Gearing up fresh account - SW new 60

zalathorm1

Hello Gents -
I've been reading all the various guides, but fear many are outdated and all of them are "optimal" builds. I'm looking for specific information on getting some gear and what to shoot for.

Factors and Limitations
Playtime: 8-10 hours a week

Build: My build is Fury

Intent: PVE primarily, going through each of the modules for completion.

Astral Diamonds - I have about 100k saved up from leveling. I'll definitely get into some cloak tower as soon as I can, but with 100AD, I've noticed I can afford a few things already.

Gear: What do I buy right away? What's the first most reasonable set to try to get? What do I work towards in the long run for full optimization?

tupac509

well the t1 set is the infernal diabolist for fury warlocks. i would get ur rings, necklaces sorted out cause they are like less than 10k each. and make sure to buy epic dungeon key from the astral shop. with the epic dungeon key u can open the chest at the end to get a gear for ur class. one of the easist way to get the gear u need. the epic dungeon key is 5k. and so far, for rings i have pyrotecknic rings 2 of them and i slotted them with crit runes. and in all t1s i am usually in first place or second place for dps.

leeksie

Hi Zalathorm,

***WALL OF TEXT WARNING!!!***

TL;DR version-> buy blue items and cheap purple jewellery, farm Dread Ring lairs for T1 purples, run Epic Pirate King dungeon for jewellery + T2 offhand + Drake seals, use Drake seals to get T1.75 gear, farm T2 dungeons, profit.


This is actually my first post on this forum (been playing for quite a while now though and following the forums all that time) but I am just reaching the tail-end of a similar journey with my fury SW (now running dungeons for his T2 set) so wanted to share some thoughts. Hope they help.

First up, I'm assuming from your post and join date that you don't have multiple characters on this account farming RAD through leadership, or other characters to farm gear for you.... that you are looking for advice on how to get the gear on your own, in a reasonable timeframe, with 'limited' playtime available and on a budget? I'm also assuming you are pretty new to the game so please forgive me if I state stuff here that you already know!

Once you hit level 60, jump onto the AH and kit yourself out with a bunch of L60 Blue items. SW Epics are/were still pretty pricey and this first set of gear is going to get replaced soon enough. It's just to give you a boost to start grinding out your purple gear. You can farm it quickly enough but items are 100-5000 AD to get exactly the stats you want! If you have 100k then look at getting Purple rings/amulets/belts at the start since they sell for 5-10k (salvage price).

Try for stuff with stats like Power, Life steal, Critical strike, Armour (I'm Australian... this is how we spell it!) penetration or even Recovery. Fury SW are offensive machines so play to that strength when playing PvE rather than trying to make yourself too tanky. Get items with an enchantment slot (most will have it) and you can fill those slots with the R4 or R5 enchants that drop. You can upgrade these as you go or just swap them out later once you are rolling in AD.

Also look at getting a blue Shirt and Pants with a slot. At this stage you will need to buy them if you don't have high level Leatherworking assets to craft them yourself. If you are on a budget then don't be TOO fussy, what you really want is the slot, although the stats help a bit too. Later you will replace these with Purples.

For Offensive slots, look at Radiants for Power, Darks for ArPen, Azure for Crit Strike or Black Ice/Draconic for a more balanced set of stats. For Defensive slots look at Dark for Life steal or Radiant for HP or Black Ice/Draconic for balanced stats. In Utility slots... I go with Darks for movement, but there are many other options if you want more exp, gold etc. I'd say Dark until you know exactly what you want.

As you run the Sharandar and Dread Ring campaigns you will start to get T1 Epic gear from the daily lairs. In particular the Dread Ring daily lair has a pretty reasonable chance to drop Thayan Epics. These are not too bad in terms of stats and the allocations are reasonable. Plus they are free and you will be running the lairs anyway to progress the campaign. You can salvage them for RAD later

From there (or earlier if you know how to play) you can look at running the T1 dungeons to get your Infernal Diabloist (or another) set, or skip straight to the T2 stuff since you are already in T1 equivalent. You can also purchase some T1 epics from the vendors in Shar and DR, but these are not usually the best bang for buck. By the time you read this prices of SW Epics may have come down a bit on the AH but when I started my SW you were looking at well over 1 million AD per piece...

With my SW what I actually did was farm the Epic Pirate King dungeon a number of times to get Seals of the Drake. It is the 'easiest' of the T2 dungeons and pretty quick to run with a decent party. Plenty of folk will /lfg for PK runs during the Delve Hour. You can get some T2 jewellery or a T2 Offhand from the Delve Chest in that Dungeon as well to wear, sell or salvage. The Seals are what I was after though and if you are worried about the difficulty you can do the same thing with Unicorn seals from T1 dungeons whilst you quest for your T1 set if you are going for one.

You can take those Drake seals to the trader in PE to exchange for T2 gear that is nearly the same stats as the T2 Accursed Diabloist set. Not quite as good and no set bonus, but they only cost 60-90 seals (nothing else) each and you get 10-20 seals for a single run... with a good group you can run Pirate King multiple times during a Dungeon Delve hour so you don't need to use your Delve Key. On that point, you can get 1 Delve Key for free each day from the guy in PE. You only need to pay 5k for extra keys and if you are limited to 8-10 hours a week then that shouldn't be an issue.

With a set of Drake items you are pretty decently equipped (should be around 11-13k GS by then) to farm the other T2 dungeons to get the actual Diabloist set (or whatever set you want) or to try your luck in the other T2.5 dungeons like VT, MC, CN. With Modules 3 and 4 you also have the Black Ice gear and Draconic sets to consider. Some of the items can be purchased but some need to be farmed... and the drop rates are very very low (just look for posts on HE and BI drop rates on these forums... but you might get lucky.) You also have the ability to get a decent set of gear using the Glory you earn from playing PvP, but you have mentioned that you are PvE focused and getting started in PvP can be a bit demoralising!


This is turning into an essay so I'll wrap it up. Some final things to consider as well to round out your gear:
* For a starting Weapon enchant, unless you luck onto a Coal. Ward look at a lessor Terror or lesser Plaguefire. At the time of writing this you could get a lesser Terror for 280k on the AH and lesser PF tend to be a bit lower than the standard price as well because they don't need a C.Ward to create (come from a lockbox).

* For Armour enchant I would suggest a lesser Soulforged. Its a get out of jail free and you don't *need* to upgrade it further to get the main benefit. You are looking at 400K+ for that though, but once you have it you are set.

* I'm not sure what Artifact you chose but get it to L60 with the spare refinement gems that drop. There is likely to be a double RP weekend starting 12 Sept so if you are really on a budget you can stockpile RP for that and then boost it. At L60 you get 3 extra stats and reduced cooltime on using the artifact.

*Over time get 2 more artifiacts and get them to 60 as well. Lots of ways to get artifacts that you can learn about as you go.

*Ultimately look at getting an augment companion (Ioun stone or Cat are the main ones). These will directly boost your stats by applying their own to you... so don't be afraid to look at them as extra gear slots and equip them accordingly.

* grab some other companions based on their active bonus since these will apply to you as long as they are in your active roster, even if they are not summoned (that will be your augment)

* In terms of enchantment upgrades, R6 or R7 is a realistic goal. From there things start to get expensive and R6 or R7 are more than enough for the PvE content.

* If you stick around with the game... look at getting a Purple mount. If you have multiple characters then look at the Zen store ones as these are account-wide but if its just one guy then you can look at the AH ones as well.

* As you progress through Sharandar, Dread Ring, Ice Wind Dale and the Tyranny quests you will unlock Boons that add a sizeable chunk to your Gear Score and effectiveness.

* For more AD generation there are lots of things you can do, but unless you get a lucky drop it will take time to build your wealth. Look for Trace's guide on these forums for lots of ideas.


Most of all though, have fun and enjoy the journey!

jeffro9000

leeksie wrote: »

Hi Zalathorm,

***WALL OF TEXT WARNING!!!***

*snip*

Most of all though, have fun and enjoy the journey!

^ this. Nice explanation! You should think about making this into a guide for new 60's in its own thread.

All I would add is that the most valuable thing in the game as far as generating wealth, which you will need to get higher enchants/artifacts, is character slots. character slots are not expensive, and converting AD to zen to do this is not that painful. Begin thinking about making AD as a part of playing the game. Buy low, sell high, think about return on investment.

All of this takes time. Set goals and work toward them. Find good people to run with. Ask questions and help others. Sometimes I learn the most when I just talk to others about my crazy AD making ideas or builds/gear choices.

Good luck!

zalathorm1

Big thanks for the write up, leeksie.

I've actually come far, quickly. I'm at 11.2 gs, with all epics. I need one more accursed diabolist in the boot slot for the set. I think i've been lucky on dungeon chests.

The biggest thing that has gotten me to where i'm at is.... Lie about my GS.

If people say 14k plus for ToS, I say "sw inv" and if they ask directly, I say i'm 14k.

Why? You dont need 14k for Tos, or any T2. Second, when I was in all blues I was beating most people in dps, except a few highly geared CWs. Third, no one checks your gs after inviting.