TopDoc

I got the Coralax costume from mousedroid for 2.5B, so that's one less I need.

It's also a question of powersets per AT. Say you level up a Peacebringer to 50. Will you ever want to do another one? The powers are exactly the same. Sure you could go Human form versus bi- or tri-form, but you could just as easily do that with alternate builds. The same applies to Warshades, except that you might actually enjoy a second Warshade. And the same applies to Widows and Soldiers, using alternate builds if necessary for the 2 available power sets, and you'll probably enjoy them even more. I personally have 2 Peacebringers at 50 (one was for a special project), and 1 of each of the others. But I have 6 Tankers, 6 Blasters, 6 Defenders, 7 Controllers, etc. That's why the Kheld and Arachnos sets are cheap compared to the others.

They can't raise the Inf cap of 2B without a lot of work. But they CAN raise the trading cap to 2B, which would be fairly easy. As a professional software engineer, I'm fairly certain of that. And that would prevent scams involving 1-2B Inf.

That said, after Issue 22 this will no longer be a problem. There won't be any IOs worth over a billion till they introduce something completely new. And yes, I'm fairly certain of that too.

I know what you mean by ever-dwindling supply of money. I've been buying purples and now ATOs like a drunken sailor. As to storage, I had to start a spreadsheet to keep track of all of my bases and where I'm putting some things.

Hmm, 30 HAMs... For 75M you could turn that into 300 Enhancement Converters. That's 100 in-set conversions. If 1 in 5 in-set conversions of a Glad Armor: End/Rech yields a Glad Armor: +3% Def, then you could make about 20 of them. And you want to waste those 30 HAMs for a measley couple billion today? That's the problem with kids these days, not enough self discipline to save up and plan for the future.

I expect prices to dip this weekend as the weekend crowd starts buying Super Packs and selling the ATOs they don't need. After that, Super Pack sales should drop off considerably, but demand will always be high. Prices wil creep up.

And Hydra-Os.

The following is from memory and may be off...

1 Hero/Villain Merit + $2.5M = 10 Converters (Fort Trident/Crucible)
1 Emp Merit + $? = 5 Converters (Emp guy in Oro)
3 Astral Merits + ?$ = 2 Converters (Astral lady in Oro)
10 Reward Merits + $250k = 1 Converter (Any Reward Merit Vendor)

After looking at the prices last night, I went and started buying all I could cheap (under 17M each). I assume Enhancement Converters will work on them. I can buy lots and convert them to random ones. One more set of Enhancements to store up till Enhancement Converters come out. One of these days soon I'll get back to actually playing the game, rather than preparing for Issue 22.

I won't be hitting the trillion mark for a while. The market for expensive purples and PvPs is going down for a while when Enhancement Converters go live. There is a huge stock of junk IOs that will suddenly become expensive, which means a spike in supply. People with junk IOs may convert their own to get the expensive ones, which means a reduction in demand. And there's a small chance that people slotting ATIOs will be needing fewer purples, so another reduction in demand. It will take a while for those to be converted and slotted, and the market will have to reach a new equilibrium. Only after that will I have a chance at being a trillionaire.

As to prices, here's my take. Currently there are 10 purple sets, with the 5 mez and 1 pet damage sets being fairly cheap, while the other 4 damage sets are expensive. I don't know the actual numbers, so the following are just for example. The average price for cheap sets used to be fairly low, say around 50M, while the expensive ones were more like 500M. The average purple price was around 230M. After the initial conversion of cheap to expensive, I expect purples to move towards this average. Cheap purples are already at 100M, and I wouldn't be surprised if they hit 150M or more. Expensive ones will drop, maybe as low as 200M, but I expect them to eventually recover to around 300M. It really depends on how many people get into the purple Enhancement Conversion business, how many people buy ATIOs, whether the new Incarnate content encourages people to continue playing their 50s, etc.

As to my urgency, I'm just looking to let everyone know about this strategy. I've got just under 2000 purples in bases now, so I certainly don't need any more. By posting it here I'm hoping more people will understand Enhancement Converters and be ready to take advantage of them when they hit live. I'm building up good karma. In a month people will be posting in this thread saying, "Thanks TopDoc, I'm a casual player but I managed to purple my Warshade by buying cheap purples when you suggested it."

Of course I always could have ulterior motives. Maybe I'm doing this all to make it expensive for Arcanaville to catch up to me. Maybe I think the purple market is going to permanently crash, and I need to find some way to unload my 2000 purples. Maybe I don't actually have that many purples, and I'm just posing. Maybe it's to distract you from my next BIG money maker, which involves a level 15 CEBR. Then again, Arcanaville could have ulterior motives as well. She already admitted that I pushed her out of the market. Maybe she wants to discourage all of you so she can buy while cheap purples are still fairly cheap. I will leave it to all of you marketeers to decide whether my advice and predictions are reasonable. Take into account that many of you have admitted to doing the same thing as me, just on a lower scale.

Why am I the only one doing this at such scale? Perhaps it's because I'm a power gamer with a lot of 50s. I guess it's a different mind-set from most marketeers who enjoy sitting around drinking tea made from the tears of the oppressed, and then swimming through all of their Inf to get a little exercise. I can see the value of purples in making silly overpowered builds, so I want them. I want hundreds more to outfit my current 50s, hundreds more after that for all the chars I'm leveling up, hundreds for future chars, and hundreds to sell so I can buy all the non-purples I'll need. I've got 4 Doms on the way to 50, plus 2 more scheduled, and I have HIGH expectations for their capabilities (S/L softcapped, permadom, great damage). Massive global recharge means MMs can just resummon pets as needed, and I've got 3 MMs in the works, 2 at 50 who need respecs, and probably a Beast Master soon. I've got a dozen CEBRs and only 2 have purple builds, but I'd like to slot them all out well. Purples mean I keep my set bonuses when exemping, which is great for running Weekly Strike Targets, WWD arcs, finishing TF Commander, or anything else below level 50. Maybe I should post something in the Build Advice area of the forums to reach like-minded people.

Can I have your stuff?

Around Jan 8 I finally went to the beta server and saw how Enhancement Converters really worked. A single Hero Merit gets 10 Converters. A single Converter will convert a cheap purple into a random purple. I can run the WWD#1 arc in around 8 minutes for a hero merit. I have probably 100 chars level 20+. After I "confirm" their alignment, I can earn around 6 Hero Merits per hour, and convert 60 cheap purples into random purples. If I spend 10 hours every week I can convert 600 cheap purples into random purples. It takes on average 2 conversions to turn a cheap purple into a damage purple, so that's 10 hours to convert 300 cheap purples into damage ones. My first thought was "What are the Devs thinking?" My second thought was "How can I use this to improve my characters?"

What will happen when these go live? There are a lot of purples produced in the game, but demand is high enough that the damage ones go for around a half billion each. The other ones sell for more like 100M, but some like Sleeps have historically been more like 1M. The future was clear to me. Anyone with a brain and a little greed will buy cheap purples and convert them to good ones. The day Enhancement Converters go live people will earn about 200M/converter. The price on cheap purples will go up, while the expensive ones will go down. When will it stop? My guess is around the time cheap purples hit 150-200M, and expensive ones hit 250-300M. There's enough demand and Inf in the system that purple prices won't crash hard. What else are people going to buy with their Inf? Converters will nearly double the supply of damage oriented purple sets but at the cost of non-damage sets. Sorry all you Doms and Controllers who liked cheap purples.

People could also convert PvP IOs. I know from my farming that I have a WHOLE LOT of junk PvP IOs. While the supply is small, the demand is even smaller, except for a few. Most PvP IOs go for under 50M, a few go for around 2B, and there are a handfull in the middle. It will take a lot more Converters to turn PvP IOs into good ones. But the supply of junk is large. Anyone with 10 minutes and 20M can have 10 chances at converting a junk PvP IO into platinum. Honestly, it isn't that hard to use converters to get the ones going for 2B. Maybe it takes 3 runs of WWD#1, convert out-of-set till you get one of the 3 good sets, then convert in-set till you get the proc. I expected prices on the middle PvP IOs to crash, and even the 2B ones will go down to under 500M pretty fast. I thought most Panaceas would keep a decent price due to PvE demand, but the H/E and H/R have already crashed. In the end, I believe the return will not be as high as using Converters on purples. The day Enhancement Converters go live people will be able to earn decent returns on them. I plan to do in-set conversion of Glad Armor: End/Rech IOs on about 20 of my chars, and I'll sell the resulting estimated 12 Glad Armor: Procs for 1 Inf. On day 2, I'll be VERY surprised if any PvP IO is over 1B.

People could also convert Rare and Uncommon IOs, but that's a waste of time compared to purples. Converting Kinetic Combat: KD to another in the set is 3 converters for an average profit of maybe 75M, or 25M/converter. No other set has enough expensive pieces for in set conversion to be worthwhile, and out of set conversions are worse.

Then I think on Jan 10 the Beta build went live. That means the Devs could turn on Enhancement Converters anytime they wanted. What should I do about it? Obviously sell anything expensive. I got nervous, so I decided to sell fast. I had a fair stock of damage purples for chars I was working on, and for Mrs. TopDoc. I sold them all. I had a huge stock of PvP IOs from farming. I sold anything worthwhile. I started a thread here to sell my top end PvP IOs at a discount. Other people followed suit, and PvP prices are still going down.

I used that Inf to buy purples. In Arcanna's words, "hoover up the entire purple market". It was a LOT of Inf. I started buying, and increasing my price to get more and more. I already had a huge stock of PvP IOs, so I could convert those given time to as many of the good ones as I needed for my personal use. But I wanted enough purples to purple every one of my 50s, and all the ones I was leveling up, and all of Mrs. TopDoc's characters, and all the ones I may make in the future. I was aiming to buy 1000 purples.

A single base can hold 1800 Enhancements when loaded with 18 Enhancement Storage bins. I had to start shipping them off to a second base because my first base was almost full. I can't stop. The future is clear to me. When Enhancement Converters go live, I'll be able to turn silver into gold. Why should I stop buying silver?

What really confuses me is why almost no one else is doing what I'm doing. The profit potential is HUGE!!! I may become a trillionaire. I have seen other bids here and there. For a while I was in a bidding war with someone bidding X,090,000 or something like that, but then those stopped. According to Arcanna I pushed her out of the market because I drove up prices too high. Too high?

Another thing is what exactly qualifies as a 100-Billionaire. Obviously you count cash on hand. Everyone here counts cash in email and bids that are never meant to fill, as those are used to store Inf above the 2B cap. Most people here count outstanding bids, as those can be cancelled for cash on hand. But there's more than that.

In RL a millionaire is not someone with a million dollars in cash, it is someone with a net million dollars worth of assets at current market value. As such many people here count Enhancements and other rare stuff stored in bases, as it can be sold. Some people count Enhancements slotted on chars, as even those can be unslotted and sold. I consider all of that to be Net Worth in this game. Unfortunately you can't convert Prestige back into Inf, so no one counts SG Ownership in their worth.

I'll be a little late tonight. I plan to log in "It's Raining Ninjas" at around 6:30 PM EST.

Well if anyone has a costume code and they want more than 2B, just let me know. Maybe we can reach an agreement.

Hmm, invest say 2M for the Kinetic Combat KD, spend 3 Enhancement Converters to get one of the other 4 with an average resale of say 65M, for a profit of around 21M per Enhancement Converter. Arcannaville and I will be doing something else that in her words "produces hundreds of millions of inf in value per converter token on average". Do you still disagree?

I am looking to get every costume code on general principle. I'm willing to pay 2B for each one I don't have. I'm willing to pay first if the seller is a name I recognize. Otherwise I'll pay after I get the code and successfully apply it. Contact me here or in-game @TopDoc.

I already have the following:

Freakshow Boss
Carnival Harlequin
Knives of Artemis
Praetorian Clockwork
Rikti
IDF Ranger
RuluShin

There are probably too many things I take in to account when calculating attack chains to use this sort of tool. Here's my general process, and perhaps some of it can be of assistance. I go back and forth, skip around a bit, redo things as needed, so it can take a while to get right.

General Rule: The fastest attack power gets a purple set. You often use that power multiple times in a chain, and the purple proc can add a lot of damage. I usually skip the Dam/Rech because fast animating powers rarely need more Recharge, and that means the power is moderately overslotted for damage. This power is often a very low level one, so it is still available and may be damage capped when exemping. For Blasters it can still be used when mezzed.

Start by listing every attack power available to a char, including all pools (epic and otherwise). Sometimes the use of a pool power can significantly affect a chain, like Gloom as you already mentioned. Calculate the base DPSA (Damage Per Second of Animation) using Arcannatime for the animation and 95% Damage slotting. That will give you a good idea of which powers are the better ones and which are losers. I also see how they look with a purple damage proc slotted.

Next comes the initial recharge calculations. I generally make purpled builds with Hasten, so most attack powers with slotting have around +200% Recharge Reduction. Based on that, pick the best looking chain.

Next I adjust for damage buffers and resistance debuffers. Claws: Follow Up usually gets used as often as possible. Tanker Bruising powers get used as well. Sonic Blasts make this section hard, but worthwhile to get right.

Next comes other secondary effect considerations. Defense debuff? Ignore. Defense buff? Double stack! Mag 3 Hold? Figure out if you want damage or hold duration. Trollers and Doms with a single target Hold normally get it slotted for Hold due to Hami raids and LGTF Green mitos. Immob? Ignore. ToHit debuff? Maybe slot with an Enzyme later when considering END cost.

Next comes redraw considerations. Which powers have redraw? Generally every one where you draw a weapon in some way. Which powers trigger redraw? Ones where you attack without the weapon. That includes things like Boxing and Gloom. :-( How long does that take? Um... I haven't done one of these chains in a while. I'd have to test it or look it up. You can safely Brawl while using many weapons in hand, but you rarely want to.

Long recharge powers like Soul Drain or Accelerate Metabolism don't really fit in to chains. I run some basic numbers to make sure they're worth using at all, then assume they will be used whenever possible. Most are worthwhile, but not all. Widow Teamwork: Placate gives you an extra crit, but that crit does less damage than you could do if you attacked instead.

Next comes the purple proc slotting. You can only slot a single Hecatomb proc. If you're Dark Melee and your attack chain is Smite, MG, Smite, Siphon Life, then obviously the proc goes in Smite. But if Shadow Punch did damage proportional to Smite, then it would be a better choice as it animates faster. Based on which powers get purple procs, those powers normally get full purple sets, while others get Kinetic Combats, Crushing Impacts, Decimations, and/or Thunderstrikes with other available procs.

Next comes final Recharge calculations. Based on the best chain and the rest of the build, find out how much Recharge each power needs. On powers with purple sets I generally skip the Dam/Rech, but sometimes it's worth doing slightly less damage if it means less time paused. This is especially true if you have Alpha Musculature to make up the difference.

Then comes the final END calculations. Calculate EPS (End Per Second) based on the chain. Frown. Run some numbers and realize that higher damage always means higher END, because the END cost is based on the damage done. Go back to Mids, add the Accolades that give extra END, add Miracle and Numina procs, compare damage EPS plus toggle EPS to your END Recovery. Frown again. Consider going with Alpha Cardiac. Remove the minor damage procs and replace with End Reduction IOs. Be glad you went with Alpha Musculature. Add it into the damage now that you rememer it.

Then comes exemping considerations. Do I really want an EPP Gloom to be a major part of the attack chain on a char I plan to exemp all the time? No. That Alpha Spiritual Core Paragon with 45% global Recharge Reduction doesn't work when exemping. Do you want your Broadsword Scrapper to have Hack as his only attack when level 20 or below, like when he runs WWD#1 every week for that yummy Hero Merit? How about a Tanker with massive global recharge and the attack chain Barrage, Energy Transfer, Barrage, Total Focus. But below level 30 he only has Barrage. Not good. Most melee sets have a melee cone that you can take to help fill the chain at low levels, and it may be worthwhile to use at higher levels too.

I'll tell you a week after I22 goes live.

For Kinetic Combats I believe the D/E and D/R both cost 1 HM and are going for around 50M, while the D/E/R costs 2 HM and is going for 100M. Surprisingly consistent. Any commonly known big ticket item will probably be similar. I'd be surprised if Miracle, Numina, or LotG procs were significantly different. But that's because enough people know about them to regularly buy them with HM and sell them on the Market. If you look for the less commonly known rare items like flipside suggested, you can probably find a better value. It just takes time.

As to the best way to spend Hero Merits, I'll tell you a week or so after I22.