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Questions about an eventual level cap increase


MagikFingerz

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Not really a "new" player, but these are questions for players more experienced than me and I thought this would be as good a place as any to post. Wasn't around during the previous level cap increase, couldn't find anything when searching (only discussions prior to the 50 -> 55 increase).

 

So if/when the level cap is increased, what happens gear-wise? Or rather, what happened the last time and what can we expect this time?

Which gear tiers will become obsolete?

What is the best course of action from now and until the level cap increase is implemented (ie. hoarding comms or keep going as usual)?

PvP: Will we be able to trade in the current tier 1 PvP gear (Obroan) for tier 2 (Brutalizer) for less comms/at all (assuming one has Obroan gear and not yet Brut)? Should we get as much Brut as we can now or will that be all for naught at cap increase?

 

Thanks in advance.

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The way the 50 to 55 cap increase worked is, high tier 50 gear was shoved into the Classic Commendation Vendor, and purchasable for Classic Comms. Then we got new tiers of comm gear. PvP gear, well the old PvP gear got it's expertiece removed and became about as useless as a PvP Concealment Operative...
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Some more questions:

 

For a fresh 55, should I hold off on buying any gear until the increase takes place? For a char close to reaching 55, should I hold off on spending planetary comms on the Makeb mods?

 

I suspect the answer is yes, but I still want to make sure. Putting characters on hold is silly if it's not necessary, but wasting time and resources on gear that will be obsolete in a couple months is even worse :confused:

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If you want to run any Ops or hard mode 55 flashpoints, you'll need to improve your gear. It depends on how long you want to wait, a level increase hasn't even been confirmed yet.

 

You could always put your 55 on hold and level a new character, but it depends on what you want to do. You could be waiting a long time. Or it could come out in December, as rumored. :rolleyes:

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When the cap increased gear remained the same in terms to stat numbers but as you level up it becomes less effective,

 

For example, you have a tank and the gear you have gives you 20% defence rating, by the time you level up 5 more levels without changing anything that will have dropped to 13% (just pulling numbers out of my *** but there not far off)

 

Essentially the best thing to do Is probably save up on Ultimate and possible Elite commendations for the launch whenever that may be, It could be a while tho so for now I'd probably just gear up as you prefer.

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Some more questions:

 

For a fresh 55, should I hold off on buying any gear until the increase takes place? For a char close to reaching 55, should I hold off on spending planetary comms on the Makeb mods?

 

I suspect the answer is yes, but I still want to make sure. Putting characters on hold is silly if it's not necessary, but wasting time and resources on gear that will be obsolete in a couple months is even worse :confused:

I have some suggestions:

 

1. Run your character that is close to 55 through Makeb (it has a big +XP bonus at the moment), then run Oricon. You will get a basic set of 156 gear as quest rewards on Oricon.

2. Start running flashpoints through the group finder, getting Elite and Ultimate commendations. The 156 gear is plenty good enough for this.

3. Do dailies or crafting for credits and start augmenting your gear. Note for the budget conscious: Blue grade 28 augments are almost as good as the purples and are much cheaper.

 

By the time you have collected enough Elite / Ultimate commendations to buy some advanced gear, there should (hopefully) be more details about the upcoming 3.0 release.

 

At that time you can make a more informed decision as to whether you should spend the commendations right away, or save them for 3.0.

Edited by Khevar
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Thanks for the replies, guys. Very helpful stuff. I mostly play PvP (not exclusively, but it's what I tend to focus on during leveling and when first hitting 55 because I find the gear simpler to acquire and min/max than PvE gear), so what would you recommend for on that front? Max out comms and wait? If Obroan immediately becomes obsolete when the cap is raised, then I see no reason to spend the next month or two (I don't play THAT much per day, and I have 2 chars at 54) buying and min/max'ing Obroan gear.

 

Btw, is full 140 purple mods (Makeb planetary vendor) enough to run Oricon? Assuming companion has that as well, I think I have a decent Presence stat by now too.

Edited by MagikFingerz
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Thanks for the replies, guys. Very helpful stuff. I mostly play PvP (not exclusively, but it's what I tend to focus on during leveling and when first hitting 55 because I find the gear simpler to acquire and min/max than PvE gear), so what would you recommend for on that front? Max out comms and wait? If Obroan immediately becomes obsolete when the cap is raised, then I see no reason to spend the next month or two (I don't play THAT much per day, and I have 2 chars at 54) buying and min/max'ing Obroan gear.

 

Btw, is full 140 purple mods (Makeb planetary vendor) enough to run Oricon? Assuming companion has that as well, I think I have a decent Presence stat by now too.

 

ok i think 140 purp mods for oricon even if ya have them in both your char and companion would make it very hard to do you would have to find a group of people running oricon as well so you could piggyback off of them while they do the dailies... however if ya have cyber and art at max ya can craft ya own 156 mods and not have to run oricon i recently outfitted a friend of mine who was coming back on her sorc healer in as many mods as i could craft for her and it helped her out a lot... however if you arent the crafting type you can always find a crafter to craft the mods for ya if ya have the mats... people like me would craft them for ya as long as we were provided the required number of mats we needed to craft them and me personally i wouldnt ask for a tip or anything except to be able to keep the crits from the crafting itself because cyber and art both have the 2 item crit if im not mistaken :rak_03: (edit) forgot to add that saving comms would be verry smart in any case if you can afford to do so so you wont be in that much of a hurry to get the newer gear that will be coming out with the expansion they are planning to release (just my intuition telling me that from what ive read) so take what ya will from this, but just enjoy yourself in the game i always have a blast when in game because although i wanna do well in this game thats just the point, its a game not that important when compared to real life :)

Edited by nailbluetoe
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The way the 50 to 55 cap increase worked is, high tier 50 gear was shoved into the Classic Commendation Vendor, and purchasable for Classic Comms. Then we got new tiers of comm gear. PvP gear, well the old PvP gear got it's expertiece removed and became about as useless as a PvP Concealment Operative...

 

One more thing, all the existing end game commendation "currency" at the time were converted - at different ratios - to classic commendations. So there is no stocking up on Basic, Elite, and Ultimate comms for the new level cap gear. In fact, IIRC, many players HAD to spend comms because it was use 'em or lose 'em (if they had not spent them, the conversion to classics would have put them over the classic comms cap.

 

.... If Obroan immediately becomes obsolete when the cap is raised, then I see no reason to spend the next month or two (I don't play THAT much per day, and I have 2 chars at 54) buying and min/max'ing Obroan gear. .

 

Problem is that it is more like three maybe even four months before the cap increase. Remember we are still in early access to GSH. The "official release" of GSH is a month away, and it will be another two months after that before we see 3.0 (the most likely point where the level cap increases). So you may cap out on WZ comms before that (even with converting them to ranked wz comms)

Edited by psandak
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Thanks again. I'll max out on PvP comms and only get Relics/Ear/Implants on my recent 55's for now, needed a bit of a break anyway (2 55's going from Obroan to Brut and 2 new 55's). Yes, it's about having fun but that nagging feeling that what I earn is going to become useless is going to ruin it for me anyway. I won't put them on hold completely though, but I'll slow down and level some lowbie alts instead. At least I know that will be worth it and is fun most of the time, I just wish we could do the class story missions quicker than currently (travelling time planetside is insane).
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Obroan used to be the highest tier of PvP gear. Several months ago, they introduced Brutalizer gear and you could trade your Obroan pieces in for it, with supplemental Ranked WZ comms. If you have any Obroan gear, I would make sure you upgrade it to Brutalizer as Obroan won't be able to be traded in, while Brutalizer will.
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To be honest, bolster has made Oricon and 156 gear pretty pointless. A couple of group finder operations and you'll have the majority of a set of 162 gear and will hopefully be able to afford to get any bits you haven't won with comms.

 

I'd just spend as normal until they announce, then start making plans. Once they announce details there will still be plenty of time to cap out commendations.

Edited by ChroniKill
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Folks, sorry, I have more questions in the same vein.

 

A. PvP gear & the ways to cut the losses on a L55 character (unranked).

I am thinking:

 

-If Brutalizer becomes new Obroan, that means it will be directly purchased with unranked comms, right?

-So for someone like me, sticking to Unranked only, and therefore not getting a lot of ranked comms, would it be easier to max out unranked, save whatever ranked drops while at it, and then shelf the L55 character till the Level Increase hits

-After the gear is downgraded, start in what you have (relying on Bolster to give expertise stripped off the Obroan) and earn Brutalizer pieces through directly trading in the Unranked comms?

 

B. Can we also hope that the now useless Classic comms will get converted into something giving you stuff >156 you can obtain through easy crafting?

 

C. For any new character approaching 50, should s/he be shelved after regearing into 140 Makebs and finishing Corellia, and not waste time and resources on 156’s/Ilum-Oricon stretch saving XP from those planets?

 

D. Augments. MK-9 will become replaced by the even more expensive MK-10’s. So, stop producing MK-9s and stick to the MK7 or MK8’s (hopefully the ones that use cheap and plentiful L6 mats rather than the super-expensive/rare L9 mats), intending to keep the augments at L50 as well instead of wasting time and resources on 28’s, even blue?

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  • 2 weeks later...
-If Brutalizer becomes new Obroan, that means it will be directly purchased with unranked comms, right?

Yes, that is how it worked this last time. Obroan became purchasable with unranked comms, while brutalizer requires the matching Obroan piece and ranked comms.

 

-So for someone like me, sticking to Unranked only, and therefore not getting a lot of ranked comms, would it be easier to max out unranked, save whatever ranked drops while at it, and then shelf the L55 character till the Level Increase hits

You could max out unranked, convert them all to ranked at the vendor right there at the PvP mission terminals until you have ranked maxed out, then go back to maxing out unranked. That way you don't have to shelve anything. You'll be grinding for the Brutalizer pieces you'll need to trade for the next tier after the update.

 

-After the gear is downgraded, start in what you have (relying on Bolster to give expertise stripped off the Obroan) and earn Brutalizer pieces through directly trading in the Unranked comms?

If you're dead set on shelving your toon until the update, I suppose that would be one way, but maxing unranked, converting to ranked and buying the Brutalizer pieces now lets you continue playing that toon, increasing his gear now while building your valor. You won't have any lapse in play because you'll still be grinding Brutalizer gear through your unranked conversions.

 

B. Can we also hope that the now useless Classic comms will get converted into something giving you stuff >156 you can obtain through easy crafting?

Classic comms aren't necessarily useless. I've geared out most of my comps on several toons with 162s from classic comms. My guess is that we'll see similar moves in gear/comms as we did at the last level cap increase.

 

C. For any new character approaching 50, should s/he be shelved after regearing into 140 Makebs and finishing Corellia, and not waste time and resources on 156’s/Ilum-Oricon stretch saving XP from those planets?

I guess I don't understand the desire to shelve a toon. If you want to play a different class/race, that's a personal choice, obviously. I, personally, feel that you'd still have fun and be doing yourself a favor by meeting the current level cap on any 50s you have and then running Oricon with help. On PoT5, there are usually a few people who are willing to help run people through the initial story missions there to get you your 156s. That's how I've done it. This game is much more fun when you play with friends, whether from in-game or out.

 

D. Augments. MK-9 will become replaced by the even more expensive MK-10’s. So, stop producing MK-9s and stick to the MK7 or MK8’s (hopefully the ones that use cheap and plentiful L6 mats rather than the super-expensive/rare L9 mats), intending to keep the augments at L50 as well instead of wasting time and resources on 28’s, even blue?

Up to you, obviously. I know people don't like duplicating efforts, but as it has been previously stated, the new level cap, if it comes, won't be for 3-4 months IF everything happens in a timely manner. I would suggest you keep progressing as if there was no new level cap coming. I mean, do you want to stay behind the power curve every time a major change is announced/implemented, or do you want to roll into the new update maxed out and ready to get the jump on people like you who waited? ;)

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I guess shelving a toon depends on the player. For someone like me, with a good amount of alts, it's expensive and/or time-consuming to gear up several characters at once (currently 2 fresh 55's and 1 at 50). Particularly the augment part. I also don't play a huge amount of time, and don't spend hours on any single character at a time. I do plan on leveling all of my alts at one point or another, so it makes sense to me to "shelf" a character or two while working on lowbies instead of working towards or paying for gear that'll become obsolete "soon".

 

Now, if only they could get that 3.0 announcement out :rolleyes:

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it makes sense to me to "shelf" a character or two while working on lowbies instead of working towards or paying for gear that'll become obsolete "soon"

 

The gear will no longer be BiS or close to it, but it'll still give you a bit of a leg up on the newer, level-raised content when it's released than someone in basic 55 greens.

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The gear will no longer be BiS or close to it, but it'll still give you a bit of a leg up on the newer, level-raised content when it's released than someone in basic 55 greens.

 

Yeah, but for what, a week? I'm aware that by nature I am a lazy person, so for me it isn't too tempting to grind more than necessary (even if it does give me a "leg up" in the beginning). Grinding ranked comms for Brut now when it'll be for regular comms later is a big difference. But YMMV of course.

 

I'm not complaining though, I have plenty to choose from on my SWTOR "to do" list anyway :D

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Last time there was a level cap increase they stripped expertise off the top pvp gear to turn it into pve gear. All current PVP gear will be garbage because it'll be 55 stuff and not 60-65? They'll introduce 2 new sets and it'll be a race to gear up or find exploits in the bolster system.

 

Until they announce whats going to happen you can't really plan but if they keep the same currency and don't change the PVP weapons vendor then doing the weapons hoarding trick is probably the way i'll go.

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