A complete guide to the Endgame gearing process in SWTOR Update 7.1, including a detailed breakdown of the new tiers of gear, and how and where to get them!

This article is intended for players that are familiar with 7.0 gearing. I will only cover new aspects of gearing from 7.1 and how they interact with existing gearing systems.

If you aren’t familiar with 7.0 gearing, please read the more beginner-friendly Gearing Guide for players at level 80 in SWTOR 7.0.

All level 80 players now have access to higher tiers of gear with different types of content offering different amounts of gear. In addition, mods are now available for purchase with credits.

Just like with 7.0, gearing will be split depending on the type of content you plan to do:

Legendary Implants can now be upgraded to 334. In addition, the SN-4RK droid vendor on the Fleet that sells you these implants will charge fewer Tech Fragments and Conquest Commendations once you’ve upgraded and equipped a pair of 330 and 334 implants.

The game tracks this through two achievements, one for 330 and one for 334. Once you have each achievement, legendary implant upgrade and purchase costs will be reduced accordingly:

The purpose of reducing the costs of upgrades is primarily to make it cheaper to procure implants for your alts.

To be most efficient with Tech Fragments and Conquest Commendations while getting access to implants on all of the toons you care about, you should purchase and upgrade implants in the following order:

If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably already completed steps 1 and maybe 2.

Veteran Mode R-4 Anomaly (VM R4) offers a dedicated gearing track for those progressing through the new operation. You can only obtain gear that has a higher iRating than 330 (besides legendary implants) through VM R4.

Each boss in VM R4 will drop the following:

A generic VM R4 token can be exchanged for a piece of 332 blue gear from a new vendor in the same alcove where other gear can currently be purchased. Since these tokens are generic, they can be used to purchase any piece of gear.

They can also be exchanged for upgrading a piece of 332 gear that you already own or a dyeable, moddable shell of the armor. This 332 blue gear can be upgraded all the way up to 340 blue.

Boss-specific tokens can be exchanged for 1 of 3 specific 340 purple pieces, effectively allowing you to completely bypass the upgrade system. For example, the first boss, IP-CPT, drops a token that can be exchanged for a 340 purple head, waist, or relic.

Since you’ll beat the first boss (many times) before you beat the final boss for the first time, you’ll get access to the pieces of gear you can purchase with those tokens before you beat the whole raid.

For example, the first boss, IP-CPT, drops a token that can be exchanged for a helmet, so most or all of your group will probably have 340 purple helmets long by the time anyone in your group has a 340 purple mainhand because that one requires a token from the last boss, Lady Dominique.

Therefore, you have a strong incentive to prioritize purchasing and upgrading pieces to 340 blue which will take the longest to obtain 340 purple.

It’s pointless to bother buying a 332 blue helmet, let alone upgrade it because you can easily get a 340 purple helmet from the first boss.

It’s most efficient to prioritize purchasing nearly a full set of 332 blue gear, except for the pieces that drop off the first boss (head, waist, relic), and then begin upgrading pieces to 340 blue starting with pieces that you’ll have for the longest period of time.

The order in which you should buy and upgrade blue 332 gear is the opposite of the order in which you get pieces of gear.

For example, you should start by purchasing the 332 boots, gloves, and mainhand because the 340 purple version can only be obtained from the last boss, so you will have the blue version for the longest time compared to other pieces of gear.

Once you have a full set of 332 blue gear or better, start back at the end and begin upgrading the pieces of gear you’ll have for the longest period of time (again, boots, gloves, and mainhand).

You can also exchange the generic VM R4 Tokens for moddable, dyeable shells. This is meant to offer further progression after you’ve finished gearing. From VM, there are 2 distinct armor sets each with 4 color variants.

Hazardous refers to the blue, white, and green color scheme while Virulent is red and black.

Each boss in SM R-4 Anomaly drops a generic R4 Gear Token: Story for each player. These tokens are bound to legacy and can be exchanged for the following:

These are the Delver and Excavator shells you can purchase. Just like before, Hazardous is used to describe blue, white, and green, while Virulent describes red and black.

Take a look at the full collection of guides to the R-4 Anomaly Operation in SWTOR. In this archive, you will find individual guides for each boss encounter in Story and Veteran Modes as well as a collective R-4 Anomaly Guide which will help you get through the instance and give you an idea of what to expect inside and the loot and rewards you can pick up from it.

328 and 330 mods are finally available! In order to gain access to them, you’ll need to speak with a pair of Rodian fugitives in the Supplies section of the Fleet in the outer alcove to the left of Kai Zykken.

Hyde will give you missions where you have to deconstruct specific items and in return, you’ll be able to purchase mods from Zeek. There are 4 missions that correspond to different rarities and iRatings:

In order to complete each mission, you only need to deconstruct 1 piece that is equivalent iRating and rarity, so you can use 4 330 artifact (purple) pieces to complete all 4 missions, though you can only do 1 mission at a time. You’ll need to do all 4 missions if you want to create a full set of gear. You will not have access to the missions unless you have 324 or greater average item rating.

Each mission only gives a portion of the overall mods that are available. Not all mods are available in purple rarity, but by combining 330 purple enhancements with 330 blue modifications and armorings / hilts / barrels, you will have a 330 piece that offers the exact same stats as a 330 Rakata piece. Yes, you read that right, a piece of gear that has partially 330 blue mods and partially 330 purple mods offers the same stats as a full 330 purple unmoddable Rakata piece.

The mods can be purchased for 100k or 200k credits depending on rarity, so this is probably the easiest way to gear up your legacy, though legendary implants are much harder to come by, so you’ll still likely need to transfer those around between your toons.

Here is the breakdown of all the mods you get access to from each mission, courtesy of BioWare:

Players with Thyrsian gear can now upgrade all of it to 328. Since stats for Warzones and Arenas are capped at 328, there is no need to get 330 mods or gear if PvP is your main activity. You can also purchase dyeable, moddable shells of the Thyrsian gear that cost credits and WZ-1 Accelerants.

All PvE gear from 7.0 (Decurion, Tionese, Columi) can now exist up to 330 rating. You can get up to 330 from boss drops, out of boxes, or manually upgrade it. This gear at the same iRating and rarity is no different from the Hazardous gear from R4 SM. The key benefit of R4 SM is that you start out with blue 328 instead of potentially green 320.

Many of you will be confronted with a choice between 330 blue gear from PvE and 328 purple from PvP. The bottom line is that the difference between the two is minimal and BioWare deliberately narrowed the gap between green and blue vs purple in 7.1.

330 blue gear offers more overall stat, but the stat distribution is slightly worse. 328 purple offers fewer stats overall, but the stat distribution is more optimal.

In PvP, you won’t be able to take advantage of the extra stat provided by 330 blue gear, so you’re better off using the 328 purple. In PvE, the extra stat amount helps to compensate for the worse distribution, so it’s fine to use 330 blue or 328 purple.

Remember that the difference between PvP and PvE gear is small. Neither set of gear is “wrong” for a given type of content. Skill and having the correct stat amounts will have a far greater impact on your numbers.

If you have been away from the game, you might want to catch up with everything you should know about SWTOR Update 7.1. I’ve got all the major new features and content released with this patch sorted and explained in one place.

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