The Art of Making Gold - Page 60

tommtomm · 02/11/08, 10:24 AM

I'm a couple weeks into being a JC now, and thought that I would post some thoughts and results that may be a cautionary tale for ppl reading this thread:

Cutting:

At an average cut to uncut spread of around 10g on almost all colors of gems, paying 400-700g for a design means you'd have to arb this 40-70 times just to break even on the design. Not exactly enticing based on how slow gems seem to be selling. I've owned the two patterns I have for an average of about a week each, and I've been able to buy uncut and resell 4 gems, and this was always being the lowest price offer at the time I put them into AH. I even played around with when I put them on the AH, trying to put them up after the majority of others had put theirs on that day. Granted I do understand the importance of which cuts you buy. I have the +8 spell hit and +8 spell crit. Those were the only ones that I was able to pick up for the low end of the design range at about 400g each. The +12 stam has always been posted around 800-1200g the majority of the time.

Prospecting:

So far, Ive prospected 500 ady ore, in 5 100 ore batches. I'm not impressed with the results, but I'm going to wait until I've done about 2x this much before I make a call on whether to keep or drop JC'ing. Not sure if I'm just getting the low side of the RNG distribution.

I Compared my costs to average median buyout for each uncut gem.
Batch1 100 ore Profit: 84g
Batch2 100 ore : 134g
Batch3 100 ore : 76g
Batch4 100 ore : 127g
Batch5 100 ore : 143g

Total Profit: 567g

This was done over a two week period. I can not just say, great, lets do that for 3000 ore and have ~3000g profit. I would blow out the ore market trying to get that much ore in a short time period, and its taken me 2 weeks just to sell all the gems from the batches I have done.

Game Play:

Found a new reason to avoid PUG's this weekend, caused from the huge influx of new JC's and the rampant inflation in rare design prices. I was in a group running Heroic SP. A design for wicked noble topaz droped off of a trash mob. I mentioned that I was a JC and would be rolling need on it as I did not have that pattern. I was told to greed. The same set of statements were repeated again. I ended up saying no, its a profession item and rolled need. Luckily, they had instantly rolled greed when it popped up and I won the item. I was immediately kicked from group and called a ninja. I confirmed through Armoury after this that I was the only JC in the group. This is where Blizz needs to make these designs only show up for JC's, just like tailor patterns. When you start talking 400-700g for a design, the greed is just too much for a lot of ppl.

Overall:

I spent about 1200g leveling JC to 350. I've spent another 800g on the +8 spell hit and +8 spell crit. So I netted about 600g in profits, for a sunk cost still of 1400g.

I'm just not seeing the "I made 1,000-2,000g prospecting last week" results posted earlier in this thread. Were all of those results totally from S3 sells? What are your profits over say the last 2 weeks when nothing is going on?

An additional 250-300g a week profit is something I could easily match by pairing herbalism or skinning with my miner.

Like I said, once I've done another 500 ore, and hopefully have a descent enough population size for the results, I'll post a spreadsheet with all of the drop %'s and profits.

Am I just a case of the guy who bought Cisco in Q1 2000, or am I running into a slow market and bad RNG results?

Ketafore · 02/11/08, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by tommtomm

*snip*

I'm I just a case of the guy who bought Cisco in Q1 2000, or am I running into a slow market and bad RNG results?

You're looking at a slow and more than likely flooded market. Months ago there just wasn't that many people prospecting/cutting. However, a lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon, so profits are continually declining.

My gf is a JC, she has bought two epic mounts with it. She has been complaining more and more lately that her gems just aren't selling like they used to and for less.

Hanos · 02/11/08, 11:34 AM

I think JCing is going to see a significant resurgence for Exalted SoS JC's when 2.4 hits live and every scrub guild on the server will be farming BT/Hyjal/SP Trash for Epic gems, and they will need someone to cut them. I had thought about dropping it, but I am definately having second thoughts now, especially for some of the rarer boss drop designs or the Revered SoS ones (although they are buffing rep gains.... 8 months too late).

tedv · 02/11/08, 11:38 AM

I've switched from Jewelcrafting cuts to other income sources. I still do a few prospects and cuts, but spending lots of time on it won't net large profits. Mostly I've been doing alchemy (flasks and transmutes) and clearing out my stockpiles of crafting materials on alts. I'm not worried; the market will pick up later as people get bored with low profits and leave.

Dralmoo · 02/11/08, 1:59 PM

I was in a group running Heroic SP. A design for wicked noble topaz droped off of a trash mob. I mentioned that I was a JC and would be rolling need on it as I did not have that pattern. I was told to greed. The same set of statements were repeated again. I ended up saying no, its a profession item and rolled need.

I'm sorry, if you're rolling need on BoE patterns that sell for significant gold, I wouldn't want to PUG with you either. Especially after the rest of the group had already rolled greed and asked you to roll greed - that's pretty much a straight ninja, even if you disagreed with their loot rules. If Blizzard had intended the pattern to go directly to JCers, they would have made it BoP. Since they're BoE, they're AH fodder, not yours by default. Saying they were being greedy seems nonsensical to me, considering you only want the pattern to make gold...

dilznic · 02/11/08, 2:38 PM

Is this really the standard attitude regarding profession-specific recipes? To me the "need" option is there for direct main-spec gear upgrades, and profession-specific recipes. "Greed" would be for anything you're looking to sell directly on the AH. Loot rules should be clearly defined at the beginning of an instance to avoid this kind of mishap though. If I didn't have a gem cut I'd be pissed if a non JC wanted to roll on that recipe if it dropped while I was in a group regardless of AH value.

KamPa · 02/11/08, 2:50 PM

That might work in guild parties, but random people won't simply pass opportunity to earn few hundred gold just because you can use the item. It would be similar to "needing" BoE epic, no one can really be sure if you "need" it and it's loads of cash.

Karoo · 02/11/08, 2:53 PM

Originally Posted by dilznic

Is this really the standard attitude regarding profession-specific recipes? To me the "need" option is there for direct main-spec gear upgrades, and profession-specific recipes. "Greed" would be for anything you're looking to sell directly on the AH. Loot rules should be clearly defined at the beginning of an instance to avoid this kind of mishap though. If I didn't have a gem cut I'd be pissed if a non JC wanted to roll on that recipe if it dropped while I was in a group regardless of AH value.

You'd be pissed because it's a direct money maker for you.

In a very similar fashion it's a direct money maker for a non-JC.

I don't see a problem with non-JC's rolling on patterns for sell even if JC's are in the group.

Much the same way I absolutely hate when people want to roll need on BoE Epics that they can use (most of the time even if they aren't true upgrades but just because they happen to be purple).

Denogran · 02/11/08, 3:03 PM

Originally Posted by dilznic

Is this really the standard attitude regarding profession-specific recipes? To me the "need" option is there for direct main-spec gear upgrades, and profession-specific recipes. "Greed" would be for anything you're looking to sell directly on the AH. Loot rules should be clearly defined at the beginning of an instance to avoid this kind of mishap though. If I didn't have a gem cut I'd be pissed if a non JC wanted to roll on that recipe if it dropped while I was in a group regardless of AH value.

The thing with a BoE item though, is what assurance do you have in a PuG that the person is actually going to use the item? If I'm in a group with friends or guildies, then I'm happy to pass BoEs that they need along to them. Because I trust them. If it's a PuG, then who's to say? Much better to just make it completely fair and have it all greeded or needed.

Also, just because you have the profession, why does that give you preference on the item? Because it's a BoE, that item has a set worth to everyone in the raid of 400g. Regardless of whether you can use it, that item has the set value of it's AH value. If you truly NEED it, you'd be willing to pony up that gold and get it.

Grahamiam · 02/11/08, 3:20 PM

Agreed. In a PUG, if it's BOE, you roll. You want it to be able to make the gem, I might want it for my alt/guildie/roommate to be able to make the gem. That seems to be the mindset of the majority of people I've grouped with recently.

Guild groups obviously different.

tommtomm · 02/11/08, 3:29 PM

EDIT: I agree that this forum is not the place for this digression and i've deleted my commentary.

The purpose of me including the scenario I experienced was to inform other ppl who are contemplating starting a JC not to expect like I did, obviously naively, that only JC's will be rolling on designs when they drop. This is important to factor in to your expectations of the cost of developing a portfolio of different cuts. Plan on paying for everyone of them.

My apologizes to the forum community for letting the discussion digress.

Dralmoo · 02/11/08, 3:48 PM

Originally Posted by tommtomm

Unbelievable!

Ok, if its all just a matter of money, wheres the line? Because if we're all going to do that, Im going to roll need on your epic armour, because I can vendor it for 3g and cover an hours worth of repairs. Why does it being worth 100's make a diff? Where is the line? Why do you have an exclusive right to roll on equipment used only by your class when I dont have an exclusive right to roll on an upgrade for my profession? You might want to look up an ethics class.

Know why you say guild groups are diff? Because if you pulled this kind of stuff on your own guildies, they'd /gkick you in a flat second. Why should grouping with strangers give you a liscence to act like a loot hor?

Because the armor is BoP? Conversely, you can go just go buy the recipe off of the AH. Seems like a pretty obvious difference to me. I'm not going to get in a flame war, although I find the suggestion that I am a 'hor' or 'unethical' because I disagree with you laughable- clearly opinions on this are split, which is why I brought it up. Clearly the other 4 people in the PUG agree with me, not you, and they specified that they didn't think it was appropriate you need. You then did it anyhow. Like I said, I wouldn't want to group with you any more after that either.

tedv · 02/11/08, 3:55 PM

Originally Posted by tommtomm

Unbelievable!

Ok, if its all just a matter of money, wheres the line? Because if we're all going to do that, Im going to roll need on your epic armour, because I can vendor it for 3g and cover an hours worth of repairs. Why does it being worth 100's make a diff? Where is the line? Why do you have an exclusive right to roll on equipment used only by your class when I dont have an exclusive right to roll on an upgrade for my profession? You might want to look up an ethics class.

The line is BoP versus BoE. A BoP item that can't be learned, equipped, or otherwise consumed can ONLY be vendored. The difference between epic armor and a rare jewelcrafting pattern isn't that one sells for 3g and the other sells for 400g-- the money value is irrelevant. The difference is that one person gets much higher utility from a BoP item than the rest of the group, whereas the auction house ensures everyone gets the same value from a BoE item.

Think of it like this. If you get a pattern valued at 400g from a need roll, then you have saved yourself the 400g it would otherwise have cost you to buy it. If you are willing to pay that much anyway, it would be fair to offer 400g/5 to each person present for them to pass. But if you are NOT willing to pay 400g and someone else is, you should sell the recipe at market price and pocket the profit rather than learning it, since you think you'll make less than 400g from cuts. At this point you are no different from the non jewelcrafters in the group, since they would sell it as well.

TL;DR: BoP is very different from BoE and you should have bought the recipe from the group if you thought it was more valuable to learn it than sell it.

Stella · 02/11/08, 4:13 PM

And these last few posts are precisely why Blizzard added in BoP recipes that only the crafters can see! Very dramatic presentation to all, A+. It's amazing how many WoW issues are social in nature and yet still require Blizzard make a change to maintain any sense of right.

PS Cop Shoot Cop lyrics pop to mind:
"Majority rules but the majority are sheep.
Injustice is never an accident."

edit: formating

Kyth · 02/11/08, 4:20 PM

Can we please, please not derail this thread into a multi-page long rehash of discussions on pug group rolling rules that have been repeated on the blizzard forums a million times?

Chucifer · 02/11/08, 6:09 PM

Originally Posted by tommtomm

I'm just not seeing the "I made 1,000-2,000g prospecting last week" results posted earlier in this thread.

I think your sour experiences with JC might have to do with the assumption that your initial entry into the market should be to buy patterns (especially dawnstone patterns). That initial investment of 800g might have been better off saved while sniping better cuts from the AH or from trade chat sales. At the very least, used for further investment into ore for prospecting and tipping for mass cuts.

In fact, several new guildie JC's have reported solid earnings through this method, using my JC patterns. Granted, theyre eating into my potential profits, but i'm not terribly worried as a) I use their other Professions for profit and b) I've shifted to other markets. Even if they were not using me as their cutter, there are always several JC's on Trade Chat at all times who are willing to make a mass cutting deal.

Additionally, those that are making 1-2k gold from prospecting are likely prospecting more than 500 ore in two weeks. It's likely theyre prospecting that much ore daily, cutting with a diversified portfolio (theirs or someone else's), and possibly using trade alts to move more product.

Angeron · 02/11/08, 6:17 PM

Originally Posted by tommtomm

I spent about 1200g leveling JC to 350. I've spent another 800g on the +8 spell hit and +8 spell crit. So I netted about 600g in profits, for a sunk cost still of 1400g.

I'm just not seeing the "I made 1,000-2,000g prospecting last week" results posted earlier in this thread. Were all of those results totally from S3 sells? What are your profits over say the last 2 weeks when nothing is going on?

An additional 250-300g a week profit is something I could easily match by pairing herbalism or skinning with my miner.

Like I said, once I've done another 500 ore, and hopefully have a descent enough population size for the results, I'll post a spreadsheet with all of the drop %'s and profits.

Am I just a case of the guy who bought Cisco in Q1 2000, or am I running into a slow market and bad RNG results?

#1) Your volume is incredibly low. I ask my guildmates to prospect 500 ore PER DAY. More volume=results more in line with the reported Drop % (or in my case, 8% drop rate on living rubies, thanks Reyka).

#2) Cut everything, all green cuts sell well, not always for tons however.

#3) If you have an enchanter handy, make feliron bloodrings and golden draenite rings, turn these into arcane dust. Profit.

#4) Braided Eternium Chain Trick. You're a miner, and a JC, need I say more?

#5) See your average total cost drop considerably when you get an epic mount. The 5000g is a big initial hit, but it then makes mining a 300-500g per hour endeavor (AH selling the ore or Prospecting it respectively).

#6) Save the good shit for patch day: Bold/Bright/Teardrop Living Rubies. Solid Star of Elune. Royal/Shifting Nightseye (AP one too). Wicked/Inscribed/Veiled Noble Topaz. Steady Talasites! Mystic/Smooth Dawnstones. Sell the good gems at a high enough rate to ensure you make your ore-money back and pay for gradual capital expenditure increases, but slowly enough to have at least a stack of each gem ready for the big patchday cashfest.

gnoop · 02/11/08, 7:42 PM

Originally Posted by Riallatar

Also, WTF is the levelling path for Inscription? What do you make from 1-75, 75-150, etc.

Here's some thoughts I've had on this:

1) It's just like Enchanting and your boosts are very small / limited. Work up from there. I'm guessing we'll see some kind of level requirements on the higher-end inscriptions, making the mid-level ones useful for twinks.

2) You make things like scrolls - single use boosts or such. Something like JC with the jewelery / head gear made along with the gems, which don't start until 300.

I could be completely wrong on this. I'm waiting to see.

Also, I've not seen any word on Woodworking. Wasn't it being talked about briefly as an option? I recall the example being for Hunters to make their own arrows. I could see some use out of it for Druids and casters looking to make staves as well.

The one thing I'm still sad about is the lack of a tanking BoP LW set. We've got the blue Clefthoof set, but many other specs seem to get a BoP epic set. It would be nice to see a set for Druids (especially shoulders, which seem to be rather limited in selection).

LiquidHAL · 02/11/08, 8:08 PM

this has probably been mentioned before, but just in case no one brought it up, here it goes. I have a 70 hunter alt that i rarely play, so i keep it parked in the netherwing mine even though I don't have 300 riding skill or any of those netherwing quests on it. I just log in once in a while during prime hours and usually there are 2-5 people killing everything in sight with no other skinners around. Basically, when i get lucky, it means collecting leather as fast as i can skin.

Wotnot · 02/11/08, 8:21 PM

More interestingly what kind of materials would be used for inscriptions?

Given that there are no new gathering professions announced it will probably use existing gathered materials until at least 300+. From a fictional stand point I'd hedge my bets that enchanting materials would be a primary component (expensive though) with smaller amounts of elemental components such as globes of water through to primals. Alchemy might also play a part in creating special inks and such.

Inscriptions could lead to an expensive profession to level without some raw gathered materials entering the market somehow (like gems from mining).

Starfire · 02/11/08, 9:43 PM

I level'd DC 355 for 350g a single Friday about 2-3 weeks ago.

Thus far I've made about 900g back purely from JC. So I guess that's on average 300g a week.

I did spend time farming Halaa recipes, but that was only so I could get to 375.

For me, the trick isn't high profit / low volume items, but rather low profit / high volume items. I can make anywhere from 50-80g a single day just selling green gems at ~ 75s to 4g profit per. I don't prospect ore, but I do buy raw uncut greens. Sometimes, if you find the uncuts at less than 25s, its a vendor profit if you cut them too =p.

Sell 60 greens a day, thats ~ 50-75g profit. I only buy gems if they are withing 25-35s per listed, exception is garnets, which i'll spend up to 99s for. I know I can flip every single blood garnet for at least 3-4g profit.

Kombinat · 02/11/08, 11:34 PM

Originally Posted by Starfire

I level'd DC 355 for 350g a single Friday about 2-3 weeks ago.

Thus far I've made about 900g back purely from JC. So I guess that's on average 300g a week.

I did spend time farming Halaa recipes, but that was only so I could get to 375.

For me, the trick isn't high profit / low volume items, but rather low profit / high volume items. I can make anywhere from 50-80g a single day just selling green gems at ~ 75s to 4g profit per. I don't prospect ore, but I do buy raw uncut greens. Sometimes, if you find the uncuts at less than 25s, its a vendor profit if you cut them too =p.

Sell 60 greens a day, thats ~ 50-75g profit. I only buy gems if they are withing 25-35s per listed, exception is garnets, which i'll spend up to 99s for. I know I can flip every single blood garnet for at least 3-4g profit.

Wouldn't you make more gold by crafting rings and disenchanting them? It's what I do, and given that I need to make 8-12 rings for a stack of arcane dust (not to mention the essences and small prismatics) I think it's more than worth the extra time. Sure, you need to buy (or smelt if you're a miner) some fel iron bars, but they've always been cheap enough to justify the extra time, just to make the added profit.

I spent a lot of gold on patterns. Specifically the +12 stam gem and the +9 spell damage one. But the stam gem paid for itself inside of a week, and the +9 spell damage inside of about 3 days. Then the market got flooded. There are JC's on barthilas who will prospect, cut and put up 50 stacks worth of gems every. Single. Day. I've had to go into enchanting mat production to keep diversified enough to handle short-term adversity in the gem market.

Also I wanted to mention something I'm doing at the moment. I'm leveling 3 alts. One is a miner/skinner, the second a miner/engineer (I want a tank character) and the third is a skinner/leatherworker. I'm trying to keep all 3 of them close in level and in skill level, so that there's always more mats than I need. Surplus either gets ah'd or turned into greens to supply the low level enchanting mats market. You'd be surprised how much strange dust you can sell in a 24 hour period.

My days consist of running 3 low level characters out of rested xp, skinning and mining everything I can find. I check the markets just before prime time, and if there's some area where I can realise a profit in raw mats or value adding, I smelt, craft, or de whatever I need to. Ship everything I'm selling to my ah alt and bulk list with auctioneer. Then I get to raid, without worrying about having enough consumables. It's peanuts money right now, but it keeps me in flasks. I'm really looking forward to my stable of alts getting to higher levels, where I'd assume the cashflow would be greater.

Margot · 02/12/08, 12:50 PM

Buying recipes may be a thing of the past, if the PTR data so far is any indication:

Recipes - Items - World of Warcraft

It looks like many recipes are becoming BoP; sell any BoE you have before 2.4.

Kirion · 02/12/08, 1:24 PM

Originally Posted by Margot

Buying recipes may be a thing of the past, if the PTR data so far is any indication:

Recipes - Items - World of Warcraft

It looks like many recipes are becoming BoP; sell any BoE you have before 2.4.

Not exactly. New recipes have different ID. From what i heard on PTR, world drops added to specific 5 man bosses loot tables.

Margot · 02/12/08, 1:28 PM

I realize they're a different ID, but every time Blizzard has re-introduced things with new IDs, the old ones have stopped dropping. People still had them in inventory, of course.