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:
- You buy uncut gems for 10 Badges of Justice and sell the straight up in the AH or in Trade chat.
- 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.
- You buy the uncut gems in the AH or trade, cut them, and resell.
- 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:
Delicate (+10 agi) will be far more popular than Bright Crimson Spinel - both rogues and hunters gain significiantly more from using those.
The main problem I see is that… 10 Badges of Justice would be more valuable than a gem. You can buy a gem, you can’t buy badges of justice.
Now if you are at the bleeding edge of gear, have all your epics, etc… then obviously you won’t need the badges. Or money, probably. Either way, you are the envy of all WoW players =)
As for the rest of us, I don’t think exchanging your badges of justice for money is that great of advice.
Yeah I plan on saving my badges for some gear upgrades, new healing mace, etc.
I hope I can buy some uncut gems on the AH, then cut them myself.
Ummm Badges of Justice only come from running endgame instances… Isn’t this blog supposed to be about non-playing ways you can make money? IE auction-house games, DE conversions etc. I can understand some things requiring high levels or skills (DE for profit, etc) but actually posting an idea here that straight out requires BoP items that are only available from drops in endgame is not an Economist’s game, it’s profit from PVE.
There are many different types of players in WoW, some hardcore, some casual, and some in between. We are doing our best to cater to all of them, so our posts will cover all aspects of WoW gold making.
OK, it’s your blog after all… I just thought this site was to promote clever or economy-driven ways to turn a profit and this one just feels a bit too “grind for epix, DE an sell shard, LAWL!” for your usual format.
I don’t mean to come off angry, upset, or bitter - I’m not. It’s not about the classic hardcore vs casual argument either. I’m not a JC, but I’ve got badges in the bank and I could do this if I were, no problem. It’s just that attaining high-end recipes and then charging for their use isn’t exactly the out-of-the-box groundbreaking ideas I’m accustomed to seeing here. If anything I’m just a bit disappointed with what seems like a step backward for what has been, so far, a fantastic blog.
Other than this one, I love what you’re doing. I’ve learned and used quite a few tips and tricks, and I will definitely keep reading and see what you come up with next - I just hope next time it’s something I couldn’t garner from 30 seconds of watching [2. Trade]
And, Badges don’t “only” come from endgame instances. You can get them from the daily quests with the from the Shattered Sun supply packs. I’ve already gotten at least 5 that way. Granted, that’s a lot slower than one Kara run, but 5 badges is better than no badges.
Design: Reckless Pyrestone is the sleeper here. Why?
After capping hit, casters mostly gem straight +dam, ignoring socket color. Haste trades roughly 1:1 in stat value with damage for many casters (and both much higher than crit). A haste/dam gem that matches yellow socket is lovely–it makes grabbing socket bonuses on lots of gear a real option.
“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.”
If you don’t mind getting stepped on by a 40-foot tall demon and his minions.
A little off topic, (okay a lot off topic) but I thought you might have an opinion. As a 350 tailor I am trying to decide which specialization to choose. Mooncloth, spellcloth or shadowcloth. Any advice from a purely financial point of view?
Can you clarify - what are the prices of the Epic Gem Patterns? Is it gold or badges?
kifar: just take a look at the AH and see which is the most profitable. add up the average cost of the mats and subtract it from the selling price of the cloth x2 (specialization means you’ll be creating 2 cloth everytime you cast).
saint: the price of epic gem patterns is in gold but the epic gems themselves can be bought for badges.
as for the tailoring specialization, i know on my server spellcloth sells an average of 10-25g more per cloth over shadowcloth with mooncloth holding a middle ground. this is because most mages and warlocks spec into ice and shadow and need the shadowweave set, then are unable to respec as they would lose the set bonuses. as the spellcloth is also used more prevelently in other patterns such as the battlecast set, or was it spell strike….. whatever they are indemand for other uses.
Heya, awesome job so far, love the site, some real great ideas here.
I’m a WoW tradesman myself, and I’m just amazed how easy it is to make money in the game despite the majority of the peole telling the opposite.
Anyway, I came across with the new 2.4.2 patch notes today (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html) which have some real sweet chances for high profits. I’m just listing a few particularty interesting ones, hope you dont mind.
* All 23-hour profession cooldowns are now 20-hour cooldowns. - Well a bit of an improvement for my Void Shatter I thought.
* All 4-day cooldowns are now 3 days, 20 hours. - A bit of an improvement as well.
* Removed the cooldown from Void Shatter.
This made me look like :O though. Apparently Blizzard wanted to lower Shard prices and up Void prices with the Void Shatter ability, but Shard prices are pretty much skyrocketing despite that. No cooldown means the market will be flooded with Shards though, if you have the cash to buy out some voids now and control the market when 2.4.2 hits, you’ll be a millionaire.
Oh, may I have a suggestion as well? You could do this speculation type of thing based on patch notes. Patch notes in the past have helped me a great deal in gaining a lot of money (the S1 Arena items for honor patch - huge demand for gems, enchants & materials, the Primal Shadow droprate nerf, which made the 3g Shadow go for 20-25g, and now this no CD on Void Shatter patch) if youre a fastest to act, you can get a huge cut of the pie, information is money =)
Plus I’d like to ask what are you guys putting your money into to save it from inflation? Enchanting materials? Gems? I’m a bit confused with those, since the market seems to be pretty much flooded with enchanting mats anyway, and after you’ll be able to vuy epic gems from the vendor, blue gem prices will most probaly fall, like they have started falling again.
Well I guess to properly gauge that you would need to know how many badges an average person has, and will he be buying the items right away when he can, or will be saving up for gems as well. Because if he wont be able to buy epic gems right away, he will most probably use blue ones instead, producing a huge demand spike.
Still some speculation would be nice that will the supply will be able to keep up with the demand, and will their prices go significantly down or not.
Off topic but would love your opinion. Blizz just announced that the cooldown on void shatter will disappear in the new 2.4.2 patch. On my server, which seems to be still inflated because of the new badge vendor, voids sell for 40g, and large prismatics sell for 25-30g. One void crystal and one void shatter can yield about 5-15g of profit with these prices. What do you think will happen to prices as the patch draws near? Obviously, the price of 1 void will converge to the price of 2 shards, but do you predict a drop in the price of shards because of the increased supply, consequently lowering void prices? Is it a good strategy to stockpile voids at this point?
Great site by the way. Just wish your entries were more frequent lol.
Hey might want to share with your readers that the current ptr notes say that patch 2.4.2 will remove the Void Shatter CD. Buying void crystals for cheap (20g on my server), paying an enchanter a small fee and then selling the easily obtained large prismatic shards should pull a huge profit though ultimately the price of void crystals will rise and lps with drop so sell as many as possible on patch week.
[...] 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 [...]