Fulmens

It does depend, as mentioned, on the frequency of the -Def effects. Something that stacks up a ton of -Def [Longbow, I'm looking RIGHT AT YOU] makes it worthwhile going over the softcap.

Interesting- I know that the first time, ever, you confirm your "own alignment" you get enough Reward Merits to buy a Hero Merit (with a spare 20 million inf). I did not realize the first time you confirm a NEW alignment you also got enough Reward Merits to buy a Hero Merit.

Alignment Merits are a loyalty program. You haven't been loyal yet, have you?

I'll be there with Amazing Amazon. We have no plans to dress like anything particular, though. After 9-ish hours at Comiccon, we plan on looking like the walking dead.

I did a fairly extensive run of "buying merits" (Back when there were only r-merits) and it went pretty well. I bought a few a-merits as well. So you can approximate marketing with them.

I know nothing, no help, but I can point you to the people who DO know:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/forumdisplay.php?f=578

"Oh dear. Maths."
-J.K. Rowling, when someone mentioned that the scoring system for Quidditch makes no sense.

The first thing about the market is, nothing stays the same price for very long. The second thing is, if you calculate an equivalent value two different ways you get two wildly different answers. Inefficient marketplace, lots of profit to be made.

I've been considering a random roll to be worth about 20 million since before Going Rogue, which makes an A-merit worth about 100 million. But that was pretty much based on a 200-million-inf LoTG 7.5% (and supported by various high-priced Kin Combats and Impervium Armors and whatnot.) The price has gone down somewhat- 75 million sounds reasonable.

In vague "what it SHOULD cost" terms, an A-merit is twice the rolls for the R-merits (plus a 20 million fee) which means 40 million per A-merit (or 8 million per random roll). Given infinite time and a rational marketplace, that's what an A-merit would be worth, about 40 million. We have neither of those, obviously, so I think we can call that a lower end.

At some point the value of an "Average random" would [again, rationally] be expected to be 1/5 * 1/30 the value of a PVP +3% Defense, which would imply [for a 3 billion inf Defense] an average random of 20 million per roll, or 100 million per A-merit.

There's obviously an inconvenience factor- many people will get 10 or less A-merits and give up- so the PVP will be disproportionately more valuable.

... 75 million per A-merit is an entirely plausible price. I don't know if the 3-billion price for the PVP 3% Def is stable, though.

I bought all my recipes from the table, but I was TRYING to burn inf.

Coulda been leftovers. I've got some stuff that didn't sell, and the "going rate" has dropped from 50M to 15 M (stealths or something) and I've still got them listed at 36M or 41M . I've already spent the money to list it, I can wait a week or two and see if it comes back.

The people with 55M bids up on a 7 million inf item might just be hoping for a 2XP bounce or something.

... this is a Reactivation Weekend, isn't it? Hmm.

My theory ("A theory is something you can test", some science teacher from my past reminds me- whatever) is that people like 35 a lot for a variety of reasons- "32 is where IO's first beat out SO's", people are used to slotting at 12,22 and 27 or 32, etc- and people pick the 5's because you can't bid on EVERYTHING so the 5's are obvious places to make a market. 33 is a leftover from Katie and Siren's Call, and 32 is for people who exemp to 29 and want to keep their bonuses.

If I had to lock only one character at only one level, it would be 35. I like having different people supply different levels, though. Replacing "Everyone rolls at 50" with "Everyone rolls at 50 and 35" is an improvement, but not a great one.

Make sure you check the cost of the CRAFTED io's as well as the cost of the recipes.

Sorry for the shock factor. After the first Morality Mission (which gives 50 reward merits, with which you can buy a Hero Merit) you get Hero Merits directly.

If you need a bridge loan to get stuff sold, let me know at @Boltcutter and I'll email you a couple million for salvage and crafting.

It's old and got a little chewed on by the forum upgrade, but you could start with my issue 9 guide, here.

There's a mini-guide to frankenslotting in my sig.

[Frankenslotting = using "set IO's" not for the set bonuses, but for the ability to get the equivalent of 7 SO's into a 5-slotted power. ]

If you're not frankenslotting, you may also find that you need a couple hundred million inf more than you have. This isn't a big problem; we're happy to explain how to get it in the Market Forum.

Yes. Yes, it does. When do you want to meet up for promotions?

Also: we hit #30 today on the Billboard top 100. PAYOLA!

EDIT: We also have a sculpture of a dollar sign in the entry room now, right under the porter thingy!

Someone bought at least 5 of something for 70,000,000 when it normally sells for 10M. Don't remember what it was, but I winced for them.

Rolling at 50 seems to be a little low-result these days. I'm still getting good money on some of the L32, L33, and L35 stuff, though.

OK, got another billion to spare, reopening the offer. No more than 200M to a customer, please!

You can't make more than one hero merit a day, and you can't turn in merits more than once a day either. So you can, in theory, make 2, cash them in, and use that to make the third.

Now I am pretty sure that 44 [or 45] is a bad level for random rolls- people who are willing to wait for 44 are willing to wait for 50- but I haven't actually checked that since Going Rogue went live. You could do a low level random roll and get max-level Eradications and Impervium Armors and whatnot, but you'd also get a LOT of stuff like Commanding Presence, Neuronic Shutdown and Debilitative Action.

For specific buys, in addition to the obvious (Miracle +Recov, Numina +/+, and LoTG +7.5% global) you might want to check on some others: min-level Stealths, Oblit quads and procs, Basilisk quads, and Shield Breakers. I know all those were in short supply once upon a time and they may be at the moment. And, like any true master of ebil, you should check the crafted prices.

It's not a LOT of time- I think it's three ticks or something.

My recommendation is to experiment. Like any experiment, the FIRST thing is the safety equipment: about eight purples in this case.

Find a nice big batch of badguys, even-con [say]. Take four purples (the safety equipment], pick a guy in back, move up until Fire Breath works, then hit Fireball. Clean up the survivors. Try it again, with +1s. Keep getting more safety equipment, trying various combinations of Aim, Build Up, and no buff. I seem to remember that "no buff" drops even-cons, "either buff" drops +1 minions, and "Both buffs" drops +2s, but check it yourself to be sure.

As this goes on, you'll get more comfortable with the two AOE's ... and then you can try it without the safety equipment.

RoF is not my tool of choice because you will hit less guys with your other two AOEs and once they've scattered to outside the radius, they're all still mad at you and alive.

EDIT: here is Misaligned's very guide to make a few million while you play. Tested by teenagers!

On the off chance that you aren't sick of being bombarded with information yet:

Here is my sample thread on how I went from 0 to 100 million in a couple weeks, last time I did it. The first post takes you to about a million influence.

... reading through it, it's not really clear to the target audience.

Step 1: Sell all my salvage for 1 inf. This will get you the "lowest market value" for what I was selling- so if it wasn't worth much I'd get around 1 inf, but if it had a stable fairly-high value, like Luck Charms and Alchemical Silver do, I'd get a decent sum for it.

Step 2: Do some footwork. Run back and forth from Wentworth's to the nearest vendor with an armful of high-level set IO recipes. They sell to the vendor for 100 per level [or 200 if they're orange] so I bid 10 per level. I used "Nightmare" but I'll give you six to try:

Nightmare, Enfeebled Operation, Mocking Beratement, Lethargic Repose, and Perplex.

You could do the full million for your L25 SO's this way, but that's like 250 recipes, and boring as hell.

I therefore picked out some recipes to craft. Since I have the benefit of hindsight on this project, I'm going to suggest you pick one of the following collections:

Endurance Reduction and Endurance Modification
OR
Damage
OR
Recharge reduction.

You will craft these at level 25-30 OR 35-40.

You want to "memorize" these. We will ignore the actual list prices they are currently selling for, as this is a slightly long term project. I'm going to use Damage, in the 25-30 range, for my example- I haven't looked it up, I'm going in blind. We're going for the Memorization Badge so we want to, eventually, craft 17 of these- 8 level 25, 8 level 30, and one "dealer's choice. "

But all journeys start somewhere, so we will craft ONE first. You need to buy a level 30 recipe, and a Masterwork Weapon and an Iron, and then you need to spend the money and craft it. Prices are really variable on these things, so you have three choices:

1) Put up bids for a lowish value (under 20,000) and wait overnight.
2) Put up bids one inf higher than the bottom of the "last 5" and wait 1-10 minutes.
3) slowly raise your bid until you buy it RIGHT NOW.

At this precise second, the recipe for a L30 damage is selling for about 100 inf (0 bids!), the iron is selling for around 800 inf, and the masterwork weapon is selling for 60,000 or more.

While I was typing this someone bought a Masterwork Weapon for 15,750. You could get that price with stratagem #2. Stratagem #3 is really for people who already HAVE the kind of money you WANT.

So you collect your recipe and ingredients (an even 16,000 inf in our case) and you go to craft them. Where? Steel Canyon for heroes, or the Abandoned Lab in Port Oakes or the University in Cap Au Diable.

Now it will cost you 41,000 inf to craft this level 30 Damage. Ouch!

And if you look at the last 5, they could say ANYTHING. Maybe the last 5 sold for 16,000 each. Maybe they sold for 300,000 each. What do you charge? Well, you charge enough to make good money. Your total cost [in this case] is like 56,000 inf. Would you be happy with 100K? Maybe. But you'd be HAPPIER with 150K, or 200K.

Rich people round off to convenient numbers. So if you list for 101K, they'll buy it with a convenient bid like 150K, or 200K, or a million. Or 111,111 - that happens too. You'd only double your money if someone guessed perfectly.

... right now the last 5 sales are 300,000; 350,001 [two] and 350,000 [two]. No promises, these prices fluctuate wildly.

So you have to put it up for sale at your chosen price regardless of what the last 5 say. Worst case? It sells, immediately, because someone has a 150K "lowball" bid out there. And then you can craft another and sell it.

Once you've been crafting level 30's and level 25's this way for a while, you'll get a Memorization Badge. Now you'll have a "Memorized" category when you go to craft. The cost to craft that level 30, Memorized, is 21 thousand instead of 41 thousand. And you don't need to buy a recipe.

And one of MANY ways to make your first couple million inf on the market.

The Depreciables!

I kept thinking "Oh, we started strong but there's no way we're going to be able to keep it up"... so far, we've stayed strong. I'm amazed.