11

Cataclysm Prospecting Obsidium Ore and Prospecting Spreadsheet

By on Dec 16, 2010 in Alchemy, Enchanting, Jewelcrafting, Mining, Professions, Warcraft Econ

We went to the auction house today and picked up 200 stacks of [Obsidium Ore] for around ~24,000g, which comes out to about 120g per stack. Although once we can find Pyrite Ore at a decent price and in good quantity, we will do a prospecting test with it. It really looks promising if Volatile Earth and gems sell for a lot on your realm. We actually used a new spreadsheet to figure out how profitable prospecting would be. On our realm, a stack should be worth 390g while the ore was selling for only 120g per stack. Assuming 100 stacks, that comes out to a 27,000g profit. The sheet also takes into account falling market prices at up to 20%. So if each stack’s worth falls to 313g, profit is about 19,000g. If you missed it, here was our Prospecting Elementium Ore With Video article.

Prospecting Spreadsheet

Thanks to “flyinfungi” of the EJ forums for creating one of the first spreadsheets for prospecting Cataclysm ore.

Prospecting Results

800 Prospects

Uncommon Gems – 1164

  • 192 blue
  • 218 red
  • 205 orange
  • 177 green
  • 206 yellow
  • 166 purple

Rare Gems – 60

Total Cost: ~24,000g for 1224 gems (19g per gem)

Notes

  • If plan on prospecting on a large scale, enable auto-loot and you time it right, you can start the next cast while looting the previous prospect.
  • 1.5 gems produced per prospect
  • 205 Hessonite and 166 Nightstone (depending on prices, these may cover the entire cost of the ore)
  • We turned 60 of each color into 40 Shadowspirit Diamond
  • Each gem only cost 19g each to produce, which is amazing
  • The spreadsheet estimated an average of 46,000g profit from 200 stacks of ore.
  • Doing some quick estimation, this prospect net close to a 50,000g profit and this is just the value of raw gems
  • This basically means we doubled our investment of 24k and if we choose to cut or craft jewelery with it, this profit margin is even higher.
  • Please do your own estimates, we were lucky to obtain the ore at such a good price and gems are still on the high end in our realm.

Macros

/cast Prospecting
/use Obsidian Ore
/use Elementium Ore
/use Pyrite Ore

Prospecting Percentages

Here are the prospecting percentages based on Wowhead’s data.

Other Resources

  • Discussion about the Obsidium Shuffle over at the JMTC forums.
DMCA.com


If you are new or have just discovered this blog not too long ago; here are 8 Ways to Get More Out of Warcraft Econ:

Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Follow us on Twitter
Add us on Facebook
Watch our YouTube Videos
Submit a Guest Post
Send me your questions and suggestions
Join the discussion by leaving a comment below.

About the Author

Oligopoly is a millionaire in various MMO economies is the founder/web administrator of Warcraft Econ and Diablo3Professions.com. He is one of the original gold cap WoW players. Launched in 2008, WarcraftEcon.net is one the longest running gold blogs and resources out there. We bring you news about the World of Warcraft economy, discuss strategies on making insane amounts of gold, and how to hit the gold cap. Enjoy your stay here!
  • Dimitri

    Look, I gotta ask, what is the point of you continuing this gold making effort? After 100k or so, why do you even need more? I made 200k in WOTLK with JC without too much effort in a couple of months, and it was fun, I guess, but really I should have stopped at 100k or so. Doing 800 or whatever prospects, plus then listing them or cutting them or whatever, that cant possibly be worth the measly 50k profit, can it? I hear gold is nearly worthless now with inflation. I have not played Cataclysm yet, but based on what I have seen, it seems you get like 1000g just from ore lying on the ground you can mine for a few minutes.

    • http://www.warcraftecon.net Warcraftecon

      I don't' necessarily need the gold myself. I mean, I never had an incentive to even gold cap in Wrath, but did anyways for this site. The purpose of the article was an experiment with results that players can use to make gold. Making 200k in a few months still puts you in the minority group in the millions players who struggle to make gold, isn''t that why gold sellers exist? There may be inflation but items as cost a lot more, which in a sense, evens out. Take flasks for example, they cost 300g compared to 15g at the end for Wrath. You will need to pick up that 1000g worth of ore just to cover one 3 hour raid. So what does an endgame raider do with the profits from this experiment? Purchase 15,000g BOE epics, the new darkmoon card, flasks, potions, food, enchants, reforging, and repairs. The prospecting did take some time, but it takes more time to farm up 200 stacks of ore or count on RNG to drop a similar piece of gear. You could ask what the point of it all is, but that''s like asking what's the point of playing WoW at all. We all have our reasons.

  • http://twitter.com/Bawheidbob @Bawheidbob

    great stuff having just received my expansion today i look forward to the weekend to try some stuff out.

  • What is YOUR point?

    It’s a blog for those interested in the topic being blogged about…. When you want to contribute to the effort of compiling information pertinent to the topic at hand as opposed to casually dismissing it as pointless (based on assumptions and secondhand accounts no doubt) then that’s when you should be reading and posting on this blog.

  • Dimitri

    Thanks for the reply, and to the last poster, I understand that there might be people interested in the topic being blogged about, I am just curious as to why this interest exists. If someone is just gold broke, I suppose I can understand, but realistically, if someone is intelligent enough to read about market strategies, they probably are intelligent enough to actually make money off the market without 3rd party tips. Making gold in WoW is just ridiculously easy, once you figure out where the profits are. Just keep doing the profitable thing over and over, and you will eventually be gold capped.

  • Dimitri

    I have actually given some thought as to why this is true in WoW and not so true in RL, and my hypothesis is that the WoW economy is grossly inefficient, due to many people simply not caring too much about in-game currency, which is logical. (And by inefficient, I mean that glaring opportunities for profit/arbitrage commonly occur.) Why do people not care about game currency? Well, there is a severely diminishing value to it, unlike in real life, where it's not so much the case. More real money is always useful – perhaps your 3rd million does not give you as much pleasure as the first, but it is still pretty damn useful. In WoW, your first 100k gold may be pretty useful, while the second 100k is completely superfluous.

    • http://www.warcraftecon.net Warcraftecon

      I do agree with your points, players simply just don't care about making the currency in game, but at the same time still care enough to demand it.

  • http://twitter.com/wolgan @wolgan

    The link for the spreadsheet just goes straight to the elitistjerks home page for me… Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

    • http://www.warcraftecon.net Warcraftecon

      Fixed, thank you for your patience.

  • Pingback: How A 9 Gold Vendor Value Changes The Jewelcrafting Market | Phase 3: Profit !

  • ehsan

    great post, however i am from cho'gall where the Obsidium ores droped from 120 to 100 and last nite it was 70 g in ah however, i spent 55-60 g per stack buying a total of 300 stacks. i did not use any spreadshits or anything. i personally dont suggest going on ah and start overflowing the market with the gem. I am transmuting some blue for tanking gem cut, red for 40 intel and strentgh, yellow for haste gem (low profit) and purple ( high profit ) 20 hit and 20 strenth gems since most dks are going for hit and frost spec in cata. I strongly advice to any of you who is buying mass amount of ores to diversify the market, and this is what i learned from my gold guru who should get the credit, he is marko from justmy2copper. In his post, he showed how you can use those gems to craft rings, cranaline spikes and de them for profit in enchanting fields. Yes it does take alot of time to finish this, and its also a big risk since the price is dropping for gems and ores. However saronite was always a money maker, Eternal belt buckles, pvp gear for 78s etc etc. If you have patience and dont freek out after seeing the price dropped, you can make it up ( AS Long you did not pay ridiculous price for it) one more suggestion, dont buy more then you can handle. Cheers to all, loves the posts here and you all should definitly check out marko in justmy2copper