MoP Profession Round-up

Greetings, gold fans!  I hope we're all having fun out there in Pandaria (even if the mass of dailies starts to feel more and more like work).  Amidst all of that fun beyond the Mists, however, you're probably wondering how to part your server's population from some of that sweet, inflationary daily gold flowing into the economy.

I'm here to help as best I can, with the profession round-up I promised in my previous post.  As always, note that this isn't necessarily a complete list, nor is it guaranteed to work on your server.  It's simply a summary of what has and hasn't been working for me in each profession.  Take it as an inspiration, then go out there and make it your own.

That being said, let's get down to brass tacks here.

Alchemy

 If there's one profession that's really disappointed me so far, it's Alchemy.  The main draw of the profession is, of course, the Living Steel cooldown.  Unfortunately, the profit margin on this seems to be getting thinner and thinner, as the price of Living Steel continues to drop (when it even sells).  Like with many things in Mists, I blame the Spirit of Harmony.  Other than the Living Steel Belt Buckle and the new Engineering-only helms, everything else that takes Living Steel takes Spirits.

At the same time, supply seems to be up compared to where Truegold was this soon into Cataclysm.  Logically, that makes sense.  There's no alternative like there was with Cataclysm's Living Elements.  What else are most alchemists going to use that cooldown on?

A few people have suggested attempting to reset the price of Living Steel.  I could see that potentially being viable, but after my last experience with resetting, I think I'll play it safe.  What I do recommend, however, is taking the time to look at your options and see what's the cheapest way to get your six Trillium Bars. The following options are available:

- Buy 6 Trillium Bars directly.
- Buy 12 each of Black and White Trillium Ore (assuming you have access to someone with 600 mining)
- Buy 60 Ghost Iron Bars (Hopefully your alchemist has already learned Transmute Trillium)
- Buy 120 Ghost Iron Ore (assuming you have access to a miner)

Hopefully, one of those options will provide you with some savings.  Do keep in mind, however, that transmuting your Trillium means a chance to proc extras.

Flasks may also be an option on some servers, though on mine, the profit margins aren't great.  Obviously, if flasks are profitable and you do decide to make them, changing your specialization to Elixir Master will help.

Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring

 Despite all the new options that have unfolded for these "big three" gear crafting professions, I've definitely had the most success with the same tried and true category:  crafted PvP blues.  All of the reasons these were popular in Cataclysm still hold true to this generation.  More than that, PvP stats are no longer counted against an item's budget of PvE stats, so there's actually no shame this time around in using them to get your ilvl up for heroics.

Now, the factor that somewhat complicates things is, again, the Spirit of Harmony.  Thankfully, none of the "Contender's" patterns require Spirits to craft.  However, each one costs one Spirit of Harmony to purchase.  They're also BoP, and can only be purchased from vendors in your faction's city in Vale of Eternal Blossoms.  In other words, don't get too comfy standing around Orgrimmar on these crafting alts just yet, at least not until they have all these patterns. (Your Leatherworker, in particular, will be visiting Pandaria for a long time.)

There is a benefit to these patterns costing Spirits, however.  On many servers, there are patterns that are completely missing from the AH.  These should obviously be where you focus your attention first.  You can't necessarily name your own price (try to keep them in line with the other pieces), but obviously, no competition means anyone buying that piece is buying yours.

Enchanting

For whatever reason, I haven't had much success in Enchanting yet.  I think it mostly comes down to the fact that I'm not babysitting the market, and competition is very common, since the only things in play right now are all trainer recipes (and more than that, often used to skill up).  My Druid will be hitting Revered with the Shado-Pan tomorrow, so I'm highly considering taking up Enchanting on her until my Mage can catch up, as this would make me the only person selling the high-end weapon enchants.

Other than that, the only real advice I can give for Enchanting is to remember your upward and downward conversions.  This keeps the high amount of dust from the Jewelcrafting shuffle from being wasted, can help get you cheaper mats, and can sometimes even turn a profit in and of itself.

So remember, when converting up:

5 Spirit Dust = 1 Mysterious Essence
5 Mysterious Essence = 1 Ethereal Shard
5 Ethereal Shard = 1 Sha Crystal (daily cooldown)

When converting down:

1 Sha Crystal = 2 Ethereal Shards
1 Ethereal Shard = 3 Mysterious Essence
1 Mysterious Essence = 3 Spirit Dust

Engineering

There's good news and bad news for Engineers in Mists of Pandaria.  The bad news is that, once again, Engineering isn't going to make or break anyone's fortune.  The good news is that for once, there's something they can make for gold that's not a vanity item.

The new Ghost Iron Dragonling is a fairly nice, entry-level trinket that actually doesn't require Engineering skill to use.  The trinket has no primary stats, but has three Cogwheel slots that can be filled with the new Tinker's Gear Cogwheels, which give 600 to a secondary stat of the wearer's choice.  It's actually a pretty solid trinket, and versatile enough to be useful to all classes. (Ironically, the ones who benefit the least from equipping it are Engineers, since Cogwheels are unique-equipped and their Engineering helm has two sockets.)

The Dragonlings themselves often have a rather narrow profit margin, but the Tinker's Gears are solid.  Then again, it's really tough to be unprofitable when they only take 2 Ghost Iron Bars each.

Inscription

I've got a little confession to make.  I hate the glyph market. It's one of those few markets where babysitting the AH is non-negotiable.  Particularly after my 5.0.4 reset fiasco (and the literally thousands of glyphs it left me with), it'll take a very major event to get me back into that market.  I made enough glyphs to get my Scribes to 600, but that's it.

Still, there's more to Inscription than just glyphs.  Most notably, there are Darkmoon Cards.  These are realistically what you'll want to do with your Scroll of Wisdom, and with the Ink Trader finally fixed, it shouldn't be too much of a pain getting the Starlight Ink you need.

The first Darkmoon Fair of Mists has come and gone, and I certainly should have been in a good position.  I was, as far as I could tell, the only one Horde-side on my server able to scrape together even one trinket, let alone the three I had when all was said and done.  In reality, though, I learned a painful lesson about my server: no matter how rare they are, most of the people there just aren't willing to spend above a certain (relatively small) amount of gold on gear.  There are only about three progression-minded raiding guilds over here, and only one of those doesn't consider itself "casual".

Eventually, I ended up selling two of the three trinkets to raid members at steep discounts.  More specifically, Relic of Chi-Ji went for 50k, while Relic of Yu'lon sold for 20k.  While these still more than covered my ink prices (especially since I also ended up with a good two or three dozen other cards), it was still disappointing compared to the 100k+ prices people on other servers reported.

Strangely, though, while no one seems to want to buy the trinkets outright, there are plenty of people buying up individual cards.  I suppose a few k at a time seems a lot more palatable.  The decision then becomes one of selling the cards now, or waiting until the next fair?

Certainly, cards tend to go for higher amounts during the fair, as people scramble to complete decks.  However, as we get ready for Heart of Fear/Terrace of Endless Spring to open, that means more trinkets coming into the game, which lowers the value of the DMF trinkets, and consequently, the cards that compose those decks.  It's a calculated risk either way, to be sure, but for what it's worth, I've chosen to start selling mine now.  Realistically, I'll probably have some left when the fair rolls around again.

Jewelcrafting

As always, this one's a real gem (pardon the pun). Despite the MoP green jewelry taking more gems than its Cataclysm counterparts, the shuffle is still generally alive and well.  Then again, it's not uncommon lately for me to find ore under 5 gold per ore (a price I would've been happy with even through most of Cataclysm), so at that price, it's hard not to make a profit.  Obviously, this will vary from server to server.

Also, while there's no real need to level your Jewelcrafter, be sure to take them for a quick trip to Jade Forest to pick up all the cuts that use Serpent Eyes.  Mai the Jade Shaper is just sitting around Greenstone Village, not phased or anything.  She'll teach you all of those cuts as well as the ilvl 450 jewelry that uses Serpent Eyes, such as Band of Blood.

(If you have some spare time or are going to level up that character anyway, you can go killing things in Pandaria for your meta gem cuts, but it's by no means required, and certainly not a big component of Jewelcrafting profit.)

Generally, after I've prospected all my ore, the first thing I'll do is take care of restocking any of that ilvl 450 jewelry I've sold.  After that, I'll take any rare gems left over and take a look at the Jewelcrafting page over at The Undermine Journal for my server.  As I look at each gem color, if I have a cut that's currently selling for more than the raws (and I don't already have a bunch on the AH), I'll make that cut.  For the first color I encounter that I don't have a profitable cut, I'll use my daily cooldown in hopes of discovering one.  Everything else, I sell raw for now.

Lastly, the uncommon gems are used to make Shadowfire Necklaces and Ornate Bands.  Any blues get put on the AH for around 200 gold.  The rest get sent off to my Enchanter for DEing.  As I mentioned, though, the Enchanting business is a little slow, so I'm starting to sell some of the mats raw for now to prevent having a bunch of overstock.

Conclusion

As you can see, just about every profession has something to explore and a way to make gold in Mists.  In fact, this post ended up much, much longer than I had planned, with each category being almost long enough to be a post on its own.  Still, hopefully that gives you some ideas.

On Thursday, I'll be starting my weekly summary posts again, so you'll be able to get an idea of exactly what's been making the most gold for me.  Until then, it's off to bed for me, so I can wake up in time to do all the things I need to do daily in-game.

I swear, there just aren't enough hours in the day...