Thread: On the true cost of MOP Perfect Cuts

I started out costing the perfect cuts as 10x uncut price but have since realized this is wrong on two levels. First, uncut gems don't sell well and secondly, by cutting the gems you are costing yourself an opportunity to make the green gem jewelry (Ornate Band and Shadowfire Necklace). This is best explained by an example...

On realm, the purple and orange perfect cuts outsell the other colors by a large margin, so I am left with a giant pile of Red, Yellow, Green and Blues even after I restock the few cuts of those that do sell. There is nothing profitable to do with those gems in bulk other than vendor the cut gems (85s). On the other hand, if I make the 415 jewelry and DE I can use and/or sell an almostunlimited supply of enchanting mats. From the last batch of 100 415's I DE'd I got 175 dust, 21 essence and 4 small shards. On my server that works out to 18 gold per ring less the cost of the selling is about 16.8g per piece. Subract the vendor value of the cut gems (.85) and the 415's are worth about 14.25g.

For every excess orange or green perfect I craft (costing ~10 uncut gems), I lose out on making 1 piece of 415 or 14.25g. If it costs 10 uncut to make one perfect that means that every excess perfect is costing me 142.5.

Therefore, when I am cutting oranges and purples in excess of the other colors I need to be making 142.5g for the perfect cut or it isn't worth my time. For some cuts, I am averaging close to that much (eg willful, inscribed, fierce and tense) and I should continue making those, but my conclusion is that I need to raise my minimum price on some of the heavy sellers like the reckless (77g), deft (83g) and the purfied (86g).

Thoughts?

Originally Posted by Dread Pirit Roberts

I started out costing the perfect cuts as 10x uncut price but have since realized this is wrong on two levels. First, uncut gems don't sell well and secondly, by cutting the gems you are costing yourself an opportunity to make the green gem jewelry (Ornate Band and Shadowfire Necklace). This is best explained by an example...

On realm, the purple and orange perfect cuts outsell the other colors by a large margin, so I am left with a giant pile of Red, Yellow, Green and Blues even after I restock the few cuts of those that do sell. There is nothing profitable to do with those gems in bulk other than vendor the cut gems (85s). On the other hand, if I make the 415 jewelry and DE I can use and/or sell an almostunlimited supply of enchanting mats. From the last batch of 100 415's I DE'd I got 175 dust, 21 essence and 4 small shards. On my server that works out to 18 gold per ring less the cost of the selling is about 16.8g per piece. Subract the vendor value of the cut gems (.85) and the 415's are worth about 14.25g.

For every excess orange or green perfect I craft (costing ~10 uncut gems), I lose out on making 1 piece of 415 or 14.25g. If it costs 10 uncut to make one perfect that means that every excess perfect is costing me 142.5.

Therefore, when I am cutting oranges and purples in excess of the other colors I need to be making 142.5g for the perfect cut or it isn't worth my time. For some cuts, I am averaging close to that much (eg willful, inscribed, fierce and tense) and I should continue making those, but my conclusion is that I need to raise my minimum price on some of the heavy sellers like the reckless (77g), deft (83g) and the purfied (86g).

Thoughts?

Overall, I agree with your post, although it is obviosuly somewhat server dependant. Just crafting jewelry with all your uncommon gems is a very convenient way to get rid of all your greens, but perhaps not the most profitable. Just like you I'm selling purple and orange perfect cuts way more often than the others and for a lot more. To be able to utilize a few more of the colors I've been buying up all cheap Serpent's Eyes I can find (which means around 3-3.5g each) and use all my red and yellow uncommon gems to craft iLvl 450 jewelry. A fairly cheap source of Ethereal Shards to use for the daily Sha Crystal cooldown.

That leaves me with only green and blue gems, which are cut into perfect gems that I can sell for 20-40g each on a good day.

All server dependent, but...

I spreadsheeted all the possible avenues for JCing and found this to be the highest gold-per-hour BY FAR:

Uncommons - Cut, Sell Perfects, Vendor rest
Rares - Transmute Primal Diamonds, sell Reds/Blues/Yellows uncut
Jewelry - Sell ilvl 450 rings/necks only to use up Serpents Eyes (not enough sales volume otherwise)

@ 60g/stack of GIO, I profit about 150g/stack.

Nuts.

But after transmuting to primals, do you cut & sell, sell raw, or some ratio of both?

I use the rares to make metas on my transmute spec alt, sell them cut. I use the uncommons to make the jewelry. I sell the blue jewelry (10% proc chance), and I DE all the green stuff and use the enchanting mats for scrolls. I do all my disenchanting/prospecting while watching movies and tv shows to make it less annoying. I am avoiding the perfect cuts and rare cuts for the most part due to heavy undercutting and low prices. I am only selling the PVP popular gems on my PVP server, and only when they are >100g. This system works really well for me.

The only limiting factor I have is my work schedule, 60-80 hr work weeks are killing my AH time.

Mid-Pop server + Top pve.

I've bought 2400 stack this week at 25-30g. There is always between 5-15 pages up anytime...

I prospected everything, used my greens to make jewelry and vendored them to npc.
I vendored 2-5% of the blue ring that proced at high price. I'm almost even now.

So I got 300 Rare Gems of each color at 10g/u.

I will stockpile Rare Red gems for 5.2 or 5.3 when there is only Red slots in gear.

I will sell Orange and Purple gems when the sells are very hot at the release of 5.2 or 5.3.
Need an easy new instance that drop purple and something more alt-friendly...

There is 1-3 people camping AH so I don't bother posting at low price and constant undercut.