Why are the best crafted items are so weak?

Are you including queue times in your flashpoint? I figure on doing an HSF in about an hour, maybe less if I don't jump every paladin in the place on the way. (Some you have to hit if you want the Alliance Assist powers).
Also, you're pretty much guaranteed the EIS in a Star Fort (I don't recall NOT seeing one drop), vs the 50% chance of getting one in an HMFP.

Also, it takes less skill/gear/companion influence to solo an HSF than TEC. I can solo the SF on any random character of mine, but I can't (currently) beat TEC to the final boss.

But you can craft ops level 220, you just have run ops to get the tokens to get the pieces to RE. And they cost Dark Matter Catalysts which only drop in operations .

If you are looking for ops stat distribution rating 220 gear then run operations. If you refuse to do so for whatever reason, then deal with slightly worse stat distribution. For all slots other than relics the crafted 220 using EIS and SRM are as you put it "viable:" overall very small stat loss of points, higher endurance and mastery, but lower power.

Relics are an exception to the rule, BW wanted ops relics to be distinctly better than crafted and so they added a third stat to ops relics. Considering that relics drop in THE EASIEST operation (EV), if you want the "best" relics, suck it up and run HM EV. As someone else pointed out, it takes all of 45 minutes to complete and they are run quite often; it will probably take less time to get the group formed for a HM EV run than it would to queue for a HM FP as a DPS.

Well, I suppose the fact of the matter is: I can't see star fortresses anymore. I have done one today and that must do it. While I wait in the queue I do heroics or slicing on Zakuul. With the money earned that way I can buy Exotic Isotope Stabilizers (one must not exaggerate it, though. There is only so many the market can give without the price rising).

I enjoyed reading this.

You are correct sir!

It's kinda hard to figure out what you want to say here, but just in case let me mention two things.

1) Using 220 gear in pvp works AGAINST you. You don't want to use it in a warzone because bolster will cut down your expertise which is more valuable.

2) Operations are pve and have different circumstances and need higher stats because the enemies have higher stats. That's kind of how it works. You say that operation players shouldn't have access to special gear but it's the pvp' ers that get special gear with expertise on it. That gear is better in pvp than any ops gear ever will be because ops gear will cost you too much expertise which will always put you at a disadvantage. At the same token pvp gear is not as good as the gear that you get from operations although I will say that pvp gear in SM ops and some HM ops is perfectly fine, whereas wearing full ops gear in 65 warzones is suicide rather. So the pvp' ers do have the advantage.


All in all though, crafting in this game is powerful because you can craft up to and including rating 220 gear, except set bonuses. That's not bad at all considering 220 gear is good enough for most content. For some of the harder ops in HM/NiM it may not be sufficient but it will be sufficient to get the gear you want there and if you're not interested in HM or NiM ops then it will do you fine...but there has to be a reason to do operations above crafting and pvp already has its own gear sets with expertise, but those are even easier to get together nowadays. I don't pvp a whole lot but I recently picked it up and got a full set of 208 with enhancement swaps in two less than two weeks and I didn't play more than 1-2 hours a day including waiting in the queue. Since you have to share your loot chances in ops with 7 other players with a weekly cd on operations, getting proper operation gear will take longer.

So really the op is just uninformed about what he can do with crafting.

You don't need BiS in championship. You can complete that in just 208 gear. What matters more is your comp affection.

Yeah try to grind out your 6 set bonus in HM OPs and see how entitled we are with shortcuts.

The thing that really makes me envious when it comes to crafters that do operations is that you get a second for a critical success if you craft the individual mods. That makes it viable to sit on the fleet, call out and craft on demand for the market price of the resources. You don't earn anything from the item itself, but if it's a crit, you have a second to to work with for nuts.

I am minorly annoyed by the "set bonuses" on Ops gear. Character skills are balanced to include the set bonuses, as far as interlocking cooldown and other cycles go. I don't care about the stat bonuses being bigger, but the non-ops gear basically breaking the endgame skillset, that chafes me.