Hey guys, Alerick here again, and today I'm going to be talking to you guys about a once common but now generally overlooked niche market for raking in profit. The market I'm talking about is Runecloth. Now, I understand that on some servers this might not be profitable, but I have a simple equation I use that can determine this will work for you, and if you should be using this or not.
Now the reason this trick has become so much more profitable recently, is that earlier in Cataclysm there used to be a much smaller supply of runecloth available for us entrepreneurs to get our hands on for a reasonable price. If you didn't snag a bunch of it when people realized the major city tabards made runecloth turn-ins obsolete, and tried to dump their supplies, you were out of luck. Thankfully, runecloth had been added to the loot table of most of the mobs found in the Hellfire Ramparts dungeon. This has led to a colossal influx of the stuff on my server, for much lower prices than it has ever been at before. The reason the actual dust and essences are worth so much nowadays, is because the items that disenchant into them are greens from the high 50s and from old Vanilla raid content. People tend to head straight to Outlands once they hit level 58, leaving behind all of the gold making opportunity for them, and increasing the scarcity and rareness of the materials; a bonus for us.
When people leveling their characters hit level 58, they are allowed to que for the Hellfire Ramparts dungeon, and this is the only BC dungeon they will have access to for a few levels. So most people tend to spam run it, and while doing this, they accumulate copious amounts of runecloth. I can tell you from experience, that the convenience and high amounts of experience produced from leveling through the dungeon finder make it the most efficient way to level through the high 50s. To my surprise, although the amount of cloth available on the AH skyrocketed, this didn't seem to change the market price in either the best selling BoA enchants the materials can be used for, or the raw enchanting materials themselves. Ever since I've noticed this, I've been buying up all of the runecloth I can get my hands on from anywhere between 8 and 2-3g a stack. Each bolt of runecloth requires 4 cloth to make, and 6 bolts are required to make one headband, as well as two rune threads, less than a gold for both when bought from a vendor. This is an accurate formula I use when figuring out how much gold I make while crafting these headbands, or if it's profitable or not. Keep in mind that these headbands require a Tailoring profession, but only a skill of 295 to craft.
24xRC + 0.80 *?* 0.75x3.5xID + 0.22x3xGEE + 0.03x1.5xLBS
Simplified into:
24xRC + 0.80 *?* 2.625xID + 0.66xGEE + 0.045xLBS
The variables represent the auction values of the cloth and disenchant mats (per item, not stack), including the 5% auction house cut.Simplified into:
24xRC + 0.80 *?* 2.625xID + 0.66xGEE + 0.045xLBS
GEE=Greater Eternal Essence
ID=Illusion Dust
LBS=Large Brilliant Shard
RC=Runecloth
Plug your servers values/market prices into this equation and figure out whether it'll work for you or not. Keep in mind that if you have access to an enchanter in a level 23 guild or higher, this is an added bonus because of the guild perk that allows you to proc extra mats, and when this occurs think of it as "pure profit".
There are two reasons there is a very high demand for these materials. First off, anyone leveling their enchanting will eventually have to progress through this part of the profession, and when they do, the scarcity of the material they're looking for will either force them into buying your overpriced materials, or make them go out and farm them themselves. Now lets be honest here, what do you think that person would do? I find selling these in stacks of 20 to be the most profitable, and I've sold them for anywhere between 300g and 150g a stack, usually somewhere right around the middle. I hope this works as well for you as it does for me. Good luck, and I'll see you all next week!!
You can get in touch with me through my twitter @AlerickF
14 comments: on "Making Gold With Runecloth"
Anonymous said... October 11, 2011 at 9:48 AM
You seemed to have left out your second reason there, so I'll fill one in for you. :P
The other reason for high demand is that these materials are used in the best Classic enchants, which anyone who has heirlooms will want to pick up. There's also a market there for the lower-level twinks, as they can't get any better enchants than those.
I've found it profitable to make some scrolls of the better enchants as well as selling the raw materials. I picked up an Enchant Chest - Greater Stats for 5 gold from someone who didn't know its true value, and regularly sell the enchant for 300 gold. Other good ones include Crusader, Healing Power, and Spellpower, but there's many more Classic enchants that are worthwhile to sell.
Anonymous said... October 11, 2011 at 10:13 AM
I honestly didn't read this because the text color was so hard to make out.
Sorry lol
Greygamer said... October 11, 2011 at 10:50 AM
Good article, explains it depends on the local (realm) economy and why this is a money making opportunity.
Expanding on this, creating a spreadsheet with the formula you describe can make calculating the floor price very easy. Not only for runecloth as well.
Jon said... October 11, 2011 at 12:53 PM
The guild perk that is being referred to in this article, Bountiful Bags, is not available until level 24. The level 23 guild perk is Have Group Will Travel. Otherwise great article :)
Aleithia said... October 11, 2011 at 4:28 PM
@Anonymous2: I did some testing and found the font color was not displaying correctly in Firefox, but works in Chrome/Internet Explorer. We'll look into why that happens.
J.E. Douglas said... October 11, 2011 at 5:41 PM
Runecloth is one of those that tends to ebb and flow as the market demands.
Right now people are finishing off a lot of the alt leveling toons on many servers. So they are picking up stacks of runcloth to raise the prices. As anonymouse #1 also said, they are great for production of mats used for enchants.
Now the thing with your old world enchanting materials is that you need a healthy economy to produce the turnover. If you have a healthy twink PVP community on the server, then enchants like Fiery will sell well. If you have a continually leveling community then your leveling enchants (+attribute enchants) will sell well where PVP twink enchants won't sell.
The math is a good addition because you have to measure the amount per minute. There really is not a difference for an 85 mowing through Hellfire mobs vs mowing through mobs in Northrend. They go down almost as quickly (depending on the type of farmer you bring). So the server economy dictates which one will make more money for you. If Runecloth is going at 45g per stack and netherweave is going for 5g per stack. Then Runecloth gives you more farming per hour growth. If it's the reverse, then netherweave farming is for you.
Very good article, thanks for sharing
Alerick said... October 11, 2011 at 7:22 PM
Sorry about the color guys, not really sure what happened, as for the comment regarding heirloom enchants, I planned on doing a separate article about them, and probably will next week. Thanks again for the feedback guys and I'll see what I can do to fix the color
Alerick said... October 11, 2011 at 8:11 PM
Also, regarding Jon's comment, the Bountiful Bags perk is actually level 23. The Have Group Will Travel perk is available at guild level 21. Thanks for the feedback Jon. Also, the article's text color has now been changed. Sorry about that, not sure what happened.
Anonymous said... October 11, 2011 at 10:58 PM
You can level the 275-300 part of encahnting which is the hardest part of all imo with small brilliant shards alone which usually are plenty cheap of.
Granted mostly only those who really look into this know of it and those who know probably dont even buy your stuff from the AH anyway.
Jon said... October 11, 2011 at 11:46 PM
Whoops you're right, I was thinking of the Bartering perk @ 24. That is what I get for posting in the AM before making coffee. :(
Farming LBRS/UBRS at level 85 as a skinner/enchanter can definitely net you a small fortune. You'll get cloth, enchanting mats, and formulas too. Rugged leather is often expensive for the same reason as the dust/essence, so having both these professions together gives you a lot of income potential.
P.S. The colored box showed up just fine on Google Reader. Not sure what's up with Firefox but if you highlight it, it becomes readable!
Alerick said... October 12, 2011 at 12:28 PM
Great feedback guys, keep it up. Also, regarding Jon's second comment, good tip, if you have any other good ideas you'd like articles written about don't hesitate to email us here at JMTC, and we'll see what we can do!
Anonymous said... October 14, 2011 at 12:49 PM
This might be a really stupid question but...what is the *?*? The RC is the price of runecloth, ID is the price of illusion dust, LBS is the price of large brilliant shards, GEE is greater eternal essences, so what is *?* and why is ID the only one multipled by it?
Harold said... October 18, 2011 at 12:31 PM
I couldn't figure out what the *?* mark is either. I'm assuming it's an equal sign? I'm not sure. It's the only thing that makes sense to me...as the formula is missing one.
Welshmin said... January 1, 2012 at 1:14 AM
runecloth belts seem to be a better option due to higher amounts from disenchating (on average) and much lower mat costs
Post a Comment