Everything you need to know to prospect ore for a profit in Mists of Pandaria!

After looking at milling numbers today we will take a closer look at prospecting numbers for the ores you can prospect in Pandaria.

Four ores?

Pandaria adds four new prospectable ores: Ghost Iron, Kyparite, White Trillium and Black Trillium. Ghost Iron is the main new common ore which replaces obsidium and elementium. Kyparite is a special common ore tied to the dread wastes, mostly used in some Klaxxi recipes. Trillium ores are the uncommon ores that are used for trillium bars, analogous to titanium ore from Wrath.

Common versus uncommon

The main difference is between common ores and uncommon ones, as the two trillium ores have the exact same yields and kyparite and Ghost Iron are extremely close. It will mostly come down to prices, so let’s compare the yields.

Kyparite and Ghost Iron

The yields per ore are as below.

– Rare gems: 0.05

– Uncommon Gems: 0.3

– Sparkling Shards: 0.25-0.32

Sparkling shards are a new item that you turn into Serpent’s eyes which is the new special jewelcrafting gem used for the JC only gems and some other recipes. There’s some uncertainty on the sparkling shard rate, the sample I saw had different yields for Kyparite and Ghost Iron, but it is unlikely to drive a large difference in prospecting value.

Trillium

The yields per ore are as below.

– Rare gems: 0.2

– Uncommon Gems: 0.2

– Sparkling Shards: 0.3

Both Trillium ores have the same yields. We can see that we get 4 times as many rare gems per prospect from trillium. This makes it a more efficient choice for getting gems to cut, but the uncommon gems can be a significant portion of value, particularly if you combine it with enchanting.

Ghost Iron and trillium balance

With transmutation you can turn ghost iron bars into trillium bars at a rate of 10 ghost iron bars. Smelting a trillium bare requires 4 trillium ores, so for the trillium bar economy one trillium ore is roughly worth 5 times more than one ghost iron ore. For prospecting yields you get about 4 times as many rare gems, but a lower amount of uncommon gems. This means that Trillium can at most be 4 times more valuable to prospect compared to ghost iron, but 5 times more valuable for making trillium bars. As such it is unlikely that trillium will be a consistent option for most profitable prospect, but it will get you more gems per prospect so the gold per hour can be higher even if the profit margin is lower.

Kyparite is sneaky

Kyparite used to be a very sneaky ore in MoP. Many people forget about it as it is used in quite few recipes compared to ghost iron. You could often find large quantities fairly cheaply and the price variation was a lot higher than Ghost Iron. Keep an eye on it and grab some if you find them cheap.

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