Monday 13 September 2010

How can you turn 1000 gold into 2000 gold? Jewelcrafting Edition

I said in my post for the second Just My Two Copper Blogging Carnival that I'd put together similar posts for the other markets I'm in, so here is my take on using Jewelcrafting to turn 1000g into 2000g.

JEWELCRAFTING 



Second only to Enchanting in terms of the proportion of the income it provides me, Jewelcrafting is a fantastic profession. Unfortunately, I came to it late in the expansion, and I missed out on its heyday. However, I'm fully prepared  for reaping the undoubtedly lucrative benefits it will be bringing come Cataclysm, and hopefully I can help you out in doing that too here.



It being the end of the expansion, a lot of the tips and methods that myself and my fellow gold bloggers write about are on the verge of becoming obsolete. However, the principles will be the same come Cataclysm and I assure you that there is money still to be made in Wrath, so why not put things into practice and have a go now - not only will you be taking more worth into the expansion, but you'll be more prepared to make a killing when it hits!

As far as addons for Jewelcrating go, I use AuctionLite for buying mats, KTQ and Skillet for producing Rare Gems and QA3 for selling them, and Panda for cutting Epic Gems which I sell with AuctionLite. Prospecting is handled by Enchantrix. I use ItemAuditor to keep an eye on my investments and periodically update my thresholds in QA3 with the information this truly wonderful addon provides.

My Jewelcrafter is also a Transmute Spec'ed Alchemist, which really helps out by not only providing you with at least one Epic Gem a day, but allows you to transmute as many Meta Gems as you like, as well as Titanium Bars. To be honest, I almost consider Transmute Alchemy and Jewelcrafting one and the same profession, and I cannot imaging having one without the other. If you don't have this set up, you should seriously consider levelling an Alchemist to 68 and picking up the specialisation - the boons are well worth the effort, I guarantee.

Again, you should be aware that not all of the items listed here will be profitable on your server, and you need to be aware of how your particular markets behave. If in doubt, Lilsparky's Workshop, or if you're fortunate enough to be on a US server, The Undermine Journal, can help you out.


JEWELCRAFTING CRAFT ORDERS 

Uncommon Gems
Green gems are not a market that I'm into particularly and I'm actually more likely to just save the gems for transmuting Skyflare Diamonds and Earthsiege Diamonds and for creating rings for disenchanting.  However, levellers will still need to gem the socketed gear that they'll get in Outland and Northrend, and even these gems are better than anything the Burning Crusade recipes have to offer.  If you have Gem Perfection, then the perfect gems will sell better.  Overall, if you're just starting out with Jewelcrafting and you don't have a lot of capital to work with, or are short on recipes for Rare and Epic gems, these are a good start although I'd suggest you stick with the ones I've listed below.  Bear in mind as well that if you can get the mats cheap enough and are not selling too many or just are overstocked, the cut gems go for 50s at vendors and perfect cuts for 1g.  


Red
[Runed Bloodstone]
[Bold Bloodstone]
[Delicate Bloodstone]
[Fractured Bloodstone]

Yellow
[Quick Sun Crystal]
[Smooth Sun Crystal]
[Brilliant Sun Crystal]

Blue
[Solid Chalcedony]

Orange
[Potent Huge Citrine]
[Luminous Huge Citrine]
[Reckless Huge Citrine]

Green
[Jagged Dark Jade]
[Energized Dark Jade]
[Enduring Dark Jade]

Purple
[Purified Shadow Crystal]
[Sovereign Shadow Crystal]

Rings and Necklaces
[Bloodstone Band]
[Crystal Chalcedony Amulet]
[Crystal Citrine Necklace]
[Sun Rock Ring]

These two rings are made just with Eternal Earth and Eternal Shadow, but are also good for crafting and disenchanting if you have cheap materials:

[Shadowmight Ring]
[Stoneguard Band]

Transmutes


[Transmute: Skyflare Diamond]
[Transmute: Earthsige Diamond]

Rare Gems 
I craft and list 3 each of every rare gem I know how to cut, using KTQ and the command /ktq queue 3 raregems.  I'm not entirely sure that the list included with KTQ is complete and it always queues up Sky Sapphire Amulets for some strange reason.  I keep meaning to dig into the LUA and check this out, but haven't got around to doing this yet.  If you want to just craft a few select cuts, then you can't go wrong with the same cuts as above, just switching to the following uncuts (which saves me from spending two hours linking them all!):


Red - [Scarlet Ruby]
Yellow - [Autumn's Glow]
Blue - [Sky Sapphire]
Orange - [Monarch Topaz]
Green - [Forest Emerald]
Purple - [Twilight Opal]

If you are ever unsure about what you should be crafting, then WoW Popular is a fantastic resource which mines the armory to see what players are actually using, and therefore what they'll be buying.  There's a banner on the right hand side of the page to take you there.  

Epic Gems
With Epic gems, I tend to buy them off my shopping list when they are going for cheap and this supplements the income I get from rare and meta gems rather than being the focus of my efforts in jewelcrafting.  These tend to have a similar profit to rare gems, whilst requiring up to 10 times the capital to get started.  Of course you should be doing a transmute daily and you can purchase gems with honor and badges.  Epic gems also drop from Titanium Ore prospecting and whilst you are gathering the recipes with, cutting and selling these can be handy to offset the cost.  Once you've got the cuts you want, the Titanium Powder sells well to newer Jewelcrafters.  The popular cuts are similar again.  


Red - [Cardinal Ruby]
Yellow - [King's Amber]
Blue - [Majestic Zircon]
Orange - [Ametrine]
Green - [Eye of Zul]
Purple  - [Dreadstone]

Meta Gems 
Meta gems are a gold mine and, like spellthreads and trousers from last time, every new helm at end game will want one.  I frequently am able to transmute them for under 20g and they sell cut for 75g - you've got to love 375% profit!  I cut the following:

Earthsiege Diamonds

[Relentless Earthsiege Diamond]
[Austere Earthsiege Diamond]
[Insightful Earthsiege Diamond]

Skyflare Diamonds

[Chaotic Skyflare Diamond]
[Ember Skyflare Diamond]

Prospecting 
Whether just for supplying your own materials, or to sell on to other Jewelcrafters, prospecting can be lucrative.  I suggest to have a look at WoW Prospector (again there is a banner on the right) which will pull current prices of the ore and the products for you and work out whether is is profitable to prospect.  You can, of course, input your own prices. Ones to look at in particular are:


[Thorium Ore] (for selling the gems to levelling Jewelcrafters)


Daily Quest
The daily quest, from Timothy Jones in Dalaran rewards you with 19.34g, a Dalaran Jewelcrafter's Token and 32.5 rep with the Kirin Tor - useful if you haven't got your Runed Scarlet Ruby recipe yet.  
The token can be traded in for a Dragon's Eye, which you can either use yourself for one of your 3 Jewelcrafter only gems or you can sell it on.  Add in five Infinite Dust and you can get yourself a Nightmare Tear, which are useable by all and provide +10 to all stats and meet the requirements of all the meta gems.  




JEWELCRAFTING SHOPPING LIST 

You really only have two choices when it comes to getting the majority of materials for jewelcrafting - you can either buy the raw gems off of the Auction House, or if you have more time at your disposal you can invest in, or farm if you like that sort of thing, copious ore and prospect it - try getting hold of some pet farmers to send you all the ore they mine for a set price. Another disadvantage, other than time, to prospecting is that you are not guaranteed to get the gems you need for your craft queue so you may need to visit the Auction House on occasion anyway.

There's nothing on the lists above you need to buy from a vendor, so here's the list you should be adding into AuctionLite, or your buying addon of choice:

[Thorium Ore]
[Saronite Ore]
[Titanium Ore]

[Bloodstone]
[Sun Crystal]
[Chalcedony]
[Huge Citrine]
[Dark Jade]
[Shadow Crystal]

[Scarlet Ruby]
[Autumn's Glow]
[Sky Sapphire]
[Monarch Topaz]
[Forest Emerald]
[Twilight Opal]

[Cardinal Ruby]
[King's Amber]
[Majestic Zircon]
[Ametrine]
[Eye of Zul]
[Dreadstone]

[Eternal Earth]
[Eternal Shadow]
[Eternal Fire]
[Eternal Air]

[Titanium Powder]

There you have it, my guide on a few ways of turning 1000g into 2000g using Jewelcrafting. Of course, if you have more capital at your disposal, you can do these in greater quantities.

Do you make anything else with your jewlcrafting? Ever dabbled in items for levellers or the trinkets? Do you have any other tips and tricks for budding jewelcrafters?

As always, let me know if you want a guide on any of the addons mentioned near the beginning of the article!

2 comments:

  1. What you described worked very well throughout WotLK. Lately the prices on my server are breaking down - to much sellers and few buyers as Cataclysm is nearing.
    But I'm absolutely sure, that we'll see the same opportunities you decribed in Cata again.

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  2. You're right Sarge - I'm seeing a slow-down too, although I'm still managing to pull in about 800g profit per day from jewelcrafting so there is definitely gold still to be made. If anything, I think we'll see a hike towards the end as more and more people give up selling and those who have planned a gradual withdrawal, without stopping buying materials will have the last laugh.

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