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Shopping Strategy?


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I understand how shopping works, but I do not have a good idea of what to shop for at what levels. About all I am doing right now is looking for +1 all skills items so I can wear them. My level 42 seraphim has bargaining 64. My plan is to have at least one of every class to go through the game at least once so I want to be able to shop for any class, if possible.

1. What items should I be looking for at my level?

2. What are the best armor pieces to use to make a bargaining suit (and a buff suit as well)

3. Is it true that the shop only changes items if you visit a different one and then come back?

4. Are there particular shopper and bargaining levels that are better than others?

5. What am I not asking about that is important to know about shopping?

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hi tasharil.

I´m also just getting started playing a shopper again. I had one a few years back, but dont remember much of it.

I read through some forums though and since gogo is was really active there, I´ll pass this one to him :)

Daniat should also be able to help u, he´s the one, who convinced me to play shoppers again :D

 

I´m very interested in what they (or others) have to say :)

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I understand how shopping works, but I do not have a good idea of what to shop for at what levels. About all I am doing right now is looking for +1 all skills items so I can wear them. My level 42 seraphim has bargaining 64. My plan is to have at least one of every class to go through the game at least once so I want to be able to shop for any class, if possible.

1. What items should I be looking for at my level?

2. What are the best armor pieces to use to make a bargaining suit (and a buff suit as well)

3. Is it true that the shop only changes items if you visit a different one and then come back?

4. Are there particular shopper and bargaining levels that are better than others?

5. What am I not asking about that is important to know about shopping?

What we used, and that Schot pioneered, was the concept of Shopper Toons within a Shopper network... you basically set up a network of Shopper going from zero to as high as you can...then you create toons that trade with your network that buy the requisite level's gear^^

Kind of a long way of going about it... But when you put the time into setting this up, it actually gives you a free skill choice for your "real" toon, as they only have to get items from who your trader is. Having Smithers along the way helps as well.

There was a really well detailed topic somewhere here where someone charted out the levels at which to leave your shoppers at, I'll see if I can find it

 

:)

 

gogo

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hi tasharil, all I am going to say comes of my own experience with shoppers, and maybe its not the only way to raise a shopper.

The three different chars I raised as shoppers are High Elf, Temple Guardian and Dragon Mage, the best choices are the chars with bargaining as primary skill choice(HE, DM and Inquisitor), cause you need a strong char to reach niob the faster the better.

I recommend to reach niob in single player at level 80, in multiplayer a bit higher, but once you reach niob you may stop leveling up with him/her, because bargaining is less efficient the higher your level becomes, I ve downloaded a lvl200 shopper with 630 bargaining and he barely sees anymore a yellow item in merchants. So my recommendation is leaving your chopper at level 120 or 140 max, higher level means less yellow items, but your shopper will be able to support chars up to level 160, which is not bad.

I have to say that bargaining becomes a tiresome routine at higher levels, you will need to spend much more time to get nice jewelry or items, so to make it more efficient I recommend you to use, if possible, a different shopper for each class, simply because 70% of all the stuff offered in merchants belong to the shopper's class.

About your questions:

1. It depends what you are looking for, I always recommend +skills and +ca in the same amulet or +skills-+aspect if you are playing a single aspect, if you are lucky enough you will find amulets with the same bonus twice that means at level 25 you may find an amulet with +2 all skills or +8 at level 85, but there is also a very small chance to find amulet with +all skills and +bargaining or +all skills and +general skills, these are the best stuff you can find for your shopper gear

2. Best options are in general mutation sets, Velaria's Garment, Halgrim's Legs, chestplate and shoulders of Lumen's Servants, if you are lucky enough to see a helmet/belt with +bargaining and +general skills one of them twice that is the best option for it, better than any other set item in general, for dragon mage I recommend 3 set items of same aspect set, you can go with 6 so you have +all skills first bonus twice and halgrim's legs gives you a decent amount of +all skills. About relics, best option is having a low level char in niob, not a shopper, to buy relics for you shooper still in gold or plat. Dual wielding two Officer saber or with Kufferath Defender is no doubt the best option.

You will need of course a smither to support your shopper foring all items with amulets, if you can have 22 or 23 sockets forged with amulets with double bargaining and/or double +all skills then your bargaining level will be easily 3 times your char's level.

3. Best place for shopping in my opinion is in Thylisium at the entrance of the Inquisition Temple, there you have a merchant and a runemaster next to the entrance to the sewers, use it to reset merchant, its faster than teleporting with portals

4. Best shopper in my opinion is Dragon Mage due his set bonus, but Seraphim and TG are also good options because they got more armor pieces than others.

Forgot to say that you need a ratio 3:1 at level 85 and 4-5:1 at level 110 (bargaining:char level) not only to get decent stuff from merchants but also to see less white and more yellow items. Otherwise if you cant have a nice gear your shopper will be useless before level 120, so I recommend updating gear each 5 level if possible to not decrease your ratio too much

Edited by Daniat
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hi tasharil, all I am going to say comes of my own experience with shoppers, and maybe its not the only way to raise a shopper.

The three different chars I raised as shoppers are High Elf, Temple Guardian and Dragon Mage, the best choices are the chars with bargaining as primary skill choice(HE, DM and Inquisitor), cause you need a strong char to reach niob the faster the better.

I recommend to reach niob in single player at level 80, in multiplayer a bit higher, but once you reach niob you may stop leveling up with him/her, because bargaining is less efficient the higher your level becomes, I ve downloaded a lvl200 shopper with 630 bargaining and he barely sees anymore a yellow item in merchants. So my recommendation is leaving your chopper at level 120 or 140 max, higher level means less yellow items, but your shopper will be able to support chars up to level 160, which is not bad.

I have to say that bargaining becomes a tiresome routine at higher levels, you will need to spend much more time to get nice jewelry or items, so to make it more efficient I recommend you to use, if possible, a different shopper for each class, simply because 70% of all the stuff offered in merchants belong to the shopper's class.

About your questions:

1. It depends what you are looking for, I always recommend +skills and +ca in the same amulet or +skills-+aspect if you are playing a single aspect, if you are lucky enough you will find amulets with the same bonus twice that means at level 25 you may find an amulet with +2 all skills or +8 at level 85, but there is also a very small chance to find amulet with +all skills and +bargaining or +all skills and +general skills, these are the best stuff you can find for your shopper gear

2. Best options are in general mutation sets, Velaria's Garment, Halgrim's Legs, chestplate and shoulders of Lumen's Servants, if you are lucky enough to see a helmet/belt with +bargaining and +general skills one of them twice that is the best option for it, better than any other set item in general, for dragon mage I recommend 3 set items of same aspect set, you can go with 6 so you have +all skills first bonus twice and halgrim's legs gives you a decent amount of +all skills. About relics, best option is having a low level char in niob, not a shopper, to buy relics for you shooper still in gold or plat. Dual wielding two Officer saber or with Kufferath Defender is no doubt the best option.

You will need of course a smither to support your shopper foring all items with amulets, if you can have 22 or 23 sockets forged with amulets with double bargaining and/or double +all skills then your bargaining level will be easily 3 times your char's level.

3. Best place for shopping in my opinion is in Thylisium at the entrance of the Inquisition Temple, there you have a merchant and a runemaster next to the entrance to the sewers, use it to reset merchant, its faster than teleporting with portals

4. Best shopper in my opinion is Dragon Mage due his set bonus, but Seraphim and TG are also good options because they got more armor pieces than others.

Forgot to say that you need a ratio 3:1 at level 85 and 4-5:1 at level 110 (bargaining:char level) not only to get decent stuff from merchants but also to see less white and more yellow items. Otherwise if you cant have a nice gear your shopper will be useless before level 120, so I recommend updating gear each 5 level if possible to not decrease your ratio too much

Best answer

+++ Daniat

 

:)

 

gogo

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Thank you all for the info. If you are playing multi-player I see how you can get low level characters into Niob, but what do you do if you are playing single-player? Do you try to get them to whatever difficulty you can by the targeted level you want them to be?

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All my shoppers are single player, I reached plat at level 75 and niob at level 95 with my Dragon Mage, level 100 niob with my HE, I have never raised a shopper in multiplayer, but I think there are level restrictions for each difficulty

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Your playing Fallen Angel not the expansion right? Expansion nerfed +skills from what I've read so one good thing is that if you shop long enogh you can find double stacked plus skills amulets (at level 42 maybe +8? skills). Agree with the above post that you should aim for 3x your level. I have a surplus of Officers sabres (3 gold sockets) so I use them. If you don't have any or you wanna save it for non bargaining purposes try and get a 2 silver slot weapon with +skills. I try and use rings that have something like +skills and unseat opponent or pacifism,run speed (something I won't really miss).

 

I mostly look for jewelry that has combinations of deathblow, damage x-x, opponent chance to evade -%, combat arts that even other characters can use. If I'm going to the swamp I try to get amulets with DOT reduction or a belt with 2 sockets and extra HP. That's a simple rundown as in Niobium I shop for things like damage miti, chance to halve regen%, etc ....

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Playing with CM patch a Dragon Mage shopper works quite well even with a fresh installed game. Berzerk form is enough to kill the bosses up to gold difficulty. So you can focus on bargaining and dragon magic focus for a long long time. Dragon magic focus is not wasted since the companion buff is a real boost to all damage doing spells once berserk starts to fail.

 

Something like: make some money with a robust shadow warrior start character

Then do a dragon mage shopper

1 - bargaining - 1 early point to buy bargain stuff items, put points again after berserk is modded and keep at level

3 - mentalism lore -stop at 5 first to mod runes of protection and unlock dm-focus

5 - dragon magic focus - stop at 9 to mod berserk and then put again after bargain is at level

8 - armour lore - to unlock all the armour modifiers you will have on non set gear

...

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