Gear: Where to go at 99/100?

Albaj - Heavens Tear

I'm at level 98, cruising toward 99. I'm essentially f2p... I have purchased an account stone from the Boutique in the past, but haven't spent any money on refines or rep... my power comes from ingame work and investment. This is important, because as I approach level 99, with just under 9k rep, I'm at a loss as to what to do about gear when I level up.

I'm currently using a Wheel of Denied Fate, and wearing a mixed set of 3* and OHT robes... I skipped TT 90 armor because the set I put together gives me an insane amount of pdef: 5.2k, with just my buff alone. Give me golden bell and add my sage vanguard bonus to it, and I could crush a scouter if I had the funds to buy one.

At any rate, this set has served me well, and I don't regret using it over TT 90. However, I'll level soonish, and will need to get ahold of something more than a 9x set sharded with flawless stones.

The question is, where does a f2p toon go from here? Do I make a set of TT 90, decomp it for the 99s, and refine and shard the **** out of it? Or, should I get the 99 set just to decomp into Nirvana gear (meaning, I wouldn't want to waste money on heavy refines for the 99 set, if I work on it at all). Or, should I face the daunting task of working toward Rank 8, and skip TT/Nirvana altogether?

I don't pvp, nor do I intend to, but I would like to get together a decently workable endgame set. If I ever make more arcane toons, they'll be able to benefit from any work I put into my gear (account stash and all), so I'm keeping my 90s pdef set for them. To that end, perhaps I should push it to +5, to better my odds at getting a 100s set?

As you can see, I have a lot of thoughts going on, and just one level to make a decision. Should my goal be Nirvana, or Rank 8? And do I need to put work into a 99 set while working toward Nirvana/8, or beef up my 90s to do the job?

Eoria - Harshlands

Post a pwcalc of your current gear.

Albaj - Heavens Tear

http://pwcalc.com/8c24ee394cb01c5d

That's where I stand right now... it has served me well to date, and aside from needing to always pay attention, I tend to not die. Heck, I've managed to solo an unwined bh 79 in this garb (before they made the recent changes, to be fair). I'm more curious as to where to go from here, though... straight to Nirvana/Rank 8, or will I need something to tide me over until then? I'd rather not waste money and refines on something I'll only use for a level, and then decompose. But, I'd also like to make it far enough to have a 100 set of some sort.

Eoria - Harshlands

So...how big is your budget? I mean, I'm pretty much gonna tell you to at least get r8 for the wep and top, but having a good idea of what sort of money you have/are able to generate helps a lot in determining a decent attainable build.

Dollface - Harshlands

TT99, yikes :S

this is mine i'm 101
http://pwcalc.com/ec9479dd9dc9d4b8

Albaj - Heavens Tear

My budget is... well... assuming another General Summer's Sale comes along, if I'm willing to liquidate everything in my cash shop, I can get close to 200k rep. A little work, and I could bump up the rest through some effort and farming. However, I'd be all but broke, and would have to stick to f2p grade refines/shards, at least for the time being.

Assuming we don't see a rep sale again for a while, my options with regards to rank are... slimmer. If I purchased badges right now, I could probably get a little past Rank 7. However, that too would require me to sell everything in my shop and spend the proceeds, so I'd be stuck there for a very long time.

I guess a lot of it depends on if/when we see another rep sale. Ideally, it would happen after I grow my money enough to justify about 72 gold worth of badges.

I suppose another argument to consider is that any non-rank gear I get ahold of and don't decompose could be put to use, hypothetically, on future alts. That's the main reason I don't mind getting another armor set to use as an inbetween, if I must. If I squint my eyes really hard, or drink enough, I can see 5 characters using it for one level, rather than just this one.

prof

i haven't played my cleric in years, so i wont post any calculators on budget gear; but i'll make a slight suggestion:

never stat to lower-leveled 'temporary' gear, such as the 87 necklace and your 3* adorn's strength. eventually, you'll grow out of those, and restatting for higher str could prove to be quite expensive.

also, rank 8 is still quite cheap, you should just save until you can afford that. the top/ring are invaluable forever, and the weapon is worth stopping at if you don't desire 1 shotting everything with cyclone using r9.

Eoria - Harshlands

Don't buy rep off-sale. And I imagine we'll still have our normally scheduled rep sale next month.

I'd say, for your immediate goals you should focus on:

A. Getting the money together for r8. This takes care of your wep, top, and one of your rings.
B. If you want, you can get tt99 wrists. These are rather cheap. You can probably just team up with a BM/sin friend and farm it all in a couple days. The gold mats drop in 3-2 and you don't need to use subs to get that boss. You could also keep your current OHT wrists though if you want as they're pdef x3 and 4soc and refines the same as the tt99 wrists.
C. Work on opening your OHT maps. Once you open the 4th map, you can get a quest to get a pretty awesome workable end-game belt called Guard of Thundershock.
D. Get a better tome. A mag/vit one preferably.

Overall, I'd probably shoot for something like this: http://www.pwcalc.com/79bb3198b6577c55 Although, if you want to be able to live in certain instances like 3-3, you'll probably need to either +10 the hat/boots or restat some of your mag into vit. Restating is cheaper.

A note on the boots...those are event boots and untradeable. Make damn sure you're not going to go like full Nirvana or r9 before you get those. Otherwise, just get either tt99/Lunar boots (if you do go full Nirvana) or good OHT ones (think your current wrists only as boots).

I'm thinking I should make an end-game gear guide...

Albaj - Heavens Tear

prof wrote: »

never stat to lower-leveled 'temporary' gear, such as the 87 necklace and your 3* adorn's strength. eventually, you'll grow out of those, and restatting for higher str could prove to be quite expensive.

Good point. I'll have enough stat points from my next two levels to make bring me up to 54/55 strength, but I'll kick myself if I somehow forget.

Eoria wrote: »

Don't buy rep off-sale. And I imagine we'll still have our normally scheduled rep sale next month.

I'd say, for your immediate goals you should focus on:

A. Getting the money together for r8. This takes care of your wep, top, and one of your rings.
B. If you want, you can get tt99 wrists. These are rather cheap. You can probably just team up with a BM/sin friend and farm it all in a couple days. The gold mats drop in 3-2 and you don't need to use subs to get that boss. You could also keep your current OHT wrists though if you want as they're pdef x3 and 4soc and refines the same as the tt99 wrists.
C. Work on opening your OHT maps. Once you open the 4th map, you can get a quest to get a pretty awesome workable end-game belt called Guard of Thundershock.
D. Get a better tome. A mag/vit one preferably.

Overall, I'd probably shoot for something like this: http://www.pwcalc.com/79bb3198b6577c55 Although, if you want to be able to live in certain instances like 3-3, you'll probably need to either +10 the hat/boots or restat some of your mag into vit. Restating is cheaper.

A note on the boots...those are event boots and untradeable. Make damn sure you're not going to go like full Nirvana or r9 before you get those. Otherwise, just get either tt99/Lunar boots (if you do go full Nirvana) or good OHT ones (think your current wrists only as boots).

I'm thinking I should make an end-game gear guide...

So, r8 it is. If we do have the regularly scheduled sale, I can probably pull it off if I work at it. If I know I'm going for the r8 weapon, I won't bother making a 99 glaive, and keep the one I have as a hand-me-down for an alt or a friend. This'll save me some work, and justify (in my mind, at least) throwing a +4-5 on it if I feel I need a little more power in the meantime.

Fun fact, the wristguards I have now cost only 300k on Auction House, and already had 4 sockets on them. I had to shard them myself, but apparently non-channeling gear is cheap. I'm not sure whether to go for the 99 wrists or put that money/effort to use in refining/resharding the ones I have. I suppose there isn't a wrong decision in this particular case.