Buying Items - Spend Gold Efficiently by BlueBadger

1. Informed Purchases 2. Maximize Your Investments 3. Graphs 4. Final Remarks

When I first started playing VainGlory I had no clue what to buy. Now, thanks to all of the great Hero guides here on VGF, it is easy to know what your build should look like by the end of a game. However, not all roads to your full build are the same. The order in which you buy your items matters, and there may be hidden costs you are not aware of.

Here are the key deciding factors when buying items:

1. Build into your tier 3 items
Do you want to build Tension Bow? Take a Six Sins and a Piercing Spear first. No need to wait until you have 2300 gold saved up.

2. Prioritize your core build
Some tier 3 items have special abilities that your build absolutely needs to work properly. If the guide you're reading says this is important, get it first!

3. Get the most bang for you buck
You only have 6 item slots, and so there is a cost that comes with combining items like Heavy Steel and Six Sins into Sorrowblade. It may be better to buy several tier 1-2 items instead.

4. Adapt to your teammates and your enemies'
The value of many items depends on what other hero's have built. Shin's Glaive guide has a great section on learning to counter your enemies' build.

Let's talk some more about key factor #3 above, because this isn't necessarily apparent until you do a little math.

Say you are building weapon power. You have 650 gold and you could buy Six Sins for 30WP. You could also buy two Weapon Blades for the same WP and save 50 gold. "What a deal!" you say. "I'm going to buy twenty Weapon Blades for infinite value!"

Well hold on there, cowboy. You only have 6 item slots, and so anytime you can save room by combining more stats into a single, better item it also costs you a little extra gold.

For example:

Here are two WP Adagio builds at mid game.

Build 1:
WP=150 Atk Speed=35% Gold=3800

Build 2:
WP=155 Atk Speed=40% Gold=3850

For just 50 more gold, Build 2 was able to have 5 more WP and 5% more atk speed, a total value of 175 gold, just by maximizing their available slots!

A word of caution - don't forget key factor #1 Build into your tier 3 items. Only fill up your slots with items you plan to use later for tier 3. You lose value if you have to sell them later on.

Here are two examples of the non-linear costs for upgrading items.



I did this with several other item trees and the general takeaway is that tier 1 items give tremendous value, while tier 2 and 3 items typical cost much more per stat. Purchase accordingly and use those extra slots!

This is only a part of a bigger guide I've been working on. To see more hidden stats, check out the full guide here!

Got questions? Suggestions? Leave 'em in the comments below or reach me on Twitter @vgBlueBadger.

Later,

BlueBadger