Something I figured out on my BH just recently - haven't noticed this tip spread around too much. Flame Sweep adds stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower, in addition to Flame Burst. HOWEVER, you don't actually need to hit an enemy in order to get the stack. Plus, you can use Flame Sweep outside of combat. So really you can just Flame Sweep 5 times before every fight and open up every battle with a fully-buffed flamethrower. No need to use the Flame Burst over and over in combat to get it done. Figured this would be useful for my fellow AP Powertechs out there. I know there's a few of us.

No, you do a raid and you pull the armoring and mods out of the gear you get. If you like the appearance of the gear, then you RE it to learn the schematic. Or heck, just wear that gear if you don't care about augment slots, it's not like you NEED them anyways. The point is to wear what you like, it doesn't do anything to stop progression. Stop overreacting to something you don't understand.

For the appearance. Same reason armor sells on the GTN now. You are still not understanding this. People don't want to wear the FP and Ops gear because they all look the same. They want to look how they want. That's the entire point of changing it so you can take the mods out of the high-end gear. People will need to go to crafters in order to get the appearance that they like. Since the color system is not unlimited, but still needs to be matched to chest, there is still value in having tons of chestpieces with different colors. Same with having lightsabers with different hilt designs, and guns with different appearances as well. You'll be able to find the one you like and purchase it from a crafter who has found that appearance and RE'd it. You keep saying "it's so easy to buy it" and then in the same breath you say "this system does nothing for crafters." Who are they buying it from then? The people that took the time to hunt down multiple copies of that appearance, RE them until they got the schematic and got the crit-crafted version. But I agree, this is pointless, because you keep saying the same thing over again, I keep pointing out how you're wrong, and you continue posting misconceptions and things that betray you have no understanding of what's going on.

...which is where the crafter, who has taken the time to go run lower level and heroic flashpoints in order to find in-demand schematics, comes in and puts up his orange augmented armor for sale, which looks nothing like those items but is still just as effective. This has never been about raids and hard mode flashpoints. You seem to be under the impression that the only things crafters are getting is the ability to craft level 50 stuff. That's why you keep saying things like you'll need to raid to craft. It's NOT that. ALL orange armor in the game is RE'able with a learnable schematic. All of it. All the way back to the starter planet. You keep saying "the same item" over and over but the appearance variation literally includes all of the armor in the game at the time. The people who take the time to go back and farm these items to learn schematics will benefit. The people who'd rather not, will pay for them.

He's made it clear that in his mind, it's not going to take time and effort at all. His answer to that was that raids are guaranteed to drop Tionese and Columi gear. I really don't think he understands the system.

I can't help but laugh at this point. Someday you'll have to explain to me how having BIS items only available through crafting is a non-crafter focused system. I know you've been repeating a bunch of stuff, but I still haven't seen you do that yet.

No, this is going to require effort. To get specific looks, you'll have to go back and run flashpoints/heroics multiple times in order to get enough examples of that piece to drop. Some appearances aren't guaranteed to drop at all and come in random boxes. You then have to RE this piece, destroying the item, in order to have a CHANCE to learn the schematic. It could take quite awhile to learn how to craft a specific piece of armor. Yes, everyone with that crafting skill can do it, but the majority won't put in the effort. You then have to crit that armor as well in order to make it. True for non-chest pieces, but chest pieces are already the most popular orange items to sell. The color system doesn't let you pick any color you want for each piece, it is locked to your chest color or its default appearance. So chestpieces with popular colors will be in high demand. Let's say I want my Trooper to look green. I have to find a green chestpiece. The Armormech dude who goes out and RE's his trooper's green chestpiece to learn the schematic will be my best friend. Also, not true at all for weapon appearances. You're like really focused on raiding, I don't know why. Raid and Tionese and Columi items are meaningless, unless that is the appearance you want. Since the orange shell can have equivalent stats to those items, the only reason you'd RE those is if you wanted their appearance. If I wanted the robe I found back on Coruscant with an augment slot, I have to go run that heroic again, probably multiple times, get the item, have the appropriate crafting skill, successfully RE it and then crit it. Then I'd have to go do a raid to get the top-end mods and armoring to fit it. Or, I could buy from a crafter who already did most of that for me. You tell me what most people will choose, remembering that everyone will only be able to craft in ONE area. If I'm artifice, I'm reliant on synthweaving people for my armor. If I'm synthweaving I need an artifice dude for my lightsaber. If I'm biochem or cybertech, which were the two most popular before this, then I need both of them.

No, you're still not getting it. The empty moddable items ARE different. That's where you find your niche. Let's say I want the Trooper armor from the Maelstrom flashpoint. I like the look of it. If I'm not a crafter, I can go and get that armor anytime I want, but it won't ever have an augment slot in it. Now let's say I'm a crafter. I think the armor looks cool and there's a market for it. I go run the flashpoint and get it to drop. I RE it and learn the schematic. Cool, now I can make that exact appearance as much as I want. And I can sell that on the GTN. The incentive to buy this from a crafter is high for the non-crafter, because they can't get that item otherwise. They can only run the FP and get the non-augmented version. This is where the variation comes in. You're selling appearances. There are a bunch of different orange armors in the game, all with unique appearances. And yes, the color matching will limit this somewhat, but you still need to have the right color on your chestpiece in order to get the appearance you want. So the life of a crafter will be hunting down the orange versions of these armors, and REing until they learn the schematic. Then learning the schematic until they crit and selling that. That will be a BIS piece with a unique appearance that they can sell to other people who want to look that way, but don't want to put the time and energy into tracking down each appearance in order to RE it and learn the schematic themselves (and they'd also have to have the requisite crew skill and mats to make it). This gives crafters them the option to make a BIS version of every single orange item in the game, if they put in the time and energy for it. That's a TON of variety, not the same item over and over again. There's going to be a market for that, especially from the people who are sticking to Biochem/Cybertech. And you're still wrong about raiding. I have several orange schematics right now that don't require any raiding materials. These will be able to crit when 1.2 goes live and make BIS pieces.

/facepalm That's the whole point of what this update is changing. Yes you can get orange gear with 3 sockets from commendations, quests, etc. They're giving crafters the ability to make orange gear with 4 sockets (on a crit, it adds an augment slot). That's the whole point. You either have to craft or buy from a crafter to get BIS gear in the new update. That's it. That's the only way. It doesn't favor non-crafters. And you don't even have to raid to make these items. Crit on any orange gear and you get an augment slot. There's orange schematics sprinkled through all the levels or armormech/synth/artifice/armstech. Again, now that you can pull mods out of raid items, these will be the items that everyone goes for, because it's the only way to get an augment slot. And the fact that you can RE orange items that are already in the game to learn that schematic makes things even better for crafters. Want a crit-crafter orange chestpiece from the lvl 35 heroic? You either have to RE it yourself and be a crafter OR you have to find a crafter that's gone through the trouble of learning that schematic and building it till it crits. That's carving out a niche. You could literally be one of the few people on the server that knows schematics for certain appearances. Oh, and if you want to fill those new augment slots you'll be buying from crafters as well. You're either misunderstanding what they're doing or not thinking it through clearly enough. This update is giving tons of power to the armor and weapon crafters. They're going to be able to exclusively make you gear that is better than the stuff you get from quests/comms.

Maybe you missed the part where Artifice will be able to craft BIS lightsabers? Bit of a market for that, don't you think?

Good stuff Georg. May I make a suggestion? I know last night you were considering ways to make current orange gear augmentable. Some people were saying that you should have crafters make items that would grant augment slots and what not. I have another idea after reading this. Why not just make the reverse engineering schematic chance on orange items 100%? This way, people would actually have an incentive to RE this gear. As it is now, I'm not going to touch my valuable orange items to reverse engineer them knowing I may get nothing and lose access to that appearance forever. But if you guaranteed that I would learn the schematic for the item (and thus I could get it back), it would be entirely worth it. And this too solves your augment problem. If people want their current orange gear to be augmentable, they can RE it and craft it. OR wait for someone else to do so, and get it off the GTN. I think this would result in a very diverse amount of orange gear appearances - not just the schematics you guys added, but all the stuff that's currently in the game that people have been using and holding onto and don't want to lose. Just some food for thought. I really appreciate the way you guys have been listening to the community!

Bioware, please listen to this man. 1.2 is such a step in the right direction. But you're really throwing away TONS of orange gear if you don't allow us to add augment slots to them. I understand the desire to make crafters important. But having them able to make these augment consumables would do just that, in addition to all the unique appearances they'll be able to make (which will still have tons of value). There's no reason to restrict what people want to wear, I think you already learned that lesson. This is a great compromise that will lead to extremely varied armor appearances and very happy players.