It’s no secret that for the finer things in WoW, cash is involved. Nothing puts a strain on your pocket like raiding repair bills, trying to gem and enchant the upgrades you do get, trying to buy things to buff up sets (why the hell are most of the good plate tanking pieces in three slots only craftable?), and trying to complete time-and-money-sink achievements that you can’t afford to put money into anymore… argh!
A while ago, in a post on my new UI, I posted this screenshot, which includes a little peek into my wallet. See 353 gold shown in that bar in Fortress? That’s basically what I have on my toon at all times.
Let that sink in, because as far as I can tell, no one really understands that. "Oh, well you can just pick up blahblahblah for cheap." No I fucking can’t, pardon my French.
I’m in a near-permanent state where single epic gems are expensive, some enchants are unbuyable, the craftables from Crusader’s Orbs are out of reach even after getting emblems to get the orbs (and even one piece of Primal Saronite is way beyond my budget). Darkmoon Cards are unpurchasable. Essentially I manage to keep enough to repair after raids or astoundingly bad heroics, stock up on consumables again, and then that’s it.
I have neither the patience nor the intelligence to play the Auction House. I’ve tried it – I’ve followed the advice of Arthas-damned Auctioneer geniuses and I lose money, every single time. I don’t know what to farm because I have no idea what I should be farming. I can’t fund myself entirely through dailies like I used to in TBC (this is not a new problem, in case it wasn’t obvious – I had to borrow 500g to even get epic flying for my DK, and that was the most gold I’d ever had, at any one point, ever.)
Essentially, readers, despite how good I am at everything else, I am an abysmal failure at making money in WoW and I don’t know how to improve that.
I need your help. Badly. Leave comments below.
Crap, comment eaten.
Well, use Mining and Skinning. Gather lower-level mats and sell them on the AH to people that are leveling up. Use Auctioneer and set it to "market". That's all I know.
Oh, and Gatherer helps immensely.
I have Gatherer. I ended up using it to track Blood of Heroes, too. That stuff's annoying to find.
Your original post: so, I should drop Blacksmithing and Inscription? Because I don't have alts on this server. At all. And I have no alts worth transferring over at the moment. BS and Ins at least get me tangible bonuses that I can use, even if they're mostly money sinks. (I'd rather drop inscription for JC but – well, see entire post.)
Buy adder'stongue, mill, craft inks, sell on AH. Built in 100% margin on most servers if you're willing to do the work. Go a step farther- use the rare inks to make runescrolls of fortitude, and the common inks to make weapon and armor vellums. Also, trade common inks for older inks in dalaran at the ink trader (in the inscription trainer building)- some of those old inks will sell in singles for more than the ink you traded for them.
Yeah, that's not going to make tons of money –
You need Auctioneer because it has the best long term database. Keep Inscription – you can make money off it. Get Lil' Sparky's Workshop because that shows you what things are selling for based on your last Autioneer run (your auctioneer and crafter have to be on the same account).
Work the glyphs by only make Glyphs that Auctioneer lists as selling for 10g or above. I usually undercut by 60s, but you can undercut by what you think reasonable. I make Glyphs usually twice a week – 2 of each Glyph that sells for at least 10g. You will need to stay stocked up on cheap milling mats – Pay attention to lower level herbs as well. If they are really cheap (like less than half the price of northrend herbs) it's cheaper to buy them and mill for those inks than it is to trade ink of the sea for lower level inks (You will use all levels).
I don't have a BS so I don't know how to make gold with that profession.
My other big business is 16 slot bags – buy netherweave for no more than 3g/stack , sell netherweave bags for no less than 6g per – 2g profit per bag. I sell between 600 and 800 a month.
And I do a little flipping here and there – That's usually how I get my initial stake on atls. AH flipping. I've gone from 30s to 1600g in a couple weeks a couple of times. But that's time intensive, and I gather you don't want something like that.
Jewelcrafting is a good way to make gold but it's EXTREMELY expensive to level and get all the blue and epic pats for.
We will get you to a comfortable gold level soon.
Also – go to http://www.wowoah.com and look at what the top sellers on your server are doing. You will note that they are probably making 200K gold a week (that's the average of what I've seen, anyway). And they probably sell between 2000 and 6000 items a week (again, that's I've seen looking at the servers I'm on). But it will give you an idea of where the active markets are.
Honestly, the best money-maker I found on my server is Rugged Leather. (All server ecomomies are unique so your mileage may vary).
I made a DK and took skinning and herbalism. Rugged Leather sells for almost a gold each on good days and at least 30s on bad days.
Just set your DK in Un'goro Crater, farm those pesky raptors and basalisks, and that's how I fund my own flask/consumable costs on my main semi-raiding main.
It takes a good few hours of solid grinding to get herbalism/skinning up there, but then after it's a nice break from dailies just mindlessly grinding beasts and picking flowers for an hour.
Granted, I never have had more than 2k on my toons due to similar cash-flow mind-farts and not understanding the more complex AH flipping methods, but the steady stream of 5-10 gold every day or so is just enough to meet me own demands.
Also, sell ANYTHING that is not grey on the AH. I even undercut junk by 50% and periodically get accused of ruining the market. The way I see it, I sell the junk for more than the vendors would pay for it, and if the person buying that "trash" (usually cooking meats, green BoEs, etc) for cheap turns around and flips it for more profit, I am still making a bit of money. So, the AH is your friend, even if all you do is undercut everything by "unacceptable" margins. If you farmed it, you cna sell it to recoup the time/profit. Every copper counts.
You can make money with the professions you have now. For Blacksmithing make Eternal Belt Buckles, they are almost always good sellers. As for Inscription, be careful of getting into the glyph game. If your server is like most there will be several major competitors who camp the AH and will undercut you you constantly. What you can do though is buy herbs, mill them, make inks, and then craft Armor Vellums, Weapon Vellums, and Runscrolls of Fortitude, all of which are good sellers with the bonus of little to no listing fee, meaning it cost you virtually nothing to cancel and re-list.
Don't be afraid to start off small. Just keep your eye on the big picture.
Right along with what Santyn said. I have made decent cash simply buying herbs (I prefer Adders Tounge for this) and milling them. Turn the pigments into Snowfall ink and Ink of th Sea and sell them. You can generally get about 150% the price of the herbs back out of it.
With your Blacksmithing profession, try making pieces of Tempered Saronite or Savage Saronite armor. Saronite bars are cheap to buy, and the armor pieces take few mats to make. Just make a couple pieces at a time, and when one sells you’ll earn back your initial investment plus enough on top to make it worth your while.
Using Inscription I’d say that you should sell Armor Vellum III. I’ve found that those sell most frequently on my server, and judging by your server prices you could make steady bank with this alone. Or simply mill the herbs, make Snowfall Ink, and sell that for a profit.
The Rokk´s last blog ..The Pug is The End
Oooh…You have Hydra on helping you. I'm jealous.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Phil, Moodyloner DK. Moodyloner DK said: RT @stoppableforce: New post @ TSF: Let's play money making game. http://bit.ly/9glmK5 [...]
I think the problem is that you've got two crafting professions and no gatherer to supplement them. What I would suggest is what Maebius already mentioned. Make a death knight, and farm low-level stuff. There is always someone out there wanting to level a new profession ASAP, even copper ore will sell well.
With two crafting professions, whenever you want to make something, you have to buy the materials and pay what other people think they're worth. When you've got a gatherer, if you've got the time, you at least have stuff coming in for free that you can sell.
Good luck to you!
That's really not an impediment anymore – there are so many people selling mats – If you look at the blogs of the people who have hit the gold cap, and are blogging about it (i.e. Gevlon, Marcko, Tessa) none of them has a gathering profession. Gevlon works in high volume low profit, as does Tessa. Marcko does things that are just expensive and flips the AH a lot.
Oh, and gathering mats isn't FREE. It costs you the time you have to farm them. Time that you could be using for instancing or raiding or crafting, etc…Just because you aren't paying gold for something doesn't mean it's free.
I have a BS and I constantly buy the mats for Eternal Belt Buckles and pump out about 5-8 of them. On my server they will go for anywhere between 40g – 65g. Once you do it enough times you'll be able to recognize the average prices. Also, when you see the mats price, if it drops down low, stock up on it because thats just more profit for you. I also have a Tailor and make the 20 slot bags. Those go for 35g-60g on my server and the mats are super cheap as well once you reach the appropriate level…which isnt hard.
Do battlegrounds, earn rep, buy gems for your own use rather than spending gold on epic gems.
As someone mentioned above, Armor vellum 3. I sell oh 6-20 every day, listed individually, for 3g a pop. That's not a lot of profit after the herbs and parchment, but it takes me 5 min to make 80-100 vellums once a week or so, and 3 min a day to list them. Pretty much, whatever I list sells. Its small change, but it adds up over time. You can make a small profit selling offhands as well, although i often have to re-list. As a leatherworker, I can sell bracers of swift death for about 2k a pop, which is a tidy profit even after the cost of the mats.
Other ways to make gold – run naxx. I know it sounds silly, but the profit on a good Naxx 10 run is considerable.
Or run Ramparts. Takes about 15 min. Sell the trash and the purples for a little more than the same amount of time in a daily will bring in (26-40g), bribe a friend to de the greens. I sell greater planars for 14g a pop on my server, and the arcane dust sells too. Net 2-3 greater planars off of greens and you have a tidy profit for your 15 min.