Being cost effective 1

Before I get started, I forgot to post a screen shot of my third gold cap so here it is. Combined totals from all toons plus my guild bank.

Screenshot.


Inc Wall O' Text!
(tl;dr: too bad, read it anyway.)

Part one of three on how to save money by spending your gold and other currency (including materials) wisely. One of the main things that helps in the long run for making gold is to cut as many corners as you can. Save that 3g here and there and all around getting more bang for your buck. So today I'll give you a few examples everybody can relate to for future reference. This entire post is based on assumed numbers (taken from my AH) and different servers are different, so if you can get 400g or something silly for one gem and I list it for 160 you can just ignore me. First is epic gem xmutes.

For arguments sake, we'll pretend my server's AH average price is the same as yours:


Eternal fire - 25
Eternal shadow - 15
Eternal life - 20
Eternal air - 20

Forest emerald - 5
scarlet ruby - 50
Sky sapphire - 10
Monarch topaz - 10
Twilight opal - 10
Autumn's glow - 10


Xmute mastery doesn't matter as it effects the outcome on each gem equally. With those assumed prices in mind, that means that an epic gem xmute will cost you:


Red - 75
Blue - 30
Orange - 30
Yellow - 30
Purple - 25
Green - 15


This is where being cost effective comes into play. If you're cutting and selling epic gems, which should you transmute? Almost everybody will either xmute the gem they "need" for a new piece of gear with a socket, or will just get a red gem made because it's "the best" or it "sells for the most." If you do either of those, you're doing it wrong. Lets take the average sale price of each gem being cut and see which makes the most profit shall we?


Red: +200g for sale, -75g for materials = 125g profit
Blue: +180g for sale, -30g for materials = 150g profit
Orange: +160g for sale, -30g for materials = 130g profit
Yellow: +190g for sale, -30g for materials = 160g profit
Purple: +160g for sale, -25g for materials = 135g profit
Green: +140g for sale, -15g for materials = 125g profit

One other thing to keep in mind is the speed of sales and competition. Green gems sell very slowly and thus will have a lot of competition due to people having a constant unsold inventory. Solid color gems will sell almost instantly, but common cuts like bold or runed will have good competition due to popularity. Blue stamina gems don't follow suit exactly in that every tank that gets an upgrade will need at least two of these gems, usually 3. So because of that if only 3 tanks get an upgrade in ToC or ICC that's 9 gems that were just bought, usually yours included. Purple and orange will sell over the course of a day or two, but will definitely be sold before lost deposits become a problem.

Looking at those figures, you can see that if you make the "most expensive gem" you're making the same amount of profit as you would making and selling the LOWEST price gem. Perhaps you're playing a tank and need some new stamina gems. You can xmute and cut a blue epic, but then you're still screwing yourself out of a potential 10g in sales. Sure 10g might not be a lot, but because you only see the 10g loss here and there and always forget that the 10th time you do that it has become 100g and isn't just 10 anymore. To the serious AH player, 10g on top of every gem cut they do adds up to a ton of gold by the end of the week. However if you're already well stocked on yellow epics, blue xmutes are close enough to be worth it so you can keep your market diverse.

Based off of this very simple example is why I always xmute epic yellow gems as opposed to reds because the profit margins are better. And to boot, brilliant ambers sell just as fast as a bold cardinal, sometimes even faster to to less competition with selling "the most expensive" gem. Don't get your head stuck in the big numbers > quality numbers mentality. A 500g sale is never 500g profit!


Thanks for stopping by!