Epic Adventures

A look at all things “Epic” in patch 4.3

Epic Gems

Patch 4.3 was extremely profitable for Jewelcrafters. Rare gem cuts sell so fast its difficult to keep them in stock. Unfortunately the same cant be said for epic gem cuts. Like many I stockpiled my JC tokens in expectation of the epic recipes. I have two JC's and purchased PvE recipes on one and PvP recipes on the other. This gave me the ability to dominate the Epic gem market from the start. Unfortunately is is not difficult to dominate a non-existent market. To put it simply, epic gems don’t sell.

There are two primary reasons for this.

First, the prices are too high. It would be too simple to say “Well then just lower the price idiot”. As a Jewelcrafter I am at the mercy of the supply side of the market for my gems. When sellers of uncut gems price high then I am forced to price high to make a profit. I am in the AH game to make a profit. Not break even. Until the market provides more plentiful and cheaper uncut gems then we are at the mercy of our suppliers. Hopefully this will improve with time.

Second, Epic gems just arnt that well, um, epic. With epic gems providing a +10 stat boost compared to rare gems they are not cost efficient. In addition to the off color gems providing a +5 stat increase for each stat the rare gems are sufficient. I don’t see people wanting to invest in epic gems at this time.

Epic Crafting Recipes

The epic crafting recipes have turned out to be a huge disappointment for me. The recipes are selling for 15-35k each on my server. However they are simply not worth purchasing. This is because one of the mats needed to create the items is in extremely short supply. Essence of Destruction is required to complete these recipes. The supply is almost nonexistent on my server and the few appearing on the auction house are extremely overpriced. Most of these crafting recipes require eight Essence of Destruction to craft. Since Essence of Destruction tends to sell for approximately 10k gold each this requires an initial investment of 80k gold to craft. With the cost of all other mats, break even for crafted items is approx 83k per item. With even a modest markup for profit the list price would be 85-100k gold. Unlikely to sell at that price. Even the smaller items, for example crafted bracers, require four Essences to craft making cost approximately 42k each. It is unlikely that someone would pay 45-50k for a set of 397 crafted bracers when the valor bracers sell for under 10k each on my server. So until supply rises and prices drop on Essence of Destruction the epic crafting recipes will not be a viable way to make gold in the game.

Epic Darkmoon Faire

Everything new is interesting. DMF was a huge success when it first appeared. However after a week of exploring it I don’t feel like it has staying power. The tickets are capped by limited amount of dailies. The dailies themselves are simple and not very interesting after the first few times completed. Unless Blizzard is able to keep updating and changing it I don’t believe the majority of players will stick with it after the first few months. Leaving it only for a few collectors to continue returning.

Special Note

A big 'thumbs up” to Blizzard for making the pets dropped from the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries BoE in patch 4.3. The prepatch BoP pets were getting annoying for me with duplicate pets that I was unable to sell. Thanks Blizz.