Cooldown removed on Icy Prism
by Basil Berntsen 
May 5th 2011 at 4:30PM
The main way currently to get Wrath gems is to prospect Wrath ores, usually Saronite. Prospecting a stack will yield an average of about one blue-quality gem, and while other ores may look more attractive, I've had trouble finding them in volume. Now that the cooldown has been removed, any jewelcrafter can make an Icy Prism with nothing more than a Frozen Orb and a couple of cheap Wrath green gems. Each prism will yield a couple of blue-quality gems, rarely a Dragon's Eye, and even more rarely, an epic gem.
The Dragon's Eyes don't look like they'll be usable for much, but considering the price of Frozen Orbs, the blue and epic gems certainly look like they're worth making the prisms for. One thing to note: The prisms are unique, so you need to open one before you can make another. If, like me, you had stockpiled almost a thousand Frozen Orbs in Wrath just in case they ever became worth anything, this means a lot of clicking.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Necromann May 5th 2011 4:48PM
I cashed them in for 5g each the night before cata came out.
Samuel May 5th 2011 4:58PM
They were worth more if you cut them. I remember cutting hundreds of these on one of my dps while waiting in queues, from all the useless rares I managed to stockpile by doing icy prisms on my three jc's.
Pyromelter May 5th 2011 4:58PM
So basil, would you basically just cut the rare quality gems and vendor them? Same with the epic gems and dragon's eyes?
Assuming 3 rare quality gems from each prism, that would be a guaranteed 13.5g vendor value for each prism.
Cut Dragon's Eye's vendor for 1g12s50c.
Cut epic wrath gems vendor for 5g.
Looking at the undermine journal, i see scarlet rubies selling for 25g as the Horde Mean right now. Are people really buying scarlet rubies for that much? Looking it over, the hybrid rare wrath uncut gems are barely going for over vendor value, which is what I would think all of them would go for at this point. Heck, even sky sapphire's show as 13g for US Horde Mean.
At the end of wrath I remember buying a crap-ton of forest emeralds and monarch topazes, cutting them and vendoring them. Wasn't a great moneymaker but it was steady and easy.
I guess I'm just wondering if you are planning on vendoring all those old gems, or whether they would be actually re-sellable on the AH for some unknown population that would still use them.
daan.leijen May 5th 2011 5:14PM
Well, one use of them is for outland/northrend gear, as you can't use Cataclysm gems for those.
PonTelon May 5th 2011 5:20PM
Like he said, they are the best gems for pre-Cata gear. Of course, not a lot of gear people use outside of a small spurt at 60 have a lot of gem slots. So not a big market, but a tiny niche for 1-2 sellers per server.
xiani May 5th 2011 5:21PM
Scarlet rubies are an amazing seller - I can shift the cut ones (+16 agi/str/int) for 50g+, and they almost always sell.
The reason for this is lvl 60+ pants - here's an example:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=24046
There's something similar for all classes from the early BC Hellfire dungeons with 3 gem slots. 3 wrath-level main stat gems in there (you can't use cata gems in gear less than iLvl 285) makes them extremely OP, up to and well into wrath content.
Add to that the fact there's no heirloom pants yet, and these are the choice of the well-funded levelling alt!
Technically the epics (+20 stats) would be better, but they are in very short supply, and no-one blows their alchemy cooldown making those any more.
Basil Berntsen May 5th 2011 5:24PM
This is only worth it if you cut and sell wrath gems. Remember, though, that they are the best (non epic) gem you can socket in pre-cata gear.
Noyou May 5th 2011 5:26PM
I would think they would always hold more value to crafters leveling up their skills. I got a bunch of dragon's eye a couple weeks back and sold them for about 95g a pc. I still do the Dal JC daily on an alt who is still leveling up in northrend. For some reason the dalaran fishing and JC dailies give top gold and XP while the cooking one gives substantially less.
Amanda A. May 5th 2011 9:28PM
I actually can sell some Wrath gem cuts at a pretty good rate-- any red mainstat and stamina gems are by far the most popular. However, BC socket bonuses are tiny and usually really odd, so cuts people use to match sockets, like haste/str, usually don't go.
Verine May 6th 2011 9:21AM
Let's not forget BC and Wrath Engineering goggles. They usually have a meta and another gem slot. The Leather Cenarion Expedition chest you can get at 62 has 3 red gem slots. There's also a JC AGI neck with 2 red sockets. All very useful.
thomas.balis May 6th 2011 3:11AM
I found the listing price for WotLK gems to be too high to gamble, while the price I would get is too low. For example, trying to list a gem stack 3 times before it sells already destroyed my profit. Not to mention the AH cut if it does sell.
Herman May 6th 2011 3:17AM
because of the changes that blizz made to the way that pvp queues work for capped xp and capped accounts 70, 60, and 80 pvp is really popular right now, and blue and epic gems for gear sells extremely well.
Sally Bowls May 6th 2011 4:47AM
I don't understand a couple of the points.
1) Congratulations on all the frozen orbs! There were going for 3 or 4g before Cata and TUJ currently shows the US Alliance price for FO as 23g 49s 22c. But that means the frozen orb with the three other gems seems to be worth the same/more than two or three rare gems at the moment. Is it really worth it to prospect the saronite to get the common gems to make the prism rather than just selling the frozen orbs?
2) For reasons I don't understand, Dragon's Eye's are great. A DE can sell for more than a *stack* of the rare yellow amberjewels. Why do you care if they are "usable for much" as long as they sell?
Blackdemon May 6th 2011 5:02AM
I'm still seeing quite a large demand for Nightmare Tears created from the Dragon's Eye. I'm buying any Dragon's Eyes for under 120g and selling the nightmare tears for 250-300g. The demand is quite high as I keep clearing the AH of dragon eyes.
3snjas May 10th 2011 11:43AM
The Dragons eye is used with some infinite dust to make the current best in game "prismatic" gem +10 stats nightmare tear. There are no cata prismatic gems out yet, hence imo the crazy demand for the wrath dragon eyes still.