Pristine Black Diamonds
I often see threads in the official wow forums or questions in the comment section of my Shen’dralar Exalted guide about Pristine Black Diamonds.
Aspiring insane in the membrane folks buy all of their librams in advance and sometimes completely forget they need the diamonds to go with each libram hand-in and end up being stuck with paying 300g/diamond because they have no other choice.
I thought it might be cool for us to all share our tips, tricks and techniques for acquiring these rarities and in doing so create a good reference link to share with people.
My tips are:
- Plan ahead! Even if you’re not working on Shen’dralar just yet keep checking the auction house every single day for diamonds. Let your guildmates and friends know you’re after them too.
- Make an Alliance/Horde alt to check the opposing factions auction house and snap up their cheap diamonds when you see them.
- Find out who else is working on Insane in the Membrane and make friends with them. Anyone who decides to abandon the grind halfway through is a possible good source for diamonds.
What else do you guys have to add?
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My tip is to check and see what crossovers there are. Saate’s guides are a good resource for that, obviously :P
For example, BRD was a good source for pristine black diamonds and so was Scholo. I farmed both of these instances as part of my insane grind (for lockboxes and skins of shadow), so what ever you do, dont make the mistake of not looting all your corpses!
And check the AH every day. If you see one particular person who always seems to list them, whisper them in game and see if you can strike a COD deal with them, at a cheaper rate then they list them on the AH.
First of all Saate, thank you very much for your guides. I’ve been working on the Insane for about a month now. I just collected my last Pristine Black Diamond yesterday when someone bought a guild and found out it had 2 stacks of PBD in the guild vault. I saw he posted some of them in the AH whispered him and he agreed to sell me them for 90g a peice. Very nice person indeed.
What I did is actually reverse, I have the 84 PBD yet only 15 librams. I checked the AH every day, I saw common names and whispered one player who was farming a mount in Strath, so he agreed to COD me the diamonds for 100g a peice. Overall I paid over the past month about 11,000g for the 84 PBD. I have a hard time making money but selling 4 Crusader Orbs a week is nice to for cash. Saate’s guide for making gold is very helpful.
Farming them is almost an impossibility as the drop rate is dismal. In 15 runs of Strat I aquired 2 of them. AH is the best bet. Ask guidlies, ask friends, ask others on the achievement path as some will have extra, send mail or whisper the people you see in AH that always seem to have them for a COD deal (as advised above). I find it essential to have a bank alt sitting at the AH 24/7. Depending on server, cost can vary widely. On Ravencrest, they are worth 40g each but there’s two people who corner the market and post them at 150g each so you really need to snipe them. If you’re serious about getting it though, that’s just part of the grind.
Make a post in your server’s forum, how many you need of the diamonds and how much you’re willing to spend on them, this way a friend *who changed to horde later =/* got 35x CODed to him almost instantly.
“/who Scholomance”
Majority came from the AH but they seem to have all but disappeared in the last month.
Dire Maul is where I found the most, while farming Librams (which are also never on the AH now), yet never found a single one in Scholo.
I also found a few in BWL when farming it for T2 gear (went as a 4-5 player group of friends who knew I needed them).
Ask your friends if they’re doing old dungeons for achievements/run-throughs/alts to collect them for you.
i got a question, how do i get alliance stuff to horde side or the other way around? i thought its illegal, even while using a neutral AH? Many people don’t know this for sure.
I got the librams waiting atm, and the skins/blood/stitchings, just need 20more PBD and im exalted.
I got the most diamonds while grinding the goblin rep at DM, and also got most of the librams from there.
I am sure Saate will provide a more detailed answer, but essentially, you need to have a friend who has an opposite faction toon post the items you want on the neutral AH. Have your friend ready at BB or Gadget, so you can simultaneously post and purhcase the items you want to exchange. It does provide a small window for sniping by other players, but that is the risk you take.
*note, you cannot sell and buy an item from neutral AH using toons on the same account.
kay thx serephim that helped me out a bit :)
But let’s say this (example):
Person A makes an alliance ‘bank’ alt and has a horde char also.
the alliance (alt) char sets an item on the neutral AH of booty bay.
Person B (someone else) who has a horde char comes to that neutral AH and buys the item.
Person A goes to booty bay to the neutral AH, and trades or buys the item with his main, which is horde, from person B.
Is this way of trading/selling legal? since I think that should be a good way for me to get my hands on items which aren’t (often) on horde AHs. And I have no clue for how far blizzard can track items which have been sold/traded to other players (or in this case the same person in the end of the tradeline)
Pristine Black diamonds or DarkMoonFaire Decks/parts are way easier to get if this way should be available for us.
Heya Cold! Serephim was pretty much spot on with her response to this. There’s a restriction in place that stops you buying your OWN (ie same account) items on the auction house but nothing to prevent you using a different account or person to buy them for you.
Although I don’t doubt there may be something official buried away somewhere about this there is most definitely no commonplace/enforced ‘law’ against trading stuff between factions this way.
Remember you’re not doing it to abuse the economy, break the game or impact anyone elses experience so nobody will take issue with it.
I acquired a SURPRISINGLY lage number of PBD’s from some random bank alt. I spammed that i was buying any anyone had. and the dude turned out to be stashing 20+
So always, ALWAYS ask EVERYONE.
There are many ways to get them, some takes time, some takes money. The way i am doing it, is when I farm in Scholomance and Stratholme, i make it to a full clear, and yes it takes much time, but there are many good reasons to why do it in that way… U get mats for librams, if u after them, u have a good chance for PBD, I did myself get aprox 1,5 Diamond each run, and u get lots of thing to sell, which means money…
U can also look at the AH and see if any had put some cheap one up, or u can ask in the trade channel…
If u are in guild, I suggest u drag on them as much as u can, without getting kicked ofc ;) and hope they got some on alts, in banks and so on..
Also ask your friends, they might have the last one u ned :D
Go get the Diamonds m8 ;)
/Gexu
Is there any 1 instance which is best for farming these PBDs? On my server there is never any more than 4 – 5 on the ah going for 400 – 500g. I came into this expecting to spend a lot of money… but that is just stupid.
How many total diamonds are req?
You’ll need 84 diamonds total. Checkout full details in my Shen’dralar Exalted Guide
Been buying them for the insane prices here which range from 100-300 g each, i’ve put 300 as a cap since over that is just ridiculous. Most of them have cost 300 which has dug a big hole in my wallet, aswell as trading money over to the alliance side and the hidious action house cut :(.
Someone put op 2 of them for 50 g each and i immediately bought them, whispered him and apparently he had 35 more!!
Bought them all for 1750, what a bargain!
Now i’m probably just 20-30 away from 84.
Great site btw, lots of great advice!
So far while farming Dire Maul for my goblin re-rep and shen’dralar librams etc.. I’ve come across 3 pristine black diamonds in 3 days. Not too bad. If I can try to get my hand on 1 per day for the next 3 months that’ll about cover it, and I don’t expect I’ll get 1 drop per day I mean asking guildies / friends or so. So far the goblin rep and ravenholdt have been my priority, while building darkmoon cards. The insane is a fun grind to go for, and I don’t think I’d be doing it without Saates guide.
I know how you feel Muted, I really wish there had been a comprehensive guide like Saate’s when I was first doing it. It would have saved ALOT of time and cash
i dont know whether this comment belongs on RNGG or here,but i was doing a strat run for the mount/stitchings and i got 2 PBD’s, off 2 mobs 1 after the other so of course i thought that this would be a great place to farm them but many runs later i havnt seen anymore :/
RNGG fuuuu!
Now that the Insane grind is becoming more and more popular game wide, diamond prices have seem to skyrocket. On Ner’zhul you will expect to pay average 150g per diamond unless you get lucky that someone just wants to get rid of it quick.
My best suggestion is to do your Diremaul runs! I put it off and did pirate grinding instead, not wanting 200+ DM run. I decided to give it a try from Revered on and during the four days that I casually farmed, I managed to get 8 PBDs and over a dozen librams.
Obviously you’ll have to keep checking the AH for deals unless you plan to farm the place till kingdom come but any diamond/libram that drops will be a nice pad for you later on.
If anything else, you can sell extra librams for 130g (avg) and start making money back that you did spend!
Guys .. Remember to do the Pusillin and the Elder Azj’Tordin quest and to turn in your class book (the blue one i.e “The light and how to swing it”, Paladin) when getting this rep. it’s a 1000 rep in total. :D
@ Iuris
I wish they went for 150g here. Average is 400g here and I -really- cba to pay more than 100g each. ;_;
I was hoping for a bit more information on how to farm these, or at least whether or not it’s mostly lvl 60 instance bosses that drop Pristine Black Diamonds.
I got 1 from the Rend event in UBRS, perhaps I should focus my junkboxes farming there (although BRD has given me more junkboxes so far).
Have been watching AH for several weeks and the few diamonds I’ve seen have all be listed for over 450g.
Although I really appreciate the guide I can’t but feel that some of it just isn’t the same now that demand for some of these items is now much much harder. For example Primal Lifes on my server do not sell for under 30g. The price of creating BC and Wrath decks are almost identical.
this guide is great, i only need 6 more diamonds left and i’ll be exalted! yay!
Well, unfortunately, pristine black diamonds go for anywhere from 250 to 500 gold on my server, and people are taking advantage of that. There are usually 30 to 40 on the AH, all from two users monopolizing the market. This also makes it difficult to try and get some through trade chat from people who have no idea what they’re worth.
It’s really unfortunate that the main thing that makes this achievement “insane” now is the sheer amount of money you have to spend on it.
Started 2 weeks ago for the Insane archie , 80 rogue on Arathor Eu server
Bloodsail rep costed me about 9 hours to honored….1st part done in 1 day
By reading over about the insane archie on the net i came to this site…..very good btw
After that i went straightly to DiM north , farmed there for the last 2 weeks….im at revered with the steemweelde rep about 4000-21000 atm , very boring but my best friend since lots of the mats i gonna use afterwards are needed…..total farming 74 librams and 17 pristines…….also lot of junk and greens what i DE and sold on the ah….total amount earned 20k in 2 weeks farming DiM
Every run i picked up the ogre tannins but not always the key dropped , while thinking i need to be there for some time i decided to turning in only shackle keys and save the runecloth and rugged leather, since i need to be there for the librams, means lots of gold on our server also for the rugged leather, farmed over 300 stacks of runecloth and 4 capital city´s to exalted allready from turning in runecloth…1 more to go IF…..19547-21000 exalted
since i noticed the only problem is gonna be the pristine black diamond …lack on ah and very pricey at our server i did make several chars on other servers to check the economy there….costed my some hours to figure it out , found a server with many pristines on ah for a quarter of the price on our server……both factions , sended 16k to one of my alts and transfered him to the server, since i have 2 accounts i also made a dk there on the other faction ….leveled him to 58 and moved him to the neutral ah……so both of my chars have a descent amount of gold, 1 day on this server made me allready 28 pristines and got some from guildies aswell, total amount of pristines after 2 weeks 56 , should be there soonish
Only need 13 more Diamonds at the moment, I’ve been forced to buy them for 250g a piece now… and still people expect me to pay 500g a piece for the Diamonds.
I don’t see how they expect anyone to pay 40k gold to get their Diamonds, just because some idiot puts them on AH for 500g.
Well on my svr avg price for PBD is about 600-800g , and ppl rly buy it , I’m like wtf are you dumb or something? Also I tryed to figure out whats the best dungeon 55+ to farm those , I tried BRD got 1 in 10 runs, Strat 1 per 8 runs, and best place is Scholo , got about 4 PBD in less than 10 runs I was like wtf… Who don’t have the money that can buy PBD at 500g+ , you should try out Scholo, also you get a lot of green to DE and thats a lot money(atleast in my svr) Greater Eternal Essence its selling bout 23g each everyday I put 25+ on AH so its kinda lot of gold worth, and the drop of Skin of Shadow isnt that bad tbh, got 7 in less than 10 runs so Scholo is best place so far. Saate best guides ever! Keep it up.
Hey all,
Everyone keeps stumbling upon the question of “Where can I farm these?”. In truth, since these have only about .02% drop rate, you have to find various sources to get the amount of PBD’s you need. (Sorry if some of these have been mentioned, just kind of skimmed through the posts)
1. Check AH daily with multiple bank toons. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and find a few very cheap.
2. Post on your server’s forums (and sometimes others’ forums) to see if you can find someone who’s willing to make an offer.
3. I personally look in trade for people selling their guilds and banks. Sometimes you can ask them if they have any librams/PBD’s and you can strike a deal with them.
4. Don’t assume that because one person said “lots drop in strat lol” means that that is the ONLY place they will drop. Some key places to accquire PBD’s are:
Zul’Gurub – don’t really need to be able to solo it. Just nuke all the trash and the speakers in front of the boss (if you can play dead or invis, etc). The Bijous and Coins usually sell pretty decent if you are already Exalted with Zandalar.
Stratholme – Kill EVERYTHING there. Live side, then run over to dead side, almost everything can drop a PBD, dont limit yourself to one side. And hey, Stitchings and a horsie mount? Awesome!
Scholomance – Skins of Shadow and again, almost everything has a chance at a PBD – don’t waste the chance.
DM North/West – I found these a lot easier to farm than DM East, but you can also get Librams and keep tuned for the Event every few hours for some nice Blues off the boss in the Maul.
BRD/BRS – imo, I didn’t have as much luck as i would have liked in BRD. But, in these instances you can also pickpocket mobs for Heavy Loxboxes (If you arent exalted yet and are a rogue)
Those are some tips I found helped me. Good luck to all you Insanies!
-E-
Hi is it possible, to grind to hounerd w bloodsails p, then buy the diomonds and librams of ah, and then kill pirates and turn in cloth for rep insted of grinding it out,.
I found that it’s best to do the Steamwheedle rep grind before hunting for librams/ PBD’s because I looted over 80 librams and 15 PBDs over the course of the grind.
The demand for these has imploded since Blizzcon 2010. On my server they are selling for 1.4k each! RIDICULOUS! I still need 50 to 59 too. Some people have speculated that the drop chance has increased but I haven’t noticed it at all. If it comes down to it I might just have to pay the ridiculous prices to finish Shen’dralar before it’s gone…
Just wanted to add my thoughts on this. I don’t see anyone talk about something that I noticed while farming things in Strathome or other instances and if someone has said it already then yeah it works.
You don’t have to loot everything to find PBD. Unless you want the money you really don’t have to loot everything. I run Strathome to try for the mount and kill everything on that side up to the boss and not loot anything. By the time I’m done most all the bodies will have disappeared. Now the thing is if there is a blue or higher quality item on a corpse it will be there long after everything else is dead. So when your walking back out you’ll know if anything has dropped something of value.
So there you go, save some time looting unless you want the cash, cloth and possible greens which I tend to get a lot of after looting the Aboms at the end of Strath anyway. Happy hunting!