Troyusrex

Me too. I have billions of inf floating around from crafting and selling (not to mention playing!). My time is valuable and it just isn't worth my time to save a few hundred thousand on an enhancement by waiting awhile (and, often I'm building out an entire toon and remembering what goes where isn't a trivial exercise). I say bravo to those who have the time and patience to profit from my impatience! I'm profiting from other players and I see no reason they should not profit from mine.

I've been doing a lot of trading since July and and keeping notes on it since August so I thought I'd share my observations. This has made me very rich and I'd like to give back. I've traded based on Shinobu's excellent post. This involves buying lvl 31 recipes, crafting them, converting them to rare, converting those rares to other more valuable rares and selling them. Since I've started tracking in August I've sold over 1,310 enhancements. The average enhancement has sold for $1,801,447 (more on how I price things below). Once converted to rare it takes, on average, 2.74 conversions to convert it to something reliably selling for over $1,000,000. Each one makes a tidy profit as shown below: Recipe -26,000 Craft -48,200 Convert to rare -180,000 Convert to valuable -243,000 Sell fee -180,000 Sell Price 1,800,000 Profit 1,122,800 *Note: I mostly make my own converters, but have valued them at 90,000 each for this calculation. I used to try to price enhancements individually based on going rates, but found this had several drawbacks 1) it's slow as rates don't always show up quickly in the display 2) I left a lot of unsold items if I valued things during a high priced period (such as the weekends). Eventually, I found that selling items right around a million was ideal (I vary the price a bit each time so if items go unsold I can tell exactly which batch they are from). I played around with pricing everything just under one million versus pricing it enough over 1 million to not be easy to game (like 1,000,201). I actually found I got the same average prices from each but sold under or at 1 million sold a tiny bit faster on average. Some other observations: Prices seem to be rising as my average sell price has gone from about $1,600,000 in August to almost $2,000,000 in September (for an overall average of $1,801,447). It could, however, be that I'm getting better at knowing what's valuable. Not everything I thought would sell high does. For instance Nuimna's +recovery doesn't sell that well or for great prices The easiest way to figure out what will and won't sell is to just try selling everything and over time seeing what stays in your Selling tab. This is a bit more expense at first due to posting fees, but you'll quickly get a feel for what sells Having a portable workbench is super helpful. Often while waiting for TFs or BAFs to start I sit there and convert enhancements. I mostly create these enhancements as something to do between hunting bad guys. I don't really care about the money. Still, it's given me enough cash to fully purple out multiple alts and have a few billion lying around to boot. Plus, it makes me feel good that I'm providing lots of enhancements to the community since we all need this stuff! At some points the the global recharge variety of LoTG sells for millions more than the other items in the LoTG set. If I happen to notice it (I don't often take the time to look) converting any defense that comes up to LoTG and then to the global recharge variety can pay off. But this can really eat up converters and unless the cost difference is over 2 million, isn't always cost effective. I hope this post was helpful to someone. I can say that @Shinobu's post was amazingly helpful to me.

Ah... brings me back to my fire/fire's youth! It's super true that you do so much damage that you grab aggro much of the time. I grew to HATE tanks and brutes who thought punch-voke was enough! I hate to say it, but waiting for the tank to get aggro and then being careful with how much you throw is about all you can do. Myself, I carried a lot of rezzes and learned to embrace living (and dying) on the edge. If you are soloing, you might have smaller spawns, or even go -1 level with larger spawns.

Totally depends on what you are into. My PB is my second favorite toon. My favorite is a fire/fire/fire blaster. The PB is great because he's tough and does really solid damage. Farms 4X8 with no problems. Very click heavy though. Miss reupping lightform and you faceplant. Fire/fire/fire is on the edge pure adrenaline fun. Not nearly as durable, but far more potent. A MUCH faster farmer and more helpful on teams (although always getting aggro on teams with tanks and brutes that rely on punch-voke), but self rez is a key power. Completely different styles and feel (one reason I LOVE CoH so much).

Won't pass out if you kill them first and it's a lot easier to kill them if they are in PBAoE range! In my experience Hot Feet just makes them run to range and shoot me. Of course, I'm a very aggressive blaster who lives on the edge, so I'm not saying that works for everyone.

I like that build a LOT. One thing I'm wondering about it Hot Feet. I HATE it as a power. Doesn't do a lot of damage and scares mobs so they go running out of PBAoE distance. In fact, I respeced out of it. Anyone out there really like Hot Feet? I kind of hate to not take what's supposed to be the best power in a set and I'm looking for excuses to like it.

As a very successful fire/fire/fire farmer I'd strongly endorse the "kill them before they kill you" mentality. I hadn't intended to create a farmer, I was just looking to have fun by creating the most damage dealing build I could. Even the incarnate slots are all geared towards extra damage rather than protection. I do have some protection (fire shield, tough, weave), but haven't found it increases survivability much (with the exception of the amazing T4 Barrier). Focusing on damage output worked so well that I did the Tina McIntyre arc alone and then joined a few others farming and realized I was farming better than many of the farmers I teamed with. I've gone on to farm an awful lot of hours since then. Basically, either I kill almost the entire group very quickly or I faceplant. I have two mega damage powers, Inferno and a T4 Pyro Judgement. Either one (preferably with Build up first) will wipe out all minions and LTs (with the occasional miss) and seriously damage Bosses. A quick fireball and consume clears out the rest, although it isn't uncommon for me to have to chase down a boss or two. If there are three bosses in a group and all of them survive the first couple of seconds then it's usually a tough time for me and I need inspirations. Any timing issue is deadly. So, if you jump into the middle of a group and don't hit Inferno within about a half-second, you'll be faceplanted. Aggro a second nearby group, and faceplant. With Inferno, positioning is also key. Miss half the group with your BOOM and face an awful lot of incoming fire. The T4 Judgement does notably less damage than inferno (although over a great area!), and so bosses are more likely to survive, in turn making ME less likely to survive. Still, usually VERY doable without inspirations. But, having to hit the bosses 4 times instead of 2 or 3 to finish them is a very notable difference. For those times when both Inferno and Judgement are recharging I either suck down inspirations like they are M&Ms, or I use my T4 Barrier before going in. Both work well. (note, whoever said you'd be at the damage cap by combining inspirations has a very different experience than what I've seen. My movement powers are bound to auto-convert all inspirations to damage, but even so inspirations usually get me to around 200. With Build up, 300% is usual. It's notable when I hit the full 400% when soloing). I have the farm down well and I'm at over Veteran Level 67 from it. I farm many things, but mostly the Council. I'm very quick and efficient (when farming with others I tend to go about 150% as fast as other farmers). Even so, faceplanting is not in any way unusual. Probably once every other map. After a drink or two the rate rises rapidly, showing how critical timing is to success. Rise of the Phoenix is one power I don't think I could live without! TL;DR - In short, I advocate going full out for AoE damage, with recharge super helpful as well. Defense and resistance are helpful, but not at the expense of more damage.

I'm leveling up a beasts/Time MM now. (at 46, I think). I do see this bug from time to time, but not often. I'd guess it's closer to 3% than 30%. When it happens I just tell them to attack my target and away they go, so it's not a huge issue.

I've been playing a bunch of alts and I just have to say that my fire/fire/fire/pyronic blaster is a complete MONSTER. I need to get HeroStats up so I can show just how effective he is with actual data, but even in ITF people are amazed at the damage I'm dealing. Even now I still face plant occasionally. Not often, but enough that I haven't respeced out RotP. I feel like Jaffar "the POWER! The absolute POWER!" (and, yes, I know it doesn't work out well for him).

I can't speak to Shockwave. Never used it. I can also say I agree with you when soloing. The other powers keep them disoriented enough and do damage. However, when playing with a large team Gale has been great. A lot of fun and super useful.

Super helpful! I'll give it a try. I wonder why that didn't come up when I searched the forums for "Gale" earlier...

So, I've always hated Gale as a power for stormies due to the awful knockback. However, I feel the KB->KD IO has changed it from a "why?" power to a "whoa!" power. It's now a wide cone quick recharge knockdown that keeps large groups on their ass. VERY useful in a group when used carefully. I'm looking for slotting thoughts on how to make it even better. I'm thinking of throwing in a bunch of damage procs to give it some kick. Range, accuracy and recharge are also all useful. But I know there's a lot of uber knowledgable people on these boards and I bet someone has some better ideas about how to slot this to top benefit. Thanks for your thoughts!

I'm at lvl 50 with 17+ veteran's levels, full set of Incarnate slots (half 3s half 4s) and a few Purple IOs (albeit not fully slotted up yet) all focused on max AOE DoT. It is GLORIOUS and well worth the difficulties at lower levels. Huge groups go down in flames around me and I solo with difficulty set for an 8 person team (and would LOVE to go higher if they had it!!!) But even now faceplants aren't uncommon. If I misjudge my placement on my nova, Pyronic Core Radial Judgement or fireball/firebreath/etc.. then I can go down fast and hard. Some things that help are 1) Fire shield from the fire mastery set, 2) tough/weave 3) using IO sets to enhance resistance and defense 4) Knockdown defense from abilites or IOs 5) status resistance/protection from abilities ad IOs. But what's MOST effective, especially when soloing, is inspirations. Suck them down like candy, take on a huge group and your inspiration tray will be almost full again. (I'm set not to get Rezzes and I often convert heals and energy defense or to to-hit and attack). I would call Fire/Fire/Fire a great veteran build for players who want a wild ride while being the absolute best AOE damage dealer.