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Refining artifact equipment
adinosii
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,294 Arc User
With 2xRP coming up, here are a few hints regarding the "best" way to refine artifact equipment.
First, invent a time machine, and go back in time to at least a month before the 2xRP event starts.
At that point buy up cheap artifact equipment refining material - by "cheap", I mean any items that cost no more than, say 0.75 AD per refining point. As you need 4.6M RPs to get each piece of artifact gear to legendary status, this should not cost you more than 3 million AD per item (when you consider crits). In other words, getting mainhand, offhand, neck and belt to legendary is a 12 million AD project.
The best item to buy is generally the common (grey) resonance stones. Yes, you will need a lot of them, but just buy them in the AH whenever the prices are reasonable and leave them in your mailbox until the 2xRP event.
There are a few items you might be able to buy that will give a better return. For example, the green level 60 artifact belts give 3000 RPs when fed into belts (6000 during 2xRP events), but you may be able to get them for as little as 1600 AD. (Note that the prices have gone up significantly in the last week or so).
It may also occasionally be possible to get blue artifact equipment at a reasonable price, but that is harder, due to low supply.
Also, hold onto any peridots, sapphires or other refining gem stones you get - never use them except during 2xRP, and do NOT use them to level up artifacts - just artifact equipment. (To level up artifacts, use only R4-R5 enchants and artifact stones, but that's not the topic of this post).
Finally, note that it is not feasible to use feeders for artifact equipment, as you will only get back 80% of what you put in. If you are replacing an older piece of artifact equipment, by all means use that during 2xRP, but do not put RPs into artifact equipment with the intention of feeding it into other equipment.
I personally don't bother saving green random drops for 2xRP - I have high rank VIP, so I get more than enough ID scrolls to identify what I pick up and just put it right in - yes, it is only 100/200 RP per piece, but every little bit helps.
As for blue drops, or blue/purple obsolete equipment, I always keep those. If the salvage value is higher than the RP value, I will save them until a 2xAD event, salvage them at that point, otherwise I will save them for a 2xRP event and feed them into my equipment.
Finally note that "Always double refinement" only means that the item always gives double points when fed into another artifact item. It does not mean that you get double points when feeding items into it, and it does not mean that it gets a "second doubling" during 2xRP.
First, invent a time machine, and go back in time to at least a month before the 2xRP event starts.
At that point buy up cheap artifact equipment refining material - by "cheap", I mean any items that cost no more than, say 0.75 AD per refining point. As you need 4.6M RPs to get each piece of artifact gear to legendary status, this should not cost you more than 3 million AD per item (when you consider crits). In other words, getting mainhand, offhand, neck and belt to legendary is a 12 million AD project.
The best item to buy is generally the common (grey) resonance stones. Yes, you will need a lot of them, but just buy them in the AH whenever the prices are reasonable and leave them in your mailbox until the 2xRP event.
There are a few items you might be able to buy that will give a better return. For example, the green level 60 artifact belts give 3000 RPs when fed into belts (6000 during 2xRP events), but you may be able to get them for as little as 1600 AD. (Note that the prices have gone up significantly in the last week or so).
It may also occasionally be possible to get blue artifact equipment at a reasonable price, but that is harder, due to low supply.
Also, hold onto any peridots, sapphires or other refining gem stones you get - never use them except during 2xRP, and do NOT use them to level up artifacts - just artifact equipment. (To level up artifacts, use only R4-R5 enchants and artifact stones, but that's not the topic of this post).
Finally, note that it is not feasible to use feeders for artifact equipment, as you will only get back 80% of what you put in. If you are replacing an older piece of artifact equipment, by all means use that during 2xRP, but do not put RPs into artifact equipment with the intention of feeding it into other equipment.
I personally don't bother saving green random drops for 2xRP - I have high rank VIP, so I get more than enough ID scrolls to identify what I pick up and just put it right in - yes, it is only 100/200 RP per piece, but every little bit helps.
As for blue drops, or blue/purple obsolete equipment, I always keep those. If the salvage value is higher than the RP value, I will save them until a 2xAD event, salvage them at that point, otherwise I will save them for a 2xRP event and feed them into my equipment.
Finally note that "Always double refinement" only means that the item always gives double points when fed into another artifact item. It does not mean that you get double points when feeding items into it, and it does not mean that it gets a "second doubling" during 2xRP.
Hoping for improvements...
Post edited by adinosii on
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I hear a lot of people say the AD nerf made leadership useless, and this is why I disagree. Even if I'm done refining my own artifacts (I'm not), I can sell the stones for profit.
1. go back in time, invoke multiple times/day on all your toons and save the bound RP from the bags.
2. go back in time again and don't transmute your main/off hand to something bound to character so you can later move it to another toon to refine using bound on character RP
FYI - I was always under the impression that "feeding" artifacts into another was a good plan, no? Everything I've read suggests to take your feeder to 59 (which is the diminishing rewards point), and then feed it into your target artifact for X 5 RPs (X 10 during double RPs). Unsure about weapons and belt/cloak, although I'd wager they're still worth it somewhat.
Only artifacts (had this happen), artifact gear (never had this happen, but i think it does since it is gear), blue/green/purple gear into artifact gear and enchants/runestones can crit
We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
No, check the math, with the big drop in the cost of RP since that logic was published it is no longer cost effective to buy an artifact to feed and feed. The website that cannot be named on these forums has a tool that does the math for you ;-)
FYI it also makes recommendations on what RP to buy if you need to purchase RP for leveling your artifact. Right now you need RP to cost around .49 AD per RP to be worth it to buy a feeder. Since the going rate for RP is about .09AD (thank you low cost RP providers) it just isn't worth it for the feeder.
Note that the discussion below only applies to artifacts. As I said before, using feeders for artifact equipment is not worth it.
This is correct - for the PC, that is. There are a few "however", though.First, on the Xbox things are different. enchants are relatively much more expensive there, due to the lack of....eh...low cost providers. This means that one the Xbox it is typically cheaper to use the 6-feeder approach. (Get 6 green matching artifacts, level 4 of them up to rank 59 and feed them in pairs into two blank green artifacts ... then feed those two into your destination artifact and it should have reached mystic level.)
Second, if you have a bound artifact you are not going to use, by all means use that as a feeder - the formula basically says that on the PC it is not worth it to buy artifacts to use as a feeder, but a bound unusable artifact that you already have is essentially a "zero cost" one, so it makes perfect sense to feed such an artifact up to level 59. (or, if it is already level 60, you can feed it up to level 99). Just make sure this is an artifact that can actually be used for feeding - that is, not the class sigil artifacts or the heart of the red dragon from the Dragonborn pack (even though it does not say "May not be used to refine other items", the fact that you can claim it over and over is why you cannot use it for feeding)
Third. the most cost-effective way to level up artifacts is to use rank 4 stacks of enchants (typical price is 980 AD/stack), or if you want to save a bit of time, rank 5 stacks (typical price 4500 AD/stack). Also use any character/account bound artifact refining stones (Stability, Power or Union stones). Unbound artifact stones are not cost effective - it is better to sell those on the AH and buy enchants instead. Never use pearls, peridots, sapphires or other gemstones to level up artifacts - save those for your artifact equipment.
I have a small spreadsheet for calculating artifact refining costs here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RpEDq3nK_1iPFh8Fr8gr-5sJ3_5_MklFQ7nN2J84Eic/edit?usp=sharing
In the Yellow fields, I put in the price of rank 4 enchant stacks, the price of the marks (it's really just the price of the greater marks that matters, though) and the price of the feeder artifacts. but note that the prices are typical for prices outside 2xRP events. They will get higher during the event.