Building up wealth

Hey,

first off: I'm not searching for somebody who will rush me or gift me any items!

To all of you who somehow manage to get an Enigma every season after like two weeks: Please help me
I'm searching for somebody who can mentor me on how to build Wealth in D2R. After multiple years of playing D2 (casually) and a good amount of time of D2R I'm still somewhat poor. I have a quite well equipped character but I'm not really "rich". I never had a

Ber or

Jah rune or any of those cool runewords like Grief, Chains of Honor or Call To Arms (or Enigma ).

Best would be if we can chat 1on1 (maybe even with voice).

For chat, I am not available, but start with gems.
Collect all of them from normal gems (chipped or flawed depends if you have space)
15 Perfect amethysts sell for an

Ist
30-35 perfect rubies sell for an

Ist
40 any other pgems sell for an

Ist

And try also to collect good bases, they'll be bringing you runes from

Pul onwards, sometimes much more. 5-6

Pul is an

Ist, etc.
For low runes, upgrade to

Ral. 25-30

Ral is again an

Ist.

A

Ber is 25-30

Ist, sometimes less
A

Jah, in NL, about 5 more, not sure on L

That's how I have collected enough to get a CtA, an Enigma and that's all, but already quite nice. Also sometimes there are donations, check from time to time trades with "Free" quality, on my side got several of them (but to play them honestly, take them to use them, not to resell, that's what I do, only ask for when I use). Annis used to be a good cash machine as well but no more (but if you're lucky enough to get very good ones still can be worth it).

That would be good start points. Good luck !

[Edited to ramble on a bit less ^^]

Generally speaking, there's a ton of ways to reliable build a solid income stream.
- Trav runs + gambling
- Selling rushes and/or sockets
- Selling uber services (unid torch for 4x3 = free torch for you every 3rd uber clear)
- Farming steady lower to mid income areas (gems, keys, ...)
- Farming roulette-areas in the hopes of not being stupidly unlucky (CS, TZs, cows, the same old)
- ...

Personally, I prefer to combine farming either keys or roulette-areas with uber services but which one it ends up being exactly depends entirely on what char/build I am running. S1 was CS farming + uber services because I ran a pally. S2 ended up being TZ farming +

Key farming + ubers from those keys, rather than selling them, after obtaining about half the desired gear as I ran a sorc. In both cases, I went from 0 (and I mean 0..none of that site-which-must-not-be-named nonsense) to fully geared relatively quickly.

One thing that obviously helps with any of the farming/activity choices is knowing how and what and when to trade. For example, if you're say a hammerdin (ugh..) and you find an

Arachnid Mesh early on, don't get greedy and keep it for yourself. Sell it for runes. Early on, an arachnid still easily fetches

Ohm+. At the same time, early on,

Ohm value (or even

Ohm itself) can often be traded directly for a

Sur. Moving up the rune chain is crazy easy early on and a single Arachnid is basically 25% of your Enigma. Likewise later on, as folks get a bit more gear, those arachnid-like pieces (arach,

Shako,

Tal's armor, ...) all drop in value quite quickly and quite hard while runes get relatively more and more expensive. So basically, you can sell your arachnid for 25% of an Enigma with a

Gul or so to spare if you do it right and then a few days later just rebuy an arachnid with said spare

Gul while keeping the 25% of your Enigma. That Principle holds for many items that are cheap AF later on so just figure out what you need (NEED! not want) to make your build work for farming purposes and beyond that focus on the runes first to maximize your capitalization of normal season-progress market shifts. Some exceptions apply as certain items (top-end bases, perfect charm/jewel rolls, ...) actually go up in rune value as time goes by so it is just a matter of knowing which is which.

Beyond that, one massive spike in income that shouldn't be ignored is the first dclone or two. If you can have a clone killer ready by then, ideally to the point of not only killing your own but being quick enough to get a few more pug annis, the first walk alone can net you your Enigma or Infinity or whatever big ticket goal you have. Mind you, there's been folks immediately selling their unid anni for

Pul or

Um on the first run this season...but that's just them being dumb. You can overcharge the hell out of 1st-walk-annis in a new season.

Addition: I speak more of slow paced non ladder, while Schnorki is more ladder oriented. Took me 6 months to get to hell

Baal while he was there in ... I'd guess less than a week.
Very different categories of play

I use to build up the following at the beginning of a new ladder season:
-MF Blizzard Sorc with Wealth, 3

Perfect Topaz

Mask, Spirit

Monarch, etc... and, the most important of it all, an Edge

I use to level up doing

Pindleskin when i'm around 80 and try to build up a solid base of uniques. I agree with the above, that you should sell certain items like

Tal Rashas Set immediately for runes, as prices drop significant over time.
Speaking about price volatility, i suggest saving good bases like Superior

Archon Plate or

Eth 4 os

Thresher. As more people get access to highrunes as time proceeds, they grow in value to a certain degree.

When i got a little bit better stuff, i switch to

Lower Kurast and

Mephisto runs, trying to sell items i don't need for Midrunes, Pgems, etc in the meantime.

Why the

Edge Bow? Because of selling

Annihilus from Diaclones. Thanks to the new d2 economy built by bots and streamers, it shouldn't take too long for the first clonewalks to appear. Edge enables you to actualy kill clone with minimal equipment thanks to Prevent Monster Heal. Also, it's great to have it when you gamble the gold for Circlets/Tiaras/etc. because of the Reduce Vendor Prices

When i got some decent Stuff/Runes i build...
- A

Travincal Zerk-Horker
Yes,

Travincal may be boring, but as far as i know, when using a horker there, it's the best place to farm solo in d2 bnet. Every 100 runs something nice and rewarding happens there, according to my experience.

An alternative strategy some suggest at this point is to reskill a Paladin to Smiter when he reaches a certain level, do Ubers and try offers like: "o Unidentified Torch for 4x3 Keys". That way, you get rewarded with a keyset for providing people without the capability to run Ubers/Trist with a Torch for their keys.

You can also approach the game like an economy simulation and try to make profit by trading. I don't do that too much because it's not as rewarding to me like finding a HR by pure chance, but some people find this approach more pleasent than spending hours on redundant farming, which i also understand.

But always mind: d2r may be approached in different ways. If you got stuck by not having adequate equipment, just use your time to level up some build you havn't tried before from scratch and cross fingers that good stuff drops on the way.

Thank you all for your advices. As my drop luck wasn't the best yet (maybe I get all the good loot from now on ) I may be trying to finish my Horker for

Travincal. I also have a Paladin around level 71 that I should start to get into Uber farming.

So far I used my Blizzard Sorceress to farm pretty much all areas in Hell. I also got a decent

Griffon's Eye but that's pretty much it.

Any advice on bases to look for? I surely missed a lot of stuff because I wasn't even aware that it has worth. I know at the start of a ladder the

Monarch is actually pretty nice but are there any things to have an eye on that may be worth a lot? MrLLamaSC once had a +3

Fire Mastery, +3 Fire Ball, 6 OS

War Staff that was 40

Ber runes (his words). How do you even know that you should keep those?

Necrarch wrote: 2 years ago

Addition: I speak more of slow paced non ladder, while Schnorki is more ladder oriented. Took me 6 months to get to hell

Baal while he was there in ... I'd guess less than a week.
Very different categories of play

Less than a day, normally. My goal for day 1 tends to be "get through hell, get the stat/res/skill quests, get ~75+ (target lvl depends on build), go to bed". Day2+ then becomes gearing and that's it. Whether or not that works depends entirely on my other obligations though as I am far past the years of scheduling my life around some video game. S2 for example had me catching up with about a 4 or 5 day handicap as I was gone for a long weekend instead of forcing my life around blizz's schedule. Far more fun that way.

The ladder difference really only exists in terms of trade value shifts and the value assigned to (early) dclone walks though. Beyond that, farming approaches really don't differ between the two.
But yeah, slow paced play = slow paced gearing. That difference while (on average) always hold true, regardless of which approach you use to build Wealth.

Also...edited my original post for less rambling and hopefully more clarity.

Bytenex wrote: 2 years ago

MrLLamaSC once had a +3

Fire Mastery, +3 Fire Ball, 6 OS

War Staff that was 40

Ber runes (his words). How do you even know that you should keep those?

The staff is worth a lot because of Obsession runeword. Works only on ladder, tho.

Some more stuff to look for (including superior versions):

-

Eth Elite Armor 0 or 4os with 800+ Def
- Staff with 0/4 os and +3

Energy Shield (Warning, not every Staff is capable of 4 os)
-

Grand Matron Bow with +3 Skills and 4os
-

Eth

Cryptic Axe,

Giant Thresher,

Thresher,

Great Poleaxe with 4 os
- Archon Plates 3/4/0 os with 520+ Def (500 is ok to, my suggestion is kinda arbitrary)
- Superior

Mage Plate with 3 os
- At the beginning of ladder: 0 or 3 os Superior

Breast Plate with 15% ed
-

Eth

Scythe with 4 os for self-wielding Infinity
-

War Scepter and its except. or elite counterparts with useful skills and 4/5os. Great is a +3

Cleansing

War Scepter 5os for Call To Arms for example
-

Berserker Axe with 5 os
-

Phase Blade with 5 os

The list is far from complete. If you got some time, browse this sites trade history for bases and look what they sold for to get a feeling. What makes a base worthy in the end is the potential runewords that fit in. Have that in mind when browsing runewords and pay attention, what potential bases would be good for it.

Have in mind, that you can try to socket non-superior items with cube recipe. Thats why i always keep stuff like

Eth

Cryptic Axe and try to get 4 holes in it.

Oh and what is your minimal worth to keep and try to trade? Is it really worth to keep

Pul+?

How many hours do you play a day?

Assuming someone farm only

Key of Hate.
Drop rate 1/11,2 and 2,67 min per run you will get 1

Key every 30 min.
You can easily sell 3

Key of Hate for

Ist or 1

Ist every 1.5 hours.

To get

Jah +

Ber (~50

Ist in the first month of ladder), you need 50*1.5/14 = ~5.36 hours per day during 2 weeks to get Enigma.

Bytenex wrote: 2 years ago

Thank you all for your advices. As my drop luck wasn't the best yet (maybe I get all the good loot from now on ) I may be trying to finish my Horker for

Travincal. I also have a Paladin around level 71 that I should start to get into Uber farming.

So far I used my Blizzard Sorceress to farm pretty much all areas in Hell. I also got a decent

Griffon's Eye but that's pretty much it.

Any advice on bases to look for? I surely missed a lot of stuff because I wasn't even aware that it has worth. I know at the start of a ladder the

Monarch is actually pretty nice but are there any things to have an eye on that may be worth a lot? MrLLamaSC once had a +3

Fire Mastery, +3 Fire Ball, 6 OS

War Staff that was 40

Ber runes (his words). How do you even know that you should keep those?

Bases are a matter of experience and "just knowing" more than anything else.
Basically, if you know which builds are played and what their ideal gear looks like, you know what bases to keep.

4 socket (or even White early on) monarchs at season start are an easy example because everyone and their mom wants a Spirit.
45 res pally shields (3, 4, White) tend to also be obvious as they at least make you go "oh, perfect roll! gonna look into that!"

What may not be as obvious if you don't simply know is that a 4s

Eth great pole is like 10+ times more valuable than a 4s

Eth

Cryptic Axe. Or the fact that a JMoD is one of the most valuable items in the game. Or which skill combinations you need on a claw/staff/pelt/... to take it from

Charsi food to priceless. It all makes perfect sense..but you kinda just have to know why which you again figure out by knowing what builds use what gear in both, PvE and PvP.

all pretty much said. barb

Travincal runs r ur best way to get hr, nice stuff and gold.

about gambilng;
dont forgeth to equip

Edge Bow and

Gheed's Fortune.what to gamble? rings. why? plenty caster amulets already on the market, rings r not that expensive, great rare roll can get u decent hr (not only with +10 cast or double leech, there r many comibinations that r great), not that rare to gamble good rare ring. at least, that is my experience.

As being the "cheapest" guy, I keep

Ral and just below to cube, a few of each others, and

Lem+.

Lem to

Mal allow to get some Ists eventually.

I'm quite like you really in that I've been playing a while but not managed to get especially wealthy as yet (no Enigma or Infinity).

Part of it comes down to time and patience of course, I simply can't spend hours a day playing games, it's a handful per week at best.

That being said, I'm now basically as rich or even possibly even richer on ladder season 2 (2-3 months of play) than non ladder (the previous 12 months of play) and it purely comes down to trading. Pick a build or two and focus on those, sell everything that isn't needed by those builds. Do all the gem stuff that Necrarch mentioned. Check every grey item that drops, bases can be great for getting richer. Don't skip rares.

I made a smiter and a fire bowa in S2. The smiter just for annis and torches, the fire bowa for everything else (

Key runs, general mf, cows). Seems to be working!

I don't have much to add; most of the advice I could give has already been said.

That said, I've given away probably 10-15

Ber worth of stuff because I don't really want to spend that much time on trading. I wouldn't recommend you setup to trade everything the way of some people because it can get involved, but if you want to spend some time on trading as well (I mean here not necessarily in game.) then make sure you study up a bit of low-level dueling equipment before the start of the new season as well. Good LLD stuff can be worth quite a bit to the right players, and you'd be surprised how quickly it adds up.

brgljez wrote: 2 years ago

all pretty much said. barb

Travincal runs r ur best way to get hr, nice stuff and gold.

about gambilng;
dont forgeth to equip

Edge Bow and

Gheed's Fortune.what to gamble? rings. why? plenty caster amulets already on the market, rings r not that expensive, great rare roll can get u decent hr (not only with +10 cast or double leech, there r many comibinations that r great), not that rare to gamble good rare ring. at least, that is my experience.

What combinations other than 10fcr and dual leech have good values?

bubix wrote: 2 years ago

brgljez wrote: 2 years ago

all pretty much said. barb

Travincal runs r ur best way to get hr, nice stuff and gold.

about gambilng;
dont forgeth to equip

Edge Bow and

Gheed's Fortune.what to gamble? rings. why? plenty caster amulets already on the market, rings r not that expensive, great rare roll can get u decent hr (not only with +10 cast or double leech, there r many comibinations that r great), not that rare to gamble good rare ring. at least, that is my experience.

What combinations other than 10fcr and dual leech have good values?

single leech with 2-3 res/str/dex, 2 res with mak/str/dex, att rat with 1 res/mak/str/dex...

brgljez wrote: 2 years ago

bubix wrote: 2 years ago

brgljez wrote: 2 years ago

all pretty much said. barb

Travincal runs r ur best way to get hr, nice stuff and gold.

about gambilng;
dont forgeth to equip

Edge Bow and

Gheed's Fortune.what to gamble? rings. why? plenty caster amulets already on the market, rings r not that expensive, great rare roll can get u decent hr (not only with +10 cast or double leech, there r many comibinations that r great), not that rare to gamble good rare ring. at least, that is my experience.

What combinations other than 10fcr and dual leech have good values?

single leech with 2-3 res/str/dex, 2 res with mak/str/dex, att rat with 1 res/mak/str/dex...

What is "mak" and what is "att rat"?

Mana after each kill and attack rating.

I know this would cause controversy, but the easiest way of building up Wealth is to farm a ton (or get super lucky) early on in the Ladder season and sell everything valuable on d2jsp. Forum gold is the best store of value in my opinion as its purchasing power increases as a Ladder season (time in general) progresses.