How to Price Items to Sell!

Marko's "Nothings Sells and Nobody Buys Anything" article got my attention, and I realised I hadn't posted here in months. So here is my 2 cents worth on how I price my farmed, and not very good, items to sell. Turnover is key to making gold in Diablo 3, not that single big ticket item you dream of finding while doing runs or flipping. This is the way to make gold while just playing the game with no real market knowledge required or niche markets to try and corner!

While doing runs the majority of what you find is frankly garbage - case in point the boots I did a search similar for in the AH:

They have all the key ingredients for a pair of non-set Monk or Demon Hunter boots, but obviously don't even come closeto the Billion+ ramges we see with an unfiltered Search.

My potential buyer is a newly dinged Monk that is probably someones alt. They aren't going to be spending 1,000,000,000 per item gearing this new character, they just want the basics to make a start on Inferno. Dex, Vit, All Res, and Movement Speed. Anyone who has played a Monk or Demon Hunter should understand the basic stat requirements for each class, without having to get into the depth of IAS or crit benchmarks and which is better Acrhon or CM Wizards for example, or whether a piece without IAS will be potentially better for certain popular Witch Doctor builds.

None of the are stats are particularly high for this item, but they are at least all there, so I expect to do significantly better than vendor or salvage, if I can get it sold FAST. So my price needs to be bottom dollar to sell quickly and not sit for a day and a half clogging up one of my 10 slots just to return to my stash.

Lets see what our buyer can get in the 1,000,000 and below price range:

Note I've sorted by Dexterity as this is the main factor I belive will affect my potential buyers choice of footwear in a given price range. Only include those stats that your potential buyer (the newly dinged monk whats/needs to enter inferno and maybe enable mp1-mp3. He is not looking for life regen, exp, gold/magic find, thorns etc. and all the other junk stats which while nice won't help him past the difficulty barriers ahead.

Ok, we are getting closer with all those 160ish dex boots, but mine are only 154 so let's try 500,000:

Ok, now we are in the ball bark, however there are 2 things to note here:
1: Our items stats are the minimum for the search so lets consider our search parameters, I'm lowering dex to 100 (30% lower) for the next search to see what I'm competing with while keeping the remaining stats the same.
2: I want to sell fast, so I need to significantly undercut the competition, which here 300,000 will get my buyer better boots all around.

So after all of about 1min I have my final search. I'm seeing boots with less Dex but the same or more Vit, AR, and Movement speed for 100,000g, 150,000g and 2 at 200,000g so I listed mine at 150,000g

I listed these right after logging in my newly freed up slots and they sold within the 2 hours I was playing and gathering more similar items that I used the same methods to list at the end of my play session.

I play on average 2 hours a night or less, about 3-4 nights a week, have not parted with any of my own money on the RMAH, although have turned over my battle net balance a couple times in gold and gear buying and selling to kit out my characters.

Feel free to contact me in game on Kurllkrum#1929. I am currently focusing on Hardcore leveling all five classes by "leapfrogging" which I intend to share with my readers in a subsequent post. Currently lvl 35-40 on each class with 2 tragic deaths of Demon Hunters!

Auction House Farming

Today I'm sharing a method of making a steady income of gold that can be used by anyone that has unlocked the Blacksmith. This should be well known to any WoW players using Enchanting and trawling the AH for Items to Disenchant however works slightly differently on Diablo, and is made fractionally more complex by the lack of addons such as Auctioneer and therefore the mass buyout options available in WoW. It doesn't need any spreadsheets and constant tracking for market fluctuations but this would help to maximize profits if you have the time and patience to follow your market in depth.

First we need to select a market. There are 4 tiers of crafting materials to cover. I recommend picking the one that is within your means to play with. The lowest end is going to be Subtle Essences (20-35g each) and the highest end Fiery Brimstone (100-150k each). In this example I'm picking Subtle Essences, obtainable 100% of the time from Blues in the 1-29 range, along side Fallen Teeth 100% of the time from Rares in the same 1-29 range, and noting that Blues also drop a Fallen Tooth 15% of the time.

I will caveat the following by stating it is an example and I am using round numbers to make the math easier to follow. Lets assume that Subtle Essences are selling for 100g (I know they aren't right now, although they could be going up due to 1.0.3 and people crafting for alts, but last check 30g was the nominal value give or take weekend and peak times market fluctuations. I'm also assuming that Fallen Teeth are selling for 100g each, also not a real figure.

Now we need to acknowledge the 15% Auction house Fee. 100% - 15% is 85%. So we multiply the price we will sell our materials by 0.85 to find the amount we will actually receive on completion of our sale.

So selling my disenchanted Subtle Essences for 100g each gets me 85g in my balance on completion. This is my Magic Number!

Take the market price of our Subtle Essence (100g). You may want adjust for anticipated fluctuations between buying you items and being able to sell the materials if you want additional safety margin or if you are willing to gamble a bit. Multiply by 0.85 to get your Magic Number 85g and start searching for ALL rarities of item on the AH. Lets start with  level 1-29 Swords. Look for items you can bid on for under your 85g. I tend to find 1-3 per page in any given market sector and price bracket. If you set a max buyout you will be looking at 46 pages of items from your figure down to wherever 46 pages gets you to. It is unlikely you will get all the way to the bottom provided you start at a high enough buyout figure! There are simply that many auctions! The buyout figure and the starting bid aren't linked so I regularly see silly numbers like 40million buyout, with 100g starting bid. People do this for several reasons, for example to entice bidders by having a buyout price that puts their item on the first page. You will notice that if looking for low starting bids you will tend to find more per page in low buyout ranges, but you will also find more competition trawling for these same deals in those lower ranges.

I like to keep 100 active WINNING auctions at all times in my chosen sector. If you can't find 100 to bid on note the lowest buyout figure on the last page and rerun you search, lets assume is was 54,000, search again from 54k and you'll be looking at 46pages of items with buyouts from 54,000 on down. By narrowing your search to a range of buyouts you also dodge the other people searching just the Bids without Buyouts, or people going for the 9999999999 and down bracket. Remember you will get your money back if out bid so find every item you can bid on for 85g, be they magic, rare, or even ledgendaries. Now note the bracket you ended on, so when you log in the morning before work you can grab your "out bids" and rebid on either a lower bracket in the same sector (1H weapons for barbarians), or move on to 2H weapons for Wizards. Keep it up over a period of days. It takes 10 mins before leaving for work, during a lunch break, before you log for an evening play session or after a play session. Cut and Paste your Bid amount so you are hitting CTRL+V on each bid pane rather than typing 85 or whatever your "Magic Number" is for your materials. The seconds saved really add up when you get into the brackets with values in the tens of thousands.

At some point you will be ready for a salvaging session. With 100 auctions won and more coming in every hour or so your stash will fill up rapidly so make sure you have at least a full page clear for this so you can send a decent amount from the AH completed tab to stash to salvage at least a page full at a time!

Your going to spend a few minuets salvaging your mix of blues, rares, and maybe even a legendary if some one let one go for 85g in this case...lol. You might even spot an item that you can flip, which is always a bonus, but lets just assume it is all going to be salvaged.

Every item you got for under 85g the difference was refunded and you will make at least that in profit from your Subtle Essence. You saw it at 30g start bid, you bid and won it at 30g, you get 55g and the item so salvage, and get 85g from the sale of the subtle essence.

Every Blue gets your Subtle Essence so that is at least a break even.

15% of your Blues drop a Fallen Tooth so all those teeth are profit (you could vendor them and it would still be profit, but AH will of course get you more).

In the level 60 blues and rares bracket you have a 0.1% or 1% (I forget actual drop rates) chance of Fiery Brimstone. More bonus profit if you get lucky!

Every Rare you found you get a Fallen Tooth and a Subtle Essence, since the Subtle Essence was your break even your Fallen Teeth are pure profit.

Cancel the stacks of Essences and Teeth you currently have up, relist with the additional ones you just salvaged and get ready to hear that ITEM SOLD ding while you play or see the big chunk of change in you completed tab next time you log!

A WORD OF WARNING!

IF YOU ARE BUYING 20,000,000g items for you main there is no way to keep them separate from the junk you are planning to salvage SO DON'T GET TOO CLICK HAPPY OR YOU WILL BE A VERY SAD PANDA!!!!!!

One nice thing to note about the AH system is you don't have to worry about a competitor  out bidding you by 1g in the final minutes of an auction. The minimum threshold for new bids will probably put him above his break even number, unless it is vastly different to yours, in which case one of you has gotten their math wrong. Alternatively he knows something you don't, i.e. he is going to use, flip, or if he is planning on disenchanting he is speculating on a price rise or using knowledge of market peaks to raise his "magic number". I get out bid on at least 50% of auctions I bid on. I simply take that money and keep bidding. Being out bid costs you nothing, unless it is happening all the time in which case your time becomes a factor.

                 

Tools you will need for the Gem Market

Hello again all!

Today I'd like to discuss the Jewel Crafter and his wares!

We all know him from his aperrance in Act 2 Sewers, his name of course is Covetous Sheen.

What you may not know is the upcoming changes to Gem combining costs both in terms of Gold and Materials and what this will mean, pending the reintroduction of the Commodities Auction House, for those planing to craft gems.

We already know the costs of crafting Gems and have access to the Gem Calculator produced by Diablo 3 Artisans. The Changes can be found in the 1.0.3 design changes blog here.

Blizzards design philosy has always been to use the jeweler as a Gem Sink, evidenced by the need to use 3 of each previous tier to make the next. his is down to 2 for the earlier gems. As it stood you would have needed a whopping 1,594,323 CHIPPED GEMS to MAKE 1 RADIANT STAR GEM, 3x3x3x3.....x3x3 (or 3^13). With the changes that is down to 62208, (3^5 x 2^8)

But we won't be buying Chipped Rubies in stacks of 62208 to craft our Radiant Stars so why does that affect us? Well it doesn't in those terms, but understanding the maths behind it brings me to my next point.

To profit from the gem market we need to know and understand 3 things.

Firstly the crafting costs. What you pay the Jewler to make a gem. Cumulatively these mount up, prior to the patch they cost so much more that since chipped and flawed rubies dropped relatively fequently at low levels there was a glut on the AH and none actually went into the sink. Blizzard clearly hopes to change this. Now to craft at that low level will cost only 10 gold, so when you have 2 in your bags you are much more likely to upgrade, if not for any reason other than to save inventory space.

Secondly the material costs. How much do the gems, and pages, or tomes, cost to buy from the AH.

And thirdly the AH costs. The 15% fee for selling anything is one that frequntly gets over looked. If I determine it cost me 100 gold to make an item in Diablo 3 I need to sell it for 100/(1-0.15). where 0.15 is the 15% fee. Giving me 100/0.85 = 117.6 or 118gold JUST TO BREAK EVEN!

In the absence of real data from the comodities AH which is offline I've used a chipped ruby purchase price of 1 gold, pages and tomes at vendor prices of 34, 54 and 64(the lowest we can ever expect to see). And from combining he crafting costs, material costs at the 1.0.3 levels we get a cost for a Radiant Star from Chipped Rubies of 44,804,331, meaning we have to sell it for 52,710,977 to break even! Thats without buying the plans required for the higher value end game gems!

I sincerley doubt we will ever see gems, even the first on the realms going or anything close to these values. So how can we possibly make gold from what is (over the lifespan of a gem a MASSIVE GOLD SINK!)

Simple: I would recomend creating a simple spreadsheet in which you can enter the values of each of the 3 levels of Tomes, and each of the 14 levels of  gems and watch! I made this one which reverses the process, calculating in much the same way as done of my tips for flips post the top buyout price of the previous tier in order to sell for a profit the next tier having taken the crafting prices into account.

So we see that given that Radiant Stars are selling for 1,200,000 gold I need to scoop up the Perfect Stars on the AH under 206,000. As we know how to play the "snatching" game on the commodities AH (search till you find your chosen amount in the price range you want and press buyout repeatedly until you get a failed message telling you you have exhausted the supply...then collect your failed "bid", items, and refunds if there were any posted lower while you were spamming the buyout button).

Now with the prices we see here of 400,000 for Flawless wouldn't it be better to just flip? Well not really...people won't be buying Perfect Stars with Radiants Stars on the AH, knowing they can keep them forever with the ability to remove at will. How many Chipped Rubies did anyone sucessfully flip once the player base was into Normal/Flawless/Square ranges of the game?

Patch day update!

So here we are a couple weeks in and currently patching 1.0.2b.

Where are we with the game?

Well a week or so ago Blizzard posted some info about 1.9% of the population being in Inferno, but th majority of characters still between levels 1-30. More people are hitting Inferno and that is where th money is right now from what I can tell.

How is the AH looking?

The majority of people have been having few problems with Normal, you can roll any clas and /faceroll though to level 30. Nightmare and Hell begin to bring challenges, but most classes can simply plough on though, perhaps buying a new weapon to enable the obliteration of even the most stubborn champion packs in seconds with little regard to anything other than damage and occasionally getting out of the way of something like a Mortar if Ranged, or Desececrate as Melee. Certain combinations start to cuase problems, but at this stage High Damage Output overides the mechanics. The abiity to kill stuff before it even get on the screen or bosses before they can use certain abilities is being heavily abused. In short we aren't selling much to the level 1-55 crowd.

So Inferno is where the money is at?

Right now people seem to be getting stuck in Act 1 Inferno. Some (including myself) have Butcher on farm to to point of it geting boring. So what are those people looking for? DPS stat, Vitality and resist all are the go to stats for every class. Find an item with all 3 in high amounts and you have a million gold item or more. But will people buy it? I'm finding there are 2 factors influencing sales. Firstly the average player is making maybe 100k per hour. If we consider the average gamer only plays 2 to 3 hours a day we are talking at least 3 to 4 days to be able to buy a million gold item, assuming they didn't manage to sell one themselves during the process. So there is limited upgrading of gear. The Million gold items are not simply flying off the shelves. If you wantitems to fly of the shlves we have to be pretty reasonable with our prices, with only 10 slots and the need to sell quickly to maintain any kind of volume I've been pricing stuff below the 100-250k mark. ie.1-2 hours worth of farming for that average player. Alernatively they are buyng gold from 3rd party sites, at the risk of losing all their gold and items which will be put back into circulation when they find themselves hacked!

So what are people buying?

Wheter farming Warden and Butcher with 5 stacks of Nephelem Valor or your favorite Chest, Tresure Goblin, or just Act 3 Hell people need Gold and Magic Find to up their totals for each run, without losing too much of their DPS stat, Vitality and Resistances. So I have been trawling the bottom of the AH for the 50 to 100k items with a Primary stat, Vitality, Resist all, Gold Find and Magic Find. Since I can only search for 3 stats I choose GF, Vit and Resist with a buyout cap. This gets me items I can quickly flip for decent profits during a 2-3 hour gaming session, and ready to restock at the end of the same session for sales while offline.

Hope this is useful to you all in the interim while we wait for RMAH to make gold buying safe and legit, and the long awaited flipping of commodities to resume!

Farming Guide

So I promised at the end of yesterdays post to elaborate on farming strategies I have been using since the comodities AH is down and I lost that income, my characer is kind of stuck at the start of Act 2, even getting to Magda I take a beating and have to skip elites and make clever use of doorways to grab closer resurection points etc. just making it not worth the effort.

So I'm looking right now to make some gold to stockpile or invest in RMAH items and gold selling.

Basic principles:

1) There are no loot tables, any mob can drop any piece of gear upto the mLvl (monster Level) of that mob/or area in the case of barels, weapon racks and the like. You won't be searching for Fallen Lunatics becuase they are the only mob to drop a legendary weapon of a certain type. Everything has the same drop chance from every mob, be that a barrel all the way up to Diablo in Inferno. This means any area can be your farming spot of choice.

2) Magic Find will increase the chances to drop blue/yellow/orange gear. If you pick up everything on the floor bags will be full in under a minuet. With only 10 Auction House slots and salvaged components going for vendor sale value it's just not fun or efficient spending half your farming time in town, casting teleport, or standing at the vendor/blacksmith/stash to sell/salvage/store items from Hell or lower difficulty.

3) Gold Find and Gold pick up radius will have Nightmare mobs dropping Hell amounts of Gold pe either bygold r kill, and hell mobs dropping Inferno amounts of Gold, the difference being you are AoEing the mobs down in record time and with some gold pick up radius it is in your bags before it hits the floor! This leads me to sway since level 60 towards Gold Find. It's not about gold/loot per kill. It's about maximising gold/loot PER HOUR!

4) Liberal use of ALT and CTRL. The ALT key turns on or off the visibility of drops on the floor text. In options this can be set to always on for farming, and most people are aware of this. CTRL allows you to mouse over the item to see the full tooltip. If you know your items and affixes which you need to by this point you can quickly tell if the item is worth a bag slot and potental early return to town either from stats for an Auction Sale or gold vendor value.

5) Nephalem Valor stacks should ideally be up prior to hitting the highest density mobs of the level. This is straightforward in Act 1 where starting at Leorics Crown will get you to the Old Ruins Cellar for +1 to stacks, the Cemetary for another +1 stack, and a quick backwards check outside the gates for possible rare packs before entering the first crypt where you will find alot of mobs, and normally 1 or 2 rare packs per run. So most of the defiled crypts are run starting at 3 stacks, and quickly up to 5 stacks. After killing the Chancellor grab the couple rares, go back to clear out remaining unexplored crypts and then proceed to the Cathedral for the highest density of Mobs. These tricks can help massively in both gold and in shortening boss farming runs!

6) High Density Areas I farm:

Act 1

Start quest Chamber of Suffering, then visit 3 Defiled Crypts, Cathedral levels, Halls of Agony, Cursed Hold, and finish with Butcher.

Act 2

Start quest to kill Magda, work backwards to get stacks to 5, then forwards through to the boss. There is alot of desert and this isn't the greatest if you end up back tracking trying to find exits, but also some good caves, but I tend to avoid Act 2.

Act 3

This is where it is at inmy opinion, just start from the begining and clear to Azmodan, start closer to the end depending on how much time you have, but mob density, stack building and completon time are ideal for me.

Act 4
You kill bosses right of the bat with no stacks and then spend alot of time running around killing corruptions until getting across the great span and heading for Diablo where you will have rares and mobs to kill but it took me some searching just to get 5 stacks before Diablo unless I started at the begining, which just entails alot of running.

7) Always hug the LEFT or RIGHT of a map!

Your biggest lost in time is walking past the turn off you needed to get to the exit and having to turn around to retrace steps over areas already uncovered! Always taking LEFT or RIGHT turns enables you to clear the whole area and never have to back track. On finding the exit to the next area it's a judgement call as to wether it's worth back tracking to uncovered areas. In an open field hugging the edge revels the edge, then you can zig zag through the middle to clear the area.

Which follower do you use?

On an earlier post I wrote about my build as I was nearing level 30 and Nightmare. 12 Hours Played Build and Progress. I updated my Build in Hell and this has been holding steady through Act 1 and I'm now at Act 2 Chapter 6 Inferno. I also posted A Barbarian Build that works!

Solo Inferno Butcher is on farm in my main build with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor. Act 2 has been rushed to Chapter 6 sipping everything possible as looking at the sun in that desert will kill you without resistances! I'm looking forward to going back with more gear to kill Magdha again, ideally with 5 stacks and some friends to help on the control side of mob killing and kiting which is becoming more necessary in Inferno.

To that end I want to answer a question I had from Pitlord "Which Follower do you Use?"

In Solo play followers can be both a major asset and a total liability. I am currently using the Enchantress in Inferno butcher farming runs. Templar for Magic/Gold Find to keep down time to a minimum and GF/MF maxed out. The Scoundrel comes out for boss fights where I'm likely pushing the enrage due to build

Here are the builds I use for each and my reasoning behind each, and when I choose to use each.

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/follower#0100!1000!0000

The Enchantress is who I'm using right now, whinny voice, kinda annoying ditsy blond chick. But she has some nice utility:

Charm. The charmed enemy is attack able by both you and it's buddies, and attacks it's buddies. It's not doing any damage to me and it's keeping it's buddies from wailing on me. It can equate to 100% damage reduction for 4 seconds which is an eternity in this game. The alternative knock back from Forceful Push messes with my Barb that needs to be in melee range to do damage and self heal. It is too unpredictable when she will use it to help with kiting.

Powered Armor, as with all armor in this game beats the Reflect Missiles due simply to Armor in Diablo 3 reduces ALL types of damage.

Disorientate is 2 secs for an entire group that are now not wailing on me. While I'd like the 15% damage taken pool of Erosion Diablo 3 require intensive movement to avoid hits and damage from the environment so keeping champions and rares that would really benefit from being nuked with an extra 15% DPS in the pool becomes a dangerous proposition.

Focused Mind seemingly goes against my previous choices of control, but the 60sec Cd on Mass Control, and the ditsy blond way she will use all controls on Cd, can't be controlled by the player, and we have no tracking of her internal Cool downs short of a stopwatch makes it unreliable at best. While Focused Mind with my Smite runed Frenzy benefits more from 3% attack speed.

The Templar is my first choice for any farmable content below Inferno. The reason being his shields gives me an extra magic/gold find slot over the other 2 followers:

 Heal vs Taunt. I'm the tank. If you taunt and die who is going to heal me. If I get below 50% you can bet I have a revenge ready, I don't need you taunting mobs away so they are out of range. I need more revenge procs to farm this content faster!

Intimidate relies on enemies hitting the Templar, so fail for me. Life Regen is always nice. I have pitifully low values of Life per sec on gear so it takes forever to heal out of combat, so Loyalty is the only choice here.

Charge and Onslaught. Don't get any ideas about your follower doing a ton of DPS and finishing off that rare pack while you go for a coffee. 200% of naff all is still naff all! I'll take the stun. If I'm in trouble I can open some distance, pot, wait on Cd's before jumping back in.

Guardian vs Inspire. The saddest thing for me in the Barbarian gameplay is the lack of fury spending we are seeing due to the fury generators simply being better than the spenders. I'm not going to rant about class design, but Inspire..lol. Guardian saved my life a few times in Hell, but I also found that a healing build Templar can be a liability against Vampiric + pool of bad stuff mobs. He will stand in the pool healing himself, which translates to healing the mob that dropped it!

The scoundrel is one I'm yet to find any real use for on my Barbarian other than damage dealing, but hres my take on him:

I could see myself bringing him along to a boss fight like the Butcher were I'm pushing the enrage timer if he hides in a fire area and I can't get decent uptime on him. However Follower DPS is lack lustre at best, so not used this guy much.

Crippling Shot vs. Poision Bolts is simply slows vs DPS. I don't rate slows as highly as I maybe would as something other than a Barbarian, but I'm not a kiter. Stuns do helpout, but unless someone is going to inform me that it also slows mob attack speed I'll take the DPS and just burn the bad guys down.

Dirty Fighting is the clear winner for me here. If my follower needs to Vanish to self heal it's becuase the AI fails and he stood in bad stuff. Either way he will self resurect in a matter of seconds so I'm not going to go to any lenghts to keep him alive, including talenting. Dirty Fighting however has potential to keep me alive, and that much more important!

Multishot vs Powered Snot, yes I called it powered snot due to the whopping 25% weapon damage it does. Most boss fights do have some adds making Multishot work for me, and although I'm a lover of stuns against Rare/Champions were mechanics just don't exist if you are relying on stun locks to kill bosses you are failing at mechanics becuase nearly everything is avoidable to the extent that they have "check me out I did it naked achievements".

Anatomy and Hysteria are simply a question of how much crit do you already have. I have next to zero so 3% extra is going to be more benefit than a proc that relies on something that has next to zero chance of happening. Can I rely on a crit every 6seconds to keep the Hysteria buff up at it's max uptime of 50% for 10% increased damage, or is 3% crit with 100% the better choice.

Hope my explaination of what I use and why helps you make your own descisions about your followers. See you in game and Good Luck!

A Barbarian Build that works!

There has been alot on the forums about how gimped the Barbarian class is but having gotten to 60 I wanted to share my build which I used for solo play through Hell and into Inferno.

Frenzy increases attack speed and is a very good DPS tool. Triumph can be uses for more self healing from 22 to 59 when you get Maniac. Since the DPS from Rend whih will follow 5 stacks of Manic it boosts Rends Blood lust healing. In Inferno control becomes more important so Smite has been my rune of choice.
Rend takes Blood Lust for a sustained self heal during combat, while also doing some of the highest weapon damage, albiet over time of any secondary skill.
Ignore Pain is in there for those "oh &%$#" moments when that arcane vortex molten waller combo pulls you into stuff you can't immediately get out of! I previously had Weapon Throw in here which worked well chasing down casters, but with the combos in later difficulty I feel the cooldown is needed, And Contempt for Weakness does a ton of damage alongside the Enchantresses Reflect Spells ability softening up weaker casters during the big pulls.
Revenge is your main big heal, 5% per mob hit and I find I want it up as often as possible. In a heavy fight (10+ mobs) with Provocation it can and does proc back to back making it my biggest DPS and Heal skill and second only to keeping frenzy up.
War Cry with Invigorate boosts your HP and provides health regen and fury at the start of the fight so you have something gong in.
Wrath of the Berserker is to do as much damage to something as fast a possible to start the health globes dropping, boost you heals from Rend, or break snares!

Defensive passives are kind of overlooked at lower difficulties, but really make or break your build a the higher difficulties in solo play. I have alot of Vitality on gear, and still take massive damage from 10+ mobs in melee combat. The armor from Nerves of Steel is paramount to reducing that damage while I get the Self Heals rolling.
Superstition is an anti-Caster and Anti-Arcane, Molten, Plagued, Waller (or similar get stuck in bad stuff on the floor...it will happen!)
Relentless is the most awesome passive in the game. It has kept me alive for the next Revenge proc, Potion CD, Health Orb drop, Ignore Pain CD, next Wrath of the Berserker or just waiting for the chance to move and kite for a bit so many times. A really life saving passive!
*Edit I have since changed Relentless to Nerves of Steal. Add Armor Value equal to 100% of Vitality. This actually doubles my armor value through the vitality on gear and my damage reduction, effectively getting me 50% reduced damage without the need for being low HP!
So from this I get a rotation of sorts/priority for abilities.
Start pull with War Cry up, then Rend to get Self heals rolling, get frenzy stacked to 5 and by then Revenge will have procs and melee mobs will have closed in for the Revenge heal. Waiting for revenge I was probably under 20% HP and being kept alive by Relentless. Now I'm back to full HP. Use Revenge every proc while not letting Frenzy or Rend fall off your targets and you are good to go. Use Ignore Pain and Wrath against Rare and Champion packs.

Auction Tips for Flips

Put together a short little guide to how I'm playing the gold AH while I amass a fortune in gold for whenever the RMAH actually gets to us!

The beauty of this is it works for any commoditity be it Essences, Rare Crafting Mats (Illustration is with Fallen Teeth), Any level of gems, Black Smith or Jewlery Pages, Tomes etc etc.

The principle works on the basis that whatever the average price has been in the previous 24hour hours it will get back there again within the duration of your auction, ie. at peak times when demand outstrips supply.

Image 1

The AH kindly gives us the info we need..the previous 24hours price, the stable price at which we are relying on remaining constant.

Now you see the price for 10 right now is 29 gold...with some spamming of the search button we finally find a price at or below our threshold of 22g.

Image 2

Boom! Click Buyout!

Now for the fun bit that most people may not know!

Image 3

After you click the following Buyout Confirm pop up (Below) you will be returned to the search you just did with the 22gold per unit price. So without spamming for more under 22g fallen teeth you can click buyout again (Image 2) and it will continue to buyout any Fallen Teeth at or under 22g per unit until there are none left, at which point you get an auction not found error message, but no problem, just keep clicking, if anyone posts more at your threshold you will snap them up!

To Salvage or Not to Salvage...

That is the question, Whether tis nobler in the mind to take the slings and arows dropped by mobs and salvage them or, by vendoring get more gold from them!

The answer is relatively simple.

A blue of a specific level has a 100% chance to produce an Essence, and a 15% chance of producing a Fallen Tooth.

So for normal mode blue items

(100% x price of Subtle Essence + 15% x price of Fallen Tooth) x 85% (due to auction fees) = Value

Lets see a real world senario:

A blue item that vendors for 98gold while subtle essences are going for 30 gold and a fallen tooth for 150 gold.

(1 x 30 + .15x150) x 0.85 = 45g (44.625 rounded)

since 45<98 Vendor the item

For Normal mode Rares it is 100% chace for Fallen Tooth, 100% chance for Subtle Essence

(100% x price of Subtle Essence + 100% x price of Fallen Tooth) x 85% (AH fees) = Value

(1 x 30 + 1 x 150) x 0.85 = 153g

so if the vendor value of the rare is less than 153g you should salvage.

As far as I can tell so far the formulas are the same for all difficulty levels of mats. So all we need do is know the value of essences and rare mats that we will be salvaging into and we can keep this in mind as we visit the vendor/blacksmith when our bags get full.

I'll also reiterate that we need to be following trends in the market. If the price of Essences is currently down in the 15g area, but we know that at a weeekend it is likely to bounce back to 30g or more we need to be using the 30g figure, and not the 15g figure. Auction Sucess: It's all about timing!

And off course if the item is maxed out stats you could also sell it on the AH, but that should go without saying!

12 hours played build and progress

So the strategy so far has been conservative leveling. I have a real life (son to look after during the day, girl to cook dinner for and cuddle at night etc etc.) So I'm not doing a D3 Marathon trying to crank out to Inferno in the first week.

Remember my conservative leveling and gold farming strategy? So I have been playing through quests, Getting to the end boss, and then leaving game to check the AH prices of crafting mats etc. to flip, and checking public games interface for my restart point and going back in solo again. So right now I'm going back in having gotten 2 quests into Act 3 at level 26 Iwill be starting over from 2 quests short of the end of act 2, killing Belial again, and thus out leveling the content even more before continuing on.

Barbarian Gear:
I'm running with a self healing focused build, so I'm looking for weapons with the Vampiric affix (heals you for x.xx% of the damage done. Gear is predominantly Strenght, and Magic Find. However Experience, Gold Find is on a few pieces simply because I'm dealing with random allocation within my own drops. And with damage done converting to heals I'm not shying away from DPS stats if the overall benefit is there.
Note: Don't trust the numbers in your inventory when switching between Dual wield, 2H, and Sword and Board. (+/- x.x damage and protection, or even the DPS number on the weapon), Equip the items and check your stats Damage number. I have been having some surprising results. The calculation system just doesn't work well switching between weapon types.

Barbarian Build:
No buff to worry about losing yet, so no penalties for switching builds about at this stage, but mostly I've been running, currently  at level 26:

1) Leap with Impact (+Armor on landing) - Jump in and be able to take the beating!
2) Revenge with Vengeance (+Fury and Heal on hit) - this is like having a health globe on demand!
3) Battle Rage (+30% damage) - stacks with the damage done = heals so keeping this up at all times!
4) Call of the Ancients (3 npcs help for 15secs) - had trouble getting mobs to stand in Earthquake!
L) Cleave with Rupture/Reaping or Frenzy with Triumph - 2H/1H playing about with these
R) Rend with Blood lust (Heals for 9% damage done) - most of the self healing
Passives: Blood thirst and either Weapons Master or Ruthlessness depending on weapons.

Mobs to watch out for:
So glad I wasn't playing Hardcore. First encounter with Stinger packs in Act2 lead to my first death. They "cast" small wasps which getting hit by can be fatal if it's a pincer of 3-4 streams and you, as in my case are spamming rend expecting these "adds" to die. They are not target able adds they are projectiles!

Fallen Maniacs in Act 3. Indoors these things come running at you around corners so you may or may not see them coming. They explode on contact with you or your follower. I've taken to jumping out of the way and letting my Templar take the beating.

Hungering Pestilence in Act 3. I've seen these in the outside areas and the answer is like with Belial to just keep moving so you are never standing in stuff that spawns under your feet.