Confused about Niobium bargainer

[samoyed1958 0]

finally got my mage to niob. level 77, and noticed that most of the armor itmes are above level 100 so I get her up to level 99 and now can wear the gear. though am puzzled as to how I can use this barganer.. to outfit my lower lv toons. have read about how you want to get your barganer to niob but am confused as to how she is going to outfit my other players that are not even close to her level

[Mystix123 60]

That information applies to the console versions of the game, where you can socket high level rings, amulets and blacksmith arts (Whet, Anneal and Enhance) into low level armor, without affecting the level of the armor.

 

However, in the PC version, it will change the level of the armor. I believe (a PC player may want to correct me on this one) the "Bargaining Network" is required to support new characters. In this scenario, you have multiple characters with Bargaining at different levels, so that new characters are always supported by a different Bargainer as they level up.

[wolfie2kX 528]

Well.. That's just it.. Since you're playing on a PC, having a niobium shopper for characters in lower levels is almost useless. And I say almost because there are very few things from the niobium level that you can use with another character in lower levels.

 

Most niobium level gear is way too overpowered for lower levels - The only two things you can use a Niob shopper for would be to trade in runes that can be forged into armor and taking say, a Silver level armor piece and having the blacksmith add Niob level blacksmith arts.

 

There is, of course, limits to this. Niobium level runes will jack your level 20 armor up to level 50. So your characters need to be able to wear level 50 armor for them to make any use of them.

 

But if you were playing on a console (either one, actually) this wouldn't be that big a deal. You can take level 20 armor and socket level 200 rings, ammys and such into that armor and it stays at level 20. Doing this on the PC version will turn that level 20 armor into level 200 armor.

 

Niobium Blacksmith arts, OTOH, are penalty free.

 

But keep in mind, you best be prepared to trade lots of goodies. Blacksmithing - even with Bargaining cranked up to insane levels - isn't cheap in Niobium. So if you want those blacksmith arts, you will need to be prepared to turn over LOTS of goodies to your Niob shopper so they can trade them in for gold.

 

Just for an example, I took a niob shopper I created a while back and had him swing by a blacksmith to forge in an Enhance and a LL rune into a piece of Shadow Warrior armor - it cost over 1 million gold to do it. Ouch.

 

Are they worth it? Niob level arts from a Niob blacksmith will give you roughly 2 to 3 times what you'd find from a Silver blacksmith. Silver level Enhance is +2% Chance for Critical Hits and -6.1% Regeneration Time. The niob version gives you +6% on the Critical Hits chance and -12% on regen time.

[Ysne58 236]

Using the bargainer network, taking a level 2 bargainer into niob -- you can find some decent armor and rings for your new characters. Considering how much time it takes to actually find the stuff, I'm not sure it's worth it.