Mount Mount Mount!

My goldmaking life is complete. I now have one of the Spectral Tiger mounts :D Of course, I still kinda want the other one, and the other TCG mounts, and the rest of the TCG pets... but the reason I started making gold in WoW was for the jewelcrafting mounts... and once I discovered that those were possible, I set my sights on the Spectral Tiger :) And finally, here it is :)

Making gold with JC levelling gems

Levelling gems is not a fast goldmaking strategy. I don't claim to be the best at it. However, it doesn't take a lot of capital to get started, it doesn't take a max-level jewelcrafter, and it's *steady* once you've got some inventory.  Since starting to use TSM, it's my highest overall income source (too bad I didn't start using TSM when most of my gold was coming from leatherworking, I'd like to see how they stack up against each other).  I am not a power gold maker, I don't make gold *fast*, but I'm not badly off either (currently at about 650k on my main server, it'd be higher if I hadn't bought two fancy yaks (for me and my BF), some TCG pets, a couple mounts off BMAH... :P)

I first started on Elune-EU Alliance (medium FR realm), using an idea from Raenboe's short-lived blog.  When I moved to Suramar (medium-low FR realm), I started it up, and found it worked just as well there.  This is my main server. Suramar was recently connected to another server (less than 2 weeks ago) prices seem to be holding and sales seem to be up - I'll reevaluate that in a couple weeks.  I let the Elune market go when I transferred my JC to Suramar.  Around the time 5.4 dropped, I started on Dalaran Horde (also medium FR realm - higher pop than Elune, but ally > horde) with a level 40-something character I already had there (I gave her JC at that point), because I wanted a Depleted Kyprium Rocket, and my BF has an engineer on that realm that could make it but not enough gold.  The 40-something character started out at about 1k gold and a couple battle ptes; both BF and I now have the rocket (supplemented slightly by those battle pet sales and flipping herbs), that character is now 54 (yay DMF and holidays) and I'm staying in that market for battlepet buying (prices there tend to be lower than on Suramar).  About a week ago, I dusted off my bank alt on Elune, and have started resetting prices there - someone's selling TCG pets for relatively cheap, if only I can get the gold before they sell off! :P

I'm not very scientific about how I set my gem prices; I started out using Auctionator historical data, and set my starting prices at "higher than that" (Auctionator saves lowest price seen). I now have a pretty good feel for what Suramar's market will take; Dalaran is pretty similar (with a few gems that sell much higher or much lower) and I'm starting Elune at my Suramar prices.  I sell in stacks of 5, as Raenboe suggested, and it seems to work well.  Every couple of months, I go through my sales data, and bump gems up or down between pricing groups as needed. Every 3-4 months, I try to use Wowprospector to evaluate my low-threshold prices and ore buy prices and make sure that I'm still profitable, but a lot of my inventory also comes from buying out cheap auctions.  I buy out auctions under about 50% of my usual sales price; this varies by gem (slow sellers or gems I've got too much stock on I will only buy the ridiculously underpriced, and some gems I'll buy as many as I can get because I know I'll be able to sell for more eventually).

One thing I have learned - you CANNOT use Wowuction or realm/region average prices to set your gem prices except as a backup measure to keep your TSM operations happy.  The prices people will pay is a lot higher than the region averages; unless you have someone like me who's taken over the levelling gems market, the prices are set by random people selling stuff they've picked up, so the prices are low.  On Suramar and Dalaran, my TSM auctioning operations are set to a percentage of my avgsell and the realm market value with a region market value thrown in as a backup just in case, but my prices are pretty much always higher (sometimes significantly higher) than the region prices. On Elune, where I've just started back up, I'm currently using Auctionator to place all my auctions mostly by hand; hopefully in a couple weeks I'll be able to use TSM to automate the process.

Every ore has some gems that sell well for higher prices, some gems that sell well at medium prices, and some gems that don't seem to sell well no matter how low you go (so I aim at medium prices since that doesn't seem to slow the sales down any). Those last gems I also occasionally vendor or send back to the JC for crafting and then to my enchanter for disenchanting when my stock gets too much for me to handle (probably not very gold-efficient, but at that point, I want the things *gone*).  Standard disclaimer: you have to find the prices that work for you on your server.

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Specifics. I will put my Suramar average sales price (rounded) in after each gem, and only mention the gem in the lowest level ore it can be prospected out of. I look at this prospecting chart a lot; someday I need to be unlazy and figure out how to get Excel to do what Wowprospector does with less hassle. On Dalaran, for the most part, gems sell within 1 price bracket (up or down) of my Suramar prices with a couple of outliers that I'm too lazy to go look up. I have TSM groups set up in roughly 5-g brackets that use 120% avgsell as part of the operation forumla on the theory that over time, this will automatically creep my prices up without me having to do much about it.

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Copper:  Tigerseye (2-4g (though my highest sale was apparently 10g)) doesn't sell as well as Malachite (3-5g).  Shadowgem (17g) sells very well. I aggressively buy out Malachite and Shadowgem.

Tin: Lesser Moonstone (2-4g) doesn't sell as fast as you can prospect it (i.e., sells well, but if you're getting most of your inventory from prospecting, you'll have too much). Aquamarine (17g) sells for reasonable prices, but not fast. Moss Agate (35g) is not possible to have too much inventory (hmmm should raise that price). Jade (40g) and Citrine (24g) sell better than Aquamarine in general. It's really easy to get too much inventory of Aquamarine and Citrine (see note below).

Iron: Star Ruby (42g) is your friend, it's one of my best sellers (with Shadowgem). I don't buy much Iron though; I prefer Tin and Thorium (but Mithril tends to be a lot cheaper than Thorium, so I end up with too much Aquamarine and Citrine, and I swear the Blue Sapphire prospect rate is higher than what's in the chart).

Mithril: Azerothian Diamond (38g) sells very well, but not quite as well as Star Ruby.  When you can sell Blue Sapphire (24g), it goes for a decent price, but it's hard to sell a lot of it (it's only used in 2 recipes, and I surmise they're not good levelling recipes); I always have too much stock and I've pretty much quit buying out low priced auctions. It doesn't seem to sell faster if I drop the price. Large Opal (30g) and Huge Emerald (34g) sell ok.

Thorium:   Blood Garnet (17g), Flame Spessarite (13g), Deep Peridot (28g), Azure Moonstone (19g), Shadow Draenite (25g).  Golden Draenite (78g, highest sale 95g) is used for magic carpets... price that baby high (and consider selling in stacks of 4, which is what the carpet recipe wants).

Fel Iron: I mostly vendor the rare quality gems. I try them out again occasionally to see, but they don't seem to sell very fast, or for enough more than their vendor price to make it worth it.  This is true for all rare quality gems except (obviously) Pandaria ones and Monarch Topaz (Cobalt, Saronite, Titanium). If I'm feeling industrious, I cut the gems first for the slightly higher vendor price.

Adamantite:  Adamantite Powder (63g) sells like hotcakes in stacks of 5. I should probably try an experiment where I sell in stacks of 4 (which is what Mercurial Adamantite needs).

Cobalt Ore: None of the gems is very special, they sell reasonably well.  Bloodstone (13g), Huge Citrine (13g), Sun Crystal (18g), Dark Jade (9g), Chalcedony (14g), Shadow Crystal (7g).  Monarch Topaz is used in the other flying carpet recipe, also in 4. I only just figured this out a couple weeks ago; I swear I sold some in the same price range as Golden Draenite, but I can't find the record in my TSM.

Titanium: Titanium Powder (45g) seems to sell reasonably well, but I don't buy enough titanium to be sure.  Epic quality gems I treat like rares.

Obsidum Ore: For some reason Nightstone (28g) seems to always be in short supply. Carnelian (8g), Jasper (23g), Hessionite (14g), Zephyrite (12g), Alicite (15g)

Pyrite: Volatile Earth happens too.  I don't sell a lot of it because I don't buy a lot of pyrite.

Misc: Black Diamond can be used to level JC, among other things; sells for around 10-12g.
The various pearls will mostly sell for 5-10g, some a bit higher.
Arcane Crystal (12g) I think probably sells for higher than I think it does, but I don't have it in stock very often. I'm not actually sure it's JC mat... but it's in with my JC groups so good enough for me.

fly fast, little bear!

Oursie hit 80 yesterday, and I promptly bought her fastest flying.  I think maybe I should do so for Infi as well...

Did the last half level or so digging up archeology sites.  Might do some more of that :)

Before buying the fastest flying, was in the 225k range... not so far from the yak now!

yay knitten raided... sort of

So a couple weeks ago, I decided I was raiding too much.  As we acquired more guild members, it became possible to have two new tags per week on ToT - and I was raiding both.  Too much, I was raiding 5 nights a week.  I actually fell asleep prior to a raid, and G ended up going instead and let me sleep.  Which is when I decided I didn't want to raid more than two nights in a row.

That part worked.  Unfortunately, since we have proportionately fewer healers than we do DPS, Alter gets to raid a lot as a healer.   Which is much less fun than DPS with either of them, and Knitten hasn't raided in 2 weeks.  I kind of whined at G (feeling frustrated about not playing the character who is theoretically my main), and he worked really hard to get the Friday alt-gear raid going - so we went to Terrace :)  Much fun, even if we had a couple of pugs, Knitten got ranked in WoL for Protectors kills (#88 BM hunter, without flask and without panda banquets woot), and while we didn't get to Sha (the other tank had never done the raid normal, but seemed to pick things up pretty well; we had some healer dispel dysfunction on the first boss especially, Mar had to switch to his main and heal (hahaha) instead of DPS on his shaman, etc), and I didn't get a Real Taoren of Lei Shi, it was still a lot of fun - I actually rather like that raid.

G also got Phara to come - he who made a forum post a week or two earlier basically saying he didn't feel like he was a good enough player to raid any more so therefore he might just quit the guild cos he's not good enough and therefore nobody likes him (not true)... but part of his problem is lack of gear.  I think G managed to talk him into signing up for the new tags ToT as well, which would be pretty awesome.

Infi got a nifty 516 hat in her scenahero box today.  She also finished her Sigils quest... will go kill Sha in LFR next week with G's hunter.  Starting to get gear for a tank spec so I can learn to tank dungeons with her - faster queue times :P  Slowly making progress on K2tog's valor points.  Alter's a couple of Secrets shy of her fancy hat shiny, and Knitten got herself a couple Runestones (need to go back and kill one  boss I missed).  Oursie is up to level 76 now, and needs to do some herb farming to get her alchemy up to speed.

Knitten's been selling boatloads of 450 and 458 armor, and about as much 496 armor as I have Harmonies for.  Going to stop with the agi leather and mail gloves - Coreff's selling those - but that's still 6 patterns I can keep working on.  Alter's slowly taking over the 476s.  Infi and Mata's prospecting is making a pretty good amount of gold as well.  Got myself a mammoth yesterday (Justice Point commendationed Knitten's way to Kirin Tor exalted for the discount :P).  Next goal:  308k so that when I buy the Yak (108k with guild discount),  I'll still have 200k :)  I think it's coming faster than I expect.

moved

There was a character services sale on this week, so Knitutog and Infiknit made the move to Suramar to join the rest of the knitters.  Poor Gemi and Stitch and Pan and Machi.  No more 90s to support them.  OTOH, the idea is to play k2tog and Infi a bit more - make some progress on their legendary questline, some more gear, etc.  Infi did the Northern Barrens quests and Shou gave her the latent kor'kron hat, so she has a shiny new hat now \o/

Alter's done not too bad in the gear department.  Successfully healed Durumu and Primordius; we had some good tries on Dark Animus last night.

Oursie's up to 71 - almost 72 - now.  Got 4 out 8 pieces of the Nordrassil set this week when Wolfi and Ju rushed us through Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine (and Kara).  Yay :)

Almost back to the 200k mark after buying the Haunting Spirits to make Alter's fancy new hat and boots (I bought them between 7-8k each, they're down to around 6k now... heh).  Infi's prospecting is useful, but still a lot of it is from the leatherworking market.  Need to keep farming those harmonies... and I may consider planting enchanting materials on one of the farms cos while I don't have a big problem keeping ethereal shards and sha crystals in stock, the spirit dusts and mysterious essences are a bit more of a problem.

Read about a nerf to hunter Stampede - we'll see how that works out (make all pets called by Stampede do auto-attacks only - no special abilities.  Gah. Stupid PvP nerfs).

Megaera down!

This afternoon, was reserves on both characters, so wasn't too stressed about raid.  Got tagged Knitten a bit before raid, so had to grab some gems to add to her new belt (the SPA rep belt that I got yesterday).  This boss is so much less stressful as DPS than heals XD.  Shou did a bit more heal, Chiantos about the same, and Bellze about what Alter did the other night - but Gichin tanked instead of Arglen, which means he was throwing heals out too, and I think that's what got us through the kill.  Did the G-R-G-R-G-R-G strat that we spent most of our time on the other night.

Wiped a bunch on Ji-Kun, I was on nests (specced SV, with Lynx Rush but really debating that choice given that it's only available every 2-3 nests), learned a bit how the feathers work, how to time the nest moves, etc... best try was around 8 or 9 nests and boss around 45%.  We didn't end up trying too hard to pick up the buffs from catching stuff in the air, but we may have to work on that more in the future.

Spent a fair bit of time yesterday with G and WoL trying to figure out what Alter could have done better to make Megaera more successful.  Shaman are not in the top ranks of healers-for-Megaera.  Looked at the top few shamans on Meg - turns out they're all on a crit build - so spent some time today reforging and regemming to try that vs a mastery build.  We'll see how this plays out - Meg LFR went fine - didn't try to preserve mana specifically, and still had mana left at the end of the fight - but LFR is a faster kill and less raid damage so... hard to say.  Not really well-critted though; most of my gear has a chunk of mastery on it (most of which got reforged to crit).  Will go through the bank to see if any of the in-reserve gear might have better itemization for a crit build, but I don't think so (did look at it a little today).

Yarnie made almost 10k in sales this morning, and Knit around 3-4k... which is nice cos Bebel upped his skinning today and I bought all his MoP leather (he may farm it for me :D), and Alter bought another Eye for her Kri'tak (combo of Kri'tak + Orb = more crit and more intel and I think more spirit than the Ji-Kun staff I was using on the heal spec).  Still debating the Jade Spirit... but probably not on the RF version of Kri'tak.  Maybe on Jin'ya for the DPS spec, esp since upgrades are coming soon...