Blue post coy on Epic Gems 4.3

I'm harping on a theme - but I've just seen a Blizzard post coy on epic gems in 4.3 here .

My theory has been that the purpose of Epic gems is to nerf older content. There is a possibility that a very slow release of Epic gems may be used to gate access to deeper 4.3 raid content.  Note: Having JC's with thousands of tokens, stockpiled pyrite ore, capped Justice/Valor/Honor points ready to pounce does not count as a slow release.

Player 1 : If they don't release epic gems in 4.3 i will be mad
Player 2 : Protip: they won't.  Sometime mid 4.3, maybe, as an indirect nerf to the content. But not at the start.
Player 1 : i mad



Blizzard : A more useful reply would contain details of why, in your opinion, epic gems should be added sooner, how it would benefit the game as a whole, the knock-on effect to progression, something like that. You being mad wouldn't be a solid reason I can pass on to the devs :(

As JC's we are salivating at the possibility of gemmas (myself included).  My advice is to be rational instead of emotional.  Just because you want it, does not mean you get it.

JC's daily - the other one

I assume that most JC's still doing their Stormwind/Ogrimar JC dailies : to pick up their gem cuts  that they don't already have, get a chimera eye, or stockpiling JC tokens in case 4.3 drops trainable epic cuts.  Assuming we get trainable epic cuts, and assuming they use the existing Cata JC tokens, we will want hundreds of tokens.

However, there are another set of profitable dailies to do in Dalaran providing Northrend JC tokens.  Just like the Cata dailies, these provide either recipes or an eye (in this case Dragon's eye).  The Daily takes 15 minutes, and usually requires 2 green quality northrend gems - prospectable, usually available cheap on the AH.

• 1 daily token can be traded for a Dragon's eye, selling uncut for an average US market price of  Alliance 160g & Horde 185g, even more cut into a nightmare tear.
• 5 4 daily tokens can be traded for an epic northrend gem cut.  I buy uncut northrend epic gems for up to 100g, selling 21 in the last week for 6.5k sales.  Won't make me a WoW millionaire overnight, but I already have a JC, and it is easy gold.

On the note of Epic cuts, most other bloggers I read are sure that 4.3 will drop epic cuts;  just like we had epics from northrend - with prospectable gems - most likely from pyrite ore.  There is nothing so dangerous as 'knowing' something.  Neither BC or Northrend epic gems were first released in this manner at first.  There is every chance this will occur, but you will get little sympathy from me if it doesn't happen.  I will be eagerly following patch notes from the PTR.

There are a couple of options for self powered transport to Dalaran.  First of all you can set your hearth there & portal back to Stormwind/Origmar (yes they put those portals back).  Many guild's now have 'cooperation' cloaks giving you a personal portal ever 4 or 8 hours.  Finally, there is a ring of the Kirin Torr, purchasable for 7k (less rep discount?) that allows you to port back to Dalaran.

What if you can't prospect Cata Epic gems?

 Anyone remember Stormjewels?

From the WoWPedia page :
Stormjewel is an epic gem that can be found by fishermen when doing Dalaran daily fishing quests. They can either be found in a Bag of Fishing Treasures, or the treasure bag can contain a Tiny Titanium Lockbox which in turn can contain a stormjewel.

Prior to patch 3.2, they were the only Northrend epic gems availabe to non-Jewelcrafters. They provide identical bonuses to the "ordinary" epic gems added in that patch.

Toward the end of Cataclysm Lich King I was buying uncut gems almost entirely sourced from either Honor Points or the equivalent of Justice points. I almost never sourced them from prospecting.

Blizzard have also done nothing but nerf the gold to be made from mining+prospecting since Cata was released. 

As a gold community, we overhype some things.  Remember that there was going to be unlimited demand for Dream Emerald for all those hunter scopes?  I'm still sitting on a large stockpile, with nowhere to sell them.


Back before 4.2, I (correctly) predicted that I thought that 4.2 would not introduce Epic gems.  For the reasons outlined (i.e. it is a stealth nerf to older content), I now think that at some stage in 4.3, we will see new epic gems.  It may not be during the initial release, as leading PVE guild's don't need them initially, but middle of the road guilds will.

It is just as likely that alternate methods of getting Epic gems  (Honor, Justice or Valor points; fishing) will limit the initial windfall of prospecting Epic gems.

I will still do my JC dailies.  I will stockpile a relatively small amount of pyrite ore.

I am uncomfortable gambling my fortune on fools gold.

Ask Mr Robot about gems

When it comes to gemming, enchanting and reforging; I can barely work out what is OK for my own spec, let alone anyone else.  So when in doubt, I ask Mr Robot. On top of that I am trying to work out what gem cuts to buy next for my JC.

Today, I looked up the PVE recommended gems for various specs with (apparently) best in slot gear.

I won't pass much judgement about the theory crafting behind some of the decisions, though I am sometimes confused (Pally tanks value dodge & parry more than mastery - yet are recommended pure mastery gems?  Diminishing returns?)


I was specifically looking for recommended Dream Emerald cuts.  There is 1 (Puissant - Mastery/Stamina); There is also only 1 recommended Amberjewel (Fractured - Mastery).

I have not looked at any PVP gem cuts, unsure where PVP players get their recomendations.

Players wear all sorts of gems, and get their advice (or lack thereof) from lots of different places.
 Some even think any epic gems must be better than any rare gems (they are not - the epics are northrend and carry less bonus than a cata rare), so don't restrict your sales to this list.

However, being aware of what some knowledgeable players will be picking up is still a good idea.  My consolidated list of gems as recommended by Ask Mr Robot for BIS Tier 12 is here on google docs.

Gems - followup

Several bloggers have been posting about the joy of Northrend gems lately, and even this post is a followup.

I have many Cata recipees, but not all.  I post all cata rare & northrend epic recipees that I have, and tinker with northrend rares, providing I am satisfied with the thresholds. 

At the moment - I generally only post once / day.  I am currently very easy to undercut.  Historically I have used exceptionally deep undercuts to protect my markets.  At the moment I am either choosing my market, or choosing the time of day that I post, and making reasonable profits. 

Breevok probably finds my irregular just before work glyph postings a little annoying.  He would find it a whole lot more annoying if I could reliably get out of bed earlier.  As a consolation prize, at least I am not deep undercutting the market with very cheap 48 hour glyphs.

However today is about gems.  I really expected that the new firelands raids would be creating a ton of gear needing gems and people would leave off their alts and the cata market would fall off.

Speculation aside, I made sure I still had all my gems up on the AH, but did increase my stockpiles of cata gems and let my stockpile of Northrend gems run low.  It appears that for my playstyle this was the wrong call.

My effort for JC currently consists of, up to once per day.

• Log on to gem posting toon, collect mail, log off
• Log onto JC, do daily, craft gems, mail gems to posting toon
• Log back onto gem posting toon, collect mail, post gems
• Consider logging onto alchemist and transmuting something.

Another player in the Northrend JC market (who sometimes reads my blog, and I raid with - at least as often as I raid) thanked me for resetting the market back to 300g (was much lower).  It was not deliberate, I just could not be bothered trying hard to find gems, so raised my margins instead.  For the effort I put into this market, I am happy with the northrend market - and am mildly concerned for the cata market.


PS.  Northend epics are stacking when I craft them, but Cata (edit) rares are not.  Bizzare

Stacking gems - but not during crafting

Woo Hoo - Cut gems now stack. With this I will be holding more per cut of each gem.

But not during crafting.  Bother.  During crafting,  you still use one slot per gem.  My guess is that this will be fixed by Blizzard "soon"; for an arbitrary definition of soon.

There is an addon I use to help with stacking and sorting - genie, and it works well with crafting bags.

/genie bag work (to sort & stack your bag)
/genie bank work (to sort & stack your bank)

and for GM's, you can sort & stack a guild bank tab by clicking on the genie icon on your minimap.

I am not naturally the 'tidiest' crafter, but genie allows me to fake it.

Gem Cutting

I am tinkering in the JC market for gems.  What I have noticed is that for the majority of my gem cuts, I sell more Northrend cut gems, and at a higher margin.  I have even re-specialised my under utilized Alchemist to transmuter to make Epic Northrend gems.

As an example : Blue gems : Cata rares vs Northrend Epics

http://theunderminejournal.com/?realm=A-Caelestrasz&search=ocean+sapphire

	Item	Avail	Price	Chg	% Chg	Mean	Std Dev	L 95% CI H	Seen
	Ocean Sapphire	26	16.74	-33.16	-66.45%	17.27	10.80		< 1h
	Rigid Ocean Sapphire	10	9.95	-2.90	-22.57%	18.81	9.68		< 1h
	Solid Ocean Sapphire	38	16.32	-3.58	-17.99%	22.49	11.62		< 1h
	Sparkling Ocean Sapphire	8	19.95	10.10	102.54%	28.52	36.91		< 1h
	Stormy Ocean Sapphire	15	23.99	-6.67	-21.75%	50.24	23.55		< 1h

The competition for sales is large, and profit margins over selling raw gems thin to non-existant.  Undercutting is as bad as for glyphs (which probably means that you might get some purchase with an early morning posting).

http://theunderminejournal.com/?realm=A-Caelestrasz&search=majestic+zircon

	Item	Avail	Price	Chg	% Chg	Mean	Std Dev	L 95% CI H	Seen
	Majestic Zircon	2	83.60	14.75	21.42%	76.07	10.76		< 1h
	Rigid Majestic Zircon	0	300.00	0.00	0%	318.00	57.18		1d, 2h
	Solid Majestic Zircon	4	162.00	-1.00	-0.61%	182.27	59.71		< 1h
	Sparkling Majestic Zircon	1	300.00	0.00	0%	288.02	34.10		< 1h
	Sparkling Majestic Zircon	0	50.00	50.00	Infinity	0.00	0.00		2m, 5d
	Stormy Majestic Zircon	2	300.00	0.00	0%	300.00	0.00		< 1h

The competition for sales is very small, and profit margins over selling raw gems very large.  Sure there are not many buyers (twinks and levelling toons), but even fewer sellers.  There is also a shortage of raw gems on the AH, which I supplement with my transmuting Alchemist, and occasionally with a lucky icy prism.


The same type of comparison occurs for other gem colours, with Red coloured gems being a possible exception.

There will be a spike in demand for Cata Rares as raiders refresh their armor with the new raids. Apart from that, I could care less (but not by much) for the Cata Rare market, but as the majority of the effort for crafting and posting Cata gems is already covered by my Northrend Epics, I am selling all the gems above thresholds (with different thresholds based on what raw gem is involved).

Gems are not a huge market for me; too much competition and both of my glyph selling toons (horde and alliance) have a higher average daily profit.  That said, they still are a nice market to be in.

Why should Blizzard introduce epic cata gems?

There is speculation about when Blizzard will release Epic gems and how they will be released, but very little about why they would do so.

Answer the why, and I think you may get clues as to when.

For the record, I was not a jewelcrafter when they released epic gems in Northrend, and my first toon reached level 70 weeks before Northrend was made available.

At this point, Cataclysm is harder than Wrath was at the end.  Even ICC had been nerfed into the ground, to the point that even a very slow progression player like myself had a shot at the lich king (for the record, I got him down to around 30% the last weekend before Cata hit).

Today, dungeons and raids are tuned to be hard.  I have no doubt that when 4.2 hits; the new raids will be just as hard, and will strongly encourage toons to be properly geared, enchanted and gemmed.  However, if Rare gems is what we have, then Rare gems will be 'properly gemmed'.

I don't think that anyone is really expecting patch 4.2 to start off easy.

Releasing new gem types (or even enchants) does not make the new raids (or newly released dungeons) easier.  When they are released, any new progression content will be tuned to expect them. Epic gems will provide yet another nerf to older content. However, we will all be excited about the new shiny gems, without percieving the nerf.

Blizzard have already stated that they are nerfing the existing raids.  I suspect this will be sufficient for their purposes.  I suspect we will see Epic gems and new enchants when Blizzard want to give existing content a nerf.

For the record : I do not think that Epic gems will be released on patch 4.2

This is pure speculation.  I still have a small stockpile of pyrite ore, and a few unspent JC tokens just in case.

JC in 4.2

JC's rejoice - you will have bag space in 4.2

First of all, we believe that cut gems will stack.  Currently, some JC's deliberatly hold low stocks of cut gems, others use mailboxes as storage (if only for expired auctions)

Secondly, we will be getting a 36 slot gem bag (requiring 3 dreamcloth to make).

I will be using my tailor to stockpile dreamcloth again when ever I log on to him.  It won't be a high priority as established JC's already survive on their existing bags, and will get some bag space back simply from stacking.  I do see some demand coming from:

• the top 4 or 5 gem sellers in your markets buying 4+ bags each, 
• many 'guild/personal use' JC's will buy a bag as well

Recent Gem Prices

The blogs have been talking about the Glyphmas we have just had.  But to be honest there is still a Gemmas in prgress.

A while ago I posted about how I bought a truckload of gems at 40g, and that I liquidated most of them.  As I didnt see a large gap between 4.0 and Cata, I didnt worry much about it.  I still kept some.

However the prices are very large.  Raw epics are still selling 130g+.  Cut epics are selling up to 200g.
There are large gaps in the cut rare gem markets.

I know that Alchemists were expecting Christmas where there was no cooldown on transmutes.  You got Boxing Day instead.  There are uncut rare gems for 6g, and uncut epics for 130.  At these prices it is most definitely worth transmuting every day.  Buy transmutes from guildies and trade.

Eyes of Zul, in my absense

11Sep10. UJ / Cael Alliance

A little while ago I asked what would happen when a goblin leaves a market.  Well it has (almost) happened with Eye's of Zul.

I picked up a 'truck load' of gems - Ametrines, Dreadstones and Cardinal Rubies, and have been slowly digesting them and putting them on whatever markets will eat them.  Due to the price these gems were selling for (40g/50g), and the quantity sold (I still have 200 Dreadstones - in part from an incorrect price).

Making the call that we now were in a phase of massive deflation of gem prices caused by BG and Instance farming bots, I had stopped buying gems, and am clearing my new and existing stockpiles (of aout 100 of each uncut epic gem).  I still have a few Eyes of Zul that I am clearing, but I am largely ignoring this market.

If I recall correctly, before I left the market, I was buying gems for 80g and selling all cuts for 110g threshold, 140g fallback, 5g undercut (posting 48 hours / once per day).  This left a small margin, but I would have sold 50 Eyes a week.  I am looking at the buy/sell margins above, and contemplating re-entering it.  Admitidly some of the gems dont sell well, but those margins give me a lot of room to muscle in (I only make about 2g50 on a glyph sale)

11Sep10. UJ / Cael Alliance

Compare this to the Dreadstone  market, which I am in and will be for a while to come.  Due to time restrictions, I have missed a couple of recent crafting and posting cycles.  My Dreadstone rates are 60g threshold, 110g fallback, 10g undercut, post 2, 48 hours.  This is further evidence that a single player can set the maximum prices for an economy.

I am not on during the day.  I am unable (and unwilling) to participate in continuous rounds of undercutting.  I want to sell large volumes.  Since the 23 August when I bought these gems, I have gem sales of about 82,000g. I am selling gems on both the Horde and Alliance AH's.  Getting them to the Horde AH is a pain, but the profit is worth it.


For those new to my blog (or missed it earlier) I use QA3 for posting epic gems.

This image is from the undermine journal for Calestrasz Alliance as at 11 Sep 2010.

Buying truckloads of cheap gems

When Cata hits, Northrend Epic gems will end up where BC epic gems are now - worth a few gold for levelling purposes. That's OK. We still have months to go for Cata.

I have noticed a 20g drop in gem prices lately, but I saw an interesting offer in trade. WTS Cardinal Ruby 1k/stack, Ametrine 800g/stack; Dreadstone 800g/stack. This is much cheaper than recent prices. The (level 1) seller had a *lot* to sell. He was quiet, but did seem to speak some English. With the gems and quantity he sold, I suspect a battleground farmer.

This is significantly cheaper than I bought my existing stockpile for. That cost is 'sunk', and I have written off the difference as the new reality. I bought the lot.

I will be selling these gems off, cut or uncut, but I am unsure if I will be buying many more gems. With out me buying (and some weeks I will buy a hundred or more), there will be more gems available on the market and that will drive the market price down.

I know that Epic gems will devalue between now and Cata, with the only question being when. On Caelestrasz, it looks like that devaluing may be starting now.

Anyone want to buy some bargain priced gems?

Facepalm Moment - very cheap gems

There were some happy buyers on Alliance/Caelestrasz last night.

Previously I had epic gems listed with QA3 according to gem colour - i.e. 6 settings: Ametrine, Cardinal Ruby etc.

As gem prices have been, somewhat unstable and i've been adjusting them recently, I went to 2 settings - one for primary colours (Cardinal Ruby, King's Amber, Majestic Zircon), and one for secondary colours (the rest).  However, I seem to ... have got the settings wrong on my primary colours.  I sold every auction, ... and got 17g each (sob sob)

The moral of the story is: If you are using automation, always check the first few posts after making changes.

QA3 and/or Auctioneer - Gems

In general, regardless of the tool, I always post in 48 hour postings, with a deep undercut model.  I am not on enough during the day, and when I am on, do not want to partipate in a cancel/repost process.

For epic and meta northrend gems, I have a 'buy price' and a 'sell price' per colour.  Both the buy and sell price drift according to supply and demand.  When I am low on a colour, I pay more and charge more.  When I have too many of a colour, I pay less and charge less.  In either instance, I move gems up or down in a 5-10g range.  My sell price is currently based on a range between MaximumBuyPrice + SmallMarkup, and MaximumBuyPrice + LargeMarkup.  I list 2 gems at a time.  My prefferred stock levels are between 40 & 80 uncut gems.  I do not post if I can't make my minium sell price.  I have most cuts, missing the many of the Hit + cuts.  I will sell uncut gems if I can make this profit.

For example - Eye of Zul
At the moment I am buying all Eye's of Zul for 80g.  My minimum 'profit' is 10g, and then I add the AH cut (5%), giving a minimum sell price of roughly 95g.  My maximum sell price includes a profit of about 60g, so (80+60) *1.05 is rougly 150g.  I use QA3 with a group containing all Eyes of zul (including uncut) post 2, no auto fallback, 95g-150g.

Gems are very cyclical in nature.  Often someone dumps 30 cheap uncut gems, then supply dries up for a fortnight.  A crafter dumps a cut below my price range, but leaves other cuts alone.  If they dump gems below my uncut buy price I will often buy them out.  I am currently selling 20-30 gems/day, more on the weekend.  The problem with my current strategy is that it is too simple. I post the same number of popular and unpopular gems.  I miss out on sales with not enough stock on the AH.  It redeems itself by being very quick.

I use auctioneer with a snatch list to buy gems.  I simply can not get enough gems from the AH at a price I am willing to pay. I also dislike the time commitments from advertising in trade.  My solution is that I have a guildy 'farm' the commumity for me.  He provides alchemists with mats, pays them a pittance, takes a cut and sells gems to me.  This still is not providing enough gems.  So now my guildy advertises in trade buying gems, and on-sells them to me at a small but guaranteed profit.  This latest approach is solving my supply issues.

Recent gem efforts

I've been a little quiet recently, ever since Breevok announced his gold cap. In part licking my wounded ego, in part working out how to emulate him. Seriously congratulations to anyone who gets the gold cap.

I have recently changed my gem buying strategy, aiming to have a stock of 20 of each raw epic & meta northrend gem (to cope with inevitable dips in the sale prices), and to have 2 of each of my epic cuts (56 cuts), and 1 each of my profitable meta cuts (23 + 4 unprofitable ones) on 48 hour auctions. My pricing strategy is largely set & forget, using qa, with a 'threshold' (minimum) price 20g above my raw gem buyout, and a 'fallback' (maximum) price 60g above my raw buyout (with 1/2 margins for meta's). This has helped my cashflow, and I feel somewhat comfortable with this, though I am sometimes caught out with over supply of gems in a falling market.

I am looking at a glyph play soon, with a draft post written. We will have to compare my post (when it comes out - hopfully next weekend), with the reality.

PS This post about tanks has been written many times, by many different people. It was worth writing and reading the first time. It is still worth reading.