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Sunday 4 December 2011

Calculator v1.2 (with DM Trinket Costing)

Ok ok I admit, I only released half of my costing sheet because I felt the full thing would be too bit confusing. Here's the full shabang. I'll try to explain how I use it, just ask if you have any questions.

[Side note: I've also added a full stack version for those glyphers that like to work with full herb stack prices because I'm kinda getting the feeling I'm the only one who works with single herb pricing (choose the tab at the bottom: Single or Full Stack).]

Calculator v1.2 (DM trinket costing added)

To show you how to use this I am going to use the figures in Big Al's example. PS: I'm really scared this is going to be too confusing for many readers, but lets give it a go!

Al's numbers:
- 9 bf to 1 inferno ratio
- 46g whiptail stack cap (ie buy all below this cap)
- 10g volatile lifes


The intersecting point attempts to answer the question: if I buy whiptails at 46g and lifes at 10g, what is the raw material cost for a DM trinket? Answer: 4,700g. Remember 1 inferno can be bought with 10 BFs at the ink vendor, so the ratio does not affect the DM trinket costing part of the form. It also assumes you make a tonne of glyphs and end up with a tonne of infernos and therefore make a tonne of cards and therefore easily make DM decks/trinkets.

Beginners cross their fingers and hope they get a Two of Waves (or whatever they are missing). Professionals do the maths and normalize costings eg in wrath we knew transmute procs over mass transmutes equal extra 20% or 1.2 and we reverse calculate and discount our costing appropriately, where as noobs go ZOMG i got 5 red gems instead of 1!

3 comments:

  1. ok this makes sense and is actually very easy to use :D thanks critical.

    My final concern with this is how slow my glyph and DMF markets have become these last couple months. I have been the only person posting str and agi hurricanes for the last week, at 5k, and they havent sold.

    If they do start selling, the flipside is that I was selling a max 300 glyphs a day or so when flooring at 16g. obviously the restock times on this dont move enough ink to mill enough herbs and get the II for mass amounts of trinkets. actually trading in the BFI to the vendor at 46g a stack of whiptail would be stupid.


    Does it make sense to you to alternately say and MFC costs 1BFI, or 1/3 glyph, so at my ratio and 46g, I could sell 3.5g MFC and have the same results?

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  2. 1. The first thing u may need to decide on is which half u want to focus on. If u choose glyphs then dont worry about DM cards and trinkets, just keep converting embers > infernos > cards > decks > trinkets as you get embers ie do it naturally dont force it.

    If you choose trinkets as your primary then yes as you say you can easily just add BF to the start of that conversion line: BF > infernos > cards > decks > trinkets.

    2. You are correct about the MFCs. Just save my doc and add in your own MFC row or if readers really want it i can chuck in that row in v1.3

    Cheap MFCS no? =)

    3. Regarding slow trinket sales, i believe you are not discounted heavily enough. We all have to accept that as time goes by and new patches and armor get released, these trinkets do drop in value. Beginners worry about a sudden drop in value. Professionals know the depreciation is steady.

    There are 2 important rules to move trinkets:
    - do not try to get maximum value, objective is to move em as quick as possible because if you are making mass glyphs you will have mass infernos and therefore mass trinkets, which you do not want to be stuck with, because DM trinkets do not go up in value (they go down)
    - Discount heavily below the lowest seller eg undercut the lowest guy by 300g or 500g and repeat this undercut size if your competitor cancels and relists. This achieves 2 things: convinces a seller to buy (because there is a big discount between the 2 lowest options) and convinces your competitor not to undercut yours because u will keep chopping prices down. He'll just wait for you to sell yours first. This means you get to sell yours first lol. Win. The problem for him is he has to wait for u to sell many trinkets which is very demoralizing for him, and speeds up his exit from the inscription market when he sees u drive trinket prices down hard and fast.

    Objective really is to move these quickly because these are depreciating items. Convert into cash asap.

    4. Lastly slow glyph sales. /shrug normally when I chop all glyphs to super low prices everyone loads up their alts and grab class sets.

    Just make sure you understand the set goal you are trying to reach and make sure you are heading in the right direction. Chopping prices yes normally results in more sales but at a lower profit margin. Giving away profit margin is fine if it helps u increase market share ie convince competitors to quit. No point giving away profit margin just for the sake of it.

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  3. Critical, another great post!

    On my server I can get whiptail for 20g a stack, but glyphs aren't moving at all ... I'm on a relatively low-pop alliance realm and it seems that everyone is playing with the new endgame content and ignoring their alts!

    The good news is I've made a killing in other markets, the bad news is glyphs have ground to a halt over the last week.

    I've also noticed that with the new patch there are several new sellers in the glyph market - my guess is that these are people who've come back to WoW after taking a break, and are trying to reclaim their market. Most of these new entrants are posting more often then I am.

    Now, since I'm a relative noob in the market I don't have super-deep pockets, and I'm not really ready to fund a war... I figure I have a few options:

    1) Change nothing. Continue the 1c undercut on the glyphs I want to post (aside: I'm using Stede's method for identifying what to make)

    2) Drop the prices on the areas of the market I want to be in and drive the new (returning) competition out. My ppg is about 10g before I factor in DMC revenue.

    3) Exit the market and wait for them to fight it out while I make money elsewhere.

    Any thoughts? How would you deal with a bunch of new entrants if you weren't sitting on a pile of gold?

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