Organica

Day 8 - July 8, 2012



Sold two things by this morning.

I pulled down some of my bids and things for sale. Performance Shifters are up to 42 for sale, with only about 80 people bidding, and the price has dropped to 20 million, so I relisted the ones I had for sale. Also, the only ATO I had bids out on, someone had moved in and was bidding more than me, so I rebid on those.

On the other hand, the Decimations that I have for sale haven't sold yet, but there are only 14 total for sale and lots of bids so I did not pull those down. I think I can get the price I want on them.

I ran two tip missions left over from yesterday. They were still set to level 26 so easy to blast through. Then I did SSA2 for another hero merit. I don't think I'd mentioned it, but I'd converted 50 hero merits (the 50 I got from confirming hero status actually) to a hero merit. As of today I had 202 regular merits so I converted another 50 to a hero merit, giving me 3 again. Then I bought a level 30 Numina +regen/+endurance, another cornerstone for my build and one of those things I like to slot as soon as possible.

The merit conversion is 20 million each time, so I've spent 40 million doing that.

As for the SSA2, the ending Elite Boss gave me some trouble. On my first attempt, I ate 3 purple inspirations and charged in on foot. I tried to confuse one of his minions, I tried to hold him, and I was quickly dead.

At the hospital I bought 8 purple inspirations and 3 red. Then I made my way back, and before charging in ate 4 purples and the reds. This time I hover blasted out of melee range, which worked much better. I ate the other four purples halfway through the fight, I had carrion creepers up this time, and dominate popped up towards the end of the fight, after which he was held and it was all over.

Plan 3 would have been to use the empowerment station in my base first. Plan 4 would have been... start the arc over and bring a friend, I guess.

Also I got a bit lucky... a level 26 Decimation accuracy/damage dropped sometime yesterday, and I even had the salvage to craft it already. It's one of the things I need for my build. It's only a common recipe but even so, nice to get it as a random drop like that.

Only sold two things but it almost entirely made up the 100 million I'd spent on my base.

Other than that, I joined a Moonfire Task Force and later ran a tip misison, then joined a Yin Task Force. All of this got me to level 28.

Yes, my experience on Virtue is that I can queue for the event almost immediately.

On Virtue, anyway.

But people in the global channels I'm in are keen on badges, so there have been a lot of "badge runs" formed mostly in Dark Astoria too. I like joining those because things always go like clockwork.

Lightning Rod is fun.

Yes.

That's all.

Good to know!

Day 7 - July 7, 2012

During my long play session yesterday evening I was talking in one of my global channels about how often villains kidnap homeless people, and someone else called them "Snackrifices". That word appealed to me. A bit later someone was trying to type "Hero Merits" and instead typed "Hero Mero Merits", and the name "Hero Mero" appealed to me as well.

One thing about having an account that is only VIP for one month is that I have 14 slots for characters on Virtue right at this moment, and even if I never plan to do anything else with them (most will be locked when I've gone back to premium), I can at least create 14 new characters to stuff into one of my solo Super Groups.

So Snackrifice, a catgirl demon Mastermind, and Hero Mero, a darkness blaster with a very traditional tights costume, now have come into being.



So far today I have sold nothing, but I used all my money to place a lot of bids on things, and you can see that I've bought stuff. I will have to do a bit of juggling to figure out where to put it all until I can get some of it to sell, but all's good. I'd say that my aggressive marketing strategy so far has boxed me into a corner just a bit, I'm better off when things sell quickly rather than going for the max sale price possible.

I also wanted to show that I placed a bid for 10 Performance Shifter end/rech recipes yesterday at 2.6 million, and I bought 8 of them, but clearly some other marketeer has since moved in and placed a bid of 2,687,748 on a bunch (probably another stack of 10, and possibly even someone reading this thread). But that's okay, for the moment 8 recipes plus all these ATOs is more than enough to keep me busy.

I don't know that I'll get much playing in today or tomorrow, but I'll be checking the auction once or twice a day at least.

------------

At this point I do something that might seem completely counter-intuitive: I give away 100,000,000.

Or, to be more specific, I "burn" 100 million at the Super Group Registrar.

Let's consider a few things:

A) I have 11 items for sale and nearly a full enhancement tray, and a bunch of more stuff that I've bought. I don't have a lot of space. And I still have 180 million on me at this point.

B) My one person supergroup has 77,000 prestige at this point. The smallest workroom possible costs 50,000 prestige, a crafting table, 15,000 prestige, and an enhancement table (stores 100 crafted enhancements) is, if I remember right, 95,000 prestige. None of that will require power or control to operate.

C) 100 million influence buys me 200,000 prestige.

D) Smallest workshop possible can hold 1 crafting table, 1 storage unit, and also 1 empowerment station, which only costs another 15,000 influence.







Here's my little base shop! What this gives me is access to a crafting table from any base portal, access to storage of 100 enhancements, and access to an empowerment station, which a lot of people don't use but trust me, it can be very helpful.

This is 100 million well spent.





I stop off at the university in Croatoa and craft anything that I have the salvage to craft. This turns out to be a level 30 accuracy, two level 25 endurance modifications and 1 level 25 endurance reduction, 2 level 30 recharges and 1 level 25 recharge. I don't necessarily have plans for these, but it seems like a better use of my random salvage drops than just selling it, and I have a place to dump 'em now.

I also drop most of the other stuff I'd bought into base storage, after crafting all of the Performance Shifters. I put a couple more things up for sale. When I'm done I actually have about 30 enhancements stored in my base.



And while I was in Croatoa I joined a team formed by Adeon Harkwood to kill Jack In Irons. We also killed another Jack in Irons and Eochai, got merits for those but no badge for Eochai since they'd been fighting each other for some time.

On the other hand, while they still last, copies of Going Rogue can be purchased cheaply from Amazon and applied to an existing free account for 1 month of VIP access plus goodies.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.957
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Dilithium Flower: Level 50 Magic Dominator
Primary Power Set: Plant Control
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Assault
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Strangler -- BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(A), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(3), BasGaze-Acc/Hold(3), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(5)
Level 1: Flares -- Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(5), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), Decim-Acc/Dmg(9)
Level 2: Incinerate -- KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(A), KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(9), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(11), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11)
Level 4: Roots -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(A), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(13), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(13), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(15), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(15), Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(17)
Level 6: Fire Breath -- Posi-Dmg/Rng(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(17), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(19), Posi-Acc/Dmg(21)
Level 8: Seeds of Confusion -- AotDominator-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear(A), AotDominator-Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/Rchg(34), AotDominator-EndRdx/Rchg(34), AotDominator-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx(34), AotDominator-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx/Rchg(36), AotDominator-Rchg/+Dmg%(37)
Level 10: Fire Blast -- Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(23), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(25), Decim-Acc/Dmg(27), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(27)
Level 12: Spirit Tree -- Dct'dW-Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal(29), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(29), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(31), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(33)
Level 14: Fly -- Frbd-Stlth(A), Winter-ResSlow(50)
Level 16: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(21), HO:Cyto(23)
Level 18: Vines -- BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(A), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(37), BasGaze-Acc/Hold(37), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(39)
Level 20: Embrace of Fire -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 24: Hover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(25), Ksmt-ToHit+(50)
Level 26: Carrion Creepers -- GravAnch-Immob/Rchg(A), GravAnch-Acc/Immob/Rchg(39), GravAnch-Acc/Rchg(39), GravAnch-Immob/EndRdx(40), GravAnch-Hold%(40)
Level 28: Boxing -- Dmg-I(A)
Level 30: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResKB(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(31), GA-3defTpProc(31)
Level 32: Fly Trap -- C'Arms-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(A), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg(42), C'Arms-Dmg/EndRdx(43)
Level 35: Scorpion Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(36), HO:Cyto(36)
Level 38: Blaze -- Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(43), Decim-Acc/Dmg(45), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(45)
Level 41: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(42), HO:Cyto(42)
Level 44: Disruptor Blast -- Dmg-I(A), Dmg-I(45), Dmg-I(46), Dmg-I(46), Dmg-I(46)
Level 47: Summon Tarantula -- C'Arms-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(A), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), C'Arms-Dmg/EndRdx(48), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg(48)
Level 49: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Domination
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(33)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-End%(33)
------------


I also worked up a build for my Dom.

This build gives me capped smashing/lethal defense and very good energy defense. I'm not sure what I need for Permadom, but I have 103.8% global recharge so I can't be far off. The five generic IOs in Disruptor Blast are placeholders for the Overwhelming Force set, although I'm not convinced I want to five-slot that. And there are other things I'm still debating about the build, but on the whole this is what I want to shoot for.

Expensive stuffs: The Cytoskeletons and Glad Armor +3% defense IO, at least 200 million each (at best). Basilisk's Gaze and Kinetic Combats are notoriously expensive, and the Call to Arms and Decimations are pricey too. The Luck of the Gamblers as well, of course. And then there's a Gravitational Anchor set -- five purples. I don't know if I can swing that one in 30 days, that's probably my final goal, and if I have to slot something else instead that will be okay.

But there you have it, a very nice (and expensive) build to shoot for. ^_^

Day 6 - July 6, 2012

Today I played through my worst Summer Event experience yet. I let a bunch of citizens die in a fire but was still proclaimed a hero, and I beat up a super-powered nazi. But first:











I bought a few things and sold some stuff over the course of the day. I'm sitting on about 300 million influence at the moment, with several bids in, stuff for sale, and more stuff waiting to list.

As for everything else... my goal was to confirm hero status and then run SSA1, and get to at least level 25 or 26 along the way. But I'd run into Laura Lockheart (new mid level contract in Steel Canyon), and I've never run her arc, so I decided that would be a better way to get tips than just street sweeping.

There's a mission in there where you're supposed to break up a bunch of fights between Council and 5th Column. And you're on a timer, and you get a badge if you do it in time, but I was chatting with friends in my global channel and didn't realize. So bombs and buildings blew up and people died. Ah well!

Eventually I stopped to run tip missions and completed 3 of them, then my morality mission. It was the Blast Furnace one, I hate that one. Well, I pretty much hate all of the ones he's in, not because of him but because they're usually pretty annoying. This one has ambushes and stupid dialogue.

Afterwards I ran through the first Signature Story Arc #1 three times -- twice for a hero merit (your first time through you can do this twice in a row) and the third time for 20 regular merits -- still a pretty good deal for 10 minutes or so of work. I had to chew purple inspirations to manage it, but the reward was sweet:





I want to use some merits to demonstrate buying recipes to sell and random rolling to sell, but first things first. I'd noticed I was having endurance issues, so a Miracle +end IO was in order. I bought it, crafted it, and slotted it.



After this I joined a Summer Event via the LFG tool. I'd been kind of avoiding this because I didn't think my character was necessarily powerful enough to pull her own weight, but now I was 25 with a Miracle slotted, I decided to go for it. It was worse than imagined. Our team was a level 50 darkness controller and a level 48 mental blaster, both of whom clearly had no defense and were strangely weak in damage, and a level 17 tank who was virtually useless for damage and also pretty clueless about the event. And me of course, only level 25, no defense, strictly a generic IO build save for the Miracle unique.

The first part of the Casino Heist went okay, but we had a terrible time bringing down the AV. Then in the second part, the tank, playing the Hitter, clearly had no idea who to talk to or what to say to them. But that was okay, we manage to struggle through the second AV, and never saw the third of course.

Next came the arena and we were well out of our league, with a tank who couldn't tank or do damage and three range/support toons who couldn't keep from dying over and over. Then our tank quit. Someone made a comment about how much they disliked quitters, and I got the impression that everyone else wanted to try and finish. I wanted the reward too, so we slogged on.

Our ninja total was anemic. The crowd turned permanently against us (something I'd never seen). We took forever against Frank McCain, and there was no hope that we could kill him and his dog together. We killed maybe 15 monkeys, and then it was an endless slog against the two blasting bots and the titan weapon beast that nobody could tank. But I discovered after multiple deaths that I could buy inspirations at the consession stand, and we managed to struggle through to the end.

And... I was well rewarded for my trouble:



After that I went back to the Laura Lockheart arc. One of the final missions has destroyed walls and elevators, and you can drop down through the open shafts to the next level. I thought that was pretty cool. ^_^





I ran two more tips and did some street sweeping to hit 26, and that was the end of my evening.

The ATO that sells the highest is probably the Brute one, and that one will sell for over 100 million, up to maybe 150 million sometimes.

Purple damage recipes/IOs (Apocalypse, Armageddon, Hectacomb, Ragnarok) sell from around 125 to 300 million or so. So they sell better than the ATOs.

Certain Hami-O's such as Cytoskeletons (good for defensive powers) sell from as low as 200 million to upwards of 500 million or more, depending. I see one just sold for 900 million, but that's an abnormally high price; I've bought them for just around 200 million within the last week or two.

The Gladiator's Armor +3% defense crafted IO sells for 200-300 million, but for some unknown reason (well I know the reason, people are stupid) the recipe sells for much more. One just sold for a billion influence, I see.

So... there are things that you can make more profit from per transaction than ATOs. But you can make a ton of money flipping ATOs. But the days of purples for 800 million and certain PvP IOs for 2 billion or more seem gone. At least, until inflation catches back up to where we were before, I guess.

Very nice! I have to say, sometimes I'm the one dumping SOs on the market... if I don't delete them outright. When I'm busy doing other things and they're cluttering my inventory and I can't be bothered to find a store, that's what I sometimes do.

Day 5 -- July 5, 2012

Tonight was not a good night for leveling Dilithium Flower. I had to work a half hour overtime and run errands after, so I got home late. After marketing I managed 1 tip mission and then alted to join an ITF. The good news is I got levels 46 and 47 on Jennie Nova, who I intend to be my next level 50 character. The bad news is, my build is messed up slightly and I have to do a respec, which I didn't have time for. (For that matter -- on July 4th I played an old energy/energy blaster, Liberty or Debt. Got her to 45, made a tricorner hat revolutionary costume for her, had fun. Decided I should IO her out -- she's one of my few high level characters with no build -- so I worked up a build in MIDS. But of course, I've had no time to implement it.)

Later I was able to run a 2nd tip mission before I decided to join some friends running the Summer event. Did two runs on Tiffany Blackheart and Sparks Fly, got the badges I was missing, had fun, but that was my evening -- no more time to do anything with Dilithium. I'll have to confirm hero status tomorrow night, and see if I can run an SSA or two. Two things I still want to demonstrate is how to use merits to earn money, and how to use converters -- I've earned two converters so far, so I'm saving them up for later.

Anyway! I'm still level 24.



Here we see what I bid on last night. For the most part... I think I adjusted a couple of my bids after this and bid on a couple of other things. But basically, this shows what I'm trying to accomplish currently. In all cases I'm bidding slightly higher than the lowest recent purchase. Usually I can tell that this was a lowball bid from some other marketeer, but sometimes I'm just guessing at what the lowest bid point is.



Here you see what I bought by this evening. Nothing much sold (a generic accuracy IO was all), but I bought a lot of stuff to make money with.





I wanted to show my aggressive pricing on the crafted IOs. The Decimations are selling for as much as 50 million, and there's only 17 for sale -- so I'm going to list for 41 million in the hopes that I can get a 45 to 50 million bid. I'm fairly confident there are few or none listed below that price in any event.

For the Eradication, they are selling for as much as 35 million with only 17 for sale again, so I'm going to try and hit that price by listing for 31 million.

This kind of aggressive pricing means I may have to wait a day or three for these things to sell, and I'm somewhat vulnerable to another marketeer adding a bunch of the same thing to the market and undercutting me/driving down the price. That happens, sometimes, but more often than not I make my sale. ^_^



Here's everything I have for sale by the time I'm done. I'm in good shape -- I have a lot of stuff for sale again, and more stuff in my inventory waiting to sell.





After the ITF, I had one thing sold, and another thing bought.



And after the two Summer Event runs I had two more things sold (one of which I'd listed after claiming the previous sale).

And that was my evening. Still 24, but I have over 100 million on me and more importantly, have a market full of things listed for sale or outstanding bids that might still fill. So even though it looks like I keep hovering around the 100 million mark, I'm actually doing very well atm. ^_^

Day 4 - Evening





Sold more stuff over the evening, for really good prices. Aside from a couple of ATOs (one of which I already sold, above), I didn't buy anything. Today was a day to be selling rather than buying, but it was a good day for me and I used the money I made to place a bunch of bids on stuff, so we'll see how long it takes for all of that to pan out.





Since I had lots of money and several empty market slots, it seemed like a good time to buy Halloween salvage for a third costume. ^_^

I ran five hero tips. Tomorrow night I should be able to confirm hero morality, and then run some SSA content for hero merits.

I grabbed all the explore badges for Skyway and Faultline, and then a friend was starting up a Penelope Yin Task Force. At last! I joined that, and after some wanted to run Positron 2. Eh... well, it's still experience and merits, and we ran it fast, finishing in 27 minutes.

At the moment I'm 24, almost 25.

Fire Blast for a blaster/corruptor/defender, it's a fast set and high damage. The plant/fire dom is good too, that's what I'm working on right now and there's little buff/debuff involved, just hold/immobilize/confuse and damage, very straightforward. And if you kind of like your MA but want faster attacks, I'd second (or third) the Street Justice vote... works VERY well on a stalker too.

And Melee Widows yes, they have a bunch of very fast attacks.

I haven't tried a Kin Melee Stalker, I know they're powerful, but Kin Melee on s brute or scrapper "feels" slow so that doesn't get my vote.

There's a "find contact" button under contacts somewhere. It's relatively new and I've only ever used it once, but it should help you find any contact in your range who will give you missions.

Day 4 - Quick Addendum



Would you believe that in the time it took me to post the above, all three Controller ATOs that I'd listed sold for 40 million each?

I know flipping these things is easy, but that was faster than even I expected.



Halfway through day 4 and I'm at 131 million. (Though I'm about to reinvest it in new things I can craft or flip.) I also have the start of a bio, though it's a work in progress. ^_^

----

One other thing that amused me. On the Manti Task Force, I played my dark dom Ash Valentine, who still needed that for Task Force Commander. And... I know I said earlier in this thread that I had a dark/dark dom, but really, she's dark/fire, I just colored the fire black so as to look like darkness powers. It was so convincing that I forgot I was playing Firey Asault!

Anyway... most of Ash's fire attacks are the ranged ones, only have Incinerate as a melee attack. I'm not really sure if I skipped a really good power or not, I might have to check into that. On the other hand, I'm a perma-dom with tons of dark control powers and softcaped for smashing/lethal, so it's not all bad.

Day 4 - July 4, 2012





A lot of stuff sold overnight, including many of the level 30 generic Endurance IOs that were cluttering up my market slots. As I'd hoped, the 4th of July acted a bit like a weekend day, when more people are playing and buying IOs. It doesn't take much for these IOs to jump in price from 400,000 to 500,000, and suddenly the ones I listed at 401,000 each sell.

I only bought one Controller ATO and one recipe overnight, but that's okay, I need to IO my character so it's good to have open market slots right at the moment.





First though I check my bids, since I only bought 1 of each item I bid on. In both cases it doesn't look like anyone else is outbidding me, so it seems safe to leave everything alone. I only placed those bids just before going to bed after all.



One thing I do here is set the min and max level shown to 25 (top left corner). This is because I'm level 22 and want to craft level 25 generic IO recipes, so this makes it much easier to look at things. At times it helps to look at only what's for sale, etc. For example if there are no recipes for a given set IO for sale at any level, then you know they pretty much sell as soon as they're offered for sale, and are probably going to be expensive.

Don't forget to reset it later, or you'll confuse yourself wondering why no ATOs are listed anywhere.



Here we see that I can buy some of the recipes on the market for much cheaper than the crafting table sells them. I could probably do that for everything if I wanted to place bids and wait, but crafting IOs for my build is not making me any money, so I'd rather get the process over with.

Strangely enough, the ones that might seem obvious to buy -- hold, snare, for example -- are the ones that I'm unable to buy immediately, while things like heal, recharge, and accuracy that you'd certainly think are much more popular are easy to pick up instantly for 500 influence each. (The table charges something like 20,000 to 25,000 at this level.)

Having the recipes, or even just bids on the recipes, makes it easy for me to look at what salvage I need to craft. I'm doing all of this in Steel Canyon by the way, since the University (with crafting tables) is near the market. Redside I'd be doing this in Cap Au Diablo for the same reason.



I won't bore you with all the details of buying low level common salvage to craft level 25 generic IOs. Basically after an hour's work I am fully IO'd with level 25 IOs. I have a build that, frankly, I could keep all the way to level 50 if I wanted, just adding to it as I acquire new powers and slots.



In the meantime I've crafted my Performance Shifter and listed it for a considerable markup. There still aren't a lot for sale and some have sold today for 40 million, so I'm going for it! I am flipping the Controller ATO, I bought it for just over 12 million and hope to sell for 40 million or more. I list one at 36 million. I have no doubt they will sell, evenually, but I'm worried they might not sell soon. Still, at the moment I have open market slots so I can afford to price it high.

I also have a few extra level 25 IOs to list -- Endurance, Recharge, something else, I forget. I have two more holds but I plan to use those, they don't normally sell well anyway.

My next project is a little silly -- I run a friend's AE ticket farm. As a level 22 dom, I'm ill-equipped to run such a farm, but this is just for demonstration purposes. I only set it for 3 people, and I buy a bunch of purple inspirations, and I manage to survive through the opening fight and ambushes. This only nets me 86 tickets, but since I'm doing this for demonstration purposes only that should be enough.



Just because it's a farm mission doesn't mean you can't have plot and character!



Normally when I ticket farm I use a scrapper or brute who's softcapped defensively in some way, and I earn a great deal of tickets, but the basic idea is you can random roll for recipes with what you've earned. Some people will just buy rare salvage outright to sell, some people will random roll silver or gold ticket rolls, some will roll high level as opposed to low, but I just about always roll level 10-14 bronze rolls. There is a lot of junk to sort through, but the things worth keeping -- such as Regenerative Tissue +regen, Steadfast Protection +3 defense, Rectified Reticles, or Achille's Heel Chance for Resistance Debuff -- make it worth your while.

But I'm level 22 and I only get one roll. I wind up with a Regen Tissue end/heal, which is technically not junk, so I craft it and list it for sale.

After this I swap to another character to run a Manticore TF, and then I run three Summer Events on three different characters. I want to run as many of those as possible, and I've been preoccupied and only had run 1 since last Saturday. Happily just after the Manti I see someone broadcasting an Overwhelming Force KB to KD IO for sale, which I promptly buy for 50 million, and then on my runs later I earn another one. Even better, two of the three I've earned have been on my level 30 locked brute Shinobu Thirty, and the one I bought was from a level 30 character, so 3 of the 4 I own are usable at level 27. (Every other Overwhelming Force I've earned is level 50, right now.)





By the time I'm done I have sold my Performance Shifter for 33 million plus, and a bit later I'vd sold a bunch of the generics and have bought 3 more recipes, and another Controller ATO to sell.

If you really mean it, you'll do the "Why, Oh Gawd, Why?" emote, and fall to your knees in the sand and fail to incite the crowd.

Your teammates will be mad at you, but who knows, you might be going for an oscar performance!

Yes, so basically... I've earned a bunch of these on my level 50's, all of them are level 50 versions and they all stack.

I've earned 2 of the KB/KD on my level 30 (locked) brute Shinobu Thirty, and also bought one from a level 30 character. These three stack with each other, because they're all level 30, but do not stack with the level 50 KB/KD that I have.

Well basically, I could hand myself 500 million and be done with it, which is the sort of thing I normally do when I create a new character. But I want to demonstrate how easy it is to leverage the market to your advantage starting with nothing. If you can get help and skip some steps, all the better, but for those that maybe wouldn't feel comfortable asking for a handout, there are plenty of other ways to get started.

Anyway, buying some guy's level 50 IOs that he's dumped on the market and vendoring them really amounts to the same thing.

Day 3 - Tuesday July 3, 2012

I have -- let's see -- 2 VIP accounts, not counting my current third one; 3 Premium accounts (bought 1 each of the three times they've had VIP starter kits on sale, for like $1.99 or .99 cents. Two have been upgrade with GR as well); I have 3 freebie accounts, one of which is the one I just upgraded to VIP via a cheap GR box three days ago. 8 accounts all told.

I just mention that because, when they do a Freebie special like today, I have to log in all eight. I am compelled!




What we have here is a pic of some of what I bid on last night.



And what we have here is what I bought overnight. Note that my bid for Spell Scrolls at 12,000 each was too low to buy any, and while I picked up 2 large inspiration Escapes for just over 15,000 influence each, I'd placed a bid for 10. Someone else bid higher than me after I bought two.



At this point, though, I have enough money to buy salvage and craft the Performance Shifter end/rech recipes, and the Efficacy Adaptor endurance recipes. I have salvage for five more level 25 generic Endurance IOs (once I've rebid on the Spell Scrolls and waited a bit). Unlike my level 30's, the 25's are selling. I have two Immortal Recoveries to flip, and (after another purchase) I have 3 Escapes that I can combine into a Resurgence to sell.

What I don't have is enough slots to list everything at once.

Some of what I'm doing is just for demonstration purposes. I'm not making a lot of money crafting generic IOs, and because the level 30's aren't selling they're cluttering up my inventory slots. But crafting and selling generic IOs is a legitimate way to may a few million a day. Buying large inspirations that are cheap and converting them to one that sells well can be lucrative. Flipping things like Super inspirations can be quite lucrative. Just as another example, the Ultimate level-shift inspirations sometimes sell for a million a piece, and sometimes sell for multiple millions -- 15 million, 20 million, even more. People use them during Magesterium badge runs, especially the Really Hard Way badge runs, so when one's forming you can have a lot of people trying to buy these things really quickly, and the price goes up.

But my bread-and-butter methods of making money have always been crafting set IOs like the Performance Shifters and flipping ATOs.

I bought my Performance Shifter end/rech recipes for just over 2 million each. I bid slightly higher than the going rate, so I probably outbid some other marketer. But I only wanted the 4 to start with anyway.

I'd checked what the crafted versions were selling for -- up to 40 million, with only a handful for sale. But I wanted mine to sell quickly so I did not price them nearly that high.

It's important to remember that my normal marketing strategy is to price very high and wait days or a week for stuff to sell at the right price. I market with so many toons that I only visit them once a week maybe, so I don't care if five days go by before I get the price I want. But for this project, I want to sell fast, I don't want stuff clogging my marketing slots. So I list the first two Performance Shifters at 13.1 million and 15.1 million. Later after those have sold I list two more at 17.1 million. I possibly could list for much higher, there are only 11 for sale at the time I list them, but for all I know some marketeer is poised to list 20 more at a sub-20 million price. So I'm not too greedy.





By the end of the evening, I've sold most of the Performance Shifters (and the Efficacy Adaptors and level 25 Endurance generics too). My Resurgence that cost about 70,000 to make sold for 555,555, and the Immortal Recoveries that I bought for 500,500 each have sold for 3 and 5 million. That's how flipping works, right there. ^_^

I'm up to 94 million influence! But I plow much of it into overnight bids so that I can make more money tomorrow.

On the "IO my character" side, I'd crafted a level 20 Essence of Curae drop and a bunch of level 20 damage generics, and a few endurance reduction and endurance modification generics. Nothing more than that. My market slots are crowded so I'm not ready to fill them up with salvage bids for my own benefit just yet.

I run my level 20 costume mission. My new costume uses a few more pieces from the retro sci fi set, and now I've spent all of my 400 points that came with GR. I have 10 points left.

I start gathering explore badges -- Steel Canyon and Perez Park, and part of Skyway, when a friend advertises a Posi 1 forming. Well, I was hoping for Synapse or Yin, but experience and merits are still good. I end up running both Posi 1 and 2 again, this time with friends who are very good players and also fun to talk to during the TFs. I wind up at level 22, nearly 23. I guess tomorrow I'll worry about slotting more IOs.