I have saved up 180k and have 3 eternal orbs of alchemy and a 5* sword. Should I buy the eternal orbs needed to make it too vanaguard or keep looking for Eternals and save up money?
Please help me make a decision
Why not look at trying to get an event weapon?
Many are powerful and they all come with other high ranking players acknowledging that you are a tough or persistent player. The Grey Owlite Shield and the Omegaward are both extremely similar when it comes to damage resists and status resists but if you own an Omegaward that tells other players you did battle with some of the toughest monsters in the game (and won multiple times).
It's not easy though, events take time and grinding as well ask skill and often lots of CR to get what you want.
Apocrean items require Blackhawk, Silent Nightblade, and a Graviton bomb ready before you alchemize to the Obsidian version. It may be a wise choice to invest in getting some good base weapons to alch up from.
Tortodrone shields require some easier to get 2 star shields (Jelly, Owlite, Plate, and Skelly shields). Look up the various tortodrone shields on the Wiki to pick out one you want so you can invest in getting one with good UVs to compliment it.
Tortoguns are similar to the shields and also require 2 star guns as a base (Shadowtech and Prismatech Alchemers, Blaster, and Autogun). Tortoguns rely heavily on the charge attack so the best investment in UVs for this would be CTR of any kind.
The only other event with gear is the Kataclysmic Confrontation. Since all the gear is bought via tokens or by defeating a hard to access boss the only way to prepare is to build a set made for running Candlestick keep floors and to practice a lot. You may also find some Kat items in the AH with the most desirable of the gear being from the Black Kat set.
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This is a frequently asked question. My canned answer is here.
Specifically in your situation, each 5-star item costs 3 orbs, which cost 800 energy, which cost about 64,000 crowns. So use your 3 orbs to make a helmet. Then use 128,000 crowns to make your suit and shield. Then you have everything you need to get 5-star clearance. Do that as soon as possible.
Then continue saving and searching for orbs, to make additional 5-star items. This will be easier because you have clearance for better missions such as Firestorm Citadel.