WoW Economist

The inscription powerleveling guide I’ve been working on is finally complete! Naturally, there may be a few mistakes, so I urge you to try the guide on the PTR or once 3.0 goes live. If you find something wrong or you have a better route for a certain portion of the guide, feel free to leave a comment and let me know!

At the moment, it’s pretty pointless to level inscription past 350 as there are no new recipes for 355 and beyond. The only way to learn new recipes after 350 (and the only way to learn minor glyphs) is through Minor Inscription Research, which has a 20 hour cooldown. Below are the materials required to get to 350 inscription. The pigments come from different sets of herbs, which you can see on Wowhead by clicking each pigment’s name. The average return of each herb is about 2.5 pigments per mill (5 herbs), so you’ll need about double the amount of herbs to get the necessary pigments listed below. I plan on having one extra stack of each as a buffer in case of bad luck.

• 60x Alabaster Pigment (~6 stacks of herbs)
  
• 40x Dusty Pigment (~4 stacks herbs)
  
• 134x Golden Pigment (~14 stacks of herbs)
  
• 118x Emerald Pigment (~12 stacks of herbs)
  
• 114x Violet Pigment (~12 stacks of herbs)
  
• 110x Silvery Pigment (~11 stacks of herbs)
  
• 130x Nether Pigment (~13 stacks of herbs)
  

The following uncommon pigments have a chance to be milled from each set of herbs. With the volume of herbs required for the pigments above, you should have no problem getting these pigments.

• 10x Burnt Pigment
• 10x Indigo Pigment
• 5x Ruby Pigment

And finally, the parchment below can be bought from the inscription supplies vendors near every inscription trainer.

• 60x Light Parchment
• 121x Common Parchment
• 155x Heavy Parchment
• 30x Resilient Parchment

Now that you’ve stuffed your inventory full of materials, let’s plow through this guide. I started out at the Ironforge trainer until 300 Inscription, then moved to Honor Hold to finish up. You’ll need to make a few trips to and from the bank to mill the herbs and use the pigment, but make sure you mill enough Nether Pigment to bring with you to the Outland to get from 300 to 350 inscription.

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I need your help! Because of the short supply of certain herbs on my server, I haven’t got very far in writing the inscription guide. I just didn’t have enough herbs to copy over to the public test realm. I’ve been wasting a lot of time farming them manually on the PTR.

So that’s where you come in!

I know you’ve been stockpiling herbs over the last month or two. If you could prepare one character full of a few stacks of each herb, copy it over to the PTR (US PVP realm), and mail me the stacks of herbs, I would greatly appreciate it. You can send the herbs to my PTR character, Frolic (Alliance on the US PVP realm), or whisper me if you catch me online. I should be on the PTR for most of the day. If I can get a few of you to do this, I should have the inscription power leveling guide finished by tonight.

I was a bit surprised when I heard that the new profession, Inscription, is coming well before the Wrath launch. Eyonix stated that the pre-Wrath content will be patched “in the coming weeks” and according to some of my own insider info, Wrath isn’t scheduled to launch until early November. I can only assume the patch will land somewhere in the middle. I’m hoping for sooner than later.

Iktomi hinted in a comment in our last post that we might have some success selling “tradeskill power leveling packs” of herbs to new inscribers. Perhaps even a step-by-step guide to go with the raw materials. That will likely fetch more profit than the soon-to-be-inflated market price of herbs. Did anyone try this with Jewelcrafting in the Burning Crusade?

Whether you plan to sell your herbs individually on the auction house or in packs directly to new inscribers to quickly boost their skill, I’d highly recommend investing gold into herbs as soon as possible. Once the patch hits the test realms, I’m guessing prices will slowly rise on the live realms, then sky rocket when the patch goes live. It’s also worth noting that Cenarion Herb Bags aren’t that expensive to craft and hold 25% more herbs than Netherweave Bags. I was recently invited into the Wrath beta so I’ll be working on an Inscription power leveling guide as soon as I get a stock pile of herbs to transfer over.

This post will be one of many analyzing the data we receive from the Wrath of the Lich King beta. If you have beta access or a spare key and wish to share information with us (or loan us a key), we’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment and let us know.

Inscription is the new profession in Wrath of the Lich King and has been mentioned numerous times over the last six months. However, we never really knew what materials were required for this new craft. Until a few days ago…

It seems Herbalism is the complimentary profession to Inscription. To inscribe spells or scrolls, ink is used. Obtaining ink is much like Prospecting for gems - you crush five herbs using Milling for one (or more?) ink.

From what I’ve heard, the first three low level inks (Ivory Ink, Silver Ink, and Earthen Ink) require the first three low level herbs (Peacebloom, Silverleaf, and Earthroot respectively). I can only assume each successive herb is used for it’s own color/type of ink.

This is going to be huge for the herb market! Mining is primarily used for Blacksmithing, Engineering, and Jewelcrafting while Herbalism’s only major profession is Alchemy. Inscription is Herbalism’s new best friend in the expansion and we will see a significant rise in herb prices, especially in the first few weeks. I’d estimate 5-10x in the first few weeks (especially for the lower end mats, not so much the higher end ones), and slowly drop down to 2-3x current market prices where it’ll likely remain.

I’ve got six “storage bins” ready for herbs, so I’ll be stocking them up like mad over the next many weeks. According to my girlfriend, Wrath is scheduled to launch November 3rd, so we have plenty of time to buy all the herbs our little bank alts can hold without artificially inflating the market and overpaying.

June 24th! Not only does this mean new, badass gear for the hardcore PVPers (Spartan helmets, anyone?), but new gear for the casual guys too. With the Season 2 sets purchasable with regular honor points, we should see many more regular players running around with Tier 5 equivalent gear and guild progression should pick up a bit.

We economists know what new gear means! The demand for enchants, cut gems, leg armor and spellthread will be on the rise. So it’s time to start hoarding for a week or two while we wait for Season 4 to roll around. I just started on a new server about a month ago so I’ve been working hard on earning as much gold as I can to stock up on the materials needed to buff all the new gear that’ll be floating around.

It’s probably not safe to buy out the AH, but definitely watch the trade channel and keep tabs on auctions throughout the day. Try to snag as many deals as you can on all of the high-end materials needed for the gear buffs mentioned above. Just hoard em until Season 4 starts and sell at your discretion.

On an unrelated note, I’d like to apologize for the lack of updates lately. Will, our main writer, has been very busy lately and hasn’t found the time to post. I’ve been working on some exclusive tools for WoW Economist readers (yea, that’s you!). They’ll be in their beta stage in the next week or two, so keep your eyes peeled. In the meantime, I’ve got a lot of ideas (with the help of your suggestions) for new articles so I’ll be sure to write more often. If you’ve got any ideas for a post, just leave a comment below and let me know so I can take note of it.

I’ve recently realized that with the BOEification (copyright, me) of Nether Vortices there may be a very real market opportunity in crafted epic belts. It must be noted that with the lifting of attunements in Hyjal and Black Temple, many raiders are adamant on upgrading every possible slot outside of the actual instance in order to counter bad drops and push through content faster. It should also be noted that some of the upgrades to the waist slot over the following crafted BOEs come well into T6 content and therefore these items are often well worth their while.

Now this might require a lot of free cash (1K+) and several relists but could net you a few hundred gold in profit. Be sure to check the AH to see if there is already a crafter on your server participating in this market… if there are too many, your profit might be too small to justify the risk. If not, I would try listing them for 12 hours around about 5 or 6pm server time… this will catch the attention of players getting ready to raid. You might also want to advertise in trade chat that the item has been placed in the AH.

Blacksmithing:

• Red Belt of Battle
• Belt of the Guardian

Tailoring:

• Belt of Blasting
• Belt of the Long Road

Leatherworking

• Belt of the Black Eagle
• Monsoon Belt
• Belt of Deep Shadow
• Belt of Natural Power

Risk’ometer: 3

Edit: The math wasn’t really wrong after all; just poorly laid out.

I wanted to take a look and see at what price levels prospecting might be profitable. For simplicity’s sake, and also from what I’ve heard in the Jewelcrafting circles, let’s keep this analysis exclusive to the big one, Adamantite Ore. From Wowhead’s data, it looks like each prospect has a 22% chance to drop a blue gem and an 80% chance for 1.37 green gems (either 1 or 2 green gems will drop).

Anyways, here’s what to do:

1. Find out the average selling price of a blue gem on your realm (add up average prices of Talasite, Noble Topaz, Living Ruby, Nightseye, Dawnstone and Star of Elune and divide by 6). Let’s call this x.
2. Find out the average selling price of a stack of Adamantite Powder (20). In my experience, this doesn’t sell too well, so you might want to vendor instead. Let’s call this z.
3. Find out the lowest price you can get a stack of Adamantite Ore for (20=1 stack). Let’s call this y.

• 22% chance for a blue gem from 5 ore.
• 80% chance of 1.37 green gems every 5 ores= 4.38 gems per stack. 18 green gems=1 blue gem (Brilliant Glass). That means every 4.11 stacks, or 82 ores, you have a guaranteed blue gem. [1/(82/5)]=0.06.

0.22x + 0.06x + 0.05z= expected gold from one prospect (5 ores).

0.28x + 0.05z (simplified)

y= price of 20 ores (see above).

If [(0.28x + 0.05z)*0.95]>y/4, then prospect. Simplified: 1.064x + 0.19z>y.

If you’re vendoring the powder, use 1.064x + 0.9>y, then prospect.

NOTE: This is assuming the gems prospected sell on their first listing.

NOTE2: This will only work over a large amount of prospects. The main reason for this is so that the sample size is large enough to justify the equation but also that you get the necessary green gems for Brilliant Glass and so that you get enough variation in your blue gems.

I’d like to note a couple more things regarding patch 2.4.2. First of all, Brilliant Glass is now set to be on a 20 hour cooldown, which is a slight improvement, but which still may be a roadblock for getting rid of those green gems. An alternative would be using them to transmute Skyfire Diamond or Earthstorm Diamonds. Or, you could straight up sell them in the AH although this may be slightly riskier due to the huge supply. Secondly, I’d like to note that, according to the patch notes, there is now a slight chance for Brilliant Glass to yield an epic gem, which means that this may be even more profitable than it appears. However, I do emphasize the small in “small chance” and this shouldn’t be something you rely on.

Risk’ometer: 2

Before I start this post, I just want to say hello readers. I’m Kevin, the new guy here. I’ve been hiding in a dark corner working hard on getting WoW Economist to it’s own domain and website, so I haven’t been able to contribute much until now. Will and I have some great plans for the upcoming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled and make sure you subscribe!

As you no doubt have noticed, patch 2.4.2 is up on the public test realm and the official patch notes have been released. From an economists point of view (as many readers have already pointed out), the changes to our crafting cooldowns, Void Shatter in particular, is a new opportunity to take advantage of before the economy stabilizes.

The cooldown for Void Shatter will be removed in the next patch, but be wary of stocking up on Void Crystals. While there are a few possibilities for some quick profit, they are unpredictable.

You might think it wise to buy Void Crystals to shatter and sell as soon as the realms are up after patch day. I don’t expect it to take long for the market price of Large Prismatic Shards to drop. Unless you plan on camping the login server and being one of the first to start shattering and spamming the trade channel, I wouldn’t recommend this route. It could be the most lucrative choice, but definitely the most risky.

Another outlook would be buying Void Crystals in hopes they end up in short supply, giving you a chance to sell them at a higher price. With the patch, the demand for Void Crystals will likely increase because it will be more cost effective to shatter them than to buy the shards themselves. This one is a little more predictable than the time it will take for the shard prices to fall, so it isn’t as risky of an investment, but the yield won’t be as high either.

My best recommendation to you is to sell any Large Prismatic Shards you may have laying around and use the gold to buy them back in the form of Void Crystals before patch day. Come Tuesday of 2.4.2, have them shattered (or shatter them yourself) and enjoy the extra pocket change.

On a side note, what’s the point (besides perfectionism) of patching the crafting quest for the Onyxia Scale Cloak? Does anyone even bother with Blackwing Lair any more?

With many realms now well into phase 3, its time to think ahead to the next phase. When you’re able to retake the harbor and create the alchemy lab, its epic gem time. Each of the six raw (or uncut) gems will become available for purchase for the relatively small price of 10 Badges of Justice. Additionally, the epic gem cut patterns that where previously only available to those with Scale of the Sands reputation are now available with Shattered Sun Offensive rep.

So, what are the opportunities here? Well there are several:

1. You buy uncut gems for 10 Badges of Justice and sell the straight up in the AH or in Trade chat.
2. You buy uncut gems for 10 Badges of Justice, cut them or have them cut by a JC and sell them in their final form.
3. You buy the uncut gems in the AH or trade, cut them, and resell.
4. You buy select recipes if you are a JC, and hope the market comes to you for cuts which you charge extra for (epic gems, new recipes).

Let’s start from the bottom, for kicks. I do not advise you to follow the last option unless you are on a low-pop realm where these cuts are going to be hard to find. On the other hand, if you have sufficient rep from Mount Hyjal (Scale of the Sands), there is substantially less risk because these recipes are ten times cheaper. Here are some of the following we think will be in high demand:

• Design: Bright Crimson Spinel
• Design: Runed Crimson Spinel
• Design: Solid Empyrean Sapphire (sure bet)
• Design: Sparkling Epyrean Sapphire
• Design: Subtle Crimson Spinel
• Design: Teardrop Crimson Spinel
• Design: Luminous Pyrestone
• Design: Potent Pyrestone
• Design: Quick Lionseye
• Design: Reckless Pyrestone

Keep in mind that raiders who need these gems may already have a sufficient supply available from Black Temple drops and that raiding guilds tend to have a 375 JC who they can count on for free cuts.

Regarding point #3, we would recommend you buy and sell according to the cuts we predict will be in demand (see above). However, this is probably the riskiest option.

The first two points are going to be the least risky, if only for the simple reason that you didn’t spend any money to acquire the gems. But we advise you to keep an eye on the AH, see what raw gems and what cuts are being sold before making an investment.

I’m going to be slightly pessimistic for here in terms of overall risk:

Risk’ometer:

At the risk of repeating myself, thank you to all the readers of this blog for referring your Wowin’ friends: we’ve had visits from over 80 different countries as of yesterday! I had no idea World of Warcraft was such a global phenomenon… onto business:

Most likely, you’ve all visited or at least heard of the Isle of Quel’Danas which arrived with patch 2.4. Among the many new features of this addition, is Tier 6 quality gear that can be bought with Badges of Justice. The gear vendor becomes available in phase 3, once the anvil has been rebuilt. Not all realms progress at the same speed (due to different populations, amongst other things), so an easy way to find out where your realm stand is this post on the official World of Warcraft forums. We recommend you making the necessary mat purchases for this investment around the start of phase 3 on your realm.

The clear winner here is going to be investing in enchanting materials; with new gear comes new enchanting demand, and with enchanting mats, comes no deposit risk. This essentially means that all the mats you buy now can be listed free of charge for however long you want. This will help to withstand any unpredicted market fluctuations that could occur.

Let’s outline some recipes that we believe will be most in demand:

• Enchant Weapon - Mongoose
• Enchant Gloves - Major Spellpower
• Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower
• Enchant Weapon - Major Healing
• Enchant Chest - Exceptional Stats
• Enchant 2H Weapon - Major Agility
• Enchant Boots - Fortitude
• Enchant Gloves - Assault
• Enchant Boots - Vitality
• Enchant Ring - Spellpower
• Enchant Ring - Striking
• Enchant Ring - Stats

What do most of these have in common? Well, basic enchanting mats. So that is what you should stock up on. Here they are:

• If Void Crystals are cheaper than 2x the price of a Large Prismatic Shard, buy now. Otherwise, you can afford to wait a little bit. If you’re nearing the completion of the anvil and this is still not the case, buy shards.
• If Greater Planar Essences are cheaper than 3 Lesser Planar Essences, buy the former. Otherwise, buy the latter.
• Arcane Dust: staple enchanting mat. Stock on up.

We recommend against buying the other mats that may be needed for these recipes that aren’t part of the 5 basic ones listed above. They are simply too volatile to be betting on for anything longer than a short term investment (there will be a future post on such strategies).

Of course, the time to sell is in the few days following the completion of the anvil and thus the appearance of the vendor.

Start making space in your banks, fellow investors