New to Reign of the Warlock... what the heck happened to the economy?!

Hello all,
Until this ladder season, I hadn't played D2 since Reign of the Warlock released. What the heck happened to the economy? I first noticed that the values of more common items were really wonky...

1) War Traveler is pretty cheap, even at high MF. Like, a 47 or 48 MF only costs you a Vex. It used to be a Lo, like seasons 0 through 12.
2) Perfect cold facets are only 1 Ist each! Used to be Vex to Ohm, every season.
3) Perfect amethysts are like 30 to an Ist, used to be like 12.
4) A 4% life leech Arreats I found only sold for an Um... and that was me overcharging.

Then, I started looking into the value of like, the really elite items. A JMOD is ONLY 1 OR 2 Jah RUNES. WTF! It's supposed to be like... between 15 and 30 Jah. And a perfect 40/15 jewel like the one I found a few years ago and sold for 10 Jah? LESS THAN ONE Jah!

WHAT HAPPENED WHILE I WAS GONE? I take one little break from the game after doing like 10 straight ladder seasons, and you all totally change all I thought I knew about item values

Gem-to-rune ratio changed cuz of stackable stashes. What used to be heavy-click nightmare of hoarding those gems and runes in LoD is now as easy as shift-clicking into your stash tabs in RotW. Plus lesser space taken too, no more gem or rune mules as an addition.

you can try to get jmod by selling gems/runes.
jmod still very expensive in nonladder

facet are not worth so much today due to new jewels. A cold sorc can totally avoid it.
weapon: new jewel, rune Helm, rune armor, nix shield.

in non ladder , Perfect Amethyst will stay 15, even if ladder down to nl. it wont make it like 30-40 in ladder

leox wrote: 10 hours ago

you can try to get jmod by selling gems/runes.
jmod still very expensive in nonladder

facet are not worth so much today due to new jewels. A cold sorc can totally avoid it.
weapon: new jewel, rune Helm, rune armor, nix shield.

in non ladder , Perfect Amethyst will stay 15, even if ladder down to nl. it wont make it like 30-40 in ladder

Strange you say that because BiS cold sorc gear is actually a 4 faceted Monarch, a 3/20/2faceted Circlet, and a faceted Death's Fathom, so adding a new unique jewel doesn't really change that much... you still need 6 or 7 (possibly more though) cold facets.

tatarjj wrote: 9 hours ago

leox wrote: 10 hours ago

you can try to get jmod by selling gems/runes.
jmod still very expensive in nonladder

facet are not worth so much today due to new jewels. A cold sorc can totally avoid it.
weapon: new jewel, rune Helm, rune armor, nix shield.

in non ladder , Perfect Amethyst will stay 15, even if ladder down to nl. it wont make it like 30-40 in ladder

Strange you say that because BiS cold sorc gear is actually a 4 faceted Monarch, a 3/20/2faceted Circlet, and a faceted Death's Fathom, so adding a new unique jewel doesn't really change that much... you still need 6 or 7 (possibly more though) cold facets.

I use Nightwing's Veil,
I remember I test facet difference on similar build before...

conclusion is that nix Death's f , veil is most easy to play and you can use only 1 new jewel and 1 other thing , because 1 55 facet does not change performance( 1 new cold jewel, 0-1 55 facet)

And there is another style I didnt compare to Death's fathon build but looks stronger or same performance

Doom 1h ba base and nix shield, that you have to choose use cold jewel or other jewel in Helm ( this case, not even new cold jewel is needed, good to have, 0 requirement for facet)

Phoenix shield is very good to make life easier and you may test 4x55 see difference....but I still recommend people use nix to save those trouble

JMoD for 1-2 Jah? How? Where? Huh?

tatarjj wrote: 12 hours ago

Hello all,
Until this ladder season, I hadn't played D2 since Reign of the Warlock released. What the heck happened to the economy? I first noticed that the values of more common items were really wonky...

1) War Traveler is pretty cheap, even at high MF. Like, a 47 or 48 MF only costs you a Vex. It used to be a Lo, like seasons 0 through 12.
2) Perfect cold facets are only 1 Ist each! Used to be Vex to Ohm, every season.
3) Perfect amethysts are like 30 to an Ist, used to be like 12.
4) A 4% life leech Arreats I found only sold for an Um... and that was me overcharging.

Then, I started looking into the value of like, the really elite items. A JMOD is ONLY 1 OR 2 Jah RUNES. WTF! It's supposed to be like... between 15 and 30 Jah. And a perfect 40/15 jewel like the one I found a few years ago and sold for 10 Jah? LESS THAN ONE Jah!

WHAT HAPPENED WHILE I WAS GONE? I take one little break from the game after doing like 10 straight ladder seasons, and you all totally change all I thought I knew about item values

justinman114 wrote: 1 hour ago

JMoD for 1-2 Jah? How? Where? Huh?

1-2 Jah for a JMod is highly exaggerated (= false). It's more like 7-8 Jah (Traderie, recent sales, NL SC).
And PAme are more like 15 per Ist (not 30).

But yes, lots of prices have dropped. For three reasons:

1. Introduction of new strong (overpowered) items.
2. Reduced popularity of items that are not Warlock-related
3. Ability to stack items in the new RotW stash.


Examples for 1: The introduction of Gheed's Wager makes Arachnid Mesh cheaper. WT is cheaper now because Horazon's Legacy is strong (especially with some set bonuses) and Wraithstep is preferable for many Warlocks that don't need MF.
Facets have dropped because of the new Uber Ancient Jewels. Lots of builds can only use one or two jewels and use an Uber Jewel instead of a facet. That's also why 40-15 jewels are much cheaper now. If you have the choice between a 40-15 and a new physical Uber Ancient jewel, the decision is easy.


Examples for 2: Lots of players are dumping their accumulated Wealth into Warlock related gear and gear for the other classes drops in price because these classes are not as popular anymore the Warlock hype fades. Then prices will find a new balance. Right now OP items like JMods and 6-40 are fairly "cheap" because they are not BiS for Warlocks because Warlocks have their own OP stuff (Ars books, two-handers that can be wielded in one hand).


To 3: Generally speaking, all common items that can be stacked in the RotW stash have a lower price because people just have a much larger stock of these items. (Basic economics: Prices go down if the supply rises significantly but the demand stays the same.)
An extreme example: In the past you could often sell 20 Eth for 1 Ist because many players did not pick them up because of limited stash space. But now Eth gets picked up until you have 99 and across the complete player base the amount of Eth in the bank is 20x? (50x?) higher than before RotW. Now you can buy 100 Eth for Mal or less.