"Playing" the AH to make gold.

[kruor]

Hello all ^_^. I reached my new highest gold peak of 30 thousand gold recently. And its been kind of a struggle with gearing up and regemming and so and on so forth. Jewelcrafting has helped me tremendously but I was mostly lucky in a few GDKP runs where i bought boe's for next to nothing and was able to flip them.

I now want to play the AH game. I know its the best way of making gold in wow and really the easiest since you dont leave the AH/mailbox. What are some tips and tricks and how does this really work? My goal is to hit gold cap once or twice(on a sep character) before cata comes out. Any input is appreciated

[Nathanos]

Hi there, I don't know much about playing the Auction House myself, but I had a guildmate who was pretty succesful with it and he told me that the first two steps on the road was to get and learn Auctioneer. He also said a mailbox addon would come in handy.

Sorry I couldn't provide anymore feedback, but that really is all I know.

Also use the Auctioneer's "Scan" function atleast once per day.

[Daginni]

Hi there, I don't know much about playing the Auction House myself, but I had a guildmate who was pretty succesful with it and he told me that the first two steps on the road was to get and learn Auctioneer. He also said a mailbox addon would come in handy.

Sorry I couldn't provide anymore feedback, but that really is all I know.

Also use the Auctioneer's "Scan" function atleast once per day.

Playing the Auction-house has always been hit or miss for people. Why? Because everyone who thinks they have a shot is playing the Auction-house, and jacking up prices. Everything on my server at least, is about 200%+ of its normal value, and no one in their right mind will buy it.

So, if I were you, I wouldn't even try. You can lose 30,000 gold very quick.

[Talthaeran]

It's a very risky thing to do, especially because there are so many other people 'trying' to earn some gold by undercutting/overpricing and thus having things backfire very easily upon them.

[Geeza]

As people have been saying, Playing the auction house is risky buisness. Some people can do it. others can't. on some realms its impossible as someone said They have prices so fail no one with a right mind would buy it. If you realy want to do this. Get Auctioneer and a mail addon to help you empty your mailbox quickly, Do a search (via auctioneer) and then buy things out about 40% under the normal asking price and stick them back on for more. Easy as that.

[Velandia]

I'm sure he wont mind me plugging his website. Check out Tarou's videos for some tips.

If you don't trust websites, he also has them on a YouTube Channel.

[PBitt]

To be good at it, you have to be smart, dedicated, and have a little luck. It is the easiest way to make money, yes, and I do it from time to time, but I don't really overdo it or get really serious about it. I generally stock up in large quanities of items, and wait for the right time. Or if I see uncut gems..notably meta gems...then I will buy every single one that is reasonably priced and that I know I can make money off of. When I'm working on my eng, I might buy out all eternal shadows on the AH unless they are insane prices, and make arrows out of them. Not only will I have the cheapest prices of arrows and have a lot of them in there, but people won't be able to buy eternal shadows to have them crafted cuz this sneaky douche bought them all (again, I'm not usually that invovled, but these are the kinds of things you would do). One thing I gernally don't do is buy cheapish epic BoEs and hope they sell for more....this has bitten me in the ass the few times I've tried to do it.

[kittycuddler]

There are several rather "retard-proof" ways to make gold on the AH.

First is glyphs. This only applies if you're an inscrip obv. Super small overhead and minimal charge to post glyphs on the AH but you can sell them for crazy amounts. Even on terrible economies like Dalv horde I've made a few thousand gold since I decided to start yesterday. It's very low risk and very high return if you stick with it. Having all the glyphs helps too.

Second is gems. Bid on low epic gems, cut them and sell them. A little more risk, but if you know what prices normally are and don't fall for idiots posting low prices for the cuts you have you can wait out low periods and post them back for what they should be and make a hefty amount of money.

The most foolproof I would say would be mining since there is no buying involved. I know several people who make several thousand gold a day mining. This obviously has a lot higher time commitment though.

[Totem]

As people have been saying, Playing the auction house is risky buisness. Some people can do it. others can't. on some realms its impossible as someone said They have prices so fail no one with a right mind would buy it. If you realy want to do this. Get Auctioneer and a mail addon to help you empty your mailbox quickly, Do a search (via auctioneer) and then buy things out about 40% under the normal asking price and stick them back on for more. Easy as that.

Items under 40% of normal price will be, on majority of servers, junk (i.e. low level green equip, food, drink, quest items, low level gems) or glyphs. It is useless to sell junk. It it also useless to buy glyphs, since they will be undercut in seconds (the glyph market, I think, is the most cruel).
It is also very very difficult starting on a medium-high populated server, and in particular right now before cata.

I found in my experience that monolopy works quite well, but it needs you to have quite some money for starting.

[ComputerNerd]

Playing the auction house is a lot more involved than just relying on auctioneer.
Common sense plays a big part, since a seemingly cheap item is not always as much of a bargain as it would appear, nor is it even guarunteed to sell.
A method I am currently using, though not to any large extent is using frozen orbs to purchase items from the vendor which sell for more, particularly the case with runed orbs selling for substantially greater than the cost of the 4 frozen orbs they cost.

[Cactrot]

There are several rather "retard-proof" ways to make gold on the AH.

First is glyphs. This only applies if you're an inscrip obv. Super small overhead and minimal charge to post glyphs on the AH but you can sell them for crazy amounts. Even on terrible economies like Dalv horde I've made a few thousand gold since I decided to start yesterday. It's very low risk and very high return if you stick with it. Having all the glyphs helps too.

Second is gems. Bid on low epic gems, cut them and sell them. A little more risk, but if you know what prices normally are and don't fall for idiots posting low prices for the cuts you have you can wait out low periods and post them back for what they should be and make a hefty amount of money.

The most foolproof I would say would be mining since there is no buying involved. I know several people who make several thousand gold a day mining. This obviously has a lot higher time commitment though.

Mining all day then selling it isn't playing the AH though. It's farming. Straight out farming. Playing the AH is buying and selling only, maybe buying mats and making crafted items if you have the profession, like your inscription example. Farming ore is not playing the AH.

[Milanor]

Jewelcrafting can either be really amazing or really terrible depending on who else "plays" the Auction House.

On my realm, there is one JCer who dominates the Auction House. She has tens of thousands of gold and does nothing with her game time but camp the AH. It doesnt matter how low you undercut, she'll have cut you lower within an hour. It's gotten to the point where raw gems are more expensive than cut gems. It's a nightmare.

[ProTech]

There are several rather "retard-proof" ways to make gold on the AH.

First is glyphs. This only applies if you're an inscrip obv. Super small overhead and minimal charge to post glyphs on the AH but you can sell them for crazy amounts. Even on terrible economies like Dalv horde I've made a few thousand gold since I decided to start yesterday. It's very low risk and very high return if you stick with it. Having all the glyphs helps too.

Well Glyphs can be a pain to manage. Plus there is a retard on my realm. He put every Glyph for 2.6G, 6G, and 15G on sale. So basically you can only sell for 2.5G max. This is the only char I have on the Horde side, and I decided to try this new profession (with herb). I'm currently leveling, and leveling a profession will always cost money. But I don't think I can get profit if I hit max level, with these prices. I will calculate if it is profitable or not when I hit 80, but it looks bad. On the Alliance side of the server the Glyph prices are really nice, but I do not have Inscription that side. Most of my chars Alliance, and I chosen Inscription for my Horde alt, to make it easier to level without a main support. I was thinking I could make nice Glyphs at low level, which could sell for level 80 chars. But after a month I started, this retard now trying to control the market and he is doing it for three months now. Yeah I level really slow, I have ICC raids to do on my main :P

[Wheres]

I played the AH back in B.C and made 16k gold over a weekend.

Those who really play the A.H game would laugh at that number, but it was respectable and I sure was proud of it.

That being said, it was the least enjoyable time I have ever had in WoW. It may get easier with the phone App AH, but living inside the A.H for 72 hours was not fun at all. I would check my postings every 5 minutes, buy out under cutters and re-post at my higher prices. It was horrible and incredibly annoying to do that every 5 minutes.

For my excursion into the A.H game, I started with about 4,000 gold. I took that could and bought out the caster flask market. I then controlled the price of it for the remainder of the weekend, coming out near 16k richer. So, it takes some gold to make some gold. You have 30k to get started with, you will be fine. I would recommend choosing a market you think you can handle (consumables make good markets on Tuesdays, and weekends because they tend to be raid nights).

Be warned though, I have had guildies swear up and down that they have had friends banned for playing the A.H this way. Something about manipulating the WoW economy and pissing blizzard off. You essentially act as a monopoly in whatever market you choose, cutting supply and jacking prices way up.

[EasternKozak]

I'm sure everyone already knows this but I'm just going to point this little obvious idea out. Get a lvl80 alt, get that alt to max in herbalism and mining, put everything on AH and you will be making money real fast.

[Gadrin]

I played the AH back in B.C and made 16k gold over a weekend.

Those who really play the A.H game would laugh at that number, but it was respectable and I sure was proud of it.

That being said, it was the least enjoyable time I have ever had in WoW. It may get easier with the phone App AH, but living inside the A.H for 72 hours was not fun at all. I would check my postings every 5 minutes, buy out under cutters and re-post at my higher prices. It was horrible and incredibly annoying to do that every 5 minutes.

For my excursion into the A.H game, I started with about 4,000 gold. I took that could and bought out the caster flask market. I then controlled the price of it for the remainder of the weekend, coming out near 16k richer. So, it takes some gold to make some gold. You have 30k to get started with, you will be fine. I would recommend choosing a market you think you can handle (consumables make good markets on Tuesdays, and weekends because they tend to be raid nights).

Be warned though, I have had guildies swear up and down that they have had friends banned for playing the A.H this way. Something about manipulating the WoW economy and pissing blizzard off. You essentially act as a monopoly in whatever market you choose, cutting supply and jacking prices way up.

Could you tell us more about banning pepople for playing the AH?
I now have around 68k gold and I'm planning to sell about 80 gems and 15 primordial saronites this Tuesday...
I don't actually play the AH, I farm badges/BGs with 3 characters, do fishing/cooking dailies/weeklies,transmute epic gems then I spend all those stuff to buy gems, my guildmates cut them for me for free, I put the gems on the AH, undercut only once, PROFIT.
I've tried to make some gold with Alchemy elixir mastery but I barely managed to get back the gold I've spent for the mats...

[Talthaeran]

I really doubt Blizzard will bother banning anyone for messing up the economy on a realm when they've added a mobile auction house function. There would be an incredible uproar if they did.

[Gadrin]

I really doubt Blizzard will bother banning anyone for messing up the economy on a realm when they've added a mobile auction house function. There would be an incredible uproar if they did.

I agree...
It takes a certain amount of time and skill to control a piece of the economy in WoW...
It's not like using bugs/bots/cheats/exploits or smth like that...
Just patience and skill...

[Skelebones]

AH Flipping used to be very profitable, but 2 major changes in the game really affected profits

1. Heirloom items - given that you can mostly outfit your character in heirloom items you no longer need those "twink" blues or high greens that drop to speed up your leveling. An item like the butcher was commonly put on the ah for 15g where it would normally sell for 100-200g.

2. Decline in people playing Twink BG's - Another good market was selling items to the lower level 19's/29's/39's etc that hunted for the best stat gear for their bracket. Now that you gain exp in BG's not many people play twinks anymore.

3. More people learned about auctioneer and the search function. To get high profits you need someone else to first make a mistake by placing a high valued item for less than 40% of its value, given that there are probably a good amount of people that do resale searches on your server. This means you need to be lucky and search within a short amounts of time when the poster makes a mistake and you do a scan.

I still do AH flipping though and share my highest profit AH flips each month.

[Autonomy]

I have a bunch of alts with maxed professions..
Shaman - 450 Engineering / 450 Jewelcrafting
Druid - 450 Mining / 450 Herbalism
Priest - 450 Inscription / 450 Alchemy (Elixir)
Warlock - 450 Tailoring / 450 Enchanting
Paladin - Working on Blacksmithing
Rogue - Working on Skinning / Leatherworking

I personally buy Eternal Earths cheap (about 45g to 50g per stack of 20), craft them into Stoneguard Bands with my Shaman's Jewelcrafting, mail them over to my Warlock and disenchant them (easily make way more gold than I spent making the rings off of the mats alone, get anywhere between 4 and 7 Infinite Dust or 1 to 2 Greater Cosmics per disenchant, occasionally a Dream Shard) and then make enchanting scrolls.

A Greater Cosmic on my server goes for about 15g, Dream Shards go for about 4.5g, Abyss Crystals go for about 25g, and Infinite Dust goes for about 1.25g per. Anyway, from there, an enchant like Exceptional Spellpower to gloves uses mats that are 4 Infinite Dust and a single Lesser Cosmic to craft (you get 3 Lessers per Greater) sells for about 65g to 100g on my server, depending on the day meaning a profit of at least 55g per scroll to 90g per scroll. A lot of other scrolls are even more profitable but this one is just readily available. Enchanting scrolls also cost absolutely nothing to post so reposting and undercutting is a non-issue.