“That potion sells for less than it costs to buy the herbs, but if you farm the herbs yourself, you can make a profit!” — FALSE
I have read that countless times in message forums, and even in chat from my own guild-mates (who I promptly slap and give them the following lesson). Let’s use a simple example to prove how this is false. Let’s say that Mt. Silversage (MS) and Dreamfoil (DF) each sell for 1g. Greater Arcane Elixir (GAE) uses 3xDF and 1xMS…which means that it costs 4g to make (excluding the vials, but let’s ignore that for a minute). Let’s suppose that Greater Arcane Elixirs sell for 3g a piece on the AH as an average. That means that YOU LOSE MONEY if you sell Greater Arcane Elixirs instead of selling the raw herbs.
“But…what if you’re not buying the herbs…what if you farm them yourself! Then they’re free, and it’s all profit!” If you believe that, please read the next part slowly and repeatedly until you get it: If you could farm the herbs yourself, then you could sell the HERBS for 4g! Which would you rather do…sell the potion for 3g or sell the herbs for 4g? The value of an item is the value of an item, regardless of how you acquired it. If you farm it, it’s worth 1g. If you buy it for 1g, it’s worth 1g.
FACT #1 – Mats aren’t ‘free’ just because you didn’t pay for them. You earned them by farming. If it makes sense, sell the mats over the crafted product.
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by sacha, on April 21 2009 @ 6:51 am
this is a very true thing . i found out the hard way. I bought all of the mats for mining to power level it then relized how dumb tht really was since i could be the one making the money instead of giving it away . now I mine the mats for other people and they pay me hehe . Instant free gold .
by Seth, on August 4 2009 @ 2:39 am
This can be good and bad, true enough, the herbs are always worth more than the potion, but if you farm them, and then make the potion, you do essentially lose 1g, but you will gain a skill-up which may help you later on to make better potions where this is not the case.
Case in Point: Stranglekelp is 20g a stack on my server, and water breathing potions, (which use the strangle kelp) sell for 15g a stack, now if the water breathing potions were orange to me, I would have gotten 20 points (as a max) towards my alchemy to make higher level potions. Selling the raw mats when you have another profession to feed isn’t always a good idea.
by tyrob, on October 2 2009 @ 8:46 pm
Now i have to disagree with this post only slightly.
Mats that you dont pay for ARE seen as free, but you spend TIME not gold when farming. To be honest i am a miner and blacksmith both maxed out and i prefer to mine the mats for all my blacksmithing needs and that way i have tons of gold left over for repairs and raid consumables. My best advice is simply this:
if you are a blacksmither & miner mine like crazy to build up mats for blacksmithing , make some high level armour or weps then resell the weps/armour if selling the mats is pointless or vice versa.
Also my tip for gold making…….
sell only stacks of 20 whatever the item even those grey items that stack makes a few gold now and then
Fact from Tyrob: Farmed mats are free when no gold is spent gathering them only personal time is spent.
by admin, on October 3 2009 @ 10:51 am
@tyrob -
Sorry, bud, but I think you missed the point of the post entirely.
As the goblins say, “Time is money, friend!”
If you spend an hour farming mats for “free”, which would have cost you 20g to buy, but you could have been doing something else with that hour that would have made you 420g, you just lost 400g. The mats weren’t “free”…they cost you 400g in lost income.
by Iron Duck, on January 1 2010 @ 8:09 pm
Well, you don’t LOSE money, you did lose potential to gain more though. If I go and farm those herbs needed for the elixir, and I started with 10g, and I made the elixir and sold it for 1g, and now have 11g, whilst if I had sold the herbs I’d have 14g. Now in the end, I gained money in both situations, I just lost the potential to have made more money by making the elixir, but I didn’t LOSE any gold.
@admin
Same thing, I didn’t lose 400g, I lost the potential to make 400g, I still gained money, just 400g less than what I could have. They are different terms, and sometimes making that potion will get you closer to the more profitable potions later on.
by Spencer, on March 22 2010 @ 8:10 pm
I think that this is sort of a subjective post. It really depends on what you are farming. Obviously dont make the mistake of farming your own mats if is going to cost you money, that is common sense. However, you can use mats that you get from farming them to exponentially increase the gold income that you can make hourly. If I go out and farm herbs, they will allways sell for an average amount. Ok, maybe I can spend 4 hours making 3000G farming herbs and milling them. But if I change the mats into various decks of cards, then i can average over 4500G. This means that in 4 hours I have made 1500G extra because I utalized my other profession. What you say can be true if you are farming useless mats, but if you are smart, getting your own mats can be extremely profitable. That being said I will allways buy mats that i see as cheap on the AH, and combine them with farmed mats to increase production even more
by Paul, on April 20 2010 @ 8:43 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost
If you are trying to make cash, and you spend your time doing it, you are converting time to money. If you convert it to a less profitable endeavor, you’ve lost the money you could have made. This *is* relevant if what you are doing is explicitly trying to make money.
If you’re just killing time, any vendor trash is pure profit. If you’re farming gold, every minute had better pay enough to vindicate your effort, or you’re losing the money you should have been making.
Opportunity cost — it’s economics.
by Elevenn, on April 26 2010 @ 3:09 pm
Anyone who even took entry-level economics in college will tell you: FORGONE EARNINGS COUNT AS EARNINGS LOST!
by Sander Hansen, on August 24 2010 @ 6:52 am
Well… this is not completely true, the mats may be worth more gold, however you should always consider the sell rate. Some items sells faster than others, let’s say you gather the herbs, and put them on AH.
In some cases, you gather them faster than they can sell, this is a problem. However, the potion may sell much much faster, Let’s say you can sell 40 potions a day, but only 20 herbs, then you would earn 120 gold selling potions, but onlu 80 gold selling potions.