By Geldarion
Briefing
Welcome to the war, comrades. You have been selected to receive the latest training and tactics fresh from the warfront. The tried-and-true strategies you are about to hear are extremely effective and CLASSIFIED. Let’s get to the briefing. Today we are continuing the discussion we started last week about gearing up for battle.
More after the Jump…
LAST UPDATED: Patch 1.6
Last week, we talked about getting into the swing of the PvP gear progression. This week we will expand that discussion with more details on how to obtain the best gear possible. Let’s talk about War Hero and Elite War Hero gear.
War Hero – The Competitive Process
This picture actually has nothing to do with this article,
but it is just too awesome to NOT use…
…oh wait! Finally having War Hero gear is awesome!
A stretch? Maybe…
As you gain your Warzone Commendations from regular Warzones, purchase your Mainhand first for 1550 Warzone Comms, if you haven’t already purchased the Elite War Hero Mainhand. Next, save up for your Boots (875), Gloves (875), Legs (975), Head (1075), and Chest (1425). Purchase them in that order, as it will provide the largest up-front benefit of Expertise. Start to introduce your Offhand (1550), Bracers (550), and Belt (625). You can optionally wait to purchase your Relic(s), Implants and Earpiece until Elite War Hero, since you do not have to trade in War Hero pieces in for Elite War Hero versions of these. If you do buy War Hero versions of them, then it will be 550 for each Relic, 625 for each Implant and the Earpiece. Or trade the 2975 Warzone Comms in for 990 Ranked Warzone Comms. If you wait for 260 more Ranked Comms and 200 more Warzone Comms, you can buy a really fancy Elite War Hero relic.
Elite War Hero – The Veteran’s Grind
You can obtain Ranked Warzone Comms three ways now that Ranked Warzones are here. The primary way is to fight in Ranked Warzones, where the usual amount of Comms is awarded, except that they are Ranked Comms instead of regular Comms. This is much faster than the pre-1.3 primary way to obtain them, which was by trading in regular Warzone Comms in a 3:1 ratio for Ranked Comms. You have to be Valor rank 40 to do this, but it is a dependable way to go about it. The final way to earn Ranked Comms is by completing the Daily and Weekly PvP quests.
When you have accumulated a few Ranked Comms, you will want to start by purchasing your Mainhand. After that, it depends on if you waited to get your Implants, Relic(s), and Earpiece. Upgrade them now if you don’t have War Hero; otherwise, you’ll want to start replacing the War Hero items in the order that I mentioned above for buying the Elite War Hero items.
A quick note on Elite War Hero versus War Hero: the Expertise does not increase. The secondary stats do change, however, so the switch of a particular piece from War Hero to Elite War Hero might not actually be a good change, depending on how you want to build your character. Keep that in mind.
Conqueror – Always In Motion Is The Future
“What? We don’t have a Conqueror set! Are you going crazy?”
Nope, I am thinking ahead. Like I mentioned last week, there is a distinct progression with the names, so we can probably safely assume that the Tier 4 PvP set will be called Conqueror. Elite War Hero is just the side trip on the way. That aside, here are some things we can do to anticipate the change to that gear set.
The first thing, and this is important: do not sell your Elite War Hero shells if you move your mods out into new shells. You will probably need them to trade up to Conqueror items. I actually predicted a very similar situation with War Hero, which ended up being completely correct. Now, with the removal of Battlemaster gear, the War Hero pieces are used to upgrade to Elite War Hero.
The second thing, related to the first thing, is watch how you Augment your items (see below).
The third thing you can do if you have already collected all of your Elite War Hero gear is to stay near the cap on all of your currencies. Keep under the cap by buying Warzone medpacs, adrenals, crystal recipes (if you are an Artificer), PvP crafting boxes for materials, etc. Things I would stay away from if you are not interested in fluff: the speeder, the pets, the credit boxes, and the Lockboxes. The former two are fun, so go for them if you want to, but the latter two are a waste of Commendations.
Augments: How and Where to Use Them
When Augmenting your armor and Mainhand (and Offhand if you are a dual-wielder), always remove the mods and put them in a new shell before Augmenting the same new shell. If you Augment the original piece, then you will be sad when it is time to trade in your shell for the next tier up, because your Augment slot will be attached to the shell permanently.
If you are really interested in your PvP set’s look, then find a friendly Armormech or Synthweaver that is willing to make the orange Custom pieces for you (or do it yourself). You will need to go to the vendor for that armor set and pay 50,000 credits for a box of all the recipes.
For general information on Augmenting items, look at Ghoztt’s article here.
For PvP, Tanks, balance your primary stat and the Absorb and Shield Rating Augments. DPS, go for Power Augments, because it is likely that with PvP gear you will get near the soft caps on crit and Surge and the extra points won’t help much. Healers, get Power and your primary stat.
Lightsaber Crystals: Give Me The Glowie!
This little guy is fascinated by his new +41 Expertise crystal!
Source: Penny Arcade Forums
(P.S. his parents are raising him right!)
One last thing to consider is the crystal that goes in your Mainhand (and Offhand if you are a dual-wielder). There are several sources of +41 Expertise crystals. The source for some of this information was Dulfy over on MMOMechanics.
Basic Colors
One of the current ways to obtain +41 Expertise crystals is from War Hero weapons. The green, red, and orange crystals come stock in Jedi, Sith, and Smuggler/Agent/Trooper/Bounty Hunter weapons, respectively. You can also obtain the red and green crystals straight from the PvP vendor that stands next to the PvP mission terminal for 500 Warzone Commendations each.
Cyan (light blue) crystal schematics are confirmed to drop from the Grade 6 PvP Crafting boxes. Blue, yellow, and purple schematics are rumored to drop from said boxes as well, but it is not confirmed.
Magenta Expertise crystals have not been encountered in-game as of yet.
Black-Core Colors
There are also black-cored red and blue crystals available from the PvP vendor that stands next to the mission terminal, but these will set you back 1950 Warzone Commendations and 150,000 credits.
The black-cored orange crystal can be purchased at the PvP vendor for 200,000 credits, 1500 Ranked Warzone Commendations, and a highest rating of 1500.
The black-cored purple crystal can be purchased at the PvP vendor for 250,000 credits, 3000 Ranked Warzone Commendations, and a highest rating of 2000.
If you pre-ordered SWTOR, then you can visit the pre-order vendor and purchase black-cored yellow crystals for 250,000 credits.
If you bought any SWTOR Razer products, then you can visit the Coruscant/Dromund Kaas mods vendor to purchase the black-cored light green crystal for 250,000 credits.
Click to enlarge
Source: www.dulfy.net
Dual-Color Crystals
There are now several new dual-color crystals that are available in the Cartel Packs in +41 Expertise. These are difficult to obtain predictably, as it is up to random chance, but check the GTN to see what is available, as people will often sell them.
Currently Unavailable Colors
UPDATE: The White crystal is now in the Cartel Market, available from the Packs.
One source that is no longer with us is the Geologist that was on the Imperial and Republic Fleets between the patches 1.1.5 and 1.2. He was the sole source of the white crystal. It is reputed that the white crystal will be coming back at some point, but it won’t be as easy as dropping 2.5 million credits at a vendor. Other crystals in lots of colors were also sold there, but alas! The vendor is no longer there.
Another source that is no longer available (and likely won’t be) is the Rakghoul Epidemic event that happened in April 2012. This event had another black-cored green crystal (darker than the Razer version) that came in all varieties of stats, including Expertise. I obtained a pair of these with +41 Expertise for my Sentinel, and I love them dearly, as green is my favorite color.
That is about all I have on PvP gearing up! Let me know in the comments if I missed anything, or if you have any alternate ideas for gear progression.
Use this information well, soldier. Fight for victory and die with honor. Till our next briefing, DISMISSED!
dang I wish I had this sooner
I bought gear in such a random “this is what I have enough commendations for” kind of way.. lol I suppose there were other guides out there already but this one really broke it down nicely! 
Lol that is ok, they are just suggestions. I learned a lot of these things as I went, so I made a few mistakes too lol. I myself didn’t think about the whole “not augmenting the original war hero pieces” thing until I had already augmented my main-hand blaster. I tell myself that it is because I really like the look (which I do).