How often do you craft/upgrade your own gear?

[PogueSquadron]

So, let me just say that I've owned the game for almost a month now, and while I have a good grip on a lot of things, there's one thing I still wrestle with - finding a good balance between:

 

a.) Keeping my own character's gear (and from time to time, my Companion's gear) up to date

b.) Making money - i.e. not wasting it all just keeping my gear current

 

What will happen is this: Say I'm level 22. I can't upgrade a lot of my gear until I hit level 23, so I'll prepare for that. I'll craft things that are usable by level 23 characters, or I'll buy things off the GTN. It's a bit of a money pit to get all of my gear up to date.

 

Level 23 arrives, and I'll feel pretty good about all my gear and mods. However, at that point I'll want to go do quests, maybe a warzone, play with friends, etc. Within a few days, my gear is all out of date again.

 

How do you find a good balance with your equipment and level? Is it something you guys just don't worry about too much, and upgrade your gear whenever you feel like you're starting to underperform?

 

And then to further frustrate me, when I'm playing with friends in Flashpoints or quests, I feel like we're all overpowered anyway, and I'm just like...why did I spend so much time/money upgrading my mods/gear when I could've just been crafting things to sell on the GTN?

 

It's frustrating because I almost feel like I should just ditch a crafting skill all together and just sell materials, but I don't even know if that's lucrative or not.

 

How do you guys deal with all of this?

[RedPands]

Honestly, just sell ALL junk loot u get. This is a very good source of money when leveling. Also Maybe every 3 or 4 levels, upgrade a few pieces of armor like your chest, boots, and helmet. This will allow u to be a bit better but not waste all of your money. Also you can get comms from missions which when u spend, get you very nice armor which is usually better than what u can buy.

[evanfardreamer]

Well, right now, there's not much money to be made from making and auctioning leveling gear, as you yourself have noted. What I did with my Jedi Knight (artifice) was to periodically upgrade the enhancements, armoring, and hilts in all my orange gear (which is 7 slots). I would RE the enhancements to get a blue one about every 6-7 levels worth, and the hilts I'd make the purple one, to last me about 10 levels.

 

I was a few levels above every planet I've done so far, so the mods I get for planetary comms are usually behind the curve. Beyond that, I would just go with the blue earpieces/implants from PVP and major quest returns, or the occasional one I got from treasure hunting lockboxes. Crafting skills really don't come into their own until the higher levels, when people are switching over to raiding, and gearing up appropriately.

 

Now, mostly I'm just making things for the alts that I keep rolling because I'm seeing all the wonderful storylines.

[JordOfOz]

I am constantly upgrading my gear on my cybertech. I've got a full moddable armour set (other than the belt). I make the purple and armouring mod for my class, which means I need to make around 7 of each every two levels. I do almost all my levelling in warzones. I have pretty good stats for my level. I play a Vanguard (currently level 42) and have over 15,000 hit points in a warzone. But I am poor; very, very poor. I never have more than 50,000 credits. I can't afford my level 40 speeder training. The main problem is the purple underworld metals. I've either got to crit a mission, purchase an epic mission or get the mats off the GTN (which has been affordable for some mats but not for the level 5 ones).

[JordOfOz]

I am constantly upgrading my gear on my cybertech. I've got a full moddable armour set (other than the belt). I make the purple and armouring mod for my class, which means I need to make around 7 of each every two levels. I do almost all my levelling in warzones. I have pretty good stats for my level. I play a Vanguard (currently level 42) and have over 15,000 hit points in a warzone. But I am poor; very, very poor. I never have more than 50,000 credits. I can't afford my level 40 speeder training. The main problem is the purple underworld metals. I've either got to crit a mission, purchase an epic mission or get the mats off the GTN (which has been affordable for some mats but not for the level 5 ones).

[Ommamar]

Well my main is Biochem which is useful even if your using the first level item it still gives you a boost, thinking of stims mostly. Of course since I can make the higher level it makes sense to use those.

I would rate those and Cybertech as the most useful with the moddable equipment system, but they both take some work and as someone else pointed out crafting sucks down the credits.

 

Mostly on the other crew skills I use them to tweak my alts. Although I have found a couple of nice moddable schematics in Armsmech that I use, and that sell decently on the GTN.

[pokota]

Honestly, this is an easy game. I don't stress about keeping my gear up to date. You could level just fine with quest rewards, loot drops, and commendation mods. Personally, I keep somewhat up to date with gear like boots, gloves, and bracers, which I make every several levels with my synth/mech crafters, but for my orange pieces (usually the chest, legs, and helm) I just depend on commendations and mods obtained from quests. It's no big deal if I'm a few levels behind with this or that mod.

[Blattan]

I tend to not bother crafting or upgrading my gear. In very broad terms, it costs too much. Now, to be truthful, that kind of goes away after you are done leveling and are grinding dailies...

 

But as a rule of thumb, I stick to green (premium) quality gear. It is cheaper to repair*, and easier to acquire. And for the most part, you do not need more.

 

*Some special pieces aside, green (premium) costs 1 credit per point of repair. Orange (customizable) gear could cost 24 credits (or much more!) per point to repair. Not to mention, unless you "destroy" the current mod (by upgrading "over" the current mod) it costs you credits to.

[Rhaphael]

Generally while leveling greens are good enough. Blues put you slightly above the curve, purples a lot. There is nothing of equal level that you cannot beat in green gear, short of heroic content and bosses of course. It also helps to out-level things a bit (which will automatically happen when you do all quests+bonus quests).

 

And if you want even more cash while leveling, pick up Slicing to open all the lockboxes you find scattered around the world (don't use it to run missions!)

Edited May 7, 2012 by Rhaphael

[Khevar]

Personally, I tend to accumulate money, crafting materials (both from gathering and missions) for several levels while doing PVE, and wait until it gets "hard". Because I'm a little OCD at doing quests (oh noes another triangle) I tend to be overleveled.

 

As soon as I start dying (despite being overleveled), I figure it's time to upgrade my gear so I switch into crafting mode. (By that time I usually have plenty of money and mats as I haven't really spent anything for a while.)

 

After I've squeezed out as much new loot as I feel like, I go back to PVE freshly equipped and roflstomp for a while.

 

Rinse and repeat.

[achwas]

For myself - wearing as much orange as I can. Upgrading the armour pieces myself ( Cybertech), usually followed by the Mods and enhancements (from Markers), plus of course, the Barrel/Hilt (actually that is usually the first to go^^ )

 

Checking for gear from friends, but usually... every 4-5 levels for everything not on the orange ?

[JediKalel]

Its all grinding when you only have 1 toon below level 50.... now when you get to level 50 and start rolling in some creds from the daily (endgame) missions and can craft / buy stuff for your new alts, its much easier to get and stay geared very well while leveling those new toons, but yes the first time is rough, its a learning phase;)

[parmie]

I'd agree with last poster. In any session on my first character I would find myself levelling faster than I could RE up to purple - I guess I didn't have to try for purple but then I might as well have bought commendations upgrades then.

 

I have 5 characters in total now each with a different craft and it's still a pain to craft for the newest armstech alt. Just for a change from the usual 50 grinding things I made him an orange chest piece last night with the armormech, mod and armouring with by cyber and the enhancement with my artifcer. Just for a character at level 15, this took all night for one piece with REing the upgrades I'd missed and gathering in the purple mats.

 

I pretty much know that will so over gear him he'll get through levels pretty easily and in theory I would have to all start that again..