Essences to Motes, pros and cons
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 13th 2007 at 2:30PM
We had an idea like this a while back, but now Sweet from Korgath has come up with an even better one. Make 10 Essences equal one Mote just the way that 10 Motes equal one Primal. Since 2.1, Essences (the random crafting widgets that used to drop in Azeroth) are dropping in Outland, and since most of the recipes that use them are pretty old by now, players don't have much to do with them. Way back, we'd suggested an Alchemy Transmute Essence-to-Mote recipe, but Sweet's idea is better-- why not just make them all the same thing?Drysc rains on the parade, however, by saying that because Essences drop so much back in old Azeroth, it would be necessary (in his view) to nerf their droprate there. And that in turn, would cause problems for lower level players who couldn't make it to Outland (Drysc assumes that lower level players are still farming Essences the way all 60s used to, but I might disagree with him there). Also, he says, it would increase the amount of Motes and Primals floating around, obviously, and Blizzard doesn't want those to be super easy to come by.
But surely there's some conversion rate they could hit on which would make Essences worth just a little more than worthless at level 70. If too many Essences drop in Azeroth, then make it 15, or 20, or whatever. Better than vendoring stacks of Essences picked up while Mote-farming just because no one will buy them on the AH.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Jul 13th 2007 2:44PM
Do we really need primal farmers to be richer? From what I've seen, you can make insane amounts of money already. If there was a way for essences to turn into motes, it's only going to hurt leveling players who use them for tradeskills. The best example I can think of is fiery enchant- it takes 2 essence of fire and it used to be 30-50g for the enchant. Now, essence of fire goes as low as 1g, so fiery enchants are easy to come by, which means more business (and skill-ups) for leveling enchanters.
Scalin Jul 13th 2007 2:45PM
Essences drop in Outlands? Nowai! In the process of farming waters and airs (only about 6 primals total, I hate farming), I've not had a single essence drop. I got one accidently in Silithus the other day (farming sandworms for cooking), but never from an Outlands essence. If they're dropping so much that people think they need an essence -> mote xmute, then they should just AH them and buy motes. As for the farming of essences, ya, people under level 60 still do it, albeit not as much as level 60's used to.
Scruffy Jul 13th 2007 2:46PM
Essences have that high of a drop rate? Bullplop I say. I've gotten WAAAAAAAAAY more motes of life and water WAAAAAAAAAY easier than any amounts of any type of Essences.
Scruffy Jul 13th 2007 2:51PM
@2
They do. I've gotten like 6-8 Living Essences from Zanga but in the course of that, I probably got enough Motes of Life to have 10+ Primal Lifes. Herbalism helps so I'm sitting on a stack of 26 or 28.
Oh, and I have seen like two, TWO, Essences of Air in the course of farming 3-4 Primal Airs.
Granted, you could go to Silithus and just massacre areas of elementals and get quite a few essences but 10 to a mote then 10 of THOSE to a primal... I just don't see it as anything game breaking. If they really wanted to limit it, make it a transmute with a two hour cooldown. Even without that, I'd never bother doing it.
Rich Jul 13th 2007 2:52PM
Its an easy enough fix... Motes drop in the Outlands and essences in Azeroth. Like it used to be. I must be unlucky because I end up with 3x as many essences than motes when farming motes. Its insane.
Between that and the constant farmers farming the motes, I've all but given up farming for motes.
Joyd Jul 13th 2007 3:03PM
The thing is, if the conversion rate -is- bad enough, then it -will- be better to just vendor them. Right now, essences vendor for 4 silver. If the conversion rate is 10 to 1, that means that it will be worth it to convert your essences to motes in most cases on most servers. If the conversion is 30 to one, then it's no longer worth it for essences of earth on my server, and borderline for living essences. People wouldn't be happy with a terrible conversion rate anyway. They sell reasonably on the AH if you don't get greedy; any exchange rate that makes it more profitable to convert them rather than AHing them would be very generous, since on my server they're worth between a quarter as much as a mote to almost as much as a mote.
The fact that they were added to loot tables of outland mobs in the first place suggests that some people still want and use them. I suppose there's room for level 50-55 crafted things before BC gear largely blows them out of the water.
Rich Jul 13th 2007 3:15PM
@6
probably for the twinks.
Bootsanator Jul 13th 2007 4:07PM
Essences of Fire were up to 3g a piece (at least) on Jaedenar in recent weeks. (Small Radiant Shards were up to 10g also...makes for quite an expensive fiery enchant). Either everybody's vendoring them, people suck at pricing, or they must not drop often enough to make this idea worth it to implement, IMO.
mantu Jul 13th 2007 6:31PM
It would be great if I could get something worthwhile from all the useless essences I created with daily transmutes in the "old days".
Now I am stuck with stacks of air essences in my bank, getting old and dusty.
And don't get me started about the new drop rates. I always get 4-5 essences when I farm for motes (still trying to save for the fast flying mount).
Let's do this thing!
Mantu
James Jul 13th 2007 6:32PM
It's important to remember, Essences were ADDED to the drops in Outlands, NOT replacing any mote drops.
But of course the tinfoil hat crew may feel differently...