Refining for cheap

TheDan - Sanctuary wrote: »

I've +6/+5ed all my gear using mirages / tienkang / tishas lol. (only using the Ancient Wall Officer) So much cheaper than using dragon orbs if you know what you're doing :P

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

Thanks to the help and input from so many here on the forums, many of the questions about refining without Dragon Orbs have been answered. The tl;dr version is as follows:

The chance of success when refining without Dragon Orbs is:

From    To   Mirage  Tienkang   Tisha  Chienkun
 +0 --> +1:    50%      65%     53.5%    100%
 +1 --> +2:    30%      45%     33.5%     25%
 +2 --> +3:    30%      45%     33.5%     10%
 +3 --> +4:    30%      45%     33.5%     4%
 +4 --> +5:    30%      45%     33.5%    1.67%
 +5 --> +6:    30%      45%     33.5%    0.77%
 +6 --> +7:    30%      45%     33.5%    0.47%
 +7 --> +8:    30%      45%     33.5%    0.25%
 +8 --> +9:    25%      40%     28.5%    0.13%
 +9 -> +10:    20%      35%     23.5%    0.07%
+10 -> +11:    15%      30%     18.5%    0.04%
+11 -> +12:    10%      25%     13.5%    0.02%

- Generally speaking, refining armour up to +7 costs, on average, about half the price of a 30%-off sale on Dragon Orbs, and is still significantly cheaper than a 65%-off Dragon Orb sale, provided you do it correctly are willing and able to accept the risks involved!

- When refining weapons, the cheapest option is to wait for a 65%-off sale on Dragon Orbs.

- Choosing which stone is the most cost effective for each level of refine can be calculated by entering the current market price for Mirages, Gold, Stones, and Orbs into this spreadsheet: Zoho Sheet - Refining Guide

- An Excel-only version of the same spreadsheet, that is also capable of running simulations of thousands of refining attempts, can be downloaded here: Excel Version - Refining Guide

- Duke Blacke's rumours regarding certain times of day, certain NPCs, certain techniques, certain types of equipment, etc..., having better odds for refining success appear to all be false. For example, the rumour that the Harshlands Officer gives better +1 refining odds to players who belong to the faction that owns the land was tested with several hundred Mirages and no improvement was found.

Good luck, and happy refining! (for cheap!)

(The rest of this post is the original question and theory that I posed to the forum. Please note that my 40% theory was eventually proven false! The correct numbers are now listed above.)

- end of EDIT -

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

The new 50%-off sale on Tishas/Tienkangs has really had a dramatic effect on refining costs. Up until now we only had 66%-off Dragon Orb sales.

And then there's the issue that a person can buy any amount of gold instantly, whereas you cannot just get any amount of Dragon Points instantly.

Olbaze - Sanctuary wrote: »

Wrong. Each chest sells for 500 points, you need 50,000 for the ticket. That comes to 100 chests for 50 Tishas, or 10,000,000 coins for 50 Tishas. Last I checked, that means 200,000 each.

Then again, maybe I just failed third grade math.



Let's say you buy a 35 point DQ at 10,000 coins each. Since you can NPC it at 3,720 coins, this means you're actually paying 6,280 coins per DQ. This gets us the following:
6,280/35 = 180 coins per point
50,000 * 180 = 9,000,000 coins for 50 Tishas
9,000,000/50 = 180,000 coins per Tisha

Oh and btw, if you can buy gold at 1,298,701 or lower, you'll be paying 179,000 coins per Tisha. And at least here on Sanctuary, gold seems to floating at around 1,270,000 or so.

Somehow I'm not seeing where Warren supposedly failed. Or where I failed.