Cybertech: What's the point? and plans for the future

[GeckoOBac]

I want, as a first thing, to make clear that this is not meant as a whine thread but a serious request for informations and ideas.

 

TL;DR Is there a point in staying Cybertech? Is there anything planned for the future? What would YOU do to fix Cybertech?

 

Now, I've been Cybertech on my main since beta, never changed, and I'd like to avoid changing.

 

BUT: right now Cybertech is the most pointless of the crafting skills.

 

We have no "built-in" high level recipes. We have only one high level consumable of highly debatable value. We lack the ability to make, easily, any gear that is of any use to either high end pvpers or pvers.

 

Let's look at this point by point:

Artifice, Armstech, Synthweaving and Armormech all get orange recipes of some kind that are, at least for now, in high request due to the augment slot. From what was stated in the recent podcast, it seems that the augment kits will be crafted by the same Crew Skills due to the fact that it requires RE of specific equipment pieces to obtain the materials.

 

Synthweaving and Armormech also get the ability to self craft a couple of rakata level (and crittable) gear pieces straight from the trainer (not 100% sure for armormech but I suppose it's similar).

 

Artifice gets to craft high end color crystals with recipes usually easy enough to acquire and rakata relics, crittable.

 

Armstech gets a little shafted because the only other thing it gets, afaik, is, like the other 3 skills, the ability to craft certain augments.

 

Biochem... Oh boy, don't get me started... Reusable stims, adrenals and medpacks, with a huge market for blue stims (if nothing else). It also appears, though it may be just luck, that the columi (and possibly rakata) implants schematics are easier to obtain than same level earpieces.

 

What's left for cybertech?

The only "off-the shelf" item of any real value is the grenade. I say THE because you can only, realistically, use just one, since they all share the same CD (which is also quite long, 3 mins). There's no sale value because the blue grenades cost too much to be worth making, and don't have much an effect to be worth using.

Starship pieces are cool but many people just ignore them and it's more for vanity than anything else, given the current state of space combat.

Speeders are laughable... They are quite ugly, costly (though perhaps less than lvl 50 mounts after the price bump) and give no advantage over other more easily acquired speeders.

 

Mods and armorings... Well, armorings are, most of the time, out of question due to the set bonuses. Mods COULD be interesting, if the choice of available mods was wider and, most importantly, accessible.

I've been raiding since december, though I admit not constantly, up to nightmare mode. Even with no competition (IE: no other cybertechs rolling on items), I have yet to acquire a SINGLE columi level or higher recipe for cybertech. No earpieces, no mods, no armorings. And, I repeat, even if I had some, their utility would be debatable.

 

Since slicing drops Cybertech recipes, I even thought that cybertech would become the go-to skill to craft augments... Boy, was I wrong.

 

Now, I am slightly puzzled... What's the point of Cybertech? You can acquire high level mods/armorings more easily than the recipes, which are of limited use anyway. No useful consumables, no other utility.

I find myself more and more pushed toward respeccing to Biochem, since its utility (for myself, if not for money-making) is STILL unparalleled, especially in pvp.

 

I'd like to know if there's something planned for Cybertech or if the Devs are happy with the status... At least I could respec freely in that case.

 

And from you fellow gamers and Cybertech crafters... Comments? Suggestions? Ideas?

Edited May 12, 2012 by GeckoOBac

[akaWhitey]

A couple of things:

 

1) PvP. Biochem is best, but im assuming that will change eventually. You are seriously underestimating grenades. On VS ive won matches with the slow grenade by slowing the entire team in the hallway. good luck defending with a 70% slow for 8 secs on 6 people. Flame grenade is a huge damage bonus. The ground effect grenade is a 12m radius 4s stun that goes through resolve. Combo this with carbonize or fear and you can diffuse a bomb by yourself no problem. The ice grenade is a 5s aoe root that goes through resolve (amazing for huttball) All are on a 3 min CD. Use them situationally and every time it is off CD.

 

2) Columni schematics are easy to obtain, first boss in HM EV. If there are no other cybertechs in your raid, then its yours. The black hole earpieces are re-engineerable and can be critted with augment [?].

 

The armoring and mods from black hole or campaign are RE, so if you ever get HM Denova on farm, you never have to worry about gearing out ANYONE if you have a artifcer buddy for the enhancements. Mind you, you can perfectly optimize the stats.

 

3) Last but not least, you share all of the gathering skills with armormech and synth for heavy armor. Ive found that there is a huge demand now for mats, and they have doubled or trippled in price. This is your real money maker.

[GeckoOBac]

Don't really care for money, I make enough as it is just from WZs and the occasional dailies.

 

Grenades are, mostly, uninmportant. I'm sorry but a 2k hit once every three minutes is most often less than I can do in one gcd. The root is nice, has its uses but 1) all roots go through resolve anyway 2) hardly a game changer. 5 secs if you don't deal damage, 2 secs if you do. There are hard stuns that last longer.

 

There is no reason for the grenades to be 1) on shared timer 2) on a 3 minutes timer. Adrenals and medpacks are, IIRC, on 90 secs timers and are not on shared cd. They also influence the encounter much more than a grenade can.

 

And like I said, I've been raiding since december, even in NM, and still no schematics. So either my luck is abysmal, or the drop chance isn't really that high.

 

Also, the point remains: I have to work a lot more than other crew skills for, at best, similar results. I doubt crafted armorings get set bonuses, so for pure pvers, they're not that useful, and, afaik, there's no way to obtain pvp schematics for mods or armorings so far (My war hero gear doesn't show them as available for RE, neither did my BM pieces).

[Twor]

Don't really care for money, I make enough as it is just from WZs and the occasional dailies.

 

Grenades are, mostly, uninmportant. I'm sorry but a 2k hit once every three minutes is most often less than I can do in one gcd. The root is nice, has its uses but 1) all roots go through resolve anyway 2) hardly a game changer. 5 secs if you don't deal damage, 2 secs if you do. There are hard stuns that last longer.

 

There is no reason for the grenades to be 1) on shared timer 2) on a 3 minutes timer. Adrenals and medpacks are, IIRC, on 90 secs timers and are not on shared cd. They also influence the encounter much more than a grenade can.

 

And like I said, I've been raiding since december, even in NM, and still no schematics. So either my luck is abysmal, or the drop chance isn't really that high.

 

Also, the point remains: I have to work a lot more than other crew skills for, at best, similar results. I doubt crafted armorings get set bonuses, so for pure pvers, they're not that useful, and, afaik, there's no way to obtain pvp schematics for mods or armorings so far (My war hero gear doesn't show them as available for RE, neither did my BM pieces).

 

Roots and slows don't go on resolve. Stuns and mezzes do. But its usually enough to use the low level grenades, as you stated correctly that the damage is not worth the 400er version.

 

Just for GTN purposes I sold quite a bit of ship parts, otherwise beside the PvE red stuff with augments there is not really that much use oc ct.

Though when leveling an alt always being able to keep him up with rare/epic stuff to feed my orange gear makes a difference in comfort. But for endgame its mew. But than again most crafts are.

[GeckoOBac]

Roots and slows don't go on resolve. Stuns and mezzes do. But its usually enough to use the low level grenades, as you stated correctly that the damage is not worth the 400er version.

 

Just for GTN purposes I sold quite a bit of ship parts, otherwise beside the PvE red stuff with augments there is not really that much use oc ct.

Though when leveling an alt always being able to keep him up with rare/epic stuff to feed my orange gear makes a difference in comfort. But for endgame its mew. But than again most crafts are.

 

That's what I said, all roots and slows go through resolve, as in, they pass through it. And the purple version is reusable, why should I use a lower level, consumed on use, version?

 

Like I stated in my original post, the other crafting skills have their fair share of end game utility, at least in 1.2. Sure, the request for modded gear will die out in a while, but with every new tiear of gear (or new looks), the request will be there again.

[pokota]

I agree. Cybertech is on an island. Started Cybertech on my main in pre-launch, had it maxed out by level 25. Made quite a bit of credits, too, on ship upgrades and slotted ear-pieces, though neither market is close to what it used to be. I quit instance-farming before 1.2, however, which means that Cybertech is now pretty much useless to me. It CAN possibly be good IF you are an instance-farmer AND you're really lucky. Saying Cybertech is good is like telling someone that they don't have to worry about money because they can just go win the lottery. It requires a lot of luck to be worth a damn.

 

My Synthweaver and my Armormech get all my attention, now. I've made millions since 1.2 on augments and augmented armor, all without jumping through the same kind of "raid or die" hoops as Cybertech. I don't even use Cybertech mods for my alts, because my materials are too valuable to be wasted that way. Four pieces of electrum, polyplast, and quadranium for ONE blue mod, when I can get something almost as good for TWO comms? No way in hell. I gear up my alts with a combination of Synth/Armortech pieces and mods obtained from commissions, loot drops, and quest rewards, and it works perfectly.

 

I use Cybertech to make ear-pieces for my alts every seven levels or so. And that's basically it. I might throw some ship upgrades on the GTN if the under-cutters have thinned out, but it's not that uncommon to see parts listed for 25k, and I'm not going to do that. That's a waste of materials. I could sell low-level mods like crazy, but again, the profit after the cost of the materials is so low that it's a poor use of my time and resources. Mods use far more materials than they should. My Cybertech character's best use is as a material farmer for my other professions.

 

I've said it before, but if I ever go back to using my main on a consistent basis, then Cybertech is getting dropped, along with dozens of mostly-useless purple schematics. It no longer has any real inherent value to me. It's definitely the weakest of my three maxed out professions, and I don't have a character with BioChem.

[The_Duck]

It would be a LITTLE better if Rakata Ear Schematics dropped ...

 

Rakata Relics can be crafted (BOP), why not Rakata Earpieces?

Best we can do are Columi and I would argue that slotted columi are not the best available that we can make.

[eriknimblehands]

Yeah, cybertech is really just for keeping alts geared. I was going to say it's the only way to get augmented earpieces, but it has been said that soemtime in the near future (1.3 maybe) we will be able to add augment slots to any gear, so that's useless now. It's the alt skill. That's it.

[SamuraiCrazy]

i haven't seen the post, but in some off key interview a dev supposedly said cyber will be making the add-on augment slots....which better be true.

[GeckoOBac]

i haven't seen the post, but in some off key interview a dev supposedly said cyber will be making the add-on augment slots....which better be true.

 

I though that would be the case, but the podcast stated that the augment kits are not universal (or at least so I understood) and each type is made from materials obtained by reverse engineering items. Now, since reverse engineer is tied to a specific crafting skill (IE: Synthweaving for force user's armor, armstech for non jedi weapons, etc), I would guess that crafting the resulting augment kits is tied to a specific crew skill as well... I guess at best we're going to be able to make earpiece augment kits?

[Lithy]

Can BM/Warhero Mods be REed for schematics?

[RedWolfs]

Can BM/Warhero Mods be REed for schematics?

 

No research available.

 

At least that's what the tool tip says.

[Astarothxp]

so you can RE black hole mods to get schematics for them?

[Keiret]

Now I've seen this I think I'll stop focusing on this on my main, has been like banging my head against a wall but I was unwilling to quit as it was the first skill I maxed.

 

Profits are terrible compared to the other professions, particularly as people tend to sell most of the high level stuff at below material cost.

 

Since I PVP on all of my alts, there's hardly anything I can make using Cyber (even whilst levelling) that you can't get better from the PVP vendor. Once you hit 50 there's nothing you can create that stands above BM or Rakata gear, and people know that full well, so why pay for lvl 50 purple armorings/earpieces/augments when you can grind them in a matter of days, if not hours?

 

I don't agree that the grenades are useless, but the cooldown is a bit too long, yes. If they don't share a cooldown they'd be extremely annoying/OP in WZs tbh, can't see any need to change that.

 

This should be addressed by adding more high level schematics, and creating demand in the lower levels. Reduce if not remove the armorings/earpieces/augments from missioning drops, and enhance the number of modable items that drop, without mods, and the market for these items would pick up.

[Cichard]

Ive been making a ton of credits of making the Black hole mods. you have to pull the mod out of the gear that its in before you can RE it. But the BH/campaing mods and enhancments can be RE'ed

[Cerion]

I finally got my alt to 400 cybertech yesterday, and was sorely disappointed. Had taken the skill because the mods I wanted were hard to come by on my server...and now I know why. I can only make the 22A variety mods, and not the others. I know, my fault for not researching the skill more, and I suppose leveling the skill with Armor patches left me in the dark about mod options.

 

It just seemed so obvious that I'd be able to craft these mods...the 22s and the 22Bs....that I didn't even question that I wouldn't be able to. It's only marginally useful now to me as a way to outfit my companions with armor patches over the next few months (not going to run dailies for my off-companions).

[Cerion]

Ive been making a ton of credits of making the Black hole mods. you have to pull the mod out of the gear that its in before you can RE it. But the BH/campaing mods and enhancments can be RE'ed

 

 

hmmm......

[GeckoOBac]

Nice to know that we only have to farm the second tier of operation content to have a chance of getting something useful -_-

[Cichard]

Nice to know that we only have to farm the second tier of operation content to have a chance of getting something useful -_-

 

This is false as well Normal mode EV and KP now drop ilvl 56 schematics for crafting mods

[GeckoOBac]

This is false as well Normal mode EV and KP now drop ilvl 56 schematics for crafting mods

 

And you obviously haven't read the rest of the thread it seems.

Do the other crew skills need to raid to craft something useful for them and/or others? The answer is nope.

[pokota]

I finally got my alt to 400 cybertech yesterday, and was sorely disappointed. Had taken the skill because the mods I wanted were hard to come by on my server...and now I know why. I can only make the 22A variety mods, and not the others. I know, my fault for not researching the skill more, and I suppose leveling the skill with Armor patches left me in the dark about mod options.

 

It just seemed so obvious that I'd be able to craft these mods...the 22s and the 22Bs....that I didn't even question that I wouldn't be able to. It's only marginally useful now to me as a way to outfit my companions with armor patches over the next few months (not going to run dailies for my off-companions).

 

If you're a tank, or your companion is a tank, then Cybertech is bloody awful for gearing. That's why I gear most of my companions with Synth/Armormech. CT mod selection is terrible. Even Earpiece itemization at many levels is bad.

 

It's pretty clear that BioWare was worried Cybertech would be a more appealing option than doing quests, so they short-changed it in many regards.

[Wefi]

think a good way to add to cybertech is adding KOTOR Swoop racing, and have them craft parts for it.

[Prenavo]

I would like to see Cybertech get some real schematics for now and into the future. The first thing I'd like to see is the ability to make the best looking speeders in the game. The absolute best looking could be hm operations drops. As hard as mandalorian iron is to get, this should be the case. Thats not to say that cybertechs should get all the fun over things like maybe doing a particularly challenging quest for a new and unique speeder, but we should really have more options in that dept.

Next. We should have the ability to craft armoring and mods with the use of dropped crafting mats from flashpoints and operations. Stuff that is better than what you get from dailies, but not as good as what you get from the coms gear.

Grenades...for all they do, should have a faster cooldown timer. Shorten it please bioware. If I can use my orbital strike on my powertech directly after using my death from above, or flamethrower and orbital strike along with lightning storm, I don't think it should be much of an issue to use the little grenades a trifle bit sooner. It don't have to be real short, just about a minute less would be fine.

For the future, I'd like to see some real improvments to space parts assuming we get a space expansion of some kind.

Thats my 2credits.

[Smashbrother]

I want, as a first thing, to make clear that this is not meant as a whine thread but a serious request for informations and ideas.

 

TL;DR Is there a point in staying Cybertech? Is there anything planned for the future? What would YOU do to fix Cybertech?

 

Now, I've been Cybertech on my main since beta, never changed, and I'd like to avoid changing.

 

BUT: right now Cybertech is the most pointless of the crafting skills.

 

We have no "built-in" high level recipes. We have only one high level consumable of highly debatable value. We lack the ability to make, easily, any gear that is of any use to either high end pvpers or pvers.

 

Let's look at this point by point:

Artifice, Armstech, Synthweaving and Armormech all get orange recipes of some kind that are, at least for now, in high request due to the augment slot. From what was stated in the recent podcast, it seems that the augment kits will be crafted by the same Crew Skills due to the fact that it requires RE of specific equipment pieces to obtain the materials.

 

Synthweaving and Armormech also get the ability to self craft a couple of rakata level (and crittable) gear pieces straight from the trainer (not 100% sure for armormech but I suppose it's similar).

 

Artifice gets to craft high end color crystals with recipes usually easy enough to acquire and rakata relics, crittable.

 

Armstech gets a little shafted because the only other thing it gets, afaik, is, like the other 3 skills, the ability to craft certain augments.

 

Biochem... Oh boy, don't get me started... Reusable stims, adrenals and medpacks, with a huge market for blue stims (if nothing else). It also appears, though it may be just luck, that the columi (and possibly rakata) implants schematics are easier to obtain than same level earpieces.

 

What's left for cybertech?

The only "off-the shelf" item of any real value is the grenade. I say THE because you can only, realistically, use just one, since they all share the same CD (which is also quite long, 3 mins). There's no sale value because the blue grenades cost too much to be worth making, and don't have much an effect to be worth using.

Starship pieces are cool but many people just ignore them and it's more for vanity than anything else, given the current state of space combat.

Speeders are laughable... They are quite ugly, costly (though perhaps less than lvl 50 mounts after the price bump) and give no advantage over other more easily acquired speeders.

 

Mods and armorings... Well, armorings are, most of the time, out of question due to the set bonuses. Mods COULD be interesting, if the choice of available mods was wider and, most importantly, accessible.

I've been raiding since december, though I admit not constantly, up to nightmare mode. Even with no competition (IE: no other cybertechs rolling on items), I have yet to acquire a SINGLE columi level or higher recipe for cybertech. No earpieces, no mods, no armorings. And, I repeat, even if I had some, their utility would be debatable.

 

Since slicing drops Cybertech recipes, I even thought that cybertech would become the go-to skill to craft augments... Boy, was I wrong.

 

Now, I am slightly puzzled... What's the point of Cybertech? You can acquire high level mods/armorings more easily than the recipes, which are of limited use anyway. No useful consumables, no other utility.

I find myself more and more pushed toward respeccing to Biochem, since its utility (for myself, if not for money-making) is STILL unparalleled, especially in pvp.

 

I'd like to know if there's something planned for Cybertech or if the Devs are happy with the status... At least I could respec freely in that case.

 

And from you fellow gamers and Cybertech crafters... Comments? Suggestions? Ideas?

 

Dude CT is mostly fine. I make and sell the grade 2/4 ship parts on the GTN every day. I make sooooo much money selling them.

 

Besides biochem, what do the other crafting skills bring that is unique? Two augment slots? Big whoop, that's a 36 increase to your primary stat. The grenades are far better than a measly +36 stat. +36 prim stat will never make or break a WZ, whereas my grenades have decided a win/loss many times. I've used the aoe root grenade on ball carriers over fire pits who have full resolve to kill them many times. I have used the 4 sec aoe knock down grenade to CC groups of people coming out of the gates in VS so we can plant, or cc people trying to kill my ball carrier so they can score.

 

In pve, the nades may not be as useful, but the dot nade adds about 11 dps if you use it everytime. I'm not sure how much +36 stat adds to your dps, but it probably isn't that huge.

[GeckoOBac]

Dude CT is mostly fine. I make and sell the grade 2/4 ship parts on the GTN every day. I make sooooo much money selling them.

 

Besides biochem, what do the other crafting skills bring that is unique? Two augment slots? Big whoop, that's a 36 increase to your primary stat. The grenades are far better than a measly +36 stat. +36 prim stat will never make or break a WZ, whereas my grenades have decided a win/loss many times. I've used the aoe root grenade on ball carriers over fire pits who have full resolve to kill them many times. I have used the 4 sec aoe knock down grenade to CC groups of people coming out of the gates in VS so we can plant, or cc people trying to kill my ball carrier so they can score.

 

In pve, the nades may not be as useful, but the dot nade adds about 11 dps if you use it everytime. I'm not sure how much +36 stat adds to your dps, but it probably isn't that huge.

 

Well, Orange crafting is one thing, like I stated. Different skills have different advantages, the closest to us is armstech, and I still rate it above cybertech for the ability to make orange slotted weapons and augments.

 

Making money from the ship pieces may be possible, though on my server those pieces don't sell. Not much for utility though, and since you have to sell to low level characters, the income can't be that great.

 

The grenades are *cool* and sometimes useful. Still, comparing the utility we get them from the utility we could get from other skills, I don't rate them much. The only other skill with consumables gets to use theirs 2 times as often and with more variety and utility as well.

 

And nope, 2k damage in 1 gcd do NOT add 11 dps over the duration of the dot. Because in that GCD I could have used one of my skills that most of the time deal more damage than that.