Misaligned

Rules for a petless MM: Don't use pets.

There's other "challenge" things in relation to a petless MM build that are even more restricting than just going petless. Those I don't know about.

Actually yes. This goes a long ways towards understanding the "how" of a good niche.

Thank you Fulmens

Care to expand on these?

Actually, I'm really not looking for a list of niches. Nor am I looking for a buy low / sell high explanation. I get that. I think everyone gets that. If they don't they're even further behind the curve than I am.

What I am asking for, and what makes this work, and what frustrates the hell out of people is for someone to simply lay out their identifying markers for a "potential" niche.

You all do it. Every last one of you who marketeers even somewhat successfully does it. You probably don't even realize it any more. You look at something, anything, and evaluate it based on ideas you have in your head.

You may say no to an item for various reason - "Too many for sale" - "Way too much fluctuation" - "No (or not enough) recipes available on a regular basis". You all have these qualifiers. People new to the market do not.

They lack the years of experience that you guys have to fall back on. We're missing steps 2 and 3 in the 4 step process here, and everyone keeps telling us to do step 1 and 4 but never mentions 2 or 3.

Step 1 - Got to market and open window.

Step 2 - ???

Step 3 - ???

Step 4 - Buy recipe, salvage, craft and sell at profit.

To use a similar example:

I ask my neighbor "How do you get to the hospital?! I have a broken leg!"

He says "You get in your car and leave your driveway. When you get to the hospital, go into the emergency room."

Helpful information, but it doesn't get me there, ya know?

Steps 2 and 3 are the evaluation of the niche. This is where the actual marketeering and profit takes place. Anyone with a reasonable intellect can figure out how to sell something for more than they paid for it. But the evaluation of a slot is the key here.

This is what frustrates people. The lack of that evaluation knowledge is what holds most people back.

I'm fairly good with Mid's. I do a LOT of mock up builds for myself and for others. I know what tends to end up in a LOT of builds and those were the sets I looked into for my higher end endeavor. The one I chose showed the most promise. In fact, a lot of the others I looked at showed very little promise at the time, or very tight profit margins. So I picked the one that I thought looked the best.

*shrug* Like I said, its all just one big experiment. And frankly, the market is fairly rough in some places where it wasn't before. In other places its very good. For example: I am now the proud owner of 3 confuse, 2 sleep, and 1 hold purple sets (missing 3 or 4 total IOs I think from all of it). All of these were obtained for less than 10 mil each - and all were crafted enhancements.

I think perhaps I jumped into the sets i did at a very weird time, and I will watch them to see how they do.

Things I can think of off the top of my head that I looked at:

Lotg
Oblit
Posi blast
Aegis
Doctored Wounds
... many others

Anything that was suggested in this thread. And yeah, I looked into them. Watched them for a bit. And made my move. I zigged, the market zagged. No biggie

I just don't have the patience, or the inclination, to sit here for hours on end picking through the recipes and crafting at an "on demand" basis (similar to what Archie did - man, he was all over the place!). Its just not my thing.

YOU!

You're the guy who when faced with the question "What's the fastest way to the store / mall / hospital?" you respond with

"Teleport."

Just because what you say is true does NOT make it the right answer. The guy wants to know which set will yield the best personal DPS without pets. This isn't even a rough question. Its: I have X, Y, and Z. Which is the highest letter?

Kind of like:

Which will do more damage: SD / Elec Tanker or Elec / SD brute or Elec / SD scrapper?

There is a right answer. There is a wrong answer. Go roll a ****ing blaster is not even remotely close to relevant to the question, yet this is what we're getting here.


@All of the negative folks

And for everyone who is ******** about "you're gonna totally **** over every group your in because you're an idiot"

STFU. Ever group with a kid? Like a 6 year old? 10 year old? Someone who fell asleep during a TF? Someone who was so drunk/baked they couldn't figure out which end was up? How do you know exactly? Ever have someone DC mid TF to come back for the last mish? They were "needed", weren't they?

How many "bad people" do you group with in a week? How the hell do you know? They don't buff you? They don't debuff the AV? They don't heal you? If its a DPS AT, how the hell do you tell if they're "good" or "bad"?

BLAMMO! SPAWN MELTS IN 2.3 SECONDS - MOVE TO THE NEXT!

Who made that happen? The heavily debuff slotted fender? The Purpled out blaster? The scrapper with a death wish? Was it the Petless MM who stealthed around and created a room of doom while you were picking your butt? Who was it that was "good" there and who was just "ok"? Who was bad? Was it the brute who ate the alpha and died to bad rolls? Was it the Emp who was picking his nose during that pull?

You ONLY say that petless MMs are going to be bad on a team because they have (in this case lack) something that makes their choices obvious. When a bubbler doesn't bubble you - you call them bad. When a Arc/TA only bothers to toss out oil slick when its up and is on follow the rest of the time, you call them "good". You can't see what they are or are not doing, so therefore they must be doing well. I know for a fact that people have AFked the better part of TFs I've been on - all the while just being on /follow with a heal on auto - and people STILL tell them they did a good job

If someone rolls into your group, you're smashing along and on mission 3 of the TF before you realize that you haven't seen any pets from the MM - is he somehow holding you back?

Seriously. GTFO of here with this crap. You don't want crappy people on your team (well, other than you)? Don't PUG. And let's just be REALLY honest here for a minute. Besides an Mo(X)TF, a CoP, or maybe a Hami raid, is there anything actually hard enough in this game that 1, 2, or even 3 of the people in your 8 man group can't be lobotomized monkeys drooling on their keyboard? My 6 year old plays this... he does well. Its not a hard game people. Really its not.

That's AWESOME and exactly what I was talking about! This is the creativeness that I wanted to see! Great job!

And yes, these are not "MAN" builds. These are Poolies! I don't care what powers you take, as long as you fit the above rules!

And sorry about the typo in the OP about 5 APP or PPP. dunno what my fingers were thinking at the time!

I will pop up and fix it right after this!

Thanks!

I looked over his thread. Very detailed and helpful! However, still tons more work than I am willing to put in. I believe I have been honest with myself and up front about that from the beginning. My goals may not match my allocated time to put into it, but you gotta have a goal, right?

Archie admits to spending 4-6 hours a day during this experiment. I personally have no desire to spend near that much time, and therefore do not expect the same returns. Honestly, I don't expect any returns. Money I have put into my various tests and projects is considered "gone" and if I never see it again, oh well


@Fulmens

After looking into this more closely, I doubt I will attempt to totally control one niche as well. There are simply way too many options for people to get what they want other ways. The market tends to be a convenience, and therefore is not someplace where you can start forcing hands.

My example from WoW made more sense in my ability to corner a market. Obtaining the items in question simply via farming was beyond tedious. In addition, the items the mobs dropped beyond the rep item was junk. To top it all off, it took a very long time to farm up all of the items you needed if you intended to do it that way. The drop rate was horrible. 10% or something like that across a huge selection of mobs. Not even something you could effectively target. This did however mean that lots of people would end up with 3-8 after playing for a night. They would toss em on the market in these odd numbers and I would collect. Since the rep turn in was 10 at a time, odd number sets were less valued for convenience. Cornering this market was easy because I was willing to put in the work and it just wasn't worth it to most other people.

/ramble over

Anyways... as I was saying, in this game, "drops is drops" and beyond level and tech vs arcane, the guy you're shooting today could just as easily drop what you're looking for as the completely different guy you were shooting yesterday. In addition to that, if you simply "must have" there's merits, A-Merits, and AE rolls, which may or may not be lucky

So yeah, I don't foresee myself cornering anything in the near future.


I will note on my projects here though: Update time!

Level 1 - Salvage flipping: This money is indeed "gone" as this guy is only 7. He can't even mail it back to me!!! Oh well, my plan for him is a level every 2 days to 10, just so he can send off anything he makes at some later date.

Currently, I check him a couple of times a day (log in - mid character switch - log off for night) and every time I check him, I need to bid / collect / repost. He has a ton more potential if I was willing to just camp on him. I'm not, so I let it go. Incidentally, this is the character I will be using when I write my very own "how to get started with nothing at level 1" guide. I will be writing it not from the perspective of a successful ebil marketeer, but of a guy who just jumped in with both feet and an idea. This is SO simple I don't think anyone can complain about how easy it is and how effective it can be for making your first starting bit of cash. Maybe I'll have my 9 year old try it out... hmm.

This guy has made about 9 mil so far, 2 days in. He deals in exactly 1 uncommon salvage. Nothing more simple than that. He has a set buy price and a set sell price. The stuff turns stupid fast

Level 2 - My Pool A experiment. Well... this took a dive. Thunderstrikes were doing well when I opted in. Then they bottomed out. This happens, and I'm not sweating it, but I have some slots clogged. I very much dislike pulling sales and re-bidding, so I'll be riding this slump out. As we head into the weekend, they should clear out and I can evaluate if its worth it to stay there.

Level 3 - High end pool A (yellow recipe, costs 4 salvage - including 1 rare salvage - to make) has also flopped on me. This was the range I was working on. I moved the inventory off of a character I actually needed the slots to outfit, and onto another that is sitting idle. The demand has shown to be slower than expected after relocating. Once again, I will be evaluating this after the weekend.

Level 4 - Pool B - I am disappointed with this choice. Lots of movement. Lots of sales. High "opt in" cost on the niche, and once I have mine up and listed at 90% of current average, it drops 30% and sales stall.

I know its early in the game for this, but I either made some poor choices, or I happened on a few slots in the market that all went south at the same time. Oh well. Haven't made anything I won't keep and use myself if pressed, so I'm not worried

I played SWG, WoW and EQ. I know what you mean about grinding out a crafting profession. I always felt it was a waste of time myself (after doing it multiple times). In the end, I made all of my money in SWG doing missions. All of my money in WoW flipping a single rep item, and never made any money in EQ lol.

At this time, I am trying all 3 approaches. I am flipping salvage on 1 character. I am crafting enhancements across a level range on another. And finally, I have picked a level 50 with higher possible returns per sale. I am trying them all and documenting the pros and cons of each.

So far, the Salvage is by far the least time consuming. Its profitable, but not in a huge way. Estimated returns on a level 50 would be around 20-30 mil a week. This requires no more than 2 minutes a day on this character.

So far, the recipes across a range is the most time consuming as it eats up more space than a single recipe. Estimated returns on this set up are about 125 mil a week.

The middle of the road would be the single level 50. Using a similar sell rate as the multiple ranged set up, the estimated return for this set up is about 110 mil per week. If I can sell just 1 more of the 50 than the other, it jumps to 150 mil per week. These are much higher investment / sell. In the end, I may be off on volumes, but the mid range set I am working with is much higher % of profit than the 50.

*shrug* We'll see how it shakes out. In the end, even if I am dead wrong and none of my enhancements sell, that's ok. I'll use them up eventually

Sorry, to clarify, I should have used Recipe X (not A). It is a pool A drop, but it is one that requires 4 pieces of salvage, has a fairly high demand at the level range I want to do this at, and can be turned in a few days. Nothing game breaking by any means, but still one I want to look into.

Regardless, I still see a major logistics problem even if I limit it to just 1 recipe. That buys me 4 extra spots on the market, but its still not enough for turn and burn.

Thoughts?

Mid's has that as a big negative on slow resist.

After checking the character I have it on in game, I will agree with Mid's.

By slows, you do mean run speed, yes? Or do you mean recharge? Either way, it helps with neither.

It seems that the game classifies those both as debuffs and not statuses, which explains why a status resistance IO does not cover them.

Mid's has it providing 20% to:
Immobilize
Held
Stun
Sleep
Terrorized
Confused

Providing a 16.67% net reduction in total mez time if that is the only mez resistance you have.

(100% mez resistance cuts the duration in half. 200% by 3/4's so on and so forth)

Hope that helps!

Unless you're severely unlucky like me. I have burned all but 200 of my merits (gave up and bought a LotG proc). All of my AE tickets on silver or gold (golds on days I am prestige farming) and have managed a whopping 1 LotG proc. No numinas. No miracles. Nothing worth more than about 20 mil. Don't get me wrong, 20 mil is nice. But when you see everyone else rolling 200 reward merits and pulling at least 1 "big hitter" and you burn 600 to see 25 junk recipes and 5 meh's, you start to wonder why you're bothering with the randoms. Almost always I would have come out ahead by just buying something outright.

All told, I would say I have rolled at least 100 reward merit rolls and 300+ ticket rolls. The LotG came from AE tickets. Go fig.

This is the main reason why I have given up on the random reward merit rolls. I can't be unlucky forever, but 4 months is long enough to turn me off of them imo.

A-Merits though... you can get one every 2 days. You get 5 recipes. If you bomb your rolls, you can always save for 4 days and buy exactly what you want. To me, the A-Merit system just seems to favor randoms a whole lot more than reward merits ever did.

As for when to lock in, I agree with 22 over 21. This opens up a few more choice recipes in LotG and Touch of Death for example

So... essentially it takes you 90 seconds to kill a boss? I'm confused here. It seems to me that it *could* and *should* work this way:

Domination = 1 Power
ST Hold = 1 power

Proceed to kill spawn with only 1 boss and move to next. If you're getting only 1 boss, odds are you're fighting at... x6? Maybe x7? I'm not positive on what spawns what at what level, so we'll go with that.

We'll assume you have powers slotted in a fashion that allows you to kill said spawn in 1 minute.

You move on to next spawn, and use this:

ST = 1 power

And the boss is held. Because you have Domination up from the last fight.

Nice, huh? Even if you are taking 90 seconds to move from one spawn to the next, you're still saving 1 power activation that can then be used to melt a face.

This allows you to use something else AoE-ey other than an AoE hold (which may or may not be up) and will almost always yield more face-meltery (is that a word?) than the AoE hold.

And using an AoE hold on a plant/ seems like such a terrific waste of potential damage. The confuse is the best part of plant/ imo. If you're not 50, your secondary plus pets will equate out to at least 20% of the total damage done for you to retain 80% of the xp and goodies (100% of the drops).

If you are farming, they die that much faster, you move to the next group that much faster and you have the ability to multiply that "1 more attack power" more often.

Heck, with plant/ you can basically /seeds > nuke anything that got missed > proceed to AoE with reckless abandon, cackling as the mobs buff you and debuff each other.

I can see your argument for things like build up. I happen to agree, though I tend to take build up powers and use them, though not as frequently as I should.

The fact that Domination lasts 90 seconds, *and* gives you loads of mez protection are what make this power a clear "should use all of the time" power in my book.


If it helps, I know there are many ways to bind domination to something you use all of the time, such as a "walk forward" button (w or up arrow by default). This is how I manage to remember to hit hasten on a few of my characters, because like you, I'm horrible at remembering to push long CD powers.

I can't remember what the middle part is for, but I leave it there anyways