The Purpose of this Guide is to provide new and returning players a structure to better manage doing new DLCs. Table of Contents: Preparing for new DLC Direct Link Starting a new DLC Direct Link Tacking a new DLC Direct Link Prioritizing Vendor Purchases Direct Link Finishing a DLC Direct Link Events Direct Link
Preparing for New DLCs: Save Exobytes New Origin Augment Limit: When a new DLC launches Origin Augments will have their Max Level increased by 10. Each level will have increased experience required to reach each new level. When you finished leveling up your Origin Augments it would be a good idea to save some of the extra Exobytes to give you a head start in the new DLC. However bank space can be an issue. So you do not want to just store all Exobytes you get. Exobytes come in different forms. You have Colored Exobytes (one for each role and two for dps) and Colorless Exobytes. Both types of Exobytes also have 3 ranks. Lowest is Flawed, middle is Solid, and the top rank is Pristine. On top of that they also have different MK levels depending on the gear score of the gear scrapped to get the Exobytes. With so many different Exobyte it would not be ideal to save all of them. Instead, you should save the highest MK level Exobyte that you get during that DLC. And to be more selective, out of all the highest MK only save the Colorless Exobyte and also only the Colored Exobyte that benefits you. If you feed a Mighty (red) Exobyte to a Might (red) Augment it will gain a 50% bonus to the experience it gives. Using the latest DLC at the time of writing this Guide the highest MK is 15. If you are a Might DPS and Healer, You will want to save MK15 Colorless Flawed/Solid/Pristine, MK15 Mighty Flawed/Solid/Pristine, and MK 15 Restoring Flawed/Solid/Pristine. If you run out of room you can rank up colorless Flawed to colorless Solid and Solid to Pristine. You however can not do this with Colored Exobytes (at the time I am writing this Guide). Rank Up Throw Away Adaptive Augments: With how current DLCs are set up you are not able to feed Adaptive Exobytes to different DLCs Adaptive Augments. So at the end of a DLC you will find yourself with extra Adaptive Exobytes than you do not need. However there is a way to feed them to new DLC Augments. After you have completed your Adaptive Augments for the DLC you can buy new ones from the vendor. They will cost 5 Marks (Subject to Change). Feed any left over Adaptive Exobytes to these Throw Away Augments. When the new DLC goes live you will be able to Feed those Throw away Augments into the new DLC Adaptive Augments. You can also feed the ones you used for the DLC but only do this is you know that you wont need those Augments or know you wont return to those DLCs. Keep in mind that feeding one Adaptive Augment to another you will only transfer 50% of the experience the Augment Contains. However doing this will also give you a head start in the new DLC. Prepare for Double Nth Experience Event: New DLCs tend to also introduce new Artifacts (NOT ALWAYS). When this happens there is normally (NOT ALWAYS) a Double Nth Metal Experience event about 2 weeks before the DLC goes live. Other events are mostly randomized. However this one event has some level of predictability. If you are trying to level up a new Artifact or trying to push one you already have it is a good idea to remember to take advantage of this predictability. (Check out the Guide to leveling Artifacts Efficiently Here) Level Up Some Alts: Alts are an invaluable. They offer your Main toon so much and make gathering resources faster. If you do not have any alts it would be ideal to level 1 or 2 to what you think the minimum cr will be for the new DLC. The minimum CR of a new DLC is normally the CR of wearing a mix of Blue and Purple gear that drops from each DLC at their max rank. Using the current DLC as an example, wearing a mix of Blue/Purple gear will put me at around cr335. So an estimate would be around cr334 to cr 336. (Guide to Maintaining Alts Coming Soon) Save Some Cash/Make Some Cash: This is absolutely not needed but it can make starting the new DLC go smoother. When a new DLC drops Avatar Bombardier gear will have their max gear score boosted. Because of this you can buy a set of AB gear from the Broker for in game Cash. The new set of AB gear will have the CR rating between Blue and Purple dropped gear of the new DLC. This means that the only gear that will be higher will be the Purple dropped gear and Vendor gear. You will not need to get a full set (8 pieces) of AB gear if one of your gear pieces is an OP item. So keep that in mind. Some players find making Cash hard. However that is one of the things Alts can help with. Reset Skill Points: Just like Origin Augments, Skill Points will have their Max Limit raised by 10. The day before a new DLC drops you can reset your Skill points and save it so that you have 9 Skill points left over. Doing this will make it so that on the day the DLC goes live you will have 9 points to put into your prominent stat. Anything above 10 Skill points will make it so that you cant active each armory. If this happens you will have to activate each armory manually from your base. So to be on the safe side I would recommend only doing 9 Skill Points left over.
Starting A New DLC: Look Over Feats!!!: This is a very import part of starting a DLC that gets overlooked by a lot of players. You mainly want to keep an eye out on feats that are grinding feats. These include defeating an Open World Boss X amount of times, defeating/capturing Adds/Objectives X amount of times, Crafting, Even doing certain Tasks in On Duty Instances. Don't be afraid to take notes. Your time is valuable, especially if the time you can spend in game is limited due to work/school. So spending some time at the start can save you a headache down the road. The last thing you want to do is delete items that seem useless but down the road it turns out you needed every single one of the ones you deleted. Look Over Journal Order: This in itself might not be a big deal but it can save you a week in clearing your journal. Normally the order goes Open World > Solo/Duo > Alert > Raids. But this order is not set in stone. This past DLC you needed to complete Journal Mission in order to start OP item Mission. So if you do the order wrong and just blind Que than you may accidentally push back getting your OP item by a week. Take Advantage of Your Prepping: You spent all that time preparing for the DLC, so take advantage. Feed all stored Exobytes into your Origin Augments. Feed all Throw Away Adaptive Augments you made to your new DLC Adaptive Augments. Save the 9 Skill Points you saved into your armories. Treat yourself to a new set of Avatar Bombardier set.
Tackling A New DLC: Keep Track of Feats: When doing the grinding feats you have 2 options. Grind them out Day 1, or do them while doing your Dailies. A lot of players tend to grind out everything Day 1 and then feel burnt out. This is a game not a job. You have months to finish these feats. On top of that you will probably be doing your Dailies.... well daily. Grinding feats that involve Adds tend to have different objectives to complete the mission. At the start of the DLC you can focus on the objectives that count towards your feats and after you finish your feat you can do any objective that complete your missions faster. This is when taking notes comes in handy. You can keep track of which objectives count towards your feats. And if you finish all your dailies and have some free time than you can go back and grind out the feats. The same goes with On duty daily feats. Making A Route: When doing your dailies you can either go to the last mission you collected, beat that mission, activate a new mission in your Journal, beat that mission, and continue until you finish all your missions. However you will find yourself going back and forth through the map which essentially waste some time. Instead you can activate each mission one at a time and see where they are on the map. This way you can see which missions are next to each other and do them based on where they are. After some time of doing this you won't even have to keep going to your Journal to see where to go. Instead you can just follow your route and do your dailies more efficiently. Feat Runs: Feat Runs tend to occur at the start of each DLC. They include Grinding Feats (listed above), one time Feats (usually On Duty) and Open World Boss grinding. The main Feat Runs that you will want to keep an eye on are one time feats. These are feats that you have to do an objective (usually On Duty) a certain way. For example, Defeating a certain boss while ignoring a certain Mechanic. If you have a League or friends that coordinate with each other than you can do these together at any time. However, if you don't than you may want to join these Feat Runs if you feel comfortable doing them. A lot of these Feats do take team coordination to do.
Prioritizing Vendor Purchases: Spending DLC currency is something I see players struggling on a lot. Technically there no WRONG way of spending your Marks. But there are ways to spend more efficiently. Whether you are starting a new DLC when it drops, or starting it Mid way after taking a break, you will probably want to spend less marks overall. Gear: OP Item > Accessory Items > Elite Gear > Regular Gear OP Gear: OP Gear has a CR relevancy of 2-3 DLCs. When a DLC is over you will replace all your gear first and then your OP item last. This is why you should focus on it first. The base of the OP item will normally come from an On Duty mission. But you will need to buy certain part for the OP item from the vendor. Accessories: Accessory gear pieces include your Weapon, Necklace, Face piece, Rings, and Utility Belt/Buff Trinket. Renown does not (normally) affect these gear pieces. While you are building up your renown use your marks to buy these gear pieces and your OP components (components first if a component is needed) while you gain Renown. Elite Gear: Elite gear is locked behind Renown Checkpoints. You will need to pass those Checkpoints in order to be able to buy the gear pieces locked behind them. Each rank of Renown will unlock specific items.You can use a Renown Booster to boost all Renown consumed within one hour by 25%. If you use a Renown Booster save all Raid Renown Tokens and Consume them all at the same time when you have a booster. If you save all none Raid Renown Tokens you will quickly find yourself running out of space especially if you only get Renown from non-Raid content since they do not stack. Cooperative (1000 Renown) unlocks the Head and Hands Friendly (2500 Renown) unlocks the Shoulders and Waist Favorable (4500 Renown) unlocks the Legs and Feet Trusted (6500 Renown) unlocks the Chest and Back Once you collect all pieces of elite gear (the style) you will complete the feat which will give you a 50% discount on any other pieces of elite and regular gear you buy. You should complete one set of elite gear before you get a second set for your alternate role. Regular Gear: As mention above you will want to complete the elite set first before buying the regular set. If you have an Alt who does not do Elite On Duty than you can buy the Elite Style feat. Having the Feat will give your Alt the discount even if they do not have the Renown for it. Because of this you can buy 2 sets of elite gear for your Main (one for each role if you do both roles) and buy the regular set on your Alt. You can then buy the Feat for the regular set on your Main without having to waste marks on getting the regular set just for the feat. Buying Vendor Feats: When the Triple Currency Event comes it will bring new items that you can buy to get Feats. Some of these items include Materials, Auras, Accessories (not Accessory Gear), and Special Styles (Hair, Styles, etc). Materials will normally cost 400/200. Auras will normally cost 200150, and Special Styles vary in prices. More Vendors items can come during the final Bonus Marks Event of a DLC but they normally share the same feat with the feats released during Triple Currency (Subject to Change). These should only be purchased after you have completed your OP item and have your gear completed.
Finishing A DLC: Feats: Yes, I know feats were listed in pretty much every section of the Guide. But each section focused on Different feats. When a DLC is coming to an end you want to make sure you finish all Open World Feats including "Defeat Boss X Amount of Times". When a DLC ends there will be a lot less players going back to these Open World area. You may find doing some of these Feats more tedious without the help from the other players there when that DLC is current. You will still find people doing them at times but the groups will tend to be smaller. Vendor Feats are another group of Feats you will want to finish off if you haven't yet. If you Prioritized the DLC properly you will easily complete any feat that come from the vendor including Crafting Feats. But if you haven't than try to finish them before the DLC ends so that you don't up "having" to do 2 DLCs each day. Ending: As a DLC comes into its final phases you will find that there are less things to do. That is a good thing. It means you went through the DLC smoothly. You will find little use in having to do dailies anymore. You can use this time to get those harder elite feats you were putting off. You can also help others who didn't prepare as good as you catch up. You can also go back to the beginning and do what you did for this DLC. Start preparing for the next DLC. If you handle a DLC properly you will find that you can usually finish your Gear set and OP items by the middle of a DLC. This gives you plenty of time to do other things including taking time off the DLC to focus on events.
Events: During the span of a DLC there will be numerous Events that come and go. Some Events include the DLC like Bonus Currency while other take you away from the DLC like Seasonals. For the most part they do not really change how you since they are passives like Bonus Catalyst. The 2 types of events that do need to be addressed will be Seasonals and Bonus Currency. Seasonals: Some Seasonals take longer than others. So just like having a route for the DLC you will want to have a Route for the DLC. You can even put your Base near a spot where you like to do Seasonals so that you can get to your route faster. Extra time spent doing your seasonal can be the difference in making you feel burnt with the game. The less time you spend doing these the more time you can have doing things you like. Bonus Currency: Bonus Currency will happen 3 times during the time of that DLC. The first will will be a Double Currency Event which typically happens about a month into the DLC. There are usually no new items introduced with this event. The second event will be a Triple Currency Event which will normally happen about a month after the last bonus event. This event does bring new items which have feats involved (listed earlier). The final event will be another Double Currency Event. This once can also bring new items that have shared feats. This final event will happen about a month after the Triple Currency Event and about a month before a new DLC comes. The Bonus Currency is technically a passive event. However it does affect how a lot of players play. You will see a large number of players resetting Raids and Open World Bounties for marks. So how does this affect you if you do not reset? Well these events are a great time to spam the Open World Bosses for your "Beat Open World Boss X amount of times". You do not need to reset the missions (subject to change) get credit and finish this feat.
Only thing I would add here it that it's sometimes useful to keep the old DLC max augments if they give you a significant benefit in the elite content. Just in case you still need to finish up elite raid feats when the new DLC arrives.
At the bottom of that section I wrote to only feed the ones you have if you plan on not returning to do those dlcs content or if you don’t need them. I could specify that some augments should always be kept thou
Good point, I must have scanned past that in your post. Maybe just add in parans something like: (eg. DLC augments needed for benefits in elite raids/content)
Maaaan, I make good money selling exobytes to underprepared players. Now you're messing with my money. And...
One tip that might help is to have a bank toon ( or multiple bank toons) if inventory space becomes limited. I store my augment exobytes on a bank toon for example. Then sell the ones I choose not to keep. If they’re paying for a subscription we get access to 16 characters. I wouldn’t think anyone is maxing out all 16 toons…. Not if they have an outside life in any facet.
