This guide will teach you what to prioritize in your Gearing process while leveling up a character in SWTOR, including stat targets, mod recommendations and tacticals.
This guide is an expansion of the segment about gearing while leveling, from our Ultimate SWTOR Beginner’s Guide.
Table of contents
Leveling Armor Recommendations
A lot of the leveling gear you find is cosmetic, and the gear that drops from enemies is not always an upgrade. Also, your stats get jerked around constantly by Level Sync as you level up and travel to different planets.
In order to have a consistent and less distracting experience, I recommend ignoring gear drops entirely and just equip a set of moddable armor that you upgrade on the Fleet every 4-8 levels.
All of the gear you’ll need from level 10 to 70 can be found in the outer alcoves of the Supplies section on the Fleet.
Starting at the Westernmost | Easternmost alcove, you’ll come across a vendor that sells moddable armor. Buy a set of armor and weapons from that vendor that match your discipline.
Then, look at the names of the vendors to see which one sells the highest-level mods that are at or below your character’s current level.
For example, you might be level 39, and the closest mods you’ll find require level 38, and the next ones require level 42, so you’d get the level 38 mods.
If you’re only a level away from being able to equip the next tier of mods, you could wait and try to level up by doing a Flashpoint or some PvP, but you really won’t start to feel a lack of gear until you’re like 10-15 levels behind. Just keep in mind that higher tiers of mods are available every 4 levels.
I also highly recommend completing the mission: Introduction to PvP. It gives you a full set of Accessories, which you won’t find too often while leveling. You’ll find it on the PvP Mission Terminal in the Combat quadrant of the Fleet.
The only other place to get Accessories from is the GTN, crafted by other players. You can make Relics, Implants, or Earpieces yourself with Artifice, Biochem, or Cybertech respectively, but that’s only 1 type of Accessory, and you want all 3.
When you finish a planet, make a pit stop at the Fleet, and keep heading to the next alcove over, still in the Supplies section, to upgrade your mods with the next highest-level mods you can equip. You can also check to see if you can equip (and afford) a higher tier of Accessory item by searching it on the GTN.
Stat Targets
The stat targets and mods are generally the same for leveling as they are for endgame content. I strongly recommend leveling as a DPS. Tanks and healers take a lot longer to defeat enemies in combat because companion roles are not balanced appropriately to accommodate other roles.
- Accuracy to 110%
Any accuracy over 100% reduces your target’s chance to avoid the attack by an equal amount. Champions have a 10% chance to avoid all types of damage, but many other enemies also have abilities that make them harder to hit. - Alacrity to 7.5%
Alacrity increases the speed at which you can do your rotation. You need to shoot for a specific amount because the GCD is rounded by alacrity differently than the other elements it affects. You shoot for 7.5% to mitigate this issue and go from the 1.5s GCD to the 1.4s GCD. The GCD (global cooldown) is the brief lockout you get after using an ability that deals damage or healing. - Critical gets the rest
Critical chance does not have a threshold associated with it, though it is still valuable, so we put everything else into this stat after we have met the thresholds that other stats need to be at in order for them to be maximally effective.
Technically, it’s less valuable to have Accuracy for leveling because only Champions have that 10% chance to avoid your attacks, but there are a lot of enemies that have abilities that improve their chance to avoid attacks too, so it will improve your reliability in general.
The Accuracy is also nice for Flashpoint bosses and sometimes in PvP. It also makes it easier to learn your rotation because so many procs require you to actually deal damage, not just activate the ability. If your attack gets avoided, your rotation can get messed up.
Mods and Accessories
You have 9 pieces of moddable gear, so you’ll need 9 mods, 7 enhancements, 7-8 armorings (depending on offhand), and 1-2 Hilts or Barrels (depending on weapons). As a DPS spec, these are the mods you should get:
 | Versatile Armoring |
 | Versatile Hilt |
 | Versatile Barrel |
 | Lethal Mods |
 | Initiative Enhancement (Accuracy) |
 | Quick Savant Enhancement (Alacrity) |
 | Adept Enhancement (Critical) |
For the sake of reliability, I recommend getting all of your Accuracy and Alacrity from your moddable gear. You are less likely to have access to up-to-date Accessories, so I recommend getting Critical Rating from those.
- Adept Earpiece
- Adept Implant x2
- Relic of Devastating Vengeance
- Relic of Focused Retribution
The purpose of using Devastating Vengeance is twofold. First, tertiary stats are unaffected by Level Sync. Second, a lot of solo builds derive their extra damage from additional autocrit, and your Relic will proc at the beginning of most trash pulls.
We would use something other than Focused Retribution, but the only consistent alternative is an Alacrity clicky relic, and Focused Retribution will provide a solid benefit, at least some of the time.
If you know you’ll remember to actually use the Alacrity clicky, then by all means, use the Relic of Primeval Fatesealer instead. Otherwise, if you’re short on credits, just don’t bother upgrading the Relic of Focused Retribution.
Gearing at Level 70
Once you hit level 70, you start to gain access to endgame gear from prior expansions, including set bonuses from 258 Masterwork gear at your faction’s base on Ossus.
Unlike back in 5.0 (when 70 was level cap), they no longer have a significant grind associated with them and only cost a bit of credits.
All you need to do is purchase the 252 Experimental Ossan gear for your discipline from the vendor on your right and trade that in alongside some more credits for the 258 Masterwork gear on the left.
An entire set of Masterwork gear will cost you a little over 650k, though you can get a full refund on both sets if you sell it back within two hours if credits are a concern.
Set Bonuses and Tactical Items
Once you hit level 75, you gain access to Tactical Items and stronger set bonuses. Tactical Items are effectively the same thing as ability tree talents, they don’t even provide stats like other gear.
Few disciplines have more than 3 viable options, and all are meant for different types of content. Tacticals continue to work at level 80 and are part of current endgame gearing, though each one costs 3,000 Tech Fragments and 1,000,000 credits.
Level 75 set bonuses are quite different. They often have the same or similar effects as the Legendary Implants used at level 80. The implants replaced them, so the set bonuses deactivate once you hit level 76 and have a much higher cost.
A single set of the 306 gear will cost you 1,000,000 credits and 10,000 Tech Fragments. These sets are only worth getting if you haven’t subscribed recently and your level cap remains at level 75.
You can purchase a full set from the S3T-BNS droid in the second to last alcove of the Supplies quadrant.
You’ll find Tactical items in the same alcove sold by Morro the Reaper | Sabacc Sav.
Left: Empire | Right: Republic
We have a complete catalog of all Tacticals in SWTOR with breakdown and recommendations for every single one of them. If you want to learn what is the best for each combat style and individual build, check it out.
Once you hit level 80, you’re ready to start working on getting Endgame gear. We have a dedicated guide for Endgame Gearing and how to unlock mods using Hyde and Zeek. That second one also goes into more detail about healer and tank gearing, most of which is applicable if you do choose to level with one of those disciplines instead.
