End Game and You! Important information to begin your journey!

[Eliniell]

I've decided to move this post to it's own thread after numerous requests. I began writing this as a short response to someone asking what there is to do at level 50 as far as End Game progression goes, and it ended up turning into this. I'll be keeping this constantly updated as I get new information. I may also start posting boss strats to the Expert dungeons as well if it doesn't seem too daunting.

Level 50 normal dungeons - AKA I just hit 50!! What do I do now???

There are 2 dungeons that you can run from 48-50 that allow you to gear up to start the real 'end game' content that is currently available. The drops from these dungeons, along with quest rewards, are easily enough to get you started into the Tier 1 Expert Dungeons. (Some crafted gear / reputation gear may assist you in gearing up for Tier 1 Expert dungeons if you are having difficulty in AP / CC gear.)

The 2 level 50 'normal' dungeons are as follows:
- Abyssal Precipice
- Charmer's Caldera

Important things to note about level 50 'normal' dungeons:
- Bosses each drop 1 to 2 rare quality level 48-50 items. These items are what you'll be looking to gear up with in order to begin running the Expert Tier 1 Dungeons.
- There are numerous quests in each of the two dungeons that offer valuable rewards. These rewards will also help you gear up towards beginning the Expert Tier 1 Dungeons.

Expert Tier 1 Dungeons - This Plaque is shiny!

Expert Tier 1 Dungeons consist of 5 of the 10 'normal' dungeons converted to level 50 content. You'll see harder basic mobs in these dungeons, as well as bosses with additional mechanics (or the same mechanics with much higher amounts of damage). One of the nice differences between the Expert Tier 1 Dungeons and their 'normal' counterparts are the additional bosses and areas of the map that become open to the player.

The 5 Expert Tier 1 dungeons are as follows:
- Realm of the Fae - 8 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.
- Iron Tomb - 8 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.
- Foul Cascade - 8 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.
- King's Breach - 7 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.
- Fall of Lantern Hook - 7 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.

Important things to note about Exper Tier 1 Dungeons:
- Bosses each drop 1 Plaque of Achievement. These Plaques can be used to purchase gear from vendors located in your main city. There are 3 different Tiers of gear currently, and the cost of these items suggests the level of progression at which you'll be using them. Tier 1 items are 20 - 40 Plaques, Tier 2 Items are 100 - 200 Plaques, Tier 3 items are 50 - 100 Plaques as well as a token that I assume drops from raids.
- Bosses each drop either 1 rare quality 'soul' or 1 epic quality 'soul' that are used to summon Expert Group Rifts, or Raid Rifts. The epic 'soul' has a much lower drop rate than the rare quality 'soul'.
- Each boss drops up to 2 rare quality level 50 items, and has a chance to drop an epic item of slightly higher quality.
- Each Expert dungeon has a quest associated with it that, upon completion, will award the player with 2 addtional Plaques of Achievement.
- Each Expert dungeon is on a 1 day lockout. Once you kill a boss in one of these dungeons, you will be locked to it and unable to 'reset' that dungeon. Each Expert dungeon automatically resets on its own at 4am server time.
- Tanks, you will need 50 Toughness in order to remove the bonus that mobs gain from crit in Tier 1 Expert Dungeons. (This may not be possible / realistic to achieve before even stepping foot in Tier 1 Experts. You will most likely be getting hit fairly hard when crit until you are able to obtain a few pieces of gear with Toughness on it.)
- DPS, you will not need any Hit or Focus in order to reach the cap to never miss against Expert Tier 1 mobs. (This needs verified, if anyone has any additional information, please let me know.)

Expert Group Rifts - Yea, I've got soul! Now.. what do I do with it?

Group Expert Rifts are an optional side path in your end game progression route. While not necessary, they do net some nice rewards and are worth doing as you continue to gear up for Expert Tier 2 Dungeons. They are more challenging than your standard Expert Tier 1 Dungeon, and should not be attempted with a group of 5 the moment you acquire the 'souls' needed to summon one. They are intended for groups of 5 players that have already received a number of gear upgrades from the Expert Tier 1 Dungeons. These Expert Group Rifts function a little differently from the Expert dungeons in that they are outdoor, and you can complete them with more than a standard group if you choose to do so.

Important things to note about Group Expert Rifts:
- To summon an Expert Group Rift, one must obtain 5 rare 'souls' from the Expert dungeons, as well as an item from your main city to combine into the Lure that tears the rift open.
- Each type of rift (Life, Death, Air, Water, Fire, and Earth) requires a different item to be purchased. This item cannot be purchased until you have reached Decorated with that rifts corresponding faction, and costs 250 planarite.
- Each Expert Group Rift has a zone that it must be opened in. Life and Death are Stillmoor, Air and Water are Iron Pine Peaks, Fire and Earth are Shimmersand.
- Expert Group Rifts consist of 5 'waves'. There are 2 trash waves, and 3 boss waves. (This may not be the case for each one, this is just a guess based on the few I have currently done myself.)
- Bosses drop 1 rare quality item per kill, with a chance to drop an epic instead. Planar essences are also considered part of the bosses loot table, and drop in place of gear. The bosses do not drop Plaques of Achievement or 'souls'.
- Some of the waves are timed, and you will need to complete that wave within the timer to advance to the next stage of the rift. As with normal rifts, if you are unable to complete the current stage before the timer, you will still be able to complete that stage and then seal the rift.

Expert Tier 2 Dungeons - Battle tested, tried and true! Now what is there for me to do?

Expert Tier 2 Dungeons consist of the other 5 of the 10 'normal' dungeons converted to level 50 content. You'll see harder basic mobs in these dungeons, as well as bosses with additional mechanics (or the same mechanics with much higher amounts of damage). One of the nice differences between the Exper Tier 2 Dungeons and their 'normal' counterparts are the additional bosses and areas of the map that become open to the player. These Dungeons are also more challenging and require additional gearing than the Expert Tier 1 Dungeons, as well as more complicated strategies for bosses.

The 5 Expert Tier 2 dungeons are as follows:
- Darkening Deeps - 16 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.
- Deepstrike Mine - 18 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.
- Runic Descent - 14 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.
- Abyssal Precipice - 14 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.
- Charmer's Caldera - 16 Plaques of Achievement for a full clear.

Important things to not about Expert Tier 2 Dungeons:
- Bosses each drop 2 Plaques of Achievement.
- Bosses each drop 1 Corrupted Soul, which can be used to summon 10 man Raid Rifts.
- Each boss drops up to 2 rare quality level 50 items, and has a chance to drop an epic item of slightly higher quality. These items are of higher quality than the Expert Tier 1 drops.
- The final boss in each Tier 2 Expert will always drop an item of epic quality.
- Each Expert Tier 2 dungeon has a quest associated with it that, upon completion, will award the player with 4 addtional Plaques of Achievement.
- Each Expert dungeon is on a 1 day lockout. Once you kill a boss in one of these dungeons, you will be locked to it and unable to 'reset' that dungeon. Each Expert dungeon automatically resets at 4am server time.
- Tanks, you will need 100 Toughness in order to remove the bonus that mobs gain from crit in Tier 2 Expert Dungeons.
- DPS, you will need 100 Hit or Focus in order to reach the cap to never 'miss' against Expert Tier 1 mobs. (This needs verified, if anyone has any additional information, please let me know.)


10 Man Raid Rifts -

Instanced 20 Man Raids -
- Bosses each drop 5 Plaques of Achievement.'
- Bosses drop 2 epic items of higher quality than the Tier 2 Expert Dungeons. I'm not sure currently if bosses always drop one item and one Tier 3 gear token, or if it's random. Will update this with more boss kills.
- 20 Man raids are on a 7 day lockout timer. I'm not sure currently if it resets on a specific day, or it is 7 days after you originally were saved.
- Tanks will need 200 Toughness in order to remove the bonus that mobs get from crits in 20 Man Raids.
- DPS, you will need 200 Hit / Focus in order to reach the cap to never 'miss' in 20 Man Raids. (Some verification is needed here, as there are numerous people in my guild that do not have hit talents and never miss with only 100 Hit or Focus. It may be possible that 100 Hit / Focus removes misses and anything above reduces chance for attacks to be parried / dodged. I am not sure if spells can be partially resisted, but if they can, the same may apply to Focus.)


I will continue to update this post as more information becomes available to me.

[Eliniell]

PvP - Below is a post that was linked on my guilds forums. I take no credit at all for writing this, and I'm including it here because it does an amazing job of explaining Warfronts to people who are just getting to 50 or jumping into their first warfront at lower levels. I'll be adding to the post myself how the gearing works in PvP once I have the time.

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Some basics:

In any PvP situation remember FoF, Fight on Flag. It means literally stand on top of or as close as you can to your objective to grab it at the earliest opportunity.

Barriers come down after the gong sound, the faster you are out and running to an object the more of a chance you can take it before your opponent. Be eager to fight, not hesitant.

More important is having a spec that can allow you to place a stun/root/snare/healing debuff to an enemy, these are useful in almost any PvP situation so explore your class souls to see if you can work them into your primary play style. Anyone wanting to show their friends or post this info on their guild website or w/e feel free to do so.

Even more important: If you are a mage/bard/cleric keep a healing spec ready for your team. If your heals die (or don't have one to begin with) take one for the team and just heal. Unless you are a warrior DO NOT complain in chat about clerics healing, you are just as much to blame for not being in healing spec. Warriors on the other hand, ask nicely first then ignore them if they decide to shoot their mouth off. Fighting on your own team only serves to aid the enemy.

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Black Garden: Objective - gain 500 points, or more points than your enemy, before time runs out.
AOE bomb fang if it is on the ground to prevent enemy from picking up, focus fire their carrier first due to the fangs damage spikes (use healing debuff), everyone stack on the fang, do not leave the middle area with fang, heal and defend the carrier at all costs and be ready to pick up if it drops at any given moment, keep the enemy distracted with flanking attacks if needed. Score generation is listed below.

Best: Anywhere in the black circle = 6 points per tick

Very good: Outside the black circle = 5 points per tick

Good: Behind tree or hugging the wall = 4 points per tick

Bad: Going up ramp to the of the ledge = 3 points

Very bad: Closer to team spawn point = 2 points

Worse: Near team spawn point = 1 points

Bottom line is if you spend nearly the entire match near your teams spawn point, and if it resets, the other team can stand near the middle and in a fraction of the time catch up and surpass your score. Another thing is that the farther away your team is from the center, the easier it will be for you opponents to take if it respawns in the center.
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Codex: Objective - gain 1000 points, or more points than your enemy before time runs out.
One thing to note, is that if the entire enemy force rushes the codex and takes it early, break off and go after the other nodes to draw them away before making a counter attack.

Codex gives 5 points, all other 3. If no one is defending a node ninja cap it. If people are all at one node then they are not at another. To win must make sure you are gaining more points at any given time than your enemy. Remember that after awhile there can be such a gap where even if the other team manages to make a comeback with more nodes, they may not be able to catch up in time. Codex is high priority, but do not hold it at the expense of everything else.

Best: Codex + 3 nodes = 14 points per tick

Very Good: Codex + 2 nodes = 11 points per tick

Good: 3 nodes no Codex = 9 points per tick

Average: Codex + 1 node = 8 points per tick

Mediocre: 2 nodes (no codex) = 6 points per tick (keep other node under assault)

Bad: Codex no other nodes = 5 points per tick

Very bad: 1 node no other nodes = 3 points per tick

Worst: No nodes = 0 points per tick

Aggressive assaults or strong defense is key, if an enemy assaults a base they are not just attempting to cap it, they are denying you points. The same principles apply to the enemy's nodes as well, even if you don't take a node the time spent under assault denies your enemy points.

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Whitefall Stepps: Objective - capture sourcestone 3 times or have more points than your enemy before time runs out.
2 groups, defenders and attackers. As a Defender your primary goal is above all else involves your teams sourcestone, keeping it or getting it back. Attackers primary goal is above all else capture the enemies sourcestone and protect the carrier. Do not abandon the carrier for your teams sourcestone. Do not let the enemy come anywhere near your carrier. This is a game where with such large groups specialization synergy is key over flexibility.

As a carrier you will want to have high survival/escape abilities/CC or speed enhancements to evade the enemy.

As a defender high damage/healing debuffs/snares are primary abilities needed to down the enemy carrier, AOE to keep enemy from taking it back, and CC to remove healers and support out of the fight to kill carrier faster.

As an attacker CC/heals/snares over damage are crucial to ensure your carrier gets safely to their destination. Stay on top of the carrier, it is harder for the enemy to target a carrier if they are surrounded and they may be able to escape the fray unnoticed.

Should the sourcestones be in opposite bases with no one able to get a capture, high defense should be employed with a small strike team in wait. After the enemy sends their bulk of forces the strike team should sneak in and bull rush the small defense team (assuming they are not defending heavily). The moment after the bulk of enemy force leaves their own territory, this should give enough time to down the enemy and recover or force a return of the stone w/o having to worry about graveyard spawns. Remember high damage/healing debuffs should be used, assuming the carrier is downed fast enough the enemy may try to run in and pick up the stone, effectively removing another player them from the fight, or even cripple their defense enough to allow your team to set up camp to pick up the stone. Should the strike team fail however, their death will allow them to rejoin the defense in time to prepare for the assault from the graveyard.

[taho]

Question - Are the Expert Group Rifts geared towards groups of 5?

[Eliniell]

Yes, they are geared towards groups of 5, but can be completed with more (which is advisable if your group of 5 is slightly undergeared).

[Vblol]

Hey, Thanks this is a great and informative guide I havent played yet getting it 2moro but im just curious if I was to get to 50 since the game is new what would be my best options to get straight ahead in the race you know find a guild etc I've heard that the servers share time zones? Being australian would this be a problem? and does anyone else have Tzone problems? cheers.

[Eliniell]

I've heard that there are a number of Aussies playing on Deepstrike or Briarcliff, though I am not exactly sure which. I would post some messages in the general forum asking about that.

[Ruin]

I've heard that the servers share time zones? Being australian would this be a problem? and does anyone else have Tzone problems? cheers.

I am in the US but I work nights so much of my playtime (on my days off primarily) is in the middle of the night here and I've not had issues finding groups or having plenty of rifts to pillage.

[Eliniell]

I'll be updating this a little later with some additional expert group rift and 20m raid info.

[Vblol]

I heard, there were 2 Oceanic servers, bottom of the list labelled full they are the only 2 full servers and have huge queue times.. Plus they did not label Oceanic on them because they were worried it would kill off the server and I'm on kelpmere, I only just found out about these realms.

[Eliniell]

Not really the place to discuss that.. but.. they weren't really 'Oceanic' servers, they both just had a high number of people from those areas choose them. At the same time, they both had a high number of other players all listing that they would be playing there.

[Nadjia]

Thanks for sharing - looking forward to hitting 50 and still having lots of great stuff to do

[talonness]

Nice info

[Eliniell]

Still looking for some info on Raid Rifts as my guild kind of skipped those.. I'll be trying to run a few this week if possible though assuming I can get enough people with souls to summon one.

[Rippe]

Playing as a warrior tank and just got to 50 and woundering where there are good items for rep and what i should go for in the gear? And what do i need to start the t1 runs.

[Eliniell]

Playing as a warrior tank and just got to 50 and woundering where there are good items for rep and what i should go for in the gear? And what do i need to start the t1 runs.

I'll start working on reputation items soon here. As far as what you need to tank T1's it's in my post what is recommended.

[Eliniell]

Will update this post in the next few days to reflect the changes in Expert dungeons, namely the removal of the quest for each dungeon, and the addition of the daily quests. I'll also try to add a section on pricing for each item type from the plaque vendors.

[Battleshield]

Is the only way to get Focus/Toughness gear by running lvl50 Instances CC/AP?

I am awaiting my guild reaching 50, and I have lousy luck with PUGs...

a little reading goes a long way:

Some crafted gear / reputation gear may assist you in gearing up for Tier 1 Expert dungeons if you are having difficulty in AP / CC gear

[Zaymune]

That is strange. Everyone says to do AP and CC before doing T1s. I will admit I did AP once but did not get any loot. I started healing in T1s right away when I hit 50.

[Eliniell]

Healing is generally the exception to most gear rules. You don't need Hit or Focus to heal properly (unless you happen to be a Chloromancer, then some Focus is recommended) and healing is usually the least gear dependant role to fill.

[Eliniell]

I'm going to be doing a complete overhaul of this post sometime in the upcomming weeks. I've been busy with work / leveling my alt to 50 so I haven't had as much time as I'd like to spend on this. Some things I plan to include are reputation factions, and their corresponding dungeon (if applicable) as well as links to the Zam site for people to view the gear / enchants / recipe's available at different faction levels. I'd also like to write up a section on the rift rewards, especially expert / raid rifts, as it seems Trion is adding quite a large amount of purchasables from these events. I may be migrating this to an entirely new post, as I have a feeling the two posts I reserved won't end up being enough in the long run... unless of course a site Mod has some way of inserting a few more blank posts for me to edit.

I'd also like to add a table of contents at the beginning once I have all of this information added to make the post more easily browsed so people don't need to read through an entire wall of text just to find what they are looking for.