Bread and Butter

One of my favorite Enchanting niches back in Wrath was the "Everyone actually needs this all the time" niche. It does not make any sense logically, but for as much Enchanting competition there is on the AH, everyone independently assumes the (max level) starting enchants are covered. In Wrath, for example, the +28 spellpower to gloves was something every single spellcaster would want for every set of gloves they ever got. Moreover, the mats were ridiculously easy, leading to some pretty crazy profit margins as I was able to consistently sell them for 120g+ despite it costing barely 15g to make.

Welcome to Cataclysm:

Pictured above is +15 Stats to chest for 180g, +50 Mastery to gloves for 195g, +50 Haste to bracers for 144g, and +50 Haste to gloves for 249g. These four are just a representative sample, not an exhaustive list, although Mighty Stats in particular is the de facto enchant for basically everyone. So unless Greater Celestial Essences are selling north of 270g apiece on your server, chances are that you can make a serious margin peddling bread and butter enchants that will always have a deep pool that consists of anyone who gets gear above ilevel 318.

One unforeseen complication of the Maelstrom Gambit I was talking about a few weeks ago that I wish I had foreseen is the dearth of non-dust enchanting materials. No, seriously, I am talking about Heavenly Shards consistently at 100g each. Greater Celestial Essence is also high, but less so because it is part of the Shuffle. It makes sense that there might be fewer people running "normal" heroics and thus less shards coming in, but I also think the other half is simply the sort of Gambit I am engaging in. Power Torrent, for example, takes 8 Heavenly Shards each. All it would take is a few people doing some high-end scrolls to chew through the entire AH supply, just like what happens to Volatile prices anytime a JC takes a gamble on the crafted rings/necks. As for the Gambit itself...

Not anything hugely impressive. If you math it out, that is a revenue stream of 16,419g minus 6,000g for the Maelstrom Crystals to purchase the patterns (haven't sold Windwalk scrolls yet), leaving 10,419g split among the five scrolls, or 2083g per scroll. Based on TUJ's current numbers, Landslide would cost 2257g to craft while is Power Torrent 1947g and Windwalk 2563g. In all likelihood, I ultimately broke even on the Gambit on Week 2 after learning the patterns. Going forward, this will be an additional revenue stream, although obviously I was aiming for a bit of a killing before prices reach their future lows. We shall see.

Maelstrom Gambit

As expected by everyone, the prices of Maelstrom Crystals have plummeted with the release of the quasi-farmable ZA/ZG heroic duo. Prices on Auchindoun have a floor of ~400g but it can creep up to 850g depending on availability. As is often the case however, just because material prices have gone down, that does not mean the prices of finished products need follow. At least not yet.

If you have a max-level enchanter, I suggest looking at the high-end scroll market.

I am talking about big-ticket items like Landslide, Windwalker, and Power Torrent. I am also talking about things like the wrist enchants. The weapon enchant patterns take around 2000g to purchase with Maelstroms at 400g, which is a reasonably expensive barrier to entry, keeping competition low. But just because Maelstroms are 400g does not mean you have to price them accordingly. Landslide might not be going for 26,000g anymore, but a "reasonable" 6,000g is still a particularly ridiculous margin now that Maelstroms are low. This is a sweet-spot time in terms of high-end enchants, insofar that everyone knows Maelstroms are less valuable than before (although still nothing to scoff at) but before the greater server groupthink expects weapon enchants to be cheap.

And as I mentioned in New Crafting Paradigm and/or Using the AH as your Bank, do not forget to put your leftover supplies on AH while waiting for the scrolls themselves to sell. I had four Maelstrom Crystals left over after making a Windwalker scroll and I simply undercut someone in the mid-level of crystal prices. Next day? 

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Flipping 400g Maelstrom Crystals for 650g might not be particularly glamorous, but that 250g is damn far more than I have ever made trying to sell things like the buff potions that I am tempted to just vendor out of spite at this point. Mythical and Mysterious? Sell well. Other potions? Not so much.

One final thing that I will drill into your head at every available opportunity: I highly recommend never crafting something that you could not eventually use. This applies more to the high-end scroll market or other markets that require steep up-front costs than, say, cut gems or potions. My first Maelstrom Gambit was actually a scroll of Windwalker that I can up and enchant my tank's weapon with right now if I felt like it. Merely knowing that fact gives me the psychological freedom to price it more aggressively (e.g. at the upper end of the price curve) without worrying about what happens if my gambit "fails." Worst case scenario: I (likely) have the cheapest Windwalker scroll available anywhere. Conversely, if you make a Power Torrent scroll and have no spellcasting toons, you might end up getting into undercutting wars with someone in a race to the bottom, or maybe discover there appears to be no market for the scroll above the cost of mats. Stranger things have happened, but this sort of uncertainty period is precisely what we will be capitalizing on.

Enchant Scroll Speculation

In my For the Hoard! post, I warned against following WoW investment advice given by persons with longer time horizons than you. That warning is still in effect, but...

...this is getting a little ridiculous.

Chances are good that if you have an Enchanter, you already knew that your Enchanting peers were dumping scrolls on the market with complete abandon. You would probably even be (somewhat justifiably) upset with this situation, since it destroys any semblance of a market. Well, any semblance of a Seller's Market. After all, if you stumbled upon people flooding the AH with items not only below their (probable) market price, but also below their True Vendor Price (e.g. the cost of mats to craft them), you would buy them all and relist them all day, yes?

Well... maybe.

Elitest Jerks, and the People that Love Them

The website is http://elitistjerks.com/forums.php and if you are at all serious about the PvE aspect of World of Warcraft, you should already have it bookmarked. Why? Because this is where all the the mathematical modeling magic takes place. Why are you stacking Strength as a Retribution paladin? Why do you hear about Enhancement shaman running around with spellpower weapons?* Why is that Unholy Death Knight wielding two 1H weapons and dealing 2,000 DPS more than you?* Because Elitest Jerks (hereafter EJ) said so. Fire mage rotations, Resto druid stat weights, and more can be had for free from people who enjoy simulators and spreadsheet more than you. The format is not always conducive to to finding summaries of the information you care about, but when they do summarize, they do it better than anyone else.

Whether or not you have the site bookmarked, you have probably heard the EJ haters. Maybe you even indulged in it a bit yourself. "If you aren't getting the socket bonuses, you're doing it wrong." "No thanks, I'm going to spec the way I want to." Sure, no problem. I mean, unless you care about maximizing your character's potential, there is no wrong way to spec. If your intention in picking one talent or enchant or gem over another was to improve performance, then there are, in fact, ways of doing it wrong.

Why bring the EJ forums up at all? Simple: the site is a really, really good market indicator.

I alluded to the Defender's Demonseye in my Transitive Property Farming post, for example. The Wrath version of that gem was complete garbage because Parry as a stat suffered diminishing returns faster than Dodge, so you were almost always better off using anything else in red sockets. That was Wrath. In Cataclysm, Parry and Dodge suffer diminishing returns at the same rate so balancing the two stats (11%/11% is better than 12%/10%) becomes very important. I did not know about the Defender's Demonseye before I was looking for something to put into a red socket for Protection paladins, and it was the EJ forums which indicated that the gem was useful at all. So, I bought the pattern, socketed my gear, and decided to toss a few extra on the AH for 150g since Purified Demonseyes were being tanked down to 60g. There was no competition for Defender's Demonseye. I listed some more for 175g. They all sold, usually to the same tank. Raised to 250g each. Still sold. It has been more than 30 days since Cataclysm has shipped and the hardcore JCs will have had gotten 10 cuts by now... and yet I have the Defender's Demonseye market all to myself. The tanks have done their EJ research, but apparently the (other) JCs have not.

Sometimes the EJ advice is not particularly useful to Auctioneers. "Stack Strength gems." Yeah, okay, there are 40 Bold Inferno Rubies going for less than the uncut gem at the moment. But if you dig a little deeper, you may surprise yourself. In browsing weapon enchant scrolls on the AH, I noticed Berserking still up there at 600g. That seems a bit silly, I thought. I tossed a few up and they sold. It was not until I looked at the stat weights for Retribution paladins that I realized that Haste was worth 0.27 per point whereas AP was worth 0.69. In other words, Berserking provides more DPS than Hurricane for Ret paladins by about 150 DPS (based simply on 400 AP vs 450 haste, not uptime considerations). The upcoming patch 4.0.6 will probably shake things up, but until it does, I will continue buying Abyss Crystals at 15g apiece and pumping out Berserking scrolls at 400g margins to the people doing their homework.

Do you have to understand why something sells before you sell it? Nope. But understanding the why of things helps you get an idea of how deep a market might be and when you may want to hop off the train before it hops the rails.

*Not after 4.0.6, of course.

JC + D/E = Profit

This is somewhat a continuation of my prior post on the Elementium Shuffle, but today I will be focusing on the relationship between Jewelcrafting and Enchanting.

All of these cuts are learned from the JC trainer. The Jasper Ring and Alicite Pendant give skill-ups until 485, while the Hessonite Band and the Nightstone Choker give skill-ups until 505. Note: you need 475 Enchanting to disenchant the last two jewelry listed above. Now, according to Wowhead the disenchanting percentages of the above jewelry is ~75% Lesser Celestial Essence and ~25% Hypnotic Dust. In my experience disenchanting however, the Jasper and Alicite jewelry broke down into Hypnotic Dust more readily than indicated. Carnelian Spikes is one recipe not mentioned above, as it takes Carnelian x3 plus three Jeweler's Settings when you could use those same three Carnelians (plus some Heartblossom) to transmute into an Inferno Ruby. Wowhead does indicate the fist weapon disenchants into 1-3 Hypnotic Dust ~84% of the time though, so if you do not have access to an Alchemist it may be the way to go with your extra red gems.

Some final thoughts:

1) Although I am calling this the Elementium Shuffle, Obsidium Ore works just as well. Until more people hit the endgame, the uncut rare gems will not be improving your prospecting haul anytime soon, so pick the cheaper ore.

2) Make sure you are checking your AH for situations like this (click for full size):

A lot of people are putting the level 78 Cataclysm greens up on the AH for pennies on the dollar (copper on the gold?) - in the above case, they were selling an item that disenchanted into Hypnotic Dust x2 (80g) for 12g buyout. Regardless of whether these items D/E into Hypnotic Dust or Celestial Essence, you can probably expect to make 40g per piece of enchanting material. Anything under 35g is an instant buy.

3) Leveling enchanting past 475 at this point is, well, somewhat pointless. You can disenchant everything at 475 skill and actually have access to your Cataclysm ring enchants at that same level. Practically no one is going to buy enchants for their sub-85 gear, and we all know these Enchanting mats prices are unsustainable in the long term anyway - selling a stack of Hypnotic Dust for 1000g is simply absurd. Ergo, I am recommending you sell all the Enchanting mats you end up with right now before they become cheap later. There will still an scroll market later, trust me.

Forecasting Cataclysm Trends: Elementium Ore

The Elementium shuffle has already begun.

Within the first 24 hours of Cataclysm going Live, prices on Auchindoun for Elementium have gone down from the 550g/stack I was selling them at to 100g/stack, which is almost the price one would expect Elementium to stabilize at once the dreaded "Cata inflation" is properly taken into account. The reality is I am finding it entirely possible Elementium will reach near-Saronite levels within the next month based on its ease of acquisition in Twilight Highlands alone - I am talking in the neighborhood of 40-50g a stack. Unlike Saronite, Elementium Bars vendor for only 7.5g/stack, which means its price will only be buoyed by the Shuffle itself, which is great news for us.

Speaking of the Shuffle, if you have a Jewelcrafter and are not buying Elementium Ore at 200g/stack, you are probably giving gold away; at 100g/stack, you can literally buy 200g with 100g. The new uncommon gems should be going for 50g apiece minimum, and likely quite a bit more given their necessity for leveling JC. It takes 475 JC to prospect Elementium, so you will have to either start buying said gems or prospect some likely more pricey Obsidium Ore to get to that threshold. Once there, each stack of Elementium Ore is four uncommon gems minimum, which means you hit a profit at any point you get an extra gem (possibly a rare!).

Incidentally, the uncommon gems vendor for a whopping 5g apiece, which sets their deposit fee at a ridiculous 3g 30s whereas rare gems vendor for less (3g). The irony here is that none of the uncommon gems are useful in of themselves* since they require ilevel 285 gear to be socketed into, and there is basically zero gear rewards until the endgame that even have sockets. The uncommon gems vendor for 9g apiece when cut, so to a JC the True Vendor Price of Elementium (and Obsidium) Ore is 36g a stack minimum, although you can probably bank on 45g.

*Obviously the gems are good for leveling JC and making jewelry to be disenchanted. Uncommon gems are also used in Alchemy for transmuting 3 of the same color gems plus some herbs into the rare gem of that color, i.e. Transmute: Inferno Ruby. And, of course, to transmute the one-size-fits-all metagem. One additional thing to keep in mind: these gems transmutes have no cooldown. The herb cost is basically immaterial, so the rare gems should always be pegged at uncommon gem price, e.g. Carnelian x3 = Inferno Ruby.