Recruit Armor

Recruit armor is a set of PvP armor you can directly purchase at the PvP vendor for around ~300k for the full set. This is a good starter set, even for fresh 50s doing PvE content. The side bonus is that you can also jump into PvP with this set.

You might be wondering how it stacks with custom modded orange armor obtained from doing dailies. Below I will give you a comparison of 5 pieces, using the Recruit Force Master set (sorc/sage DPS) and custom modded gear using armoring/mods/enhancements from dailies. I am going to use the Slave Girl outfit as the custom armor base since it has 5 pieces and everyone is familiar with it!

For the Custom piece, I used the slave girl set as the base and then used Advanced Resolve Armoring 22

(purchased from Daily Vendor), Advanced Aptitude Mod 22

(Belsavis heroic daily reward), 2x Advanced Quick Savant Enhancement 22

(Ilum heroic daily reward), and 3x Advanced Battle Enhancement 22

(Ilum heroic daily reward). I realized that you could get the Q23 armoring from the daily vendor but the goal here is to use only mission rewards and save Daily Commendations for the ear, implants, and relics.

Here is the character builder with Recruit 5-piece

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/a93c8d7f-98da-403c-a6a7-af7edc98e446

Here is the character build with custom modded 5 piece

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/8c8206db-a7a2-47cd-8a9d-fb6f35133a75

How do they stack up?

Anyways, as you can see, the stats are not too terribly different between the two sets. Custom modded armor using stuff from dailies do offer you more options you can sort of choose the stats you want.

If I were a fresh 50, I would grab the Recruit set first and then over the time as I do dailies, update them with custom modded armor.

Dailies:

Before we jump into dailies, let me offer you a nice chart with all the dailies tabulated for 1.2!

There are now three planets to do dailies in: Belsavis, Ilum, and with 1.2, the Black Hole area in Corellia. Keep in mind that Black Hole is a separate zone within Corellia and you will need to take a shuttle to get there (the shuttle is right next to the spaceport).

Why do dailies you ask? Campaign relics (better than the relics from Nightmare KP), and Rakata ear/implants for fresh 50s. The new Recruit gear has made the Q23 armoring/barrels/hilts you can purchase and the Q22 enhancements/mods from heroic dailies a bit less of an upgrade but they are still there if you want to completely customize your armor for PvE.

You can also get some legacy armor kits for your alts in your legacy. Artificers can also purchase some schematics to make the color crystals for weapons. Here is a list of the new stuff included in the Daily Vendor in 1.2.

Note: The relics are actually BoP (Bind on Pickup) and not BoE as the tooltips here indicates

Name	Cost
Campaign Relic of Boundless Ages	200
Campaign Relic of Dark Radiance	200
Campaign Relic of Elemental Transcendence	200
Campaign Relic of Ephemeral Mending	200
Campaign Relic of Imperiling Serenity	200
Campaign Relic of Shield Amplification	200
Campaign Relic of the Cerulean Nova	200
Campaign Relic of the Kinetic Tempest	200
Campaign Relic of the Primeval Fatesealer	200
Campaign Relic of the Shrouded Crusader	200
Schematic: Advanced Blue Eviscerating Crystal	20
Schematic: Advanced Blue Hawkeye Crystal	20
Schematic: Advanced Blue Indestructible Crystal	20
Schematic: Advanced Red Eviscerating Crystal	20
Schematic: Advanced Red Hawkeye Crystal	20
Schematic: Advanced Red Indestructible Crystal	20
Birthright Headgear Construction Kit	250
Birthright Leggings Construction Kit	200
Inheritance Boots Construction Kit	100
Inheritance Jacket Construction Kit	200

For Belsavis and Ilum dailies, you need to finish your class quest first and then you can receive the Ilum and Belsavis bonus series which you can complete to unlock all of the dailies.  It is not known if you need to complete your class quest to receive the Black hole starter quest but you should be finishing your class quest anyways. Btw, for those wondering, you dont need to finish the Corellia planet quests to receive the Black Hole quests.

Black Hole Corellia

• The starter quest that leads you to the Black Hole area can be picked up on the Fleet. For the Imperial fleet this is Sergeant Karloss on the imperial fleet inner ring.
• 5 solo dailies, rewards 6 Daily Commendations in total (one [AREA]quest has multiple stages and rewards 2 daily commendations). You get ~ 7k credits in per quest, except for the multi-staged one, which rewards you ~ 11k credits. That is about 40 k credits at least per day from all the solo dailies.
• One heroic H4+ daily, can be 2-manned if you are geared. Reward you with 3 Daily Commendations and either a blue prototype box or an orange piece.
• One weekly, requiring to complete all the solo and group dailies once. Reward you with 6 Black Hole Commendations and 16k credits.
• All of the solo dailies are fairly easy to do but can get annoying if there are quite a few people doing them as the area isnt exactly packed with quest mobs.
• All of the dailies are picked up at the quest terminal, you can pick up the heroic after you done all the solo dailies for the day.
• Total Rewards/day: 9 Daily Commendations and 56, 043 credits

Here is a list of the quest names for both the Empire and Republic side. I will also do a short write up on both the Empire and Republic dailies below. Skip if you already know how to do them

Empire-Hypermatter Directive

• Steal 5 emergency hypermatter supplies.
• No mobs are initially present but there are probes constantly being deployed that scans within a certain radius. If you are scanned, a strong mob will spawn and attack you.
• Has sort of a stealth/Splinter Cell feel to it.

Empire-Glow

• You will need to kill mobs and grab the Anti-Rad injector they drop, these injections will protect you from 10 ticks of the toxic water.Do not fight in the water, fight in the land whatever possible.
• First console where you need to reroute the Hypermatter pipeline is immediate in front of you as you enter the instance, guarded by a group of mobs where you will receive your first Anti-Rad injector.
• Reroute the remaining 3 Hypermatter pipeline located throughout the room (see the pictures below).

Empire-Control the Battlefield

• Kill and easy, kill 12 mobs (same mobs required by Asset Liquidation) and turn in!

Empire-No Trace Left

• Also very easy, identity 3 spies located in the same room as the quest terminal using the quest item they gave you. Each time you use the item, it will tell you how close you are to the spy (i.e. 15m, 10m, 5m).

Empire-[AREA] Asset Liquidation

• Automatically received when you get off the shuttle and enter the Black Hole area.
• Multiple stages: stage 1- kill 20 mobs, stage 2- destroy 6 munition caches, stage 3 destroy the Com Tower and recover T-5R7 memory core.

Empire-[HEROIC 4+] The end of Torvix

• You will need to complete all the solo dailies (except the multi-staged [area] one) first to pick this one up.
• Fairly challenging heroic 4+ but can be handled by two people with 2 companions if geared.
• Having CC (Crowd Control) abilities will make this one easier.
• Multiple steps, it is not a quick and easy one like the Belsavis/Ilum ones.
• Puzzle at the end: goal is reroute toxic liquid from the left side of the wall to the right using 3 buttons on the consoles, each button handles a different pipe so play around with it until everything connects!

Republic Counter Eco-Terrorism

• Do not go into the toxic water! Kill the mobs around the water to obtain an Anti-Rad Injector that will give you 10 stacks of protection against the toxic water.
• You will need to disable the holes in the tanks that are leaking toxic water (marked in the picture below). Each injector will allow you to disable 2 of these holes before you will need to run out.

Republic Forced Labor

• Rescue 5 Drall eningeers stuck in a holding cell. Pretty simple mission but the area is not instanced do it is best if you group up and all get credit at the same time.

Republic Stolen Victory

• Recover 15 stolen prototype weapon, which are in chests scattered around the quest area and also dropped by mobs guarding the chests.
• Fairly easy quest, but can be annoying to get it done if there are a lot of other players around; luckily, the respawn timer on chests/mobs is not too bad.

Republic Eyes and Ears

• Stealth mission similar to Empires Hypermatter Directive.
• You will need to plant 5 listening devices, but there are probes being deployed constantly around the room. If these detect you, a strong mob will spawn and attack you.

Republic [AREA] Criminal Crackdown

• Automatically received when you get off the shuttle and enter the Black Hole area.
• Multiple stages: stage 1- kill 15 mobs, stage 2- destroy 4 weapon containers (if you have CC abilies, you can CC the strong mob, kill the weak one ,destroy the container and leave before the strong mob wakes up), stage 3 Destroy the Sensor Hub and kill Quick-Hands Quarl (He has an ability called Artillery that you should interrupt if you can).

Republic [HEROIC 4+] Chasing the Shadow

• You will need to complete all the solo dailies (except the multi-staged [area] one) first to pick this one up.
• Fairly challenging heroic 4+ but can be handled by two people with 2 companions if geared.
• Having CC (Crowd Control) abilities will make this one easier.
• Fairly short (much shorter than the Empire equivalent) and ends in an epic boss fight.
• Koric, the last boss has a two main abilities: First one is the grenades which he throws on a random player and pulls a nearby group member to that person. It has a small DoT (400 damage per tick) and slow effect.

• The second ability is a giant yellow circle on the ground which lasts for a few seconds before an airstrike  lands. It doesnt really hurt but it is best to get out of it.

Ilum Dailies

*Operation Shatterstorm have a multi-staged bonus quest that can be only completed once per character that grant you 13,995 credits and 2 Daily Commendations.

*Poisonous Strategy/Darkness on Ilum also have a multi-staged bonus quest that can be only completed once per character that grant you 2332 credits and 2 Daily Commendations.

You can get a total of 8 Daily Commendations and 67805 credits per day for all the Empire dailies. Republic dailies will grant you 69957 credits in total.

Belsavis Dailies

Empire

That is a total of 17 Daily Commendations and 99,395 credits for the Empire Belsavis dailies.

Republic

That is a total of 17 Daily Commendations and 85,390 credits for the Empire Belsavis dailies.

Space dailies

Just you thought you were done with your dailies, there is also a daily for the highest level space mission that rewards 2 Daily Commendations and 6540 credits. This daily is called Operation Ascendant Pride on the Empire side and Operation New Eclipse for the Republic side.

Hardmode Flashpoints

Starting in 1.2, there are no more daily lockouts for Hardmode flashpoints! This means that you can farm these flashpoints whenever you like!

All the hardmode flashpoints pre-1.2 will drop only Columi grade gear on the last boss. You can check out this guide to I wrote to see what they drop.

However, the new Hardmode flashpoint introduced in 1.2, Lost Island, will drop Columi grade loot on every boss and the last boss also drops Rakata loot (Rakata chest). Be warned though, it is fairly diffcult compared to previous Hardmode Flashpoints and you definitely need to have previous gearing from pre-1.2 Hardmode flashpoints or Warzones for a successful run.

Dont forget to pick up the following weekly and daily from the mission terminal located on the Supplies section of the fleet.

[DAILY] Galactic Conflicts complete any of the Hardmode Flashpoints. Reward you with 6 Columi and 7 Tionese Commendations

[WEELY] Rakghoul Conflicts Complete Hardmode Kaon Under Siege and Lost Island Reward you with 8 Black Hole Commendations

You can also pick up the Vehicle Achievement [Aratech Ice] from the achievement terminal located in the GTN section of the fleet (next to the guild bank).

Warzones

If you like to PvP, Battlemaster gear is also an alternative to running hardmode flashpoints for Columi gear. With 1.2, Battlemaster gear has no more valor requirement to wear. It can now be directly purchased via Warzone Commendations earned by doing warzones.

While Battlemaster maybe be lacking a bit when it comes to primary stats (i.e. willpower, endurance), it does have a bit more of secondary stats (i.e. crit, surge etc).

Operations Rakata Gear

Hardmode/Nightmare Eternity Vault and Karaggas Palace all drop Rakata gear, to see which bosses drop what. Please consult this guide here I wrote here.

The new operation, Explosive Conflict, also drops Rakata gear on storymode (also known as normal mode). It drops some Rakata stuff previously only available to Daily commendation vendors like Rakata implants. Here is a quest list of the loot dropped off storymode EC.

Explosive Conflict Storymode

• Toth and Zorn: Rakata Bracer, Rakata Implant, Rakata Chest
• Stormcaller and Firebrand: Rakata Belt, Rakata Offhand, Rakata Boot
• Colonel Vorgath: Rakata Legs, Rakata Gloves, Rakata Implant
• Warload Kephess: Rakata Helmet, Rakata Mainhand, Random Black Hole MK2/MK3 gear  or Campaign Relic

Explosive Conflict Hardmode

• Toth and Zorn: Campaign Legs, Campaign Bracers, Random Black Hole gear or Campaign Relic
• Stormcaller and Firebrand: Campaign Belt, Campaign Offhand, Random Black Hole MK2/MK3 gear or Campaign Relic
• Colonel Vorgath: Campaign Chest, Campaign Gloves, Random Black Hole MK2/MK3 gear or Campaign Relic
• Warload Kephess: Campaign Mainhand, Campaign Helm, Random Black Hole MK2/MK3 gear or Campaign Relic

Campaign Boots drops off 16m Nightmare Pilgrim, the world boss on Voss. 

Remember to pick up [WEEKLY] Deadly Operations which give you 20 Columi commendations for defeating either Gharj or Jarg & Sorno in Hard/Nightmare EV & KP.

Also pick up [WEEKLY] Galactic Crisis Points for defeating Colonel Vorgath in Explosive Conflict. Rewards you with 8 Black Hole Commendations.

For Vehicles, you can pick up Vehicle Achievement [Aratech Fire] from the achievement terminal located in the GTN section of the fleet (next to the guild bank), which rewards you with the vehicle for kill bosses in the three operations on storymode.

Operations Black Hole Gear

Black Hole is a new tier of gear (rating 146) introduced with patch 1.2. There are 3 variants: Black Hole MK-1, MK-2, and MK-3. MK-1 gear can be purchased directly from the vendor with Black Hole Commendations (weapons are not available for purchase unfortunately). MK-2 and MK-3 are dropped from Hardmode Explosive Conflict (MK-3 legs also dropped off the last boss of storymode Explosive Conflict)

Black Hole gear has no set bonus unfortunately and cannot be reverse engineered (mods/earpieces/implants can be REed)

The exchange rate is as follows

Where to obtain Black Hole Commendations?

• Corellia Black Hole weekly 6 Black Hole commendations/ week
• Weekly quest [WEEKLY] Rakghoul Conflicts (complete Hardmode Lost Island and Kaon Under Siege) 8 Black Hole Commendations
• Weekly quest [WEEKLY] Galactic Crisis Points rewards 8 Black Hole Commendations
• Nightmare Pilgrim World Boss on Voss
• Storymode Explosive Conflict 2 Black Hole Commendations per boss, 4 per chest (3 chests found so far)
• Hardmode Explosive Conflict 4 Black Hole Commendations per boss, 4 per chest.
• Nightmare Karaggas Palace 2 Black Hole Comms per boss for first 3 bosses, 3 Black Hole comms per boss for last 2 bosses

Operations Campaign Gear

Campaign gear is obtained from Hardmode Explosive Conflict and Nightmare Pilgrim World Boss on Voss.

The loot table for Campaign gear, once completed, can be found here in that loot list I linked earlier. Keep in mind that tokens for Campaign gear are not class specific (i.e. bosses will drop a helm token that any class can trade in for armor).

Unlike Black Hole gear, Campaign gear does have a set bonus. It can also be Reverse Engineered for a schematics, which allow it crafters the chance to add an augment slot if they crit while crafting. 

The point of Black Hole gear is to offer a stats alternative to the campaign gear. If you are curious about what the stats difference between Black Hole and Campaign gear, check out this guide I wrote a couple days ago.

For Vehicles, you can pick up Vehicle Achievement [Aratech Nightscythe] from the achievement terminal located in the GTN section of the fleet (next to the guild bank), which rewards you with the vehicle for kill bosses in the three operations on Hardmode (nightmare KP/EV should also work).

Augmented Gear

The BiS (Best in Slot) gear is going to come from orange gear with augment slots. You will need a crafter to make you an orange armor shell that has an augment slot. Then you can move your armoring, mods, enhancements into that orange shell and also add an augment for additional stats.

Unfortunately, the set bonus wont transfer with armoring for any of the pre-1.2 gear, only Campaign gear (for PVE gear)  has set bonus that transfer with armoring. This means that you wont be able to wear fully augmented gear until you start clearing Hardmode Explosive Conflict.

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