100k is darn near a bargain. on my server, the bracers go for upwards of 200-250,000 credits. Medium/Heavy armor belts/bracers will easily sell for that. Light armor belts are a little harder sell since the Civilian Pilot Belt is so easy to get from 2-3 days of space combat daily quests, being arguably "free." That said, I scored a Saber Marshal's belt today at the bargain price of 2400c and was pretty stoked since I like the art on it a LOT more than the Civ Pilot Belt... If you are diligent on the GTN, you can often find people listing these items at default prices since not everyone realizes how rare they really are, nor how valuable they are properly modded at L50 end-game... Good luck!

as a tankasin, once i got andronikos, i put him in as my full time companion and his aoe-mode seems to just destroy stuff. i set him up in mod gear and keep him upgraded and we just blow stuff up all nice and quick-like. i can't wait to get ashara and see if she is as effective as dps...

so i'm probably not the only SI out there using the sweet "social" light armor to level up... i really like this shot: "My lightning's up here, boys..." http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/9714/swtor2012022613441557.jpg

You can start by reading some of the info on this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=3079829#edit3079829

At this very moment the lowest listed Iron on my server (about a dozen listings) is sitting at 10,000/each and most are higher... a couple are going at 20,000/each... amazing. Honestly, I'm not sure why they run 10k+/each... the other purple mats for other professions are usually a lot lower in the 1k-5k range. I have no clue who is buying Iron at these prices to maintain this inflated price... Isn't Cybertech the only crafting profession that uses the Iron? It could also be a couple of people cornering the entire market for Iron and pegging it at 10k/each, but honestly, it's everyone throwing it up there at these prices it looks... monkey see monkey do? Lately, some greedy people are even listing Durasteel at over 1000/each... I kid you not! Anyhow, it's beyond broken, at least on my server... pretty ridiculous.

Don't quote me on this, but some of the discussion from the devs seems to indicate the PTS crystal vendor is on a test-basis only... which might imply the crystals are available on PTS just for testing purposes (e.g. visual effect and item checkout). This could mean they intend for the crystals as-shown to be made available only via Artifice Schematics, which will hopefully be the case... We shall see... I hope they take this approach for some *desirable* end game schematics for every crafting crew skill...

I guess this isn't really "news" per se, but honestly, I didn't realize how bad it is... So I took a few minutes today to surf the GTN a little to see how the market really is for Cybertech Armorings and Mods on my own server due to the fact you can get "free" Mk 22 equivalent mods from daily heroic quests, and Mk 23 armorings from daily commendations... In a word... horrible. Let's do some basic cost analysis based on my server prices for mats to build either a L49 Mk 22 purple mod or armoring: 4x Durasteel = 180/ea (default price if you get lucky) 4x Thermoplast Flux (assume no-cost here to be conservative) 4x Zal Alloy = 1,000/ea GTN market price 4x Mandalorian Iron = 10,000/ea GTN market price Approx GTN mat cost = 720+4,000+40,000 = 44,720/ea And then the kicker... GTN observed sales prices for both Mk 22 mods and armorings approx 20,000-35,000 -- this is far less than cost of the Mandalorian Iron we'd use to make the mod/armoring in the first place! People really do flood the market with their daily Mk22 quest rewards and pretty much completely subvert any sane pricing model whatsoever. We are better off selling the raw Iron at market prices (to whom, I have no clue?) rather than building anything at all... So devs, who designed a crafting system where every other player can easily quest for the rewards that a 400-skill craftsman can create at a whopping 45 minutes a pop, driving market prices down to the point where there is no point making them even for your own use? Again, I might as well just SELL my stock of Mandalorian Iron and buy other people's ridiculously cheap mods/armorings instead! I hope the promised v1.2 changes look long and hard at the "economy" that exists today... it is absolutely ridiculously designed. If you want to throw any crafting profession a bone, there MUST be an effort to create a market niche for them or there will be no point whatsoever. At the very least, there needs to be a Mk "22.5" segment or perhaps going a step beyond and creating a crafted Mk 23.5 (for non-raiders) segment for 400 skill craftspeople such that there is a point to keeping this crew skill at all... There is similar behavior at the lower level tiers of mods/armorings, but it's not nearly as flooded since people get their commendation gear and move on... nobody really buys stuff on the GTN while leveling since they can get things for free along the way. In fact, the ONLY situation where we stand a chance at profit (maybe) is to proc a Mastercraft Purple L49 Earpiece with *desirable* prefixes to sell to the min-max crowd (since it is ever so slightly better than available daily-commendation Rakata earrings). I have yet to do the cost analysis of how much it actually costs me to learn and proc the magic combination of the above. How slim a design did the devs have in mind for L50 crafting? /vent

and here i thought my Assassin was a tramp for jumping in the sack with him almost immediately... once that's done, it seems my little vixen is all hormonal now... she's going after every dude she can lay her eyes on now... wowsers! then again, dressed the way she's dressed... i shouldn't be surprised... who knew Sith were so easy...

It probably bears mentioning that as soon as you get to Dromund Kaas, the weapon vendor there sells "green" quality Vibroswords that are fully-moddable. Every weapon vendor from there on out has "green" vibroswords that have full mod slots (not sure if this is a bug or intentional). http://www.torhead.com/items/catg/1/subcatg/12/mods/eq/1/and/sort/level,-i.basequality (starts with the Ceremonial Vibrosword at L9 from DK) This assumes that that the OP isn't specifically looking for an "orange" item to stick in Khem's weapon slot. If moddable is all you want, you can use a vendor sword from DK all the way to L50, modding it to your heart's content all along the way. Don't get me started on the complete inequity that faces techblade/sword/stave users... ugh...

i didn't realize taunt counted as protection... if so, awesome!

my sith inquisitor is a little too sexy for her own good... but i do like how (at the time) her lightsaber matched her outfit... http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/7016/screenshot2012021610061.jpg edit: this one's a keeper too... "My lightning's up here boys..." http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/9714/swtor2012022613441557.jpg

This is especially annoying in Flashpoints when your group is busy chain-pulling... and we can't scavenge in combat w/o a companion, so... yeah...

This is excellent info... too bad most people would rather cry like the WoW-spoiled brats that they are rather than take some initiative to use tools available to them, despite the flaws. Thanks for posting this.

This is excellent advice... I also believe "07A" works for the Agent belts, but don't quote me on that...

So I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, but as someone who uses the friends list a lot to track people for both grouping and other friendly reasons such as tracking alts to find mains when we are LFM, it would be nice if there is an additional field for user-entered comments/notes about each friend entry. After a while, you start to confuse which alt belongs to whom and other such details. Please consider adding this feature. Thanks.

Nice write-up. Useful for my budding Oper healbot. Question... do L50 oper healers really value cunning/crit/surge over the more "traditional" healer stats of power/alacrity? Two reason I ask... so I can plan my gear path and second, so I can decide which purple L49 earpiece to attempt to RE the recipe for (they are on different RE paths). Thanks! edit: So I did some more research and I guess end-game, alacrity is all but worthless, so instead it's a tossup between crit/surge/power. Problem is, you can max out only either crit/surge or power/surge on the L49 tier 2 purples... any advice?

This is by far the best guide i've seen to date re: Cybertech and how to use it most effectively: http://www.darthhater.com/forums/forum-home/general-discussion/24422-cybertech-crafting-guide Definitely worth reading for anyone planning to keep Cybertech for the long term.

I think the OP is rushing to judgement a little... the value of these items isn't so apparent at L13-14... lol. At L50, these items hold their value once you slot them properly... nevermind the fact you will have easily upgraded commendation mods at every planet/tier to keep your belt at top-tier condition as you level from L11-50. To say they "suck" is to be ignorant, imho. And yes, to loot one of these currently is like winning the lottery to the tune of 250k credits on the GTN... we'll see if 1.2 changes this or not.

Just an FYI for the treasure-hunters out there... If you just grind the first tier (10-16) lockbox missions for TH, the higher-return ones (bountiful/rich) can crit a lockbox that can contain these... I got the Agent bracers today on my alt... it's like winning the lottery. If you have a slot, a Sith Warrior makes for a good TH bot since Vette has +crit to TH... just sayin' Good luck!

Care to elaborate?

Not exactly... Alt-F lets you set a focus target, but I don't think there is a way to direct things like healing directly to the focus target is there? The system in WAR basically had two target slots, one friendly, one hostile... you click on a friendly, it goes in the friendly slot, you click hostile, it goes to the hostile slot... e.g. it allowed for rapid target switching as needed between friendly targets while preserving your hostile target so you could go back and pewpewpew them when you were done healing, etc. Maybe their UI testing determined that this might be too confusing for the typical player? I don't know... but I loved it as a healer in WAR, especially in PvP.

Please add some kind of functionality similar to the "Friendly Focus" actions that were implemented in Warhammer Online. For those who might not know, there was a functionality in the UI where you could have both a hostile and a friendly target selected at once... where some beneficial effects (e.g. healing) would go by default to the friendly target and harmful effects (e.g. damage) would be issued to the hostile. This would be very nice for those who use heal or buff functions, but also do some damage on the side, or vice versa. In essence, this would provide a "sticky" hostile target of sorts while you had the ability to select friendly targets for other actions at the same time. In the context of WAR, it was very useful for classes like the warrior-priest that did healing by doing damage, etc. It was a unique and enjoyable mechanic. The trump for this would be to implement mouse-over healing functionality, but this might be another path if mouse-over is not a design philosophy the UI team would like to pursue... it would retain the "click to set target of action" functionality that the default UI forces upon the players.

Tab targetting in this game suffers from some very poorly thought-out logic as to what it should select first if you have no target selected. If a desired target is in the CENTER of my screen, hitting tab should by default be smart enough to grab said target. instead, if often grabs some target off to the far side (who knows how it decides). It's very very un-intuitive. Please do not say to keybind "target nearest enemy" or "center screen" -- you should not need separate keybinds for such a basic targetting functionality. Also, "target nearest enemy" means you are locked into the nearest enemy only... no target switching. I hate to say it, but WoW has a very very well-done tab-target functionality that works nearly perfectly as it should. Basically, TAB should be a center-weighted target function where you pick center screen first, then spiral outwards from the initial target... not left to right or outside to in or whatever bizarre logic was chosen. Please fix this ASAP. It is especially frustrating in PvP environments.

I am getting a bit tired of the bad geometry and getting stuck in the most random places in this game. On top of that, the /stuck command often does not work in one try... whereupon you have a 2 minute cooldown before you can use it again. Often these are the "bad" spots where you are caught "moving" according to the server, usually due to an inclined surface that you are "sliding" against, so you cannot even use quick travel. Thus, you must use /stuck upwards of 3x before the server registers that you are in dire straits and actually attempts to kill you for a medcenter rez. This can take 6+ minutes due to the cooldown. Please revisit the reasoning behind the cooldown on this command.

yeah maybe it'll return in 1.2. we shall see. the armor is a world drop in the DK-level of champ mobs... ran into it the other day and i kinda like the look for my BH. the same armor on a trooper looks completely different! problem is, there are no matching light-colored or white pants/boots for BH it seems that i've seen. oh well.