Unlimited Maelstrom Crystals

The demand for high end chants has gone up and driven the prices of high end enchanting mats up too (particularly Maelstrom Crystals and Heavenly Shards). Maelstrom Crystals are going for 200-250g or more on many servers now. What many don't know is it's possible to manufacture unlimited Maelstrom Crystals for under 150g each.

To get the best cost per crystal you need an enchanter in a level 24 guild who's exalted with Avenger's of Hyjal. Go to the Firelands vendors, buy cloaks and disenchant them for unlimited Maelstrom Crystals. If you're not exalted you must be at least friendly to buy the cloaks.

Exalted rep with Avenger's of Hyjal gets you a 20% discount on prices with the Firelands vendors
Bountiful Bags (level 23 guild perk) gets you a 20% bonus when disenchanting
Bartering (level 24 guild perk) gets you a 10% discount and stacks with the rep discount

In the best case, assuming you're exalted with Avenger's of Hyjal and in a level 24 guild, your cost per Maelstrom Crystal comes out to about 146g. Shattering crystals will keep your cost on Heavenly Shards to about 73g too. Horde characters of the Goblin race have it even easier, all they need is friendly rep since thier racial gives them a 20% price discount with all vendors (which does NOT stack with rep discounts).

In the worst case, you need to be at least friendly and the cloaks cost 250g each. Guild perks still apply though, you'll get 10% off for Bartering, and 20% more crystals from disenchanting with Bountiful Bags. Bountiful Bags alone brings the price per Crystal down to about 208g and Bartering brings it down a little further to 187.5g per crystal (5 x (250 x 0.9)) / 6 = 187.5. Exalted rep alone without the guild perks will bring the price down to 200g per crystal.

Base Materials - What they are and why they're important

Base materials are high volume items like herbs, ore and volatiles. They are the base material for many crafting processes. Some of the processes are obvious with base materials being used directly to make a high volume item like Truegold. Other's like the ore shuffle aren't so obvious, being longer processes with several processing steps utilizing multiple professions to turn ore into enchants.

Inscription - How herb prices affect Glyph and Ink costs

I haven't been working Inscription for very long. I started two or three months before the end of Wrath and wasn't even very serious about it at first. All I really wanted was a secure supply of cheap velum for my enchanter (naturally a few days later the word came out that velum would be sold by a vendor in the next patch). Since then I've gotten a lot better at Inscription. Recently I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter very much what the current prices of herbs are. I can follow the market through it's ups and downs buying herbs in complete confidence I won't lose gold by using simple math and rules of thumb.

There are basically 2 tiers of Cataclysm herbs. First tier herbs, including Cinderbloom, Stormvine, Azshara's Veil and Heartblossom, give on average half an Inferno Ink and 5 Blackfallow ink per stack. Second tier herbs, Whiptail and Twilight Jasmine, give on average 1 Inferno Ink and 6 Blackfallow Ink. 10 Blackfallow Ink can always be traded in for 1 Inferno Ink meaning we can consider Blackfallow to be worth at least 1/10 of what Inferno goes for (note this will always be true though the opposite will not always be true).

To keep the math simple I consider all glyphs to cost 10g each to craft and Blackfallow Ink to be worth 3.333g each.

This means I can buy the top tier of herbs (Whiptail and Twilight Jasmine) for the going price of one Inferno Ink + 20g. If Inferno is going for 40g I can spend up to 60g per stack.

For the lower tier of herbs, I can spend half the price of one Inferno Ink + 20g. The Blackfallows are actually costing 4g each since I only get 5 of them per stack but using 20g here too keeps things simpler. Assuming the same 40g price for Inferno I can spend up to 40g on tier one herbs. A 20g difference between herb tiers.

Inferno Ink 30g then 30 + 20 = 50g and 15 + 20 = 35g for a difference of 15g
Inferno Ink 50g each then 50 + 20 = 70g and 25 + 20 = 45 g for a difference of 25g

Obviously the difference is half the price of one Inferno Ink. This leads to a simple rule of thumb I follow when buying herbs to mill. The difference in the value of the herb tiers is equal to 1/2 the value of an Inferno Ink. If I'm selling Inferno Ink in bulk for 40g then I'll buy top tier herbs for up to 60g a stack and lower tier for up to 40g a stack. If I'm only getting 30g for bulk Inferno then I'll pay up to 50g for the better herbs and 35g for the lesser herbs.

Of course these are my maximum prices, I try to get the herbs at least a little cheaper and only go all the way to the maximum if I'm short on materials and really need to make more glyphs right away.