Robotech_Master

I've spent 20 million on Enhancement converters myself, at 100k each, but I guess that's not what you did. :) (My own usual goof is to forget to change the numbers after I buy some rare salvage, and then buy 10 Luck Charms or something for 500,000 each...)

Yeah, hear hear. And also, one of the reasons I play this game is to feel like I'm good at something. I do love mowing through mobs with my 50+1 Fire/Fire Tanker, as I feel like I'm good at that--but I also like the feeling of looking at 10 digits in my Inf counter and feeling like I'm good at making it grow through conversion practices too. :)

Well, I've updated the leadership and consignment market guides with some I25 stuff (which I really hope the ParagonWiki folks don't have any trouble with, given they've apparently decided that the wiki itself is going to stop with I24), and I posted an updated version of the Bloody Bay guide to the ParagonWiki guides section, too. I may tweak the set recipes one at some future point. But right now, I think I'm going to work on bringing my XP Gain/Debt Loss guide current, it being my magnum opus from the old days. So, any suggestions for things to put in there will be appreciated!

If we're counting out-of-game stuff too, I guess all the guides I've written and write are my way of giving back. (Heh. Randomly speed boosting people. Gives me an image of some citizen walking along minding his own business, then suddenly zooming ahead to smack face-first into a wall... :) )

Right, but how would I know if I even have any tips? I've never bothered with them.

I don't know anything about tips, as I've never really looked into changing my alignment. How do I find those?

So, you made a fortune on the market, or you hit level 50 and make mad Inf just by breathing, you have a super-powerful character and most if not all of the things you could want. How do you pass some of that on and make life easier for people just starting their characters? I like to hang around Atlas Park and play hide-and-seek for money, giving out pretty softball clues so I'm easy to find. ("I'm hanging out with an old friend from Galaxy City" when I'm standing by Back-Alley Brawler.) Or sometimes I'll just go up to random people, hit trade, and drop a million Inf on them when they accept. Sometimes I'll show people how to do Enhancement Conversion to turn Uncommons into more salable Rares, too--occasionally holding a class for several at once. And, of course, I'll sometimes invite a few along on a x8/+2 Peregrine Island radio mission with my 50+1 Fire/Fire Tanker and proceed to lay the smack down and get them some levels. What do you like to do?

I remember when dying outside a mission was good for a whole bar of XP debt (and inside a mission was half a bar). Boy, did they ever nerf that back...

I thought I'd explained that in the guide, but maybe it wasn't clear enough. If you go to the set IOs page on ParagonWiki that I link to from the guide, you'll see that there are a lot of sets that top out at level 30 or 40. Which means that levels starting at 31 or 41 are high enough not to have the possibility of converting into something from one of those sets. Fewer sets available at a given level means there are fewer things that your random conversion might randomly convert into. As I say, there are a number of set categories where only two sets exist between level 31 and 50--an uncommon set and a rare set. This means that any time you convert out-of-set, in-category from one of those uncommons, it can only turn into a rare--which you can then convert out-of-set, in-rarity for just one converter, getting a random other rare that could be worth considerably more. For those categories, anything between 31 and 50 would work, but I suggest 31 because it has the lowest crafting costs out of the entire range, or 41 because it is the lowest-crafting-cost end of the 41-50 range that reduces the number of sets that a rare could convert into (and, also, level 41 uses a different set of salvage from level 31 recipes, so if you filled up on stuff from your level-50 adventuring, that's a way to get rid of some of it usefully rather than just dragging it onto the auctionhouse). Remember, since the market uses "bucketing," it really doesn't matter what level you craft and sell--it'll always turn into whatever level the other person wants to buy.

Said every time I run into an Aberrant Eremite: "Eremite! But then again, Eremite not!"

Why do Stone Tankers feel unloved? Because people keep taking them for granite.

Another such "safe" item might be Disciplines, which are in the market solely because there were still some floating around Live from the days before they were replaced by Break Frees, but shouldn't exist in this new server. Unless there's some way to actually get Disciplines now...

Right. If you craft enough of particular levels of particular types of Common IO recipe, you memorize them. You no longer need a recipe, and crafting costs drop in half, so effectively it only costs 1/4 as much to craft them as it did. Also, if you memorize all recipes levels 10-40, and craft 1000 items, you earn a free portable crafting table.

I think the point is that level 53 HOs don't/can't actually exist, but they can still be bid on in the marketplace because it goes up to 54 on everything.

Your question is predicated on the idea of money for Enhancements being a worry. But, you know, it doesn't have to be. Making money by converting Uncommon Enhancements into salable Rares is really pretty simple, and doesn't have a whole lot of start-up costs when you start small. You could be making millions of Inf at level one, zero XP, before you even smack a single bad guy. Then you could buy any Enhancements you feel like, whenever you want. But if and for as long as money is a worry, you can probably save a packet by placing low bids on Common IO Enhancements, which at low levels are often dumped on the market by people who craft them to memorize them for the badges, but don't have any earthly use for them themselves. Those Enhancements don't expire, though better versions do become available every five levels, so they could last you for a good amount of time.

Heh...now I've got the idea for a City of Villains character named Money Mule, who used to be a bag carrier in bank robberies but moved up in the world...

No, this doesn't apply to common IOs, SOs, DOs, etc. This only applies to things that are special and rare: set IOs, Hami-Os, etc. And salvage.

I remember when there used to be a map hole under the balcony in the nuclear reactor map, that allowed people with teleport powers to cheese past most of the mobs and port the rest of the team out at the end. Players will just find a way to exploit any loophole, won't they? :)

It works pretty well, actually! And once you memorize enough of the recipes (basically, get the badges for all the recipes 1-40), you earn a free Portable Crafting Table summon. (You can also buy it for 10 million Inf from the P2W store, which is slightly cheaper than crafting all those IOs, but on the other hand after you memorize all the IOs you'll be able to craft them on the cheap, which can be handy for your alts.)

When I tried this last night, I settled on a compromise. I noticed there are a couple of LotG that sell for a couple million less than the rest of the set on average, so I just reconvert those. It may become the global recharge, but even if it doesn't it still more than pays for the extra conversion.

Went ahead and updated the guide to reduce its dependence on Doctored Wounds, which has shot to sky high pricing since shortly after I first wrote the guide, and to expand the section talking about the importance of waiting for your items to sell.

As far as I know, once you change back afterward you're all good.

If you don't recognize them, then that's a great incentive to take part in them and see something new to you. Remember, heroes and villains can easily jump sides now via Null the Gull in Pocket D. I'd also like to point out that Shadow Shard TFs no longer need to be the ungodly slog you remember them as. (Well, except perhaps Justin Augustine.) The Team Transporter power is amazingly awesome for killing off excessive travel time between missions--which is really helpful when a Task Force may send you from the Shadow Shard to Paragon City and back...several times. It's 10 million Inf, but worth every penny--and by the time you get to the high 40s, you should be able to afford a purchase like that anyway. I actually went ahead and bought it for every member of my team who didn't have it, given that I've got nearly a billion Inf to my name from conversion marketeering. Highly recommend doing the same. Everyone on the team having it will make sure there's always at least one available. (The only Shard TF where it won't help as much is Justin Augustine, next week's, where it's about 90% "run here, kill X mobs, click a glowie, run there, kill X mobs, click a glowie, go talk to Faathead the Kind of Annoying in the Chantry, et cetera," and there are only like three or four door missions. When I do that one, I'm gonna be spending most of my time flying from place to place while the rest of the team kills stuff so I can Incandescence them to the next hunt zone before flying on to the one after that while they kill things. So, y'know, for next week's, try to get an Incarnate with Incandescence on your team--or if you are an Incarnate, go ahead and craft/slot at least the first level of Incandescence yourself for the purpose of that trial--to serve as your taxi service.)

Well, to play devil's advocate here, powerleveling and tricking out your build are not necessarily as unrelated as you would think. They're both part of the process of building the best, most powerful character that you possibly can. And both XP and powerful IO sets are a lot easier to come by now than they were on live. I do like that from the point of view of it being easier to build the kind of character you want to build without all the grinding you used to have to do, but I do wonder whether they don't have a point about things being too easy. But I do think the game would have to lose a ton of people before it got that hard to raise the funds to keep it going. After all, I was playing the last time they opened--and closed--their request for fundraising, and saw just how short a time they were able to do it in. So what if maybe someday it takes a whole day instead of only twenty minutes? I don't doubt they'll manage to get by.

Why keep it in email? You've got 1,000 alt slots available. Make some extra characters just to serve as money mules.