Have you happened to look at Earthroot, Peacebloom, Silverleaf or Mageroyal lately?You probably will notice that there aren't many of them and that they are very expensive (this blog did too!). Besides the discussion I'd like to have about moonglow ink and enchanting vellums, this rise in price for low level herbs makes for an awesome opportunity for low level characters to make gold. Any low level herbalist can go farm for an hour and come back with over a 100 gold worth of herbs easy. A higher level character could probably break 200 gold worth of these herbs.
When I looked at my own server tuesday afternoon to see how prices were doing this is what I saw on average:
Earthroot : NONE.
Mageroyal : 5.5 gold each.
Peacebloom: 1.5 gold each.
Silverleaf : 15 silver each.
Of these only silverleaf had a decent amount on the ah (about 120). Mageroyal had 1 stack and peacebloom had about 50 of assorted stack sizes.
So why the sudden drop in supply and increase in demand for these herbs? Keep reading to find out silly...
Enchanting Vellums are crafted from moonglow ink which can be obtained by trading in ink of the sea (soon to be replaced by blackfallow ink in cataclysm). Since wotlk herbs have risen in price to 30+ gold per stack (think the top sellers like lichbloom, icethorn or adder's tongue) it is more economical to buy out low level herbs and get moonglow that way.
Of the four herbs I listed, all of them give you 2-4 alabaster pigments per mill (1-2 inks) except mageroyal has the chance of giving you dusky pigment instead. Therefore I would suggest milling peacebloom, silverleaf and/or earthroot to get your moonglow inks.
Once you have the ink, you can then craft enchanting vellum for two light parchments and one moonglow ink. So it will cost you 30 copper on top of the cost of the herbs for each enchanting vellum you create.
Enchanting vellum is selling extremely well at the moment so even if you aren't an enchanter you can make gold simply buying and milling herbs for the purpose of crafting these vellums. It doesn't look like cataclysm will have a replacement method for obtaining the enchanting vellums so expect this to be a gold making niche that remains in the game for quite some time.
14 comments: on "Herb Shortage - Enchanting Vellum"
Gertz said... November 8, 2010 at 9:57 AM
I knew I was on to something, admittedly I am not as familiar with Inscription as I should be...lesson learned!
It turns out that the bug only exists for Apprentice level skills, once you are able to train at skill level 50 for Journeyman level the bug no longer occurs.
I suspect that casual players, which far out weigh the hardcore audience, encounter the bug and don't research or do anything about it. Since they account for the biggest influx of low costs entry level materials not as many are showing up on the AH right now. They only play a few hours a week and the bug happens when they log out for the night.
BigBlueYoda said... November 8, 2010 at 9:59 AM
For the Herbing portion I definately see that as the way togo, doesn't take very long either, that's what I have been doing. But the enchanting Vellums, at least on my server, are going for pennies. I went from making tons of gold on those to making nothing. I've had to diverse quite a bit into other more lucrative markets, like ink selling for the low level inks, selling well, so are the pigments. Right now it seems ore is where it's at on my server, and of course the low level herbs. As it get's closer to Cataclysm I only see this getting more true as prices will rise. People are going to start holding those low level herbs back to put on the AH the night before Cata goes live, that goes for bags as well. Prepping for Glyphmas was just a preview for whats coming. As an added note what do you think will be the Glyph sellers that 1st week for the low levels that are being created. They only have 3 slots, what would be the prep for those three slots for each class? Now that, that would be a gold tip for sure.
Anonymous said... November 8, 2010 at 11:25 AM
According to El, Enchanting Vellum will be available from the phased Enchanting vendors in Twilight Highlands. Whether it was just a convenience for beta testers or not remains to be seen.
http://www.elsprofessions.com/inscription/cataclysm.html
Faid said... November 8, 2010 at 11:42 AM
Having power-leveled 1-450 a second Alchemist and a scribe last night I can be thankful that my server isn't seeing these horrendous herb prices! xD
Also, my captcha on this comment is hatir, so it has to be said: Hatirs gonna hate. :O
Cindia said... November 8, 2010 at 12:00 PM
Peacebloom and Silverleaf always go for low prices on my server so this is a great tip.
Anonymous said... November 8, 2010 at 2:42 PM
I always buy out cheap Mageroyal. Always. It pays back when one Children's Week rolls around and people need them for Delicious Chocolate Cake. That's when I dump them for outragous mark-ups. Gotta love the achievement chasers...
Breevok said... November 8, 2010 at 3:30 PM
*sigh* I hate poor research.
Mageroyal - gives Dusky pigment used for Midnight Ink. Just because Wowhead suggests otherwise (796 out of 161193) does not make it true.
And as for the price of Silverleaf, Peacebloom and Earthroot - on the 5 servers I keep an eye on only one has these herbs at above the market price. The rest are way below market price because you cant make glyphs with Moonglow.
Yes making vellums is good advice - but for me I am just buying the herbs which are currently at 10-20% of market price and saving myself the work of farming.
But bad advice on the mageroyal.
Anonymous said... November 8, 2010 at 3:57 PM
On my server it seems moonglow ink is worth MORE than Enchanting Vellum. by like 1.6-1.8 times. I dont know why is this happening
Hoshimori said... November 8, 2010 at 4:41 PM
Everything is finally making sense now. I remember never being able to sell Silverleaf for past, at most, 7 gold, but now it sells for as much as 20 gold. But I do agree with what someone else mentioned: bad tip buying Mageroyal. Sells usually for less than the lower level herbs and it's not 100% Moonglow like the others, so why invest in it?
Markco said... November 8, 2010 at 5:25 PM
Sorry to disappoint Breevok, I don't always pick up on wowhead mistakes. As with all my posts, there is usually a central message that I aim to get across, the rest is just details.
Anonymous said... November 8, 2010 at 6:32 PM
Moonglow ink *should* be worth somewhat more than the vellum. A single ink makes two vellums.
Geckomayhem said... November 8, 2010 at 7:14 PM
Wait, what?! Wow, what sort of realms are people playing on? This really surprised me. I've been buying a lot of Earthroot lately. I buy that and Peacebloom and Silverleaf because they are so cheap. I can easily get a stack of Earthroot for less than 2g, especially during the weekend. So far I have made about 200 vellums without even really trying. I'll grab some more lowbie herbs this weekend, because I want a couple of thousand vellums at least, going into Cataclysm.
Sometimes being on a high pop server does have its advantages. :) I can see herbs only dropping in price when 4.0.3a hits and a million people roll herbalists. Right now, all other non-Northrend herbs are horrendous prices (eg. 30-40g for a stack of Mageroyal, up to 80g for Bruiseweed), which is why I've been buying up cheap stacks of Northrend herbs (24g or less) to downrank through Jessica Sellers. ;)
@BigBlueYoda - just check wowpopular, throw together a list of the top glyphs for each spec and go glyph crazy. But you are right, that sure would be a good tip! ;)
Warcraft Econ said... November 8, 2010 at 10:49 PM
Nice job on the new blog layout design!
Anonymous said... November 11, 2010 at 10:53 AM
Also peeps do not forget to check the Fragrant Flowershop in Stormwind City to grab a few really cheap Herbs such as Mageroyal.
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