Zero to Awesome Redeux! 31 Day Project

The fastest way to get converters is to run the blueside WWD#1 arc. You can do it once a week on any char level 20+ who has confirmed their alignment. You get a Hero Merit which you can convert to 10 Converters. Redside the arc is slightly longer, but you can get to The Crucible faster than getting to Fort Trident blueside. It looks like Organica has been converting Reward Merits directly to Converters. You can get twice as many by converting them to Hero Merits first, though it costs an extra 20M Inf.

Day 24 - July 24, 2012



Sold 2 things overnight -- a controller ATO and the Armageddon, giving me about 380 million to play with (not counting the roughly 500 million I currently have tied up in bidding on another Cyto/Synthetic Cyto). That's enough to buy two new recipes!



Which I was able to do, as you can see.



Three conversions netted me two Ragnaroks -- including one that I didn't have yet for my build. I kept the rech/accuracy and put the triple up for sale.

You might notice a pattern over the last 3 days:

1. Buy 2 purple recipes.
2. Craft and convert them.
3. One is a Ragnarok for my build, which I keep.
4. Sell the other recipe for enough money to repeat the process.

You might say I've acquired 3 of the 5 pieces of my Ragnarok purple IO set needed for my build... nearly for free.

I ain't complaining.



Since I have market slots free, I decided to buy a few of the remaining IOs that I need. that includes a Call to Arms end/dam/rech, which I am now bidding for, and a full set of Thunderstrike. I was able to insta-buy 4 piece of the set for pretty cheap, and I've placed bids on the other 2 I need. It's an uncommon set, pretty easy to come by, but a nice set all the same.

Ran another Summer Event. I got an Overwhelming Force Accuracy/Damage. So far on Dilithium Flower I've gotten:

2 Accuracy/Damage
1 Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
1 Damage/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown (on my very first run)
4 Damage/Endurance/Recharge
3 Endurance/Recharge

11 runs without a quad. I may have to just buy it.

------------

I bought a Luck of the Gambler defense recipe and crafted it. I think that's the last of those that I'll need for my build.

So I left bids up for two level 30 thunderstrike recipes -- acc/dam/end and acc/dam/rech -- and immediately joined a Citadel task force. It's merits, it's experience, that's all I want right now. It's not the fastest Citadel ever, but we finish in an hour and a half and I make nearly a full level, just a couple of bubbles from 44. Also during the task force my Ragnarok has sold.

But first, I stop at the store to sell off all my extra junk. And I notice that I have a level 30 Thunderstrike on me, along with all the salvage needed to craft it. What? I forgot to craft one of the four I bought? Better be careful and not sell it by accident!

That was what I thought at first, but then... I realized it was an acc/dam/end.

How often do you get exactly the thing you're bidding for as a random drop? Same level, even the salvage to craft it instantly!

So I crafted that, and now I'm only bidding on the acc/dam/rech, along with the Cyto and the Call to Arms.



Because I want stuff to sell fast I'm not listing quite as high as I probably should. I listed my Ragnarok for 266 million I think. Some were selling for 300 mil, but mine sold for 275.

Well, that's okay. Let's see if I can buy something else.





Apparently I can! And it only takes me 1 conversion to get a nice Hectacomb!



I listed this for 246 million, seeing that several had gone for 250 million recently (and there were 25 for sale). I got an instant sale for 250 million. Hmm... maybe I should have listed just above that then.

But instant profit of 80+ million is nothing to sneeze at.

Right at the moment I'm unable to find any more purple recipes for sale for 150 million or less, so I leave up a couple of bids and log off for a bit. Still need to run my tips for the evening, and I intend to hit level 44 too.

Another note: I have a bunch of Tanker ATOs... six or seven in my base, and three for sale... and the price on those has collapsed at the moment. The one that I have 6 of has over 100 for sale and is currently selling for as little as 9 million, less than I paid for mine I'm pretty sure. I know the price on these will eventually rebound -- probably some time after Bio Armor comes out -- but right now I can't sell the ones I have.

In fact, right now is probably a good time to be buying up Scrapper/Brute and maybe Tanker ATOs. Because when Bio Armor hits, the price of all of those will likely go up.

Ran my 5 tips and the morality mission... my last hero morality mission for a while. Tomorrow night I'll be running vigilante tips.

I have 2 hero merits at the moment.

This left me still nearly 2 bubbles shy of level 44. I started hunting in PI and looking for a team to join, and then I realized that I could just join a DfB. So I did, and that did the trick, just barely.

And strangely enough the leader of the DfB was level 44. Makes me wonder how many people run it at 40+.

I was only able to buy one purple recipe for 150 million or less, although I have enough money to buy two.



It took me a while to craft it because I needed a Rikti Alloy and they were going for 7 million each with only 46 left for sale. I left a bid up for more than 20 minutes while I read in the living room. I ran a friend's AE farm, set for only +1 mind you, and that only earned me a couple of hundred tickets -- I'd forgotten how many it took to buy a piece of rare salvage, 540 tickets. Bleah. So I finally caved and spent 7 million for 1 piece of salvage. I wanted to get to bed, after all.

It only took one conversion to get a nice Armageddon. This time I listed it high since I'm expecting to leave it overnight and all next day at the very least, and I thought I could get a good price on this one, and also because I was annoyed at spending 7 mil on a Rikti Alloy.

This morning my bid for a Cytoskeleton at 251 million filled. I cancelled the bid for the Synthetic version, which was also 251 million -- I can use that money for something else now. I didn't have time to muck about with purple recipes, so I just placed some bids for Corruptor ATOs and left it at that. My purple IO from last night hasn't sold yet.

I also decided to buy the elusive Overwhelming Force quad last night, so I don't have to worry about that anymore.

So here's what's left to complete my project:

- Call to Arms end/dam/rech
- Thunderstrike acc/dam/rech
- Ragnarok damage
- Ragnarok damage/endurance
- Positron's Blast proc

- Hit level 50. I'm 44, so 6 levels to go. I can slot the Cytos and Glad Armor at 47 though.
- Turn villain and run patron's arc. Starting on this tonight.

Technically I wasn't including the Ragnarok set in my goals to finish by the 31st, since I wasn't sure if I could manage that. But it's easily within reach now.

One thing I need to remember -- I have a bunch of IOs for my build in base storage. I need to make sure I don't leave them there when I turn villain, or I won't have access to them for a while. If there's more than ten, I'll have to e-mail some of them to myself in the meantime. ^_^

To be honest, I've been feeling the "awesome" in my "zero to awesome" for a while now. I have very good recharge -- about 80% global recharge now I think? Enough that dominate is pretty much always up when I'm in motion. I have about 24% smashing/lethal defense most of the time, I don't have any endurance issues (at times I go through entire fights with fly on, forgetting to turn it off or switch to hover), I have superior damage and can lock down or confuse a mob set for 8 long enough to destroy it -- unless something goes wrong. Occassionally I've tested this on task forces by wandering off on my own. As a Dom, I have to plan my attack instead of just rushing in, but if I can confuse at least half the mob, the rest is really easy.

On the Citadel the other night I followed one water blaster down a different tunnel from the rest of the team, and we wound up in a big fight where the blaster died quickly. He yelled at me to run -- but I had carrion creepers out, and my AoE hold was up, and Seeds of Confusion was up. I cleaned up the mess before anyone else on the team could find us. The blaster was impressed. ^_^

So, why are decimations so expensive now? They were always pretty OK. Why so expensive now?

It's a nice set with 6.25% global recharge, basically. I forget what else, but nice set bonuses overall.

There are a *lot* of ranged damage sets, but only a few that I really like when you get right down to it. Decimation is one of the best of them.

Decimation also increases max health and endurance. Very useful.

Day 25 -- July 25, 2012



My Armageddon sold. I had this listed for 301 million, and it sold for 325. Not bad. I could have hoped for even better, some have sold recently for 350 or even 400 million, but the important thing is that it sold within 24 hours, and it sold for more than 300 million, so I got what I wanted.





I also got nearly everything else that I wanted -- my last Call to Arms, my last Thunderstrike, and some Malice of the Corruptor dam/rech to sell. I bought 4 of these in all. I had bids on two other corr ATOs, but those bids failed to nab me anything. Hopefully these will sell for good money by the weekend -- I think there are still a lot of water blast corrs about.

I also insta-bought the Positron's Blast proc, a level 34 for 5.1 million influence. Since I had virtually every IO needed for my build, I spent my two remaining a-merits on a level 25 Luck of the Gambler +7.5% global recharge recipe, which I crafted and listed for sale. These things still sell for over 100 million, so that's an okay way to make a little more money.



Tonight the thing that I'd been looking for finally happened -- a friend wanted to run a shard/exp ITF, and I wasn't busy doing something else already! I joined up and used the second and last of my two xp boosters, and I wound up with just about what I was hoping for -- 1 1/2 levels of experience, even a bit more than that.

I ran vigilante tips after that, but paused to join another friend's Manticore. It's the WST! That got me to level 46 and nearly to level 47 -- only about 2.5 bubbles away.



Last but not least, I have only a few days left to fill in my remaining character slots. I decided to be a bit stupid and bought a few points so that I could buy a few more costume pieces. I present to you, he's clearly not another catgirl, the amazing Moo Vestment

Day 26 -- July 26, 2012



Last night, since I wasn't able to buy any purple recipes instantly, I decided to place some lowball overnight bids. And since I was planning that, why not bid on the two Ragnarok recipes that I need to finish my build?

Guess what? Both bids filled.

My build is fully purchased!

I started out running vigilante tips, but my friend Freaky was running another shard/exp ITF. Experience over tips! I headed to Cimemora and joined up. This got me to level 47 almost instanty -- I had my Glad Armor +3% defense and my 3 Hami-O Cytos on me so I slotted them right away. (At the moment, lacking a Scorpion Shield, I have Frozen Armor as a substitute). With these slotted I'm at over 47% smashing/lethal defense.



No purples dropped for me during this ITF or the one last night -- but I had placed a bid on an Absolute Amazement recipe in the meantime, and it filled during the ITF.

In fact, another sold after mine for 22 million less. >.<



I had two converters from drops. I used both and got a nice Apocalypse, which I immediately put up for sale. Nothing else has sold for me, not even my LotG level 25 7.5% recharge. But I expect things will sell by the weekend.

I finished my tips, but have not yet run the morality mission as per my plan. Right now I have no hero merits and 194 regular merits (since I haven't been converting them). I am level 48, almost halfway to 49.





Made two more never-to-be-played (probably) characters: Telsa Turing, and Hoagy Roll.

Tesla because it seems like a good name (from Nikolai Tesla of course). Turing because, I don't know, Alan Turing. Has no real connection to the character though, unless I decide to give her a bio that states she's an artificial intellgence indistinguishable from a living person.

Tess LaCoil and other not-as-clever-as-I-thunk variations were already taken, of course.

(Costume is 100% borrowed from this thread.)

and Hoagy Roll because we are having a potluck at work tomorrow with barbeque pulled pork sandwiches, and I was asked to bring hoagy rolls. And it seemed like a funny name to use.

... Am I to assume that you're personally responsible for like HALF the bids on any high ticket item at any given moment? Cuz that's terrible!

Day 27 -- July 27, 2012









Sold several things today as you can see. Brute ATOs seem to be rising in price again... or maybe that's my imagination because I sold something. Anyway, I currently have bids on a couple of purple recipes and on another Cytoskeleton... lowball bids on stuff that I would turn around and sell for more money.

This evening I ran my SSA1 as expected... but it turns out I kind of screwed things up yesterday: I only ran four vigilante tips. I was able to turn vigilante tonight (I spent my SSA hero merit on 10 converters) but I was only able to do four villain tips, so I'll only be at night tomorrow. But if I do them early enough tomorrow, at least I can turn villain Sunday morning.

I joined a Summer event mostly for the instant team and experience. Naturally I got the Overwhelming Force quad, now that I don't actually need it.

I also joined friends on a Renault Strike Force. Hey, I can do that, I'm a vigilante now! This got me level 49 and nearly halfway to level 50. We killed scrappy afterwards too.



And... I filled in the last Virtue slot on my account. This is Baron Moneybags. Not a terribly inspired character, but he doesn't need to be, he's just a filler.

When I went to sell a baron exposure later, I wondered if that name was taken as a character name....

Day 28 -- July 28, 2012





Stuff continues to sell... except for my LotG +7.5% recharge. But I'm not worried, the upcoming DXP weekend should clear out a lot of stuff that isn't selling right this minute.

I was unable to buy a "cheap" purple recipe (Absolute Amazement, Fortunata Hypnosis, Coercive Persuasion, Gravitational Anchor, or even Soulbound Alegiance & Unbreakable Constraint) for any bid of152 to 155 million. On the other hand, out of the four damage sets I've always noticed that Hectacomb and the Ragnarok knockdown proc sell cheapest. I bought this Hectacomb for 151 million, and decided after crafting it to just list it for sale rather than convert it to anything. They still go for 250 million or so crafted, though there are over 100 for sale atm.

I wasted all my converters trying to turn two semi-useless ATOs (a stalker one, and one of the tanker ones that I'm unable to sell right now) and eventually wound up with a scrapper ATO and a brute ATO, both of which I listed.



I joined some friends in a fire farm to earn my last half level to 50. Not a glamorous way to do it, I know, but I was open to anything this morning, I just wanted to get it done. Right after I slotted my Ragnarok set and then ran my Mender Ramiel arc and opened up my alpha slot. Trapdoor was easy, and I dropped the RWZ mission which I usually do.

After that an itrial seemed in order, but there weren't a lot of people in DA that I could see, so I set off to collect all of the explore badges that I had yet to collect.

This included: Dark Astoria, Cascade Archipelagio, The Chantry, Storm Palace, The Hive, Sewer Network, and Abandoned Sewer Network. After all of that, I went redside and did all of the zones there, including The Abyss and Monster Island. At this point I still haven't done Rikti War Zone or the PvP zones, but I have all other explore badges in the game outside of instance-only stuff.



Not bad for 1 month on a new account. ^_^

Now we're going to play a game called "what I did with my tickets". Early on I gave a brief demonstration of how you can make money from AE tickets, but after joining my friend's fire farm for an extended run this morning I had 1688 tickets on hand.

Of course, I could save them for when I need rare salvage that is inexplicably selling for 7 million each... but that's about 540 tickets for 1 piece of salvage. I can do better than that, I think.




What I'm doing here is bronze rolls, level 10-14. I get a lot of junk this way, but I can potentially get some very nice stuff.

As a general rule, heal and endurance and damage resist or defense recipes can usually make you money, even the less popular ones. Low level damage recipes, on the other hand, are usually junk, to say nothing of low level holds, immobilize, sleep, fear, etc.

What jumps out at me right away in the above group is the two Steadfast Protection res/def recipes. Those will make me some money. But the Adrenal Adjustment, the Regen Tissue, the Triage, the Impervious Skin, all of these are probably keepers. On the other hand, Air Burst, Bone Snap, Far Strike, Exploit Vulnerability, Unspeakable Terror, Exploit Weakness, Volley Velocity -- all of this is stuff that I delete immediately.



Let's take a look at what I have left from all of that. I'm going to check how the crafted version of these recipes are selling.





What we see here is Adrenal Adjustment endurance mod is selling for about 10 million with 3 for sale and 1 bidding... and the endurance mod/rech is selling for about 8 million with only 1 for sale.

These won't always sell immediately... but they cost nothing to craft, so I can definitely make some money here.



Impervious Skin res/end looks less rosy but again, cost to craft is virtually nil, so even a 5 million sale is profitable.



But there's no question I can make the bulk of my money here. ^_^ I have two of these to sell!

Please note that I got all my tickets in 1 run. I could have bought 3 rare salvage and if I timed it really well i might have sold that salvage for 15 million. But I'm going to make 100 million plus on the recipes I got instead, almost certainly. It will take longer and a bit more work, but I like 100 million better than 15 million.





The Regen Tissue heal/end should sell well for me too. And even the lowly Triage, a set I have never had a use for, should sell.



This paralytic is basically junk. You can sell this kind of stuff eventually, and maybe even for a profit... but it's probably more trouble than it's worth. I should have just deleted it immediately, but I wanted to check to be certain.







Cleaving Blows are plentiful and not the best set in the world, but in some cases they will sell for money. There are two reasons for this that I know of. One is that the set provides 1% endurance recovery and 1.25% energy/negative energy defense with 3 pieces. I have builds where I slot 3 pieces of Cleaving Blow and 3 pieces of Eradication for extra Energy/Neg Energy defense. Also, a lot of sets don't have a piece that boosts accuracy and recharge only; often they do damage/rech or damage/accuracy but not accuracy/recharge, so that piece is sometimes useful to frankenslotters. (Although I think Eradication has such a piece too.)

Hopefully it's obvious from the above that the acc/rech and dam/rech are sort of worth crafting and selling, even bearing in mind that they will require a piece of rare salvage (I'll want to sell the dam/rech for more than 2.5 million but there's only 1 for sale so it's doable), but the dam/end certainly is not worth crafting. Junk! Junk! Burn it!

Anyway, it should take me a while to craft and sell everything, but there's your short tutorial on how ticket farming can work. ^_^