Most profitable craft skill?

[krislicoque]

Hey there

Just wondering what the most profitable craft skill is when maxed out?

Currently I have Archaeology, Slicing and Underworld Trading. But I'm thinking of switching one out for Treasure Hunting - possibly Archaeology.

What are your guys take on this?

[Windry]

1) Crafting skills are only profitable because you sell them to other people.
2) The prices you can sell them for depend on the people on your server.
3) Check your GTN a few times during the week, and find out what sells well.

If you didn't know...
Synthweaving makes willpower/str gear (boots, belt, gloves, chest, legs, helm)
Armor mech makes aim/cunning (boots, belt, gloves, chest, legs, helm)
Cybertech makes earpieces of for all classes, ship parts, mods and armoring
Biochem makes implants for all classes, and potions/flasks
Artifice makes crystals and enhancements

[krislicoque]

1) Crafting skills are only profitable because you sell them to other people.
2) The prices you can sell them for depend on the people on your server.
3) Check your GTN a few times during the week, and find out what sells well.

If you didn't know...
Synthweaving makes willpower/str gear (boots, belt, gloves, chest, legs, helm)
Armor mech makes aim/cunning (boots, belt, gloves, chest, legs, helm)
Cybertech makes earpieces of for all classes, ship parts, mods and armoring
Biochem makes implants for all classes, and potions/flasks
Artifice makes crystals and enhancements

Thanks a lot for the answer.

Yeah, I'd rather not rely too much on crafting and supply/demand, that's why I got 3 gathering.

Now Im wondering archaeology or treasure hunting?

[Varyk]

Slicing probably, even after the nerf. All it does is make credits. At 50 when u can send 5 companions and they each bring back 2-5k each (with procs for more) it gets crazy.

Biochem probably saves you the most in the long run, making your own stims and med-pacs. Assuming you PVE, you need these on a regular basis.

Most of the crafting professions only make good stuff if it "procs", the 140 level stuff is all BOP I believe, so there's no profit there.

[mstieler]

Hmm... gathering/mission vs mission-only....

Arch gets you artifice crafting mats only, but lets you gather from crystal/artifact nodes.

Treasure hunting gets you the same crystals, but you can also get lockboxes and companion gifts from the missions as well.

[Vengfulr3ap3r]

Hmm... gathering/mission vs mission-only....

Arch gets you artifice crafting mats only, but lets you gather from crystal/artifact nodes.

Treasure hunting gets you the same crystals, but you can also get lockboxes and companion gifts from the missions as well.

Arch gets you materials for synthweaving as well as artifice. Also treasure hunting gets you the materials you'll need for blue and purple hilts/enhancements/crystals, eg items like "firenode" thats the only one I can think of off the top of my head because I dropped artifice relatively early, Not crystals such as color crystals, powercrystals etc those come from archy only. So archy gives you the default crystals/artifact stuff to make greens for both artifice and synthweaving. Those come from archy and archy alone.

Treasure hunting is the only source of the blue/purple crystals, which are needed for the blue/purple items artifice can create while also giving you lockbox's and companion gifts.

TL;DR Or I confused you.

archaeology gives mats for synthweaving and artifice
Treasure hunting gives blue/purple mats for artifice blue/purple created items. + lockbox's + companion gifts.

[BeingRepressed]

Bioanalysis

Everybody uses medpacs/stims/adrenals and the higher end recipes require a rather absurd amount of materials per item. While many of the bio mats are fairly low value, things like red goo and mutagenic paste often sell for 1k+ a piece. On my server, red goo can actually sell for up to 2.5k per piece (247k/stack).

You can make some money from every other trade, but in terms of most profitable, bioanalysis blows every other trade away. Pre-nerf slicing was the only trade that could compare.

[Deleted]

Remember that part of making money is opportunity cost.

If you are not making money, you are losing it (relative to people who are currently making money). So, if you are ever idle, with a profession that is not making money right away, then you are losing.

For this reason, many of the crafting professions are bad, as anything that doesn't sell, or if you picked it to make items for yourself, then you are losing potential money. If you really wanted to make the most money possible, I would have to guess it to be Slicing, with all 5 companions out on missions 100% of the time. This would include logging in at night and during the day to ensure they are out making money for you.

If you are trying to make as much money with just the time you spend online in the evening, then you could consider a profession that makes high value items (you are restricted to 50 items at a time on the GTN).

Considering it takes no input to level slicing, I'd go with this. I'd go so far as to have slicing on all my alts too, so that they are also producing money all the time. It would be interesting to see if someone had 8 chars on a server with 3-4 companions out slicing all the time, how much money they could make.

[LordBalkoth]

Arch gets you materials for synthweaving as well as artifice. Also treasure hunting gets you the materials you'll need for blue and purple hilts/enhancements/crystals, eg items like "firenode" thats the only one I can think of off the top of my head because I dropped artifice relatively early, Not crystals such as color crystals, powercrystals etc those come from archy only. So archy gives you the default crystals/artifact stuff to make greens for both artifice and synthweaving. Those come from archy and archy alone.

Treasure hunting is the only source of the blue/purple crystals, which are needed for the blue/purple items artifice can create while also giving you lockbox's and companion gifts.

TL;DR Or I confused you.

archaeology gives mats for synthweaving and artifice
Treasure hunting gives blue/purple mats for artifice blue/purple created items. + lockbox's + companion gifts.

With the eexception of slicing which only provides augments/credit lockboxes and schematics for cybertech plus missions for gathering/mission professions. All SWTOR professions fit into this mold.

Crafting skill+gathering skill+mission skill. To make a green hilt or green medpack or green whatever you just use crafting skill plus corresponding gathering ones but if you want to make blue and purple ones you need the mission skill related to profession. Treasure hunting provides blue gemstones plus purple ones if the mission is a critical. If you want to craft a purple hilt you MUST get a critical on a treasure hunting mission for gemstones and have other mats ready.

So Diplomacy feeds into biochem, treasure hunting only fits into artifice. Underworld trading is the granddaddy of them all and serves armortech, syntheweaving and cybertech, investigation feeds into armstech only.

[Karshtakavaar]

I would suggest going Slicing/Archaeology/Scavenging.

They are all gathering skills, but there is little money in doing mission skills right now.

At least with these, u can keep 5 companions out on slicing missions, while traveling around the high level areas (Ilum mostly) collecting materials and lock boxes from nodes. This will give the best profit.

If you send out companions on missions, they usually cost about ~2k per mission depending on which one you send them on, and they come back with on average 4 pieces of material or so. You'll get about the same from a node on you own. And, you would have to sell the individual items for 500+ credits each just to make a profit on the cost of the mission. If you do this, likely someone will undercut you, if it sells at all, and you won't make as much profit as you could.

Slicing missions are usually a profit, and if a loss, not much of one. Plus, they usually come back with other items (cybertech plans) that can also be sold for a small profit on the gtn. Those nodes can be gathered along side arch/scav nodes which can all be sold for pure profit (well, it takes some of your time to find them, but everything else you kill while farming them will yield more credits anyways).

Of course, if you aren't interested in investing your own time in making the credits, there is simply not a lot of profit to be held there in the first place.

[Vengfulr3ap3r]

With the eexception of slicing which only provides augments/credit lockboxes and schematics for cybertech plus missions for gathering/mission professions. All SWTOR professions fit into this mold.

Crafting skill+gathering skill+mission skill. To make a green hilt or green medpack or green whatever you just use crafting skill plus corresponding gathering ones but if you want to make blue and purple ones you need the mission skill related to profession. Treasure hunting provides blue gemstones plus purple ones if the mission is a critical. If you want to craft a purple hilt you MUST get a critical on a treasure hunting mission for gemstones and have other mats ready.

So Diplomacy feeds into biochem, treasure hunting only fits into artifice. Underworld trading is the granddaddy of them all and serves armortech, syntheweaving and cybertech, investigation feeds into armstech only.

Yes. I am completely aware of that. Please re read my post. My post wasn't to explain the professions and what they provide for. But merely to expand upon the incomplete information the previous poster had posted. They had said that archy was for artifice and implied you could get the same crystals archy gets from TH, which is untrue seeing as artifice provides for both artifice and synthweaving while TH provided the more "rare" materials you would need for blues and purples. The way it was worded implied archy and TH provided the same types of crystals. I was merely clarifying to keep anyone from getting confused. I know what feeds into what. But that isn't what the TC was asking for. Just which were the most profitable. I was improving upon the prior information by providing a more complete overview and so they could make an informed decision as to what archy and Treasure hunting provided, and thus be able to determine if its profitable for them.

So yes, Every profession fits into that mold and rightfully. Its that way by design. Each mission skill feeds a crafting skills blue/purple needs and each gathering provides the base materials needed for greens/blues and purples (with the exception of slicing). If I was going to explain every profession though, i'd do it the easy way. And just provide links to the threads I learnt from. Which would be the following links.

SWTOR Crew Skills 101: Basic Crafting Guide

and

Crafting map

[LordBalkoth]

I was not correcting your post but adding to it. The person who thought archeology and treasure hunting provided the same rewards was wrong. Archeology provides color and power crystals plus artifact fragments while treasure hunting provides gemstones lockboxes and gifts. You cant get yellow crystals out of archeology for example.

[PeskyJNixon]

I would suggest going Slicing/Archaeology/Scavenging.

They are all gathering skills, but there is little money in doing mission skills right now.

At least with these, u can keep 5 companions out on slicing missions, while traveling around the high level areas (Ilum mostly) collecting materials and lock boxes from nodes. This will give the best profit.

I think this is great advise with one exception - I really would go Bioanalysis, Slicing, Archeology. Armstech is notoriously the least chosen profession on most servers (in my experience) and Armortech has limited returns towards end game, which limits the scavenger as those are the crafters you feed. Folks will ALWAYS need Biotech supplies add to that that Biochem is currently the preferred profession at end game and I think you have a better money maker there. Even with the upcoming nerfs folks still need these items constantly. They only need armor once (on top of which the best armor you cannot trade, hence no money).

So for profitability alone I think Slicing is the first and best choice, Archeology sells well up until end game, and Bioanalysis at end game will sell like gangbusters. If you are to go with a crafting perspective obviously Biochem is the top choice with Cybertech being second (armor pieces, ship pieces, mods, ect all sell relatively well on the GTN).

The answer to the opposite question would probably be investigation, armstech, and diplomacy. Karsh does that sound about right to you?

[krislicoque]

So really biochem, slicing and underworld trading would be the absolute best money maker end game. I don't care much about early game, as I'm level 50.