The little things in SWTOR deserve some praise. I absolutely love the modifiable items. Items with an orange name can be modified with enhancements. Ctrl+Right click opens a window for the item. For example, my lightsaber can be upgraded with a new hilt, crystal, etc., and my robe can take different components as well. Orange items have base stats and rely entirely upon the modifiers to give them stats — in essence, they are a shell with a look.
I like these items for two main reasons.
First, if I like the look of the item then I am able to keep the item while leveling up and simply upgrade. For example, my really neat brown hooded robe, like the one Obi-wan wears, can be modified. I love the look and I want to be able to wear it later. Hopefully I can upgrade this item with mods to make it usable at level 50 because this is exactly the look I want to keep.
Second, modifiable gear gives a purpose for crafters. Artificers, like Graev, can make upgrades for lightsaber crystals and hilts. I’m not positive, but I think Cybertech and armstech make them as well. This has potential.
I don’t know how well these items stack up against end-game raid gear. I’d love to see some rare recipes drop in raids that allow crafters to make raid-like stat modifiers for these items. It’s a really neat system capable of being taken very far if Bioware has taken the steps to keep it relevant to players at all levels. If anyone knows how this is handled at endgame, I’d love to know.
The endgame depends on what boss you kill.
Early bosses will drop stuff that is only partially modabble. You cannot remove the “major” mods that affect the item’s armor or weapon damage. The reasoning behind this is that players would just farm the first boss or two in a raid and pluck out all the mods. Bam, best gear without having to clear much.
Supposedly, the end bosses will drop both standard gear and mods so your Obi-Wan robes can still be relevant. You just have to actual finish the raid to do so.
Early on in the beta (during the summer), everything was pretty much modifiable. Grays to Legendaries. You could even change the rarity of the item depending on what mods you added. Sort of sad they took that out. I was able to keep my first lightsaber usable throughout the entire game until I swapped it out for the highest tier warzone reward one (also fully modifiable).
I’m a bit confused. How is this different then Gem slots in WoW. Sorry not playing the game so I don’t know.
This statement has me a bit confused…”Orange items have base stats and rely entirely upon the modifiers to give them stats — in essence, they are a shell with a look.”
Did you mean to say, “Orange items have NO base stats…”
If that’s the case then I do see what your saying.
Yes some organe modifiable items has no stats and then you provide the stats by 3-4 different armor hilts or whatever. Thus you pick the stats you want to prioritize.
@HowdyDoody: Imagine taking ALL the stats off an item, not just adding a few stats.
Like, you find a sword that looks cool but has zero stats. You make it good by adding stats that make it from a level 0 to a level 50 item.
By base stats I mean, my robe has a base of 50 armor. No other stats. I’m not sure why it has that base stat.
Ahhh. That cleared it up, thanks.
When you find an unmodified piece of modifiable gear, it appears to suck badly. However it will improve based on what you put in it.
The orange item starts at a base item level with very little more than slots available (unless you find one with slots in it). The item level increases with the quality (item level) of the mods you put in and its primary function (armor rating for armor or damage for weapons) scales up to match that item level.
The unanswered question is whether or not BioWare will attach set bonuses to mods instead of gear.
Also, at present there are no Expertise (PvP stat) mods. Hopefully they will change PvP gear over to this new system as well.
Cybertech is a lot of fun, it was easy to make mods for my level 15 orange blaster pistol & chestplate. The whole system is kind of like a combo of jewelcrafting/enchanting/engineering from WOW.
yea you missed out a NO in “Orange items have base stats”
“Orange items have no base stats”
Well, they DO have base stats. My oranges have base armor or base damage. They just don’t have any base attribute stats like strength or endurance.
the armour and damage you see are because its a level x item, when you put in a barrel or armouring mod, that stat then increases to the new level of the item
Orange items do have base stat values that go up slightly based on the name and level you aquire the item. With no mods in an item it might say Armor rating 4 or damage rating 4 based on what it is (at level say 21) by level 31. The orange item you may find with a similar name (usually now will have the word “Elite” added to its name or something will be at a base of 8 armor or damage with no mods. So orange items do have a base stat, but SWTOR has no easy way to view what each orange item’s base stat is without removing all the mods (very costly) from any item equiped and comparing with one you just found. SWTOR needs to fix that in the game to make it easier to view at a glance an item’s base stat.
What I like now that we have had a few months to play, I made 5 toons for trying all the classes I wanted to play. Basically allowing me to do all of the crewskills I might need. I still have a ways to go, but can make all my armor, hilts and mods or enhancements to gear each of my guys as needed. When I level a skill enough I can make Orange items that can then be passed to my other toons, and then I take the item and make what ever it needs, armor, mods enhancements etc…
Side note, I can also pass along good looking or popular items to my other guys like robes with hoods, I can replace my Jedi Lightsaber with a Jedi Counsolor specs for Kira.