Patch 4.2 PTR: Uncut green gems vendor price reduced
by Basil Berntsen 
May 24th 2011 at 1:00PM
Well, the latest testing from the patch 4.2 PTR has reduced the price of uncut gems, too. On the live realms, they vendor for 100g a stack, leaving a decent vendor floor price for ore. Once this change goes live, they will be worth 50s each or 10g a stack. This should indeed have the desired effect of causing fewer of these to end up vendored for inflationary vendor money, with the potentially undesirable effect of making mining less profitable.
Assuming you're transmuting, disenchanting, or otherwise making good use of 5 of the 6 colors of uncommon gems, this will likely not change your life much. You will make 10g instead of 100g when you vendor a stack of the borderline useless Zephyrite, but most of your money will be coming from the other activities. Also, you can still occasionally sell these to other jewelcrafters for their daily.
Bottom line, though, is that the new "floor" price of Elementium Ore and Obsidium Ore is basically gone now. There are no more guaranteed sales, and if you flood a market (like enchanting mats) by processing thousands of stacks of ore, you can't count on any vendor based fallback to at least get you your money back.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
RetPallyJil May 24th 2011 1:08PM
Oh Blizz you so crazy - when are you going to do something that actually helps ME?
Like ... give smiths a mount to make so I can make money for a change?
Ice May 24th 2011 1:22PM
Smiths not making money?
Are you for real? Couple chaos orbs and couple thousands mats, bam you have crafted fine 7k epic there buddy with 5k profit. Its epic so people want it steadily to get into raiding or Zul'agains. And yes its still recent info. The prices havent gone down as fast on my server at least. (comparison: Tailoring epics go for 1k-2k while BS epics go for 7-8k)
Also you should be getting craftable epics for next tier aswell.
But oh boy lets not talk about tailors and their profit, or lack of it.
MattKrotzer May 24th 2011 1:22PM
I'd ride an anvil on wheels.
John May 24th 2011 1:35PM
An Acme anvil.
Perhaps it will go "Meep meep" when you hit the space bar.
Aykwa May 24th 2011 2:04PM
I can see his point, and I believe it is valid for a great many professions. It is difficult to make money on a few crafted epics when all blacksmiths can make them and the mats you have to buy mean you're taking on a lot of deflationary risk. Tailors and leather workers certainly have similar gripes. Really, I believe Blizz needs to make some rather large changes to their professions so that people don't feel like they HAVE to have certain professions to have a shot at making real money. Why should jewelcrafting and enchanting get all the action if someone doesn't want to spend countless hours in a gathering profession? For example, enacting the following changes together would make more of the professions more equally relevant compared to each other:
Take the head and shoulder enhancement slots that for most people currently come from some faction rep, plus add a neck enhancement slot, and make those 3 all crafted by tailors.
Add slot enhancements to the trinkets, as in, say, trinket pouches, and have those pouches crafted by leather workers. Add a slot enhancement to thrown/relic/wand such as a sheath, again crafted by leather workers. That adds 3 enchancement slots to what leather workers can make.
Take prospecting and move it over to blacksmiths. It makes more logical sense anyways that miners bring rocks (ore) to a blacksmith who crushes/processes it to find the uncut gems, but then can't do anything with them himself and requires a jewelcrafter to actually cut them. Also take gem transmuting away from alchemists (I am one!) and give it to blacksmiths with a new name. This way blacksmiths become the suppliers of uncut gems.
To compensate alchemists, who I think are currently balanced, for the loss of gem transmutes, make potions elixirs and flasks more powerful so that people really will feel like they have to use them to actually do well. Make all elixirs last through death like flasks do now, and just decide that elixirs are the cheap version of flasks.
Anyways, you get the idea. The ongoing item enhancement markets are really the only lucrative non-gathering professions right now, in terms of time spent and cooldowns and restrictions. I know because without even trying very much I made 120k in 1 week with my enchanter/jewelcrafter when patch 4.1 came out. Even now, with an hour a day I can still make a few thousand a day with them. It is time to give all crafting professions a more equal slice of the item enhancement pie.
Shrikesnest May 24th 2011 7:01PM
Eh. Look, I make FAR more money on Blacksmithing than on Jewelcrafting, even right now. The profit margin on cut gems is razor thin. By comparison, I make about 200% profit on Ebonsteel Belt Buckles and I sell them in stacks. Tailoring and Leatherworking might need help, but not BS. Crafted Epics are a terrible way to make money compared to churning out multiple sets of starter PVP gear... people just like to talk about them because HUGE NUMBERS!
Edge May 24th 2011 8:59PM
Geez, cry me a river.
Signed,
Leatherworker
seanaperkins May 24th 2011 1:16PM
"borderline useless Zephyrite"
You, Sir, are mad. Positively insane I tell you. You need to be taking those "worthless" blue zephyr's and muting them into ocean sapphires which you SHOULD be stockpiling for 4.2 for the new JC rings...shame on you.
Basil Berntsen May 24th 2011 1:24PM
I have thousands stocked from prospecting, as do many people who were doing the elementium shuffle. If I wanted to stock up on them, I'm still better off vendoring the zephyrites until 4.2 and buying uncut ocean sapphires off the AH.
fian May 24th 2011 3:16PM
would be very grateful if you could tell me about "the new JC rings" i have not heard abotu them.
What ilvl and what mats please? blue or epic?
*finger's crossed it is a blue ring based on one blue gem + JC setting so i can start churning blue and yellow rares to heavenly shards"
splodesondeath May 24th 2011 5:52PM
Why not just sell them in stacks of 3s on days when they are the JC daily?
John May 24th 2011 1:19PM
Zephyrite is needed for one of the JC dailies. It's not useless. Same for Jasper and Nightstones. Carnelian can be turned into the fist weapon and DE'd into 2 essences or transmuted to inferno ruby. Hessonite is needed for powerleveling JC and can be made into blue rings/necklaces.
Alicite, however. . .
Basil Berntsen May 24th 2011 1:28PM
"Borderline" useless. The other 5 gems are used for making enchanting mats and carnelians are also profitable when transmuted. You can always sell small quantities to JCers for the daily, and of course you can transmute them into meta gems. That said, I always end up vendoring stacks of zephyrite when it threatens to overwhelm my bags.
madfigs May 24th 2011 1:21PM
Ugh, the final nail in the coffin for prospecting... unless epic gems come out at least. I haven't seen any ore on the AH for under the floor price for a couple weeks anyway, I think it's gotten to the point where mining is not worth people's time anymore.
Hob May 24th 2011 1:31PM
If that's the case, it might be worth stockpiling ore for when epic gems DO become available. Work now while no one is farming, then hit the auction house to take advantage of the inevitable grossly-inflated prices when epics are added. While everyone else is competing for farming routes, you can sit back and post auctions all day...
Zamboni May 24th 2011 1:56PM
Prospecting will be fine, as long as you take everything to the next step (cut/disenchant/transmute). What this kills off is prospect-to-vendor, which allowed unlimited prospecting with an NPC standing by to buy up everything the market doesn't want.
Koleckai May 24th 2011 3:39PM
On most servers, you can make money with prospecting with ore prices as high as 45 gold per stack. Many you can make profit with higher ore prices. You just need to be smart about things.
This should actually lower ore prices again because the demand will go down and people will still try to make money through gathering.
coville May 24th 2011 1:26PM
Mining is over populated on my server as it is and miners can not farm for a living any longer. This just makes it so that crafters will be able to get materials a little cheaper and hopefully lower the prices on those also.
That epic flying looks more and more ridiculous at 5,000g when players can't earn the gold through professions, way to drive players to the gold sellers.
Basil Berntsen May 24th 2011 1:37PM
Try mining older minerals- outland, wrath, and late vanilla minerals are all expensive and the bots typically ignore them
HappyTreeDance May 24th 2011 2:03PM
I'm sorry, but that statement (about epic flight) strikes me as a little silly. I'm terrible at professions and the AH (in fact, I only really level my professions to get the bonuses, not to play the AH) and all of my max level characters have epic flight, with three of them with 310%. It's not that hard to make 5k gold just by questing alone. Just from taking a character up from 80-85 you get about that much. Just because people don't profit from professions doesn't mean they need to run off to a gold seller to get the money to buy perks. ;)