Crafting at End Game

My Preferred Goal for Professions

I believe in the model that says you should get more from a Flashpoint than you’d get solo for the same effort. And you’d get more from an 8 man than you’d get from a Flashpoint. For 8 vs 16 the jury’s still out. However, I’d still like to see professions more useful in endgame than they appear to be, and more the what they were in WoW.

My View of the Current State

I haven’t had a lot of exposure to the Ops environment, so is post is partly a ‘from the outside looking in’, so if my basis is wrong feel free to point it out in the comments.

Looking at SWTOR professions, only one, Biochem, provides a continuing stream of crafting past reaching 50 and making the best pieces. In WoW there were a number of ‘improvement’ skills that modified new gear (Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, Blacksmithing/Tailoring/Leatherworking to a lesser degree), as well as the ‘consumable’ profession, Alchemy. SWTOR’s Slicing and Cybertech appear to be able to do that at first glance with mods and augments, but the reality is that Augment Slots only appear on crafted gear, and both Augments and mods can be removed, at a cost, from existing gear. This means that even if there’s a way to make customized gear even to Ops gear, changing base pieces doesn’t require crafting.

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Level 50 Daily Missions

All quests were completed using a Smuggler Scoundrel. This affects the rewards and the companion affection gains, and using Stealth is noted where applicable. Also, this post will be updated as more information is discovered.

At Level 50, after completing your Class quest chain, you go into the Interlude. This is essentially the start of your end-game experience, and one of the major parts is doing the Dailies for gear and mods. Two chains, one on Ilum and one on Belsavis, lead you through the areas where you need to go for your daily quests, gathering Daily Commendations as you go. After the break I’ll detail the Daily quests and their rewards.

Things I Wish I Knew Pre-SWTOR

Bug Workarounds

• If you have one of the following issues, press Ctrl-U twice to reset your UI.
• Can’t click any action buttons or interact using the mouse.
• Only part of the guild roster is visible, or is unable to be resorted.
• Use the keybind to open your bag, if you need to use the Reverse Engineering button.

User Interface

• Turn on Area Loot.
• Turn on all 4 Action bars, you’ll need the space.
• When you’re not changing the buttons on the bars, lock them using the icon next to your portrait. Its very easy to drag icons, especially when you’re using 2 monitors.
• Shift-Left Click and Drag will bring up the split interface for a stack, but it will also put the item in your chat box. Shift-Rigth Click and Drag however, will not put it in the chat window.
• Under General abilities is your Emergency Fleet Pass. But be warned, it has a LONG cooldown.
• You can move your Chat window around by dragging the General tab. Unfortunately you can’t lock it.
• You can also move your Operations frame around by right clicking on the image of 4 people.
• Use the Exit Area button on your Minimap to exit a Flashpoint.
• Ctrl-Left click to view items on your character. Weapons can’t be displayed unfortunately. If you Ctrl-Right click however, it will try to equip it, which is never good when you’re viewing items to send to another.

Companions

• Companions like AOE. A lot. Don’t expect to hold your CC if you’re not careful.
• Companion abilities reset to their defaults when you mount up. Its hard to stop them using abilities that they’d normally use.
• A healer with a companion who is a tank or high DPS is just as effective as a DPS or tank with a healer companion. Just make sure to heal them.
• Gearing your companion is as important as yourself. Learn their primary stat, and keep an eye out for gear that may be useful for them.
• To turn on comparison of gear for your companion as well as you, check the Interface settings.

Crafting

• If you’re a Cybertech, buy any Orange pieces you can get your hands on for both you and a companion. The Commendation vendors for different planets often have one or two pieces. Then keep these modded up as you level.
• When crafting, an Artifact item can usually be used about 8 levels prior to its standard stat equivalent, so learning earlier patterns and getting Artifact quality items is worthwhile to overgear an area.
• Missions can make you very poor very fast. Keep an eye on the cost of missions and make sure you have enough for your skills at higher levels, when they cost up to 10,000 credits each.
• Always keep a stock of the vendor bought parts of your crafted items in your Bank. Don’t go overboard though, they can get expensive.
• Yields for missions are (in ascending order of return):
• Moderate – Small number of Prototype level items
• Abundannt – Larger number of Prototype level items
• Bountiful – Large number of Prototype level items, chance at Artifact materials
• Rich – Large number of Prototype level items, higher chance at Artifact materials
• Wealthy – Guaranteed number of items of all categories for the Mission skill. i.e. For Underworld Trading you get Prototype and Artifact Metals, Prototype and Artifact Fabrics, and some Companion gifts.
• If you wish to level a skill up quickly, focus on the Green patterns. You can completely level a crafting skill on a L10 alt (or one with a companion at least) simply by feeding gathered materials from a higher level character. Without the mission skills you won’t get the Prototype or Artifact items, but you will get the skill, and the ability to get those later.

Gameplay

• Use Recuperate as often as needed to ensure you go into battles at full health. You never know when extra troops will drop in.
• Kill something in every area where you have a quest. You never know where your bonus quests will come in.
• When you get bonus quests, complete them as quickly as possible, don’t hold off, as if they say “Stage” then there’ll be more to do.
• There is a Bonus Series on all worlds past this initial one, though it may not be accessible straight away. Keep levelling, and anywhere you missed out on the series, check the spaceports after each new level. They also make you a lot of money. For example the Nar Shadda series netted me approximately 35k at level 33.
• Pick up every quest you see in the area, and keep an eye out after picking one up. The more quests you can lump together the more likely you are to complete them quickly. Bonus quests often share mob kill counts.
• Crowd Control the Strong and Elite mobs and take out the handful of smaller mobs first when dealing with a mixed group. The less firepower on you the more likely you are to survive.

Miscellaneous

• Hyperspace travel takes no more than the time it takes to run from the cockpit to the door, but its nice to watch the stars fly by once in a while.
• Always read your Quest Tracker even if you don’t read the quest. Don’t fly to Nar Shaddaa to hand in a quest you can use the ship’s Holocom for.
• If you like fashion, keep every Orange piece you find, so that you can mod it up and use it to make a matching set of gear.
• Your ship moves with you, if you take a shuttle or Fleet Pass to Carrick Station (or the Imperial one)
• You can buy a Fleet Pass from the Security Vendor (requires a authenticator), but everyone starts with an Emergency Fleet Pass ability with an 18hr cooldown. Its good to use if you have to log off and want to be in a rested zone in a hurry.