Powerleveling Jewelcrafting, Cheap Enchanting as a Byproduct, and Recouping all Expenses

Posted by Warcraftecon | January 26, 2009 .

Powerleveling Jewelcrafting

So I finally decided to make the switch to Jewelcrafting and dropped skinning for it. JC being a better min/max profession and not having to physically farm for materials was my motivation for doing it. Skinning was hardly used outside of instances and even then the money wasn’t that good. I just ended up buying most of my materials for Leatherworking on the auction house anyways. Possible profits from JC and gold per hour ratio is significantly better than skinning. From a min/max perspective, I loss [Master of Anatomy] and gained 3x [Delicate Dragon's Eye], for my rogue. This along with gem flexibility to satisfy my gem bonuses and meta requirements made it an easy choice. I had also used a spreadsheet from ShadowPanther.com to figure out what professions would be the most beneficial to me, note that this has weighted EP values for the rogue class only. There are also plenty of other advantages a crafting profession has over a gathering one, but we won’t go into that. Remember, I am leveling JC without Mining. After hours of running back and forth between the auction house, I finally hit 425 JC, enough to start doing the Jewelcrafting daily quest and to start doing [Icy Prism] transmutes. I had spent 4000g+ partly due the lack of low level gems like [Star Ruby] and [Large Opal] on the auction house. So I had to use [Prospecting] to get these gems from 130g stacks of [Thorium Ore]. Each prospect requires 5 pieces of ore, so it costs 32g just to get 1-2 random gems of this level. I thought about picking up mining first for the materials, then dropping it for JC, but I didn’t want to spend the time farming. From a gold per hour perspective, your better off farming high priced items in Northrend and using that to buy low level ore than actually farming for it. If you plan to powerleveling JC, keep in mind all the rings/neck pieces you craft can be disenchanted to make some of the expenses back.

Leveling Enchanting as a Byproduct of Jewelcrafting

I then realized that this was a perfect opportunity to powerlevel Enchanting as well, maybe not to max level, but just enough to disenchant Northrend items. I don’t play alts much at all and for a long time, Leatherworking was my main source of income. The ability to create Death Knights that start at level 55 are great to have alt professions on. Almost immediate access to a epic ground mount and just a few levels away from 60 only makes this more appealing. To disenchant Northrend greens, your going to need a skill of 350. The requirement for this is to be level 55 and have Enchanting Master training, which allows you to level up to 375 skill. If you wanted to reach the skill cap of 450, all you would need to do is train Enchanting Grand Master once you reach level 60 65. Consult this Disenchanting guide if you want to figure out when and what you can or can’t DE.

From powerleveling JC, I had ended up with tons of low level green items. My first reaction was to have an enchanter DE all of it so I can sell the materials. I then realized that I could just have a brand new DK pick up Enchanting and start leveling and DE’ing all the JC items I made. The rings I had crafted were level 13′s, so this allowed a skill level 1 enchanter to DE them. I did however had to spend some gold on the enchanting rods you need and various materials around 250 enchanting. The JC items did not produce enough mats for me to level it. Some mats were cheap enough that I bought some on the AH, and some were so expensive that I ended up buying greens to DE.

This was also nice opportunity to have my own disenchanter, which everyone should be doing with all their greens. Either tip someone to DE your items or have a friend/guildie do it for free. The enchanting mats you get from Northrend greens are still worth a good amount and if anything, you can save some money on your own enchants. I can’t wait till I hit 350 skill so I can DE all the [Stoneguard Band]‘s I crafted while leveling.

Recouping all Expenses

Even though leveling JC at this time like this is very expensive, I am confident I can make back all the money I lost. I can sell the gems I had cut, enchanting materials obtained for disenchanting JC leveling items, doing [Icy Prism], and even [Prospecting] cheap Northrend ore. Still trying to figure out if I should start selling my [Dragon's Eye]‘s or save the tokens for recipes. The recipes will allow me to cut blue gems and turn a profit with them I think. With all the down time between raiding, leveling the DK shouldn’t be hard, even if it is just to get a profession out of it. I mean even if you just hit level 70, your able to get an epic flying mount and can pick up a gathering profession if your into farming. I did notice mid level ore and bars sell for more than some of the Northrend ones. I plan to level enchanting past 300 as I level the DK since DE’ing Burning Crusade greens I pick up will be more cost effective than buying them on the auction house. Eventually I will have my own Enchaner to DE and do enchants for my main, this turned out better than I had expect when I decided to level JC without Mining.

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9 Comments so far

Esdras January 26, 2009 4:28 AM

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My paladin is still 330+ JC at 67 but have decided to level my gnome rogue instead he is lvl 40 315 engineering but only 124 mining
Argon January 26, 2009 8:17 AM

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It seems difficult to make money off of JC. On my server, the expected value of prospected gems seems to be only slightly higher than the value of the ore, and for a few gem cuts I checked out the price of the gems is barely below the price of the cut gems. I’ve only been casually looking at the market, though.
taco January 26, 2009 2:34 PM

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The market has gone south in jewel crafting. Well almost, unless you have ruined scarlet or smooth autumn glow or one of the new recipe added (boe rare drops) to 3.08 (which was not mentioned on the patch notes)!

Champion’s Monarch Topaz
Resolute Monarch Topaz
Stalwart Monarch Topaz
Inscribed Monarch Topaz
Etched Monarch Topaz
Purified Twilight Opal
Sovereign Twilight Opal
Shifting Twilight Opal
Tenuous Twilight Opal
Misty Forest Emerald
Shining Forest Emerald
Beaming Earthsiege Diamond
Destructive Skyflare Diamond
Thundering Skyflare Diamond

I currently have 6 but I’m still recouping my initial investment from them (paid 2k per design).

Old habit of making gold die hard even if I’m semi-retired.
taco January 26, 2009 3:05 PM

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Old habits*

Enchanting is very expensive to level up given that people do not run the lower level instances anymore. Believe it or not, you make more gold by selling scrolls of enchants than selling enchanting mats. On average I sell about 10 scrolls of enchant bracer major stamina a week (300-350g each [60-100g profit after tax] – I’m at work 5 days a week and only play when people are asleep – after 2am and still managed this outcome).

I will leave it for other people to do their research on what sells (but its pretty simple).
Warcraftecon January 26, 2009 4:09 PM

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Thanks for the tips, I will keep that in mind. I still have lots to learn about my new JC profession.
Varthad January 27, 2009 4:44 AM

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I simply buy the dragon’s eye every day after doing my daily, on my server they go for about 215g, this makes this daily worth about 200g for 10 mins work, its my go to daily every day! by doing this, you recoup your cost very quickly.

Another tip is to look for cheaply priced damaged necklace, which starts a JC only quest that nets you another token. I tend to pick up 2 or 3 cheap ones a week, resulting in even higher profits for really very little work
Artorin February 3, 2009 9:00 AM

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Training past 375 requires lvl 65 not 60. Atleast it did to get my mages tailoring past 375. So just beware your dk will have to do a bit of leveling to start learning northrend enchants. Also you can start DE items below lvl 73 at enchanting 325 but won’t be able to do anything higher till 350.

Also is there a guide that you used to level your JC? I want to get my shaman’s J/C to kill the stockpile of gems I have but want to do it the most efficent way.
Warcraftecon February 3, 2009 1:21 PM

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Ah ok, thanks for catching that. I recently hit 350 enchanting and stopped. This was enough to DE any Northrend green that I send it. The guide that I used for JC was at: ( http://www.wow-professions.com/wowguides/wow_jewelcrafting_leveling_guide.html ). I also crossed referenced it with some other guides, just in case my AH was out of stock on something.
nobody February 24, 2010 8:53 PM

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kinda of a wasted post… why i hate blogs. title is “powerleveling JC” and post should be more like “talking about JC…while pimping lvl guides”

basically… anyone who’s looking to grind JC. first off. don’t ignore those stupid statues. 1-80 can be done almost entirely on rough/coarse stone. plan… and grind till green… even try’n squeeze a couple pts out of the recipe once it turns green… or burn it till it’s ash/grey.

same on… sub components. mith fildegree, thor settings. and normally low mat cost per skill up. and always keep an eye for… single bar ring/item recipes. ..early on. silver ring (although some servers.. silver bars are inflated) or the x1 moonstone items. look for things like this. x1 jade… tends to be cheaper. as citrine tends to be farmed, and resold on AH to gouge prof grinders.

later on.. when you get into cutting gems. buy what’s cheapest, and hopefully still yellow recipe. cut that. rinse repeat as you climb in skill.

start JC dailys for tokens as soon as humanly possible… stockpile the badges. (focus first epic purchases …on usable and marketable cuts. ..ie you’re a caster. get prime caster recipes. +int.. sp, haste. hit. …or focus on tank. but “focus” no tank should gem for dodge or parry… or even defense for that matter. it’s all STAM and after that …almost every plate wearer loves Str. )

doing JC without mining is silly. as with any crafting prof. expect a 4-5k gold AH binge if you buy all the mats. More if your server’s econ is wonky.

and at that point… better to bite the bullet and buy chink gold. save yourself the hassle.

ps… little tip. you decide to be creative. and buy some obscure recipe. list it on AH for insane ammt. 1k gold. …basically. 24hrs of advertising that you have the cut.

if you can’t make money off JC you’re doing something wrong. or you’re on a horrible server.