Elerion

Remember that tanks are very low in numbers. In raiding guilds maybe 15% of the roster are tanks, in the casual PvE community even lower (judging by the number of groups that need tanks to get going), and in the PvP community noone is a tank. A new defense enchant on cloak is never going to shake up the market noticably due to this.

 

Moogul

Remember defence also reduces crit chance, and whilst you might say 'but tanks can get crit-immune easily', that's not always the case - I see this enchant being very useful for resist gear sets, where you want to push resistances up but keep yourself crit immune. Admittedly you might often want resistance enchants, but for say, tanks doing Hydross, there's no decent frost resist on cloak, so a +def one could be worthwhile. Also as has been brought up before, there's quite a lot of recent tank gear without defence, I find that in my new gear of ZA/Badge stuff my defence drops quite low, so I'm definitely considering this enchant.

 

Darkrenown

And, I imagine, anyone going for an uncrushable set would want it too.

 

• Chicken

Personally that's why I'll probably switch to the new +defense enchant instead of using the dodge rating enchant. I'd say losing 0.03% avoidance is worth it in trade for more gearing flexibility.

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

 

Thrawnseg

So a new server just opened up. As a druid, what skills would be the best to aquire money enough for a 40 mount? I was thinking of going mining/enchanting to start with - I know mining will always be a money maker, but not sure I want to start JC or to get a second gathering skill until 40.

Would just mine/herb or mine/skin make more money just starting out with no economy?

 

Talgog

Economies are built on raw materials. There is no particularly good reason to challenge that paradigm on a new server. But the actual prices will probably be far lower than what people are used to on established servers. No rich mains who want to switch professions or bankroll alts with their piles of loose cash, no gold buyers because there are no gold farmers and no transfers, and everyone is in lowbie content so Azeroth mats won't be hyper rare.

 

Thiris

That being said, since the prices of lower level mats are more available, it might be time to level a profession such as Jewelcrafting. Once the rare designs start becoming available, you might be able to snatch them up for a decent price.

I could also see Mining/Engineering being profitable if you're quick with leveling. Being one of the first/only people in outlands zapping motes from couds could be incredibly profitable once people start wanting enchants and tradeskill gear.

 

• Beliandra

Not to mention that this is not an incredibly expensive enchant - it's target market might be new tanks gearing up in blues to get crit immune for the first time.

 

Finja

I would put that figure a bit lower, mate. Given that there are 8 classes, an even split between each would be 12.5% - 15% seems on the high side.

To bring the conversation back to the original topic, though: I have sometimes received so many requests on my priest to heal in Heroics (and raids fairly often too!) -- even when specced Shadow (the person asking might just not have checked my spec, but I think they'd probably accept me regardless (not because of my leet skills, just because they're so desperate (although maybe it's my leet skills))) -- that it's crossed my mind more than once to set up as a Mercenary healer for hire. People have even offered money before, and it seems that selling other "services" is becoming more popular - and potentially quite profitable. A couple of guys on my server I know were making quite a nice packet selling arena points and getting the groups' ratingup - 600g or more per week per group. Not as much as other ways you can make money, but certainly nothing to sniff at.

Anyone had any success -- or failure -- in the service industry?

 

Redcape

People just won't pay competitive rates for healing services. You could just kill dudes in a circle for 200g/hour, or run an instance for 1.5 hours and get paid 20g. You get some benefit from the instance, but even if you value what you get out of an instance at 100g (which seems excessive) there is simply no way you are going to con people into paying you 200g to heal an instance. While you might get a little pay, you aren't going to make friends that way and you aren't making a decent amount of money for your time, so why bother?

Now, if you can get paid to run instances as a healer where you actually need the upgrades that would be another thing entirely since you are probably willing to run the instance anyhow and the cash is just a perk. I doubt very much that a PUG is going to pay a healer in greens a lot of cash to heal their instance though.

 

Elerion

15% puts you at 3.75 capable tanks per 25 man raid, which sounds about right for all the TBC zones. 2 Full time tanks plus one or two hybrids. Anyway, derail, poof.

 

Angeron

I have had people pay my respec fees and 3-6 void crystals for respeccing prot and tanking 3-4 heroics in succession before. If people know you're an excellent player and are willing to mitigate costs between them (4people=25g each for pro-tank services for 5 hrs) they're generally happy to do that rather than deal with the horror of the LFG channel. That being said, it's an opportunity, but not really a market. Point selling works because people CANT get that amount of points-per-week on their own, people CAN find competent healers, it just takes longer.

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.

 

Redcape

I think I must have a warped view of the LFG channel. I get groups together in 1-2 minutes and always finish the dungeon in reasonable time. That said, I think a BT geared pallytank with lots of raidleading experience isn't exactly the standard model in that channel. Since the only thing a PUG healer has to know is "heal Redcape a lot" and the dpsers have to know "attack SOMETHING" it is basically cheating on my part.

I can imagine what a mess it must be for dpsers though. Even if you are really good you are totally reliant on your PUG healer and tank to be decent or you are going to have a hell of a time. Tip for casuals: roll a paladin tank! Even with mediocre gear if you play well you will find grouping with randoms to be fairly easy.

 

Starfire

I frequently get paid to heal instances. T6 holy priest. I usually get 50-100g per an instance and/or some other perks. And I've been doing this since 60.

My best was 30g + all [Living Essence] in a Dire Maul East run.... that netted 6 essences.

 

Mano

Tailoring is a good moneymaker on a new server - EVERYone and his alt wants bags.
Enchanting can also be good - try to sell the low level wands to every caster. The first two are still the best in game I think.

In my opinion, gathering isn't really worth it on a new server - it will take much time before you make money from it. I'd guess you'll reach Outlands before you get any real money out of it.

If you can take your time to get money, are not leveling on the very forefront, it might be possible to st ore the gathered stuff up for the "second generation" of players/alts and sell it to them for a bit more.

Another thing to think about: with travelform @ 30 or actually even cat form +talented 30% speed outdoors, you don't really need a mount at 40. As long as you're killing stuff more of the time than you are riding, the time to mount will often take away much time. I think I bought riding only at 46-50 or so on my druid.

 

Daenerys

You have to buy it eventually, might as well get it as soon as you're eligible so you do have it when you need it. Such as going to SM as Alliance, or getting to Ungoro and many other places. That extra 30% speed makes a HUGE difference when you are making some of the longer journeys. And again, you can't skip buying it, so it doesn't save you any money to wait till you're a higher level.

Enchanting isn't a very "leveling-friendly" profession from a money-making standpoint. In order to sell your goods, you have to sit around town, which means you aren't leveling anymore. Tailoring is a good bet for the bags, but it can be a pretty worthless profession overall for many classes, Druid included (though I guess it could be okay for Moonkin...). Even though prices for raw goods won't be near what you see on a mature server, gathering will still be the way to go imo. While on a mature server you can expect higher prices, you really never know at any given time how much demand there will be for a given level of mats, especially the lower level stuff. But on a new server, everyone there is leveling and just about all of them will be working on their professions along the way. Basically what I'm saying is that you may not get great prices for your goods, but they will surely sell because the demand will be extremely high throughout the entire level range.

 

Smurrf

Aren't there 9 classes, not 8? Or is it just too early in the morning for me to count that many fingers and toes? Should put the number at 11.11%.

Edit: in an every class, every main tree is equally represented kind of way. I highly doubt that reality exists.

 

Mano

well, you generally don't make so many really long travels in the early forties.
As Horde I never had any problems with SM, but as far as I know SM is now in the thirties anyway?
And yes, when get to the higher forties, travel time will increase, which is why I bought it then.

And you can save money (even if not much), because your reputation will probably increase to the next level.

Anyway, I'm just saying that isn't necessary to buy riding at forty straight, it hasn't ever been.

Actually, it isn't so bad as many claim it to be - the first ~50 points can be gained by disenchanting anyway and as I said you can earn money with the wands.
It's also a not too bad companion to most crafting professions (except for losing the gathering profession obviously) - you can't sell anything from those also, so you can either vendor them or disenchant them.

I don't know but while leveling people won't have enough money to pay the prices. I remember that prior to BC (or rather prior to 2.0) you couldn't sell anything lowlevel (i.e. a 10 stack of copper was way less than 40s). The only gathered things having real value then were Thorium + gems from it, Dreamfoil, Gromsblood, Black Lotus, Stonescale Eel, Dragonscales.
This changed massively in the "raid free" time, where everyone was leveling a twink and had enough money to just buy the stuff. And again massively with BC itself.

 

ZeroWashu

Start with two gathering skills. Mining and Skinning. Mining because you can stockpile for the switch to engineering and suck clouds once in outlands. Skinning will be dropped then for that engineering skill. The mining is kept for primal earth and fire plus to feed engineering recipes up to a certain point.

The early on skinning is profitable just selling to the NPCs but since so many people are going to be raising skills, including leatherworking, you should be able to rake in the cash provided you go cheap enough

Avoid instances as there won't be 60+ level characters to carry you through. Quest and quest heavily even it means jumping continents mid level to do so and you should get in the outlands with the top twenty percent.

 

tommtomm

Something feels amiss with what we currently know about epic gem availability once 2.4 hits or my servers markets for the uncut epic gems.

I haven't studied them alot, but it seems that every time I see epic gems on the AH, they range from 300-400g. This isnt surprising considering the small % of players who have access to these gems, much less the smaller number of people who have the required reputation to get the designs.

This changes though with 2.4. Every Tom, Dick and Harry JC like me will be able to farm the reputation to get access to the epic designs without ever having to step into a T5/T6 instance. Even if the number of people going into T5/T6 content goes up 4x, this will not be that large of an increase in the number of epic gems coming onto the market. So why give all JC's access to the designs, when there is not that large of a supply of gems? The T5/T6 guilds already have a stranglehold on the supply, so who cares if their JC's have a stranglehold on the cuts? Guild JC's will always cut gems for their fellow guildies for free.

I would not be surprised to see some other source of these gems coming into the market. Either eternium/khorium will be able to be prospected for them, or some other means will come into play.

 

Derrek

I am _speculating_ that epic gems may have a random chance of showing up as new daily rewards. This would crash the current epic gem market and the rare gem market IF this happens to be the case.

 

TheCutlery

I know this is going back a page or 2 here, but I'd sure like to know what the hell is causing this too. Earth was pretty steadily between 2-3g each, now it's up to 7-8 (maybe 5g if you buy stacks) on my server. It's really putting a cramp on my mooncloth factory when I gotta throw down 300g every 3 weeks for transmutes.

 

diotox

My guess is that more and more JCers realize they can craft [Braided Eternium Chain] and convert it into LPS for a profit, increasing demand for primal earth because they need it to make the mercurial adamantite. But that's just pure speculation on my part.

 

Eledorian