Astral/Empyrean Merits = Recipes.

Did they switch the Glad Armor and Shield Wall uniques or something? I would expect the Glad Armor to be among the most expensive ones.

With alignment merits Glad Armor uniques are 30, while Shield Wall's are 35. I never really understood that.

The devs might think Defense is everywhere, but Resistance is rare and valuable.


Also:

32 Astrals for a LoTG...Yay! I like it right here, though I'd still settle for anything less than or equal to 50.

50-70 for a PvP IO...It could stand to go a bit higher, especially considering the time barrier for these will be decreasing when more incarnate trials (or more ways to get Empyrean Merits) are released.

As a hardcore builder, let me clarify:

RESISTANCE IS RARE.

Valuable? Well, on some toons, very much so. The +3 res IO is...nice. I personally think it should have been +5 percent, but what do I know, eh?

Not speaking from a market perspective; The Mayor approves. Still work, but attainable. I don't mind if there are more of those pieces around.

I don't know about that...I have a TON of Astrals kicking around.

My Traps Corr has 80, my Kat/Regen has 90, my Cold has close to 120.

I'd definitely trade those for 150,000,000 or 200,000,000 in some cases.
If you start from scratch, sure the tip missions are better. How many people are though? It seems for anything but the soloist the trial rewards are fairly nice.

Not sure how all of you are planning on finangling stuff, but one of my alts will buy all the costume shinies with Astrals I can early on, another alt will buy recipes and make some change (I'm back to "poor" again) while a third will just accumulate Empyreans for a PvP IO every now and then.

It is looking more and more that Reward Merits are done as an outlet to buy specific recipes and as nothing more than a random roll outlet or a conversion process to Alignment Merits.

Although piling up the Astrals in parallel (if you will) to Tip runs seems like the way to go. (5 Tips + 2-3 iTrials) per night won't seem grindy at all to many.

I think you're right. The only people I bother to stockpile Reward Merits on anymore are my Rogues/Vigilantes.

Reward merits are the only way to directly buy specific uncommon recipes. There aren't many that would ever be worth the cost, but if everyone is running 50s grinding tips and trials, and no one is running regular content or AE missions for tickets and bronze rolls, the supply of uncommons will decline and the price will increase, especially for sub-50 recipes.

That may eventually make buying things like Steadfast: +Def recipes with reward merits the most economical alternative. It will be a while before that happens, though, because they're going for 20 million on the market now, but cost 125 reward merits, which you can convert to 2.5 alignment merits.

For comparison, you can sell a LotG: +Recharge for 100 to 200 million these days, though that conversion will cost you 40 million inf. Similarly, a Kinetic Combat: Dam/End/Rech goes for 150 million. That puts the value of an alignment merit somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 million. If you subtract the 20 million reward merit conversion cost, a reward-merit derived alignment merit is worth 55 million, making each reward merit worth approximately 1 million inf. That means the price of a Steadfast: +Def would have to hit more than 150 million to make it worthwhile (if all other conditions remained the same, which is doubtful).

I would personally like to see an option for buying full sets of uncommon recipes with Alignment Merits, or single uncommons at specific levels with Astral merits.