wow Gold Making: The Vial of the Sands

[Peelyon 416]

Vial of the Sands is a crafted mount that can make you substantial amounts of gold. It does require a little work to get the recipe and a lot of gold to craft, but is definitely worth the investment. Sales have increased with the WoW Token was introduced last year (mine have doubled).

Requirements: 450 Archaeology
                        525 Alchemy
 
The Vial of the Sands is my main source of income.  On some servers the profit from each craft can be anywhere from 5k-30k gold, depending on your competition.  On my medium/high population I average a sale every day making 10-15k profit.  
 
Introduced in Cataclysm, The Sandstone Drake was the first craftable two person flying mount.  For many players this is the easiest option to obtain a two person flyer and due to this fact it is arguably one of the most sought after trade-able/craftable mounts in the game.  
 
The mount is crafted by alchemists and requires 525 alchemy skill in order to learn the recipe.  Recipe: Vial of the Sands however can only be obtained through the secondary profession Archaeology (you need 450 skill in order to begin Tol'Vir digsites). Due to the high skill in archaeology and the difficulty in acquiring the recipe the number of crafters on each realm is relatively low when compared with other craftable profession mounts.  Acquiring the recipe itself can be very time consuming (see below), and in order to craft a mount you will need to invest a fairly substantial amount of gold before you can create it.  
 
If you already have the recipe (and haven't crafted them for a while) or you would like to begin your own search for the recipe, I highly recommend that you do a little research into your current auction house prices for Vial of the Sands.  The vendor items required total 29,000g and then some other materials on top of that.  In theory you should be looking for prices above the 40,000g mark to obtain a profit.
Prices have changed considerably since Cataclysm so especially for players who have not crafted the mount in some time don't make any assumptions. I have seen them sell on some servers for as high as 65000g.
 
Not every server will have favourable prices so you must ensure you check the full mat listing below and ensure it is profitable on your server.  Remember to take into account the "opportunity cost".  If the combined price of the mount is similar or less than the total you can sell the individual materials for, then it will not be worth the effort to farm for the recipe.  You would be better selling the materials to other crafters instead (Volatile Water can be particularly lucrative farming Muddied Water Elemental in Twilight Highlands for example).  
 

Obtaining the Recipe

 
If the prices on your server are in your favour then here is how you get the recipe.  The recipe itself has a small chance to be contained within a Canopic Jar. The Canopic Jars themselves are a random common Uldum archaeology solve.  Essentially it is a rare drop from a random chance solve.  This can be pretty frustrating depending how long it takes to get it.  Personally, it took 13 Canopic Jar (just under 100 Tol'Vir solves in total) before I managed to learn the recipe.  I have known players who have managed to obtain it on the first solve and others that are still farming after 30+.  Ensure you pray to the WoW RNG gods for this one!
 
To speed up your ability to complete Tol'vir solves without flying all over Kalimdor - it is recommended to solve digsites in either Mists of Pandaria or Warlords of Draenor zones.  These will reward you with Restored Artifacts which can be traded in for Tol'vir Archaeology Fragment.  Head over to the archaeology vendors in Stormshield / Warspear (Grakis for Alliance and Srikka for Horde).

 

Check out Zabians video below with a few extra hints on how to grind out the recipe:

 

 

The Mantid method (using Mantid Artifact Sonic Locator to spawn Mantid digsites) is the most efficient way of "spamming" your digsites!
 

The Materials Required

 
To craft the mount itself you will need a fairly long list of materials.
 Vendor Items

• 1xPyrium-Laced Crystalline Vial this costs 5000g from Yasmin in Uldum.
• 8x Sands of Time 3000g each = 24,000g again purchasable from Yasmin.

Total vendor mats = 29,000g

Craftable Materials

• 12x Truegold
• 8x Flask of the Winds 
• 8x Flask of Titanic Strength 
• 8x Deepstone Oil

With regards to the craftable materials it is beneficial to create all of the items yourself.  Ideally you will have both a Transmutation Master for Truegold and a Elixir Master for both sets of the flasks.
 
If you have to make a choice between the two different alchemy masteries go for transmutation, as Truegold is generally the most expensive to create.  Obtaining a "proc" through your transmutation mastery will reduce the overall "cost" of crafting the mount therefore increasing your profits.
 
Each Truegold requires:
 
3xPyrium Bar 10xVolatile Fire 10xVolatile Air 10xVolatile Water to transmute.  


Each Flask of the Winds requires:
 
8x Volatile Life 8x Azshara's Veil 8x Whiptail 1x Crystal Vial
  

Each Flask of Titanic Strength requires:
 
8x Volatile Life 8x Cinderbloom8x Whiptail 1x Crystal Vial
 

Each Deepstone Oil requires:
 
1x Albino Cavefish
 
Quick Tip: 1 Cavefish can "proc" 2 Deepstone Oil so you may get lucky and need less fish. These can be easily fished from pools (so no skill required) in Deepholm in Needlerock Chasm.  Remember to use a cross realm hop addon such as Cross Realm Assist or Server Hop if no pools are around to save time waiting for pool spawns.

It is entirely up to yourselves if you farm any or all of these materials - personally I farm some of them and I use the auction house for others.  Again how you obtain these materials may depend on how much time you have, whether you have mining and herbalism to acquire the ore and herbs, and the prices on your auction house for those materials.
 
Here is a comphensive list of what you will need for each Vial of the Sands
 
• 29,000g for the vendor items
• 72 Pyrite Ore
• 120 Volatile Water
• 120 Volatile Fire
• 120 Volatile Air
• 128 Volatile Life
• 64 Cinderbloom
• 64 Azshara’s Veil
• 128 Whiptail 
• 16 Crystal Vial's
• 4-8 Albino Cavefish (fish 8 to be safe)

 

If you do wish to farm the materials yourself, this video from Zabian will give you some of the best locations!

 

 

Remember to run with a Potion of Luck when you are farming those Water elementals!
 
Here is a snapshot of my sales from my TSM Summary (taken at time of writing)
 

 
I am very lucky to be on a server where there is not a lot of competition and the price yields such a large profit per craft.  But please bear in mind that you will need to research your own server before making such a commitment.  Especially if you are using a substantial proportion of your gold in order to purchase the 29k vendor materials required!
 
I hope this guide has been useful and I hope that this encourages some of you who have thought about farming the recipe (or have the recipe and stopped crafting it) to get started and have a go!
 
Feel free to post any comments or successes below!

 

 

Changelog: 26/03/16 - Added Zabians videos re Farming the recipe and Farming Materials

[GrahransWoWGold 5]

Another excellent guide Pete! I only just got my Vial of the Sands recipe last week, thankfully it only took two jars. This was forced on me due to transfering realms, and needed the bag space. i was trying to stock up 10 jars and then open them all together, RNG is horrible and felt opening them all in one go, MAY just boost my chances.

I just power leveled 2 Alchemists, one with Transmute master the other with Eilixir master to try and squeeze a little more profit. Vials go for approximately 45k and can craft one for about 39k, using base mats from AH so not bad profit. Obviously the profit is alot more if I go out and farm it.

Ive seen your sales in your streams and absolutely gobsmacked from your stats, it even gave me the incentive to get my own recipe. Hell, I had little to no interest in Archeoelogy, but this since changed with the farming method for WoD (well until there was the spawn bug, which thankfully got hotfixed).

Another great article mate, look forward to more in the future, keep it up! As ever, will share on Twitter and through my blog.

[Wrekful 2]

Vial of the Sands is a crafted mount that can make you substantial amounts of gold. It does require a little work to get the recipe and a lot of gold to craft, but is definitely worth the investment. Sales have increased with the WoW Token was introduced last year (mine have doubled).

Requirements: 450 Archaeology

                        525 Alchemy

 

The Vial of the Sands is my main source of income.  On some servers the profit from each craft can be anywhere from 5k-30k gold, depending on your competition.  On my medium/high population I average a sale every day making 10-15k profit.  

 

Introduced in Cataclysm, The Sandstone Drake was the first craftable two person flying mount.  For many players this is the easiest option to obtain a two person flyer and due to this fact it is arguably one of the most sought after trade-able/craftable mounts in the game.  

 

The mount is crafted by alchemists and requires 525 alchemy skill in order to learn the recipe.  Recipe: Vial of the Sands however can only be obtained through the secondary profession Archaeology (you need 450 skill in order to begin Tol'Vir digsites). Due to the high skill in archaeology and the difficulty in acquiring the recipe the number of crafters on each realm is relatively low when compared with other craftable profession mounts.  Acquiring the recipe itself can be very time consuming (see below), and in order to craft a mount you will need to invest a fairly substantial amount of gold before you can create it.  

 

If you already have the recipe (and haven't crafted them for a while) or you would like to begin your own search for the recipe, I highly recommend that you do a little research into your current auction house prices for Vial of the Sands.  The vendor items required total 29,000g and then some other materials on top of that.  In theory you should be looking for prices above the 40,000g mark to obtain a profit.

Prices have changed considerably since Cataclysm so especially for players who have not crafted the mount in some time don't make any assumptions. I have seen them sell on some servers for as high as 65000g.

 

Not every server will have favourable prices so you must ensure you check the full mat listing below and ensure it is profitable on your server.  Remember to take into account the "opportunity cost".  If the combined price of the mount is similar or less than the total you can sell the individual materials for, then it will not be worth the effort to farm for the recipe.  You would be better selling the materials to other crafters instead (Volatile Water can be particularly lucrative farming Muddied Water Elemental in Twilight Highlands for example).  

 

Obtaining the Recipe

 

If the prices on your server are in your favour then here is how you get the recipe.  The recipe itself has a small chance to be contained within a Canopic Jar. The Canopic Jars themselves are a random common Uldum archaeology solve.  Essentially it is a rare drop from a random chance solve.  This can be pretty frustrating depending how long it takes to get it.  Personally, it took 13 Canopic Jar (just under 100 Tol'Vir solves in total) before I managed to learn the recipe.  I have known players who have managed to obtain it on the first solve and others that are still farming after 30+.  Ensure you pray to the WoW RNG gods for this one!

 

To speed up your ability to complete Tol'vir solves without flying all over Kalimdor - it is recommended to solve digsites in either Mists of Pandaria or Warlords of Draenor zones.  These will reward you with Restored Artifacts which can be traded in for Tol'vir Archaeology Fragment.  Head over to the archaeology vendors in Stormshield / Warspear (Grakis for Alliance and Srikka for Horde).

 

The Materials Required

 

To craft the mount itself you will need a fairly long list of materials.

 Vendor Items

• 1xPyrium-Laced Crystalline Vial this costs 5000g from Yasmin in Uldum.
• 8x Sands of Time 3000g each = 24,000g again purchasable from Yasmin.

Total vendor mats = 29,000g

Craftable Materials

• 12x Truegold
• 8x Flask of the Winds 
• 8x Flask of Titanic Strength 
• 8x Deepstone Oil

With regards to the craftable materials it is beneficial to create all of the items yourself.  Ideally you will have both a Transmutation Master for Truegold and a Elixir Master for both sets of the flasks.

 

If you have to make a choice between the two different alchemy masteries go for transmutation, as Truegold is generally the most expensive to create.  Obtaining a "proc" through your transmutation mastery will reduce the overall "cost" of crafting the mount therefore increasing your profits.

 

Each Truegold requires:

 

3xPyrium Bar 10xVolatile Fire 10xVolatile Air 10xVolatile Water to transmute.  

Each Flask of the Winds requires:

 

8x Volatile Life 8x Azshara's Veil 8x Whiptail 1x Crystal Vial

  

Each Flask of Titanic Strength requires:

 

8x Volatile Life 8x Cinderbloom8x Whiptail 1x Crystal Vial

 

Each Deepstone Oil requires:

 

1x Albino Cavefish

 

Quick Tip: 1 Cavefish can "proc" 2 Deepstone Oil so you may get lucky and need less fish. These can be easily fished from pools (so no skill required) in Deepholm in Needlerock Chasm.  Remember to use a cross realm hop addon such as Cross Realm Assist or Server Hop if no pools are around to save time waiting for pool spawns.

It is entirely up to yourselves if you farm any or all of these materials - personally I farm some of them and I use the auction house for others.  Again how you obtain these materials may depend on how much time you have, whether you have mining and herbalism to acquire the ore and herbs, and the prices on your auction house for those materials.

 

Here is a comphensive list of what you will need for each Vial of the Sands

 

• 29,000g for the vendor items

• 72 Pyrite Ore

• 120 Volatile Water

• 120 Volatile Fire

• 120 Volatile Air

• 128 Volatile Life

• 64 Cinderbloom

• 64 Azshara’s Veil

• 128 Whiptail 

• 16 Crystal Vial's

• 4-8 Albino Cavefish (fish 8 to be safe)

 

Here is a snapshot of my sales from my TSM Summary (taken at time of writing)

 

 

I am very lucky to be on a server where there is not a lot of competition and the price yields such a large profit per craft.  But please bear in mind that you will need to research your own server before making such a commitment.  Especially if you are using a substantial proportion of your gold in order to purchase the 29k vendor materials required!

 

I hope this guide has been useful and I hope that this encourages some of you who have thought about farming the recipe (or have the recipe and stopped crafting it) to get started and have a go!

 

Feel free to post any comments or successes below!

 

 

 

Great guide, as soon as the servers are back up ill see how it sells on my server :)

 

Thank you

[Peelyon 416]

Make sure you let me know of any successes Wrekful!

[Zabian 3]

I have video guides for both obtaining mats and obtaining the recipe. Everything here is correct and well researched. Well done, awesome guide

Edited March 25, 2016 by Zabian

[Peelyon 416]

Cheers Zabian - I have added your videos to the original guide!

[GrahransWoWGold 5]

Another excellent guide Pete! I only just got my Vial of the Sands recipe last week, thankfully it only took two jars. This was forced on me due to transfering realms, and needed the bag space. i was trying to stock up 10 jars and then open them all together, RNG is horrible and felt opening them all in one go, MAY just boost my chances.

I just power leveled 2 Alchemists, one with Transmute master the other with Eilixir master to try and squeeze a little more profit. Vials go for approximately 45k and can craft one for about 39k, using base mats from AH so not bad profit. Obviously the profit is alot more if I go out and farm it.

Ive seen your sales in your streams and absolutely gobsmacked from your stats, it even gave me the incentive to get my own recipe. Hell, I had little to no interest in Archeoelogy, but this since changed with the farming method for WoD (well until there was the spawn bug, which thankfully got hotfixed).

Another great article mate, look forward to more in the future, keep it up! As ever, will share on Twitter and through my blog.

I've finally been selling some. I notice that weekends are a very good time to stock up and sell these. I average at selling one at 45k during the week, but at the weekend, when demand is a little higher, I can demand prices as high as 55k. So far so good!

[Peelyon 416]

Just wanted to show they are still selling nicely in Legion! 

[Valks 2,375]

10 minutes ago, Peelyon said:

Just wanted to show they are still selling nicely in Legion! 

Has the new expansion hit the costs of the materials much?

[Peelyon 416]

3 minutes ago, Blainie said:

Has the new expansion hit the costs of the materials much?

Most of the materials have stayed the same - it's just the number of crafters has dropped as people are playing new content (I assume).  Yesterday was the first day I've listed one since Legion began as well so it's a good idea to check up on any old crafts you can create.

[Valks 2,375]

35 minutes ago, Peelyon said:

Most of the materials have stayed the same - it's just the number of crafters has dropped as people are playing new content (I assume).  Yesterday was the first day I've listed one since Legion began as well so it's a good idea to check up on any old crafts you can create.

Will definitely take a look, ta!