Random Rewards: Mysterious Fortune Card

When I started leveling my inscription, one of the items you use to get gains is the Mysterious Fortune Card. I thought at first that this was a useless item, but the more I made the more I decided I should review the item before I vendored it.

The Mysterious Fortune Card is a card that when used changes into a random Card that lists your fortune, and sells for X amount of gold. The X is where it gets interesting. The used card can sell between 5 and 5,000g, depending on what card it is. Let the gambling begin!

Right now, Glyphs are selling for an average of 80g, which is great if you bought inks before the ink trader changed (which I did) and still have some in stock (which I don’t) – because of this, its more expensive for me to trade inks, or more work if I have to farm or purchase the old herbs required to make inks.

The lowest herb price on my server is Cinderbloom at 6g per herb, which equates to 30g per mill and 120g per stack.  If I do a rough average of 3 Ashen Pigment per Mill, then I get cost of 19.8g per Blackfallow ink ((6*5=30)*0.66)=19.8). The Fortune Card requires 1 Blackfallow Ink and 1 Ressillant Parchment (12 silver) to make, rounding our cost to 20g per card.

Currently these cards are going for 45-50g per card, but I have seen as high as 150g and as low as 25g. if I set my sell price at 40g per card, I gain 20g profit per Card not including any Burning Embers I get during the milling process.

Stack of Herbs: 120g (investment)

Ink from 1 Stack: 6 Inks = 6 Cards = 240g Return

Profit: 120g per stack of herbs bought, not including Burning Embers.

If Card prices are under 30g per, I would look at Fortune Cookie Prices as this food is a great raiding food, with the added benefit of the fortune card.



NOTE: I wrote this post a while ago, in the meantime I myself have caught the Mysterious Fortune bug and often the cards do not get past my inscriptionist before I flip them over.  I would advise NOT forming this habbit as it is not very conductive to making gold - but it is pretty fun :) 

To buy or not to buy?

Many people are leveling professions, with that comes an influx of crafted materials. The specific market I am reviewing currently is Enchanting scrolls.

People are throwing scrolls up on the Auction house for ridiculous prices, begging to be bought up. But speculation has been ongoing on wither or not these scrolls will be able to be turned for a profit.

Example "Enchant Cloak– Intellect" has been going for between 1g to 8g.  This is a popular enchant that could be used by multiple different classes.

Risk Analysis

Right now people are not going through gear quickly and are not worrying about min/maxing (at least majority) so these scrolls are not selling quickly. Couple that with the fact that enchanters can use this recipe to level Enchanting leaves us with a low demand, high supply item – not a recipe for gold success.

This is where a goblin’s patience can potentially off. If you have extra space, in either a bank or alt mailbox, you could buy up a few of these and wait a few weeks/months for the prices to rise making a tidy profit.

This is rather risky, as you are counting on the prices rising, but it could be a well worth investment. Personally I am buying any 85 enchant under 3 g and sending them to one of my obscure alts to hang out in their mailbox for a while.

A few more examples
Enchant Bracer - Expertise (going for 50s on my server some nights)
Enchant Bracer - Precision as low as 2g

Glyph’s are they worth it?

Glyph’s were a major money maker for me at the end of WOTLK. The only major drawback I encountered was the time it takes to create my large stock of glyphs.

Enter CATA – glyphs are selling at an average of 80g per on my server (some as high as 250, but many as low as 20g) and I have finally run out of stock that I saved from before the ink trader change.

Now if I want to create more glyphs I will have to either go farm old world herbs (not as hard as was previously with a flying mount) or buy/farm Cata herbs and trade.

My issue with glyphs right now is that it doesn’t seem worth it. The average price per glyph if I purchase the cheapest CATA herb is 14.79g per Glyph (80g sell, 63.43g cost).  I normally have about 350 Glyphs so that’s about 4,917g after AH fees and such.

Now, 5k isn’t bad – but it isn’t great either. Considering that it takes me anywhere from 1-2 hrs to complete my glyph cycle, I could spend that on more lucrative gold making cycles.

Right now glyphs just don’t seem worth it to me. I am involved with almost every market on my server and maintaining a sold Glyph presence doesn’t seem viable – at this at this point.

This is restricted to glyphs however, other inscription items are still on my crafting cycle – but I’ll save that for another day.

So, here’s my tip. Don’t get stuck in your old  habits. Be sure you are reviewing your gold making strategies to ensure that you are getting the most gold per hour. Don’t follow a routine just because it’s what you are used to.

Best time to buy!

I work full time, raid 4 Nights (3 hrs) a week and I am a full time Goblin, that takes up a lot of time. From usually around 6 am to 5 PM PST I am not available to do much wow stuff with the exception of some remote AH checking when I am on a break or having a slow day.

With that in mind, I look for deals when and where I can, example 5 AM Material prices! When I get up at 5 am, I make some coffee and do a quick AH scan while I get ready for my morning workout. During that scan I often find that ore and herb prices have dropped dramatically, probably because A) the late night famers have posted all their materials and B)less people are on so less buyers.

Example: Wensday 12/22 when I logged on at 5 am elementium ore was at 5g Per/100g a stack. At 4 PM it was over 15g per stack and rising. As more people logged on for the day and it started to reach peak hours, the prices significantly rose.

You can also follow this trend during the week. Monday’s elementium ore can go for as slow as 2-3g per, while Thursday and Friday tend to have 18-22g per prices. During the week between work and school, less people have time to farm for materials, but on weekends, everyone is out farming.

I used elementium ore a lot in this example, however this trend can be found across multiple markets. I don’t mean for you to get up at 5 am just to buy some items (unless of course that’s your thing), but if you’re up anyway due to work or school and have a few spare minutes, give it a try – you could get a great deal!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Golden Muse!

Update on Perfect Nightsones!

Last week I posted to buy up the gem cuts Timeless Nightstone, Jagged Jasper, and Solid Zephyrite

as blizzard was removing the proc of perfect for these cuts [source]. At the time, these gems were going for 5-10g per gem as jewel crafters dumped them into the AH after a disappointing attempt to get their daily done.

Once I heard of this hotfix, I bought up all the perfect cuts under 10g on the AH, investing approximately 1000g.

These cuts are now up to 75-95g per on my server as people buy these gems instead of their more expensive blue counterparts for their leveling gear. My initial 1000g investment has already profited about 4000g as I have sold a little under half of my perfect stock. 

Last night I purchased the Gem Cut Willful Ember Topaz as part of my PVP Gem experiment. I cut 5 and placed them on the AH for 450g per. This was pretty late last night and none have sold so far, but I am hopeful that they will sell as it reaches peak play time.

I made a tentative decision on my Tailoring route (see this post for details) with one more Chaos orb I will be able to craft my 6th dreamcloth and create the Breeches of Mended Nightmares, I am going to post them around 20k and see if I have a buyer. If not, I am going to wear them and then focus on Spellthread. This employ's one of my tenants of AHing - Never buy something you wont use.

This is the reason I chose the Willful Ember Topaz as my PVP gem cut. If I decided to PVP on my mage, then this is probably the gem I will use, therefore if this experiment ends up being a failure I did not invest in something that wont eventually get used.

Tailoring Speculation – Dreamcloth

Tailoring has always been a profitable profession for me, not just at the beginning but throughout expansions. Even at the end of WOTLK I was able to craft and sell BOE Epic Items consistently.  With the introduction of CATA I have new BOE patterns to craft and of course a new cloth cooldown to deal with. There are 6 possible ways to craft Dreamcloth, 5 of which have a 6 day cooldown.  The Destruction Cloth  does not have cooldown, however requires 5 Chaos Orbs. With Heroic’s being challenging again (which I love) it takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours to complete a heroic and most crafters are grabbing up these orbs like candy.

Because of the rarity of the cooldown, it makes determining what to craft rather challenging. The first two things I have been looking at with Dreamcloth are the new Leg Enchants:

Powerful Enchanted Spellthread 

Powerful Ghostly Spellthread

Each of these items requires 1 Dreamcloth and sells for between 1700-2200 g currently on my server.

Dreamcloth has an average price of 800g to create (if I don’t count the chaos orb cooldown) which results in a profit of 900 to 1400g per.

The second thing I was reviewing was the BOE Crafted items. They cost 1 dreamcloth just to purchase and between 4 to 6 Dreamcloth to create.

Breeches of Mended Nightmares

Flame-Ascended Pantaloons

Dreamless Belt

I have already purchased the Breeches of Mended Nightmares and Dreamless belt, as these were items that I could use to get my main character raid ready. The risk I see with these items is I haven’t actually seen any of them SELL on the AH.

Sure I’ve seen these items up for between 25-30k, but each day I look and they are still on the AH or have been relisted.  The investment in the purple BOE is between 3200-4000g per item and also the fact that the cooldown has been burned for a week.

Therefore there are two possible roads I could take.

Rout A) Medium Risk

Craft the Spellthreads using all of my Dreamcloth Cooldown – sell no lower than 1500g per.

Investment Cost: 4,000g

Possible Sell Price: 13,200g

Profit: 9,200g

If sold at lowest price, total sell price is reduced to 9,000g and profit to 5,000g

Analysis

I think of this as medium risk only because the majority of guilds on my server have not really begin hard core raiding and raiders are going to be the majority of my customer base for these items. Most people would not want to waste an expensive epic enchant on a rare item, and instead would rather purchase the rare spellthread for a fraction of the cost (135-250g currently, not even worth the mats as people use these recipes to level tailoring).

However, once people start raiding, these items will sell – it’s just a matter of when.

Rout B) High Risk

Craft Either Pants or Belt – sell no lower than 10,000g per

Investment Cost: 4000g

Possible Sell Price: 20,000g

Profit: 16,000g

If sold at lowest price, total sell price is reduced to 10,000g and profit to 6,000g

Alternate secondary fallback price of 15,000g returns 11,000g profits.

Analysis

BOE Epics are tricky, sometimes they sell like candy and other times you’d be better off DEing the item.  This item is high risk for my just because the customer base is significantly smaller than Rout A, as the Spellthreads are used by non-cloth wearers.

In addition, most people are hesitant to purchase large price tag’d items (Look at a Car commercials, most advertise the possible Rate/Month and the total price is in the smaller text) so I would be looking for big spenders who want then instant gratification of EPICS NOW!

Lastly, I haven’t actually seen any of these items sell. This could be because of the reasons I listed above, or it could be that the prices were just too high (30,000 g does seem like a lot), perhaps if I sold my items at half the normal price (12-15k) then I would see some sales.  The time to sell these items is now, before people start raiding and getting better BOP epics.

If the item didn’t sell, then I would either sit on it for when raiding has quieted and another wave of alts gets to 85 (4-5 months) or DE the item for 3k, taking a 1k loss.

What’s a Girl to do? When I finally decided ill post some results. In the meantime, back to work for me. Tonight I’ll be able to get the PVP gem and I can start that experiment. Have fun!

TUJ is No More

It’s a sad, sad day for Gold Makers today, as The Undermine Journal has gone offline

http://blog.theunderminejournal.com

I have been expecting this for a few days now, with the release of the new Armory, the host and developer of the site was experiencing multiple issues. I was hopeful, as it wasn’t shut off yet. But as I was skimming the items and determining what today’s blog post would be about I was taken to the closed page:

Sad Panda is Sad.

Good news is even with TUJ I still created and maintained my own personal spreadsheet  and list and kept up all my old AH habits. TUJ was more for the notification and ease of access while I was at work.

Goodbye TUJ, Hope to see you again someday!

Possible Niche Market – PVP Gems?

Choosing a gem cut on a high population server is pretty hard. The first cuts are out and now everyone is scrambling to get all the PVE cuts and sell them for 150-300g a cut. If you review the undermine journal, one thing to notice is that many times there is no data on any PVP Gems. So far on my server there is No Data for Spell Penetration or Resilience Gems. I see the possibility of profit!

My server is a high population server with a pretty even mix of PVP and PVE player base. Pretty soon, most players will exhaust their patience with PVE content and move on to serious PVP. With Serious PVP comes PVP gems!

I have not found one person on my server with a blue PVP Gem cut, mostly because the PVE cuts are making consistent money.  Therefore my next test of the market is going to be to purchase a PVP cut and see how it compares with my PVE Cuts.

I think this would depend on your sever. If your server does not have an active PVP player base I would NOT recommend doing this. Ill test it out over the next few days and return the results.

Famers are out in force and elementium ore prices have begun to plummet. I was able to purchase 1000 ore for 3.5k this morning, prospected it all and so far have made around 6.7k, with a bunch of Blue and Green Gems left over.  If you want good deals, observe the farming times on your server, traditionally – the earlier you check the AH the better. I find my best deals when I get up at 4:30 AM for work and do a quick scan of the AH.

Perfect Timeless Nightstone - Buy em up!

12/14 Blizzard Hotfix had lots of changes, one of which I see a potential for gold making.

The gem cuts Timeless Nightstone, Jagged Jasper, and Solid Zephyrite can no longer create perfect versions of the cut. [source]

This was the most annoying thing ever, as the daily quest would not accept the perfect versions of the quest.  Because of this, Perfect gems of these cuts were going from 5-10g on my server, since there were so many.

With the perfect option being removed, I imagine that the price will increase as people outfit their green gear or blue gear. Most people don’t want to spend 300-400g on a blue gem cut for gear they will replace soon. But would rather get a perfect cut for 75-100g. My advice? Buy up the cheap perfect cuts now (for the above only) and wait a week, then sell at 75-100g for a nice profit.

1 Week of Cata Update - I hate Nightstones

I’m alive!

My week of vacation is over and I’m back to work, which means back to blogging. Here is a rundown of my first week of cata.

Day 1 to 3– Farming like crazy

Once the release hit I hopped on my 80 priest with 310% speed and headed over to Mount Hyjal to farm some Obsidium Ore. The first 45 minutes were great and I was able to get 2 stacks and my mining up to 470. However the horde of characters quickly swept in and soon it was very hard to find any nodes.

Therefore I decided to take a chance and move on to Twilight Highlands. TH is the last zone most people go to when leveling, so I figured it would be the least populated.

I was correct. For the first two days I had TH all to myself (the occasional farm would drop in) and the elementium was flowing! I am pretty sure the zone was bugged because every 5 feet there would be an elementium vein or pyrite vein. After 20 hours of farm I had around 3000 elementium ore, 600 pyrite and a bunch of gems.

The first 1000 ore I sold for 600g a stack (30,000) and the rest for around 450g (once the competition started getting in(45,000) netting a total of 75,000 within the first 2 days.

I took some of the ore and grinded up my Jewel crafting on my primary toon so that I could start the daily asap (need 475 jewel crafting).  Then it was back to farming. I farmed another 1000 ore for my jewel crafting profession.

Day 4 – Max JC and Alchemy!

Day 4 hit and more people were invading TH and the amount of ore available dipped dramatically, also prices were going around 225g a stack (still nice, but not the 400-600 I was getting at first). I decided it was time to level my Mage and some professions. As I started leveling, I would periodically review the AH online, and buy up any Cata herbs that were too low. I spent about 1000g total and was able to max out my alchemy and then sell what I made for about 2200g. Once I was 525 I was able to craft Shadowspirit Diamonds and Truegold.

My first transmute of true gold proc’d 5. Yes that’s right 5. I believe I was the first to post them on the AH and I sold each one for 5,000g each. 

Now that I could craft meta’s I used prospected the 1000 ore and leveled JC so I could learn a Meta Cut. Being a Draenei helped a lot with this.

Once I was able I learned and cut the Asture Shadowspirit Diamond, and sold 6 for 1,500g each.

I decided that the rest of the time I would concentrate on leveling and getting my mage heroic ready. I spent 6 k leveling my tailoring and started making Dreamcloth.

END of Cata Gold Total

+75,000 (day 1-3 mining)

-1000 (525 Alchemy)

+25,000 (Truegold Proc)

+2,200 (Misc. Alchmey Creations)

+9,000 (Meta Cuts)

-6,000 (525 tailor)

104,200g in week 1 of cata

And I still have about 15 of each rare gem (pending cuts) and 20-25 of each green gem with the exception of nightstones.

Nightstones are evil. They are used for everything and are hard to come by. EVIL I TELL YOU!

In addition to the gold, I was able to max 3 professions with a 4^th on the way (JC could be maxed but I am waiting for a second Meta Cut) with lots of raw materials waiting to be turned into something fun. My Mage is level 85 and already heroic ready. Now the challenge will be balancing my gold making business with also being a full time raider on the one of the top guilds on my server.

Don't Sell Your Pyrite

At least not yet.

Pyrite isn't used all that much in leveling, yet people are getting a ton of it when farming elementium. My advice is to save it for now. In a week or so, when people are crafting BOE blues and Purples, pyrite should increase in price.

that's my quick advice for the day - back to farming!

16 hrs and counting!

That’s right folks, 16 hours (for US residents) until Cata is finally here! In preparation for Cata I took the 7^th – 10^th off. Tonight I plan to get off work at 4 PM and take a nice long nap, ready to wait in line at Game Stop at 11 PM.

What’s my plan for Cata?

Seriously I have no idea.

There are too many choices! I already posted the first half of my auctions in preparation for release (took me over an hour) and once I get home I plan on posting the second half which is primarily glyphs. Once all those are posted, I am ready to begin.

But begin what?

My original plan was to login and start fishing on my main. The server first title will go very well with my Salty title and fishing is one of the things I like to do in my spare time in wow. However since I am buying the collector’s edition and I am not hard core enough to buy the digital download and collector’s edition, that means that when 12:00 AM Hits, I will be driving home from Game Stop, and others will be logging in. It’s only a 5-6 minute gain, but that’s enough to cut me out of the running for server first.

With Server First out of the running what next? Again my original plan was to get my paladin to level 80 (since she is my herb/mining character) and farm for the first 2 days to take advantage of the insane prices. However I only managed to get her to level 70, I didn’t push as hard as I could have, mainly because I didn’t want to burn myself out on wow.

I could use my secondary miner, the priest, and farm up some ore. I could continue leveling my paladin to at least 75, then farm on her. I could ignore farming completely and level my main (who is a JC/Tailor) and at least level tailoring.

There are so many choices; I have no idea what I want to do.

Glyph Overflow!

I have Glyphs coming out of places I didn’t know I had. I have about 30 of all glyphs, and an additional 20 of the top glyphs, 2 guild bank tabs full of glyphs and I still have around 2000 inks (various) for making more.

Today my plan is to finish up my enchanting scroll stockpile. I want to have 50 scrolls of each of the popular lowbie enchants.

I also have about 1000 small eggs ready for Winter Veil and about 50 suits. I have that ready for when the holiday hits, as I am sure the majority of people will still be busy with new cata stuff.
The Paladin is level 70, so my plan is to grind out 10 levels this weekend and by 80 by Monday. Not sure if that is going to happen, especially since I am also going to work this weekend, but I really want to be able to mine and herb once cata hits.

My backup plan is my Priest, who is a miner/enchanter with epic flight.

I invested 1000g this morning in a Battered Hilt. The normal price for this is 7000-9000g on my server. My main character never completed this quest so I wouldn’t mind the achievement, but I think I may hold on to it for a few months to see if it will sell for a nice price.

Last Minute tip? Login without any addons. While most addons are up to date, with every patch there is a risk of the addon not working and causing you problems. 

Cata is Creeping

Been really busy the last few days, so busy in fact that the only thing I have been able to do in wow is buy up cheap herbs and re-stock my glyphs. The Fact that I am taking a week off next week finally hit home in my workplace and they are now scrambling to try to get me to do just one more project and train the other Project Manager on my applications.

In addition to working 12/hr days, I also decided to slow down a bit on my wow time, I bought and read a few new books and watched some movies. Why you ask? The next few weeks I am going to be absorbed in the World of Warcraft. Therefore, I figured it was time for a mini-break, that way I was rested and ready to take Cata head on.  No Gold updates today, I hope everyone is as excited as I am. I cannot wait for Tuesday!