The price of insanity?
Have been pulling together some numbers recently and started thinking about this. How much does the [Insane in the Membrane] achievement cost in terms of gold and hours? I’m talking about your average person who pays the average price for all their librams/pristine black diamonds.
I have a habit of recalling achievements completed as being much easier and less time consuming than they were. So keeping that in mind here’s what what I’ve got so far:
Bloodsail Honored
5-10 Hours to grind to honored?
No gold cost
Steamwheedle Cartel
20-30 Hours to grind?
No gold cost
Shen’dralar
84 Librams x 200g = 16800g
84 Pristine Black Diamonds x 200g = 16800g
15-20 Hours to farm mix of 84 stitchings/skins of shadow/blood of heroes?
5-10 Hours of time checking AH?
1-2 Hours of time to turn everything in?
Ravenholdt
1405 Junkboxes = 18 Hours of pickpocket grinding
OR
1405 Junkboxes = 14050g if paying someone else
Darkmoon Faire
120 Epic Decks x 350g = 42000g
10-15 Hours of time checking AH?
1-2 Hours turning in?
OR
How long if herbing and creating cards?
Help me out guys! What needs to be adjusted? Obviously for pricing information we’re looking for cross-server averages rather than specific “well on MY realm” high/low examples.
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Well it depends on how you do the goblins. If you do it in DM hated -> Exalted they you should find all your librams for free. And don’t forget you can resell the decks to make up some, if not all, of the cost.
Everytime I bought a libram, it was only for ~20g. The other librams I got while farming the steamwheedle rep.
Steamwheedle Cartel takes longer than thirty hours. I’d say more on the verge of 45-50 hours of dedicated farming for me as a mage.
I paid at max 50g per libram and had absolutely no problem buying them at half of the listed AH price (100g)
Stitchings and Skins of Shadow are the easiest to farm. If you had to get alot more blood of heroes than the other mats, I’d say to expect a lot more time invested in farming those.
I spent an overall time of 5 hours checking the AH for decks, but more on track with the 10-15 if you count all the time I was buying and transferring over decks from the opposite faction’s auction house, through the goblin AH, and into Psychi’s hands.
The price for epic decks is right. You can easily get 60-70 epic decks for 350g and some of the easier 80 decks like Chaos. Don’t forget the fact that you can find people to just let you trade in the deck and hand them back the trinket. I did that quite often.
I spent a little bit more time on Ravenholdt. It took me three days and I averaged 9 hours per day for a total average of 27 hours spent farming the lockboxes. Don’t forget to include all of the time spent pickpocketing.
It also depends alot on when you did the grind. There was a noticable difference post introduction of the achievement compared to pre introduction. Grinding Shen’dralar was easy and cheap for me, as the diamonds and librams were all but useless and I picked them up at about 10-20 gold each. On the other hand, cards for DMF were still rare there were no inscription cards (at least until about 12,000 into revered. I estimate that I spent about $25,000k to get to mid way through revered with DMF. Also, ravenholdt, until the change, was 1 rep per kill of syndicate, not 5, so that grind took alot longer. It’s still money worth spent IMO, no matter the cost.
I spent three weeks doing it and ended in July.
I found the ravenholdt took the longest sadly on a dk single dpsing the mobs to revered i don’t think i would of been able to stand 1 rep per mob
then Add the time it takes to level a rogue to do the junkbox farming I leveled mine to 80 just so i didn’t have to bother being careful around the mobs i was pickpocketing that’s like maybe 5 days played to hit 60 and maybe another 4 to 80
Then the actual junkboxes I find i get about 100 every 90 minutes so the junkbox farm takes about 21 hrs Working on my 4th junkbox farm now and i find unless someone offers lots of gold per junkbox it stays around 21hrs
Then the handing in of junkboxes and destroying those stupid dusksteel throwing knives so you could hand in more thats gotta be at least 2-3hrs work more if you didnt have a portable mailbox or large amounts of space in your inventory to make it less runs to and from a mailbox
With all that said working on second insane now slowly this time though since the cost as you have pointed out has definitely gone up
(but once i do ill have something you don’t have 2 insanes :P)
Bloodsail sounds about spot on tbh.
As for the goblins about 50 hours give or take, but then i did have quite a few runs where no keys dropped. Boosted ppl at the same time to earn a bit of cash.
Shen’dralar:
Librams easy as, found more then needed and managed to sale the excess for 65g min. Stiching (about 20 baron runs, got the mount and some other toys from there) and blood not so bad, however the skins awful drop rate.
The PBD major pain in the behind, got 27 on the cheap plus with AH and drop, got fed up and spent 17k gold on the last 49. yet to hand in (incase i give up so i can sale the mats)
DMF: 80 decks to go, prices going up and it takes to long to make the lesser decks i find.
Ravenholdt: i am contemplating suicide on the farming of the mobs, its just soooo boring. not sure what i am going to do about the boxes might ask the guild to help.
but its worth it, not interested in raiding at the moment.
ravencrest server. no one sells librams. you must get them yourself. So, saved gold cost, exponentially increased time cost. same with junkboxes. you get them yourself or not at all. Also, there is not one single epic deck under 500g. and that would be a rare find. Every epic deck is about 1k each, when cheap. So, you’re down to farming herbs and making decks. cheapest of course being rogue decks. lotta time in bareens farming. pristine diamonds, about 200g each if you can even get them as they sell out regularly.
I’m pretty sure you can get to Bloodsail Honoured within 2 hours,.. I did it in a single evening, lv 80, effortlessly.
Librams can vary wildly, they’re not a regular.
Epic decks seem to vary, but only Chaos goes for cheap, the rest you’d expect 500g+
Pristine Diamonds I’m pretty sure cost more then 200g on most server’s by now, sadly this is a “on my server” comment, but, I’ve found a seller who CoD’s them to me for 275g each, and I consider myself lucky, they’re 400g on the AH almost 90% of the time.
The whole thing can be changed to time, increasing your time spent to reduce gold spent, but, it all vary’s on what you’re most comfortable doing.
With the Bloodsail, it depends on your standing with them. I was 4k hated, so I had a long way to go, and it took me 5-6 hours to reach honoured. It was slower at first and sped up when goblins started attacking on sight and appearing from all directions. I did most part solo and duoed the last 6-8k.
Right now I’m on the Steamwheedle part, through Dire Maul only. 2 hours\day on average (none on raid nights, more on weekends) for 4,5 weeks and still have 12k to go. On the bright side, this has netted me way more librams than I’ll ever need, 21PBD and a hefty sum of money from DEing drops to buy the rest. Which is good as PBDs are pretty hard to find on my server and average 300-400g.
Can’t say much about the last two reps; I’m slowly accumulating cards when they’re sold cheap, but with the current rate it will take a year to accomplish, so I’m planning to go herbing once I’m done with the Steamwheedle grind and mats for the librams.
First, thanks for this guide! It has truly helped me from becoming insane. The key for the grind, though, is to find some way to possibly multi-task while doing it – i’ll explain more below.
Bloodsail – you are spot on, I think (not really sure because it was so negligible)
Goblins – You are underestimating, I think. If you do Dire Maul (which I assume most will do this way), then you can get about 350-400 rep per run (depending on if you do the tanin bit). Since you have a max of 5 runs per hour, then you are looking at 1750-2000 rep per hour. I think that adds up to a little less than 60 hours. This faction is the epitome of the multitasking that I referring to: getting goblin rep while also getting librams and maybe a PBD or two (I only looted 5 during my entire time there).
Shendrala – Not sure how to put this in number, as I was getting librams same time as doing goblins. But, I probably spent a few times a day looking in AH for librams (at the same time as i was looking AH for cards and herbs, etc). I spend anywhere from 10g to 150g per libram, but average was about 80. For PBD, I never spent more than 100g per PBD – I was fortunate to go for this achievment early, so many didn’t know the true value of PBD and librams. . they now go for an INSANE amount. Stitchings were very easy to get, as I got them while runing some guildies through Strat and making some gold. I actually never bothered with the skins of shadows, as I had enough librams to skip it, and it was the worst mat to get. Blood of Heros took a few hours.
DMF – I absolutely hated this one! I made one of my alts a herb and a scribe, so I took the time to lvl those professions. I spend probably about an hour or two a day just looking in the AH for inks, cards, decks, herbs, and primal/eternal lifes and then to mill/make cards. I’ve actually made a load of money from this process. I buy Lilys for about 5g a stack, and sell a Greatness deck for about 5kg, leaving you a yielded turnover to get more! One crucial thing I did was get Outland mats, as the outland decks are easiest and cheapest to make, in Tekkor Forest. I was also going for the “Hero of Shattrath” Achievement so while i was looking for Herbs, I was gathering the 1300 venom sacs to get neutral with Aldor.
Ravenholdt – this took the longest by far, especially when you consider the time it takes to lvl an alt rogue!
Anyway, that’s my take on them. I want to thank you all again for helping me keep my sanity!
I’m revisiting doing the Insane grind on a second toon (DK, “Informant” on Skullcrusher – almost done!) and am finding it is much more expensive now a days. On my mage I farmed Insane before the patch hit and was able to finish it shortly after patch/FoS came out before anyone else was doing it for fairly cheap (except Darkmoon) – Now prices are skyrocketted on AH on my server.
Oh well. I’ll get it done. My ultimate goal is to be the ultimate Insane person. 2 toons with both Battlemaster & Insane. 2 toons with “Over 9k” FoS. 2 toons with Thunderfury. 2 toons with Hero of Shattrath. 2 toons with 100k kills achievement. Oh… and 2 toons with that stupid tiger from ZG – Cause I would look awesome dual boxing lol
Mage has Insane, 9k, Hero … semi-close to Battlemaster and just need 1 binding for Thunderfury. And I am at 70k kills.
DK has Battlemaster, very close to Insane, just need the 1 binding for Thunderfury, need 900 more points for 9k achievement. And I am at 85k kills.
I estimate this grind I am doing should last me till expansion.
I think we need to consider how much you can make on the quest for the Insane as well as the direct costs. I was fortunate in that I bought most of my pristine black diamonds on the AH before the quest became widely known; however, I ended up at a net positive cash flow return from the whole thing at the end of the day because of the Darkmoon Faire. Making and turning in the Undeath (and other) decks and then selling them off netted me around +15K total gold at the end of the whole thing including all costs incurred. I realize that is not scientific, but there is a way to make cash out of the process depending on how much time you are willing to devote and that amount could be netted against the time/cost spent.
For myself, well, I’m the cheapjohn type of guy. I farm everything myself, the only way money is flowing in my terms is IN. :-)
Being the lucky rogue I am, money isn’t a problem. Well, as long as there are still people going for that achievment. A little addition to your price list: I’m selling those junkboxes for 20g on my server (EU-Arathor). And quite frankly, I have made a fortune of those. I’ve already been hired 9 times so far, to farm all the boxes for someone, so do the math as to how much have I made in total. ;)
And to be very much honest with you, 20g isn’t too much for that. I mean, have you ever tried running the same circle over and over and over and over and over again…? I usually feel braindead after 4-5 hours of junkbox farming. But hey, it pays extremely good, so who cares. :-)
Druid : 5 Months Total
Librams: 5g – 75g each
Diamonds: 4g – 50g each
Epic Cards: 300 – 350g (mostly chaos)
Rogue Cards: 2 – 5g / Ink 2 -5g each
Leveled a Rogue to 62: 3 weeks w/ heirloom gear
Lockboxes: 2 – 3 weeks (~100 boxes for each run)
Pirates: ~a month of off/on farming
Rough estimate of gold spent: 35 – 40k
Bloodsail to Honored: 3hrs with friends + an extra 40 min to hit Honored
I farmed most of my stuff with the exception for “reasonable” prices as listed above.
I’m doing a second grind for my husband’s warrior currently. The prices have drastically changed on Skullcrusher.
Librams: 100 – 200g each
Diamonds: 200 – 250g each (rarely any for 150g)
Epic Cards: 200 – 400g each
Rogue Cards: 5 -7g / Ink for ~5g each
Estimate of gold spent currently: 8k
Bloodsail to Honored: 5hrs (he started at Rev/exalted with steamwheedle)
As zmorris mentioned, Skullcrusher’s prices have skyrocketed and it’s much more expensive now than 7 months ago. I bought 15 diamonds on [A] Eldre’Thals and transfered them to [H] Skullcrusher for about 50 – 150g each.
I am almost done with my Insane grind… Darkmoon Faire is the real pain though, I have like 80 decks to go and they are 600G/deck, minimum. I’ve said to myself the maximum loss I am willing to make per deck is 200g, because I just want to get this done. So I’ll spend 600g/deck, as long as I can sell the trinket for 400g+. With Nobles I am buying the decks for 4k and selling the trinkets for 5k, so I’m using my profits from those to compensate for the losses on other decks. I’ve also found Undeath Decks are a good investment.
Here’s an update. I’m done with Steamwheedle now and 8 PBDs away from Shen’dralar. My numbers so far are:
Steamwheedle: 75 hours.
Diamonds: 62x250g average = 15,000g.
Net profit: around 7,000g and 30+ Librams yet to sell
(after buying Diamonds and 100+ Darkmoon cards, that is.)
I know, 75 hours is more than average, but I did complete clears almost every time. Got 24 PBDs, some cards for DMF and lots of librams -> profit.
Well, the price, I didn’t keep an exact record, but I’d estimate about 50,000 gold I’ve put into this,..
And tonight, in 3 hours once 11 p.m UK time rolls by, I’ll hand in my final darkmoon decks and finally get my insane title and submit a screenshot for the hall of fame.
Cannot wait, longest 3 hours ever! hehe
Prices for high-populated realms.
Junkboxes: 84 per run (1,5 hours). 25 hours total.
Epic Decks: from 400 to 600. + spamming “Complete your card desk quest for 150g”. 33k total. And like 12k profit for reselling epic cards.
Pristine Black Diamonds: from 400 to 800 (OMG) gold each. Imho, with those prices, better way to get’em is farming Strathholme. ~1 hour for run, and every time i’m getting 1 PBD + some gold. So it’s like 50k gold or 84 hours farming.
Librams: 50-100g, 6750 total.
Steamwheedle Cartel: didn’t started yet.
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I get 95 junkboxes per 1hr active farming. I’m not just lucky, this is my average without slacking. I found a GREAT route with no downtime in BRD. Will be posting a map to it. Will get me rev-> exalted in 16-17 hours.