Eminent/Elborate Drops: Disparity, Rarity and Hilarity

[GrimwoodCT]

This is not a rant but rather a method to judge rarity and ratio (roughly) of the drops needed for Eminent Symbol and Elaborate Armor.

I am really digging the new cultural. It is fun to make, it (for the most part) makes sense and I've made a tidy bundle of plats since it went live.

But I've noticed that I am loaded with superb silks, have a quite a few superb animal pelts, have a decent supply of cobalt ore but I am very short on excellent marrow and soluble loam and only mildly supplied with superb spinneret fluid. (This is from having a /buyer active almost constantly active whilst hunting, farming drops and /auc'ing while at the KB). As a ratio of what I am paying is as follows:

Superb silk: 1 (~200pp)
Cobalt ore: 1 (~200pp)
Superb animal pelt:4 (~750pp)
Excellent marrow: 10 (~1500pp)
Superb spinneret fluid: 12 (~1750pp)
Soluble loam: 12 (~1750pp)

Does this seem to hold true for others in their search for drops and purchases in the bazaar?

Grim/Squeaky

[KyrosKrane]

It's been my experience, in general, that a lack of sales to my buyer indicates a too-low price. The question is, of course, whether raising your price is worth obtaining more of that item.

And I must say, I envy your server. On Luclin, the prices are 4200pp for Excellent Marrow, 6-7K for Superb Spinneret Fluid, and a whopping 17K for Soluble Loam. Most of that can be attributed directly to a single reseller who jacks up the buy price, then complains that people are overcharging for armor (but that's another rant in and of itself).

[Deviator]

on emarr the soluble loam are going for 20-50k, while excellent marrow (if you can find one) is about 2-5k. the other parts, silk ore pelts etc are going for 700-1200p.

this is creating a rift between those who farm their laom/marrow and sell their armor for 10-15k and those who have to buy them and sell their armor for 50-100k.

[GrimwoodCT]

My buyer is generally the highest in the Bazaar and offering about 60% of the lowest /auc'd or /trader price. I have also noticed (when farming) the large disparity in drops. I am sure that the raw prices are different from server to server but do you think that the RATIO of prices is about right on your server?

[Terk]

I was the only buyer for the first 3 days and got plenty of everything offering only 20p each for everything. now there are 2 other buyers but the price on stuff is still only about 100p for super skins, 50p for superb silks, 1k for soluble loam/superb spineret/excellent marrow.

[Tyranthin]

Although the components for the actual armor combines (i.e. loams, marrows and fluids) are significantly rarer than the components for the template combines (ores, pelts and silks), prices on The Rathe are pretty low.

There are generally anywhere from 2-5 buyers up at any given time buying Elaborate/Eminent level components (mine included) at the following prices:

Cobalt Ore: 250pp each
Superb Animal Pelt: 200pp each
Superb Silk: 175pp each

Soluble Loam: 1500pp each
Excellent Marrow: 1500pp each
Superb Spinneret Fluid: 1500pp each

Although there is competition for this stuff from other buyers, we seem to have an unspoken agreement of price collusion. I'm not sure if this term is accurate (since I'm referring to buying low as opposed to selling high), but as long as nobody overcuts everyone else, buy line prices remain consistently low and we all win.

Bazaar prices for the loam/marrow/fluids are usually anywhere from 2500 (for fluids) to 12k (for loams). I've made it a point to pick up any loams under 4k and marrows/fluids under 3k.

Strangely enough, the price for Elaborate armor/Eminent symbols has not dropped nearly as much as the cost to make them has. I recently sold a full set (well, almost, 1 bracer) of Elaborate Frostwarded armor for just under 300k platinum while the cost to make was roughly 15k. Prices are going down, however, as there are a few more sellers in the mix (at least for Barbarian armor). I had to cut prices on my next full set of armor by about 20% to stay competitive. Even so, I'm not complaining. With the release of SoF, the price of Elaborate/Eminent items will be forced down significantly.

Eminent symbols on my server are still running 27.5k each (although specific loc/diety symbols are slightly cheaper) due to the fact that there is only 1 large quantity symbol seller in the bazaar. I wish I'd finished my Eminent book quest earlier, now I'm scrambling to get it done. I shudder to think of what will be involved with the new high end book quest when SoF is released.

[Tobynn]

On Bristlebane, the going rate is something like:

Superb Silk ~ 100pp
Superb Animal ~ 200pp
Superb Spinners ~ 500pp
Excellent Marrow ~ 500pp
Cobalt Ore ~ 250pp
Soluble Loam ~ 1500pp

Actually, I'm no longer buying anything except cobalt and soluble. The bank is overflowing with enough ingredients to make easily another 30 more silk and another 40 leather combines (final cultural, not templates). The stuff just doesn't move faster enough to stockpile for a hundred combines. I have rounded up about 30 soluble loams for 200-500pp. The price on soluble just started to creep within the past couple days and I expect it to skyrocket pretty soon. Word is getting around that soluble is the new MDS.

[Tattedsoul_Zek]

Just recently finished the eminent book quest, I'm wishing I would have waited for SoF though. I have no plans on wasting patterns making my 75 war and 75 shaman elaborate gear and eminent augs and decking them out with last blood augs when I can wait for SoF and get even better cultural gear.

[Tyranthin]

Maybe I missed something, but a lot of people seem to be assuming that when SoF comes out, the current Elaborate/Eminent gear is going to be upgraded from what it is now (65/69) to the best thing for the next expansion (whatever that may be).

To me, this doesn't make sense. What makes more sense would be the following:

New, higher level (80+) template/cultural drops.
New recipes with higher difficulties.
A new higher level symbol book quest.

Or maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. I guess we'll see.

[Ursawraith]

You are correct Tyranthin. There are 4 current levels of armor, they are:
Simple
Ornate
Intricate
Elaborate

Once SoF come out there will be a fifth armor set added. I believe it will be Elegent, so all the current DoN armor will be staying the same with a fifth option added above Elaborate.

[Fonceur]

Before the changes went live, it was mentioned that the drop ratio for ore:leather:silk would be roughly 1:1:2 (need 2 silk for a "swatch") and for the loam:marrow:spinneret 1:1:1. When someone pointed out that the chain + plate one should be twice the leather one, since there are more classes, the argument was discarded since "it was actually more complex"...

After 2 weeks of running a buyer and buying from traders, my conclusion is that they indeed didn't factor in that factor 2 for the chain + plate drops...

[Gaell Stormracer]

2:1:2 for templates drops and 2:1:1 for finishing components should indeed be more appropriate... since that gives equal proportions for smithing and tailoring.

[Elyssanda]

Last night running a Corals Mission in Thalass, we had 2 superb silks, 2 superb fluids, and 2 cobalt ores drop in the 45 minutes we were in there. (group level was 71-75)

[Zopharr]

Quellious

Prices on Quellious

- excellent and superb pelts/silk are going for 400pp and up for each (glad I'm not a tailor)

- tungesten ore is 350-500 for cheapest in bazaar

- cobalt is 1200-1800

- soluable Loam - seen everythign from 1800 to 7500 to 50k

Lucklikly, I am still buying loam in buyer mode at 250pp each, cobalt about the same, as well as getting 1-2 loam each day that I exp (a vast improvement - I rarely did DoNs, so all my scales were bought.

I've dropped prices on elaborate by two thirds, and am actually stocking my bazaar toon with pre-made armor rather than just doing orders. Troll and Ogre are up - need to get Dwarven up tonight.

Garshok

[utania]

My buyer on bertox

cobalt ore 350
soluble loam 550
superb silk 300
superb spinneret 150
excellent marrow 150
superb animal 150

The trader prices aren't that much higher, though there never seems to be any soluble loam on sale.

I purchased about 120 cobalt ore and silks and about 30 soluble loams.
I just dropped all my offer prices this morning, since I was the only one buying and need to actually convert some of this stuff into items