I want to craft, but I simply don't have sufficient Tomes of Secrets dropping to do gems and 1.0.7 craftables. Part of me thinks I may be better off just selling the gems I'm accumulating and just purchasing the Radiant Stars as needed. Then again I sometimes feel that I am doing a lot of crafting and, maybe, I should just bite the bullet and buy Tomes of Secrets on the AH and live with it.
crafting has historically always been cheaper. There are multiple calculators you can google for that will tell you what the gold difference is. Two notes:
1)sometimes people are willing to sell face to face at cheaper than AH rates (because they are going to lose 15% on AH)
2)the next patch will include a "batch" craft that will allow you to craft the 800 million gems you need to make a Marquis gem all at once without having to click 800 million times.
I craft everything. But then again, I also pick up everything (except blues and whites).
Same.
I'm just hitting a point where I barely find enough Tomes of Secrets to fuel gear crafting. Gem crafting seems daunting and brutal. I have plenty of gold from selling all of my dozens of Inna's Helms (I seriously wish I were lying here, I seem to find at least one per week and I sure as shit can't use them all :().
crafting has historically always been cheaper. There are multiple calculators you can google for that will tell you what the gold difference is.
Mind linking some?
As for the craft-all feature, that's nice, but that's not really where my problem is. I'm hording Flawless Square gems at the moment because, frankly, there's just no point to craft gems now when in a week or two it's going to be set it and forget it. The button-mashing to make gems TODAY just isn't worth the convenience gain TOMORROW, if you know what I mean.
I'm talking about from a materials perspective, given that I probably do not have sufficient Tomes of Secrets.
Do I stop crafting gear (somehow I think that's a very stupid idea) or do I bite the bullet and buy 2-3000 Tomes of Secrets on the AH (I sold several thousand at the beginning of 1.0.7 when they were much higher price and they were sitting in my bank).... or do I just keep going and hope I nail a few nice crafts and then open up the door to stockpile Tomes of Secrets for gems?
Just out of curiosity: why are you reluctant to buy tomes from the AH?
You might laugh, but it irritates me to have to buy crafting mats. I have plenty of everything.... except Tomes of Secrets. Makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong when I barely have enough to keep up with the Demonic Essence intake for gear crafting. Finding 1600+ per Radiant Star (from Flawless Square) is unthinkable!
@Turtel
Thanks that does simplify a lot of the math for me and helps me to see where my price point is if I'm crafting for myself. Tomes of Secrets are stupid cheap on the US AH it seems. 280g per, making them about 5% of the total cost of the gem. I guess I really shouldn't be worried about slogging 450k or so into the AH to make a gem especially since I managed to sell Tomes of Secrets at 5-6x that price when 1.0.7 went live. I would like to be able to craft self-found but I'm just not seeing that as reasonable so long as I'm making gloves, bracers, amulets, chests, etc.
If anyone has hot Tome of Secret farming tricks, please do let me know!
On EU - if that's where you play - it is worth to buy Radiant Star gems right now, because they are on RMAH for about 80cents, which lowers the gold prices too (they were at 12mil at one point about a week ago; crafting fees are 15.4mil excluding mats).
How is it even possible market price < crafting price.... >.<
I doubt it's duping. I think it's rather related to the low price of gems on the RMAH.
If you sell one item for 70 bucks on the RMAH, you can buy about 100 gems, and I guess some of the AH flippers are turning this into gold again then - and even if they sell every gem for just 10 million (which would be extremely underpriced compared to crafting cost of one gem) they still end up with a billion. Wondering though if Blizzard bans these people at some point.
How do people run out of tomes.
I have over 2000 tomes and I can't use them up for anything. I replenish them almost instantly after using on something. Odd.
Why'd Blizzard ban them? They don't do anything wrong and provide income for Blizzard.
The "provide income for Blizzard" is not an argument, so let's forget about this. If "getting people onto the (RM)AH" would be Blizzard's #1 priority they wouldn't have introduced BoA items in the first place.
Not sure if they do or don't do anything wrong, but I remember there was a thread on the official forums discussing this, I think along the lines of "don't run a business" thing of the Terms of Use. Can't find it.
You basically said exactly what i did
That doesn't explain why the gems are so cheap - 65cents right now. It doesn't make sense to me why would anyone legitimately sell a gem for that low, minus 15 or 30%, when the crafting cost is 15.4 mil + mats. The prices were higher for a few months, emeralds used to cost nearly 30mil, which was about the crafting+mats cost + about 10-12%, which makes sence, but then 1eur gems apear on RMAH, which drives GAH price down a little.
It's probably just me... i'm missing something.
The reason that they are so cheap on the RMAH is because so many people are using them as a way to turn gold into real money. The reason they are so cheap on the gold AH is because people buy them with real money and then turn around and sell them immediately for gold. How much they cost to make originally isn't relevant at a certain point because they are just being used as currency. Allowing gold to be sold for 100,000,000 for .25 would push them to more realistic prices, but Blizzard doesn't seem to care.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
The reason that they are so cheap on the RMAH is because so many people are using them as a way to turn gold into real money. The reason they are so cheap on the gold AH is because people buy them with real money and then turn around and sell them immediately for gold. How much they cost to make originally isn't relevant at a certain point because they are just being used as currency. Allowing gold to be sold for 100,000,000 for .25 would push them to more realistic prices, but Blizzard doesn't seem to care.
Yo dawg, we heard you like bartering so we put a currency in your currency so you can trade while you trade.
All the gems I have either in my stash or socketed into my gear were picked up from drops, upcrafted and upgraded into higher tiers. My main is a Monk and I've buffed his Vitality, so I'm kinda short on Emeralds and Amethysts, and have a pretty high abundance in Topazes and Rubies, just because I haven't gotten around to upgrading them. I pick up every item blue and higher, and mostly from vending (but buffed with a small handful of lowball auction sales, most of which, though, was me pawning some AH gear I'd bought for my Wizard to make an alt CM/WW build for my existing character, and making back only a fraction of the gold I'd paid), I have around 11million gold right now, and that's after a few bouts of gem and gear crafting I'd done recently costing 4-5 million at a clip. If it takes me a year or more to make my first Marquise, it's fine. Running out of gems to upgrade just means I have more to farm and adds in another "yes! look what dropped!" feel when I get more emeralds and amethysts from bad guys.
The only problem I've run into is that I've run considerably out of Tomes of Jewelcrafting and Pages of Jewelcrafting, but I still have a few hundred Radiant and Square gems to upgrade to Flawless Square level, due to all the upgrading. If I travel back to Hell Difficulty to hopefully farm more Tomes, though, I end up with even MORE gems of the tier I'm trying to upgrade from, meaning I'd continually go in a huge circle trying to farm enough Tomes to catch up and even it all out.
So, while I don't use the AH to buy gear anymore, I may end up calculating how many Tomes I need, and buy the Tomes from the AH. If I could farm them and make headway even slowly, I would, but at the rate I'd go, that's a lifelong endeavor that's seriously not worth the time, even for the bragging rights of saying I crafted all my gems. Just knowing that I crafted all my own dropped gems to higher tiers is good enough.
Until they increase the drop rate of Tomes or Pages somehow, I don't have a big problem with buying the Tomes. Just haven't gotten around to it.
Until they increase the drop rate of Tomes or Pages somehow, I don't have a big problem with buying the Tomes. Just haven't gotten around to it.
I've never understood why they included tomes and pages in crafting beyond levelling the artisans. Because of the AH, gold = tomes anyway, so it's just superfluous. The limiting factor ought to be the actual components involved
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
Until they increase the drop rate of Tomes or Pages somehow, I don't have a big problem with buying the Tomes. Just haven't gotten around to it.
I've never understood why they included tomes and pages in crafting beyond levelling the artisans. Because of the AH, gold = tomes anyway, so it's just superfluous. The limiting factor ought to be the actual components involved
Well, I like that there's an artisan to do it, and that there's an extra step. Gives players more to do. I mean, anytime a player sees going out and killing monsters as a chore, something's wrong. Sure, lots of people would like crafting to be instant like it was in D2, where you just shove stuff in a little magic box and click a button, but I like that the process is more involved now.
The AH just makes things way too easy. Not making any implications about you, but some people just see it as the most efficient way to do things and save time, so naturally, that's the right way. I don't agree. I bought this game because I knew it would take lots of time, and I'm enjoying the time I'm putting in.
You say the limiting factor should be the components, but having JUST the components JUST means it happens instantly and in less time and requires less effort. As I said above about killing monsters, when I see that I'm out of gems to craft, or materials, I see it as one more reason to go out and kill more monsters. Normally, I keep stacks of 500 of all crafting materials on hand, in case I have a hankering to craft. I did a bout of crafting last night, so I'm down about 120 Exquisite Essences, maybe even some Iridescent Tears, so tonight when I get online, I'll be salvaging tons of blues to restore my stock, and maybe some yellows.
The problem I pointed out with the Tomes I need is that there isn't any amount of time I can farm to get enough Tomes to catch up with the amount of gems I'd be getting, too, so in that case, buying the Tomes would be the best idea. In fact, with multicrafting happening in the patch coming, now would be the perfect time to buy them and get that out of the way. Honestly, only reasons I haven't done it yet are 1) wasn't a big enough problem to go and bother with, and 2) multicrafting was coming in the patch, so it would've been easier to just wait till that feature came to do it. I can queue up a ton of gems to craft, go do some chores and it'll be done when I get back, :-)
But that's how it is for me. I'm sure others feel the same, that needing pages and tomes is silly, but like I said...I like that the extra step requires more time and effort. Could just be me.
You say the limiting factor should be the components, but having JUST the components JUST means it happens instantly and in less time and requires less effort. As I said above about killing monsters, when I see that I'm out of gems to craft, or materials, I see it as one more reason to go out and kill more monsters. Normally, I keep stacks of 500 of all crafting materials on hand, in case I have a hankering to craft. I did a bout of crafting last night, so I'm down about 120 Exquisite Essences, maybe even some Iridescent Tears, so tonight when I get online, I'll be salvaging tons of blues to restore my stock, and maybe some yellows.
The problem I pointed out with the Tomes I need is that there isn't any amount of time I can farm to get enough Tomes to catch up with the amount of gems I'd be getting, too, so in that case, buying the Tomes would be the best idea. In fact, with multicrafting happening in the patch coming, now would be the perfect time to buy them and get that out of the way. Honestly, only reasons I haven't done it yet are 1) wasn't a big enough problem to go and bother with, and 2) multicrafting was coming in the patch, so it would've been easier to just wait till that feature came to do it. I can queue up a ton of gems to craft, go do some chores and it'll be done when I get back, :-)
I'm not entirely sure I understand you. What I'm saying is that gems + gold + tomes = gems + gold + slightly more gold. The tomes themselves add nothing of value to the equation beyond some arbitrary factor for limiting crafting, which only limits crafting if you artificially cripple yourself by not using the AH. You could say the same for the gems themselves I guess, but you're actually crafting the gems here -- the tomes are just superfluous, especially since they're required to craft so many different things. It doesn't really bother me -- it just feels like a strange game design decision.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
You say the limiting factor should be the components, but having JUST the components JUST means it happens instantly and in less time and requires less effort. As I said above about killing monsters, when I see that I'm out of gems to craft, or materials, I see it as one more reason to go out and kill more monsters. Normally, I keep stacks of 500 of all crafting materials on hand, in case I have a hankering to craft. I did a bout of crafting last night, so I'm down about 120 Exquisite Essences, maybe even some Iridescent Tears, so tonight when I get online, I'll be salvaging tons of blues to restore my stock, and maybe some yellows.
The problem I pointed out with the Tomes I need is that there isn't any amount of time I can farm to get enough Tomes to catch up with the amount of gems I'd be getting, too, so in that case, buying the Tomes would be the best idea. In fact, with multicrafting happening in the patch coming, now would be the perfect time to buy them and get that out of the way. Honestly, only reasons I haven't done it yet are 1) wasn't a big enough problem to go and bother with, and 2) multicrafting was coming in the patch, so it would've been easier to just wait till that feature came to do it. I can queue up a ton of gems to craft, go do some chores and it'll be done when I get back, :-)
I'm not entirely sure I understand you. What I'm saying is that The tomes themselves add nothing of value to the equation beyond some arbitrary factor for limiting crafting, which only limits crafting if you artificially cripple yourself by not using the AH. You could say the same for the gems themselves I guess, but you're actually crafting the gems here -- the tomes are just superfluous, especially since they're required to craft so many different things. It doesn't really bother me -- it just feels like a strange game design decision.
But that's the point I'm trying to make with all this. Your line "which only limits crafting if you artificially cripple yourself by not using the AH" is wrong, or at least, unnecessarily simple.
I'm not artificially crippling myself by not using the AH. I'm progressing organically through it instead of magic bulleting to the end faster than I need to. I'm using MONSTERS as my main source of materials, gear, gold, etc., instead of just going to the player-run flea market whenever I'm short on materials or DPS or Crit. My ability to craft more gems hinges on how many monsters I kill, and what they yield, instead of just "how much gold I have." Which is exactly why Tomes and materials like them are a good idea.
You're saying an added crafting material like Tomes is superfluous, I get it. What I'm saying is...the need for Tomes gives you one more reason to go out and kill monsters, which gets you more stuff than JUST gold or gems or tomes. Here's your equation...
"(gems + gold + tomes) is the same as (gems + gold + slightly more gold)"
You go to the AH to buy materials, you've just wasted a perfectly good opportunity for more gold, more XP, more battle practice, getting better acquainted with skills and builds, keys, and everything else killing monsters gets you. Yes, it's easier and faster to say, "I'm out of Tomes > Leave game > AH". When I'm out of a material, my first thought is "kill more monsters."
Unfortunately, I can't farm the specific tomes I need without getting the same gems I'm trying to upcraft, leading to an unfortunate cycle I'd like to alleviate by just buying the frickin Tomes. So okay...ONE exception where my equation doesn't work, but honestly...if you're calling "tomes" superfluous, my desire to upcraft lower tier gems must be just anathema to you, :-)
Nope, your desire to upgrade your own gems makes perfect sense to me despite my not sharing it. Your equation doesn't refute my point though -- it just refuses to address it. Ignore what I said about not using the AH for a moment. What value do you feel is added by having to include pages and tomes when you upgrade gems? You don't do anything different to farm the tomes than you do to get the gems and gold. so what's the point? If you feel it adds to the fun factor, then why not have 10 different kinds of tomes and require one of each in order to upgrade the gems? Wouldn't that be 10 times as fun? The answer is the same as it is when we're only talking about 1 kind of tome -- it's superfluous by definition because it doesn't add anything to the system since gold is the limiting factor on the total amount of things you can craft, and since emeralds are the limiting factor on the number of emeralds you can craft.
Now, if you choose not to trade, that's your deal and it bothers me not at all. I feel like you're looking for an opportunity to take offense here where none exists. I also don't really care if Blizzard likes tomes since they're freely available anyway. It's just an oddity to me is all.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
I am surprised you (and the other posters) are discussing how the tomes are useless, when gold is just as useless (excepted as a currency for the AH). We could play the game just fine without the gold (repair is a useless mechanic). Gold is used for crafting only because there is so much gold we have to get rid of it. Without gold in the game we could have the exact same crafting system (maybe balancing the required mats a little) without needing gold at all.
If gold were not required for crafting, then the tomes would make total sense (though the drop rate would probably need to be reduced and some recipes (like gems) tweaked to use less to make them meaningful). It's the combination of both that seems redundant to me. I also agree that the gold sinks in this game feel very by-the-numbers and don't make a lot of sense when you drill into them, hence the massive amounts of gold that get thrown around. Hopefully they'll fix this at some point so that we aren't buying all of our gear for 2 billion gold per item in a year.
Edit: Stupid bug. I think my prediction came clear 1 year too early (I'm mostly kidding, hopefully they can fix this).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
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What do you guys do?
1)sometimes people are willing to sell face to face at cheaper than AH rates (because they are going to lose 15% on AH)
2)the next patch will include a "batch" craft that will allow you to craft the 800 million gems you need to make a Marquis gem all at once without having to click 800 million times.
Same.
I'm just hitting a point where I barely find enough Tomes of Secrets to fuel gear crafting. Gem crafting seems daunting and brutal. I have plenty of gold from selling all of my dozens of Inna's Helms (I seriously wish I were lying here, I seem to find at least one per week and I sure as shit can't use them all :().
Mind linking some?
As for the craft-all feature, that's nice, but that's not really where my problem is. I'm hording Flawless Square gems at the moment because, frankly, there's just no point to craft gems now when in a week or two it's going to be set it and forget it. The button-mashing to make gems TODAY just isn't worth the convenience gain TOMORROW, if you know what I mean.
I'm talking about from a materials perspective, given that I probably do not have sufficient Tomes of Secrets.
Do I stop crafting gear (somehow I think that's a very stupid idea) or do I bite the bullet and buy 2-3000 Tomes of Secrets on the AH (I sold several thousand at the beginning of 1.0.7 when they were much higher price and they were sitting in my bank).... or do I just keep going and hope I nail a few nice crafts and then open up the door to stockpile Tomes of Secrets for gems?
Gah!
You might laugh, but it irritates me to have to buy crafting mats. I have plenty of everything.... except Tomes of Secrets. Makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong when I barely have enough to keep up with the Demonic Essence intake for gear crafting. Finding 1600+ per Radiant Star (from Flawless Square) is unthinkable!
@Turtel
Thanks that does simplify a lot of the math for me and helps me to see where my price point is if I'm crafting for myself. Tomes of Secrets are stupid cheap on the US AH it seems. 280g per, making them about 5% of the total cost of the gem. I guess I really shouldn't be worried about slogging 450k or so into the AH to make a gem especially since I managed to sell Tomes of Secrets at 5-6x that price when 1.0.7 went live. I would like to be able to craft self-found but I'm just not seeing that as reasonable so long as I'm making gloves, bracers, amulets, chests, etc.
If anyone has hot Tome of Secret farming tricks, please do let me know!
How is it even possible market price < crafting price.... >.<
If you sell one item for 70 bucks on the RMAH, you can buy about 100 gems, and I guess some of the AH flippers are turning this into gold again then - and even if they sell every gem for just 10 million (which would be extremely underpriced compared to crafting cost of one gem) they still end up with a billion. Wondering though if Blizzard bans these people at some point.
I have over 2000 tomes and I can't use them up for anything. I replenish them almost instantly after using on something. Odd.
And what Bagstone said about gems.
Ha. Bagstone.
The "provide income for Blizzard" is not an argument, so let's forget about this. If "getting people onto the (RM)AH" would be Blizzard's #1 priority they wouldn't have introduced BoA items in the first place.
Not sure if they do or don't do anything wrong, but I remember there was a thread on the official forums discussing this, I think along the lines of "don't run a business" thing of the Terms of Use. Can't find it.
The reason that they are so cheap on the RMAH is because so many people are using them as a way to turn gold into real money. The reason they are so cheap on the gold AH is because people buy them with real money and then turn around and sell them immediately for gold. How much they cost to make originally isn't relevant at a certain point because they are just being used as currency. Allowing gold to be sold for 100,000,000 for .25 would push them to more realistic prices, but Blizzard doesn't seem to care.
Yo dawg, we heard you like bartering so we put a currency in your currency so you can trade while you trade.
Something like that, right?
The only problem I've run into is that I've run considerably out of Tomes of Jewelcrafting and Pages of Jewelcrafting, but I still have a few hundred Radiant and Square gems to upgrade to Flawless Square level, due to all the upgrading. If I travel back to Hell Difficulty to hopefully farm more Tomes, though, I end up with even MORE gems of the tier I'm trying to upgrade from, meaning I'd continually go in a huge circle trying to farm enough Tomes to catch up and even it all out.
So, while I don't use the AH to buy gear anymore, I may end up calculating how many Tomes I need, and buy the Tomes from the AH. If I could farm them and make headway even slowly, I would, but at the rate I'd go, that's a lifelong endeavor that's seriously not worth the time, even for the bragging rights of saying I crafted all my gems. Just knowing that I crafted all my own dropped gems to higher tiers is good enough.
Until they increase the drop rate of Tomes or Pages somehow, I don't have a big problem with buying the Tomes. Just haven't gotten around to it.
I've never understood why they included tomes and pages in crafting beyond levelling the artisans. Because of the AH, gold = tomes anyway, so it's just superfluous. The limiting factor ought to be the actual components involved
Well, I like that there's an artisan to do it, and that there's an extra step. Gives players more to do. I mean, anytime a player sees going out and killing monsters as a chore, something's wrong. Sure, lots of people would like crafting to be instant like it was in D2, where you just shove stuff in a little magic box and click a button, but I like that the process is more involved now.
The AH just makes things way too easy. Not making any implications about you, but some people just see it as the most efficient way to do things and save time, so naturally, that's the right way. I don't agree. I bought this game because I knew it would take lots of time, and I'm enjoying the time I'm putting in.
You say the limiting factor should be the components, but having JUST the components JUST means it happens instantly and in less time and requires less effort. As I said above about killing monsters, when I see that I'm out of gems to craft, or materials, I see it as one more reason to go out and kill more monsters. Normally, I keep stacks of 500 of all crafting materials on hand, in case I have a hankering to craft. I did a bout of crafting last night, so I'm down about 120 Exquisite Essences, maybe even some Iridescent Tears, so tonight when I get online, I'll be salvaging tons of blues to restore my stock, and maybe some yellows.
The problem I pointed out with the Tomes I need is that there isn't any amount of time I can farm to get enough Tomes to catch up with the amount of gems I'd be getting, too, so in that case, buying the Tomes would be the best idea. In fact, with multicrafting happening in the patch coming, now would be the perfect time to buy them and get that out of the way. Honestly, only reasons I haven't done it yet are 1) wasn't a big enough problem to go and bother with, and 2) multicrafting was coming in the patch, so it would've been easier to just wait till that feature came to do it. I can queue up a ton of gems to craft, go do some chores and it'll be done when I get back, :-)
But that's how it is for me. I'm sure others feel the same, that needing pages and tomes is silly, but like I said...I like that the extra step requires more time and effort. Could just be me.
I'm not entirely sure I understand you. What I'm saying is that gems + gold + tomes = gems + gold + slightly more gold. The tomes themselves add nothing of value to the equation beyond some arbitrary factor for limiting crafting, which only limits crafting if you artificially cripple yourself by not using the AH. You could say the same for the gems themselves I guess, but you're actually crafting the gems here -- the tomes are just superfluous, especially since they're required to craft so many different things. It doesn't really bother me -- it just feels like a strange game design decision.
But that's the point I'm trying to make with all this. Your line "which only limits crafting if you artificially cripple yourself by not using the AH" is wrong, or at least, unnecessarily simple.
I'm not artificially crippling myself by not using the AH. I'm progressing organically through it instead of magic bulleting to the end faster than I need to. I'm using MONSTERS as my main source of materials, gear, gold, etc., instead of just going to the player-run flea market whenever I'm short on materials or DPS or Crit. My ability to craft more gems hinges on how many monsters I kill, and what they yield, instead of just "how much gold I have." Which is exactly why Tomes and materials like them are a good idea.
You're saying an added crafting material like Tomes is superfluous, I get it. What I'm saying is...the need for Tomes gives you one more reason to go out and kill monsters, which gets you more stuff than JUST gold or gems or tomes. Here's your equation...
"(gems + gold + tomes) is the same as (gems + gold + slightly more gold)"
Here's my equation...
"(killing monsters) = (gems + gold + gear upgrades + materials + xp + infernal keys + etc.)"
You go to the AH to buy materials, you've just wasted a perfectly good opportunity for more gold, more XP, more battle practice, getting better acquainted with skills and builds, keys, and everything else killing monsters gets you. Yes, it's easier and faster to say, "I'm out of Tomes > Leave game > AH". When I'm out of a material, my first thought is "kill more monsters."
Unfortunately, I can't farm the specific tomes I need without getting the same gems I'm trying to upcraft, leading to an unfortunate cycle I'd like to alleviate by just buying the frickin Tomes. So okay...ONE exception where my equation doesn't work, but honestly...if you're calling "tomes" superfluous, my desire to upcraft lower tier gems must be just anathema to you, :-)
Now, if you choose not to trade, that's your deal and it bothers me not at all. I feel like you're looking for an opportunity to take offense here where none exists. I also don't really care if Blizzard likes tomes since they're freely available anyway. It's just an oddity to me is all.
If gold were not required for crafting, then the tomes would make total sense (though the drop rate would probably need to be reduced and some recipes (like gems) tweaked to use less to make them meaningful). It's the combination of both that seems redundant to me. I also agree that the gold sinks in this game feel very by-the-numbers and don't make a lot of sense when you drill into them, hence the massive amounts of gold that get thrown around. Hopefully they'll fix this at some point so that we aren't buying all of our gear for 2 billion gold per item in a year.
Edit: Stupid bug. I think my prediction came clear 1 year too early (I'm mostly kidding, hopefully they can fix this).