Gathering Skills a must? SWTOR

[Squirrellies]

One thing I'm coming to realize about SWTOR is how intertwined everything is. When it comes to gathering skills there is Slicing, Archaeology, Bioanalysis, and scavenging. Normally these skills are used durring normal PvE play to collect crafting ingredients but All of these come into play when we are doing Operations/Flashpoints (Raids/Group instances).

Achaeology
- PVE = Gathers Crystals and Fragments used in Synthweaving and Artifice
- OPS/FLP = Locates hidden doors & pathways to areas not shown on mission/Raid map

Bioanalysist
I'm not sure about because none of my team has it

Scavenging
- PvE = Gather metals & Synthetics used in armor/weapons/upgrades
- OPS/FLP = Bosses, Mobs, Storage Lockers, and Mission rewards have increased drop rates

Slicing (Hacking)
- PvE = opens lockboxes containing credits or small items
- OPS/FLP = Opens locked doors leading to secret area/objectives, bypasses security responses, and reprograms defeated droids to follow group and support them throughout the mission.


More and more we're finding out how helpful it is to have a well balanced group to play with and to keep your characters/companions well rounded.

[Arovien]

Sounds so deep; i like it! Seems like a well-rounded squad is a must.

[Squirrellies]

Squads consist of 4 teamates. Teamates are either companion characters or players. A companion is not a pet, it's a fully functional NPC.

I think people should break up into teams of 4 and go through the game together so they are familiar with thier squad mates and how they play so when operations time come we dont have to sort through and organize raids. We can just say Squirrellies team, Zhids team, Geldans team, etc. and they will already be fully functional and stick together.

[toljar]

Don't forget the companion system. TBH most the information on the top is controlled by your companion anyway.

[Squirrellies]

Gathering skills.. pointless to have companion characters do them since they dont bring much back.
Crafting and mission skills are where companions really shine

Companions almost never gather since you'll be grouping most of the time for flashpoints, 4man heroics, and social points

[Kachi]

But I hear they are supposed to be extremely useful for using the materials you gather to make stuff in your offtime.

[Squirrellies]

yes, that and you can send them on thier own missions. We're pushing the dev's to allow us to access crew skills through a website while we're at work. That way we can assign them missions, crafting, and other tasks to do thru the SWTOR website instead of having to log in to the game.

Gathering, you can right click on harvesting locations yourself and get twice the material than if you shift + Click to send your companion. Companions can be sent on missions to gather as well, but for the time they are on that missions, you cant use them.

[Kachi]

Sounds sweet, using a website to micro manage them would be awesome.

[Zevlin]

As a Gunslinger, I noticed that Armstech, Scavenge and Underworld Trading works nicely together. It seems like boss droids yield nice resources. Also, the Gunslinger can disable droids in battle. So it makes sense to hunt droids if you plan to do a lot of crafting. As a smuggler at least.

[Zevlin]

I might take scavenging and slicing if I can. According to the TOR web site Slicing will yield rare schematics. (rare schematics = better weapons). Are you allowed 2 gathering skills?