Feb 14, 2012

Posted by in Breakdown | 15 Comments

Breakdown: The Cybertech Mods You Want!

Breakdown is designed to to fill that stressful void while Star Wars: The Old Republic is down for maintenance. Each Tuesday morning, we’ll look at a topic and try to break it down to the basics. In the end, we hope to educate, entertain, and prevent you from having your own Breakdown!

This week’s Breakdown is about Modifications! If you’re an avid customizable gear user  you know that keeping up with all of the different modifications for your gear can be dizzying. Every class, and every spec, has something different you want to focus on. On top of that, once you hit the 30s, the number of options you have grow considerably! If you haven’t already, go back and read my previous article on Enhancements (there were so many they needed their own article!) This week, we’re going to break down all the different types of Modification mods and Armoring mods available to you, so that you know which ones you want to slot into your favorite set of custom gear.

First, let’s start with some definitions:

When you’re a “lowbie” (below level 30) You’re going to use one of the “Basic” mods. These terms work for both Armoring and Modifications.

  • Might = Strength (Jedi Knight & Sith Warrior)
  • Reflex = Aim (Trooper & Bounty Hunter)
  • Resolve = Will (Consular & Inquisitor)
  • Skill = Cunning (Smuggler & Agent)

22 Series: Each time you go up a level range, the series of Enhancements, Modifications, Armoring, Hilts, Barrels, etc… will increase. The 22 series is the highest level that crafters can make (not to be confused with the different qualities such as prototype and artifact). Every time you increase in rating, you’re increasing in the level requirement and the magnitude of the stats that are on that particular item modification.

Click to Enlarge

Rating: If you look carefully at the Armoring mods, they will have something that shows you the rating. In the above example, it says “Armor Rating 70.” This doesn’t really mean anything until you slot it into a piece of customizable armor, and that will depend on if it is heavy, medium, or light armor. The higher the rating, the higher the value of armor. Artifact pieces will have the same level requirement (such as level 31) but instead of being rating 70, they will be considerably higher, granting you a better bonus (and better stats) for the same level range.

Now without further ado, I give you Ask A Jedi’s newest Breakdown crafting modification chart:

Click to Enlarge

This chart includes the previous one on Enhancements, as well as Modification mods and Armoring mods. The bonuses marked in here are for the basic prototype quality that anyone can make. Prior to level 31, you’ll want to use the “lowbie” ones I mentioned above. Also, the italicized and struck out Enhancements are the repeats (exact duplicate) of the one above it.

Hopefully this will help you next time you decide to peruse the Galactic Trade Market (and remember that the one on Nar Shaddaa is cross faction), or the next time you hit up your local crafter. As always, I hope I’ve helped educate you on more of the basics, and I hope you’ll join me next week when the servers are down for another Breakdown!

  1. Skill = Cunning (Smuggler & Agent)

    this should be

    Cunning = Skill (Smuggler & Agent)

  2. But this modifications and enchantments are basically unusable ones you hit 50. right ?

    • Lord_Paladin says:

      Not sure I understand your question.

      • I’d hazard the guess that the sentiment is “there are better ones out there”, which is true enough. I still think there is merit in showing you the best craftables available, that does not involve specific content such as operations or PvP gear.

        They may not be the best in the game, but that far from makes them useless, either as a stepping stone towards better things (HM flashpoints etc.), or simply something that is “good enough” for those disinclined to participate in the harder end-game content. Some of us just use level 50s to bankroll an army of alts, after all :)

  3. Kryssprollz says:

    Those “expanded” categories (Initiative, Adept et al.) are available well before lvl 50. Around lvl 35 I think but I may be wrong.

    I am still baffled by the fact there are still exact items duplicates (crafts or at commendations vendors) 2 months after the game has been launched.

    The crafting system had everything to be fun, a great side-game and a useful addition to end game content until everybody figured out crafted mods and items were a magnitude weaker than daily quests and HM flashpoints rewards…

    A majority of my guild dropped the ball on crafting after they hit 50. Which is a shame.

    • The inclusion of duplicates, especially the jungle that is Enhancements, is very odd indeed. It seems like a relic of a previous statsystem (which they had at one point in the beta, before every class got a primary stat), brought in line via sledgehammer to fit the new stats. It’s similar to some of the crafted purple combinations, a few of which are of questionable usefulness to any spec. Those seem almost added simply for completions sake, but even that rationale doesn’t hold since they left out the (admittedly useless) +defense/+alacrity version.

      My guess for the relative powerlevel of crafted goods in the end-game, is that they were cautious about the availability of high-powered items without the need for some HM/Ops participation, and erred too much on the side of caution compared to commendation gear, which require substantially less of a time and resources investment to aquire.

  4. Lady Republic says:

    Thanks, this is very helpful. Only thing I would add (though easy enough to track down on Torhead) is where these are obtainable – cybertech, dailies, etc.

  5. Jeff Hurley says:

    Great information. I still don’t understand however, how do you look at a piece of Orange Modible Gear, which indicates your modifications with a (# in parenthis) and match that up with Mods that you are looking at on the GTN or Vendor.

    Without Ctrl – Left and looking at each piece of Modable gear, how can you determine its level or relative quality?

    • In your options you can set it to display the details of the mods in your gear.

      The only mod that this doesn’t work ideally for is Barrels/Hilts, as that actual item level impacts your Tech/Force power, respectively.

  6. the crafted ones are ok, but start running the ilum / belsavis dailys asap. you will get upgrades better than these 1 set a day (1 mod, 1 enhancement, 1 armoring) as well as daily commendations that can be used to buy rakata ear and implants.

    • Lord Paladin says:

      Actually the value of these isn’t what you’d think. The ones you get on ilum are only 1point better than the purple crafted ones. Also, at least as a dps guardian, the selection is pretty terrible. I only use these reward ones for outfitting my companions.

      • yes they are only 1 point better, but still better. and unless you waste time running around scavenging all the metals you need, it it not worth the credits to waste on the terrible output of the reverse engineer monster. RNG is severely broken. not so bad for cybertechs since they only need 1 schematic for each item. but other crafting, lets say armormech, which has 3 for each green, and 5 for each blue… you will blow millions trying to discover just the ones you want.

        • Lord Paladin says:

          All item mods follow the linear system, so it’s not that hard. Even with the broken rng. Fot items… Yea it sucks. But the itemization for crafted is much better. The problem is it doesnt keep up for tier 2 and above.

Leave a Reply to Lady Republic Cancel reply