Gold Making Question
Posted on June 5th, 2009 by Lawbringer under Auction House, General Tips, Gold Building, Gold Farming, Jewelcrafting, Trade Skills, World of Warcraft, WotLKWe might be able to keep this argument popping forever. You see, there is something in the human psyche that makes people defend a position they choose. It doesn’t make any difference how odd the thought processes are that lead them to their choice, they have to convince themselves that their choice is the only good choice and therefore every other choice is the odd.
I admit this runs in both directions. I don’t know it all and I am on a constant quest to change little things every day to see what works better – and what works worse. You may have heard the phrase “think outside the box.” Ask Gavin and you’ll find out real fast that Lawbringer doesn’t even have a box.
So in this running argument we have about the profit potential of Jewelcrafting the overall position we take is that it’s not so much that JC is awful or will make you NO cash at all. The point is that those who say that it’s awesome and will make you TONS of cash are being silly.
Basically all of the crafting professions are pretty much equal from our point of view. However, because of supply and demand and mat cost JC falls somewhere near the bottom of the list. Just don’t hop up in my face screaming that JC is the bomb. It’s not, and we showed why in our post about making gold with professions yesterday.
But it’s not that I just randomly hate JC. The real point is that I’m not a big fan of using any profession by itself to try to craft my way to riches. I’m not a fan of it because compared to arbitrage it makes far less gold for far more time spent.
But in the interest of equal time, I did want to point out a few more reasons why the arbitrage position wins almost every time. SO let’s take a look at one of the many spurious argument FOR a position such as JC, and our answers to such a position. But be sure to read the last article for even more analysis.
Comment by Anhydrous
Your numbers are wrong because your assumptions about what items you craft to DE are wrong. I never ever ever make the items the DE into Dream Shards – there really ISN’T any money in it. However, there are four green items that DE into dust and essence, and they take two Crystallized Earth instead of an Eternal, giving a much better profit margin on the dust I sell. THIS is where the money from JC really begins to stack up. Any Scarlet Rubies I find (these are the only blue gems really worth anything) are saved up until the market for Runed Scarlet Rubies has run dry during the week, generally before I head out to work. I list a bunch for 100g a pop and find them all sold by the time I get home. I’m not rolling in cash by any stretch of the imagination, but you’re completely misrepresenting the income potential for jewelcrafters here. I think it also helps that my server is severely underpopulated, causing hugely inflated prices on enchanting mats and good gems during the week.
Lawbringer responds:
No – the real point is that you are almost certainly STILL making money from DE and NOT JC. Dang, why is this hard? If you are disenchanting anything from JC you’re not really using JC to make gold you’re using enchanting to make gold. I also mentioned that there are probably servers where (red gems and maybe uncut yellows) you can make some gold on the gems themselves, but this is normally not the case.
And why not turn your junk gems into Dream Shards? Nothing wrong with turning vendor trash into something in high demand. Besides, it’s a bigger profit margin than selling the blue gems overall. You even admit that only red gems sell on your server. You’re actually just not seeing this quite clearly yet because you like JC. This has nothing to do with like and everything to do with time per gold earned.
You are assuming that I hate JC for some reason. You are bound to it, apparently. That’s not my position. My position is that I have ALL of the professions, on both sides of the server. Both high pop and low pop in effect, and over more than 2 years I have seen maybe 3 months where gems from JC could make a serious profit. The rest of the time, and even for you right this minute most of the time it’s DE that you’re feeding.
If you look at it from the perspective of feeding DE with all of the professions you can find at least 3 or four things in every profession like your rings that will yield similar results – in other words JC is NOT the only option. Therefore, JC is NOT what is making you money. The money maker for the most part is DE – I guess we’ll have to beat that horse forever though.
It is cool, however, that the red market is hot where you be. If so many people didn’t take JC for the wicked player buff there would probably be a decent profit in maybe up to 1/2 of the blue quality gems. But since probably more raiders take JC than anything else, most servers see a glut of gems of all types and even the most popular colors and cuts just have supply above demand. That almost guarantees sale price below mat cost.
You also said you were selling scarlet rubies you find. That means you are farming. What did I say about that? I said the only way you can hope to turn a profit with JC is if you farm the ore yourself. You obviously do that. You obviously didn’t take into account the fact that I mentioned this specifically in the article and many other times.
The point – once again is that you really can’t BUY your mats and turn a profit with JC without using Enchanting. This points to the fact that you are feeding Enchanting and NOT Jewelcrafting. If you are feeding Enchanting, then you can feed it any number of ways, but don’t bring your “JC makes me tons of gold” argument in here if you aren’t making gold using JC only without farming.
Yeah, it’s a lot of conditions. No farming, buy your mats, don’t feed DE. If you’ve met all of those requirements, you can say it’s a great gold-making opportunity. If it meets even MOST of those requirements it’s average at best. If you have to farm the mats to make it profitable, it’s a waste of your time. If you’re feeding DE it has nothing to do with what you’re doing anyway since there are dozens of ways to feed DE. The very best way to feed DE is to not craft anything and just buy the DE items that are already on the AH.
You say you’re not rolling in cash – well I do. I’m not misrepresenting the income you can earn. People can basically expect the same thing you are getting from JC. Lots of farming to not rake in lots of cash. If you would do it my way you would spend basically no time and the cash would roll in in gigantic piles. On any server, any time, every time.
I have seriously heard more than enough on whether or not you make a lot of money from JC or Enchants. This is ridiculous there are always going to be people to disagree with you and think that you are wrong, but really all that they are doing is taking up your time and wasting time that could be better spent running informative articles. There is absolutely nothing Dominating about this article. All I read is that you feel like you HAVE to correct some people and make them see things from your point of view.
I have been reading DYS for quite a while and this has got to be one of the worst articles you guys have ever published.
Dark, say it ain’t so . . . .
I don’t feel the need to get into an epeen contest with anyone. The real point is that there is a lot of really bad information out there. There are a ton of sites that suggest things like “take JC it’s a great way to make gold.”
In that light, this is not about proving right or wrong to our readers. It’s about giving them the reasons behind our very different point of view. I hate to see people struggle to make gold when it’s so dang easy if you take a slightly (or very) different approach.
With all that being said (so that you see why we published this terribad information) you have to go back to part of the reason why we did the first article in the series. At the very top of the article I wrote:
“One of the things you learn as a writer is that it’s not always a good thing if everyone agrees with you. You have to stir up a little controversy from time to time. It seems that people kind of like getting mad. Makes them feel alive – gets their blood flowing.”
So, just like I disagree with those who say JC is a good way to make gold – you are welcome to disagree with the fact that we felt the need to write about it fairly extensively in an attempt to help people make gold with less effort.
Plus, it got your blood flowing – and that’s a good thing
i think by ’scarlet rubies i find’ he means from prospecting.. because you know.. that is finding gems in rocks after all..
try to not be so literal.
sn0ns last blog post..Google Love
p.s. i make a chunk of my change from the greedy goblin philosophy.. aka : Scribe. and i do so in a “dominating” fashion.. in i have a guildie who mills my herbs for me.. and i afk to make inks..
sn0ns last blog post..Google Love
Hate to put this here but haven’t been able to contact anyone about the WoW guide I purchased online. No link or email and I am SO tiered of making gold the hard way. Help a toon out please.
You can send your questions to gavin@dominateyourserer dot com
Dear Lawbringer,
I kinda have to agree with Darkwolfneo here.
Its kind of you that you try to explain your way of view and share your knowledge about how to “Dominate”.
But this article was seriously a waste of your time my friend.
It really is.
Looking forward for your next article tho!
Request: Perhaps you could use all of the readers questions to have a vote session and the one with the most votes will be taken a closer look at it to make an article of it?
Kind regards
Lester
Are you assuming we don’t pay attention to trends and back end metrics Lester? We ask for reader questions with every podcast. But our best evidence as to which articles people really want to read are those that get the most responses (positive and negative).
As a result, we really do try to do a little bit of everything for everyone. Some PvP, some PvE, some gold-making, some builds, some fun. Not everyone likes everything, so you’re just going to have to live with the fact that we won’t tickle your fancy every single day of the week.
wow can you drag this out, 3 posts already? Can we drop it already, PLEASE?
Well let me make one last comment
Yeah, it’s a lot of conditions. No farming, buy your mats, don’t feed DE. If you’ve met all of those requirements, you can say it’s a great gold-making opportunity. If it meets even MOST of those requirements it’s average at best. If you have to farm the mats to make it profitable, it’s a waste of your time. If you’re feeding DE it has nothing to do with what you’re doing anyway since there are dozens of ways to feed DE. The very best way to feed DE is to not craft anything and just buy the DE items that are already on the AH.
I can’t say that i’m rolling in gold, i waste huge amounts every week on various little things(maybe 800-1000g a week), yet i have a stable level of gold around 2000g. Other than selling stuff from my leveling toons get(which nets me about 100g a week), i sell gems. My main has skinning(at like skill 60) and maxed JC, my alt has tailoring and enchanting. While i do feed most of my greens to my enchanting i hardly ever sell mats(like after 7 months, im sarting to clear the bank), and i can tell you my profit with taloring is in the negitive.
So all in all, i am turning about 1000g a week with JC, no farming.
Given that i have so many gold sinks, the only thing i can guess is that my JC is making up for the lost profit, since the only dailys i do are the cooking, and maby the fishing every couple days.
But on a second note, MORE USEFULL INFO PLEASE, IF people are making money just using JC, why shoot them down, instead, post some more usefull stuff on making money with taloring or engenerring or alchmey. As far as i can tell, the only way you see to make money is to buy low/sell high and/or disenchant stuff.
Not sure how you got 3 posts out of two, but that’s ok. It’s not only that this information is important, but it is incredibly useful. Like I said above, this isn’t about banging on someone over a matter of personal choice with all things being equal. Let me phrase it another way.
Let’s suppose you had a way of doing PvP that virtually guaranteed you won all of your arena matches. Let’s say that it was very different than what everyone else says to do. Let’s say that your method is also applicable to any class and players of any skill level.
Using your PvP methodology it’s possible for anyone to garner an arena rating over 2k in less than 2 months playing just a few matches a day. You begin to tell people about how to really Dominate the arenas using your techniques. Some people do well, others just ok, but for the most part everyone who uses even a part of what you recommend does better.
But you still see 90% of the WoW sites recommending the same old stuff that’s complicated and super iffy. Or they recommend things that are much more difficult for people to execute.
This is where we are on the gold-making front. People are still struggling to make gold, and we can show them why. For those folks like Radjim, he’s making lots of gold, but might not know exactly why. He thinks it’s JC, but in reality it’s the other stuff he does.
If we can use a real world example to highlight the difference it often makes more sense to those who haven’t quite caught up to the fact that there is a huge difference in using professions to make gold directly as opposed to using arbitrage first and professions to feed that.
In the other thread there is some dude talking about how hard it is to find greens for DE on the AH. He only struggles with that because he doesn’t know how to look. That’s the same thing as having trouble with the jousting combat in the Argent Tournament. It’s only hard until someone shows you a better way. A better methodology means more wins easier. A better way of making gold means more gold easier.
So it’s not beating a dead horse because there is a lot of horse left. A student can choose to not be a student, he can choose to believe that 2+2=5, he can choose to follow another teacher. So the choice is left to the them to be sure. You can like or follow our advice or not. But I feel it would be irresponsible to let people continue to use the difficult when there is an easy.
As to your last statement that’s exactly what we just did. The point is that you can and should use everything at your disposal from all the professions in the arbitrage process. And the key is to treat all professions the same. Use them to buff your toons, and use them to feed your arbitrage process.
It’s not that the only way to make gold is to buy low sell high, it’s just that it’s far easier than the other methods. It takes less time per gold made than any other methodology. I can say that with authority because we’ve spent three years watching every trend in the marketplace.
There was a time when I would go farm when I saw a spike in herb prices coming. But what I found was that I made more gold per unit of time (a LOT more) if I just bought that crap off the AH and resold it when prices rose. There is almost never a situation where spending time crafting or gathering is more efficient than using arbitrage. That’s not really just an opinion but something backed up by crunching hundreds of thousands of numbers and hours and auctions and on and on and on.
But just like Darkwolfneo, I’m glad you took the time to whack on me. It means you’re listening. You might not like what I have to say today (or yesterday) but you’re listening. Next time I’ll try to write something you like (even if it pisses everyone else off).
The ral problem with the last few articles is that you’re just whacking people and telling them that they’re wrong without actually laying out a strategy that shows them a step by step way to do it better. Overall the articles were worthless when it came to actually helping people do it better.
1 podcast + 2 written articles = 3 posts?
I know how everyone is thinking this is a waste of time about the whole JC profit topic. Persoanlly I think the members of Dominate Your Server have the right to correct other peoples posts in order to prove their point. Maybe you guys learned a little more than you wanted with 3 posts on JC profit, but if people think they are smarter then Dominate Your Sever then they can go make their own blog and give you bad advice over and over. Gavin knows what he is talking about so if you don’t like it LEAVE there will be like 5 people to replace you as other people learn of this website anyway. Good luck with future articles for Dominate Your Server.
its not the fact that hes wrong or we are better, its that he has made 2 topics just saying that its not a good idea to make profits via JC.
Given Yes i could probably make lots of money with my mages tailoring and Enchanting, more than my JC, thats not the problem. The problem is that he made 2 topics to replys of people who claimed to make money via JC, even if it is old school profits. Honistly i think that while 1 might of been ok, 2 was a waste of time.
Now what i think he should do is make a post on duel boxing(unless he already has, and if so, then i feel so sad i don’t remember it) and the advantage of the recrute a friend.
IE heres a real example.
I made my second account on wensday, today is saturday, Both of my chars are now sitting at level 23. Thats not to high given the time, but i don’t play much.
If you want to know the leveling speed, i took them both from 18 to 23 in a day, running stockades.
With my dads mage, both were gaining a level every 20 minutes(i use titan bar, the level guage at the top said 20 minites at the begining of a level for the session).
Its simple. Combined with a rested bonus and the recrute a friend buff, the mage simply used arcane blast twice in each sub room, once in the front, once in the back. Both chars were on follow, and never stoped to loot.
What i want to know is, is there any hardware that would let me input controls directly to a window, even if it wasn’t the one with the focus?
I currently only have 1 moniter for my 2 computers, so i have to run both clients on 1 machine, which is fine, except that theres a delay if i need to switch between them.
there are programs to do this.. search around.. i’d do it, but i forget what they are called, hopefully i didn’t come off as mean there… just tryin to be helpful… i know i read somewhere that there are 2 specific programs that are better than the others… but.. like i said… i forget what they are called..
my friend got an epic flyer form JC so it does make money
super facepalm
spend long enough killing level 1 mobs and you could buy an epic flyer too.
Guys farming level 1 mobs DOES make money!
Ok… so JC is a cash cow, cool. Can I get some more rogue PVP tips now?
Not a cash cow, typo
Okay guys, seriously?
Think about this for a second. I know I personally absolutely love DYS, and look forward to getting an email to read the new articles. Do you know WHY that is?
Because they make excellent arguments, combined with innovative thinking to bring us some amazing tips and hints.
Now come on – If they were to simply let people argue with them about their views, and they did NOTHING to counteract it, would you be half so interested? I wouldn’t know what to think anymore. I think it’s amazing that they take the time to go back, go through what people think about things and attempt to bring their side of the table to it.
And from past experience, their side of the table tends to be right. Why? Because it’s usually very well thought out and tested. They bring us their own experiences, and it’s hard to refute that.
Keep it up DYS. You’re doing an excellent job, as always.
Actually I have been reading DYS as soon as found out about it is couple years ago…Gavin 1-60 in 4 days always intrigued me so i started reading wht he had to say when I could find it…then DYS came out…I don’t respond to every article but i read them all.
Honestly the best way to make money is to unthink what you think you know and listen to what they say. For a long time I fought mysels thinking i knew how to make gold, I was wrong.
Out of curiosity one day I went to another server and started horde toons–since I play alliance and I all 10 toon slots full on my main server.
I still play my alliance 80’s but on my horde toons i have a lvl 25 BE rogue with 2k gold as my main…a lvl 1 pally as a bank toon and a lvl 1 warlock as a mule toon. I don’t have 2k gold on my alliance 80’s until i tried this experiment. Now I make all the money I want w/o taking time away from raiding and other pve content. That and I can run around and be silly with my RL girlfriend on the game and buy her everything she wants and not have to worry…I like that and so does she as well as our entire guild cause if someone needs something that is expensive i can help them out and it has really improved my gamming experience.
Btw my main toon has over 200 days played…been on this a while.
Thanks DYS for helping me enjoy the game so much more!
how about an article on how to level up fishing. There has to be another way or a faster way to get fishing up. I’ve been working on it for a while and I’m only at 276 it takes at least ten casts to get even a single point. Do you get skill ups quicker if you are in an area that is designated for your fishing level? I know you can fish anywhere, but this seems like it’s taking forever it’s worse then quest grinding to level.
Just out of curiosity, what are the items in other professions that are great to disenchant? Seems like everywhere you look people are talking about the JC venue for enchanting mats but I’d love to be able to eat up a lot of the cloth and leather I have sitting around if it means I can turn it (profitably) into dust and essence.
Thanks.
Hey guys, ive been reading DYS for about a year now and i read all the comments on every post… never made one though.
) that i picked up in heroic runs and stuff from the AH.
With this subject / post however, i feel as if i should make a comment.
First off, before the initial post, i was looking around on setting up a secondary proffession for my 80 Tankadin. I had previously (pre-wotlk) had enchanting and herbalism, ive decided to keep enchanting as it has made me money from d/e crappy quest greens, drops and AH junk, but have decided herbalism as evil and useless and a waste of time
I had a look at some sites about JC and they try to tell you how incredible JC is, i asked my guildies and they say the same, yet they spend most of their non-raiding time flying around Northrend fighting both Horde and Alliance for a little node on a mountain somewhere while i sit in Orgimmar and hit a macro advertising Enchanting while i d/e crap (can i say this word on the interwebs
So, after reading through the pros – cons of JC, i will agree that if you are going to be using it to be your primary income, you are gonna be basicly breaking even at best, i feel that you need enchanting, and for JC to become even remotley usefull beyond feeding Enchanting, is if you raid, youll need the special gems, the trinkets and the slots.
Dont let this post by Lawbringer discourage you on JC wether you have it or not, take it as it is, advice on not to rely on JC as primary / only income, but to see it as an assistant to something like Enchanting and / or Raiding.
Keep in mind, that JC is no different to Tailoring, Leatherworking or Blacksmith, you cant make much profit, if any, without farming, then you have to spend time advertising your items made or spending time and gold putting the item on the AH with all the other people with your same idea and hope to god that no-one undercuts you and your item sells before you have to pay money to repost it… and, if you are going to d/e the items made, you are making money from Enchanting… GG.
But hey, as i said, dont let these things make you shy away from the great proffession JC, it has alot to offer like free (or close to) jems, trinkets and jem slots as well as the ability to d/e items you make while leveling it.
So yeah, i am still going to replace my Herbalism with Jewel Crafting and im going to Dominate my PvE and Moneybags… on my server
nope Dark – there is no way to make it any easier. If it makes you FEEL better all you have to really get to is about 375 though and you can do the Northrend fishing dailies without a lure pretty much. With a +100 lure you can start doing it at 300. But there is no way around the grind – as a matter of fact it’s worse than ever. When they made it so that you could fish in any water they upped the number of casts per point a lot to compensate. It’s ten casts from like level 225 or so which means at an average of 12 seconds on each cast, and 10 casts per point, and 225 points to get to max it takes around 2,250X5/60/60 = 7.5 hours of fishing to go from 225-450. And believe me when I say your average is probably going to be higher than 12 sec per cast. So tough it out, there’s no way around it.
I would like to clear something up first – I am in no way stating that JC is the be-all end-all moneymaker. Profit did not even figure into my decision to take it up; sexy boatloads of +spellpower did. My issue with your original article is that you are completely misinforming your readers as to the methods that jewelcrafters use to make profits. (And yes, disenchanting DOES make up a very large portion of my take, but I don’t see how that is relevant. Could I still make money with disenchanting by itself? Undoubtedly, but my current system is fast, easy, and has a profit margin that I am completely comfortable with.)
And why not turn your junk gems into Dream Shards? Nothing wrong with turning vendor trash into something in high demand. Besides, it’s a bigger profit margin than selling the blue gems overall.
Nothing that JC can make that turns into Dream Shards will turn a profit. The value of the materials that go into those items, either from selling them outright or crafting them into a dust-producing item, is always more than the price of a Dream Shard.
You also said you were selling scarlet rubies you find. That means you are farming.
You’re putting words in my mouth. I FIND these rubies when I prospect the saronite ore I buy for cheap. The ore that I make more on from prospecting, jewelcrafting, and DEing then I would from re-listing at a higher price.
The heart of the issue, though, is that you’re trying to convince people that jewelcrafting is not profitable by giving them flawed arguments. It’s like saying you can’t make money from tailoring because buying the mats for an ebonweave robe, crafting it, and disenchanting it to sell the crystal is a bad idea. I’m certain that there ARE better ways of making money than JCing, but if you’re going to defend your statements on the subject by giving your readers ridiculous, low and negative profit margin examples of how JCs make money, it doesn’t mean crap.
God is on everyone’s side