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Got (Crew) Skills? Who Haz them?


ChAiNz.2da

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So.. with my gunslinger, I went with Cybertech/Underworld Trading/Scavenging. Pretty much a common combination and beneficial to my class.

 

However, as I often like to take odd twists and turns, for my Marauder I went with the non-conventional (as in the sense that it provides no crafting skill worth a flip) Slicing/Treasure Hunting/Underworld Trading.

 

My thought was "to gather as much money and phat loots" to afford higher end gear from the planet's specialty good vendors. And since Vette has a higher crit chance on the gathering skill, maybe I'll make even more bank.

 

Well, this so far has failed miserably :xp: Lockbox returns don't cover the cost of the missions. The "crit loot" was often just as worthless as the main payoff. And I have no crafting ability. Only 'good' thing is slicing's augment missions.

 

Anyone else had better luck with the combo? Does it (combo above) get better?.. or do you have your own horror stories.. or better yet, run in to a super awesome combo? (conventional or non-conventional)

 

Curious to see who around here is toying around with skills.. or just taken the defacto safe (yet highly effective) route. Thinking I should just re-train to biochem or synthweaving. Something effective for the class :lol:

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With the multiple Slicing nerfs since beta, earning credits via missions is now not really viable without a maxed skill, full crew of companions and a lot of micromanagement. Basically the only really profitable missions in pure terms of ROI are the level 1 & 2 moderate missions, as well as the level 5 moderate/rich missions. Have a look at these -

 

http://crewskills.net/crafting-info/slicing-profitability/

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArCSGLnwZLADdGxYdlhEejBFclBjR3l1N29OaW1kYUE&gid=0

 

For Slicing now you want to focus almost exclusively on harvesting to both level the skill and make money. This is quite doable, you just have to know when and where to do it. The things to keep in mind are as follows:

 

  • While other resource nodes are on about a 4 minute respawn timer, Slicing nodes are now on a 10-15 min respawn timer. Whereas with other harvesting skills you can often do multiple sweeps of an area, with Slicing don't bother - just keep moving.
  • Expect that pretty much every other player you see will have Slicing and thus will be directly competing with you for resources. Expect that every other player is a complete and utter bastard who will ninja your Slicing node while you are soloing the pack of Elites guarding it. This happens with pretty much everything anyway (like quest objectives and chests), but when it comes to Slicing nodes any shred of courtesy towards other players apparently goes out the window. To mitigate this, it pays to play at non-peak times (in the US). I have a natural advantage being on the opposite side of the world as my main play time is late night/early morning in the US west coast. Fewer players means more nodes for you. Also, as a secondary benefit, less ninja-ing of quest objectives. If you are going back to a place specifically to do a "Slicing run", that is the time to do it.
  • Keep an eye on your mini-map. Less a problem early on, but once you have a speeder you will often be moving long distances back and forth between areas and invariably not paying much attention. Scroll your mini-map out as far as it will go (mouseover and use scroll wheel) and watch for the asterisk-like harvesting node icons.
  • Know the spawn areas. While in some areas you get Slicing nodes out in the middle of nowhere, generally the spawns are more frequent around "civilised" areas like buildings and such. The direct result of this is that, unlike other resource nodes, some planets have an extremely high density of Slicing nodes clustered around some points. Alderaan in particular seems to be a hot spot for this sort of spawn pattern. If you find a place like this, file it away to come back to at 3am or after a server reboot.
  • Expect resistance. Slicing nodes will generally be far more likely to be guarded by mobs than other resource nodes. In particular, pretty much any place you see an Elite there will invariably be a Slicing node right next to him. Heroic areas are thus often quite good sources of Slicing nodes. To efficiently harvest in these areas, you'll likely need to be by yourself and a few levels over whatever mobs are around. Groups generally make harvesting impractical, often intent on blazing ahead like a bull in china shop without even stopping to heal, much less harvest nodes *cough*Lynk*cough*.

 

For missions, focus on augments. You'll likely find that the majority of these will be useless for your class, but you should be able to sell them on the GTN (especially the purples). Keep any that have stats of use for when you get a augment slotted item (I can craft you earpieces with augment slots). The other thing you'll get with critical successes (both with missions and nodes) is crew skill mission discoveries. These generally sell pretty quickly on the GTN, in my experience especially Bioanalysis and Treasure Hunting (I assume Underworld Trading and Investigation too, but I keep those for my alts). I have found that Diplomacy ones don't seem to sell as well. You'll occasionally get missions for the gathering skills too, like Scavenging and Slicing itself. Again, I generally keep these for myself or alts. You'll also get ship part and custom speeder schematics on crits. Unfortunately there seem to only be like a dozen or so of these in total, so subsequently the GTN is flooded with them. If you want these to sell you'll have to mark down the price to undercut everyone else.

 

For Treasure Hunting, absolutely avoid the lockboxes. I don't have any hard data, but I think the general consensus is these are even worse than the Slicing ones. Unless you are trying to harvest blue/purple gems for Artifice alts or selling on the GTN, focus on companion gifts. You can either use these yourself (make sure to use a guide for which type is best for which companion) or sell them on the GTN. Most sell pretty well as long as you stick with the price the GTN auto-selects. What you really want though are the gift fragments. You get these when you crit. Multiples of these (12 green/premium, 6 blue/prototype, 8 purple/artifact) can be assembled into high quality gifts, and should sell for a bunch on the GTN.

 

EDIT: I just threw some augments I had in the bank on the GTN and ran a few missions of varying levels to test the numbers and it seems I will have to revise my earlier statement. Based on likely yields, selling price and mission costs, it doesn't seem like augments are actually very much use at all purely from a financial gain perspective. Stick to doing those missions solely for the purpose of your own usage. That takes me back to my original statement, which is that in its current guise, Slicing is really only worth focusing on harvesting nodes rather than missions.

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Got ninja looted 3 times last night for lockbox resource while I was fighting off the baddies just to have some other %$@# scan it while I was busy. RAGE.

 

Hate that crap.

 

Needless to say.. I now have BioChem and it's 2 associated gathering/mission skills :xp:

I have already made more money just selling off the fodder stims that I didn't RE to better version schematics.

 

I had Blue versions of the compact stim and the recovery stim (heals you and companion) within the first 10 minutes.. so I let go of the slicing angst. I'll shoot for purples closer to endgame as it's both too expensive and a timesink to bother blue/purple each level of schematic.

 

Looking forward to implants once I get high enough to craft them at least.

 

Still, if I ever find the ninja looters.. I will track them down till they make the mistake of walking in a warzone :devsmoke:

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Yeah with crafting skills I only ever grind greens of some specific use for myself for levelling, RE-ing to get back some mats and learn some blues. If I am making gear specifically for myself or someone else, I'll grind some greens for a blue if I don't already have it. I don't bother with purples though. No point until you hit the cap, especially at low levels since you burn through them so fast. For example, I was making some mods for my Sorcerer's slotted gear the other day. I queued them up on my Cybertech char (Jugg) and then went back to the Sorc to continue playing. By the time I got back to the Jugg to send the mods a couple of hours later, the Sorc had dinged 3 more levels and the mods were all now underlevelled.

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Got ninja looted 3 times last night for lockbox resource while I was fighting off the baddies just to have some other %$@# scan it while I was busy. RAGE.

I had that happen last night during a mission. I kept seeing one of the those lightsaber carriers running around, we were doing the same mission. I needed to shutdown one more "thing", but the only one left was next to a strong and elite (something that still give my healer trouble). Respawn really seemed to be moving slow, so I attacked. During the battle, while my wookiee was getting shocked to death, that cowardly Jedi walked in and stole my goal.

 

I added the Jedi to my friend list, so I will pay it back one day. I was ticked, but by the time the battle was over the respawn had happened. Didn't get the one I was aiming for, but there were three more close by only surrounded by 3 weak. The more I think about it, I do believe that Jedi got a door from me Sunday while I was in the middle of a battle.

 

My only advice on crew skills is to start early and do not wait until after Act 1 to start them (like I did). I can't believe what people want for Green Goo.

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Heh yeah some people put some absolutely ridiculous markups on mats on the GTN. They really need to add a unit price to the listing so you don't have to manually calculate it.
If you hover your mouse over the total cost, it will show you the cost per unit.
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Thought this might be of interest to people wondering what skills to take with which class. This is a list of the bonus critical chances for particular crew skills available to each class based on their companions. The list only has the actual skill bonuses, not the companion names to avoid spoilers. I also spoilered the list for those that don't even want to see that much.

 

All classes additionally also get various efficiency bonuses for various skills from companions, but I haven't included these. I believe the sole function of this is to reduce the time taken crafting or on missions, but there's no real tangible benefit to that when you get the same result by raising a companion's affection. I had thought that efficiency may additionally increase yield from harvesting nodes and the like, but I've never seen any real tangible evidence of that first hand.

 

Show spoiler
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Bounty Hunter

+2 Biochem Critical

+2 Bioanalysis Critical

+1 Armstech Critical

+2 Treasure Hunting Critical

 

Agent

+5 Bioanalysis Critical

+5 Diplomacy Critical

+2 Armormech Critical

+2 Slicing Critical

+2 Underworld Trading Critical

 

Inquisitor

+2 Underworld Trading Critical

+2 Slicing Critical

+5 Archaeology Critical

+2 Scavenging Critical

 

Warrior

+5 Treasure Hunting Critical

+5 Synthweaving Critical

+2 Investigation Critical

+2 Bioanalysis Critical

 

Trooper

+2 Diplomacy Critical

+5 Scavenging Critical

+5 Armormech Critical

+1 Underworld Trading Critical

 

Smuggler

+5 Armstech Critical

+1 Slicing Critical

+2 Bioanalysis Critical

+2 Treasure Hunting Critical

 

Consular

+1 Underworld Trading Critical

+2 Armstech Critical

+2 Scavenging Critical

+2 Diplomacy Critical

 

Knight

+2 Slicing Critical

+5 Synthweaving Critical

+2 Treasure Hunting Critical

+5 Biochem Critical

 

I'm not 100% sure on the accuracy of all the values, as I harvested them from a couple of different sites and they may possibly be out of date. I haven't been able to verify all of them in-game myself, so if anyone sees an error feel free to correct me.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

..but I don't see anywhere else to ask about crew skills.

 

I've been on top of my crew skills with my new Consular/Sage since 11th lvl.

He has Underworld Trading/Archeology/Synthweaving. Though my mission skills have laxed since I've been trying to get Synthweaving up so I can build better sets of armors.

 

The question I have now is what am I actually shooting for with Synthweaving?

If I keep reverse engineering my robes and boots and gloves and stuff, will I eventually be able to make orange-labeled upgradeable gear? (Armoring/Mods/Enhancements)

That's what I'd like but maybe it's wishful thinking.

 

Thanks.

-QDJ

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In the current build of the game (1.1.5) you cannot Reverse Engineer gear to the point of becoming an Orange/Custom piece, it will always go from Green>Blue>Purple. There are some exceptions where a green can lead to a few types of blues which then lead to a few types of purples, but yeah never orange. The only way to craft orange equipment is to either learn an orange schematic from your trainer or learn it from a loot dropped schematic.

 

Starting in Game Update 1.2 they will be adding more schematics and also Orange Crafted gear will gain an Augment slot when critically crafted, make orange custom gear the potential BiS gear.

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