Trading in Astral Merits for Recipes

At what level is exchanging Astal Merits for expensive recipes a valid investment?

I have a Blaster with T3's that I run Incarnate Trials with. I had a ton of Astral Merits just built up, so I started trading the, 32 at a time, for some of the rarer and more expensive (Numina/Miracle Uniques, LotG +Rch, Kinetic Combat).

My guideline has been that it's only worth it if the recipe is selling for 100+ million influence.

I have a few characters outfitted in Set IOs (no purple sets though; they don't drop often enough for me, and I don't have the money for it), but a lot have been missing those expensive IOs, so that's how I've coped.

However, I figured you guys might actually have some numbers or something proving that it's a bad investment.

I guess I should explain my station in the game. I've played off and on since launch (five years solid or so at the beginning though, maybe 5 years, 9 months total or so), and I'm at the stage where I just renew for a month or two every once and a while (I was gone for a full year prior to this). I have a ton of characters due to my long-lived playtime and altitis, and I find myself running short on money. I can usually start a character on his journey of IO equipping with 100 million or so, and anymore than that and I'm SoL.

... And before it's suggested, I've tried playing the Market. For a solid month or so I worked at it. I wasn't good at it... I only built up around 300-500 Million after all that time, and I found that I would rather be teaming and stuff during my limited time than hanging out at the auction house. I would have maybe continued trying, but I'm pretty sure I lost all of my selling and buying inventory during one of my breaks, and as one of them could occur on a whim, I don't think it's really worth the time or risk.

SO. That's why I've been trading Astral Merits for recipes. That and Incarnate costumes aren't much of a selling point for me (when compared to recipes, at least).

Thanks for your time.

I'm of two minds on this:
1) Having already bought everything else available, I have nothing else to do with the Astrals.
2) But what if they add more stuff to buy?

Let us speak of this for a moment, and I'll sort of type out my thoughts on this matter - and it is a good question.


Fact: There are just some recipes that are unavailable at the Market.
Fact: You can either spend 1 or 2 Hero Merits for it or you can trade in Astrals or Emps for it.

For now, let's discount the PvP and Very Rare IO sets.

To get one hero merit, you can either trade in 50 million and 50 reward merits (say 1 Sister Psyche Tf - if done very speedy, about an hour or less, otherwise, up to two hours.)
or you can do 10 hero/villain tips and 1 morality mission.

If you are at low difficulty and play competently, either solo or teamed (solo is likely faster due to not having to recruit, but this speed will vary, obviously)

Given the OPs status of not being loaded with Inf, it may be better to not assume he will cash in Reward Merits. Still, it's an option, so I brought it up.

11 mission will probably take about 75 minutes on day 1 (doing 5 missions at about 15 minutes per mission) Day 2, about 90 minutes doing 6 missions.

As opposed to doing, say, a BAF, which is probably the easiest and fastest of the trials. But, let's say our OP is fearless and can do Keyes, UGT and Lambda as well. I've not done Keyes often enough to recall, and haven't done UGT more than once, so I am going to just say each trial will give an average of 5 Astrals.

So, each one taking about 45 minutes, (that horrid recruiting time on some occasions) So, 20 astrals on Day 1, another 20 on day 2, etc.

Trading the astrals would in fact, appear to be better IF you are on a server that has teams for these readily available.

For me, it's all about time. How long will it take me to play out the Trials vs the tips vs flip marketing - which we discount, as our OP has already expressed a lack of enthusiasm for this.

So, each server is different, do the math for your own.

On Liberty, if you're not running as an SG, most of the time, recruit time takes about 15 minutes. Even longer for Keyes. And I think the only reason folks do UGT now is because it's new. In another couple of weeks, they revert back to Baf.

For my server, tips IS faster (play time wise). As far as actual real life days, trials are the better deal.

Just my thoughts, critique away. There may have been some things I discounted in error.

I believe they lowered the INF cost so its 20 million and 50 Merits for one Hero/Villain Merit. Not that it has any bearing on what your getting out but 20 million is much easier to get then 50 million.

Thanks for doing the math on it, Uka. And I completely forgot about being able to buy Hero Merits, so there is that.

Recipes aren't worth the money - I only redeem for hot button T4 Insps during a heavy PVP time (early to mid evening) - I've been selling [Resistant]s for 20 million a piece, and my sales have never dropped below 10 million.

Even if they aren't hot, ill just convert to vouchers for my newer incarnates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

Sorry for getting off topic but...where can you trade in the Astral Merits for recipes?(still new to the incarnate stuff)

ah alright, thank you!