Sith Marauder Gear Guide

[Azmodiants]

Hey all,

 

Just created an account a few days ago and been playing a Sith Marauder. Loving it so far and I have reached level 32. My question is, is there a gear guide available that I can look at to see what gear as well as enhancements, etc. I need to be aiming for while leveling up? And where is that gear located?

[SevusAmast]

Not really.

 

The most common answer you'll get is that during the levelling phase, gear doesn't really matter. The game is designed so you can use the gear drops you get from the story (purple) quests and be perfectly fine, so there isn't any tangible benefit to min-maxing your gear.

 

If you still want to min-max, however...new mods become available every 4 levels after 10 - so 10, 14, 18, and so on. You can get away with only updating every 8 levels (18, 26, 34...). As a DPS class, you always want to use Versatile Armorings/Hilts and Lethal Mods. Choose the unlettered mod - so Lethal Mod 11, instead of Lethal Mod 11A - unlettered mods have more total Mastery and Power than the lettered equivalents. If you can't get unlettered mods, A mods are acceptable, but switch to unlettered as soon as you can.

 

The enhancements most useful for you are Adept, Initiative, and Quick Savant. Initiative enhancements grant Accuracy, which is mostly an endgame concern, but if you want to do lots of flashpoints can be useful - Elite enemies have a 5% defense chance, and Champion enemies (like Flashpoint bosses) have a 10% defense chance, so Accuracy will offset that...and make your off-hand attacks a little more likely to hit normal opponents too. Quick Savant is mostly for Carnage, it grants alacrity, which makes your animations and cooldowns faster. Adept is the most useful for levelling, and grants critical rating, which makes you both more likely to score a critical hit and makes your criticals hit harder. I usually just stick with all Adept Enhancements while levelling, but again, you can swap in some Initiative Enhancements if you want to run Flashpoints.

 

Don't bother with augments. They're a massive credit-sink that are really meant for endgame.

 

EDIT: I just realized I never answered on where you could find this stuff. Item modifications can be bought from vendors near the hub of each planet, or on the Imperial Fleet. Each modification costs 2 Common Data Crystals. You can also craft your own modifications - Synthweaving makes Versatile Armorings, Artifice makes Hilts, and Cybertech makes Mods and Enhancements. If you don't have modifiable gear, pretty much all gear from the Cartel Market is modifiable, and you can also purchase a set of modifiable gear using Common Data Crystals from a vendor on the fleet, each item costs 6...except I think belt and bracers, which cost 4.

Edited January 11, 2016 by SevusAmast

[Azmodiants]

Thanks for your response. Do you suggest I pick up synthweaving? I was thinking of getting the medical stuff just to keep my self stocked on the self-heals. And does Power and Accuracy take priority for SMs?

[SevusAmast]

If you're going to craft, Biochem is a good profession - you can make stims that persist through death, and the artifact stims last for 8 hours, plenty of time to reach the next tier.

 

So a bit of how stats work.

 

Mastery and Endurance are primary statistics. Every Armoring and Mod has them, and Enhancements have some measure of Endurance as well.

 

Power is a secondary statistic. The other is Defense Rating, which isn't relevant to you as a DPS class. Every Mod and Enhancement you will use has some level of Power.

 

Accuracy, Alacrity, and Critical Rating are tertiary statistics. Since these are only found on Enhancements, Augments, and non-modifiable gear, you'll naturally have less of it, but this is also where the choice in gearing comes from.

 

Of the three, Critical Rating is the most powerful, due to the way critical hits work. Every Marauder discipline has a way to automatically generate critical hits, and if your critical hit chance is over 100%, the excess becomes extra damage. As a better way to demonstrate this, say you have a critical chance of 25%, and a critical severity of 55%. This means you have a 25% chance of striking a critical hit that deals 55% more damage. Well, if you have an attack that automatically critically hits, such as Force Scream with the Execute buff, it adds 100 to the critical chance for that attack. So now you have 125% chance to crit. That extra 25% that would otherwise be wasted is instead added to your severity. 25% of 55 is 13.75, so your automatic crit does 68.75% extra damage.

 

Accuracy is only important if you're planning on doing group PvE content. In regular overworld fights, the miss chance is pretty much negligible - you'll never miss against weak, standard, or strong enemies, and only miss 5% of the time against elite enemies or 10% of the time against champions. But in Flashpoints or Operations where every bit of damage counts, that miss chance becomes really important to overcome, so you'll have to prioritize Accuracy until you reach 110% accuracy.

 

Alacrity can be good, but only if you're fast enough to take advantage of the ability to push your buttons faster. Most people (including me) aren't.

[teclado]

Check out this thread to get an idea of how to allocate your stats once you get to endgame. It's super detailed, and a very good set of guidelines.