No crafting shouldn't. Not in a theme-park MMO. One reason is if you could get the best gear from crafting....why do ops, much less Heroics? people would run them MAYBE once twice and not go again...cuts out A LOT of "content" too soon.

And that's just one reason. Besides unless you're doing Ops, you have no need for BiS gear....crafted/crystal stuff is more than powerful enough.

I mostly craft just for fun. Yes, also for better items for my low-level and mid-level chars, but mostly for fun. For myself.

And for those of my friends who need something.

You can reverse engineer that lightsaber you mentioned to craft a better one, up to 220 rating. That is not bad gear at all, certainly better than what any heroic drops. If you run ops you can also reverse engineer many of those drops to craft that gear. Whether it's worth the effort or not is another debate entirely.

You can also craft items to sell, actually there are even things that only come from crafting that people want.

Do they not need good gear to the the OPS so basically I give them a way to get in OPS easier by crafting the items they need.

You can do SM ops in 208 gear (attained from crafting or Flashpoints) with even a little bit of skill. HM ops can be done in the 216 gear that you get from SM - especially if you augment it. You move into the NiM ops with the 220s you get from the HMs (or 224s for the highlighted HM of the week). That's what progression is...

You can do SM ops in 208 gear (attained from crafting or Flashpoints) with even a little bit of skill. HM ops can be done in the 216 gear that you get from SM - especially if you augment it. You move into the NiM ops with the 220s you get from the HMs (or 224s for the highlighted HM of the week). That's what progression is...

I know that but I mean for people who do not wanna do that with their second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth etc character. Like giving them a shortcut.

I know that but I mean for people who do not wanna do that with their second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth etc character. Like giving them a shortcut.

A shortcut exists in the form of being able to reverse engineer the item modifications you get from running the ops the first time. You can craft 220- and 224 rating gear, if you've already got it. You just lose the set bonuses (which you should).

A shortcut exists in the form of being able to reverse engineer the item modifications you get from running the ops the first time. You can craft 220- and 224 rating gear, if you've already got it. You just lose the set bonuses (which you should).

Actually you cannot craft 224 at all. This is and has been part of the crafting system since Rakata gear was no longer the best - crafting only gets you the second best rating gear available.

More on topic:

There are two paths to 220 gear:

• train the 212, RE (100%) to 216 RE (100%) to 220. This requires Exotic Isotope Stabilizers (obtained running heroics, HMFPs, and all OPs, or available for glowing crystals from a vendor on Odessen) and Strategic Resource Matrices (obtained by completing the personal conquest goal). This is static stat gear (adaptive not moddable), but the stats are slightly better than gear purchased from vendors for crystals.
  
• Obtain tokens from Ops, turn them in for items, in the case of "armor" or weapons rip item modifications out and RE (60%) them, and in the case of ear pieces, implants, and relics, RE them (60%).
  

Actually you cannot craft 224 at all.

Coulda swore a guy in my guild once RE'd a 224 relic, but I could be wrong. Not being able to craft 224 wouldn't bother me, anyways - if you're not running ops, 220 gear is more than sufficient for everything else ; )

And that's just one reason. Besides unless you're doing Ops, you have no need for BiS gear....crafted/crystal stuff is more than powerful enough.

Eternal Championship?

No crafting shouldn't. Not in a theme-park MMO. One reason is if you could get the best gear from crafting....why do ops, much less Heroics? people would run them MAYBE once twice and not go again...cuts out A LOT of "content" too soon.

 

And that's just one reason. Besides unless you're doing Ops, you have no need for BiS gear....crafted/crystal stuff is more than powerful enough.

Yes Crafting should because choices. Also wait for it... OPS, ARE, NOT, FUN. So, I've been in a few ops and this is how it goes. If it's not a guild group you have to hope the leader is fair. If it is a guild group you still have things like waiting around for people to show up. Then waiting for coffee, bathroom and snack because the first part took so long. After all that, you have the fact that not everyone going through all this gets rewarded for it. So getting full gear can take forever and that's even if you run the same people every time cooperating with each other. In that case it goes something like this. Everybody who hasn't won a piece rolls need. Johnny Jedi wins the need roll. Congratulations Johnny you got that piece. Now, to be fair you're not going to roll for the other pieces. Theoretically you do this until everyone in the group has full gear. Even if you can get the same group each time and everyone is honest, the time investment isn't worth it. Can anyone seriously tell me any of this sounds fun?

A shortcut exists in the form of being able to reverse engineer the item modifications you get from running the ops the first time. You can craft 220- and 224 rating gear, if you've already got it. You just lose the set bonuses (which you should).

False. 224 is not craftable

Yes Crafting should because choices. Also wait for it... OPS, ARE, NOT, FUN. ..snip..

damn right

So, all week long, I've been running Eternity Vault hard mode with any 8 people that show up. 2 of those people will walk away 45 minutes later with a mainhand 220 rating or better. I've yet to see a failure to complete this operation and yet it drops the best mainhand in the game.

By comparison, if Bioware were going to let us craft a 224 mainhand, it would cost at least 5 Dark Matter Catalysts and various other components. We're talking 10 million worth of mats would be my guess.

I can tell you that for me, I find it a million times easier to run an easy operation than spend the countless hours in game it takes to earn 10 million credits or the mats themselves.

So to me, the only reason I see not to let craftable items be the best period is because some people will buy credits to purchase them on the GTN. Therefore, I'd have 0 problem with a 224 craftable mainhand if it was bind to legacy and therefore not something that can be sold on GTN.

Eternal Championship?

This, 100%. EC is so much harder than EV HM. Especially if you are running certain specs.

There is a difference between crafted 220 gear and 220 gear from operations rewards, even on items that do not give a set bonus, though.

If we compare the ops reward "Relic of Devestating Vengeance MK-1" (bought with an "Unassaemvled Exarch Relic" rating 220) and crafted "Relic of Devestating Vengeance MK-26" (rating 220 as well) the prior is clearly better.

The special property is identical.

Equip: Healing an ally or performing a damagin attack on an enemy both have a 30% chance to grant 652 Critical Rating for 6 Seconds. This effect can only occur once every 20 seconds. It will not trigger inside PvP areas.

The base stats (without augment) are different though.

Crafted: 175 Endurance, 65 Power

Ops Reward: 177 Endurance, 73 Power, 42 Critical Rating

So, it's not merely a different distribution and it's not a set bonus, the ops reward is better by 2 Endurance, 8 Power and 42 Critical Rating and otherwise identical.

Curiously that does not apply to all items. For example 220 weapons have the disadvantage of being non-mod of they are crafted. But they are actually better than the 220 off hand weapons ops reward vendors sell:

An Exarch Onslaught Blaster Pistol MK-26 has as much cirical rating as an "Exarch Field Tech Offhand Blaster MK-1" has accuracy and the same amount of tech power, but it has more mastery, endurance and power.

Yes Crafting should because choices. Also wait for it... OPS, ARE, NOT, FUN. So, I've been in a few ops and this is how it goes. If it's not a guild group you have to hope the leader is fair. If it is a guild group you still have things like waiting around for people to show up. Then waiting for coffee, bathroom and snack because the first part took so long. After all that, you have the fact that not everyone going through all this gets rewarded for it. So getting full gear can take forever and that's even if you run the same people every time cooperating with each other. In that case it goes something like this. Everybody who hasn't won a piece rolls need. Johnny Jedi wins the need roll. Congratulations Johnny you got that piece. Now, to be fair you're not going to roll for the other pieces. Theoretically you do this until everyone in the group has full gear. Even if you can get the same group each time and everyone is honest, the time investment isn't worth it. Can anyone seriously tell me any of this sounds fun?

wrong, no it shouldn't. If you're not doing Ops..then you have NO NEED for that high a stat of gear. That gear exists and has the stats it has BECAUSE of progression OPs....not doing them? you have no need for the gear.

Entitlement much....

wrong, no it shouldn't. If you're not doing Ops..then you have NO NEED for that high a stat of gear. That gear exists and has the stats it has BECAUSE of progression OPs....not doing them? you have no need for the gear.

 

Entitlement much....

there are no ops that need 224 gear. get rid of it. 224 makes things easier, in ops or out of ops. they are not necessary. looks like you have a false sense of entitlement.

there are no ops that need 224 gear. get rid of it. 224 makes things easier, in ops or out of ops. they are not necessary. looks like you have a false sense of entitlement.

indeed

there are no ops that need 224 gear. get rid of it. 224 makes things easier, in ops or out of ops. they are not necessary. looks like you have a false sense of entitlement.

false sense of entitlement? that doesn't even make sense....I don't even do ops. I make due with the crafted/token items from vendors. 208/216 gear I believe it is. And it's perfectly fine.

makes things easier? of course it does. That's why it's rewarded for the top-end group content difficulty wise. A solo player that isn't even doing ops has absolutely no need for that level of gear. fact. That gear exists for those doing that kind of content. Not for those that are not because there is no need for it.

So no, the only "entitlement" is those of you who think you are owed/deserve that level of gear without having to do the content that requires and rewards it.

So no, it shouldn't be crafted nor given to those not doing that content. But thanks for playing.

people are not watching patch notes I guess, they just upgraded crafted gear so you can make top end stuff. But most of the time you don't get crafting for weapons or armor; you get it for dyes, crystals, aug-kits. You can not buy aug-kits for example from market, get it from op/heroic drops, or from vendors..you need to craft it, other examples as well.

That's not wrong, but I believe there is a bit of false labeling involved here. When it comes to the rating 220 items of the same basic type (in my example a Relic of Devastating Vengeance) the should be either

a) about the same quality, but with a worse stat distribution than the OPS reward, the same way that a piece of MK-2 gear from a flashpoints (208 for tactical, 216 for hard mode) is better than MK-4 gear from the vendors. In the example of the rating 220 Relic of Devastating Vengeance the item from ops reward has: Ops Reward: 177 Endurance, 73 Power, 42 Critical Rating. So the crafted rating 220 version might have 207 Endurance and 85 power, but non crit rating. The sum of the attribute points would be the same, 292, but the ops reward still has a greater impact on your DPS or healing per second. Another variant would be giving boost to an off stat. Say the crafted version gives 177 Endurance, 73 power, 42 defense rating. This isn't really a tank item, so someone using it will be not usually striving for defense rating, but it's not entirely useless either.

It's perfectly alright that the best PVE gear in game, rating 224, is only rewarded for operation quest rewards. What I am suggesting here is merely a version of the second best gear with a less beneficial stat distribution, but the same overall quality.

b) Remove the false label and call it "rating 218" and the 216 version changes to 214 (because it is worse than the rating 216 ops reward as well).

I am really curious about is how the stats of a main hand weapon relate to the stats from ops reward. As I noted earlier, a crafted 220 weapon is actually better than the off hand version of the 220 off hand item, except that it is non-mod. It has to be used as is.

Could anyone post the stats of a rating 220 ops reward main hand weapon, without colour crystal or augment, please?