Herb Prices Jump
Posted on October 5th, 2008 by Lawbringer under Auction House, Gold Building, World of Warcraft
Word Finally got around about Inscription it seems. I was doing a few final preparations for completely Dominating the inscription market last night (this morning, whenever - I’m not getting nearly enough sleep) on my banker.
Moneybaggins was browsing through the herb market just like he has been for weeks looking to pick up another couple dozen stacks of herbs, but the market has already gone rock hard. It may just be an anomaly, but that is highly unlikely considering the hubbub that’s been taking place in every single forum you can think of.
You can see in the screen shot above that prices have gone even higher already than I expected. I predicted a 300% increase, but six pages of herbs are averaging well over 500% increase in the last 24 hours alone. Who can say what’s going to happen after the patch goes live?
What does this mean for you? While Gavin and I put the finishing touches on Inscription the only thing we can all do is really sit back and wait a few more days. Unconfirmed sources on the PTR say that patch 3.0.2 will go live with Tuesday updates on the 14th, although it could be just next Tuesday on the 7th. Frankly we are hoping for an extra week.
But I have a couple of tips for all of you in the meantime. First, for those of you who have been savagely hoarding herbs for weeks, be sure to run scans with AADV every day. This is a must. (And don’t make me get on my soapbox AGAIN about that one :) ) Next, return to the article we did about LilSparky’s workshop if you haven’t already and get familiar with the interface and using that one.
Personally, if you don’t plan on doing Inscription (which is a HUGE mistake) you might start to trickle herbs onto the market now a few 5 stacks at a time at ridiculous prices. This will help inflate things a bit even before the patch goes in and demand goes nutsoid.
Save the vast majority of your herbs until Thursday if you can stand it, and don’t flood them all into the ah at the same time. If you’ve got 200 stacks of herbs, put about 5 a day into the market now at something like 5 to 10 times more than you bought them for. They probably wont sell yet, but it will cause the lift you’re looking for. People are Lemmings for the most part, and they like to play follow the leader.
Wait at least 24 hours after the patch and then start popping the rest of your flowers on the AH no more than 20 stacks at a time. Try to stay at about 95% of the AADV market value if you can. This may mean wiping your data and starting fresh (although it hurts my teeth to say that). It would be better to keep your historical data, however, and just do a little manual browsing to look at the market rates as they go up.
If you can average a 300% markup and sell out everything you’ve got it would turn 5,000 gold worth of herbs into 15,000 gold. Plus, you should be able to make that run in about a week. To date, I’ve bought and/or farmed roughly 550 full stacks of herbs of all the various levels.
But not a single leaf is going on the AH. I got plans for those little piles of plants, and selling them isn’t one of them. But if you’re just about feeding your herbs back into the market for a good profit that’s just fine. It’s not the best way to go, but you WILL make a lot of gold that way. I just thought I would let you all know that the herb rush is on in my main server, and I expect it’s that way on almost all the others. If not, it will be very soon.
And don’t worry, we’ll tell you what to REALLY do with all that stuff very soon. Until then, grab every herb that any noob is selling for a decent price and get ready to Dominate!
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First post again
good thing you have a strong market in your server, mine is very quite and slow…. but good to find some herbs for under 10silver.
also want to know what do you use for AH? I have Auctioneer and Price Each.
I also work with auctioneer and bottomscanner works pretty good
He says in the article to use AADV. That is Auctioneer Advanced.
Having multiple chars on multiple servers im planning ahead making sure that i at least have plenty of herbs on most of the servers i already got over 15000 herbs (not stacks) stached away over several servers ready to flood the market as soon as the patch goes live
cant wait to make my second 10k on this
Olec, I sure hope you won’t be flooding the prices on my server. What you make it sound like is that you plan to post a ton of herbs at once on the AH. That’s a bad idea. Post them faster than you normally would but not more than a few stack at a time.
i have personally found that herb prices have fallen on my server Barthilas, fel lotuses for example have gone from 38g to 16g in a week. terocone is also down from 22g to 12g. So could all the news about herbing being needed for inscription, also be making prices fall?
what does AADV stand for?
Auctioneer Advanced
In anticipation of Inscriptions, I was buying up, and farming herbs left and right on my server. It got to the point where, on two bank toons, I made them with two separate guilds and each have two guild tabs filled with stacks of herbs. Whatever I don’t use I will be either donating a portion to my guild or selling on the AH to fund this and my other professions to 450
I want to know more about the inscrition scolls that enchanters can use to put enchants onto the AH, being an enchanter will be much more profitable, I have made about 300 gold sellig the enchanting mats i get but that doesnt help level up my enchanting so this will be awsome.
You are right about the patch coming October 14th, and in my mind it has been confirmed. Blue posted sticky on the General forumns right now says that arena rankings(not ratings) will be frozen when the patch comes out, and then they go on to state that the rankings will be frozen on the 14th.
Coincidence? I think not.
Prices on Shadowsong have dropped.. I’ve been buying them up like crazy for the mast month and a half. Runecloth, however, has gone up from 80s a stack to 15g a stack, in anticipation of the new ‘Ambassador _____’ title that comes with an achievement.
I’ve been watching herb prices slowly climb in the last couple weeks on my server and they’ve definitely gotten much higher in the last few days. It makes me regret ever selling an herb in the last month! lol. I’ve been farming all level of herbs little by little as well as leveling my druid to pick up the new professions. I by no means think I have enough to dominate my ah but all I’m really aiming for is to have enough to level up my scribe and be able to provide for my guild when the patch goes live without having to shell out tons of gold for herbs or other scribes. I reeeeeeaaally hope the patch is not this Tuesday cuz I am Not ready lol. Good luck to all those still farming away and I know we all can’t wait for the inscription guide!
i just got 6 stacks of dreamfoil for like 20 silver on my ah somone listing wrung lucky me
Gavin, i am in need of advise! I have been farming herbs as you said, planning on starting inscription. However, i had been planning on re-rolling DK wen WotLK goes live, as i play druid, and there is already a druid within my group of friends. Do you sugest i wait until the X-pac comes out and begin scribing on my DK, or to simply sell all my herbs in the next patch?
sincearly existingman, 70 NE druid barthilas
Hey Face-Head,
If you’re abandoning your 70 Druid once WotLK comes out, then just dump your herbs on patch day and make a killing.
Then, on WotLK release day, roll your DK, level him up, and use the gold you made on patch day to buy herbs and level inscription (by then, prices will have stabilized - and will be much lower than on patch day. Nothing feels better than selling a stack of herbs for 20g on October 14, and then buying the same stack of herbs on November 14 for only 7g)
If you hang on to your herbs for your DK, you’ll lose out on some good gold.
-Gavin
I would pickup inscription if I had heard about it earlier, but if the patch is coming out this Tuesday or next Tuesday, there’s no way I’m going to be able to farm enough herbs to get it to a decent level where the real money is at. I think I’d rather sit back and sell herbs to the masses
the next patch is coming out october 14
There are never many herbs at my Auction house (Aegwyn) is that a good or a bad sign?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this, recently. I could just as easily sell the thousands of herbs I’ve stocked up over the months on the auctionhouse the first week of the patch. Or, I can pick up inscription, wait for herb prices to lower, and then use it like you would enchanting and jewelcrafting. Buy raw mats, process mats, sell products at profit. I think inscription will be a larger gain over time and the single gain I’d get from selling my herbs.
Statements without sources are a waste of bandwidth… But i do hope your right lol
Who were you referring to?
Jurandr’s comment about the release date of the patch, when i posted my message it seems some others got in before me. Is there an actual post/confirmation as to the 3.0 release as Jurandr states?
Just 1 question, when patch 3.0 come live, does Auctioneer still working?
Usually with these big patches, all addon will need update, it gonna be painful to maual AH again after got used to all the nice addon…. (Auctioneer, QuestHelper….)
yes this is true herb prices jumped, but so did all the gathering profession prices. On shadowmoon Copper is selling for 12g a stack and light leather is about 6g per stack. It could be the news about inscription but it could just be people giving it a final push to be ready for WotLK
I have been working on the PTR to figure out that fastest (and cheapest) way to level up in Inscription - but they keep changing some important aspects of Inscription and have more to do. For example, there is currently an “inversion” where at (roughly) 240 you can get a recipe that requires 2 Celestial Ink and 1 Heavy Parchment, but then at 245 you can get a recipe that requires 1 Celestial Ink and 1 Heavy Parchment. That is backwards, and they will fix it I’m sure with a follow-on “tuning” pass.
Even the names of things are still changing. “Fine Vellum” has now become “Weapon Vellum II” (for putting a weapon enchant on so you can sell the enchant on the AH). Hopefully things will stabilize a bit. I am nervous that they are also making adjustments to the number of pigments that are milled from a stack of 5 herbs, so I am not sure my milling data is any good now.
I will make my spreadsheet for “fastest up” available to Garrett when it is ready. It will have the step-by-step instructions, how many pigments to expect from a given herb, etc. I have found so far that the regular pigments do not vary a great deal between herb types, but the number of rare pigments does vary. I.e. Winter’s Bite and Grom’s Blood will both give you the same number of Violet Pigments but one will give you more Ruby pigments than the other. That is just a “for example” since I am not looking at my spreadsheet right now - so don’t flame me if Winter’s Bite is actually a Silvery Pigment herb, etc.
So far, most of my addons do NOT work on the PTR, which is a bummer. AADV does not work, nor does ATSW, and even Postal (for opening lots of mails quickly) causes mail to not show up at all. I hope these get fixed soon, as it is a real pain milling 60+ stacks of herbs manually….
well different herb give different number of rare pigment make sence to me, since some herb is harder to get. Winter’s Bite only found on snow, stangekelp only in water… so these herbs can sell for a higher price in AH too.
Guys how would you know how much to sell the herbs for though they dont have the Updated Addons for bottomscanner and Auctioneer for at least 4 days after the patch.
oh man im stupid the reason i coudlnt find any herbs on aegwn is because my version of auctioneer wouldnt let me see the ‘herbs’ tab…. Just spent over 1000 gold on herbs but there is still to many there… I think they may have increased a bit but who knows i have never looked in the herbs tab and i have to turn auctioneer off to access it! If i put herbs in for heaps do you think the market will follow or will i just look like an outlier? also thanks gavin you and your team are awesome… is there some paypal thing so we can contribute to this site?
Keeping with the philosophies from past articles at Dominate Your Server, I anticipated the inscription/herb opportunity a couple of months ago and started buying up herbs then. I took a quick inventory yesterday and I have just over 2000 stacks of various types. Everything from Silverleaf to Mana Thistle (which was going for 6g a stack on my server until recently) with the 30-40% of it being outland herbs.
I have a level 70 alt with an open profession slot ready to learn inscription and all of my storage toons set up to deliver each grouping of herbs to that toon instantly. My plan was to log on after patch, mail myself the herbs I needed, and level inscription to 375 in 30-45 minutes. Then, using the herbs I have left, sell glyphs, enchanting papers, etc.
To this end, I was curious as to how to structure the prices of glyphs and papers. Trade channel and face-to-face transactions or Auction House? I assume that if you take the glyph route, it’s a good idea to keep track of which glyphs are selling and make more of those than other types.
There is one possible problem with this plan. I was speaking with several RL friends who have been in the beta for a significant amount of time. They say that in order to level inscription, an inscriber needs to make hundreds of glyphs. They do not believe that glyphs will be a money-maker because the market will be flooded. They point out that JC is different because each new piece of gear requires another gem (or two or three!) to be created, while people will slot their glyphs into place and change them rarely or never.
So now the question is; Sell glyphs using my ability to level inscription lightning-fast to get a leg up on the competition? Or keep enough herbs to outfit my family and raid members and sell the rest of my herbs to the people desperate to get inscription to 375?
The fact is that very few people will actually level inscription in an hour. By being there first, you will be able to “set” the market.
Next, the biggest difference between glyphs and gems is that gems only really begin to come into effect on BC Outlands gear. Plus, a lot of times most people will not even slot most items because they know they are going to be replacing it soon anyway. Why waste a few hundred gold? But glyphs are different - everyone past level 14 will need at least two, and level 70’s will all need five regardless of their gear. We estimate the market to be about 200 million glyphs the first week or so.
Before you laugh also consider that gems only apply to high end gear and most folks only have one or two main characters where gems even come into play. But that’s NOT the case with glyphs. Almost everyone will be in the market for glyphs even for all their alts. You simply wouldn’t realyl want to go to BG’s any more without them, and that means twinks. Arena guys will pay anything for the right glyphs. Serious raiders will want them big time. And then everyone else will realize that having a few will even help them level easier. Especially since they are changing the experience curve for Outlands in this patch as well.
The market for glyphs will be MUCH bigger than gems, and it’s also reasonable to assume that folks will change their glyphs more often than gems. Both are dependent on spec, and when people change specs they have to change gear and gems. But glyphs will easier to change with spec.
You do have a LOT of herbs. It might not be the best thing to make it all into glyphs right away, and you might do a little herb selling when the price is high. The drawback to this of course is that you will be helping other scribes get to 375 as well.
The real key here is AADV and LilSparky’s. Using those two mods you will be able to collect great data on what sells and how much they cost to make each.
You have two selling options. I would go with straight auctions at first, and I just don’t do face to face. It takes too much time unless the item is worth more than about a 100 gold profit to me. But you can do a mail service and tell people to send you a letter stating what they want, and then cod it to them. For high demand items this works very well. In patch 3.0.2 you can link your entire profession list to chat, so they can browse all your glyphs themselves and decide what they want. The point is to make them do all the work.
@ InsanePaul - I would disagree with your friends. My common experience was to give low level gems to blue items and then do the higher level, more expensive gems to purples. Yes, with progression comes more replacement purples and the need for more gems, but I really did not end up using many gems at all. Now, I don’t have 10 70’s in BT, but I was surprise how seldom I needed to go looking for gems.
On the flip side, while people will not be flipping out Glyphs every other week either, they will need glyphs starting at 14, regardless of progression. And how many toons (percentage of a given server) actually make it past Kara anyway? How many make it to Kara for that matter? I think the market is going to be much, much bigger for glyphs than gems.
One last idea - and this may be way off - but you cannot “glyph up” twice with different sets of gear and be set like you can with gems. If you need different glyphs for different situations (PvP vs PvE, or for different instances as you progress through them, or just for different roles) you will have to replace the glyphs with no way of trading back - other than buying new again. I have two full sets of gear - one for tanking when I am the tank and one for melee DPS when I am not the tank - and each is gemmed appropriately. If I want to min/max, I will have to use Glyphs like scrolls/potions and bring some with me each run until I get geared up enough to survive w/o the “best” glyph in each situation. I haven’t tried this yet, so this last idea may be way off, but it could be another reason why the market is much bigger for Glyphs than Gems.
Thank you Lawbringer and Leeroi for the thoughtful, insightful feedback. Your reasoning seems sounds and I’m looking forward to patch day so I can finally clear our some inventory. LOL This leaves only one more thing to decide: What should I be charging for Glyphs? It’s easy enough once the market reaches a somewhat stable level to pay attention to what people are charging and price appopriately. But assuming that I will be one of the leading inscribers on my server, the “market value” seems to be close to arbitrary.
Is it as simple as a*b*c+d=e?
Where:
a = number of inks
b = average number of herbs to get those inks
c = current value of those herbs
d = markup for being one of the first selling them
e = Price
Even in this simple a formula, the markup could be anything from a few gold to a few hundred gold. As an example, let’s say I can make Glyph of Evasion (which should be fairly popular). This takes 2 midnight inks which takes 2 dusky pigments which means about 10 briarthorn (or something from the same group of herbs.) 10 Briarthorn on my server will currently run you 7.5g. So my (current) cost to make a Glyph of Evasion is about 8g each.
Do I sell them for 10g? 80g? 200g? What will the market bear in the first couple days (weeks?) after the patch?
Would love to hear thoughts on this.
The economy on my server is all messed up. I have been making a killing by placing ores, primals, motes, and gems. on the AH for a year now. Suddenly these items have taken a huge decress in price. I can only assume it is because the true hard core players are prepping for WotLK. The amounts of gold I have been making are dwindling. I do have two herbalists though so I do have a few herbs stocked up. My problem is neither of my herbalists are maxed out yet, so there are a lot of herbs I will be missing when the patch goes live. Anyway I will be putting my herbs on the AH since I do not have enough to level inscription to 375 yet. My level 70 has two gathering proffesions so I may drop one and pick up inscription right away, I just have not decided yet. I am still gathering herbs no matter what course I take they will be useful.
If I do go with inscription how much can the glyphs be sold for? I am in it for the way that will make me the most gold quickly before the rush is over and the market restabilizes.
Lee,
It all depends on your server’s economy. I usually price the item depending on what the demand is. You will need a day or two to “feel out” your server once the glyphs are put on.
Well I have managed to get over 1,000 herbs in the bank now. All my herbs are for skill level below 200 right now but I do have a few more days to work on it. I hope these lower level herbs will be needed with the inscription. In the meantime I will continue to herb ans raise my skill level keeping everything I pick for patch day.
Herbs have been selling like crazy, before the patch I picked up a stack of 20 for 1 or 2 gold and now they’re selling for 20g+ for a stack. I just wish I had the money to buy more herbs (spent 900g).