6461

Money laundering maybe, rather than legitimate buys. It’s a serious issue in online payment services. Or more basic CC fraud. Either way, given that the AH has been a total clowntown thus far I expect it’s seen as a soft target for that sort of activity. I wonder if Blizzard fully understands the compliance required.

6462

I only started using those in Inferno. Before in Hell I used multishot and some other skills. In additional to those I use Caltrops with the 2 second hold to handle elites. Then the last skill is usually the ferrets to pick up my gold for me.

Hungering Arrow is just used to build up hate. No other reason for it. You can only spam NT so much before you run out. It also does a bit of nice dmg. Switching on and off with NT you’ll have nearly always full hatred.

6463

What people are putting items up for is not the same as what items are actually selling for. Other than the few lucky people who get the RNG to drop godlike stats, nothing else is going to sell.

At least I hope not.

6464

But you just said a few posts ago that everyone used the Fear rune on Elemental arrow. Then when I brought up that many others use Nether Tentacles, you now call that the universal option. Which is it?

A bunch of people use Cindering arrow, I just killed Inferno Act 1 Butcher using it. Devouring arrow is not a universal choice either. But as I said previously, I agree with you on the universality of SS and Prep. I’m frankly amazed that Kyrios can survive Inferno without them.

I haven’t used Caltrops myself since early NM, but I used Evasive Fire for a very long time - still would if I could exchange it for Hungering Arrow for bosses without losing the Nephalem buff.

The appeal of Hungering Arrow comes from its ability to hit things off screen or around the corner. Most of the damage I do to act bosses is done with this arrow and spike trap, without me even seeing the boss most of the time. You can’t shoot around corners with Entangling shot (but you can off screen, albeit for much lower damage) and you can’t shoot off screen with Evasive Fire.

I know people use Nether Tentacles on act bosses, but the slow firing animation gets me in too much trouble, and it’s harder to aim properly. Besides, can’t switch from Fear to Nether on account of the Nephalem buff.

Evasive Fire can really be amazing sometimes - when the waller elites block themselves from getting to you with their own walls, you can still do damage to them with EF. With the Covering Fire rune it goes through obstacles (not sure if it’s intentional) and sprays damage over a wide area, hitting up to three targets (for full damage). It also doesn’t have travel time like Entangling or Hungering arrows. It’s more like shooting a gun than a bow (it even sounds like it).

And don’t quote me on this, but I could have sworn I’ve broken jailer CC with the backflips it does.

The backflips, by the way, never occur in normal play, so you don’t lose discipline. When it does occur, it usually saves my ass (from getting killed by an ambush). In which case I’m thankful for only having used 4 discipline to avoid death instead of 14 for SS.
But, like I said, I stopped using it because Hungering Arrow is far more useful against non-waller elites and act bosses. Even if it kills regular mobs slower.

6465

You are wrong.

Already sold a completely mediocre gloves for $7 and a ring for $3. I also bought $18 worth of items myself.

Other people have shown their email confirmations of selling $40, $50 and $100 items.

6466

I don’t think I ever said this… could you point out where I did? If I did I must have misspoken, since it’s Nether Tentacles I always see. The only mention I see of me talking about the Fear rune is:

By which I meant that Fear rune didn’t do me a whole lotta good when tangling with lasher/phasebeast packs.

6467

$7 is less than 1m gold at current gold prices. $100 is less than 10 million. All the uproar is over stuff that isn’t all that surprising.

6468

I got that impression from this:

Since I was specific to point out the use of the Elemental/Fear and never mentioned Elemental/Tentacles in that post, you can see how I would assume that you were saying Elemental/Fear was the cookie cutter build everyone uses.

But I think we can agree that while a great deal of skills/runes fall away by Inferno, quite a few are still viable, and significantly different builds and approaches are possible (and indeed are being used).

Except for SS and Prep. I too wish Blizzard would give us some other options for survival that were anywhere near as good.

6469

Sold a set item ring for $45 when it was just sitting in my stash. This surprised me as when I posted it the same ring was there for 15, 20, etc… Can every game have a RMAH please?

6470

Hehe, I kinda expected this to be a potential money-maker, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.

The RMAH is a pretty sad longevity facilitator - but at least it means there’s a huge incentive for Bliz to keep the game interesting. However, they’d be hard-pressed to make core design changes when people are pouring real money into their characters. Maybe as optional expansions?

6471

So - YOu cant actually take away the money you make from this? Making Blizzard the only winners?

As I understand it, you can use the funds in the blizzard store, though?

6472

You can take the money away from this - AFAIK. It says so right on the box.

6473

If you live in certain areas you can have the money go to paypal for the cost of 15% of the sale. If you have the money go to your blizzard wallet, it’s stuck there.

6474

huh - really? Well then…I guess its time to spend an hour each night on making some more money :-)

6475

Most people thought it would never be a genuine money-maker, for some reason. But based on what a LOT of people went through for gold in WoW - where most good stuff is BoE/BoP - it should be pretty evident how people feel about digital power.

The only reason I think this might not get really crazy, is that the game ends up being rather trivial after a certain point. If it had been a truly worthy sequel (yeah, just my opinion - calm down) - then I think this could have exploded and completely changed how we perceive real money vs virtual reality.

It still might.

But I’ll probably get back to my Monk and finish Inferno soonish - just to grind a bit of money here and there. Who knows how the prices will evolve - though they should match the level of popularity the game can maintain.

6476

I am just waiting for regulators to come in and shut this down.

6477

It’s certainly an interesting thing to behold. There’s no way this gets to explode without some authority looking into it.

6478

Because why?

6479

Because if it exploded, it would represent new ground - and a lot of money is going to change hands without much outside control, and the fantasy/digital nature of the commodities makes it too dangerous to ignore in the long-term.

Taking it to an extreme, it would mean a big part of the workforce could potentially make a living without actually producing anything or doing “work that benefits society directly” - and that’s not going to work well in modern society, without a serious restructuring process. Yes, an extreme - but something you have to consider if something like this truly takes off.

6480

Plenty of jobs pay money without the work producing anything or benefiting society, mine very specifically (my day job, not the D3 rmah).