Alchemy: Potions and Elixirs unproffitable!Follow

I checked my AH for the price of all potions and elixirs and, surprisingly, for ALL of the ones I could make, it gives more proffit to sell the mats than to make the potions and sell them.

The most popular elixirs, known to be widely used for heroics and raids, sell at a price about 2/3 of the mats cost. We're talking 1/3 LOSS from crafting it versus just selling the mats. The only "gain" is a very small chance to make discoveries, and most likely discover another unproffitable potion (I have 2 discoveries so far, both useless).

For potions it's even worse. And I've gotten a plenty of Mana and Healing pots from loots. By grinding and questing I happen to come across more potions from loot and quest rewards than mats for making potions. Also, some rogue said he can get more potions than any alchemist from pickpocketing. Rogues are one of the most overplayed classes in WoW so if this is true then that overwhelmingly kills making potions.

The only moderate reasonable recipes are the meta gem transmutes. The "issue" with them is that, while they do not have a price inferior to the mats, their price is also not higher than the mats. It averages around very very close to the mats cost so that the income of a 24 hour transmute is very close to zero. The only 100% safe transmute is earth to water for a margin of 15g every 24 hours.

The recipes I don't have are either discoveries or drops. I could go drop hunting but it seems like none of those recipes are good sellers (vs selling the mats).

Is the only benefit of Alchemy now the extra potion yield from the trinket?

Sadly, the specialization proc rate isn't 100%.

If the mats are much more expensive than the pots, specialization won't make up for that.



That might be the case, depending on your server's economy.

On my server, there are few profitable potion's/elixirs. Adept's Elixir and Major Healing Potion, for example.

Try to play the AH, tho. Just before common raiding times (between 19.00 - 20.00) many people are buying pots, so usually that's a good time to put some pots -those needed by raiders- on AH.

That rogue is stupid. End of story.

As for potions, I'm a potions master and tend to have a proc after every other one I make. So, for me selling the mana pots I make is quite profitable compared to just the mats. (then again, it all depends on the server economy and the alchemist's luck in proccing).

My alchemist is herbalist. But I'm always selling the herbs instead of making them into pots to sell them because the herbs always sell for a higher price.

I haven't taken up an alchemy spec yet. I thought I wouldn't spend on getting alchemy specialization unless it's going to give me a profitable return. And that's why I did my AH check and found out that NONE of the specializations give a profitable return.

This is what I found:

According to wowiki the average yield of specialization is on average about +18%. Meaning that with mats for 100 potions you'd get 118.

Math with it is that in average it reduces your mats cost to 85%.

With a specialization, keeping in mind auction house cut, if you sell for full mats cost your profit will be in the range of 5% maybe up to 10%. The price to "just recover your investment" would be 90% of mats cost.

Elixirs and Potions are selling below 90% mats cost. So no gain there.

Diamonds are selling at full mats cost, but they are on a 24 hour cooldown.

This means I would only get any profit from alchemy in the event of being Trans Spec and only at times when I get a proc. With a 24/h cooldown doing meta gems it would probably take about 1 month before I recover the investment spent on the transmute spec.

People are making expensive mats into cheaper potions and spending 24-hour transmute cooldown for no extra proffit. WHY?

Hm... watching the market some more I see herb prices have dropped.

Terocone 2.3g
Felweed 0.5
Vial 0.4
Total = 3.2
For an Elixir Master (85%) = 2.72
AH Buyout price = 2.4 to 2.6.

(How's the prices for this at your AH?)

So for Elixir of Draenic Wisdom, even being an Elixir Master, if I had the herbs, I'd get a better deal from selling the herb and buying the potion instead of making my own potions. EoDW is abundant in the AH.

The only reason right now for me to keep Alchemy is that I can "obtain" potions that are unavailable in the market. They probably would not sell at all, but in the rare occasion when I need one I can get one.

To me it's a dramatic change from pre-tbc. I used to have steady sales of Frost Oil, Stonescale Oil, Goblin Rocket Fuel, Fire Prot Potions, Nature Prot Potions, Mongoose Elixirs, Flask of the Titans and Flask of Distiled Wisdom. As of now... Hmm... 15g for an earth to water transmute vs 20g for a Meta transmute. But it doesn't seem add any value to any raw mats.

Maybe I just need to let the economy stabilize. After all I'm in a realm that has just received a lot of transfers and that may be unbalancing the economy a bit.


Edited, Aug 29th 2008 4:54pm by xorq

Uhm, nice thread. I'll see if some of that works on my realm.

The thing is, given the average yield rate of masteries (from what I've read) I'm estimating a mastery equals, "in average", to reducing mats cost to 85% of the normal cost. You may "think" it's a gamble, but it's not a gamble, it's a probability.

You can expect that if everyone takes elixir mastery and crafts 1000 Elixir of Draenic Wisdom, almost everyone will have between 140 and 200 extra elixirs from procs. Almost nobody will be outside that range. From what I've read, the curve is so normalized that you can rely on it.

If you gain more from reducing to 85% the mats cost of Elixirs and Flasks instead of Transmutes or Potions, then yes that's more profitable. If you gain more from reducing to 85% the cost of transmutes then go transmutes. In the short term Transmutes are more of a gamble than Elixirs, but in the long terms they will both average to 85% reduction of mats cost.

Transmuters may have the apparent advantage of being able to offer free transmutes to people and keep the extras that come from procs. It makes it seem to them as if they got the metas or primals for "free" (because it wasn't their mats). Elixir/Pot doing stuff for others with their mats are more likely to have to give the mats and only get "tip" (and a chance to make a discovery).

So in short the answer is to take up whichever mastery you invest the most gold per day into mats.

Edited, Sep 4th 2008 4:43pm by xorq

Right, I haven't been raiding.

The mana pots in my realm are still a long way below the 85% of the price of the mats.

So I'm guessing the number of people who don't raid and get surplus mana potions from means other than alchemy is pretty large.

Otherwise it would be hard to explain someone buying Dreaming Glory for 2g a leaf and selling the mana pots for 16g a stack. (With adjust from mastery, the DG cost alone goes to 17g)

I can't complain, I see DG overpriced so I sell DG. But I'm going for transmuter mastery.

Thanks that's pretty cool. I'd like to be able to configure the prices because those prices don't match my realm.

I guess I should make an excel worksheet for that or something.