Farming Gold for Cardinal Rubies

Aura and I had to make some quick cash to gem up recently. I thought I'd post my notes on various paths to getting a Cardinal Ruby:


Ways to a Cardinal Ruby (currently 180g on the AH):

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The JC Daily
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God knows why but Dragonseyes are still 110g on the AH. The JC daily takes a detour of maybe 10 mins off of whatever else you're doing.

Ivory can be gotton from Mammoths in Storm Peaks (not just Shoveltusks) and puts you near Hodir Dailies
Scourge Curio drops from most Icecrown stuff and in Naxx
The Proto Drake bone can be quickly gotton from the burnt area in Sholazar and puts you near Oracles/Wolvar dailies
I forget what the other JC daily is.

Pros: Easily the quickest hundred gold you can make per day until Dragonseyes drop in price.
Cons: Have to be a JC


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Cooking Daily
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Sometimes it's 1 minute for a quick 13g, other times you have to fight over wine glasses for 15 minutes. Usually nets you about 5 Northern Spices which can be AHed for ~.8g each.

Pros: Also gets you cooking tokens, and you know you want that Chef Hat. On a good day (Convention at the Legerdemain), 17g in 1 minute.
Cons: Most days are not good days.


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Icecrown/Tourney Quest Circuit
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Chillmaw (23g) -> Converted Heroes(13g) -> Citadel(23g + 13g) takes maybe 25 mins and can be 2-manned.
On the way back you can do the Ymirheim dailies: Assault from Ground->Blood of the Chosen->Slaves to Saronite->King of the Mountain in another 15 mins for 52g more.
Then do the jousting for another 26g in another ~10 mins.

140g in 1 hour, not counting time to get to the Tourney.


Pros: Probably the most consistent income. Bonus of a little rep with Tourney Folk & the Valiant faction of your choice. Can herb/mine while flying around. Can go much faster and safer if you group.
Cons: I don't know, maybe you don't like jousting. Also seems like starting up the quest circuit is a guarantee for your friends to suddenly find need for your role in the daily heroic.


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Hellfire Ramparts
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One run through Ramps = ~90g from vendor (this seems generous, we might have gotton a higher than normal number green drops and a larger percentage of them as weapons than is normal)

Takes maybe 10 mins to get there (Dal->Stormwind->Blasted Lands Portal->Dark Portal->Fly to Ramps) then maybe 20 mins to do the dungeon. Could probably knock it down to 15 with a more AOE friendly spec.

Counting 5 mins to fly to Honor Hold for sell, repair, & mail that's 2.4 runs per hour, or 216g per hour.

Pros: Soloable. Repeatable. Bosses have good voice acting!
Cons: Might run out of bagspace or get unlucky and get the cheapest loot every time. Very Repetative. Far away from Northrend; Getting back requires hearthing.


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Northrend Daily Dungeons
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1 Cardinal Ruby = 20 Emblems of Heroism, so an Emblem is worth 180g / 20 = 9g

Average heroic has 3.5 bosses = 3.5 Emblems of Conquest = 31.5g plus maybe 10g for vendorjunk and cash, and maybe 30g worth of shards
Daily Reg Dungeon = +2 Emblems of Conquest plus 13 gold
Daily Heroic Dungeon =+2 Triumph (doesn't factor into gem farming) plus 13 gold

Takes a while to get a group together. Rough estimate of 31.5g + 35gx2 + 13gx2 = 127g per hour if you do the daily heroic and regular in one hour.

Pros: Meet new people! Group with friends outside of raids! Get a Glory to the Hero achievement maybe!
Cons: Not all groups stick together for the second dungeon, sometimes very hard to get a group together, sometimes people are VERY slow to meet up, not every group has a sharder, the occasional group will be jerks/idiots. Sometimes people will insist on achievement attempts that take a long time or a bunch of wipes to get.
Notes: Shift-Click to buy packs 10 Emblems from the Emblem vendors, makes it less tedious!

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Shards from ToC Regular
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ToC Regular can be quickly farmed for 3 Abyss Crystals. Abyss Crystals have dropped to 30g each but enchants are holding relatively steady at old prices. Gathering the shards yourself and finding an enchanter may be a good way to save money on enchants.

Pros: Can gear up people's alts
Cons: People's alts are hoovering up the shards! QQ


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Honor Grinding
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1 Cardinal Ruby = 10,000 honor in stormwind.

Run BGs for Honor and for BG Tokens (convert them into honor too).

Assuming a 50% win rate means 2 marks per BG.
Assuming ~15 mins per BG + 5 mins downtime, that's 3 BGs per hour = 6 marks per hour
1 turnin per hour = 1489 honor per hour from Concerted Efforts

Assuming honor from players + objectives from a BG gives you an average of 2K honor on a win and 1K on a loss, that's 1500 honor average per BG = 4500 honor per hour from players and objectives from BGs (Hmm, this seems generous)

Figure you'll get the daily BG done by 3 games, so that's another 1400 honor for Call to Arms.

So ~7500 honor per hour from BGs assuming you only PVP for that one hour.

7500 honor is 75% of the 10K needed for a ~180g Cardinal Ruby, so that's 127g equivalent per hour. This is eerily similar to doing the daily dungeons.


Pros: Soloable. Some nights you'll own, have the most fun you've ever had playing WoW and gain tons of honor very easily.
Cons: Some nights the exact opposite will happen. Also takes a few days before you have enough of the different BG tokens to do the turn-ins which is when it starts really paying off.

Notes: As the price of cardinal rubies in gold inevitably drops off and the 10K honor stays the same, this method will get less competative with gold-farming methods.

Macro for Concerted Efforts turnins:
/script SelectGossipAvailableQuest(1)
/script CompleteQuest()
/script GetQuestReward()