Know Your Gear... Know Your Gold

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:47 PM

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Well boys and girls we are knee deep into the last raids of Mists of Pandaria.  Many players are finishing up their tier sets or best in slot sets and working on Alts.   This means that gear levels become that much more important for the normal raids.

Why do they become important?   Because people will be judging your adequacy in being able to perform in raids by the ilvls of the gear.   Even players in full time ilvl 535 gear get sniffed at and told to go run looking for raid a few times.

The high end crafted gear is caught in the effect that happens end of expansions.  High end raiders will search for that piece of gear that they need to be the best geared for a run.  They manage that expectation with the balance of spending too much for an item.  Take for instance the Belt of the Night Sky.   This is crafted by the tailoring profession using Celestial Cloth x 21.   This means that unless you use the extra celestial cloth creation (which even now the cost of Accelerated Celestial Cloth is prohibitive) you can make one of these every 21 days.

We've talked previously about what your daily cooldown value is.  At the beginning of the expansion your daily cooldown for all of the professions were valuable.   Players were wanting the best gear crafted as fast as possible.  Now those cooldowns have become less valuable because your Pidgeon holed into crafting items for a select few.   This is where supply and demand backfires.

But there is something to remember.  Certain items that are on cooldown such as Jard's Peculiar Energy Source will continue to be valuable even after the MOD expansion is put to bed.   The Golem and two pets (Pierre and Rascal-Bot) will continue to be in demand even during the Warlords of Draenor expansion.

So keep this in mind as your determining your crafting costs and sales.  Determining whether you can sell that 496 weapon from Blacksmithing anymore or needing to 'upgrade' it to the higher demand weapon.  Your time is gold and gold is always part of your time.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

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WOW:  Warlords of Draenor
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All Your Sha Crystals Are Mine

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:57 PM

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Many times there is a argument within my head that can cause the brain to grind to a halt.   Usually this is wrapped around something that I have yet to understand with the market.

Sha Crystals have slowly become devalued as the Mists of Pandaria expansion matures.  From there start that a set of 10 for an enchant could cost thousands of gold,  to the much smaller amount that they cost now.

As I was looking through the Auction House I noticed that many of these valuable enchanting items were going for lower and lower prices.  Easily outstripping their value when processed by an enchanter.   So I decided to take a test run at one of the few basic premises that have brought gold into my pocket for many years.

I purchased all of the Sha Crystals with the low being 65g and the high being 85g.  Even at that price I could use them for enchants and come out ahead.  With the big three wrist enchants (Agi, Int, Str) going for a thousand gold a piece I could just drop them into making these and make a profit.  But my favorite strategy is to get the item to pay for itself.

After buy 30 of them (healthy investment) I listed up 10 on the AH for 150g a piece.  This paid for over half of the investment if I sold them this way.  If they didn't sell then I would just be out the AH fees and still process them into their enchants.

The next day I ended up selling three of them before being undercut so that netted me a quarter of my investment back.  If I had wanted to be more patient I could have worked half the batch of the Sha Crystals the same way and ended up just having the other half of the crystals be pure profit.  Ultimately I ended up multipling my investment by 4 (used a couple of them for personal enchants) and then went on my merry way.

But I was thinking of exactly why there was this complete imbalance to the enchanting system.  I have always tried to keep a 20% markup on my enchants.  This means to me that I won't list an enchant unless I can get 20% profit between the cost of the materials and the sale of the enchant.  So if it would cost me 200g to buy the items from the open market,  I would not make the enchant for anything less than 240g.  If the item goes for higher then that's just bonus gravy for the potatoes.

But in this case for lets say for the Enchant Bracer: Greater Agility it takes three Sha Crystals to make the enchant.  If you can purchase the crystals for 80g avg that sets the cost to manufacture at 240g.  By the 20% method it shouldn't sell for anything les than 288g.  On many servers this enchant goes for 1500g plus.  That is a huge markup on something that has little materials costs. 

So part of my brain wonders if this isn't just laziness for players.  Since LFR and Flex raids use a personal loot system instead of a need/greed you end up with less Sha Crystals being produced that way.  Regular and Heroic runs still can allot items to be sharded.  But the majority of raid crews just drop those into their guild bank or use for personal crafting.  This leaves the real access to Sha Crystals to be the DEing of Epic gear from Timeless Isle.

But with all those limiting factors and the shortage of areas to get crystals.  The mental game is back to square one.  Why are these so cheap still?   The one factor you have to add is the lemming effect.  Too many Auction house players will list whatever they can get out of an item.  Profit now instead of profiting later.  This especially happens with using semi automatic listers such as TSM or Auction Watcher.  Unless your paying strict attention and know a relative value for an item,  it becomes easier to just click and forget.

Timing is also involved when it comes to obtaining good market profit.  Tuesday is a major raid day on most servers because of the reset.  Everyone can get new loot and have to fill that new loot with enchants and gems.  So listing your best items at their most expensive price makes perfect sense.  More bang for the buck.  But Sunday and Monday can be attested by anyone who has been stuck in a bad LFR will tell you that Monday will probably be a slower day.  Less gear one and less updates to the gear.  That's when looking for the undercut deals to purchase becomes the better play.

These are normal and basic tenants to being a good gold goblin.  Look for strengths and weaknesses in markets and capitalize on them.  And never ever be the lazy player who just clicks and forgets.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

Let The WOD Speculation Begin
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Monday Morning Raiding Quarterback
WOW:  Warlords of Draenor
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Glyph Me Once Shame On You
Days Of The Dead
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The Blanket Method
Lost All Hallows Day
You Never Know

Chain Flipping

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 2:04 PM

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Okay kids.  First a story then the background and reasoning behind the story.

This weekend there was a call on trade chat for some fuel iron either in a bar or in ore form.  Usually I will message the person to see exactly how much they are looking for.  If it is one or two bars then i will end up just dropping them on the Auction House for the going price and tell them they are there.   Generally i don't try to gut the person but I have a good off hand knowledge of the value of items.

This time I decided to talk with them for a bit.   They were looking to level up their Blacksmithing and so I told them exactly how much I had left (91 bars and 80 ore).   They made me an offer that was reasonable then they gave me an option.  Take the gold or would I trade for two Living Steel Bars.  Now this wasn't going to become lets make a deal and I wasn't in a fancy costume.   But I did know the general value of Living Steel and it's listing price on the Auction House.  I expanded my mental notes and remembered that Living Steel Belt Buckles were going for considerably higher.   So I had multiple options.  I could take the gold.  I could take the trade for the Living Steel bars and also make the Living Steel Belt Buckles for a profit.   I could even take the gold,  Buy the Living Steel bars and then make the Belt Buckles (or any comparable item for profit).

The idea is that from one trade instead of just taking gold I opened up multiple options to make even more gold from one trade.  This to me is the basic idea behind chain flipping.  You are taking one item instead of straight gold and building more profit into the item.   Ultimately you can squeeze 2 to 3 times the amount of gold from the trade than if you just take the gold itself.

The big push for this is a knowledge of the market.   Fel Iron ore and bars are not in demand other than leveling or the occasional transmog item.  So their value is purely based on their rarity.  If there are 15 stacks on the AH then your stacks of Fel Iron are only worth that.  But if there is none on the AH then this is where your negotiation ability comes into play.

Also with this you can get a decent idea of approximately what the person is going to use the items in trade for.  If they are buying only ore,  then it could be either leveling Jewelcrafting,  Blacksmithing or Engineering. If they are asking only for bars,  then you can limit this get a good guess that they are using it to level their Blacksmithing or Engineering.  It also gives you the level that they probably are in that field.  You could work out a trade that is more useful and flexible than just asking for gold for your items.  This doesn't take into effect someone wanting a specific item made or are making it for themselves.  But your educated guess can net you a tidy profit over and above the straight market value.

So keep this in mind the next time you do a trade.   What do they want it for?  What are your needs in that field.  Open up the negotiations for the possibility of getting a trade.  You have something they want and they easily could have something that you might want.   Expanding your sales and production opportunities puts you that much higher in the gold making food chain.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

Taste of Streaming Raids and Kites
Monday Morning Raiding Quarterback
WOW:  Warlords of Draenor
Tomorrow Is Blizzcon
Glyph Me Once Shame On You
Days Of The Dead
 The Times Ten Challenge
The Blanket Method
Lost All Hallows Day
You Never Know

Days of the Dead

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 10:45 AM

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This weekend is the Day(s) of the Dead Event.  Normally this is another one of those cute when you do it once type of events that Warcraft has.

But 2013 introduced a new wrinkle.  The Macabre Marionette originally was an item that you could use to bring a little skeleton to dance a jig with.  Thanks to the powers that be this year it has become a permanent battle pet.

Also the nice thing about this pet is that everyone can get it as long as you can have the cooking skill of level one.  With 11 slots you have 11 attempts to obtain this pet (meaning 11 chances to sell them later on in the year).

The key is to know where your home graveyards are.  All of the races have a specific home graveyard.  You unfortunately can't just show up to another graveyard to finish off the event.  Here is a list  and their graveyards.  It will be the one closest to where you started.  

(info from Wowwiki.com)

Alliance:

• Ironforge - Graveyard can be found to the south (southeast really) of the entrance up a small hill. coords 61,37
• Stormwind - Graveyard can be found in Stormwind beside Stormwind Lake, behind the Cathedral.
• Darnassus - Graveyard located directly behind the Guild Master house in Darnassus. cords 69,40.
• Exodar - Graveyard is just south of Azure Watch.

Horde:

• Silvermoon City - Going from Silvermoon go west past The Dead Scar before you get to Falcon Square.
• Thunder Bluff - Graveyard can be found right next to the north lift of the Middle Rise
• Orgrimmar - Can be found left of the road heading south right past the boar farm
• Undercity - Graveyard is located inside the courtyard of the city right across from the chamber for the Orb of Translocation

 If your having difficulties finding your home graveyard the graveyards in Dalaran and Shattrath are neutral and in some cases easier to find.

• Dalaran - Graveyard can be found in next to Violet Citadel in the grass next to the Underbelly entrance.
• Shattrath - Graveyard is just outside the East Gate of the city. 

To finish the quest you need to purchase some milk and some simple flour.  There is a vendor in the graveyard area that is selling the flowers (Orange Marigolds) to see the quest keeper.  This vendor also sells the simple bread recipe.  The bread itself cannot be sent over the mail (plus the cost of mailing it would be more expensive than just buying the items separately).

Learn the recipe if needed,  make the bread and then deliver the bread and collect your new pet.  Unless you really need gold I would suggest holding onto these for a month or so.  This being a three day event and not as popular as others there is a good chance that supplies of the pet on many servers will be dwindling quickly.

You can only have learned three of the pets.  But putting them into cages and then putting them away into one of your banks will let you be able to sell them later.  Don't forget all of the other toons you have on other servers.  They can grab the simple quest line and put these little gold nuggets away from later sales.

For those that like to get a little silly.  I shall be performing with little bones later on today with my Arcanite Reaper for tips.  Cleveland Rocks!!!!

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

 The Times Ten Challenge
The Blanket Method
Lost All Hallows Day
You Never Know
New Toy For Raiding Boys (And Girls)
Never To Early To Reset
My Timeless Coin Heart Is Full
Nobody Knows the Golems I Have Sold
Gold Mercenary
Surviving the Raid
Darkmoon Faire Dead?
Golden Days
Tip For Timeless Isle
Be Prepared
Poor Poor Spirits of Harmony
Not Enough Loot On My Hands
10 Rules To Price My Golem.