As the title says. Which one is more cost-effective?
Also, for items that are bound and fully leveled (5* stuff) is it more cost effective to make a new one with the UVs you want and re-upgrade them to 5*? or to use the UV merch?
Is it better to use the 1, 2, or 3 UV option?
rage - f**kin' - CRAFT!
I wasted 1.2m crowns and only get 2 highs.. which is dam vs undead and dam vs gremlin on my SS.. LOL
skru eet
Both
I mist craft and sell off the numerous misses on gear that can be upgraded to the UV'd 5* gear I desire IF the desired UV EVER happens, which it will not.
In the meantime I am accumulating crowns that I have no use for whatsoever so I might as well Punch roll on my existing equipped gear.
Oh, did I mention I don't give a rat's butt about obtaining UVs for sale but am searching for UVs for my own gear? I suppose that makes a difference. If you're doing it for the money and not the glory then I would stick solely to mist/ce crafting.
Punch is cheaper than using CE to craft 2* items. 10% chance of a UV means you spend 500 CE per UV crafting (plus crown cost and mats cost). Punch costs less. Crafting does give you a chance to get 2 or 3 UVs, but the odds are very small.
If you've an elevator pass and spare mist, then it can be a good idea to craft on your mist over time. But not on CE.
Punch may be cheaper, but he is not reliable. You will have to Punch nearly 30 times to get a Max UV, on average, and then the Max may be something you don't want.
The cheapest strategy is to just buy items with the UVs you want.
You can sell unwanted crafts, making it cheaper than Punch in many cases. Flooding the market with a lot of one item does reduce the value of the items with no UV, but you can still drop the price down to about the same or less than 1UV Punch and still get the chance to get 2 or 3 UVs. Neither Punch nor crafting is reliable.
It it costs 20kcr per UV (single obviously) with punch.
To rage craft with a 10% success rate (using CE on a 2* item). It'll take you 10 crafts per UV, or 500CE + 4000cr + materials (if you are using monster bones or other expensive materials that can cost over 4kcr). So a grand total of 38kcr + materials (assuming 68cr per ce). If you sell all but the UV, then that will probably net you 9.9-18kcr depending on what you are crafting. So the end cost for a single UV'd item (it could be single, double or tripple UV) is 20-28.1kcr per UV'd item.
So, by my estimates it is cheaper to punch than it is to craft on CE assuming you aren't extremely lucky and get a double/triple or over a 10% rate.
Now, if you mist craft, that is obviously cheaper, but it requires paid accounts.
It really depends. For example, I was crafting a small number of Prismatech and Voltech Alchemers recently. The mats are extremely cheap and I already had them on hand, and the ones that had no UV sold for 1.6-1.9k. Plus, if you get a decent UV that you don't want, you can sell that for a bit more than a normal item.
@otaia
I already accounted for selling items at 2kcr profit (so actually selling for 2.2kcr on AH) which would bring it back to the exact same price as punch (ignoring the cost of materials). And selling a decent UV from a craft gives the same exact benefit as selling a decent UV from punch.
The only way to argue that crafting on CE is cheaper than punching is that you get better than 10% or you get double/tripple UV'd items.
Not to mention that if you make 80 autoguns, are you really going to bother with posting them all up for like 900 buyouts? That's a lot of clicking and typing, not mention not really reliable since 80 autoguns coming due at the same time is a little sketchy on the demand front. I just vendor mine for 750.
Your calculations are based on the current price of CE at 68 cr. At lower values, crafting can be significantly cheaper. Punch helps control the price of CE in that sense.
Also, I guess you're talking about using Punch to get UVs on 2* items, because if you're rolling UVs on something that's not virtually free, you can't actually sell a UV from Punch.
Even so, it is rare to sell 2* items for 2.2kcr or more. So, even at lower CE prices (say 55cr/ce) you won't recoup the costs if you are selling them for 1.2k profit each. Just running some quick numbers, selling 9 items - 9*1.2=10.8kcr, crafting 10 items - 500*55+4000=31.5kcr, therefore still costs more to craft on CE than punch. Only if you can find a high priced item and low priced CE will it be cheaper, and that isn't likely.
And, as Kalaina-Elderfall points out not many people are going to sit and post 50-80 items. If they do, then they are going to totally deflate the market or items won't sell.
Don't get me wrong, I mist craft all the time because it is worthwhile. But if I want a UV on an item I punch it rather than draining CE out of the market because it will either cost less or the same for some random (most likely crappy) UV.
Thanks for the input guys, it sounds like I should be crafting with mist, and if I have no mist, then punch it is :) Sounds good to me.
Craft 2 two star weapons, hope for a good UV, get nothing, curse the heavens, and play lockdown. I have about 13 2* items and counting in my arsenal. I am going to hold them until I get a good UV, and sell the rest (vendor snceit isn't the most popular item). Punch will waste your money.
As an above post mentioned, he wasted 1.2m crowns on Punch alone, only getting crap UVs. 1.2 MILLION cows. With that money, you could probably buy what UV you want, unless you are hoping for a double/triple max. There are very few single UVs you can't get with 1.2m crowns. Spend wisely.
I spent 1.3 mil on punch at one point. Got about 250k worth of money back. I did manage to pick up an elusive fire high gunslinger piece (more rare than it is expensive), though, so it wasn't a total waste. It was just a huge waste.
Title and first question are the same. Ragecrafting for uv's is cheaper, but takes longer to get a uv. Punch is expensive, but you can get more chances for a uv you want in a shorter amount of time. You can also find subpar uv's to sell and make a small amount of profit.
You really only need one uv on a weapon, as your armour will give one of the other two and trinkets filling up the last spot. 3uv roll if you really like your chances, but the price goes up rather high.