Rex's Goldmaking Guide: Part 5 - Jewelcrafting

Before I start writing this chapter for Jewelcrafting, I just want to talk briefly about risk. JC is expensive to level but I find it very rewarding. I see JC being divided into three levels of risk, conservative, moderate and high. Just like in the sharemarket, the more risk you take on, the greater your potential reward as well as the greater the chance you'll make a loss.

When I started out with JC, I only had a small amount of gold. As I got used to what sells and what doesn't and had more gold to play with, my appetite for risk grew over time. I highly recommend that if you pursue JC you do the same, start out small and work your way up.

Conservative
The conservative method I would apply if you would like to sleep easy at night, and you are happy with about 200+ gold a day from your profession. In that case you should simply do the JC daily quest in Dalaran, pocket the gold and use your Dalaran Jewelcrafting Token to buy a Dragon's Eye (worth about 250g on Dreadmaul).

Moderate
Now, the second method is to obtain Saronite Ore (mining or AH), prospect it and sell the gems. This is what you generally hear from JCs moneymaking guides and can be combined with the conservative strategy to increase your income.

What they don't usually mention is that you don't know what you're gonna get. I'm not sure what the proc rate for rare gems is in Wrath, but my gut feel is that it is higher than in TBC. This is because in Wrath you can actually proc more than one blue gem per prospect.

Using a TBC rare gem proc rate of 3% for each kind of rare gem, you have an 18% (i.e. 3% x 6) chance. So you should expect a rare gem every one and a bit stacks you go through. Now since the chance of proccing gems is random, don't be disheartened if you get a string of no procs (or even worse about 6 forest emeralds in a row!). You are playing the law of averages here, so I recommend prospecting a minimum of 12 stacks at a time to avoid disappointment.

Now with the gems, you can sell them uncut on the AH at a reasonable profit. Your target market are other JCs that buy the gems and relist them cut, players that can't find the right cut on the AH, or players that simply prefer to find a JC to do the cut for them.

High Risk
What follows is my method. My apologies up front if it's a bit convoluted, but it's a modified strategy to the one I used throughout TBC and seems to be doing just fine in Wrath. This also draws upon the Alchemy and Enchanting strategies I outlined in the earlier parts and combines them into one big gold making machine. Feel free to use some or all of the strategy depending on what you have access to.

Firstly, you do the purchase Saronite Ore and prospect thing. Then you take any rare gems you prospect and get them cut (even pay another JC if you have to!).

I use the following main cuts:

Sky Sapphire: Solid
Autumn's Glow: Smooth, Rigid, Quick, Mystic, Thick
Scarlet Ruby: Delicate, Bold, Runed
Twilight Opal: Glowing, Royal, Balanced, Regal
Monarch Topaz: Luminous, Potent, Veiled, Glinting, Reckless
Forest Emerald: Enduring, Seer's, Dazzling

After you've gone through your ore, you will also be left with bloodstones, sun crystals, chalcedonys, dark jades, huge citrines and shadow crystals. The question is what to do with them?!

Firstly you can make green rings and necklaces to DE. Bloodstones (Bloodstone Band), Chalcedonys (Crystal Chalcedony Amulet), Sun Crystals (Sun Rock Ring) and Huge Citrines (Crystal Citrine Necklace) can be combined with two crystallised earths. Eternal earths are already dirt cheap and the fact that you can get five greens out of a single eternal earth really is a no brainer.

If prices on the AH for runed bloodstones are good, you can just cut them and sell them. These low end gems are an economical choice for poor casters and healers given the scarlet ruby version goes for over 100g.

Metagems are another way if you have surplus so get friendly with a transmute spec alchemist (that will let you keep the procs!) if you can. An eternal fire, dark jade and a huge citrine combine to make an earthsiege diamond. For skyflare diamonds, transmute an eternal air, chalcedony and bloodstone.

With these gems, I usually cut the following:

Earthsiege Diamond: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond
Skyflare Diamond: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond or Ember Skyflare Diamond.

Unfortunately there isn't anything really useful with the shadow crystals, so you might as well just vendor them or list on the AH uncut. Other JC's might buy them in case they need more shadow crystals to finish their jewelcrafting dailies. I tried cutting them and listing them for sale, but its not really worth the time spent.

There you have it! Well that brings me to the end of my goldmaking series of posts. I hope you found it valuable in some way.

Cheers!

Rex