Money Making Guide, by TypicalGoblin

[TypicalGoblin]

World of Warcraft: Money making guide, by TypicalGoblin (Last updated: 2011, August 5th. Version: 1.00


(Note: I come in this forum from time to time, but i made a new account to post this guide. Don't know why i did that though.. paranoia maybe ?)
(Note: English is not my main language, so i apologize for any spelling mistakes and/or anything that could hurt your eyes)
(Note: When i use the word "money", i obviously refer to in-game currency (gold, silver, copper))
(Note: This guide is for lvl 85. If you are still in leveling progress, your first objective is to top your char's level. You don't need much money while leveling anyway.)
(Note: Everything in this guide work better in a medium to high populated server. Making money on low-pop server is pretty hard. Fore sure, you have much less competition, but you also have much less buyers.)
(Note: I will try to format the text better, and put some color to make the reading more pleasent. Work in progress...)
(Note: I won't mind if you copy/paste some parts, or the totality of this guide, as long as you also say that you're not the author, and that it has been taken from the mmo-champion's forums. But, in any case, i do not want anything from my guide, not even a single line, to be put on the official blizzard or battle.net forums)

On about every wow-related forum i go, i see questions such as "How to make money ?". Many peoples even think that it's impossible to buy a Vial of the Sand without getting gold in an illegal way. I decided to make this guide, in hope that will at least help a couples of persons. There are many guides like that on the internet, and many of them are unfortunatly not free. Personaly, i never tried one. Maybe they are better than this one, maybe not, i dont know. But at least, my guide is free, and made in the pure sake of helping out. (Also a good thing for me to kill insomnia, haha)

So.. How to make money ?

There are severals way to make money in wow. Some are more profitable than others, while some are just about more fun into dooing it. Here's a list of these ways. (I decided to not include "making a lvl 1 female blood-elf, and /dance on a mailbox", since the income from that is too low. /joke)

1- Soloing old dungeons/raid
2- Questing (Mostly dooing dailies)
3- Farming rare items with a very low drop chance
4- Farming raw mats.
5- Simply buy items on auction house and sell it for more
6- Working with a crafting profession

Alright, now i will try to explain all these points one by one.

1- (Soloing old dungeons/raid). That's about the worst way of making money. The money looted is pretty low, (they even nerfed the amount of gold dropped by raid bosses) and the items are pretty random. The low-level gear you will loot is hard to sell even at low price. Most of your income dooing that will be from selling the cloth, but that's still not very profitable.

Here are the exception where that still could be a good idea to do it.

You want to grind rep from a dungeon.
You are broke and want disenchanted mats to level your enchanting.
You want a specific achievement in an old dungeon.

Beside that, i don't see any reason why you should do that. But maybe you find that way very enjoyable, it's up to you


2- (Questing (Mostly dooing dailies)). That's the primary income of most people. Seriously, i can't understand that peoples still suggest this as a money making way. I mean, dailies are good if you want to grind rep, get some profession token, or get the 365 weapon patterns, but dooing that in the pure sake a making money is a very bad idea. The income from that range from "aweful" to "mediocre". So, do dailies only if you have another benifit from it (reputation, tokens, achievements, etc).

3- (Farming rare items with a very low drop chance). That's all about luck ! You can get a big money boost if you're lucky, but it's definetely not a good money making way in the long run. If you realy want to try that, rare pets are the things to farm. If you're a skinner, try the emerald or dark whelpling (from feralas/badlands). If you're out of luck and dont loot the rare pet, you'll at least have tons of low level leather to sell.

Ok. Those 3 first points are things i did in the past, things that i tried much.. too much. I will never do that again, or well, not for a money making purpose. I also have nothing more to say about that.

Let's continue our tour...

4- (Farming raw mats.). Time to set a foot into the market by selling your freshly gathered stuff. This method wont provide the best income, but it has some big advantage, and is generaly the first thing someone will do before becoming a real business man/orc/elf. I did not provided numbers for the 3 first points, for the simple reason that it's so low that i never bothered calculating it. But with farming, depending what you farm, your server population/economy, the amount of other farmers in your zone, and your race/class (yep.. a tauren druid get a insanely big advantage when farming herbs), we can talk about 500g to 2500g an hour. Here's a list of what's worth farming:

(Note: Some peoples say that farming low level mats is great. I wouldn't recommand it. Even if the price can be pretty high sometimes, the demand for these mats is very low, and it can be pretty hard to get it to sell on AH. Farm low level mats only if it's for your own profession leveling. If it's for money, stick to cata zones (80-85))

Herbs (with herbalism). The prices of herbs are highly variable, and in many servers, this price is very low. You will generaly make more money with Volatile Life (you get these sometimes with your herb), than with the herb itself. It would be hard for me to recommend a specific zone, but if i had to do, i'd say Uldum, for Whiptail. There are tons of herb there, with a nice respawn. Plus, the whiptails spawn only close to the river, so you won't have to patrol the entire zone.

Ore (with mining). About the same thing as herbing, but you do that with a pickaxe. Elementium and Pyrite are generaly the best sellers. Uldum and Twilight Highlands are my favorite zones for that.

Leather (with skinning). This time, you will have to murder poor creatures and take thier skin in order to make money. Try to find a spot with alot of dragons (there's a nice spot in hyjal), and you'll get some Blackened Dragonscales instead of Savage Leather from time to time. These scales generaly sells for a pretty nice amount. If you're planning into skinning for 1+ hours, it would be very wise to bring some Potions of Treasure Finding with you. (with that potion, you'll get a bonus loot from time to time. It's a chest containing mats and gold).

Cloth. It's worth farming it only if you're a tailor, because you will loot more cloth than usual. Plain simple, pick a spot with alot of humanoid, kill them, and loot. (same thing about the Potion of Treasure Finding).

Fishes (With first aid. Cough, Cough. Next time i catch you sleeping while reading my guide, i'll slap you with a big large trout). This method can be lucrative.. or not. That's highly variable from servers to servers. The fishes to catch are the mats for the seafood feast: the Highland Guppy (from twilight highlands), the Fathom Eel (from Uldum and Tol Barad), and the Lavascale Catfish (from Deepholm). Take a look at the prices of those fishes on AH, if it's selling for more than 10g each, it can be a good thing to wipe out the dust on your fishing pole. That's even better if you still need to top your fishing skill, or if your guild still need the achievement to unlock the feast recipe. (Since the Lavascale Catfish doesn't come from a fish school, always put a good lure on your pole if you don't want to catch alot of junk)

That's pretty much everything that is worth farming in large quantity. Ok, now the good and bad of farming...

Good:

Absolutely no investment required. As long as you have some coins to buy a pickaxe or a skinning knife (thing that you already have in your bags anyway), you can go out there and start farming. All the mats you gather are pure income, with 0% chance of losing anything. Note that an epic flight training will help you ALOT, but it's not required. (Being in a lvl 23+ guild will also increase the profit by a considerable amount)

Fast money. Generaly, if you place your stuff at a right price on the AH, it will be sold out in less than a couple of hours. You don't have to wait weeks for an investment to grow.

Stability in the income. Unless there's a dramatic change into prices, the income you will make is very stable. Easy to calculate how many hours of work you will need to buy that expansive item you're dreaming about.

Your brain won't burnout by excessive calculation. All you have to do is turn on your favorite playlist on winamp, put your hands on your mouse and keyboard, and relax. Follow the usual route and stare at the minimap. Or chain-kill weak mobs... Nothing is more easy that that.

Bad:

Borring. Borring. Borring. You can try to move from a zone to another to make it a little less borring.. but it's still borring. Talking with friends or watching TV can make it a little bit better though. (Know you limits, and stop farming 5 minutes before your eyes start bleeding. /joke)

Average income. Although the income is stable, and that farming is much better than the 3 other things i talked about before, it's still nothing more than an average money making way.

Very time consuming if you want to keep a good income. Like in real life, when there's no investment, you only get paied for your hard work, period. If you take a break from farming, your bank obviously won't fill up.


So.. Would i recommend farming ? Yes. This is your best way to make your first thousands of gold, and as i stated, there's no investment required. Take this time to prepare yourself for some real business.


5- (Simply buy items on auction house and sell it for more). This is an overused generic answer given to players that ask how to make money. But how many times did i see someone elaborate on that ? I would answer something between "Zéro" and "Never". So.. let's buy a stack of whiptail at 25g, and put it at 150g. Big surprise 48 hours later, i get my stuff back in my mailbox. But where's the gold ? /cry.

First of all, you'll have to learn the market. I can't give you numbers here, since the economy vary from a server to another. Search for specific items on the AH. Memorize the price (or write it down). Do that for at least a week. That way, you'll see what the prices are dooing. Are they climbing on week-end ? Are they completely stable ? What about the supply/demand for an item, is it low, high ?

Always keep in mind that these vicious goblin auctioneer keep a 5% cut on anything you sell. Even worst, they ask for a deposite when you put your item, and if you don't sell, they keep that precious money. Take that into consideration. If you buy an item for let's say.. 9.8k gold. And resell it for 10k gold, you have lost your time.. as well as 300g.

What market would i recommand for a beginner ? Definetely the Volatiles market. The price of these little things keep gooing from low to high. After a week of AH studying, you'll be able to know about the prices. Buy them at the lowest possible price, and wait.. when the prices are high again, put it on AH, for a nice profit. The loss risk from dooing that is low, since generaly you will always be able to sell back the volatiles for the invested gold + 5% cut. When you get better dooing that, and have more money to invest, add another market into your range of action.

Some people think they just have to go to the AH, click click, and get rich in 2 days. That's definetly not working that way. You have to be patient and you have to learn. Yeah sure, you can be very lucky and pick up a highly valuable item that has been listed at an incredible low price. That happens.. but you have to be lucky. Last week i bought a Unheeded Warning (359 trinket) that was listed at 1800g. I sold it the next day in the trade channel for 6250g. I got very lucky, period.

There are also long term investment. For that, you have to keep yourself informed about next patches, and have your brain turned on. Read the PTR patch notes about professions and new craftable items. Last time i did that kind of investment was in 4.1. As soon as i learned about the new blacksmith weapons, i started stocking truegold in my bank. The prices was at around 450g each when i bought them. I also did my truegold transmute on my alchemist everyday. (the mats cost for that was around 400g). When the 4.2 patch released, i watched the prices carefuly, and smiled more and more every day. The price capped at 850g, and i sold it all. To be honest, i was expecting at least 1000g, but anyway.. that was still an insane profit. The downside of this is, all that gold you invested will be sleeping in your bank (in form of items), so you won't be able to do anything with it for a while. The risk of dooing that is a little bit higher than the last type of investment, since you can never be totaly sure that a price will jump like that. Follow your fellings young padawan, and may the gold be with you. (If you do this, try to at least keep enough gold for your other, more quick investments.)

Another way that is worth talking about. This one has a very high risk of loss. Do it only if you are already a master of auction house, and don't mind taking the risk of losing thousands of gold. All hail the Overtaking of a particular market. This is simple, your goal is to buy everything, and put it 5 seconds later at an almost-insane price, in order to bring up the prices for long enough for you to sell all the item you bought with an almost-insane profit. In the best case, it will take a week before the prices are back to normal, giving you more than enough time to sell everything. In the worst case, it will take less than 15 minutes, leaving you with a bunch of items you don't want, and a big hole in your wallet. I tried it a couple of times, first time with frostweave cloth.. gained a nice amount of money. Second time, with Heavenly Shard.. that was a total crash. All the stress from that high risk is not good for my heart, so i haven't tried that anymore. Feel free to give it a try though, but i decline any responsability regarding the loss and anger that could happen to you

6- (Working with a crafting profession). Ahhh, my favorite one. Many peoples think that crafting professions are a waste.. well, it's not. For sure, leveling a crafting profession to 525 is a big investment. While leveling, don't even dare think about profit.. think about trying to loose the less money possible. Got it ?

Every professions have at least 1 item you can sell on a regular basis, with profit. Most of time, these are what i call utility items.. or well, items that peoples need pretty often. For sure, you "could" make profit in making gear (PvE or PvP gear), but i wouldn't recommend it. (Unless you're a blacksmith with alot of chaos orbs and the new 365 weapon patterns). The 359 items are very hard to sell, and requires chaos orbs, which require you to run heroic dungeons. The PvP items are also very hard to sell, and the prices of those are more than often at mats cost, if they are not under it.

Now here's the list of the profit-making items. (Can be others, but these ones are generaly the best ones)

Blacksmithing: Ebonsteel belt buckle.
Leatherworking: the 3 flavours of Leg Armor
Engineering: The non-combative pet. (De-weaponized mechanical companion // Personal world destroyer, depending if you're specialised in goblin or gnomish engineering.) Don't expect making much money with it though, it's hard to sell more than 1 per day. Taking engineering is a good thing if you're farming though, since there's a soulbound item that give you a chance of looting Volatile Air with your other farmed mats.
Jewelcrafting: The large array of cutted gems (the best sellers are the bold/brilliant/delicate inferno rubies.)
Enchanting: The non-combative pet, the enchants scrolls, and the mats you get from disenchanting. (Personaly, i only use it to disenchant items, and i sell the mats. Scrolls generaly doesn't sell very well, since most peoples prefer to buy mats and ask for an enchanter in the trade channel)
Tailoring: The spellthread (leg enchant). Also the embersilk bags (careful though, the prices of these bags are often at less than mats cost, since peoples need to make about 5 of them while leveling tailoring).
Inscription: The glyphs, and the Mysterious Fortune Cards
Alchemy: The transmutes. (always do your daily transmute. Depending on the current prices, do the truegold one, or the volatile life ---> highest priced volatile (generaly water, sometime air). I wouldn't recommend making flask, since almost every guild got thier entitled alchemist.
Cooking: Almost any cata food.. look at the prices, and turn low priced raw food into profit. If you have easy acces to cheap (or home-made) mysterious fortune card, the fortune cookies are not bad.
First aid: Ok, it's a "crafting" profession since you "craft" the bandages, but seriously, don't think about that.. skill up first aid only for personal uses (can be nice while leveling, as well as in PvP, or in raid in some rare situation...) Money and First aid are like a glass of water and a Big Mac.. totaly unrelated.

Don't get me wrong though.. i never said that you will make big quick profit with a professions, but you can expect "some" profit. The more professions you got, the more profit you'll make, for 2 reasons. First, you will have a larger variety to sell, putting you into more markets. Secondo, there are professions that work in synergy togheter.

With crafting professions, there are 2 ways to do it. You can farm your own mats (farming income + a slight profit). Since you're farming, that has the same bad points we've seen earlier. The second way is to buy the mats at the lowest possible price, craft the item, and sell it. (investment income + a slight profit). Personaly, it happens that i farm my own mats, when i'm borred of dooing everything else, but 95% of the time, i buy the mats.

(Note: If you are farming your own mats, always take the gooing price of these mats into consideration while dooing the maths about the profit. Exemple: Let's say you want to craft a X item, which require 4 Y item to make. The gooing AH prices for the Y item are 50g each. You decide to farm 4 of those Y item yourself, craft the X item, and sell it for 150g. You haven't made any money dooing it, you even lost 50g. You invested your own precious time farming these mats, and that time was worth 200g. Time is money friend !)

I talked about the synergy between professions. Here's one of the best exemple i could show.

Buy cheap Elementium ore and Pyrite ore.
Prospect all of that with your Jewelcrafting
Take all the rare gems, cut them, sell them.
Send the Carnelians (green-quality red gem) to your alchemist.
Make ring/neck with all other green-quality gems, (exept Zephyrites) then sent all of that to your enchanter.
Put the Zephyrites in bank, wait, and sell them in stack of 1 or 3 when the JC daily "Nibblers, NO !" comes out.
Log into your alchemist, buy some herbs (heartblossom), and transmute all the Carnelians into Inferno ruby. Send them back to your Jewelcrafter, cut them, and sell them.
Log into your enchanter, Disenchant all the neck/ring. Sell the mats (or make scrolls and try to sell them with a profit).
Take the Volatile Earth you got from prospecting pyrites, and sell it. (or send it to your blacksmith/leatherworker, since they use them to make the items i talked about).

So.. With Jewelcrafting, Alchemy and Enchanting, you made the best thing you could do with these simple minerals. Learn your market, do your maths, buy cheap, craft, sell at the best time.. you'll make profit that way, and not a "slight" one.
Now that we have covered all the way of money making, i have some additional things to say.. Some trick, some tips.. And i decided to give a whole part of my guide to a crispy subject.. Undercutting.


Undercutting

The famous //Cough// unfamous undercutting. When someone's whining about auction house, it's always related to undercutting. Some say it's good, some say it's bad.. what about large undercut ? What about 1 copper undercut ? I'll share my point of view with you, i'll show you facts and exemple.. feel free to agree or not, but please, do not start a flaming debate about that.

In any auction house market, undercutting is totaly required to survive. Sure, maybe that would be better if every seller put thier items at the same price.. but that kind of thing is called an Utopia. So be prepared.. you will be undercutted many many time, and you will do the same. You have to get over it, you have to accept it. If you realy can't live with that, stay away from the auction house and don't expect making money.

Now that i clearly stated that undercutting is the right thing to do, lets talk about the other source of many debate: The undercut's size.

In every market related to gear amelioration, such as gems, enchants (mats and scrolls), other enchants (Legs enchant and Belt Buckle), undercutting by 1 copper is the best thing to do. Always.

(Note: The percentage i give are not pure speculations. I asked many friends/guildies, as well as some random people. That's where these numbers come from.)

Facts: Peoples that comes out from thier raid/dungeon with a brand new shiny and tasty epic item usualy want it gemmed and enchanted right now. More than 90% of them will buy the item, regardless of the current price. Although i've seen some rare peoples on forums stating that they will only buy items that are at a rounded price (skipping the ones at 158.99.95 to buy those at 160.00.00), 100% of those i personaly interrogated told me that they simply buy the items at the top of the list (the cheapest one).

Facts: Undercutting contribute to lower to price of a particular item on the market.

Exemple: Let's take a market with a high supply/demand.. Brilliant Inferno Ruby. I picked up 4 random sellers name for this exemple. Jack, Roger, Bill and Andy.

9:00 – There's no brilliant inferno ruby on the market. (such a thing never happens, but it will make things clearer for the exemple)
9:03 – Jack go to the auction house to sell his brilliant inferno ruby. He puts 6 of these on the AH at 200.00.00 each.
9:06 – Roger go to the AH for the same reason. He got 5 for sale, and list them for 199.99.95 each.
9:10 – Bill need money quickly.. he list his 8 brilliant inferno ruby for 150.00.00
9:11 – Andy walk into the AH, and want to sell his gems as well. He then put his 5 gems for 149.99.99.

So.. Bill was telling himself "i need quick money, i dont mind making less profit". He sold nothing, made no profit at all, and he managed to make a price drop of 50g. Very wise... //Caugh//

Now let's continue this exemple, i'll try to show something else that happens sometime...

9:12 – Bill is upset because Andy undercutted him by 1 copper. He takes out all his gems and relist them at 125.00.00
9:13 – Andy is also upset by the stupidity of Bill, and think "ohh realy, you want to play that ?". He then relist all his gems at 120.00.00
9:45 – More seller putted thier gems, some have been sold, and now the prices is now pretty much stable at 118.00.00
9:47 – Jack come back to the AH.. he's pretty sad about seeing those prices. He try to clean that mess and buy all the gems that are at 150g and less. He then put back 8 of them at 199.99.94 (Roger's gems are still there at 199.99.95).
9:50 – Bill go back to the AH. He's very happy because he sold all his gems (he think it's much profit for him since he farmed all the mats himself). He then cut more gems, and put 10 of them at 150.00.00
9:55 – Jack start to cry

So, what happened in these 55 minutes are a typical exemple of what often happens. Too many peoples get upset when they are undercutted, and too many peoples are in the market while not knowing how it's working. But well.. it's just a game right ? Too many peoples take it too seriously (including myself..). Large undercut in a market such as this one is a bad thing for everyone (well, it's still good for those who buy the gems for personal uses, but anyway...). Most new-to-market seller think they just have to put a bunch of items on the AH and come back a couple of hours later to collect all the money. If someone have a good constructive argument agains't that, please, i want to hear you.

So.. are large undercut always a bad thing ? Nope. It can be a good thing in some market involding very expensive items, with almost-inexistant supply and very low demand. Why ? Because on that kind of market, peoples always think twice before spending thier gold. I'll give you a personal exemple.

I was looking for the item "Scales of Life" for my tank. (Dropped 378 trinket). There was 2 of them on the AH standing there for about 3 days. The initial price of the first one was 25k. The two sellers undercutted themself a couple of time, making the price drop to 24500. Even if i have more than enough gold to buy it, i was still hesitating.. 24500g is still pretty much. For 3 days i looked at the item, saying to myself "should i ? hmm, maybe not...". The 4th day, while drinking my morning coffee, i seen it at 20k, from a 3rd seller. After about 30 seconds of thinking, i decided to buy it.

In that kind of market, undercutting by a large amount can make the difference between a sell, and a "auction expired". Another point: This is a dropped item. You won it with a roll while in a raid. You was probably expected to use the item for yourself, but you choosed to sell it instead (or maybe you was the loot master and ninja it ? Anyway..) So.. what or who define the price of an item such as this one ? Because you're the first one to put this item on the AH doesn't mean you're the one to define the price.

(Note: Don't think that unvalidate what i said about the gems. The gems will sell, regarless of the price. A 25k trinket will not.)

Maybe i should talk about the 365 weapon crafted by blacksmiths ? Spend 8k on mats, find a blacksmith with the pattern and 5 chaos orbs, get mad because he's asking 1k per orbs, manipulate him (or piss him off enough) to drop the orbs price at 300g each, put that brand new sword on the AH at 15k, and /drama into trade channel because someone else undercutted you by 750g ? I don't know if i have to cry or to laugh.. but anyway.. i will say no more about that. (Just to make things clear, i was not involved in that)

That conclude the Undercutting part.

(How strange.. i was trying to kill insomnia making this guide, and all i've done so far is to create more insomnia...)

Now it's time for some quick personal tips and advices.
For your first shot, don't try the glyph market.
Don't camp AH, scanning your market every 15 seconds to undercut everything. That will make other sellers very upset, and an upset seller usualy do stupid things such as large undercuts.
Patience is gold
Don't invest more than 50% of your total gold
Keep a good amount of gold on your alts. This way, if you see an amazing good deal on AH, you'll be able to buy it right now. If someone else buy the item while you are switching char, you will cry.
Create a lvl 1 account to do your business on AH. There are many benifits from that. Usualy, you don't want the name of your main labelled as a business char. With an anonymous char, you will never have any problems in you undercut a short-temper guidy. You will also be able to create a guild for youself alone, giving you a nice big bank. And i'm sure giving this char some nice clothes, such as a tuxedo, will make you feel important.
Try to get your farmers and your disenchanter into a high level guild if possible. The perk "Bountiful Bags" (guild lvl 23) will give you more profit.
If your thing is to buy at low prices, and sell for more, (or even buy at low price to craft items) place your limits, and respect them. Exemple: With the economy on my server, i did some math, and concluded that i shouldn't buy any Elementium Ore at more than 60g a stack. At 60g, i will buy them all. At 60g and 25 silver, i won't. Without respecting this limit, i would eventualy buy for more, and more, ending with paying 75g a stack for it, which would be cutting off much profit.
In high-supply market (such as the inferno ruby market), don't put too many gems at the same time. Generaly, you will not be able to sell more than 4 items before you get undercutted. If you put 20 items at a time, you will have to cancel most of these pretty soon to reajust the price, which mean a slight loss of time, and the deposite loss. If you know you will be online for some time, put only 2 at a time. Look at the messages, and resupply as soon as you sell one. If you don't sell anything for a while, that probably mean you need to reajust the prices. If you're putting them on AH before gooing to work, or gooing to bed, you can put a little bit more though.
Stack of cutted gems doesn't sell at all. Although people often need more than 1 gem at a time, they will not be interrested by your stacks of 2. (Probably because before cata, the cutted gems did not stack.. they are not used to it, and they want to do it the old way.)
If you're a farmer and sell raw mats, always put them at full stacks. (usualy 20). About the Volatiles (they stack in 200), i'd say from personal experience that they sell good in stack of 10-30-50-100-200.
Keep playing the game ! Don't spend 100% of your time on AH. If you do that, you'll get borred pretty fast, and you will forget that the game behind the AH is pretty nice.
I know, i've already said that but.. Be patient. Patience turns into profit. Patience is gold. Your investment will pay up when it's time.. not before. You will have enough gold to buy that expensive item soon.. not before.

That conclude my guide about money making. I realy hope you liked it, and i hope even more that it will help you out. I will try to update it, and add some additional info as much as i can. Since it's the first time i make a guide related to world of warcraft, i realy hope it's not that bad

Feel free to discuss ! Your constructive comments would be more than appreciated

[Djuntas]

Decent guide, but bet people that should, dont read it. AH play is brainless, and I dont understand why not more does it. I know it depends on server, but with just JC and enchanting gold is so easy.

[Acerus]

Not bad, i am currently buying elementium ores(they go for 20g a stack on my server), spending approx 1k on the ores, then i prospect them and make rings/necks/fistweps for the uncommon ones, then i DE them and sell all enchanting mats and the blue gems.
profit is about 3.5k +-

[Djuntas]

Not bad, i am currently buying elementium ores(they go for 20g a stack on my server), spending approx 1k on the ores, then i prospect them and make rings/necks/fistweps for the uncommon ones, then i DE them and sell all enchanting mats and the blue gems.
profit is about 3.5k +-

That is what I mean. If only my server had supplies like that trough .p We havent had cheap elementium ores under 50g regulary for months.

[TypicalGoblin]

That is what I mean. If only my server had supplies like that trough .p We havent had cheap elementium ores under 50g regulary for months.

That's pretty much the same on my server. 2 month ago, it was common to see them at 40-45g a stack. 2-3 weeks ago, with the farming mats crysis that touched almost all servers (at least the US ones), it was hard to get them at less than 100g a stack. Now, the gooing price is about 70g a stack. On the other side, many new sellers invaded my server's inferno ruby market, dooing massive undercut, making the prices of those gems stand at around 130g each. One seller in particular undercut the 3 flavours of inferno ruby by 50g, regardless of the initial price, about 2 times a day, listing about 10 gems at a time.. hard to figure if he's just ignorent, or if do that on purpose to unload his daily frustration..

[Dyros]

So, I recently rerolled on a new server. No gear, rich friends, or maxed alts to leech off of. I was planning on doing Skinning & Leatherworking, but JC'ing and Enchanting seem pretty lucrative. Would having those two professions, coupled playing the AH, make me a gold-making powerhouse (if done right, of course)? Which of the two would I be seeing the most income from?

[TypicalGoblin]

@ Dyros

On this new server, what's your current level ? And how much gold you have ? Anyway, yes JC and Enchanting are pretty much lucrative togheter.

If you're still in a leveling process (i hope you are, that will make things much easier), take 2 gathering profession. Mining/Skinning will do the job. Mine every node you see, and skin all the mobs you kill. Sell all that leather, and keep all the ore you're mining in the bank. Try to put all the BoP gear you got as quest reward in bank also. Do that until you hit 85. (Make alts if you need extra bank space)

When you hit 85, Drop skinning, and take jewelcrafting. Get the ore out of the bank, and skill it up. You will still probably need to buy some stacks of ore, but that shouldn't be a problem since you made a little extra gold with skinning.

When your JC is topped at 525, start to buy cheap elementium ore. (Or farm them yourself if you don't got enough gold yet). Prospect it, cut the rare gems, and sell them. Make rings/neck with purple/green/orange/yellow, and sell the blue/red.

When you feel like you got enough gold to stop farming completely, drop mining, and take enchanting. Take out all the quest reward gear from your bank and disenchant everything. Skill it up to 475. Same thing as jewelcrafting, you'll probably need to buy some mats, that's why you need to have enough gold before dropping mining. (Don't need more than 475 skill right now, since you only need it do D/E your jewelcrafting stuff. You'll Top it later when you have enough gold)

Now disenchant all the jewelcrafting's neck/ring you made earlier.

I wouldn't suggest playing the AH unless your JC and enchanting are all set and ready to make profit. Do it only if you see items that are obviously under the gooing price by a large amount, allowing you to resell it in the same day.


Edit: Forgot to talk about the JC daily. You will need JC token to buy the gem's cut recipes. (1 token per day, 3 token per recipe). So start dooing this daily (in org or stormwind) as soon as you can (can't remember what JC skill you need though).

Your priority is the bold/brilliant/delicate inferno ruby recipes. (You can take only brilliant for now, since you still got a limited supply of gems)

After that, get a recipe for orange and purple gems. Reckless ember topaz and Purified demonseye are generaly the best orange/purple seller. The other color are much more hard to sell, since only the tank realy benefits from them. Fractured amberjewel, Solid ocean sapphire, and Puissant dream emerald (not sure about this one, i mean the mastery/stamina green gem) are usualy those who sell the best.

Note: "sell the best" doesn't mean sells for higher. It only means that you'll have more chance to sell. (A high priced gem is a bad choice if you only see 1 every other day)

If you have other questions or need clarifications, feel free to ask

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

Decent guide, but bet people that should, dont read it. AH play is brainless, and I dont understand why not more does it. I know it depends on server, but with just JC and enchanting gold is so easy.

Well...... not entirely. AH-play does depend on the server like you say so, but it's also a little economical and, to me, I find it rather tricky.
Don't say it's brainless just because you can do it

[TypicalGoblin]

Well...... not entirely. AH-play does depend on the server like you say so, but it's also a little economical and, to me, I find it rather tricky.
Don't say it's brainless just because you can do it

You're totaly right about that. There's nothing "brainless" in wow as well as in real life. A learning process is always required. A physician specialised in neurosurgery doesn't necessary know how to change the oil in his car, if he try that, there are good chance that he make a total mess the first time.. but many peoples would label that as a brainless task.

The tricky part about AH is the big economical difference between servers. If all the servers was the same, i would have give you much more numbers, and i would have been much more pricise in my advices. So, double learning ahead.. how to play the AH, and how's the economy on your server. (for that second part, you're all alone) You got to learn both of these things. With only one, making money will be much harder.

Although AH now have almost no secrets for me, if you would transfer all my characters into a server i never been, it would take some time before i'm able to make as much money as i can make right now.

[Deleted]

365 weapons are an amazing source of income.
I usually spam the trade till I found someone with an extremely low chaos orb price ( idiot )
Lowest I found was 150g per orb
Bought mats for roughly 6k
750g for orbs
And got myself a nice little weapon for 6.7k
Then I sell that weapon for 10k profit
Done that 3 times made 30k profit and
I'm now waiting at the AH abit

[Dyros]

Thanks Goblin.

I am currently still leveling, a 47 Shaman atm, and have about 600g. I took up skinning and mining a while back, and had my bank alt set up before my character was made. The only thing I haven't done is save the greens I'm getting from quests, which I will start to. I know the 275-300 enchanting gap can be brutal, as those mats are vastly overpriced and the greens aren't too easy to come by. Glad you mentioned it before I hit 50.

I had a JC'er on my last server, but I didn't do much more than farm for a couple hours then cut the valuable gems. I absolutely hate farming; it's boring, time consuming, and with prospecting you're not guaranteed anything precious. It sucks. Thanks for giving me the rundown, I should be able to use the info to turn double my profits in half the time.

As far as playing the AH, I've already started this. For the most part, I've just been selling things I come across while leveling, but recently I dove into it and started buying more. I'm not rolling in dough, but I am making a bit here and there.

I did have a question about the raw uncommon gems. Should I keep those to make a prism, sell them, or will I need them to make items to DE?

[TypicalGoblin]

I did have a question about the raw uncommon gems. Should I keep those to make a prism, sell them, or will I need them to make items to DE?

Can't believe i totaly forgot mentioning that part.

When you hit 500 in JC, you'll have 2 choices: Buy a meta gem pattern with your JC token, or make prism. The faster way would be meta gems, but the shadowspirit diamonds are not cheap, (You will have to buy them, since they are made by alchemist) and they take time to sell. Plus, the meta gem recipe turns green at 520, requiring you to make tons of them to hit 525. The prism on the other hand will not turn green.. but have a 1 day cooldown. If you have enough gold at that time, the best would be to make meta gems until 520, then start making prism for 5 days.

So yep, keep the uncommon raw gems for prism.

Basicaly, the only uncommon gem you should ever sell (after hitting 525) are Zephyrites (blue), because they are pretty much useless. Also Carnelians (red), because thier price is usualy pretty high, and the only way to make more profit than selling them would be to also have a topped alchemist (to transmute them into inferno rubies)

But.. sometimes, the prices of the green/purple uncommon raw gem go pretty high, when the JC daily require 3 of them. In that case, do the maths, and try to figure if you should sell them raw in stack of 1, or still make item to DE.

[Rhiyan]

I have a herb/alchemist and an enchanter/tailoring; I think once I level my JC/miner I'm going to be in a good position to make some gold on a consistent basis with the info in this guide. I was always intimidated by the AH metagame, but I think armed with this info and related examples I'm ready to give it a shot. Thanks much!

[Gramexer]

Carnelians can also be used to make Carnelian spikes and then somehow disenchant them to-
Greater Celestial Essences if they are worth of something on your server. But I usually transmute them to Inferno Ruby.

[TypicalGoblin]

@Rhiyan

You're welcome ! Good luck making money


And about carnelians, you're right, it can be worth making spikes with them if the celestial essence price is high enough. But personaly, i always transmute them to inferno ruby without looking at the price of enchanting mats.

[Djuntas]

Well...... not entirely. AH-play does depend on the server like you say so, but it's also a little economical and, to me, I find it rather tricky.
Don't say it's brainless just because you can do it

Well maybe. I should say I find it brainless then =) Since I skipped posting glyphs (ZZzzz posting 200-600 glyphs a day, having to scan alot) I keept making very easy gold. Onlyest hard part is getting materials (ores) cheap when you use JC/enchanting. On my server I can pull 2-10k a day with enough mats, if prices aint all ruined, like they are now, cause of under-cutters. Waiting to reset gem prices, hope next week or so.

[Deleted]

I Have 10 chars, 10 transm master and all profesions to max.
Do i make gold ? from the time cata started only 1.8m gold )
Having all, positioning your alts in key places, farming and then selling via ah is a gold thing.
ps : advice scan after missing things in ah every day, make them and profit .
pss : use some addons for ah, like auctioneer !! (you will save lots of time)