Gold Making in Warlords [Primer]

[Alroxas]

It seems every day that someone keeps asking the question how do I make (large) piles of gold in Warlords. So we're going to break it down for you in 1 singular post.

Crafting Professions - Overview:

The primary hurdle in crafting profession in making gold for Warlords is that Blizzard has placed barriers of entry to slow the market. First, it takes a lot of resources to make most epics (100 profession specific daily mats + extra items) and the truly valuable upgrade tokens require Savage Blood to make.

Daily Mat Production:

While you can speed up daily mat production by having the specific garrison profession building (small buildings) and having a follower assigned to said building to increase production, you are basically limited by the internal work order processing time of 4 hours. This means that a maximum of 6 work orders can be completed by a building every day. Having more than 6 work orders submitted just means that you don't have to check in as frequently to collect the processed items and re-queue up the work orders.

Savage Blood Production:

Savage blood comes from two sources (so far). The first is via a work orders from a level 3 barn when you turn in Elite trapped animals from Nagrand. The second is via Primal Spirits which can be traded to a vendor for Savage Blood (among other resources). These will be BoP and similar to how Spirits of Harmony worked in Mists prior to patch 6.x

Crafting Professions - Analysis:

The ranking of what will likely yield the highest profit from WoD is as follows:

1. Savage Blood
2. Upgrade Tokens
3. Profession Specific Items
4. Epic level crafted weapons
5. Epic level crafted armor

Savage blood farming is the highest yield because this mat is used by various crafting professions to make the upgrade tokens for epic level crafted items. Next would the be the actual upgrade tokens themselves as only people with professions can make them (garrison buildings can't produce them). After the specific profession made items such as the new 30 slot bag (Hexaweave Bags for instance), new mounts and new pets are viable markets because of the unique nature of people wanting exclusive items. Then after that will be the Epic quality weapons then armor (un-upgraded) if they exist at all as markets because a lv 3 garrison building can make most of these items (some exclusions can be found).


Gathering Professions - Overview:

Surprising, herbalism and fishing have increased in significant for Warlords. Numerous recipes in Alchemy require different kinds of fish as reagents and Gorgrond Flytrap is a key mat required for Tailors and Leatherworkers for their daily CD. The need for the latter can be reduced significantly with a level 2 Herb Garden and assigned follower (to allow this specific herb to be planted). Mining will still see significant interest from both blacksmiths, engineers and jewelcrafters. However skinning has a lower significance as the Barn can provide skins through work orders while not as convenient as the skinning profession, it does devalue the profession since the alternative (Barn) can also produce Savage Blood. Fishing is also an interesting choice now that fish are main reagents for Alchemy potions/flasks and First Aid pots which are being brought back in Warlords.

Gathering Professions - Analysis:

While garrisons do provide buildings that can provide a limited supply of ore and herbs, initial demands for raw materials will always be high on expansion launch. However there are a few notes worth mentioning:

• Gorgrond Flytrap - Demand will be very high until people unlock a lv 2 herb garden and assign a follower
• Skinning - Demand should not taper until lv 3 barns come into play (account-wide achievement locked, more under garrison)
• Fishing - Changes in Alchemy and First Aid creates new markets

Garrisons - Overview & Analysis:

As it has been alluded to earlier, garrisons in Warlords are a contributing factor in reducing player dependence on other players. With exception of very specific items, any player can make most things on their own if given enough time and resources without the need of leveling a new profession (or grinding a profession on an alt). However, Blizzard has taken appropriate steps to ensure that garrison buildings have flaws in them.

First off, the exception items that garrison buildings can't make are arguably the best things from those professions. Weapon/Armor upgrade tokens, new glyphs, weapon enchants, etc. can only be made with having the profession itself.

Second, more advanced craftables require that the garrison building to be upgraded. Interestingly enough, Blizzard has chosen to use account-wide achievements to lock lv 3 buildings from players as a way to slow the "garrison grind".

Some examples:

Level 3 Barn (necessary for Savage Blood production) requires achievement: Master Trapper. This means turning in 125 work orders at the Barn which would take up to 21 days if using just 1 toon. Since the achievement is account wide, this could be reduce to 2 days if using 11 toons.

Level 3 Profession buildings requires achievement: Working More Orders. Which requires 250 total work orders to be done but several factors help you here. There are up to 7 buildings that take work orders on a level 3 garrison and they are: mine, garden, lumber mill, barn, and 3 profession buildings.

In fact, most lv 3 buildings has some sort of achievement tied to it that must be completed for you to get the plans to make them.


Gold Making - Action Plan (TL;DR):

AH Market leaders:

1. Savage Blood - First few months only or till Blackrock Foundry opens?
2. Gorgrond Flytrap - First few weeks only
3. Mats for WoD craftables
4. WoD craftables

Quick Notes:

• Gathering good and expanded to Fishing
• Garrisons = Good but Limited
• Alts = Faster unlock for Garrison

Special cases to follow in future posts.

[Revak]

AWESOME post! Thank you!

I haven't been in the beta or paid any attention to the profession parts of it so this is good info. I usually make my "gold for the xpack" during the first tier of each expansion and then don't bother as I play lots of different toons. This info helps me from the get-go. Much appreciated!

[Alroxas]

Special Case 1 - Market: Bags = High Volatile depends on Server

The first special case we have are bags made by Tailors (and other professions as well). First it's important to understand the new QoL changes that Blizzard has made in relation to bag space. The following changes have dampened the market for bags:

• Trade Goods stack up to 100/200 now
• Gear sharing Primary Stats
• Extra tab in Void Storage (Transmog Storage)
• Reagent Bank (100g cost)
• Toy Storage (account wide)
• Future Tabs: Heirlooms and Tabards
• Storehouse garrison building
• Crafting reagents can be in Bank

These factors (including the future ones) have greatly freed up bag space so that many players now have an abundance of space in their bags. Furthermore, there's now a reduce need for large profession specific bags since accessibility to bank can be increased.

Which leaves general bags to be a very volatile market (depending on server economy).

First, Royal satchel (28 slots bag) has a (limited) direct Warlords competitor (Gronnskin Bag) which only costs 2200g and is BoP. Granted you have to pick a Smuggling Run at the Spires of Arak to get it. While limited to 1 (unique equipped item) this can dampen the market on higher priced bags.

The Warlords bag, Hexaweave Bag (30 slots) is currently a 1.5~2 week grind for the 100 cloths needed to make 1 and in that regard it's fairly close to the 12 days needed to make a Royal Satchel bag. However, the Royal satchel has one benefit that since Spirits/Motes of Harmony are BoE, Imperial Silk production can be must faster.

Given the alleged nerf to AoE farming, older bags prior to Royal Satchels (i.e. Ember Silk Bags, Frostweave Bags) might not be as time efficient to farm for.


TL;DR - Bags are a very very volatile market moving in Warlords.

[Kelnicka]

Great write up. Thank you for your post!

I'm currently trying to wrap my head around all upcoming WoD profession changes and I feel little overwhelmed due my current 11 (lvl 90) character shuffle setup. I have a combination of following professions:

CH1: Mining / Alchemy (xmute)
CH2: Leatherworking / Jewelcrafting
CH3: Herbalism / Alchemy (potion)
CH4: Tailoring / Alchemy (xmute)
CH5: Enchanting / Alchemy (xmute)
CH6: Blacksmith / Alchemy (xmute)
CH7: Engineering / Alchemy (xmute)
CH8: Inscription / Alchemy (xmute)
CH9: Inscription / Alchemy (xmute)
CH10: Inscription / Alchemy (xmute)
CH11: Skinning / Alchemy (xmute)

My pandaria daily shuffle consisted of Sunsong ranch ore farm followed by cycle of - Smelting → Xmute → Living steel (or Living steel Belt Buckle) → AH. It took about an hour a day to complete. This setup proved to be very profitable and stable throughout the expansion.

Do you think that my current setup is somewhat efficient for WoD (time/profit) or should I consider any major changes to capture more sustainable market like living steel/belt buckle used to be?

[Deleted]

There are no benefits of having multiple Alchemists i think. The specializations will have no effect on WOD relevant materials.

This guide looks solid. With the daily cooldown crap everywhere I was struggling to find decent goldmaking method for WOD. Right now I finished my MOP mat shuffle with 1,5 Million gold on hand and almost all TCG mounts collected.

As for the bag space, there's very little reason to buy bags greater than 22 slot now. Before patch I was abusing mailing back and forth between alts because otherwise I'd need above 1000 slots to store my mat stockpiles. Now i have winding emptiness in my bank and bags, which are all around 28 slot royal satchels. I'd need to really stock up like mad man for weeks to fill it up. I held 18.000 ore, 2900 golden lotus and crap load of gems (uncut and cut), still had massive amount of space left.

[Rale89]

Only benefit from having multiple alchemists is increased number of greater flasks you can make, but potential 220+procs greater flasks a day from your set up is a bit of an overkill if you ask me.

My advice would be to focus on crafting professions, and on fewer characters at first. Mostly because in order to get most out of your crafters you need to get them to level 100 for lever 3 garrison. Then if you can be bothered with managing all 11, keep leveling them up as time goes by...

As op suggested key is Savage Blood, so having as many level 100 as fast as you can is key, but keep in mind that you still need resources to upgrade your garrison to level 3. So dont waste your time with Barn till you get to 100 (Lumber mill is a much better option in the long run). And by no means should you waste garrison resources on xp potions!

[Mormolyce]

Excellent post!

Special Case 1 - Market: Bags = High Volatile depends on Server

Thoughts on the Sorcerous Earth market? Also I take it there's no way to accelerate the daily CD like there was with Imperial Silk/SoH? Limited to 10 per day?

[Chickat]

See, Im on the beta and I see gathering professions being useless. I can get 2-300 ore a day from my mine, and I only need half of that at most. I think mat prices are going to plummet after a month or so to 1g or less per. Also, since everyone can make stuff only the top tier items will make any money, and even those likely wont make much since its so easy to level profs now. I think blizzard may have ruined the economy with WoD.

- - - Updated - - -

Should have been a way to farm the elemental s by actually killing Draenors elementals. Maybe each elemental has a 50% chance to drop a mote, and it takes 20 motes to make an elemental. Very slow, but farmable.

[Alroxas]

Thoughts on the Sorcerous Earth market? Also I take it there's no way to accelerate the daily CD like there was with Imperial Silk/SoH? Limited to 10 per day?

Currently there is nothing in the beta that would suggest Sorcerous elements would be transmutable into other ones. I would expect that since we've seen Alchemist transmute other elements previously, that this might come as a "feature" in an upcoming content patch post Warlords launch. However, this would push Alchemist as a pivotal role in making/converting Sorcerous elements which might be seen by the community as a "must have" profession.

As for the accelerated daily CD, it's highly likely that we might see something like this towards mid-way in the life of Warlords expansion but I would not expect it at launch.

Honestly, we'll have to wait for what Blizzard has in store for us.

- - - Updated - - -

See, Im on the beta and I see gathering professions being useless. I can get 2-300 ore a day from my mine, and I only need half of that at most. I think mat prices are going to plummet after a month or so to 1g or less per. Also, since everyone can make stuff only the top tier items will make any money, and even those likely wont make much since its so easy to level profs now. I think blizzard may have ruined the economy with WoD.

The issue there is time spent grinding/farming away might not appeal to other players but this all is based on the server's own economy. Given the changes in the new AH (cross faction), there are a significant influx of buyers (and sellers). Moreover, using the AH is now even more easier when you consider that there are two garrison buildings that directly support it. First the storehouse provides bank (and eventually guild bank) access and the trading post has the option to add in a AH (quest line based).

Lastly, beta is beta which means that things are subject to change when they reach live. For instance, if Blizzard see that it's too easy to farm from your own garrison, they may decide to nerf it by X% where it might not be possible to fill out all your crafting needs without some external user interaction. After all WoW wouldn't feel very much like a MMO if you could just single player it.

[Chickat]

A tier 4 building should reduce the work order time to 1 or 2 hours imo. WOuld be a nice upgrade. Do it in the final tier patch when people wont want the gear as much.

Also, I wonder if they will be upgrading the gear or adding new gear in patches? A 655 sword sounds nice now, but in the next raid tier, lfr will probably be 670 or something.

[Deleted]

Great write up. Thank you for your post!

I'm currently trying to wrap my head around all upcoming WoD profession changes and I feel little overwhelmed due my current 11 (lvl 90) character shuffle setup. I have a combination of following professions:

CH1: Mining / Alchemy (xmute)
CH2: Leatherworking / Jewelcrafting
CH3: Herbalism / Alchemy (potion)
CH4: Tailoring / Alchemy (xmute)
CH5: Enchanting / Alchemy (xmute)
CH6: Blacksmith / Alchemy (xmute)
CH7: Engineering / Alchemy (xmute)
CH8: Inscription / Alchemy (xmute)
CH9: Inscription / Alchemy (xmute)
CH10: Inscription / Alchemy (xmute)
CH11: Skinning / Alchemy (xmute)

My pandaria daily shuffle consisted of Sunsong ranch ore farm followed by cycle of - Smelting → Xmute → Living steel (or Living steel Belt Buckle) → AH. It took about an hour a day to complete. This setup proved to be very profitable and stable throughout the expansion.

Do you think that my current setup is somewhat efficient for WoD (time/profit) or should I consider any major changes to capture more sustainable market like living steel/belt buckle used to be?

I have almost the same setup with 11 Alchemists. They did really well with the Living Steel Belt Buckle and granted a steady income with almost no effort. I won't give up on that profession and sooner or later they will introduce something similar to living steel / truegold / primal might.

[mikoslav]

simple question, are garrison resources bop? or they can be traded freely for gold?

[Impulz]

simple question, are garrison resources bop? or they can be traded freely for gold?

They work as a currency (like honor or conquest points) therefore no mailing, trading etc.

[Faladrath]

Will the achivements for lvl 3 plans be cross-faction as well?