How Much is 'X' Rune Worth [Pricing Guide]

Morphin wrote: 2 years ago

tatarjj wrote: 3 years ago

sonnytai331 wrote: 3 years ago

I’m glad my dumbass decided to convert my “life savings” into

Ist after reading this post thinking “oh an

Ist is like a dollar, it stores value well”

Little did I know that OP meant Zimbabwean dollar, not US Dollar. 28 Ists for a

Ber? FML

Yea, I think it's a bad "currency". I've noticed that

Ist has been dropping relative to

Gul for quite some time now. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few more months, 2

Ist =

Gul. I personally dislike

Ist runes not only because they seem to be dropping in value but also because you can't convert them upward without losing value.

Gul runes can cube all the way up to

Lo and not lose any value! So,

Gul runes are a lot more useful to stockpile because every

Gul rune is an easy-to-convert fractional share of every rune higher than it until

Sur.

Ist being a base currency is kind of a tradition from the legacy D2, and in no way means it doesn't fluctuate. Dollars fluctuate.

That being said the currency for high-value trades is always

Ber. But that's not very practical for new players.

Yeah on a hindsight

Gul is more stable now but the mindset where people measure Wealth in

Ist's is still there. But calling

Ist Zim dollar is a stretch - at the very worst it will still be worth 1/2 of a

Gul (fundamentally impossible to go lower whatsoever), and by extension 1/16 of a

Lo. More like the Australian dollar...

TBH even if everything up to

Lo settles at cube value it won't be much of a change from where it is now. I'd be more interested to see how long this

Lo/

Sur semi-equivalency can hold, as this will be the sole factor preventing

Ber value from rising to an insane level.

Don’t take my post too seriously, it was meant to reflect sarcastic humor, not bitterness

I agree to most of the valuation in the OP.

The big thing I want to add is that

Pul = 2

Lem. This would be very helpful, and important, to adjust for new players that do not have much to trade with and need to get most out of what they can find.

You can even argue that

Pul = 1.5

Lem. At som point a few weeks ago:

Pul =

Lem.

Also the following is more correct

Mal = 1.5

Um and

Ist = 1.5

Mal. But I think 2

Lem =

Pul is more important to adjust.

czypher wrote: 2 years ago

I agree to most of the valuation in the OP.

The big thing I want to add is that

Pul = 2

Lem. This would be very helpful, and important, to adjust for new players that do not have much to trade with and need to get most out of what they can find.

You can even argue that

Pul = 1.5

Lem. At som point a few weeks ago:

Pul =

Lem.

Also the following is more correct

Mal = 1.5

Um and

Ist = 1.5

Mal. But I think 2

Lem =

Pul is more important to adjust.

That's a good point,

Lem just has too many uses and almost every GF barb needs 12

Lem.
I also feel

Mal is now worth more than half an

Ist now but the actual value is difficult to quantify. Will keep an eye on this.

If

Ber = 2

Lo, and

Ber = 2

Sur, then

Lo =

Sur. People trade these like for like all the time in games.

Congrats @Morphin on making the first thread to break 100 likes! The view count is also insane on this. :O

I gotta say, I've had my own spreadsheet going with values of runes

Lem & up that I try to update every week or so, & this is pretty close to matching that, so it's pretty accurate right now.

Thanks for keeping this going to help people who don't want to bother with stuff like that.

Wow,

Zod shooting up! I’m going to HODL then!

However people interpret price guidelines.. Both this thread, the stickied Value Guide thread, some videos of MrLlamaSC and the price history have all been very helpful in making decisions as someone who never played ladder and rarely traded.
As long as the disclaimers are present (which they are) that prices/values are relative based on source and time period it feels like the tools are available for people to make their own decisions on trades.

I was having a hard time getting a

Pul or

Mal a week ago while it felt like people were throwing Ists at them at weird ratios.
Guess it has to be expected on a free market with demands based on runewords, where people are progress wise, people not caring about prices and people trying to make a profit, etc.

Having the price-check for recent transactions on items has been very nice.
And even this comes with a downside; items that might benefit new or niche builds, possible post-2.4-builds which might not be reflected in the history, there's no way to catch it all without some personal investment (investigation).

And on this part (getting the information) the site has for me personally been very sufficient.

Edit: typo's, small addition.

Sorry, but this actually makes no sense. 4

Ist make a

Vex. That’s what it’s worth. A

Vex isn’t somehow less than what it takes to make it. When talking about any rune

Lo and below, it’s exactly worth what it takes to cube up to it. Base currency only made sense when soj’s were the currency because it wasn’t tied to cubing or runewords. Ists are more common because it’s a mid rune that buys a lot of small items. If you say an

Ist is a dollar, why would a twenty dollar bill be worth $17.50?

Because someone who needs dollar coins to feed his parking machine doesn't need a 20 dollar bill. Yeah, they might take it and go through the effort of exchanging it into 20 dollar coins with someone else, but thats extra effort, so they'll take a discount on it.

That should be obvious.

So, as you have stated, higher runes are used for Runewords and are therefore much differently valued than their crafts. Yes, a

Cham is not worth 250505 Ists. Neither is a

Zod. A

Jah is worth slightly more than a

Ber because both of them are used for Enigma.

Why is a

Lo almost equal to a

Sur? Because a

Lo is used in Grief. Why is

Sur so expensive then? Because it cubes to

Ber.

There are different use cases for the runes above

Lo, as you have stated, but there is a large market for low level items where the

Um is King, but the

Pul is the Count, and the

Lem is the Baron.

Would you spend an

Ist on let's say an

Arreat's Face? Of course not. You need smaller, but appropriate currency. So, how do you bid?

You say

Lem. Someone else bids 2 Lems. You bid a

Pul, they bid a

Pul

Lem. You bid -

Um. They bid -

Um

Pul. What's your next bid?

Mal.

This is where the mid level rune's worth comes from. Understanding that this is how people think will teach you a lot about how the economy works, how the stock market works, and how price setting works.

People who buy and trade high runes, and gear that’s more valuable then same named items, aren’t looking to move down in currency they are looking to move up, or equal, because end game items aren’t worth mid runes, unless the value is equal in mid runes. This idea is a special tax for poor people. It doesn’t make sense, illogical. My question was rhetorical, not to debate how to break ists into

Pul’s. The supply and demand of it doesn’t make ists more valuable, it’s arbitrary.

Also yes, 2 ums would get you a

Mal, so of course that is the next bid in runes, unless the item is only worth an

Um +. There isn’t a supply shortage of ums or mals. Burden to break runes also isn’t on the seller. And citing this is how the stock market is traded is even more telling.

There seems to be a lack of appreciation as to what determines the prices of any runes on the open market. But no worries, we can turn this into a fun exercise to think about for everyone.

I have created a few questions for all the readers to think about together. I hope that everyone can logically follow the steps and by the end of it we should be able to understand the underlying message.

• Question 1: If a
  Zod is the rarest rune ingame and if it takes 512x
  Ist to combine to a
  Zod, how many x
  Ist would you expect a
  Zod to sell for on the open market, if all actors were purely rational and no other information is given?

Spoiler

Based on the information given and a a purely rational market, a

Zod would be priced at 512x

Ist.

• Question 2: How many Ists does a
  Zod sell for on the open market?
  Hint: use the price-checker function.

Spoiler

Based on the last 3 days of recorded sales, a

Zod sold for about 6x-8x

Ist.

New information:
All runes' primary purpose is to be used in runewords.
As an addition to the rationality of the market, some runewords are also more desired by the market than others.

Zod can be used in only one runeword, Breath of the Dying, which is much less desired by the market than others.

• Question 3 a): Name the two major competing factors which are involved in arriving at the open market value of a
  Zod. How do those factors drive the price of a
  Zod?
  Hint: As well as the above new information, utilise the information given to you in Question 1.

Spoiler

Based on the information given in question 1, one of the factors is scarcity of the

Zod rune. Based on the new information above, the other factor is based on the use of the

Zod rune, or in other words, desirability. These factors are clearly competing with each other, as a higher scarcity is expected to drive up the price of the rune, whereas the low desirability is expected to drive down the price of the rune.

• Question 3 b): Utilising the answers to questions 1 and 2, which of the two factors is predominantly responsible for the open market value of a
  Zod?

Spoiler

As the open market price of a

Zod is 6x - 8x

Ist, which is several orders of magnitude lower than the price expected by its scarcity (512x

Ist), the main driving factor is clearly desirability of the

Zod.

• Question 4 -EXTRA CREDIT-: Summarising all the answers above, which are the three main things we should check every time before trying to sell a
  Zod on the market for x
  Ist ?

Spoiler

We need to check the following:

• What is the recent market price for a
  Zod?

• Has the mathematical ratio of
  Ist to
  Zod changed, changing the scarcity of the rune?

• Has the desirability of the
  Zod changed? (Were new runewords added to the game, or did the existing runeword gain popularity?

How was it? Did that make things clearer?
The principles at display here apply to any rune, no matter whether high or low, from

El to

Zod. They even apply to items!

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please fill out your student feedback forms and let me know, anonymously of course! Otherwise, happy studies!

nobody is valuing ists to

Zod, or

El to

Zod, it's an irrelevant point. Runes

Lo+ have special purposes and the value changes for those purposes. The reason 2

Lo + is about a

Ber, because

Lo is more useful than

Sur since it's used in BIS items, and a

Sur is just half a

Ber. Trading anything below

Lo to break mid runes making the seller discount their higher rune is an unneccessary and illogical tax, in most cases. Mostly, the demand for HR comes from each users need for that HR, including the person who holds more mid runes to trade up to HR. Expecting a person to take a discount for their HR for mid runes would have to have a need for using those runes to buy individuial small items, charms, etc, that's why they take the discount, they value the mid runes more now. That isn't a universal rule, if anything, most people are in need of end game BIS gear, and that gear is worth HR, or equal to the HR not mid runes. Becuase you can cube your runes to move up, a universal base value doesn't make sense. Bringing in

El or

Zod is absolutely irrelevant, this conversation is around

Lem (i guess), really

Pul to

Lo, and anything else is a red herring. In fact this is common sense, and how most people you'll encounter operate. Someone who tries to overthink market value to make a universal rule for base currency isn't valueing their items to their own needs, and likely making bad trades, or talking people into bad trades.

What you are not considering is that people prefer certain increments, and a 1/3 ratio is not appropriate. Psychologically, people treat a

Pul as almost half an

Um, rather than a third of an

Um, when compared to the

Um itself. This is how it actually operates.

You are right that it's not what it's worth, but you can literally observe bidding behaviour and how it actually works supports that theory.

People are more likely to go

Lem <

Pul <

Um <

Um +

Pul ~

Mal

By the way, and perhaps this is where you are confused, it does not mean that a

Mal is literally equal to

Um +

Pul. It means that people will often accept an

Um +

Pul instead of a

Mal, as they consider the flexibility granted by an

Um and a

Pul to be valuable.

The pricing lists are not "made up to support a narrative". You can easily fact-check them by looking at actual selling prices.

Also currently prices for PGems are interesting… seeing people buying 5 PAmy for

Pul, 10 for

Um etc. Prices for mixed PGems also rise to 15-20 for

Pul. Feel free to correct me, I find pricing rates fluctuate quite a bit as noted here for runes before

a

Pul is half an

Um. an

Um is half a

Mal. you need 1 more

Um to make your

Mal. you don't get a discount. and the person needing to spend time to break a

Mal into an

Um isn't spending their time wisely, because those runes are not rare, and they can buy twice as many materials or a better item with the better rune. it's not a theory, it's how the game was designed. i am considering your points, but it lacks depth. back before runewords, people traded soj's. that made sense as a base currency, even though there was a lot of duping going on, there was a good idea of what the supply was based on the scarcity of them to buy bis items, the value would be in a range of soj's based on how similar items traded. doing that for mid runes doesn't make sense. because the game allows you to cube runes. these mid runes also aren't scarce items, and the supply of them is so much it basically equals the demand. there isn't more demand to break mals into

Um's. when you can run countess hell and get

Um's to drop, or do hell cows, or anything in hell really, in 3-4 minutes, there is no scarcity of it, therefore no higher demand for it, therefore no reason it's priced higher. until you cube up to

Lo, maybe an

Ohm, you aren't able to accurately value BIS or HR's. Because the HR is really the base value, specifically probably

Ber, since they are the currency for the bis items people want, in other words the items people won't trade once they get unless they have duplicates, the mid runes are equal to exactly their cube value. anything else is reaching, and honestly just doesn't make any sense. the only time there would be a need to take less for lower runes is you need to break your higher runes to buy a lot of gear that isn't worth one larger rune, and they make the decision to buy many smaller items instead of one larger item, because they see more value in it. Or they have bis gear, and they need mid runes to trade for charms they cant find in bulk, crafting materials, and this person will value their runes less then the charms and materials becuase they have bis gear already and their needs change. These two people are the supply side of the graph, they aren't creating the demand they are supplying it by taking discounts. that's why prices change per person based on their needs.

Ist is usually the most common mid-rune people settle on to go higher or lower, and the items that are worth keeping long-term are usually worth atleast

Ist.

Gul's aren't suddenly worth less because more people have more Ists. That isn't how supply/demand works, which isn't a theory. The reality is HR's make the graph go the other way then what youre suggesting, because they are actually scarce and create demand, and can buy end game gear. There are currently 20,000+ active trades on this site, the scope of your search is in your experience. it isn't a universal rule by any stretch.

It seems like you have been thinking about my points, and incorporating them into what you are saying. Or perhaps I guessed correctly, and we are aligned, which makes me happy. But at the very end you seem to have lost me.

So, right now, what is the thing you disagree with regarding the mid-tier rune pricing list? Can you sum it up in one sentence so that we can see if we can address that as well?

It sounds like you are saying "there is no need for a base currency at the mid-range rune level", but also you acknowledge in the same sentence that it doesn't matter where you define the base currency, and that

Ist is the most sensible base currency to be used, which is all true and reflected in the list.

You are also acknowledging that a trader who wants to mathematically split a rune into lower runes will likely need to offer something on top for that trade to happen. Which is also exactly true.

So what part do you not like?

i think you should read my points and make sense of it for yourself. i've said the same thing from the beginning. Also, an

Ist being a common rune people use to go higher or lower or for spending on charms and bulk materials doesn't make it a base currency to devalue other higher runes. it's just a middle point. The base currency is the

Ber, if anything, because end game items are the goal. maybe it's easier for you to just simplify things, and there is personal value in that, even though you end up losing. People trade on their needs, that creates the supply and demand. I am disagreeing with this list and most of what you say, so i would try to understand how supply and demand works better before giving away runes for no reason other then an arbitrary universal list of prices that doesn't meet your own needs. mostly this is common sense. but have fun, gl.

I'm fine ending the conversation here.

I have read all comments and mostly, the criticism and arguments are very understandable. There are different ways of looking at things when it comes to what they are worth, but it remains subjective. For example, heirlooms don't have to have material value to be the most important thing in the world to us.

The game is complex, much more than I have expected and it takes time to understand, which items are useless and which are probably really useful. Because especially for me as a new player, I am not sure, what is important and what is not. For e.g., as all of you, I have found hundreds of jewels, but I had no idea which are good and tradable. And it's the same for charms, bases, items, ...
Sure, there are tons of sites, guides etc. and I could read all day long, but I would no longer come to play.

Therefore, I am happy to find a short overview, which gives me a good guidance to have a better feeling, what runes are worth compared to each other.

My only wish would be to update the list regularly, because, no guide is better than a wrong guide