Yes you can learn schematics from the vendor. As you level up the skill newer ones will be availible to learn. There are also a handful that can be found (drops, investigation crew skill, GTN) but for leveling purposes you are better off just doing the cheap ones from the vendor. When you look in your crafting sheet typically grey number/dot = 0 exp gain, green = 1 exp gain, yellow/orange = 2 exp gain.

Have to admit this is right up there. Brightened up my day.

when in doubt check out Dulfy.net http://dulfy.net/2013/04/09/swtor-golden-fury-makeb-operation-boss-guide/ It's seperate from the new OP. Similar to Xeno II if you did the gree event.

What they are saying is that the door at the spawn point is open until the bridge/barrier is down. So there is no reason the deserter debuff will be an issue cause you can freely leave the spawn area until the bridge/barrier is down. This is so that the defensive team isn't trapped while the attacking sprints through.

I haven't seen anything stating it will be raised. As of the last PTS the new 400-450 crew skills do not have any compainion gifts. So my gut says no, but at times my gut has poo for brains.

http://dulfy.net/2013/02/24/swtor-patch-2-0-new-crafting-materials-and-schematics/

The only slots that can be added to armoring is the augment slot. Green and blue pieces never come with armoring/mod/enhancement slots and can't be added.

First off nice to see random yellow post in this section Eric. And this is exactly what I did to help track if it's worth it for me to craft and sell an item. I put in the GTN price for raw mats and a markup % to cover the GTN fee plus what I'm looking for as a profit and it kicks me back what my personal suggested list price is. I then keep an eye on what is actually on the GTN and start crafting & listing. Made a couple million this past weekend mostly on rank 22 or lower items. I also pumped credits back into the market because a friend convinced me to make another toon for S&G. All this wouldn't have happened in my mind if it wasn't for double XP weekends.

Holy necro Batman. I don't remember seeing a belt like this but if you search the GTN and hit ctrl+ left click you will get a preview of what the item looks like on you.

Yes. I did this after the event ended the first time and got the weapons a week after the event ended.

A nice by product of this was all the queue poping for mid level flashpoints. Been a long time since I've done Mandalorian Raders & Cademimu. Did Colicoid War Games for the first time ever. Looking forward to doing Red Reaper next weekend. Also leveling from 25 to 42 in a weekend was nice since this will be my 8th 50 when I'm done (10th toon overall).

You'd be amazed how many people don't know their class and try to do end game content. I had a 10 days span a few months ago where 3 different pug snipers didn't know they have an inplace cover option in addition to the roll into cover. All 3 took a face full of cleave from Stormcaller bacause they rolling in front of the turret. I should write a book with all the facepalm events I've seen. But I do agree, while by 50 you might not know how to be the #1 DPS/Healer/Tank for that class on your server, you should be able to complete all solo content and perform well enough in all group setting for what gear level you do have.

nope it's a rail shooter at it's finest. Welcome to 1993 space combat.

You can throw in armormech into the same boat. Only place they have a use is main stat augments. The other 4 crafting skills have end game crafting ability.

SM EV & KP were like this at launch. TBH it was horrible in the fact that I would have gotten my 4th duplicate item before someone of the same class got that item. Was such a waste when we were first getting started in OPs.

Personally I find a set of orange gear to use by 20 and augment it. I drop blue armoring/mods/enh every 4 levels. I do blue augments but only every 10-12 levels. Hilts/barrels I spring for purples. When I get to the low 40s I'll drop purples in and ride it out to 50. Now I have every crafting profession maxed so I can do all of this in house farely cheaply.

It's always been like that. anything that follows the 1-3-5 format for REing is 20% from green to blue & 10% from blue to purple. The ones that are linear (hilts, barrels, mods, etc) are 20% from green to blue & 20% from blue to purple. Has nothing to do with being a sub or not. Now the logic behind it is lacking. You'd think the items with more paths would have a greater chance of discovery but currently that isn't so.

yes and no. Where damage is smaller but consistent or if it's a single big hit it's easier IMO to keep the tanks up and everyone else topped off. But when dealing with repetitive spike damage (like Forman Crusher, either version of Kephess, or TFB come to mind) that is when healing in 16m can get tested more than 8m.

You do remember correctly though I don't remember seeing hilts drop. Just mods and enhancements I think.

Search function is your friend..... http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=509742

There is a huge difference between carrying players and assisting them to improve. Nothing shuts me down from helping a person quicker than having them expect everything be handed to them. I'm more than happy to share what I know and what works for me. I've been fine with taking my over geared toons to lower FP/OP so a fresh 50 can get a jump start. But if they aren't trying to push themselves then why should I push for them? Now I agree that people rush to judgment and just because they aren't putting up top flight numbers or holding agro quiet well enough in a very small sample size that they can get cast aside because "they are of no us to the group". Been on the short end of that stick before because I had an awful 1st night in a new guild. The ones who are willing to be a part of the community pick themselves up and get better and show that they have something to bring to the table. The ones who want to be carried find new people to carry them.

I did this 7 time last week between SM and HM on a couple different toons. Every toon I brought to a group was at least close to full 61 and has been completely through HM TFB at least once. So take my opinion for what it's worth. The OP talked about Story Mode. A 16 man group of fresh 50s with the free gear can do this. There are videos of 8 man teams doing 16 man mode. I've completed it with 10 (3 pugs). Story mode is there so content can be accessible to a larger amount of people and I think they did a good job with that. Some people talked about HM version. This one I can see asking for a min gear requirement (beyond any level 50 gear) especially from tanks and healers. Tanks get hit hard and healer need to work to keep up. DPS I can see being less strict on as most 16 man groups will have 10-11 DPSer. But even with it being harder I was a part of completing twice with a group of 9+ pugs. Both time we wiped twice and killed it on the 3rd go. I also wiped 10 times in a different group before it got called off. So asking for a level of gear that makes the organizer comfortable is quite understandable. And the hazmat gear that drops from here are the highest ranked PvE gear in the game (even if some of the pieces are itemized poorly). Now if you don’t like how someone else is running a group, then by all means put one together yourself. I know after seeing it last week multiple time I’ll probably be throwing together a couple of groups this time around so I can make sure to get all my desired runs in this week.

BH armoring have never and still do not have a set bonus attached to them. You can however buy Campaign armorings for black hole comms. The only way to have a set bonus using BH armoring it to place them in Rakata/Columi/Tionese shells as these shells have set bonus tied to them. Now as for what is best, depends on your class and spec. I know on my DPS merc some of the Campaign armoring drops had the high end armoring in them so I had to go and buy the armoring anyway once it was availible. Also you'll probably find that to get to best in slot you will have to get the same piece or two over and over again to get the right mods and enhancements (or have them crafted). So getting the right armorings first and building from there is ok, as long as the rest of your stats (crit/surge/def/shield/etc) are at a point where you can hold of on it. But you'd need to look and see when you get the most bang for you buck, likely it'll be from getting the mods & enhancements for a BH piece first.

Depends on how you plan to level. If a bulk of the leveling will be via PvE questing, then I completely agree with abercromb. If you plan to do a lot of PvP then I'd recommend slicing, underworld trading (metals) & Diplomacy (materials + lightside/dark side points).

Oh I know most are in the packs, but when they can continue to pump out speeders, armor shells, etc that you can only get via cartel points and the only way you can get cartel point is either sub fees or buying them, then logically I doubt they would be in a rush to add vanity options to any of the crafting skills. At least not before the xpac comes out.