I'm considering dropping Armstech for Biochem (along with the gathering professions), but I was thinking, is there any possible chance that they can somehow nerf Biochem? I don't see a way they can, not sure if they announced it, but would I be safe to go Biochem right now?

It's going to be infinitely funny later on when all the people who dropped their crew skill to jump on the biochem bandwagon are pissed cause Bioware added in nice arms/armor/synth/artifice/cyber recipes.

 

I'm armstech and even through it's not as awesome as it could be now, I'm confident there's more recipes in the works.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Rotny

Short answer:

 

Yes there is very much a way they can nerf biochem. There would be lots of ways. Whether they *will* or not is hard to say. Early on, the running opinion was that the most overpowered skill was slicing. It took them less than 3 weeks after launch to nerf that some. If biochem is generally seen as much more useful than any of the other professions, it is a good bet to think at some point either:

 

1. it will get nerfed; or,

2. other professions will get substantial improvements to make them more attractive while biochem gets nothing (or only gets very minor improvements).

 

Remember that in an MMO like this the developers are constantly data mining everything. At any given moment, they know exactly how many characters there are of each profession. If they start seeing numbers shift in a way they aren't happy with, there WILL be some sort of "rebalancing."

Depends on if the other crafting skills offer up an equal level bonus once explored.

 

If they don't, I'd expect a nerf.

 

Right now 80% of the information seems to be anecdotal conjecture about how crappy crafting is from a population that isn't exploring it before complaining - so nobody can tell.

 

I'm 400 armortech on one guy and 400 synthweaving on another, and I've considered the swap too. Thing is, my impression is that BW has planned the bonus structures to net out in the 'end', given the delicate and informed balance I am seeing in other aspects of the game.

 

Just seems like crafting balance would be a really stupid thing to overlook - I don't expect to even sense it before 400 mind you, just like balanced low level pvp never really worked either.

I'm a PvPer. Arsmtech Scavenging Investigation.

 

I'm guessing that arsmtech would not be the best for me, so regardless, do you guys suggest Biochem for a PvPer over a crafting skill

It's going to be infinitely funny later on when all the people who dropped their crew skill to jump on the biochem bandwagon are pissed cause Bioware added in nice arms/armor/synth/artifice/cyber recipes.

 

I'm armstech and even through it's not as awesome as it could be now, I'm confident there's more recipes in the works.

 

What could they possibly add to all those professions that would change the simple fact that pve gear is easier to get?

 

The crafted sets have no set bonuses so you cant even use them over the tier 1, 2 or 3 pvp or pve sets, they take 5 times longer to make, more effort, more expensive and at the end of the day, they arent even equal to the stuff you get in EV, and since you have to do EV to get the recipies, what the hell is the point?

Edited January 8, 2012 by deserttfoxx

Yes, nerf Biochem to make it useless like the other crew skills then nerf Cybertech because it will need to be useless too.

Biochem is a crafting skill. Really hard to make money off of it, but if you want reusable heals and stims, go for it.

 

Raising tradeskills is criminally easy in this game, if you don't like biochem after awhile try something else.

Really don't think it will be nurffed !!!! But as stated before I'm sure the other crew skills will be buffed & new recipes will be available!!!

 

But the funny thing is that the moaning won't stop & people will be complaining other crew skills need to nurffed!!! There is no pleasing some people!

Atm, Biochem is the only useful crafting skill. All the others are wastes of time.

 

There are a number of solutions to this issue. The one that makes the most sense would be to up the price of gear from commendation vendors. Commendation gear is far too easy to aquire and makes most crafting professions useless.

 

And at level 50, the BoP requirements need to be looked at and refined.

 

 

OR they could just nerf Biochem and make it as useless as the other professions. The worst cases solution, but for some reason, worst case solutions are a favorite of MMO Devs.

Edited January 8, 2012 by --Grim--

What could they possibly add to all those professions that would change the simple fact that pve gear is easier to get?

 

The crafted sets have no set bonuses so you cant even use them over the tier 1, 2 or 3 pvp or pve sets, they take 5 times longer to make, more effort, more expensive and at the end of the day, they arent even equal to the stuff you get in EV, and since you have to do EV to get the recipies, what the hell is the point?

 

They could copy WoW and give each profession a unique way to enhance armor.

 

Look at Blacksmithing in WoW, they could create an item that allowed an extra gem (stat enhancing augment) to be put into the belt slot item on anyone.

 

While they could do the belt enhancement for anyone, they also got a unique enhancement to add an extra gem slot to another piece of their equipment (I forget which) only for themselves.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Valnarr

It doesn't need to be nerfed, it's only a 50 something stat boost over normal and saves some money. Two 28 augments of pure stats go in the bop rakata level percs for both synth and armormech and they can probably be reverse engineered to have more secondary stats and they're top tier raiding equivalent so to be competitive a biochemist would have to have both of these pieces and their prof bonus.

Are you nuts?

Don't dare say NERF. Look at what BW did with Slicing!

Do you want another useless crew skill? O.Ou

I'm biochem bioanalysis diplomacy right now but I plan on switching a gathering to Slicing once i've crafted some epics and things, and of course once it gets buffed slightly.

 

Yeah, I kind of do think that biochem is op the way it is, but just the purples, which do cost a lot, considering you have to craft 16-20 items on your way to it. Then you actually have to get the epic resources to craft it. So not a mega-nerf, but I am on board with making the other professions more attractive.

it doesnt need to resort to a nerf, the others can get buffed

it doesnt need to resort to a nerf, the others can get buffed

 

Slicing rings a bell?

I would not be surprised if bioware changes the med kits so they are all consumable. Armormech's still have to pay for repairs on armor, cybers have to pay for repair of orange armor (item mods), arms tech have to pay for repairs on weapons, biochem will most likely lose their infinite heal/buff items.

 

It's already a huge advantage to use those items for PvE. (maybe for pvp too?) Even without infinite use items it's still a no brainer to take this skill for power leveling. Healing your companion is a huge benefit in pve. Buffs make you earn xp faster in the end.

Slicing rings a bell?

 

figured someone might bring that up.

 

slicing was bringing in more money than the other crew skills that have lockboxes as rewards:rolleyes: its now even with those

Edited January 8, 2012 by Skodan

figured someone might bring that up.

 

slicing was bringing in more money than the other crew skills that have lockboxes as rewards:rolleyes: its now even with those

 

Another ridiculous answer.

 

Slicing doesn't receive ITEMS for lockboxes, since it only receives CREDITS.

Also the other 'gathering' (aka the Augments) are useless, by default, since most commendation equip is better than anything that can be crafted. Also the fact that it has to be a CRIT craft to have augment slots..

 

Once again, please, don't talk about something you don't understand. There's plenty of threads explaining that Slicing got killed due to some idiots not being able to see the whole picture on endgame.

for what reason do professions have BoP items anymore. Really?

BoE gear, BoU the biochem stuff, and be done with it. Crafting will be fine again.

Another ridiculous answer.

 

Slicing doesn't receive ITEMS for lockboxes, since it only receives CREDITS.

Also the other 'gathering' (aka the Augments) are useless, by default, since most commendation equip is better than anything that can be crafted. Also the fact that it has to be a CRIT craft to have augment slots..

 

Once again, please, don't talk about something you don't understand. There's plenty of threads explaining that Slicing got killed due to some idiots not being able to see the whole picture on endgame.

 

are you complaining that you don't get useless greens from item lockboxes that you have to vendor for less then credit box missions? wow...

 

augments are not useless, you are doing it wrong if you think they are. Augments are are dependent on the other crafters making things, which is good. Slicing is a support profession, which is ok. They augment for gear, they provide schematics for other crew skills. More isn't needed. On top of that it is still the most profitable mission skill, despite the nerf.

 

Saying there are threads whining about a nerf doesn't mean anything. People QQ when they are nerfed, it happens. Now there are at least a fair amount of slicers for the needs of the community while the other mission skills actually use, unlike before where everyone when with slicing. When the devs tell you they are making decisions based on statistics and metrics and are not going to be changing things just because people complain, this is what they mean.

 

It wasn't just a power nerf without looking at the final picture, it was the last or 3 nerfs they have been giving slicing slowly, over time, to bring it in line without taking it too far. If you are trying to make it sound like a hasty decision with no thought behind it you are going to fail.

Edited January 8, 2012 by lobete

The way to nerf Biochem is to nerf is the bonus (or scaling) you get from adrenals and to a lesser degree stims/med packs. Because of the buff scaling and stacking, they can make a difference of 2.5k on a single attack in pvp and heal for a large amount on a 90 sec cooldown. Theoretically, non-biochem could also consume the blue versions, but the reusable nature of the items means they're going to be used every cd and there's no way a non-biochem can realistically spend the credits to make that happen. Infinite items (that are so powerful) is a bad idea. Edited January 8, 2012 by durvas

are you complaining that you don't get useless greens from item lockboxes that you have to vendor for less then credit box missions? wow...

It was not me who started comparing Slicing lockboxes to other Crew Skills' lockboxes.

Why are you resorting to such a childish argument? Fail.

 

 

augments are not useless, you are doing it wrong if you think they are. Augments are are dependent on the other crafters making things, which is good. Slicing is a support profession, which is ok. They augment for gear, they provide schematics for other crew skills. More isn't needed. On top of that it is still the most profitable mission skill, despite the nerf.

Augments ARE useless and I already stated why. Read. Twice.

 

Saying there are threads whining about a nerf doesn't mean anything. People QQ when they are nerfed, it happens.

Don't make things up. We've proven with spreadsheets that the numbers don't make sense. If you don't understand them it IS your problem, my dear. Not mine.

 

 

Now there are at least a fair amount of slicers for the needs of the community while the other mission skills actually use, unlike before where everyone when with slicing.

Using your same argumentation method: So you DO are saying that missions from Slicing should be sell at 20k each to make it even with other gathering skills? Interesting point of view.

 

 

When the devs tell you they are making decisions based on statistics and metrics and are not going to be changing things just because people complain, this is what they mean.

You mean something you don't understand. The problem with Slicing was that it was abused with alts. READ, my friend, READ.

 

It wasn't just a power nerf without looking at the final picture, it was the last or 3 nerfs they have been giving slicing slowly, over time, to bring it in line without taking it too far. If you are trying to make it sound like a hasty decision with no thought behind it you are going to fail.

They nerfed Slicing on BETA and it went out on production AFTER being tested on an endgame enviroment. We were not even close to that when the mases started QQing.

What they should have done is BAN the abusers. Not make the skill useles..

The way to nerf Biochem is to nerf is the bonus (or scaling) you get from adrenals and to a lesser degree stims/med packs. Because of the buff scaling and stacking, they can make a difference of 2.5k on a single attack in pvp and heal for a large amount on a 90 sec cooldown. Theoretically, non-biochem could also consume the blue versions, but the reusable nature of the items means they're going to be used every cd and there's no way a non-biochem can realistically spend the credits to make that happen. Infinite items (that are so powerful) is a bad idea.

 

I'm not so sure about that.

 

I crafted up about 80 self/Companion stims for lvl 8 req. I mailed them off to a new char and when she hit level 8 it was game on.

 

I got through my main story line and obtained my ship @ level 12 7/8 if it weren't for the crewskill training xp stealth nerf I would have been level 13.

 

So it's not like they cost a fortune to make and honestly here's a tip... In my experience on 3 servers you can buy stims from the market and reverse them for mats cheaper than you can run missions @ low levels.

 

I would say anyone in a guild or that is willing to make a Biochem capable char could make all that's needed and mail them to non biochem chars. Like what I did.

 

Why should biochem get a nerf because people don't want to "play the game" they just want to play A game?

 

New generation mmo games are geared for the adventurers. God forbid you would actually go out in the world and gather materials.

 

But because that takes time from the adventurers game play they want nerfs or design to give them all the same goods/gear.

 

Just look at the above posts about useless crafted gear. I mean why even have crafting in a game. It's like designers these days sit around and say hey if there isn't any crafting we won't get subs so let's put in SOME SORT of crafting, it doesn't have to be truly useful.

 

I don't think it's a credit problem I think it's like the LFG tool issue. People are just looking for fast and simple with a single "be all", "push the I win" button character.

 

I guess this is what "mmo's" have come to since they were made to appeal to the console players.

 

 

/stepsOffSoapBox

 

 

oh and by the way- I'm mostly an adventurer...

There's making Level 8 stims once, and then making epic adrenals/stims/medpacks that you do not need to buy any from now until the end of SWTOR. The amount of money saved from not buying tons and tons of blue items at 50 is ungodly. As I said above, it wouldn't matter so much if you did not need the items to be competitive. The bonus they provide (because of scaling) is much too powerful to ignore, so you either have to spend the credits or be gimped. There's a reason everyone is rushing to BioChem, and it's not because it's just convenient for alts.