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
