Rough (Bias) Guide to Gearing in Champions Online

This is a gear guide base on my experience with the game since 2015.

Introduction

So you decided to gear up your heroes but you don’t know how. I would try my best to give you some pointers base on my experience with this game. There are some words that I might use like SCR (Silver Champions Recognition), GCR (Gold Champions Recognition), and Core stats (stats or mods relating to HP, Crit, Offense, Cost Discount, Cooldown, etc), so keep that in mind

Leveling Gear

As with most MMO, gear can be a factor to take into consideration while you’re leveling. Here is my take on this.

Quest/Drops
This is for first timers or newbies new to the game. Generally speaking, you will come across many gear drops while you’re leveling via questing. Equip the stuff given to you by the Powerhouse/Defender at the start of the game, and just start replacing them for better gear as you progress through the game. You can sell your outdated gear to a vendor like Karneeki the Great by the power house door at Millennium City. I would recommend prioritizing obtaining Rank 4/Rank 5 mods and Until Recognition before you decided to pick the gear option from any quest reward, however.

Account Bound Heirloom Gear
If you’re thinking of leveling multiple of alts in Champions Online, I would heavily recommend in investing in an Account Bound Heirloom Gear. These Heirloom set comes with a 3% experience boost per piece, 18% experience boost with the entire set. The main advantage to these set is that you can move these gear around your account if you have a hideout. Each of these set has their own alternate buff, title, and action figure unlock, which I’ll state in the bottom

• Aurum Heirloom – No title or action figure
  
• Sorcerer Heirloom – Title: Dragonfly / Action Figure: Dragonfly (Dragon)
  
• Gunslinger Heirloom – Title : Tumbleweed / Action Figure: Tumbleweed (Dog)
  
• Supersensory Heirloom – Title: Brain Power / Action Figure: Brain Power (Floating Brain)

Other than buying these parts from other players, you can obtain these parts from the following:

• Offense Pieces – 2 Purple Trade Paperbacks from the Trade Paperback Vendor in the vehicle shop area for both pieces
  
• Defense Pieces - 100 Drifter Salvage from the Drifter for both pieces
  
• Utility Pieces - 200,000 questionite total in the Questionite Shop for both pieces

Nemesis’s Heirloom Gear
These are the first leveling gear release into the game. You obtain them from doing Nemesis content and buying each piece for 200 Nemesis Recognition (600 total). They give about 3% experience boost, but there is only 3 pieces in the entire set. This set is account bound.

Intriguing Set
This three piece set is a reward if you completed the final quest in the Death Rattle series, Unknowable. Its possible to do these quest while leveling, if you don’t have an heirloom gear, it wouldn’t hurt to own a set. They provide both magic and paranormal damage resistance and it generally level up with you.

Vanguard/Anniversary/Grandfather/Winter
They are generally drop or obtain during the Anniversary/Winter event. Unless you don’t have an heirloom set and you come across these set, it wouldn’t hurt to own one.

Armadillo/Cyber Augmented/Samurai
Not recommended. Bonus are meh, many other gear set outshine it by large margin and questionite are better spend on something worth wide.

Generic Set
Prior to the Aurum Heirloom set, the Generic Set was the only source of getting the XP boost from a secondary set. However, since then, its completely inferior to those Heirloom set for a few reason. First of all, you need a character to beat Teleios Ascenant once just to have the privilege of buying the set. Next, you need to spend 150 SCR. You need the entire set to get the full 9% bonus exp, so you can't just buy one piece. The final reason is that its Bind on Equip instead of Bind on Account. This would mean that if you use it on a leveling character, you cannot use it on another character, unlike the Bind on Account Heirloom Set. I wouldn't recommend spending 150 SCR on this set unless you're absolute justified in getting a one time usage set that only give 9% exp boost.

Primary Set in General and gearing path

These are the three gear piece on the bottom part of the equipment bar. They are your "main gear" that you will get most of your character superstats from. I have a few path I would recommend to take once you hit level 40. The normal path is starting in the Blue Primary tier (mostly Mercenary and Fortuitous) and work on the GCR Primary while you're using the Blue Primary. There are players that aren't interested in the GCR Primary and they're settle with either Blue Primary or Purple Primary on their alt characters. With that out of the way, here is the Primaries.

Green Primary Sets

In my opinion, most of the stuff in this tier are vendor trash. Most of the time, they aren’t worth slotting, and I would recommend just skipping to Blue Primary.

Bold
Garbage. These can be obtain from the older lockboxes as a possible “reward”. You’re only allow to slot one core mod and one superstat mod (you want 2 superstat mod slots and one core mod slot). Vendor these.

Adventurous
See Bold. This time around, it comes with a set bonus. Its a bit niche, but I still wouldn’t take it since you’re still only allow slot one core mod and one superstat mod. Here is the set bonus:

• 2 pieces: +20 energy
  
• 3 Piece: 10% Chance to gain Energy when attack

Green Utility from the Equipment Box
This is probably the saving grace of this tier. Because Blue Primary Gears from the Equipment Box does not has a drop version of this specific gear, the Green Utility from the Equipment Box is the highest tier of its kind. Each of this specific gear has +47 of any Superstats, Cooldown Reduction, and Cost Discount. These are nice to have as your primary gear while you’re working on your GCR Primary Tier set. You can search these gear in the auction house by filling the level filter 40-40, Uncommon Quality, and choosing the Primary Utility.

Blue Primary Set

When you get to level 40, you should generally start out with this tier. By endgame standard, you should able to join almost all the endgame content just by using this set alone. Its very possible to just settle with this tier if you’re not seeking the GCR Primary Set.

Blue Offense/Defense from the Equipment Box
These gears are what I consider “better than nothing” set. Each piece following: +53 random Superstats, 1 Core Mod slot and 1 Superstat Mod slot. It comes with a whole set of name, so be sure to find the one with the Superstats that fit your build nicely. For example, if your primary superstats is constitution, find a blue gear piece with +53 constitution. You can search these gear in the auction house by filling the level filter 40-40, Blue Quality, and choosing the Primary Offense/Defense. You would go this route if you’re incredibly poor, cheap, or desperate for gears on an alt and almost all other blue gears aren't on sell in the Auction House. Otherwise, just ignore/vendor these gears if you can get the other blue gear sets.

Mercenary Set
THE Blue gear of the entire game. Each gear has 2 Superstats mod slot and 1 Core mod slot. This set can be obtains from the questionite shop for 35,000 questionite each piece, totaling of 105,000 questionite for all 3 pieces. It can be bought from players and the auction house. It comes with its own set bonus:

• 2 pieces: +10% Boost to Resources
  
• 3 Piece: +10% Boost to Questionite Ore

Its because of this that it makes a decent set for all content that rewards these resources (SMASH Alert for example) and Questionite Ore (Cosmic in general). This set bonus does NOT stack with the Remarkable Set Bonus. If you want to earn a bit more money with your character in every content that allows it (again, SMASH Alert), this set is perfect to have.

Remarkable Set
Virtually the same set as the Mercenary, except you can obtain them from some of the older Lockboxes instead of the questionite shop. It can be bought from players and the auction house. It comes with its own set bonus:

• 2 pieces: +10% Boost to Resources
  
• 3 Piece: +10% Boost to Questionite Ore

Because of the discontinuation of this set, it might be hard to come across this from players or in the auction house. This set bonus does NOT stack with the Mercenary Set Bonus.

Fortuitous Set
This blue set comes from the lockboxes, but they’re reasonably price in the auction house. Each pieces come with 2 Superstats mod slot and 1 Core mod slot. It comes with the following set bonus:

• 2 pieces: +30 energy when you defeat a foe
  
• 3 Piece: +250 Health when you defeat a foe

Generally speaking, if you’re doing content that allows you to kill a good chuck of mobs, then this set bonus is great to have. On top of this, its a relatively common drop in those lockboxes that players would sell these gear cheap in the auction house. Its uncommon that an entire set can cost about +100g total, and you generally get +100g from leveling to level 40 by questing and killing mobs. If you got a fresh level 40 and you have a decent amount of global to spend, I would consider getting the Fortuitous off from the Auction House.

Bronze King/Nemesis Primary/Valerian/Vikorin/Qliphothic
All these blue gear set has 2 things in common: they are drop from a certain content of the game, and they have no set bonus. The only advantage that these gears might have is that you might obtain them as a drop from those content, and some pieces has a slightly higher core stats compare to the Mercenary/Remarkable/Fortuitous set. I would consider these gear as filler if you don’t have a specific piece for Mercenary/Remarkable/Fortuitous, or simply sell it. You obtain each of these gear from the following as a RNG drop:

• Bronze King – Kill the Bronze King
  
• Nemesis Primary – Finish the Nemesis Confrontation alert
  
• Valerian – Discontinued - Old TT Lair
  
• Vikorin – Finish the Vikorin Lair
  
• Qliphothic – Possible drop from the Qliphothic Warzone Open Mission

Purple Primary Set

This tier is questionable, to say at least. For the most part, the resource you obtain this is not worth it if you’re going for the GCR Primary set.

Heroic Set
This set use to be the base standard set prior to 2016 update, when it was cheap to buy. Each piece has a slightly higher core stats compare to the Blue Primary Tier, 2 Superstat mod slots and 1 Core mod slot. The set bonus is as follows:

• 2 pieces: +500 Health
  
• 3 Piece: +5 to all SuperStats

If and only if you’re settle on having a character with this set and NOT having a goal to obtain the GCR Primary set on said character, or if you your character is dual roling two roles, then maybe this set might be worth it. The reason why I emphasize this is because of the pricing. For each piece, it cost around 150 Silver Champion Recognition, totaling 450 SCR for all 3 pieces. That is quite a bit of SCR that could go towards the GCR Primary. The alternate is paying a good chuck of globals or play PvP to obtain the Acclaim (75,000 Acclaim each piece.) Even with this in mind, there are plenty of things you might want use those SCR from the Champion Recognition Vendor, like unlocking powers, costume pieces, the purple secondary, auras, transformations, mods, etc. They are Equip on Bind from both the PvP shop and the Champion Recognition Vendor, so you can have a character with excess amount of SCR, buy the pieces, and transferring them to your alt that might need the gear. Or you can sell them.

Valiant Set
This purple set can be obtain with luck from opening lockboxes. Each piece has a slightly higher core stats compare to the Blue Primary Tier, 2 Superstat mod slots and 1 Core mod slot. It has the following set bonus:

• 2 pieces: +50 Energy
  
• 3 Piece: +500 Health

As with the Heroic, its not a good idea to have this set on your character unless the character’s goal isn’t obtaining the GCR Primary set. What set this set apart from the Heroic is that this set can be use for leveling up a character. The core stats will change base on the level, with the core stat maxing out at level 40. Keep in mind that its Equip on Bind to one character, so choose wisely. If you have an alt that require leveling, but you don’t have an heirloom gear, and you don’t want to upgrade their set to GCR Primary, this might be an okay set to have.

Legion Set
This set can be obtain from some of the older lockboxes, from players for an large amount of globals, or from the Drifter for 300 drifter a piece. Some players might disagree with me on this, but I would place this set under purple for a few reason. It has no set bonus, and the core stats are slight worse than Heroic. The one thing that is going for the Legion are the mod slots. It has 2 superstats mod slot, but also 2 core mod slots. The 2 core mod slot is the deal breaker since only GCR primary has 2 core slots, but GCR Primary set require a whole lot of grind in comparison. Its because of this that its treated like a pseudo GCR set, and they are willing to spend lots of money to get this gear right away instead of grinding for GCR Primary set. Of course, NEVER go for the Legion set if your goal is to obtain the GCR Primary set.

GCR Primary Set

This is the main final goal for many Champions Online players in this game. While Blue Primary set are good enough for endgame content, GCR Primary are the absolute min/max/top tier set to have on your character. On top of having a large amount of core stats compare to the gears below the GCR tier, each of these set comes with 2 Superstats Mod Slots and 2 Core Mod Slot a piece. On top of this, each set has a decent set bonus. These gear set can be obtain from the Champion Recognition Vendor.

Justice Set
This gear is extremely popular with the DPS players if they want to increase a bit more damage output from their characters. The reason for this is the set bonus:

• 2 pieces: +25 to Primary and Secondary Superstats
  
• 3 Piece: +147 Offense

With these set bonus, the DPS can maximized their dps with all those Superstats and Offense. The set also comes with a Critical Glove. It is unheard of that tanks generally get this set to have a better DPS output to hold threat on a boss. The same goes with Presense Primary Healers, which benefit from the +147 Offense. If there one offset that might prevent players from obtaining this set, its the cost. While it cost 400 SCR and 200 GCR a piece (1200 SCR and 600 GCR total for all 3 Justice pieces) it also require the player to play the Rampage Content. These Rampages would only drop certain tokens that exist only in that particular rampage, and these rampage cycle to another one every 3 days. These token drops are rare RNG drop from the reward circle. You would need the following:

• 6 Superdense Diamond (Gravitar)
  
• 2 Hypercooled Ignimbrite (Fire and Ice)
  
• 2 Destreum Bearing (Sky Command),
  
• 2 Petrified Scale (Lemurian Invasion)

These token can also drop randomly in the Therakiel Rampage. On top of these limited time opening and RNG, it would be hard press to find players to queue these rampages with you.

Distinguished Set
This gear is meant for the Tank players to use due to the set bonus, which is as follow:

• 2 pieces: +20 to Primary and Secondary Superstats
  
• 2 pieces: +10 to other Superstats
  
• 3 Piece: +64 Defense
  
• Distinguished Helmet of Efficiency: Power Surge Enhancement: 10% chance of +energy to self if you use an offensive power

With the high defense bonus and a reasonable energy management buff, this set is ideal for tanks. However, the entire set does not have access to any critical strike bonus to speak of, which might discourage some tank players. DPS players might also use this set if they wanted the Primary Helmet of Efficiency and/or avoid the Rampage farming. The cost for each piece is 500 SCR/250 GCR (1500 SCR/750 GCR for all three pieces). If you’re a tank player and you just want a tank set without thinking too much of mixing and matching, then you can pick this set up.

Virtuous Sets
The general healer set because of the set bonus:

• 2 pieces: +15 to Primary and Secondary Superstats
  
• 2 pieces: +10% Resistance to all damage
  
• 3 Piece: +38 Bonus Healing
  
• Virtuous Helmet of Efficiency: Power Surge Enhancement: 10% chance of +energy to self if you heal

For a healer, this set will make you a bit more tankier while providing more heal per usage. Its not a bad choice for a healer if they just want a healing set. The cost for each piece is 500 SCR/250 GCR (1500 SCR/750 GCR for all three pieces). There are tank players that would take both the Virtuous Crit Offense and Defense piece to have access to Critical Strike and the juicy +10% Resistance to all damage while comboing them with the Distinguished Helmet of Efficiency for the energy management.

Secondary Set in General and gear pathing

These are the three gear piece on the top part of the equipment bar. The pathing for these set is a bit more complicated since each set has their strengths. For the most part, you generally start out with 15 SCR Purple Secondary follow by Determination/Cosmic/OV. Offensive piece wise and for a DPS/Tank Players, its 15 SCR Purple Secondary follow by Onslaught Offensive Gear (OV).

Purple Secondary Set

For the most part, you will start out with these set.

15 SCR Purple Secondary
These Secondary pieces can be found primarily from the Champion Recognition Vendor for 15 SCR. They can also be obtain from Equipment boxes, players, as drops, and from the Auction house. These piece are nice starting point for your fresh level 40 to have for relatively cheap price. Each piece has either a piece with +37 on one superstat, a piece 2 +20 Superstats, or a piece with 1 +20 Superstats but with buff or additional core stats. For the Offensive piece, a piece with +bonus healing its quite nice to have for a healer. For a tank or DPS, I would recommend either getting the +37 Superstat of their choice or the +20 Superstats with the Critical Strike. As for the Defensive piece, +20 Superstats with +338 Maximum Health Points is great for survival. For the Utility piece, a piece with a +37 Superstat of your choice if you don’t have any energy problem, a piece with a +20 Superstat and a +93 Cost Discount if you do have an energy problem, or the Friendly Eyepiece for survival, which is your cheapest way to get +338 Maximum Health Points, but it comes with +20 Constitution.

Vigilante
Somewhat skippable Secondary Set. It cost about 100,000 Questionite each piece in the Questionite Shop. It will only give +44 Primary Superstat of your character for each piece, but its largely ignorable due to the cost and the existence of other, better Secondary sets.

Determination
Compare to the 15 SCR set, you’re allow to customized and slot Superstats mods instead of having the inherit +37 or +20 superstat. You can mod in a Rank 5 Superstats Enhancement (+55 superstats) into these set. These can be obtain as RNG drops from the Teleios Ascendant Lair, 200 SCR/100 GCR per piece from the Champion Recognition Vendor, or from other players/AH. Bolstering Eyepiece of Determination is the best HP Boost Utility Secondary in the game at the moment. Its quite possible to end your Secondary gear grind with this set.

Cosmic Secondary Set

Despite being GCR letter tier, I would consider this tier as a side grade to the Determination instead of an upgrade. Instead of using Rank 5 Superstats Enhancement, it take Rank 5 Core mods that aren’t gems. For example, this would mean that you could get a higher HP on your Defensive Cosmic Gear with a Rank 5 Health Core Mod (+616 HP) compare to the Determination counterpart (+338 HP) and the Onslaught Tight of Fitness (+553 HP). The Offensive piece would also allow the user to slot in a Rank 5 Threat Mod for more threat if the Onslaught Defender Glove is too much of a grind. Superstat wise, they aren’t that great. There are two version of each piece, the Rage and Wraith. The Wraith version would give only +46 To your Primary Superstats while the Rage Version gives +24 to both Secondary SuperStats. These gears are obtain from either a drop from a Cosmic Boss right, from a players, or from the Champion Recognition Vendor for 250 SCR/125 GCR each piece.

Onslaught Gear (OV)

To many players, these are the best Secondaries in the game. You need to do the Onslaught grind to obtain these powerful gear. For a price of 5000 Onslaught Villain Tokens each, you can have one of these pieces gear to your character. Like the Determination set, you can slot in a Rank 5 Superstats Enhancement to these gears. While the Defensive and Utility are great for what they are, the Offensive pieces are the big prizes. I’ll list these pieces individually:

• Slicer Glove adds 10% of your Melee Damage you deal to the target as DoT. This is a MUST HAVE for all Melee DPS since it will increase your overall DPS
  
• Sniper Glove will add bonus damage the further you are from your target. This is great for Range DPS if you can meet the range requirement.
  
• Defender Glove will convert 6% of your damage as shield and it can stack up to 10 times. It can also help generate threat by 30%. This is extremely great for any tank players and any DPS soloers out there. In comparison, Rank 5 Threat Mods on a Cosmic Secondary is only 15%-18%.
  
• Savior Glove will give any allies around you 20% of the energy you just gain. Its probably the least popular of the gloves, but it has a niche for some healers that isn't seeking any Healing Bonus Gloves or Endurance Primary DPSers that want to be a “battery” for the raid.

Afterthought

This is just a rough explanation of gearing in this game and I will update more stuff to it soon. There are many more gears in the game, but they're generally meh or ignored. I hope this might help someone!

[h4]

Could you consider adding the 50 SCR Teleios Secondaries to leveling gear? They are BoE and maybe worth getting for alts if no heirloom secondaries. The xp boost combined with the 3 pc heirloom can be a pseudo-6 piece heirloom.