After doing so many calculations for myself to decide what points to go after first, I decided to share some of my math skills to everyone going for at least the first 30 points. (If you're starting from scratch ie never have played Guild Wars, I personally think you'd be insane to go for 50 points, but hey that's your choice.)
4 of the 5 HoM categories are achieved at a much faster rate by the use of cold hard cash: Devotion (minipets), Fellowship (heros/ranger pets), Resilience (armor sets), and Valor (weapons). For these, I'll be discussing each point gained from an economical standpoint. For the 5th, Honor (titles), I'll be discussing each point gained from a time spent standpoint though this will involve much more "fuzzy" math.
In general, the costs (from cheapest to most expensive) for each HoM category is as follows: Devotion < Fellowship < Valor < Resilience. The armor sets in Resilience require cheap to very expensive materials AND require anywhere from 50 to 75 platinum (75k) to get the npc to make them for you. In contrast, MOST of the Devotion's minipets are extremely cheap since MOST of the common quality minipets tend to range in price from 0.5k to 5k. There are some VERY expensive minipets however. I wouldn't suggest trying to buy these unless you're a sucker for collecting minipets.
I'll analyze Devotion first
Devotion (minipets)
(points listed first){average cost per point (ACP) listed last}.
1 Any Miniature Statue {0.75}
1 Rare Miniature Statue {50}
1 Unique Miniature Statue {10}*
2 20 Miniature Statues {17}
1 30 Miniature Statues {40}
1 40 Miniature Statues {80}
1 50 Miniature Statues {160?}
*Normal costs are actually 75 and up. Assumes player did the treasure hunt to get the Black Moa Chick.
Most players can find their first common minipet for 500g to 1k (average=0.75ACP). Typically rare (gold) mini's sell from 40's to 65k. Rarely you can get a rare mini for 30k or so. *Unique (green) mini's tend to be 75k and up, but many players go for the black moa chick which costs a lot less if you do the legwork yourself (costs are just for crafting, assumes you've collected all the materials for every requirement). The first 17 common minipets (1+1+1+17=20pets), if you buy mainly year 1 and year 2 birthday present mini's, cost 1k to 3k on average (2*17pets/2points=17ACP). To go from 20 to 30 pets, costs tend increase to 4k/pet (10pets*4k=40ACP). Prices will then increase incrementally as only expensive pets are left to buy. 160k is really just a guess as to how much going from 40 to 50 pets will cost. It probably is MUCH more expensive than that.
Fellowship (Hero/ranger pets)
(points listed first){average cost per point (ACP) listed last}
1 Any Hero Statue {0}
1 Any Pet Statue {0}
1 Any Rare Pet Statue {0}
2 5 Companion Statues (Full Display) {9}*
1 10 Companion Statues {40}
1 20 Companion Statues {80}**
1 30 Companion Statues {120}**
*Assumes, player has MOX and Black Moa already. 6k*3/2points=9ACP
**10 vs 20 statues costs per hero is actually the same, but the player already had 5 statues so to achieve 10 statues, they only had to buy 5 more armor items (8k*5=40k vs 8k*10=80k). 20 vs 30 assumes player has exhausted all 6k and 8k armor item drops and now has to buy all 12k armor item drops (8k*10=80k vs 12k*10=120k).
Based on current prices of armor item drops such as cloth of the brotherhood. Costs can be reduced a little by taming and training pets. Armor item drops can be collected personally, but it's usually easier to buy them. Best way to get both pet point with a single pet with no training is to train a Black Moa during/after finishing the Faction storyline. Most hero armor upgrades cost 8k. Cloth of Brotherhood currently runs about 6k and others run 12k. Assuming MOX is the first hero displayed, no armor upgrade is needed for him and thus he's 0 ACP. The only pet players tend to pay for in order to tame is the Black Widow since it typically requires the player to be escorted to cleared areas in Underworld, a very difficult area; common cost is 10k (just fyi).
Resilience (Armor sets)
(points listed first){average cost per point (ACP) listed last}
1 Any Armor Statue {50}
1 3 Armor Statues {56}*
2 5 Armor Statues (Full Display) {75}**
1 7 Armor Statues {150}
1 Kurzick or Luxon Armor Statue {121}
1 Vabbian Armor Statue {276}
1 Obsidian Armor Statue {1300}
*Assumes player has gotten 1 regular presite and Kurzick/Luxon armor already.
**75k*2armorsets/2points=75ACP
For ALL of these, I am assuming you've collected ONLY the basic materials and that you've had to buy all the advanced (rare) materials for market value except for steel which is fairly common (average of what the merchants buy and sells each rare material). I'm using the warrior sets as my basis, but I'm fairly sure other classes would have similar costs. I've picked Kurzick as the target armor instead of Luxon because its rare materials cost less. Results may very, but at least you can get a better idea of how EXPENSIVE this category is. And you're not dreaming, the Obsidian Armor set costs 1300k or 1300ACP or 1,300,000 gold. (It requires 120 ectoplasm, among other expensive rare materials and each ecto costs about 7k a piece.) Costs found for the cheaper "regular" presige armor sets are as follows: Asuran(50k),Ancient(56k),Primeval(75k),Elitesunspear(75k),Elitedragon(75k),Elitegladiator(75k),Elitecanthan(75k),Elitecharrhide(75.1k),Elitetemplar(84.2k),silvereagle(91.5k).
Valor (Weapon Sets)
(points listed first){average cost per point (ACP) listed last}
1 Any Weapon Statue {15}*
1 Destroyer Weapon Statue {15}*
1 Tormented Weapon Statue {145}
1 Oppressor Weapon Statue {0}^
1 5 Weapon Statues {90} or {0}**
2 11 Weapon Statues (Full Display) {75} or {0}#
1 15 Weapon Statues {120} or {0}**
*Destroyer Weapons are about 30k in rare materials (price assumes regular materials are self collected). Since the Destroyer weapon is likely to be found first, the 30k spent earns 2 points, 1 for any weapon, and 1 for Destroyer weapon.
^Oppressor weapons (unless bought from a player for 60k or so HAVE to be earned through bounty quests and thus are economically free though they do take a large time investment-multiple weeks for each weapon).
**First price is if remaining weapons are all destroyer weapons; Second price is if all remaining weapons are Oppressor.
#Assumes player has 5 Destroyer/Oppressor and 1 Tormented Weapons already. 30k*5/2points=75ACP
Keep in mind even though there's plenty of zero's listed, getting those zeros for every time they're listed requires the player to always earn Oppressor weapons for 13 of the 15 weapons which could take any where from 6 months to a year (assumes an average of 3 weeks time investment per Oppressor weapon). It can be done for little monetary cost, but it'll take a lot of time.
Last but not least is the Honor category. Most of these take mostly time. A few are monetary based. All are really subjective in my opinion and if any of these categories should be debated heavily and not agreed with, it's this one. I've done my best and it's pretty darn relative. I, unfortunately, don't know enough about how much consumables such as drinks and food cost so I can't put any real monetary values for the titles that represent these. I have done extensive research on how much time/money getting "Elite Zaishen Supporter" costs since it qualifies as a pvp statue which is 3 points. I'll go through the math for this, but I can tell you now, my numbers won't make you want to pursue this achievement any time soon.
Honor
(all listings based on general idea of time spent, relative to each other, with Elite Zaishen Supporter having the largest length (10) and Accounts linked being instantaneous (0). I've ranked them on a scale of 0 to 10.)
(points listed first){relative time listed last}
3 Accounts Linked 0
2 Any Statue 1
3 Any PvP Statue 10 or {367}
3 5 Statues (Full Display) 2
1 10 Statues 3
1 15 Statues 4
1 20 Statues 5
1 25 Statues 6
1 30 Statues 7
1 35 Statues 8
1 40 Statues 9
*average cost per point (ACP) listed as well. 1100k/3points~367ACP
Here's the numbers for Zaishen Supporter. Granted a player could do this faster, but it still takes a TON of planning and work, make no mistake about it. On average, if a player does ALL the zaishen quests available per day, he can earn a half a zaishen gold coin which is half a zaishen golden key (maybe more, but 90% of the time, not enough to earn an entire gold zaishen coin). It takes 200 golden keys to unlock the "Elite Zaishen Supporter" title. Therefore, if a player does ALL the quests, EVERY day for 400 days, he'll get the title. On the flip side, a player could buy his way through this title. Currently, a silver zaishen coin costs about 1k. It takes 10 silvers to make a gold. As a result, each gold coin (and as a result, the golden zaishen key needed for the title) costs 10k each. 200keysneeded*10k=2000k (which surprisingly is more expensive than the material cost of the obsidian armor (but it does add 3 points for the 1 point that the obsidian armor does so it has a lower ACP cost). A player could mix and match in order to achieve this faster ie 200days of work and buy 100 keys, but that's still 1000k. Not really reasonable. You're better off going for other titles until you get to 30 or 40 statues. Or you can do what I'm doing, taking this option slow and steady. I might finish, I might not, the quests themselves pay out fairly well.
EDIT: You can buy zaishen keys directly for 5.5k a pop from players. Much, much cheaper that way. That's still 1100k overall, but at least you do something like 200 days and 550k for 200 keys to make it a bit more doable.
To make a long post longer, here's the order based on ACP on how most points should be earned. I'm assuming I only collected one Oppressor weapon (despite the low ACP for the Oppressor weapons, it's actually quite difficult to get starting out so I had to rank it lower) plus you'll want to have your armor and your heros' armor upgraded to get it.
1. Any Hero Statue {0}
2. Any Pet Statue {0}
3. Any Rare Pet Statue {0}
4. Any Miniature Statue {0.75}
5. 5 Companion Statues (Full Display) {9}
6. Unique Miniature Statue {10}
7. Any Weapon Statue {15}
8. Destroyer Weapon Statue {15}
9. Rare Miniature Statue {50}*
10. 20 Miniature Statues {17}
11. 30 Miniature Statues {40}
12. 10 Companion Statues {40}
13. Any Armor Statue {50}
14. Oppressor Weapon Statue {0}
14. Kurzick or Luxon Armor Statue {121}*
16. 3 Armor Statues {56}
17. 5 Armor Statues (Full Display) {75}
18. 20 Companion Statues {80}
19. 40 Miniature Statues {80}
20. Tormented Weapon Statue {145}*
21. 5 Weapon Statues {90}
22. 11 Weapon Statues (Full Display) {75}
23. 30 Companion Statues {120}
24. 15 Weapon Statues {120}
25. 7 Armor Statues {150}
26. 50 Miniature Statues {160}
27. Vabbian Armor Statue {276}
28. Obsidian Armor Statue {1300}
*These prices may seem out of place, but if these items are achieved LATER, prices of the sets (such as 5 weapon and 11 weapon display for the Tormented Weapon) go WAY up. These items should be bought/earned first before one goes for the larger sets.
That's it. Huge wall of text I realize, but hopefully it'll help. Unless I can start farming ectoplasms, rubies, and sapphires like the Underworld is going out of business, I'm staying far, far away from trying to make the Vabbi or Obsidian armors. If anything, it will help me figure out how to prioritize my in game spending.
» Edited on: 2011-06-08 09:22:58