Blacksmithing (yet another whine!!)

[Marvin]

Okay, so I burn 30g to buy mithril and mageweave to up my BSing from 235 to 245 to make a Phantom Blade.

Only to find out that...
The sword requires:
28x Mithril Bar
6x Breath of Wind
8x Truesilver Bar
2x Lesser Invisibility Potion
6x Aquamarine
4x Solid Grinding Stone

Now I see this sword go from anywhere to 50g to 60g, and I ask myself, why didn't I just go mining/skinning?

The sword requires 28 mithril bars, which is roughly 9 gold on my server. Also, 6 Breath of Wind which are only dropped by 2 types of mobs. Living Storms and Gusting Vortexes, in Tanaris. They go for about 7g each, so there's 42g. Already, the raw price of the materials is 51g, or if you prefer you can spend a few hours looking for the Breath of Wind in Tanaris, and then go mining in the Badlands or Searing Gorge for mithril. This would take an excessive amount of time (and I mean LONG) to aquire these things. Don't forget 8 Truesilver bars, there's 8 more gold. The cost is already up to 60g.
6 aquamarine, roughly 1.5g, and assume the other stuff is .5g just for the hell of it. The total price to make it is ~62g!!

Now I ask what is the point of using 62g to make an item that will give you ONE point in blacksmithing and sells for about 50-60g? Or what's the point of spending days to look for these materials when you could have just taken skinning/mining and gotten the profit to buy the sword MUCH quicker?
If I'm missing something here.. feel free to flame me. Also to get to this level of blacksmithing it takes a LOT of minerals. I challenge anyone here to list one profitable item below 245 skill that you could actually make a profit off of.

I'm really disappointed... It seems that BSers are VERY gimped because of how quest items are also so powerful compared to BSing items. (Thrash Blade, anyone? Was excited about Phantom Blade before I found out there was this great quest sword..)


Maybe it's just my server? I think there aren't enough miners and too many BSers on Agrammar...
I'm seriously considering switching from BSing to skinning, but since I wasted 30g on leveling my BSing it seems kinda stupid. Could I get some support? Thanks!

[Sapphire]

Yeah that sucks. My warrior is herbalism/mining and I am debating whether to switch to mining/blacksmithing. With the way weapons sell on my server though, I may not.

[Marvin]

With the way warrior now I also wish I was a Tauren herbalist/alchem. because rage potions are so awesome, and healing pots (of course) are essential to warriors. also, i see very low prices for herbs at AH.. i'm thinking about starting a mage, skinning/mining

edit-btw my i'm a level 45 human warrior

[catfish]

well the reason the metals are so highly priced is simple, people will pay it for them.

basically, your paying for the skill-up.

though i do agree, blacksmithing needs some epic recipies, and generally harder yet more rewarding recipies (possibly with multiple parts, like making a hilt, then a blade, to prevent making skill-ups unnecessarily hard, sort of like engineering with all their widgets and gizmos)

[Shaq Pack]

If you're going into alchemy for rage potions, then I advise you to avoid it. The recipe for rage potions is hard to find, and there's only 3 different types (that I know of at least), and the hardest, the mighty rage potion, has never been on display at my AH ever (recipe or the potion). Worse still, I've never even sold one, despite giving pretty low prices. Health potions suck too, even as a caster (i'm a priest), they aren't that great, and you'll get tired of picking herbs to give you potions that net little skill gain and you can only use for a quick battle.

I'm sure buying materials is annoying, but most classes require some form of this, even alchemy (once you get to artisan status at 35, you'll need to wait at least 10 lvls to find many of the herbs you need). Look at it on the bright side, you'll be able to give yourself the best items in the game at the later levels, and after hitting 60, there won't be much else to do besides raid, do instances over, and pimp out your charcter with bad ass items (which you'll be able to do).

[Sapphire]

Shaq I'm sorry to say you are wrong on all counts. It just looks like Herbalism/Alchemy isn't for you.

Rage potion recipe can be bought from a vendor. I think great rage potion ican be too. If not it is easy to get on the AH. Same with Mighty Rage potion. Maybe you have a low-pop server and people don't auction things? I have never had trouble finding the herbs I needed for recipes. If they were a little high for me I'd find someone who could sell to me at decent rates until I could get to them myself. The time I spend gathering herbs is well spent as potions sell very well on my server. Also if you are a priest you should be valuing mana potions over healing ones. It is more efficient to heal yourself with the mana.

Also know your customers. I don't sell rage potions - I give them to my warrior alt. Why don't I sell them? Because only one class uses them and it's a waste of my time and effort to put up potions for one class that isnt even a dominant class on my server. The potions you want to sell are those that havea broader appeal, those used for quests, and those, used in tradeskilling. With a little bit of effort you can find out what they are and make a good profit.

[d-bos]

Alch/Herb isn't good for money imo.

I'm 300 of each, with almost every potion that has a known drop location in the game. I have 3 flask recipes (titans, chromatic resistance, and Supreme Power), all of the greater protection potions (except holy, if there exists such a potion), all of the transmute recipes (except for the one from the furbolgs), and theres nothing I could tihnk of that I want to find, except for Greater Arcane Elixir (no drop location listed on thott or allakhazam). To add to this, apparently silithus air elementals are confirmed to drop essence of air, thus making transmutes no longer profitable.

The materials are always worth more than what you make.

Also, the drop rate on potions off high level mobs is a far more efficient way of gathering the major health/mana potions imo.

edit: and oh yeh, paladins are friggin imbalanced.
edit2: mighty rage potion recipe isn't too hard to find. I remember getting it ages ago from the AH.

No one in their right mind would pay for a flask at nearly the cost of the materials.

[The_Teleporter]

I need a Master Hammersmith to make me 2 Serenitys when I am high enough level :D

[Sapphire]

Alch/Herb isn't good for money imo.

I'm 300 of each, with almost every potion that has a known drop location in the game. I have 3 flask recipes (titans, chromatic resistance, and Supreme Power), all of the greater protection potions (except holy, if there exists such a potion), all of the transmute recipes (except for the one from the furbolgs), and theres nothing I could tihnk of that I want to find, except for Greater Arcane Elixir (no drop location listed on thott or allakhazam). To add to this, apparently silithus air elementals are confirmed to drop essence of air, thus making transmutes no longer profitable.

The materials are always worth more than what you make.

Also, the drop rate on potions off high level mobs is a far more efficient way of gathering the major health/mana potions imo.

edit: and oh yeh, paladins are friggin imbalanced.
edit2: mighty rage potion recipe isn't too hard to find. I remember getting it ages ago from the AH.

No one in their right mind would pay for a flask at nearly the cost of the materials.
I don't have any flask recipes or transmutes (besides arcanite) and I am doing just fine. Almost halfway to my 60 mount at 56.

[sTr1nG]

I don't have any flask recipes or transmutes (besides arcanite) and I am doing just fine. Almost halfway to my 60 mount at 56.

I got 468 gold although im not alch/herb

[d-bos]

I got my mount hella easy just from selling drops and killing dragons and stuff. Maybe the economy is a bit different on your server. At least easy compared to using alchemy to get it. Maybe our definitions of ease of moneymaking vary. Alchemy makes me 35g a day. No more, no less. 1 air transmute, it sells, done deal. I can't really ask for more or it just doesn't sell. On the other hand, selling enchanting mats has proven far more profitable for a rogue friend of mine as well as a warlock one. I'm the only one who relied mostly on my drops off mobs for the money. I guess if I spent less time killing mobs and more picking up herbs I could say my main source of income is alch/herb, but I'm not really interested in doing that and I feel on the whole it is an inferior way of making the money.

[Sapphire]

The Alliance side here is low pop on a medium population server. I can't sell weapons unless they are blue or purple so I just end up vendoring them. Clothes sell ok if they have the perfect stats for a class. Enchanters here don't make much money unless they were one of the first on the server.

Your argument seems to be based on the idea of farming herbs to the exclusion of killing mobs, which is bizarre. I'm simply saying herbalism/alchemy has worked out for me as a good way of supplementing my income - which comes from drops, playing the AH, and crafting/gathering.

It really sounds like you hate your profession, which is unfortunate. So why don't you change it?

[Marvin]

i've decided to struggle my way through this and become a swordsmith.. truesilver champion and frostguard look great

[d-bos]

It really sounds like you hate your profession, which is unfortunate. So why don't you change it?

Thats only half true. In the "profession" sense, I hate all professions. I don't fancy the idea of spending more on materials than I could sell the finished product for, with no goal in sight. I don't fancy the idea of running across zones looking for herbs/metals either. In order to sell potions in such a quantity that people will actually pay attention to my stacks I would have to be making them in stacks of 5. In the case of the supposedly profitable lategame potions that amounts to 4-5 herbs per potion (5 for greater mana which is my most popular potion), or 20-25 herbs per stack. To make a stack of mana potions and sell it and still have a couple to use myself, I would indeed have to do a full roundup of all the icecap I could find in Winterspring as well as buy a stack of dreamfoil (it sells pretty cheap, far cheaper than I'm willing to collect it for). That much trouble compared to the 10 seconds it takes me to do a transmute once a day. I certainly pick up herbs as I pass them, but that doesn't really keep me in very good supply at all.

I don't see any professions in this game other than gathering skills, which are somewhat tedious, to be profitable. You just sort of have to use them for your own good or give them to guildies who ask. I gave a flask of the titans away today to a warrior on my onyxia raid. It's supposed to be the #1 best known thing in Alchemy right now and it's not worth a thing. Thats kind of disappointing imo, but then again all end-game tradeskill stuff is.

I would probably at this point prefer mining/skinning, but not so much that I would drop all my recipes that my guild likes me to make for them. I went around to all sorts of zones farming up recipes that no one else on my server has and I'm not gonna just say screw that time to do mining/skinning. I also don't like the idea of going back to lowbie zones to skill up.

[Sapphire]

I saw a black lotus yesterday in the Burning Steppes. I lost the roll for it in my group, but then another guy came by and ninjaed it while we were fighting dragonspawn to get to it. gg