When to augment your gear.

[MedianSkycrusher]

What level is best to augment your gear.I have heard it is best to wait until level 70.Is this wise.

[Soljin]

Well it depends...

 

If you rank up your companion you wont need to run augments until max level (70).

 

It's really up to you... If you are taking your time leveling and want to max your potential then augment your gear early on...

Edited April 16, 2017 by Soljin

[Laiov]

Augmenting can be expensive, considering the cost of the augmentation kit, the cost of the augment itself, and the assembly cost at the modification terminal, multiplied by 14 gear slots. Given the various exp boost items and promotions that are active at any given time, leveling is now so rapid that players will soon outlevel any set of lower level augments. So waiting until 70 is the way to go.

 

At lower levels, you might consider augmenting just two or three pieces of gear, in order to gain specific stats that you feel you are missing in your gameplay. A little more HP to hang in fights longer. Slightly more alacrity, to speed up the attack animations. Patching holes in the leveling gear.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Laiov

[xordevoreaux]

I wait until I'm in my 230-rated MK-3 set pieces

[SithKoriandr]

Use Legacy Gear and you're good to go

[---AlterEgo---]

The way I've always done it was using whatever dropped for me all the way to level cap. Since the DvL event any new character I level up uses that XP gear from lvl 1 to lvl max lvl. I don't even bother putting any enhancements or mods into the gear.

 

Once I'm max level I use Legacy gear so that way any upgrade can easily be shared between similar classes (shadow/sin, jugg/guardian, etc).

[MaximusRex]

Only if you are doing Veteran or harder content. Story level content bolsters make it pointless.

[stoopicus]

There is no reason to augment at all, at any level, for story or veteran mode PvE.

 

I can't speak for Ops but I assume you will always want max stats for Ops of any kind, or for master mode PvE.

 

You will ALWAYS want to augment for PvP, at any level. Stats matter and the augs bolster.

[Mightytology]

Depends what type of content ur currently doing

[Celise]

i've already upgraded to 228 gear with 228 augments on 4 of my characters. getting the upgrades from the gtn costs a little over a million credits per character. the augmentation will take another million.

 

the reason i have done so is that i want to be as prepared as possible when i do get set pieces that i already got everything i need in place. one of my characters got a 230 set piece from that RNG monstrosity yesterday at rank 13. but i would rather get back into operations and work at it from there...

[mmmbuddah]

There is no reason to augment at all, at any level, for story or veteran mode PvE.

 

I can't speak for Ops but I assume you will always want max stats for Ops of any kind, or for master mode PvE.

 

You will ALWAYS want to augment for PvP, at any level. Stats matter and the augs bolster.

 

People who dont augment for flashpoint HM are annoying AF, do hardly any damage, heal really bad, or cant tank worth anything. Played with a pug full of them the other day I wanted to bang my head against the wall because my pure tank was doing more damage than them on mandalorian raiders and the boss would jump to the next set of turrets before they had the first turret in the first group dead!

 

Always, ALWAYS augment your gear at 70. If you have tons of credits you could do it before hand too, I do, but the second you hit 70 it should be priority number one. You will be an asset to any group you get in any form of content you do.

[Exocor]

One of my guildmates made 5-6 different augmented Gearsets for some level-gaps with Legacy-Gear, so he can use it, whenever he wants to level a new toon. Problems came up with the launch of 4.0, when augments didn't fit to armorings, mods and enhancements (in terms of level requirements) anymore. Edited April 16, 2017 by Exocor

[Tsillah]

Use Legacy Gear and you're good to go

 

This is mostly true. Of course for trinkets (relics, implants and the earpiece) this is not an option.

 

But yeah only use legacy gear because you will be able to upgrade mods in them without having to re-augment the gear and for trinkets get a baseline level 70 gear and augment it with each upgrade. The best advice for trinkets though is to see if you have a guild crafter or get higher levels chematics yourself.

 

Currently in 5.2 you can craft 240 trinkets. This is useful because if you pick them and augment them, you only have to upgrade them once (when you get 242 gear). In 5.2 on Tuesday we get higher rating gear again so my advice then is to see if you can get your hands on the newest high level crafting gear and do the same thing again.

 

The higher the rating on the craftable trinkets, the less times you have to upgrade them basically.

[americanaussie]

This is mostly true. Of course for trinkets (relics, implants and the earpiece) this is not an option.

 

But yeah only use legacy gear because you will be able to upgrade mods in them without having to re-augment the gear and for trinkets get a baseline level 70 gear and augment it with each upgrade. The best advice for trinkets though is to see if you have a guild crafter or get higher levels chematics yourself.

 

Currently in 5.2 you can craft 240 trinkets. This is useful because if you pick them and augment them, you only have to upgrade them once (when you get 242 gear). In 5.2 on Tuesday we get higher rating gear again so my advice then is to see if you can get your hands on the newest high level crafting gear and do the same thing again.

 

The higher the rating on the craftable trinkets, the less times you have to upgrade them basically.

 

Thanks for the tips!

[Celise]

something i forgot to add earlier is that bolster only covers some of the balancing for any content where it is active, it won't cover additional power, accuracy, crit or alacrity. so by having those augments in place anyway, you are doing a bit more than you would of without.

[Macarrin]

Use Legacy Gear and you're good to go

 

Just to go off topic a bit, I hope that people who use one set of gear for several characters are very, very careful. I've been in several ops now and heard people say "Oh ****! My armor is on my [insert alt class here]!"

 

Something I've suggested to them, after the laughter dies down, is to use the Appearance Editor to help them keep track. That toon doesn't have the armor? Set the appearance to Show Gear, so they see a naked toon and hopefully realize there's a problem.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Macarrin

[Tsillah]

Just to go off topic a bit, I hope that people who use one set of gear for several characters are very, very careful. I've been in several ops now and heard people say "Oh ****! My armor is on my [insert alt class here]!"

 

Something I've suggested to them, after the laughter dies down, is to use the Appearance Editor to help them keep track. That toon doesn't have the armor? Set the appearance to Show Gear, so they see a naked toon and hopefully realize there's a problem.

 

Which is why I prefer getting a set of gear on each character. That was possible in 4.0 but not in 5.0. Now with 5.2 we can gear alts again more easily but they just screwed over progression gearing which will still be a problem for raiders.

[CaptJames]

Augmenting should always be left till level 70. I don't even know why the rest are in the game. Mk-1 to 5 for example. Waste of credits. And you don't need them <<70 content as you get bolstered in everything....planet level sync, warzones, flashpoints, etc.

 

So don't waste your time augmenting till 70...and make a few legacy gear sets....share guardian/juggernaut tanks set for example.

[josephxp]

I just augment all my gear at the start of a new character with MK-10's, and save the augments till that toon hits level 70 to equip and continue gearing, ik what pieces gear set up is, like for dps gear the head piece enhancement is alacrity, gloves and boots are accuracy stat enhancement, offhand is alacrity, and the other mods are all critical based stat enhancement. Knowing this and what tank gear provides for stats and healing gear, you can properly augment yourself knowing what stats you will have with 230 base gear to be efficient.

[Tsillah]

Augmenting should always be left till level 70. I don't even know why the rest are in the game. Mk-1 to 5 for example. Waste of credits. And you don't need them <<70 content as you get bolstered in everything....planet level sync, warzones, flashpoints, etc.

 

So don't waste your time augmenting till 70...and make a few legacy gear sets....share guardian/juggernaut tanks set for example.

 

The only reason the lower ones exist is because bolster is something more recent and before that it actually added something to your stats particularly in lower level pvp. They simply never took the lower level ones out.