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Mark XII Gear

ralphgraphiteralphgraphite Member Posts: 628 Arc User
edited March 2014 in The Academy
Noobish question from a "relatively" fresh Level 50.

Where do I get Mk XII gear from, other than the exchange, Rep and Fleet? I can't seem to craft it on Mem Alpha - best that seems to be there is Mk XI Purple. The VR console on K7 seems to sell VR Mk X (is there any point in that?).

My EC is sitting around 10 mil, dil around 200K, and Fleet Credits at around 100K, so the ways I see to get geared up BEFORE I start running STFs all look months long - especially if I want to diversify weapon types between ships.

I'm still playing on normal fwiw, does increasing difficulty ramp up the mission rewards?

Thanks for helping! :)
Post edited by ralphgraphite on

Comments

  • fatman592fatman592 Member Posts: 1,207 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    The only place that regularly drops XII gear is Ker'rat. But any ESTF can be run with XI blue gear, depending on the build, the ship and the team. But the best gear generally comes from Reputation or Fleets. If you want a great XII starter space set, go run Step Between the Stars three times for the Salone set (it would be better if you got the warp core with the dyson ship too).

    This thread has a lot of good info on good gear which would be good for PvE (ignore the fact that it's a thread about PvP).
  • kintishokintisho Member Posts: 1,040 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    Mk XII purple can be awarded from elite STFs and others, however it is better and easier to get fleet elite gear period.
  • engelenhartengelenhart Member Posts: 61 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    Dunno if there are a lot more places to get MK XII from but you don't need it to do (e)STFs. MK XI will do fine. Playing on higher difficulty does yield better drops but not mission rewards.
  • razar2380razar2380 Member Posts: 1,187 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    To be honest, you don't need the MK XII gear to run the STFs, unless you just want it. The MK X and up is all you need as far as weapons go.

    I recommend at least the space set from the Featured Episode "A Step Between Stars." This will give you a high quality of gear, and will allow for better survivability till you are able to do the rep systems, if you want to do them.

    The MK XII gear like weapons can be found from enemy drops, lock boxes, and on the exchange. The ones from lock boxes are specific to the certain type of lockbox opened, and there is only a chance to get the weapons. This also gets expensive as the keys are for a few million EC on the exchange, or cost Zen.

    There are some things you can do to get EC very quickly to buy the better weapons off the exchange. If you buy MK XII purples, they will run you around 1 million EC and up, depending on which energy type you get.

    There are farming foundry missions that will let you farm for enemy drops. If you do some of these, the items you get can be sold on the exchange, or vendors that give no less than 50% of the items value for hundreds of thousands of EC per run. The only downside is there is a cap on how many items you can get in the foundry in a 20 hour period.

    However, you can also do Star base 24, and collect all of the loot you can.

    There are many other ways to get EC. However, buying off the exchange is the easiest, and most efficient way to get the better MK XII gear.

    I had a character that had MK XI blue weapons on him for almost 3 months till just the other day. I have his Omega rep system maxed. You don't need the highest quality weapons to start off with. You can work up to it slowly if you want to. This game is very forgiving whenit comes to not having the best gear in PVE, and STFs.
    Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
  • ralphgraphiteralphgraphite Member Posts: 628 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    Got the Solonae set on my Mirror Advanced Escort - seems to help. Thanks for the advice - I guess the consensus is Mk XI blues is good enough until I slowly but steadily upgrade. Should I focus on Fleet consoles and equipment first, or weapons? Or simply doesn't matter in PvE?
  • edgecrysgeredgecrysger Member Posts: 2,740 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    Dunno if there are a lot more places to get MK XII from but you don't need it to do (e)STFs. MK XI will do fine. Playing on higher difficulty does yield better drops but not mission rewards.

    There is not guarantee that you will get better drops on elite difficulty either (checked tons of times).
  • exsteeleexsteele Member Posts: 113 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    I believe there are also Engineering Duty Officer assignments that, on a Critical, will yield MK12 gear. However, these assignments are very difficult to crit, and won't necessarily give you exactly what you want (For instance, you want an MK12 Plasma Infusion tac console? Too bad, here's an MK12 +Stealth console!). At best, you'll get something you can sell on the exchange for about the same amount of EC as it'll take to buy something you want.

    There's also Lobi items. In addition to some unique items, if you re-play the DS9 series and get the Dominion gear (which caps at MK10, iirc), you can spend like 200 Lobi to trade up to MK12 versions of those items.

    By the way, before looking into different gear, maybe you should look at what ship you have and what a better ship might be for your playstyle? Because I think you'll get more mileage out of an extra Tac Console than you would changing your weapons from Mk11 to Mk12 (The damage difference between MK11 and Mk12weapons, without modifiers, is 10 points, in effect about a 5% increase. With an extra tac Console that you'd get from a tactical Fleet ship, you're increasing your damage somewhere between 20 and 30%, depending on its mark). Needless to say, you'll do more damage with an extra weapon slot, also.
  • mightybobcncmightybobcnc Member Posts: 3,354 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    Got the Solonae set on my Mirror Advanced Escort - seems to help. Thanks for the advice - I guess the consensus is Mk XI blues is good enough until I slowly but steadily upgrade. Should I focus on Fleet consoles and equipment first, or weapons? Or simply doesn't matter in PvE?

    I would focus on the consoles and/or ship first (maybe there's a ship that suits your flying style better, experiment!).

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  • razar2380razar2380 Member Posts: 1,187 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    Got the Solonae set on my Mirror Advanced Escort - seems to help. Thanks for the advice - I guess the consensus is Mk XI blues is good enough until I slowly but steadily upgrade. Should I focus on Fleet consoles and equipment first, or weapons? Or simply doesn't matter in PvE?


    When deciding between the fleet weapons and consoles, I recommend that you focus on the consoles. One of the things about the fleet weapons, they don't give a huge increase over the MK XII purples. I have a character with advanced fleet polarons, and also MK XII purples. The purples do about the same, with only a slight increase in DPS with fleet weapons.

    The slight increase is not enough to end a PVE, or STF early.

    I recommend that you focus on the consoles first if you want anything from a fleet. Before you get a lot of them, however, I do recommend that you look up different universal consoles. You may find some of them you might want from the exchange.

    I recommend that you look at some of the ones that will do extra damage, like the one that shoots the Spatial Charges. It has a 3 min cool down, but it can do direct hull damage to a slow moving, or stationary target. There are others. They will help to increase your DPS, and are almost like having another weapon on your ship.

    For the fleet consoles, I recommend that for engineering you use the ones that will increase resistances to all damage types. If you get ones that will do specific damage, they will have a higher increase resistance to those specific weapon types. However, all of the other weapon types will suffer.

    I use all of my science console slots for universal consoles.

    Tactical, you can get those from the fleet spire. They add some good benefits, and even give good increases to the energy type you are using. I have been using MK XI blue tactical consoles and higher myself though.

    The main thing to keep in mind is that for energy weapons, you will do more DPS if you keep them all the same energy type. Your projectiles can be whatever you want.

    I have been out of the game for a little bit because of health problems. However, if you will send me an in-game mail, I can send you a list of the universal consoles I usually use. My @handle is @razar2380.

    I will try to get in the game later today if I can. If you have mailed me, I can look up all of the universal consoles, and how I got them.

    Tim.
    Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
  • bendalekbendalek Member Posts: 1,781 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    Most important of all before spending any EC, Dil or Fleet Credits is to decide:

    What ship or ships you are going to fly - I use primarily (on my Fed Engi) A Tactical Odyssey "Beam Boat" and also a Fleet Avenger "Cannon/turret" boat.

    I swap between the two, depending on what I'm doing. i.e for "Infected or "Cure" that has a small number of very "hard" targets, the extra DPS of DHC's is better, so I'll run the Avenger.

    For Starbase Defense, Azure Nebula or Spire, I'll run the Oddy for the multiple small target damage ... But that's just me.

    You then need to decide what energy type you want to use - My Beam Oddy, runs Romulan Plasma and my Avenger runs Phased Polarons.

    Mixing type is not "usually" recommended, but you can get some good results from "hybrid" weapons - i.e. Romulan Plasma has bothe the Plasma DoT Proc and the Disruptor -10% all Damage Resistance Proc ... Phased Polaron has both the Polaron -25Power systems Proc and also the Phaser 1 Subsystem offline Proc ...


    Next you need to decide how, you are going to fly them - Again this is personal preference and play style - My Oddy is a typical "Broadsider" but my Avenger is setup as "Mobile Artillery" so rather than using speed to increase Defense and trying to "Alpha Strike" every enemy, I use my Engi abilities and skills to "Park and Melt" or "Facetank" enemies ...

    Once you've worked out those things, then you can look out how to gear up ...

    For instance I'm still using XI Blue Plasma Consoles on my Oddy, because currently I don't have enough Dil and FC for the Spire Consoles, but it still does great DPS.

    On my Avenger, I'm using 2 pieces of the XI JemH Space set (mission drop version only, not the Lobi upgrade) for the +Polaron Damage as well as XI and XII Blue Tac sonsoles, plus one of the Embassy Science Consoles, which also adds the Plasma Proc to all weapons.

    On one ship I use the Omega Rep 2 piece Borg Engine and Shield for speed and the "Heal Proc and on the other I use the Step Between the Stars 2 piece set for the "Heal" Proc

    I don't use any Fleet Weapons, and at the moment, don't really see any need for them ... Perhaps once I have several MILLION Dilithium and Fleet credits spare, I may upgrade to Fleet Weapons, but really, I'm doing as well as I need, with just the "free" stuff.
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  • ralphgraphiteralphgraphite Member Posts: 628 Arc User
    edited March 2014
    Thanks all for the advice, helps out!
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