crazy stones

fulgida
fulgida Posts: 0 Arc User
edited July 2010 in The Crafting Nook
After the departure of my favorite crazy stone merchant, I thought I would do a little write up to encourage others:

Crazy stones are elemental damage shards. You can buy shabby stones from merchants for 530 coins each, and you can combine them using a jewelcraftsman.

They are used in the crazy stone quest you can get in western archosaur. Depending on your level, you will need shabby, rough, blemished or common stones, one for each of the five elemental damage types.

They also drop sometimes, but that is so rare that it does not effect the market.

rough stones cost 1590 coins to make this way.
blemished stones cost 4770 coins
common stones cost 14310 coins

Since making them takes some time and knowledge, a lot of people prefer to buy them rather than make them themselves. A five percent markup on manufacturing costs could easily pay for itself if you do not have to miss a TT run, or whatever else.

But there's another aspect to this that often gets overlooked. Every time you make a shard, you earn 6 exp and 2 spirit. And, during a 2x experience and spirit that doubles. So, currently, with 2x spirit active:

rough stones get you 12 exp and 4 spirit
blemished stones get you 48 exp and 16 spirit
common stones get you 156 exp and 52 spirit.

And you can make one stone per second.

And notice that you get a 3:1 experience to spirit ratio instead of the usual 5:1 ratio. If you are rich enough to do be selling crazy stones, you are also rich enough to be buying skills, and that extra spirit can make your alt's life a lot easier.

And, you can start making crazy stones from level 1 (where scarlet fruit need level 10).

If you have something else you are doing, you can start the stones being made, and you can go off and come back with some nice exp and some stones to sell. If you want to play and you do not have multiple computers, you could log in on your stone making character and then task manager kill the game and start up on another account, and you will keep making stones for maybe half an hour. This could work nicely with pvp safety lock, for the right kind of person.

Or another way of doing this involves eating dinner, or sleeping, or whatever else.

Anyways, the important thing here is that you get a lot of experience and if you do not mind tying up your money for a few days this mode of gaining experience pays for itself. (How rapidly you get your money back depends on your server and on how many other people are doing this. Competition can be cutthroat sometimes, and if you really want your investment back fast you can try dropping your prices to just below the NPC manufactoring price -- sometimes a kindly investor will show up and buy out your entire stock when you do that. But of course this route might wind up being no cheaper than scarlet fruit for levels 10+.)

When buying to make stacks of them, 999 is a good number to think in terms off, since the maximum crazy stone stack is 1000 and 999 will make 34 commons or 111 blemisheds or 333 roughs.

In terms of exp made per sale, commons are obviously the best. But if the common market is saturated you might want to go for one of the cheaper markets.

And, with 2x experience, the 10% your genie earns can kick in also.

If you saw a lot of crazy stone deals recently, especially after the 3x experience on July 4, this is probably why.

But if your crazy stone prices are skyrocketing, you might want to take advantage of the situation.
Post edited by fulgida on

Comments

  • Reshanta - Sanctuary
    Reshanta - Sanctuary Posts: 350 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Except the 2x event ended yesterday.
    Lonely man with a big heart.
  • WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary
    WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary Posts: 1,686 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Very interesting write-up, thanks for sharing your experience!

    I've never tried the Crazy Stone market. The fact that the costs are fixed (and thus the investment is very low-risk), combined with the ability to earn both experience and money at the same time seems like it would be a perfect market for beginning merchants.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    PWI Merchanting Guides: warrenwolfy.wordpress.com
  • Astrohawke - Lost City
    Astrohawke - Lost City Posts: 199 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Very interesting write-up, thanks for sharing your experience!

    I've never tried the Crazy Stone market. The fact that the costs are fixed (and thus the investment is very low-risk), combined with the ability to earn both experience and money at the same time seems like it would be a perfect market for beginning merchants.

    It's not used for merchanting. it's used to gain free experience. Merchanting with CS is very bad because they sell slowly, you make very little profit and it ties up your cash for a large amount of time. But as a way to get free exp, it's good if you have another computer to have it afk sell the stones 24/7.
  • Drippydrop - Harshlands
    Drippydrop - Harshlands Posts: 23 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Crazy Stone only takes me 12 mins to do.
    1 minute to make
    and a minute to deliver
    with a 10 minute wait time.

    Cost isn't to bad and its good for some EXP.. Everyday.
    Right now.. All my dailies give me 35%. Good right?