How many times has this happen to you when you are putting together the mats to craft that one weapon?
When finally, you got all the parts and rec’s, you are ready to pick up the last two missing pieces of the puzzle together.
But to your surprise, after many endless shouts and combing every square inch of Giran, you cannot escape having to buy from 2-3 toons who’s 24 hour shops that constantly daily sell thousands of crystals and gems.
The crystal supply is a very fickle market that on what seems to be daily tragic event dramatically changes the prices. On really slow weeks, the prices of these crystals will stable out sometimes. On the busiest days and weekends when supply starts to run lower, which most shops will let u to believe, the prices will jump to more then 25% on some occasions. If u follows the prices there is a roller coaster cycle. Even on a non-eventful week where nothing else is going on the cycle of crystal price hiking dramatically fluctuates.
Think of the crystal market as a big fish little fish where a bigger much stronger store buys out the mom and pop store. Wonder how some of those crystal pushers have more then 5-20k crystals. It’s not from breaking their weapons that’s for darn sure. They wait for the smaller shops to drop their prices and they buy them up. They monopolylise the market temporary and raise the prices up to 25 percent. This can be easily done with 2-3 accounts.
This sort maneuver is down right criminal for it takes a long while for the market to drop back down from a sudden increase. Even as new shops emerge they follow suite to the higher prices that these shops make. Therefore over inflating the prices to the market when there is has been no change in the supply.
This is nothing new in L2, these sorts of practices can be found in nearly every valuable mat and resources in the game. That’s how most sellers make their money: by essentially, sticking it to the crafter, that later, overprices his or her weapon and armor shops. This cycle will probably never stop.
It’s the market bane that makes the bots look like good guys for flooding the cheaper mats. Which to me offset the prices of having to buy the higher price crystals and gems. But there are ways to get around those prices from the crystal-pushing-price-hikers.
One way is to simply make a sell shop right next to these crystal shop. Let them know that you are not willing to buy into their higher priced crystals. You be surprised how many players will sell you their crystals, only if your buying prices are fair and reasonable. If u want really cheap crystals then just be prepared to wait a really long time.
Another way you can avoid this is if you planning to craft a weapon a head of time keep tabs on the market and buy only when its low. I craft a lot of weapons and armor and when my funds are high I try to always stock up an all mats including crystals even if I don’t have a project on hold.
Its always good too keeps such items like crystals stockpiled for when you craft. If you have millions sitting in your inventory think of crystals as a solid commodity you can invest your money. You don’t have to buy thousands and hold them forever. But if u see yourself running low on funds get rid of your stock pile maybe you can turn nice little profit if the market is currently high.
Third way to avoid price hikers is have several projects running at once. I try to avoid crafting huge A and S grade weapons for they tend to take 2-3x the mats. Also failing one of those crafts at a risk can really hurt your adena. Many times you run into a problem where you missing that one hard to find material and halts your project for days or even weeks. If your currently working on 2-3 different weapons u can avoid this problems especially if working on different grades crafts at once. The reasons for this if let’s say B crystals are selling for 13k each and A crystals are down to 10k. You should always work on the weapon that will cost u less, but try to expedite those hot weapons that will sell the fastest too. Tricks like this can save u a few million letting u resell the weapon cheaper giving u a better turn around time.
Mammon and special events also manipulate the price of crystals. As a result of over enchantments failures causes the increase in the supply of crystals. Thank your friendly merchant of mammon for this. Also any special event that increases weapon enchants tend to do the same.
Follow the suggested patterns in the market and pre-plan ahead and you never have to give in to higher prices shops scoundrels that make living selling you there overprices crystals.
its called playing the market, i was selling some d crystals once for 750, someone sat next to me selling d crystals for 700, so i put 698, he put 697, i put 695, he put 650, i bought all his crystals and resetup for 750, and sold them all
but then the crystal market is at an all time low on bartz, i can pickup a crystals for 8500a each.
also the other day, someone wanted to trade me a top store bought d grade weapon for some armor that i crafted for next to nothing, i crystalized the weapon and sold the crystals, made 1.9mil off of em
also, elven jewels crystals between 688-690 per crystal, way over priced.
if you crystalize demon fangs, you get d crystals for 687 each, may not seem like alot, but it adds up when your doing 70,000 crystals
I didnt want to touch the D crystal for u can easly get them made from what u said perviously.
My attenion was from just recently. What seemed overnight price hikes targeted atm only B grade and A grade cry that have reached 12-13k each not 8500. I havnt seen anyone sell A crystlas below 9000 ea sence earlyer todays price increases on bartz.
On lionna the AA has been on an all time high at 1aa/5-6a for many weeks and months. Althou it has recently gone under 1aa/3a
wich is starting to puch down the a crystals abit.
I believe a a crystal costs 1600aa/crystal. When aa close down to 1aa/1a you cap a crystals at 16k, Today the cap is like 48k?
B crystals cap at lionna today at 12900. However to get em this cheap you gotta do a [censored] of work. So the standard price is closer to 14k.
Also getting 20k B crystals is easy. I sometimes put in 110m one week in crystals and make ss resell these crystals. That is usually 10k crystals / week. I never buy b crystals from other shops cheaper then me unless they drop close to the cap price of 12900.
Its worth what the highest buyers buy for, this fact is why prices go up so much when ebayers can get their adena easy ;). Thats why everything on lionna has dropped so much since the Adena IRL value has gone up 5 folds. (the best legit market players gotta know everything about the adena value to predict profitable trends) I myself made close to 50 mills on a few days the weeks after the massbotbannings on A crystals :). Sticked up on ********s of a crystals between 16k-19k. Sold em all at 35k few days after.
I believe S Grade can be purchased at Mammon - I'm not sure about A?
B crystals cap at around 13k (not an unreasonable price), A crystals seem to be around 26k on Lionna. o.O
I often wonder that some ppl that play for so long already dont know basic things.
The Merchant of Mammon sells A crystals for 15k AA and A gemstones for 30k AA he also offers S crystals and gems.
To the OP is this post meant to be a guide for new players how to get cheap crystals ?
I thought its common knowlege that if you craft things you might get crystals cheaper after crushing then to buy them. Same goes for SS.
If i have materials to spare or can easy obtain new i do craft things and crush them for the crystals.
Since am a Bounty hunter and not a Warsmith i wont need to look that much often after some crytals. If i need crystals or gems i go buy em or trade for AA ( depends ) because they are mostly the only things that cost me adena all other i get with spoil or manor.
I often wonder that some ppl that play for so long already dont know basic things.
o_O Is the complete purchase list of the merchant of mammon so "basic"? I know the game content that is relevant for me, and A Grade just isn't part of that.
I usually looked out for cheap bloody orchids, meteor showers etc. when I wanted A crystals, beyond that I just don't care. I do not currently or ever intend to own an A Grade weapon.
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I often wonder that some ppl that play for so long already dont know basic things.
o_O Is the complete purchase list of the merchant of mammon so "basic"? I know the game content that is relevant for me, and A Grade just isn't part of that.
most ppl plain and simple dont need to now crap like that
stratics has a complete list of mammonable items but im not sure if its up to date atm
all crystals up to A grade have a self regulated price but most ppl wont tell you the trick for A grade
S crystals are tricky because most craftable S grade is useable and drops are pretty rare
Unless you've noted the recent changes on Bartz in Giran... While B and A crystals were selling fairly cheap (9k & 10k respectively) Some shmucks came along and bought out all the cheap shops and raised the prices on B to 14k A day later they did the same to A and it now sells for 15k. I mean ... really that's not playing the market that's Gouging it. (yeah they had to lower the price on B somewhat .. but even so)
As to D/C Crystals... People best be very careful about even thinking to gouge like that as there is a endless supply of crystals. Some of us put crystals out at a pittance after all.. we make a very tiny profit on it but have them in our sale shops for one sole reason... WE always have them in a endless supply.
As to B .. I can get crystals cheaper but not in a endless supply under 9k so if there is a catch to it, I dont know it. Nor do I know the trick for A. I set buy shop's for these to mostly right now... as I won't pay the asking price of those that Gouge.
that would take lots of money to do something like that, wonder who funded it, either way though, the more crystals cost the more money can be made, especially if you already have a nice stock of crystals, soulshot/bsps prices are going to be going up
i only wish i could afford to do stuff like that, well ...maybe in a few months i can control the market abit, and rake in a few billion adena
I won't sell people ss/bbsps at that kind of price because then i'd feel like i've boughten into their scam. I'll set buy shops or take the extra time to craft my own items to keep my price low. You have to realize with that sort of funding they can also monopolize the shot markets as well. Atleast at the higher end where the demand is not as great as it is in lesser grades like c and d.
As a rule of thumb, most bargain hunters look for things that are priced to sell. Then they price it at the general going rate and make a profit. Which is very reasonable as there are players that simply loath setting up shop's and will unload what they have at a loss. BUT the kind of pricing currently being seen on Crystals in the upper tier (bartz) is underhanded by nature in my opinion. It should not be supported in any way shape or form... as it will encourage others to do the same.
do you have that same response when you have to kill someone in pvp? oh no i dont want to kill them its like ive ruined all their hard work in getting that %
this is a competitive game, help your friends sure, but everyone else over as much as possible, you want all their adena and you want to kill them too, who cares if you make a few extra mil because someone decides to monopolize on the crystal market abit, its just like the stock market, oil prices go up, then so do gasoline prices, congrats you've made some money, so if them crystal prices go up then take your crystals turn em in shots and sell them for a nice profit.
It's not even remotely the same if your a crafter. I wouldn't have built any sort of trust at all with those who deal with me if I had the soak it to you mentality.
I don't think i've ever compared my sale shop(s) to PVP ... I just don't have that sort of personality I guess. <shrug>
Unless you've noted the recent changes on Bartz in Giran... While B and A crystals were selling fairly cheap (9k & 10k respectively) Some shmucks came along and bought out all the cheap shops and raised the prices on B to 14k A day later they did the same to A and it now sells for 15k. I mean ... really that's not playing the market that's Gouging it. (yeah they had to lower the price on B somewhat .. but even so)
Nope thats a good exsample what playing the market is and thats why a lot items gow more expensive time after time.
I often see stuff like that and think what scammers but if they still find ppl that buy for that much its totally ok.
Im glad i can get most stuff free myself with my bounty hunter so i can smile on all that overpriced stuff.