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Thread: Are Merchants Underrated?

  1. #1

    Default Are Merchants Underrated?

    I recently got my first ultra playing a merchant, after getting frustrated with dying as a Thief a bunch. Everyone says merchants are bad, but I found that lategame this was by FAR the strongest character I ever played. Are people underrating them?

    I tried running all the trade talents to increase shop spawn rates, which meant I could buy anything without having my gold dip at all. Now usually gold isn't a problem lategame, true. But I think people are misunderstanding just how powerful trading build can be. Having no gold problems is different than this.

    With increased shop spawn rates, I bought out every shop I passed, every time. Even if most of what I bought was mediocre, the constant respawns made that talent line amd build into a redoubled Treasure Hunter. And with the guaranteed potion shop you could have nearly infinite potions without bothering to scum. Just buy each tome you enter and leave CoC. Like, the sheer volume of potions could be directly translelated into power in other ways.

    Having tons of potions allowed you to spam exchanges. Tons of potions of boost learning lets you learn spells better than you'd expect. Boost Willpower potions + ball spells make it so that you can pretend to be a wizard. And even when not doing that you can make fireball wands with 50 charges because of tons of booze. Any scroll shop you pass by regularly can translate into tons of scrolls of defense and protection.

    Like, I'm not that good of a player. I've only won 4 times, and my last 3 were a wizard, a healer, and a mindcrafter. Not exactly high skill classes. The thing that really amazed me was that this character could clear a Greater Undead Vault without breaking a sweat. And the mana temple was easy too because infinite charges of wand of fireballs. Infinite supplies of rings means you'll be near guaranteed to have mental stability. And infinite holy water makes things easy there too.

    It's just amazing to me how much fun I had with it. Now admittedly that character got some really good artifacts. But the infinite wand of fireballs and boosting potions was item-independent. I think merchants are really strong right now, especially since there is a way to increase shop spawn rates and a guaranteed potion shop right above the CoC.

    What do you guys think?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    217

    Default

    In the "good old days" before guaranteed potion shop, improved talents and point buy, merchant had a rough start and nothing to compensate for in the late game. Now... dwarf merchant with money talents starts with 100-120k. That's enough for precrowning AND crowning. The shop frequency increasing talents aren't that good though, they probably give you one extra shop in early game. Nice, but not a game changer.

    But those additions make the game easier for everyone, not just a merchant. For example, hurling thief with dagger of penetration and 24 To has a very cruisy start.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Europe
    Posts
    1,157

    Default

    Main benefits I would say is that its a bit cheaper to purchase expensive stuff in early game and they have lower exp needs than a lot of other classes.
    You can meddle with the extreme gold dwarf merchant to try and not get black tome as precrown.
    But they have almost no skills and no starting gear.
    What you probably experienced was good rng to artifacts, combine it with your wins and you now understand most of the game, ie can win with almost any race/class combo.

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