Patch 3.2 Preparation: ilevel 245 Crafted Epics

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 29, 2009

Crusader Orb

Think of the new crafted items like the [Runed Orb] and their recipes of 3.2, except they are Chest/Bracers instead of Belt/Boots. The new orbs are called [Crusader Orb] and will most likely drop in the new 3.2 Crusader’s Coliseum 10/25 man raid and purchasable with [Emblem of Triumph]. These 18 new items are ilevel 245 epics and in contrast, Ulduar25 hard-modes drop ilevel 239 and [Runed Orb] recipes craft ilevel 226 items. The chest pieces require 8 orbs while the bracers use 4. There seems to be doubles of each item in the Wowhead.com database, this may be due to the faction specific armor models that Blizzard announced they would use in the next raid. What was interesting was that 2 of the BS recipes used a few of the rare quality crafted weapons as the materials, [Deadly Saronite Dirk] and [Corroded Saronite Woundbringer]. The latter being a BS BOP item, which is a bit strange. Looking at the materials, they are very similar to the ones that the [Runed Orb] recipes use. The materials include:

With easier access to the Ulduar crafted items as well as these new ones, you may see demand for the crafting materials go up in price.

Full list of ilevel 245 Crafted BOE Epics:

Blacksmithing

Leatherworking

Tailoring

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3.2 PTR Titanium Ore Prospecting Video and Results

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 26, 2009

Prospecting Data

Updated: 39 Stacks - 780 Ore - 156 Prospects

We are still in the process of transfering more ore to the PTR, so we will report results for a larger sample size soon. In the mean time, the largest sample prospected is by Ranjurm from the Elitist Jerks forums. They prospected 141 stacks of [Titanium Ore] or 564 total prospects and their results were:

Chance per stack of ore:

I would put forth that the actual values are as follows:

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Patch 3.2 Preparation: Epic Gems & Dragon’s Eye Stats

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 25, 2009

Epic Gem Recipes

The 3.2 PTR recently went live and the epic gems we spoke of last week were indeed the ones that were introduced. As we mentioned before, these were in the game files since Wotlk Beta. There are a total of 72 different cuts:

Each of these 72 recipes can be bought from the Jewelcrafting trainer in Dalaran for 5 tokens each. So if you wanted every single new recipes, it will cost 360 tokens. However, to speed up the process of obtaining tokens, a new quest is available from the vendor. The repeatable quest, Titanium Powder, requires you to turn in 10 [Titanium Powder] and rewards a [Dalaran Jewelcrafter's Token] plus 1.32g. The powder is a byproduct of prospecting [Titanium Ore]. During the first weeks of 3.2, we recommend that you spend your tokens on some of the less obvious cuts instead of the pure Spell Power, Agility, and Stamina ones since a lot of players will be focused on these recipes and flood the auction house with these gems.

Epic Gems - Honor

The raw epic gems can be bought with 10,000 honor each

Epic Gem - Emblem

as well as 15 [Emblem of Heroism], which in 3.2, will have to be obtained by trading down from higher tiers of badges.

[Icy Prism] will now have a chance to contain epic gems.

The 3.2 [Dragon's Eye] have been upgraded to the following stats and are no longer prismatic:

 

Majestic Zircon Transmute

There will be 6 new Alchemy transmutes which some will be using epic gems and others use the old rare gems as materials. They cost 12g each to train in Dalaran and to learn [Transmute: Cardinal Ruby], you will need to obtain the quest from the Alchemy trainer in Dalaran. The quest has you do 5 other epic gem transmutes (thanks to our reader Ewber for the information). It looks like they realized that certain colors tend to be worth less than other gems, so it is nice to see that [Sky Sapphire], [Twilight Opal], [Forest Emerald], and the new blue colored epic gem [Majestic Zircon] used in these transmutes.  There doesn’t seem to be any cooldown on the transmuted at the moment, but there is a possibility that there will be one in place when this goes live. Will the current rare gems be worth more now or after 3.2? It is hard to tell, but note that rare gems will also be produced from prospecting [Titanium Ore] as well as [Icy Prism]. We may even see players prospecting [Saronite Ore] then go right into transmutes if there is not a cooldown in place.

Image originally appeared on MMO-Champion.com forums.

Image originally appeared on MMO-Champion.com forums.

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Charcter Copy live but 3.2 PTR not live yet

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 22, 2009

Character Copy

Regarding character copies, if you’ve copied already unfortunately no there’s no guarantee that the amount of copies will be reset when the PTR is up. It might be, but again I caution you to expect it not to be, to help trying to avoid disappointment. Veteran PTR testers have learned, sometimes through bad experience, to hold off until not only the PTR is live, but until other less cautious people have posted that they’ve had successful copies. (Source)

Although patch 3.2 PTR is not live yet, the character copy is. Copying your characters or premades right now does not guarantee that it will make it to the PTR, there is a good possibility that it will be reset. On various forums and blogs, a lot of players have been recommending or saying that they are holding on to [Titanium Ore] as well as [Titansteel Bar]. This may possibly lead to another stockpiling disappointment, but who knows, it may turn out very well also. Smart players are already thinking ahead on how to obtain their epic gems in 3.2, so they won’t be buying your overpriced gems on patch day. These people are either stockpiling ore like you, holding on to emblems of all types, and saving honor for these new epic gems. As of now, epic gems seem to be easily obtainable when 3.2 goes live, however we still need to wait until the PTR to see what the emblem/honor costs for these gems are. We should be seeing the PTR soon and we are also in the process of stocking up on [Titanium Ore] to see what the prospecting rates look like for epic gems. Ore prices are rising fast on our economy, but we are still trying to buy as much as possible so we have a nice sample size to work with on the PTR. We are going to take the risk so you don’t have to. Hopefully we will find out that it is indeed profitable to prospect for epic gems, but we are still a while away from 3.2 going live and prospecting rates may change over time as well.

Update: The 3.2 PTR is now live, however character copes are full at the moment.

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Updated 3.2 Profession Patch Notes

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 18, 2009

Patch 3.2 PTR

Wow, 3.2 PTR patch notes has a lot of changes overall. Let’s give it some time for everyone to digest it all and wait for more information once the PTR goes live before we start preparing, stockpiling, or jump to conclusions. Like we said before, it is still very early and some of the changes may never make it to live servers. Yesterday we had some vague and general patch notes about professions, which as of today was slightly updated with more information. Yesturdays blue posts has been greyed out but left in for those that may have missed them:

Professions

Alchemy

Cooking

Enchanting

Engineering

Fishing

Herbalism

Inscription

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking

Mining

Skinning

Tailoring

Items

Emblem System Changes

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Patch 3.2 Preparation: Epic Gems & Profession Changes

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 18, 2009

Epic Gems?

Upcoming Epic Gems and Profession Changes (Source)

When the next major content patch launches we will be introducing epic quality gems and updating the perks for each profession. Please keep in mind that any of this information may see further changes before the patch launches.

The numbers should be available whenever the PTR is released. We didn’t want to provide them here as we are still changing them and they will likely undergo a few more changes during the testing phase but we felt it was important to let everyone know what the plan was for them.

The design recipes for cutting epic gems will be made available for purchase with Dalaran Jewelcrafter’s Tokens and there are several ways to obtain raw epic gems:

Coinciding with the implementation of epic gems and the gain that Blacksmiths will receive through their perk from these new gems, we have gone through all of the perks in every profession and increased their values to match up accordingly.

Alchemy

Blacksmithing

Enchanting

Engineering

Herbalism

Inscription

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking

Mining

Skinning

Tailoring

What does this all mean?

Shortly after the Jewelcrafting nerf (more like balance), theorycrafters were starting to lean towards Blacksmithing as the new min/max profession. If epic gems were introduced, they would put BS on top of every other profession in terms of raw stats, with 2 prismatic sockets that can hold any epic gem of your choice. This is why there are no changes to the BS professions in the blue posts, all the other changes are based around the advantage that BS would have if epic gems were introduced. Although not every profession will give the exact same amount of stats, some were buffed with bonuses to compensate. The numbers have not been released at this time, but epic gems have been in the game files since beta. Some have the same stats as the Stormjewels in the game. For example;

Expect upgrades to the majority of rare cuts, if not all of them. For example;

According to game files, here are the names of the Epic gems:

Obtaining Epic Gems

Prospecting [Titanium Ore] – Still very early to tell if prospecting rates will be similar to [Saronite Ore]. I believe that at certain price points, this may become a very profitably venture. In most economies, expect [Titanium Ore] to go up in price as everyone starts stockpiling it, just like the Stockpiling frenzy for 3.1. Some players have already reported that prices have increased on their servers already and/or they are buying up any cheap ore they can find. We still are unsure if investing or holding on to ore is the best thing to do until more information is released. PTR’s should be up with in the next few weeks, so we will try some prospecting on it and report our findings.

Alchemy Transmutation – Materials for this is still unknown, but will most likely be like an [Icy Prism] with cooldown, but possibly with eternals and/or rare gems.

Purchased with [Emblem of Heroism] - The emblem cost will probably be similar to the current 10 for a rare gem, but has the possibility of costing more. As for profit, we recommend saving them till patch 3.2 where the profit from epic gems will overshadow the current rare gems or [Frozen Orb] players are trading them in for. Remember you can also trade down from [Emblem of Valor] if prices of BOE Bracers have crashed.

Purchased with Honor – If you have run out of things to buy with honor as we get closer to 3.2, you may end up at the honor cap of 75,000. There are a few ways to stockpile honor once you are at the cap:

Obtaining the Recipes

We knew there was a reason why we started saving [Dalaran Jewelcrafter's Token] instead of buying [Dragon's Eye] to sell. Doing this was risky because there was a chance that new types of tokens being introduced, however this is not the case. If you are a JC, start doing those the daily quest again and save up your tokens. From what we can tell by looking at the game files, there are 72 epic gem cuts. Will 3.2 JC be like the craziness of 3.1 Inscription? Prices, meta cuts, world drops, and other recipes are still known. Hopefully the new information will be out soon!

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Prospecting in 3.1

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 14, 2009

Jade Dagger Pendant

Taking a look back at pre-3.1 Prospecting/DE, which has become a very popular topic, we can see that it was highly profitable when gems/enchanting materials worth a lot. Now in 3.1, we can see that [Saronite Ore] has retained it’s average price of 17-20g per stack, while [Eternal Earth] has skyrocketed to around 10g each. We had actually had given up on prospecting until recently, when our supply of gems and enchanting materials were running out from personal use. Prices in our economy have started to recovered to a health amount from the whole 3.1 speculation/stockpile business. So we decided to take a look into prospecting and disenchanting again, but mostly we needed more [Dream Shard]’s for our own enchants.

Prospecting Results

600 (30 Stacks @ 18g each) [Saronite Ore] 540g

Total Spent on Ore: 540g

Estimated Worth: 1140g

As you can see, prospecting can still be profitable, especially if cut gems are still holding their value. Even though we were a bit unlucky [Scarlet Ruby], we still net a nice 600g profit, which is scary how close it is to the estimated amount from the JC/DE spreadsheet. Each green quality gem was just given a value of 1g each, they may go for a bit more on your economy uncut. A common question is what to do with all the leftover [Dark Jade] and [Shadow Crystal] since these are the colors that don’t have a green item that can be crafted with reasonable amounts of materials. There are a few ways to profit from them aside from just selling them in their raw form.

Green/Purple Uncommon Gems

Craft Focusing Lens - These may not sell in huge quantities, but if you are Prospecting in small amounts, this may be a decent option. They go for about 3g each so it is still more profitable than selling them for 1g each.

Cut them into green quality gems – This is very market specific since for most economies, people are not purchasing green quality gems or their perfect cuts.

Craft [Jade Dagger Pendant] – This item requires an [Eternal Earth], 2 [Dark Jade], and 2 [Huge Citrine]. So assuming 10g earth and 1g gems, the opportunity cost of this item is about 14g. If shards are worth a lot more, than this would be a great way to produce cheap [Dream Shard]’s for personal use or for sale on the AH especially if you are having trouble liquidating [Dark Jade].

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One Healer’s Journey

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 7, 2009

One Healer’s Journey is a new column that follows a Priest on its’ way to level 80. This will be done Warcraftecon style, where we try to make as much gold as we can as a low level as well as feeding it gold to speed things up, however our main focus will still be trying to level and attain max level professions.. Our professions are Tailoring and Mining due to the fact that crafting professions are highly profitable and ore/metals being a great money maker.

Priest 20-30

Level 20-30

This priest was originally a level 19 twink that was accidentally leveled to 20 due to a battleground daily quest we picked up, which incidentally, gave us enough XP to hit level 20. After a few weeks, we decided that we were going to level it casually even though we have never leveled an alt past level 30 because of the long grind. Playing our main raiding toon was also getting a bit stale lately and we have more than enough gold to last us till the next expansion. This was a great opportunity to try something new, pick up new professions, and simply experience vanilla WoW again.

Being a twink, we already had some great enchanted level 19 blue quality gear as well as the +10% XP shoulders, [Tattered Dreadmist Mantle], one of the Heirloom trinkets, [Discerning Eye of the Beast], and we eventually picked up the staff, [Dignified Headmaster's Charge] and a second trinket, [Swift Hand of Justice]. Heirloom items are a great addition to the game, they allow your main, who has way too many badges, to convert them to gear that scales with level that you can send to your various alts. As you level, so will your gear, allowing you to keep up with content instead of going out of your way to find new gear since they are the equivalent of a blue quality item of that level. The two trinkets you can buy are designed for leveling because they help regen 2% mana/health every time you kill a mob as well as giving you access to trinkets, since you won’t being seeing them till at least level 35. With this amount of gear we headed out to Tauren Mill and blew through all the quests, however there were some that were still too high for us even at level 28. So we back tracked to Southern Barrens and made our way into Thousand Needles. Remembering that we leveled through Northrend with the leveling addon QuestHelper and Jame’s free Leveling Guides, we started using them again to save time and become more efficient.

Once we hit level 30, we went ahead and purchase Apprentice Riding skill and bought a [Black Skeletal Horse] for around 40g total! This makes things go much more faster and notes the end of walking as our main form of travel. Although we didn’t make 40g by leveling or went out of our way to obtain the gold, this is a very small amount of gold that we had transferred to the alt. There is no need for a character this low to spend the time to make 40g, as your level 80 can make this in a few minutes.

Professions

Since we had Engineering and Mining for twink purposes, we decided to keep Mining for the gold it can generate while leveling and picked up Tailoring, since as prices of cloth and enchanting materials go down, is going to be a great way to convert cloth into items or gear for resale at 80. Mining will be a great way for this low level to make a good amount of gold in the mid level range because of the high demand of these types of metals for other professions like Engineering, Jewelcrafting, and Blacksmithing. With the upcoming JC nerfs and possibly the introduction of epic gems, a lot of people may be looking towards BS as the new min/max profession. We may even be one of those people, so having a supply of ore and bars in the bank isn’t such a bad idea. Having JC’s prospecting ability on our main as well as mining on this alt gives us access to all the low level gems that can be highly valuable on the auction house.

Mining 20-30

Cloth drops everywhere when you are leveling so leveling Tailoring was not too bad. This profession at times can take a huge amount of cloth, sometimes you may even have to go out of your way to farm enough of it. So to save time, we decided to semi-powerlevel it with a small amount of gold. [Wool Cloth] seems to be very expensive in our economy, but once you get past that point and go into [Silk Cloth] and [Mageweave Cloth], prices come down significantly. If you have any excess cloth, you can turn in 60 of them for XP at the major cities. They NPC’s that give the quest are usually near the Tailoring trainers. If you don’t have much gold to spare or don’t want to turn alts into a gold sink, than we recommend that you don’t rush things like professions. Just level it as you receive the materials instead of buying them on the auction house. There really aren’t much benefits of leveling it so fast at low levels and the crafted items aren’t much of a deal breaker either. The Tailoring 1-450 leveing guide we are using is at WTBBlue.com. 

Like most crafting professions, you are going to be making BOE green items that can be sent to an enchanter to recoup some of the leveling expenses. Although items under level 25 are going to give mostly [Stranage Dust], a stack of it can still sell for a few gold. If you don’t already have an Enchanter, this would be a great time to level one. In my experience, at least 50% of your enchanting materials will come from disenchanting greens from a crafting profession. A few months back we powerleveled JC and as a byproduct, leveled Enchanting  to 350 on a brand new DK alt, enough to DE Northrend greens. Enchanting has more than payed for itself from disenchanting methods as well as from the normal supply of greens that you pick up at level 80. This is also a great profession to have on your leveling alts as well because it offers the ability to DE a lot of the items that you come acrross while leveling as well as all the quest rewards. As for quest rewards you plan on vendoring for gold, try to pick plate armor or weapons since they are usually worth more or even try addons like SellFish to give you vendor prices.

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Leatherworking: Arctic Boots, Iceborne Gloves, Nerubian Legguards

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 5, 2009

Arctic Boots

We have seen methods like this one before where you turn cheap raw materials into an item that can be disenchanted to net a higher value, sometimes even vendored for profit. This works because raw materials generally are in huge supply flooding the auction house resulting in low prices. Blizzard does sometimes end up nerfing an item’s vendor value or increasing the crafting materials if it becomes a problem. We have seen in the past that they have nerfed items like [Legplates of Conquest] and [Nerubian Legguards] to prevent problems.

“We recently made a change to the sell value and disenchant materials obtained from Legplates of Conquest. The material costs used to create this item were unintentionally low, and we were prompted to make changes to minimize the impact on the game’s economy.” (Source)

“We recently made a change to the sell value of Nerubian Legguards. The material costs used to create this item were unintentionally low, and we were prompted to make changes to minimize the impact on the game’s economy.” (Source)

These are one of those items that players figured out they can craft for very cheap and just vendor or DE them for profit. Players were literally sucking up the raw materials needed to craft these items and turning them into pure gold. Although this is nothing new since methods like Prospecting/DE have been around for a while now, it is nice to see other professions having their own Crafting/DE items. We have found a few Leatherworking items that can be crafted for cheap and then disenchanted for materials. When looking at the different level 70 greens you can craft, there were a few items that stood out due to their low cost of materials.

These all use only 8 [Borean Leather] to craft, which on most economies, costs less than 10g a stack or .5g a piece. The cheaper the leather the more profit you can make with this method. The exception is the [Verdant Tundra Bracers], which is listed on Wowhead.com but we are not sure where you can obtain the recipe in the game. If anyone has any information on this, please let us know. If this item is in the game, then it is even more profitable considering it uses 6 instead of 8 leather.

Crafting/DE Results

760 (38 Stacks @ 8g each) [Borean Leather] 304g

95 [Arctic Boots] ~318g (Vendor Value)

105  [Infinite Dust] 420g (4g each)

12 [Greater Cosmic Essence] 168g (14g each)

1 [Small Dream Shard] 6g

 Total: 594g

Macros

#showicon Disenchant
/cast Disenchant
/use Arctic Boots
/use Iceborne Gloves
/use Nerubian Legguards

Disenchanting Percentages

Arctic Boots DE

So just with a small investment of 304g, you almost make double your gold back. In this case, we made a 95% profit on our original investment, resulting in 290g gained. There is an abundant of leather on most economies so you can make as many as you want. As for the enchanting materials, those items sell faster than anything, you just have to worry about under-cutters that like to flooding the entire page with singles. As always, with any DE methods, it is a nice way to generate enchanting supplies for own gear as well.

I have personally stopped doing Prospecting/DE due to the high prices of [Eternal Earth] in my economy. I have even heard a rumor that blue gems from prospecting and [Crystallized Earth] from mining had their drop rates reduced, however I am not too sure about that. Earth costs upwards of 10g now, which means it is not as profitable as before. I have seen some completely ignore the prospecting part and just go strait to crafting jewelery with the earth and green gems. There are still a few die-hard prospectors on my server since every once in a while you will see them in trade chat trying to buy [Saronite Ore] and [Eternal Earth] for below market price. You may even think of this Leatherworking/DE method a replacement since they both craft a level 70 green that has the same disenchant percentages. So take a look at the numbers up top and see if this method is profitable on your server. It is usually going to be a combination of low priced leather and decent enchanting prices. Good luck with this method and hope that you don’t dry up the leather market resulting in increased prices like what happened on my server. Maybe it is just a dry spell, once that is over it’s back to boot making!

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Profit from Runed Orbs and their Recipes

Posted by Warcraftecon
June 1, 2009

Runed Orb

It has been about a month since patch 3.1 and the new Ulduar content was released. At first there was not enough demand or supply of [Runed Orb]’s and their respective recipes, however these are starting to surface. We have seen the demand increase in our economy as people are starting to seek their orbs for the crafted gear. More and more people are willing to buy them even at 1000-1500g each in trade chat as well as the AH. The recipes for most classes/specs are going to craft your best in slot belt and boots, at least until hard mode or Algalon loot. So most people are looking for 2 sets of 6 orbs, for a total for 12. Your server should also have the majority of these recipes by now as well. There are a few ways to profit off this market, the most notable one would be to sell your orbs now while prices are at an all time high. If you raid Ulduar25, then you should have more than enough for a few orbs. This method is very similar to what happened to [Frozen Orb]’s at the beginning of Wotlk. Those that had access to them via Heroics were able to sell them for very high prices. Sure they could use them for their professions, but the trade off was that they had to wait either for more orbs or buy them when prices come down. The same applies here, if you can hold off on some of the new [Emblem of Conquest] gear and your crafted belt/boots, there is easily 1000g+ to be made on a single [Runed Orb]. A few people I know would rather have the gold so they have turned in their badges for about 3-4 orbs by now, each selling for 1000g+.

How to obtain them

Raid Ulduar25 – Orbs and the recipes have a chance to drop off each boss and possibly an increased chance when done on semi-hard and hard modes. However, chances are that your guild is either distributing them to your members or having them buy 6 orbs from the guild bank for crafting purposes.

Turn in 18 [Emblem of Conquest] - These badges are a guaranteed drop from Ulduar25 bosses, with additional ones dropping on semi-hard/hard modes. The thing that we missed when these 3.1 badges were introduced is that they also drop in Ulduar10 as well, but only on the semi-hard/hard modes. This includes FL +1, Freya +1, and what is considered the entry level hard mode, Thorim. Personally we have done about 5 of these semi-hard/hard modes in Ulduar10, they reward a single badge each on almost everyone that is considered a +1. With FL +2, it actually rewards 2 badges, which I am assuming so does Freya +2.

Do Ulduar10 hard modes – They have a chance of dropping orbs and as of patch 3.1.2, also a chance of dropping the recipes. The blue post was something along the lines of Ulduar10 bosses who currently drop [Runed Orb]’s also have a chance of dropping the recipes for them. These include semi-hard modes as well. On our last FL +2 we were rewarded with the 2 [Emblem of Conquest] instead of 1 Valor badge, 1 [Runed Orb], and [Pattern: Boots of Living Scale].

Buy them – Surprisingly, some people who have [Emblem of Conquest] don’t know they can buy [Runed Orb]’s with them let alone know how much they are worth. Instead of typing “WTB Runed Orb” in trade chat, try “WTB 18 Emblem of Conquest, pst for more info”. You may even try asking friends and guildies to see if they want to liquidate some badges for gold. There are a good amount of people, even 25-man raiders who are short on gold and would rather wait a few extra weeks for their gear. Although I didn’t need the gold and bought my orbs to craft a BiS piece of gear for myself, I still ended up only spending an average of 915g per orb or 5500g for 6 of them. The going price on the AH at the time was 1400-1600g and yes people were buying them for that much. I had sold an extra orb I had purchased for 1000g for 1600g on the AH. As for the recipes, they are still vary rare on the AH. Every once in a while you may see one for a few thousand gold if not more. I ended buying one out for 2000g, which seemed like a very good price at the time. I had the intention on keeping it, however I also wanted to see if I could sell it for double. It has been a few weeks now and it still has not sold with a buyout of 4000g. Maybe people are not as into the recipes for profit yet, it is still very hard to track down the orbs at a decent price. Over time we may see people buying these recipes in order to craft the item for profit, but in order for that to happen, orbs have to come way down in price. The majority of players, even those with 10k+ gold are not going to spend 5000g+ even on Ulduar level BOE epics. The only exception I see here is the [Nobles Deck], which is still worth 5000g+ on my economy. In my experience, orbs will always cost more on the AH, so break out your social skills and try to find them through trade chat or from other players you may know.

How to profit off them

[Runed Orb] - These are not soul-bound, so you can buy, trade, and sell them on the AH. The auction house will usually net you the most profit even with the hefty deposit and cuts. Please do your math before you list these, a 5% cut from a 1500g orb is 75g, so your profit is actually 1425g assuming it sells the first time around. Just pay attention to what you are buying these at and make sure there is enough of a spread from what you are buying these for and what your actual profit is from the AH after the fees. As we mentioned earlier, if you are using the classic buying low selling high method, go about it through trade chat or other people for a better deal rather than buying them at 1400g and selling for 1600g. There is too little profit for such a high risk factor, in this case it is only a 120g profit if it sells the first time you list it. If you are using your badges, your best way to profit is from using the AH when the prices are high. In my economy the orbs fluctuate between 1400-1700g, so try list it when the price is towards the top end. There has been enough demand for these lately that they will sell quickly if the price is reasonable, also the fact that each pattern requires 6 of these. I know some players that will buy all 12 orbs without thinking twice about the price. Using 1200g per orb as an example, that is 14,400g that can be in someone else’s pocket.

The Recipes - Unless you are a guild selling extra recipes that you have, it is very hard to actual profit from these recipes. In my economy people are only buying them, if at all, when the are 3000g or less. So buying low selling high is still hard to do. Most of the time, these are listed at 4000g or more, however I doubt anyone is buying them for that much. At the moment it is hard to recover the majority of that money even with charging a big crafting fee to everyone who wants one crafted from you. Now if the recipe cost around 2000g and you are 1 of 2 people on your faction with the recipe, it may make sense to buy the recipe for profit. That turns out to 10 people paying a 200g crafting fee for you to break even.

If you happen to have one of these recipes, go right away to your realm forums and look for the “Ulduar Crafting Thread”. This will contain a list of all the people that have these recipes as well as if they are Alliance or Horde. The forums is also a good way to research who has a certain recipe that you need for your own gear as well.  Go ahead and make a post with your recipe, faction, name, and guild. Hopefully someone is keeping that list up to date. Since these recipes are still fairly rare depending on your server, advertising here or even through trade chat that you know a certain recipe will generate some income when you craft these for people. The going rate for crafting these items, with the other person’s materials of course, is 150-200g in my economy. So far I have made about 600g in tips from a single recipe I won in our Ulduar25 raid. The majority of people found me through the forums and a few others from word of mouth. To a lesser extent, someone who is interested in having these items crafted may have learned the name through inspecting another player’s gear who is wearing the one I crafted. Once you craft an item for someone, the item will say <Made by insert name here>. It also helps being 1 of 2 people on my faction that can craft them, with the other person charging an insane crafting fee of 500g. This is also a good place to see how many people have the recipe on your faction if you ever consider buying them for profit.

If any of our readers have any experience or insight on this interesting market please feel free to leave us a comment.

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