Item Quality Guide

Item quality determines how many stats, enhancement slots, and/or how useful certain items and pieces of equipment is. Items come in many different shapes, sizes, and have multiple uses that range from consumables to speeders. It’s important to understand the various items, their traits, and how item quality works before you accidently sell that precious treasure or hold on to a useless item with no value.

Item Quality Color Codes & Item Quality Rating

Each item in the game has a color associated to it. The color lets you know the type of item it is and/or its quality rating. There are many different types of items, but they can all be generalized into a few subcategories.

Players coming over from other MMOs, such as World of Warcraft, will find the item categorization to be similar. Do note that not every rare or high quality item is alike. You’ll find out more about that in the prefix section below.

Low quality items are colored in a dark grey. These items can be safely sold to the vendor for credits. Here’s a neat tip.  You can send your active companion on a mission to sell items to the vendor by right clicking their companion portrait or going to your crew skill window and selecting “Sell Trash Items.” Your companion will be dispatched for one minute and return with the appropriate credits.

Examples: White Maw Dog Tags, Vibrosheath, Probe Droid Tubing

There is a certain amount of luster to solid white items. You can usually get by with selling them to the vendor and not losing out much, but generally they have a use. Most common items are equipment with no stat boosts, recovery items, or items with an aesthetic purpose. Crew Skill items used in crafting generally fall into this category.

Examples: Czerka Records, Docile Mutated Rancor, Jawa Map

Uncommon items are your run of the mill “greens” that drop sparingly from enemies or given as quest rewards. Uncommon items are usually equipment that has a preset amount of stats and a level requirement. The stats are generally subpar compared to higher quality items, but are great for leveling up. Uncommon consumables are usually the high quality version of a common consumable and have a greater effect or a longer length.

Examples: Ashaa's War Magazine, Medpack, Commando Barrel 25

Items that are blue are generally rare prototype level items. These items give better stats than uncommon items, have longer durations, and even contain modification slots for enhancements.

Examples: Commando Barrel 25, Imperial Admiral's Awareness Chip, TH-07A Ace Medic Leggings

Items that are purple or deep purple (like the VIP Lounge Wristband) are considered artifacts and are ultra-rare. Consumables are generally reusable at this quality and enhancements are “as good as it gets.” Equipable artifacts generally contain enhancement slots on top of stats already located in the item.  You can presume that all items at this quality are the best the game offers.

Examples: Battlemaster Stalker's Double-bladed Lightsaber, Rakata Vindicator's Chestguard, Champion Combat Tech's Body Armor

Mission items are colored yellow and are generally located in the mission tab.

Custom items contain all of the associated slots for enhancements and generally no stats of their own. They’re cosmetic items that can grow with you as you level up. Most wearable social items fall into this category.

Example: Truthseeker

Prefixes

There are two prefixes that you should be aware of.

[Prototype]

Prototype items are generally blue quality items.

[Exceptional]

Exceptional quality items are items that are rarely crafted while crafting a normal version of an item. They contain the augment slot which allows you to place an augment in it.

Item Types

There are several different types of items and each type is generally affected by quality differently.

Consumables

Consumable items are used to heal or buff you. They come in a variety of different types and are crafted by the Biochem crew skill or purchased off of medical droids and other select vendors. The various quality ratings have a neat effect on most consumable items. Uncommon consumables generally have additional affects and/or lengths, rare quality items generally last twice as long, and artifact quality items are generally reusable.

Equipment

Equipment comes in the form of wearable gear. Item quality affects the quality of the item and its item rating. Higher quality items have higher stats with lower level requirements.

Item Modifications

These items attach to weapons, armor, and other wearable equipment in order to boost the stats. This includes, but is not limited to, augments, hilts, barrels, armoring, mods, and enhancements. Core components such as hilts, barrels, and armoring define the armor/attack damage of custom gear. Like equipment, the quality rating gives you more bang for the buck at a certain level requirement.

Crew Skill Items

Crafting components come in a variety of different qualities; however, you can presume that the quality is an indication of rareness. Rare quality materials make more powerful items, in general, and sell for more money on the market.

Other Items

Commendations come in one flavor and are located on the currency tab. Mission items, having their own color, are located on the mission tab.

I hope this article has answered any questions you may have about item quality. If you have any further questions, then feel free to leave a comment in the comments section below.