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Take "Bargaining" over your level


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Hello folks,

I am playing as an inquisitor, and I was reading that it was very useful to take the "Bargaining" skill a few points above your current level. So I have been trying to assing points to that skill at every level update. But the problem is the game is not allowing me to add more points to that skill than to my level. For instance, I was at level 19 about to gain level 20. Once I did I tried to add the three skill points to bargaining but the game only allowed me to assing one and then it greyed out the "up" arrow so both my char level and my bargaining level was 20.

 

Why is that? Am I missing something?

 

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You'll need to raise your Bargaining level with Armor and Relics that add to the Bargaining skill.  The game will not allow you to add more points than your current character level.

If this doesn't make sense I am sure that someone will be along soon to explain this in more detail.

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I don't think there's much detail to add, that's about it. The points you add "manually" to a skill every level can only go as high as you current level. That's likely done so we don't drastically overlevel certain skills to an imbalanced degree. Extra points we get from gear can go beyond our current level, however, as they are rather limited in supply.

 

As a side note, those "manual" points you add every level (I think they're also called "hard points") are the ones that matter for reaching "Mastery level" with skills when you boost them to level 75. It doesn't matter how much extra points from gear you have on them, they'll never get the Mastery bonus until you add 75 hard points manually. The same applies for skills that give modification points to your combat arts - only the "hard" skill points will boost the mods of CAs.

 

With General skills like Bargaining, the easiest source of extra skill points is relics as they almost always boost one General skill or another. You can get several relics boosting your desired general skill from the vendors too, they are in the "armor tab" of the vendor.

 

All that being said, I haven't used Bargaining in years so I don't know exactly how much above your currently level you need to boost the skill for it to be effective. I'd imagine it's just several points, however, so 3 Bargaining relics should do the trick.

 

Also, if your sole reason for boosting Bargaining is to get those sweet, sweet, "+X to All skills" rings and amulets, keep in mind that the CM patch makes them not-so-impossibly-rare-to-drop-anymore so you can get by without Bargaining too. If you want to use the skill to twink other characters, however - it's still great for that. :)

Edited by RetsReds
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Bargaining: it depends if you use original game, a mod, .....

In the original it was not enough to have bargaining just a bit above character level. You needed a factor of 3 or more for best results. So at character level 100 you needed 300+

This can be done by searching/trading for equipment with bargaining and if possible some sockets. In these sockets place amulets/rings with bargaining.

This trading set is not much useful for normal combat so wear it only when trading.

It makes sense to bring bargaining to mastery. So when doing quests you have a chance to get set or unique items which you can't buy as a reward.

 

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9 minutes ago, chattius said:

In the original it was not enough to have bargaining just a bit above character level. You needed a factor of 3 or more for best results. So at character level 100 you needed 300+

Wowza! Yea, I've never bothered with it that much and I don't think I will. :D Kudos to anyone who has!

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1 hour ago, RetsReds said:

Wowza! Yea, I've never bothered with it that much and I don't think I will. :D Kudos to anyone who has!

Well we had a shopper chain and a smith for family and friends in old times.

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Talking with CM 1.60 in mind, you can keep Bargaining at char level up until level 100 and keep a suit on the side for it, the higher the better but you're not constrained to a given factor. Why level 100? It's something about the randomisation bounds on the vendor that Dmitryi explained once, that even if you keep raising it the vendors will still randomise items from a pool with the same lower and upper bounds, so no matter how high you get it at a point in time you still can get blue items presented to you.

I can't really explain it any better than that, but basically if you really want the skill spending more than 100 hard points in it is a waste. Just use relics and keep a Bargaining suit on the side for shopping, then travel forth between Sloeford and Multiplayer Island for a quick refresh on vendors (in SP, in MP you can just hit F8 at Multiplayer Island).

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Ok, here's an on-topic newb question - how worth it, would you say, is it to treat bargaining more... "normally"? Meaning, to get it to 75 and leave it there with no special "Bargaining suit", not even bargaining relics, just the occasional "+X to all skills" ring or amulet you've found in the wild. I'm currently deciding on a 10th skill for a 63lvl character. As I understand it, this should:

- Get you the "better quest rewards" Mastery bonus, but how effective is that? Is that chance the same % as the special offer %? I don't like boss-farming so this is actually a bit tempting.

- Get you better vendor prices which is not worth 75 skill points.

- Get you somewhat better vendor items, but how much better at just level 75-100? I'm not interested in shop-farming for "+X to all skills" jewelry for this or other characters, so, what would the +7.5% "Higher quality wares" bonus actually offer? The occasional blue weapon or armor piece? I also don't remember what was the difference between "Chance for Special Offer +X%" and "Higher Quality of Wares +Y%"

Sorry to bother you but the topic was already open and I figured I'd expand it a bit. I used to have one bargaining shop-farmer years ago but I haven't used the skill in ages. :)

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No worries, you're not bothering anyone mate.

I'd say that parking it at mastery level and not using a dedicated suit for shopping randomises the offered goods a bit too much for your own sake. You'll always get better stuff than the norm, but the more active points (hard points + bonuses from gear) you have in the skill the better are the chances to be shown only yellow items. Not only that but the better the offer the more sockets or bonuses the yellow items will have. So parking it will probably result in a mix of white, blue and yellow. Still better than nothing but not nearly enough to warrant 75 hard points in my opinion.

If you want to get better loot you might as well spend those 75 points in Enhanced Perception, which works perfectly fine parked at mastery level.

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10 minutes ago, Androdion said:

No worries, you're not bothering anyone mate.

I'd say that parking it at mastery level and not using a dedicated suit for shopping randomises the offered goods a bit too much for your own sake. You'll always get better stuff than the norm, but the more active points (hard points + bonuses from gear) you have in the skill the better are the chances to be shown only yellow items. Not only that but the better the offer the more sockets or bonuses the yellow items will have. So parking it will probably result in a mix of white, blue and yellow. Still better than nothing but not nearly enough to warrant 75 hard points in my opinion.

If you want to get better loot you might as well spend those 75 points in Enhanced Perception, which works perfectly fine parked at mastery level.

Thanks! What about the mastery bonus, do we know the percentage for it?

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The percentuals in Bargaining are relative, so it's not like you can amount to 100% eventually. The most that I  could make of it was 20 something percent. The simple math is at least a factor of 2x your char level, that's why the Bargaining suit is relevant for when you go shopping.

EP mastery gives you more bang for the buck in terms of loot, even in quests. It turns most if not all of your loot into yellow or better, so once you start bringing down elites and bosses you have a fairly good chance for great drops. With Bargaining it comes to a point where you're "not playing" and just refreshing vendors for that one ring or modifier.

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18 minutes ago, Androdion said:

With Bargaining it comes to a point where you're "not playing" and just refreshing vendors for that one ring or modifier.

Yea, that's why I've been avoiding it. Well, I'll keep doing so - blacksmithing it is! Thanks. :) 

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41 minutes ago, Androdion said:

EP mastery gives you more bang for the buck in terms of loot, even in quests. It turns most if not all of your loot into yellow or better, so once you start bringing down elites and bosses you have a fairly good chance for great drops. With Bargaining it comes to a point where you're "not playing" and just refreshing vendors for that one ring or modifier.

Yes I agree wholeheartedly.

Dmitriy's mod adds uniques and legendaries to vendors which would make shopping more appealing but wouldn't really solve the issue that getting loot from kills and quests feels more rewarding.

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2 hours ago, Flix said:

 getting loot from kills and quests feels more rewarding.

This is why Diablo 3 had to entirely scrap their game, take out the auction system and bring back true-blood looting!

:viking:

 

gogo

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