My main is a Sith warrior and has Synthweaving, Archaeology, and Underworld Trading. I've been gone since last fall due to college, but just recently came back. My skills all hover around 340. I'm wondering if I should continue building them onto 400+ or change them. I also have a Sith Inq at level 31 with Artifice at 196, Archaeology 200, Treasure Hunting at 144.

Depends on what you want really. In general crew skills aren't that useful endgame, so for my main chars I put biochem on them for the free reuseable. I do have cybertech, and armormech on my alts to craft myself augments.

You don't need acrheo twice. If you check under codex for each skill tree, you will see the other recommended crew skills,

You don't need acrheo twice. If you check under codex for each skill tree, you will see the other recommended crew skills,

 

Yea I just realized I can take Slicing for Synthweaving. Would it be worth it to get rid of Archaeology for slicing at this point?

you are fine.

 

make a alt for slicing. if you do certain missions it will only cost you about 50k to get to 400. less if you decide to sell some of the critted missions. i'm not sure about 400-450 costs to level.

 

you will need archaeology for making your augments and kits. at level 50-55 it is an advantage to have two archeology as nodes are few to none with missions being your primary source of green mats.

Several factors come into play

 

What content do you spend your time in when playing the game? End game raiding? PvP? End game flash points? Dailies? Space Missions? Leveling new toons to see their story? Dedicated crafting gathering/making?

What purpose does crafting play for you? Outfit yourself? Making money? Creating items not readily available in other parts of the game?

 

I personally spend a lot of time crafting, but have toons ready for Ops and Hard Modes if a spot for a guildie is needed. Most of my crafters spend very little time in the field leveling or gathering mats, so my CS skill choices are based on the best crits in the game or at least for a faction. Other toons that I enjoy playing usually are gathers that feed my crafters.

 

For Sith Warriors, they share the best crit in the game for synthweaving in their middle companion. But Synthweaving can have the best crit in the game with a Ship Droid Sensor that one can purchase at Legacy 12. Still as I have done, I now have two companions with the best crit in the game which comes in handy for time if I am crafting an entire set of armor for someone or more than five augments. A Sith Warrior’s first companion is the only best in game crit for Treasure Hunting which of course supports Artifice.

 

As for the Inquisitor, they don’t have any best in game crits for any crafting CSs, but do share the best Slicing crit and the best Underworld Trading crit in the game (all be it +2) and own the best crit in Archaeology with a late companion. The last companion has a best in faction crit in Scavenging (again small at +2) but this can easily be ignored. If interested in having a crafting CS, there are no class companions with Artifice or Cybertech crits.

 

Some other general Crew Skill thoughts are these:

 

If I am doing mainly group end game content with a toon, like Zorash suggests, I do think Biochem is a great choice, with the possible exception of for a healer, but that isn’t an issue for me. I’ll also add that Bioanalyst and Scavenging are great in hard modes and operations as you’ll be able to skin a lot of animals and droids which make up for the fact that you won’t see nodes for gathering mats.

 

For my “gathering” toons, I prefer those who can stealth and sap mobs so that I can get quickly at a node and onto the next one without getting bogged down in fighting. These almost always have Archeology as that resource is not skinable. Depending on how much time you want to chase down *’s on your mini map, add another gathering CS or two to a stealther.

 

The cornerstone of my crafting system is Slicing. 10 of my 12 toons have it. Before the expansion and before I had end game toons, Slicing Lockbox missions were my main revenue stream. Of course I’m on hold until they make the grade 9 profitable, and if they decide never to then I may have to do some re-rolling myself.

 

Hope this helps,

-Joel

Thank you for the very in depth reply. Right now I'm just gearing up my Sith warrior, but I would like to see the other characters stories too after I do so. My next toons I'll likely take slicing.

If your crafting is about supporting new toons as they level, then you will likely want to focus on Orange moddable gear. Synthweaving has an advantage over Armormech in that Synth has all three weight categories. Their augments are also a little more versatile with Defense (typically a tanking stat) and Alacrity (fits nicely into a healers wheelhouse). Remember you’re not just considering what your toon is going to wear, but also what your companions will be wearing.

 

Everything but Biochem has something to offer those who have an orange piece of gear, and really what toon doesn’t? Of these Cybertech has the most to contribute with their mods in 9 of 9 slots, and armor in 8.5 of 9 slots. Above and beyond this, Cybertechs craft earpieces which is one of the last remaining five slots for a toon, and one of the last three for up to seven companions.

 

With Artifice: Enhancements I typically purchase on the cheap with my planetary coms. Color Crystals I’ve collected Cartel sets from generous guildies and move them around in Legacy weapons from the Gree event, but that is a high level ability. Last Hilts can be made by guildies or purchased from the GTN.

 

With Armstech: Like Hilts, Barrels can easily be acquired from guildies or the GTN. Augments saved the CS because there was so little to no demand for weapons with every toon and every companion getting a modable weapon at start or at least very early in a quest reward. Add to that Arms offers universally wanted Power and Endurance stats with augments.

 

So my advice with your two toons…

Since your Warrior is your main, and I’m guessing is a 50. I would leave those CSs alone for now. The Inquisitor I would suggest a complete overhaul focused on improving your Synthweaving. Cybertech / Scavenging / & Slicing is the way I would go. If you do change out the skills, level scavenging and slicing up to the point where you can pick up nodes in the areas that you are questing. That way you will have the option of farming from mats in the field or with missions.

 

With Scavenging and Archeology be on the lookout for flux/?? Missions as they are more affordable than the vendor prices. With Slicing only go on Rich or Bountiful slicing tech part missions as those levels are the only ones that will produce schematics when they crit. Other times, run slicing lockbox missions. In Underworld Trading, wait for the Rich or Bountiful metal missions, and run everything else gift since crits usually mean more or higher level gifts and not Armor or Synth schematics like the metal and fabric missions will crit with.

 

A pro tip if you don’t mind taking a time out to focus on leveling mission or gathering crew skills, when you log on the game or zone to a new location your mission table will reset. So you can farm for a particular type/quality of mission by boarding or disembarking from your ship. The more time you put into farming for synthweaving schematics with slicing and UWT the more you will be able to provide for your nest toon.

 

With any schematics or missions that you can not use on your Sith, storage is as easy at leveling any toon to seven and going to fleet for a cargo bay worth of space (you’re at least a preferred F2P player)

 

Something to keep in mind, spend a lot of time reverse engineering earpieces. First you’ll get better stats for future toons, but also you will be generating augment components. When crafting an orange piece of armor with synthweaving, keep crafting until you get an augment slot. The extra components will help you kit out the other seven slots.

 

With your Sith, you’ll be able to service the majority of the needs of anything you play after that. I would suggest for CSs on your new toons everyone get Slicing, Scavenging, and Underworld Trading. If you complete the class story or get bored with the story and or play style, you can change their CSs to something they would be good at. I use this site and plan around the crits in the game.

 

swtor-spy.com/companions/

 

In the long run you may want to trade out the gathering and mission CSs on your two Sith to hit their best in game/faction crits. Changing out these are far less painful than a craft CS as with the others you don’t loose discoveries as you do with craft.

 

A lot of information, but the depth of crafting is why I returned to the game and it certainly keeps me paying my sub. Hopefully my insights will help you and others. Please note that these suggestions are tailored for a particular play style goal. Other play styles will require different Crew Skill set ups. Your mileage WILL vary.

-Joel

If u sub I find the most useful (and challenging/fun) way to do your crew skills is this:

 

I have 6 alts with the crafting skills (as I wanted to be able to grab schems in ops with are BoP tho i think that's obsolete now u can RE stuff). I usually have the 2 gathering skills required for that crafting skill on that alt (I have slicing on all of them I think because its handy to pick up 2k boxes on Makeb endgame and get parts for augment kits).

 

I have 2 alts that I got to endgame purely for the story and I give them all the boring skills (Investigation, Treasure Hunting, Diplomacy, Underworld Trading) and then if one of my crafters need something from one of those skills I can just get the crews to go out for them. Saves having a gathering skill that u can't use in open world on ur main toons.