Purples, More than one way?

I think I know two ways of getting purples. Killing lvl 47+'s enemys and rolling A-merits. Problem is I don't know how to craft the purps with A-merits.. Anyone know how many and how much it cost. and is it worth it trying to get the 5 random purps? Can u make a certain purp IO and how many A-merits. A-merit info on wiki is down so im pretty lost.

You can't get purples from random rolls. You have to craft them at full A-merit price.

Purples are available in the same interface that you use to pick random rolls. Instead of "Random Rolls" open up the "Recipes" section, and then "Very Rare IO Set". Each purple recipe is in there, and you can drill down by set. Each entry tells you how many A-Merits they cost to make.

Edit: My advice is not to spend A-Merits on these. At current prices, you're better to spend A-Merits on other valuable Rare recipes, like LoGs, Miracles or Blessing of the Zephyr. Then sell those on the market, and use that money to buy purples. It takes a lot less A-Merits for the same result if done that way.

Do you know how many the random rolls for purps cost and how many A-merits? i have over 1,200 reward merits. so i can start converting.

Again, purples are NOT random-rolls.

You're spec-buying them. IIRC, they're something like 25-30 A-Merits apiece.

So you're looking at about 2 months or so to save up, or spending out 1500 merits and 400m inf, which would still require a month or so to actually "cash in" for a-merits.

Once you've got the recipe, you then have to craft it. Cue the need/buy salvage.

Granted, if you're running tips for a-merits AND cashing in, you can get there a bit faster.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Purples are, if I recall, 25-30 merits. For just a few more merits [35?] you can get a PVP IO. Currently it's about 2.5 billion for the teleport/3% def PVP IO, whereas the most expensive purple I know of is around 700 million, if you get a good price on it, crafted.

And there are a number of different recipes that give 60-100 million inf per AM. Check minimum level Miracles, Stealths, Lucks of the Gambler recharge, and maximum level Kinetic Combats- there are probably others I'm unaware of.

You can convert reward merits to get AM's, and get AM's through tips, simultaneously (so 3 per 2 days.)

Doing your tip missions every day will net 1 Alignment merit every other day.
Do enough TF/SFs to have the inf and merits to purchase an Alignment merit every 20 hours (essentially once a day).

This means in 2 weeks you could have (at maximum) 23 Alignment merits. However, that is a LOT of work. That also would be 280 million inf and several hours spent to get ONE purple recipe with 3 alignment merits left over. Now, you'll still have the crafting costs (600,000 inf plus the salvage), but then you will have your ONE purple enhancement.

OR

Do the same thing, except purchase a LotG Global Recharge, Numina's Regen/Recov, Miracle Proc, Regenerative Tissue Proc for TWO Alignment merits each. Then craft each one of them (around 480,000 inf each plus salvage) and sell them for 75 to 180 million each.

This leaves you with 15 Alignment Merits left over, and plus or minus 500 million inf.

For that, you could buy any purple enhancement, made, or a recipe and have a bit left over.

You can also do a ticket farming mission in the AE, and grab your rare salvage for 540 tickets each (one good farm will give you enough tickets for 2 rares plus 2-3 uncommon salvage).

By getting the IOs, crafting them and selling them for the inf, you would make much more than you needed to buy any purple recipe.

Right now, the hardest thing to get in the game are HOs and PvP IOs. Hamis can only come from Hami Raids or synthetics from the STF/LRSF, and PvP IOs cost 35 Alignment Merits or the 'are-you-kidding-me-you-lucky-stiff' drop.

Seems to me, getting A Merits to buy and craft stuff to get the inf to buy your purples is an easier and quicker system then chaining yourself to your computer for 2 weeks.

To correct a common misconception not all pvp recipes are 35 Amerits. I KNOW for a fact that the 3% defense recipe is 30.

Further obscuring this issue, I believe that when you're actually on the screen where you redeem A-merits, you won't see anything on the list you don't have enough merits to buy. So few people will see the purple or pvp recipe costs on the list, and may not realize they're even available.

... which may be the default.