Shuffling Motes & Primals:
Shuffling Motes & Primal’s isn’t something new but a reminder of a market that you can operate in to earn you passive gold on the side of your primary Auction House operations. The benefit here is discovering the value of your Primals on your realm (using TheUndermineJournal) and purchasing cheap Motes, that when combined into Primals, will net you a profit.
Although this guide is for Retail World of Warcraft, you can also use this method within Classic TBC.
What Are Motes and Primals?
Motes and Primals are an elemental crafting material introduced to World of Warcraft in The Burning Crusade (TBC) expansion. These materials were essential for many professions because of the expensive Transmog and materials you could craft.
There are seven different Motes, when you combine 10 of any one Mote, you’ll create a Primal. Every Mote has been added below, with it’s Primal.
- Mote of Air -> Primal Air
- Mote of Fire -> Primal Fire
- Mote of Earth -> Primal Earth
- Mote of Water -> Primal Water
- Mote of Life -> Primal Life
- Mote of Shadow -> Primal Shadow
- Mote of Mana -> Primal Mana
Thanks to the emergence of Relics in Shadowlands, many of these Transmog crafts are now suitable for players leveling characters. The Relic made crafted Transmog an ideal piece of gear, as you could upgrade your piece of armor as you level.
Combining Motes into Primals
It takes 10 Motes to combine into 1 Primal. By dividing the price of a Primal by 10, we know by purchasing a Mote cheaper than this number, we’ll make a profit! There is no value in buying Motes equal to or greater than this number, as we’ll lose gold in the long run after depositing fees.
Examples:
Here is the Regional Median Price (RMP) via TheUndermineJournal for the E.U. Region. I will use two examples here to show a profitable and non-profitable shuffle.
Profitable: Mote of Shadow and Primal Shadow.
| Material | E.U Median |
| Mote of Shadow | 12g 79s |
| Material | E.U Median |
| Primal Shadow | 178g 00s |
Non-Profitable: Mote of Air and Primal Air.
| Material | E.U Median |
| Mote of Air | 158g 00s |
| Material | E.U Median |
| Primal Air | 1166g 00s |
The Results:
The results from the above information suggest that shuffling Mote of Air into a Primal Air isn’t profitable. By dividing the Primal Air into ten, we know 116g is the maximum price we should pay for our Mote of Air. The Mote costs 158g, which is too high – we’d stand to lose gold doing this shuffle!
Alternatively, if we divide a Primal Shadow into ten, it equates to 17g per Mote of Shadow. The price of a Mote of Shadow is 12g, so we’ll profit 5g, which equates to 50g per Primal. 50g doesn’t seem a lot of profit, but that quickly increases depending on the amount of Primals you’re selling. If you were to sell a stack (200) of Primal Shadow, you’d make a 10,000g profit based on the valuations above.
Reminder:
When using TheUndermineJournal yourself to calculate potential profit, you must always use data for your realm. Whenever I use TheUndermineJournal to post examples, I use Regional Market Prices (RMP), an average price across the region because this is an average price.
Using your realm’s data, you will get precise data for your realm, thus returning better results. TheUndermineJournal is an excellent resource for gold-makers, but only if used correctly!
Alternative to Selling Motes & Primals:
If Transmog and selling Motes and Primals doesn’t interest you, and you have an Alchemist, check to see if it’s a Transmute Master. If you don’t have an Alchemist yet, consider creating one and making it a Transmute Master, as Primals are an essential material for some crafts, and you will get a 20% chance to proc an extra craft.
Primal Might:
The best material to craft is Primal Might. This material is also essential for crafting Transmog. You will need one of each of these Primals to craft this.
The E.U. Region Median Price (RMP) for Primal Might is 4,142g. The profit margins are more significant if we can purchase our Motes cheaper than the Primals. But, ultimately, if we’re an Alchemist with Transmute Master, we have a 20% chance to craft an additional Primal Might – this will bump the profit margin up considerably!
Adjust your minimum price to compliment the 20% proc chance as the crafting cost will be slightly less. Non Alchemists will not be able to post as low as us, meaning they can’t compete.
Shopping Scan With TSM:
If you want an easy shopping string, open up the Auction House, click on the Browse tab and enter this string into the search bar;
Mote of Air/exact;Primal Air/exact;Mote of Water/exact;Primal Water/exact;Mote of Shadow/exact;Primal Shadow/exact;Mote of Mana/exact;Primal Mana/exact;Mote of Life/exact;Primal Life/exact;Mote of Earth/exact;Primal Earth/exact;Mote of Fire/exact;Primal Fire/exact
This string will scan the Auction House for any available Motes and Primals.
Cheap Motes Via a Vendor:
There are two vendors that sell a limited supply of Motes. Once these have been purchased, there is a small cooldown until they become available again. It’s rumoured to be a 30 minute cooldown.
The vendors to visit are, Dealer Najeeb, in Netherstorm at coordinates [44.36]. Alternatively, visit Dealer Tariq, within Terrokar Forest, coordinates [39.70].
I leave a bank toon at either of these vendors and using the toy Katy Stampwhistle. Alternatively, if you’re an Engineer use your mailbox (Moll-e) to transfer these motes to your Auction House toon, or crafter.
Credits:
A huge thank you to Wowhead for the use of their item I.D.s. This post would not have been achievable without their website! All traffic redirected from my blog to their site.
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I hope you enjoyed this post, thanks for reading.
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