During Gamescom on Tuesday, EA revealed that next month, we’ll be seeing a new Operation called Terror from Beyond, which takes place on Belsavis. We also discovered that Ancient Hypergates, the new Warzone in development, will be released sometime at a later date, but before fall’s F2P launch.

Since that announcement, many players have wondered how these new content releases will affect the current gear ladder. Will we see another tier of Operation gear? What about an additional PvP tier? David Hunt, SWTOR’s Systems Designer, addressed these gear-related concerns thanks to Allison Berryman, who has been diligently seeking answers to many questions the community has had since BioWare’s recent community refocus.

Originally posted by AllisonBerryman (Source)

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I talked to David Hunt (Systems Designer), and he shed some light upcoming gear. He said that (for PvE), Terror from Beyond’s Hard Mode will include a new set of gear that is a sub-tier of the larger tier that started with Campaign gear. It will also have non-slot restricted armornings. Nightmare Explosive Conflict will speed up the acquisition of the new set and provides new challenges for Operation groups.

For PvP, new mainhand and offhand items will become available from the PvP vendors when Terror from Beyond is released. These will be included so PvP players don’t feel the need to get the hilts and barrels from PvE items to get the highest weapon damage in some cases. The rest of the set will release when Ancient Hypergates becomes available. We also have plans to release a new Recruit MK-2 set.

This is good info, and it’s also nice to see some hints about Nightmare Explosive Conflict in there, too.

Also, this is a good start to BioWare’s goal of interacting more often with the community. These are exactly the types of responses players are looking for on the forums.

Ever wonder where you can buy PVP Gear and what commendations do what? Do you know what a Champion Set is versus a Battlemaster Set? If you want a quick shakedown of how the whole system works then keep reading!

You can buy Merc tokens with WZ tokens at a 3:1 ratio. You can buy a champion gear bag with 200WZ + 200 Merc. That bag is unique and you can’t open it till 50. The level 50 PvP daily lets you choose a Champion bag or a Battlemaster bag. The Battlemaster bag is unique and you can’t buy it. You also can’t open it without a very high valor rating.

So you can’t stockpile any of the bags because they are unique. If you aren’t 50 yet then you should buy merc badges till you have 1000. After that buy lvl 40/50 blue gear or go back to questing. You need high valor level in the end though so you can keep pvping for xp if you want.

Keep reading after the break for a quick and easy breakdown.