Thread: why is tin ore so valuable?

I mean i know the obvious is supply and demand. I'm still pretty new so I don't really know what it's used for. I must be missing something about the demand side of the equation, because I find a lot of tin. On the other hand I play solo and level more slowly than most (I think). I try to enjoy the game/world instead of rushing through it. I sold a bunch of tin to get my house with my first character. My current plan is to level 9 characters over time and I'm saving everything for crafting later. I'm sitting on a few hundred tin ore and may have 1000 or more by the time I finish my other characters (some still sitting on level 1). It just seems like since tin is a tier 1 metal you would not be able to make anything great with it, but I must be missing something because I can sell tin ore for 15s each and maybe more. I'm trying to decide whether I should be keeping it for crafting like everything else (which I am planning on doing), or if I should start selling.

Tin Ore used to be more prevalent. Turbine adjusted some areas, Bree-Lands for example, giving us more Barrow Iron and Silver Ore where there used to be Copper and Tin.

In addition, they adjusted the experience points necessary to level. It's now easier to get to level 10 or 20. So folks out-level the Copper and Tin areas very quickly.

I think they also adjusted the ratio of Copper to Tin nodes. But I cannot say that for certain

These factors all combined to create a net shortage of Tin Ore.

And yes, it is all Supply and Demand. Folks will actively hunt Tin Ore after they have out-leveled the Copper and Tin Ore areas only when it makes economic sense for them to do so.

It just depends on factors of supply (how much is spawning and how many people are out collecting it and putting it on the AH), and demand (how many people are buying it up.) All kinds of factors can influence it. Sometimes Turbine's balance is off and some ore gets so overfarmed that you can't sell it on the AH for more than you can vendor it for. Sometimes ore is really rare. There are also differences in price between server/worlds.

I would guess there are a large percentage of people in the game right now playing low level characters who are actually starting second or third etc. characters. That is, they already have a high level character that is wealthy enough that they can just snap up the ore off of the AH to level up their metalsmith. It's much more efficient for them than going out and farming it. You are out there collecting. You benefit.

Also, there are many crafts that use Bronze ingots (which require Tin to make).
Only one craft (Jeweller) uses plain Copper ingots.

So more professions are looking for Tin (for Bronze) than are looking for Copper only.

To answer your other question, tin is used in conjunction with copper to make bronze ingots. Bronze ingots are used by metalcrafters and weaponcrafters to craft tier 1 metal armor and weapons respectively. Copper is also used by jewelers to craft tier 1 jewelry.

Originally Posted by Silverangel

It just depends on factors of supply (how much is spawning and how many people are out collecting it and putting it on the AH), and demand (how many people are buying it up.) All kinds of factors can influence it. Sometimes Turbine's balance is off and some ore gets so overfarmed that you can't sell it on the AH for more than you can vendor it for. Sometimes ore is really rare. There are also differences in price between server/worlds.

I would guess there are a large percentage of people in the game right now playing low level characters who are actually starting second or third etc. characters. That is, they already have a high level character that is wealthy enough that they can just snap up the ore off of the AH to level up their metalsmith. It's much more efficient for them than going out and farming it. You are out there collecting. You benefit.

So you use tin it to level up your metalmith. I didn't know that. This is the kind of info I'm looking for. I can understand supply and demend. What I don't understand is what is causing the demand.

Thx for the replies. One more question. Lets say all of my crafters have mastered tier one and all of my characters are lvl 25+. Will I have any need for tin at this point?

Originally Posted by dwisetiger2

Thx for the replies. One more question. Lets say all of my crafters have mastered tier one and all of my characters are lvl 25+. Will I have any need for tin at this point?

Nope.

/morechar

Originally Posted by dwisetiger2

Thx for the replies. One more question. Lets say all of my crafters have mastered tier one and all of my characters are lvl 25+. Will I have any need for tin at this point?

Only if you plan on crafting low level items for alts or others. Weapons perhaps, as I don't think most classes can use heavy armor until level 20 or so. By the time you'll want to make some armor for them, they'll be on to the T2 stuff. Besides, the quest gear is dandy at lower levels.

Originally Posted by dwisetiger2

So you use tin it to level up your metalmith. I didn't know that. This is the kind of info I'm looking for. I can understand supply and demend. What I don't understand is what is causing the demand.

Metalsmith (Armourer) and Weaponsmith (Armsman and Historian).

Originally Posted by dwisetiger2

Thx for the replies. One more question. Lets say all of my crafters have mastered tier one and all of my characters are lvl 25+. Will I have any need for tin at this point?

Personally I continue using Bronze Tools for non critical result crafting. They are by far the cheapest both on repair cost and on cost for making them. The better-than-bronze tools need steel ingots, and 4 of them, and that's expensive because of the coal.

I haven't mathed out whether selling the tin ores or bronze ingots gives more money than you'd pay for making or repairing the better tools, but in any case I still have a stock of bronze prospector's tools from when I was leveling my latest armourer.

Also, you can sell or you need ores (not ingots) to level up new prospectors so that they are able to collect the better metals. That often affects players with higher level characters, e.g. when changing vocations.

Most people that will buy the ore are high leveled characters that dont want to go gather it all in the low level areas. I did this myself and bought everything i needed for jewelry and got Sm in one day. Also i would check the market prices and if its really high go ahead and sell it, if not then just keep it. Its always good to keep things in a vault somewhere because you will never know when you need it. unless you have 9 lvl 65 characters

Tin at one time was so rare that finding a Rich Tin Ore node was considered to be the Holy Grail of Crafting.

There was even a "Screenshot or it didn't happen" saying for those that had claimed to have seen one...

It used to be much worse having to craft through the lower levels that required Tin. Back then you would need 3 Copper (I think) and 1 Tin ore to make 1 Bronze ingot. This was changed to 1 Copper and 1 Tin grants you 2 Bronze Ingots.

But the spawn rate on Tin still remained very rare.

And I swear, when I am playing my character that cannot Prospect, all I ever see is Tin. But if I log Erikr on, it magically transforms back to Copper....

Jewelcrafters don't use Bronze so the first Tier of Crafting is not that difficult for them to master. It's the next Tier that requires Silver that seems to take forever. I recall spending over an hour gathering Ore for my Jeweler and ended up with 200 Barrow Iron ore and only 35 Silver ore.

You won't see that kind of imbalance again until you get to the Supreme crafting ranks where Khazad Copper outnumbers Khazad Gold almost 10 to one.

Originally Posted by Mymir

..There was even a "Screenshot or it didn't happen" saying for those that had claimed to have seen one...

..And I swear, when I am playing my character that cannot Prospect, all I ever see is Tin. But if I log Erikr on, it magically transforms back to Copper...

I'm loling WITH you...
http://my.lotro.com/mrnot/wp-content...tin-cry-01.jpg
My woodworker in lamentation..

Whats a reasonable price expectation for selling tin on the AH?

That depends on your server and what the supply is at the time. Usually anywhere from 10s to 20s each.

As to the earlier question about whether or not you need Tin once you master Tier 1 on all of your alts... that depends on whether you want to work on selling crit items. Crit items usually sell for a lot and are fairly easy and cheap to make (unless you're buying the ore).

Thank you for the info. Being a noob I have no pricing history to go by. Are there any sites that track the LOTRO AH?

Sorry I wasn't more specific...

Is that 10s per Tin ore or bar of tin?

How about Silver ore/bars?

Thanks for the help!

Sorry.

Yeah, that is 10-20s per ingot (bar). The ore should be about 75% of the ingot cost (so if the ingots sell for 10s, then the ore should sell for 7.5s). That's just an estimate and it varies from server to server, but that's around what you should see. So you make more money by not smelting it, but you also don't get the skill points from smelting it (if you're a master you don't need them anyhow). You might also sell ingots more easily than ore because someone who isn't a prospector, but is a weaponsmith or metalsmith (historian vocation, for example) won't be able to smelt the ore into ingots, so can only purchase the ingots. Keep in mind that if you're selling ingots in Tier 1, you should probably sell Bronze though. If the person can't smelt, then they can't use Copper ingots. The only person who uses Copper ingots is a Jeweler and they can smelt their own ore.

Silver should probably be pretty close to Tin in price, but slightly lower because it's only useful to one profession and is usually not quite as difficult to find.

The type of crafting material you need at the moment is always the one that is in short supply.

I saw more like 10-20 silver per ore last week on Landroval. (And I paid ) I honestly thought that was what was meant. I certainly haven't seen ore as low as 5s.

Turbine made a booboo and made copper way more prevalent then tin - and such we now have a botteneck.

Originally Posted by Starrywisdom

Turbine made a booboo and made copper way more prevalent then tin - and such we now have a botteneck.

I don't think it was a boo-boo. Copper is needed for both bronze (weapons & armour) AND for jewelry, so it's needed a bit more. There seems a slightly exaggerated disparity beyond that need, but I'm sure it was mostly intentional..

Something to keep in mind that many players don't know is that the rare ores share spawn locations with the common ores. If you're out gathering the rare ore and you're skipping the common ore you're shooting yourself in the foot because by not gathering the common ore you're keeping that location from having a chance to spawn the rare ore.

So, to increase the rare ores, make sure you gather the common too. Then, when you've gone a ways, turn back around and go back the way you came and the ore locations that spawned after you gathered it might have the rare ores this time through.

Originally Posted by KualaBangoDango

Something to keep in mind that many players don't know is that the rare ores share spawn locations with the common ores. If you're out gathering the rare ore and you're skipping the common ore you're shooting yourself in the foot because by not gathering the common ore you're keeping that location from having a chance to spawn the rare ore.

So, to increase the rare ores, make sure you gather the common too. Then, when you've gone a ways, turn back around and go back the way you came and the ore locations that spawned after you gathered it might have the rare ores this time through.

Very good point, and something my kin elders have been telling me since the beginning.. (I usually follow that advice, but not if it's not too important to grab large quantities, and/or if I'm just gathering while going from point A to point B)

Originally Posted by Starrywisdom

Turbine made a booboo and made copper way more prevalent then tin - and such we now have a botteneck.

Copper is needed for tinkerers as well as making bronze bars, so it should be more prevalent. It does seem a little too unbalanced, but I think that's because of the "non-gathering" principle posted above. The pity seems to be that by gathering the common, you take the chance of someone else coming along between the time you revisit the spawn area and getting the rarer ore.

I would have liked to have their spawns be more mysterious and possibly even tied to a player at the point of gathering...with a tier one ore node not "announcing" itself, but when gathering, a player's gather history is checked and the ore doled out accordingly.

That's probably ridiculous, but to me that seems more fair than ore hunters out to "farm" the rarer types.