To Random or not to Random?

I have a question for the collective of marketers.

I have an Ice/Storm controller who just reached IO'ing level (for me this is 32) and I have collected 353 merits from his heroic efforts.

Would it be better to:

a) Random roll them all (17.65 rolls) from the 35-40 pool

b) Buy a Miracle (or some semi-equivalent expensive recipe) and sell it. Plus about 8 random rolls

c) Wait till I'm in my 40's and random roll then (for higher lvl recipes)

d) some other better thing I haven't thought of.


I'm sure someone out there much with more math skill than I have has worked something like this out. Just looking for a few opinions.

Well, I personally almost always roll in the 35-39 range. Just in generally better recipes there.

A lot of it boils down to how much you need the money imo. If you really need the money to be able to IO the toon, then I would suggest going for the "surefire" method. Otherwise, if you can stand a little bit less, then go for the chance and you might strike it big.

For what its worth though, you might want to do the ~8 random rolls (you're actually 7 merits short of 8 rolls, so be careful) first, then if you don't strike it rich, go ahead with the surefire thing if you need the money to do what you need to do.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush after all.

I hate to see "guaranteed buy" because there's a shortage of just about everything below level 50, so getting one guaranteed shiny instead of 12 randoms hurts the market even if it's financially sensible.

I started a "buy your random rolls" program, currently buying for 8 million apiece (so for 17 rolls, 136 million) - I give you the money, you make the rolls, you give me the results no matter what they are. I don't know if that's a fair price in this market or not - you can probably make more with the Miracle alone- but when I was doing it at 6 million, before issue 14, I was breaking even or slightly behind.

Maybe we could do something where you roll 17 times and I buy 16 of 'em, and you get to keep the best?

I'm @Boltcutter in game, or you can PM me on the forums, and we can set up a time and place if you want to do this.

I'd start out with an assessment of your characters and their needs. Is it inf that you want, or specific bonuses or IOs to deal with issues like endurance? If the latter, see if your merits will get you there by themselves. IIRC, 365 merits will get you both a Miracle and a Performance Shifter, and those two alone can make many struggling characters much more fun to play.

<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

If you are buying random rolls for sale (vs. for personal use), you should wait till you're level 50 to buy them. With few exceptions, recipes at less than maximum level typically sell for less and take longer to sell than those at maximum level.

*shrug*

I'd say it depends on 1) what you need, and 2) how long it took you to get those merits. Between the ITF and LGTF I can get 67 merits and it takes just about an hour, sometimes less. If I run the STF and Kahn TF on that same character I can get 127 merits (less if I take the Hami on the STF). Given that I do something like that almost every day, I simply do random rolls because I can do enough rolls to eventually get something good, and it doesn't take me forever to build up my merit stock again.

In the long run you'll make more inf, statistically speaking, if you do a random roll versus buying an IO outright, but that's assuming you roll at max level and that you have simply average luck with your rolls. If it takes you a long time to bank those merits, you can either get what you need or hope you get good rolls.

I strongly recommend the 35-39 'TF roll'. You *might* wait until 33 (remarkably patient to have grabbed 350+ w/o spending, so you could probably make it), because most lvl 33 recipes sell for at least a few more millions than their lvl 32 counterparts. Rolling from 33 only the snipe results have a chance to be lvl 35.

(I've been doing lvl 25-29 rolls as an experiment and the results are shabbier, monetarily, than 35-39, but still have produced a number of treats. Screenie from the last time--I think--I rolled 35-39 with the exact same strategy you are using. Say, that reminds me, the Kinetic Combat "Cs" are stratospheric at level 35 now, and I bet some folks would dip down to 33 to grab one...)

If you do end up buying the Miracle proc, check the 20 and 40 recipes and crafted, to see which one to grab.

Please do not take Heraclea's advice to buy pool As. They are way undersold versus their straight up merit costs. Somewhere else she has claimed that none of her characters have ever amassed more than 35 million influence (or even as little as five million). Fulmens spent one billion for laughs.

How much is a Luck of the Gambler worth on the market? How many merits does it cost?

How much is a Miracle worth on the market? How many merits does it cost?

For which Random Rares are where... http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Random_Rare_Recipe_Roll

Thanks for the thoughts folks,

After reading through these suggestions and looking over the prices at the market again I have decided go ahead and use my randoms in a level or two.

It makes the most sense to me at this point, and after Fulmens reminding me that the Demand far out weighs the Supply in the market lately ,it seems the best track to follow.


Thanks also for the chart link Kitteh. I use the wiki alot but had forgotten about that chart.

I prefer to think of merits as a currency backed by gold. You know they have a fixed value, pegged to the set IOs they can buy.

Tickets are a currency backed by silver. They have a fixed value, pegged to the rare and uncommon salvage they can buy.

Inf is a currency backed by recycled cardboard. Their fixed value is pegged to the value of SOs they can buy. You can fully equip a level 50 with boughten SOs for less than 10 million inf.

Conversion, at varying rates, goes one way. You can convert your merits to inf, your tickets to inf, but you cannot convert your inf to merits or tickets.

Which currency do you save given this scenario?

I would add that CoH is a standard shortage economy in its current incarnation. The standard response to unaffordable salvage and recipe prices that the marketeers will give you is "bid what you can afford and maybe it will be filled in a month." Just like folks in the Soviet Union used to queue up in the expectation that shoes might be delivered to the shop, and some of them might actually fit.

The CoH market is also a classic example of an inflationary economy. The purchasing power of inf has been steadily eroded since the introduction of invention sets, and that erosion accelerated when Mission Architect took over.

I see people who stockpile inf as old-style Turkish billionaires, from back in the days when a billion Turkish lira was equal to maybe seven hundred US dollars. It may be that i16 will wreck the Mission Architect and slow, if not stop, the unfavorable ratio of inf versus goods in the system. But we don't really have an efficient short term way of flushing inf from the system, and it's going to take a good long time for those extra zeroes to disappear. For at least the foreseeable future, I think that holding on to your merits, tickets, and IOs is at least a rational strategy. (And no, it's not speculation either. The sin of speculation means hoping to some day convert your other assets into inf, exactly what I am avoiding.)

As noted above, inf is something that some folks are willing to give away a billion of for kicks. I haven't seen anyone doing that with purple set IOs, at least not intentionally.

<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

I don't agree with almost everything Heraclea says, but I do agree that influence is the least valuable currency. Its value degrades over time due to inflation, and even if you can afford something on the market, the supply may be limited or nonexistant (like many Pool Cs in unpopular sets or at levels below 50 are right now).

For this reason you should avoid buying cheap Pool As with Merits. It makes sense you should buy from the market where possible and and avoid spending merits because they are the most valuable and hoardable currency. The exception is if you need large amounts of influence to buy things that are only available on the market (purples, PvP IOs, etc).