jagermeister
New member
Poor Man's Guide to fun and profit V1.2
I am revising this guide for the new season. Last season was the first one where I was able to achieve a decent amount of wealth. I took what I learned and wrote this guide back then. I retired shortly afterward and let my accounts expire. But the new ladder season brought me back. I decided to take my own advice and see how I did.
I have played an average of 15 hours a week since the beginning of this season. I currently have a level 90 hammerdin outfitted with Nigma, um'd shako, mara, Hoto etc., a smiter with 190 um'd HoZ, grief phase and all the other necessities, and a wind druid with nigma, shako, Hoto, etc. I am well on the way to having some top of the line equiped dueling characters. And I can generate wealth at a rate that seemed impossible to me even last season.
My goal: A stable of well equipped characters, A MF all purpose rusher, a smiter for ubers and some duelers.
My start. I make a list of the items I am looking to pick up, then I keep an eye on the trade forums and offer pgems for those items. My list is for items that are great value and can be end game items until you upgrade. Examples include: wizspike 6-12 pgems, peasant crown 2-4 pgems, butchers pupil 1-3 pgems, duriels shell 4-8 pgems, cheap vipers, guilliums face, gimmer etc.
The new runewords are outstanding for this. Even if you get moderate hellforge drops say lum from NM and fal from hell, you can trade those runes for the runesets to make low cost high utility runewords. My first char took advangtage of these runewords. He is a hammerdin who for a long time used a lore warhat, smoke mesh armour, wizzy, credendum, rare rings, rare ammy, spirit pally shield, and merc with insight pole. His entire set up cost less than an um, which can be acquired through regular play in around 2 weeks without trying.
The first char: This is where you will sink a huge amount of time and his job is very important. He will be your self rusher, MF char and all purpose bull dog. The most often recomended choices for this are: Meteorb sorc, hammerdin, summoner necro, javazon and windy. All of these chars can benefit from spirit and insight runewords, most can use wizzy (the most powerful, low cost item in the game), and can solo untwinked for a long time. I think a hammerdin is the strongest choice as he is almost completely unresistable and has problems with very few areas (most notably maggot lair and the stat quest in a3). He can solo pits (which I think is an incredible way to accumulate wealth), quickly run shenk and eld, and clear just about any area of the game for assisting chars in a self rush.
The path to wealth: for me the path to wealth is multi faceted. The first and foremost path is in accumulating crafting supplies and trading them to rich guys for what you need. Second,selling items fast and cheaply for currency. 3rd, playing the trade market,4th leaving yourself open to get THE BIG DROP, 5 farming torches.
1. Crafting supplies: Pgems, rals, tals, prubies, pammys, junk jewels are all highly valued by crafters and ez to find. You simply have to be organized enough to pick them up and store them, then use the forums to find a buyer. Going rates are 40pgems= pul, 20 pammys, rubies, tals, rals = pul, 40 junk jewels = lem. I would say 50 percent of my wealth was accumulated this way. You cannot go wrong here, you are always moving forward. In fact you can consistently increase wealth in baal walk games picking up stuff that 90 percent of bnet leaves on the ground. Best places to farm flawless for me are baal walks, hell flayer jungle and the pits. A note on this season. Pgems sell even better now. I currently wait til I have 120 and trade them for Mal. I have done this twice this season. I have also sold rals and pammys for 35=UM. This is the easiest path to wealth.
2. Selling items fast. Nothing eats up more time than playing WUG and SHOW with the assorted denizens of trade games. Everyone in them is trying to make a profit and getting a good trade in one is next to impossible. Every time I find a marginal item that might sell for pgems I make a game advertising that item for a ridiculously low price. Instead of having mules full of IK mauls, Trang armour and assorted other crap; I make a game adverstising that item for 2-5 pgems and mf in it. If a buyer comes I make the trade, if not I leave the item on the ground or sell it to charsi. I can average 5-10 pgems an hour by farming flawless and selling common in demand items cheaply. If I play 10 hours a week, I can accumulate around 80 pgems which means I just made UM on top of whatever good stuff I find. This season I sell even cheaper, I basically sell most items for 1-3 pgems unless they are top of the line, then I play the trade game.
3. The trade game. I have revised this section as I have become a more experienced trader. Forget trading the small stuff. It is a waste of time, if it is not worth um or more, it is not worth the time to trade it. For items worth 5pg-pul I suggest you use the trade forum here, or another. I pick up some needed items and sell off stuff I dont need while accumulating currency for making the big purcheses (HR mostly). The other thing about trading is being patient. If you have a valuable item, find out exactly what it is worth (the trade value forum here is ideal for this) and advertise that item in game or on forums, stick to your guns, the right buyer will come along. Overpaying and underselling is fine for cheap items, it is not worth the time to negotiate, but on big items, like gryphons, a nice torch, etc. You kill yourself if you let it go too cheap. The other thing is to keep an eye out for a good deal. I picked up a 5/4 light die early in the season for pul, I traded it a week later for ber (the ebay noob offered) and I was halfway to my first nigma.
4. The BIG DROP. You have to set yourself up to get a big drop. So far this season I have scored a gryphons, a mara, a bk, a 20-11 sorc torch, some charms, jewels and some other nice items. The key is hitting high value areas, doing a lot of killing, and being able to solo. Nothing hurts more than seeing that gilded shield drop and having someone snatch it up. A couple of big drops properly traded can buy you the kits you need. This is why I prefer an H-din to a sorc. Sorcs great for running keys, mephy and andy but not as good for clearing level 85 areas.
5. Farming Torches- it seems expensive to get into this game, but once you have a keyrunner and a decent smiter, you can farm torches for the rest of the season. The right torch is worth 5-10 hr. A bad torch is worth pul. You can't get poorer by running keys and farming your own torches.
A few side notes:
Cheap effective gear: You can build wealth with a very cheap kit. Each character needs to be able to do their job. My smiter used a fleshripper, spirit kurast, IK glove, belt, boot to run the ubers the first time this season. Sure he died some, but he did his job. My hammerdin was running the pit in 8 player games with Smoke armor, Lore war hat, crappy spirit and a wiz spike where he found his mara's. Tal's set is great for boss and key runs, you dont need a fathom for that.
Hammerdin may be cheap and boring, but he can do it all- In my mf games I run eld, mephy, andy, 3 key runs and pit. I can solo baal run, do rushes, and basically handle anything but the wailing beasts....no other build can do this as quickly and effectively as he can. A hammerdin is also ez to level because he should not die much, that means you can hit 92 where the crafting supposedly gets sweet.
Crafting- there is big wealth to be made in crafting, but I have lousy luck, so I will leave the crafting tips to someone more knowledgeable than me. I am more likely to find a 45 life pally combat than to roll one. I would rather take my ez profits selling to the crafters, but that may change when I finally hit level 92.
I hope this guide helps others build the characters that they could not afford before. I have a great time playing this game, I do it in my spare time, with no cheats, hacks, or scams. If someone else has good tips on building wealth, please post them below and I add them to this guide.
I am revising this guide for the new season. Last season was the first one where I was able to achieve a decent amount of wealth. I took what I learned and wrote this guide back then. I retired shortly afterward and let my accounts expire. But the new ladder season brought me back. I decided to take my own advice and see how I did.
I have played an average of 15 hours a week since the beginning of this season. I currently have a level 90 hammerdin outfitted with Nigma, um'd shako, mara, Hoto etc., a smiter with 190 um'd HoZ, grief phase and all the other necessities, and a wind druid with nigma, shako, Hoto, etc. I am well on the way to having some top of the line equiped dueling characters. And I can generate wealth at a rate that seemed impossible to me even last season.
My goal: A stable of well equipped characters, A MF all purpose rusher, a smiter for ubers and some duelers.
My start. I make a list of the items I am looking to pick up, then I keep an eye on the trade forums and offer pgems for those items. My list is for items that are great value and can be end game items until you upgrade. Examples include: wizspike 6-12 pgems, peasant crown 2-4 pgems, butchers pupil 1-3 pgems, duriels shell 4-8 pgems, cheap vipers, guilliums face, gimmer etc.
The new runewords are outstanding for this. Even if you get moderate hellforge drops say lum from NM and fal from hell, you can trade those runes for the runesets to make low cost high utility runewords. My first char took advangtage of these runewords. He is a hammerdin who for a long time used a lore warhat, smoke mesh armour, wizzy, credendum, rare rings, rare ammy, spirit pally shield, and merc with insight pole. His entire set up cost less than an um, which can be acquired through regular play in around 2 weeks without trying.
The first char: This is where you will sink a huge amount of time and his job is very important. He will be your self rusher, MF char and all purpose bull dog. The most often recomended choices for this are: Meteorb sorc, hammerdin, summoner necro, javazon and windy. All of these chars can benefit from spirit and insight runewords, most can use wizzy (the most powerful, low cost item in the game), and can solo untwinked for a long time. I think a hammerdin is the strongest choice as he is almost completely unresistable and has problems with very few areas (most notably maggot lair and the stat quest in a3). He can solo pits (which I think is an incredible way to accumulate wealth), quickly run shenk and eld, and clear just about any area of the game for assisting chars in a self rush.
The path to wealth: for me the path to wealth is multi faceted. The first and foremost path is in accumulating crafting supplies and trading them to rich guys for what you need. Second,selling items fast and cheaply for currency. 3rd, playing the trade market,4th leaving yourself open to get THE BIG DROP, 5 farming torches.
1. Crafting supplies: Pgems, rals, tals, prubies, pammys, junk jewels are all highly valued by crafters and ez to find. You simply have to be organized enough to pick them up and store them, then use the forums to find a buyer. Going rates are 40pgems= pul, 20 pammys, rubies, tals, rals = pul, 40 junk jewels = lem. I would say 50 percent of my wealth was accumulated this way. You cannot go wrong here, you are always moving forward. In fact you can consistently increase wealth in baal walk games picking up stuff that 90 percent of bnet leaves on the ground. Best places to farm flawless for me are baal walks, hell flayer jungle and the pits. A note on this season. Pgems sell even better now. I currently wait til I have 120 and trade them for Mal. I have done this twice this season. I have also sold rals and pammys for 35=UM. This is the easiest path to wealth.
2. Selling items fast. Nothing eats up more time than playing WUG and SHOW with the assorted denizens of trade games. Everyone in them is trying to make a profit and getting a good trade in one is next to impossible. Every time I find a marginal item that might sell for pgems I make a game advertising that item for a ridiculously low price. Instead of having mules full of IK mauls, Trang armour and assorted other crap; I make a game adverstising that item for 2-5 pgems and mf in it. If a buyer comes I make the trade, if not I leave the item on the ground or sell it to charsi. I can average 5-10 pgems an hour by farming flawless and selling common in demand items cheaply. If I play 10 hours a week, I can accumulate around 80 pgems which means I just made UM on top of whatever good stuff I find. This season I sell even cheaper, I basically sell most items for 1-3 pgems unless they are top of the line, then I play the trade game.
3. The trade game. I have revised this section as I have become a more experienced trader. Forget trading the small stuff. It is a waste of time, if it is not worth um or more, it is not worth the time to trade it. For items worth 5pg-pul I suggest you use the trade forum here, or another. I pick up some needed items and sell off stuff I dont need while accumulating currency for making the big purcheses (HR mostly). The other thing about trading is being patient. If you have a valuable item, find out exactly what it is worth (the trade value forum here is ideal for this) and advertise that item in game or on forums, stick to your guns, the right buyer will come along. Overpaying and underselling is fine for cheap items, it is not worth the time to negotiate, but on big items, like gryphons, a nice torch, etc. You kill yourself if you let it go too cheap. The other thing is to keep an eye out for a good deal. I picked up a 5/4 light die early in the season for pul, I traded it a week later for ber (the ebay noob offered) and I was halfway to my first nigma.
4. The BIG DROP. You have to set yourself up to get a big drop. So far this season I have scored a gryphons, a mara, a bk, a 20-11 sorc torch, some charms, jewels and some other nice items. The key is hitting high value areas, doing a lot of killing, and being able to solo. Nothing hurts more than seeing that gilded shield drop and having someone snatch it up. A couple of big drops properly traded can buy you the kits you need. This is why I prefer an H-din to a sorc. Sorcs great for running keys, mephy and andy but not as good for clearing level 85 areas.
5. Farming Torches- it seems expensive to get into this game, but once you have a keyrunner and a decent smiter, you can farm torches for the rest of the season. The right torch is worth 5-10 hr. A bad torch is worth pul. You can't get poorer by running keys and farming your own torches.
A few side notes:
Cheap effective gear: You can build wealth with a very cheap kit. Each character needs to be able to do their job. My smiter used a fleshripper, spirit kurast, IK glove, belt, boot to run the ubers the first time this season. Sure he died some, but he did his job. My hammerdin was running the pit in 8 player games with Smoke armor, Lore war hat, crappy spirit and a wiz spike where he found his mara's. Tal's set is great for boss and key runs, you dont need a fathom for that.
Hammerdin may be cheap and boring, but he can do it all- In my mf games I run eld, mephy, andy, 3 key runs and pit. I can solo baal run, do rushes, and basically handle anything but the wailing beasts....no other build can do this as quickly and effectively as he can. A hammerdin is also ez to level because he should not die much, that means you can hit 92 where the crafting supposedly gets sweet.
Crafting- there is big wealth to be made in crafting, but I have lousy luck, so I will leave the crafting tips to someone more knowledgeable than me. I am more likely to find a 45 life pally combat than to roll one. I would rather take my ez profits selling to the crafters, but that may change when I finally hit level 92.
I hope this guide helps others build the characters that they could not afford before. I have a great time playing this game, I do it in my spare time, with no cheats, hacks, or scams. If someone else has good tips on building wealth, please post them below and I add them to this guide.
