The goal of this thread is to provide a short guide on how to gear for PVE in the beginning of endgame, before getting to aegis content, without using too many Mark of the Pantheon, Black Bullions and Pax Romana. I'll assume that you own the woodcutter talismans because I'm too lazy atm to do it without too. If you don't have them, you'll probably be fine by adding pen if you don't have the dps WC talisman and block if you don't have the tank WC talisman, but it won't be optimal with the stats given here. Some stats/signets given here are not really the best possible, but they are taken that way in order to use them in different roles. Still, all those builds are designed to be pretty safe and efficient, and should let you do most nightmare non-aegis content without any trouble. Finally, I'll not comment a lot on the builds themselves, so it is assumed that you have "classic" builds, and you will probably have to change a few things if you want to try some non-conventional builds. I’ll also give some useful links in order to make your builds and to understand them, and you can also check tswdb for up-to-date builds or Raztec’s Video Guides for video guides on a lot of dungeons and raids.

I have chosen to give this guide in the form of an example (with 16 10.9.5 talisman, 3 intermediate 10.4.4 talisman and only 2 weapons that you have to glyph twice for the 5 main different roles), but the goal is not that every new player now get this exact gear, but more to give a basis that you are free to adapt to your situation. This example is far from the talismans that I actually have, because I now have accumulated a lot of useless talismans from previous non-optimal gear sets. I made this thread in order to avoid the same trouble to some new players, and most of the tips given here are way better explained in other threads, but the difficulty to find them for newer players and the fact that some of them are now outdated can lead to some wrong choices. There is no need to gear in the order given below which is arbitrary, and you can very well begin nightmare dungeons by tanking them for example. Try to always upgrade glyphs first, and then talisman. You should probably buy issue talisman and not regular talisman if you have the issues, and the location where you can buy them is indicated in tswcalc when you select the issues signet. All improvements and remarks are of course more than welcome, and I will edit the thread to add them.

1. DPS

This is probably the role that most people begin with.
Beginner stats
You can choose any combination of weapon to dps, even if some are more efficient of course. You can start Polaris, Hell Raised and Darkness War with 10.0.0 stats, Hell Eternal and Slaughterhouse with 10.0.4 stats, but you should probably wait for 10.2.4 (and experience) to do Facility, Hell Fallen, the Ankh, New York Raid and Eidolon. You should have 10.5.5 to do Flappy. Of course, if you are with experienced DPS, you can do any dungeon with any stat.

More advanced stats
The most important signets to get are Laceration then Aggression on your main weapon, signet from issues are also cheap so you should get them. If you plan to tank or to do scenarios with a main weapon (probably chaos or blade), you should take Breaching instead of Aggression in the beginning. If you have the Subway Tokens, it is not really a big dps gain to upgrade your Luck Talisman to 10.9, so just do it if you have nothing best to do. You can take an attack rating and a crit rating pot if you want. If you need more hp for some dungeon/raid, use a minor tank talisman instead of a dps one in the waist talisman for example, the one you can also use for scenarios or tanking, with a Benefaction Tonic or a Max Health pot.

ArtificialMind's Ultimate Theorycrafted DPS Guide : The most up-to-date dps build guide.
Beyond Theory: a DPS Performance Guide for Dungeons and Raids : Everything you need to know outside of builds.

2. Heal

This is usually an easy role to begin with since fist heal overheals a lot, but also an important one because if you die it will probably be a wipe. The stats given here of course also work very well for blood healing, but you should probably begin with fist healing.
Beginner stats
The main heal weapon is usually fists, and you can add blood, elemental, assault rifle or pistols depending on what you need. However, only the stats on your fist or you blood focus matter, and you can just take any stats you want on the other weapons. You can start Polaris, Hell Raised and Darkness War with 10.0.0 stats. You can also do Slaughterhouse, the Ankh and Hell Eternal, but you will probably need a Blood Focus and Cold Blooded for Slaughterhouse, and an Assault Rifle and Reap and Sew for Hell Eternal and the Ankh as a second weapon. You can also do Facility if the tank isn't healtanking. However try to begin with the easiest dungeons in order to get some experience if you are not used to healing or don't know the dungeons yet. You should have 10.2.4 to do Hell Fallen, New York Raid and Eidolon. You should have 10.5.5 to do Flappy. For Flappy and Eidolon, it is better to have 4k HP.

More advanced stats
Healing signets are quite cheap so you can get them easily. The most difficult part will be to get the Coney Island Band which drops in NYR, but it is not really needed as long as you fist heal. While you wait for it and for the Broadway Charm, upgrading your Ring and Occult Talismans in not a priority since you will not use them anymore once you have them. Note that in most content, you will not really need that much heal rating and it will probably better to replace some healing talisman with some tank talisman in case you take damage. You can take a Heal Rating/Benefaction Tonic and a crit rating or power pot if you want.

A Reference Manual for Healing : Everything you need to know about healing (and more), mostly up-to-date.

3. Leech

Once you have your heal setup finished, you can begin to try to leech, but don’t do it until you have enough gear and a little experience with heal and dps roles.
Beginner stats
Your main leech weapon is assault rifle, and you can add fist/blood/pistols/elemental for more utility or any other weapon for more damage. You can start Polaris, Hell Raised, Darkness War, the Ankh and Hell Eternal with 10.2.4 stats. You can also do Slaughterhouse, but you will probably need a Blood Focus and Cold Blooded. You can also do the Facility if the tank isn't healtanking. If needed, you can also assist the main healer in New York Raid or Eidolon. You should probably wait for 10.5.5 to do Flappy. Finally, Hell Fallen is almost impossible to leech. If you have trouble healing the tank as a beginner, feel free to either add a Heal Rating pot or a talisman from your healing set (the heal WC for example).

More advanced stats
The Coney Island Band is by far the best item in the game to leech, and the Broadway Charm can also be useful. Laceration and Thirst signets are probably the most useful signet that you should have. If you’re having trouble healing the tank, you can always add some heal rating to the build, for example the minors from your heal setup. A Benefaction Tonic is really useful and a hit/crit rating pot can also help you.

The Reaper: The complete guide to rifle leech healing (more power edition) : This guide is mostly outdated when it comes to builds, but still contains a lot of useful information about the mechanics behind leeching.
THE REAPER 2016 (questions about optimal leech build/gear/signets) : An interesting discussion about current leech meta.


4. Scenario

With good gear and some experience, doing nm scenarios solo is not really difficult. The good thing is that you can also use it quite efficiently for Kaidan. I will not mention builds for group scenarios here since too many different strats can be used.
Beginner stats
Usual weapon combination are blade or chaos as main weapon and hammer or elemental as secondary weapon, but feel free to test whatever you want. You can try elite scenarios with 10.0.0 stats to practice, and then begin nm scenario when you reach 10.0.4 stats, but it will probably be easier once you are full 10.4.4. Your first few tries will probably not be successful, but you should improve fast.

More advanced stats
The most important signets for damage are Laceration and Breaching. The Coney Island Band and a Thirst Signet are also quite useful to improve your survability. A lot of different builds are possible for nm scenarios, and some people also like to take some defensive stats, mainly block, but the idea of this kind of gear is to **** everything before they **** you, and not to survive for ever when you are surrounded by enemies. Benefaction Tonic is godlike in Scenarios, and you can add a crit pot if you want.

Theoretically Best Scenario Build : An up-to-date discussion about builds.
TSWDB Scenarios : All you need to know about scenarios themselves.

5. Tank

Last but not least, tanking. This is the role that most people don’t know how to do, but also the most interesting in my opinion.
Beginner stats
If you already know a little bit about tanking, you will notice that this is not the usual stats with only block as a defensive stats, but it’s just my personal recommendation. The three main tanking weapons are blade, chaos and hammer, and you can take anything as a second weapon depending if you want to dps-tank, buff-tank, really tanky tank or just something else. You can begin Polaris, Hell Raised and Darkness War with 10.0.0 gear, but getting your block talismans to 10.0.4 before will probably make it easier if your healer is also a beginner. As soon as you are 10.0.4, you can also do Slaughterhouse and Hell Eternal. You can also do Facility if you don’t want to Healtank. As soon as your HP talismans are 10.4, you can do Eidolon and the Ankh too (this build is maybe not optimal for the Ankh since you can’t block there, but it works fine). If you want to do Hell Fallen, you should probably either take one more major HP (for example the hit one from your NYR set), or upgrade your head talisman to 10.9 and take a Benefaction Tonic or a Max Health pot. You don’t really need more defensive stats as long as you take Trucker+Double Dash+Immovable Object+Cool, Calm and Collected+Order Signet which give you all the block you want. As always, you should wait for 10.5.5 to do Flappy.

More advanced stats
8k HP is enough for most content, but always keep a minor hp on the side that you can use for the harder content (the Waist Talisman for example in the gear given here). The most important signets are Breaching, Order and Ablation. Unceasing is a personal preference, but other option like Salvation are also possible if you don’t have enough budget. Benefaction Tonic, Max Health and Block pots can be useful.

The classic build could work for New York Raid, but since you can’t mitigate the damage, you will probably want a special build for it.
Beginner stats for NYR
You can do NYR with 10.2.4 as long as you take a Benefaction Tonic to get 7k hp.
More advanced stats for NYR
Once you have enough HP (depending on your healer but usually 7k HP) feel free to drop one of your minor tank talisman for a dps one (which is why the occult tank talisman is not upgraded in the beginner stats example). You can take a Benefaction Tonic and a Crit Rating pot.

Ciritty's Not so small Pink Tanking guide : The Bible of tanking for years, still mostly up-to-date.
New to TSW tanking : An interesting discussion about tanking in the current meta.