Why You'll Pay 2,000 Gold For Gems in Warlords of Draenor

     I hate to be a doomsayer for anyone used to buying gems for under 300g, but it looks like we have some changes coming in WoD. At the same time, I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news for those who decided to keep Jewelcrafting as a profession or not. But it looks like we're going to see 2,000 gold gems in Warlords of Draenor.

Get shocked now, so you can prepare later, and share in the wealth. :)

     Did a little talking about this on the YourWoWMoney podcast, but I just ran some numbers. The rare gems for WoD cost 50 Taladite Crystals, 10 Sorcerous Air, and 5 Warlord of Draenor Herbs. Taladite Crystals at max level are crafted from 20 Blackrock ore and 10 True Iron, yielding 10 crystals. So, essentially you'll get 1 crystal for 3 ore. Sorcerous Air is a byproduct of crafting, so it's worthless and it's price will be entirely dictated by demand, competition, and server size. Expect prices to be pretty high initially, and settle in somewhere in the 10g-200g range depending on your server. Ore routes from my testing give 600-900 ore per hour, so we'll see about the same prices at the start of the xpac, in the 2g-5g range, maybe leveling out back to 1g or maybe not (we don't know enough about long-term demand yet to figure out that equilibrium but we can assume what people will put the ore up for at release).

50 Crystals = 150 ore = @2g, 300g  @5g, 750g
10 Sorcerous = @10g, 100g  @200g, 2000g
5 Herbs = 10g
Total ~ 410g-2760g

Currently, with the prospecting mechanic we all know and love are used to, you can generally get 1 rare gem from 20 ore. In MoP, we're seeing gems at 100g to 300g with a mat cost of 20g for a stack of Ghost Iron. When Lore first announced that Jewelcrafting and Gem prices would be higher because Blizzard was reducing the number of slots in gear, who would have thought they were going to do it by increasing the mat cost  x10? Share this with any JC friends and let me know in a comment what you think.

Long story short, on a high pop server, we're looking at gems that cost a minimum to craft of 400g, and a maximum of almost 3000g.  And depending on where sorcerous prices stabilize at (I'd expect 25-40g personally), you should be expecting gem prices in the 1,000g to 2000g range FOR THE ENTIRE EXPANSION. Start saving.

Thanks for reading my little WoW blog and remember that the key to making gold in the end is just to
Search. Craft. Post.
Every Day.

Add Me
YouTube | Twitter | Google+