With Razorspikes quickly being recognized as a fantastic option for crafting, it seems to me the bottom should fall out of the Bracers market. I took a 900k loss on a 4.5% CC/Dex/Vit 8% IAS Lacuni Prowlers I was trying to flip simply out of fear of them being worth 30% less by Friday evening.

Another danger to me would be Vile Wards, but their prices were already getting into the reasonable range. the vast majority of Strongarm Bracers are going to be Brimstones.

What are other items that could be in danger? There was never any real demand for Legendary Gloves and it's still really tough to craft trifecta gloves so it seems like they would retain a lot of their value. Amulets are likewise difficult to roll well so it seems like that market is safe for quite a while.

It seems like whatever market there would be for Blackthorne's Surcoats could disappear since a crafted Vit Armor could actually exceed even the Vitality Set bonus only giving up the worthless Ranged Damage affix. Which Set Armors could be in danger? IK Chest, Nat's Cloak and Tal Rasha's Chest seem safe.

I was completely wrong about my prediction that the bottom would fall out of the Leoric's Signet market with the new XP bonuses making them obsolete so I'm curious about other opinions on this topic.

Maybe I should break down and craft some bracers for my HC toon. Just unsure if I should do int or vit. I do like my strong arm bracers though.

Regarding chest crafting. I think that market is safe as most classes use legendary items.

I'd say all of the chest armors are safe. The three you mentioned are pretty much used by all Barbs, DHs, and Wiz/WD. The last one is Inna's Vast Expanse, which pretty much all monks use because of 1) TR monks who want the free SW set bonus and 2) non-TR monks who want the 2 set dex bonus, but end up using Mempo/WH in 2 of the 4 slots. The chest itself is still strong too (can roll up to 200 dex, 300 vit, 12% life, 6% reduc, 3 sockets).

I'd say shoulders are safe. Even though it's seemingly easy to roll BiS shoulders, the prices of Vile Wards/regular rare shoulders have dropped considerably. I feel like the high, high end VWs are going to take a hit, but mid tier VWs are pretty damn cheap...

Gloves are safe. It's still hard to hit trifecta.

Amulets, I'd say, are worth more in the short term. I think you have a lot of people crafting amulets, hoping to hit some crazy roll because they don't have the billions to buy an AH one. This means people who are finding good ones are undervaluing them and some people are even preemptively selling their own in anticipation of a craft. I think people will calm down after a few weeks of crafting 100+ amulets with none of them worth 10M on AH.

Bracers should drop. It's easy to craft great bracers and there aren't really any mandatory legendaries in that slot.

I think the values of all mats and plans will eventually dwindle to dirt. I wouldn't invest in them. I think right now, people are crafting out of novelty (similar to when people were crafting in the early stages of D3). The thing is, crafting is going to really wear thin because of the fact that all of these items are AB. There's no "middle ground" for crafts. There's a "nearly BiS" item which supersedes your item, or there's garbage.

I wish I knew the exact percentage chance for each specific roll so I could throw out a hard number for those people who want to get a sense of how many crafts they'll need to take on before expecting a BiS.

It's extremely difficult to gauge the prices currently because, as Metta stated, the crafting (gambling) craze is eating up everyone's time and gold.

I've been monitoring and switching Trade chat channels a lot. There is some backlash now. A lot of your 10-20 hour/week players don't have tens of millions to invest in upgrades in the first place, so they are angry when their crafts fail, and they definitely don't then say "Oh I'll just go bid on the AH". I think eventually that will happen but for now, I'd say selling any mid-tier gloves, shoulders or bracers will result in a loss and is probably not worth your AH slot.

Looking ahead to 1.08, I'm investing heavy in Topaz and Brimstone. There is an interesting article concerning surplus Brimstone here: Deckard Prospectus

Kinda odd that the guy said the odds of rolling a good trifecta are 1 in 6667 (CC/CD/IAS), but he gives it a big thumbs up. It costs about 150k to craft an amulet (perfect square and brimstone and 100k). 6667 crafts will cost you about 1 billion gold. That doesn't include the time it takes to craft all of those amulets (like 20k seconds, over 5 1/2 hours), the time it takes to farm all of those DEs (I get maybe 1 every 2 minutes on average, so 222+ hours!!!), and incidental time issues such as moving/selling amulets from inventory or buying more PS gems.

Additionally, you have to remember, this is going to be a bell curve distribution (in all likelihood). That means, on average, you'll hit that in 6667 tries. However, it's also possible you could spend 3 billion, 666 hours farming DEs, 16 1/2 hours crafting, and not hit CC/CD/IAS. The standard deviation in terms of gold is enormous; no one with less than a few billion and hundreds of hours spent farming DE need apply.

These are also high rolls, but not perfect rolls. 7.5 CC/60 CD/8 IAS is great, but it's certainly not worth billions.

The more likely rolls are 2 of those 3 with a defensive property (he lists LOH, life%, life regen, vit). These just aren't that great because I don't need defense on my amulet; I can stack that elsewhere. I need IAS (which is what makes it rare).

The 4/5 valuable stats are absurd. You might as well quit your job and dedicate the rest of your life to farming DEs so you can have a *decent* chance at crafting one of these.

If his numbers are correct (there's some decent data backing it up), it really just confirms what I kinda thought all along: I wouldn't craft amulets. Even if I had the gold. The amount of required DE is what is going to make this an abyss...

But there's nothing wrong with playing the lottery. Just don't make it an investment :).

@Metta Where are the data backing them up? I can't find them anywhere. He just has values in for probability of rolling CC/CD. Where did that number come from? Until I see the raw data on how he came up with those probability estimates, I'm going to ignore them. Why would he share his calculated probability data without the underlying data or assumptions used to calculate those probabilities? It just doesn't make sense. Until I see his raw data, I'll do my own investigations, thankyouverymuch.

You're also completely right that using expected values isn't very informative here, either. His back-of-the-envelope Brimstone calculations are pretty crazy too. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and this dude has a little knowledge in spades.

NERD FIGHT!!!

Hey guys, author of the blog (Deckard Prospecuts) here. Checking my incoming traffic led me to this convo, and I just wanted to clear up a couple things.

First, @ecocd, my method of arriving at those probabilities comes first from some fairly extensive testing regarding how affix rolls work, developing a theory about those rolls (you can read more in the first two links under the "1.0.7 Crafting" post in my blog), and then comparing my theoretical results with the item database in Diablo Progress. I had some pretty good success, and another kind D3 player backed up my theory with the results of his tests through crafting some thousands of pieces of gear and tabulating the results. It's almost certainly not 100% correct, but it appears to be close. So, to get the probabilities for crafted amulet rolls I wrote a program that simulates amulets being crafted, ran it to craft 10,000,000 amulets, and derived the probability for getting certain rolls from the results of that "simulation." If you'd like to see my raw data you're welcome to it, buy you need a working copy of MATLAB and some programming familiarity.

Second, @Metta, remember to include the free 200-230 primary in your stats. Getting a good CC/CD/IAS roll means getting 200-230Primary/CC/CD/IAS. That's a 2 billion+ gold amulet on the AH that you should expect to get for 1 billion. That's a pretty good deal. Not to mention the probability of getting other solid upgrades along the way (CC/CD/AR, for example). That's why I give it the thumbs up.

@atrevely

Hey there, I haven't read through your work thoroughly so I have no solid comments about your work, except that regarding brimstone, I see myself as a net supplier. No plan to use brimstone at all, and my farming speed is about 4-6 legs per hour. I may end up not playing softcore at all though...... I see myself moving to hardcore, and no idea of how these will work at Hardcore.

Welcome and hope to see you more often here.

@atrevely

Regarding brimstones, as you mentioned whether the price will rise or not, depends on whether there will be a net outflow of brimstone or not from the economy.

I think where these latest 1.07 crafting is concern, players could be grouped under the following categories:

1) Players who only farm mats with no intention to craft, or to craft extensively. Net inflow.
- People like myself. I only crafted 2 bracers but I don't think I am going to craft anything anymore. I only want to play at low MPs and I do not need any upgrade, especially when the upgrade won't be significant and the chance of getting a good rolls is slim enough to eat into my valuable play time.
- In your write up I think you are assuming that every demonic essence will be put into crafting. In my case, I will just let them stock up even if they are account bound, since I don't really need them. I might even vendor them or throw them away, if it is possible in game.

2) Players who farm their own mats for crafting and won't buy mats. Assume no flow.
- They are capable farmers, and they are not in a hurry to craft and hope to hit an upgrade.

3) Players who buy some or all of their mats just to craft. Between Net inflow, No Flow to Net outflow.
- Some have bought a lot at the start, and if they changed category to 1) or 2) as a result of getting bored, or hit what they wanted already
- Some only starting buying now, or want to buy more in addition to the original stockpile which is not enough, thence Net outflow

I have no data on my hand, or the ability to predict if there will be an inflow or outflow. I only know that I am in category 1) - inflow.

@atrevely

I read about how you derived the data and I commend you for taking the time to do that. I don't really doubt your numbers; in fact, because I don't have the dedication to do my own analysis, I'm just going to use them.

That being said, I'm still surprised that you would support amulet crafting after your data analysis. I feel like an amulet truly worth 1 billion would not only have to hit CC/CD/IAS, but it would have to hit these numbers HIGH. Like near perfect. And I did also consider the 200-230 primary. I'll just throw an AH amulet out there since I have D3 open atm:

128 dex
7% IAS
74% CD
8.5% CC

How much is this worth? It's on BO for 80M. IMO, it's a decent deal and I would bet the farm that it will sell sometime before it expires. In fact, if you want to look at amulets on AH yourself, just search for the high rolls and primary (I chose dex). Yes, I realize that the primary could be 80-100 higher, but is someone really going to pay 25 times more for 90 dex?

I think it has to hit something like, 8/9 IAS, 80+ CD, 9+ CC. Now that would be worth billions and not be stupidly overpriced. But the odds of hitting that would be even lower.

You seem to be mathematically inclined (as am I, in fact, I've programmed in MATLAB extensively myself). Wouldn't you agree that the sheer volume and time required to obtain all of the mats would make this a prohibitive endeavor? And the variance between success and failure is just way too high to really make this a sound investment?

I'm not completely sure how I feel about middle rolls, but I still don't like them. I don't have any hard data, but I feel like most D3 players at this point can afford an amulet with high CC and CD and maybe some primary (and other stuff depending on their budget) on AH. That means most players are crafting SPECIFICALLY to hit trifecta or something close to it. If the amulet you craft is MOR and it still improves your DPS, it probably means your bankroll is not very large. Which means spending 150k per amulet is not a sound decision. You also have to remember that these can't be sold except to the vendor. Which means you'll be taking a loss on 99.9%+ of your crafts.

I'm not trying to attack you. In fact, I found the data interesting. But from my POV, the way to approach this is like playing the lottery. Don't expect any ROI because the odds are probably stacked against you. Just have fun with it (play when you feel like it, craft a few amulets when you have the money).

It's not a good investment though.

Posted by atrevely at 02/15/2013 08:32 PM

Hey guys, author of the blog (Deckard Prospecuts) here. Checking my incoming traffic led me to this convo, and I just wanted to clear up a couple things.
...
If you'd like to see my raw data you're welcome to it, buy you need a working copy of MATLAB and some programming familiarity.

Well this is embarrassing. That's probably the most vindictive post I've written on these forums and you happened to actually come find it. Karma's a b***h. That's not at all representative of this site's denizens, by the way, nor me for that matter.

Anyway, I was referring to the raw data regarding the crafting items. I'm well versed with the item drop system as it's pretty much, but not quite the same as the D2 item drop system. I worked it out months ago and it's part of the reason I could explain why Ivory Towers seem to drop more than any other Legendary.

I'm sure your simulations are fine (and I hate programming in MATLAB much preferring R), it's the probabilities they're based off of that I have a problem with. That's where I'd like to see the raw data. You literally need at least 500 crafted amulets to get an estimate for the probability of rolling CC, CD or IAS. You probably need another few thousand to get any definitive answers regarding the distribution of how the stats roll themselves. (np > 25 before the probabilities behave sufficiently Gaussian.) If someone's actually done the crafting work, I haven't seen it.

Part of me wishes Blizzard would just give us this, but then again, it would take away the fun of reverse engineering the whole thing, in the first place.

@Metta + @ecocd, I'm glad you guys are taking me to task on this. Don't worry, I wasn't the least bit upset that you both were questioning my judgment--it's a healthy part of any kind of analysis where the underlying details are unclear. I'm actually more flattered that people are even reading my opinion on the matter and finding it worthy of being critiqued. My goal is just to form as clear a picture as possible about how these things fit into the economy.

@Metta, Yeah, you're right. When I checked the AH for amulets with 200PRIMARY/8IAS/8CC/70CD there were only 3-ish listed for each stat and they all had 2bil buyouts. But, of course, lowering one or more stats just a little puts them down more in the 200mil buyout range. Classic AH mistake. I still consider amulet crafting a good option, but I do need to be a little more clear about who it's a good option for. Namely, people who already own a 100mil+ amulet and for whom an upgrade would be in the 500mil+ range anyway. For attaining just a "good" amulet roll, you're almost certainly still better off just buying one off the AH. But the intriguing thing about amulet crafting is that you can end up with a bar-none BiS. It's a value-added sorta deal, I suppose. And remember, the better the rolls, the more the value increases for only moderate stat increases. At some point, you're totally comfortable with your current champ's setup and farming efficiency, and the idea of expecting to spend an extra few hundred million on an upgrade (as opposed to buying it off the AH) with that tiny chance of landing the endgame amulet is pretty enticing. I'd do it, and I'm pretty sure many others at high gear levels will do it as well. Personally, I think they need to remove the gold cost per craft to make it really viable for everyone to start crafting, and just let the mats dictate the crafting value, but it's probably too late for that to happen now that its live.

@ecocd, Yeah, I wish there was more, larger data sets coming from actual crafting rolls, but it's a ton of work for people to keep track of all that. I wish Blizz would just give us the mechanics too, and in fact I had a question answered during Ask the Devs that was trying to get at those specifics, but it got answered in a very general manner. Oh well.

@atrevely Here's a link to the only public information I've seen on this from many months ago. Complete info on 302 crafted ilvl 62 armors. Pay particular attention to the Life Reg column in his spreadsheet. With 103 out of 302 crafted armors rolling Life Regen, we know with 95% confidence, that the true probability of rolling a crafted armor with Life Regen is between 0.287 and 0.395. That's how much variability we're talking about in a sample for something with a mod that's actually fairly likely to roll. To get that margin of error to even +- 5%, we'd need around 350 total crafts.

If we think the probability of CC rolling on an amulet is around 5% (probably much lower), we would need to craft 1800 amulets to come close to testing that hypothesis (+- 1% margin of error). If that probability is closer to 2%, we'd need 3000 amulets to verify that within 0.5%. Yeah. I'm really hoping Razorspikes roll crit chance with a much higher probability than 5% ...

Once the RNG decides Life Regen rolls on the crafted armor, it rolls the affix level. ilvl 62 crafts only go up to Regen 17. It looks like ilvl 62 crafts roll between Regen 10 and Regen 17. Out of 103 that Rolled Life Regen, here's the distribution of Regen alvls:
Regen 10 - 6
Regen 11 - 6
Regen 12 - 26
Regen 13 - 13
Regen 14 - 19
Regen 15 - 9
Regen 16 - 20
Regen 17 - 4

It's pretty clear that the affix rolls themselves aren't uniformly distributed between Regen 10 and Regen 17. Likewise, Pickup Radius distribution was as follows:

5 yds - 9
6 yds - 15
7 yds - 20

We can just barely eek out a 95% confidence test that Pickup Radius is not uniformly distributed (probability of 5 yds, given it rolled pickup radius is between 8.3% - 32.5%, i.e., not 33.3%). It's clear that the probability of rolling GoldPickUpRadius 4 is less likely than GoldPickUpRadius 6.

It's fun to look back and see that this sold for 18,000,000 Gold:

110 Str
113 Vit
50 Poison Res
51 All Res
3 sockets

Yup. 18 million.

It's fun to look back and see that this sold for 18,000,000 Gold:

110 Str
113 Vit
50 Poison Res
51 All Res
3 sockets

This a pants? You mean a recent sale?

Posted by douvinsky at 02/16/2013 03:56 PM

It's fun to look back and see that this sold for 18,000,000 Gold:

110 Str
113 Vit
50 Poison Res
51 All Res
3 sockets

This a pants? You mean a recent sale?

Chest Armor back in early August 2012.

@ecocd, The relative probability of affix rolls is something my research had yet to cover, so that's a very good point you brought up before. It appears, like you said, that they are not evenly distributed. I actually had someone contact me with some really interesting information he'd been collecting regarding that issue. I mentioned it in a new post on the blog today, so be sure to go check that out and let me know what you think.

It's fun to look back and see that this sold for 18,000,000 Gold:

110 Str
113 Vit
50 Poison Res
51 All Res
3 sockets

Yup. 18 million.

Those were the days! Back then I sold a mediocre String of Ears belt for $20 on the RMAH. $20!

Prices are bad nowadays even for good quality equipment. Wondering will it ever go back up. *sigh*

Although math was one of my majors (double majored in mathematics & studio art), I hated probability & was never very fond of statistics. Still, it's cool seeing all of these discussions on the math that goes on behind the scenes. If D3 had come out back then, I imagine I'd be just as nerdy/geeky & trying to figure this stuff out as well... :)

And I did at one point use MATLAB (& Maple) for several courses in college, though that's all been long forgotten, seeing as how it's been over two decades. I still remember that, like Zork I, one could type cuss words into that math software & get funny responses... ;-)

Posted by ka5an0va at 02/19/2013 08:47 PM

Prices are bad nowadays even for good quality equipment. Wondering will it ever go back up. *sigh*

Honestly? I doubt it'll go up by much. A finite number of players generating an endless supply of new goods the more the game is played means supply will eventually overtake demand on even the rarest of items. Hence Blizzard's need to "create" even newer/better BiS items...

I don't post much but I wanted to say that you guys are awesome, I was following this discussion and I think that it is more details and actually takes in the math and probability of affixes, vs a similar recent article on incgamers. in the mean time - it looks like it is not a good bet for me to craft amulets anymore (crafted a bunch - nothing an upgrade for me yet. Currently using a 150 Main Stat 7.5 CC, 90CD amulet)

Yeap newer & better items will be good i think & i hope i guess...