Thursday, October 11, 2012

Calculating the Value of Spirit of Harmony


Okay so you've been farming Motes of Harmony, both literally with the Tillers, and also by killing mobs and receiving drops.  Now you have a decent amount, but is it worthwhile to use it for a craft?  What's the price point for one of these things?  These are the questions I'm here to answer.

Point for Comparison
Since we have a vendor that will trade Spirit of Harmony for various goods, we can calculate the "Opportunity Cost" of using a Spirit of Harmony in a craft.  9 times out of 10 on any given server the conversion from 1 Spirit of Harmony -> 3 Golden Lotus will be the most profitable, BUT if you would like to compare the other options as well, The Undermine Journal has a neat tool for doing so for you.

Once on your server page, simply hover over Consumables, then select Elementals.
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After doing so you should see a page similar to this one, which will multiply by the number you can buy from the vendor by the current going rate for each item.



What this table shows us is that for every Spirit of Harmony you have, you can trade it for about 880 gold.  So if a recipe you're crafting has say 6 Spirit of harmony, and the raw mats + 880*6 = raw mats + 5280 is less than the price that you could get for that item, don't craft it! Now not everything is as black and white as say the LW or BS that NEED this in their Epic crafts, some professions have CDs that you can ignore by using SoH, and others have recipes you can buy with them. So the question for those professions is "Is having this extra CD/recipe worth the gold that these SoH are worth?" or "Is this PvP recipe worth 880g?" For example, on most servers an additional Living Steel CD for your Alchemist is NEVER worth the price of the 9 Golden Lotus I could get instead.  So it's just something to keep in mind.

Additional Valuation
So, you thought that was it huh?  Unfortunately for you it's not!   We have another problem because if you're Revered or greater with the Tillers, you have the opportunity to grow these from the ground!  Is it worth it?
Okay so make sure you've done the above step, which way is worth more?  What's a SoH worth to you? Let's say like the above example your server had the SoH worth 880g to trade in for Golden Lotus, but your LW craft for example takes raw mats that sell for 720g and 8 SoH, but you can sell it for 34k.  TUJ even does THIS math for you!

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Since it's worth crafting we can calculate the value of your SoH to be (Selling Price) - (Other Mats) = 34k-720g = 33.3k divided among 8 SoH = 4,162g per SoH!!  So it's definitely worth it for you to craft this item instead of trade it to the vendor.  On the other hand, if you determine the opposite, such as an Alchemist, that it's not worth it with your 90's professions, it's only worth 880g.

Now here comes the interesting (and slightly annoying) part.  Each plot in your farm grows 1 Mote of Harmony (1/10th of a Spirit).  To the LW each plot is worth 416.2g (very nice!), but to the Alchemist, it's only worth 88g.  Not that great...could you get more planting something else?

Currently the other Revered seeds won't (on most servers) get you something worth more than 88g, as they are the most basic of Raw Mats for professions.  BUT, right now there is a very high demand for vegetables!  So back to TUJ to check: Consumables -> Cooking

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You will be able to see a chart like this:


Note the price and that each plot will grow not one but five of these each day.  *Note: Ginseng is sold by a Tillers vendor. Basically multiply any of these numbers by 5 and you'll get more than that 88g.  Juicycrunch Carrot would be my go to because Intellect lovers are always my best buyers, but also note that Jogu the Drunk, for a fee, will tell you which one of these to grow each day to harvest 8 the next day.  So one of these will get a x8 multiplier instead of x5.


Now that I've thoroughly bored you to death, get out there and start getting THE MOST out of your Spirit of Harmony!! If you remember to reply after checking, leave a comment with your 2 primary professions and how much your Spirit of Harmony are worth!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

9 comments:

  1. This is awesome. I had no idea they'd updated with these new sections, but I've also been desperately wanting all of this information since MoP launched. Guess I won't need to make that spreadsheet after all ...

    Cheers!

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    1. Yeah, as always The Undermine Journal is on the top of their game with this stuff. Erorus has been hard at work updating everything since Mists, and he's doing a great job. Don't think he's 100% done, but everything he has so far is amazing!

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  2. For a dual farmer (mining/skinning), what should I do with my harmonies? And farm?

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    Replies
    1. For the ones you get, buy the most expensive thing to resell from the vendor(probably 3x Golden Lotus). For farming check prices of veggies and compare to the 3x Golden Lotus (divided by 10) price. Veggies worth more than that? Farm veggies!

      Delete
  3. so, as a crafter, trying to charge someone for my spirits, i should go by the Golden Lotus price, as a fair price for my server?

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    Replies
    1. Exactly, if selling them though I'd mark em up above that otherwise you might as well just buy the Golden Lotus

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  4. It is a mistake to say that 1 Spirit of Harmony is worth the same as 3 Golden Lotus just because that is all a vendor will give you for them. It should be remembered that when you sell something of value to a vendor that the vender will only pay you a quarter of its worth, which would make the Spirit of Harmony worth at least 12 Golden Lotus, because you can guarantee that if the vendor were selling Spirit of Harmonys and taking Golden Lotus as payment then he would want 12 Golden Lotus for it.
    To demonstrate this if you go to Halfhill Market Nam Ironpaw will pay 1 Ironpaw token for 1 bundle of groceries containing 100 vegetables, however if you wanted to buy the same vegetables from him it will cost you 1 Ironpaw token for only 25 vegetables. What this proves is that when you are turning in anything of value to a vendor they will only pay you a quarter of what they think it is worth. Therefore if you are going to compare the value of 1 Spirit of Harmony the Golden Lotus then it should be equal to at least 12 Golden Lotus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am completely bewildered by why you say any of this. The vendor that trades SoH for Golden Lotus gives you 3 for 1 spirit. There is no reason to go any further. You can't trade it back and from there you're basing it off of the Auction House price, not vendor price.

      You literally get 3 for it, I'm evaluating all of your ACTUAL options, not theoretical ones that are beyond trivial. Why worry about the 12, because you can't and won't ever get the 12. It's the system put in place by Blizzard, it is what it is. I'm well aware that vendors only give you in general a quarter what it's worth, but by your logic 1750 conquest points should be valuated as 4 pairs of PvP boots, but in what way does that calculation make any practical sense whatsoever? I think you misunderstand the point of this article.

      If it's the second part that has you confused, again I'm going after Auction House value (how much you can get for the vegetables vs. how much you could get for the motes)

      This is for a single plot on your Tiller's farm. A plot can yield (on a non-Jogu day) either 1 Mote of Harmony or 5 vegetables. That's the comparison. It has NOTHING to do with the tokens. Like you said 1 SoH = 1 token = 25 vegetables, but planting the veggies nets you twice that.

      If you wish to clarify your points feel free, but please tell me what the practical use in calculating it as the 4x ratio you suggest is. My post is used to valuate your SoH based on all the practical exchange options you have available to you on your particular toon. I don't see how using the 12 figure would help one to do that.

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  5. I made a spreadsheet for people trying to evaluate the best use of the new BoP resources (SoH, Imperial Silk, Scroll of Wisdom, and more): https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bwjlik6zlomPT0tlZHZOVjZUdVk

    Just plug in the WoWuction data from your realm and sort by the value of the relevant resource.

    ReplyDelete

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