I was going to submit this post to Cold as part of his previous Blogging Carnival but too little too late I guess. I’ve been sick for the last 2 weeks and didn’t quite get around to it.
The Consortiums Projects intention was to make a killing on the first Darkmoon Fair, but Blizzard had other ideas. There are a number of major drawbacks to DM trinkets currently.
1.The Ink vendor was not exchanging Ink of Dreams for Starlight Ink, this meant that Humph and I did a huge amount of Herb farming at the release of MoP, so we could create DM cards each day. We have 3 Scribes (4 if you count my Scribe Horde side) that can make DM cards, and each card required 10 Starlight Ink. This was a huge time sink to create these items.
2. Each card requires a Scroll of Wisdom with a cooldown that resets at midnight. Only I card can be made per day. This was never the case in previous expansions.
3.The Relic of Niuzao had no bonus on equip, Blizz has stuffed up, No Tank in their right mind would want this trinket as it stood then. Fortunately half way through the Faire Blizz made a change and added Stamina but the price had fallen so far by this time.
4. Blizz made the Trinkets Ilvl 376, unlike the last few expansions, these Trinkets won’t last through the first Tier of gear. Raid Finder will have better.
The Darkmoon Faire arrives and we’ve been able to make 3 Decks, (Relic of Chi Ji, Relic of Niuzao,& Relic of Xuen). The only Decks we end up selling are to ourselves and another member of our raid team. There just isn’t the demand for these trinkets at current prices.
I decided to buy our Relic of Niuzao now as the price has dropped significantly from 100k to 35k due to not having a bonus on equip previously. Humph decides to purchase the Relic of Chi Ji for 100k.
Soon after the DM faire ends Blizzard change the Ink vendors(Mithrildar in the comments informed me this occured during the Faire) so you can exchange Ink of Dreams for Starlight Ink. Humphs trinket is now selling for 35k. Well done Blizz you have totally screwed all the scribes that put in a huge amount of effort to make cards. The Ink vendor should have changed when MoP released.
We offer our Monk offtank a deal on the last DM card, he has a scribe also but isn’t using his Scroll of Wisdom.Our offer is to make us 21 cards and we’ll give him the trinket, he accepts. This offer was made after the Vendor changed, so it's not like we were being excessively greedy.
Hindsight is always 100%, if I knew then what I know now, I would have just sold all the herbs and waited for the Ink trader to change.
On a positive note I belive our crafting cost to make a deck to be around the 7k gold mark, if we use the Alchemy CD as a guide to what a Scroll of Wisdom is worth. (Living steel less cost of mats to make 6x Trillium Bar) puts the Scroll around 300 gold in value.
What did we do wrong?
We asked too much and followed the market as to valueing Trinkets. At the time Starlight Ink was selling for 300g+ each, if we allowed 1000g for the Scroll of Wisdom for each card then a deck would cost 38k to make. Trying to sell them for 85-100k was over the top.
Personally I made a killing buying Oxen cards before the stat fix to the trinket and selling them as singles after. I guess it was speculation on my part, but it made sense that it was an error not to have Stam on it.
ReplyDeleteAs for the trinkets themselves, made 3 and am having no luck moving them at a price I feel they're worth. With that in mind, I made it a point to make decks that I or my friends could use, so even if I use them and get "nothing" they're still useful.
I think I'm out on cards from now on. With the daily cooldown, it just doesn't seem worth the effort to try to put together more decks that (as you state) may be beat by LFR trinkets.
Shoulder enchants may be less profit now, but they'll continue to sell long term.
my first commentor woohooo!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to dramaticaaly reduce the price we sell these Trinkets for to see if our price point is the cause of the lack of interest. I think we're sitting on 2 Decks at the moment. WIll keep you posted.
Yeah the DMF was really bad for me too. Had to sell individual cards because I'm on a small server and it's not really profitable to buy that one ridiculously overpriced card you need to make a deck. Just to note, you can actually craft more than one per day. There's no cooldown on the actual DMF craft, just on the Scroll, which can be avoided for obnoxious amounts of Spirit of Harmony. Very thorough analysis though, enjoyed the read!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Phat Lewts
You are 100% correct, we were also buying CD's from Guildy's. Thanks for the feedback.
DeleteThis is the first time that I hear that the Faire was a fail to someone, it was pretty much free gold to be honest.
ReplyDeleteOn your points:
1. It was indeed true that the ink trader didnt change yet, however Blizzard also made it clear in a blogpost that they would be swapping the new one in two weeks after launch. A similair statement was posted 1 day after the start of the DMF.
2. In my opinion this is not a fail, rather a reason of success. I personally had 7 scribes and this allowed me to make alot of cards compared to my realm. The only people that could produce a similair amount of trinkets either bought cards or cooldowns from other scribes. Thanks to the fact that even with that, many people weren't able to produce a good amount of decks (where as before a single scribe could produce an endless amount of trinket) the supply of trinkets was very low before the ink trader swap. This pushed the prices up alot.
3. I completely agree on this, althought Niuzao only sells for 5k more currently than before the change. They changed a heroic dungeon quality trinket in a LFR-quality one.
4. This is completely wrong. Don't get fooled by the low item level. Agi Xuen is cuurently BiS for 2nd slot of hunters and the 4th trinket for Rogues, Druids and Monks. Str Xuen is BiS for all warrior specs and very good for DKs and Paladins. Yu'lon is BiS for ALL intellect dps. Chi'Ji is just as good as normal raid trinkets, but with healers being very low on mana this one is actually really good.
Trinkets indeed crashed with the fixed ink trader, but on my realm the prices are back up again as the Faire is over and the prices on all realms should be going up at this moment every day.
For me personally this was a very good Faire. When the ink trader change didn't happen on the announce date I gambled right and didnt go shopping for herbs (luckily I didnt have to as I pushed herb prices to 150% of the price before the Faire on the first day of the faire, so I would have forced myself to pay a premium price). I was able to produce 16 trinkets with 7 scribes. Spent 100k on herbs, 50k on the cards to finish some extra decks on the last day. I'm already at 300k profit with 3 Yu'Lons 1 Agi Xuen and 1 Str Xuen to sell. Which I value 350k gold (70k per trinket seems to be a fair price here currently).
Mithrildar, Wintrader on the consortium ( stormspire.net )
4.
3.
Very nice, this is my first attempt making DM Cards. There's lessons to be learnt here. The fail I was referring to was on Blizz's behalf by not changing the vendor at the beginning of MoP, but I didn't make that clear in my post.
DeleteThe vendor was changed to allow ink trade-ins *before* the end of the Faire.
ReplyDeleteThrough the course of the Faire, I was selling my Starlight Ink for 10K a stack to panicking scribes, and was buying back their excess Ink of Dreams for chump change. The gamble worked as the ink trader was patched in time, and I traded for my Starlight for effectively 40g a bottle and made my cards.
The inscription vendors and ink traders are *always* messed up during expansion releases. It's safer to plan for the opposite of what Blizzard says will happen.
I've been chilling out on my gold making so far this expansion, but I have noticed that Blizzard has made a concerted effort to make it hard to make large amounts of gold. The whole SoHs being BoE, DMF cards requiring a Scroll of Wisdom which is on a 1 day cool down, gem x-mutes requiring Golden Lotus, etc, etc.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally this was a very good Faire. When the ink trader change didn't happen on the announce date I gambled right and didnt go shopping for herbs (luckily I didnt have to as I pushed herb prices to 150% of the price before the Faire on the first day of the faire, so I would have forced myself to pay a premium price). I was able to produce 16 trinkets with 7 scribes. Spent 100k on herbs, 50k on the cards to finish some extra decks on the last day. I'm already at 300k profit with 3 Yu'Lons 1 Agi Xuen and 1 Str Xuen to sell. Which I value 350k gold (70k per trinket seems to be a fair price here currently).guild wars 2 gold
ReplyDeletegw2 gold