when using crafting components, they can have a single copper symbol, dual silver and 3 gold. which is the best? i would kind of assume gold but i see the single copper ones selling for more on AH. ive never seen anything explaining the ranking of crafting components.
Its rank 1,2,3. 3 is best.
1 copper icon
2 silver icons
3 gold icons
thanks, thats what i thought…i wonder why rank one sometimes go for a lot more than rank 3
The AH is a weird place for mats specifically.
Often people just are dumping what they have, slightly under whats there. On autopilot.
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The real question isn’t why they’re selling them for that. They’ve basically matching other sellers. The question is why would anyone buy it for that, rather than buying the better one. (There is sometimes a reason to buy a lower tier if you want to create an r2 of an item, but even then you buy the cheaper of r1 and r2)
Most of those very low ones are traps. Someone puts one item for a very low price like 1 rank 2 luredrop at 5 g. Then people don’t pay attention when they’re posting 100s of luredrops so they accidentally post it at the low price. That’s the default value the AH puts in. Then the trap is sprung and the guy with the 1 luredrop buys 100s of luredrops at an absurdly low price.
You’ll notice that if you click on it you’ll see just 1 of those and they’re usually gone in seconds. It’s a battle between trolls with traps and scanners. Basically the AH is a pvp war that you happen to be shopping in
You shouldn’t look at the list price in the top page. Actually click on it and see what’s actually for sale at what price.
Generally 1 and 2s should be fairly close in price. For reasons. It’s too much to explain. There’s a lot of moving parts that cause this.
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It depends. For example 2* crushed gemstones are almost always cheaper than 1*. Same for duskthread and dawnthread. In fact earlier today 3* thread was cheapest at volume. Be wary of traps, but always check all ranks.
There is also the idea that one might need rank 1 for the weekly quest, but the more common mats gathered are the 2 and 3 star ones, especially after people have put points in their gathering proffs.
I also tend to think that, aside from traps and such, those that post lower mats for higher prices just don’t look to see what the higher mats cost.
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I was referring only to raw materials. Sorry I should have clarified. Materials which are crafted have different rules.
Gemstones aren’t a raw material. If you’re selling gemstones, you should have the skill to obtain R2 even with R1 input. Thus R1 crushed gemstones are… rarer in a sense. Similarly dawnthread and duskthread are not raw materials. They are manufactured. It is actually difficult to make a R1 (you’d have to be a new tailor basically). And you can see this with the supply. There are 5355 R1 dawnthread but there are 22099 R2 dawnthread on the AH right now. Much more competition in the R2 space.
For raw materials such as ore, skins, and herbs the proportion of R1 is 34-36%, R2 is 44-48%, and R3 is 16-19%, assuming you have max skill in the base portions of the trees. Thus you obtain R1 at nearly the same rate as R2. Also alchemists can change an R1 material to R2; their thaumaturgy ability regulates raw materials. If R1 materials get too cheap, alchemists will buy up the supply and turn them into R2 items, such as R2 storm dust. Thaumaturgy only works on raw materials though so it can only regulate those prices.
At a point where most of my gathers are two so I’d imagine that’s why they’re the cheapest by the end of season.
3s are used a lot for crafting so they retain value.
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Nope I’m talking max skill. Meaning I have all the trees filled in except for two branches of the overload for both herbing and mining. Bought all books and all tools. “Most” sure. 44% is “most” but it’s still fairly close to 34-36%. I’ve done over ten hours of testing under various conditions. I can post videos if you like.
Oh I believe you. I was responding to OP.
You’ve invested way more time into this than I have and I like your work.
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Aw thanks!
I’m taking data to test perception and it’s being a pain because of its low chance. I am trying to obtain enough data for statistical significance. But along the way I’m getting useful information anyway lol.
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Ah price is based on supply and demand, now its easier to get 2 star mats instead of 1 star mats as most have maxed their gathering professions and Ahers know you need 1 star mats to do the weekly quests 
So the price of one star mats is gonna rize.
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AH players trying to game the market. Once those higher lvl mats are sold out, the lowest lvl mat that was selling for the highest cost becomes the new “cost floor” so the price stays high and doesn’t bottom out.
Two things cause this.
- As profession skills go up, rank 2s become about as common if not more common than rank 1s.
- People buying things below rank 3 probably don’t care about quality, or what they’re making doesn’t have a quality at all. Therefore rank 1 and 2 mats are often interchangeable to the consumer.
This causes rank 2s to have a more active market while rank 1 becomes neglected, and ends up trailing rank 2s even as the general price goes down.
Gyrating gears used in Engineering for example have 4x as many rank 2s on the market than rank 1s. Since people making the things are almost always making at least rank 2 these days, they’re going to be quicker to undercut (despite the game using last in/first out making undercutting unnecessary) and so the price trends downwards faster than rank 1s.
They sell more because those are the copper/silver ones usually are used for the weekly quests
1 is very true, for 2 I use the cheapest mats I can to fill patron orders. No need to lose more gold for those to make a higher quality then is being asked.