Retro Disenchanting, Milling, and Prospecting

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

Hey guys. This post is going to be a collection of links and helpful information which you can use to make gold with all levels of your disenchanting, milling, and prospecting characters. Yeah, I know Markco the gold guru hasn't posted in a while but like most of what I've written to you over the years, this post is eternal; it's always going to work because this is how WoW works. More specifically, this is how the economies in Azeroth work.

Buying and Timing

Ever see an average price for an item and look at your server only to find that the item is well below that value? Look again at a later point in time. Sites like The Undermine Journal will give you extremely accurate information for the pricing of items on your server. However, you can't just look at the average value (even with Auctioneer's PCT and disenchanting/milling/prospecting scans). What you need to do is look at when players actually buy these items. A desperate player pays far more than the "average price." Ever power level a profession under a time restraint? I'm sure you ended up paying too much for at least some of your profession leveling fodder.v

Let's look at greater planar essences and times you could bid/buy them out (like just before reset). You should also be looking into buying the items which disenchant into greater planar essences as those tend to be a far better deal rather than trying to flip them (see the linked post). These essences always sell well on weekends for people leveling their professions. However, there is lots of competition and the price tends to fall more than it rises. Instead of selling at this time you should be looking to buy (like on saronite saturdays). Later on in the week, as less players are on, supply will decrease and you can look to make some serious gold selling to people trying to power level their enchanting during non-peak times. I've told you how to take advantage of similar items just by bidding and selling normal, but there's nothing wrong with buying during peak times instead of waiting for bids if you have the capital to do so.



Retro Manipulative Professions

This same strategy applies to all retro milling, prospecting, and disenchanting items used throughout leveling various professions. Particularly watch out for items that most players aren't able to farm while leveling. These include any weapons, armor, herbs, ore, gems, etc that are found in the higher levels of outland, azeroth and northrend. Why? Because people leave these zones before they reach those items while leveling.

I firmly believe that the best gold makers all use one or a combination of milling, prospecting and disenchanting to earn the most gold possible in WoW. I earned 2.1 million gold primarily from these three activities and the resulting gold making opportunities made available to those who have all of WoW's professions at their fingertips. Strategies such as the "Shuffle," which originated in the JMTC forums, have resurfaced throughout the internet for the more recent ores in cataclysm. I found a great diagram at the Consortium that was so good that I added it as a reference in my gold guide (that's a huge compliment btw, the rest of the content therein comes solely from this cranium here).

Get Cracking Gold Bloggers

This is some good old fashioned gold making knowledge, knowledge which I think needs to be revisited in the gold making community. For bloggers, try going back to what works 24/7 from expansion to expansion and stop trying to come up with the super duper strategies that rock for a week until everyone knows about them.

~Markco

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