First Toon: Inexpensive Farmer AT to Support All Future Projects

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

well, as the others have said, a fire/kin controller does amazing well. if you're not power leveling though, it'll take some patience to level to 50.

i personally am leveling up a fire/shield scrapper currently at lvl 42. he is able to take on +0/ 7 player radio missions using generic io's and 1 purple inspire per group (if needed). generic io recipes drop so frequently during missions that you will save quite a bit of money. i can only image his potential once he is level 50 and i can slot him with better io's (not the generic kind).

by the way, if you're considering naming your toon "Little Nest Egg", don't do it. you will be bothered by tells a lot at lvl 50 for money or power leveling, etc.

either way, good luck!

WP/Anything tank or Anything/WP brute both tend to be fairly unstoppable and can easily run +1x4 early on.

But as as the guy above pointed out if your willing to take notes and watch the market there is good money to be had there. Just buy low sell high you know the drill. (or buy less then vendor and vend)

Auction trader is Definitely NOT the AT I had in mind nor would ever. I have a very sour taste in my mouth when it comes to market manipulation due to World of Warcraft and its auction house antics. I'd rather steamroll things, for fun and profit.

I think I will try SS/WP. I cant thank you guys enough for you feedback and patience with my queries.

In 5 minutes a day you can make considerable inf on the market without even having to try. Simply play normally and as your inventory fills up drop by the market and list anything that's worth more than the vendor will pay.

Here's a general idea of what's worth inf on the market:

A vendor pays 250 inf for any piece of common salvage, the market price is very volatile but there are lots of common salvage pieces that go for 50k or more. Things like Luck Charm and Alchemical Silver are generally worth something, Kinetic Weapons are generally vendor trash.

A vendor pays 1,000 inf for any piece of uncommon salvage; market price on this is again volatile but there isn't quite the same range of price swing; some sells for 100 inf and some for up to 40k. Most uncommon salvage seems to be in the 500 - 2,000 inf range on the market with a few pieces commanding more.

A vendor pays 5,000 inf for any piece of rare salvage; the market price ranges from 2,000 to 5 million depending on the item. Low level rare salvage tends to be of little worth while mid level and high level rare salvage tends to average around 1 million each. Since you'll be getting a fair number of rare salvage drops per day this can add up quickly.

With those prices in mind when you hit the auction house check on the prices for the salvage you have. If the going rate is higher than vendor price then list it. If the going rate is LESS than vendor price then take it to a vendor to sell.

On recipes it's a bit more cut and dried; almost any common IO recipe (Invention: Accuracy for example) is worth more to a vendor than to the market so go ahead and vendor those. Set IO recipes can be anything from complete garbage (and vendor price on a level 50 rare recipe is only 10k) to hundreds of millions; I rather strongly suggest you check and see if any of your set IO's are worth anything before you vendor them. After a while you'll get a feel for what's complete delete on receipt trash and what's valuable.

Trash recipes tend to be Immobilize sets, Slow sets, Sniper sets and Hold sets (with the notable exception of Basilisk Gaze and Lockdown). Valuable ones are generally Defense, Resistance and Damage sets that offer good bonuses. "Good" bonuses tend to be recharge or defense.

My last character I followed this general method of playing normally and disposing of my drops either to a vendor or the market depending on which gave more inf for that piece... at 32 I had a full set IO build and roughly 50 million inf in my pocket left over. At 45 the character has most of his final build in place and over 400 million in his pocket.

I don't know other games, but this one probably doesn't work like that one. We have stupidly large amounts of money floating around, and many people "round up" to the nearest million. Or the nearest 10 million. Pardon the extended example.

I'm going to give you an example of something that is going on in the game right now, as I write- well, I'll give you three examples at different scales.

Level 40 generic Damage IO [this would be even cheaper if memorized]: last 5 recipes 10,000 inf each; crafting 99,000 inf; ingredients 26,000 inf (highest of last 5 prices); Total cost (with an hour of patience to let the bids fill) about 135,000 inf. Last 5 crafted sold for 450,000 . Wentworth's 10% fee is 45K, so you make about 270K. Prices will of course go up and down, you can't take the snapshot and assume you can make exactly that much, but you should be able to sell for 300K and double your money.

"Ah", you might say, "But that's people who have like a hundred million and don't see the difference between 135K and 450K. And I don't want to make a hundred million by crafting five hundred items." Fine.

Miracle: Heal at level 40 (its maximum.) 25 million for the recipe. Around 1.5 million for the deific weapon, and a few thousand for everything else, ingredients. 104,000 to craft. Total cost: 26.7 million or so. Last 5 crafted selling for 45 million, minus 4.5 million wentfee, leaves 45 -4.5 -26.7 = 13.8 million profit.

"Well", you might say, "That's evil profiteering." There's nothing that stops anyone else from putting up a bid for a Level 40 miracle, four ingredients, and coming back the next day and saving themselves 13.8 million inf. Anyone in the game can do it.

"Fine", you might say, "but the REALLY SHINY STUFF costs hundreds of millions. Surely people have to be patient at THAT price range."

Apparently not. Armageddon Damage/Recharge, crafted, varies in the last 5 between 125 million and 250 million. The recipe varies between 150 and 200 million.

Some people have more money than patience. Some people have more patience than money. If you play the game in one of several relatively normal modes, you can make a whole lot of money without having to do anything extraordinary. Or you can put 10 minutes a day into the market and make billions on a level 17 character, like I did. (OK, probably half an hour a day in the early days.)

Also to be noted--now with GR out, you can earn an alignment merit every other day just by doing tip/morality missions. One alignment merit can be used to grab some very nice stuff--you could probably pretty easily make 100 million every two days doing this, just by using it to buy a pricey recipe and sell it on the market. Whether prices eventually go down from the supply increasing like this remains to be seen. Doing it that route, though, should let you go for cash with any character that soloes well.

I agree with your sentiments about "Market Manipulation," but something to remember in short about this game's economy... people pay for convenience. You don't have to hit the market, the vendor, and the craft table if you're willing to sell cheap and buy high. With so much influence floating around, many long time players will do that rather than be bothered to run errands. That's not really manipulation, just taking advantage of the circumstance. That is, if you sell high and buy low.

Fire/Kin controller, Archery/Energy blaster, a Tanker or Brute with WP or Shield and then SS , Stone, or Electric Melee. There's other stuff too.

The thing to keep in mind is almost any AT can farm, and many builds can farm as well. The trick is matching the mission you farm, the team size / difficulty, and the cost of the build. On my Archery/Energy Blaster, I like Battle Maiden at +2/x6 no bosses and solo. If I were on a larger team against Nemesis or Freakshow, my SS/Electric Brute would be my first choice. Against Rikti, he doesn't fare so well.

Fire/Kinetics is so common because it can solo high numbers and high difficulty, with or without assistance. You would just want to avoid enemies with a lot of mez, or bring a friend to solve that for you.