Rank 300 – Gearing Status

I haven’t posted in a while but a momentous milestone deserves a post and some analysis!

I have hit Rank 300 on my Guardian.  I won’t go into details with the Galactic Command system.  The first iteration was exceptionally grindy, but over time, it has gotten better.  The current CXP event helped push me to the finish line.

Exciting moment but the crate sucked!

I felt like this would be a great time to determine how close I am to being best in slot  Each following picture will be of my current, best gear, almost exclusively acquired from Galactic Command crates.  The main exceptions are the 236 relic and one of my 236 set pieces.

The shell items aren’t always straight 236 or 242, since I moved around mods and enhancements.  In addition, I utilized the optimized prototype enhancements to bring my shells to at least 240 rating.  I will determine an effective item rating as the average of the various modifications in a shell.  The armorings are most important for the set bonus.  You will notice that I have all 7 set bonus armorings.  I could convert a 236 armoring into a prototype 240 rating.

Effective Item Ratings:

• Earpiece – 242
• Implant 1 – 236
• Implant 2 – 240
• Relic 1 – 242
• Relic 2 – 236
• Mainhand – 242 hilt, 242 mod, 240 enh = 241.3
• Offhand – 240 armoring, 240 mod, 242 enh = 240.7
• Helmet – 236 armoring, 240 mod, 240 enh = 238.7
• Chestguard – 236 armoring, 240 mod, 240 enh = 238.7
• Gloves – 236 armoring, 240 mod, 240 enh = 238.7
• Belt – 242 armoring, 240 mod = 242
• Bracers – 240 armoring, 240 mod = 240
• Pants – 242 armoring, 242 mod, 240 enh = 241.3
• Boots – 242 armoring, 242 mod, 242 enh = 242

The average of all 14 gear items will give the total effective item rating.

Total Effective Item Rating:  240

Compared to the horror stories I hear, I feel like I have had an above average experience with crate drops.  As stated, two of the items were from operations instead, but I felt like including them.  I haven’t upgraded any items with PvP unassembled components.  While Bioware did not promise gear targets based on certain number of command ranks, my experience seems to indicate that roughly 100 ranks were needed to get close to the gear level for the current rank.

I should stress AGAIN that I believe that I have had a much better experience with the crate RNG!  The drops for the most part are not satisfying.  The duplicates hurt even more along with the useless relic drops.

I did not record every single gear drop I had, but I did keep majority of the unique shells and almost all legendary shells.  The duplicate 230s and 234s were eventually disintegrated immediately.  I just want to clarify that the number of shells seen in my cargo hold below are not indicative of the actual number of drops that I have had!

Who needs so many pants?

Item Ratings Legend:

• Magenta – 230 rating
• Green – 234 rating
• Yellow – 236 rating
• Purple – 240 rating
• Red – 242 rating

The main reason I am showing the shells is to indicate how rough duplicate items are.  As one approaches needing just 1 or 2 pieces, it is much harder to fill in that missing slot through the crates.  I definitely recommend saving up your unassembled components for that missing piece.  First, grab the T2 legacy drop from a VM operation (majority are do-able with an average progression group).  Second, upgrade that T2 legacy to a T3 legacy using the unassembled components.

Of course, with the recent news regarding T4 gear and other changes coming with Update 5.2 (see the devtracker for details), I would hold off on upgrading gear pieces unless you are near the max for unassembled components.  Be smart, wait!

To summarize, my journey from Rank 1 to 300 has landed me close to a 240 item rating.  I believe I have had more luck than most people.  With upcoming changes to crate loot and the addition of a new tier, I am hoping that others will be able to gear up more easily!

Thanks for reading!