imbue -- ?

[Atarlost]

Imbuing outside of alchemist doesn't require 10 generic points.

Are you ignoring the HUGE piles of gold you get from gemming all the cheap items?

That's a valid expert strategy, but it sacrifices an easier early game for a more powerful late game.

Easier early game? Maybe very early, but that's one generic point and one category point you can't get back. Once you could afford staff training normally its completely wasted until after you return from the east. If anything you're sacrificing mid game for late game by running down a cat point and working up to 5 generic points in order to afford more mercharts.

[Doctornull]

Imbuing outside of alchemist doesn't require 10 generic points.

Are you ignoring the HUGE piles of gold you get from gemming all the cheap items?

That's a valid expert strategy, but it sacrifices an easier early game for a more powerful late game.

Easier early game? Maybe very early, but that's one generic point and one category point you can't get back. Once you could afford staff training normally its completely wasted until after you return from the east. If anything you're sacrificing mid game for late game by running down a cat point and working up to 5 generic points in order to afford more mercharts.

You're getting an easier early game and more powerful late game, yeah.

I'm seldom able to save up 750 gp before level 15 or so, and there are often expensive items in stores which are just plain better than what I can find on the floor in t1 or t2 dungeons. Sure, I can get purples from Ambush Adventurer drops, but those are dangerous.

Are you calling everything < level 15 or so "very early"? If so, I guess we agree, though I don't think of "very early" in the same way as you.

[Jeoshua]

Me either:

Starting Game: Level <5.
Early Game: Level 5-10.
Mid Game: Level 10-25.
Late Game: Level 25-40.
End Game: Level 40+.

[Atarlost]

Early: If I die or realize I messed up talent allocation I'm willing to suicide and restart.
Middle: I haven't started endgame preparations, but have sunk enough time into the game that I don't want to start over.
Late: I am commissioning randarts and selecting my prospective endgame kit.

[sehnsucht]

As for amulets, My impression was that the place in the east could ONLY imbue white voratun amulets, not any other kind. Is this incorrect? (And I thought it was only 1 per character as well, though this may also be incorrect.)

You can imbue other white amulets, but the gems you use can't have a higher tier than the amulet itself.

i.e. You can NOT imbue a stralite amulet with diamonds/pearls/goedalath rock/Atamathon's ruby eye.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Imbuing outside of alchemist doesn't require 10 generic points.

Are you ignoring the HUGE piles of gold you get from gemming all the cheap items?

That's a valid expert strategy, but it sacrifices an easier early game for a more powerful late game.

Piles of gold? Yes, I'm completely ignoring them. Outside of dwarves, gold is meaningless. The merchant is going to screw me over with lousy loot anyway, so unless I want to buy one of the trees, why should I care about gold at all?

[Pucker]

I know this topic is like a month old now, but the randarts from the merchant can be extremely powerful items. You also get the ability to automatically extract gems before transmogging which means your gold income is going to skyrocket without any effort, especially as you go up in item tiers.

For brawlers at least, having randart gloves with the war-making ego means you basically just won the game right there. The other glove egos are also very good. It's very hard to go wrong with a merchant randart as a brawler.

I'd say having 1-2 extra merchant randarts is easily worth the 5 generic points put into that tree. I guess it depends on your class/race though and how badly you are hurting for generic points. Crafty Hands (imbue 2 extra gems into gear) is also a really good prodigy, especially if you can make use of and have picked up artifact or t5 gems.