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.

Old School Jewels & Infinite Dust

I've been trying to get my head around the enchanting scrolls market over the last week or so. I'd decided to let TSM do the initial work for me & to pick out the most viable scrolls from the materials I had on hand. Now I'm a self confessed pack rat in game & in real life (although, tbh, my husband beats me hands down in RL!) so I thought building a craft list wouldn't be a problem.

It turns out, a lot of Wrath enchants are still going strong on my server so I need a lot more infinite dust than I expected. Cue Flux (from Power Word:Gold) with a timely tweet about the Crystal Citrine Necklace which disenchants to infinite dust or lesser cosmic essences and only costs 1 crystallized earth & 1 huge citrine.

Off I run to my JC & take her to the auction house where I find that huge citrines are selling for under 2g each. Good little gold maker/packrat that I am, I already had about 30 Eternal Earths in my bank & when I checked the price of Infinite Dust it was around 7g per dust. I rapidly snagged all 27 of the Huge Citrines at 2g or less & grabbed the Earths from my bank. Off I snuck to a quiet corner to craft all these wonderful necklaces where to my happy disbelief I found 3 other patterns in my JC craft list that would serve the same purpose!

The Bloodstone Band, the Crystal Chalcedony Amulet & the Sun Rock Ring all take just 1 gem & 2 crystallized earths so back to the AH where I was pleased to find that the bloodstones & sun crystals were also less than 2g each - I snagged them as fast as possible too. The Chalcedony were a little more expensive so I left them for now. These disenchant to 2.5 infinite dusts on average with the occasional lesser cosmic essence so at a mat cost of less than 4g, this is a good combination.

Back in my crafting corner, I set my craft queue to run while I perused my blog list. In total I spent 110g to buy a mixed bag of 67 gems. They disenchanted to 120 Infinite Dusts & 20 lesser cosmic essences which I stashed in the bank. I couldn't resist the immediate gold opportunity though so I put some 10 stacks of Infinite Dust on the AH at 7g per dust, just to see if people were in fact buying it. Needless to say, yes, people do buy dusts at that price!

Over the next few days, I continued to buy the cheap gems where & when I could, crafting & disenchanting as I went along. I now have a nice little stockpile of infinite dust & cosmic essences for when I eventually get my head around enchanting scrolls!

Keep your eyes on the AH for these items selling cheap as well. I remember making these when I levelled my JC so you may find them listed at silly low prices whilst people are levelling.

Tuesday & yesterday though, it was a different picture. One guy has listed all these gems at 8g each and there are no other sellers in the market. In the meantime, Infinite Dust is now at 2-3g per dust, also from the same guy. I either caught the market when he wasn't paying attention or someone twigged this market almost at the same time I did but has completely different approach to it.

I'll add it to my list of AH corners to visit periodically, along with enchanting rods & toughened leather armour. I'm ok with taking a little profit here & there when someones' attention wanders :)