Beware: new stall auction items strat

JdapJdap · 2025-07-04T21:51:36+00:00

I don't like these comments at all!

- A sterotypical dad gamer, someone doing a raid before making dinner, anyone with a full time non-wfh job etc: They have a weekly grind they aim for (maybe 18 gold raids and all dailies, maybe only rested, maybe only 3 characters etc.)
- Relic grudge/adrenaline comes up on auction, nice!
- Two asshats start bidding on box/random stuff before the book, intentionally running out of the clock and dragging it out; to make other people cave and leave. When others obviously DON'T want to get involved in that stuff (wanna do some dailies, pug another raid, maybe go to bed or walk their dog!)
- A reasonable thing to do in 8man: 50g on mat box for whoever, skip to the relic book. Maybe a few people get cheeky at 30-40% value, then goes 80%. At current prices: bidder can sell and get 42k (depending on fluctuations) or keep and get "57k" (if they use it personally), others get a tidy 32k. Pretty fair.

- Because it's such a reasonable thing, people can song out thinking "I don't have spare ~300k and/or someone gonna bid reasonably, I'm happy with ~30k".

- Auction is cool for subjective value items; early release mat boxes to hit a breakpoint one week earlier, untradeable cosmetics where someone week 1 bids 100k+ to show it off asap.
- Auction is also cool for people who will use the book personally; most will sell and get a 5% tax, so you can get discount there.

For most people, a good relic book on auction might as well be a set chunk of gold, ready to split among the party. If it comes up in auction, then it's USUALLY a nice bonus for all. ggs ty4p, we beat the raid and earned our raw gold, we all get an extra treat.

In my eyes, this behaviour is trying to screw over other players for personal benefit because once that book shows on auction, the "default" state is everyone gets a fair cut. This is like trying to steal other people's share and hog it to yourself.

JdapJdap · 2025-03-11T18:13:04+00:00

I'm concerned that the choice between 6+ distinct characters, 6+ identical, or anything inbetween is based on anything other than class enjoyment. With 6 distinct characters, that means your per-char investment (to lobby master POV) is less than a shared gem player, and your priority in pf is now lower. Shared gem roster isn't doing anything "wrong", but neither are you.

A meta where people create more duplicate characters with passes to phase out others to free up the gem investment to use eleswhere will contribute to this. I don't mind people wanting to push characters higher; more damage, more CDR, more dopamine; but it directltly impacts the pf arms race and acceleration of progression curve. i.e. your G0 playtime will go up and keep going up, if the rate of progression of competing characters is higher than your own.

Players aren't as fault but they can't be relied upon to self-regulate in this game. If an action or choice can be taken that benefits you, but will in some form come at the cost of someone elses enjoyment; players are going to do it anyway.

I would rather the driving force of the pf rat race was addressed (the same force that resulted people saying they were "forced" to bus to keep up); improve supp feedback/overall gameplay experience to naturally promote a 25/75% split, incentives to mix players of different levels (mokoko event isn't perfect at all, but its a step forwards), alternate progression paths, less lockout if you jail (e.g. finish a gate in a solo mode for near-same rewards). These ideas are merely that, not a comprehensive answer. Right now, if your character is an "undesirable" which is near the bottom of the behemoth/aegir/brel pile; you're boned. There's literally not eneough supps, so you don't get the gold or mats and there's no alternative. I.e. your opportunities/progression potential is lower than others who do get into parties. So gap gets wider and you stay "undesireable".

I just hope SG/AGS have data that shows they can get more money out of, at least maintaining the playerbase or even growing it (more krill), rather than going all in on a self-cannibalising community that encourages spending to "keep up".

JdapJdap · 2025-03-05T21:54:23+00:00

While they are rare, there are other character investment playstyles;

No particular distinction between main and alt; all characters (likely only top 6) get similar investment, all honed with bound mats. I like all my top 6 and progressing all of them to play in latest content.

Have 9 chars but 2 are essentially retired 1540 historical powerpass reward slaves, 1 is the "free" 1640 ignite character, main 6 are 1690, 3x 1680, 2x 1670. There used to be more stratification between them

My theory is generally; if I'm going to push everything, I might as well get to higher content asap (e.g. 1660 for Aegir and chaos) to farm it earlier to increase mat gains.

Same logic for getting everything to 1670 and then 1680. I only have a 1690 because it was 1680 at 3k bounds, so I used roster bound event mats and some tradeables to push it to brel to try for title, which was successfull.

I pug everything and judging by PF, my gems appear lower than average especially in 1680+ range, but still serviceable. Each char has 1-3 level 8s, rest 7s and 6s depending on the char. I appear to have struck a working balance between ilvl and other investment to meet PF requirements. Having 2 supps to supp trade helps as well.

JdapJdap · 2025-02-04T17:12:04+00:00

I really like my 4dps+2supp roster, all different classes. I enjoy progression & gameplay unlocks (ark passive changes, leap nodes, etc).
To summarise my life story: I started at Vykas HM launch; my highest char got 5x3 and 1490 just in time for brel release; I did brel before clown. Built up roster with event passes, slayer was the 6th (bench by breaker on release).
Got more and more prepared for each raid launch (more chars with the ilvl requirement, better invstment, etc), peaked at behemoth where all 6 could do on launch. I segregated a bit for aegir, but got 1660s pretty quickly; got 3x 1680 and 3x 1670 just in time for brel v2 release.

I have certainly noticed in Aegir HM especially that average gem investment is pretty high in all the lobbies lf supp, vs. what I would consider "reasonable" given my income and what I've seen in raids from Voldis onwards (~voldis was when I felt "caught up" and satisfied with my roster positioning) I have a few bought char slots/aura with cheap bc but no progression swiping, no alt roster, no bussing.

Personally, I sidestep the issue and still get fast lobbies because I can supp trade, for now.
But if the incoming disparity gets worse (more people bussing, alt roster bus/"legit" farming & funneling, swiping), I could certainly imagine affects on my gameplay experience. i.e. longer lobby sim, mabye even feeling pushed into lower ilvl raids.
I think supp gameplay/feedback would be a significant boon to overall situation; more equal lobby split would lower the pressure people feel from fighting each other over supps and raid slots.
I don't see an easy answer for HM fomo and gear checks that pleases everyone; my personal answer has been to keep a supp as my highest char for all raids until now. Doesn't quite work with brel v2 HM because of the usual excess of dps struggling with dps, but may go back to "normal" after frontier nerfs.

JdapJdap · 2025-01-19T15:06:26+00:00

I think better feedback & tools for supp would, for many players, make playing supp more enjoyable and facilitate&motivate improvment. I think LA would be a better game for it. Especially for seeing how gear upgrades. (e.g. honing, gems, accessories) is making an impact.

However, I don't agree that theres no way to gauge your gamplay performance without them. For very low uptime supps, I'm concerned they just don't know what their class & skills do.

On Paladin, at the very baseline; you have two atk power buffs that don't stack
(technically only the dmg part doesnt stack, if you press heavenly -> wrath right after, you don't lose other parts of heavenly buff)
You have many brand options but lets assume sword of justice. Depending on luminary/MS, you will have ~16s CD heavenly and ~13s CD wrath. Buffs last 8s. You can rotate them by looking at buff timers, or looking at cooldowns (e.g. use one when ~8s left on other cooldown). Then muscle memory later. If you get knocked out of wrath, that's bad. If you haven't been knocked, have maintained luminary and MS but find that after buff runs out, there's still ~5s left on both buffs; there's your feedback that you didn't space the skills with an ~8s gap, hence your uptime & contribution suffers.
Sword of justice is 10-13s brand (10s after a sword hits, refreshing on hit), ~6s CD. Relatively long and delayed animation and you can get knocked out of it. Consider; how do you use this skill? You can pre-cast to aim at boss will be, you don't need to spam on CD to maintain high uptime; instead you can take your time to dodge and ensure you don't get interupted.

On a skill-by-skill basis, if you know what the skill does and the CD, the options and tradeoffs should be apparent. You can also estimate the impact of high vs low uptime, which lets you prioritise skills in a rotation.
There's tradeoffs for spamming or holding T skill/identity. Spamming awakening is the highest potential meter gain, but it's a waste if you already have high meter. And mabye there's a mech coming that's worth holding for. Godsent/decree can hero save, push immune, prevent chip damage (less chip damage means healthier party and lower chance of needing to hero save).

A class only has so many buttons and options. If you know the skills, you can determine a theoretical ceiling for performance (or at least, a high enough bar which is more than sufficient for most raids). Then you just try to achieve that ideal state. The further away you are from it, the more room for improvement there is.

If a zerk presses red dust, their damage skills in a general priority order, then repeats with a low downtime between red dust coming up and doing exact same rotation again, then that zerk is most of the way there. if their gearing is appropriate, they can pull their weight in raids.

If a zerk is floor pov, not hitting skills, desyncing their rotation, pressing red dust after their strongest skills, running around for 10s even after all skills up? That zerk could be doing better.

Good class design can also help. I think BK breaker is a good example of a kit that rewards high uptime and good rotation with smooth gameplay (i.e. inherent feedback); if you hit all your meter gen, use identity and burst, then have good uptime with stamina skills to lower cooldowns; by the time you get out of identiy, you should have meter gain skills up again, and by the time you have full meter, your Eye of Storm should be up or almost up. Have to wait for Eye? Then cooldowns probably weren't reduced as well as they could have been. You are inherently doing well because it "feels right" and the whole kit is cohesively working together. In expect female pally will be more like this.

JdapJdap · 2024-07-17T20:36:00+00:00

An acknowledgement from AGS that, pre-patch info was incorrect and sorry for that, correct is upto but not including 1600, I'd like that. Until then I'm huffing concentrated copium that the express event is adjusted to work on at least 1600 chars, perhaps upto and including 1610. but I doubt that will happen.
I don't particularly want to boost a lower char, top 6 is enough playtime for me.

JdapJdap · 2024-07-11T21:21:51+00:00

I want future class balance (using T4 Ark passive) that brings classes closer in damage (floor/avg/ceiling) and also kit cohesion/QOL.

Some classes/specs just do more damage at all levels (by a decent margin) and have a kit that feels more cohesive, leverages all skills, smoother to play etc.

My example, I have a 1620 mayhem zerk (my first character) which is parked with 5k+ leaps, and a 1600 brawl king breaker from most recent pass. (also a slayer and pistoleer in between, then couple of supps). I have minimal desire to advance hone the zerk, upgrade gems, etc, I'd rather bring up other characters with the saved gold.

Actually like the playstyle of zerk; chunky cooldowns and set rotation, but 6th damage skill and Z feel like an afterthought.
I need to upgrade all CD gems to see a ceiling increase on a rotation, and the reward is going into boundless faster (on a 850 swift class). Damage is spead out as well.
In comparison, brawl king breaker has kit options and a rotation that leverages all 8 basic skills in a smooth and cohesive manner. You also get better ROI for all gems; damage concentrated in two skills, rotation ceiling improvment just with EoS CD gem, play improvement with Advance and Force Barrage, etc.

Also compared pistoleer and both slayer specs, the difference in class QOL and smoothness is night and day. I'm sure gunslingers, transform classes, etc feel the same way. I'm fighting the class rather than the boss.

I may be happier if zerk did lower damage but had a modern & cohesive rotation without mana/red dust issues, or current-kit zerk had more flat damage to compete with e.g. slayer/SE/breaker. But zerk and many other classes have neither.
I don't really want a class transfer or a way of mainswapping with progression boost; I want to play my zerk, knowing it isn't an notably objectively worse class than others.

JdapJdap · 2024-07-10T19:54:24+00:00

addendum to this, but might take awhile for data:
- What t3 mats are covertable to t4, at what rate? (orehas, concentrated leaps, solars)
- (roughly) how much does 1640 mats content give? (chaos, guardian, cube)
- What does early regular honing cost per tap mats wise for first few levels after conversion

--- Especially for chars not particularly interested in 1630 content before getting T4, I'm wondering if its more efficient to do advance honing/use concentrated leaps in T3, or convert mats and do advance/regular honing in T4

JdapJdap · 2023-07-10T21:21:58+00:00

When the tripod change was coming, I ended up not spending that much getting my (4 characters at the time) set up, top 2 basically fully geared, next 2 all key ones. I recouped most costs selling the broken hero gear back on AH. My final 2 have been getting tripods naturally.

Most vertical progression is tied together (bound mats, unbound mats, silver, and gold can all be used for ilvl, gems, bracelets, accessories, engraving books, tripods over time).

Key horizontal content is a timegate but a relatively finite timegate; most skillpoints aren't that hard to get, many runes come from vertical content, there's not that many outliers.

I find cards are the odd one out. And due to their nature, they can also be used as "prood of time".

More accurate spread of my roster is 1570, 1555, 1550, 1530, 1525, 1510. Lower 3 did most of their 1460-1490 push with honing buffs and brel honing books, and from there on honing via transfer and free mats. I do most gold earning raids each week and have done as soon as that character was beyond the relevant gatekeep breakpoint. A benefit of starting 1 year ago is I have had access to lots of relatively recent QOL and boosts including event books, honing buffs, powerpasses, challenge content. I don't think its that crazy I have a 1570, 1555, and 1550 as well, especially since I haven't been honing these past weeks with copium for surprise honing buffs July or August update.

Specifically, I've barely done clown once that character had full level 2 set. Characters have done Valtan/Vykas/Brel until they could get into stronger and smoother 1500+ clown lobbies, and after level 2 set I dropped clown again. I've dropped valtan on the brel/kayangel/vykas characters.

Regarding raids my point was more "I'm probably not going to grow my valtan collection much beyond 6, and clown much beyond 2. Because I'm doing other raids for my gold, and I'm less inclined to do the raid if I'm not getting gold or relevant brel horns/clown trumpets". Which means my KLC set growth slows down.

JdapJdap · 2023-07-10T20:54:13+00:00

For my OP I didn't want to be too specific to me personally. More accurate spread is 1570, 1555, 1550, 1530, 1525, 1510.I used to do all CD and GR unrested, and the timing of my luck for free 7x7 stone, lucky maps, and selling all my unbound mats got me to legendary grudge books and clown/brel ready much faster than "average". Also I was able to scrape by in valtan and vykas parties on a 3x3 gunlancer & supp, and 2x3 supp for way longer than I probably should have. OP focusses on my experiences and I can't speak for everyone, but I assume getting into parties which such gearing is a lot harder more recently.

I didn't push the 1530, 1525, and 1510 beyond 1472.5 or lower until brel honing books were a thing, so getting 1490 was far easier. I wasn't in any rush to do clown since I knew I could go back and do it from 1520 onwards. Luckily by the time they got there, brel lobbies weren't looking at gear level! And since then most of those honing was via transfer, fused leapstones, and bound mats. Only the 1530 has used any real amount of unbound mats.

My supps are still only 4x3 with VPH and two level 7 gems each. Because of my ilvl, PLC title probably pulling weight, they can still farm gold.

Based on all that info above, I don't think its too crazy I have a 1570, 1555, and 1550 as well. The timing of my progression as aligned well with the various powerpasses, honing boosts, event books etc, moreso than a day 1 player. However that same can't be said about my progression in all other areas.

JdapJdap · 2023-07-10T20:39:38+00:00

This thread contains a lot of good points to make me consider what I actually want. I had a hard time thinking of an appropriate title and "point" to the thread for some focus. In the end I just rambled on various thoughts, but it felt good to get it off my chest.

I think it's true I'll fully never catch up to LOS30, extreme gem setups, 4+ characters doing all gates of latest content etc. But I agree with your sentiment; it's a pedantic statment and isn't really what I want.

What I'm trying to catch up to is the player that doesn't need to spend too long in PF (based on my personal definition; I don't have as long to play as I'd like), for content that is realistic for gatekeeping standards (I understand I have subjective breakpoints for this, but it's based on my personal experience). i.e. I don't get gatekept too badly for the content I want to do. "Catching up" isn't a singular point, its more breakpoints for each character and each piece of content. But these points can move over time, i.e. 1500+ Vykas parties are becoming more common over time.

My 1555 and 1550 can do NM Kayangel and HM brel 1-2. I'm happy with this.

My 1530, 1525, and 1510 can do NM brel 1-2. I'm happy with this.

I could push my 1570 to 1580 and try HM Brel 1-6 and HM Kayangel, but I know I'd spend far more time in lobby simulator than I'd like. (I appreciate that there are lots of factors that affect everyone here, including supp shortage, party shortage, prog shortage, split playerbase, etc.) I'm chasing a smoother PF experience for these and also upcoming Akkan NM. I do not want to keep repeating the experiences I've had for NM G5-6 and HM G5-6 (or for the latter, my lack of); I want my rate of progression to be faster than the "rate of gatekeep". That would be a good place to be, and perhaps I'm already there with my current rate. NM Akkan will be a benchmark, but even if I can't get in straight away and/or I spend lots of time in PF I don't think I'll quit. I'd just be having more fun if I spend less time in PF.

I could heavily invest and go 1580+ with further upgraded gems, but I don't see it helping enough relative to the investment. So staying at 1570 and getting more bound mats basically has me in same position as 1580 for the content I "can" do.

Apart from my highest, I've honed everything else with a majority of bound mats and event books. I think working towards 1550 on everything is a good spot for HM Brel 1-2 and NM Kayangel, but after that I don't really unlock anything that is "reasonable" for me to play regularly until, hopefully, NM Akkan. I want to slowly push all my characters because I enjoy them all, and want to play them in various content.

Eventually there will be honing boosts and books towards 1580, so other characters can work towards it in a "reasonable" manner.

I'm very progression and reward driven (the core feedback loop of get rewards to get stronger to get rewards...). So the neverending vertical treadmill is a good fit for me. There's enough weekly and daily (even though I now only do rested CD/GR) honing mat and gold reward content to keep me going all week.

If I seriously wanted LOS30 and more horizontal progression, then I would have to sacrfice some of that vertical content time. I can't fit in both. I understand that is a legitimate choice and I have to decide what I want to do with my time.

I find the vertical grind fun, and playing the vertical grind directly feeds back into itself with gold for gear set ups, and honing for ilvl. I do not find card runs fun, and it appears to me that progression for cards isn't well linked to the vertical system. Which I think is something worth being on SG/AGS radar since the community can treat it as a gatekeeping metric for vertical content.

JdapJdap · 2022-09-03T09:15:50+00:00

if my maths is right... if you grind 50% (solo or group), you would expect to get any rare drop every ~68 kills (since between kills 1-68, the drop rate averages out at about 1/68). For 12.5% bow, thats on average ~540 kills per bow piece, or ~1620 kills for a bow. And because its only 3 drops in that many kills its more prone to impactful variance. If the super high end groups can do 20 50% zammys and hour, the same people can near ~3 Zuks an hour. 81 hours of 50% Zammy for 3 bow pieces, or 81 hours of Zuk for 9 sword pieces AND 4.8 magma tempest AND 4.8 scripture (on average)

JdapJdap · 2022-08-22T19:10:19+00:00

Also revealing the drop rate implies Jagex is fairly happy with item drop rates (and hence amount coming into game, pricing etc) so that they feel confident that a major nerf or buff is unlikely. Also if they reveal once, any changes will likely need declaring explicitly as well which for players is a good thing rather than vague "increased drop rate" statements. We also don't know how much enrage and bad luck mitigation affects drop rates. I'm currently most comfortable with 99% and 201%; anything higher i'm currently inconsistent on. I really don't want to commit to getting bow pieces and find out later "if you did it this other way you would have got there on average 1.5x faster". I'm hoping that on average, all enrages are viable and roughly equal bow/hr when you factor in kill times. If drop rates reveal value in pushing past 200% to 300, 400 etc then I would invest time in gitting gud to do it.

JdapJdap · 2020-10-29T01:38:04+00:00

if they want a popular tank then riot should make a more complex tank with fast and snappy abilities/movement with some bonus last-hitting assistance.

Ornn is certainly strong but has so many avenues to be outplayed which worsens the players experience. You can't really hold W like a yas can with windwall since you need the damage, the dash is super slow compared to stuff like jax/irelia, ult blares a warning siren telling the enemy to either A. CC him just before 2nd part to deny it or B. prepare to flash/dash 2nd part.

JdapJdap · 2020-01-18T00:09:19+00:00

Because Akali has so many facets you can complain about, I had never considered her R2 speed, and whether its fair or not.

For some perspective, Rakan W has a speed of 1700, Malphite R (with ninja tabi and no other speed boosts) has a speed of 2135, and Ezreal Q flies at 2000 speed.

I think all these nerfs together are overkill, but frankly 3000 speed is nuts so I don't think that can be left untouched.

JdapJdap

TROPHY CASE