All crafting professions have several issues. 1) The leveling patterns are essentially worthless by the time you get to making them. The best thing you can do while leveling tailor/leatherworking is to also level enchanting so you can disenchant the items. 2) People are stupid. 3) The really good stuff have very substantial material costs. Pre-kara epics always have a primal might and/or primal nether component (the later used to be only obtained from the end of a heroic dungeon run)
WoW is almost completely player-driven economics. However, jewelcrafters (JC) have all decided to a) remove many uncut gems from market b) make a ton of money from just cuts. Each JC pattern costs a ton of money, so you need to charge alot just to break even. And most of these pats can be aquired either through consortium, purchase on AH, or SSO/badges. Whereas with something like LW or Enchant, the rep pats are all over the place.
I remember one guy mentioning on a forum in 2.2 or thereabouts, that he made tens of thousands of gold just JCing, log in every day, prospect, cut, profit.
Perhaps its the *only* craft prof to make money? I do LW/enchant, almost none of LW stuff is sellable at profit, even epic/rares. (I sold my first epic for 100g profit, but i paid 600g for pat, i doubt i'll be able to sell 6 more to break even). Faradhim mentioned the trick of making something and DEing it. Usually the LW mats are the same cost as the DE mats, so no profit there. And so many times (again even with very high end stuff such as riding crops) the cost of the finished product is less than the mats go for, sometimes much less. Its the players that have no idea how to price items and feel they must screw up the market for everyone. If the real world was like this, everyone would starve.
Its almost a guarantee, if the pattern can be used to level your profession, the item is priced far below material cost, regardless of the demand for the item. For example, Riding crops. Used to be on our AH for as low as 100g. Primal mights are always at 120 or higher. Riding crops are a primal might, a large pris shard (always around 20g), and some leather. Now the RC market has increased slightly (and Allakazam shows that the median price is 188).
The perspective on JC is only a feeling, I'd like to know if they can really make money hand over fist. A friend claimed that he made tons of money with alchemy/herb, but he probably did farm herbs for hours on end. I certainly dont use the primal might CD (like ever), because I dont need the money on my hunter. (again, i wish my druid and hunter were on the same server).
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Is Jewelcrafting obsenely overpowered?
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This is not the first time I have heard this. A very good friend of mine has obtained his patterns having others purchase the patterns so he can cut them. He has never made a dime off of JC, but can cut a bunch of gems by refusing to purchase any patterns that didn't benefit him directly ... instead we have bought most of them so he can cut the gems for us.
The economy has change however ... now the uncut gems are almost the same price as the cut ones so this bearly works anymore. Just chalk it up to another thing blizzard has broken.
Prior to 2.4 when Primal Nethers were no long soulbound, I made a veritable killing with blacksmithing. I had managed to acquire of number of pretty rare epic patterns that all required Primal Nethers. A number of them were weapons, which were wonderful for introductory raiders stepping into Tier 4 content for the first time. And, since I had more badges than I could ever hope to use, I'd buy Primal Nethers, go out, and make weapons for the bright shining people of Azeroth.
I made considerable gold, but mostly due to the fact that the patterns all required Primal Nethers and I always had a large stack of them available for crafting purposes. As a result, I made a veritable killing -- and that all ended when 2.4 rolled around and suddenly Primal Nethers could be transferred to other players.
These days, I'm contemplating selling badge gems to acquire gold (if, for some odd reason, I lack it). Mind you, I probably should use those on gearing out my hunter...
I'm a skin/LW and I thought that I'd be able to make my own gear... usually though by the time I can make something, I'm already wearing something better. I spent so much money maxxing out LW and now I find that the end patterns actually aren't that much better then the stuff the drops for me in dungeons requiring no farming of primals at all... *sigh*
I think that on other toons I'll only gather. gather, gather. thats where the money is.
I think if you are going for money, you aren't going to find it in LW or tailor. But the tailor epic set is extremely good, so is the LW set. Plus patterns do drop off of T5 and T6 instances. Plus there are a bunch of things that BOE + shadow resist that are required to be made for BT. So LW is essential for BT. Not to mention the guilds that have done the guild first all have LWs, even mages, because of the drums of speed. They are obsenely overpowered at end-game.
I think LW was terrible pre-TBC. Post TBC the leveling set was actually pretty good I thought, but I was able to make the chest piece (350 LW) at level 62. As long as you keep up with the skill in TBC then the stuff is useful. THe drums should be useful, but i just forget about them, they'd be useful in instances i think.
Its all about what you consider fun i guess. ALl my other toons gather, i'm glad this one is LW/enchant. Its fun to go around and collect patterns and make useful stuff.
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