Hyde and Zeek Guide

Hyde and Zeek is a special method of gearing up at level 80 in Star Wars: The Old Republic that allows you to more quickly get a partial set of high-end gear, and is the most efficient way to gearing up both your main character as well as your other disciplines or other characters. By doing their quest, they allow you to disintegrate a piece of high-level gear in exchange for being able to purchase unlimited mods from them so you can mix and match to make your own gear sets for combat at a higher level. Updated for 7.5.1 in 2024!

Goals

Casual Player: If you are a casual player who likes the idea of being better geared up, but don’t want to go crazy getting the best gear in the game, your goal will be to get an almost full set of item-rating 340 gear, which once you are done will be a mix of blues and purples. To do this is quite easy, because you will only need to earn ONE item level 340 blue piece, and ONE item-rating 340 purple piece to turn into a special questgiver – you do not need to earn a full set which saves you a ton of time! This method is called the Hyde and Zeek method, and is a really great goal for all players who enjoy playing at Level 80. Once you do this, you’ll actually be able to get unlimited copies for credits for your other characters on your server!

Best Gear in the Game: If you play really often and enjoy chasing down gear, or are doing the hardest content in the game, your goal will be to earn a full set of item-rating 344 Purple Rakata gear. Unlike the Hyde and Zeek method, you will need to manually earn and upgrade each Rakata purple-bordered piece in your equipment up to 344, which can be a long process, but is accessible even to solo casual players over time. Players lookin for full Rakata gear often do the Hyde and Zeek method first, so that they have some decent gear for all their characters available as they chase down their longer-term Rakata set.

How to Start

Hyde and Zeek, fugitive Rodian vendors that will sell you the mods, can be located in the middle alcove in the Supplies Section of the Fleet.

Speak to Hyde to Get a Mission

Once you find Hyde and Zeek hiding away in the corner of the room, go through some dialogue to learn more about them and eventually tell them you are interested in their modifications. Eventually, you should get a few choices.

• To unlock level 328 Blue mods, you will need the 328 Prototype mission.
• To unlock level 330 Blue mods, you will need the 330 Prototype mission.
• To unlock level 332 Blue mods, you will need the 332 Prototype mission.
• To unlock level 336 Blue mods, you will need the 336 Prototype mission.
• To unlock level 338 Blue mods, you will need the 338 Prototype mission.
• To unlock level 340 Blue mods, you will need the 340 Prototype mission.
• To unlock level 328 Purple mods, you will need the 328 Artifact mission.
• To unlock level 330 Purple mods, you will need the 330 Artifact mission.
• To unlock level 332 Purple mods, you will need the 332 Artifact mission.
• To unlock level 336 Purple mods, you will need the 336 Artifact mission.
• To unlock level 338 Purple mods, you will need the 338 Artifact mission.
• To unlock level 340 Purple mods, you will need the 340 Artifact mission.
• The best gear in the game is currently 344 purple gear. This means you can not get the actual best gear in the game from Hyde and Zeek, but you can get close.

Deconstruct a Relevant Gear Piece

Now that you have the mission you want, double check the objectives: in order to complete the mission you must deconstruct a gear piece earned from PvP, Flashpoints, or Operations of matching Quality and Rating. For the 340 Purple Artifact mods, you must deconstruct (click the broken saber button in your inventory, then add the piece to the new box and hit deconstruct) any 340 Purple Artifact gear you have.

Once this is done, your mission is complete! Talk to Hyde again to finish it, and he will let you know Zeek has new mods for you.

Talk to Zeek for Mods!

At this point, you should be able to buy your mods infinitely for the listed amounts of credits below (no extra currency required!) whenever needed.

If you don’t see the mods you want, try changing the dropdown at the top of the vendor’s window to “All” instead of your current Discipline.

Hyde and Zeek do not currently sell purple artifact 340 armorings, mods, barrels, and hilts. They only sell purple enhancements. You can get blue 340 mods, armoring and enhancements. Players are saying that if you combine the 340 blue mods with the 340 purple enhancements you get roughly the same as Rakata 340 gear. This means that they are very useful for gearing up alts or gearing up your other disciplines and roles, or filling in any gaps in your gear.

Tips

• “Best gear”: These mods are not “the best in the game”, but they are really, really close.
• Fast Gearing: Once you have Hyde & Zeek unlocked, it’s really easy to get an amazing set of gear quickly.
• Alts: This system is also really useful for players gear alternate disciplines and characters.
• Legacy-bound Gear: When choosing moddable gear shells to place your modifications from Hyde & Zeek into, choose legacy-bound gear. That way you can share it between characters. An easy place to get some is at the Adaptive vendor in the Supplies section of the fleet (double-check it’s legacy-bound first) or from various Reputation tracks.
• Modifications are legacy-bound: The things you buy from Hyde & Zeek are also legacy-bound. So you only need to unlock the quest on one character, then you can mail or legacy-bank the items. If the 2-hour timer prevents you from mailing or banking the item, put it in a piece of gear then take it out again first. Or just wait the 2 hours.
• Casual Player: This system is also incredibly useful to players who are not hardcore gamers, but have managed to get at least 1 of the items needed to turn into Hyde & Zeek.
• Solo Player? Solo players can take great advantage of these vendors! It just might take a bit longer.
• Not seeing all the modifications: There’s a bug that causes some of the modifications on the Hyde & Zeek vendor to be missing. Change the dropdown at the top form your current Discipline to “all”. Keep in mind that you can not get purple mods or armorings, they are not available.

What pieces should I buy?

If you are a damage player…

1. 1. Start by getting and equipping a full set of empty moddable gear, weapon and offhand equipped
   2. Equip what have available or can get for your Relics, Earpiece, and most important, Legendary Implants.
   3. Next, look at your Accuracy stat in your Character Sheet (Details). You want to reach as close to 2694 accuracy as possible, aka 110% accuracy, for non-PvP content. So start buying and equipping the yellow accuracy enhancements until you reach 110% accuracy on the Details sheet (scroll down in the sheet), so you never miss an enemy. Note your bracers and Belt can’t have enhancements. I needed about five accuracy enhancements.
   4. Your next step is your Alacrity, which controls how often you can use your abilities (and how fast casted abilities go). For most classes, you will be shooting for roughly just over 2,000 Alacrity, but it varies by class and by preference. With my Legendary Implants, this meant I only needed to buy two Alacrity enhancements.
   5. The rest of your stats you can put into crit. The may mean an enhancement, or augments.
   6. The next part is easy – buy 7 of the red armorings, one for each of your armor pieces, then the hilts/barrels/armorings you need for your weapon and offhand
   7. And then buy 9 of the red mods, one for each of your moddable pieces
   8. Last optional step would be to augment your gear.

Piece-by-piece

• Weapon: Any moddable weapon for your discipline, blue item-rating 340 hilt/barrel from Hyde & Zeek, blue item-rating 340 mod from Hyde & Zeek, purple item-rating 340 enhancement from Hyde & Zeek
• Offhand: Any moddable offhand for your discipline, blue item-rating 340 armoring/hilt/barrel from Hyde & Zeek, blue item-rating 340 mod from Hyde & Zeek, purple item-rating 340 enhancement from Hyde & Zeek
• Head: Any adaptive moddable headpiece, blue item-rating 340 armoring from Hyde & Zeek, blue item-rating 340 mod from Hyde & Zeek, purple item-rating 340 enhancement from Hyde & Zeek
• Bracers: Any adaptive moddable bracers, blue item-rating 340 armoring from Hyde & Zeek, blue item-rating 340 mod from Hyde & Zeek, (no enhancement)
• Chest: Any adaptive moddable chestpiece, blue item-rating 340 armoring from Hyde & Zeek, blue item-rating 340 mod from Hyde & Zeek, purple item-rating 340 enhancement from Hyde & Zeek
• Gloves: Any adaptive moddable gloves, blue item-rating 340 armoring from Hyde & Zeek, blue item-rating 340 mod from Hyde & Zeek, purple item-rating 340 enhancement from Hyde & Zeek
• Boots: Any adaptive moddable boots, blue item-rating 340 armoring from Hyde & Zeek, blue item-rating 340 mod from Hyde & Zeek, purple item-rating 340 enhancement from Hyde & Zeek
• Belt: Any adaptive moddable belt, blue item-rating 340 armoring from Hyde & Zeek, blue item-rating 340 mod from Hyde & Zeek, (no enhancement)
• Legs: Any adaptive moddable pants, blue item-rating 340 armoring from Hyde & Zeek, blue item-rating 340 mod from Hyde & Zeek, purple item-rating 340 enhancement from Hyde & Zeek
• Earpiece: The best you can get from whatever type of content you can play, example “Nightmare Mode Nefra” or Veteran Operations for purple item-rating 340 earpiece after forcing the drop and upgrading over time
• Relics x2: The best you can get from whatever type of content you can play, example “Nightmare Mode Nefra” or Veteran Operations for purple item-rating 340 relics after forcing the drop and upgrading over time
• Implants x2: Legendary implants which can be bought at item-rating 326 and upgrade to item-rating 340 legendary implants with tech fragments
• Augments: x14 Augments and x14 Augment kits, either the Legendary item-rating 300 augments, or if you can’t afford them, the blue or purple versions