How to make Gold and Enemies at the Same Time

I know I promised to finish the post on professions, and I will soon, but today I want to talk about something else. Something that REALLY bugs me.

If you have been playing WoW for any length of time, and do regular business in the AH, or sometimes if you even just subscribe to the Trade Channel, there is probably one person whose name keeps coming up. There is usually at least one on every server. You know who I mean.....the guy that buys up every epic and blue in the AH and then doubles or triples the price and puts them back in. Or the guy that buys every single primal of a particular type, on a regular basis, and then puts them back in the AH for double the price. These guys make gold, and lots of it......but only at the expense and misery of others. Is it worth it ? I don't think so, but then, I feel bad for ruining people's fun and profiting at the expense of others. Apparently these guys don't care who they hurt to get ahead.

I have found that these people usually end up making so much gold that they end up trying to sell it to gold companies, they eventually get caught and disappear. (Blizzard watches these people, closely, because so many people file complaints on them for destroying the economy)

Unfortunately that is not the case with one of these types on my server. Either he is extremely slick at not getting caught, or he does not sell his gold, because we have had to put up with his sorry butt for over a year now. I WANT TO STRANGLE HIM ! Because of him, Auctioneer's prices are totally unreliable on most blues and all epics. He has been overcharging for so long that he has "taught" Auctioneer that his ludicrous prices are the norm. I have preached to people over and over to stop buying his stuff completely, it is the only way to get rid of him, but they don't listen or don't care. He carefully guards the identity of the toon he plays for real so people don't KOS him. There really is nothing anyone can do about him and it's very frustrating.

This is a pet peeve of mine I could vent about for hours, but I will spare you :) The moral of the story is: DON'T make your gold at the expense of others. It is a lousy thing to do no matter how you look at it and it will make you the most disliked player on your server.

Laters,

Jade

Professions - Which One Makes Money ?

Around level 20, on my first toon, I discovered the AH. I didn't think much of it at first, but I put a few things in to see what would happen. When I saw that gold sitting in my mailbox, that is all it took, I was hooked. I began investigate what sold and what didn't. This took a while, but after a month or two I got a good grasp of what I could make that would sell on a consistent daily basis. I continued my investigation of this as I leveled all my toons in different professions.

I had a Hunter that was herb/alchemy, a Warrior that was mining/blacksmith, Rogue that was skinning/leatherworking and a Druid that was skinner/tailor. (this was before Jewelcrafting) I tried selling items from all professions from level 5 to 30 and this is what I found.

Remember, these are generalizations, there are exceptions.

Herb/Alchemy - you will make more money selling the herbs than making potions to sell. The AH is flooded with low level potions from people trying to level their alchemy, so deliberately making pots to sell at this level is a bust.

Mining/Blacksmithing - You can make some money mining, but it is a lot of running around for very little gold, until you get to iron. From there you can make decent gold selling ore and bars, since so many professions use them. Blacksmithing is a total waste of time, from a money making standpoint, below level 30. (as is engineering)

Skinning/Leatherworking - You can always make money skinning at any level. Leather always sells. Leatherworking makes money, if you know what to sell. How you find this out is trial and error. Chest pieces and pants from level 10 up are usually good and armor kits are also a good money maker, if you make sure the AH is not flooded with them when you put them in.

Tailoring ~ This is where I hit the motherlode. The gold you can make with tailoring is obscene. From level 5 there are things you can make that sell. The higher the level, the more you can make. The key, of course, is in knowing what to sell.....but even at level 70, I make all levels of things to sell, from level 5 red linen robes, to level 70 Runic spellthread. It all sells.

Well, that's all for today. In my next post, we will revisit the money making potential of professions above level 30.

Ciao,

Jade

Making Gold by Splitting Stacks

Today we are going to look at ways to make money by splitting stacks of items that you buy in the Auction House. There are many reasons why people don't want to buy full stacks of items. Sometimes they only need one or two of an item to make (or have made) something they want for their character. For example, take the Mooncloth robe, I just made for my Mage. I needed two golden pearls and I didn't have any, so I trotted off to the AH to pick them up. Much to my dismay, there was only a stack of 20 for 25 gold. Now it's not like I could not afford to buy the stack, but I didn't need 20, I only needed 2 ! And as any of you that have been playing WoW a long time know, the market for gold pearls is not what it used to be before they upped the drop rate. I remember shelling out (pun intended :p) 40 gold for two pearls to make a robe for my priest, back in the day.

Most any other time when this happens, I just buy the stack, take what I need and then put the rest back in the AH for the same price I paid for it. (A nice way to get your mats you need for free) but since selling gold pearls is pretty hard to do, I didn't want to be stuck with 18 of them. I ended up bumming them off a guildie, who was just as happy to get rid of them and make space in her bank. It was a good solution, but make sure you don't make a habit of hitting up your guildies for stuff, unless you are just as free in giving them stuff in return.

Other reasons why people don't want to buy a full stack may be that they don't have the money to buy the whole thing, or they are just too cheap to part with it. There are any number of reasons why full stacks don't always sell, but the why isn't that important. All you need to know is that you can benefit from the fact that they don't. If you buy full stacks, there is a good chance that you will be able to split them up and sell them for more than what you paid. For example, I picked up a stack of Super Healing Potions, in the AH today for 11g 25s. I immediately turned around and split them into 3 singles for 3.25 gold each and one stack of two for 6.5 gold. A neat 5 gold profit (less AH fees, of course) with no muss and no fuss.

Now I know you are asking: How do I know which items to try this with ? I am sorry I cannot give you a list, there are simply too many. I know which ones to pick because I have leveled most all professions, so I know what stuff is needed for them. I also am familiar with what mats make the more popular potions that are always needed (like health, mana, agility, defense) and what items are needed for quests (like ungoro soil and Hillman's cloaks) and stuff like that. However, there are some standbys that I think are almost always worth a look:

Leather - especially heavy, rugged and knothide
Cloth - especially wool, mageweave and runecloth (always wanted as it used for rep turn ins)
Shards - small and large brilliant and radiant shards, and large prismatic shards
Herbs - almost any herb will work
Metals - not the low level stuff, but thorium bars are needed for arcanite transmute, fel iron bars are needed for a quest and Eternium Ore is needed for enchanting, to name a few.
Potions - most any type of potion that sells (some don't) you can split up and resell.
Primals - everything in BC needs primals. 'Nuff said.
Gems - I usually stick to lower level ones.
Elementals & Essences - air, water, earth, fire, undeath......these are all used in professions and sell well in ones and twos.

I could go on and on, but one thing you need to remember is that each server is different. How popular some things are on a server that has tons of 70's may be very different than a newer server with very few high levels. Another important thing to remember is to make sure you look to see what the going price is for singles of what you plan to split. If you buy a stack of pots that you need to sell for 3 gold each to make profit, make sure that someone doesn't have 10 singles in there for 2 gold each.

Well, that's all for today, hope you all make some gold !

Jade

A Quick Way to Make a Few Gold With NO work

Woo hoo.....was a fun weekend, but I am glad it's over. Too much partying and fun is exhausting. :) Time to get back to business ! Since everyone is probably still recovering today, like I am, I will make it short. A quick and easy way to make a few gold in the AH with basically no work. You will need some gold to start with, to use this method, 50 to 100 should be enough unless you run into some really good deals.

It's really pretty basic. You simply check the price of each of the primals....earth, life, shadow, fire, air, mana. One at a time, you see if any of them are selling (buyout) for at least two gold less than the majority of the others for sale. You buy them, and immediately put them back in the AH for the going rate. I guarantee they will sell before the day is over if you underbid the cheapest one there.

I did this with primal mana, just a few minutes ago. There were three of them in the AH for a buyout of 14 gold. The next cheapest one was (buyout) of 17g 75s. I quickly bought the three for 14 and put them back in the AH for 17g 50s. Two of the three had already sold by the time I was done doing my auctions.

There you have it. An easy 10+ gold with no work. Just check the primal market every day and there is a good chance you can find a deal or two for some quick cash. You can also do this with enchanting mats, like large prismatic shards. Don't forget to scroll down to the bottom to check out the price per item for stacks and partial stacks. They may be cheaper to buy in bulk and you can sell them one at a time for more.

Have a good rest of the day !

Jade

A "My Space" for WoW

I found a neat site today: http://www.warcraftking.com. It's kind of like a "My Space" for WoW players. You can make a profile page, join groups, and they have a forum. I joined it under my alliance character's name, Nikkani. (Nikki for short)

Come check it out :)

Hugs,

Jade

I Made New Free Sig Website

Sorry I have been MIA for the last few days, but I have been working on a new project ! Since I love to do graphical artwork so much, I decided to make a website that offers free personalized signature tags and avatars. Signature Tags (called Sigs or Siggies) are pictures of your character with your name at the bottom. People use them to sign off on their forum posts, or e mails. They look something like this:

http://www.freesigs.gamegraphics.biz/

Avatars are small images that are used on the left of forum posts, usually as an easy means of identifying the poster. Avatars can have your name or be blank. They look something like this:

http://www.freesigs.gamegraphics.biz/

I am very excited about this and I hope that lots of people will order sigs for their toons ! I also made a sister site for Guild Banners. However, since Guild Banners are custom made and much more involved to make, I had to charge a small fee for making them. ($5 to $20) I can't put a sample of my Banners here because the images are very large, but if you want to see, check out the site at: http://www.guildbanners.gamegraphics.biz/.

That's all for today !

Jade

Employment for your AH Toon

G'day !

Today's post is kind of a continuation of my last one, in that it also deals with your AH toon. As you recall, an AH toon is one that resides in a capital city and does nothing but deal with your auctions.

First of all, you should level your AH toon to level 5, so they can learn a profession. Yes, regardless of what you have heard, you can make money with low level professions. You may not want to do this till you have 20 or so gold, because you are going to need some money to buy mats. My favorite two professions for AH toons are tailoring and enchanting. At very low levels of tailoring, you can make quite a few items that almost always sell in the AH.......and usually for more than you would think. Here is how I do it:

How to make extra money with your AH toon with tailoring/enchanting:

1. Level your toon to 5 and learn tailoring and enchanting.
2. Go to the AH and buy all linen cloth that is 15 silver or less for a stack of 20 pieces or 10 bolts. If there is none, then keep checking till there is. Don't buy more expensive stacks, it defeats the purpose of making a profit.
3. Level your tailoring till you can make the following: white, brown, red, blue and green linen shirts and white and red linen robes.
4. The shirts you can put in the AH and sell for 12 to 75 silver each. The white and brown sell for less and the green sells for slightly more. Before you put them in the AH, check and see if there are any in there and price yours a little less. If some idiot has put 20 of one color in for 1 silver each (he obviously made them to level his skill) then don't put any of your shirts of that color in that day, just hold on to them till the dollar shirts sell off and then you can sell yours for more.
5. Level your enchanting till you get the chant for +5 to health. It's really low, like 20 or something. Once you have it, then go to the AH and buy a stack of Strange Dust. Don't pay more than 1 gold for it.
6. The while linen robe pattern is from the trainer, but the red linen robe pattern you will have to buy. It is a very common pattern and you should not have to pay more than 10 silver for it. Learn both patterns and make three each per day, put the little +5 health chant on them and you can sell them for 89 silver to 1 gold 75 silver, depending on your server. Before putting them in the AH, check and see if there are any others in there already. If they are priced at 25 silver or less, buy them and enchant them and resell them. If they are over 25 silver, yours will still have an edge, even if they are priced higher, because of the enchant.

If you do this every time you put your quest loot in the AH, you will easily make an extra 5 gold or more, just from the sale of these small, low level things. You can do the same with some higher level tailoring items and make even more extra gold, but that is a post for another day. :)

Laters,

Jade