Back to basics

Where to begin...

With Mists of Pandaria (MoP) soon to be available, I’m going to start a short series of guides as to how to get from no professions, to choosing the items to sell to maximise profit.

The recommendation below is not from the perspective of a hardcore raider, but more to achieve synergy in gold making.

From the start work towards finding a level 13+ (Preferably 25) guild to join as you level your character. Keep an eye on trade chat for any guild advertising. The idea behind this is you will get a bonus to experience gain as you level (Fast Track rank 2 Guild lvl 5) plus another perk (WorkingOvertime Guild lvl 13) and (Bountiful Bags, Guild lvl 22) which will assist you in your profession levelling.

When levelling a toon I always use the free ingame addon from http://wow-pro.com/. This addon is so good I can’t give the authors enough credit.

What Professions to take?

Some people will tell you to level your professions as you level your character, I’ve found this to be more time consuming then doing it once you hit 85, with the possible exception of Gathering professions (Mining, Herbing, Skinning).

Starting out I would recommend Mining and Jewelcrafting (JC) to any new players.

Ore is required by 4 professions while Herbs are only required by 2, so even if you just farm ore you will find a bigger market in Ore. That’s not to say you’ll make more gold in ore, just that there’s more liquidity. The main reason to take JC is that Gems have a very high turnover and with gear being upgraded regularly, customers keep coming back.  JC is also part of the Shuffle which feeds Enchanting. If you want to know how the Shuffle works then the diagram in the link below, will break it down. Having the professions associated with the shuffle is the foundation to the “Consortium Project”

http://stormspire.net/addons-ui-customization/1563-consortium-cataclysm-shuffling-spreadsheet-v4-5-a.html

These sites are a great resource for anybody wishing to level/change professions. They give you a detailed list of materials required to level any profession and what items to craft to quickly max  it.

http://www.wow-professions.com/ or http://www.warcraftprofessional.com/

Once you hit 85 and have levelled your Mining & JC to 525, then I suggest you either drop mining for enchanting or preferably level it on another toon. The synergy between Mining, JC and Enchanting is “Golden”.

After this, on another toon I would take Blacksmithing.  Alchemy is also a good choice because you can transmute uncommon gems into Rare Gems but it requires herbs which you’d have to purchase off the AH. It’s preferable to make friends with a Guildy who has Alchemy (Transmutation Master) as a profession and see if they’d be willing to craft Rare Gems for you for free/small fee, if not go outside your guild.

So to break it down, 2 toons with the following professions.  

Toon A - Mining & JC

Toon B - Enchanting & Blacksmithting.

Now you are ready to make some serious gold.

384 DK Tank LF Heroic Dragonsoul full clear

Undergeared but experienced

I transferred my DK from Horde to alliance this week, I forgot how undergeared she was. Ilvl 383 but the Tank set was pretty good but for the Trinkets. I purchased a JP cloak (397) and I was good to go. Fortunately my Raid Leader is flexible and didn’t mind me off tanking so in I went to Heroic Dragonsoul having never stepped into anything past LFR on it.

The crazy thing is I didn’t have a problem. I died when Morchok was around 3% Health but by the time his twin made it to the other side, Morchok was a Corpse. Looky Looky  Indomitable Pride drops yay, the other DK tank already had it.

I went DPS for the next 3 fights. This is where I was carried. My DPS gear really sux, but I was able to pull 25k DPS which I thought was ok considering. We 1 shotted all three.

We had a few wipes on Ultraxion, 1 because I didn’t have DBM setup correctly on this toon and was missing the Fading Light taunts…..my bad.

The Loot Ship was a cakewalk, again I off tanked. We had a few wipes on Spine, but eventually got through with me dying to blood damage on the last platform, but in the Corruption phase, so DPS took that out.

Back to DPS for Madness, again a cakewalk, Blizz finally fixed the adds on the last platform so it was sweet. Souldrinker for me, woohoo.

I think a lot of my survival had to do with the excellent healz our group has, but even so as an undergeared Tank, knowing when to blow cooldowns, helps a shitload.

 

Heroic Dragonsoul + Mount

Heroic Dragonsoul + Mount

Last week our 10 man team got Heroic Dragon Soul down and I was the lucky mount recipient.

I have been raiding on my Druid as a Tank this expansion and I have had a blast, until patch 5.04 hit. WTF have Blizz done to Druid Tanks. I’m sorry to say but I won’t be playing my Druid in MoP.  Having to refresh Savage Defence every 6-9 secs is idiotic and a huge backwards step. I easily was able to mitigate the damage from Impale on Madness of DW until this patch, now I have to blow CD’s all over the place, just to survive, it’s total crap. I ended up speccing as Boomkin for the fight as our OT DK single tanked the whole fight, ffs not happy.

So now that I’ve vented I can say that my Horde DK will soon be joining the Alliance as my main for MoP.

At last review I had about 2.4 million gold across my toons so I decided to spend some. I purchased a Spectral Tiger Mount for 350k which was probably Duped, but I bought it from a fellow AH Goblin who I knew pretty well, so I was confident there would be no drama in the transaction.

I normally would not purchase these sorts of items but since they’ve became account bound it’s now something all my toons can enjoy and easier to justify. The only other mount that I really want is Ashes of Alar. Maybe in Mop I’ll be able to solo it or at worst keep an eye on the Blackmarket AH but when that goes up I could see someone bidding 999999.99 gold for it.

How to make 600k gold per month

aka the Consortium Project.

Wow! times flies when you’re on holidays. Lot’s has happened in the last month. Took the family on a Cruise through the South Pacific which was fantastic and I highly recommend them to people with kids….

Back in July I setup a Project to see what a group of like-minded Goblins could accomplish on the AH.

The idea is to have all the major consumables covered on the AH and watched as much as possible during the day and evening. I’m calling this Project “Consortium”. My best friend in game, his wife and myself are the 3 members of the guild and are enjoying rich rewards.

We’re talking Gems, Enchants, Belt Buckles, Leatherworking Leg Enchants, Tailoring Leg Enchants, and Glyphs. Anything that moves fast and is easily sold.

Our first month we made (July) 600,000 gold profit the second month with me away half the month, we made (Aug) 500,000 gold profit. This month (Sept) has slowed down due to MoP’s imminent release I’m guessing, but we’ll still make good gold.

 

The reason I titles this post how I did is becuase Glyph sales have been so pathetic it's hardly worth the effort. The 600k gold was brought in by 1 player. I would estimate that about 20k max could be attributed to Glyphs. Patch 5.0.4 has seen the glyph market become a bit more viable .

 

The Consortium Project ideology

The idea is to have a member post auctions during the day while gathering mats to keep costs down. At night the other 2 members keep their markets topped off and replenish stock levels.

Gathering has not been really necessary other than for Dragonscales as they are pretty expensive. Ore is cheap as to are herbs currently. Ore is shuffled or turned into Stormfoged Shoulders for DE and Belt Buckles. Herbs are milled for glyphs and  used to craft Inferno Rubys.

The great thing is the synergy between us, and I can’t wait till MoP to put this into full swing now that Scribes can make the shoulder enchants. Together we have the following professions covered.

Mining x2

Herbs x2

Scribes x3

Enchanters x3

Alchemists x2

Tailors x2

JC x3

LW x 1

BS x 1

2 Million and Counting

Well this week I reached 2 Million Gold. Thanks to dupers, I was able to pick up mass quantities of Queen's Garnet (QG) for 300g ea and sell them for 5,6,700g ea. I shipped about half of them off to Horde side which didn't enjoy the luxury of having a duper and made a killing, where they had been selling for 1000g ea. Alliance side had a few Goblins pick them up same as I did, but I'm a serial squatter of the AH, so they ended up spamming trade chat to flog off their wares.

I also learnt that dupers can be liars, I know it's hard to believe but I was told "hey, buy my remaining stock cause I won't be back for a month" and fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
It was the first wave of duped QG that hit the Server. I went in heavy and bought about 120k worth at about 430g each, thinking cool I'll own the market.
At this point QG were selling at 1,000g a pop, nice I thought. In the first week I sold about three quarters of my QG stock, then wtf he was back spamming trade again this time 350g ea.  But he's not supposed to be back for 3 more weeks :( 

How could he do this to me, well fortunatley I still had Horde side which none of the other Goblins even considered. Off the remaining stoock went to Horde and I bought more at 350g. The AH price dropped at this point to about 700g, still a nice profit, this time I bought a bit  more cautiously, I still spent about 90-100k, but I also started chatting with the duper to get more info about who was buying.
Well even more "wannabe" Goblins got in on the act and the AH war started, prices went down to 500g ea and lower, but still very profitable. Again they resorted to spamming trade. I dropped the price on Horde side too just to make sure no Goblins saw an opportunity but I was still the only person with mass quantities of QG.

Another week goes by and the duper is back again. 330g each, I had almost sold my stock this time and once again went in big. The duper and I are chatting more and more now and he offers me 300g each. Don't ya love a bargain, well I do. Last night I bought his "supposed" last remaining stock as I was almost out too. I'm sure I'll see him back next week.

Etched Horn....better than nothing

Etched Horn....better than nothing

I have not really bothered with the glyph market in recent months as there is a lot of competition as you’d expect. I decided to only post the really popular glyphs about 125, twice daily. I have a scribe on both Horde & Alliance.

I have noticed recently that Whiptail has come down in price considerably on Caelestrasz. Both factions are selling it for about 20-22g per stack, down from 35g. I bought up about 1000 stacks over that last few weeks and started milling last weekend. Why buy 1000 stacks? Well MoP is around the corner and I can swap the Blackfallow inks for common inks in preparation.

I started to accumulate a lot of Inferno Ink in the process. The only use for Inferno Ink in bulk is for Darkmoon cards, which is not worth the effort this late in the expansion. I tried selling the Inferno Ink , but other scribes have come to the same conclusion it seems. I sold some but the demand for it is not great. I’ll try discounting it in light of the below results.

Etched Horn  came to mind as an alternative but is it economically viable to produce?

I can buy the Scavanged Dragon Horn for 11g ea with exalted rep and I have plenty on Inferno Inks to play with. I decided to produce 100x Etched horn and see what I could get by Disenchanting (DE) them.

Wowhead indicated I could get from (1-4) Small Heavenly Shard with each DE……lies, lies, lies.

After 100 DE’s I got 115 Small Heavenly Shards, and I attribute the 15x extra to the Bountiful Bags proc. The 115 Small Heavenly Shards turn into 38 Heavenly Shards.

Now let’s work out how much each Inferno Ink is costing me. Heavenly Shards go for 70g ea usually.

So 38x 70g =                                                                       2660g

The 100x Scavanged Dragon Horn cost                   1100g

Profit                                                                                     1560g

Therefore the 400 Inferno Inks sale price was     3.9g ea

So if I can’t get more than 3.9g ea on the AH then I’ll make Etched Horns but otherwise it’s probably better to try and sell by discounting.

Grab a bargain

Grab a bargain

I was late to the JC party, levelling a Paladin to 85 in my spare time was a long process. I had to make a decision when I finally reached Max level.  Do I go for Epic Gem recipes or start collecting the Blue quality ones?  At the time Queens Garnet were 1500g ea, and in my mind I thought not a lot of people would be purchasing them at this price. I decided to do the JC Daily and turn in the token for all the in-demand blue quality cuts….. Some months later and Queens Garnet are now 500g in the AH. I have managed to do the JC Daily most days and collect most of the Blue cuts I wanted, I have recently turned my attention to Epic Cuts. If you have not realised by now Spellcasters make up a significant proportion of the available Classes and specs. Most spellcasters gem for Brilliant cuts, so it should be no surprise that the first recipe I purchased was the Brilliant Queens Garnet. Second on my list was Delicate Queens Garnet (I have a Bear Tank & Hunter Alt simple choice for me). After that I went with what other Epic cuts I could use on my own characters next.

I recommend that you watch Trade chat as much as possible, you can pick up great bargains. Last night I picked up 100x Queens Garnet for 300g ea. On the AH now both Brilliant & Delicate cuts are going for approximately 1000g. That 30k will turn into 90k+ over the weekend.