Also on SSDs and still annoyed by the slowness. I'm told it's because the game is thrashing its resource files to load textures and the like. Apparently they're not particularly well-organized?

Fairly certain all crafting abilities *except artifice* have the ability to make the kits. The various augment (mod) schematics are divided among them as well *again excepting artifice*. (Can you tell that I dislike the lack of love shown toward artifice? Giving us dyes doesn't fix the problem.) I have armstech on my BH and she's been churning out my Overkill augments for my artifice sage using augment bits RE'd from green 55 shield generators (pre "fix") and slicing bits from my scoundrel... Convoluted? yes, but *shrug*

Let's fix that right now: 1) Craft any weapon or piece of armor ten times. 2) Reverse engineer them--you will recieve 1 augment component + other mats per RE 3) buy augment kit schematic appropriate for augment components from (2) 4) craft Augment Kit MK-# 5) visit a modification station (Starting worlds, crew skill section on fleet) 6) drop in item to receive the kit 7) select kit in drop-down (fee applies) 8) hit apply ...Your item now has an empty augment slot! Yes, a single augment kit requires 10 augment components in addition to other grade-appropriate materials The augments themselves are also craftable (cybertech, armormech, armstech, synthweaving) and act very much like all the other item modification bits... EDIT: forgot to mention the augment schematics are generally crit rewards from crew skill missions like slicing. Can be found on the GNT as well

The fee mentioned is to apply the augment kit to the item, not to put an augment in an augment slot...

The legacy system needs *something*! It is fairly useless once you get it beyond level 25...

You can't even get into a HM Op through GF, correct? It's been my opinion and experience that GF is used mainly for dailies and gearing-up, not for endgame. [...which sucks for me as I'm in a 2-person vanity guild with a friend...]

I have no intention to get invested in dye packs, but I really have to share this bit of amusement... If you want to see just how truly ludicrous the system is, try previewing dyes on any of the Gree armor sets. Additionally, the system is not even internally consistent: The Restored Triumvirate set is one of those "undyeable" armors, however you can preview dyes on it (white/orange looked rather favorable IMO) At the very least, I now have an outlet for all those stacks of grade 6 crystals, so yay for that... [...we now return you to your regularly-scheduled ranting...]

Oh, I agree. I dumped nearly 2mil into the transition from my partial (pre-patch) Black Hole set to the Gree Blue Scalene set. I've also dumped a lot of comms into getting everything up to at least "Basic grade" mod-wise. All the augments and the associated kits? Crafted--funded by running through all the 2.0 content and doing as many of the Makeb dailies (including GSI) as I can cram between dinner & bedtime during the week. I think the real trick to this is to find (or cobble together) an outfit that you're willing to stick with for a long time. For my Sage, it was the Blue Scalene. My sentinel is sporting the Organa Statesman, while my vanguard has the White Scalene. Of course, the scoundrel is in the Interstellar Privateer, and the operative has Red Blade (including the gun!) Last night, I put my assassin in the Thul Loyalist, and the powertech in the Restored Triumvirate. I still have the Sand People outfit from the plague event, and found most of the Star Forager outfit. Before anyone balks at involving CC in the discussion, I only ever bought one batch when the system was implemented. I did use them on the privateer outfit and part of the Organa outfit. Ignoring the Gree rep outfits, everything else was direct from the GTN.

*this* I also have to wonder if players know that you can augment *all* gear. That cool relic you just picked up? augmentable. They're not just for weapons & armor. I can definitely understand not bothering with augments at lower levels and on things that generally have a short lifespan, which is why I've been using my main to fund complete outfits for my alts; it also acts as a nice outlet for all those relatively useless planetary commendations. As a casual player, I've made sure I slapped a MK-9 on my gear, but I'm content to only have purple Overkill 28s on everything since the odds of my doing a high level Op are fairly nonexistant. As an aside, I'm in the process of converting my (modest to some but obscene to me) stockpile of grade 6 materials into MK-6 kits--not sure if I'll put them on the alt outfits or put them on the GTN...

Alacrity only affects cast times and channeling speeds; while Healing Trance will be faster, Rejuvenate will remain unchanged.

I'm not a "pro" either, but I'd at least like to weigh in on the issue... My friend and I were having this same discussion last night, and the more I think about it, the more things fall into place. So everyone can see where I'm coming from, I've linked to my skill and gear builds at this particular moment (still an upgrade-in-progress) As strictly a PvE player, I don't think the pre-2.0 wisdom is entirely upset, but without actually changing my gear I couldn't say for certain--the gear sheet speaks for itself. For reference, fully-buffed I have roughly 2.4k bonus healing, 30% crit, 65% crit heal bonus, 6% speed bonus and 28k health (heals: 8.4k crit/2.5k avg.) My mindset to this point has been to get all power onto just the augments as much as possible, choosing will-heavy parts and trying to find the right balance between crit & surge. Feeding each stat is always going to be a blindfolded, one-handed juggling act, but still I don't think alacrity really figures into the picture; after the above discussion and further thought, I intend to push as much of my current alacrity as possible into surge. Those ~300 points amount to only a +.3 second cooldown reduction and a +.3/second force regen. For the sake of argument and assuming a linear progression, to make it worthwhile I'd need 1-2k for a theoretical 1-2 second cooldown reduction and regen addition. Sacrificing from power and will aren't an option since that would reduce base effectiveness. Dumping either crit or surge will hamstring the other and affect burst ability/effectiveness. In general terms, the theoretical speed build might raise your overall average output, but I feel you'll end up working your keyboard a lot more to compete with a good burst build. Bottom line: Shaving a few tenths off the wait to reuse an ability isn't worth the sacrifice. I'm more interested in if/how the underlying math for power & will have changed--my friend thinks I should push most of my power into will to take advantage of the 6% bonus skill... 36/7/3 PvE build Gear spreadsheet

Another factor to take in to account is the fact that F2P hasn't been available for a particularly long period of time. You've noted the progressing wavefront that the surge of new players created.