As someone totally disinterested in the QQ and arguing, I just want to know what people are doing to adapt to the changes (other than ragequitting). My problem in adjusting is deciding if, for PVE, I should push more alacrity to get my DIs off faster, but eating more force that consumption doesn't really make up for anymore; or push more power to get more out of my DHs. Should I bother putting points into Force Surge anymore? I don't imagine the spec changed too much. Anyway, I've tried wading through the forum to find anything constructive, but it's just been a sea of tears and mean-spirited responses. So, any sane conversation on the topic would be welcome. Or, if anyone could point me in the direction of a theorycrafting thread, that'd be spectacular.

edit: mrgh

So, as someone with maxxed Biochem and Synthweaving, I look at it this way - Synthweaving requires Archaeology and Underworld Trading. Archaeology and Underworld Trading give me: - the ability to craft things I can sell or use or RE. - companion gifts I can sell or use. - 5 types of mats I can sell or use. - the ability to farm 3 types of those mats out in the world instead of spend money on missions. - (a chance at) schematics I can sell or use. Slicing gives me: - 1 type of mat I can maybe use and can only get by paying for the missions. (no farming. no RE) - the ability to slice lockboxes out in the world. - (a chance at) missions/schematics I can maybe use, or sell. To me, this is why Slicing isn't a typical gathering skill. It's still thoroughly one-dimensional as far as "gathering skills" go. While Treasure Hunting and Diplomacy aren't too much better, they at least have Companion Gifts and tie directly to a crafting skill. One could drop lockbox missions from TH and I doubt anyone would care. Losing lockbox missions in Slicing, though? *insert slide whistle noise here* Meanwhile, if I have Slicing, and I am also a crafter, I have to buy the mats of whichever gathering skill I don't have, reducing the potential profit from selling whatever items I craft. Even with the changes to augments, there's no sound reason for crafters to pick up this gathering skill. Lockbox returns, at least, make up for the potential need to buy mats in order to craft things. With such dismal returns on lockboxes, there's much less incentive to bother running those missions. As it is, they could have just dumped augment mat missions into Underworld Trading or Treasure Hunting, shoveling Companion Gifts missions into some other existing gathering skill, leaving the augment crafting up to the professions that use UWT or TH, while putting sellable Wealthy Yield crafting missions in, say, Diplomacy, since the light/darkside points thing is what it is, and dropped Slicing from the game entirely. My experience in MMOs is that devs don't like things taking up space that people don't use. The fact that they changed augments and bothered to include Slicing in this change makes me think they do still want Slicing around and to be used. Given how homeless it remains, though, despite the change... unless the augment market can actually stand on its own like Armoring/Modifications/Enhancements (...heh), and I'm not holding out hope on this simply because augment slots aren't guaranteed like the other three and augment crafters can cushion the price of buying augment mats by REing their augments, Slicing should at least be able to break even on normal Lockbox missions, as opposed to being the 50% or greater loss my returns have been today on average. If only to give them (and, therefor, Slicing) more of a purpose. Aaaand they shouldn't nerf things without a line of text in the patch notes, if that is actually what this is.

Sending out SCORPIO and Ensign Temple, both at 100% affection, and Vector at close to 100% affection, on Rich Yield Class 5 Lockbox missions has netted 480-817 credits upon completion. SCORPIO and Ensign Temple have each crit once on Rich Class 5 Lockbox missions, yielding 5723 and 6001 respectively, which seems average compared to pre-patch crits. All crits (from sending companions out on Bountiful Class 4 missions in addition to Rich Class 5 missions) have gotten me only slicing (2) and scavenging (1) missions so far, and two Class 5 augment schematics (from the same Rich Class 5 Augments mission). Waiting for SCORPIO to get back from her Class 6 mission. Unless the idea is that money from slicing will now come more from selling augment mats and schematics in addition to crafting missions (since Armormech and Synthweaving likely won't be dropping Underworld Trading or Scavenging/Archaeology in favor of Slicing for gathering augment crafting mats), I don't understand the change. Even if that could be the super secret case, I still wouldn't understand the change since a lump of the money to be made from slicing involved selling missions to begin with and I now have a good reason to actually run non-lockbox missions. As it is, it makes sense to continue to come close to breaking even on normal lockbox returns, since you're not, nor ever have been, guaranteed anything in return, unlike the actual gathering missions. Because it wasn't in the patch notes, I'm willing to give BioWare the benefit of the doubt for now. If it's WAI, however, then it's time to resign my agent to being my Synthweaver's augment mats slave, or make him the armstech mogul his momma always wanted him to be.