Time Is Money: Profit off the Titansteel cooldown removal
by Basil Berntsen 
Feb 25th 2010 at 9:00AM
As we all read, miners will be able to smelt Titansteel after patch 3.3.3 with no cooldown. What will this mean for you, and how can you make money from this change? Let's start by quickly evaluating the Titansteel production chain.
- Saronite Ore is farmed by miners
- Saronite Bars are smelted by miners
- Titanium Bars are transmuted by alchemists
- Titansteel Bars are smelted with an Eternal Fire, Earth, and Shadow
Where in this do we see people mining Titanium Veins and smelting the Titanium Ore? We don't. Since the cooldown was removed from the alchemist's transmute titanium ability, the ore is no longer worth smelting. Saronite is always cheaper.
Titansteel Ripple
Right now, the supply of Titansteel has an artificial limit-- miners can only make one every day. Well, technically every 20 hours, but who's counting. Once this restriction is lifted, we can expect to see a few changes to the supply and demand of all the mats. We can count on people mass-producing Titansteel Bars as soon as they're able to, which means that miners will be buying Titanium Bars in bulk, which will also increase the demand on Saronite.
This increase in supply of Titansteel will lower its price, and that will mean people will buy more of it. If someone was holding off on an expensive BoE, this reduction might put it into their price range. That means that the demand for other items that go into BoE gear will increase. I'm predicting that Primordial Saronite, at the least, will see a spike in demand for a couple of days after the patch, and I bought 9 of them just in case I'm right. For a full list of items that might see a spike in demand, check the "reagent for" tab in Wowhead for Titansteel Bars.
Eternals and Frozen Orbs
Something else to consider with the patch is the demand for eternals we'll be seeing. Right now, Frozen Orbs are going for triple what they did before the patch announcements, and while these can be turned into Eternal Fires, they might be worth more as Frost Lotus, depending on when the recent increase in supply starts having an effect on prices. I have seen people bragging about the massive quantity of these Frozen Orbs they've managed to stockpile, but in the long run, the fact that they're dropped every time someone runs a random heroic is probably more significant.
Too long, didn't read
Long story short, my personal plan for profiting off this change in patch 3.3.3 is to:
- Buy Saronite
- Transmute it all
- Sell as much Titanium as I can to speculators before the patch
- Sell as much Titanium as I can to miners after the patch
- Buy Primordial Saronite now for resale the day of the patch
Being an auctioneer is like being able to print money. Or gold, as it were. Wait, that doesn't make sense... you can print on gold, but you can't print gold. That would be closer to transmutation? I can transmute titanium, but that's only worth it if the price of saronite is low enough to justify the time spent making it. I need some sort of analogy here. Whatever, I'll figure it out later. Making gold? Periodically, Time Is Money will give you short tips on how to make money. Filed under: Time Is Money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Hal Feb 25th 2010 9:04AM
Actually, since people will have less incentive to mine/farm titanium with this change, I wonder if titanium ore might go up in price. JCs will still need it for prospecting and titanium dust.
cedric.roland Feb 25th 2010 9:20AM
I don't think we'll see that happening: as a JW I DESPISE anyone prospecting titanium - not only it's worth a lot, but the items it provides are easy to replace: epic gems are not especially rare, and titanium powder is only worth a token for the recipes. By now, most JW will have nearly all the recipes they could want.
The drop in TItanium's worth will probably be limited by the presence of the titanium ore -> gem potential, but I don't see it act as a huge buffer - most people use titanium ore for their titansteel.
Eyhk Feb 25th 2010 10:05AM
You sure cedric?
Last I checked, the cost of titanium ore needed to make titanium bars was MUCH higher than simply transmuting saronite, even if you have to tip an alchemist. It seems that the ONLY reason for titanium ore now is for JC prospecting.
Beatphreek Feb 25th 2010 10:13AM
Yeah on my server (Stonemaul) JC's are constanlty offering to prospect ore and pay people for the dust they get... Just because Cedric has all the recipes he wants doesn't mean everyone does. I'd never smelt titanium at this point in the game. It's much more valuable to prospect it and sell the dusts to up and coming Jewel Crafters.
Also Titanium ore won't dry up because people are mining saronite instead... that's silly. Titanium is a rare spawn for Saronite nodes. Nobody would pass up mining a titanium node because it isn't saronite. So, as long as folks are out farming saronite, there will be Titanium.
Kurick Feb 25th 2010 10:39AM
As a miner ive been doing this a long time tbh - every since the transmute came off the cd.
@cedric
Despise away, just be aware i know of NOT ONE SINGLE miner that actually smelts their Titanium ore now (barring yourself). And thats out of 13 miners i know personally on my server. Every single one of them gets a JC to prospect it. Quite often paying the JC's a tip of the titanium powder that drops. The miner and JC both win (and tbh if i pay in powder then the JC cuts any gems i want at the same time for free).
Korenn Feb 25th 2010 10:42AM
While I like the titanium dust idea from prospecting titanium ore, the implementation is retarded.
10 dust means gathering 50 ore. Actually more like 65, as it doesn't even have a 100% drop rate. Gathering-wise, that takes HOURS. a much more efficient way of gathering extra tokens is *anything else* and then just buying damaged necklaces from the AH. Which means the concept is broken.
To fix it, the droprate should be 100%, and you should only need 3 or 4 of them for an extra token.
dawnseven Feb 25th 2010 11:49AM
Sorry Cedric, I'm with the others. I haven't smelted titanium ore in quite some time, and I don't know anyone who does.
These are the AVG auction house prices according to Zam. (Your mileage may vary obviously.)
8 Saronite Bars (needed transmute to 1 titanium bar) = 17g 60s
1 Titanium Bar = 30g
2 Titanium Ore (needed to smelt 1 titanium bar) = 35g
PodPeople Feb 25th 2010 4:30PM
I have to agree with Korenn, the prospecting of titanium is retarded. it's infuriating to prospect titanium and get only 1 green quality gem, over and over. I can, and have, gotten far better stuff from prospecting colbalt. They need to change it so the only things you can get are epic and rare gems, and either 100% chance of some titanium powder or change the cost of tokens for powder to 1/5. the 1/10 exchange is ridiculously bad eith it not being a 100% drop chance.
Luiz Antonio Feb 25th 2010 9:05AM
These are really good tips and foreseeing.
Maybe I'll start mining again, after a long time
GrumblyStuff Feb 25th 2010 9:23AM
Hm. I wonder if people will stop skipping plain ol' saronite nodes now. I didn't mind that. More for me even if it's 16 ore to make a bar of titanium.
Nicholas Tam Feb 25th 2010 9:53AM
As a general rule of thumb, mining bots on hacked accounts don't skip nodes. On medium/high-population realms, they're responsible for a good chunk of the ore.
Dragoest Feb 25th 2010 11:33AM
so for endless titansteel bars you just need a miner an alchemist and (48 saronite+ Eternal Earth, Shadow, Fire.) X how ever many you want.
if you farm the ore your self you'll have stacks of earth and shadow the only thing you'll likely have holding you back is Eternal Fire... you'll get lucky getting a few motes from a random titan node but you'll have to farm or use your orbs for the fire.. andyou can only get some many orbs so fast..
the way i see it.. Eternal Fire is the only bottle on this flow.
lemur Feb 25th 2010 2:59PM
The Eternal Fire is when you get an engineer to extract crystalized fire from clouds
SamLowry Feb 25th 2010 5:06PM
...or kill fire elementals in WG.
Forget I said that.
DrHogie Feb 25th 2010 9:24AM
Dammit you're revealing my saronite->titanium profit chain!
Now I'll never get my vendor mammoth!
Andrew R. Feb 25th 2010 9:41AM
Sarcasm or not I called the waaaaambulance for you. It should be arriving shortly.
I doubt you are the only one who had this plan. Anyone who is playing on the PTR or reads patch notes already has a game plan in place. I myself like this plan that Basil has laid out.
Rhabella Feb 25th 2010 10:22AM
You, kind sir, and I mean this in the nicest possible way are a moron. No one said they were the only ones doing it, but that is if little consequence.
Addons like auctioneer work for probably hundreds of thousands of players across all realms because they are willing to put in the time to actually try and manipulate the markets. This is really no different, and even if hundreds of players on each faction are playing with the markets right now, they have a great opportunity to capitalize.
Do they have the opportunity to be humbled? Of course they do, look what the argent dailies did to the price of runecloth the minute it stopped being the easiest way to rep up with the race factions.
Overall, a good post for those who are just first learning about WoW markets, and last I checked, that was the intent of this column.
Al stephens Feb 25th 2010 10:17AM
Ok, I am slow here. Are we saying that good old fashioned miners won't be able to mine titanium and then smelt it and then create titansteel any more? I never have had anyone transmuting it.
Tim Feb 25th 2010 10:53AM
Nope, just the cooldown to create titansteel is being removed. So now you can create as many as you can in a day. This will change the supply and demand structure of the wow titanium market. This is what the article is addressing.
Angrycelt Feb 25th 2010 11:00AM
Al, short version. You can continue mining titanium and smelting titansteel. That is unchanged.
What they're talking about is if you have a miner and an alchemist working together, you can make titansteel much easier by mining a ton of (much cheaper and much more plentiful) saronite ore, smelting it into saronite bars, then handing 8 of those bars to an alchemist who will transmute them into 1 titanium bar. Currently there is no limit to how many saronite can be transmuted into titanium per day, and with the new patch, you will be able to smelt titansteel with no more cooldown.
This article was all about how to make money on the upcoming changes. Which of course, everyone's already read, so it's actually too late.