I mentioned this briefly in another thread as one of the problems with consumables, but I thought the topic is big enough for its own thread. Prior to the expansion, there were lots of ways for guilds to make gold for their banks to cover expenses like potions, flasks, and respecs - selling MC BoEs, MC materials (cores/leather/etc), Elementium Ore, and MC/BWL/even Naxx BoP items. So far in TBC, none of the raid zones seem to drop unique sellable materials or BOEs, so those options are no longer available. The reduction in the raid size from 40 means that selling slots for BoP gear is more of a real cost to the raid group, and the existing 25 man content (barring Maulgar) is already difficult enough without someone tagging along to buy loot. The most realistic zone to sell BoP items from is Karazhan, but as a 10 man, it's even harder to make room for someone who's just along for the ride, and it's less of a guild effort and more of a sacrifice for that particular group.

So my question for discussion here is - since the 'traditional' avenues for funding a guild bank are largely obsolete, how have you managed to keep the resource available? How do you handle tank flask/pot costs and possible fight-specific respecs?

We used to rely very heavily on running people through MC/BWL in order to fund our expendable usage in Naxx. As noted this is no longer really an option, so guess the few of us in the guild that aren't already herbalists will have to start making herbalist twinks =/

Quite simply, we don't, but then as an entirely new guild as of TBC we weren't able to exploit BWL and MC. Will it be possible to exploit Karazhan? unlikely. Gruul's Lair, definately in a month or two. But at present we're just relying on a lot of contributions, and with regards to herbs i'm spending a lot of my non-pve time grinding gold to buy them and then making 50% of the raids requirements myself.

Actually is there a way to ensure that the gold from a boss goes to one person? I wonder how fast one could plow through BWL on a saturday morning or something and just loot all the money to the guild bank. The problem I'm seeing is that many guilds are newly formed and its not a question of how to keep the money flowing, but how to even establish a guild bank fund.

The only option I see from PvE is selling Primal Nethers. Some end bosses can be 4-manned by the right group and there is always lining up a buyer for a crafted item. The idea of running BWL for gold might be doable- it's possible for someone to drop group to pick up the individual gold after a fight.

There was a thread about selling slots on PvP arena teams, but that's even more of an individual effort and removed from the guild.

There are also Primal Manas from Karazhan and Void Crystals, but I'm not too sure if those are enough to support a guild bank.

Yes, make the master looter leave the raid group, pick up the gold and then rejoin the raid.

We had a pretty filled guid bank pre TBC and sold everything when we did our server transfer, so I suppose we have some funds to rely on atm. That being said, consumables (other then flasks/tank stuff) are at the moment the member's responsability. We had a dkp rewarding system for herbs, and I suppose that will be reastablished once we start using dkp again.

Primal Vortex

We have no way to fuel guild banks atm, so people have to provide their own flasks and consumables (even our prot warriors) for raiding, aswell as respecing for Gruul.

I've heard that a fair amount of people have now turned to account shareing in order to have access to Herbalism.
Leveling an alt to 70, then getting him a flying mount, and then an epic flying mount because the normal one drives you mad after getting used to the epic one, is not fun just to enable you to farm so you can raid on your main character.

I personally tried this, and decided its not worth the risk, my old rogue (62) is a tailor and makes me 250g per 4days with Mooncloth(spec) & Spellcloth, which I splash into herbs off the AH - simple.

Only thing our 'guild bank' can do atm is provide our melee with Void Crystals which we get from Karazhan for their Mongoose enchant.

Assuming nobody does anything dumb and causes repair bills, what would be the minimum number of lvl 70s that could fully clear BWL, and how much gold could be earned and how long would it take?

My income on full BWl (in 40 raid ofc) was around 50g if i recall. Even doubling that, its still not efficent as trivial farming for motes/netherweave/whatever. But probably not that boring.

Interesting idea there; give the Master Looter a "split" and a "take" option on the gold pile.

~2k gold from bosses if only 1 person looted it (iirc going with 40 people I'd come out with a 50g profit or so from bwl, 50x40 = 2k)