gnoop

I don't know that Blizzard would require the majority of mats to come from another crafting profession like enchanting or alchemy. The closest we get to that is tailoring/enchanting, where tailoring doesn't need a gathering profession and enchanting is dependent on disenchanting items for materials. Still, the tailoring almost acts as a gathering skill for enchanting at that point. What you're suggesting would require gathering skill and a crafting skill in order to support an additional crafting skill. That seems unlikely. Blizzard has stated that they prefer a highly solo-able game and a 3-profession necessity would negate that (unless Blizz bumps us to 3 professions, which I'm also doubting).

I suspect that it will be something more along the lines of drops off mobs or possibly use herbalism. It depends on the implementation. You can always boost lower level skills with lower level Inscriptions. Then boost them again later. Like Enchanting, not many will bother until the characters are at their intended end-game level. Thus, I would expect something else to keep Inscription going. Scrolls might work, but it could put them in direct competition with Alchemists.

At this point, we're really just speculating. It will be interesting to see what actually does happen.

 

Laci

I've been doing the exact same thing. Buy raw uncommon gems for: up to 40s for green/blue/orange, 50s for yellow/purple and 75s for red. Cut and list a shitload of them (usually 5-6 of each cut, up to 12 for the solid azure moonstone) for about a 1g markup.

I typically have about 100 cut gems on the AH, and I've been pulling in around 100g-150g per day. Takes about 15 minutes each morning to cut/list everything.

Not a huge moneymaker or anything, but it covers my raiding expenses and completely eliminates the need to farm, which is all I'm looking for from a tradeskill.

 

Starfire

Dusts on my server average only 1.5g per, its not profitable when the fel iron bar costs 1.6g on my server.

Illusion dusts however are ridiclously valuable. I wish there was something cheap (IE NOT REQUIRING THORIUM) from jc to convert.

 

• Valoran

That's why they're so valuable though, there's no real way to manufacture them other than disenchanting boe world drops.

 

• Chicken

[Pattern: Wicked Leather Headband] is actually an option, though you'd still need to farm the Rugged Leather and you'd need to have a Leatherworker with the recipe available.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Starfire

That item would cost me 7g just to make on my server. Really, in order for there to be massive profits it has to be something that takes a new world commodity, like netherweave cloth, fel iron ore or knothide leather. Rugged leather, runecloth and thorium are just far too expensive. And wow, the prices of mageweave are even scarier on Dragonblight.

 

Belteshazzar

What about tailoring Cindercloth Pants (or other 295-300 skill tailor recipes that don't need too much for mats) and disenchanting for illusion dust and eternal essence? I'm at work now, but I'll try and get on and see what's on the AH for prices and stuff.

 

Starfire

This works. Atleast until tomorrow when everyone figures this out and essence of fire skyrockets. Oh well, kudos to people that read this thread early!

 

doogless

Illusion Dust is worth about 2.5g each on my server, and 6 bolts of Runecloth, 1 Essence of Fire, and 1 Rune Thread would cost 5 - 5.5g. If a pair of Cindercloth Pants DE into 1-2 Illusion Dust, that's a loss at those prices, but there's also a chance it will DE into 1-2 Greater Eternal Essences, and those sell for 11-12g (on my server). It's probably a profit if you make enough to get some GEEs out of it, but ymmv if making stuff like that is a profitable endeavor.

 

Skyhoof

How many gems (green quality) do you sell at once? I usually put up 2-3 per cut at a time to hedge my losses if I am undercut. So I might have 15-20 gems in the AH at any given time. Generally, 75% of them sell the first time. The rest of the time, so many people undercut me that they expire.

However, a few posters have mentioned listing 100-150 gems per day. How many of your auctions expire? Do you put a low bid to attract resellers if the gem fails to sell as a buyout? Let's assume you can buy the raw gems for 40 silver each (except blood garnets). How much would you mark up a gem if you're listing more than 100?

 

thorpac

Looking over this thread, I have noticed that there is a premise involved in each strategy: namely, that there are enough potential buyers out there to make it worth selling these items.

What would the group recommend as a money-making strategy for those of us who play on smaller, less-populated servers? I have the JC/enchanter/tailor/miner quartet, and I have the means to produce most of the recommended items at a profit. What I lack is a buyer base willing to buy anything, even at reduced costs. Short of a server transfer of all 4 toons, what can I do?

Not everything i say is stupid.

 

Angeron

If the supply base is low, corner a market completely and just resell everything in that sector. A good example of this would be what I did to the large prismatic shard market on dragonblight one month ago, you can read that post about 10~ pages back. Regarding your buyer base: be patient, if you're the only player, or one of two or three, your items will sell no matter what, even if it takes two days. If the real issue is that the server is not mature enough (even low pop servers with "mature" populations demand a considerable amount of raw/cut gems/enchanting mats every day), you can stockpile the rarer stuff for future market share considerations and just unload your less groovy items for slightly less profit to keep you going.

The other thing to note about smaller servers is crafted items are generally worth lots more, just because there are fewer people with recipes/nethers and so it's more of a cabal or gentlemans agreement type deal with the good stuff (spellstrike etc.) where all the suppliers tend to sell at a similar range rather than furiously undercut eachother. Look into diversifying your portfolio and you will flourish.

Edit: Re: Skyhoof: I believe the whole point of listing 100s of green gems is that they are insanely cheap to buy/produce, and their profit % is comparatively high (50% return on average). The issue is that you need to find the sweet spot price-wise, you can afford to take a few days to do this since listing costs for greenies are so cheap for the 12 hour option. I imagine a 30-40% sell-failure rate is still profitable if your marking up greenies for 1g or more (easily done with 9stam/7dmg/6crit etc.).

Further Editing: It's been mentioned before, but cross-ah trading (buying on one faction, selling to the other) is something I just got into this last week. I won't divulge the markets I delved into, but I will mention that it has been incredibly profitable due to population imbalance. There's a huge alliance population in comparison to the horde on proudmoore (at least at 70), and a tremendous amount of items are availible for 30-50% markdowns (and conversely, markups) on their auction house. Arbitrage is expensive (15+5% tax), but since I'm looking at 50% pretax profit margins, this has been a nobrainer for me. The key to this endeavor has been finding a group of trustworthy alliance characters to help me out. I'm really happy to say I've found a couple of people who are straightforward, no-nonsense, wheeler dealers who have helped me tremendously, while getting rich themselves. I basically bet all of my liquidity in the past week, and have seen my initial costs(a considerable amount) recovered while having an inventory that is literally half again the worth of my initial investment. Disclaimer: this is from cross-AH trading only and does not involve any direct person-to-person business I may have with other alliance characters.

Some basic guidelines for cross-AH trading(this is actually something of a summary of this thread's "golden rules" too):

#1) Know the risk. It's huge, your RvR will generally seem small because of the various impediments (taxes, finding a trustworthy person in it for both fun and profit), but I believe those factors distort the true RvR of the endeavor. You will have to spend thousands of gold and move a tremendous amount of inventory in short periods of time for it to work.

#2) This is a reselling game, don't get caught, use your alts ALWAYS.

#3) Find a partner you can trust, let them know who your main is only after making sure they know the rules of the game and you know you can trust them.

#4) Research your markets. Yes, markets. This is not a profitable or fun maneuver if you're only exploiting one or two markets, it's too much effort for too little gain. Stick to prospecting or farming legion hold if you like the minimalist effort approach.

#5) Research their markets. Yes, the opposite faction's markets. This seems like a "duh!" situation, but knowing your own markets by itself won't make cross-AH trading profitable. You need to be intimately familiar with both and how the big-volume items trade.

#6) Volume. The game has always been, and will always be, about volume. People don't get rich selling one crafted epic per day for a 100g nether markup. They get rich by selling 100 LPS a day at 7G markups and 1500 green gems per week at 1g markups. This is even more important with Cross-AH trading as your markup/deals get cut by an initial 15% (Partners cut) +5% (AH cut) at minimum.

#7) The Neutral Auction House: It's nerve wracking to see level 1 alts with no guild tag just sitting at the neutral auctioneers, occasionally /waving when they buyout somebody's underpriced shit. Deal with it. Be prepared, get on ventrilo with your partner, communicate, never list items too quickly. Stackable items should be in full stacks. If you have to: Pay the Neutral AH-Cut. Yes it's 15%, but you'd rather make a 15% profit on an item (50% margin-15% partner cut-15% neutral cut -5% AH cut) than a 100% loss. Sometimes you don't even need to list an item for its full price to beat the auto-clickers, listing 1500g items for 200g will often (not guaranteed) do the same thing, and hurt you a lot less.

#8) Keep your partner happy! Pay him on time, or even better: up front, in cash, in full, no second chances. Cross-AH trading is risky enough without being a total cock. Dicking your partner over is asking to be burned on really big trades. Paying them ahead of schedule is an even better choice if you can trust them.

#9) Don't be a dick. Keep your mouth shut and your sphincter tight, don't shit where you sleep, don't be a dick to people. Use perfect grammar, be knowledgeable, be gracious, be thankful. If someone is being rude to you, be polite in return, this is the best way to stay anonymous. Remember, you're on an anonymous alt, keep it anonymous. Loose lips sink ships and all that.

#10) Use your alts. Seriously, you don't want to get caught doing this. Fame is the worst thing that can happen to you as a trader, save the fame for your main or your sisters nude pics.

#11) Shut up about it. Don't talk about Cross-AH trading. It's worse PR than being a ninja or a terrible player(let's not forget it's fucking STUPID business decision too). Don't fuck this up for yourself or the others (like me) who enjoy it and profit from it. No guild tags, no stupid "LOLMYNAMEHEREBank". Use a different style of speech than your normal one (preferrably more formal). Nobody wants to know that you're rich or how you got there on your server, save the advice for people who will appreciate it(i.e. this thread).

#12) Enjoy. It's risky as hell, but when you see the amount of volume you can move (doesn't matter which way) it's exciting. Think of that yes moment when you killed that badass boss in Naxx? This is like that, 500 stacks at a time, every day.

Though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable; I simply am not there.

 

• Insom

I have found a very good way of making gold is to mine around nagrand and pickup motes of air (if you are able to of course) through the engineering extractor. Last night alone, i picked up 11 stacks of Adamantite, 2 stacks of Fel Iron (which isnt on my priority list) and 6 Primal Airs.

You can also do the same thing in Shadowmoon Valley, but sub out the Primal Airs for Primal Shadows.

Even if i was just to sell the ore, i'd pickup 28g per stack, and 18g for the primals. Quite alot of gold for little to no effort required.

(28 * 11 = 308) (6 * 18 = 108) Which is about 416g for 2 hours work.

 

Edarran

Regarding Angeron's Post...

I've been tossing this idea around myself for a week or two, the one problem I am having is how do I find a reliable person to trade with? Obviously advertising would generally be a bad idea, the only method I can come up with is sifting through the forums and maybe finding someone who shares my joy of money making. Any suggestions?

 

Pyros

Depends on the relations between alliance and horde on your server, and how long you've been playing, but I know on my old server, was had decent relations with the pvp alliance guilds as horde pvpers, and we could get on their ventrilo or IRC. That was before the whole cross server queues stuff, when you'd face the same WSG team 6times in a row in the evening ^^.
If you don't have any links whatsoever, I guess it's harder tho, you might want to make an alt and /tell random people from pretty decent guilds when they're sitting in shattrath, and see if they'd be interested.

 

Rocco

you are all missing the number one super mega best way of making money, its unbeatable in all ways, no discussion.

use a friends account on another server and make a cross faction char and run it to IF. Then transfear 200g from your faction via Goblin AH to another char, sure you loose 15% but now you got 170g, which is enough.

Now you start checking what costs much less on one ide then the other and buy cheap and sell expensive on other side.



Did this with epic gems on my server and earnd more then 15k gold in 2 weeks spending only ~4 hour total. I couldnt care less about gold nowadays, i just spend half an hour doing this when im low and i get 1k or more from it. It's complete hax.

 

Daer

This may seem obvious, but there are chances that sunfury signets price will fall after 2.4. New dailies ask for mass blood elves murdering.

 

Zurgat

I'm up to about 2000g profit this week, even though i've spent most of my time in raids.
* Large brilliant shards from stealth farming lvl 55-60 instances such as Scholo / DM and my personal favourite BRD, I've been selling these for about 7-8g each. Estimated profit about 150-200g per hour. I farmed a good stock in the weekend, and am putting a bunch on the AH in the morning and evening.
* Large prismatic shards from crafting arcanoweave bracers and Braided Eternium chain. Estimated profit nearly unlimited, but varies depending on stock from AH suppliers. Managed to pick up the recipe for about 175g, and used it to boost my lvl 52 mage's jewelcrafting skill from 362 to 375 at the same time.

The main concern as always is making sure you Do Not flood your own market. You should never list more than 4-6 stacks at a time, or no more than 3-4 single items. If you flood your own market, others will start undercutting you to keep up with the lowest market prices. Also, never undercut others more than a few copper or silver unless you have a monopoly, be careful with flooding the Auctions.

I'm still wondering what to do with some of the stacks of green gems that i got lying about.
So far i've been making Earthstorm diamonds and converting these into Relentless earthstorm diamonds. Cost to make ~3g in green gems + 2x3g primal earth + 2x15g primal water = ~40g, and sell these for ~120g But you can only make one a day. (My alchemist is transmute spec)


I might try out the cross faction epic gems sometime, good tip !
Though i suspect that if enough people started doing that, the market would eventually balance itself pretty well.

-= Random Ravings - RSS Feed =- Rogue and Hunter stuff here. As well as guides to get you trough your spare time.

 

Pitviper

if u have them in your bags when these patterns become bop drops, will the old ones still remain boe ? i remeber something like this happend in a previous patch for some other JC pattern and as far as i remember they remained boe, if so this could be a nice investment, i know on Azsune that JC patterns are at a low, if u picked these patterns up held on to them till patch u then have limited stock items that u could readly sell for double your investment.

the question remains though do we have any idea if they will change ?

 

Angeron

I actually found two of my partners by complete accident, but the #1 recommendation I can make is that someone who is polite, restrained, and grammatically proficient is probably a better candidate than someone who isn't. If you can make "deals" with people, and can do this on a repeat basis, take a chance with them, bring them into the fold. It may not work out and you may get burned, but the gms can return your items/gold if it happens (maybe? according to the new policy at least). Well known people may be more trustworthy, but they also have to be more open with what they're doing, why all of their well-known alts are suddenly buying up half the AH, and that's just shit you don't want to have to deal with.

Regarding BT gems: They can be hugely profitable if there is a market for it. That being said, new markets tend to get saturated VERY quickly, and unless your old market is both mature and has low barriers to entry, the cross-AH tactic with BT gems is literally the riskiest one to enter. You can sit on inventory for months on end because people on the other side aren't used to the idea of "best in slot" items being available, or because the market for 12 spell dmg/10crit/etc. is just not there. It's an incredible capital investment, and pretty much requires you to commit a large % of your liquid assets into a form that, when it's hot it'll sell as soon as you list it, and youll get orders for 10 more, but when the market goes cold (and it will, it always does), you'll be sitting on 15000g worth of gems and nobody to sell em to. Don't get burned just doing the gem trick, it doesn't always work, and ANY competition cross-faction will fuck you royally harder than you could possibly imagine. If you do get into it, make sure the rest of your portfolio is truly diverse and when the hurt comes, you can last until good times return.

Another good way to make big bank is to swap your 1000s of marks of sargeras and fel armaments for the scryer equivalents and then sell them. On most servers, aldor rep items are worth 25-50% as much as scryer rep items, which means the potential for profit is enormous if you can find the people who alwasy (every day!) spam "wtt arcane tome x7 for aldor version pst!". I used to do this on a daily basis back on dragonblight and netted ~ 5kgold total revenue vs. the 2500 I would've been lucky to get with Aldor rep items.

Though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable; I simply am not there.

 

Zurgat

I wouldn't say this could be a good investment.
When they make the patterns BoP, they're likely to attach them to a certain mob, and give it a 1-2% droprate.
Thus Jewelcrafters will be able to farm them quite easily. The patterns in question will become quite worthless.

-= Random Ravings - RSS Feed =- Rogue and Hunter stuff here. As well as guides to get you trough your spare time.

 

Pitviper

only worthless to those who have the time to invest in grinding them, they will still sale for the same reason vendor bought recipes sell,

Its all about people with to much g and not enough time or cant be bothered to farm it, u can nearly always depend on someone like this will to pay over the odds for it, its the same principle i use to make g on AH pvp cloak is not that hard to get, but i can alwasy sell 1-2 of the crafted Cloaks each week and i dont even make them myself, easy 1k, i have found time and time again, people just dont spend enough time checking prices/who drops what.

before the LPS price crash, my repair bill Gold came from checking ah everyday for rare lvlv 66> items on ah selling for 25g or less deing + selling them for 30g each, i made enough out of this to cover 4 ngihts of flasks, oils etc

 

tedv

I have two alchemist alts and I often have to buy a few uncommon gems to fill out the transmutes. I do far more Earthstorm than Skyfire though, so I just craft a few supplemental things to get rid of the red, blue, and orange gems. Orange gems are the hardest to unload though. Generally I just hope I no one else is doing the veiled cut.

 

Centuri

I also did the large brilliant shard market and was easily able to solo 45 min Baron runs in about 20-25 minutes. Be sure and grab something to remove disease. Greater Eternal Essences sell for 16-19g on my server and the mini-bosses here all have a chance of dropping a green item. Illusion dust is about 3-4g so its just pure profit either way.

Faced with a glut of LBS I decied to churn out some Brilliant Mana Oil and Brilliant Wizard Oil. The recipe is from ZG rep so not a lot of BC players will have it. We also have a low pop server here and most of the old raiding guilds have left. No competition as of yet. The mana oil isn't really selling but the wizard oil does apparently have a market. I am able to sell 2-3 a day @ 20g each which isn't bad at all considering that the Superior oils all sell here for 7-9g.

 

Derrek

Curious as to people's pricing philosophy....

Would you rather price something low for the increased cash flow, or wait for it to sell. Obviously, you need patience for epics, and you're not going to sell something incredibly low.

But, there are several items that don't move very fast and are not big money gainers. I have recently purchased a libram for 1g that has just sat there while I've been holding to my price of 8g (auctioneer info). I could drop it to, say 4g and still make a profit off of another auctioneer user; while he posts it daily for 8g.

Similarly for gems, do you price the lowest, don't post if it's too low, price mid-range....