The PuG update: We have 200 accounts now! Since there is no more motivation to "defend the towers", we play for win. We take it from the horde (imagine their rage that the "puny allies" do the impossible task of capturing TB), then lock them out. There were defenses when they barely had one base. If you want a PvP guild, join!
On PvE front: I wrote that we had DD-shortage, so released 2 dragons at a time because we had the tanks. This reset we had to do something even more unorthodox: we released them all! Dragons, whelps, boss all piled up and AoE-d down. Reason: 2 shaman healers, so it was easier just to CH-spam the tanks. And we definitely lacked the DPS to single-target them down before enrage. You can join raids too! Just don't forget to read the rules.
Many AH players were waiting for the first darkmoon faire, where people can turn in their decks for Cataclyms epic trinkets. Many reported insane profits. I still did not dare to touch this field. The whiptail and jasmine go for 8-9G on Agamaggan-ally, a stack give 1 inferno ink and 6 blackfallow ink. If I turn those into infernos too, that's 1.6/stack, so an inferno costs 100G. One card needs 10 and 30 volatile lifes, 8G each, so a card is 1250G. Even if you don't get duplicates (the cards are random), the material cost of a deck is 10K. Would I pay 10K for a single 346-359 upgrade? No way. Does it mean that others don't? Of course not, people paid 15K for a completely useless bike. But I don't believe that there are enough people who would do such a waste and can afford it to make it profitable.
The risk of making cards and not selling them was just too high. So I haven't crafted a single darkmoon card. But I did not want to skip on the profit either.
I wrote that the more populated a faction is, the lower the average raider population is. On the other hand the more populated the faction is, the more peers you have to amuse. Which means that the more populated horde has much more guys who want "epixxlol" without any chance of raiding. So I wasn't surprised that the inferno inks sell for 160G there. So I started buying herbs, crafting inks for 100G each and transferring to the horde, selling there. 60G profit/ink. Since a trinket needs 80 inks, I have 4800G profit on a trinket, without ever crafting a card. My action is risk-free. If the demand would ever drop, I would just stop buying more herbs. I have no stockpiles, which is advised on a deflating market of an early expansion.
What do I do with the gold on the horde side? Buy whatever cheap - or simply available - on horde and transfer back. I do the same with BoE epics. Buy them on ally for 5K and sell them for 10K on horde. At worse case I can still sell them for their original price, I can't get stuck with it like with the fifth "two of winds".
If your server has unbalance, transfer herbs or inks between the sides for huge profit, no risk.
On PvE front: I wrote that we had DD-shortage, so released 2 dragons at a time because we had the tanks. This reset we had to do something even more unorthodox: we released them all! Dragons, whelps, boss all piled up and AoE-d down. Reason: 2 shaman healers, so it was easier just to CH-spam the tanks. And we definitely lacked the DPS to single-target them down before enrage. You can join raids too! Just don't forget to read the rules.
Many AH players were waiting for the first darkmoon faire, where people can turn in their decks for Cataclyms epic trinkets. Many reported insane profits. I still did not dare to touch this field. The whiptail and jasmine go for 8-9G on Agamaggan-ally, a stack give 1 inferno ink and 6 blackfallow ink. If I turn those into infernos too, that's 1.6/stack, so an inferno costs 100G. One card needs 10 and 30 volatile lifes, 8G each, so a card is 1250G. Even if you don't get duplicates (the cards are random), the material cost of a deck is 10K. Would I pay 10K for a single 346-359 upgrade? No way. Does it mean that others don't? Of course not, people paid 15K for a completely useless bike. But I don't believe that there are enough people who would do such a waste and can afford it to make it profitable.
The risk of making cards and not selling them was just too high. So I haven't crafted a single darkmoon card. But I did not want to skip on the profit either.
I wrote that the more populated a faction is, the lower the average raider population is. On the other hand the more populated the faction is, the more peers you have to amuse. Which means that the more populated horde has much more guys who want "epixxlol" without any chance of raiding. So I wasn't surprised that the inferno inks sell for 160G there. So I started buying herbs, crafting inks for 100G each and transferring to the horde, selling there. 60G profit/ink. Since a trinket needs 80 inks, I have 4800G profit on a trinket, without ever crafting a card. My action is risk-free. If the demand would ever drop, I would just stop buying more herbs. I have no stockpiles, which is advised on a deflating market of an early expansion.
What do I do with the gold on the horde side? Buy whatever cheap - or simply available - on horde and transfer back. I do the same with BoE epics. Buy them on ally for 5K and sell them for 10K on horde. At worse case I can still sell them for their original price, I can't get stuck with it like with the fifth "two of winds".
If your server has unbalance, transfer herbs or inks between the sides for huge profit, no risk.
23 comments:
The cards do puzzle me. I know inscriptors on my server who are going crazy with the decks, so I assume that some people are buying them.
But annoyingly, it's driven the price of herbs right up so flasks and potions are getting expensive. (I cry inside when I think how many flasks you could have made for one stupid deck of 359 trinket. Such a waste.)
You missed out then sadly Gevlon.
On Frostmourne-US H Darkmoon cards that are not "of Stones", ie the Earthquake Deck, and you will pretty much turn a profit if not make more than the cost of the card. Initially Stones cards were in high demand, but they seem to be the card that spawns most often from the RNG - and hence the price drop reflects this.
All other cards are selling extremely well considering herbs are around 200g a stack for twilight jasmine and whiptail.
I sold individual cards for 2000g apiece, not listing multiples, and eventually created the Strength DPS trinket. It sold for 26,000g, which ends up being ~3250g a card.
I've been selling Inferno Inks too, although I make them from buying the stacks of Blackfallow Ink for 14g each and then selling the Inferno for 200g.
With people doing /2 WTB Vial of Sands 50k, I don't think a 15-20k trinket is huge problem for "want a shiney" type of M&S or hardcore minmaxers.
Also because of this I don't see high end Cata herbs dropping below 150g stack on most servers anytime soon. At least until next tier trinket stats start to appear on the net.
As for Stones cards and trinket, it's the fault of WotKL tank mentality "must stack stam!" so many still see dodge rating as "fail stat". After all, it's still the healers fault that they ran out of mana, while trying to keep up the stam stacked tank!
@Drakmooncards:
Often they are only suboptimal (dodgerating and on-use 11,5k hp? when I need mastery the most and on-use avoidance or resistence?) I personally prefer the TB trinkets (str. on-use and resistence on-use) as a pallytank. And no stamina is out of date. But good thing they sell anyway to some hasty folk.
Interfaction trading is one of my major buisness sprees. Exspecially gemtrading ores and bars are very tasty in profit. BoE´s and high-value items are always risky.
I bought the DMC: Hurricane agility version and paid 20k happily for it. Why? I have so much gold left from wotlk and instead of buying some useless drake I wanted to buy something that increases my performance. And I know many others who have lots of gold, but nothing to spend it in, who are now planning on DMC trinkets.
I guess the safest way to profit from Cards is getting in touch with hc Raiding Guilds and sell bundles. We recently bought 6 Decks from one Crafter for a fixed Price.
Sure you can take the risk and gamble on certain Casuals/Socials to pay 30k for a Deck but deals with raiding Guilds are profitable for both sides and also guarantee a certain income.
The same is usually done with other Consumables. Many Raiders I know have standing Orders at the Servers big Alchemists and by for example 20 Flask of Draconic Mind per Week at a fixed Price (mostly those that have other obligations and spend most of the online time in raids). Above Material Costs but way below AH Prices. I guess this is benefical for both sides as the Raider can take care of other Stuff and the Crafter gets a steady income.
side note: Your local Chinamen are in most cases also up for stuff like that, although they rather sell you herbs at a fixed price /weekly rate...
There seems to be a lot of money in the market to spend on Darkmoon Cards and epics:
-People have lots of gold saved over from WoTLK
-Questing 80-85 provides several thousand gold
-Few people are raiding so far and repair bills are reduced by Guild Rewards. (Less money leaving circulation)
-Daily quests (TB) are still fresh and interesting, provide a lot of gold as people farm for their trinkets/mounts.
-No NPC big goldsinks (WoTLK had the Mammoth and Dalaran rings on launch)
The darkmoon epics are going for 20-25k or more on my server atm.
My reason for buying epics at inflating price is:
1) Increased performance
2) I have the money
In fact, I am trade my guild's EP for gold because some of these are close to BiS until heroic mode.
I must admit that I'm still a little confused by your claim of a larger server having less raiders. Maybe it's a wording thing.
Do you mean that there are less raiders per capita on a high population server? Because it seems to me that a high population server would have more raiders (as a flat number of people) compared to a low population server. The fact that there are less per capita would not be particularly surprising.
Made 130k+ profit selling darkmoon cards. I was quite lucky in that I only crafted 1 earthquake trinket (sold it for 7k just to get rid of it) and 3 tsunami, 3 volcano, 2 hurricane. Sold individual spare cards for 2-4k ea (22k from individual cards so far), tsunami for 30-35k ea (pre-hardmode BIS healing trinket), volcano 20-25k ea and hurricane 15-20k ea. My cost per trinket was just below 10k.
I think you need to do a post on spending gold for gear, some of the comments are quite dissapointing. 20k gold is "worth it" for a week long performance boost?!
@anonymous:
I can easily see how 20k gold would be worth a performance boost.
First, many people have the gold, and since there are no large in game gold sinks, what else should they do with it? Most good trinkets from heroics are annoying as heck to grind for (how many hours do you want to waste doing H stonecore pugs?). Also, the valor trinkets are quite expensive.
Second, cata raiding just started and many are vying with others for core raid slots. If you don't have a good trinket, then that might hurt your chances. Sure, you could argue it's just one slot. But then so is the epic chest, belt, etc that was purchased and they all add up quite fast. Also, if you've ever been in a hardcore guild, you'd realize that there is indeed a mentality that core raiders should be min-maxing. If a better trinket is available in the AH then the one you're using, then you're suspect, especially if the other core raiders went out and bought them.
Third, oh yeah, what are we supposed to spend our gold on again? Many of us enjoy making gold. Buying epics allows me to have more fun making gold b/c now I can use it for something that's practical. Would you rather be in another fail H stonecore lfg pug, or making gold in the AH?
I've been lurking here for quite a while now and have been thinking about opening up "The PuG" on my own server. Now that my guild broke up, I've decided to get my butt up and actually do it. So, another "The PuG" now exists on Nozdormu- EU. It's a Horde- Low- Pop (Ration 1:4) Server, German speaking.
There are only minor differences to your PuG, because maybe they could provide some interesting results:
- Twinks are allowed depending on your Reputation with the Guild. (Main Char only). Each level of reputation allows for one more Twink/Alt in the Guild. A Kick one Kick all Rule applies. Also Twinks are considered Lowbies at all time (Two week idle kick). I'm still pondering about what effects it will have and wether it will increase the M&S Influx.
- I've reordered some of your rules. Although I find your ordering interesting I've rearranged a couple of them to get some information about how they are perceived. (Mentioning /casual at the beginning, explaining what an Inviter is and that they are no special before going through the Invitation- Rules for example).
- I'm selling it more on the "Be in a Guild without being in a Guild"- Tendency. Just being a bit curious on that one.
Aside from that I'll open up this evening and see how things go. I'm guessing for a slow start because your site seems to be pretty well unknown amongst German speakers. (Yes, that's a subjective view from my small sample, but if I'm proven wrong, all the better).
***20k gold is "worth it" for a week long performance boost?!***
A trinket costs 1650 valor points. 70 VP per heroic run, 30 minutes per heroic => 12 hours doing heroics for one item.
2k gold per hour income (conservative estimate for a goblin doing ah business) => 10 hours to buy a trinket for 20k
If you are still running heroics for the valor points then buying epic items for 20k gold is at least as "worth it".
@Anonymous, thehampster: you are answering the wrong question. The question is NOT "is DCM trinket worth its price compared to valor and HC farmed trinkets".
The question is "does ANY top trinket worth its price over the random trinket you have?" My answer is no. I would never pay 20K or farm 20 hours for a 346-359 upgrade.
The excuses are pathetic! "i have the gold!" "what else am i supposed to spend gold on?" "but its best in slot!" "but it increases my performance!"
If you calculate stat upgrades as a percentage of overall stat, it is very easy to see how silly it is. Completely removing your trinket shouldnt be able to impact you more than 7% or so. So all arguments about the validity of trinket upgrades fall within the very tiny sliver of that 7%. Single level upgrades are likely in the 1% range.
you can still think the 20k gold was worth it for a ~1% upgrade, but you are wrong! You are just trying to justify your boredom by buying crap you dont really need.
Gevlon: ***I would never pay 20K or farm 20 hours for a 346-359 upgrade.***
Well, where's the break even then?
20k for a DMC trinket is a bit far fetched, at least if you are a scribe. Your own estimate was about 10k (yes, I know, ignoring dublicate cards etc.). That's about 5 hours ah business.
Is 5 hours per item upgrade "worth it"?
And to stress the point: the math "daily heroic -> VP -> epic item" can be made for all pieces, not just trinkets, with similar results. If the DMC cards are NOT worth the gold then you shoulnd't run a single heroic ever for the rest of the expansion.
I did myself the calculation if I´d "really need" the DMC-Trinket. I´m a pylltank my main attributes are Mastery > parry/dodge > resistence (encounter related) > stamina > str. > everything else.
So I could get a dodge trinket with a Battlemaster´s on-use effect. The alternative are the TB-Trinkets. Mastery + str. on-use and Mastery + resistence on-use.
I have no need for temporary HP as no encounter gives my healer the "OMFG he´ll die next hit" but the "ZOMFG I´m oom!". If I get twoshotted I made a movementfail or somebody missed a raidessential abillity. I will NOT gear myself for making mistakes excuseable. (200hp or souch is a managrave)
So the DMC trinkets are not worth their money for me as the on-use ability is totally wasted in my opinion. By that it is below item-value of a ilvl 465 trinket.
why should I farm TB exalted if I could also get a trinket for 4h work instead of doing daylies 1h/day? (now the case in general) because I´m going for exalted anyway. Yes I know it´s a bit "childish" but why should I do double work.
Why grind up a faction I could skip by buying that trinket? Because it gives me more than the trinkets as mainhand for second and third spec. And even if that wouldn´t be the main cause it would be becaus it´s a pvp-faction. Yes I wouldn´t skip that anyway. Not goblinish but personal "I want" desicion.
Anonymous said: “you can still think the 20k gold was worth it for a ~1% upgrade, but you are wrong! You are just trying to justify your boredom by buying crap you don’t really need.”
That depends entirely on where your focus in the game lies. For most the above Statement is true, but not for all. You are simplifying your Statement to a point where me stating “Every Player that has not killed 12/13 Bosses of the current Raid Content is a worthless Scrub” would also be true. Of course there are Scrubs the coincidentally have not yet killed the 12 current Bosses in normal Mode, but there are also some that definitely have the Potential but either were unable or unwilling to progress that far until today.
While for you a 1% upgrade is not worth 20k for what ever reason, there are many others that are not only required to snatch every possible upgrade but are actually glad to get a 5% (or 2,3,6, etc.) upgrade for a measly 20k. If it helps you kill the Bosses faster, if you can better/longer keep others alive or if you can just take the extra hit from Chimeron before he starts eating away at your /Shieldwall Fury Warrior it is more than worth it.
Gear, very simply put, makes Bosses die faster and smoother. If killing Bosses is your utmost and highest Priority in WoW, then 20k for a couple Percent is worth it.
Those of you saying that Gevlon missed out, this is not exactly true.
I have run some math, and given even a very cheap whiptail supplier (say 125g per stack), you are looking at somewhere between 50% and 100% profit on decks, assuming a 15k to 20k average per deck sold.
Gevlon just said that he basically mills the premium herbs and sells the infernals. So he is probably looking at 50% profit already.
He is making money off of decks, just as a middle man. He may not make as much, but he takes less risk and it costs him less time.
I gave DMC's a try, started crafting and selling on 1/1/11 until now. i believe Gevlon has the right strat. yes u can sell some cards for 2k but all the Stones cards are selling for 100-300g only and at this price they arnt even moving well.
i successfully sold 170 single cards, didnt combine and sell decks or trinkets. Taking into account a fat ah success fee and low Stones card sell price, my profit averaged out to only be 100g per card. pretty sucky for such a high investment cost (7g cinderblooms/stormvines, 11g lifes). And thats at current prices which will plummet as scribers sell cards at any cost to move them.
It was a fun experiment but im sticking to prospecting, transmuting, cutting gems.
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