Who keeps buying these enhancement converters for such crazy prices?

[FrogTheToad]

Might just be me not understanding how either Auction House or ECs work, but they seem to be pretty cheap with Merits and why in any universe would you need like 50 million of them. This is an over exaggeration, but you know want I mean. And you can't really say it's due to the playerbase, since on average, I think no more then like 200 people are on a server at a time. That's probably a way overestimation, but every time I put forty ECs on the market they seem to instantly sell. Even hundred ECs. 

So if anyone can tell me, a AH newb, what I'm missing or what's the deal. I'd be much appreciative. 

Edited December 30, 2021 by FrogTheToad

[Six-Six]

The AH is a strange and mysterious place.

Pay no attention to the "recent prices" listing. After a while you'll get familiar with how much a certain thing costs.

[SeraphimKensai]

Yeah @Six-Sixis right about recent price listings, they can be a trap to make people bid higher than what inventory is listed for.

[SuperPlyx]

So I started a new marketer guy awhile back. And I wanted to completely isolate him so I made a new account for him.  I powerleveled him to level 10 and with what inf he got in the farm he was off and running.

 

Now I mention this because you say getting convertors with merits is easier and question why buy em and why buy so many.

This market toon I made has no merits, will never get merits, so I buy convertors, hundreds at a time. Now I buy at certain price and wait for bids to fill. A lot of the higher price you see if people in a hurry and just buying say 10 or 20 at a time. 

 

Say you got a purple to drop but it is an ACC/DAM but you need a DAM/RECHARGE to complete the set. You buy 10 or 20 convertors and get the one you need.

[Andreah]

On 12/30/2021 at 4:16 AM, FrogTheToad said:

And you can't really say it's due to the playerbase, since on average, I think no more then like 200 people are on a server at a time.

There is only one market shared by all the servers. 

 

Also, there are players who go through hundreds, and possibly thousands of enhancement converters each day. I'm one of them, at least in the low hundreds ranges. I generally put up bid for them at modestly low offering prices, and let those sit overnights, or even several days to fill. Chances are, when you list your few dozen or even hundred converters, someone like me already has bids for many hundreds in above your listing price, and they sell instantly. If you list them higher, you could sell them more slowly, and get better prices. 

 

For example; if you go to the market with a hundred converters to sell, try selling just one first, listing it really low, and see what price it actually sells for. Then, look at that price, and if that price isn't crazy, list the rest just a tiny bit above that, and let them sit for a day. You could easily get ten or even twenty percent more for your converters by listing them at a price point that doesn't sell instantly.

Edited February 6, 2022 by Andreah
Spelling correction

[Yomo Kimyata]

As an experiment once, I ran a character that was only allowed to get converters by buying merits at 1mm per (making them effectively worth 333,333 each).  After I made 1bn profit, I considered that proof of concept.

 

Converters are truly magic, but I recognize that many many people would rather dump their merits than use them to make even more inf.  I am very very thankful for those many many people.

[Without_Pause]

19 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Converters are truly magic, but I recognize that many many people would rather dump their merits than use them to make even more inf.  I am very very thankful for those many many people.

I have a solo SG with 6 salvage racks incase I need a character to dump a bunch of converters to my main for use, and I could honestly build many more as one character has near 700 Merits. 2.1k converters so I can convert purples over at the cost of a single converter. That's billions of currency on a single character.

[Andreah]

I don't get many merits, so I just buy my converters off the auction. The profit I make off each converter is high enough whether I buy it at 60k or 80k makes no appreciable difference to me.

[Ukase]

On 12/30/2021 at 4:16 AM, FrogTheToad said:

Might just be me not understanding how either Auction House or ECs work, but they seem to be pretty cheap with Merits and why in any universe would you need like 50 million of them. This is an over exaggeration, but you know want I mean. And you can't really say it's due to the playerbase, since on average, I think no more then like 200 people are on a server at a time. That's probably a way overestimation, but every time I put forty ECs on the market they seem to instantly sell. Even hundred ECs. 

So if anyone can tell me, a AH newb, what I'm missing or what's the deal. I'd be much appreciative. 

So, this is what I will share:
About 5 months ago, I crossed a line with influence. Some folks stash surplus inf in the AH with bids on things that don't exist. I am not one of those. I keep mine in email. But each account can only hold 100 emails. So, when each of my three accounts were capped, I had to make a 4th. And, since there's no reason to not put the 4th account to work in addition to just holding inf, I made an afk farmer with it, with the idea of recycling the farmer at a convenient point to maximize emp merits to convert to reward merits, to convert into converters. 

But, when you see an opportunity that tends to avail itself when Dr. Q (244 merits for roughly an hour for most speed teams) and Apex/Tin Mage (80 merits each, 120 total, as they're usually run in tandem for 20-30 minutes, total) the converters get dumped on the market, as they're a fast way to make inf. Doing all the clicking to stock up on converters is tedious, but if you can just bite the bullet once and load up on them for cheaper than normal (sub 70k), I am one who will use every available auction house slot I have on multiple characters to get them. 
In fact, if I sniff out anyone wanted to unload a bunch of them, I'll pay 70k each for as many as they have, as a courtesy. Saves me some clicking, saves them some clicking and 10%. Win/win. And I will make all of that 700M for the 10K converters back plus some, simply by using them wisely. 

It's not unheard of for me to go through 3000 converters a day. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. 

So, if you look through the guides, or through this sub-forum, there's plenty of information to be found about the actual USING of converters for influence, as opposed to just selling them. 

When you have a character that is just playing content, they get recipes without you doing anything extra. You're playing the game, enjoying yourself. And at the end of your game session, you look in your inventory. Some of these you can craft with the salvage that's dropped, some you can't. 

Craft what you can, as long as it's yellow (uncommon) or orange (rare) or purple (very rare). 
Look at the AH for that crafted IO. See what it's selling for. Subtract 10-15%. That's what you might consider selling it for. 
Would you make any profit? Consider that the recipe was free - but also consider what the recipe is selling for on the AH. Consider the cost of the salvage you used to craft the recipe. 
 

example to follow: 

A perplex recipe, level 50. On the AH, this might sell for 1 inf, or it might sell for 75K. Maybe a touch more to 100k. But for the most part, without looking at it in-game due to maintenance, 30-50k. The salvage used is 3 commons (3x300 inf) + 1 uncommon (2000 inf), plus the cost of crafting for a level 50 recipe...what is it..467K, I think. I think it's safe to say that this IO cost roughly 500k to craft - but on the AH, it sells for anywhere from 300k to 700k. Unless someone adds an extra zero and overbids. So, what to do? You've just spent 500k to craft it, and there's no real profit to be had.  

You convert it from the uncommon perplex to a rare - and you'd likely end up with Malaise's Illusion, assuming the IO is over level 30. If not, you may end up with one of the other 2. But as it's a level 50 in this example, you get the Malaise's Illusion. A Rare IO. Now, this sells for a bit more. And if patient, you can sell this for 1M to maybe 1.3M, depending on which one, and the whims of the market. 
But, if you use more converters, there's no telling what you might get. You could get lucky and immediately get an LotG 7.5% (luck of the gambler Defense/7.5% global recharge) or you might get something that sells for even less. Me, I keep clicking until I get one of my preferred IOs that will sell for 3-8M. It rarely costs me more than a dozen converters. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. 

Opportunity cost of 15 converters: 1,050,000 influence. So, in this example, I've invested about 1.5M. If i make 3m, I make just less than double my investment. Now, when I do this for 250 IOs a day...that's about 250x1.2M=300m per day, total profit, at least. The salvage, the converters, the recipes - most of that stuff drops from the sky, free. But sometimes, even though I'm recycling characters for their emp merits to turn into converters, the easy, quick sales of converters can be used to help other players out, and save me some time as well. 

[tidge]

Just another voice...

 

22 hours ago, Ukase said:

When you have a character that is just playing content, they get recipes without you doing anything extra. You're playing the game, enjoying yourself. And at the end of your game session, you look in your inventory. Some of these you can craft with the salvage that's dropped, some you can't. 

Craft what you can, as long as it's yellow (uncommon) or orange (rare) or purple (very rare). 
Look at the AH for that crafted IO. See what it's selling for. Subtract 10-15%. That's what you might consider selling it for. 
Would you make any profit? Consider that the recipe was free - but also consider what the recipe is selling for on the AH. Consider the cost of the salvage you used to craft the recipe.

 

The quoted excerpt is pretty much exactly what I do after having crossed the point of "I've got enough Inf"... certainly for a given character, but occasionally when I don't feel like emailing Inf from wealthy characters to poorer characters. The only other thing that I factor into my math for this type of behavior (at level 50+) is that the average vendor price of a level 50 common recipe is ~100Kinf... so if I am just crafting dropped recipes I make sure to sell these recipes to the vendor to get Inf to cover crafting costs.

 

When I remember, I try to max out the day job crafting coupons, but I only use them on Purple recipes (base crafting cost is 600Kinf, IIRC)... and only if I remember. Ultimately this is just such a small relative amount of Inf I rarely even remember to do this.

 

This is not an optimal strategy for making Inf, but it does make Inf.

[SableShrike]

Bit of a thread necro, but I found a trick so lucrative that you can start the loot game at level 1 or so with no outside cash transfers.

 

Run the first few areas’ zone badges ( and save roughly 20-30 Merits and buy all Converters.

 

Sell most, but keep 40-50 Converters.

 

Get on the AH under Recipes and find a cheap Uncommon **at level 15**.

 

That level is important as the Converter tables contain some crazy good stuff.  
 

Kismet, Karma, Achilles’, Steadfast, Reactive, Serendipity.

 

Buy and build 30 or so of the cheap Uncommon Recipes.

 

Convert them with 1 Converter in the Out of Set Uncommon option.

 

Keep doing so until you get one of the above set IOs then sell it.

 

The big important part is Achilles’; any time you get a Defense Debuff Uncommon, flip it with the Convert in Defense Debuff option to an Achilles’.  Then Convert however many times you need to get the Achilles’ -Res.

 

Every IO in the above sets goes for 1 million at least.   Steadfast Res/Def are at least 3 million.  Achilles’ -Res is at least 4.5 million.

 

Doing this with 30 level fifteen cheapo recipes usually nets me about 30 to 50 million.

 

And the only limiting factors are buyers and you finding cheap recipes to buy at level 15.

 

Anyone, no matter how new, can be a multi-millionaire in a few hours with this completely legal trick.

 

Edit: forgot the relevant bit for this thread, but the margins for doing the above are so high that you can afford to buy Converters at 70-80k each and still turn millions in profit.

Edited February 5, 2022 by SableShrike

[Andreah]

13 hours ago, SableShrike said:

Bit of a thread necro, but I found a trick so lucrative that you can start the loot game at level 1 or so with no outside cash transfers.

 

... <snip/good stuff/snip> ...

 

This is an excellent and easily followed basic money-maker. I'm going to use the share in the three-dots to link this to my Supergroup's Discord. Nice work!

[SableShrike]

Happy to help!

 

I was just messing around with spare Converters when I found this out by accident.

 

Pretty sure other tricks like this have been posted before, but I was still surprised how reliable this is.

 

Used it to completely finish my Warshade and Crab’s purpled/HO’d builds yesterday.

 

If you’re willing to put in a day’s work it oughta let you completely IO an entire build of any AT with zero farming required.

 

Obviously farmers are still important to the economy’s health as we need them to be selling the purples that market tricks let us buy.

 

In turn, this market trick helps make the armor and -Res IOs farm builds need more cheaply available.  I filled a lotta orders yesterday!

 

It’s all symbiotic!

Edited February 6, 2022 by SableShrike

[Clave Dark 5]

18 hours ago, SableShrike said:

Anyone, no matter how new, can be a multi-millionaire in a few hours with this completely legal trick.

That's what they always say right before they get arrested! 

 

Seriously though, it's nice to see it spelled out like this.  I'm not ever hurting for money, but I wouldn't mind having a larger chunk ever-present to draw from.  Now if I can just get past the "this is boring like homework" aspect of the whole thing...

[Ukase]

4 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

That's what they always say right before they get arrested! 

 

Seriously though, it's nice to see it spelled out like this.  I'm not ever hurting for money, but I wouldn't mind having a larger chunk ever-present to draw from.  Now if I can just get past the "this is boring like homework" aspect of the whole thing...

The only way I ever did homework was when I liked the teacher. If I didn't like the teacher, it just wasn't gonna happen. So, to that end, in order to graduate, I had to find things about the teacher to like. Harder for some than others. 

With marketing, for me, it's often a hoot to be there, at level 2, with the AH open, and starting with zip, being able to kit out the character with all the toys in short order. Doing it all by myself, only tangentially relying on others who sell recipes for reasons that escape my logic. I've only ever sold common recipes on the AH, and those were for a badge. But, some folks, instead of vendoring for 80-110k, will list on AH for 1 inf. 

It is these people that I must credit for my billions. It would have all taken me much longer to get there, otherwise. Still, I get a kick out of doing it. Call me a masochist, I guess. I also like relying solely on the rng to slot out a character every now and then. I would probably do it with every character if the npcs would follow the games original rng and have Hellions drop magic DOs, (or SOs), Trolls drop Mutation enhancements, etc.  And lord help me, I don't get why an End Mod enhancement (or common recipe) is so damn rare to drop. 

[tidge]

There are even simpler tricks, which I am sure new marketeers will discover in time. Mileage may vary as far as how much Inf can be made on the margins, but suffice it to say, there are a LOT of different ways to accumulate Inf in the auction house, and I've landed on market strategies that also serve purposes in addition to collecting raw Inf.

[Golden Azrael]

On 2/7/2022 at 5:54 PM, tidge said:

There are even simpler tricks, which I am sure new marketeers will discover in time. Mileage may vary as far as how much Inf can be made on the margins, but suffice it to say, there are a LOT of different ways to accumulate Inf in the auction house, and I've landed on market strategies that also serve purposes in addition to collecting raw Inf.

 

On 2/5/2022 at 12:52 PM, SableShrike said:

Bit of a thread necro, but I found a trick so lucrative that you can start the loot game at level 1 or so with no outside cash transfers.

 

Run the first few areas’ zone badges ( and save roughly 20-30 Merits and buy all Converters.

 

Sell most, but keep 40-50 Converters.

 

Get on the AH under Recipes and find a cheap Uncommon **at level 15**.

 

That level is important as the Converter tables contain some crazy good stuff.  
 

Kismet, Karma, Achilles’, Steadfast, Reactive, Serendipity.

 

Buy and build 30 or so of the cheap Uncommon Recipes.

 

Convert them with 1 Converter in the Out of Set Uncommon option.

 

Keep doing so until you get one of the above set IOs then sell it.

 

The big important part is Achilles’; any time you get a Defense Debuff Uncommon, flip it with the Convert in Defense Debuff option to an Achilles’.  Then Convert however many times you need to get the Achilles’ -Res.

 

Every IO in the above sets goes for 1 million at least.   Steadfast Res/Def are at least 3 million.  Achilles’ -Res is at least 4.5 million.

 

Doing this with 30 level fifteen cheapo recipes usually nets me about 30 to 50 million.

 

And the only limiting factors are buyers and you finding cheap recipes to buy at level 15.

 

Anyone, no matter how new, can be a multi-millionaire in a few hours with this completely legal trick.

 

Edit: forgot the relevant bit for this thread, but the margins for doing the above are so high that you can afford to buy Converters at 70-80k each and still turn millions in profit.

 

 

Interesting.

 

I've seen this advice on YouTube ie.  Pick up loot and roll it using a convertor.

 

I note the L15s are in demand.  So people catch on to the tricks I guess (convertor tables and all...)

 

I find playing this game depends on dice roll luck.  (or getting L15 enhans.)

 

I've gone through 40 convertors and not got a good roll and you're down 2.8 million at 70k each.  Sometimes I'm up.  

 

What it has helped me to see.  Rather than selling all my recipe loot for nominal '1 cent' at the AHouse, take some time to make them as you get more for made IOs than you do recipes.

 

IT can be a drag crafting, but if you get into it or set aside some time to do it for all your 'junk' you can get better prices for Luck of the Gambler, Unbreakable Guard, Experienced MMan etc than the prices I was selling them for, which was peanuts.

 

If you do that and roll a few convertors on yellow (uncommon?) enhances you make, you can bring in some millions.

 

Using Farming, raw mission farming with Council (so quick to rinse Council missions...), IO making, Convertor rolling.  Having a mixed strategy really helps.  Also, looking down the back of the sofa on old alts, unplayed alts, holding them upside down for every cent that falls out of their pockets and you can make tens of millions, find 50 million here and there and before you know it you've gone from spending 700 million on  abuild to getting back to 150 million and all the way up to 1 billion if you make a concerted effort with this strategies.

 

Beginners ask 'How do I make money?'  Get a L50 as quick as you can.  And play it.  *ie.  Play your L50s before racing to the next one.  That will fund your next build. 

 

Key: Ordinary recipes are 100K+ a pop.  Sell ten of those drops and you're over a million.  Plus the influence earned for rinsing Council Radio Missions at +3x8.

 

The osmosis will see you sitting on 200 million before you know it.

 

Azrael.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Golden Azrael

[Golden Azrael]

On 2/5/2022 at 12:52 PM, SableShrike said:

Bit of a thread necro, but I found a trick so lucrative that you can start the loot game at level 1 or so with no outside cash transfers.

 

Run the first few areas’ zone badges ( and save roughly 20-30 Merits and buy all Converters.

 

Sell most, but keep 40-50 Converters.

 

Get on the AH under Recipes and find a cheap Uncommon **at level 15**.

 

That level is important as the Converter tables contain some crazy good stuff.  
 

Kismet, Karma, Achilles’, Steadfast, Reactive, Serendipity.

 

Buy and build 30 or so of the cheap Uncommon Recipes.

 

Convert them with 1 Converter in the Out of Set Uncommon option.

 

Keep doing so until you get one of the above set IOs then sell it.

 

The big important part is Achilles’; any time you get a Defense Debuff Uncommon, flip it with the Convert in Defense Debuff option to an Achilles’.  Then Convert however many times you need to get the Achilles’ -Res.

 

Every IO in the above sets goes for 1 million at least.   Steadfast Res/Def are at least 3 million.  Achilles’ -Res is at least 4.5 million.

 

Doing this with 30 level fifteen cheapo recipes usually nets me about 30 to 50 million.

 

And the only limiting factors are buyers and you finding cheap recipes to buy at level 15.

 

Anyone, no matter how new, can be a multi-millionaire in a few hours with this completely legal trick.

 

Edit: forgot the relevant bit for this thread, but the margins for doing the above are so high that you can afford to buy Converters at 70-80k each and still turn millions in profit.

 

They seem to be in demand...

 

Azrael.

[UltraAlt]

Typical manipulation tactic to drive up the sale price.