I can't decide what is a bigger waste of credits. Mask of Esteemed Beauty or the influence runes.

I know some people who absolutely adore that Mask...

Man! Someone told me they were worthwhile. Maybe I'll just trade it back in and write off the 33cr as a loss.

Even I can see that the mask is totally pointless, though.

Yeah, I always feel like buying it, but then I remind myself that at 1 credit per esteemed item, I would need to make 1800 items for me to make up for the cost.

@Sham: They're not -worthless-, it's just that chances are you won't notice much of a difference. I think they're the same level as the dramatics boosts and oils. You might notice it if you stack a lot of those things at once.

Mask of Esteemed beauty is far from pointless if you make a habit of constantly running 4+ karma blessings and offer a crap ton of esteem to maintain them.

And if you want to stockpile up esteem at a faster rate for personal use (as an example: offerings, karma, etc)? If it's not about the gold, and you plan on having / using the mask for a very long time to boot...

But... you could use the credits you bought the mask with to just buy esteem directly.

In a world with infinite or near infinite supply, yes. Unfortunately, that's not always the case in Lusternia.

Shoulda asked me man! I had a rune for a while, and it helped influencing high-end mobs like in the UV, but even without the rune I was clearing hives easily. But are you trying to influence to Demi? ... have fun.

PS when I was at the peak of my influencing (well, nothing has changed except my laziness) esteem was coming in streams regardless of arties. Maybe 100% per hour?

I'll probably get the Masks AND runes eventually. I just have to stop reminding me how it's probably better not to. If I do buy the mask, I'll probably keep track of how many needles I make.

Plenty of people buy plenty of artifacts that will never make back their cost, and love them anyway.

Mask allows for esteem waaaay faster than that.

I've seen someone get 5 esteem items in an hour. They did have a mask, though.

!!!?

That's insane.

With lame loboshigaru charisma, wet fold origami, oil, beauty karmic blessing, charismatic aura, dramatics, beast influence, and harmony, I can get about 2 fully imbued items an hour if I don't get distracted.

Er might've been more than 100% an hour, I can't remember. But point is you can get a lot of it w/o artifacts!

100% per hour is quite low, even if you're using guards (which are really inefficient).

with the chromapen, does it come with a way to dispell what you write if you don't have illusions ?

Aether shop anyone?

I think you would be able to make back 6 million gold if you have very, very sought-after and efficiently-priced wares. And play for a long time.