I'm trying my hardest to stay F2P but it's a difficult road. It's already taken a week just upgrade my owlite shield, let alone my weapon & gear :P So here's what I'd like to know!
-How do you afford to craft your higher* gear free to play players (like, do you have a spending plan- for ex. mon: do a run tue: buy recipe wed: another run thurs: buy energy etc etc)?
-What are the best runs for cash?
-Where do you buy your recipes?
Thank You!
Thank You! Here's the answers to your questions
- I am tier two now
- I am currently wearing the
a) Magic set (2*) because I was not the smartest person when I started & didn't realize wolver was so much better for what I wanted to do with myself. I bought all of that (moar waste >.<)
b) Owlite Shield bought for an awesomely low price & it acquired a poison resist UV
c) Cutter
d) Prismatech Alchemer
I don't think I forgot anything. Unfortunately at the time I didn't realize what crafting was & I am currently trying to keep myself from getting into cr parity :/
- Aiming for full Skolver, 5* Owlite, WHB & Polaris + trinkets
- I've been buying them off the AH (although with mats usually just drops)
Nothing is a total loss. You can vendor your robe and muster up the crowns for a wolver coat. I'd keep the hood for future purposes, but work on getting full Wolver and Dusker. Right now, you can try a few Rawrmulous runs, especially with that elemental defence. You can run with some PUGs or some friends, if they know what they're doing. Continuing on, I see where your heading. I'm not going to recommend anything, since I'm not an expert. Although, I can give you tips on how to get that set you want. But, IMO you should get a Calibur for the sake of safety :l
First, run Twins. Run twins enough times for 15-20k crowns, which is about 4 or 5 runs. Then, search for the wolver set recipe by Basil. If you don't have the patience, then head to the AH. With the remaining crowns, craft the set with ME. Start looking for that Dusker set. And the horned owlite shield recipe. If you do find them, your amound of crowns should be hovering around 8-11k. Run twins once more. Buy 300 energy. Craft on days you can't play. You should be near your dream set with Full Dusker/Horned Owlite Shield. If you plan on getting a Sealed Sword or Antigua, you might want to change that shield. But anyways, now you should work on a Snarble Barb Shield. Very useful throughout the game, especially in JK. Jus repeat the steps you did with Twins, or if you're feeling confident, run JK. To get to T3 is a lot harder. Requires grinding for 1200CE worth of crowns. That's about.... 72k crowns to craft, not including the recipes? Adding the recipes has an end total of 112k crowns, excuse me if I am wrong. That's some serious grinding, my dear knight. Maybe 3 weeks until you hit that amount. One of the few problems of being F2P :l
i too am a f2p player and i'm a little ahead of what u seem to be aiming for. Crowns and CE are a non-issue for me now and i'm pretty well off in this game :D
here's a couple of things that REALLY helped me out in the beginning:
-do NOT craft anything under 4*, aside from the bind on pickup token items (pulsar, bristling buckler, etc). The cost in energy and mats alone to craft a 3* item is more than u can purchase it for on the AH. You can pick up dusker and horned owlite shields for under 15k on the AH on a good day. (i've bought duskers for 12k and horned owlites for 10k)
-spend some time browsing the AH and getting to know the prices. Play the AH right and this will be your MAIN source of income. Buy low, sell high! Try to aim for 2* items and recipes that u have access to.
-try to go into gates with multiple arenas/graveyards. These yield more crowns than the roarmulus and JK gates if they exist.
-the later half of any gate is where the money is always at, so if u have say, 30 mist leftover, either buy enough ce to get yourself to the later half or spend it crafting 1* items to sell. Spending that 30 mist on the top 3 levels of any gate will make u NO money
feel free to add me in game if u have any questions, name is Fuggles
XD
I'm a totally F2P player and Ive been playing since release. I dont have full 5* but that's just because I'm collecting recipes (just spent 24k today buying recipes) and crafting crafting every 2* item in the game
This are some things that many people dont do but help out:
Learn the art of penny pinching. Cut every single bush, grass, bucket, and torch.
Never put offers at or above the current price for CE. The price of CE fluctuates daily up and down so you can save a few hundred cr.
If you need 2* recipes check Vatel first.
Only craft 3* and above when you have 100ME and everything 2* with only ME.
When you have enough to buy your recipes just do basil runs instead of a full T2 run that way you can go to basil 2-3 times to check for the recipes
Wait for arenas
Never energy revive more than 2 times
You could sell your mats but you have to make sure you dont see the ones you need
You can also go into the risky business of selling recipes but you have to know which ones are in demand and make sure the AH fee doesnt steal away all your profits.
You can also sell your heat at the end of arenas to party memebers if you dont need it
One thing to note is some of the things that I mentioned to do during your runs could annoy the party leader and get you kicked.
I actually used to craft with as much mist as possible (and still do on days when I don't have time to play), but these days I actually do the opposite. So long as there's a decent gate up (look for ones with arenas, graveyards, and/or jelly farms between basil and emberlight, assuming you're T2) I'll burn off 80 mist in a T2 run and then usually have enough to buy 100CE after I sell off the mats I collected (doing solo runs is *hugely* profitable for mats selling in the AH), then craft right after using CE and whatever scraps of mist are left over.
Also, as others have mentioned, buy 3* gear in the AH. People rage-craft 2 and 3 star gear farming for UVs, and sell off the rejects for below crafting cost.
So the recipe for economical power-leveling would be roughly this:
1: Run with proto gear in T1 pugs, alternating between the snarby gate and whatever gate has a good second stratum (areans, jelly farms, graveyards) and save up your crowns to buy, in order: a 3* shield (horned owlite), a 3* sword (a tempered calibur if you're planning to go gunner or bomber later, or an elemental brandish of some description if you're planning to go swordie), and then a set of 3* armor (Dusker for swordie, Fused demo for bomber, Gunslinger for.. well, you know).
1a: Pick up a snarble barb once you have enough tokens (you'll really, really want one for taking care of devilites and greavers), then either a bristling buckler if you're swordie or gunner, or a spine cone if you're bomber.
2: Once you've got T2 clearance with the 3* gear above, start soloing T2. Learn to spot the good gates, and sell down your mats after every run. You can either calculate how much of each material you'll need and sell down to that number, or just keep a stack of 10 or 25 or 50 or whatever of each. Check the buy-it-now prices on each material and aim to hit the middle of the first page, and then set the initial bid to only a few crowns. Given the listing fees, it's much better to sell something below value than to eat those fees. Aim to keep at least 10kcr on hand so you don't miss out on picking up a 4* recipe at Basil that you might need later.
You'll spend a fair number of crowns at first buying recipes, but so long as you avoid gear ADD, you should pass through that phase fairly quickly and get down into a rhythm of crafting 2 or so pieces of 4* gear per week. If you're branching out in your arsenal a bit (adding a selection of guns, swords or bombs, for instance), try to find the 4* recipe at basil first, then buy the 3* gear on the AH, and it'll be heated well past lvl 5 by the time you've saved enough CE to craft it.
3: Once you've settled into a nice 4* loadout, you can start alternating between doing T2 solo runs, and T3 basil pugs. Generally whenever you have 25kcr saved up, start doing 2 T3 basil runs with your mist rather than a single full T2, and then go back to doing the T2 solos once you've spent yourself into the poorhouse buying recipes and need to save up for crafting. Don't bother trying to farm T3 past basil for crowns, it's too risky in 4* gear. At this point you should know which monster types and statuses you do well against and which you want to avoid, so you can use that to pick and appropriate T3 gate at first, then as you progress you'll want to keep an eye out for stratum themes that drop more valuable materials.
You should be able to craft about 1 piece of 5* gear per week this way, depending on how lucky you get with recipes. After a few weeks of that you should have yourself a very serviceable 5* set.
4: Congratulations, you've reached endgame. Time to start goofing around with crafting specialized or obscure weapons, cooking up boss-specific or PVP-optimized loadouts, and buying/trading costume items to Pimp Your Knight.
(someone can copypasta this to a wiki page if they think it's worth keeping around)
That sounds like an amazing plan & I really wish I could've used it, but I'm already settled into 2* gear I: Believe me, I'd go back & do it over if I could, but I have a few things tying me down.
- time: I don't necessarily want to spend another month of snarby farming since I've already gotten access to t2
- shield: My (2*) Owlite shield is completed (level 10) & it gained a UV so I really don't want to spend money on another shield that is UV-less
But, all is not lost I think. How would you mutate the plan to suit the needs of someone in my situation?
I agree with Nicoya-Kitty's plan, but I offer a slight amendment to consider: Instead of jumping from 0-star to 3-star on all five items (weapon, weapon, helmet, suit, shield), jump from 0-star to 2-star on the four key items (weapon, helmet, suit, shield) so that you can start working Tier 2 (especially Stratum 4, especially Royal Jelly Palace) earlier. Jump from 0-star to 3-star on your second weapon, though.
So Redfevrier it's no problem that you have 2-star gear already. You're just doing my version of Nicoya-Kitty's plan. It is now probably cheaper for you to upgrade to 3-star from 2-star, than it is for you to buy entirely new 3-star stuff.
Hmmmm ok... so here's Nicoya-Kitty's plan the way I think it might run for me. I will check off {check} the things I have already done:
"So the recipe for economical power-leveling would be roughly this:
1: Run with 2* in T1 & T2 pugs, alternating between the snarby gate and whatever gate has a good second stratum (areans, jelly farms, graveyards) and save up your crowns to buy/craft, in order: a 3* shield (horned owlite), a 3* sword (a tempered calibur if you're planning to go gunner or bomber later, or an elemental brandish of some description if you're planning to go swordie), and then a set of 3* armor (Dusker for swordie, Fused demo for bomber, Gunslinger for.. well, you know).
1a: Pick up a snarble barb once you have enough tokens (you'll really, really want one for taking care of devilites and greavers), then either a bristling buckler if you're swordie or gunner, or a spine cone if you're bomber. {got a bristling buckler, not a snarble barb quite yet}
2: Once you've got T2 clearance with the 3* gear above, start soloing T2. Learn to spot the good gates, and sell down your mats after every run. You can either calculate how much of each material you'll need and sell down to that number, or just keep a stack of 10 or 25 or 50 or whatever of each. Check the buy-it-now prices on each material and aim to hit the middle of the first page, and then set the initial bid to only a few crowns. Given the listing fees, it's much better to sell something below value than to eat those fees. Aim to keep at least 10kcr on hand so you don't miss out on picking up a 4* recipe at Basil that you might need later.
You'll spend a fair number of crowns at first buying recipes, but so long as you avoid gear ADD, you should pass through that phase fairly quickly and get down into a rhythm of crafting 2 or so pieces of 4* gear per week. If you're branching out in your arsenal a bit (adding a selection of guns, swords or bombs, for instance), try to find the 4* recipe at basil first, then buy the 3* gear on the AH, and it'll be heated well past lvl 5 by the time you've saved enough CE to craft it.
3: Once you've settled into a nice 4* loadout, you can start alternating between doing T2 solo runs, and T3 basil pugs. Generally whenever you have 25kcr saved up, start doing 2 T3 basil runs with your mist rather than a single full T2, and then go back to doing the T2 solos once you've spent yourself into the poorhouse buying recipes and need to save up for crafting. Don't bother trying to farm T3 past basil for crowns, it's too risky in 4* gear. At this point you should know which monster types and statuses you do well against and which you want to avoid, so you can use that to pick and appropriate T3 gate at first, then as you progress you'll want to keep an eye out for stratum themes that drop more valuable materials.
You should be able to craft about 1 piece of 5* gear per week this way, depending on how lucky you get with recipes. After a few weeks of that you should have yourself a very serviceable 5* set.
4: Congratulations, you've reached endgame. Time to start goofing around with crafting specialized or obscure weapons, cooking up boss-specific or PVP-optimized loadouts, and buying/trading costume items to Pimp Your Knight."
So really it's just a question of possibly instigating RT runs and a few Snarby runs, while saving to buy 3* gear possibly with UVs.
I'm going to counter someone else's advice in here: There's no need to farm or grind anything. So just do the clockwork levels that you enjoy and ignore the others. If you use up your mist every day having fun, you'll always come ahead in crowns. Always. And sooner or later you'll have enough for piles of CE. :)
Some gates are better than others of course. I'm a CE clockworks diver, and keep track of which reward as much as I paid for a free replay. Here's some you should avoid if you're running for crowns:
Current Roarmulus gate: tiers 1 & 2 don't pay enough for the energy it costs to go down there.
Current Snarbolax gate: tier 1 doesn't pay enough for the energy it costs to go down there.
(Will update in a bit with the others)
The single worst thing you can do is grind something you don't enjoy - whether that's arenas, boss levels or anything else. That will end up feeling as if someone else is paying you a quarter for an hour's work, and in that case you're better off turning to the energy shop. Otherwise you'll burn out fast and hate Spiral Knights instead of having fun.
Ok! so I'm going through the AH right now & I am finding some pretty sticky prices:
1. Dusker Coats (3*) w/ two UVs: 36k-48k
1a.(Ash Tail Coat)[4*] w/ two UVs: 200+k
- the reason why I included this is because I really really really (I'm practically dying over here) want it, despite the fact that it is soooooooooooo out of my price range. The reason why it's so good is because it has both shadow (low) and elemental (high) resist, which would be great for me because of my Skolver plan XD
2. Dusker Coats (3*) w/ no UVs: 18k-25k
3. Striker (3*) w/ two UVs: 159k
- also really want this. CTR medium & bonus vs. slime low
4. Striker (3*) w/ no UVs: 17-18k
5. Dusker Cap (3*) w/ two UVs: 49-75k
6. Dusker Cap (3*) w/ one UV: 17-25k
7. Dusker Cap (3*) w/ no UVs: 16-17k
So it seems that the UVs that are really desirable go for tons and tons (which kinda sucks for me :P) & I don't think it's possible for me to earn enough to get that Dusker Coat (I'm like in love with that coat- I know, I'm strange) in a short enough time to buy it.
@Kwizzy yeah, there's definitely more leisurely ways to go about it. I wanted to put out a framework for power-leveling, which is a different goal.
@Redfevrier If you're already at 2* gear there's no need for woe and regret. Feel free to craft up the equipment you want to keep to 5*, and look for 3* stuff on the AH for equipment you want on alchemy lines you don't currently have. Try not to get too distracted by chasing after good UVs, you'll get two free rolls for UVs as you craft your way from 3* up to 5*, and then afterwards you can try your luck with the UV vendor. Buying a good UV off the AH can save some time and heartbreak with bad rolls, but the price premium really keeps it in the domain of the cash shop player.
I wouldn't really worry about UV's and the like where u're at. And again, u can occasionally win Dusker pieces for under 15k (I never paid over 13k for any of mine, and I've bought plenty)
If crowns and CE are your major concern, u should really look into working the AH. You can profit up to 50-100% of your investments everyday by just working the 2*/3* items. 2* is relatively low risk and will sell for sure. 3* and above are much higher risk as the buyer base significantly lessens. I don't know about now but back when I started (mid august), about 50k crowns was the max that could be safely flipped from a daily investment. Any more and it would start to become difficult to find buyers for.
I am a totally f2p player, and in the beginning only did 1 run a day (due to my lack of crowns AND ce :( ). Never sold any mats that weren't worth over 3k each, and never received freebies from anyone. But by working the AH, i hit full 2* on my 3rd day, and full 5* in under a month. Nowadays I just make my novelty sets and work with higher risk investments on the AH.
Just scour the AH for cheap but popular 2*/3* items on short/very short, and repost them for 1 crown less than the cheapest buyout :O
If u have extra crowns the accessory market can be quite lucrative too, but atm it's highly volatile and risky :P
@Fuggles: I just recently discovered the art of working AH market. Partly because I made a mistake XD Anyways, I ended up with more cr then I started out with!
Glad to hear! Play it right and you will be earning crowns at a much better rate (and faster) than you would running clockworks :D
You'll be rolling in dough in no time!!
Recipes are almost always more cheaper than buying the full item. Let me explain, I'll start off with 2* gear. 1,000 crowns for the recipe add on 400 crowns for alchemy and maybe 200 in materials which equals a grand total of 1,600 crowns plus the chance for a Unique Variant! Now a 3* version, 4,000 for the recipe 6,000 for 100 energy and 1,000 crowns for alchemy and maybe 400 crowns in materials which equals 11,400! There are times where this can be untrue though as I have won Auctions for Wolver gear for 1,500 and bought Brandishs for the same price ,but the point i'm trying to make is that crafting any item is not a waste it just depends on what items are up for sale at the time!
back when i was F2P (now even still because i'm not THAT rich you know haha)
just find a gate with the most profit (where you earn enough on 100 energy to make a diffrence (let's say around 4K crown) and just spend your time delving untill you have enough money to craft.
also i think it's better to not craft more then 2 items above 4* at the same time because it won't fill at all and this way when your armor/weapon is fully lvl'd go for the next one (or two)
also if you know what you want to get sell your mats you won't ever use (this won't be a huge ammount but still)
for maps/lvl's go for jelly farms and arena's (those will give you a high income) if you roll a graveyard also good but it's random (you can get a useless treasure vault wich unlike it's name doesn't give you that much)
sinking in some small ammounts of cash offcourse helps A LOT haha (for example sink in 5 bucks a month will get you a long way)
Strikerwolf opines that crafting 2-star and 3-star items is usually cheaper than buying them. This is true if you regard ME as worthless, but otherwise it is usually false. Consider total crafting costs:
Now suppose that mats are free, because you have plenty. And suppose that CE is 6000 per 100. Then the costs in crowns are:
At the Auction House, 17,000 is a reasonable price for a 3-star item, but you can often buy for cheaper than that. So buying the item through the Auction House is cheaper. Now let's say that you are busy in real life, and don't have time to play, and you use ME as much as possible to craft items. This knocks 3000 crowns off the 2-star crafting costs and 6000 off the 3-star crafting costs. So then the total costs are
In this scenario, crafting starts looking attractive. However, keep in mind that these numbers essentially assume that ME is worthless. This is true if you don't have time to play SK on a given day, but it is not true if you do have time to play, because then you'd be playing with your ME and acquiring crowns, mats, heat, etc.
HI i wanted to say tht i havent payed a single dollar and i have skolver set,vog set, da,gf,ff,dvs,shivermist, and sentenza... all 5* u can see and i got the ce honestly mostly from selling the weapons u get from bossing tokens and selling 4* recipes and if anyone no matter how nooby u are want to join me for an easy run with me where u practiacally dont have to do anything but get on the elevator.. Add me i will be glad to help but if u have friends tht run i highly recomend u do bossing and sell the items its a good profit and when u craft make sure u use 100 mist well thts my advice hope it helped
Bopp speaks the truth. ME is NEVER worthless unless you have no time to play the game. Considering that with 80 energy you can get 6-8k in pure crowns on a good t2 run, and even more than that on a t3 run, the cost of crafting anything below 4*, again, is a waste of crowns (unless u have an awesome UV that's worth keeping). Then there's also the mats, heat, and recipes you can acquire on said run as well. So in essence, you could say that 80 mist energy is worth more than 100 ce :P
However, and this is a huge however, nothing u do in the clockworks really matters (aside from finding recipes and heat) if u have started to work the AH with decent profits :D The money u find in the clockworks will pale in comparison to the money u find in your mailbox XD
By the time I was 4* I was flipping enough stock to craft one or two 5* items a day. And Mats were never an issue either as I never sold any of my mats and could purchase whatever I was missing with sparks.
If you have a second computer around, start a different account.
That computer will accrue mist separately from your current computer. Just ensure you don't mix which account is tied to which computer.
Having this alt (or mule, as some refer to it) allows you to:
a) rage craft 2* items
b) subsidize 3* crafts with 100 mist
c) buy trinket/weapon slots with 100 mist and selling them for a ~50 CE profit in trade chat
d) Complete T1 on your secondary's mist, inviting your main character at D7, and get T2 access with minimal mist usage. This will allow you to save 200cr on T2 entry for the next 8 days or however long the gate duration will be.
While this goes against your F2P status:
If you don't have a second computer, you can purchase 750 CE for $2.45 on your main account.
A second account on the same computer will accrue mist separately from the "paying" account and you can do the above things on the same computer.
Hello, I F2P player and I started playing at the end of July, when SK realized on steam.
First time I was selling in the AH weapons and armor is bought in the bazaar, bought for 150, sold for 600-800, also as I walked in there and buy clockworks recipes and sold them + dropped crown so I have accumulated an amount for 3* gear.
I am well saved by craft 3 * gear, I chose the path Wolver set buy recipe wolver cap, and my friend bought the recipe wolver coat and in 2 days using 100CE + 100mist tank we dressed in 3*.
But later I started thinking how to earn a lot and quickly, and I saw that wolver hat with a UV fire low cost 5000-6000cr, and Dusker Cap with the same effect is much more expensive, SO I go to clockworks earn 15k cr, buy 100CE and mats + wolver fire low, upgrade, and make lot for 30k cr buyout.
The next day I was rich xD
In clockworks I earn money JK run (5-9k CR per run), and when I craft Vog set and avenger on Vanaduke run( 9 -10 per run)
I started playing at the beginning of summer. Since then, I've managed full 4* gear, but I keep throwing myself away from 5* by buying moar recipes I don't need :P
Anyways, I grinded my way to T3 by first running T1 in full proto. Everyday, I would run Snarby, sell the equipment from the token rewards, rinse and repeat. After I grinded enough to get the Wolver set, plate shield, and owlite shield, I grinded RJP. RJP doesn't give as much crowns as it used to, but you can still make a profit by saving up your tokens after you've gotten what you've wanted and vendoring the token rewards. From there, you can buy energy(especially at these prices, lucky bargain) for whatever you want to craft. Just do the math for it. I usually plan out what I want to craft ahead of time. Like to get my Dusker set, I planned out how much energy I would need(including ME) and how much crowns for the crafting fee. I usually get the materials throughout the runs, because I never buy materials off of anyone unless it's a dire need. As for recipes, I always buy from Basil. You can also sell some recipes from him if you're lucky. Really, it's all about the numbers when playing F2P. But if you're like me, it'll take you about 4 months to actually craft your necessities instead of dabbling in costumes and such... :P
I have some questions for you, actually.
-What tier are you?
-What does your gear consist of?
-What are aiming for?
-Where have you been getting your supplies from(I.e. Mats, recipes, etc.)?