If you have been doing patron orders you will likely have noticed some items stacking up, the finishing reagents that add + skill. Some of you will undoubtedly have realized they can be sold on the AH. I’m sure some of you will also be well aware of what I’ll cover in this video, which is the fact that they can be valuable even when buying!

Skill is king

Profession skill is very important, even in cases where you get above the recipe difficulty for guaranteed max quality. The reason is that extra skill means you can cut some of your materials to a lower quality, thus cutting your costs. A profession racial will get you 5 skill, and that can cut as much as 300 gold of the crafting cost for the right recipe. With these + skill reagents going from +5 to +20 skill the value is quite high!

They are dirt cheap

For the right recipes these +skill reagents are very cheap. The Apprentice crafting license which adds +5 skill is selling for 115 gold on EU right now. The Stack of pentagold reviews which adds +10 is selling for 200 gold (which makes it better) and lastly the Unraveled instructions which adds +20 skill is selling for 350-400 gold. Given the fact that for the right recipe + 5 skill can reduce your costs by 200 gold, this is VERY powerful in the right circumstance.

So what is the right circumstance

This is only worthwhile for recipes with a high crafting cost. You need something that requires a lot of materials, so that you can swap out a good chunk. It also needs to have materials with significant price differences. The best option are the absolute top end weapon enchants where you can optimize a lot of storm dust from quality 3 to quality 2.

You have to do it by hand

Sadly as far as I can tell CraftSim does not support optimizing these reagents. These means you will have to look through your recipes yourself to see what is possible. Most likely you will need to be fully buffed with temporary crafting buffs and gear and then look for profitable recipes or close to profitable recipes. Then you add the finishing reagent and start reducing q3 materials. You want to start with the material that has the best price difference between quality 2 and 3 and with significant quantity. Herbs like Luredrop, Storm Dust and possible engineering materials are top contenders for various professions. CraftSim the addon will update the average profit to reflect both the value of the chosen materials and the finishing reagents. If your profits improved, then it’s time to buy finishing reagents and go to town.

Example

Sadly I have unoptimized crafters in TWW so my enchanter with the most knowledge isnt a blood elf, which means I am missing some skill. That being said optimizing materials for Stonebound artistry takes it from a loss of 764 gold per to a loss of 545 gold per by adding unraveled instructions and reducing the q3 storm dust from 48 to 31.