My Favorite Item (a JCing post..how original)

My professional artist duplication of a Frozen Orb. Like a Boss.

Yes, the Frozen Orb is probably my favorite item, at least in gold making. These were the "Primal Nether" of WOTLK dropping from bosses in heroic dungeons. Now-a-days they typically spend their days with dozens of their cousins and odd uncles rotting in the AH for single digit gold prices. It really is a shame given that these little guys carry so much potential that seems to be untapped on the few servers I've seen... 

Our story starts with Frozo the Reowned, an NPC that many people likely don't know exists. He was added to Dalaran in patch 3.3.3 where he was hidden on one line of text in a long patch note of class and PvP balance changes. Frozo will trade you 1-for-1 any Eternal for a Frozen Orb. Being that some of the Eternals, particularly Fire and sometimes Air can be sold at 30-50g each it makes it a no brainer to quickly flip Frozen Orbs that average 8g on my server into 30g average Eternal Fire if you want an easy strategy and are in Dalaran. 

The real secret behind the Frozen Orb power requires you to have a Jewelcrafter and at least a few Dalaran JC daily token rare gem recipes. The item in question is...

Icy Prism

An important starting note is that as of 4.1 this item no longer has any sort of CD. This requires 1x Frozen Orb and 1x each of Dark Jade, Shadow Crystal, and Chalcedony. All three are uncommon WOTLK gems. The availability of these on the AH can be sporadic and they can show up for some insane pricepoints. I typically deal search them for when they drop under 5g per gem and buy in bulk whenever the rare opportunity arrives. Side Note: Saronite Ore can drop so low on some servers (20g a stack or lower here) that the Saronite Shuffle becomes a nice little treat again if you have the prospecting time - and you'll get plenty of the uncommons you want.

I can make these for as low as 20g a prism but please check the individual prices before going too deep. They yield 3-4 rare quality WOTLK gems with the chance of also having a Dragon's Eye or WOTLK epic quality gem. The Dragon's Eye can be sold straight up (50-300g, milked a few dozen at 200g) and converted into Nightmare Tear and sold, doubling the amount you can sale.  

The "Secret" is that Cata gems can only be socketed into Cata gear, leaving your newly acquired WOTLK gems the best gems that can be socketed into pre-cata gear for PvPing and leveling.  This leaves an actual bustling market that is completely devoid of any sellers on most servers. The rares I craft without regard to stats (I have basically all WOTLK rare patterns) and post at a standard price of usually 50 or 75g. The reds I post for twice the amount or a bit more at 150g ea and they do sale fairly commonly. As for the much rarer epics I typically target PvP with the cuts I choose because they are the ones willing to shell out 300g+ per gem to socket old gear for the slightest edge in battlegrounds. The cool thing right now about all this is late expansion more and more people are just leveling up alts and playing on non-max characters in general trying to get time in before the expansion and it will only get better until MoP hits.

The end result of all this is an 8g Frozen Orb and some of its buddies (~20-30g total cost) that are easily and quickly converted into 3-5 gems netting at worst an x8 profit and at best a x40 or better profit with..no undercutting (I list 48h auctions usually).

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I would appreciate any feedback from those that reach the page. You can reach me here in the comments, on Twitter @formerruling, and on my YouTube channel FormerRuling