Never used the droid in combat, but I did pull him out when I was at about 80% hp after a fight on my assassin(level 36) and the droid, being naked, did reasonable healing to me. Being able to heal or not, it's better to take something that can actually do some dps. Maybe if the droid actually has some gear he can be a great healer in a pinch and I've heard he has his moments. Personally I don't find it very lucrative to invest in parts for him, even though my healing comp isn't for another year or so =)

Not sure if this was patched, havn't tried it myself; but I heard if you have craft missions you don't want/like to enter your ship and leave, and it resets them. Go test it and see if it works and report back, you just might find your rich metal afterall. Sadly for me its almost always companion missions, like 3 or 4 out of the group and they are the ones that are rich. Just takes me a while to unload/load from my ship otherwise i'd sit and do it but I'd rather get to 50 first

I'm currently like ~300 synth on my 36 assassin and I'm still new but remember hearing everyone say to go bio once you're 50. Now with the changes to 1.2, is it still viable? Or should I stick with synth and hope to make some augmented gear later on down the road to sell/use/send to an alt?

As long as you crit craft an orange, it will have an augment.

This is correct if I remember correctly, which also explains why there is a ton of oranges on the GTN now. I remember paying 25k credits for the dark acolyte robe schematic and I was only lvl 20, had 1k credits left over. Ended up making my 25k back and then some on day one. Can't do that anymore lol. People selling decent priced oranges(well used to be) for 3k just to get rid of it.

I'm a synth on my 35 assassin and it helped out in the early levels gearing up, and better once I was able to make custom gear. Making khem gear that he can use is always a plus and then the other companions down the road. Andros, even though he uses cunning (which you can't make) can still wear the custom medium gear you make so of course just use commendations to slap in there. You just won't be able to make him bracers and a belt which is no big deal. With 1.2 critting the customs for an augment slot can net you huge profits so thats always an added plus. Getting ahold of some of the new augment schematics (of course pretty pricey right now) can yield profits also, and I see your dilemma with slicing as it works in tandem with synth. From what I've heard on the forums slicing got an 'unannounced nerf' to lockboxes but it's been stated in the past you don't slice for lockboxes only, as most of your money will come from safes in the actual game world. With 1.2 you can slice for the mats needed for augments so right now IMHO slicing and selling augment mats might be more of a profit margin than synth can, but I havn't looked at the mats, or even what they are for that matter so I don't know. I wouldn't rule out cybertech right now either and considering helping my 22 alt marauder out (hes cyber) as those epic implants sell for tons at my lvl (once again 35'ish) and the epic mods near end game will help players fill a certain niche to get ready to go on operations. Can also sell those speeders now. If I was 50 already, and had a decent amount of cash, I'd keep my assassin synth, I'd have a cybertech alt, and another thats a slicer with probably treasurehunting. But back to synth, and to end this wall of text, once you are able to make customs thats pretty much where synth dies out. Synth and armor can both make the medium/heavy custom gear thats usable by all(minus class requirement.) So as it stands once I max out synth, I'm going back and trying to get epic versions of all the gear I can make to at least help out some alt of mine down the road. If any of you think thats a bad idea let me know, I'm still new and I keep hearing(heard rather) that everyone drops their x craft at 50 for bio. With the changes to bio right now is that such a good idea?

Not sure if you tried, or even possible for you but have you tried having a comp with +crit to whatever craft it is you're making? With andros I have +2 crit to underworld, even though its not a whopping +5 he does seem to crit quite often and needs to teach me his secrets as I've sent him on about 20 missions and so far he's come back with 5 schematics and about 4 crit mats missions. Almost 50%. I don't have a synth companion to crit for me atm but I'm sure it works the same way. But 75? That seems pretty high to not get anything out of it, dev's might have only put the augment slots on certain equips rather than every orange out there. Lots of bugs with 1.2, and the sound issue is one that gets me, and the really slow loading times(slower than norm, even on everything low) and slow loading times in the actual environment with only 10 people on a map at a time.

I'm only a 35 assassin, and I've been using the very first double-saber I got since level 10 and just upgraded mods, but yes there is no difference between x lvl and y lvl on the custom orange gear (outside of it being light/med/heavy etc, as it has an armor value) Only thing I noticed when I used different sabers is the sound when you unsheathe the actual weapon. Some will be more high pitched (during attacks too) and some others will have more of a 'bass'y' sound to them. Not sure if this applies to other weapons like blasters. It could even be the type of crystal used in it, not really sure. And of course they have different hilts, like a Dooku curve or whatnot.

Ah yea Jennifer Hale, also does femshep in ME

Typically the level 11 custom and any of the ones that look better than your typical armor sets. Higher lvl oranges that are closer to 50 won't really sell as by that time people are more interested in getting col/rata gear. Don't forget that companions need some armor too, and come 1.2 there will be a lot more custom armor on the GTN.

So I have a lvl 26 sith assassin that I made after getting my mara to 22. I like the assassin a lot more right now but I'll give the mara another chance later. Thinking about making an alt to mess around on sometimes when I'm irritated by the assassin or whatnot and was thinking of a ranged class but not sure what type. Healing would be a plus, but survivability I find more important; hence why I found my mara a tad frustrating at times. I looked around and see bh's can heal which seems cool and all, but also noticed a lot of talk about powertechs and how 'awesome' they are yet nobody seems to play them. Personally I don't mind playing an 'un-popular/weak class' (not saying powertech is those in any way, just that its underplayed) and I hear snipers are 'weak' yet nobody ever seems to clarify as to why. So far on my assassin I can solo heroic 2+ with ease regardless of what spec I am, the ability to stealth around and knock someone out for 1 min is great. I havn't even pvp'd yet, and honestly don't really care about it right now. I've always been more of a pve player and tend to solo everything I can and only group when I must (IE heroic 4+/flashpoints, I'll never group for normal quests as I find other players only slow me down when I go into marathon mode =) But yea, like I said I'm open to suggestions on a ranged class, pref. one that uses ranged weapons and not the force (sorc........just for the fact I'd have to go through all the same quests all over again, but if sorc is the 'one' then I woulnd't mind, prob just go roll pub then and deal with not having the ability to send stuff over =( So the main issues being great in pve solo, able to withstand a lot by either tanking or healing through it(albeit BH regardless of AC get a healer as their first companion which to me nullifies the aspect of going merc i think it is) and being a ranged class of sort. Thanks for any info you give whether good or bad =) I honestly don't care for the fact that assassin is the FoTM that I just happened to roll >.< but don't get me wrong, freaking love the class. EDIT: Just looking at operative, and it seems to be able to heal aswell as stealth. How is it as far as the class itself goes? Is there a lot of gripe over it as there is the sniper (even though it seems sniper QQ is directed towards pvp and not pve, one being the long activation timers where a player could easily LoS the sniper.) But the ability to heal myself/companion/others when needed, and being able to stealth around past mobs and unwanted areas seems key. If only an assassin could heal...hmmm but yea I honestly never looked into the agent department so I'm not sure what all it entails but cover seems pretty interesting. I love mass effect which is probably why I like the idea of it but don't want to make one then realize I wasted my time =(

Well now I'm almost 27, still decently geared as i'm synth and craft all my goodies but its getting expensive to run missions so I'm a tad behind on my crafting =) but I just respecced from deception to madness just for hahas I'll be honest, I tried it and was like oh *** is this crap, its worthless. Then I remembered the talent that makes yur discharge have no cooldown in lightning. Dot crits also heal you. Chance when melee'ing someone that your next mind crush is instant...hmmmm I thought so I just started running around discharging every mob I saw and learned a rotation pretty quick. Group of weak mobs? Just death field them and 1 shot them all. Standards? Death field then overload and if it doesn't kill them, they have a sliver of hp left (which my khems aoe's would kill) As it is right now, it's fun, sure. But I feel it's not entirely viable just yet for me. It plays just like the spec is named; "madness." I even put khem in his dps stance for like the first time ever. When he's geared he does some surprisingly decent dps and I'm sure madness is insane (har har) once you get a dps companion. I'm debating going back to deception, or just swapping over to darkness. Deception even on elites/champs the ability to get 8 seconds of dark embrace just by using blackout is heaps of help by itself. Extra stealth levels and fast stealth speed brings more peace of mind to me. But really, when I was deception and had to go dark charge to tank heroic quests the healers always said I was easy to heal, even w/o a shield. I'm sure darkness in dps gear isn't all that bad.

What level are you btw? I'm only level 20, but fairly geared and so is my khem, both of us at 4k hp. I started as darkness but thought having 2 tanks is kinda pointless. So I went deception. Having khem tank something while I maul it from behind(lawl) and getting duplicity procs for really nice dmg. One a duplicity proc i can drop a standard mob down low enough that 1 measly saber slash kills it. Shocking will stun the target if need be if I happen to tank one of the mobs, making it easy to re-position behind. I'll be going darkness probably post 30. Madness I hear is more pvp oriented but can work for pve aswell. As it stands right now, I like how deception plays out. The +force regen while in/after you leave stealth makes spamming maul fun and if tackling an elite you can throw up your dots crushing force/lightning discharge and still be at full force to just go to town. Really comes down to playstyle. I'd personally recommend doing a similar route as me, taking on a more dps role and let khem tank. Once you get a dps/healer companion is when I'd go back to darkness(cept id prob be darkness in dps gear.) But I'm new to the game so I don't know much, just general mechanics that run throughout most mmo's so I try and loosely base my opinions off those for now. I havn't pvp'd at all yet, still a tad worried I'd just get roflstomped by some high level, but I see most assassins either go deception or madness for their pvp specs, but I've seen plenty of posts and pics of darkness specs just dominating like nothing in the warzones. If you can get a pocket healer, you'd probably be unstoppable. Whence the cries of OP shadow/***'s on the forums =)

For me when i stopped being darkness at like lvl 16 and going deception, i did so for the simple fact of 'im now a tank, and so is my companion' So khem being the tank that he is, i swapped to a more dps role and its just insane. Once you get khem some gear he's just beastmode. And his lvl 17 skill(think its 17) that gives him a nice armor boost helps a lot in certain areas. Have him start on an elite/champ and maul it. Throw some dots up and start saber slashing until you get the duplicity proc, then spam maul like mad. Amazing how much more dmg you do with the armor pen =).....at least for now. I will be going back to darkness later on though. But I do have a question. Darkness 30+ or so pure pve leveling, should i wear tank armor or dps armor(and of course stay in tank stance aka dark charge)) When I do go back, should i use a healing companion most of the time, or swap to a dps champ? On my 22 mara I have my healing comp already and he doesn't really help all that much, nowhere near what I thought he would.

Well as far as tanking, in a group with 2 sins, 1 sorc, and 1 jug i tanked the heroic 4 settling debts in balmorra last night. Taking on some groups of 4 elites at a time and I managed to tank it just fine. Being the most geared out of the bunch (which honestly isnt much at all) the other sin went ahead and put guard on me to help negate some of teh damage and the sorc still dps'd instead of healed me (when sometimes he really should have just went pure healing in there) I can see madness being viable as an offtank spec, or a tank for heroic 4's like what i mentioned just for the fact (i think madness has this in its spec tree, not so sure sorry) but you get a like 50% cd reduction on discharge. Being in dark charge and using discharge does a frontal aoe to help get some aggro. I honestly havn't looked at the madness tree for leveling, as I keep hearing its pretty much pure pvp when like others mentioned are more interested in pve for the time being.

I started out going darkness from lvl 10 to about 15 and I was reading its best to go deception till 30, then back to darkness since thats when it will really take effect so I said what the hell, respecced to deception. I have to say, the +force regen after stealth is nice. I'm just about 1 quest away from hitting level 19 and already sitting with 3.7k hp and my khem around 3.8k. I don't even stealth open with anything, just stealth up, send khem in to get initial aggro, run behind and maul spam. Duplicity procs make my maul hit for 600-800 non crit on standard mobs, whose hp is only around 850. Stuff dies fast this way, and the rate this is going I don't know if I'll go back to darkness. I'm still new (have a 21 sith mara tho) but I'm curious as to what exactly makes darkness good for leveling post lvl 30. Also, once I get surging charge, should i use that instead of lightning? And I got lucky and got some prototype boots with 2 modification slots on them last night as a drop of a random mob, so I have my chest/legs/saber/boots with slots to play with. Should I run BT to get to social 2 since i saw in balmorra you can get a helm/glove/pretty much everything with mod openings? I'm only like 150 into lvl 1 =(

so much info thanks everyone. guess its all a catch 22 really. I went slicing/bio/scav and nodes all over the minimap lol. I'll probably just hold down on these for now, but so far it seems biochem(i think, making the medikits craft) would be easier to level than others as in like 4 kills im already level 20. Most likely i'll wait it out till after 1.2 to see whats what.

so if i drop what i have and take 3 gathering profs, what do i do with the mats? sell em? hoard them until i decide what craft to go when im 50 so i have some mats to work with? or can i do something else entirely with them? I did play wow for 6 years, and the advice i'd give a new player is to grab something like mining/skin just for the fact u can only track 1 item at a time(at least last time i played 3 years ago) so i guess getting 3 gathering might be along those lines.

Hey all I'm new, currently a lvl 13 sith mara with synth/arch/UT. It's nice to be able to make my own gear and all, but with my current companion I can't make gear for 'em. I'm not really sure what crafting combos would be good as a newbie to this game. I do tend to solo most stuff outside of heroic ones I know I can't solo or if i do a FP so I'm not sure if this even matters. I read somewhere u can get like some lvl 1 social orange mod gear and just put the upgrades in it and be fine(but won't u have crap armor?) Making my own medkits and stims seems worthwhile, but compared to other crafts I don't know. You should never give a newb choices.... For now I plan on sticking with my mara and not playing another char for a while and my current synth level is only like lvl 60 which is no biggy. So any help is much appreciated, i know 1.2 is supposed to be big but regretfully i have no idea just what it entails too(since i just joined yesterday, i skimmed the patch notes but not having played I don't know if x is good and y is bad or not) Also i hear peeps say ALL new players need to grab slicing for some reason or another but never really go into too much detail other than you can make money; can't you make money with other craft skills?

thanks for the detailed reply. I decided to get synth/arch/UT and albeit synth is only like 18 now, ive RE'd and found schematics for a belt and boot which the blues were much better than what i had so it seems great to me. if i need slicing ill do it on another toon or something. ty.

Hey guys i played the trial last time it was up (got an email for a 7 day one, made a few diff chars highest was a 14 jedi shadow, fun class btw) and now that I'm a paying customer i want to get serious with the game of course. Being new, and also rolled a Sith Marauder, i'm not quite sure what crew skills would benefit me more just for being new. I hear a lot of people say to pick up slicing as it helps with credits early on and that you can always change it out later. But I also hear from people if you do that, it hurts. That if u just go full craft w/o slicing its slow in the start but well worth it in the end. I was looking towards synth so i can like make my own armor and use commendations for purchasing weapons. Seems like a solid choice to me, but I really don't know. Having synth its synergies are arch/UT; but if I want to grab slicing it will put a damper in my craft skills wont it? Synth/arch/slice? I guess I'd only be able to go so far. If there is another option where i can grab slicing and have it not 'hurt' me too bad I'd appreciate it. I tend to solo/explore mostly but ran a flashpoint last night(BT) and was pretty fun. Really look forward to the game and learning more from it. Game really seems solid and the companion system is just great.