crafting Craft & Convert: Detailed Step-by-Step Guide

[Shinobu]

I and several others have posted guides on how to use converters to craft and convert to items that will sell on the market and make you good money, and yet I still find people that struggle with the process.  This boils down to familiarity with the market, knowing what to buy, at what level to buy it, and what will sell.  So I thought a step-by-step guide on exactly what I do to make money would be useful.  This process usually nets me 50 to 75 million influence per session, per character that I do it with.

 

Note:  This guide assumes you understand how to use converters.  If you're brand new to this, you might want to read one of the other guides first, then this one once you have the basics down.  That said, it's pretty self-explanatory if you study the converter window and play around a bit.

 

Step One:  Buy Converters

 

You will probably need at least 100 converters at a minimum, but 200 for preference.  If you have enough money, buy converters off the market -- otherwise you can start out by buying them with reward merits.  I usually put in bids of around 90,000 per converter and give my bids 24 hours to fill, and they almost always do in that time.  200 converters at 90,000 influence per equals 18 million influence, if I'm calculating correctly.

 

Caveat: buying converters, and having enough money to craft and list for a good price, is the first hurdle for anyone.  If you're starting with just a few million, you'll want to do 1-2 recipes at a time until you've made enough money to go at it like I do, 20 at a time.

 

Step Two:  Buy Recipes

 

For recipes, set your minimum and maximum level to 31.  This is how I do it -- it allows me to craft at the lowest level possible (IE cheapest crafting costs) without dealing with level 30 recipes.  There are, of course, some good IOs that you can come up with at level 30, but also a lot more stuff that won't sell for you, so this is what I consider a good "sweet spot".  Others do things different, but if you're just learning, follow my guide until you have a good idea of how things work.  ^_^

 

I tend to craft 20 recipes per session / per character.  I'll log into multiple characters, but for each I will collect sales, collect converters I've bought, grab 20 recipes to craft, and craft and convert them and list them for sale.  The next evening I'll do the same thing.  So!  Buy recipes in bulks of 10, and put in bids of 5,000 to 10,000 per recipe.  Bid for 40 or 60 or 80 recipes at once, so you're sure to have enough for several sessions.  I buy the cheapest recipes I can, and I usually bid 10,000 per recipe, as this is a pretty good high price that will mean my bids will normally fill in 24 hours or less.

 

Good recipes to buy cheap:

 

Confuse - Perplex

Defense Debuff - Undermine Defenses

Fear - Nightmare

Flight - Soaring (except Soaring: Fly/Endurance which requires rare salvage)

Holds - Essence of Curare

Immobilize - Enfeebled Operation

Knockback - Kinetic Crash

Leaping - Springfoot

Running - Quickfoot

Sleep - Lethargic Repose

Slow Movement - Tempered Readiness

Stuns - Rope-a-dope

Taunt - Mocking Beratement

Teleport - Jaunt

To Hit Buff - Adjusted Targeting

To Hit Debuff - Dampened Spirits

 

Good recipes with multiple uncommon/junk conversions:

 

Melee - Crushing Impact

Melee - Focused Smite

Melee - Smashing Haymaker

Pet Damage - Blood Mandage

Pet Damage - Brilliant Leadership

PBAoE Damage - Cleaving Blow

PBAoE Damage - Multi-strike

Ranged Damage - Maelstrom's Fury

Ranged Damage - Ruin

Sniper Attacks - Calibrated Accuracy

Sniper Attacks - Exploit Weakness

Targeted AoE Damage - Air Burst

Targeted AoE Damage - Detonation

 

Note that some of these damage recipes may sell for more than 10,000 influence part of the time.  PBAoE is a quick conversion to Obliteration, which sells well, so those for example may sell for more than my usual 10,000 influence bid.

 

Why buy these recipes, specifically?  They're all cheap and all of the ones in the first group should convert to a rare IO if you do a Category Conversion (2 converters) first.  The second group listed can convert to other uncommon IOs (there's more than one uncommon set in the category) so with those, you can do a Rarity Conversion (1 converter) first and hopefully get something that automatically converts to a rare with a Category Conversion, and even better, something in a category that will sell.

 

Obviously, buying a "cheap" defense or healing recipe may sound like a better idea since it converts directly into something good -- but a lot of people can see this, and those recipes are sometimes selling for hundreds of influence per.  Meanwhile, with converters, virtually ANY recipe can be turned into something valuable, so we just want some cheap recipes that we can get easily.

 

Step Three:  Crafting

 

Once you have 20 recipes (either 10 of each of two different recipes, or 20 of  one recipe) then buy the salvage to craft them.  I tend to bid 5,000 influence per salvage for both uncommon and common, because I want my bids to fill immediately.  I don't see much of an advantage in bidding ahead of time to save money -- you don't save that much.

 

I like to craft in the Vanguard building, but a university works, or anywhere works with a crafting table which is 10 million from Pay 2 Win.

 

Step Four:  Converting

 

As noted above, for IOs from group A, do a Category Conversion (2 converters) first so that you have a rare IO.  Next do one to several Rarity Conversions (1 converter) until you get something that will sell well.  For recipes from group B, do it in the reverse order -- one or more Rarity conversions, and then a Category Conversion to get to a rare.  Then more Rarity conversions if needed.

 

Things that will sell well (convert until you get one of these):

 

*Defense - Luck of the Gambler.  Always convert Gift of the Ancients and Reactive Defenses to Luck of the Gambler with Category Conversions.  This can sometimes take a lot of conversions, because you'll also hit Red Fortune and Serendipity, but LotG sells better than almost anything so it is always worth it.  I usually do in-set conversions until I get Defense, Defense/Endurance, or the +7.5% recharge IO, but all of them sell pretty well I think.

 

*Resistance Damage - Aegis or Unbreakable Guard, or Impervium Armor Psionic Resistance.  If you get any other Impervium Armor, my suggestion is to do a Category Conversion to get an Aegis or Unbreakable Guard, those sell pretty well and doing an in-set conversion to try and get the Psionic Resistance IO does not strike me as worth your time.  If you get it randomly, then keep it and sell it of course.

 

*Healing - Miracle +recovery, Numina regeneration/recovery.  It is not necessarily a bad idea to sell any Numina or any Preventative Medecine that turns up, most of them will sell for 2-3 million influence, but what you want is the two above IOs that sell for 4-5 million influence.  In my opinion it is always worth converting a Miracle IO into the proc, the profit is too good not to.

 

*Endurance - Performance Shifter Endurance or +Chance of Endurance.  I do in-set conversions to get one of those two, although the Endurance IO only sell for about 2 million right now.  But it will definitely sell.

 

*Some Damage IOs, as follows

 

*PBAoE Damage (Obliteration especially, but also Scirocco's Dervish).  Some Obliterations can go for 4-5 million depending on availability.

 

*Melee Damage - Touch of Death and Kinetic Combat.  Mako's Bite I usually convert again.  Kinetic Combat is the only really good seller here, and I will usually convert the Chance to Knockdown into one of the others since it does not sell well.  The other pieces sell for at least 2-3 million.  Nothing else here sells for a lot, but I can list Touch of Death for about 1.5 million and it will usually sell.

 

*Ranged Damage - Decimation only. Again not a huge seller, but sometimes certain pieces of the set are in short supply and sell for several million.  The other options - Entropic Chaos, Devastation, sell for very little.

 

*Targeted AoE - Positron's Blast, and to a lesser extent Annihilation.  Annihilation does not sell for a ton but I can get 1.5 million to 2 million for them.

 

Knockback - Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown. Pretty much only this one knockback IO is worth your time, but it sells well.

 

*Universal Travel - Blessing of the Zephyr. It's probably worth converting your BoTZ to the 4 points Knockback Protection IO, which always sell well -- although not well enough to chase it with in-set conversions, I think.

 

*To Hit Buff - Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control.  They don't sell for a ton, but around 1.5 - 2 million.

 

*Running - Celerity (Steath only). Again, 1.5 to 2 million.  I only sell the stealth IO (only this run version, I ignore the leaping version which sells even more poorly).  If I get a Celerity that isn't the stealth IO, I do a random rarity conversion again rather than trying to do an in-set conversion, it's not valuable enough to mess with that.

 

*Recharge Intensive Pets - Expedient Reinforcement. These sell for at least 2 million on average, sometimes more

 

*Holds - Lockdown.  I don't bother with Ghost Widow's Embrace, but Lockdown will sell for about 2 million.

 

*Accurate Healing - Touch of the Nictus.  These don't sell particularly well except when something is in short supply, but 1.5 million to 2 million per IO is possible.

 

If you get anything other than what is listed above, do another random Rarity Conversion.  They only cost 1 converter, so do as many as you need to get something good, and then do Category or In-Set Conversions as needed to get the right IOs.  Remember, more Rarity Conversions means more chances to land on a Defense or Resist Damage IO, or a Miracle IO.

 

Caveat:  Everyone will have their own list of what they consider worth selling, and even mine changes occasionally.  At one point I was selling Mako's and Devastation and I did not consider converting to the Numina unique worth my time.  Always be willing to try new things -- the important point here is that you need to do enough conversions that a good portion of what you list is making good money.  You might be able to sell a lot of other IOs for 1 million a piece and turn a small profit, but if we're going to all this effort we might as well do an extra conversion or two to get something that sells for 2 or 3 or 4 million.

 

Step Five:  Listing/Selling

 

Never list for what you want to sell for.  Your goal is to have the lowest price without selling it that low.  If you think it usually sells for 2 million, list for 1.9 million, or 1.7 million, or however low you think you can go without accidentally selling it too low.  Naturally, this trick only works some of the time, but that's okay too.  The point is that you want your IO to sell, not sit around -- but you're hoping for a good price.

^_^

 

Pay attention to how many are for sale.  If there are few for sale, you can sell at a very high price.  IF there are only a couple for sale, or zero, then list for at or above the most recent prices, because you should be able to get that.

 

Be careful of last five.  Sometimes it lies to you.  That said, most of this stuff sells frequently and I think that affects how often the display bug crops up -- I don't see it a lot when I'm listing these IOs for sale.  Also you will learn from repeated selling about how much is the right price.  I often see an IO that has sold for, say 2 million in the last 5, and I know it normally sells for 3-4 million and will again, so I'm not fooled by a temporary drop in price.

 

Generally speaking the best IOs here are the Luck of the Gamblers that sell for upwards of 7 million.  That's been a pretty consistent price for the +7.5% recharge.  Recently though the Defense/Endurance has been really low and has also been selling for about that much.

 

Miracle +recovery, Numina's regen/recovery, and sveral of the other specials will usually sell for 4-5 million.  It's okay to sell a few of the cheaper things for 2 million but you want to hit on the expensive IOs about 1/3 to 1/2 of the time if you can, because that's where you make money fast.

 

Step Six:  Bidding

 

Before you end your session, make sure you have bids in for enough recipes and converters for next time.

 

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

 

And that's it!  Once you have a good idea of what sells and what to list it for, you can do the whole craft and convert thing on 20 IOs and list them in about 10 or 15 minutes, and by the next day you should see at least 50 million in sales.  Profits vary, and you'll be spending money to buy more converters, but it doesn't take very long doing this before you have several hundred million on hand.

Edited July 25, 2019 by GM Fiddleback

[Robotech_Master]

Hey, you're giving away some of the best secrets here! :)

 

One other point worth making is that level 41 recipes can be worth doing, too. They cost a bit more to craft, but there are fewer junk sets. For example, 41 Reactive Defenses has a fifty-fifty chance of becoming Luck of the Gambler...and if it doesn't the first time, it's got the same coin flip chance next time you try. Also, they use the higher end salvage types, which level 50s will get lots of.

 

Another lucrative level range with guaranteed one jump to rare conversions is 10-14. And at level 10, you could end up with a Karma or Steadfast, if you convert across uncommons, which can then be converted within set to Knockback Protection.

 

Dropped a link to this into the appendix at the end of my own guide, since your information is a little more advanced and goes well with my discussion of the basics and getting started.

[AboveTheChemist]

Never list for what you want to sell for.  Your goal is to have the lowest price without selling it that low.

 

This has been the most difficult lesson for me to learn in the month or so I've been doing this (inspired by your 'Zero to 100 million' thread). There is an art to setting the price just right that I have yet to master. But, I am getting better. This guide does reassure me, though, that the way I have gone about playing the market since being inspired by yours and others' market guides has more or less been the right path.

[justicebeliever]

This is a really awesome guide...love the details on the recipes and the conversions to go for...+1 Inf!

[Mr. Vee]

Hey, you're giving away some of the best secrets here! :)

 

I keep waiting on the bottom to fall out but we're months into conversion strategies being posted in various places and apart from a few sets no longer being worth listing it's still amazingly lucrative if you can stand the tedium.

 

Great summary guide Shinobu! New go-to link to post in help five or six times a day :D

 

Oh one slight QoL tip to add - always move from last tray to first when converting and listing. That way if you pull an IO to market for a price check and aren't satisfied it'll go back to the slot it was in rather than to tray 1.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Great guide!

 

There are all kinds of variations, but this is a good, easy-to-follow system.  Personally, my "ditch-digger" technique uses lvl 30s recipes that don't automatically convert within category to rare.  This is purely to capture the Karma/Steadfast Protection/probably a few others opportunities.  So I convert by common one or more times, then convert by category when I get to one I want.  Also, I don't pay nearly as much for components as you do.  Saving 25-50k+ on one craft isn't a lot of money, but when you do it thousands of times it adds up.

 

This is a good guide to inform people about how to produce valuable resources easily.  How they monetize it is another issue.  As AboveTheChemist notes, selling is more of an art than a science.  And there is a big difference between selling it dear or selling it now.  One of my maxims is BUYING IS EASY; SELLING IS HARD.

[Shinobu]

 

 

There's a conundrum inherent in my instructions that I realized after I posted:

 

*I list Hold - Lockdown and To Hit Buff - Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control as good sale options, even though they mostly sell for no more than 2 million each.

*I list Hold - Essence of Curare and To Hit Buff - Adjusted Targeting as good recipes to start with.

 

If you craft a bunch of Essence of Curare and convert them to rare, about half of the time you'll get Lockdown.

If you craft Adjusted Targeting and convert them, you'll get Gaussian's 100% of the time.

 

This does not, however, mean that I necessarily think it's a great idea to just list a bunch of Gaussian's.  You'll probably make money, but you won't make a lot of money.  My goal when doing conversions is to do enough conversions to get at least some really good IOs to sell (at least one Defense IO in ten on average, I'd say, and maybe one Resist Damage and one Heal IO per ten) but to stop short of chasing the very best IOs on every IO conversion, because you can spend a ton of converters that way.  I think it's best to try and find a happy medium between "convert everything to a Luck of the Gambler IO" and "take whatever you get on the first conversion".  Therefore my list of acceptable results includes quite a few IOs that sell for 1.5 or 2 million, because that's not a terrible result.  That meets my "bare minimum" profit margin, I guess I'd say.  ^_^

 

So... if you craft a bunch of Guassian's from Adjusted Targeting recipes, you can just list them all.  You definitely save on converters doing that.  But I'd recommend converting at least half of them randomly to see what you can get.

 

 

[Robotech_Master]

Even when Gaussians go for over a million, they tend to have so many more sellers than buyers that you're not going to get your money any time soon. I tend to use those (and the Malaise's Illusions that Perplex turns into) as seeds for rare-conversion lottery tickets.

 

One of the nice things about the lottery ticket approach is that as you price check recipes, you get a pretty good sense of what does and doesn't sell, so you can get some ideas of things to try for intentionally via category conversion.

[Ulysses Dare]

This is an excellent supplement to the usual beginner's advice I've seen handed out several places. Thanks.

[2D_Jungle]

So...why does this still work? I just joined Homecoming, but it seems like this info has been out there for months. Who's still buying these "valuable" set pieces when everyone knows you can build/convert them for a fraction of the price?

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, 2D_Jungle said:

So...why does this still work? I just joined Homecoming, but it seems like this info has been out there for months. Who's still buying these "valuable" set pieces when everyone knows you can build/convert them for a fraction of the price?

Short answer:  convenience and desire and the lack thereof.

If you NEED inf, there are many, many ways to go about it.  The simplest way being play your high level characters.  

Some people prefer farming, etc.  Some people just don't care to learn about it, or don't like using the AH. 

And in the marketplace, the convenience of buying (or selling) it now rather than crafting something else and converting and attuning is worth a lot to some people.

[Mr. Vee]

you can build and convert them for a fraction of the price, but you'd then still need to buy them on the AH to get them attuned or waste 3 or however many million using a catalyst.

 

oh and my post re in set attuning got zapped by forum migration - i only convert in set when BotZ kb is selling for over 3 million (rare now), when the Aegis +psi and end/rech are selling for under 2 and the other pieces over three, and when the end/rech and def/rech Luck of the Gambler pieces are selling for much less (they fluctuate from a bit less to 3 million less depending on the day). My basic rule is I only convert in set if it's only going to take one or two conversions to get something good. I'll never play the lottery for one good piece like miracle or sudden acceleration.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Veelectric Boogaloo

[Doniell]

My post got lost in the forum update but i really appreciate this guide. Following the clear steps, i went from 8 million to 150 million in one day. If feels great to get my char back to near full strength from back in the day. Thanks again.

[Obitus]

3 hours ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

you can build and convert them for a fraction of the price, but you'd then still need to buy them on the AH to get them attuned or waste 3 or however many million using a catalyst.

Yeah, plus crafting is a hassle I don't need when I'm kitting out a build.

 

I'm frugal on my marketeering toon so that I don't have to be elsewhere.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Obitus

[Scientist]

18 hours ago, 2D_Jungle said:

So...why does this still work? I just joined Homecoming, but it seems like this info has been out there for months. Who's still buying these "valuable" set pieces when everyone knows you can build/convert them for a fraction of the price?

In the 3 months since the game came out the markets have definitely changed due to this.  The OP mentions Decimation, for example, as only selling for "several million" when in short supply.  In the first couple of weeks of the game, they were selling for well over 5M.  More people have learned how to do the conversion process to efficiently turn low demand goods into high demand goods, so the market has "flattened".  Numinas have also dropped in price, I know because I still have a memorial one listed for over 8M.  

 

Also, as Boogaloo said, even if you generate your own IOs, to get them attuned for free you have to buy them on the market, so you would want to sell yours and buy someone else's (or maybe your own, not sure if that is possible?).  There are a few procs that may be exceptions, where if you made the low level one to sell, you can just slot it since it is level invariant.  

[Robotech_Master]

On 7/23/2019 at 7:15 PM, 2D_Jungle said:

So...why does this still work? I just joined Homecoming, but it seems like this info has been out there for months. Who's still buying these "valuable" set pieces when everyone knows you can build/convert them for a fraction of the price?

As I noted in my own guide on the matter, one big reason is that if people want Attuned Enhancements, it's much cheaper to buy them pre-made than Attune them yourself. This means there's always going to be a market for crafted set IOs that's not just people too lazy to do it for themselves.

[Yomo Kimyata]

If you are playing rare roulette, keep in mind there are plenty of crafted rares you can buy cheaply on the AH to use as an initial seed.  You can't necessarily produce 50 of them at a time, as you can with crafting and converting common recipes, but in many cases you can get them for a song and cheaper than it would cost to craft one.

[ajax34i]

The markets have definitely flattened out since this was posted, but oh well such is life.

 

This still works because people farm to get high level and to get inf, and don't want to bother with the tedium of logging into multiple characters to /ah, or with the clickfest that the converting interface requires.  All of the enhancements named in the guide are very recommended for every single alt that's made, and people keep making alts. 

 

So anyway, the effect of making this info public has been that the supply of these enhancement has tripled, and their prices have dropped, which is good for people making alts and needing to buy these things.

 

Anyway, to get to the point, some statistics:

 

Most sets have 6 enhancements in the set.  That means, to go from any enhancement to a specific one (from whatever Miracle you have to the specific Miracle: +Recovery one), you have a 1:5 chance of doing it.  Because the rolls are more or less random, over your 20 recipes per character and a week of doing this, you end up with an average of about 6 "rolls" to get that Miracle: +Recovery, once you have a Miracle (any) enhancement.  So 6 rolls x 3 converters x let's call it 100k per converter = 1.8 million to roll.  +200k for the initial upgrade from uncommon to rare + 100k per attempt to convert a random to a Miracle (any) = you're looking at approx 2.5 million in costs to "make" a desirable enhancement from a cheapo recipe.

 

Add to that the 500k AH taxes and fees to list and sell something that's in the 5 million price range.

 

So you get a total cost of 3 million to "make" one of these.

 

They used to go for 5 million, now they go for 3.5 million, maybe 4, so like I said, a lot more supply, and so the price has dropped to about what it costs to make them.

 

To make a profit, make sure you "guess" your price range correctly, because every time you cancel and re-list, you lose the AH fee (150k-250k).  That may not seem like much, but if it costs you 3 million to make it, and you sell for 4, your "profit" is 1 million, and losing 250k in fees means you've just lost a quarter of your profit.

[Yomo Kimyata]

21 hours ago, ajax34i said:

 

To make a profit, make sure you "guess" your price range correctly, because every time you cancel and re-list, you lose the AH fee (150k-250k).  That may not seem like much, but if it costs you 3 million to make it, and you sell for 4, your "profit" is 1 million, and losing 250k in fees means you've just lost a quarter of your profit.

Don't forget the sales fee as well as the posting fee.  Together they sum to 10% of your sales price.  So if it costs you 3mm to make it and you sell it for 4mm, you pay 400k total in fees and your profit is only 600k.  Which makes your point on posting fees even more salient!

[ajax34i]

I did post the sales+listing fee on its own line, above that.  The 250k in fees if you keep taking things off the market to re-post at a lower price, you lose 5% every time you do that in just listing fees. 

 

Things used to sell daily, now they tend to stay up until the weekend, if you try to list for close to the "old" prices.  3 million, it will go right away, 5 million, may take a week or two (or forever) to sell.

[astok]

Question ?

Does the level of the character working this system have any effect in determining what recipe you can get ?

I understand that the level of the recipe does but I don't want to do this with a lower level character if it does.

[Mr. Vee]

a level 1 character can do everything Shinobu lays out. The AH doesn't care what level you are.

[Yomo Kimyata]

5 hours ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

a level 1 character can do everything Shinobu lays out. The AH doesn't care what level you are.

This is true, but my fading eyes mean that I try to craft things under my level +3.  I find it harder to read the numbers when they are red.

[Robotech_Master]

Something else I've discovered is that you can pick up a little money by buying the Attuned versions of really cheap sets, like Serendipity, Gift of the Ancients, Triage, etc. that have more desirable sets in the same category. Convert the Attuned IO in-category a few times, and it might just turn into something like a LotG, or one of the healing set procs. Depending on how many hops it takes, it could be fairly profitable. And, bonus! If you get something you want to use yourself, you don't have to sell and re-buy it, because it'll be Attuned already.

[ZephyrWind]

On 8/12/2019 at 7:53 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

This is true, but my fading eyes mean that I try to craft things under my level +3.  I find it harder to read the numbers when they are red.

Also, having a few levels on your marketing character makes a difference in how much you can store on that character.  So while you can use a level one, mine is level 12 and that works pretty well for me.