I got a pile of Merits... now what do I do?

I've been playing a Hero and completely ignored Merit drops, until I noticed that the count had gone triple digit. 152, if I remember right. Got a 31 Merit Story Arc bonus coming up in one mission, too.

I'm feeling a bit like a Dachshund that actually caught a car. As in this is great, but now what do I do with it? Ideally, I want them converted to as much Inf as possible, as this character is level 44 and set-IO less. I figure I can solve that, hopefully. I just usually burn my Merits on 35-39 random rolls, but with this many, I wonder if there's a better alternative. Should I turn them into three Hero Merits instead? I'll need a little extra Inf to afford the third, but I figure with two I can direct buy any Rare, so I could just find out what sells for most and craft one of those.

See that's my dilemma, I'm not sure if that's the best option, or if there's some trick I never thought of. So I'm asking here, since you guys have so much Inf that you're actually burning it. I figure you'd know the most efficient way to use 183 Merits and 58 million Inf.

And I'd bet that to most of you that's pocket change. But to someone like me, it's something that could become seed money to really start using the market. This realization may have awakened something ebil in me.

Work up to 60M inf. Make three hero merits. Trade them for either 15 random rolls or a couple-three valuable recipes. Profit.

You can't make more than one hero merit a day, and you can't turn in merits more than once a day either. So you can, in theory, make 2, cash them in, and use that to make the third.

Now I am pretty sure that 44 [or 45] is a bad level for random rolls- people who are willing to wait for 44 are willing to wait for 50- but I haven't actually checked that since Going Rogue went live. You could do a low level random roll and get max-level Eradications and Impervium Armors and whatnot, but you'd also get a LOT of stuff like Commanding Presence, Neuronic Shutdown and Debilitative Action.

For specific buys, in addition to the obvious (Miracle +Recov, Numina +/+, and LoTG +7.5% global) you might want to check on some others: min-level Stealths, Oblit quads and procs, Basilisk quads, and Shield Breakers. I know all those were in short supply once upon a time and they may be at the moment. And, like any true master of ebil, you should check the crafted prices.

Do you in fact come out ahead by trading in 50 R-Merits + 20M for A-Merits? I got R-Merits sitting all over the place that I never use; I should prolly start converting them over, I guess...

Hmm, I'm apparently better at this than I thought. That whole "get Inf for conversions" thing was done before I logged in. I've learned the first golden rule of ebil.

Golden rule of ebil #1: "People are willing to pay a premium on pre-crafted IOs. Let them!"

In any case, things are looking promising. I've never really dealt in the higher-end IOs before, especially the most wanted ones (if you want to see what poor drop luck looks like, look at me), so this is getting fun. The thought of making a LoTG 7.5% that my scrapper could really use, and then selling it is a little off-putting, but that one LoTG could turn into seed money for 5.

Golden rule of ebil #2: "Patience is a rare virtue. And the lack of it in others can be exploited for a ton of Inf."

In any case, thanks for the advice, I'm converting Merits to H-Merits now and selling crafted drops to fund the conversion. It seems to work out.

Rolling at 50 seems to be a little low-result these days. I'm still getting good money on some of the L32, L33, and L35 stuff, though.

My theory ("A theory is something you can test", some science teacher from my past reminds me- whatever) is that people like 35 a lot for a variety of reasons- "32 is where IO's first beat out SO's", people are used to slotting at 12,22 and 27 or 32, etc- and people pick the 5's because you can't bid on EVERYTHING so the 5's are obvious places to make a market. 33 is a leftover from Katie and Siren's Call, and 32 is for people who exemp to 29 and want to keep their bonuses.

If I had to lock only one character at only one level, it would be 35. I like having different people supply different levels, though. Replacing "Everyone rolls at 50" with "Everyone rolls at 50 and 35" is an improvement, but not a great one.

I am more and more disappointed with the random rolls. Merits or A-Merits, there just seems to be so much junk. My last roll was my "best" roll so far. I broke even on buying the A-Merit (if you completely ignore the reward merit cost). I got that from 1 recipe. The other 4 capped at 1 mil for the recipe or 2-3 mil for the enhancement. Not even worth the time to craft them and sell em for a loss. That was a level 50 rolling in the 35-39 range.

I'm considering switching to buying recipes outright, but I see the "good" markets dropping and I'm not sure where to stick my bet.

*shrug* Perhaps I will start hoarding these now as well and save them up for some fictional toon I may make at some point that won't get them spent on them anyways because "what if I REALLY need them for something else?!"

I've had too much coffee this morning. Does it show?

Well, here goes. I bought a [redacted] and put it up for sale at 5/6th the price it sold the last five times. Didn't sell immediately, didn't expect it to, but mine is the only one for sale at the moment, so I figure it'll be gone by this time tomorrow. If not, I'm leaving it there over the weekend before doing anything.

It's such a weird feeling to craft something awesome, wonder how this would benefit my character, and then putting it up for sale. It was my first awesome loot, apart from HOs, that I've had on any character, and I just put it up for sale at a moderately expensive price. I hope it works out as I want it to. I think it will, [price redacted] isn't that much to ask for a [redacted]. At least I didn't find it silly, and I'm a cheapskate.

Once the sale has gone through, I might edit this post to show what I did, but I'd rather not tip my hand here. This is Flipper country.

I have a somewhat related question that I didn't want to start a new thread for...

I have about 4 Hero Merits and counting. I'm not IO'ing this character out until level 47 with predominately 50s, so I saw no desire to cash them in. I'm 44 now, and I was thinking that, if I got something I didn't want and wanted to sell, it's the level 50 recipes and enhancements that are prioritized above the 40-something-randoms, so I should just wait until I can get 50s for my cash-in.

That begins AT 47, right? Or are the recipes given equal to your level rather than +3 like TF reward enhancements or something?

Are there are Set IOs that are worth trading in the required two hero merits for? Maybe to craft then sell to bankroll others, or ones that you need that are simply unobtainable (and I don't know what fits this definition - I would probably personally define anything less than 40 mill as "might as well buy," but what is that appropriate price point to bite the bullet and use the two Hero Merits?

Finally, what would be the best reward roll range for merits? I've been doing the Bronze 10-14 reward roll in AE, because I see that mentioned quite a few times, but is that really it? It's really worth it just hoping for the low level KB protection? What else is valuable in that range?

Alright, maybe it was a couple of questions.

Convert them and get a PVP IO. At first it was much more profitabe to buy 150m kinetic combats with 1 MERIT which was a hilariously profitable deal for a while for those who knew about it, but now it is probably best to buy the PVP IO.

I just want to say thanks to you guys for helping me with this merit pile. If what I think is true, I'll end up with about 300 million profit on it. Which is about double the total Inf I had across my entire account before looking into the market. I'm keeping quiet on what IO I did this with, since I'm doing it again tomorrow. Well, maybe with a different one, I'll have to check the daily prices.

And when that sale goes through... I'll have enough Inf to just buy popular recipes and turn them into profitable IOs. Yes, that would work out quite nicely indeed. Maybe I should shoot for a billion Inf on this one, just to see if I can. There's nothing my Scrapper can't beat with a decent dose of Insps, anyway, so her set IOs can wait a little longer. Maybe even until the I19 respec. Besides, she just became my richest character, by far.

Heh, a week or two ago I wouldn't even think of shooting for a billion, but now I'm tossing it out casually.

In any case: "Hi! I'm McNum, ebil marketeer in training."

Soon you'll be burning billions of influence for fun.