After burning through money and materials, I went to google to justify my rage and saw your thread. I'm glad I can stop now until something is fixed. I love crafting, but this is like gambling with rigged slot machines.
I have been going for ANY purple schematic for my IA that would provide useful stats (i.e. anything besides shield rating). Getting to the blue level seemed to go ok... Biorestorative Chest and Helmet eventually produced Overkill. Bonded Mesh Belt went the way of Critical. The purple level is where it went all wrong. Chest and helmet both REd to Rampart (shield rating) When I got the schematic for the purple level belt, it produced Tempest. At first I was just so relived not to see "Rampart" but when I looked at the stats, I was crushed when I saw +Shield Rating. Ugggh.
This was all over the last two weeks. I haven't been keeping track of materials, tries, or anything else (too lazy) but 3 out of 3 RE'd epics going to shield is just too much of a coincidence. This is all very disheartening. I feel for you OP, but I am not going to burn through more materials to obtain a depressing statistic.
I was an armorsmith in SWG and I loved the excessive complexity, but I didn't feel like I was playing a card game where the house always won. So now I guess I will level my Shield Tech alt seeing as how I should be able to craft gear for at least him.
