Hey everyone! I know how much demand there is for certain Crew Skill Guides so here I am to start helping some players in getting their feet in the door with crew skills. The focus of this post is for all Gathering Crew Skills. Now of course you can run missions to level up your crew skill but a lot of players would rather just gather the nodes throughout the world rather than paying extra credits to run missions.

 

A Guide on running missions to level your crew skills is here:

 

http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/missions.cfm

 

The below guide only goes up to 340 for right now since I don't have much experience with Corellia and Ilum, but I plan to update it ******y split once I do! At the very end of this guide is an entire long list of guides that I think will benefit many players on this forum. I own a website made for making guides and I really take pride in writing as many helpful and accurate guides as possible.

 

That means if you find anything that is wrong or misleading or needs more elaboration please let me know!

 

1 - 75 Coruscant/Dromund Kass

 

All around both of these planets you will find hundreds and hundreds of different nodes for you to collect. Most of them will require either a skill of 1 or a skill of 25 in order to gather, but towards the very end of these planets in the 15/16 zones the nodes will start to increase in skill level. In these areas the required skill to gather some of the nodes will be much higher, usually requiring 25 and even sometimes 50. If you gather every node that you see by the time you're done on either Coruscant or Dromund Kass your skill should be between 75 and 100.

 

On my Jedi Knight, when I left Coruscant I had over 100 Bioanalysis and 100 Scavenging but only 75 Slicing. This leads me to believe that Slicing is the more difficult of gathering skills to level up. Either way before leaving Coruscant or Dromund Kass for Taris, I recommend that you have whatever skill it is that you're leveling at atleast 90.

 

75 - 140 Taris

 

The very next planet you will be visiting to raise your profession is Taris. Much like both Coruscant and Dromund Kass, Taris is abundant with nodes for all of the gathering professions. Most of the nodes here can be collected with a skill level of 75 or above but there are a select few that I saw (specifically for Slicing) that require 90. I recommend hanging around the first subzone of Taris to raise your skill up to the 140 point since the resources are all generally require the same skill level regardless of where you go, there isn't much point in venturing far from your ship.

 

Getting up to 140 in Taris might prove to be a bit time consuming, so if you start having difficulty finding nodes that will raise your skill then start sending your crew out on missions to raise your skill for you. Also if you'd like, you can switch to Nar Shaddaa and gather what resources you find there instead. Nar Shaddaa has a slightly higher minimum requirement though to gather what you find there, I don't recommend going there unless whatever skill you're looking to raise is 120+.

 

After Taris you will want to head to Nar Shaddaa.

 

Nar Shaddaa 125 - 175

 

Nar Shaddaa is the next place you will be leveling up your gathering professions. The best place I have found on Nar Shaddaa for the Republic with the most nodes available to you is the subzone, the one where you need to elimiate the Spice making drug dealers and destroy their labs, the Red Light Sector. Anyone who is playing on The Imperial faction will not be able to come to this area, so despite it being so good you will need to find another place! (Click here if you play on the Empire side. I made a guide just for you!) While doing the quests here I found a super abundance of all different types of nodes, there were literally just hundreds of them everywhere. I took a picture of the upper half of the Red Light Sector, where you will be spending most of your time raising your professions in this bracket.

 

Click here Imperial link above - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/imperials.cfm

 

 

The whole middle section of the zone doesn't have any nodes in it, mainly because it has all friendly units (For Republic), but once you branch off either east or west you will start finding dozens and dozens of nodes. The room off to the west, around where you need to activate and control the turret was where I found the most nodes but up northeast wasn't too bad either. The node with the highest level restriction that I saw on Nar Shaddaa was a 120 Slicing node. That is the main reason I gave this planet a 120 (at least) restriction, even though staying on Taris until 130 - 140 is what you will most likely be doing.

 

You will be staying on Nar Shaddaa for pretty much the same amount of time that you spent on Taris, usually around 50 skill points. In other words you will be on Nar Shaddaa until you reach about 175 in whatever profession it is you're raising. Once you've done that it will be time to move on to Tatooine.

 

175 - 235 Tatooine

 

This level range is a bit more tricky than the previous ones because of the type of planet Tatooine is. As you probably already know, since Tatooine is one of the most well known planets in all of Star Wars, it is a vast desert wasteland of a planet. This really shows in the game which is both awesome and annoying at the very same time... So we're going to call it annoyingly awesome. Tatooine is a very large planet and without a speeder it would take you hours and hours to raise your skill even a few points. Even with the speeder it is still annoyingly tedious.

 

There are two solutions to this problem, the first one is you will want to level through this bracket primarily off of sending your crew out on missions, more on this is below. The second solution is to find an area where there are a lot of nodes around for you to gather. Staying in a small controlled area while sending your crew out on missions will net you the best bang for your buck while raising your skills here.

 

The profession you're looking to raise will be the deciding factor in where you want stay and gather nodes. If you're looking to raise Slicing I recommend any of the Sand People camps in Jundland. If you're looking to raise Archaeology there are a lot of caves around in Jundland as well, up in the northwestern section of the map. There are caves elsewhere with nodes for Archaeology too, but I found these to be the best. Also in this same area you will find a ton of droids to kill, which can be Scavenged if you need to raise that skill as well. Also there are lots of Scavenging nodes around in the area regardless, making it good for both Archaeology and Scavenging.

 

The only skill that is difficult to raise on Tatooine is Bioanalysis. All nodes that you can gather with Bioanalysis are extremely spread out and rare to come across even then. I recommend raising Bioanalysis mostly by sending your crew out on missions as it is too difficult for you to raise just on your own on Tatooine. If you are looking for a good place to gather up materials though I recommend the sand dunes in western Tatooine, that is where I found quite a few Bioanalysis nodes. Also a second and maybe even better option is to kill animals and gather from their bodies.

 

Once you reach 235 with whatever skill it is that you're raising you will want to hop back on your ship and take it on over to Alderaan.

 

235 - 250 Alderaan

 

Much like Tatooine before it, Alderaan is giant open planet with much room to explore. Unlike Tatooine, Alderaan has a ton of plant life and for this reason has a ton of Bioanalysis nodes all over the place. The largest pack of Bioanalysis nodes that I found were around the "bug people" which are one of the earlier quests you must do on the planet. There were also a decent amount of Archaeology nodes around the bug colonies too, giving off the impression it was a good place to gather both of these items.

 

As you had to do with Tatooine, I recommend that while you're gathering up the nodes on Alderaan you send your inactive crew members out on missions for whatever skill you're looking to raise. This will halve the time you spend gathering the items despite it costing a bit more. If the cost is a big deal to you though then just completely ignore sending out your crew members and stick to just gathering the raw materials from the planet.

 

Before you ask, no I didn't forget about you guys out there with Slicing and Scavenging! Leveling up your Slicing and Scavenging skills are just as easy as the Archaeology and Bioanalysis on Alderaan, you just need to know where to go. Luckily, that's why you have me! Alright so, what you will want to be looking for is any settlement of enemies on the planet, doesn't really matter which. As long as their are lots of buildings around and humanoid mobs you can be sure to find heaps of scrap and footlockers to cut into.

 

Getting your skill to 250 on Alderaan is quite easy and won't take very long to do, once you do reach 300 though we will finally be on the home stretch. Just a few more planets to go for raising our gathering skills! Once you're back on your spacecraft, you will want to be piloting your ship on over to Balmorra.

 

250 - 280 Balmorra

 

Balmorra is the very next planet in line for working on your gathering crew skills. During the time I spent in Balmorra I found tons and tons of nodes for all different crew skills pretty much all over the place. The only bad thing about this though is I did not find a single node that was guaranteed to give me a skill up. When I got here everything was already gray or green about to turn gray in a few skill levels. Since it is the next planet you will be going too level wise, it is logical to put it into this guide. However if you're already max and looking back to raise your skills you may want to skip to the very end of Balmorra for the most skill ups or instead just head on over to Quesh.

 

As with all other planets depending exactly on what skill you're looking to raise will determine where you should go. If you are looking to raise Slicing or Scavenging you will want to stick around man-made settlements but for Bioanalysis and Archaeology you'll want to check elsewhere. This isn't to say that you won't find those nodes in the opposite locations, you will, they are just more uncommon. Since I didn't find many nodes that gave you skill ups here (except for killing the elite bugs during the bonus series... They gave me lots of Bioanalysis skill ups).

 

Once you reach about 280 it'll be time to leave Balmorra already. You have two options for which planet you would like to go to next, either Hoth, Quesh, Belsavis, or Voss.

 

280 - 340 Hoth, Quesh, Balsavis or Voss

 

The thing about these levels is kind of weird, through my experience with raising the gathering skills each of these planets have all around the same minimum level resources. Give or take 5 - 15 skill points of course. The highest level list of planets on this list is Voss and the highest level gatherable item I saw on Voss was 295. For this reason I actually recommend hoping over to Voss right away if you are of level for the planet, if not you can start with Quesh or Belsavis as they seem to have the most resources for you to gather.

 

One thing you will need to keep in mind here is Hoth and Quesh will doubtfully take you up to 340 if all you're doing is gathering resources, if you're running missions too then sure they will. But if you start on either of these planets (as starting there with 280 skill is already high) they will only really take you up to 300 - 325 if you're lucky. For this range Belsavis and Voss are by far your best bets. Voss and Belsavis will take you up to 340 but it may be a bit tedious. So if you don't want to do missions you can move on to to the next planet at 325 or 330. Once you reach 340 you'll be moving on to one of the final planets of Swtor, Corellia.

 

Raising Archaeology - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/archaeology.cfm

 

Bioanalysis - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/bioanalysis.cfm

 

Scavenging - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/scavenging.cfm

 

Slicing - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/slicing.cfm

 

Guide to Profiting off of Slicing - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/slicingguide.cfm

 

Armormech - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/armormech.cfm

 

Armstech - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/armstech.cfm

 

Artifice - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/artifice.cfm

 

Biochem - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/biochem.cfm

 

Cybertech - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/cybertech.cfm

 

Synthweaving - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/synthweaving.cfm

 

Diplomacy - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/diplomacy.cfm

 

Investigation - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/investigation.cfm

 

Treasure Hunting - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/treasurehunting.cfm

 

Underworld Trading - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/underworldtrading.cfm

 

Other useful Crew Skill Guides -

 

Guide to Crew Skill Missions - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/missions.cfm

 

Guide to Companions Crew Skill Perks - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/companions.cfm

Here are two farming guides for Grade 3, 4 and 5 materials for Archaeology, Slicing, Scavenging and Bioanalysis.

 

http://almarsguides.com/swtor/farming/republic/balmorra/thedig.cfm

 

http://almarsguides.com/swtor/farming/republic/balmorra/factorygrounds.cfm

 

Both are Republic only but I'll be adding a bunch more farming guides and hopefully some Imperial only ones as well

Awesome post. I found this VERY helpful

Awesome post! Thanks for putting in the work to get this out to the community

Made a big update to my Biochem Guide - http://almarsguides.com/swtor/professions/raising/biochem.cfm

 

I'll be updating a ton of my other crew skills guides very soon. I just got completely redesigning my website the past few days so I've been busy!

Does anyone have any good recommendations on where to farm on Corellia and or Ilum to raise their Crew Skills? I know it's my job to find them and all but I've been working on Datacron guides!

I think you have Taris and Nar Shada swapped in your guide, at least as far as the levels go is concerned.

This guide = very helpfull tyvvm for taking the time. may life treat you well and bountyfull

This is really very helpful for a first time crafter, thank you.

yes there is a small hiccup in the listing of places nah shadda is after dromand kass / courasant

gathering skills needed start at 90 but you would be better to start on these at about 100. for all 3 gathering skills (bio scavange and archy)

This thread is a nice find; thanks for all the hard work.