Why are man-at-arms suddenly so expensive?

cantdecideonthis · September 2013

So I don't really follow any community stuff or markets etc, I pretty much just log in to do leadership nowadays.. And I've been collecting man-at-arms by buying them for around 20k AD, but a while ago they started increasing and now they're at like 30k-40k in the market.. Interested as to what made that happen, and if they will go back down at some point.

Getting any decent amount of money is crazy difficult in this game without paying real life money, so this makes it even worse =P

I'm on beholder, if that matters

tang56 · September 2013

Less people spending money on profession packs probably.

drakefriend · September 2013

There may be another explanation :
People used to open Nightmare Chests, which had Leadership profession stuff in it. Men at arms, usually. Since a lot of them just opened for the possibility of some enchantment, they discarded Men at Arms at low price.
Now, with Feywild Chests much less interesting to open (to say the least), there are much less "discarded" men at arms.

runebane · September 2013

I was thinking it was because of the Nightmare chests no longer dropping as well. At least partially. Someone could be buying up all the cheap ones too though. Would love to be able to see a list of the average sales and how many of them sold for that.

At the current price, it'd just be stupid to buy them. You can get an Adventurer for about the cost of 2 of the Man-at-Arms.

frishter · September 2013

Maybe more people are reaching level 20 leadership and making more money therefore demand is also up for them? Adventurers have gone up in price too. The lockbox thing does make sense though. Saw blue artificing people for as low as 30k which is insanely low. Ofc BoP doesn't help and the fact that they're not as useful as leadership ones.

gek1956 · September 2013

Through the beta and startup till the update, Nightmare lockboxes were dropping. One of the best and most common drops from them was the Leadership Pack. Any one who tells you that pushing Leadership, even over multiple toons is an exploit must be blind or dumb. Its kind of obvious the GMs included this to jump start the player base and to highlight the fact that income did not have to depend solely on grinding story lines and DDs. While they were dropping leadership assets were 1/4 to 1/2 the price of the other professions.

But with FOFW they almost completely reworked the box contents. Out with the old, in with the new. Now they have reverted to the same drop rate as most other professional assets. and the prices are adjusting accordingly. The new profession assets get the added drop rates now, so they will be cheaper... for a while.... till the next new thing

beckylunatic · September 2013

Nightmare lockboxes had Leadership profession packs. Feywild lockboxes don't. That's one major reason. Just less of the assets being fed into the AH.

Mind you, pretty much all profession assets have gone up in price except for the new ones (which you can get from the Fey boxes) at the moment. You do need to look at it in context though, as this reflects a certain amount of long-term trending after the Lillend-frenzy flooded the market with a ton of cheap assets. There's more than one reason people aren't buying a lot of profession packs right now.

Always watch for the current events, sales, and deals. You can often figure out what's going to sell well and what's going to fall in price by paying attention.

korgullte · September 2013

It is not just the Man-at-arms that went up Footmen went up from 10kish to around 20kish now. It seems like all the leadership assets are costing more nowadays.

dkcandy · September 2013

korgullte wrote: »

It is not just the Man-at-arms that went up Footmen went up from 10kish to around 20kish now. It seems like all the leadership assets are costing more nowadays.

Leadership is the easiest way to make AD now since mod 1 BoP patch. So more players are farming leadership and less players are playing NW.

slayorian · September 2013

Funny that leadership is the new hotness. I don't even use it for AD anymore since all of my characters have 50k to 200k rough AD waiting to be refined from salvaging stuff.

Maybe I'll sell off some of my adventurers now that they are 50% more expensive on the AH.

notsosweetness · September 2013

beckylunatic wrote: »

Nightmare lockboxes had Leadership profession packs. Feywild lockboxes don't. That's one major reason. Just less of the assets being fed into the AH.

Mind you, pretty much all profession assets have gone up in price except for the new ones (which you can get from the Fey boxes) at the moment. You do need to look at it in context though, as this reflects a certain amount of long-term trending after the Lillend-frenzy flooded the market with a ton of cheap assets. There's more than one reason people aren't buying a lot of profession packs right now.

Always watch for the current events, sales, and deals. You can often figure out what's going to sell well and what's going to fall in price by paying attention.

I would agree with this. I love opening the boxes, old nightmares and now feywilds. Professional drops from them do follow any new professions. I've gotten several of the new green and blue workers and green, blue and purple assets for Weaponsmithing and Artificing.

The old nightmare boxes dropped ledership like crazy. I got so many green and blue I made a couple of purples, and still have enough blues and greens to supply 4-5 toons with 9 slots of workers. Dont recall a single leadership drop out of a feywild box yet. But getting a set of 10 keys is my monthly reward so still seeing new stuff drop from them.

kingramze · September 2013

I really don't understand the price changes in man-at-arms. I used to be able to snap 'em up between 15K and 18K fairly regularly. I get that if the boxes changed the supply, that would change pricing... but still... You'd have to take into account when setting pricing that you could instead save up for an adventurer or a hero as an alternative. I've seen man-at-arms ranging from 40K to 60K while Heros are still in the low 300K range. Given it takes 16 man-at-arms to make a Hero and a LOT of time to upgrade to one, it is just better to wait and buy 2 Heroes instead. The speed increase from a standard unit to a man-at-arms is 10% for the first slot per tab, but the speed boost for the second optional slot is only 5% difference (because standard is 5% and man-at-arms is 10%). You get diminishing returns after you've filled the first slot on all of your tabs and then it's best to skip man-at-arms and go straight for adventurer in the 80K to 120K range at least and maybe wait 'til you can afford a hero in the 300+ range. The speed boost and additional AD won't make up for the cost of the man-at-arms over time compared to waiting to buy the hero outright.

So strange.

obsidiancran3 · September 2013

Hmm you know I hadn't considered that I could sell them...

Wanders off to see what a Master Weaponsmith is worth...

melodywhr · September 2013

runebane wrote: »

I was thinking it was because of the Nightmare chests no longer dropping as well. At least partially. Someone could be buying up all the cheap ones too though. Would love to be able to see a list of the average sales and how many of them sold for that.

At the current price, it'd just be stupid to buy them. You can get an Adventurer for about the cost of 2 of the Man-at-Arms.

yeah i never understood that logic. if you're putting something up on the auction house, you should at least do a little research first otherwise you are relying on the assumption that your potential buyers won't do any research... or hoping to rip off the noobs. good luck with that.

vrtesseract · September 2013

Also keep in mind when people were farming the profession packs for the tradebars and saky cleric that infused the AH with quite a few tradepeople as well artificaillly lowering their prices.

calculusgenius · September 2013

Mans at arms are more expensive because they have more armor and a weapon that has to be meticulously crafted by the most skilled blacksmiths. All of which raise the initial burden cost of the mans at arms. This fluctuates the price just enough to get the market value to plummet for the previous time being. In return the price goes up just as soon as the supply gets short and the demand gets high. It's simple economics really.

MD Kevin Rutherd,
PhD in Economical Sciences

postagepaid · September 2013

Just wait for the price to go astronomical on the armour and weapons if they ever actually decide to make those matter.

frishter · September 2013

kingramze wrote: »

The speed boost and additional AD won't make up for the cost of the man-at-arms over time compared to waiting to buy the hero outright.

So strange.

I think what makes the man-at-arms attractive is when you have the slots but want t3 guys now. Plus it does grant a speed boost in the 1st slot unlike the common guys. However if you want more speed adventurers are probably the way to go. I wish I bought more now since I have 5 characters :c.

Why are man-at-arms suddenly so expensive?

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