SWTOR Crafting Guide

In this SWTOR Crafting guide, we will be discussing crafting mechanics and each of the six types of crew crafting skills: Armormech, Armstech, Artifice, Biochem, Cybertech, and Synthweaving.

We will start with an overview of the crafting system, and then discuss each craft in detail, revealing the best crafting combos, what exactly each craft produces, and just how profitable each craft can be.

SWTOR Crafting Guide: Mechanics

While all 6 crafts create different items, the general mechanics are the same. In this section, you will discover everything you have to know about crafting the best items and how the crafting system works.


Learning a Craft

The first step towards crafting is learning a craft. You can learn crew skills in your faction’s capital city in the major commercial district (around the auction house, storage area, and skill trainers).

You can learn and unlearn crafts at any time, free of charge. However, you can only pick 1 craft. Additionally, if you forget a craft and then re-learn it, you will have to start over from level 1 and you will lose your recipes.


Crafting an Item

Once you learn a craft, you can craft an item at any time via the crew skills window (press the “n” key to bring it up). You then click on the crafting icon next to your companion of choice, select the item you want them to craft, and click the craft button.

Since a lot of crafts only take 1 minute and it can be a real pain to keep bringing up the menu to craft basic things, you can queue up to 5 items at once with a single companion – just keep clicking the craft button. This can be all the same recipe or 5 different ones.

Note that some companions have bonuses when it comes to specific crafts. You can specifically use those companions to craft expensive items, but I would not worry about selecting your crafts based specifically on your companions.


Crafting High Quality Items

Occasionally, you will “roll a crit” when crafting, which means that you will occasionally get an item that is slightly better than the one you crafted, with attribute bonuses and slots for item modification (if applicable). Some companions are better at this than others (notice the “+critical” trait), but it is not enough to make a massive difference if none of your companions do not have the skill you like.

You can also learn to create another type of high quality items via Reverse Engineering, which I will discuss below.


SWTOR – Reverse Engineering

One of the best ways to learn new recipes and level up your craft in SWTOR is via reverse engineering. What this does is allows you to break down relevant items into some of their base ingredients and gives you a chance to learn a new recipe.

In order to use Reverse Engineering, simply open up your inventory. After you learn a craft, in the top right of your inventory screen you will notice a new button which says “reverse engineering”. Click this to activate it, then right click on whatever item you would like to Reverse Engineer.

The vast majority of the time, you will get some of your base ingredients back. As a means of recouping ingredients, it is not terribly effective (from a cost-efficiency standpoint) but it is usually better than vendoring your crafted items.

The real perk to Reverse Engineering is learning high-quality recipes. For example, let’s take the Artifice recipe of “Might Hilt 5″. This is a lightsaber hilt which offers +7 Strength and +4 Endurance. If you make a bunch of these and keep reverse engineering them, eventually you will learn “Might Hilt 5″, but instead of being a green quality item, it will be a blue quality item. While the blue-quality (prototype) Might Hilt 5 has more expensive ingredients than the lower-quality one, the high-quality one has +8 Strength and +6 Endurance – a nice upgrade over the regular Might Hilt 5.

The best part is that you keep these new recipes forever, and you can make as many of these high quality items as you want to sell on the auction house.

SWTOR Crafting Guide – Gathering Ingredients

You can learn up to three crew skills and only one can be a craft, leaving you with two additional skills which you can use to gather ingredients for your craft.

However, the majority of crafts require ingredients from two different crew skills – one gathering-based skill and one mission-based skill. Here is the breakdown of the best pairings for each craft:

  • Armormech – pairs well with Scavenging (metals) & Underworld Trading (rare metals)
  • Armstech – pairs will with Scavenging (metals) & Investigation (researched compounds)
  • Artifice – pairs well with Archaeology (crystals and artifacts) and Treasure Hunting (gems)
  • Biochem – pairs well with Bioanalysis (biochemical compounds) and Diplomacy (medical supplies)
  • Cybertech – pairs well with Scavenging (metals) and Underworld Trading (rare metals)
  • Synthweaving – pairs well with Archaelogy (artifacts) and Underworld Trading (luxury fabrics & underworld metals)

Star Wars The Old Republic Crafting Guide – Craft Overview

In this final section of SWTOR crafting guide, you will discover an overview of each craft as well what classes and roles pair well with each craft.


Armormech

Armormechs specialize in creating armor for non-force users (i.e. Trooper, Bounty Hunter, Imperial Agent and Smuggler). Ideally, players who specialize in Armormech would be tanking classes. Tanks get by far the most out of their armor, as a true tanking set adds a lot of health on for a tank, whereas a typical weapon is not nearly as helpful for a tank.

Traditionally, Armor crafting is often very profitable for two reasons: the first is because very few players pick these sorts of crafts because they are not exciting and the second is because a tank’s gear has a bigger impact on a group or raid than any other class. This means that tanks and oftentimes their guilds are willing to front quite a few credits for the best pieces in the game.

The Armormech uses primarily metals, so you should pair it with Scavenging and Underworld Trading for best results.


Armstech

Armstechs specialize in the creation of blasters of all sorts as well as barrels and blades. Essentially, Armstechs make nearly every weapon in the game (aside from Lightsabers – though they do make Vibroblades and Electrostaffs). Armstechs also make barrels for blasters and rifles.

Since they are able to make so many different recipes and players only want the absolute best weapons, Armstech requires more dedication than any other craft. Additionally, you have to consider that many classes will be possibly earning gear via raids, faction, quests, and PvP – it is often hard to compete with these areas for just a single slot and actually make a good profit.

As a result, I recommend Armstech for people who can use its other major product – barrels. If you are a Smuggler, Trooper, Imperial Agent, or Bounty Hunter and want to dedicate a lot of time to crafting, then Armstech can be a good choice.

Armstech needs metals and researched compounds for its weapons, so you will want to pick up Scavenging and Investigation. As a bonus, Investigation can be useful for picking up some extra recipes and schematics which you can use or sell.


Artifice

Artificers specialize in the creation of hilts, color crystals, and weapons (both main hand and off hand) for Force users. At higher levels, they also can create Relics, which are like trinkets with special effects. It is a good choice for any non-tanking Force user (tanks rely more on armor than weapons and accessories).

One thing to note about Artifice is that you do not actually get Lightsaber recipes at a low level, only when you reach higher levels of the craft. At low levels, you primarily make crystals, hilts, and off-hands.

Artifice uses crystals and artifacts, both of which belong to Archaeology. You will also need gemstones for high quality crafts, which can be found through Treasure Hunting.


Biochem

The Biochem is a hybrid of the traditional Alchemist and Jewelcrafter (ring/jewelry maker) that is typically featured in other MMORPGs. The Biochem can create health potions (combat packs) and buffing items (much like an Alchemist), but it can also create “Biological Implants”, which are equipment slots. Players have two Biological Implants equipment slots and this occupies the typical ring slots from fantasy-based MMORPGs.

Since Biochem is likely to be unpopular (making potions just is not as exciting as making weapons) and every player is going to need two Biological Implants, there is definitely room for profit in Biochem.

One downside to the Biochem is that its success depends on how common raiding is on your server. It will likely be much more profitable on bigger servers as these large servers tend to support more raiding groups than small ones.

Players PvPing will have no major influence on combat pack price, as PvP has its own combat packs (since player health goes up significantly in PvP). However, all players will need Biological Implants.

Regardless, Biochem is a solid choice for players in raiding guilds (as you can make health kits for your guild) or for those who want to make credits.

Biochem players should pick up Bioanalysis for biological compounds and Diplomacy for medical supplies.


Cybertech

Cybertech is probably the oddest craft in our SWTOR Crafting guide as it makes an eccentric array of products, as it creates earrings (a single slot), armor and weapon mods, equipment for droid companions, and usable gadgets (ala engineering).

Any craft can be profitable, and for Cybertech, its profitability likely lies in its mods. Many high-end armor pieces are open to modification, and creating very high quality armor mods will lead to profitability.

While you do not get to produce many exciting items for yourself, this is definitely a good option for credit making. It is also a good option for those who use a droid companion.

Cybertechs should pick up Scavenging and Underworld trading, as you will need metals from both crew skills.


Synthweaving

Synthweaving focuses on creating armor for Force users. It is essentially the counterpart to the Armormech in this regard.

Since tanks benefit the most from armor, any force-using tank should seriously consider Synthweaving as you can craft a lot of your own gear to get ready for high-level flashpoints and raids.

Synthweaving should be paired with Archaeology for crystals and artifacts as well as Underworld Trading for cloth.

SWTOR Crafting Guide Conclusion

You now have a good overview of each of the six crafts in SWTOR. Tanks should consider creating their own armor, whereas DPS players should select a class that can make its own gear. Players looking primarily to earn money through crafting should consider Biochem or Cybertech, as both of these crafts will product in-demand items and be less competitive than the other 4 crafts, as players often consider it cooler to produce weapons and armor over earrings, implants, and modifications.

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