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6.22.2011

Make Cheap Inferno Rubies Before 4.2





One of the things I was most happy about Patch 4.1 was that I had a large stockpile of Inferno Rubies I was able to sell right after the patch for extortionate prices.

Even my whole stockpile wasn't enough to sate the demand players had for Inferno Rubies to gem the new gear they were getting out of the new Heroic Zul'Aman/Zul'Gurub. I made a killing. I was smiling all the way to the bank.

One thing I promised myself was that I would make sure I had a good stockpile of Inferno Rubies for Patch 4.2 so I could supply the new-patch demand for gear gemming.

Once Patch 4.2 comes along the cost to produce Inferno Rubies will go up. After the jump I'm going to teach you how to produce cheap Inferno Rubies in the last few days before patch 4.2.

Make 'Em While They're Cheap
Once World of Warcraft Patch 4.2 drops (likely to happen June 28, 2011) the cost of producing Inferno Rubies will go up significantly. The main reason for this is the vendor price change of uncut Cataclysm uncommon (green-quality) gems from 5g each to 75s each. (For more on the 4.2 price change see "16g New 4.2 Obsidium Shuffle Floor Price And Here's Why".)

On average you can expect to prospect 6 uncommon gems from one 20-stack of Obsidium Ore. For simplicity's sake I'm assuming you get one of every color of gem (won't ever happen exactly like this but the gems average out over multiple prospects). One stack of ore will net us 6 gems and one of them we'll assume is a Carnelian. (Again this is rough math but gets the general point across.)

In order to produce one Inferno Ruby with an alchemy transmute we need 3 Carnelian and 3 Heartblossom. Checking the Undermine Journal page for Hearthblossom shows that the price is averaging around 3g each across a large number of US servers. I'll use that amount for our calculations.

The pre-4.2 price floor for Obsidium Ore is 30g per 20-stack (6 uncommons * 5g vendor price). Let's assume for this exercise that you are getting your Obsidium Ore for 30g a stack (or under). This price has been seen on many servers (including my own) and can sometimes be found for less.

So if it takes (1) 20-stack to net us (1) Carnelian than our base cost for one Carnelian is 30g. If we sell the other 5 raw Cataclysm uncommon gems we gained prospecting the 20-stack to the vendor for 5g each that drops the cost of each Carnelian down to 5g each (30g stack price - 25g vendor sales of 5 extra gems).

Pre-patch 4.2 we are getting each Carnelian for 5g. We are getting our Heartblossom for 3g each. Adding it up we are spending 24g on mats to transmute one Inferno Ruby ((5g per Carnelian*3) + (3g per Hearthblossom*3)).

So our pre-patch 4.2 cost to produce a Inferno Ruby is 24g. Not too bad. How much will it cost us after Patch 4.2 drops?

Cost After 4.2
Using the same math as above except exchanging the 75 silver vendor cost for raw Cataclysm uncommon gems for the pre-patch 4.2 vandoe value of 5g the numbers work out like this.

One stack of Obsidium Ore costs you 30g. You obtain (6) uncommons with one of them being a Carnelian. You vendor the remaining (5) for 3.75g (5 gems * 75 silver). Your cost for each Carnelian is now 26.25g (30 g per stack - 3.75g vendor sale of 5 gems.)

(Granted this new cost of 26.25g per Carnelian doesn't take into account of someone wanted to turn all uncommons (with the exception of Zephyrite) into jewelry which is then disenchanted and the materials sold on the auction house. That amount of effort may help reduce the cost of Carnelians as the cost of spending more time doing the extra steps.

I'm leaving doing that out of these figures as the price for enchanting materials fluctuates and is beyond the scope of this post. Just know that if you took the extra time to craft/DE jewelry with the extra uncommons you would bring the price of Carnelians down some.)

So we have Carnelians costing us 26.25g each post-patch 4.2. Transmuting an Inferno ruby would now cost us 87.75g (78.75 for (3) Carnelians + 9g for (3) Hearthblossom).

So what this comes down to is that the cost of producing Inferno Rubies efficiently (having the ability to sell extra gems straight to the vendor) will go from 26.25g pre-patch 4.2 to 87.75g post-patch 4.2.

That is a difference of 61.50g per Inferno Ruby. Long story short you need to produce your stockpile of Inferno Rubies in the next 6 days. Here's the most efficient way to do it.

Makin' Up A Mess Of Rubies
Here are the steps to produce cheap Inferno Rubies pre-patch 4.2:
  • Purchase all the Obsidium Ore on your auction house that is around 30g and below. (You can also mine your own.) Elementium Ore can be substituted of you find it the same or cheaper than Obsisium Ore.
  • Prospect all the ore.
  • Sell all the non-Carnelian raw uncommon gems directly to the vendor. (You can also sell under-performing raw Rare gems as the vendor price is 5g on them as well.)
  • Use the Carnelians along with Hearthblossom to transmute Inferno Rubies.

Now that you have a stockpile of Inferno Rubies you can either simply store them away in your bank until 4.2 or if your sever is similar to mine you can "store" them on the auction house listed as raw singles for 150-175g each regardless of the current price of raw Inferno Rubies.

I find that often the cheaper inferno rubies will sell out and my highly-priced Inferno Rubies will start to sell. If they sell they sell. If not it's fine because my true purpose for them is to sell after 4.2 drops.

6 Days And Counting
These last few days before Patch 4.2 may be the last chance we have to make Inferno Rubies this cheap. With the change in the vendor price of Cataclysm uncommons the price off-set we now enjoy (being able to vendor raws for 5g a piece) will disappear.

Long story short: Get out there and make yourselves some cheap Inferno Rubies while you still can.

Talking Points
  • What downsides do you see to stockpiling Inferno Rubies?
  • What is your plan for producing Inferno Rubies after Patch .2?
  • What is the cheapest you've seen Obsidium Ore go for on your server?
Update 1
After writing this article I ended up buying/prospecting around 160+ stacks of Elementium Ore. Since I did it in one sitting I decided to check my Accountant Classic addon to see how much I spent on the ore - the the profit from vendoring all non-Carnelian/Inferno Rubies.



As seen in the screen shot above I spent 4756.62g on Elementium Ore (between 26-30g per stack) and received 3925g from vendoring all non-Carnelian/Inferno Rubies for a net loss of 841.62g.

So I spent 841.62g for around 135 Carnelians (had about 20 before prospecting) and 31 Inferno Rubies. Comparing apples to apples I'm going to count each (1) Inferno Ruby as (3) Carnelians (that's what it would take to transmute (1) Cardinal Ruby).

135 Carnelians + 93 Carnelian equivalents (31 Inferno Rubies*3) = 228 Carnelians (or equivalent).

841.62g / 228 Carnelians (or equivalents) = 3.69g per Carnelian (or equivalent).

Using the Heartblossom price from the post (3g) I am able to make Inferno Rubies with the gems I prospected for ~20.07g each (11.07 for 3 Carnelians + 9g for 3 Heartblossom).

Again this was done with Elementium Ore purchased for between 26 and 30g per stack. I simply vendored all non-Carnelian/Inferno Ruby gems (including all rares except Inferno Rubies).

Turns out practical numbers beat the estimated numbers in the post. 20g Inferno Rubies? Yes please!

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16 comments :

  1. And there is another way to obtain cheap IR. Buy them on the AH, while they are cheap! ))

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  2. Don't 'convert' the Rubies from Elementium when calculating:
    135 Carnellians + 135 Heartblossom = 45 IR
    Plus the 31 IR from prospecting = 76 IR
    405G in herbs (@3 each) + 842G in ore = 1247G
    1247/76 = 16.4G per IR

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  3. What are Inferno Rubies going to be worth if Epic gems drop with 4.2. Won't they become second class citizens and drop in value?

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  4. @Taborious: Epic gems won't drop in 4.2. They never made the PTR and Blizzard simply wouldn't mess with balance like that by adding them.

    @Flux: I'd be interested in seeing the cost difference to a similar number of stacks of Obsidium. Despite the higher floor price on Obsidium, I find prospecting Elementium and even Pyrite to be more valuable because of the added rare gems.

    Also, I agree with Rick about not down-converting the Infernos, though I know you're trying to get to an "apples to apples" comparison level. Based on Rick's math, plus assuming you have a transmute spec'd alchemist (+20% yield, so effectively 54 Infernos instead of 45), your cost/Inferno is only 14.7g.

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  5. you don't have to do the transmute now. As long as you sell the green gems before the patch your price for inferno ruby will remain the same

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  6. This only works when ore is above 30g/stack, after that it's a simply stack/6 calculation (like on my server). I'm not sure what effect the patch will have on the ore market tbh, so I don't know if it'll really effect my production prices. Not that I actually transmute for the things anyways, but still.

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. If you focus on one item of course your costs are going to get skewed. I have always used elementium and not obsidium to do the shuffle. Vendoring items is a very small part of what I do as in most cases you can use enchanting, daily quests and meta gem transmutes to effectively get the cost of your mats down. As most of the gems can be used in some fashion. Additionally elementium (on my server anyways) is cheaper than obsidium. The benefit of elementium is the 1/6 chance of getting an inferno ruby from the propect. Factor in just this cost alone and the pricing will change. In my view if this is what everyone does I will be very glad as you can still get cheap gems by prospecting

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  9. @Aleithia When I went to make mine Obsidium Ore was too high in cost. Elementium was much more plentiful at the price I wanted.

    @Rick Even cheaper than? I'll take it.

    @Brent I understand the ability to post-process gems other ways but I am looking for a simple "get in, get out" strategy. Don't want to spend extra time shuffling around the extra mats. Also wanted to see how it worked if i just vendored extras.

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  10. Loved the post and the math included especially with looking into just vendoring everything else.

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  11. Ore goes for about 50g a stack normally on my server. That being said, Inferno Ruby cuts are going for at least 100g+ on a bad day and you can't keep enough on the AH..so I find its worth it to clear any Carnelians I see listed as well. Even paying 25g a pop its a clear profit.

    I don't see a downside to stocking Rubies either. In past expansions I've seen no radical decrease in the price or demand for Rare Ruby cuts even in patches that Epic Gems come out in. Actually in Wrath I found it much easier to do the Saronite Shuffle and sale the rare gems because a few of the big JCers on the server went strictly to Titanium and Epic cuts that were making pennies profit per.

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  12. What if I don't vendor anything and transmute the others into whatever colors they transmute into? All those topaz and demonseye (etc.) will also be in high demand now won't they? Why ignore them?

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  13. @Spitfire It all depends on two things: How many extra steps do you want to add and what are the rares going for on your AH.

    I always encourage people to tailor my advice to their own situations and servers. On my server most rares are selling for under 15g raw. If i can vendor 3 uncommons for 15g then why go to the extra trouble?

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  14. I will gladly buy ALL the gems you're going to vendor (except blue) for 5g. I make about 3.5k a day (profit) with the Obsidium Shuffle. Just thinking about all those gems going to waste makes me cry.

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  15. It occurs to me that in the spirit of making sure each step is profitable, you should make sure the the price of 3xCarnelian + 3xHB is in fact lower than the price of 1xInferno (or 1.2 Inferno if you're xmute spec'd). That is, would you make more money (or even the same money) if you just sold the Carnelians on the AH directly.

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  16. I don't transmute things other than Inferno Rubies usually just because they don't sale in the bulk that Inferno Rubies do.

    I only Vendor the Zeps(blue), and Alicite(yellow) uncommons though. Sometimes the Jaspers(green). I turn the Hessonnite(orange)into jewelry because the blues that proc are DE'ed into Shards unlike the lower jewelry and the greens can be sold easier on the AH than jasper rings if the DE price of dust is low.

    For purples I cannot keep enough of them for how fast they sale on the AH in raw 3 stacks. TSM_Accounting data actually puts raw Nightstones as my number one selling item in terms of quantity (not profit).

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