Wednesday 15 August 2012

The Hunt for Infinite Dust


A week or two ago, Huntermastery sparked a good discussion with his post about what not to stockpile for Mists of Pandaria. One of the items on his list was Infinite Dust. His argument was that abyss crystals were a more effective way of storing stuff that could be turned into Infinite Dust & Cosmic Essences, rather than storing multiple stacks of dust & essences. It turned into quite a good discussion which you can read about on his follow up post about Abyss Crystals if you'd like to.

Now I'm not trying to resurrect that discussion but I've never had much luck with the Abyss Crystal shatter as a source of infinite dust, I've always used my Jewelcrafter to make bloodstone bands, crystal citrine necklace & sun rock rings to disenchant. I have a permanent watch set up for the gems & I only buy them when they are below 3 gold each & preferably below 2 gold!

Since May this year, I've also been picking up very cheap Wrath armour to disenchant - I check the dust price & base my armour buy price on that. I also only buy the top end greens - level 78-80 as they give an average of 5 dusts per item.

So I thought I'd lay out some results from a little test I did last week. I've used The Undermine Journal mean price for my cost prices as I had a lot of stuff in my bank already.

Abyss Crystal Shatter

13 Abyss Crystal (TUJ mean price 427.70g) = 18 Infinite Dust + 41 Greater Cosmic Essences (TUJ mean price 491.34g)

Overall profit = 63.64g

This is a perfect example of my previous experience with the abyss shatter - I always get more GCE's so as a source of infinite dust, it is very frustrating even though GCE's still sell pretty well.

Wrath lvl 78-80 Green Armor

14 various items all at 10g or less, approx cost 140g = 78 infinite dust + 5 greater cosmic essences (TUJ mean price 533.70g)

Overall profit = 393.70g

Jewelcraft Rings/Necks to Disenchant

60 x rings/necks approx cost 210gold = 102 Infinite Dust + 22 lesser Cosmic Essences + 5 small dream shards (TUJ mean price = 758.74g)

Overall profit = 548.74g

I made a variety of bloodstone bands, crystal citrine necklaces & sun rock rings. The bloodstone, sun crystals & huge citrines were bought over time as an average of 2g each & the crystallized earth required cost approx 75 silvers each.

TUJ Mean Prices used

Infinite Dust 6.25
Greater Cosmic Essence 9.24g
Abyss Crystal 32.90
Lesser Cosmic Essence 4.47g
Small Dream Shard 4.58

Summary

I realise the abyss crystal sample size is way too small to be really representative of the possible outcome but to be honest, at an average of 32g each, I just didn't want to spend out more cash, knowing my previous luck! Also, bear in mind, I'm trying to source Infinite Dust specifically in this post - if I just wanted Wrath enchanting mats then it wouldn't really matter too much :)

The easiest way right now is the Wrath greens - there is an abundance on my server as people are rushing their alts through Northrend before Mists of Pandaria arrives. Some items are below 5g so even if they only give me 2 infinite dusts, I'm still snatching them up!

Conversely, the gems for the rings/necks seem to be increasing in price - it took me a fair while to get enough gems to craft this many rings. If I hadn't been clearing out all my bank bags, I probably would have had a much smaller sample size!

If you need Infinite Dust - where do you get yours? Do you bite the bullet & pay AH prices or have you tried a different way? Let me know - would love your comments.

7 comments:

  1. I disenchant Wrath greens when running dungeons with friends.
    But mostly I'm the kind that mines every ore that's in his way, so I'll end up with a lot of Saronite Ore, Eternal Earth and green Wrath gems.
    I check to see if they individually could be worth more on my AH, but I usually end up shuffling everything into rings and necks to DE (or sell if the markets are empty - there's always someone that's leveling!).

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    1. Forgot to mention: I also get a ton more GCEs from Abyssal Shards and auctioneers are very hard-headed about keeping their price very low (15g and down). I've tried to reset the market several times during this expansion, but they just can't get a hint, it seems.

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  2. I you have access to BS and mining, check the price of Cobalt Ore. You should be able to make a dust for about 1.3-1.4x the cost of a piece of ore (remembering that ores to bars is 1:1 for cobalt).

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    1. Cobalt is horrendously priced on my server unfortunately - to the point where I even contemplated stockpiling it for later profits when there are few people running through Northrend!

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  3. I love Abyssal Shatter...When I'm not looking for a specific mat. Almost always I'll get dust if I'm looking for essences and essences if I'm looking for dust. Still profitable in the end, but definitely not targeted.

    I stick with buying/disenchanting greens as I make a killing selling a lot of wrath cuts, including uncommons.

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  4. Saronite Shuffle is my choice. About maybe a month ago I noticed that the price of saronite ore on my server was 40 silver each which I thought was ridiculously low especially as I had just spent half an hour in WG picking up the ore while I was hunting for elementals. I decided that saronite was a good all around item for making other stuff so I started buying.

    1/2 a guild tab later I have my go to source for infinite dust just prospecting the useful green gems and holding onto the blues because they vary highly in price (one day 5g another day spiking up to 40-50 and that is not including scarlet rubies). Even with my disenchanter in a guild bank I get more than enough infinite dust for my needs which is Imbued Frostweave and I try to sell the rest a few stacks at a time for 3g each.

    Don't get me wrong though I will be keeping at least half a tab until well after MOP drops and if I can find another guild bank (currently have two 5 tabs each) then I will pour some saronite ore into that too it is easily farmed in WG now which is dead for at least half the day.

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    1. That's an interesting thought! Being a Wrath baby & a very late starter in Jewelcrafting, I never even heard of the Saronite Shuffle until after it became the Obsidium Shuffle in Cataclysm! I never did any of the Wrath JC dailies to get cuts etc but I guess even the uncut rare gems still sell.

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