Gold Capped: Epic gems in patch 4.3
by Basil Berntsen 
Sep 23rd 2011 at 9:00AM
Epic gems will come in patch 4.3. They'll not be prospectable from Pyrite or anything else -- instead they will drop from geodes on raid bosses. This may not be the final design, but it's what Blizzard has decided so far. The people who need the gems most are going to be the source for the uncut gems, and the quantity available will be very low.
Every time I've talked about this before, I've hedged my bets that Blizzard might drastically change the design for epic gems compared to the last expansion. As things turn out, it did, and we're going back to a design reminiscent of epic gems in The Burning Crusade, which were mostly available to raiders. Everyone who stockpiled Pyrite now has to decide what to do with it.
PVP epic gems
One question that hasn't been addressed yet is epic gems for PVP gear. Right now, because resilience is no longer gaining value to Arena players at a non-linear rate, PVPers often use their gem slots to focus on their core stats. This leads to their needing many of the same gems as raiders, and Blizzard has tried to distance itself from requiring PVPers to raid to be competitive at the high level.
The obvious answer to this problem is to allow endgame PVP to reward epic gems at the same rate that they're generated by raiding. However, unless this mechanism is exclusive and doesn't prevent someone who raids and PVPs from doubling their gem take, it will force people who are competitive in either raiding or PVP to do both seriously in order to keep up.
Redistribution of wealth
One prediction I'm willing to make is that these gems will not be bind on pickup, as they'll need to be cut -- that or we'll be able to cut a gem in the "will not be traded" part of a trade window, like the way we currently enchant. Since the gems will be tradable, they will have a value on the open market. Demand for epic gems is always enormous in depth and volume; while a few people are willing to pay a lot for them initially, when they become less expensive, a lot of people are willing to buy them.
Every time raiders open a geode, they will be looking at a potential gold mine. Sure, they could simply keep the gems and use them, but selling them can potentially provide thousands of gold they could use to buy, for example, a BOE with someone else's valor points. This process will move wealth from competitive players who are willing to pay gold for a raiding advantage to players who are willing to wait.
It's like the opposite of a gold sink. Gold sinks, when properly designed, cut down the hoarded buying power of wealthy players, reducing their ability to drive up the price and demand for goods and services. This change will take these stockpiles of gold and smear it across a subset of players who raid but value gold more than the stat upgrade of an epic gem. Hoarders hide the effects of inflation until they spend their hoard.
What do I do with all this Pyrite Ore?
Whenever you are trying to decide what to do next, always start by considering the exact opposite as everyone else. In this case, while everyone is dumping stockpiles, I'm going to be buying it whenever it hits a certain floor price I've calculated.
I did stock a fair amount of Pyrite just in case Blizzard decided to use "copy-paste game design" and make Cataclysm epics prospect from it the way Wrath of the Lich King epics prospected from Titanium Ore. I have to decide what to do with it, as well as the ore I'm planning on buying from the panicky. My choices for the majority of it are:
- Prospect it. The value of Pyrite on your realm can be easily calculated by an addon or a site like Wow Prospector. If you cut gems, remember that the real value you're going to want to use is what something will be worth when the current set of raiding and PVP elite gear is available to grinders.
- Blacksmith it. Pyrium Bars are used for making Ebonsteel Belt Buckles, as are all the Volatile Earth you got from prospecting pyrite in step one. You also need a healthy supply of bars for making PVP gear.
Brave new world of jewelcrafting
Back in The Burning Crusade, epic gems were not easy to get unless you were given them by your guild. Those few that did exit the raider-only "market" of DKP and arbitrary officer assignments were way more expensive than the slight upgrade was worth -- especially considering people had to work their way up to the latest content and didn't just start there when they finished their first max-level 5-man.
People have more money these days, but epic gems might not be available for less than 6,000g for a long time. Compared to the prices for VP BOEs, regular BOEs, and best-in-slot enchants, their priority might well be last on many auctioneer/raiders' grocery lists. Once all these avenues of turning money into raiding gear are exhausted, then epic gems will considered. After all, why spend thousands of gold on a 10-stat increase when you could spend 20,000g on an ilevel upgrade?
If we want to know what epic gems prices will look like, we need nothing more than to look at the price curve for Eternal Embers. I know, it's not the same, but it has similarities. Embers drop centrally but require an entire raid to produce. Epic gems drop per raider, but rarely. I'll bet that the production rate of epic gems per raid over time will follow the same curve as the number of Embers produced per raid Firelands content.
The demand for Embers is different than it will be for gems, as a lot of Ember gear only replaces gear that drops somewhere in the more accessible bosses in Firelands. Epic gems will always be an upgrade; however, the upgrade will be slighter.
Look at the price history for Embers on your realm, and you will see a trend that should be similar to what the price trend for epic gems will look like.
Maximize your profits with more advice from Gold Capped. Do you have questions about selling, reselling, and building your financial empire on the auction house? Fox and Basil are taking your questions at fox@wowinsider.com and basil@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Economy, Gold Capped
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
gavinsdaddy1912 Sep 23rd 2011 9:07AM
Eternal Embers are for the legendary quest. I am pretty sure you meant Living Embers.
paulmewis Sep 23rd 2011 9:11AM
Will they be available from the LFR pugs aswell?
matt Sep 23rd 2011 10:22AM
the original quote from Blizz say that geodes will be generated from killing "regular or heroic mode bosses". That leads me to believe that geodes are not currently planned for the LFR mode bosses. All could change though, this patch is not even on the PTR yet.
Bellajtok Sep 23rd 2011 10:30AM
Shi- seriously? I did not catch that. Good call, but that'll be obnoxious if it's true.
ldene Sep 23rd 2011 9:12AM
any idea where the deisgns for epics are going to be coming from? Surely they can't make them a raid drop as well..?
danawhitaker Sep 23rd 2011 9:20AM
Okay, color me confused, but has there been any information as to how jewelcrafters are going to be attaining the new recipes so we can even cut stuff? While I did finish up the JC daily and have all the Cata designs (I'm back to only missing five of the Sunwell recipes), I've continued doing the daily for the eventual announcement of the location of those cuts.
I think I misunderstood the reading of their original announcement, too. At first it seemed like cut gems would be dropping rather than uncut gems, like those gems you could get in the fishing reward bags in Wrath. That seemed odd to me, and while uncut gems makes more sense, it leaves me groaning at the prospect of trying to get a whole other bunch of gem cuts.
Jamie Sep 23rd 2011 9:52AM
No one colours Bones confused!
Revnah Sep 23rd 2011 11:47AM
I've been asking myself the same question. Everyone goes on about where the gems will come from, but nobody (not in the interview either) asks how us Jewelcrafting folks are going to learn how to cut them! I sometimes wish I could look into the heads of game designers :-)
DBNM Sep 23rd 2011 12:18PM
^ Emphatically this.
Like many people I stockpiled pyrium ore in the event epic gems would be prospectable. But I also took into account that JCs would need the patterns to make the cuts so I have been hoarding my JC daily tokens for several months now. I assume that Blizzard will likely just add recipe cuts for epic gems in 4.3 like they did for the upgraded pvp recipes in 4.2. However, this assumes that they will follow the model they used in wotlk which they are obviously willing to deviate from.
It is possible that they will make cuts rewarded somehow through a raid reputation for the Dragon Soul raid, but this falls into the trap Basil mentioned where PVPers are forced to raid which is against their intended design.
It is also possible that their will be a second tier of JC currency available through new dailies, but then that goes against the currency streamlining process that was implemented in cataclysm.
Personally, I am cautiously optimistic about JC profitability in 4.3. And on the bright side of things, I don't think I will run out of pyrite bars for my truegold xmutes anytime soon :)
Noyou Sep 23rd 2011 3:19PM
I was late getting into JC in Wrath and only got the 4 complimentary tokens when epic gems dropped. I was still able to do OK cutting gems for people who asked in trade. It seems like they are flipping the script here in cata. My feel is that if they are only dropping the gems in raids, the epic cuts will probably only be available to those who raid as well. Either by drops or by a new faction. The only kicker is that there are so many gem cuts. If they go the route of the gems being available only to raiders, they can offer some cut gems as well. Probably your most in demand cuts? The fact that they didn't put out any info on the cutting of said epic gems means they probably don't know exactly how it will go down yet. It's funny though that they want to make raiding more accessible to people but will gimp the average joe by not allowing them the best gems until they get to a more advanced level of raiding.
r.claudio123 Sep 23rd 2011 9:35AM
so basically JC'er got shafted.
Edge00 Sep 23rd 2011 10:09AM
not likely.
I see this market looking a lot like enchanting. The value is going to be in what cuts you can make. The barrier for entry into the epic gem market will be high like Basil suggested, but if you can get in and have valuable cuts you can likely buy the expensive raw epic gem and turn into the even more expensive cut gem (profit).
Elwoods Sep 23rd 2011 10:58AM
I dont think so, all the cuts you already have will just last longer than previously.
Spellotape Sep 23rd 2011 1:04PM
Not sure how it is possible to "shaft" a profession that already dominates the gold-making universe without having anything added to it. Even if epic gems were never released, people would still need the existing gems whenever a new tier came out etc.
Kylenne Sep 23rd 2011 9:39AM
Er. Maybe I was on crack or something but I could have sworn the initial announcement about the gems was that each geode would have a random gem that was already cut. I can't find the blue post on it right now but I distinctly remember a lot of JCers being pissed off because they've been hoarding tokens for new cuts. At any rate, Blizz said people shouldn't be expecting to replace all their gems with epic ones so I'm not really sure where this assumption they're going to be BoE is coming from. To me that statement means they're either going to be prohibitively expensive or not tradeable.
Also, Eternal Embers are for the staff quest, you meant Living Embers.
jynxycat Sep 23rd 2011 9:44AM
I already guessed that Blizzard wouldn't make Epic gems bought from the JC vendor since people would be able to buy every single one the day they were released, and that defeats the purpose of said dailies.
I haven't done any since I had all of the main PVE gem cuts :P
Caerlin Sep 23rd 2011 10:07AM
AFAIK the only official information we've had on epic gems is in an interview with Ghostcrawler posted on Tankspot - http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?77571-Interview-with-Greg-Street-AKA-Ghostcrawler
Crucially this interview doesn't say anything about whether the gems will be cut or not, or if they will be BoE or BoP.
This is why Basil says that the gems being tradable is his prediction - no-one from Blizzard has said either way.
Vapori Sep 23rd 2011 9:40AM
JC's will have to collect 150 "Marks of the Dragon" from Daily Quests to unlock a vendor where they can purchase the designs to cut epic gems. Then, to get more — they have to collect ANOTHER 150 marks. This will take approximately 30 days of dailies.
Tumleren Sep 23rd 2011 10:07AM
What do you base this on?
grecianmafia Sep 23rd 2011 10:23AM
Sarcasm Tumleren, go look up the Molten front dailies.