Ualaa and his Amazing Alchemy Guide

[Tim]

Ualaa's Alchemy

(Transmute Guide)

Introduction While we can take a single toon and fly about gathering mineral or herbs, the same as any other one-boxer... and possibly even have a few toons doing the same at one time, switching between them. This is not really that much more efficient a means to make gold then we could do as single boxers.

Dailies are a decent method to compound our extra characters into more gold then a one-boxer makes, from doing the same thing as one character. It requires a route which is based off of either kills or drops where each toon can loot from every corpse. My current route takes 45 minutes on the first team and an hour on the other two teams, and makes 1100g in the process. But dailies are repetitive and boring, even if they are consistent. It is getting rather hard to make myself run the route each day.

Something better... I've read a few threads on making gold as a boxer. Dailies seemed to be the answer, but they are becoming a chore to do.

Transmutes on the other hand...

Your toon needs to be level 65, in order to advance to a 450 Alchemy skill. In addition, you would like to be 68th for the specialization; in our case Transmutation specialization (which requires 4x Primal Might - BC era, 1x Primal Fire/Water/Air/Earth/Mana).

Transmutation Specialization is a chance for 1-4 extra items to be made, for the same material cost. While it does not proc often, it will easily pay the cost of the 4x Primal Might after a couple of procs.

I currently have 22 toons who are 70th or above, and who have an open profession slot or a profession I don't mind dumping. I'm really considering the Druids and Warlocks/Priest (pvp teams) as well, not sure that I want to level Engineering on them or not; 10 more Alchemists is decent coin. 20 to 30 toons, able to do transmutes.

There are currently six epic gem transmutes in the game. Five of them are vendor trained, while the sixth is the quest reward for having done five or more epic gem transmutes.

Chances are good, gems are here to stay. In Cataclysm, the skill level will likely be 75 higher then it is now, the gems will have a new name and better stats, but the system will be the same -- which means the profit potential of the method will remain.

Checking the auction house for historical and current data, specifically the pre-transmute costs for the materials; on my server, they are:

- Ametrine (1x Eternal Shadow, 1x Monarch Topaz)..... 20 Gold - Cardinal Ruby (1x Eternal Fire, 1x Scarlet Ruby)........ 80 Gold - Dreadstone (1x Eternal Shadow, 1x Twilight Opal)..... 25 Gold - Eye of Zul (3x Forest Emerald)................................ 20 Gold - King's Amber (1x Eternal Life, 1x Autumn's Glow)...... 35 Gold - Majestic Zircon (1x Eternal Air, 1x Sky Sapphire)....... 30 Gold

And then checking the value of the post-transmute (and cut) gems:

- Ametrine cuts, 165-210 Gold....................... Up to +190 Gold - Cardinal Ruby cuts, 170-200 Gold................ Up to +120 Gold - Dreadstone cuts, 150-250 Gold.................... Up to +225 Gold - Eye of Zul cuts, 160-210 Gold...................... Up to +180 Gold - King's Amber cuts, 130-190 Gold.................. Up to +155 Gold - Majestic Zircon cuts, 130-190 Gold............... Up to +160 Gold

Obviously, if you don't have a Jewelcrafter capable of epic cuts, your profits will be less. However, the Jewelcraft daily is extremely easy to do -- combine two gems (prospect ore or purchase on the AH), with a drop off of a low-mid 70th mob, for a couple of gold profit if you bought the gems on the AH. You also receive one jewelcraft token, and epic cuts cost 4 tokens each.

Some Math

Transmutes are on 20 hour cooldowns, which essentially means we get one transmute per day, for each character who is a 450 Alchemist.

When starting out, we will naturally make the most profitable gem transmute, based on the cost of the materials versus the sell price of the transmuted and cut gem. However, we will not want to flood the market as we would like our cut gems to actually sell.

Ideally, our Jewelcrafter will have several cuts. I have 8 so far, which means with 22 Alchemists, I would have approximately 3 of each gem for sale each day. With 32 Alchemists, I would have 4 of each gem up at once.

The more cuts we have, the more flexibility we have. If I had an epic cut for each epic gem I were to produce, this would be the ideal. I could post my one gem of each type, with an excellent chance it would sell. With a single cut and 20 gems placed, it is very unlikely all will sell within 20 hours and I again flood the market with 20 more of that gem. Our Jewelcrafter(s) are an important portion of the system.

The math... assuming an average of 150 gold profit on a transmute/cut. - 01 Alchemists = 0,150 Gold - 05 Alchemists = 0,750 Gold - 10 Alchemists = 1,500 Gold - 20 Alchemists = 3,000 Gold - 30 Alchemists = 4,500 Gold

Even running 30 Alchemists... It will be a relatively quick process to log six sets of toons into the game (5 toons per set), press a keybind which has the crafting macro on it, and then have my JC toon cut each gem, and have the auction toon list them. A quarter of the time of running dailies on the most geared team, and the profit of dailies on four teams.

The Plan

I detest farming, but at some points it will be necessary. There is an abundance of Northrend herbs on the auction house. There are generally enough Outland herbs, but this bracket can cost a fair bit. Classic warcraft era herbs are not always available in large enough quantities, which means farming will be required at times.

1) Run at least four teams through the daily route, over the course of two days. If you only have one team at 80th, adjust your plan to an alchemist every four days, instead of every two days. In my case, my route is 1,100g in 45 minutes on the main team, or an hour on the other two teams. The reason for 4 daily runs, is purely gold; AH purchasing everything has ranged from 2,700 to 3,800 gold.

2) Over the course of these two days, AH purchase as many herbs as possible of the types used for the alchemy guide you are following. There are numerous alchemy guides for free. A google search found this for me: WoW Alchemy Guide 1-450. It is not necessarily the best guide, but it works. It has general guidelines, such as 55x Sungrass, or whatever. I will over purchase as often as possible (at least until the last few toons), as the next Alchemist can use surplus herbs.

3) Level up an Alchemist every other day, using the herbs purchased. In the event of not enough herbs, have my herbalist toon do a little farming. I actually have a herbalist (and skinner/miner/enchanter) per team, so can have herbalists in three places at once. This is not the preferable option, but I'd rather farm a little then be at the mercy of hoping someone will list something.

4) Repeat the above process... hopefully cranking out an Alchemist every two days.

5) Run the Jewelcraft Daily, every day to expand my repetoire of cuts. The ideal, is one cut per Alchemist.

Some Macros

This one is over 255 characters, if you leave it intact you'll need an addon which allows for longer macros... something like IS Boxer, Macaroon or Supermacros.

Alternatively, you could break it into smaller macros, and give a piece to each toon. If you are transmuting five different gem types across a five man team, each toon could have their own macro.

It will do whichever transmute you have materials for.

/cast Alchemy /run for i=1,GetNumTradeSkills() do if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Majestic Zircon" then DoTradeSkill(i) end if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Eye of Zul" then DoTradeSkill(i) end if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Ametrine" then DoTradeSkill(i) end if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Dreadstone" then DoTradeSkill(i) end if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Cardinal Ruby" then DoTradeSkill(i) end if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: King's Amber" then DoTradeSkill(i) break end CloseTradeSkill() end

You could break it into: (Have not tested the smaller macros)

/cast Alchemy /run for i=1,GetNumTradeSkills() do if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Ametrine" then DoTradeSkill(i) break end CloseTradeSkill() end

/cast Alchemy /run for i=1,GetNumTradeSkills() do if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Cardinal Ruby" then DoTradeSkill(i) break end CloseTradeSkill() end

/cast Alchemy /run for i=1,GetNumTradeSkills() do if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Dreadstone" then DoTradeSkill(i) break end CloseTradeSkill() end

/cast Alchemy /run for i=1,GetNumTradeSkills() do if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Eye of Zul" then DoTradeSkill(i) break end CloseTradeSkill() end

/cast Alchemy /run for i=1,GetNumTradeSkills() do if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: King's Amber" then DoTradeSkill(i) break end CloseTradeSkill() end

/cast Alchemy /run for i=1,GetNumTradeSkills() do if GetTradeSkillInfo(i)=="Transmute: Majestic Zircon" then DoTradeSkill(i) break end CloseTradeSkill() end

And one more macro. This one will find the transmuted gem in your inventory, then open a trade window to the desired toon.

/run for i=0,4 do for x=1,GetContainerNumSlots(i) do y=GetContainerItemLink(i,x) if y then if GetItemInfo(y)=="Ametrine" then PickupContainerItem(i,x); DropItemOnUnit("ahtoon"); return; end end end end

Just substitute the gem type and change the DropItemOnUnit to point towards either your AH recipient, your Jewelcrafter, or the toon who will be mailing to the desired character (only one toon will be on the same account, for instant mailing).

Addendum

The alchemy guide I linked, has needed "x" amount of each herb. While there are other paths out there, they will end up being similar.

Having followed this guide for two toons so far, this is what I've needed. The link for each herb, is to the thottbot resource map for the zone with the best spawn rate.

Next run through, I'll take note of which herbs are orange recipes (Fixed number of herbs) and which are yellow/green (Estimated number of herbs).

060 x Peacebloom......... Elwynn Forest or The Barrens 060 x Silverleaf............ Elwynn Forest or The Barrens 030 x Briarthorn........... Darkshore or The Barrens 015 x Mageroyal........... Darkshore or The Barrens 040 x Stranglekelp........ Wetlands or The Barrens 030 x Liferoot.............. Swamp of Sorrows 030 x Kingsblood......... Stranglethorn Vale 045 x Goldthorn........... Stranglethorn Vale 005 x Wild Steelbloom... Stranglethorn Vale 070 x Sungrass............. The Hinterlands 015 x Khadgar's Whisker Stranglethorn Vale 004 x Iron Bar .............. Mining in The Badlands 001 x Black Vitriol.......... Mining in The Badlands 004 x Purple Lotus.......... Tanaris 004 x Firebloom............. Tanaris 019 x Arthas' Tears......... Western Plaguelands 040 x Blindweed............. Zangarmarsh 055 x Golden Sansam...... Zangarmarsh 015 x Mountain Silversage Hellfire Peninsula 040 x Felweed................. Terrokar Forest 055 x Dreaming Glory....... Terrokar Forest 020 x Ragveil.................. Zangarmarsh 020 x Netherbloom........... Netherstorm 015 x Talandra's Rose....... Zul'Drak 050 x Goldclover.............. Howling Fjord 060 x Tiger Lily................ Sholazar Basin 005 x Pygmy Suckerfish.... Fishing in Borean Tundra 010 x Adder's Tongue....... Sholazar Basin 010 x Icethorn................. The Storm Peaks 165 x Lichbloom............... The Storm Peaks 010 x Dark Jade............... Mining Saronite/Titanium in Icecrown 010 x Huge Citrine............ Mining Saronite/Titanium in Icecrown 010 x Eternal Fire.............. Wintergrasp when your faction controls it or Seething Revenant 045 x Fire Leaf.................. Borean Tundra 015 x Frost Lotus............... 6.5% chance at any node

[ebony]

nice guilde

[Ualaa]

I like the formating in the original, its a lot longer but things are aligned more like a table. [WoW Guide] Gold, Multiboxing Style

[Bubba]

One of the problems with economies is that they adjust to market conditions unless held or accelerated artificially. So if you flood your economy with items there will only be so many customers to sell to. After a while the market may be gluted with theitems and they will go for a fraction of what there original price was.

Case in point the diamond market. Contrary to popular belief diamonds are not in short supply, the market is actually glutted. There is however a couple of cartels that control the market and distribution of the diamonds and the propaganda therein. They let go of a certain number at a certain price and advertise the heck out of it.

So your scheme sound pretty good but watch out for a glutted market. You want to price your items against the demand. So you have two curves demand and price and where the two meet is where you set your price.

I skimmed it but how much do you expect to make off of this after you figure in time spent for all operations and all costs involved?

[Ualaa]

My server was one of the first six to go live on opening day. There are a ton of players, and a massive number of raiding guilds. So far, gems are selling quite quickly. I'm listing one of each type (have 11 cuts so far), always at 1 copper below the lowest price; they sell 80% of the time so far. At any given point, there are 500 odd cut epic gems on the AH, 30 more won't be much of an impact.

There seem to only be two players who check and undercut gems on a regular basis -- one of them has agreed to match my prices, if I match his prices, when either of us is the lowest priced seller. The other player has been added to my friends list across all teams, and when he's been to a zone with an AH recently, I know its time to check the AH.

I'm toying around with the idea of just mass supplying the first guy with uncut gems. That would cost a bit of lost profits, as uncut gems are 30g less then cut gems on average, and bulk sales generally give a bit of a discount too, but then not needing to worry about selling them or managing inventory is a bonus too. Undecided on this part; 30g per gem with eventually 30-35 (30 alchemists, some transmute procs) gems per day adds up to both a lot of gold and a lot of hassle.

I do have the option to transfer gems to the horde side too. So far, anything I've transferred has sold fast, usually for 25-50% higher prices then on the alliance side. It costs 6g in listing fees, but that is refunded entirely if the item sells (which it always does, when I buy from myself). I have enough toons to watch every neutral auctioneer to prevent my 1 copper epic gems from being sniped.

I do have 1 active team horde side, versus 4 active teams alliance side... so leaving some gold horde side is an option, but I can transfer the wealth back to the alliance side too. Either gradually, via higher end enchanting mats. Or even just listing a vendor item for 10k alliance side, and having the horde buy it with the 15% AH cut/loss... I'm still ahead of selling the same item for 25-50% less on my auction house.

[Bubba]

Price fixin is illegal ya know, people get put in jail or get a good politics job for doing such. And what server you on because I developing a killer snipe program .... lol. Good Luck.

[Iru]

In a similar vein, I recommend Greedy goblin

Particularly Unique rules in WoW economy

[Ualaa]

Originally Posted by Bubba

Price fixin is illegal ya know, people get put in jail or get a good politics job for doing such. And what server you on because I developing a killer snipe program .... lol. Good Luck.

I have not read anywhere in the terms of service or in the electronic user license agreement that you cannot match the lowest price when listing your own item on the auction house. You are free to list the item for as little or as much as you'd like, subject to a minimum and maximum amount that the game allows. You can overcharge (but will be unlikely to sell) or undercut (for lower profits) as you see fit.

No matter what you decide to list your item for, you won't do jail time as a result. It is not illegal to list a non-existent game item for the price you choose. Not only is it not illegal, it is not a violation of the terms of service either.

Even if real life, you see price matching all the time. Drive around checking the price of gas, and almost every station in town will have the same price per volume.

As for a snipe program, you're more then welcome to purchase auctions as they are about to expire. That takes items out of the economy, which will actually drive up prices as supply decreases. If most of the time, my auctions happen to be the lowest priced option (or the same price as another player, who is also the lowest priced option), then any purchase you make is actually my profits, at least most of the time.

If you care, I'm on both alliance and horde side, Cenarius US.

[Bubba]

LOL, it was a joke son .. a joke. And price fixing is illegal, price fixing is where competitors get together and fix the price at a certain amount thereby making teh consumer pay their price. Price matching is different than price fixing, price matching is where a competitors matches his competitions price at the behest of a consumer.

An example of price fixing is the oil cartels or diamond trades. If one were to get snippy the utilities by way of having legalized monopolies have price fixed. Basically in price fixing there is no other competitor because all prices are the same.

Even if real life, you see price matching all the time. Drive around checking the price of gas, and almost every station in town will have the same price per volume.

Not true at retail as I can go around and in US gal I can find a 10 cent difference and sometimes more in the frachise stations. The price of fuel is regulated more by the cost to produce it and those vary by area and seasonal mixes. So fuel is a bad example. A better example would be in computer equipment which is extremely variable or perhaps luxury commodities like cars.

I have no snipe program and prefer "buy it now" options but, I was refering to your 1 copper epic gems. I always price my goods to sell and look at current market prices at the time of auction.

One thing taht gets me is these peeps taht claim they make money on teh AH but I really dont see the allure or profit in playing the AH.

[Ualaa]

I suppose you cannot see sarcasm or humor in text.
It is a weakness of the medium.

The 1 copper reference is twofold.

First, when listing on either the alliance or horde auction houses, the undercut amount is by 1 copper. Which still means the price is generally between 150-250g per gem. Just 1 copper under the next cheapest.

Secondly, when transfering from alliance to horde or vice versa. I only do that, when I have my "transfer" team logged on, which verifies there is no one at any of the four neutral auction houses other then my teams. Sure, the price is 1 copper, but there is physically no one there to snipe. There are only four neutral auctioneers in the game, so its pretty easy to cover them all, with a 5-box team.