Is it more profitable to sell mats raw or refine?

One_ofMany · July 2020

Is it more profitable to sell mats raw or refine and sell the golds?

VaranisArano · July 2020

That really depends on how lucky you are when refining and how much turnover you want in your shop. The cost of raw mats is usually pretty well matched to the expected average gain from refining.

Personally, it's faster for me to sell raw mats since there is less inventory management and less competition. Faster sales = more sales = more profit, at least for me.

tmbrinks · July 2020

Personally, I keep track of my historical drop rates of materials, along with their current MM prices (have a spreadsheet set up to do so). I can then check that against the current prices of raw materials (and I have a computation of the 'value' of refining)

In general, the raw materials are slightly cheaper than the combined value of the refined materials plus the sale of the tempers received (0-5g per unit). So you could make slightly more profit refining and then selling.

That said, and @VaranisArano said as much. If you're doing small samples (<10,000 materials at a time), it really comes down to the RNG factor.

Selling the raw materials is a guaranteed amount.

Refining will likely be more gold, but has a chance to be less.

Hope this helps!

FlopsyPrince · July 2020

Most people seem to sell the refined ones today, in my limited experience. Doing that is especially easy with multi-crafting.

I am not sure about the profitability (the previous comments address that), but I know I can't find much raw stuff when I look.

volkeswagon · July 2020

since I am a crafter I refine all because you get much more than just refined mats or gold mats when you refine. Your blues greens and purples plus other stuff. If you aren't a leveled crafter better to sell raw

tsaescishoeshiner · July 2020

Strictly speaking, it would be most efficient if we all sold our raw mats so that they can be purchased and refined by the players who know the secrets of how to optimize gold tempering material drops from refining, such as only multi-refining prime numbered stacks, or using the crafting stations with the best hidden RNG multiplier, or on days of the week without the letter "a" in their name. That way everyone wins.

Taleof2Cities · July 2020

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Strictly speaking, it would be most efficient if we all sold our raw mats so that they can be purchased and refined by the players who know the secrets of how to optimize gold tempering material drops from refining, such as only multi-refining prime numbered stacks, or using the crafting stations with the best hidden RNG multiplier, or on days of the week without the letter "a" in their name. That way everyone wins.

The best refining RNG at the crafting tables is in the starter zones (Stros M’kai, Bal Foyen, Khenarthi’s Roost, Betnikh, and Bleakrock).

Because ZOS likes rewarding new players who are just getting started with their crafting. 😉

phileunderx2 · July 2020

I refine everything and rarely need to buy any gold mats. I occasionally have to buy rosin as most of my characters are mag. My take on it is if you have eso plus refine everything if not sell the raws.

volkeswagon · August 2020

I find you have better luck refining if you do it in vivec on Wednesday at 3 am with no more than 1 other person at the table and wearing a bathers towel and clapping every 100 mats refined. I have proven this method as I get 1 more gold mat for every 50k mats refined than any other place.