[Stevie]

Hey guys, I decided to make this post as an easy reference for some of the newer players that seem to be a bit confused about what to do to get better gear once they hit 55 or if they have SoR, 60.

Commendation types (comms)

The game has three types of pve comms so far, keep in mind this could all change next month with the new expansions release, but for now all you have to worry about is the following.

Basic Comms: These are the most common, and the easiest to get, you get them while levelling from 1 to 55 from doing most missions and heroics. They are the ones you will be using to stay up to date gearwise up too and including level 55.

Elite Comms: These are the ones you will want to be earning to progress in operations and hard mode flashpoints. You get them by completing operations and in some weeklies, which I will go into detail about later

Ultimate Comms: Same as Elite, but better, these comms let you purchase the best gear in the game, other than drops from nightmare mode Operations. (I.E: Swtors version of endgame raiding)

Ultimate comm gear is so good infact, that the only thing they are missing compared to the boss drop sets from NiM mode Op's is the set bonus. (Which can be quite powerful but thats something our guild can worry about later, we still have to "get good" as sammygm is so fond of saying )

So you just hit 55...

The first thing you want to do when you hit 55, doesn't matter if you can get to 60 or not, is to go to the level 55 mod vendor on fleet. There you can purchase for Basic Comms a full set of 55 mods, armourings, enhancements and barrels/hilts and even relics for your class.

Once that is done you will have the best gear possible for that level, if you don't have a full set of moddable gear, you can easily purchase some cheap adaptive sets from the GTN.

Now, if you Don't have SoR you can skip the next section of this post, since it mostly applies to level 60's.

Shadow of Revan owner
Fantastic, you can get to 60, current max level! With your set of 55 modded gear you are all set to dive right in to the story, and by doing the story, you will get a ton of gear!

Thats right, just by playing the expansion you will get drops that are better than the 55 stuff you have, the most important thing to remember is this.

Once you hit 60: DO ZIOST

Don't feel rushed if you are still finishing up Rishi or yavin IV, but once those two are done, and assuming you are level 60, GO THERE NOW! :icon_twisted:

Ziost is basicly a quick wrap up of the events of the expansion, and perhaps sets the stage for the new expansion coming next month. I will avoid spoilers, but just know you have to do this, you should get a quest to take you there if you use the mission terminal on your ship at 60.

You will get almost a full set of great level 60 gear from completing it, which will make the Operations we are running go a lot smoother.

Fine, I did ziost ya pushy plike, now what?/ I am 55, stop yapping and tell me what to do!

Now is where those elite and ultimate comms come into play, right now swtor has a bunch of weekly/daily areas.

All of them are worth doing atleast once to get a small little side story, like Black hole that takes place on corellia in the immediate aftermath of your characters chapter 3 storyline, or section X that sets up what will come later with a certain set of very emo sith lords.

All of them also have quests that you can do each day, but it's the weekly that rewards the elite comms you really want to gear up at 60 or stockpile if 55. (though stockpiling is not that important with a new expansion just around the corner.)

However, some of these areas also reward Elite comms, and some even award Ultimate comms for completing them!

NOTE: ALL of the following areas can be reached via the terminal outside your hanger on fleet, or from terminals located within the daily/weekly zone itself, which will save you a fortune in creds since you won't have to fly to each individual planet.

The Following is a basic overview of the Weeklies and their rewards in comms:

Black Hole, Corellia lvl 50 mobs: 30 Basic Comms, 6 Elite Comms

Section X, Belsavis lvl 50 mobs: 30 Basic Comms, 6 Elite Comms

Makeb, Makeb lvl 52-55 mobs: 30 Basic Comms, 12 Elite Comms

CZ-198, CZ-198 lvl 55 mobs: 30 Basic Comms, 12 Elite Comms

Oricon, Oricon lvl 55 mobs: 30 Basic Comms, 12 Elite Comms

The following is for SoR owners only at the moment:

Yavin 4 weekly, Yavin 4 level 60 mobs: 16 Elite Comms, 4 Ultimate Comms

Yavin 4 "boss fight repeat" weekly (avoiding spoilers ) 30 Basic Comms, 12 Elite Comms

Yavin 4 Walker takedown weekly (needs large group) 16 Elite Comms, 8 Ultimate Comms

This is just a rough draft I could knock out quickly, I fully intend to come back later after some questions are asked, and errors pointed out. I hope this helps some of you guys out

[Alexandria]

I would like to point out a couple things. There is one other area in belsavis I go to for dailies in belsavis. In fact someone once showed me various areas in belasavis to where there were dailies for level 50+. If you have SOR, you do not even have to go to fleet to get the 55 armor, mods and enhancements. Those are available on Rishi.

[Mayrheane]

ze coms stuff were originally spread across ze 50/55 "daily" planets til someone had a great idea and put em all at a single place (ze fleet~!) for I thinks ease of access~ I think it happened leik in the post SoR patches~

[Delwyn]

In regards to gearing up for Operations (not to mention that it will speed up doing Dailies/Weeklies)...don't forget to Augment your gear once you have the pieces you plan to use for the long term.

If your gear isn't already augmented, here's what you do. Visit an Item Modification Station (they can be found on Fleet and on the Starter planets...Tython, Ord Mantel, Hutta, Korriban...plus you can create a station for your Stronghold via crafting). Place the piece you want to augment into the Station and tell it what level Augment slot you want to add to it (Not much point in doing anything less than Mk 10). This will require a Mk 10 Augment Kit and 42k credits (the kits can be purchased on the GTN or crafted by guildmates/friends). Once you've added the Augment slot, you can now place an Augment into the piece.

The next logical question is this....what kind of augment should I place in the slot? That is a trickier question that has it's answer rooted in what class/role you play and how you have the rest of your gear set up (Mods, Enhancements). Each type of augment will have Endurance plus one other stat attached to it. For a non-optimized, quick and dirty answer...you can run with this....for DPS classes, go with either Power or your Main Stat (Aim, Cunning, Strength, Willpower). If you are a tank...go with Defence or Absorption depending on whether you are a heavy armor tank or a light armor tank. And if you are a healer, go with Alacrity or Surge depending on whether you want to focus on continuous healing or burst healing. Augments can also be found on the GTN or crafted by guildmates/friends. To better optimize your stat distribution, there are a number of great guides out in the ether, but some of the best I've seen were put together by keyboardninja (you can find his guides pretty easily by doing a Google search)

Having all available slots filled with Adaptive (or otherwise Orange) gear, and given that you also have all of your implants, earpieces and relics...you can Augment 14 pieces. Filling all 14 will add several hundred endurance and your chosen stat. That endurance alone will mean somewhere between 5k and 10k extra HPs, not to mention more badassery for tanks, healers and Dps.

In total, it makes a huge difference when it comes time to roll through some tougher Ops and HM FP's.