Gold Making Tip

This just occurred to me last night: sell your profession materials NOW.

The prices will only steadily come down over time as more and more people begin to sell their mats. But right now every is so highly focused on leveling their professions and still flush with gold from BC that the prices are CRAZY!

I know from an enchanter perspective I never ran out of Arcane Dust and rarely ran out of Greater Planar Essensces, and I'm sure that trend will continue for Wrath with Infinite Dust and the other things (can't look them up right now). So I sent everything off to my AH alt for auctioning at the crazy market prices out there right now.

Also, don't always put up in max stacks. When I have a stack of 20 of something I put up one stack of 8, two stacks of 4, and four singles. You tend to get more per item as people are just looking for what they need.

Gold Goal for Wrath

With the expansion fast approaching I'm wondering how much gold am I going to need going into it? Professions to level, gear to make, mounts to buy... all of it is going to be expensive. Especially considering that I have 3 level 70s, each with different professions. That means 3 toons to level, 6 mounts to buy (assuming new ground and air mounts), and 6 professions to level. It's going to get expensive for me.

I have not yet looked into the discussions surrounding how much gold is going to be needed so I'm just setting my own goal. I'm shooting for 9k gold, or 3k per toon. I'm sitting comfortably at 5.5k right now as I try to always keep my gold reserves up around the 4-5k mark. I have my work cut out for me, but I do have a few things going in my favor.

First I'm going to start clearing out my bank and selling off all the mats I'm currently just hoarding. Those supplies are mostly enchanting and leathers mats at this point. I don't have a miner so I don't have an abundance of stones or ore to sell. All of those enchanting mats will be useless to me post-expansion and I expect the prices to plummet in the first few months of WotLK. The exception to this will likely be herbs of all levels as they will be needed by people trying to powerlevel Inscription. Selling off my mats should net me about 1k gold if I time it right to maximize the price.

The real money is going to come from turning badges into gems. I'm sitting on 418 badges: 223 on my druid, 137 on Stoney, and 58 on Nixhex my warlock. I am keeping some badges on stand-by for Finn once I upgrade his weapon I'll need some new gear to stay uncrittable. And Nix needs new PvE gear so I'm working on that stuff. But Stoney... Stoney is maxed out right now for our current level of progression; I don't need the badges. I think I could hit my gold goal in short order by selling rocks.

It's the Stoneybaby pre-WotLK Fire Sale!

Farming vs. Buying

I need to get the Aldor rep up on my Warlock which means Marks of Sargeras and Fel Armaments. If your server is anything like my server, Muradin, then Scryer rep items are cheap and easy because of all the Blood Elf killing quests that came out with patch 2.4, which has led to a flooded market of those items. Whereas the Aldor rep items are less frequently farmed and significantly more expensive. In fact it's kind of ridiculous with the Marks being four times more expensive than the Signets.

Being aghast at the exorbitant prices on the AH and having a bit of time I decided to see what farming would yield. I farmed for 45 minutes making a loop around the bottom part of Legion Hold in SMV. I disenchanted the greens, vendored the greys, and made Heavy Netherweave Bandages our of all the cloth that dropped, then vendored those.

 30 - Gold (from greys and drops)
 24 - Arcane Dust
  1 - Greater Planar Essence
  5 - Super Mana Potions
  2 - Super Healing Potions
124 - Netherweave Cloth
 36 - Marks of Sargeras
  2 - Fel Armaments

The total haul I estimate is worth about 244 gold, or 325 gold per hour. Considering even an afternoon of power-questing can only net 200g per hour at best, I must conclude farming is better than buying.

But then isn't that like anything in life? Everything is a time/money trade-off. Either you have the time or the money, rarely both. No time to travel: take a flight. No money to travel: take a bus. No time to build a deck: pay someone else to do it. No money to pay someone: do it yourself. No time to farm: buy mats. No money to buy: farm 'em. Of course sometimes you have neither which significantly limits your possibilities, whether in real life or in WoW.

One final note: I can't help but paraphrase a great quote I read on the official forums...
Aldor & Scryer are like women--they pretend they want you to go out and do heroic deeds in their name, solve problems on their behalf, and put forth great effort. But really the fastest way to winning their favor is to just go out and buy shiny things to give them.

Dirty Shaman Chants and Cuts!

I logged in for an hour and a half today, joined the trade channel, and started advertising for my professions: "Dirty Shaman Chants & Cuts! Your one-stop shop for all your S4 needs. PST with whatcha need!"

After a flurry of activity I netted 290 gold and called it a day. I didn't set prices for anything and left it up to people what they wanted to tip. I figured I would rely on the good will of people--even of rogues--and was glad to see my trust was rewarded.

Only 1 person didn't tip me at all, when I told him he was the only person to not tip he said he paid enough for the mats that he didn't need to tip. I didn't feel like arguing that he didn't buy the mats from me so I just let it go. Besides at that moment I had a hunter who needed 4 new pieces enchanted and tipped me 100g for the lot.

Astrall Recall is OP for days like these. You want to meet in IF? No problem, brt. SW? done. Shatt. I'm there. I think I'll stay in trade channel for the next few days, and definitely through the weekend to make some more gold the easy way.

The mod Cellular helps a ton too. I don't know how I got by as a guild officer before that mod, and it proved its worth again today.

I'll be back tomorrow with more updates. Did you get your gear? How much did you pay for enchants or gem cuts?