{"id":56923,"date":"2024-01-01T00:01:13","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T05:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=56923"},"modified":"2023-12-31T21:44:30","modified_gmt":"2024-01-01T02:44:30","slug":"swtor-rixlarrilan-of-the-ascendancy-new-years-2023-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=56923","title":{"rendered":"SWTOR: Rix’larril’an of the Ascendancy – New Years 2023-2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

I guess I got lucky this year landing two straight posts on holidays. But it works out. I keep trying to make more of the one-chapter saga of Imperial Captain Sarnova than there really is, so I’m not ready to tackle Rix’larril’an’s next installment. But I did spend the past week trying to understand some SWTOR mechanics, and there’s a few other things to talk about.<\/p>\n

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I really wanted to put on a fireworks show with my years of collected fireworks in SWTOR, but I actually deleted all of them a few months ago because they were taking up inventory space. And I never used them, anyway. I’m sure there’s some achievement and title attached to fireworks use, but if there is, I would suspect I would see people setting them off more often. It’s like with getting drunk in World of Warcraft<\/em>. There are achievements for it, and there’s always somebody sitting in one of the popular common areas mainlining whatever drink gets them the most points per second.<\/p>\n

Instead, I spent the past week working on upgrading my gear beyond the standard drops\/rewards level. Like all the best MMORPG’s, this is NOT a straightforward process, AND has changed with different expansions. Crafting was once an important part of getting the best gear, but crafting didn’t get upgraded for a few expansions. This allowed drops and rewards to surpass crafted gear. Then crafting had a tier added, but hasn’t been upgraded for a few expansions again, meaning crafted armor with some EXTREMELY SPECIFIC exceptions, is completely pointless. There are still reasons to craft some things: refillable medic packs are generally the best in the game, and being able to craft max-level stims is more reliable and generally cheaper than purchasing them. You only really need these things in end-game content, though; so a lot of players won’t ever need to bother. However, the various crafting skills and the supporting abilities are great ways to build influence with your companions, which is always useful.<\/p>\n

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“Gear” in Star Wars: The Old Republic<\/em> is divided into three categories, sort of; WEAPONS, ARMOR, and ACCESSORIES. Although; really, WEAPONS and ARMOR work more like each other than either works like ACCESSORIES when it comes to upgrading. Almost all dropped or rewarded gear just goes into one of these slots. It has stats. Most likely, you will play the entire class story and more, all the way up to level 80, with this type of gear. Years ago, like when crafted gear was still a lower-level thing, this wasn’t the case. But it is now, for the most part…and it’s simple. However, since Rix is now level 80, I have started working on upgrading her gear.<\/p>\n

You will notice little lit-up rectangles along the right edge of each gear icon. And you’ll also notice that no ACCESSORIES have more than one. That’s because the only upgrade that ALL upgradable gear can take is the AUGMENT slot, which I haven’t even started messing with yet. However, all the other gear has MANY of these little rectangles, because this is all “adaptive” gear. “Adaptive” WEAPONS and ARMOR rarely have any inherent stats…and if they do, they will be very low. They rely on their upgrade slots to derive their stats. If you have familiarity with World of Warcraft<\/em>, imagine if WoW had never stopped doing jewelcrafting, and in fact made it the basis for all armor in the future.<\/p>\n

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And of course, as you notice, the collective current stats of any given piece of gear is used to create the “level” of the gear. I won’t bother to go into how; the important part is gear with a higher level does gooder. And yes, this creates some very interesting situations where a piece of gear with what you would think would be a much better stat increase for your character, but is lower level, is weaker than a higher level piece of gear with a WORSE stat increase. There are, as there always is with gearing, thousands of arguments about subtle differences and exceptions.<\/p>\n

BUT ANYWAY. Here’s the situation Rix was in at level 80. Between drops and goofing around with a couple of vendors, I had equipment levels running from around 280 up to 306. Which isn’t too bad, for random gear. But there is a formula for upgrading your armor to max level the fastest, and without relying on random drops in the right places.<\/p>\n

STEP ONE: If you have been playing long enough, you’ll have a big pile of a reward currently called “Conquest Commendations.” You get them by completing “Conquests,” but I’m not gonna get into what that means specifically. GENERALLY, you’re just gonna get them for playing the game. They’ll drop for achievements, rewards, milestones, completing optional content like Heroic2+ and Flashpoints, etc. In the SUPPLIES section of your Fleet Spacestation, there will be a “Conquest Gear Vendor.” On Vaiken, here’s what you’re looking for:<\/p>\n

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Go ahead and buy yourself a full set of level 324 gear. Now, you will be tempted to think you are set for life now. For most solo players, you will now have the best stats you’ve ever had, unless you recently got a really nice drop of adaptive gear that came with high-level mods which MIGHT still have higher stats, if not a higher level. Also, you may notice the vendor right next to the Conquest Gear Vendor which is called the Conquest Upgrades Vendor. YOU DON’T NEED THEM. If you click on them, you will notice you can just go ahead and BUY a full set of level 326 gear. And after you do that you can buy a full set of 328 gear. And after that you can buy a full set of 330 gear. And so on and so on. DON’T DO IT. It is not only unnecessary, it will spend those valuable Conquest Commendations that you will need for other things someday.<\/p>\n

Right now, STOP CARING about your WEAPONS or ARMOR. They don’t matter for the next part. All you care about are your ACCESSORIES. And honestly, you only care about ONE of them. Doesn’t matter which one. I usually pick the earpiece. Unequip it. If you want, re-equip an earpiece of a lower level, like 198 or something. Doesn’t matter, just as long as it’s lower than 324. I don’t even bother with that; I just unequip it. Now go run a Flashpoint in VETERAN MODE. Any Flashpoint, just has to be in VETERAN MODE. If you group regularly, just jump into groupfinder and join one of the really fast runs, like Hammer Station. Some VETERAN MODE flashpoints ARE soloable; my favorite is The Black Talon, although I’ve heard others can be done. Black Talon has a LOT of scripted cutscenes to spacebar through. Good for moving Darkside or Lightside, if you need to; although if you kill Orzick the Sabotage Droid First Boss can be a real challenge. Each boss (there are three: the Sabotage Droid or the Republic Boarding Party; Ghuli, and Yadira Ban) will drop a BLUE level 324 item of whichever ACCESSORY you unequipped. The only thing you’ll want to watch for is that it has the right stat arrangement. For me, I needed an “Adept” type earpiece which focuses on damage dealing stats. Once you have this item, put it in a safe place in your inventory…DON’T EQUIP IT. You will keep getting BLUE 324 ACCESSORY drops. Each of these can be deconstructed (NOT YOUR FIRST ONE THAT I TOLD YOU TO KEEP SAFE) for, among other things, 10 FP-1 Stabilizers. FP-1 Stabilizers are another type of currency that we can spend at the same counter as the Conquest Gear Vendors.<\/p>\n

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Run right around the corner and talk to the FP Gear Upgrades Vendor. For 170\/180 FP-1 Stabilizers, about 50,000 credits, and one donor device (the one I told you to keep safe) the vendor will upgrade THAT ACCESSORY from BLUE 324 to BLUE 326. Then to 328, then 330; all the way to 340. Do this. It’s much easier said than done. You will also want to come back and do this for your RELIC ACCESSORIES later, but NOT your implants. Implants are a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT process from here on out. Relics may be, too; but no one has told me about that nor have I even found a HINT of it if that’s true.<\/p>\n

Once you have ONE BLUE LEVEL 340 ACCESSORY, find somewhere else in the SUPPLIES section of the Fleet Space Station two little guys called “Hyde” and “Zeek.”<\/p>\n

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Talk to either one of them, and generally just DON’T decide to walk away. You will eventually get a list of conversation options to accept one of many quests. Don’t get overwhelmed. Hyde and Zeek have been doing this for several expansions now; so they have quests for several different gear levels. Just find the quest for 340 level PROTOTYPE gear (BLUE = PROTOTYPE\/PURPLE=ARTIFACT, btw). The “quest” is to deconstruct a level 340 blue gear item. Do so. This will hurt. Make SURE you took the right quest, and reference what I just said. After deconstructing your BLUE 340 ACCESSORY, when you return to Hyde and Zeek you will be CONGRATULATED for NOT SCREWING UP as long as YOU DIDN’T SCREW UP. You will then be able to directly talk to Zeek, as the VENDOR. Zeek vends BARREL mods, which work on ALL blasters and vibroknives; MODS and ENHANCEMENTS which work on ALL weapons and armor, and ARMORINGS which work on ALL armor items. Fully kitting out every slot on ALL your Adaptive Gear will give you level 340 Weapons and Armor. You will still need to upgrade your Relic and Earpiece ACCESSORIES using FP-1 Stabilizers. You can TECHNICALLY upgrade your implants to level 340 BLUE as well…but at level 80 you can take the Legendary Implants quest to gain access to GOLD (Legendary) implants, so there’s no real reason to mess around with the FP-1 Stabilizer farming for JUST that.<\/p>\n

It took me an entire week, some Reddit posts, and a handful of mistakes to figure this out. One thing I learned is that there is NO COMPLETE and ACCURATE gearing guide available. There are MANY available that are ALMOST complete and accurate, and the people who created them probably CONSIDER them so, because they understand the tiny little bits of information they DIDN’T include, because to them it’s obvious. I guarantee you no single guide I looked up has every piece of information I included. But THIS guide isn’t complete, either; because I haven’t actually finished the gearing…which means I haven’t found every single thing that all the other gearing guides have left out.<\/p>\n

So there.<\/p>\n

On a lighter note, while playing SWTOR, tonight I’m watching the classic B-movie Defcon 4<\/em>. Defcon 4<\/em> is a weird one, that I was hoping to slap into this article as a fun little sideline, except it tripped me up. You could kind of see the main part of this movie as a a rip-off or homage to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome<\/em>, except it came out FOUR MONTHS BEFORE that venerable classic. I can explain a couple of things with genre-tropes…we tend to forget about those as time goes by…but not everything…at least not off the top of my head. Hopefully I’ll be revisiting this topic. It’s hard to say it’s a GOOD movie, but it’s not really a BAD movie. The main character probably does it best by responding to the situations he suddenly finds himself in, around the middle of the movie, by frequently just saying “What???” with a really strange look on his face. That probably sums it up.<\/p>\n

See you next week! Love you all! You have made this second half of 2023 a really great one for me!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I guess I got lucky this year landing two straight posts on holidays. But it works out. I keep trying to make more of the one-chapter saga of Imperial Captain Sarnova than there really is, so I’m not ready to tackle Rix’larril’an’s next installment. But I did spend the past week trying to understand some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[638],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paige-writes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56923"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56948,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56923\/revisions\/56948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}