Opportunities for making gold before Cata hits

Many of you will be stocking up for Cataclysm, benefiting from the ridiculously low prices that others are dumping items for on the AH. But don't forget your nest egg as well - we all want to be gold rich as well as asset rich come the 7th of December.

There are ways to be making profit pre-cata, and its important to remember this. I admit that the AH-flip (buy low/sell normal) is bringing in less and less as prices are generally dropping across the board on most servers. But as prices fall new opportunities arise...

You will remember the sarnoite shuffle - its well documented and a google search will explain it for those who need a reminder. The premise was that by utilising JCing and DEing you would make oodles of profit from low saronite ore prices.

The amount of profit varied week by week, as the prices of the various components (ore, gems, enchanting mats etc) flucuated - but generally with a bit of time and effort there was money to be made.

The key to the saronite shuffle was creating JC items such as the bloodstone band (made 2 crystallized earth and a bloodstone) and then DEing the band. There were a number of JC items to make depending upon the gems you got from prospecting your saronite ore. But ultimately it was time consuming and you were left with gems (such as Shadow Crystal's) which were notoriously hard to flip. Also you ended up with small dream shards which were again relatively useless (even more useless than Dream Shard's)

The saronite shuffle still works - but its not the force it used to be. However there is a simpler shuffle that I am using a lot which I will share because its the weekend and I am feeling generous.

On my server Eternal Earth and Eternal Shadow are being dumped for very low prices. I have both on snatch for 2g a unit - but already have my required numbers for Catclysm. But rather than ignoring them I grab everything I can.

The key is two JCing rings: Shadowmight Ring and Stoneguard Band

The Stoneguard Band is made with two eternal earths. The Shadowmight Ring uses one eternal earth and one eternal shadow. So at my snatch price these are costing me around 4g each to make.

Each ring theoretically disenchants as follows:
75% chance of 4-7 Infinite Dust
20% chance of 1-2 Greater Cosmic Essence
5% chance of a Dream Shard

But theory and practice are very different beasts. So I did the real numbers.

I purchased:
280 Eternal Shadow - cost 456g20s
286 Eternal Earth - cost 491g85s
Total  - 948g05s
So ballpark -1k investment

I made 3 stoneguard and 280 shadowmight rings - DEd the lot. It created the following:
Infinite Dust: 1188 (theroretically should have been around 1167)
Greater Cosmic Essence: 98(theroretically should have been around 106)
Dream Shards: 8 (theroretically should have been around 14)

Time investment - about 50 minutes (but some of this is AFW because rings can be bult made)

Now prices for enchanting mats various from server to server, and day by day, but the new bosses for the invasion have seen some firming in the prices on Cael. IDs are 1g20, GCEs 8g, DS 2g50s

So with AH fees 5%, we get the following
Infinite Dust: (1118 x 1.2) x 0.95 = 1274g50s
Greater Cosmic Essence: (98 x 8) x 0.95 = 744g50s
Dream Shards: (8 x 2.5) x 0.95 = 19g
Total: 2038g
Total Profit: 1090g

I doubt this shuffle will produce this excellent rate of return once Cata hits, as I suspect Eternals will increase in price to a point where they out price the enchanting mats (which are available from a variety of other sources). But for now doubling your investment for a hours work is definately worth looking at.