Thanks to playing around a bit on the PTR over the past 2 weeks, I’d started to get my characters ready for the Patch. I wasn’t expecting it to be coming out this week mind you, but now that it’s confirmed for Thursday, I’m glad I’d started preparing.

Grabbing Items That Have Planned Obsolescence

As previously noted, my first and foremost goal in this area was obtaining some purple lightsaber crystals. In addition to the one I equipped on Anexxia, I stuck a few in the bank for future 50s. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to score two purple crystals for my Marauder on my new server. I just didn’t have quite enough time to level her up and gather the credits to buy her crystals. I’ll just have to cross my fingers that as an artificer she’ll eventually be able to make some sort of super awesome crystals for her dual lightsabers.

The next thing I did, on my original server, was splash out on a sweet new ride, as seen above. They’re taking this mounts out of the game with Patch 1.2 so this was my last chance to grab one. And since I had the unused cash there, it was worth spending the million credits on. Some day, when I can move Anexxia over to a server I am actually playing on, it will have been worth it.

Mulling Over My Family Trees

If I had to make a prediction, I’d say that deciding on family tree structure and setting up custom UIs will consume most players’ entire Thursday night play time. That’s why I’ve been trying to think through my family connections this week. The matriarch picks have been easy enough, but then I have to think through for each of the alts, which of these roles is their best fit:

• rival
• ally
• spouse
• child
• adopted child
• sibling

I think the rival is a really fun choice and I’m planning to have at least 1 rival per family tree, to keep my matriarchs on their toes. Rival is a good way to deal with those opposite faction alts, for sure, but in my case, I think it’s more likely that we have a few strong willed Siths who’d just as soon murder each other as cooperate. I highly suggest thinking this through and sketching out your trees prior to logging in post-patch, especially if you’re like me and have families on multiple servers to setup.

Preparing for the Crafting Changes

I slowed down on my moddable gear crafting and instead made sure to shore up my stores of crafting materials. I expect there to be significant demand for the augmented custom pieces in the first few weeks post-patch, and as such, want to ensure I have enough materials on hand to make a good number of items right after the servers come back up.

The incoming crafting changes are a primary reason I hurried my new character through leveling her artifice to 400 so quickly, even though it meant missing out on her chance at her purple lightsaber crystals.

If you haven’t checked out the Patch Notes yet, a few of the key profession-wide crafting changes include:

• On critical successes, crafted Custom (orange) gear now receives an Augment slot.
• The [Exceptional], [Advanced], [Superior], and [Mastercraft] suffixes have been removed from crafted item names. [Augmented] will be appended as a suffix to crafted items that were a critical success.
• When crafting item modifications (mods, enhancements, etc), a critical success now yields double the quantity of modifications.
• Crafting materials obtained via endgame content now stack in the player’s inventory. They no longer bind on pickup.
• Endgame crafting materials (Biometric Crystal Alloy, Self-Perpetuating Power Cells, Alien Data Cubes, and Rakata Energy Nodes) now drop less frequently but are freely tradable.
• Augments can now be crafted by several professions.
• Schematics are no longer consumed if a player attempts to use one that is already known.

Similarly, the Reverse Engineering process by which we obtain schematics and materials from crafted or found items is being improved significantly:

• Players may now reverse engineer many endgame items to research schematics for items and mods. Tier 2 (new) endgame items can be reverse engineered, and players have a chance to learn how to craft these items up on reverse engineering them. Set Armorings do not provide schematics for crafters.
• Players with the appropriate professions are now able to reverse engineer random drop items and acquire materials from them. This includes Operation materials from endgame items.
• Reverse engineering Tier 2 items rewards Premium, Prototype, and Artifact quality crafting materials used to craft Tier 2 endgame items.
• Random items, particularly armor, can now be reverse engineered by crafters based on the items’ stats.
• Crafted Vibroknives and shotguns can now be researched via reverse engineering. Reverse engineering Vibroknives and shotguns may now yield research variants for Armstechs.
• Artificers can now reverse engineer relics, shields, generators, and foci.
• Cybertechs can now reverse engineer all earpieces.
• The chance of researching schematics via reverse engineering has been significantly increased.
• Augments may now be reverse engineered for a chance to research their schematics by several professions.
• Players can now decide how many items from a stack they wish to reverse engineer.

Synthweaving is one of the crafting professions that will gain the ability to craft augments, among a few other key changes:

• Synthweavers can now learn schematics allowing the creation of Strength, Willpower, Defense, Alacrity, and Presence Augments. Augments can be reverse engineered for a chance to research Prototype and Artifact quality schematics.
• Critical successes while crafting Custom (orange) outfits will add an Augment slot to the resulting item.
• Additional lower-level light armor schematics have been added.
• Material requirements for some Custom (orange) outfits have changed.
• The Codex entry for Synthweaving has been updated.
• Synthweavers can now reverse engineer random armor drops with Strength or Willpower stats.

I’m excited to log in and poke around on Thursday! Are you ready? How have you been preparing?

P.S. Thanks to my awesome TOR Reporter podcast co-host Chris, who picked up the code at PAX East, I am also the proud mama of this baby Taun Fawn! I got to visit him on the PTR last night, and have been assured by the protocol droids that he will come to stay with all the characters across my account in Live as soon as Patch 1.2 hits.