Let’s take a break from theory-crafting this week and talk about the best crafting crew skills for a Consular. While you don’t have to craft one single thing in Star Wars: The Old Republic, it is nice to be able to save yourself some credits by creating a few items. If you like buying and selling on the Galactic Trade Network (GTN), some of these skills can even be a money-maker for you. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d like to make a few extra creds for some of those spiffy speeders and cute mini-pets.

Of the six crafting skills, the ones that are particularly helpful to the Consular are Biochem, Artifice, Cybertech, and Synthweaving. Synthweavers can craft armor specifically for Force-users. Those who pursue Artifice can make not only color crystals for weapons, but also lightsaber hilts, armor enhancements, shields, generators, and foci. Cybertech specialists can craft items like armoring and mod upgrades, along with earpieces. Biochem is extremely useful for creating medpacs, stims, adrenals, and implants.

You'd think that in a galaxy that has hyperspace travel, they'd find SOME way to make the needle smaller!

You may certainly have a preference on picking a crafting skill based on guild or personal need. I chose Artifice for my Sage because my guild needed one, and the idea of making my own lightsaber crystals was pretty cool. The hilts and enhancements have been even more useful. For my Shadow, I decided to pick Biochem. Why? Shadows don’t have nearly as many self-heals as our Sage sisters and brothers. The reusable adrenals, stims, and medpacs have meant the difference in prevailing in a tough fight or face-planting myself at the enemy’s feet.

For those of you looking at long-term credit creation, the skills that produce consumables are almost always the best route to go. I’ve received enough armor from drops that Synthweaving hasn’t been as useful as I thought it might be during beta. While armor, crystals, and mods sell like crazy right now, once most people have geared up to level 50, the only things they’ll still need are single-use items like those grenades and medpacs. For long-term crafting, assuming BioWare makes no major changes, Biochem and Cybertech will remain the most useful.