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!