Entering the JC market, need tips

[RyanRetnolds]

I've spent most of Cata leveling alts, but just recently picked up my DK, who happened to be a 450 JC from back in WotLK. I've just leveled him up to 525 now, and need some help on getting into the JC market again.

What are people doing to make money with Jewelcrafting? Prospecting? Cutting gems? Crafting Jewelry? Crafting jewelry, then DE'ing it? Still doing the shuffle? I'd like to save up some tokens to get in on the epic gem market early, so I should be able to have a few dozen cuts by the time epic gems drop.

[Djuntas]

Buy good recipes only that has have stabel gem prices.

Prospect ores>keep gems thats used for JC daily>Make DE food for rest>Make enchant scrolls or sell enchant mats raw(depends on gems prices ofc).

Rare gems cut gems.

[Maelstrom51]

JC is much more profitable if you have a maxed out alchemist.

[RyanRetnolds]

JC is much more profitable if you have a maxed out alchemist.

I do have a maxed Alc! X-Mute spec, too. Would you recommend turning the greens into blues then?

[meldora]

If you're not really familiar with the playstyle of all classes and gem popularity, you can visit WoW Popular to see which gems are the most popular of certain colors. You can cross check prices on your realm while wow pop gives you a general idea of demand.

[Tordek]

Reds are best, and I'd recommend transmuting them. Purples and Orange are also worth it if you can get cheap herbs, but greens are a bit of a crapshoot. Blues aren't worth transmuting, and yellows aren't worth cutting at all.

I'd recommend getting 3-4 cuts of each color that you sell except red, don't bother with flashing or piercing because they sell about 1/3rd as fast.

[usiris]

Look at everything.

I've recently been experimenting with the lvl 80 jewelry items, and had a few positive results and a few meh''s.
Do the 80 daily, both for the dragons eye which still sells for around 100g, but if you have the nightmare tear pattern, those sell for ~200-300g.
Depending on your servers pyrite ore prices, prospect it.
Get every JC pattern, there is a market for every cut, bad or good; and at some point the price of the cut will exceed the cost of the raw gem.
Not really JC related(more alch) transmute lvl 80 meta gems.
Wrath gems are fairly obvious at this point.
I've also been experimenting with BC epic gems. I usually buy them at ~10g and sell them ~20-25g, it may be because the wrath blue gem market is ridiculous on my realm. Very good results though.


The shuffle is slowly dieing, and will become extinct(for most) once 4.2 hits; blizz took a nerfbat to uncut gem prices.

If you have the time go through your book, using the undermine journal and compare the price of the item to the cost of mats.

[meldora]

You can use an addon called OreCrusher to help determine how much you can afford to pay for various Ores. Make sure you have the latest version though.

[Leobald]

Not sure saving up tokens is a good idea.

JC crafted epic gems are about 6 months away, and during that time you could make a nice steady profit on any patterns you learn now, while there is no guarantee that the current tokens will be used for epic recipes or that Blizz will not introduce a cap on the tokens before epic gems come.

Even if everything stays as it is, and people will be able to use their current tokens to buy epic recipes, you don't win much, because then there will be no great opportunity to make some extra profit in the first days after eipc gems are released.

Same goes for hording Pyrite Ore for future prospecting.

---------- Post added 2011-05-30 at 08:57 AM ----------

I do have a maxed Alc! X-Mute spec, too. Would you recommend turning the greens into blues then?

Look at the priced in the AH. On my realm yellow, green and blue transmutes are never worth it, orange and purple occasionally, and red often.

It pays to watch the AH regulary, if you are lucky sooner or later you will run across someone who sells lots of herbs at prices below normal market level (also known as botters unloading their haul). Same goes for ore, although there the prices seem to eb more stable on my realm.

After 4.2 even uncut uncommon gems will vendor only for some silver, so their price might fall further. This could make transmuting more blue quality gems again worthwhile.