This is an in-depth guide on how to obtain equipment and outfit your character in Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). I consolidated and updated many older guides (Armor Weight, AMEs, PvE/PvP Tiering, End-Game Naming, etc.) into this one. Each section covers a different aspect of outfitting your character, Make sure to click the tabs to view all information in each section. Please see this guide if you have any questions about acronyms or abbreviations.
Characters
To equip items on your character, you need to place them into your character sheet. Access the character sheet by pressing the “c” button on your keyboard or clicking the first icon on the Menu Bar at the top of your screen.
There are 14 slots on your character sheet for equipment: earpiece, 2 x implants, wrists, 2 x relics, weapon, offhand, feet, legs, waist, hands, chest, and head. The earpiece, implants, and relics are not visible on any character. On characters that use a two-handed weapon, the offhand is not visible. All armor pieces are only visible if the “Apply” button currently says “Active.”
You can view the Customize Appearance tab by clicking on the chest piece to the right of the feet slot. This will allow you to hide your head piece, Dark Side Corruption, and Unify all pieces to your chest piece color scheme.
You must periodically update your character’s stats by replacing equipment or replacing AMEs (see the AMEs tab under the Modifying Gear section) within each piece of equipment for your character to remain viable as you proceed through the game’s content.
There are no hard and fast rules about how often you must change your gear. It depends on item quality and the type of content you are trying. If you are having difficulty soloing content at your level, try upgrading your equipment or grouping with other players.
Terms
There are seven item quality tiers in the game.
Cheap (Gray)
Low quality items, i.e. junk, trash.
Standard (White)
Common items that give no boost to stats.
Premium (Green)
Uncommom items that give a small boost to stats. Green items are usually not customizable, except for the Galactic Command crate drops.
Prototype (Blue)
Items that give a greater boost to stats. Blue items are usually not customizable, except for the Galactic Command crate drops.
Artifact (Purple)
Powerful items that give an even greater boost to stats. Usually customizable (except some lower level belts and bracers). F2P characters require a license from the Cartel Market to wear most of these items below level 50.
Legendary (Gold)
Extremely rare items.
Cheap < Standard < Premium < Prototype < Artifact < Legendary.
Custom (Orange)
Customizable (moddable) items that give boosts to stats depending on the AMEs (see AMEs section) added to the items. A custom (orange) item’s level is equal to the quality of the AMEs you use to mod it, e.g. if you use prototype (blue) AMEs, the item stats will be the same as an equivalent blue quality item.
Modifying Gear
Orange and purple-moddable gear have two to four slots so you can mix and match stats on your gear. You can remove any of the AMEs in a slot, for a price (scales with the level of the AME) or you can place a new AME in the gear and destroy the previous AME. As with all gear, purple > blue > green.
NOTE: The images in this section may show stats (Aim, Cunning, Strength, and Willpower that were consolidated and replaced with Mastery in game Update 4.0)
Armoring
Available on head, chest, gloves, waist, legs, feet, wrists, and non-weapon offhands.
The armoring slot determines the armor rating for the piece of gear and carries the set bonus for end-game sets. For level 50+ armorings, once it has been placed in a piece of gear, it binds to that particular type of gear. For instance, if you place an armoring in a chest piece, when you remove it from the chest piece, you can only place it in other chest pieces.
Armoring stats consist of endurance or mastery. Armormech crafts Resistive (Endurance) armorings, Synthweaving crafts Versatile (Mastery) armorings. Armomechs and synthweavers can reverse engineer end-game armorings to learn schematics.
Mod
Available on head, chest, gloves, waist, legs, feet, wrists, weapon, and offhand.
Mod stats consist of a main stat (Endurance or Mastery), secondary stat (Mastery or Endurance), and a tertiary stat (Defense or Power). There are three versions of mods available with different stat weights, no letter, “A,”or “B.” Generally, no letter versions are preferable to lettered version.
Cybertech crafts mods. Cybertech can reverse engineer high-end mods and sell them on the GTN.
Enhancement
Available on head, chest, gloves, legs, feet, wrists, weapon, and offhand.
Enhancements stats consist of a secondary stat (Mastery or Endurance), tertiary stat (Defense or Power) and a quaternary stat (Absorption, Shield, Accuracy, Alacrity, or Critical).
Enhancements are crafted by cybertechs. High-end enhancements can be reverse engineered by cybertechs and are available on the GTN. Unlike mods, where the different stat weights are indicated by letters, enhancements carry different names. For instance, the Battle enhancements are generally preferable to Assault enhancements because they have more power and less endurance.
Barrel/Hilt
Available on weapons and weapon offhands.
Barrels and hilts consist of Endurance and Mastery. Armstech crafts barrels. Armstech can reverse engineer high-end barrels and sell them on the GTN. Artificers craft hilts. Artificers can reverse engineer high-end hilts and sell them on the GTN.
Color Crystal
Available on all weapons and offhands.
Artificers can craft color crystals, but all Cartel Market color crystals have the highest level (+41 stat) available for level 10 characters and above. Color crystal stats consist of Endurance (Indestructible), Critical (Eviscerating), Mastery (War Hero’s), or Power (Hawkeye).
Outfit Designer
Outfit Designer is a tool to allow you to switch between outfits without having to equip each item. These outfits will change your character’s appearance, but will not change the stats of the armor in the main tab of your Character Sheet. NOTE: You cannot use this to switch gear with different stats intended for different roles, place weapons in Outfit Designer, or use it for companions.
You can access Outfit Designer by clicking the tabs on the right side of your Character Sheet. Each of the 16 tabs is used to save one outfit.
Where to Find Gear
- Cartel Market
- Crew Skill
- Flashpoint
- Galactic Command
- Missions
- Operations
- PvP / GSF
- Vendor
- World Drop
The most abundant and visually dissimilar gear comes from the in-game store, the Cartel Market. You can purchase items by exchanging real world money for Cartel Coins and then purchasing items on the Market (please see the Cartel Market and Reputation Guide for a in-depth explanation of the Cartel Market).
All equipment items sold through the Cartel Market are moddable. A very small percentage contain item stats and are locked to a minimum character level, but the majority are orange with no stats and no minimum level.
Items sold on the Cartel Market are BoE/BoU (after a 36-48 hour BoP waiting period) and can be sold on the GTN. Nearly all items available on the Cartel Market can be found on the Galactic Trade Network (GTN). Prices will vary and can often be absolutely astronomical. It’s best to purchase something the weekend after it comes out on the Market when supply is at its highest.
End-Game Gear
Sets without bonuses are usually drops or can be purchased from a vendor with commendations. Sets with bonuses are token drops that can be traded to a vendor.
Set w/out Bonus | Set w/ Bonus | Level | Armor Rating | AME Name | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Xenotech | Tionese | 50 | 126 | 23 | No longer available |
Exotech | Columi | 50 | 136 | 24 | No longer available |
Rakata | 50 | 140 | 25 | No longer available | |
Black Hole | Campaign# | 50 | 146 | 26 | No longer available |
Hazmat | Dread Guard# | 50 | 150 | 27 | No longer available |
[Artifact] | 55 | 156 | 28 | No longer available | |
Black Market | Arkanian# | 55 | 162 | 30 | No longer available |
Verpine | Underworld# | 55 | 168 | 31 | No longer available |
Shadowed | Kell Dragon | 55 | 174 | 33 | No longer available |
Oriconian | Dread Forged# | 55 | 180 | 34 | No longer available |
Dread Touched | Dread Master | 55 | 186 | 36 | No longer available |
Yavin | 60 | 186 | 34 | No longer available | |
Citadel | 60 | 190 | 38 | No longer available | |
Massassi | Resurrected# | 60 | 192 | 37 | No longer available |
Deceiver | Revanite | 60 | 198 | 38 | No longer available |
Monolithic (main hand weapons only) | 60 | 204 | 39 | No longer available | |
Outlander MK-4 | 65 | 208 | 40 | No longer available | |
Defiant MK-4 | Defiant MK-1 | 65 | 216 | 42 | No longer available |
Exarch MK-4 | Exarch MK-1 | 65 | 220 | 43 | No longer available |
Ultimate Exarch | 65 | 224 | 44 | No longer available | |
Eternal Commander MK-3 | 70 | 234 | 46 | Galactic Command Crate - Tier 1 | |
Eternal Commander MK-13 | 70 | 236 | 48 | Galactic Command Crate - Tier 2 | |
Eternal Commander MK-15 | 70 | 236 | 48 | Galactic Command Crate - Tier 2 | |
Iokath MK-3 | 70 | 240 | 51 | Galactic Command Crate - Tier 3 | |
Iokath MK-5 | 70 | 242 | 49 | Galactic Command Crate - Tier 3 | |
Gemini MK-2 | 70 | 244 | 57 | Galactic Command Crate - Tier 4 | |
Gemini MK-3 | 70 | 246 | 54 | Galactic Command Crate - Tier 4 | |
Gemini MK-5 | 70 | 248 | 52 | Galactic Command Crate - Tier 4 |
- # – Armor items can be reverse engineered to learn an orange schematic without any AMEs (shell)
Recommendations
Here are some recommendations for gearing your character as you level to keep it viable for content without spending a fortune.
- Purchase a custom (orange) moddable set as soon as you can afford it. The Acolyte / Trainee set available from the Adaptive Gear Vendor in the Supplies section of Fleet is a good option because the items come with AMEs and you can get an offhand. You can also use Legacy items or purchase ones from the Cartel Market, but you will need to outfit them with AMEs. You can leave the earpiece, implants, and relics empty until level 56 or so. Remember: You can use the Outfit Designer to give your character a unique look while using other gear in the main tab for your stats.
- Purchase AMEs from the Fleet Modification vendors every 8-12 levels and upgrade your gear until level 56.
- At level 56, craft or check the GTN for relics.
- Switch out your gear to the Raider’s Cove and Sky Ridge sets as you level through Rishi and Yavin.
- Switch to the static Outlander sets provided during the KotFE missions.
End-Game Gearing
For subscribers at level 70, you start earning Galactic Command Crates from just about every activity in the game. You can purchase Command Boosts from the Cartel Market for Cartel Coins or from a vendor for Command Tokens to help you level faster.
PvP / GSF drop Unassembled Components that can be combined with Command Tokens to purchase Unassembled Gear Pieces. These can also be combined with Command Tokens to purchase end-game gear.
Operations drop Unassembled Gear Pieces that can be combined with Command Tokens to purchase end-game gear.
Since you can’t guarantee you will receive the Unassembled Gear Piece you want from doing ops, augmenting your activities with PvP / GSF will help you obtain the gear you want more quickly.
- If you received every Unassembled Gear Piece Tier 1-3 from Operations, you would have enough Command Tokens to purchase every available item from all three tiers at Command Rank 124.
- If you only used PvP / GSF to purchase Unassembled Gear Pieces, it would take 648 Command Crates to earn enough Command Tokens to purchase every piece of gear.