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Solo So you just hit 50 - an introduction to late-game gearing

Morven

LoMS Member
Note that while the main intended audience here is fresh (or soon-to-be) 50s, some of the information here (especially the stuff on glyphs and signets) may be worth reading even for people who've been there for a while - questions about those seem to crop up a lot in the global channel. Also, prefixed with "Solo" because it forced me to pick a prefix, and none of them really fit, since this isn't role or situation-specific.

Introduction

Congratulations on hitting 50! There's a ton of stuff that you can now do in game most of which I won't get into - other than suggesting you go by the entrance to Mallgartha and pick up the two quests there that unlock at 50 - since the purpose here is to give you some ideas, suggestions, and information on gearing and developing your character.

First up (you can skip this bit if you've already done it or if you transferred over a legacy TSW account and started with them all unlocked) start working on unlocking any weapons you don't have unlocked yet, even if you don't intend to ever use them (keep in mind that - unlike many other games - you keep earning XP once you hit the level cap, so ultimately you can have every active and passive unlocked.) The most important reason to do this, of course, is to unlock outfit pieces (unlocking each pair of weapons that corresponds to a starter class gets you an outfit, and learning all the actives plus the first capstone level in each weapon unlocks another). The other reason you want to have all the weapons unlocked is that the round passives (the ones that say things like "+17 Hit" or "+50 Protection") on each weapon's passive page are always active once you unlock them, whether you currently have a weapon of that type equipped or not. The individual numbers don't look like much, but fully unlocking all the passives for all nine weapons gets you the equivalent of:

- a little more than one level 70 Legendary minor talisman (luck/occult/waist) each worth of Attack Rating, Heal Rating, and Protection
- a level 1 Legendary glyph each worth of Hit, Crit Rating, Evade, and Defense, and close to a level 20 Legendary glyph worth of Crit Power
- about 3000 Health
- adding a full set of level 9 capstones (one for each weapon) nets you another level 35 Legendary talisman each worth of Attack and Heal Rating and a a little over 1200 more Health.

Unlocking all the weapons (and then filling out the active and passive pages for each) is something of a long-term goal, but it's something to work towards.

The next thing you want to do is answer two question: do you intend to participate in late-game group activities (lairs, dungeons, raids)? Assuming you answered "yes" (hey, it's cool if you answered "no" - there's a lot of fun solo content in this game), what role do you want to focus on, either primarily or first? Once you know what kind of role you want to build towards, it's time to think about


Gearing

Once you've settled on a role (assuming you plan to do group content, anyway) it's time to start putting together a set of gear. For group content you're going to want a full set of 3-pip/Radiant talismans appropriate to your role (all attack for DPS, all heal for healers, all health for tanks). Happily basic Radiant talismans are cheap on the Auction House (and check the cabal bank, there's usually a handful in there) - you can probably put together a full set of Radiants with the Marks from a day or two of questing if you're DPS (and if you're a tank or healer you can probably assemble a full set out of one day's dailies with Marks left over). If you're just starting out, don't worry about the various extraordinary/dungeon drop talismans - for the most part the extra effects from them aren't worth worrying about at this point, and you can get a lot more bang (or threat, or healing) for your Marks by spending them elsewhere, and in the vast majority of cases a plain Radiant talisman will perform as well as or better than a Faded or Luminous extraordinary one.

Once you have a full set of Radiant talismans, it's time to start leveling them up - happily greens (and blues) are fairly quick to level up just from drops, and not terribly expensive to empower in Shards. Once you've got a full set of level 25 Radiant blue gear (maybe with a purple for good luck) you're probably ready to venture into Elite 1 dungeons.

So what do you do with your old gear? You can either use it for fusion (combining two level 25 blue items to make a level 1 purple) or hold onto it (which I'd recommend if you're planning on tanking or healing in group content, since a decent blue set will do you just fine for - most - solo content.) Before you start fusing, though, remember two key things:

-- always, but always check the output window before clicking the "continue" button. You want to make sure you're using your Faded to make your Radiant purple, not the other way 'round.

- if you have any glyphs (or signets) in the item being sacrificed (feel free to leave them in the piece that you're upgrading) then think about taking them out first. A level 1 Crude Stalwart glyph isn't worth worrying about, but paying the 20,000 Marks to remove that Intricate Fierce from the item you're sacrificing is a lot cheaper than spending 125,000 Marks to buy a new one.

Now that you've got your talismans, it's time to think about weapons. Unlike talismans, the extraordinary weapons are worth getting (but be careful to get the right extraordinary weapon for your role and build). Weapons are way too complex and specific to get into in a general overview, so ask around - see what other people playing that role/build/weapon have found useful and what suffix they recommend. In general you can usually get good-to-excellent extraordinary weapons with desirable Mk II extensions at fairly reasonable prices, and that's plenty good enough to get started with.

Now that you've put together your set of blue weapons and talismans, it's time to start thinking about

Glyphs

Glyphs can only be attached to Superior (blue) talismans or weapons through the fusion interface (at no cost), and they provide extra stats (crit chance, hit rating, and so forth). Once they're attached to an item they can be removed (at a cost of 20,000 Marks) or destroyed (free, but you lose the glyph). Attached glyphs can be upgraded as normal in the empowerment interface - you'll get 100 XP from any glyph, or 250 XP from a glyph of the same type, same as weapons. Fusing glyphs to the next level also works like weapons - if you want to fuse an Accurate glyph from blue to purple you'll need two level 20 blue Accurate glyphs, you can't use a Stalwart. Pips don't matter when upgrading or fusing, just type.

If you put a weapon with a glyph in the box to upgrade and drop a weapon in the "sacrifice" box, your weapon gets the XP, and the glyph is unaffected. If you drop a glyph in instead, your glyph gets the XP and your weapon is unaffected. The same applies to fusion - when you go into the fusion interface, whether the item or the glyph gets upgraded depends on what you put in the bottom box (and whether the item or the glyph is at max level and ready for fusion). There's no need to remove glyphs in the item you're upgrading prior to upgrading or fusing.

Like talismans and weapons, glyphs come in three pip ratings - Crude (1-pip), Simple (2-pip), and Intricate (3-pip). Unlike weapons and talismans, glyphs only have 20 levels, regardless of quality - a max level green glyph is 20, and so is a max level Legendary glyph. In an ideal world, you want a full set of Intricate glyphs - one on each talisman and weapon. If you're a tank, then congratulations! You live in an ideal world! Intricate Evade and Defense glyphs are cheap, and Intricate Accurates (if you aren't a dedicated Fist or Blood healer you're going to want one - and only one - Intricate Accurate glyph, for reasons I'll go into in a bit) aren't terribly expensive. If you're a not-a-tank...well, you're probably going to be slotting a lot of Simple Fierce glyphs for a while unless you get lucky with drops from glyph bags, luck across some auction listings where somebody forgot a 0 or two, or are prepared to spend half to three quarters of a million Marks on Fierce glyphs. Happily Simple glyphs are still pretty good (about 90% of the effectiveness of Intricate glyphs), so I advise using Simples if you can't afford Intricates - it's better to slot the Simple, upgrade it, and pay the 20k later on to remove it once you get an Intricate leveled up to a point you can use your Simple for fusion.

Unlike TSW, glyphs give the same stats regardless of what slot they're slotted in, but there are a few things you may want to consider before deciding which glyph to put in which talisman (and which ones go into your weapons):

- cross-role weapon use. Slotting a Hit glyph in your Fist is a reasonable choice if you're using it for DPS, but a waste of a glyph if you're using the same weapon for healing; same thing applies to putting a Crit Power glyph in your DPS Hammer - great for damage, not so hot for tanking. If you plan to use the same weapon in more than one role, try to put a glyph in it that works for both.

- cross-weapon talisman use. Head, neck, and finger signets (more on these in a moment) are weapon-specific, so if you plan to put together a second set of talismans for a different weapon, think about putting less-expensive glyphs in those talismans.

- economics. Most glyphing plans assume the same glyph in both weapons. If you're planning to use 5 Crit glyphs and 2 Crit Power glyphs and put 2 Devastating and four Fierce on your talismans and a Fierce on each weapon it will come out a lot more expensive than putting 5 Fierce and one Devastating glyph on talismans and a Devastating on each weapon, since the extra Devastating (3 total) is a lot cheaper than the extra Fierce (6 total).

So why did I recommend a single Intricate Accurate glyph for everybody who needs to actually hit things earlier? In theory, a single level 20 Legendary Intricate Accurate glyph, combined with having all the +Hit Rating passives should allow you to land your shots without glancing in any content in the game (works out to 37.6% Glance Reduction). In practice, you'll probably want a second Accurate glyph (a Simple is fine) in order to avoid glancing in lairs or harder dungeons until your Intricate is at least high Mythic quality, since the amount of Hit you need to avoid glancing goes up in higher tiers of content (around 10% Glance Reduction for Elite 1 dungeons, 18% to avoid glancing in lairs, 22% for Elite 5 dungeons, 31% for regional lair bosses, and so on.)

One last thing I want to touch on about glyphs is leveling them. Empowering green and blue glyphs is pretty straightforward and fast (especially if you use matching empowerments) but, like talismans and weapons, it starts getting expensive and slow once you get to epic/purple (and not really feasible once you get to Mythic.) Like weapons and talismans, the best and easiest way to level up at that point is to use distillate; unlike weapons and talismans, you don't get glyph distillate from dungeons (although it sometimes shows up in cache rewards). For glyph distillate you need to run Scenarios, which are scaled solo or duo content (with the same requirements for entry and levels as Elite dungeons); like dungeons you'll need keys to open the final reward chest containing the goodies, and like dungeons you can buy extra keys with Marks (although they're more expensive - 1500 Marks per key). This gigantic wall o text is already too long as it is, so I won't go into much more detail on Scenarios - look around for guides, ask in global chat to see if somebody is willing to show you the ropes in a duo run until you have a handle on how everything works, or just jump in and try it out - worst case, all you're out is a hundred Shards for a repair bill and few minutes of time.

Now that you're all glyphed up, have run some Elite dungeons and Scenarios, have some purple gear, and have your Glance Reduction up a bit, it's time to tackle the last piece of the puzzle

Signets

Like glyphs, signets are attached to talismans (although not weapons) of purple (epic) quality or better. Also like glyphs, the maximum level for signets is 20, and like glyphs they can removed (for 20k) or destroyed (for free, to replace them with something else). Glyphs, again like signets, can be empowered or fused after being attached to a talisman, and like glyphs you need to fuse like-to-like. Unlike glyphs (and talismans, and weapons) signets don't have a pip/quality rating - all signets are created equal (although in practice some are a lot more equal than others.) Also unlike glyphs, signets only attach to a specific slot, as follows:

- Head signets either reduce the cooldown or increase the effectiveness of one specific weapon's Elite skills (there is one signet of each type - cooldown reduction and damage/healing increase - for each weapon)

- Finger signets increase the effectiveness of one specific weapon's Basic attack or healing skills (again, one signet per weapon)

- Neck signets are the same, only for Power abilities, again for one weapon type only.

- Wrist signets don't exist yet (maybe in the Kaidan lair or world bosses?)

- Luck signets provide a variety of effects when you land a critical (hit or heal) with any weapon.

- Waist signets modify gadgets (increased healing or damage from gadgets, or reduced cooldown on gadgets).

- Occult signets modify your active dodge in various ways.

Note that signets scale really well as they level up - looking at a level 1 green finger signet and seeing "increases damage and healing of basic abilities by 1.11%" will make you roll your eyes, but that same signet at Legendary 20 increases effectiveness by a whopping 111.21%, making your Basic about as powerful as a 3-energy consumer.

So where do you get these little beauties? In practice, from the Auction House. They actually drop from chests in lairs (the usual rules apply, and extra keys are between dungeons and scenarios, at 1k Marks/key), but given that there are 18 types of head signets, 9 each of neck and finger signets, 8 types of luck signets, 3 types of waist signets, and 5 types of occult signets, different lairs drop different signets (and items for summoning regional bosses instead of or in addition to signets), and regional bosses drop different ones again, while your odds of getting a signet (or even a couple) on a given lair run aren't bad, your chances of getting the signet you're looking for (or even "a signet that is at all useful to you") are pretty low. Thus, seeing if anybody else in the group you just finished the lair with wants to trade, or just selling your excess on the AH to buy useful-to-you signets is recommended.

Signets, while not hugely expensive in most cases, are still rare (and costly) enough that in most cases it only makes sense to level them with distillate (the only exception would be leveling greens, since green 1 to 20 needs 3800 XP, so if you have 3 1k distillates and a 1.6k it's less wasteful to empower with 3.6k worth of distillate and fill in the last 200 XP with cheap unmatched signets from the AH). Happily distillate drops frequently and in decent quantities in lairs (and you can get signet distillate from caches.)
 
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