Rare salvage and you.

[Ukase]

Many, by now are aware of a multitude of ways to get rare salvage. 

Farm or just play for it - the drops do come eventually. But if it's a specific rare you need...that may take some time. AE allows the use of 540 AE tickets for a specific rare salvage of your choice. It seems easy enough, but the ticket cap in AE prevents this from being anything but tedious, as you have to restart each mission within a couple of minutes if your farm character is fairly quick at dispatching the mobs. 

Spend a reward merit - the servers are still down, so I can't be specific, but the merit vendor does let you exchange reward merits for random rare salvage. I just can't recall if it's 1 reward merit or an even more heinous 5 reward merits. EDIT: Per the HC Wiki, it is indeed 5 reward merits. No thanks. But the option is there. 

Brain Storm Ideas: 20 per random rare. You can buy these, the current price on the AH is 25k each. I've gotten them as cheap as 15k before. But with the current demand, either real or artificially ramped up by some market manipulators, they're selling now for 25k easily enough. 
These can also be acquired through Winter and Super Packs. Thanks to Bopper sharing Faultline's data, we know they average 19.7 BS ideas per pack. And, since Hero/Villain packs are only 10M, it's probably the best path to take, if you've the mindset for picking through all the packs and monetizing each goodie you get. 

But - this is frankly what I've been doing. It's not like I won't eventually use the ATOs in these packs. Eventually. I mean, sooner or later I'll either convert some of the lesser used ones like the Sentinels, but eventually. Sure. The dilemma for me is the endless seconds wasted between clicks. But, when the player or players that are driving up the cost of rare salvage to 800k or so, it helps me get a nicer return on each pack. 

And, the easiest thing is to just bid your fair price, whatever that is for you - and just wait. I'm doing that too. Lots of bids in at 420K for rares in the tier I like to craft in. 

So, the point of this post isn't to boast, but to ask - is there something I'm missing? I have an SG for my lowbies; they stash rare salvage in it when they don't need it. These items are sometimes useful, but it's the marketing characters that really go through them. Some days, I think I'll need an SG to hold just one tiers worth of salvage to do the crafting I need to do on certain days. 

What's your method for getting around the higher prices of the rare salvage? 

Remember - it's not like I don't have it. But every inf I save in my "manufacturing" adds up. When enough add up, it's one less item I need to sell to make the same amount of inf. Or, cheaper prices on the AH. 

 

[tidge]

I put rare salvage in the personal vault of each character. I have two racks in the SG base for rare salvage... I keep this 'buffet' stocked. If I need a specific rare piece that I don't have, I just AH some pieces that I don't need.

[Hedgefund]

Brain storms drop from a day job as well.  I don't even know which day job it is (and don't really care) but they pile up.  These are an asset I just drop off in my "misc" salvage storage for my banker to swoop up periodically.  As said in OP they rain in from packs as well.

 

So actually just a couple of hours ago I noticed that my normal bid for rares had gone unfilled for a few days now.  I don't monitor the market but seeing that there's a clear trend up made me think of my brain storm stash so I just plowed through a few thousand to up the supply (at a fair, but not a bargain price for current conditions).  If the trend is continuing tomorrow I'll repeat.

 

As for the unfilled bids, whatevah.  They'll eventually get filled and I'm very, very patient.  I purchase my purple recipes at level 1 and don't PL so I've got weeks before I'll need them crafted.

 

 

[tidge]

10 hours ago, Hedgefund said:

So actually just a couple of hours ago I noticed that my normal bid for rares had gone unfilled for a few days now.  I don't monitor the market but seeing that there's a clear trend up made me think of my brain storm stash so I just plowed through a few thousand to up the supply (at a fair, but not a bargain price for current conditions).  If the trend is continuing tomorrow I'll repeat.

 

The influx of new level 50s (from Mapserver, from ToT) usually signals more market activity.

[Hedgefund]

57 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

The influx of new level 50s (from Mapserver, from ToT) usually signals more market activity.

 

 

[The Trouble]

I'm cheap and lazy in wildly inconsistent ways.

 

"500k+ for rare salvage?!  No way am I paying that much!  Time to spend hundreds of millions on booster packs to get some more Brainstorms..."

 

Now at least half of my base storage is dedicated to rare salvage the RNG dumped on me while I was waiting for one Hamidon Goo.  It's convenient for those purple recipes, but I would have a hard time recommending my method.  At least whatever ATO I might want is readily available!

[lemming]

1 hour ago, The Trouble said:

I'm cheap and lazy in wildly inconsistent ways.

Glad I'm not the only one. I'll convert tons of stuff to avoid spending a few million on enhancements.  I mean it kinda seems to be fine since I'm still building up influence while fully outfitting characters.   Some of this is from retiring characters and selling off their basic IOs and such that cost more to craft at the time.

 

I rarely buy rare salvage.  I almost always have enough on hand somewhere.

[Yomo Kimyata]

To each their own.  I don't see the point in storing rare salvage in base or on character at all, because there is always more coming in to the market.  So when I notice one of my characters has a few rares, I'll post them on the /AH at a price that won't sell immediately, but probably will soon(tm).  That said, I've got a handful of mules with a thousand+ in storage in case the grid goes down and the zombies take over, so I can always sell them to myself if need be.

 

And if I need a lot of specific rares?  Well, then I'm going to weigh price versus timeliness.  I don't particularly want to pay the seeded cap (1mm), but I've done it (not bloody recently).  I'll bid creep until I find a large enough block.  But generally, I'll sell a single rare and note the highest outstanding bid.  If I find that a reasonable level, I'll put in all my bids at a slightly higher price and check back later.  You may be shocked to hear that it generally fills very quickly depending on how many you are looking to buy.  Thirty?  Very quickly.  Three thousand?  Well, then you run the real risk that someone else does the exact same thing and marginally outbids you.

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

To each their own.  I don't see the point in storing rare salvage in base or on character at all, because there is always more coming in to the market.  So when I notice one of my characters has a few rares, I'll post them on the /AH at a price that won't sell immediately, but probably will soon(tm).  That said, I've got a handful of mules with a thousand+ in storage in case the grid goes down and the zombies take over, so I can always sell them to myself if need be.

 

And if I need a lot of specific rares?  Well, then I'm going to weigh price versus timeliness.  I don't particularly want to pay the seeded cap (1mm), but I've done it (not bloody recently).  I'll bid creep until I find a large enough block.  But generally, I'll sell a single rare and note the highest outstanding bid.  If I find that a reasonable level, I'll put in all my bids at a slightly higher price and check back later.  You may be shocked to hear that it generally fills very quickly depending on how many you are looking to buy.  Thirty?  Very quickly.  Three thousand?  Well, then you run the real risk that someone else does the exact same thing and marginally outbids you.

I basically do the same. I also convert my brainstorms from Superpacks into rares, and post them for sale at a pretty high, uncommonly reached level. These for a reserve for me to buy from myself if I get desperate, and sometimes they eventually sell to other people at huge profits. Every now and then, prices of rares reach right up to the seed price of 1 million each.

 

I also try to bid for rares at least a day in advance of needing them. It's amazing how many you can get at a fair price if you are patient.

[lemming]

I think it matters on how much crafting one does.   I'm pretty low volume I suspect in comparison.  I might sell a dozen enhancements a week that I just know tend to go for decent amounts on the AH, but they're just ones that pop out of a conversion roulette.  (and then I tend to use part of those proceeds to buy the cheaper alternative that I was actually going for)

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, lemming said:

I think it matters on how much crafting one does.   I'm pretty low volume I suspect in comparison.  I might sell a dozen enhancements a week that I just know tend to go for decent amounts on the AH, but they're just ones that pop out of a conversion roulette.  (and then I tend to use part of those proceeds to buy the cheaper alternative that I was actually going for)

That's a good point. I'm presently taking a break, but when I'm active I'm going through an easy thousand or more rare salvages per week.