Market Fu! (Keep your shirt!)

Tips and tricks for everyday purchasing from the market
(Subtitled: How not to lose your shirt when buying from the Market)


TL; DR Version at the end.


Intent of this guide:


This guide is written for anyone who makes purchases from the Market. The intention is to arm you with tools for finding the best prices on items you want, and some tactics for going about your marketing in a smart fashion.


**SPECIAL NOTE** Saving money takes time. If you're not interested in spending a few minutes (or more) at the market, this guide isn't for you. You may continue to bid what everyone else does costing yourself much inf. If this doesn't bother you, why are you here?!


Preface:


There are many options for characters to enhance themselves these days. The most popular, and the most permanent is through the use of IO sets. These sets, which drop from critters in recipe form, use salvage to create Invention Origin Enhancements. There are many guides about how this process works. For the purposes of this guide, we will not be covering the basics of IO creation, but the basics (and sometimes not so basic) methods of obtaining these IO enhancements for your character.


There are 3 basic ways to get IO recipes, which are the basis of an IO enhancement. These ways are:


Kill stuff. Critters drop recipes.
Buy them. Use the market to purchase them.
Get them from other players who have done one of the above methods.


Because killing stuff is intrinsic to the game itself, we will not cover how get IO enhancements through that method. Also, because getting IOs from other players (not using the market) is its own beast, that will also not be covered in this guide. We will deal solely with getting what you want from the market (with a few minor exceptions).


And on with the show!


A while ago, I ran a contest. The contest was fairly simple. I set forth some rules for myself and the people playing and they had to guess the total inf I was going to spend on a specific build. Below is a link to the contest for your reference.


(LINK)


During this contest, I noticed a few of the rules I had forced myself into were hampering my ability to get the IOs I wanted at the price I was willing to pay. Because of this, I decided to write this guide to share the information that I have packed into my head. What good is information if I'm not willing to share it!?

So here we go! Below is a list of the tips we will be discussing when purchasing the IOs for your build. They are not magical in nature. Nor are they written in stone. You will find cases where they won't work, but those will be few and far between.


On we go to the good stuff!


Here is the overall list. Below, I will be describing in detail what each one means. There's a lot to wade through here folks. Hopefully its all good information!

• Bid creep, creep!
• Last 5?! What last 5!?
• Recipes, Enhancements, and Salvage, Oh my!
• I'm buying the enhancement – the recipe is too cheap!
• Good news! I saved a bunch of money by overpaying for salvage!
• Take a penny, leave a penny!
• My character uses only the best IOs in my builds!
• I got 5 on it!
• Start slotting your character at level 1!
• I fought the flipper, and I won!
• Frankenslot SMASH! RAWR!
• Proc-tastic! Watch me proc your face off, foo!
• Market Yoga
• Please lie back on the couch and tell me about your build!
• I'd love to buy that from you, but I already gave an arm and a leg. I'll look elsewhere!
• I fell in love with an IO, but then I left her for her sister!
• The ultimate build! I made inf doing this build!
• Combine and collect!

Bid Creep, Creep!


Ahhh, the much fabled and rarely practiced bid creep. How does this work exactly? Its a fairly straight forward process in which you bid significantly lower than expected and when you don't win the bid, you increase your concurrent bid by a small fixed amount. Sounds complicated, right? Its not. Below is a list of bids you may place on an item if you were bid creeping:


For this example we will use Widget X. The last 5 of Widget X sold for 1,111 each. You decide to bid creep and this is how it looks.


Bids:


100
200
300
400
500
600 <---- Winner!


Using the example above, you know that the lowest listed item was between 500 and 600 inf. You could have blindly bid 1,111 just like the last 5 people and you would have gotten it! But, you would have drastically over paid. When I am selling items on the market, I constantly see people bidding greatly in excess of what I am asking for the items because they don't bid creep. Don't be that guy!




**SPECIAL NOTE** When deciding where to start you should always take your guess as to what it “should” cost and drop a zero off of it. If you think it should cost 10 mil, bid 1 mil. People get tired. They make mistakes. They list things for 1/10th of what they meant to and they often don't even notice! Capitalize on this!


Last 5?! What last 5!?


The last 5 sold has good information for you to look at. However, it does not give you any idea of what the actual price should be. Here is a couple of examples:

Example #1:



Example #2:



Example #3




The information you can gather from the last 5 sold can be very important. It can also be very misleading if you're not looking at the right item.


In example 1, we see that an item has sold for a variety of prices. Some very high, some very low. What does this tell you about the item? Not much to be honest. People can, and do, accidentally overbid something. We're not interested in accidents.


In example 2, we are most interested in the dates. It took a long time for those 5 to sell. A long time being more than a few days here. This tells us that the demand for that item is low or the price of the ones listed is “too high”.


In example 3, we see that these items are selling well. Well enough that 5 have been purchased just today. Possibly more. Without watching it intently for a long time (hours) we can't say just how many sell in a day, but we know that its at least 5. This is information we can use to keep our shirt!


When an item sells well there is opportunity for us to nab one at much less than what the “last 5” paid for it. When an item doesn't sell well, there is less opportunity, but we can work that to our advantage as well!


The biggest point here is to learn to ignore what was paid for the last 5 and look at the rest of the information available to us in that same screen.




Recipes, Enhancements, and Salvage, Oh my!


There are 2 ways to get the enhancement you want from the market. You can buy the enhancement, or you can buy the recipe and the salvage that goes with it and make it yourself. Deciding which to do is sometimes hard, so here's some tips:


This is one of the only times you should pay attention to what the last 5 people paid for an item. You look up the enhancement, find out what it “usually” sells for (last 5) and write that down. Then look at the recipe. Here's where you need to do some quick napkin math:


What I add up when looking at a recipe vs. an enhancement:


Recipe price (potential)
20k for every piece of white salvage used
50k for every yellow salvage
2 mil for every rare salvage
Crafting cost (listed on the recipe)


If after you are done adding up all of those, if the recipe + costs is higher than the enhancement, try the enhancement first. I end up buying about ½ of my enhancements as enhancements. The other half are done from recipes.


Also, you now have an idea of what it will probably cost you to craft that IO. Feel free to bid on a crafted enhancement for that price. Hey, 10 million total for me to craft it or 10 million total for someone else to craft it and I buy it as an enhancement is still 10 million. I'll always pay someone 0 inf to craft a recipe for me

**SPECIAL NOTE** When an enhancement or a recipe has a lot for sale, your odds of getting a better deal increase! This isn't always true, but it can be a good place to start!



I'm buying the enhancement – the recipe is too cheap!


Sound funny, doesn't it? Well, there are cases where you will look up all of the parts and it will look like a great deal. However, understand one thing here: If recipes are dirt cheap (and plentiful), and enhancements are not cheap, but still plentiful, there's a catch somewhere. Most of the time its a salvage issue. Maybe the salvage is 3 mil for a the rare instead of 2 for example. More often than not though, you will find that you can sometimes get the enhancement for less than the crafting + salvage cost. Try it! If you see 30 recipes for sale and they're selling for 10k, but the enhancement is selling for 5 mil. Find the catch! Try and get the enhancement for 1-2 mil. You'd be surprised how often you can do this.

Good news! I saved a bunch of money by overpaying for salvage!


What?


No really... what?


Pretend you just bought a recipe for 40 million. You're about to buy the 5 pieces of salvage you need for it (2 of them are rares), and you are doing your best to not lose your shirt. Here's what you do:


Bring up the list of salvage and buy them all for BUY IT NOW! prices. Why would you do that?


Well, its simple – here's the example:


Salvage for Recipe X


2 whites
1 yellow
2 rares


Let's pretend that you're super awesome patient and can get the whites for 1 inf each.
Let's pretend that you're super awesome patient and can get the yellow for 500 inf.
Let's pretend that you're super awesome patient and can get the rares for 1.5 mil each.


You've spent a total of 3,001,002 inf on salvage for this recipe! Great job! You also waited 5 day for the rares to fill and you tied up your slots for those 5 days.


Add in the (level 50) crafting cost of 500k and your total for this enhancement is 43,501,002.


Now I buy Recipe X for 40 mil. I then pay the following for the salvage, buying it right this instant and collecting it as I bid:


2 whites @ 5,555
1 yellow @ 25,555
1 rare @ 2 mil
1 rare @ 3 mil


I spent 5,031,110 inf on salvage. Add in the 500k crafting cost and my enhancement cost me a total of 45,531,110 inf.


I paid 2,030,108 more than you. 4.5% more. That's it.


Why is this important? Well, here's why:


Why were you willing to sit on 5 market slots for up to 5 days to save 4.5%? Had you used those slots to bid on other items (recipes and enhancements) not only would you have saved more than 2mil, but you would have had that enhancement slotted 5 days sooner.


On the big ticket items, waiting on salvage for a long time actually costs you money.


Add in the fact that I picked a proc (2 pieces of rare salvage) and realistically, you could wait 5 days to save maybe 700k. That's very insignificant on a high end item and tying up your slots will definitely hurt you in the long run.


Unless you're going on vacation for a month, typing up slots for salvage bids is bad. Nix that. Even if you're going away on vacation for a month, use those slots to toss out some low bids on recipes and enhancements you want. You've got a month to try and fill them – why waste that precious slot on saving 2k for salvage?


Take a Penny, Leave a Penny! (Taken from Fulmens' response a few posts down)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fulmens I know you were trying to keep it short, and you could have talked more about EVERYTHING, but "time vs. money" is a good topic that maybe is worth putting more words into. A few unorganized thoughts below: 1) Figure out what's "a penny" to you. Like the "Take a penny, leave a penny" tray, this is the amount you don't worry about. If you have 10 million inf, "a penny" might be 1000 inf; if you have a billion, "a penny" might be half a million. Don't stress the pennies. 2) Money and time: most "price spikes" last 5 minutes or less. Let's call it 10 minutes. I consider there to be four categories of time: RIGHT NAO, 10 minutes, overnight, and "next Tuesday." RIGHT NAO is fine if we're talking about a penny or two. 10 minutes will get you past, as I said, most price spikes. Overnight will get you a decent price on a recipe that sells at 5+ per day [Crushing Impact at 50,for instance] or a rare salvage. Next Tuesday [meaning you let an entire weekend plus the monday bump go by] will get you some pretty rare stuff at a pretty good price. I'm kind of amazed at what sells on Friday night and Sunday night. So figure out what's expensive and how long you're going to wait, and bid accordingly.

My character uses only the best IOs in my builds!


Great! Super! Why?


Define “best” for me.


If you're slotting a set, level 50's?


Here's a dirty little secret that no one likes to share...


Slotting a full set of level 50 enhancements (or even 5 of them) is purely a waste of inf in most cases. ED (Enhancement Diversification) causes this to be true.


Example: We'll use Total Focus from the Blaster Energy Manipulation secondary. We'll use Mako's Bite a it actually has decent values across many stats making it hit harder by a drop in levels. Other sets that you may slot for the “heavy damage” or “heavy recharge” will be impacted less than the example:


**Note: I am using Mids. Total Focus is the only power I have picked for this example blaster. It has 5 slots in it. No other slots are placed. There are no set bonuses or other powers affecting this one.




Mako's Bite (Melee set) – 5 slot everything but the proc as a level 50 enhancement and here's your ED numbers:


ACC – 66.25%
DAM – 93.64%
END – 66.25%
RECH – 66.25%


Now change them all to level 35's and here's the same numbers:


ACC – 57.34%
DAM – 83.38%
END – 57.34%
RECH – 57.34%


You see there is a loss across the board. However, these are the “real numbers” from level 50 IOs to level 35 IOs.


Type – Level 50 / Level 35


ACC – 149.6 / 141.6
DAM – 389.3 / 369
END – 11.1 / 11.8
RECH – 12 / 12.7


As you can see, there are some minor differences between using all level 50 IOs and all level 35 IOs. Is this difference significant enough to warrant only using level 50's? No. By the time you add in global set bonuses and other powers that affect your power, you will likely never notice the difference between your level 50 IOs and your level 35 IOs. Also, remember for this example I picked both a power and a set that would show the greatest impact when dropped from 50 to 35. Most other sets have much smaller differences, as do most other powers.


What does this do for you? I'm glad you asked!


This gives you OPTIONS! OPTIONS are a great thing when trying to keep your shirt!


This means that you no longer need to be a sheep like your many fellow players! You know that you don't need that level 50 IO and in fact you're willing to go as low as level 35! But it doesn't stop there! See the next section for the real beauty of OPTIONS!

I got 5 on it!


This one's easy. Stuff listed “on the 5's” (10, 15, 20, 25... 50) is disproportionally expensive. Why? Because most people don't bother to look at anything else. A level 50 IO can sell for 20 mil. While the 49 sells for 5 mil. *shrug*


Increase your buying power and bid on stuff that falls between the 5's!


Start slotting your character at level 1!


No, really. Do it. It's awesome!


When you make a character, feel free to send it a bit of money and bid on those IOs that seem to always cost you an arm and a leg. Bid low (but reasonable) and leave the bid up while you level. Its a great way to save money on expensive IOs or IOs that don't move in your chosen price range very often. Increase the number of slots you use as the number of market slots increase while you level.


Continue to slot your character as you level. Create a build early for your character. Don't just wait until 47, slap a build together and run to the market expecting everything to be there waiting for you for next to nothing. Start buying IOs early... and slot them into the power they're going to be in. If you go as low as level 35 IOs you can actually start slotting out your character at 32. This is 15 extra levels of time to work with.


I fought the flipper, and I won!


**NOTE: “Flipper” in this instance is referring to someone who buys recipes and salvage and sells the crafted enhancement for profit. There are many guides on how to do this effectively. I encourage everyone to read them.


Here's another dirty little secret that I'm sharing with you! People craft recipes... for inf! And they make a ton doing it! I know, because I do it!


Occasionally you will see recipes where 2 or 3 of the last 5 sold are exactly the same price. These prices won't be nice round numbers (usually).


Example: Last 5 sold -


10,000,000
7,123,456
10,000,000
7,123,456
7,123,456


You can use this to your advantage! If you see something like this you can bet 2 things:


The “flipper” has some bids up for 7,123,456.


Odds are not good you will be able to purchase a recipe under that (if the flipper keeps covering bids up).


The good news? You can get one for 7,123,457. You only need to outbid the flipper by 1 to get his next purchase. This virtually guarantees that you will get that specific recipe for as low as possible.


The bad news? If you're working against a flipper, you're almost assuredly bidding on one of the 5's. GET OFF THE 5's! The IO 1 level lower or higher is probably selling for half the price. You do the math!



Frankenslot SMASH! RAWR!


I felt this needed to be included. Fulmens does a great job of explaining the process and the advantages in this thread.


Frankenslotting is a great way to avoid getting caught on that “5th or 6th” enhancement in a set. If you slot a set for a set bonus, but find yourself adding in extra from that set past the set bonus you want, you may consider frankenslotting those extra slots. You can often save a bunch and make your power that much better.


Example: You slot Enfeebled Operation to 5 slots. You're going for a S/L Defense build, so the 5th slot, which is giving you 3.75% global recharge is nice, but not “required” for your build. You can potentially slot the 4 cheapest enhancements and put something cheap from another set into that 5th slot that would make the power significantly better (through stats).


Go read Fulmens' guide and come back. This one will make more sense afterward, I swear!


Proc-tastic! Watch me proc your face off, foo!


Procs. Now here's a hotly debated topic. Regardless of where you stand on any of the arguments about procs, procs are essentially exactly the same from the lowest level available to the highest level available. There are a few exceptions to this. Luck of the Gambler 7.5% Global Recharge also adds +def to the power you put it in. Its not much, but there, I mentioned it.


How to bid on procs:


Bid on ALL of them below and including the level you are willing to slot them at. If you're willing to slot them at 50, then you can use every single level of that proc in your build and they will perform (nearly always) identical no matter what the level of the proc.


**SPECIAL NOTE** Make sure you know what you are doing when you plan to use expensive procs in powers. More often than not I see people putting procs in powers that would have gotten better use out of a regular damage IO. This is a sad waste of inf imo. Once again, don't be that guy!

Market Yoga


Learn to be flexible! Flexibility will save you a LOT of grief when attempting to buy your IOs. Slotting 4 Basilisk's into a hold just for the global recharge? Don't use the power all that often? Then forget what your Mids says and slot the 4 cheapest IOs. Being “married” to a specific enhancement will end up costing you more. I promise it will!




Please lie back on the couch and tell me about your build!


This is probably the first place to start saving money. Look at your build. Seriously look at it. Now... what are your goals for this build? Perma-Something? Soft Capped? Max HP?


Its good to have goals!


Now... go back and see if you can “cut the fat”. Did you mule a bunch of powers? Do those sets come cheap? Can you get them for less? Is that purple damage set REALLY making that power hit that much harder? Can you find ways to cut costs before you ever begin slotting?


This one is very subjective and will be for you to decide. The only thing I can suggest is that you first do an expensive build. Then do one entirely with common IOs (or SOs). Then see if you can find a place somewhere in the middle where you can be happy!


**SPECIAL NOTE** Hami-O's. Hami'O's can be great enhancements! They can also be insanely expensive. Make sure – 100% sure – that when you slot a Hami-O that you couldn't have gotten a very similar enhancement to the stats of that power with a crafted IO. I often see people slamming an expensive Hami-O into a power for Damage and Accuracy. Oddly enough, that same slot could have taken a crafted IO with similar stats for 1/20th of the price. Not exactly the same stats, but very close.


Don't get me wrong; Hami-O's do phenomenal in some builds, but make sure you've exhausted other options before coming to a 300 mil enhancement.


I'd love to buy that from you, but I already gave an arm and a leg. I'll look elsewhere!


Yes! There are other ways to get what you want than by simply buying them from the market. Take for example, everyone's favorite proc: Luck of the Gambler 7.5. These sell anywhere from 100 million to 200 million.


Let's assume you're a patient person and you get them for 80 mil. Awesome! You could have had it for free though. Here's how:


Reward Merits
Hero / Villain Merits
AE Ticket Rolls


Of the 3, AE rolls are very inefficient and you'll probably pull your hair out trying to get one. It that's what you're into, go for it!


Reward Merits – Do arcs and TFs and buy one for 200 merits. Problem solved.
Hero / Villain Merits – As you level, run tip missions. Stay hero or villain and if you bought GR, after you have 2 H/V Merits, you can buy a LotG 7.5! Neat, huh?


H/V Merits Alternate: For those with less patience, or for those like me who don't have GR you can buy a H/V Merit for 20 mil + 50 reward merits. This can still save you money! Here's how:


We'll assume that you, being like me, don't have GR. So you're only buying H/V Merits. You need 50 Reward Merits and 20 mil for every H/V Merit you want to buy.


What this means is that you will have spent 40 mil and 100 merits to get that LotG 7.5. Not quite as good as free, but still better than 80 mil (very low end) and definitely better than 200 mil.


**SPECIAL NOTE** Personally, I buy the H/V Merits. Then I buy a LotG 7.5. I sell that LotG for 150-200 million and I buy one for 60-80 million. I actually make money on the deal AND I get to slot the proc. This is always the best option if you can manage it.




I fell in love with an IO, but then I left her for her sister!


Very often you can find an IO that is (nearly) identical to the one you want. Sometimes they're cheaper. Almost always you can do some “juggling” of your build and bring down the cost. Don't be “married” to anything beyond your goal for your build. Minor tweaks and changes can really help to keep the costs down!


The Ultimate Build! I made inf making this build!


There is a school of thought - and indeed it works mostly in practice but it takes a LOT of patience and a keen knowledge of the market – that says you can do an entire build for free... or less. This method is not for the weak of heart or the squeamish. It goes a little something like this:


Buy 2 of everything you intend to use in your build and sell the 2nd one for at least 2x what you paid for 1 of them. This isn't easy to do and requires tons of patience for the most part. You can “kind of” cheat if you can find something to sell for more than 2x what you paid for it, you can apply the difference to another enhancement.


It also requires you to keep track of every enhancement you buy and sell if you want to do it at exactly 0 inf or less.


Combine and collect!


Now that you have some tools, its time to look at leveraging them to your best advantage. You can, and should, be combining the methods above to create a purchasing machine! The example that is easiest to understand is bid creeping + bidding across a range.


Example:


I would like to purchase IO X. I open the market window and select a level range. I then spot check the recipes and enhancements at all of the levels that are for sale. Once I determined what my price “could” be, I start with the enhancements. I place a bid in the highest level enhancement for sale, and I use ctrl+c to copy this number. I then move down to the next level available for sale, and use ctrl+v to paste my bid in that window (less mistakes, I have fat fingers ). I bid on every enhancement in the range for the same price. I do this until my market slots are full of bids, or I buy one, or I run out enhancements to bid on. When any of these happen, I cancel all of my bids. If I have not purchased my enhancement, I repeat the process increasing my bid a small amount.


At some point increasing my bids on enhancements becomes more expensive than starting the whole process for the recipes. When this happens, I repeat the process of bid creeping across a range on the recipes. I bounce back and forth between the recipes and enhancements until I either purchase what I want, or I find I am about to bid more than I am willing to pay for this enhancement.




FIN!

I know this is a long guide. I know that there is a TON of information here. I know you skimmed it. Admit it! HA! See, I knew it!


Anyways, the whole purpose of this guide was to educate people a little about how to be a smarter shopper at our market. If you took away any new knowledge at all from this, then I consider it a success!






Below is the promised TL; DR version of each of the bullet points above. Good luck and have fun!!


TL; DR Version!


Bid creep, creep!
- Bid creeping gets you nearly the absolute best price possible


Last 5?! What last 5!?
- The last 5 is a great tool – if you ignore the actual prices for the last 5 sold (on most occasions)


Recipes, Enhancements, and Salvage, Oh my!
- Buy recipes and salvage except where buying the enhancement would save you inf


I'm buying the enhancement – the recipe is too cheap!
- Some recipes are almost free – sometimes you can get the enhancement for less than the crafting cost


Good news! I saved a bunch of money by overpaying for salvage!
- Tying up market slots will cost you more in the long run – don't waste your time saving 10k on a 500 million build. It's just not worth it.


Take a penny, leave a penny!
- Figure out what amount of inf you "don't care about". This is relative to your actual pool of money, and when you figure out what that amount is, don't care about it Don't even think about paying 10k for something if you've set that as your "penny". Your time is worth more than a penny!

My character uses only the best IOs in my builds!
- The level of an IO has much less impact on your performance than you would possibly believe. Look into buying between 35 and 49 instead of 50.


I got 5 on it!
- Don't bid on the 5's. A level 49 is usually much less expensive than a 50 and is nearly identical.


Start slotting your character at level 1!
- Use the time you spend leveling to bid on expensive IOs you know you will use.


I fought the flipper, and I won!
- If you can identify a flipper in the exact spot you're bidding, outbid the flipper by 1 to get his recipe.
Also, if you're in a flipper's niche, try looking up or down 1 level. They're usually a lot less.


Frankenslot SMASH! RAWR!
- Fulmens covers this in his post here. Frankenslotting can save you a bundle if you don't need the set bonus.


Proc-tastic! Watch me proc your face off, foo!
- Procs are the same at every level. Don't limit yourself – buy the cheapest one, period.


Market Yoga
- Be flexible in your bids and build strategy.


Please lie back on the couch and tell me about your build!
- Have a build goal in mind when you create a character. Do an expensive IO build for it, then an SO build. Try to settle somewhere in the middle where you can be happy.


I'd love to buy that from you, but I already gave an arm and a leg. I'll look elsewhere!
- Use your merits and AE ticket rolls to get your recipes.


I fell in love with an IO, but then I left her for her sister!
- If you note that a specific IO is extremely expensive in your set, look and see if you can grab a different one for a lot less.


The ultimate build! I made inf doing this build!
- Buy 2, sell 1 for twice what you paid for it for every last IO you intend to use. This requires massive amounts of patience.


Combine and collect!
- By combining the methods above, you can leverage your purchasing power quite well. For example, you might bid creep across an entire range of recipes to ensure that you get the lowest price possible.

Good stuff, I especially like the bit on the hidden costs of bargain seeking behavior with regards to salvage.


The only meaningful currency in any MMO is time. I eagerly 'overpay' with the in-game Monopoly Money to save time.

If you're earning inf in any marginally efficient way, either marketeering or just playing the game and selling drops, you shouldn't even notice prices below a few hundred K.

Salvage costs specifically are just not worth worrying about.
If you're slotting stuff, who cares if you overpay by a million or so for your components? What's that, one mission worth of inf at level 50?
If you're selling stuff, I personally wouldn't bother with a recipe where a million inf was a meaningful expense. If I'm selling them at 20 million , I don't care if the components cost me 5 million or 6, the profit is still worthwhile.

In my typically hyperbolic way I'd make the flat statement that salvage prices aren't a meaningful expense, and if they are you need to set your sights a little higher. =P

Each level 50 has 94 slots to fill.

Keep this in mind when you do your build If you average 10mil per slot, you're sitting on a 940,000,000 build.

Yes, salvage pricing is somewhat important, if you craft every IO for those 94 slots you're going to average about 329 pieces of salvage. If we assume that only 75% of those are not rares (could be a higher % depending on which enhancements) and you "overpay" by 50k for every piece of salvage you're looking at "overpaying" by a total of 12.3 million. Balance that against saving 1 mil on 15 enhancements and you've just saved yourself 3 mil

Nice guide. Unless Last 5, you might want to mention looking at the numbers up for sale and number of bids. As a rule of thumb, the more up for sale relative to number of bids, the more likely somebody has it listed very low in hopes of getting the next sale, and therefore starting at a low number in bid creeping is more likely to pay off.

Some good stuff in here... I'd approach a few things differently, but in general
some good tips. Nice Work.

A few thoughts I'd add:

General: Like all things, more time, and more practice leads to better skill.

Quote:

In example 1, we see that an item has sold for a variety of prices. Some very high, some very low. What does this tell you about the item? Not much to be honest.

My very first thought at that comment was - what those prices told me
was that the niche is volatile... What that means in practical terms is A:
With a little patience, I can probably get it at the lower price (the time
span was only 2 weeks), and B: I can probably flip a couple and recoup my
investment and/or turn a profit besides... btw, "flipping" *never* means
"crafting" to a marketeer.

My point isn't intended as a knock - it's intended to show that with more
time, you learn more, and see more things... You summed it up excellently
later ---> Options, Options Options.

Bid Creeping:

ALWAYS throw out a ludicrous lowball bid first - for salvage, my fav is 111
and 1K to 10K for a recipe. You may well be surprised at how often it fills.

From a creep increment tradeoff viewpoint, you're always trading time for
inf. Suit the increment price bump to the range of the item you're
purchasing. Creeping is good for two things: A> Giving you a good idea if
the Last 5 is "real" (ie. that IS the going price or just what the sheep are
paying instead of thinking) and/or snagging you a bargain if there is one.

Saving 500 inf on a 1111 piece of salvage isn't worth the time to creep bid
6 times (Yes, I know you were just illustrating the technique). My point is
saving 150K on a rare salvage covers a boatload of cheap salvage overpays.
Keep the point, the time, and the scale in mind when creep-bidding.

Frankenslotting: I'm the self-proclaimed poster child for this technique.

You need know just one vital comparison here: +3 SO = 38.3%
L25 Dual Set IO = 20% in each category. So, 2 L25 Acc/Dmg set IO's will
give you +40% Acc and +40% Dmg ... forever ... This beats a +3 Acc SO
and a +3 Dmg SO hands down for the same number of slots. On top of
that, it exemplars better, and costs less than replacing SO's and is much
more helpful than waiting to slot L50's. The rule of thumb is you can max
core attributes of a power in 5 slots with L25 set pieces, and get some
nice secondary attributes as well, and you can use these IOs as soon as
you're eligible for SO's, without replacing them for the toon's entire career if
you wish. 'Nuff Said.

Market Yoga & the next two points: I *like* your thinking here and I'd
emphasize a couple more points. Unless you truly are building for a specific
(I mean really specific) purpose, most Set IO's can be interchanged - esp if
you Frankenslot... That can mean huge savings with little/no loss of
performance. Next, there are many ways to buy things, and some toons
are better at some than others. I have some stealth toons with thousands
of merits - why? Because they can get them easier than AE tickets. My
brute, on the other hand - *never* buys rare salvage - 15 mins in an AE
mission and he can get 3 pieces for "free". He pretty much always has max
AE tix. One of my toons has all the common IO's memorized - guess what I
do if I want a cheap common IO?

In short, apply the strengths of your toons, not just against Mobs, but in
terms of item acquisition as well... Balance Time, Inf, Tix, Merits for your
toons to get them their shinies in the easiest, most effective way possible.

Extending that idea out a bit further - determine what toons can get what
resources easiest and make them "specialists" for them - need an IO, see
my crafter, need orange salvage, my Brute will gleemail it, need a LotG, my
merit "specialist" will grab one. Let altitis work for you.

Unless you collect inf for inf sake alone, "efficiency" is largely meaningless -
equipping your toon is really what you wanted all that cash for in the first
place, right? Sure - 200 merits for LotG isn't best use (in inf terms) for them,
but if you have a task force guy that runs QuaterField's, he's probably got
more merits than he can shake a stick at - use them effectively (if not
efficiently). 540 AE tix for a 2.5M Pangean Soil is only ~4600 inf/ticket
(not a good return), but if the toon has 8500 tix and can get another 1500
in 10 mins - it might still be a Good use of those tix for your crafter toon.

This borders on blasphemy for an Ebil Marketeer but it's not *always*
about inf (shhhhhh).

Ultimate Build: Buy 2, slot 1, sell 1, is good advice... Buy 5, slot 1, sell 4
can be even better... In other words, don't be afraid to sell enough of an
item to make back the cost of it - Volume beats Pricing. You don't have to
sell one at an inflated price. Instead, sell 3 or 4 at a decent price, and you
may find this works better, and you may develop a profit center as well.


Ok... I better stop here - this is getting nearly as long as your guide.

For the readers, there are a lot of valuable insights in here... Sure, you can
spend billions on a build (and many do), but you sure don't have to just to
get a fun and effective toon to play. A little attention to these points can
equip your toon nicely, and provide additional fun and riches for your next
one as well.

Once again, Good Stuff, OP!


Regards,
4

Thanks 4!

As you can see, this can really get involved and could be even longer than it already is. As I said, a lot of things hit the cutting room floor for this guide and I'm hoping most of it was just expanding on an idea that is already shown.

In regards to your "special character for special needs" - I tried to make this as generic as I could considering that people such as myself, who only had 1 character or one character suited to doing these alternate methods of purchasing, might be reading it. For some of it (due to size) I allow the reader to expand on the knowledge and put it into practice as best they can with the tools available to them.

The flipping portions of your response are helpful, but I wanted to stay away from the marketeering aspect as much as I could for this guide. Many other people have done a fantastic job of writing guides in regards to marketeering, and I will leave that discussion to them.

**SPECIAL NOTE** If anyone is interested in marketeering guides, in my signature I have a guide for "making inf while you sleep". In that guide are several links to very well done guides and journals which deal specifically with marketeering. I suggest reading them, even if you never intend to take up the hobby - much of what is there is a basis for what is above.

Or, you can pop over to the Market Guides and FAQ thread and check out the guides section there. Often the Market Forum has great additional information. However; please ignore the countless threads about flippers. It seems to be an extra hobby for some of us to heatedly debate what is flipping and who it affects and how much.

Please keep the comments coming!

I know you were trying to keep it short, and you could have talked more about EVERYTHING, but "time vs. money" is a good topic that maybe is worth putting more words into. A few unorganized thoughts below:

1) Figure out what's "a penny" to you. Like the "Take a penny, leave a penny" tray, this is the amount you don't worry about. If you have 10 million inf, "a penny" might be 1000 inf; if you have a billion, "a penny" might be half a million. Don't stress the pennies.

2) Money and time: most "price spikes" last 5 minutes or less. Let's call it 10 minutes. I consider there to be four categories of time: RIGHT NAO, 10 minutes, overnight, and "next Tuesday." RIGHT NAO is fine if we're talking about a penny or two. 10 minutes will get you past, as I said, most price spikes. Overnight will get you a decent price on a recipe that sells at 5+ per day [Crushing Impact at 50,for instance] or a rare salvage. Next Tuesday [meaning you let an entire weekend plus the monday bump go by] will get you some pretty rare stuff at a pretty good price. I'm kind of amazed at what sells on Friday night and Sunday night. So figure out what's expensive and how long you're going to wait, and bid accordingly.

A good accumulation of nice advice.

Well done!