Introduction
I am currently in the process of acquiring a full set of 220 modifications for my Vigilance Guardian, tailored towards DPS.
I am looking to outfit a Custom (orange) set of gear with Armorings, Mods, Enhancements, Hilt, Crystals and Augments for optimize my Vigilance Guardian for DPSing.
Question
What Armorings, Mods, Enhancements, Hilts and Augments should I get to optimize my Vigilance Guardian for DPS? I am looking for a full "shopping" list of items.
Notes
- I will not be PVPing, so no PVP gear
- I know I can't buy all the required items and that acquiring them would involve either crafting, extracting from bought gear or both, and I am more than fine with this
- I will not be using Outfit Designer
Best Answer
You want Versatile armorings and hilt (for more Mastery), unlettered Lethal mods (for more Mastery and Power), 2 Initiative enhancements and 5 Accuracy augments (to get almost exactly 110% Accuracy), and the rest split approximately 3:2 between Crit and Alacrity. That means 2 Eviscerating crystals, 6 Crit and 3 Alacrity augments, and 4 Adept and 4 Quick Savant enhancements. Ideally, you want to get Hard Mode Operations tokens (Unassembled pieces) in order to exchange for Vindicator gear (which has the Guardian DPS set bonus armorings). Operations drops are also the only way to get the best Mods and Enhancements without crafting.
For the purposes of stat discussions, note that Implants and Earpieces count as Enhancements and are named similarly, with the addition of "MK-1" at the end for the best versions.
Please see this forum post for the mathematics behind these recommendations. The short version is that as a DPS you will always prioritize other stats over Endurance and so choose the low-endurance modifications. Crit is the most valuable stat but quickly enters diminishing returns as you acquire more of it — but Alacrity is also quite valuable and is affected much less by diminishing returns. Power is always less valuable than Crit in 4.0 (given current stat budgets) despite it having no diminishing returns at all, and Mastery (formerly the 4 main stats) continues to be heavily curbed. Oh, and you want that extra 10% Accuracy because it overcomes boss resistances.