Making gold with prospecting in Cataclysm (Grab my spreadsheet to ensure you are profiting!)

Prospecting is often very profitable, so let’s take a deeper look at the Cata gem shuffles.

Prospecting basics

Usually the main value of prospecting comes from the rare gems that you cut into finished gems. Right now however you can only have 1 recipe unlocked, and it will take quite a while to get one for each color. This does limit the speed at which you can move rare gems. There are two main ores to consider in cata, obsidium and elementium. Elementium has a much higher rate of rares, but a slightly lower rate of uncommons. The difference in value is overall quite small right now, but I expect Elementium to come out ahead down the line.

Uncommon uses

A big part of maximizing your prospecting profit is to increase the value of your gems. Transmutes are a big one in cata, with the meta gem transmute requiring 3 each of the uncommon gems. You can also transmute 3 uncommon gems and 3 herbs to a rare gem of that type.

You can also turn Hessonite and Nightstone into rings that can be disenchanted, but right now these two recipes are also used to level jewelcrafting, so the price is fairly high.

Rare gem cuts

Unlocking rare gem cuts is very slow in Cataclysm. You can one every 3 days from dailies, and there’s no way to speed it up at all. Generally speaking you want more than 1 recipe for every type before you can really effectively prospect large volumes of ore. Profits are usually a lot better with more cuts, and right now some cuts with low competition have absolutely ludicrous prices, but that will balance out quickly.

Profit when you buy

In prospecting you always want to make your profit when you buy. To figure out if you are making a profit I have made a very simple spreadsheet. Simply put in the prices of ores and gems on your realm and it will calculate the price. For gems you can use either the uncut price or the minimum price you plan to sell cuts for. Since prices can change I would aim for at least 30% profit, as prospecting is time consuming, so if it isnt quite profitable then it isnt worth the time.

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