Wildstar - New Player's Guide to PvE Gearing

Congrats on reaching level 50! (Please note that the following is based off my own limited time and research into the new WS: Reloaded patch and may not be 100% perfect, please assist if you know more stuff)
In this guide I will attempt to cover generally how to get geared up.
Step 1: Hit 50. (This is going to be a guide for 50s, I’ll make a leveling guide maybe)
Step 2: Goals! I find that it is important to know what you’re striving for, so in this guide we’re going to aim to have the gear, runes, and skills in order to start doing Veteran Dungeons!
Step 3: Head over to the PvP vendors in your faction's city and talk to the S2 PvP vendor. At the very top of this shop is the Season 2 PvP gear that is purchasable with gold! Select the Assault / Support tab then get everything! (I believe the total cost is around 1 Plat, which you should have from leveling, don’t worry you’ll make more money) Note: The reason we get PvP gear is because this gear:
is better than your leveling gear
is better than a lot of other gear you can get at this point
has the ability to take a lot of runes if you can afford the prestige cost set
Step 4: Get some contracts! Head on over to the contract board and pick up some contracts. If something catches your eye then do it. I’d generally recommend picking up the tier 1 (repeatable) contract and 2 tier 2 contracts because the tier 3 contract requires a group of people, however you can normally find people in Zone chat looking for other people to help them do this.
Step 5: Start doing PvE content. Wildstar is different from other MMO’s in terms of ‘dungeon’ systems. At this point you should NOT start queuing for Veteran Dungeons, you don’t have the gear, the runes, or probably the knowledge to do well. Best case scenario you’ll be extremely frustrated and maybe get some loot, worst case scenario you’ll be extremely frustrated and probably quit. So let’s get some practice mastering our skill rotations while moving around!
Mini difficulty guide: In terms of things that you can queue for here is the difficulty ranking: Vet Expeditions < Veteran Adventures < Veteran Dungeons. So if you’re a fresh off the leveling grind 50, it is probably a good idea to start off in the Expeditions.
Expeditions: These things are awesome! While the gear you get from them may not be super-duper awesome you do get some experience and items. I think the best part about Expeditions (for dps) is that they are 100% soloable. To queue one solo hit ‘N’ then go to PvE > Expeditions and above the role selector there is a button that lets the game know not to find other players.
Things you get from Expeditions:
A better understanding how your class works at 50, try messing around with your build to make the runs smoother. This probably means that you can’t follow that ‘raid build’ guide you found on google. Also you’ll get used to using these skills on the move, because eventually you won’t be able to stare at your skill bar, you’ll need to watch for deadly telegraphs.
AMP / Ability upgrades – Although you hit max level, you haven’t yet unlocked your full skill kit. As you probably experienced while leveling up, unlocking Tiers 4 and 8 of a skill has a big impact on gameplay, well you can get even more skill points and AMP points! Luckily these things drop in Expeditions and you can even buy an AMP point if you get gold medals in every Expedition
Some items to scrap for runes – yes we haven’t talked about runes for these yet but we will soon™
Decor, costumes, and pets oh my!
Adventures: A step up from Expeditions, while they require a group, it’s generally a group of 5 and these can be rather fun. Getting gold from all of these will unlock rewards!
World Bosses: Hey this wasn’t on the difficulty track! Yea yea I know, world bosses are cool because you can get some ilvl 90 gear from them(even better than dungeons), experience getting slaughtered by mechanics, and a lot of cool decor / costumes. In general they will prepare you well for Veteran Dungeons, try joining up for these whenever you can.
Step 6: By now you probably have a better understanding of your class. If you have any glory(currency) you can buy some ilvl 78 gear from the Veteran Dungeon Vendor. Try throwing some runes into your gear (will do a running guide later) that benefit your stats and you should be generally physically prepared to start Veteran dungeons. Don’t queue for a random dungeon though, start off with one you know well (from running the non-veteran version) and be prepared to learn and probably die.
If you liked this guide please let me know, also you may like some of the other guides I’ve written:
New Player’s Guide to….