Fellow SWTOR heads, before I proceed with my topic let's just for the sake of discussion, ignore the changes coming to 1.2 and address the situation in the present.

I have a level 26 Commando trooper. I have read every guide relating to crew skills front to back, whether it be the guide itself, the RE guide etc. Credit to everyone who worked on those they are great.

I have read a lot of conflicting things and wanted everyone's thoughts on this as it relates to SWTOR 1.1.5a

My commando is coming along nicely, defense is an issue and that has lead me to some of my crafting choices. Many of the guides say that troopers can't go wrong with biochem because of the unavoidable use of medpacs. I do have some low level reusables (stim and medpac) but they're value is starting to diminish. First, I see a lot of talk on the boards about Bioware nerfing biochem. Second, of my three skills (biochem, bioanalysis, and diplomacy) diplomacy is really the only I've been using since I got the reusable and that is for gaining affection with my companions using gifts.

Now maybe the biochem stat hasn't been useful to me because i'm at the weird flux period for my character where chapter 1 is ending and new things will be opening to me soon.

Lastly, funds are getting kinda tight, and:

can anybody shed some light on how they recommend i continue to go about this?

Part of me thinks armormech makes sense to help with defense, other part thinks armstech, and the other part of me think that going with slicing (and 2 other crew skills you guys recommend) would make sense in that with enough money you can get whatever you need.

also, with regards to being a commando, how does customized armor work in comparison to looted armor? i've heard stats are comparable but looting takes longer for better equipment. or is money the route to go?

level 26 commando + crew skills = what is a trooper to do?

For the BH that I made I went armormech and made my own gear. I used commendations/GTN/vendors to keep my weapons up to date.

For the trooper that I made, I went cybertech, use orange gear, and make the overlays and mods, while using commendations/GTN/vendors to buy enhancements (and barrels and crystals for my weapons).

Either way works fine.

I am working harder on cybertech to keep up, since I have to make more parts for everyone to get their gear updated, but I am skipping some for some companions, and cybertech offers some things that armormech didn't, like earpieces.

Biochem shines post-50, after you are all geared up.

How much this all changes come 1.2 remains to be seen.

1) Don't buy anything until you have your speeder, especially since you don't have one at all.

A) Train only skills that you use regularly.

B) DO NOT buy gear off of the GTN. You're around the level where you start picking up lots of orange gear--learn to love it! Use commendations on the highest level barrel each planet offers, then switch between upgrading your Mods and Enhancements. We'll get to Armoring in a second.

2) You're at a point where the money you start making from questing will ramp up significantly. To put things in perspective, at level 50 running my dailies on Ilum & Belsavis nets me ~200k. You won't be pulling that kind of money in, but you should be pulling 60-70k a planet from quest rewards alone.

3) I recommend that you pick Cybertech. Earpieces are difficult to come by, and Armoring is the biggest commendation sink. Crafting your own will help you and your companion stay up to date relatively easily.

4) If you don't care about having blue armoring (and honestly, as a Trooper, you can get by with just greens fine), I would take Slicing and Scavenging as your other 2 crew skills. Run mission skills to get these up to the level where you can comfortably harvest nodes on your planet. Once there, do not run them unless you're short on mats for some reason (you shouldn't be). Taking Underworld Training to 400 isn't all that difficult once you hit level 50 and have 5 companions to send out at a time. When you have 2-3, it's a pain.

5) Vendor, vendor, vendor. I've found that it's faster and easier to just vendor everything that's green, white, and grey. Blues are sometimes worth putting on the GTN, Purples and Oranges almost always are. Get a feel for your market and go with it.

I have a commando as one of my two 'mains' currently lvl 37 with cybertech, UT and scav. It's easy to get orange gear, especially by the time you get to tattooine, so making the mods ally helps. I found you can keep yourself geared up with blue mods and armor which will keep you about two mod levels above what you can get from the commendation vendors at your level. This makes a big difference to performance.

I rolled my second main, a Jedi knight with artifice so I could also make enhancements, as well as enjoying the melee gameplay - have found I prefer heavy armor chars whether melee or ranged.

I found one of the best ways round the cash problem is to take out a day or two for farming now and then. Pick a heroic on your last world which is not too far from a quick travel point and with respawning mobs, at a level where you can solo it without risk of dying at your level (or the repair bills will kill your profit). Then go kill stuff. Mandalorian Rage on NS is good, about 500-600 creds per group of mobs, and my current favourite is Search & Rescue on Tat, a heroic 4 which is very farmable at lvl 37 and yields 900-1300 creds per group.

I have a commando as one of my two 'mains' currently lvl 37 with cybertech, UT and scav. It's easy to get orange gear, especially by the time you get to tattooine, so making the mods ally helps. I found you can keep yourself geared up with blue mods and armor which will keep you about two mod levels above what you can get from the commendation vendors at your level. This makes a big difference to performance.

 

I rolled my second main, a Jedi knight with artifice so I could also make enhancements, as well as enjoying the melee gameplay - have found I prefer heavy armor chars whether melee or ranged.

 

I found one of the best ways round the cash problem is to take out a day or two for farming now and then. Pick a heroic on your last world which is not too far from a quick travel point and with respawning mobs, at a level where you can solo it without risk of dying at your level (or the repair bills will kill your profit). Then go kill stuff. Mandalorian Rage on NS is good, about 500-600 creds per group of mobs, and my current favourite is Search & Rescue on Tat, a heroic 4 which is very farmable at lvl 37 and yields 900-1300 creds per group.

I am in a similar position. My main is a sage with maxed out artificing. My trooper is 38 with cybertech, scav, and UT. I really love the combination. Being able to make all my enhancements, hilts, mods, and armor overlays has been just awesome as I have a lot of orange gear on each character.

Great posts guys. What a great community.

I think i'm going to slow down my story progression and grind.

I like the idea of getting the orange moddable equipment from UT then building the mods myself. Money may be an issue until i get that speeder. But I need to step up my equipment game first.

I'd love to hear additional opinions on this. If i go UT that will eventually provide moddable schems for both armor and weapons?

I've leveled up a commando to 50, and a vanguard to 50, and I will tell you this straight up:

Currently there are only two useful trade skills:

From level 1 to 50 you use cybertech so you can keep you and your companions orange moddable armor up to date. Cypertech makes armors and mods. You will still have to buy enhancements with tokens from each planet.

Plan ahead and keep your orange moddable armor in blue armor/mods and each planet will be a cakewalk, especially if you keep elara up to date.

At level 50, make some epic armor mods, and then do the belsavis and ilum +2 dailies each day to get epic mods/enhancements for your moddable armor. After a weeks time you can easily have all of your orange moddable armor and gun filled with epic mods.

Use whatever tokens and cash you have leftover to buy blue level items for every other slot you have and you will be ready for flash points.

Once your armor is filled with epic mods, drop cybertech and pick up biochem. Biochem will make you re-usable healthpacks and buff packs that will help you in flashpoints and ops.

Every other trade skill is trash. 100% pure absoutely useless trash. Don't even bother with them. Don't bother with the fan boy who tell you otherwise. Seriously, they are just trying to justify all the creds they themselves have wasted on other crew skills. I've been there, done that, and wasted so many credits on armortech, synthweaving (for my jedi i made) and artifice that it just makes me sick to think of all the waste.

So in summary since my english isn't the best.

Cybertech till 50, make your final epic armors, earpiece and mods.

Switch to biochem.

Enjoy the WIN

- P

I've leveled up a commando to 50, and a vanguard to 50, and I will tell you this straight up:

 

Currently there are only two useful trade skills:

 

From level 1 to 50 you use cybertech so you can keep you and your companions orange moddable armor up to date. Cypertech makes armors and mods. You will still have to buy enhancements with tokens from each planet.

 

Plan ahead and keep your orange moddable armor in blue armor/mods and each planet will be a cakewalk, especially if you keep elara up to date.

 

At level 50, make some epic armor mods, and then do the belsavis and ilum +2 dailies each day to get epic mods/enhancements for your moddable armor. After a weeks time you can easily have all of your orange moddable armor and gun filled with epic mods.

 

Use whatever tokens and cash you have leftover to buy blue level items for every other slot you have and you will be ready for flash points.

 

Once your armor is filled with epic mods, drop cybertech and pick up biochem. Biochem will make you re-usable healthpacks and buff packs that will help you in flashpoints and ops.

 

Every other trade skill is trash. 100% pure absoutely useless trash. Don't even bother with them. Don't bother with the fan boy who tell you otherwise. Seriously, they are just trying to justify all the creds they themselves have wasted on other crew skills. I've been there, done that, and wasted so many credits on armortech, synthweaving (for my jedi i made) and artifice that it just makes me sick to think of all the waste.

 

So in summary since my english isn't the best.

 

Cybertech till 50, make your final epic armors, earpiece and mods.

 

Switch to biochem.

 

Enjoy the WIN

 

- P

Warning: This advice has an expiration date & word is it is in early April. AYOR.

thanks i'm working on cybertch now.

i assume the orange equipment comes at later levels for underworld trading?

i can't wait to see the changes to crew skills for 1.2

also i saw this in the modding guide. can someone explain to me what he means by these two statements:

Now mods come in green blue and purple this is what I go by: if the required level is the same level as you.

A green mod will be 2 levels below you

Blue will be your level

Purple will be 2 levels above you.

 

SO this means stay away from green mods use those for your companion.

Blue is ideal for having in your gear.

Purple is best when you can find them, these will place you above the rest.

 

Purple gear has only 2 slots a Mod slot and a Enchancement slot. So after 2 levels you will see blue mods equil to or better than your purple equipment and itll need to replaced very soon. Save your money on these items untill 50! At 50 it wont matter because your max level already. If i get a purple drop ill strip the mods out and throw them in a orange piece of equipment.

 

 

Now for finding mods.

Every planet has a commidation Mod vendor. What I do is when I get quest rewards I look what is best to accept. Mods cost 7 for barrels, hilts and armoring mods..... 2 for Mod and Enchancement. So if the quest giver is offering a armoring mod or 1 commidation do the math you will be saving 6 commidations that can be used to throw in other items by getting the armoring mod. Same with the other 2 Mod and Enchancement if quest giver is offering a Enchancement mod or a commidation take the mod because you will be saving 1 commidation.

hi guys:

I have also a trooper command level 26... i am doing just fine with him and the companion... now, as far as crew skills i have scavenging, slice and armstech... scavenging is essential when you send companion on a mission to gather items.. they can bring the main item for weapons...and of course slice the higher you go into planets.. .more credits you get in slicing..

Start with grenade, exp

Keep your first speeder Until you purchase Pilot Rank 3.

Hopefully, you purchased one of those super cheap Cartel Market mounts nobody wants. The ones that sell on the GTN for less than 8,000k. Not even the speeder vendor can cut you a deal like that.

I stocked up on 5,000 or less Ubrikki Sand Devils or whatever the other ugly Ubbriki mount is called.

With these cartel market mounts, movement speed automatically increases as you unlock new speeder licenses. So you never have to purchase another speeder.

You could also pay 4.99 for the Digital Edition Upgrade Pack

It will give all your characters a free, good looking speeder, that will last you until you start getting some of the nicer loot drop speeders at lv50.

picture: https://account.swtor.com/sites/all/files/en/coruscant/billing/virtualItems/stap.jpg

info url: https://account.swtor.com/user/digitalupgrade

OH crap, I forgot, this thread is about Crew Skills for troopers.

here's my wall of text:

Troopers.

Aric Jorgan gets a +5 critical to Diplomacy

M1-4X (your 3rd companion) gets +5 critical to Scavenging

Tanno Vik (your 4th companion) gets a +5 critical to Armormech

What criticals do for you

• Criticals with Diplomacy, means you have a higher chance of getting more Mission Rewards at no extra cost.
  - so instead of getting 3 radioactive paste, you have a better chance of getting 6 radioactive paste per mission.

• Criticals with Scavenging, work just like with diplomacy, more rewards per mission
  - so instead of getting 24 thermoplast flux, you get 48 thermoplast flux (oh yeah!)

• Criticals with Armormech (some items), means you can make 2 FREE items for the mat cost of 1 item. So, its a 2 for 1 deal with +5 critical to armormech
  
• Criticals on every other Armormech item, give you an Augment Slot free. Only catch is, the Augment Slot will match the level of the gear you just crafted.
  - so if you craft a level 39 item, your augment slot is only going to be a mk-4

Efficiency cuts the crafting time by a percentage, it's useful but nowhere near as useful as getting a FREE item at no extra mat/time/credit cost..

So. With that information. Your crafting skill is going to be Armormech. and your Gather skill is going to be Scavenging.

Those two are not up for debate. (Unless you already have a vanguard or another trooper with Armormech, then you can branch out into cybertech/biochem for crafting pvp grenades/free stims.)

BUT if you are following my advice, and your first two skills are going to be Armormech/Scavenging like I recommended: Then your third skill is your only choice.

• Underworld Trading.
  

This mission skill will make your crafting life easier. Blue Prototype and Purple Artifiact items require the same color rarity Underworld Metals. Picking this mission skill will make your crafting life easier, and save you from logging out, switching toons, sending underworld metals back to your armormech via mail, each and every time you run out of stock. (only your ship droid can have a +2 Underworld Trading critical but this requires legacy level 20 and the appropriate Ship Droid Sensor)

• Diplomacy
  

Diplomacy (to exploit Aric Jorgan's increased +5 crit chance). Get more stuff for less credits.

SO THIS ADVICE IS FOR CRAFTING. Pure crafting. You only need 1 armormech crafter in your Legacy. Once you have your one Armormech Trooper, you can do whatever the f--- you want with any new Troopers you make.

My first trooper, she was a female (the voice of female Shepard from the Mass Effect series)

she has Armormech, Scavenging, Diplomacy (exploiting the crits)

Originally I was going to drop Diplomacy and pick up Underworld Trading, my plan was to use diplomacy to boost my Light Side Points so I can Equip the relics purchased from the Light Side Vendor at fleet AS SOON as I had the required level. Meaning Light II, Light III, Light IV, Light V was never a problem.

But I made some Imperial Agents around the same time, and they supply her with Underworld Metals, so she kept Diplomacy. Even though Aric Jorgan is coolest companion, closest thing to Garrus Vakarian, and wish he were at my side in battle; he is forever stuck farming Radioactive Paste.