Recent Entries
Mar 22, 2009 Auction House, Crafting, Patches, Professions, Resources, Wrath of the Lich King
This is the first of many guest posts. Richard (Twinkletoes - EU Kul Tiras) sent me this article two months ago and I promised him to post it as soon as I could. Unfortunately, my recent injury significantly delayed it, but the basic concepts are still valid. A belated thanks Richard!
Ever since the release of the Profitable Prospectin’ article from last May I have been an avid prospector making enough gold to kit out my main and alts.
With the release of WotLK came new Ore and new Gems. AH prices have been fluctuating for the core materials and it took some time for this to settle however the wait is now over and we have enough information to dust off the article and give it an update.
The basic principles are still the same, work out the price of the resulting gems a prospecting session should make; if they’re worth more than the raw materials then it’s worth it. In the original article we stuck to Adamantite Ore and for WotLK Saronite Ore is the ore of choice.
I will leave the maths explanation for the original post but the theory is still very similar. There is a 24% chance to drop a blue gem and a 108% chance for either 1 or 2 green gems.
Test Results
Over a two week period I bought 112 stacks of Saronite Ore at 35 Gold each for a total investment of just over 3.9k. This prospected into the following:
If we AH everything we prospected this would result in sales of 7.6k. With an initial investments of 3.9k that leaves us a profit of 3.7k.
For the theorycrafters amongst you the 112 stacks should result in 3.5k profit (I was lucky on a few extra Scarlet Rubies).
What’s interesting is the time required to make this much gold. By far the most time is spent doing the prospecting itself and then placing the gems on the AH at the right price. I would estimate that I spent about 1 hour game time for the above test.
Tips
This probably goes without saying but spend a little time tracking Saronite Ore on the AH at different times and on different days. Find the highs and lows on both prices and availability.
Ore is generally cheaper on the weekend and on my realm there are only 10 or 12 stacks below my target price at any one time. I aim to clear these out most days depending on how much I have invested in gems.
As with the original Profitable Prospectin’ post, this will only work over a large amount of prospects. Prospecting for profit works on the law of averages and you need a large enough sample size to justify the expense.
Although I put most of my green gems on the AH I am also saving a fair number of stacks back for the soon to be released Icy Prism. On that note, look out for cheap Frozen Orbs.
Having a Jewelcrafter at your disposal will greatly increase your profit on the blue gems. The higher level gem recipes are gained through the daily JC awards and running various instances. As a guide, the top ten gems from my realm make an extra 50 to 70 gold per sale. We got 99 blue gems from the test above and if we converted just half we would have made an extra 3k on top of our 3.7k of profit.
Mar 18, 2009 WoW Economist
As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve not posted in some time. I ended up breaking my wrist and elbow while longboarding and now I’ve been busy working to pay the hefty medical bill. Casts, splints, and x-rays are expensive! UGH! I haven’t even logged into WoW in weeks - how I miss it!
There are a lot of topics I’ve been waiting to write about, a lot of ideas spinning in my head for new posts, and plenty more as WoW is patched to perfection. Unfortunately, I just don’t have as much time to devote to WoW and this blog as I used to and want to. This is where you fly in like Superman and save me from certain doom!
If you’ve ever wanted to contribute to WoW Economist more than just a comment, now’s your chance. I’m looking for a writer or two to share their knowledge of building weath in WoW with our community. You’ll not only be included in writing articles here, but you’ll have the opportunity to help with a few other projects we have going behind the scenes. It should be an exciting few months!
If you’re interested, please drop me an email at contact@woweconomist.com. Can’t wait to hear from you!
Jan 5, 2009 Auction House, Crafting, Farming, How-To, Investing, Patches, Professions, Wrath of the Lich King
As we covered a few weeks ago, some enchanting recipes are being changed in the upcoming patch. Thanks to well-formatted post at MMO-Champion, we’ve got a much better idea of what’s being changed - nearly all the Wrath enchants!
Many of them are having their dust and essence (especially essence) requirements lowered, some have had Dream Shards added or Dream Shards to replace Abyss Crystals. With the additions of two new tanking enchants, we can definitely expect Dream Shard prices to rise - probably double or triple their current cost. I’ve been stocking up over the last few weeks and I’m already seeing the prices climb from 4-5g each to about 8-9g each. And the increases in price isn’t stopping any time soon.
I have not yet heard if the patch is coming during tomorrow’s maintanence or not, but it has to be soon. You still have a chance to pick up some more dream shards before the auction house is cleared out and inflation sets in.
Jan 1, 2009 WoW Economist
Ugh! Sorry for not having posted any contact information. I had no idea nearly everything broke when I upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress. First my traffic appeared to drop, then I stopped getting comments - I thought you guys had abandoned me! Turns out it was my mistake in overwriting some of my blog configuration files. Everything should be back to normal now. If you still see something amiss, please send me an email at contact@woweconomist.com.
Dec 25, 2008 Auction House, Holidays
Short, quick post before I head to girlfriend’s parents’ for presents and dinner.
If you’re as lame as I am and you’re playing WoW on Christmas Day, go open your Christmas presents next to Greatfather Winter. I think the number of presents you can open depends on your level, five total presents for level 80. I also think there’s a good chance of getting one of the holiday mini pets in one or more of the gifts. And seeing as many people are going after the entire mini pet collection, now’s a great time to sell. The prices won’t stay up there for long, so get rid of em quick. You can always buy them back in a few days when there’s a lot larger supply. Prices on these WILL come down, they always do.
Merry Christmas everyone! I’ve got a few spiffy tools to give you in the next few days, they are almost finished!
Dec 23, 2008 Auction House, Investing, Patches, Professions
More opportunities for profit in the next patch have surfaced in a blue post on the official WoW forums:
“In BC we thought that dust was too common and enchants were basically gated by the cost and availability of shards. We wanted to adjust this for LK and in retrospect overcompensated, such that dust is now the rare, limiting reagent.
As Excrusiate points out, this should be better next patch.”
From what I’ve gathered in the post above the blue, some of the enchants that require dream shards will now take a few more than they currently do. Initially, I assumed they’d just be slightly increasing the chance to gain dust/essence from disenchanting, but I guess not. Having just finished collecting all the Wrath enchants, I can tell you the enchants that are likely to change and cause the value and demand of Dream Shards to rise:
- Enchant Gloves - Armsman (currently requires 2 shards)
- Enchant Gloves - Crusher (currently requires 1 shard)
- Enchant Cloak - Major Agility (currently requires 2 shards)
The other few enchants don’t have near the demand (1/100th, if I had to guess) to cause any change in the Dream Shard prices. Of the hundred or two enchants I’ve done, I can remember doing Armsman twice and Major Agility two or three times. I’ve sold one or two scrolls of each flavor as well. So there probaby won’t be a huge increase in shard prices, but perhaps enough to stock up on them now so you can sell scrolls in a few weeks and earn a tad more profit.
Dec 16, 2008 Arena & Battlegrounds, Class Specific, Crafting, Investing, Patches, Resources
Another late post! No more slacking from me, I promise!
I just got done watching my server slowly count down to shutdown. You know what that means? Arena Season 5 with lots and lots of new gear! A few dozen sets of gear, at least!
Just like Season 4, I hope you stocked up and prepared for enchanting and jewelcrafting because they’ll be hot, hot, hot over the next week or two. Last season, our readers together earned hundreds of thousands of gold profit. Enchanting materials (dust at least) didn’t seem to do as well as expected, but essences sold quick. What sort of surprised me was how much was made from leg armor and spellthread - huge profits in these areas. I stocked up on Frozen Orbs with plans for Icy Prisms, but I may start crafting the new spellthread instead.
Jewelcrafters did well too since most of the gear needs socketing. In Wrath we have some new, unique cuts designed specifically for PVP. I’m hoping to see these gems take off in price. If you’ve been running heroics over the last few weeks and you have a small pile of Stone Keeper’s Shards, go grab the new Jewelcrafting patterns from your Wintergrasp quartermaster - most of them are just 12 shards a piece.
Now, before you run off trying to be the first to login and buy up all the mats on the AH, let us know what race and class you play mainly and what gems you’ll be using for raiding, arenas, and battlegrounds. I can’t be an expert in all classes, so your recommendations will help us all invest properly with a wide variety.
Dec 16, 2008 Auction House, Crafting, Farming, Gathering, Holidays, How-To, Investing, Professions, Wrath of the Lich King
I’m sorry I didn’t get this post up sooner so you guys could start preparing. Wordpress has been giving me some trouble lately. If the most recent updates don’t fix it, I might have to move to a new blogging platform.
Winter Veil is finally here and so is the inflation. Most of us have seen it before - hundreds of gold for stacks of Small Eggs among other things. It brings back memories of WoW’s first Winter Veil and farming the hell out of owls in Teldrassil for eggnog.
With many players going after the Merrymaker title, a few of the player-created items are in very high demand. This demand has caused the materials to skyrocket in price, giving us an opportunity to earn some major cash. Seeing as this post is a little late, we won’t be able to invest in much. But some quick and easy farming, even on low level alts, will prove to be very profitable. Here are some items you should look out for and sell while the demand lasts:
- Wool Cloth and Bolts of Woolen Cloth
- Runecloth and Bolts of Runecloth
- Rugged Leather
- Copper Ore and Copper Bars
- Small Eggs
- Deeprock Salt - this is a big one, going for about 20g each on my server. Deeprock Salt can be turned in with 5g for five Preserved Holly.
The following may be profitable investments as they can be purchased cheaply from vendors. I’ve often started earning funds on new bank alts by selling a few Rune Thread on the auction house for a few hundred percent markup - the markup and demand are likely much more significant at this time of year.
- Rune Thread
- Green Dye and Red Dye
- Holiday Spirits and Holiday Spices
- Ice Cold Milk
Hopefully there’s still time for you to take advantage of the holiday madness. Let me know how you do!
Dec 13, 2008 Crafting, Investing, Patches, Professions, Wrath of the Lich King
After being the proud owner of nearly every Engineering pattern in the game (save for very few, rare green ones) for about two years, I decided it was time for something more profitable. There just wasn’t much Engineer-only recipes in Northrend to make it worth while. I dropped Engineering for Jewelcrafting and leveled it up just before the expansion. After hitting 80 and farming a few stacks of ore, I dropped mining and leveled up Enchanting (I wish I had gone Inscription instead, but I’ll probably just roll a DK for that).
The upcoming patch has a lot of disappointing changes (I’m a hunter), but I’m very excited for the new Brilliant Glass of Northrend, Icy Prism! Even better, it’s made from those three uncommon gems I seem to have the most of: Calcedony, Shadow Crystal, and Dark Jade. It also requires a Frozen Orb, which could make it a costly endeavor for now, but I’ll bet it’ll still be profitable after cutting the resulting gems.
I was going to write about Frozen Orbs and other rare materials, but it seems I might be a bit late, so I hope you were selling them as soon as you got your hands on them. In the first week or two of Wrath, Frozen Orbs were going for 300-400g on my server, Abyss Crystals made a few hundred more. I made a killing on them during that time. Now that the Frozen Orbs are down to about 50g each, it’s probably safe to start stashing them away for Icy Prisms. I haven’t heard if they have a chance to turn over epic gems, but it should still be profitable regardless. If epic gems are released through Icy Prisms, we’ll be insanely rich!
I have a neat little prospecting calculator that’s nearly finished to give you an idea of how profitable prospecting is on your server. Across the few servers I’ve checked, uncut uncommons go for a few gold a piece and uncut red, orange, and yellow rare gems sell anywhere between 50g and 90g. If this sounds like your economy and Saronite Ore is around 25-30g a stack, it’s probably safe to prospect the hell out of it. You’ll get some profit out of uncut gems, but way more out of cut ones. Just find the most profitable cuts and get those recipes before the competition does - and sell, sell, sell!
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