Pretty much every SWTOR player I talked to is very excited by crew skills. More than often professions are just a needless grind in other games, but BioWare seems to have struck gold here and actually managed to make them fun. Everyone’s going to be picking up their favorite crew skills, and while some are recommended for particular classes, a lot of times players simply want to pick up the most profitable ones. So, if you’re interested in making credits rather than equipping your character with the best equipment, or perhaps even both, hopefully this post will guide to you the right direction.

• Don’t miss: SWTOR Credit Making Tips

First of all, some basics about SWTOR crew skills. You can pick only 1 crafting skill. Along with that, you can choose to learn either two gathering skills, two mission skills, or one of each, for a total of 3 different crew skills (professions, tradeskills; however you want to call them).

My recommendation is that you always pick the crew skills that benefit your class the most, especially crafting ones. The following pic (source) should give you a great idea which crew skills are interconnected and recommended for particular classes:

Now that you know which skills are recommended for your class, consider how many players are their considering the same. Data in the image below will show you which professions are most popular.

Why is this data important? Because if 30% of all players pick up Artifice as their crafting skills, the market will surely get saturated and the prices on the Galactic Trade Network (auction house) will likely be as low as possible, thus making profit from that profession will be hard.

Armormech for example is beneficial to Smugglers, Troopers, Imperial Agents and Bounty Hunters, which consist of almost 45% of all players, yet only 10% of them take this crafting skill. Scavenging and Investigation, the two gathering and mission skills which are related to Armormech aren’t too popular with players as well. By that logic, taking Armormech as your profession would be a good idea because of the following:

1. the demand for crafted armor will surely exist, especially since we’re talking about non-force users, i.e. 45% of all players
2. more demand means higher prices on the GTN
3. you can also create armor for your own character instead of buying it expensively from other players.

This is just one way of looking at it. Of course, the numbers may not be the same for every server, and things may change over time as they often do, so take a special note of that.

During SWTOR’s beta testing, Slicing was by far the most profitable crew skill, however it has been nerfed significantly lately and isn’t nearly as profitable as it used to. Slicing doesn’t even provide any materials for crafting skills, but rather just items and credits, so it’s a good pick up still if you want to make credits, but not if you need to purchase items from the auction house in order to level up your crafting skills.

Scavenging provides components for Armortech, Armstech, and Cybertech crafting skills, making the demand for those materials very high. However, about 26% of players will be taking Scavenging as their gathering skill of choice, which also means there should be a lot of inexpensive materials sold.

Lastly, Bioanalysis provide materials only for Biochem crafting skill, neither of which is overly popular. Whether the demand will be high is yet to be seen: most high-level guilds will probably have their own dedicated potion crafters so it might be hard to turn a profit on the auction house. However, it’s yet to be seen in which way the economy develops.

Conclusion

• Slicing will most likely still be great for making credits without much effort.
• Take crafting skills from which your character can benefit! Even if you don’t sell products like crazy, you’ll craft your own items and won’t have to spend credits on them, basically evening it out.
• It will take probably a few months for the economy and prices to stabilize.

Anyway, this is just my opinion. I only wish I could post one of the dozens of great crew skill tips from SWTOR credit guides I read. You’ll learn a lot more from these guides and I honestly recommend you check at least one out.

Star Wars: The Old Republic, or SWTOR, is a new and upcoming MMORPG game by Bioware, a leading developer of quality RPG titles. There are tons and tons of players eagerly awaiting for SWTOR to release and one of the most frequently asked questions about this game is how the economy and currency work.

In SWTOR players can gain credits which is the game’s main currency. You can obtain credits in a number of different ways: by completing quests, killing enemies, raiding or by selling items to NPC vendors or at the auction house.

At the moment there aren’t too many guides published for SWTOR, but I’m confident it’ll change within days. There are four different strategy and leveling guides I’ve been able to find so far, and you can read my opinions on them below. I know of two more Star Wars guides that will get released in the next few days, at which point I’ll update my post with new reviews and comparisons.

Reviews:

1. Aeon SWTOR Mastery Guide
2. Killerguides SWTOR Strategy Guide
3. SWTOR Secrets Guide
4. SWTOR Savior Guide

1. Aeon SWTOR Mastery Guide

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Aeon SWTOR Mastery Guide is currently the most complete and up to date guide I’ve come across. This complete game strategy guide was written by professional players who really know what they’re talking about, and they made quite an effort to compile all their extensive knowledge of The Old Republic into one detailed and easy to read strategy guide.

Aeon Guide includes a leveling guide of course. It doesn’t yet have step-by-step instructions and detailed walkthroughs of every single quest in the game, but it’ll likely get added soon. Rather, for now it has a number of different class strategies and skill tree builds that are designed to make leveling as easy as possible for players. In fact, I’ve found those and similar builds to be quite effective as well during my experiences with the game, so I can vouch for it’s. If you’re unsure on how to build your character for leveling, this will most certainly help.

Of course, both factions and all classes and advanced classes are covered in this guide. Aeon also includes very thought-out PvE and PvP builds as well, designed to help you dish out the most damage in Warzones or Flashpoints. The gear and itemization guide inside will also help you understand which attributes you should go after for a particular class, and you wouldn’t believe how many players make the same mistakes over and over again. Don’t be one of them! Aeon’s SWTOR Strategy Guide also includes helpful tutorials on tanking and healing, making sure you know the right skill rotations and maximize your effectiveness. Additionally, some content is accompanied with helpful screenshots and videos, which not all guides have.

Overall, Aeon SWTOR Guide is currently the best guide you can get. Tons of content and all of it very helpful will ensure you know what you’re doing in SW: TOR and will help you get ahead of other players.

Download Aeon SWTOR Mastery Guide Here Aeon Guide has been taken down, I recommend Killerguides below!

2. Killerguides SWTOR Strategy Guide

Rating: ★★★★¾ 

There’s rarely an MMORPG released without having a Killerguide helping you through it. They have dozens of guides for various games which only solidifies their position as one of the best and most experienced guide writers out there. For Star Wars: TOR they actually published nearly 20 different guides: most are about different classes and advanced classes, with some on credits and crew skills. But most importantly, they have a full strategy guide that of course includes a leveling guide as well.

If you indeed plan on playing SWTOR, having a leveling guide helping you through the process can speed things up significantly. Killerguides leveling guide unfortunately isn’t a step-by-step guide showing you detailed information on every single quest in the game, but rather a collection of highly useful tips, tricks and strategies that will make leveling faster regardless of your class choice.

If you want a class-specific leveling guide, you should take a look at some other guides that Killerguides offer, ones that talk about each class in particular. However, this strategy guide is still very useful and I suggest you pick it up along with a guide for your favorite class. As for other content, it talks about crew skills (professions and crafting), flashpoints (dungeons and instances), PvP combat, space ship tactics, equipment and more. You can find a full list of contents on their website, which I suggest visiting.

Download Killerguides SWTOR Strategy Guide Here

3. SWTOR Secrets Guide

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

SWTOR Secrets is a recently released guide that actually isn’t an all-in-one SWTOR guide, but rather has 8 different guides, one for each class. There’s no single strategy guide that has info on all classes as well as other generic stuff, but you’ll have to pick one and stick with it. SWTOR Secrets can be bought as a bundle though, in which case you get all eight guides for a significant discount, but I’d rather see it offered immediately.

Each class guide in SWTOR Secrets package contains a variety of beginner information and tips. The inevitable leveling guide is included as well, however it doesn’t tell you any specific mission details, but rather a collection of newbie tips which granted are helpful, but not secret. Other than that, there’s info on advanced classes, PvP tactics, skill tree builds, races, farming credits, grouping with other players, equipment, recommended crew skills and companions. Unfortunately that’s it for now.

I’d gladly give SWTOR Secrets guide a better rating, but currently it lacks any detailed information that can’t be found elsewhere. Hopefully the guide will improve in the coming weeks, in which case I’ll be sure to review it again and update this accordingly.

Download SWTOR Secrets Guide Here

4. SWTOR Savior Guide

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

SWTOR Savior does have a few tricks up its sleeve, but it’s not enough to beat other guides. First things first though: it does have a leveling guide. It doesn’t hold your hand with each quest and mission, but it does tell you where to go with some maps and pointers. There’s also several locations included which are known for decent item drops and credit farming, which are usually worth checking out. There’s supposed to be a step-by-step leveling guide included in SWTOR Saviour, but apparently it’s not complete yet.

As for other things, there’s a guide on classes and advanced classes, helping you decide which one is for you depending on your preferences: PvP, PvE, tanking, healing, … Also, a beginners crew skills guide is included, giving you a breakdown of their pros and cons and recommendations on which gathering, crafting and mission skills are best for your class. Also included is a basic PvP guide, as well as information on weapons, armor and commendations.

There’s a couple of bonuses as well. First, a PvP guide including info about Warzones, as well as providing some skill tree builds. Additionally, there’s a guide about the Galactic Trade Network and how to make credits off of it.

Overall, SWTOR Savior Guide is simply not detailed enough right now to compete with other guides for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Nevertheless, if you want to check it out click below.

Download SWTOR Savior Guide Here

More reviews to come!