Fresh LV 50 Guide for Wildstar - Gearing Ap (PvE)

I'm seeing that lots of people seem to not know what possible paths one can take in order to gear when hitting lv 50. Fret not, I'm here to help you out.

All content that I speak of is in veteran mode. So this means no normal, but veteran expeditions, adventures and dungeons. Normal will reward you with very low item level gear and this is not what we're aiming for fun.

I've broken this guide down in a way I thought was most logical, but might not be so for others. I've started with letting you, the player, choose your role first before farming your "main" gear (your primary role, so to speak). After this, there is no "real" chronological way of obtaining gear. It all depends on your item level and your wallet (platinum/gold). If you have many plats to spare, go ahead and take a look at chapter 7 for BoE gear you can buy to boost your item level if you wish. If not, you can follow this order to get gear:

World Bosses // contracts (either do world boss contracts even before expeditions, since you'll be tagging along a big raid! recommended to get ilvl 60 first though)

NEW! With arcterra you can skip all of the above except world bosses by purchasing item level 85 gear from the vendor. Item level 60 is recommended to run Artcerra dailies, though.

Run Genetic Archives (on ilvl 80-90, you're ready for GA!)

Run Datascape (on ilvl 96-100 you're ready for DS!)

Read on below for details on how and where to obtain your gear. As a last point I've made a tiny section on runing. But most important of all, have fun in Nexus!

Index

1 - Class / Role

2 - Contracts

3 - World Bosses

4 - Expeditions

5 - Adventures

6 - Dungeons

7 - Arcterra

8 - BoE Gear

9 - X-89 and Genetic Archives

10 - System Daemons, probes and Datascape

11 - Runing

1 - Class / Role

It's best to start out by knowing what role you want to take on in your current class: assault or support. This means you'll have to choose to become either damage dealer (all classes), tank (engineer, stalker, warrior) or healer (esper, medic, spellslinger). It's also important to know what your most important stats are in this class / role combo. I'd suggest reading guides (<- click here) to know your stat priority. Here I have listed two of the most important stat caps to keep in mind (these stats are all unbuffed):

Defensive (for all tanks)

Critical Mitigation

Veteran Dungeons: ~48%

Genetic Archives: ~60%

DS bosses pre elemental pairs: ~79%

Avatus: ~82% - ~83%

Offensive (for all tanks and dps)

Strikethrough

Veteran Dungeons: ~8%

Genetic Archives: ~13%

Datascape: ~17%

Important note: don't go looking actively for these stats. If you get proper gear for your class and role, you can rune in the "missing" stats. Most class/role guides have a dedicated runing guide for that class/role, but I've added a basic runing guide below in "10 - Runing".

I'm sorry if this seems backwards, but this guide is primarily about obtaining your gear, not runing it.

2 - Contracts

Doing contracts is good for about everything: make some gold and get some gear and runes. Go to the contract board in Illium and there you can see several contracts. There's one level I contract, three level II contracts and one level III contract. I have listed this point first because there is a possibility that there are contracts for expeditions or world bosses, so go pick them up!

The level I contract is "repeatable", which means that you can keep doing level I contracts until you drop; it isn't the same one every time, it switches from killing 30 marauders, constructs, ... to interrupting 10 telegraphs and so on. This rewards you with a small amount of gold, glory, a promissory note for reputation and 50 contract points.

The level II contracts can be done once a day and reward you with a small amount of gold, glory, a superb minor set focus, 2 promissory notes and 150 contract points.

The level III contracts can be done once a day and reward you with a small amount of gold, a decent amount of glory, a superb major set focus, 3 promissory notes and 450 contract points.

All these contract points fill up a meter that will reward you on each tier. Here's where you can get your gear! The following rewards are given:

Tier 1 and 2: item level 68 gear piece (can pick between assault or support) + superb runecrafting bag

Tier 3 and 4: item level 80 gear piece (can pick between assault or support) + superb runecrafting bag

Tier 5: can pick between magnificent assault casque, magnificent support casque and protostar contractually-obligated settlement

The protostar contractually-obligated settlement contains a rare reward including mounts, pets and costumes. The casques contain a randomized item level 100 item for your class. If you pick an assault casque, it will be an assault item; if you pick the support casque, a support item.

Keep in mind that it can be a gear piece for any slot! I've personally picked an assault casque on my Medic and received a weapon attachment (yay, I had an ilvl 60 one!), but it could have been a helm (I already had an ilvl 90 one from world bosses!). So you can either get a big, lucky upgrade or a small upgrade. It's a completely personal choice what to pick at the last tier since I know people who prefer the settlement and I know people who go for the gear.

3 - World Bosses

When there is a contract to kill world bosses, they're being killed consecutively almost all day long. It can be recommendable to skip to "3 - Expeditions" first, but if your gear isn't too bad (around 50-55), you should have no problem joining a World Boss raid and help kill the boss (or get a few expedition pieces before doing the bosses). You have a chance on winning an item level 90 gear piece for your class, but the role it's for is random (could get either assault or support). So you can either be lucky, or "unlucky" and get 3 support items for a class you wanted to play as assault. Here is a list of World Bosses and their locations to help you on your way (click on the region for the exact location):

Metal Maw - Deradune

Dreamspore (formerly Stemdragon) - Ellevar

Kraggar - Algoroc

Grendelus the Guardian - Celestion

King Honeygrave - Auroria

King Plush - Galeras (no Jabbithole entry yet, check this video on how to get there: click)

Metal Maw Prime - Whitevale

Mechathorn (formerly Defensive Protocol Unit) - Farside

Zoetic - Wilderrun

Gargantua - The Defile

Scorchwing - Blighthaven

How to get to bosses in opposing faction areas:

Dominion

Here you'll find the 3 teleporters, leading to Galeras, Celestion and Algoroc (King Plush, Grendelus & Kraggar respectively)

Take the portal to Wilderrun in Thayd and right across where you land are the portals.

If the boss is not alive you will need to summon it by donating 75 particles in total to the Data Cache in the area of the boss spawn point. You can get these particles by killing 5+ group mobs and from completing the world boss contract.

What you always get from killing these bosses is 450 contract points once for the contract (if the contract is up) and a decent amount of glory for killing the world boss (I believe it's 125 - need confirmation). With this glory you can buy the dungeon entry gear of item level 78 from the glory vendor (see 6 - Dungeons).

4 - Expeditions

Run Expeditions as soon as you hit level 50 (preferably with others for bonus Renown!) to earn renown. I suggest running Infestation or Outpost M-13 as these two are the fastest.

Running these Expeditions will frequently reward you with random item level 52 gear, a useful Gadget and renown. With this renown you'll want to buy item level 60 gear sold by "Dealer Boren" near the Contract board. You can buy the following gear pieces:

Weapon - 4000 renown

Legs - 3500 renown

Chest - 3500 renown

Shoulder - 3000 renown

Head - 3000 renown

Feet - 2500 renown

Hands - 2500 renown

Support System - 3000 renown

Weapon Attachment - 3000 renown

Energy Shield - 2500 renown

Implant - 2500 renown

Bonus: getting gold on all Expeditions allows you to buy 1 AMP upgrade for 1500 renown.

5 - Adventures

If you run world bosses for contracts together with the expeditions for gear, you normally don't need to run adventures as you should have at least 70 item level, combined with a world boss item, a contract board item and starter dungeon gear that you can buy for glory (see "6 - Dungeons"). However if you don't manage to get about 70 item level like this, you can still run an adventure or two to get you there.

I recommend running War of the Wilds since it's a really fast adventure and it drops a variety of heavy, medium and light armor for both assault and support. The item level that drops from these adventures is 68-70.

I don't recommend buying the adventure renown gear, since you need lots of renown and a bronze medal on all veteran adventures. You can easily run adventures for gear with item level 60 renown gear (see 2 - Expeditions). The only really recommendable item can be the gadget if you didn't get a similar one from expeditions yet. If you have plenty of renown to spare, got all bronze medals and if you really want to buy it, you can buy the item level 68 gear from "Supplier Horato". He sells the following items:

Head - 12500 renown

Chest - 15000 renown

Feet - 10000 renown

Weapon Attachment - 12500 renown

Implant - 10000 renown

Gadget - 12500 renown

6 - Dungeons

Running dungeons rewards you with item level 80 gear. I recommend first running Stormtalon Lair (STL) and Ruins of Kel Voreth (KV) since these are relatively fast and easy (if you have a group that knows what to do). If you're comfortable running dungeons you can go for Skullcano (SC) and Sanctuary of the Swordmaiden (SSM). Don't forget to pick up your Genesis Key so you can start earning bronze medals in the previously mentioned dungeons to get attuned to the Genetic Archives!

Some of the best gear drops in the Ultimate Protogames and Protogames Academy, which are the hardest dungeons of them all. I'd recommend getting a bit experienced with the easier dungeons first before trying these.

Important: If you don't know the tactics of certain bosses or if you are unsure what skills to take (interrupts, cc breaks), ask! Don't be afraid to ask!

The dungeon gear vendor is "Supplier Exina", who provides you with item level 78 gear of both excellent (veteran dungeon gear) and superb (advanced veteran dungeon) quality items. Personally I wouldn't bother with the superb items since the item level is the same and the stats aren't that much better, plus you must first complete STL, KV, SC and SSM before you can even buy this (by that time you probably don't even need it anymore).

You can earn glory to buy the excellent quality gear by killing world bosses and completing contracts (see 3 - World Bosses and see 2 - Contracts). Here's the "entry set" or veteran dungeon gear that she sells (the excellent quality):

Head - 300 glory

Chest - 300 glory

Feet - 250 glory

Weapon Attachment - 300 glory

Implant - 250 glory

7 - Arcterra

You should automatically receive a quest to go to Arcterra, or you can pick it up from the quest board. Arcterra is a zone where you can perform dailies, kill bosses and mobs for a currency called "Pure Soulfrost". With this currency you can buy a full set of item level 85 gear for both assault and support specs.

You can buy this gear from "Importer Typeica" who is located not far from the portal to Illium (almost right across):

Chest - 300 Pure Soulfrost

Legs - 300 Pure Soulfrost

Head - 275 Pure Soulfrost

Shoulder - 275 Pure Soulfrost

Feet - 250 Pure Soulfrost

Hands - 250 Pure Soulfrost

Weapon - 325 Pure Soulfrost

Energy Shield - 250 Pure Soulfrost

Weapon Attachment - 250 Pure Soulfrost

Support System - 250 Pure Soulfrost

Implant - 250 Pure Soulfrost

Gadget - 300 Pure Soulfrost

8 - BoE Gear

Some Trade Skills can craft Bind on Equip (BoE) items for you to use.

Weaponsmiths can craft Legendary quality (orange) weapons for all classes and roles. These can be taken into GA to be imbued further for higher item level and more/better stats. Tailors, outfitters and armorers can also craft items like this, but armor (light, medium and heavy respectively) of item level 76 and legendary quality. The name of the item always starts with "Master's ". 

Another option for BoE gear is buying BoE items from Genetic Archives or Datascape from the Auctioneer. There aren't BoE items for every class/role combination. The GA weapons don't seem to drop as frequently, but I will list the 116 ilvl DS weapons here since these will be the most useful to buy if any:

Stalker Assault - Crystalline Multiphasic Slicers

Medic Assault - Invasic Bionimetic Zapinator

Engineer Assault - Phage-Clogged Howitzer

Spellslinger Assault - Precision Heavy-Bore Painmaker

Esper Support - Sympathetic Espernetic Neuroblade

Warrior Support - Stellar Binarymesh Gravblade

Important note: be aware that these items are more than likely very pricey. You will require a craftsman who has the specific recipe you need in addition to the materials needed and/or lots of gold/plats. For the GA/DS items there is lots of plats required!

9 - X-89 and Genetic Archives

Once you've acquired a bit of proper gear, runed everything and you're attuned to Genetic Archives, you can try to find a GA group to at least kill the first boss, X-89 (this unlocks the GA vendor gear).

Besides the chance of getting some gear from GA itself, you can buy legendary quality item level 96 gear from "Supplier Dakara" for glory. It's recommended to buy these if you can and rune them for smoother GA runs. Here's what she sells:

Head - 1150 glory

Chest - 1300 glory

Feet - 1000 glory

Weapon Attachment - 1150 glory

Implant - 1000 glory

From Genetic Archives you can either get item level 96 or 100 gear together with "imprints" that you can exchange for item level 100 items. You can exchange these imprints with "Merchant Zaraak" for item level 100 gear.

10 - System Daemons, probes and Datascape

When you're a seasoned GA raider and acquired some gear there, you can try finding a group for Datascape. The miniboss probes and the daemons drop item level 116 and 120 gear and System Daemons can drop imprints that you can trade with "Merchant Zaraak" for item level 120 gear.

If you have defeated the System Daemons, you can buy item level 116 gear from "Supplier Dakara" for glory. Here's what she sells:

Head - 2120 glory

Chest - 2350 glory

Feet - 1900 glory

Weapon Attachment - 2125 glory

Implant - 1900 glory 

11 - Runing

Putting proper runes in your gear is a must for raiders, but when you need to start runing is debatable and heavily discussed. What is always true is the fact that runing is expensive. Gear doesn't always come with the perfect slots you need, nor with all slots unlocked, so you will need to inject some gold or service tokens into rerolling slots to the correct element and into unlocking the extra slots. Personally I rerolled rune slots on my alts item level 80+ gear to properly rune them, but I have enough gold and service tokens to do this. A newbie might not have enough gold or service tokens to manage this all the time. I'd suggest to craft superb runes for your gear to at least match the "important stat caps" (see "1 - Class / Role") and put useful runes in the other slots where you can. As soon as you get GA raid gear, reroll the runes properly so you can fit in your class/role's sets. Once you at least kill X-89 in GA, buy the entry raid gear with glory and rune that "perfectly" so you get a very good boost to run GA better.

You can get runes by either buying them or by crafting them. In order to craft them you'll need to buy runecrafting bags of the desired runes with vendors. Superb, Pure or Divine runecrafting bags. I personally don't bother with pure runes, I go for a wallet-friendly solution by runing superb and then saving gold to rune my DS gear with divines. Some people might agree with me, some probably won't, so I will leave it up to you, the player, to decide for yourself if you want to perfectly rune your gear or save your gold and service tokens for later. In order to craft runes, simply go to a runecrafting station, click to create class runes, pick the class set you want, select the item level from the drop-down box (80 for Superb; 100 for Pure; 120 for Divine) and hit craft. The station will show you what mats you need in order to craft your runes.

You'll notice that there are major and minor runes. Each runeset has "power", which are bonuses you can unlock by contributing to that power with minor or major runes. Major runes provide 2 power to the bonus, minor only 1. You don't always need 6/6 of every rune, sometimes you'll only want 4/6. In order to reach this, there are combinations you can make: 2 major and 2 minor for 6/6 or 3 major for 6/6. Take a look at the guides I linked below and look up some other guides, or ask advice from players in-game to help you in this process.

Here are the vendors you can buy rune bags from:

Supplier Exina - Superb Runecrafting Bag - 100 glory

Supplier Dakara - Pure Runecrafting Bag - 300 glory

Supplier Dakara - Divine Runecrafting Bag - 500 glory

Supply Officer Acro - Gladiator's Superb Runecrafting Bag - 800 prestige (he's on your right when you're facing the contract board)

Importer Typeica - Superb Runecrafting Bag - 25 Pure Soulfrost

Importer Typeica - Pure Runecrafting Bag - 50 Pure Soulfrost

Importer Typeica - Divine Runecrafting Bag - 75 Pure Soulfrost

Each bag contains a number of fragments of the bag's name (superb, pure or divine) together with elemental signs and either minor set focus or major set focus. Keep in mind that the major set foci are pretty rare, so you might need to open quite a few bags to get one.

I've listed the class / role sets for your character below:

Engineer Assault

Striker

Onslaught

Eradication (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Technician (Datascape Divine class set)

Engineer Support

Alleviation

Defiance

Unbreakable (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Mecha Shield (Datascape Divine class set)

Esper Assault

Devastation

Onslaught

Mental Prowess (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Fiendish (Datascape Divine class set)

Esper Support

Cynosure

Resurgence

Guardian (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Hardened (Datascape Divine class set)

Medic Assault

Striker

Onslaught

Overcharge (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Atomic Charge (Datascape Divine class set)

Medic Support

Cynosure

Concentration

Great Aegis (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Resource Probes (Datascape Divine class set)

Spellslinger Assault

Devastation

Onslaught

Well of Power (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Flamesurge (Datascape Divine class set)

Spellslinger Support

Cynosure

Resurgence

Surge Life (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Prevention (Datascape Divine class set)

Stalker Assault

Devastation

Onslaught

Assassin (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Eviscerator (Datascape Divine class set)

Stalker Support

Alleviation

Defiance

Waller (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Furor (Datascape Divine class set)

Warrior Assault

Devastation

Onslaught

Unity (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Burning Rage (Datascape Divine class set)

Warrior Support

Alleviation

Devastation

Energized Arms (Genetic Archives Pure class set)

Vanguard (Datascape Divine class set)

Keep in mind that the sets I listed are mostly guidelines on what should be the best sets for your particular class / role. Some people would prefer to use another runeset (for example some tank warriors like to use Burning Rage 4/8 as well for the extra damage output - extra damage = more threat). Read some guides on your class / role, try to understand why some choices are made and rune/gear accordingly. If you don't agree with certain guides, feel free to try your own build and see how that works out for you!

End note

I hope you enjoyed reading this guide and I hope it helped you! If I missed anything, drop me a comment & I'll add/fix it!