Covering Your Bases with Crew Skills

[palswim]

When I started playing SW-TOR, I followed the thought of wanting my alts to cover all of the crew skills, but limiting my choices to gathering skills that would support my crafting skill on a per-character basis. (E.g. for a character with a Cybertech crafting skill, I would take Scavenging and Underworld Trading.)

The aforementioned approach worked out all right for me, but, with Strongholds and guilds and the ease of transferring items from character to character, if I started all again, I would have chosen my Crew Skills slightly differently, instead trying to assign the Crew Skills to the classes that would use them best and transferring materials as the other crafting skills would require. (I.e. I would have my character with Scavenging transfer the materials to my other character with Cybertech.)

For each Crew Skill, the best classes are (I consider Critical chance as always better than Efficiency):

• Bioanalysis: Sith Warrior, Smuggler, Bounty Hunter
• Scavenging: Trooper
• Slicing: Sith Inquisitor, Jedi Knight, Imperial Agent
• Archaeology: Sith Inquisitor
• Diplomacy: Imperial Agent
• Underworld Trading: Sith Inquisitor, Imperial Agent, Droid
• Treasure Hunting: Sith Warrior
• Investigation: Sith Warrior, Smuggler
• Armormech: Trooper
• Armstech: Smuggler
• Artifice: Sith Inquisitor (Efficiency only; Jedi Knight has a smaller Efficiency bonus)
• Cybertech: Droid (Sith Warrior, Jedi Consular, Imperial Agent, Smuggler all have +10 Efficiency bonuses)
• Biochem: Jedi Knight
• Synthweaving: Jedi Knight, Sith Warrior, Droid

By "Droid" in this list, I mean the Ship Droid (C2-N2, 2V-R8) with a specific sensor.

As a result of this data, if you choose to have one character of each class, I would recommend the following for Crew Skill distribution (Italics indicate that the class doesn't have the highest rating in the particular skill):

• Sith Warrior: Synthweaving, Bioanalysis, Treasure Hunting
• Sith Inquisitor: Artifice, Archaeology, Underworld Trading
• Bounty Hunter: Bioanalysis, Biochem, Treasure Hunting
• Imperial Agent: Slicing, Diplomacy, Cybertech
• Jedi Knight: Biochem, Slicing, Treasure Hunting
• Jedi Consular: Cybertech, Scavenging, Diplomacy
• Trooper: Armormech, Scavenging, Bioanalysis
• Smuggler: Armstech, Bioanalysis, Investigation

For the classes where I indicated non-optimal (in Italics) skills above, I generally selected skills in which the class had some bonus, but for most characters, I would just default to Biochem, Bioanalysis, and Scavenging.

A note about Diplomacy: SW-TOR divides the Diplomacy missions along Republic/Empire factions, but does not distribute them very well. So, even though the Imperial Agent has the best companion for Diplomacy, you may still want to select a Republic class to have Diplomacy as well (the Trooper and Jedi Consular both have companions with Critical bonuses in Diplomacy, as well as the Ship Droid with the Medical Sensor).

[Deleted]

Its a nice summary, thank you Will save some headaches when rerolling.

Biochem is quite interesting as it's a permanent bonus until level 52+ (reusable stims/adrenals/medpacks). Where gear crafting (armor/weapon/synth) can make nice augments. But you can buy augments/slots, while you must be biochemist to use the reusable stims.
So... Is there still any appeal to take another crafting skill than bio? :s

[palswim]

So... Is there still any appeal to take another crafting skill than bio? :s

That's the question, isn't it. For any new character I create, I always take Biochem.

If I did it all over, I don't know if I'd follow my own guide (though perhaps I would for the Gathering skills). But, now, it's sure nice to have characters to cover all of the Crafting Skills at top level.

I would say that Cybertech is the second-best Crafting Skill, but by some distance, then Artifice, then Armstech, then Armormech, then Synthweaving.

[Deleted]

How do you rate them? By money made on the GTN when selling the products?

[quras]

Just some FYI and make of it what you will till more is announced. BW said this in one of their Q&As.

There are big changes to crafting coming which they will explain later in a blog post.

To add to that, someone mentioned that apparently they are planning to make gathering nodes adaptive, give you mats based on your crew skill level and the planet you are on.

Companions are being changed so you choose them based on their story aspect (i.e. who you like) rather than what they can do abilities wise. More details on this later

Q: With restructuring of the companions, what does it mean for crafting?

No comment at this time. There are some big changes coming with crafting that I am not going to get into it as that is something we will announce later on. Companions play into that so you can expect some changes.

That might could mean crafting abilities as well. More to come on crafting but as the new expansion info comes out. We may not have companions with specific crafting bonuses.

[palswim]

How do you rate them? By money made on the GTN when selling the products?

I hadn't really thought of them in that way, but I rate them by "usefulness", meaning the benefit for your character and alts above making a different choice, which could include financial gain on the GTN. I definitely don't have an exact method. For example, Cybertech produces Mods and Armor, which are extremely useful, but which I can purchase easily without the Cybertech Skill using Commendations or credits. But, no matter how many Commendations or credits I have, I cannot use the Biochem reusable items without the Biochem Skill.

I would think that this ranking also roughly corresponds to return on the GTN, but not necessarily, since I believe that I can make more credits with Cybertech than with Biochem (though Bioanalysis materials generally cost more than Scavenging materials). It all depends on the market, because if everyone chooses Cybertech, then suddenly those crafters will make less.