I know this could probably be put in the crew skill section, but it pertains to my Jugg, so I threw it in here.

 

Tanking at lvl50, I never felt like I needed the extra boost. Now at 55, I'm feeling like I need a boost somehow. I feel squishy. I'm in full Basic gear, with 3 pieces of Elite at the moment. Is my gear the reason I feel squishy in HM's? I haven't started raiding yet because my guild is currently taking two weeks off, and before that I didn't have the require Basic level gear.

 

I've had Artifice since I made the toon at launch. However, I rarely use it to be honest. I'm not a person to craft and sell. I'm thinking about picking up Biochem to help give me a little more security that I'm doing everything I can to make sure I'm "tip-top". Would that be smart use of time? Is Biochem gains minimal?

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

I honestly think Biochem is the only way to go as a tank. Medpack/adrenal are just another cooldowns and will ruin you financially. Also I never ever tank without a stim active in current content.

I'm actually moving all of my ops-running characters to biochem - it's just too useful to have for everybody. It's kind of disgusting, really. Reusable (better-than-buyable) medpacks, reusable stims, reusable adrenals - for a tank, I have my absorb adrenal available as a quickbar selection, for my sentinel, I have my attack adrenal right next to my relic so they can be activated at the same time, etc.

 

It honestly feels like the only viable progress/operations profession, which kind of sucks. If you have another biochem and can make your own blues for other chars, not *everybody* has to be biochem, but as said above me, if you're keeping yourself stocked - we're talking probably 5-10 adrenals per operation, 1-2 stims, 4-6 medpacks - that's a lot of cash.

we're talking probably 5-10 adrenals per operation, 1-2 stims, 4-6 medpacks - that's a lot of cash.

 

We are not hardcore raiding guild, and not perfect on tactics as we have a pool of maybe 12 people who interchange in HM ops and we need a little extra boost so made it a habit to actually use adrenals for DPS on cooldown... Pricey, but it helps. I'm main tanking in HM's and if we are short on DPS I hit my attack adrenal on my tank on cooldown as well. I used to be able to sell a lot of stims on gtn, but now I have a DPS ALT who's armstech and he consumes a lot of my stim production

I just made a new character who will be cybertech - will test granades more. They sure helped us in EC HM Kephess back before expansion.

From launch until last week I was a synthweaver on my jugg tank. Then we stared in on NiM TFB. Biochem is the way to go.

 

I'm actually kinda bummed about needing to do so, but it is undoubtedly the most effective crew skill for any end game raider.

Is Biochem gains minimal?

 

Yes. It used to be, that some serious guilds would even require every raider to have biochem.

 

By now, the difference between Biochem and not Biochem is not so powerful.

 

So, I will be the naysayer. No, I don't think Biochem is overwhelmingly required. I used to have Biochem on 70% of my characters - i use percentages because I don't know how many characters I actually have across all the different servers in the galaxy =) But, suffice it to say, I have at least 30, though only 5 are max level.

 

I say used to, because, Biochem has been nerfed over time, and just isn't that great anymore.

 

The 15% health on use (health) medpac was huge! But, once that got nerfed, the difference between biochem and the rest was pretty much blurred.

 

Sure, perhaps you "save" a little money, on the reusable medpacs. Say, for example, the health one that can heal up to 6800.

 

But, the craftable - non-reusable one is "better" because it also includes a small 1500 or so, additional heal over time. I say "better" because really it's not that big of a deal =) (and honestly, I probably would be more satisfied with the reusable one). =) But, technically, the one available to everyone is better than the biochem specific health medpac. Also, they are BOTH only usesable once per fight - so there is no advantage to a biochemer.

 

There is also craftable stims that persist through death, for 90 minutes(?, 2 hours?). Those are every bit as good as the reusable ones for biochem - so yeah, never having to make any is better than actually having to make some, but there is no major cost if you only need to pop one every few hours.

 

The adrenal is ok, and can be popped, but when you look at what you gain - the benefit is usually 2-4% for 15 seconds. I don't know necessary that it will make a difference. On my biochem toon, I still use it. But, it's mostly a placebo effect =)

 

Maybe a month or so ago, I dropped Biochem on most of my highly active characters, because as long as I have one biochem character, I can make all I need for the rest of them. And, let's be honest, the mats are REAL easy to get, and you can just send out your companions all the time, and always have enough for everyone.

 

The best argument in favor would look like this:

 

1. you run ops - and need (should) to have max adrenals, stims, medpacs on hand, at all times.

2. you have no other character with biochem, that you play regularly.

3. your guild does not provide them to you.

4. you don't hardly play at all outside of ops.

5. and don't have 25 million credits in your account - to buy them from the Galactic Network.

6. you don't have a mate to craft them for you.

 

Then, perhaps it's worth it to level biochem to 450.

 

All that said, I can't really make an argument that anything else is terribly more useful if you do Ops - as a main focus.

The issue isn't that biochem is amazing, it's that nothing else really helps you on ops. All the other crafting skills can be placed on alts.

convenience

 

After max'ing out every crew skill I only take Biochem on every new toon, and the reason behind it is simple: for convenience.

 

The blue crafted stims/adrenals give more raw stats/boost (+7 defense and a bit more endurance for the fortunate one for example) - so to min/max your performance you want to use those, but the reusable ones do not cost you anything at all (once you got them ofc) and nothing should hold you back from using them all the time, whereas the blue ones need to be crafted/bought and that either costs time or credits and therefore a lot of people only use them rarely to save them up.

 

They are also a nice boost/help while levelling up alts (with biochem ofc).

 

If the question would be about what crewskill is the best to min/max performance in an ops - cybertech could be considered as useful as biochem as you could throw in one of the reusable grenades for dps every 3 mins, but I think even there the blue 'one use' ones perform better than the reusable ones (not sure tbh, as I only use them on my cybertech toon).

Edited July 25, 2013 by Stuffedduck