Mod Store worth it for new player?

@DarjeloSalas

You're missing the point: Would it be worth it for a player who hasn't hit level 85 yet to buy a Speed Set diamond with Defense Primary?

No.

Why? Because it has no more chance of advancing to +21 speed than any other Speed Set diamond (and all have defense primary), and you'll get one of those per day, if not more, spending free energy farming speed mods.

If you try to farm Offense mods specifically to get an Offense cross with Offense primary, that's a 1-in-9 chance just to get a cross, then a 1-in-5 chance to get Offense primary. (EA/CG has said that for a given shape of mod the odds of each different primary that is possible for that shape are the same, and Crosses have 5 possible primaries: health, protection, potency, tenacity, and offense.)Net odds per attempt? 1-in-45. Then only 1-in-3 have a speed primary, so you're at 1-in-135. Since you have to own it to improve the secondaries, the odds of secondary increases are irrelevant. The best you can do by buying the mod in the store is jump over that 1-in-135 hurdle. Your free energy gets you about 1 every 2 weeks (it's actually a touch over 1 every 13 days).

But what's the best you can do with a Speed diamond?

6-in-9 are left-hand mods, with equal chance of each. Therefore 2-in-9 are Speed diamonds, all of those are defense primaries. 1-in-3 have speed secondaries, so 2-in-27, or one every 2.5 to 2.6 days of free energy.

Since the crosses cost the same in credits or ship credits as the diamonds do, you get 5 times more value (one cross saves you 13 days of farming, but 1 diamond only saves you 2.5 to 2.6 days of farming, and 5 x 2.6 days = 13 days) from the cross.

If you have infinite credits, then buy every mod you want, some of them will progress to god mods.

BUT, if you are struggling for credits, then you only buy the mods that are hardest to farm, and those are the ones on the right-side where multiple primaries could occur, but you only want one of those primaries (with that set bonus). Technically Speed arrows are just as hard to get as Offense/Offense crosses, but you need 64 Off/Off crosses to get a single god mod + 4-8 very good mods, while all 8 of your first 8 speed arrows will give you +30 speed. Not having to junk 1/2 your mods and equip another quarter or more on marginal characters because of terrible secondaries saves a lot of work.

So when you're struggling for credits, you spend your credits where they do the most work. My rules has people buying only the mods that take, on average, 13 days to farm. Your rule would have people buy mods for the same amount of credits that take 2.5 days to farm.

Not only do I think the better value is obvious, I also think buying left-side mods whenever they have speed secondaries would leave a newer player with no credits to level up toons. 15 great speed Diamonds with only 5 toons over level 50 does a player no good.