You could also make the argument the group could collect and split the profits among themselves to make people a bit more self sufficient. Realistically a guild bank doesn't matter a ton, if people can provide their own consumables and fund their repairs. Nothing else really matters. There are no non BOP recipes which are very key to have, there are no spells that not everyone can get, and there is very seldom if ever upgrades to pass on to others (mostly due to the lack of BOE items, and well, once its soulbound, it isn't going anywhere anyway.)

Guildbanks mattered and made sense in EQ, I mean my guild sold KEI scrolls and other valuable, rare spells and made a lot of cash, but usually it was other guilds buying from us without the same accessability. That doesn't exist here really, there is little exclusivity, or rather there is nothing to obtain from those places that you could give anyone else anyway. There was also like res sticks we bought, which was rare. Again, this sort of thing doesn't really exist here.

Embrace the MMO part of WoW and have relations with other guilds, your access to things such as enchants or flasks becomes significantly better at this point, you can even trade "we'll craft <x> flask for free for you all, if you create <y> flask for us for free" etc.

Some people might even have personal friends outside the guild and can pull free crafted flasks that way.

I do it, we don't have a Fortification in guild yet, I have someone out of guild make them for me. While I am not the most efficient Lichen farmer its not that bad - I logout outside of Slave Pens, login for 5-6 minutes, pick 5 times and log back off and do some other stuff. I have someone who sells me primal earth at a noteably cheaper price and right now I have more earth then I will probably use in Ironshields for the next month or so. Of course, thats a matter of finding a supplier but most people will take guaranteed money over potential money. You also need to pick when its relevant to consumable. For example, for the first 3-4 minutes on Gruul he hits for nothing, its not really worth it to use Ironshields then, its not like your healers are even really using mana that early in the fight, so realistically you are probably only using 1-2 on a win. I don't pot on any Karazhan fight besides Nightbane and due to the nerfs, I'll likely use less Ironshields in a week than I have in the past fighting him. I don't have the luxury of a potion master with Ironshield yet in the guild either, just really unlucky drop rates so I can't even count on duplicates. Its just not that bad.

I was fairly annoyed with the consumables but honestly, Terocone for defense is almost as common as Dreaming Glory is, Lichen isn't that bad to get (sometimes I might say, trade a rogue in my guild Terocone for Lichen since they can farm a much larger quantity than I can), Primal Earth is going to be relatively cheap due to mining, and again, even if you can only farm 5 nodes per hour like me, lots of other classes can get a good bit more with other tricks - priests actually herb decently with mind soothe, rogues, hunters, druids, even mages can to a degree. The mana thistle is across the board semi annoying for everyone, but 10 mana thistle isn't that much.

Especially as a MT you should have herbalism, you can't solo for shit anyway, you might as well farm up pots mats or other sellable herbs. The demand for other herbs won't be going down any time soon either, and a stack of pretty much anything sells rather nicely.

Besides, you can always apply the logic that if the MT can farm their own pots, then you really don't have an excuse to not have your Relentless Assaults and Restoration flasks, either of those is definately cheaper/less of a hassle to make.

If you're really hard up for cash and the idea of just having everyone actually farm, you can always sell 5v5 arena slots if you have a team with a 1800+ rating. Kara chess loot as well can be sold. Can probably sell Maulgar/Gruul loot as well.

Yeah really any arena slot with a good ranking can be sold, even if its 2v2 or 3v3. I don't know about selling Gruul loot though; 1 clueless person can easily wipe the raid. Maulgar is a bit more forgiving so that's a possibility. We're at the point where every chess loot is going to be sold, we've even posted our rough prices on our realm forum. Hopefully this week we get a couple sales from it.

If I was trying to sell Gruul loot I'd probably just have the buyer stand in the hallway outside of Gruul's room and kill the mob with 24 people.

Well, for hardcore players who were among the first to 70, there were a ton of moneymaking opportunities that could fund heavy raiding for a long time to come, even without any kind of guild bank support. We had one of the first jewelcrafters to 375 skill, who bought all the blue gem designs he could when they were cheap, and he made an absolute killing before the market became saturated. Same with people who farmed pre-nerf elemental plateau when there were a handful of 70s, total, on the server, and hoarded it all for later resale. Imagine being an herbalist when you are one of a dozen people on the server with a flying mount.

Personally, I hit 70, ran heroics nonstop, and ended up with 30-something Primal Nethers and nothing to use them on. I picked up some epic weapon plans, and now I'll soon have >4k gold after buying my mount. I don't like consumables, but I can certainly sustain heavy use of them for quite a while to come.

Yeah, as the first 70 on Ner'zhul, I stocked up thousands of gold worth of primals and managed to get almost every epic LW recipe, which I sell for 250g a pop with nethers. *I* have a ton of gold, and I can sustain my own use of them for a long time, but the rest of my guild isn't all in similar shape. I've been taking donations for tank flasks and resist gear and such, but that's hardly a smooth process, and some people obviously end up paying a lot more than others over time. I'm strongly considering dropping Engineering for herbalism - not even for myself, but so I can support other peoples' consumable needs. I'm not sure if that's sadder commentary about engineering or the state of the raid game, though.

Unless you have some extremely hard to get recipes for your profession (and you actually get regular use out of them), its pretty much worth it to drop anything for Herbalism. One of the officers of my guild and I had a discussion about it when he was trying to level an alt to herb, when he could just do it on his druid with the 280% mount and he was rather torn up about the thought of dropping skinning. I pointed out pretty much anything skinned even now isn't worth shit and if he had to make anything the cash he could make from herbalism could easily afford anything he needed to buy for LW. I mean, mining is pretty profitable, but herbalism still makes more as a gathering profession, and even if it did not, you'd get consistant use out of the things you picked. Personally I've got my smithing up just buying stuff in the AH rather than mining, and while it is a bit costly to not mine to raise the skill, its hard to beat being able to go out and pick herbs whenever I want to, or even just flying somewhere you'd be surprised at the volume of stuff you can pick up and trade/sell for herbs you or others can use. If its not Ragveil, it can be sold for a reasonable price (or unreasonable price in the case of say Mana Thistle).

Also, as more and more people get into the raiding game and get further down the progression line I expect things like Mana Thistle are going to be perma camped and prices will be very high per stack - they already pretty much are on my server at some locations. Might as well load up while you can.

Slightly OT, but how fast do you guys go through your Guild Bank gold? I manage my guild's bank, but we never got deep into Naxx, so I have no reference point for whether our funds are low or high (20k).