The icy art of making gold - Page 49

SaladFork · 03/05/09, 10:33 AM

I've updated the formula to multiply the amount of Infinite Dust and Lesser Cosmic Essence you can expect by 3/2 (1.5). Someone originally mentioned a factor of 3.5 to infinite dust (for a 2-5 range), but the green items show a range of only 1-2. (Reference: [Crystal Citrine Necklace], [Bloodstone Band], [Sun Rock Ring], [Crystal Chalcedony Amulet]).

I must say I'm surprised at the almost-guaranteed RoI. My gems sell at an almost 100% rate (the only ones that don't sell are the cheap gems anyway), and enchanting mats fly off the shelves before I leave the AH. Right now, a stack of Saronite Ore sells for 16-17g (I buy it for 15g), but the formula is telling me that it's "worth" ~54g for me. That's over triple my investment!

Tzeni · 03/05/09, 11:36 AM

I put Saladfork's formulas into a Google Spreadsheet: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...qbxtQDTbO_z6SQ

Yellow Cells-- Put in your expected profit (ie, after AH tax) for various gems and enchanting materials.

Red Cells-- On the left, for Eternal Earth cost. Put in how much you buy it for (or opportunity cost of using, as it applies). On the right side, there's a red cell that shows the value of a single DE. Basically, since you'll have uncommon gems to use, it'll show the money you obtain if you use them to DE. You'll want to compare this value to the opportunity cost of using the gems (vs. vendoring/Auction Housing) + the cost of 2x crystallized earth.

Blue Cells-- Constant values derived from Wowhead. Change it if you want, but they seem accurate to me.

One thing though... can people who view this spreadsheet change the values? This is my first time using Google Docs. Do I need to change it somehow so people can update with their own server's values?

Edit: Should be fixed now so people can edit.

Edit2: So now it seems whenever anyone edits it, it shows up as edited for everyone. How do I make it so that it's just a public spreadsheet that anyone can change on their side only? Is this even possible?

Edit3: It's now set to private per adivce. Use File-> save copy to have a sheet you can manipulate for your self. Thanks Nagisamuro for the tip. Sorry for those who do not have a google account to save it to.

Also, continue to use at your own risk and check the forumlas-- people have been able to edit this sheet freely the whole day until I made it private. I take no responsibilities for mistakes until I get a chance to go over the sheet once I'm at home.

Pand · 03/05/09, 3:04 PM

Originally Posted by blbrchnk

Did we forget about Engineering?

Mining and engineering can compliment each other as two very good productive gathering professions.

The amount of 'steam clouds' and ore veins in Sholazar Basin make very productive mining routes while farming crystallized fire and water at the same time.

Although obviously herbalism and mining are a bit more productive, I've found engi very useful in the saronite ore business. :]

Dylwen · 03/05/09, 3:51 PM

Thanks for putting this up but there is a significant error. "Expected # of Dust per DE" should be 0.75 and the label would more accurately be "Expected % of X" for the first 3 blue cells. You've already got the 1.5 multiplier baked into your formulas.

Another factor is that shadow crystal and dark jade don't convert into BOE rings. On my server you can't give those away so the best route is to cut them and vendor for 50 silver each.

Tzeni · 03/05/09, 4:07 PM

Originally Posted by Dylwen

Thanks for putting this up but there is a significant error. "Expected # of Dust per DE" should be 0.75 and the label would more accurately be "Expected % of X" for the first 3 blue cells. You've already got the 1.5 multiplier baked into your formulas.

Another factor is that shadow crystal and dark jade don't convert into BOE rings. On my server you can't give those away so the best route is to cut them and vendor for 50 silver each.

Thanks. I didn't make that mistake, it was a product of keeping this sheet freely edit-able for the entire day. Someone changed that value. It's now locked, so that won't happen again, and I don't see any other mistakes at the moment.

At this time the two other uncommon gems are not considered at all (hence the coefficients in Saladfork's "Uncommon Gem Value" formula), though I may add in the options for them later.

random user · 03/05/09, 6:09 PM

Heh. I made basically that spreadsheet a long time ago during TBC, which really helped in knowing what price it was profitable to buy ore at. Surprisingly tweaking the sell numbers for gems by fairly large amounts actually change the buy price of the ore in fairly small amounts.

As I said before, pretty much anyone should be able to double their money prospecting/de'ing at the moment; it's just a question of how much time you want to put into it.

A minor point: perfect gem cuts sell for 1g instead of 50s. I'm not sure what the % chance for a perfect gem cut is, but for the sake of completeness, the model should include that.

Also there is a minor problem in that as you increase your production of dust, you drive down the price. Certainly producing under 100 dust in a day won't affect the price that much, but producing 500+ dusts day in and day out will drive down the price of dust. Of course your mileage may vary on your server.

And finally, the part I don't see mentioned: if you have any sort of volume, you will have to clear your items through the AH as it's not time-efficient to do it any other way. That means for any non-vendored item, you should be multiplying the number by .95 to represent the AH take.

Brekk · 03/06/09, 1:21 AM

Originally Posted by random user

And finally, the part I don't see mentioned: if you have any sort of volume, you will have to clear your items through the AH as it's not time-efficient to do it any other way. That means for any non-vendored item, you should be multiplying the number by .95 to represent the AH take.

Any gems he posts, yes. But enchanting materials don't have a posting cost. Which is also why it's stupid to undercut people. If enchanting mats don't sell just repost them. It costs nothing.

Jebraltar · 03/06/09, 1:45 AM

I assume he's referencing the 5% take that the AH takes off of every item you sell through it, not the deposit cost.

calderstrake · 03/06/09, 1:49 AM

Originally Posted by Brekk

But enchanting materials don't have a posting cost.

I know there are a few other items that don't carry a listing fee, but does anyone have a comprehensive list or a technique for filtering these on Wowhead (or another dB site) ?

Fqubed · 03/06/09, 2:53 AM

You can do it by "sell price" if an NPC won't buy it from you then there is no posting fee.

Thairne · 03/06/09, 2:59 AM

Well items don´t have a listing price if they don´t have a vendor value. So your best bet would be to apply a filter with a sale price of 0 copper and then go from there... You can pretty exclude heirloom, epic and rare items, since you cannot disenchant pvp gear and the like; then go on from there to refine your search. Unfortunately you cannot define "OR" Filters with Wowhead, so you have to create a list for yourself by going through the common filters separately (crafted, drops, etc)

hlubik · 03/06/09, 4:13 AM

I'm not sure, if anyone mentioned it, but from my perspective, I have problem with prospecting Saronite Ore to make material for disenchanting low lvl rings.

Yeah, I can do it, but why? At the begining, I mined saronite and got eternals, but now I use to buy EEs and gems from auction. Because after prospecting tons of ore, you will have a lot of bad uncommon gems (green and purple) and also many rare gems. And those you have to cut or put uncutted on AH which is time consuming.

Isn't better just to buy cheap eternals and gems you need and make dusts/essences/shards with no waste? You will lose profit from prospecting, but you will gain more time to DE more rings.

Vuldoo · 03/06/09, 4:26 AM

Originally Posted by hlubik

Isn't better just to buy cheap eternals and gems you need and make dusts/essences/shards with no waste? You will lose profit from prospecting, but you will gain more time to DE more rings.

This has been debated several times over in this thread - server economies vary, it is impossible to give an exact estimate. It's simple, try it out. Dedicate one day to the first method and the second to the second method and look at the results.

hlubik · 03/06/09, 4:55 AM

Originally Posted by Vuldoo

This has been debated several times over in this thread - server economies vary, it is impossible to give an exact estimate. It's simple, try it out. Dedicate one day to the first method and the second to the second method and look at the results.

I did not meant it in way of profit, just from time perspective and problems with selling too many items on AH.

Let's say, saronite ore is a cow. As like saronite can be prospected, cut into rare gems and uncommon gems. From uncommon gems you make rings and also you disenchant them to make dust/essences/shards.

You can feed a cow, then kill it and skin to make nice leather boots, produce milk and meat to make yogurt and juicy steaks. This way you utilize whole cow and make final products.

What I suggest - don't do everything, when you can specialize to make few products but faster and with no trouble to sell others. Chef in restaurant is not supposed to raise his own cow, make boots and yogurts. He just need to buy meat and make juicy steaks and serve them to customers.

songster · 03/06/09, 5:17 AM

That would make sense if specialising required extra time, talent and training, and in fact accrued any benefit whatsoever. In WoW, it doesn't. If you can make the DE stuff, then by definition you can also prospect ore. Moreover, you can prospect ore just as fast and just as profitably as someone who "specialises" in it.

Furthermore, I disagree with Vuldoo - it's not remotely server-dependent as to whether it's a better idea to prospect ore. Check it out with the spreadsheet: under any reasonable assumptions for rare gem and DE mat pricing, the rare gems will comprise between 2/5 and 3/5 of the total "income" from a stack of saronite. To get the rare gems, all you have to do is prospect. To get the DE mats, you have to craft and disenchant the items, even if you don't prospect the uncommon gems personally. That means it will take at least twice as long to get the DE mats as it does to get the rare gems. Conclusion: gold per hour from prospecting rares is around double the gold per hour from making and DEing the necklaces/rings. That's a large margin, and will be pretty robust to variation in the server economy.

Your argument for "specialism" makes no sense from the wider market angle either - if you sell only one product, you're vulnerable to saturating that market. That means you should be broadening your portfolio and doing both - prospect ore, sell the rares, then make the rings, DE them and sell the mats as well.