So, I did some research into Artifice and I learned how useless a lot of the crafting trades are in end game. Everything made with Artifice is worse than what you can get from the daily heroics at lvl 50. There are also no BOP exclusive stats/abilities/gear

So now I am forced to make a decision. Do I stay with Artifice and hope that it gets changed to provide some sort of end game benefit or do I switch something that is more useful to me as a tank... like whatever craft makes those reusable medpacks and stims.

I want to tank Operations and dedicate to improving my Jedi Knight Guardian with that in mind and Artifice seems to ultimately be the wrong choice.

Any thoughts?

From the way it seems, to continue end game its just like any other MMO prety much, you can craft "good" stuff, but the "best" stuff you get from doing raids and having the schematics drop. They have tons of info on TORhead about items ive never seen, crstals, mods etc, and the recipes must be drops.

Yeah there are still some unknowns but, I am fairly certain that it is a fact that crafted items are all worse than that gear you can get from those 2-man heroic daily quests.

I am sure this will change, it would have to. I just worry that once I ding 50 my only option for gear will be those heroics.

I'm sure this is frustrating for people who are in to crafting and have already made it to end game. Based on what I have observed of Bioware's concern for and responsiveness to the community, I am sure that this will be addressed by them if it is something that enough people are concerned about.

From my experience with Synthweaving, I would definitely disagree that crafting is useless. However, after finding out about the Biochem Rakata stims, I feel Biochem would be far more (and insanely so) useful.

Synthweaving supplies some Rakata-level gear at the trainer. I imagine others are supplied in op drops. This gear is far better than any entry level PvP Dailies, and comparable to [HARD] Op drops I've seen. The items to create it are very common drops in normal ops. Additionally, I've made some decent money on the GTN supplying basic purple gear to fresh 50s.

That all said, I feel it cannot compare to infinitely reusable high-yield medkits and reusable, persist-through death (does it even need to persist through death at that point?) +150-some stims. Already, I know people resetting their crafts to Biochem (or thinking about it), fighting against Bioware's goal for inter-player inter-craft interaction.

Summary: Not useless, but I feel some imbalance.

Right, it is useful for selling purple hilts/color stones/ etc. So I will correct it there.

My problem is that the time and investment I have put into crafting ultimately does nothing for me in end game as far as increasing my stats. In a certain game that I played before I was able to Jewel Craft and was able to use BoP gems that were better than anything else in the game. I was also able to craft the best gems at the cost of very rare mats... but I could do it and sell it.

I agree that Bioware will fix this, they will be getting an earful as more and more players ding 50. I just can't decide what to do... if I should switch to Biochem. It certainly seems to be a must as a tank.

Yeah, if it's a problem, I'm sure they'll fix it. They're said from the beginning that they intended to have certain slots where the best gear comes from crafters rather than raiding/pvp.

Having to choose a crew skill just because it increases stats demeans the value that that skill has. WoW got it wrong in that respect, whereas at least Bioware give you a choice for which all crew skills are equal, at least from that respect.

I've noticed for myself, that Synthweaving is fairly useless, however it could be useful for people who need to go back and gear companions.

I think the whole crew skill system will get a bit more love later down the line.

I was reading up on this a bit more and I think I've found a reason to be a crafter. You can RE crafted items to get better recipes. You can then RE those items for even better gear. I think it's all about where you want to spend your time. REing can be time consuming so it really depends on where you want to spend your time. You need to hit ops or hardcore DPS but there is still a payoff in the end. Looking at db.darthhater I can't find items with the same stats. Comparable, yes. Same, no.

I've been playing a sith inquisitor on another server, and i found synthweaving to be pretty much have better stuff during the leveling of my character (me and my companions).
Having this during the leveling process was great fun, I guess it depends how long it takes to respec. from one crafting set to another, to see if that's somthing you can do at end game ( I think with 5 companions it won't take long at all)!