youtube etc and I end up throwing my hands up in frustration as, from my perspective, they're all missing a fundamental part for the ignorant that I cannot figure out, hence why I'm here. I'm looking for a definitive place to /start the grind for gear. I currently have a combination of green 270/320 and 1 gold 282 in my "armor" slots and 208 and above in my accessory slots. I want to avoid group conquest such as killing commanders and world bosses or some of the personal stuff like strongholds etc as I despise conquest with everything in my being. I hate the star fighter too and want to avoid anything to do with these as much as possible. I'm not fond of any of the actual story of SWTOR, I'm only interested in the group pve end game content like hard modes or master modes and ops but I will do the bare minimum if it can get me to my goal.
I'm thinking that I need to start grinding veteran flashpoints for some kind of currency that I can use to upgrade to better gear at a vendor somewhere and then eventually start grinding HMs to again upgrade at some mysterious vendor to the point of getting good enough gear to join SM ops. Is this what I do?
I know this sounds like a bit of a rant, though I'm just looking for some more direction than what I've found in guides and most importantly an exact way to start the gearing process.