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2.09.2011

My Whiptail Runneth Over

Whiptail Mail
So I woke up this morning to find that the spawns for Whiptail (and Volatile Life) in Uldum are still popping insanely fast. (As originally reported by Nerf Faids.) I had thought this might get hotfixed but as of this writing it hasn't. So what is a poor druid herbalists to do? Ride this pony into the ground.

That raises the question, If someone like us stumbles upon an opportunity like tons and tons of Whiptail and Volatile Life what is the best way to utilize it to make gold?

Like many of you I have all professions available to me and so the question becomes what is the best possible use for these herbs and spices...erm...lifes?


The Choices

Initially the choices seem to be

  • Sell raw
  • Transmute life
  • Mill into Blackfallow/Inferno Inks
  • Make glyphs
  • Make potions etc
  • A few others I'm sure I'm not thinking of


Wowhead Whiptail Results
Let's use the tools we have to see if we can get the best option. Searching Wowhead I find the following uses by clicking the "Reagent for" tab:


Now just looking at this list I can tell already that some of these recipes require other mats and those I will be putting a little further down the list in my head as having more mats means more work and less of a stream line process. Ultimately I'd like a process I can do with only the mats I am gathering quickly.

In the list above as far as Alchemy is concerned that would be Mighty Rejuvenation Potion and perhaps Xmuting Amberjewels since i can guess Alicites may be pretty cheap on the AH. Ultimately I need to check my server's AH to see what the above recipes are going for. Before I do that I want to list what I could make with Inscription.

For inscription the usual suspects are:


Now the prices of the above items will vary depending on what is going on in the game at the moment and the state of your Inscription crafters on your server. Right now Darkmoon Faire is in town so there may be players wanting to get lucky with crafting DMC. Again I need to check the AH on my server to determine.

Checking the AH

I love to use Auctionator's shopping lists to do these type of searches. It allows me to make a list once and search for the items all at once whenever I want. I made a shopping list of the items above. A search for all items returned the following results.

Auctionator Whiptail Shopping List
Now I know right off hand that I am not really a huge Alchemy person aside from transmutes. This means I will lean more heavily towards Inscription as an outlet for the Whiptail. I have been following the Blackfallow and Inferno Ink prices for a while now and feel comfortable gauging them. The flasks and potions not so much.

In the shot above it appears Inferno Inks (157g for 1) are actually under Blackfallow Ink (175g for 10) as far as price. This means I may want to stop at Blackfallow unless I see the price for Inferno go up.

Now comes the nitty-gritty. How do I determine how many Blackfallow I can get from each Whiptail in order to see if making Blackfallow is even profitable? Wowhead to the rescue again.

The Maths Part


I need to determine about how many inks I will get for each stack of Whiptail and do some maths. The "Milling" tab of Wowhead's Whiptail page shows the following.

Wowhead's Whiptail Milling Tab
Now I'm no expert at maths but from the above shot it shows a stack of 5 Whiptail have 100% chance to mill into 2-4 Ashen Pigments and a 50% chance to also include 1-3 Burning Embers.

Further it takes 2 Ashen Pigments to make 1 Blackfallow ink and 2 Burning Embers to make 1 Inferno Ink. Aren't maths fun!

So we need to determine approximately how many Ashen Pigments and how many Burning Embers we get from 5 Whiptail. 

With 100% chance to get 2-4 pigments we can average that to ~3 pigments per 5-stack of Whiptail.

With 50% chance to get 1-3 embers we can average the amount to ~1.5 and a 50% chance of that happening gives us approximately ~0.75 embers per 5-stack of Whiptail.

Taking the above numbers and multiplying them by 4 we get the approx. pigment and embers per 20-stack of whiptail. 3*4=12 pigment. 0.75*4=3 embers. Now the embers are a 50% chance to proc so you may get unlucky.

If I've done my maths correct (which I may not have) we take the pigment/ember values and convertthem to inks. 12 pigment = 6 Blackfallow Ink. 3 embers = 1.5 Inferno Ink. Thus 20 Whiptail = ~ 6 Blackfallow Ink and 1.5 Inferno Ink.

I stated earlier that Blackfallow Ink was going for ~17.5g each and Inferno Ink for ~157.25g each. Whiptail is selling for ~7.39g each. Thus a stack of Whiptail is worth ~147.8g (7.39*20). The inks you could make from it are worth ~340.87g ((17.5*6)+(157.25*1.5)).

So basically a 20 stack of Whiptail would sell for ~147.8g. Milled and converted to ink it could be worth ~340.87g. That would mean a profit of ~193.07 per 20-stack over selling it raw.

Now this of could change as the market can and does fluctuate. Part of being a good auctioneer is watching the markets and knowing when and how to adjust to changes (some sudden) in the market.

Conclusion

In conclusion for me, right now, I should look strongly into converting my Whiptail into inks. At least some of it. I wanted to share a little bit of insight as to how I make these types of decisions. If it seemed confusing just know that it gets easier the more you do it. Now get out there and get you some fast Whiptail while you still can!

NOTE: If any of the maths above are blatantly incorrect please let me know in the comments below so I can correct them. I want the best possible information for our readers.
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