Writhebark 1* 150g
Writhebark 2* 130g
Writhebark 3* 153g
Etc. Inks, chilled runes etc
On many trade goods, 1* goods are almost same price or even more expensive than 3*.
What is the cause of this?
I get sellers can put prices whatever they want, but who buys 1* if there is 2* or even 3* at same price?
Players don’t think. They waste their gold by putting everything they farm in the auction house without a second thought - because they can.
That’s basically what I learned from a recent thread here.
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It is actually genious if you think about it
You will always buy the 3* ones, obviously, if the price is similar
I think it is a form of controlling the market; willingly accept some loss on the 1* and 2* ones, because no one will buy them- but if someone do? Profit - , but with their prices you can controll the 3* price - since it takes 5x2* to refine in to a 3* it is not worth to buy-refine them if the prices are the same, but in the same time?
If you accept you will lose money on the 1* and 2* ones - stuff you probably have tons anyway to refine the surpluss, with their price, you will set the 3* to a fix amount eg. not much above them, but still above them.
If the - and let me put my tinfoil hat on for a sec - the AH controlling market basically decided will sell 1* for 100 g, 2* 110* and 3* 125? it will be fixed on 125… and from there, you can do whatever you want, untill hit a singularity so to speak, raise or lower it, and anyone who tries to sell their stuff cheaper will be bought out just to resell - or refine
Thus the minimum and maximum is in the hands of the AH whales and goblins
Logically it should be
1 gold for 1* 5 gold for 2- and 25 g for 3* since the refine rate +/- a few - it was just an example but you know hat I mean
On the other hand?
Probably this
Tho’ I prefer to pretend I play a game where players think and have conspiracies in the background 
Doesnt it have anything to do with refining 1* to 2* so you can get knowledge and recipies and rares?
I am herbing 100/100.
I NEVER obtain 1* herbs.
I almost always obtain 2* herbs.
I sometimes obtain 3* herbs.
1* are “more expensive” because there is less demand and less ways to obtain them.
2* are basicly the baseline materials.
3* are often the results off high skill to obtain or using high mats.
The raw materials will always be only a friction higher then 2* because refining.
I’d like them to deal with bots farming Earth, Air and Fire elementals though.
The rousing prices are dropping rapidly >.<
WHAT 
It’s a supply and demand thing.
Who wants to craft using 1* cost materials if the 2* costs are the same price?
Gathering 1* materials is basicly impossible after you plucked 20 flowers or mined 20 ores 
absolutely
supply and demand dictates that if there’s no demand then the price should drop
at the moment rank 2 mats are cheaper than rank 1 mats that alone should put rank 1 mats at no demand thus the price should drop or simply nobody will buy them.
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its the rarity . There are far less rank 1 herbs out there. The only way i manage to get those is if i overload elementally charged nodes, like frost or earth. So a whole lot less of them are being sold than rank 2 wich you always seem to get.
And people will still buy rank 1 very fast. Idk 100% why but probably for using them to buy items from renown vendors. Or for the weekly quest in valdrakken wich gives you knowledge points
ah that makes sense
i think you can complete the profession quests with any mats ranking.
but for renown vendors yes you might have to provide the correct rank.
i’m not 100% sure.
Nope. I’ve. tried using 1* mats when the herbs trainer asked for 2* to complete the quest, and they aren’t having it.
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It’s the opposite, install auctionator and you’ll see, for alchemy specifically there’s not a single recipe that makes profit, crafting most of them will make you lose over 500 gold per craft so you might aswell sell all the mats and buy the finished products.
Guess what’s even more surprising than sellers’ behaviour? Buyers sometimes buy the more expensive low rank trade goods.
Yes, sometimes, but this became an epidemic.
I was checking ores, herbs, inks, alloys, reagents, this is everywhere, it is not isolated case with only one herb or some reagent.
It is just unexplicable, noone offered some good explanation. Trade goods are all treated as they all the same quality, so priced the same or close to it.
The explanation is that 99% of players don’t bother checking the prices of different ranks when posting auctions, and trust addons/default AH UI to suggest a price for them, click create auction and never give it a second thought.
The logic addons/default UI use is based on rarity, current price, etc. They consider different tiers as totally different items, and do not attempt to make a smart decision about making the lower quality cheaper.
TBH, I also do the same even though I aware of this weird price difference. I use the AH as a way to clean my full bags that is more profitable than selling items to a vendor. I put all my low quality reagent, just accept the price suggested by Blizzard’s default AH UI, click create auction and never give it a second thought. In many cases the item get sold. If the auction expires, I post again without thinking about it.
Because people are rather far in profesion already and they can guarante rank 4, and has like 40% chance for rank 5 using r2 mats .
So everybody is using r2 mats . For herbs, people dont even need highest herb rank for max rank of pots so there isnt point to buy them . No demand=prices go down.
But if u look at like khazgorite ore, r2 is 450g and r3 is like 900, cuz there the rank 3 is needed for something and is more rare than anything else . So high demand=high price.
Agree with this.
But how do you explain r1 prices so high?
Is there a way to know who bought r1 mats from me while r2 were cheaper by 20%?
I would really like to /w the person and ask for reason behind that deal.
Easy explanation is most people trust the ingame UI to suggest a listing price for them, and never give it a second thought.
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Im not really convinced with that explanation, this happens on large scale on multiple if not all materials and lasts for too long.
For example, price of Peacebloom as starter herb cant stay high if noone buys it, but here it is very long time now.
So, it is either some dark forces who keep demand for R1 mats up or might be some misunderstanding/not configured AH addons.
For example, TSM if not configured will always offer buying R1 mats for recipes, it will not look for cheaper R2 or even R3.