r8 is dirt cheap.
3r9 is not worth buying any longer as G17 armor is out. both are expensive.
there's supposed to be a forge that upgrades r8->r9->3g17, but it doesn't exist last i knew, and there aren't signs that it was coming any time soon.(if ever)
the company changed hands not long ago, so last i knew, even the pwi database was no longer updating.
this game is most definitely p2w, but it's not p2play. although you'll have to join some sort of guild to do your lower lvl bounties and such.
end-game gear costs 10's of billions now. each. daily dungeons now requires each player to have a key to enter, which means they are limited to 1 a day unless you get extras or just start saving them.
income without spending money or merching is pretty low. impossibly low to even consider end-game items.
unfortunately, this is a mercher's game. outside of doing dailies or other events for stuff you can't buy, playing the game is almost worthless for monetary gain.
to merch you need a strict budget, cause there's literally always something to buy for your char.
fortunately, there's legit only a couple people that can actually afford to spend $ to make much of a difference.
i believe $1k was 1300 gold. i'd buy 1k stacks of gold from people for 5-7b each pending hs or non-hs gold and market variance.
you're looking at spending $10k just for gear slot items. that doesn't include everything else.
i started up again last year, took ~500m i still had and turned it into 25-30b within 6 months. although i was spending on myself here and there, ppl were often teasing me cause i was generally selling items that were far better than what i was using.
my merch budget was super strict though, i could really only start to spend when i had over 8b.
unfortunately, you won't see anything close to those numbers just playing the game. not even in a life-time.