The Diablo 3 Auction House Thread

I don't know if the Diablo 3 Auction House deserves it's own thread, but I know some of us spend as much if not more time in the AH than playing in the actual game.  It's my opinion that you need the auction house to progress deep into the game, not to mention there is the real possibility to make actual money from using it wisely.  So feel free to post theories or trends that you see to help out your fellow Chud brothers and sisters. 

So I guess I'll start.  Been buying and selling a lot of chest armor recently.  Anything with 125+ vitality, 60+ all resists, and 600+ armor sells pretty quickly I have found.  If I can find pieces with those stats for 300k or under, I usually buy em and flip em for twice or 3 times as much.  Even better if you get a) sockets b) a second attribute (dex, str, int) c) life regen (300+).  Obviously there are more exotic stats that can sweeten the deal:  gold find, magic find, damage reduction etc.  In general I would say All Resist is mandatory for Barbs and Monks.  Glass cannons will probably look at high Dex or Int and the resists won't be as important. 

My biggest profit came from an amulet that I initially won an auction with no BIN.  I paid close to 900k for it.  I never paid that much for something that I wasn't going to use, so it was a bit of a risk, but I knew it would sell.  The stats were something like:

80 dex

80 vit

50 resist all

175 Life on Hit

30% crit damage increase

Those are 5 premium stats.  Anything with 5 premium stats is going to sell.  So pretty epic for a monk and pretty great for a Demon Hunter. 

I looked in the AH for comps to set a price.  Alot of ammys had more Dex or Vit or AR or LoH, but not alot had em all together like this.  I put it up for 3.9 million BIN.  It sold in about 3 hours.  I probably could have gotten more for it, but I was happy with the proffit and used it to purchase other gear to sell. 

Recently I have been on the hunt for 3-socketed armor.  Specifically 3-socketed armor with a base dexterity of 75+ and some Max Discipline, perfect for glass cannon Demon Hunters.  Sometimes you can find this type for cheap (less than 500k) in the AH because people don't know what they are selling.  Throw in 3 (+42) Emeralds and suddenly you have an armor with 200+ Dexterity and max discipline that you can probably sell for 3 million + gold.  I've also flipped some Intelligence based armor (3 sockets with a base intelligence of 125+).  If you can get the armor to 250+ intelligence it will probably sell.

Over the weekend I decided to cut out the middle man and purchase the Blacksmithing Plans for 6-stat (Ilvl 62) chest armor.  Total cost to produce a piece is around 125000 gold.  Most of the time you end up with crap (I would say out of the 20 pieces I have made, 3 have been sellable), but last night I made a 3-socketed piece with 78 dexterity, 175 vitality and 30 All resist.  I then threw in 3 Emeralds to get the dexterity to over 200.  I put it on the RMAH for $29 and it sold overnight. 

I wouldn't call it dead yet but it's certainly dying.  Because everything is resellable, you are bound to reach a point where only the top of the line items are considered upgrades.  So while said top of the line item sells for 100 million gold, everything just under that doesn't sell because everybody has something comperable to it already.  Blizzard should have made items Bind on Equip and increased the quality of the drops.  That way the AH wouldn't be flooded with recycled items and people would still be encouraged to play the game.

Blizzard has really fucked this up.  The game isn't fun once you hit inferno and there is no reward for grinding...so what's the point again?  I haven't even really played "the game" in a week, but I am on the AH at least 45 minutes to an hour a day.  In fact, Diablo 3 has become AUCTION HOUSE: THE GAME for me.  The only reason I am still on is because I can occasionally find items for cheap and flip them for real money.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jacob Singer 

This game seems more like a chore to be completed than a game you play for fun.

You can say that.  The funny thing is that I havent even beaten Diablo in Inferno difficulty yet, and I don't really feel a need to.  

I poured so many hours into Diablo 2 that I feel almost obligated to keep playing D3...like its magically going to get better.  But the reality is 3 months after its release, D3 is almost a dead game, which is astounding to me considering many people are still playing Diablo 2.  In the next couple months we have Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2 and Guild Wars 2 all coming out so I've almost reached the end of the road with D3. 

So in the last two days I have sold a helmet for $95 and a chest armor piece for $55.  Of course paypal takes a nice little chunk, but whatever.  I now have about $200 total in my paypal account.  I have probably made $300 in all, but have spent $100 to buy gold.  Every piece I have sold I have crafted myself.  I now own the blacksmithing plans for the 6-attribute chest armor, gloves and helmet.  So basically I buy gold, craft items, sell items for money and gold, rinse and repeat.  I figured it was only a matter of time before I crafted something considered "godly" and then I crafted that helmet.  I would have used it myself except I don't actually play the game anymore.