Farming Deepsea Sagefish


There are lots of ways to improve your character's performance in dungeons, but one of the most common is eating food. For much of Cataclysm, casters have been using the Fortune Cookie to get their +90 Intellect food buff. But oddly, I've found there are lots of people who prefer to use the fish-based buff: Severed Sagefish Head.

The thing is, the cost of a fortune cookie has been about 50% less than the Sagefish version of the buff, plus you get a fortune card from the deal. As a market savvy raider/dungeoneer, I've always preferred the cheaper fortune cookie. But surprisingly, not everyone goes that route. Maybe they don't know it exists. Maybe they think their "other useful stat" won't actually be useful, instead trusting a tooltip that lists the exact stat. I'm not sure what the deal is.

But here's what I do know: For most of the expansion, I've been selling the Severed Sagefish Head at about 100% profit (in other words, doubling my money). Prices were consistently high because the fish could only be caught by fishing in open water. There was no pool available to give a guaranteed Deepsea Sagefish. That is, up until last week.

A recent hotfix (see December 20 note) has removed the Algaefin Rockfish pools and replaced them with Deepsea Sagefish. This means you can more reliably farm them by fishing in pools, no matter what your fishing level as pool-fishing is a guaranteed catch. Prices are down a bit on average, but their still better than the fortune cookie.

And despite the higher cost, they still sell. If you don't have much gold, or just enjoy killing time while waiting for a queue to pop, head out to Twilight Highlands for some easy gold.

Tip the light fantastic



I hope this entry finds you enjoyed the afterglow of the Christmas holidays.   Preparations for the New Years bash has  begun as well in your future.    Nothing like spending the new year nursing a hangover and exploring the world of gold making in Azeroth.

Something that both new and experienced crafters learn quickly;   there will be a time that you expect a large tip for your efforts.  Only to find that the person thanks you with a tip of the cap and a thank you.   Somehow not realizing just how much you invested in the pattern,  and leveling your profession to its maximum ability.    Their newly crafted items equipped and ready for action.  

The definition of a "tip" is a gratuity.  By definition it is optional to give a tip  if you have an item crafted for you.  Etiquette would say that if you have a task performed,  then a tip should be offered.   Problems arise many times when the 10g tip that used to be a large amount of money in game during the burning crusade expansion is no longer appropriate in cataclysm.   Inflation of quest rewards and easier availability to obtain gold has raised the expectation of crafters.   But many times those asking for the items have not changed with these times.   Multiple times i have taken the time to answer a request for an epic item crafting in trade,   only to be offered 5g in tip.   In my mind I jokingly will say 'I do not even go over to the other side of orgrimmar for less than 100g'.

If your tips have not been to your expectation,  it may be time to go ahead and explain that there is a crafting fee for your time and effort.   Sometimes where there is a large amount of competition for items (Rare Gem cuts etc) this might not be the best technique to use.   Finding yourself with one of the only trained crafters with a specific pattern would change the idea of asking for a 100g or more crafting fee.   Just be careful to know what your server population will support.  Making sure that you do not quickly drive yourself out of the market.

Supply and demand should be your main drive in understanding when to ask for a crafting fee.  And when to just invest your own mats and put the item up on the AH and not worry about non tipping customers at all.



Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at  "@Dragonbearjoe" or leave a comment here.   You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server,  chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Past articles by Mommar:

Tis the season to be goblins

My rod shall comfort thee.. and make gold








Tis the season to be goblins.....



Today is the day we all wait for during the winter's veil holiday.  The opening of the presents that have been taunting us under the tree.  Rushing to see what items we receive,  and what items will find themselves on the auction house.

As always the Red Helper Box and Green helper box will be flooding the Auction House for those that already have the pet on their characters.    But now is an excellent time to save those in your bank for the middle of the year.    We aren't that far from the rush of Mists of Pandaria and the quest fill in those pet slots.    Also keep an eye on the Auction house to buy up some of the pets such as the Jingling bell to flip over later in the year.

Also with Winter veil comes a quick daily Your a mean one.    The quest starts at level 80 and where you may not be able to contribute that much to the fight,  you can easily wait til it's over and get credit for the finish.   Make sure to talk to the reindeer after it's free and pick up some presents in the cave.   Many of the presents are vendor gifts from the toy shop in dalaran.   Look to drop those in your bank to sell at a later time or just give to friends for the fun of it.

The event goes on through the 2nd of January,  giving you plenty of times to finish the daily multiple times.   The big prize is the miniature winter veil tree found in the stolen present.   Make sure to drop this on the AH for large amounts of profit for little work.

My last gift is something that an e-mailer brought up that was working on his server.

With the enchanters ability to shatter maelstrom crystal into heavenly shards the market for both is up and down.  Keep an eye on this market when you can split the maelstrom crystal in the shards and sell for a profit.  Do not forget to look at the enchants that require these to make sure they are in balance with the materials.   Purchasing and reselling the enchants to sell at a higher price is a good way to raise your profit margin.

Merry Christmas,  Happy Hanukkah,   Have a wonderful winter solstice.

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at  "@Dragonbearjoe" or leave a comment here.   You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server,  chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Past articles by Mommar:

My rod shall comfort thee.. and make gold





Managing Inventory as Cataclysm Winds Down

How do you calculate the cost of an item? Without getting into opportunity costs, let's assume all raw materials have a cost associated with them, even the self-farmed items. We'll use Dragonscale Leg Armor as an example as it only has two components: 1 Pristine Hide and 20 Blackened Dragonscales.

Figuring out the cost is easy enough for the Dragonscales: look up the data on the Auction House, your favorite pricing addon (ie, Trade Skill Master, Auctioneer or Auctionator) or at an independent auction site (The Undermine Journal, AH Spy). All will return different prices most likely, but you'll be able to get a good sense of what it's worth.

Pristine Hides are a bit trickier, because they can be purchased at three different levels:

  • Buying 50 Savage Leather, converting them into 10 Heavy Savage Leather and trading for a Pristine Hide from the leatherworking supply vendors.
  • Buying 10 Heavy Savage Leather and trading it in.
  • Buying 1 from the Auction House.
So you calculate a cost for that Pristine Hide, add it to the Dragonscales and you've got the cost of one Dragonscale Leg Armor. Except it's a little more complicated than that. Here's why: raw goods aren't always worth what you paid for them, but rather what it would take to replace them.

Prior to patch 4.3, I purchased large amounts of Savage Leather to turn into leg enchants for sale after the patch. My average price was around 3.75 gold/leather, or 187.5 gold/Pristine Hide. The Blackened Dragonscale cost me around 14 gold each, or 280g/stack. Add in the cost of the hide, and I was able to make the armors for 467.5g each. Post-patch, they were selling for roughly 800g on average after the initial surge in pricing, for a profit of 333.5g. Not too shabby.

The problem is that replacing them costs much more now. Savage Leather is sitting around 6g on average (300/hide) and Blackened Dragonscale is actually down a bit at 13.75g or 275/stack. The cost of producing them now is 575g and the average sale price has dropped to around 700g. That's a profit of ~125g—Still nice, but not as good.

Of course, right now there's not a real problem because I'm still making a profit on the leg armors. But what if prices for finished goods have dropped below the cost of your materials? This is a very real possibility the longer 4.3 lasts before Mists of Pandaria comes out. Raid Finder has been great for business, but soon the large uptick in business will fade and prices will begin to dip lower and lower. So what to do?

Well, I've not been as aggressively restocking my large supply materials (Leather, Ores, Herbs) as aggressively, instead waiting for prices to drop and my inventory to dwindle. Some items will continue to hold value into MoP, but many won't. Rather than gamble on a large overstock of something, I'd rather use up my inventory and then restock as needed.

I'm also only restocking my limited supply items (enchanting mats) in small batches to better control my costs. The last thing I want to do is purchase 500 Maelstrom Crystals at 200g each, only to see them drop back down to 150 or 125 as more gear from raids and 5-mans starts getting sharded again.

The Cataclysm is far from over. Best case scenario, MoP arrives in May or June. More likely it's August or as late as December. But with the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, declining subscriber numbers and Dragon Soul fatigue soon to set in, it's time to start thinking about ending in a good position to start the next big surge with the release of Mists of Pandaria.

My Rod shall comfort thee... and make gold



Now is a great time to start looking at markets to get back into.   Many warcraft players are starting to level alternate races and professions again.  One of the most popular to level is an enchanter.   As an enchanter levels his craft,  he has to create the rods used for the next level enchants.

Each rod has it's own material requirements and is many times in high demand.   Many Blacksmiths look at the big ticket items for their sales.  But crafting and selling the plain rods can augment your sales.

As with anything you craft,  keeping your material costs low will increase your profits.  This becomes especially important when it comes to the arcanite rods.   Arcanite is only available through an alchemist who has the transmute arcanite pattern.   There tends to be a large demand for both the arcanite crystals (mined from thorium level areas like silithus or Plaguelands).   Now would be a good time to start to stock up on these when you see them cheap.   For both continual sales now,  as well as future sales during the MOP expansion.


Fel Iron and Titanium bars become difficult to find at times.  Few are doing the Outland and Wrath Expansion areas,  making these two items will become in demand on many servers.  These also might be good targets to use both a craft and long term storage option.  Titanium Bars are also able to be transmute from 8x Saronite bars by an alchemist.  Allowing you to have two paths to obtaining these materials.

These type of niche markets might seem trivial in regards to your larger cost items.  But small and medium profit sales can add up many times to one large ticket sale.   In baseball 4 singles still score the same run as one home run with the bases empty.

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at  "@Dragonbearjoe" or leave a comment here.   You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server,  chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Past articles by Mommar:











  



Maximizing Profits and Minimizing Losses While Power-Leveling Professions



Power-Leveling a profession is widely recognized as one of the most expensive things to do in World of Warcraft. I have heard countless stories about people spending thousands and thousands of gold in WoW just leveling up a profession as quickly as possible. Now I leveled a few professions since the beginning of Cataclysm and let me tell you that if you're smart about it, you can break even, and easily find multiple niche markets that can allow for a steady long term income along the way.


Leveling mining by means of smelting ore is an extremely viable way to level the profession quickly and efficiently, and using this method you can level the profession almost completely without leaving a major city. The exceptions being 10 levels from 340-350 skill in the transition between Outlands and Northrend , and the final 25 levels between skill 500 and 525. Now the reason I am telling you all this is to show the massive range of ore and bars you'll have access to while leveling the profession. Having such a large repertoire will allow you to cater to audiences from levels 1-85 looking to level professions such as Engineering, Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting, Enchanting(in the form of imbuing rods crafted by Blacksmiths but necessary for Enchanters nonetheless), and Alchemy(transmuting Saronite Bars). All of these professions require metals in varying forms to level up the profession, but the first three listed are the ones with the highest demand.


After power-leveling my mining skill through smelting I began to explore all of the opportunities that lay in front of me. I had a large supply of bars, and wanted to look into what would make me the most gold. First off, there was almost always a huge price differential between the ore and bars I saw on the AH, and I could basically break even by just selling what I had smelted. I compared prices and found specifically the Outland materials, Fel Iron and Adamantite Bars to be selling for a couple hundred gold a stack easily. Leveling a profession is one of the easiest ways to explore available niche markets on your server. Finding out all of the possibilities for extraneous sources of income can allow for a long term and lucrative relationship with that market. For example, after I had figured out how easy it was to make gold by just buying ore off the auction house and smelting it, I began to keep the most profitable ore on my snatch list, so when I saw any I could pick it up easily and smelt it for a nice markup.


A few more examples of this is the market for Khorium Power Cores. These items are gold mines, and can be crafted using the Engineering profession, and sold for a huge markup on the Auction House. These are valuable items partially because of the rarity of Khorium in general, and partially because they are reagents for high end items such as the epic Engineering mount. A core is also a necessary part of a quest that grants reputation towards the Netherwing faction. Khorium is always on my snatch list, and is often listed cheaply so make sure to look out for it if you can. Other items for possible niche markets that be crafted using metal are Enchanting Rods that are created through Blacksmithing, and Delicate Copper Wire which is a material required by Engineers but only crafted by Jewelcrafters to make Fused Wiring, which
is an important reagent needed to make the "Lil' Smoky" and "Pet Bombling" pets, as well as cool items like Goblin Jumper Cables.


These are just a few examples of the countless niche markets ready to be discovered through leveling a profession. Make sure to check the competition and demand for the item on the AH before making a substantial investment, and do some research as well. Most of these markets are server specific and it's up to you to find out what's going to be the best one. Use this advice well, and I hope you can all find something that works well for you.



If you have any suggestions for future topics, feedback, or just want to get in touch with me, feel free to contact me through my twitter @AlerickF


Your Milage May Vary



Go to this place and farm.   Put this on the Auction House and sell it.   Flip this item for large amounts of profit.   Multiple journals carry multiple amounts of threads on how to obtain gold on warcraft.

Many of our writers have different varying ways of stating their point of view.  Some are able to put a more technical analysis on their gold making journey.  Others tend to put more of a homespun wording on how they present the information.  Others couldn't spell if their life depended on it.   No matter what information is offered,  or how they present it,  one complete axiom is the same.

This idea may not work on your server.

Sorry to have to break the news to you on this.  But no idea is 100% guaranteed to work completely.   These tips and ideas are not sham-wow tested and approved.  And when someone posts up a tip,  they fully understand that you may not be able to add this to your repertoire of ideas to make gold.

Transmuting volatiles,   flipping epic level patterns,  buying raw gems and crafting to higher selling items.  None of these listed methods will work completely.   The only guaranteed 100% add-on that will work and guarantee money making opportunities is learning how to think outside the box.   No matter how an add-on is presented as being foolproof,  there is always a fool well engaged in proving that description incorrect.

So why is it important to know this when your reading the writings of JMTC?   Because hopefully you have picked up as you read our entries,  that the authors are not just wanting you to see information in a specific format.  But we are hard at work trying to show you how to think for yourself.     Saronite ore might not be a good option of prospecting.  But that thorium that someone posted up for 10g a stack sure looks interesting and might generate profit.   Every piece of information you are presented is one step to add to your stack of knowledge.  Because that item might not generate a profit for you now.   Later on it might be just what you need to jumpstart a sagging economic downturn.

Money making is not a go here and farm this,  craft this, sell this type of system.   Your brain and your ability to think will create loads more money than any journal or warcraft blog can teach you.   Our hopes are to just be able to nudge you in the right direction,  and then present ideas that might help in the long run.

If we can give you one idea that will allow you to expand your empire into another area.  And bring you that much closer to your goals.  Then we have done our jobs.


Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at  "@Dragonbearjoe" or leave a comment here.   You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server,  chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Links to Previous articles

Would the owner of the saronite please stand up?

Stars are full of gold

You got your jewelcrafter in my alchemist

join the fun ... buy the t-shirt

Tools of the Trade



Information Is Gold

Today's Guest Post is by Bozzor, the Gold Millionaire.



Information is one of the most important factors in gold making.It is obviously that an informed player
reacts faster to any change in markets, gaining more gold or selling before a price crash.

Most players do not bother to read patch notes in depth or read known blogs about WoW economy on a daily or even weekly basis.They are simply caught ''with pants down'' when major changes happend in game.
Ask yourself a question : ''How much will hurt my play time 10-15 min / day of reading about WoW?''
I always read a number of sites and blogs BEFORE logging into WoW.I admit, i spend more than 15 min, but that is because i like to read about WoW economy.However, even 10-15 min its more than nothing. Try to do this, its not that bad :D
While informing about WoW economy its good, its not enough.This is only to have a general view about changes that will take place in game.But those changes are rare, ocuring only on major patches.After the changes take place, there is only one way to be prepared for speculations that take place after.
Add on your friends list the major sellers of ores, leather, herb and cloth.Watching their activity, when they log in, how much they farm before posting their stuff for sale, how much volume they sell, can help a player to cope with spikes in prices.Take into consideration that a crafted item that uses the above materials can be sold at higher than normal price if the farmers are busy gathering materials and there is 1-2 hours before they start selling, lowering the materials prices, hence, giving another crafters the posibility to make cheap items.
Also, add on your list the main competitors for craftable items on the markets you are active.There are windows of opportunity, when farmers are offline or gathering materials and the competition is offline or doing dungeons / pvp.

Think about that most of the farmers have 2 gathering professions, and sometimes, they move from ores to herbs, or from leather to ores. Being able to see what, when and how much they gather its an information that no serious trader can pass away.
So, to sum up, read about WoW economy and know your server farmers and competition.The first will have you prepared for any major changes, and second will give you the opportunity to gain gold between those major changes.
Stockpiling, as the main resource to make gold on long term, is heavily based on information and knowledge about your server economy, who is driven by major farmers and traders.
Speculation, along market manipulation, is a short time gold making opportunity that is also based on information.

Information is Gold is as much true as Time is Money.Even the smallest piece of information can make the difference between a succesful trader and a failed one.
Bozzor, Gold Multimillionaire.

If you like this article, please visit www.auctionhousegoldstrategies.wordpress.com for more auction house strategies by the author.


Patch 4.3's Long-Term Gold Implications


I don't know about you, but my post-patch sales are slowly starting to return to normal. Prices are still generally higher than they were before, but raw material prices are generally higher now also. I love addons and their ability to automate my buying and selling, but I also like having a more intimate knowledge of certain markets so I can watch for trends and plan farther ahead.

As I've been doing my daily gold-making routine, I got to thinking about the trends from past patches and what would happen in the near future with Patch 4.3. The more I think about it, the more I think this is completely different from any patch in the past, with the possible exception of Patch 3.3 and the introduction of the Dungeon Finder.

If you played pre-Dungeon Finder, you might remember the pain and suffering involved with forming a 5-man dungeon group. Spamming chat channels in the cities looking for a group, then traveling out to the dungeon, only to lose someone and have to go back for more people. It could take hours to find a group and complete a dungeon. Suddenly, you could queue for a dungeon and within a reasonable amount of time, be in the dungeon and completing it with relative speed.

Groups with an enchanter could disenchant gear easily, resulting in an abundant supply of raw materials. This drove raw prices down and set a lower average price for enchanting materials. While this phenomenon was largely contained in the enchanting profession, there were tendrils of influence that hit other professions as well.

Raid Finder and Transmogrification Change the Game
Fast forward to the present time and we're living post-4.3. The Raid Finder and Transmogrification have fundamentally changed the way people acquire gear and what they do with it. In the past, sharding gear was common. If it wasn't an upgrade, why keep it? Now, suddenly, gear is useful for appearance and not just stats thanks to transmogrification. I've been keeping more gear, especially on my leveling toons, on the off chance that I might need it someday for transmogging.

The Raid Finder introduced a new level of gear to the equation as well. Now, instead of running 5-mans over and over, people graduate to the Raid Finder to get better gear and earn some Valor Points as well. Because it's a 25-man group, it's rare to find gear that drops and no one needs. If not for a main spec, then for an off-spec.

Combine these two factors and you have far fewer enchanting materials entering the market, especially earlier in a patch's life cycle. This means prices will stay high longer than in previous patches, though they might still return to a more "normal" level. In the past, you could count on enchanting materials going down in price over time, but now they'll consistently grow higher on average over the course of an expansion.

Higher enchanting prices means more Jewelcrafters shuffling ore into jewelry for disenchanting. This means there are less uncommon (green-quality) gems available for transmuting into shadowspirit diamonds or rare (blue-quality) gems. Ore prices will rise as Jewelcrafters consume more ore in the shuffle. This, in turn, means higher gem prices for consumers as costs go up.

Combating the Trend
Moving forward, stockpiling will become more and more important for the gold-making entrepreneur. Stocking up in large quantities when prices are low will become a more integral part of our gold-making endeavors. Investing in storage space through alts with full banks, guild banks, or managing inventory by storing it in the mailbox can lead to large profits over time.

It will also become more important to find reliable suppliers at the lowest possible level of the production chain. Ore, Herbs and Leather farmers that regularly send you supplies will be invaluable in fighting rising prices. Just be prepared to up their pay over time or some other enterprising merchant might steal them away from you.

What long-range implications do you see now that we've had several weeks to adapt to 4.3? How has it already affected your business? Are you finding supply of raw materials to be a problem?

Would the owner of the saronite please stand up?

Many times we talk about active strategies to obtain money.  Jewelcrafters are currently going through their progressions of posting up Raw or cut gems at large profits.     Other professions are crafting items

such as PVP gear,   spellthreads,  leg armors and profit making materials.

When looking through a list of items that are at the forefront of money making ideas,   a visit to past
ideas can add more profits to your warcraft gold til.  One of these is Saronite ore and bars.

Saronite ore and bars are being dropped on the Auction House market at low prices.     Right now is a perfect opportunity to use these to your advantage.

Three items are going to become important to your pursuit for gold.   Prospecting these items will give you the ability to create Icy Prisms (1 dark jade + 1 chalcedony + 1 shadow crystal + 1 frozen orb) and an opportunity for multiple rare and even epic wrath of the lich king gems.  Included in these are scarlet rubies which sell consistantly at the 120g to 125g on multiple servers.   Included with this also is the ability to have an alchemist transmute into a Cardinal Ruby (1 scarlet ruby + 1 primal fire) for added profits.   Using this can become a good way to use the alchemist cooldown timer on transmutations.   The larger amount of volatile elements on the auction house has made the profit margin for transmutes lower and lower.

For engineers,  saronite bars are useful for the crafting of titanium bars.   8 saronite bars can be transmuted into 1 titanium bar by an alchemist.    Two stacks of saronite bar going for 20g can be turned into 5 titanium bars and sold at a profit.   Another alternate source will be engineers looking to create tiansteel for their mechano-hog (or the alliance version the mekgineer's chopper).   Both will become very popular come the next expanion.   Who doesn't want to see a fat panda on a motorcycle?

Blacksmiths use saronite bars to craft the saronite set of armor.   These still tend to sell very well on some servers for disenchanting stock by enchanters,  and for leveling alternates at a faster rate.   

Another option is just for storage before the Mists of Panderia expansion occurs is storage for resell at a later date.   The start of a brand new character race creates a need for leveling materials for multiple professions.   Every new expansion has created a rush to gain materials from previous expansions,   creating a high demand and low supply situation at the start.   Many stacks of saronite ore were going for hundreds of gold per stack.    

Creating multiple alternate markets besides just the normal ones that are popular can increase your 
gold balance.   And allowing you to expand your markets into different areas.

What other materials are being looked over currently in your opinions?    Thorium ore?   Netherweave cloth?   Gold ore?    What are your opinions?

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at  "@Dragonbearjoe" or leave a comment here.   You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server,  chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Links to Previous articles

Stars are full of gold

You got your jewelcrafter in my alchemist

join the fun ... buy the t-shirt

Tools of the Trade

Goodbye Darkmoon Faire

Freud never said anything about warcraft gold

Between Deathwing and panda invasion


Gold Tips for the Arrival of the New Dragon Soul Raid




Hello again everyone. Alerick here again here to talk to you guys about the new Dragon Soul raid and the gold making opportunities it brings with it. The new raid features two sections, each containing four bosses. Each boss on regular and heroic ONLY (that means no LFR) will drop a mote of darkness, excluding Deathwing which drops a mote that can be exchanged for a geode containing a guaranteed epic gem with a primary stat on it(agility, strength, intellect). The motes that drop from bosses in regular mode excluding Deathwing can be exchanged for a less valuable geode called a "Crystalline Geode", which has a chance to drop any of the epic gems, but at a much lower rate and will often include only common gems. I was lucky enough on my first open to receive a raw epic red gem which sold for about 10k gold within the hour I posted it. These gems can be cut by Jewelcrafters that purchased the recipes from regular using tokens obtained from the daily quests. These gems open up an exclusive and very lucrative market for us JCs who have a few cuts and are willing to put some gold into it.


Apart from gems, there are epic crafting reagents called "Essence of Destruction" similar to Living Embers and Primordial Saronites in the sense that they can be used to craft item level appropriate gear to that raid, and are commonly dropped off of these bosses. Since there is such a demand for all of the new gear, these essences will be going for extremely good prices, and I have already made quite a bit of gold by just buying them up on weekends when the supply is high, and selling them off immediately after raid times on my server when all of the raiders are looking to upgrade their gear.


This brings me to my third and final segment regarding epic recipes and patterns for the new Dragon Soul raid. There are a multitude of craftable items taught by recipes dropped in the new raid that can be created using these Essences of Destruction among other materials and sold to high end raiders for a premium price so early after the patch while many of the materials are still scarce. I know for a fact that MANY of these are well itemized and best in slot items for all of Dragon Soul regular, and while people are still looking to fully upgrade their gear, the hardcore raiders will be first in line to snag any possible upgrade to help with progression. If you are as lucky as I was when I got an epic BoE pattern while running the raid, you have the option to learn it on a character of yours and craft it for some profit, or sell it to someone who wants it either for their guild, or to further expand their profession's repertoire. I chose to sell mine for a premium price, because similar to the Firelands epic recipe drops, I am assuming that these recipes are at their zenith in price point now. The only way to go in terms of price is down now, as more people explore the content and obtain the patterns, it will decrease. However I chose to do this solely because the item I got was neither best in slot nor itemized well. If you happen to be one of the first on your server with a best in slot recipe by all means learn it and abuse it. This is one of the best ways to make gold and depending on how long it is before someone else gets the pattern, there's no telling how much profit you could make.


If you want to give me any feedback, have any suggestions for future topics, or just want to get in touch with me. Feel free to contact me through my twitter @AlerickF

The Stars are full of Gold





For the 5th day straight I was raking in a large amount of gold on my server.   While letting one of my add-ons sort things out,   a conversation started with one of my group cartel members.   We have actively been keeping an eye on Gem sales to make sure that they don't get too low.

The topic of the conversation was how much gold is too much gold.   Both of us had gold capped
before patch 4.2.   And as with many people,   collecting and reposting becomes more of a chore instead of something that's necessary for raiding or PVE quests.   Every mount on the AH is available at a click,  every pet yours for the buying.   Gearing up a raiding alt is just a few clicks away.  Even faster if you have the needed crafting skill to make items.

As warcraft matures,  the economy becomes more saturated with your wow millionaires.  As more gold making websites,  and gold making guides like Markcos gold guide become popular,   there will be a continued amount of movers and shakers on server economies.

Blizzard every so often will issue a "money dump" to level the playing field.  But advanced gold makers will always have an advantage over people who aren't able to amass large amounts of wow riches.   The question is truly what can someone do with their gold.  I"m going to give you 5 ideas to spark some ideas of your own.  Two of these I did myself,  and others were suggested from others.

1.     Buy a specific mount for every one of your raiders (My personal choice is the Mechano-hawg)

2.     Host your own trivia show on trade channel with varying amounts of prizes

3.     Drop 10k gold on a random level 1 player in a starting area.  

4.     Powerlevel all of your alt characters to max level

5.     Buy random pets to everyone in a specific area

There comes a time in every gold makers run to figure out a new way to entertain or challenge themselves.  Creating a new goal besides wow millionaire status will extend your enjoyment in
auction house PVP.    Plus everyone needs a cool show of all their guild members on hawgs don't they?

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at  "@Dragonbearjoe" or leave a comment here.   You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server,  chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Links to Previous articles

You got your jewelcrafter in my alchemist

join the fun ... buy the t-shirt

Tools of the Trade

Goodbye Darkmoon Faire

Freud never said anything about warcraft gold

Between Deathwing and panda invasion




Low Level Gold Making at Darkmoon Faire


Many long-time readers here are at the point in their gold progression where they can focus on lucrative, high-payoff gold making ventures like the recent stockpiling and selling of goods for 4.3. But what if you're just starting off making gold? Either you're too low level to max professions or you don't have much capital to invest?

Well, the new Darkmoon Faire has some options for you! One of the new features is the weekly profession quest. I took my main character to the Faire and figured I'd do the profession quests just to do them. I quickly found some roadblocks to quick completion: I had to leave the Faire and return to Stormwind to purchase supplies.

So this led me to thinking, why not sit and sell the reagents needed for the quests? I gladly would have overpaid for them in order to save the trip back to a city. Not all the professions need items from a town, but here are the ones that do:

Tailoring
1 Coarse Thread, 1 Red Dye, 1 Blue Dye, sold by the tailoring supply vendors. Ask a guard for tor the location of the Tailor trainer in any capital if you aren't sure where to go. The base cost before discounts is 10 copper for the thread and 50 copper for each dye, or 1 silver, 10 copper for the group.

Inscription
5 Light Parchment, sold by the Inscription supply vendors. Ask a guard for tor the location of the Inscription trainer in any capital if you aren't sure where to go. The base cost before discounts is 15 copper per sheet, or 75 copper for the group.

Cooking
5 Simple Flour, sold by the Cooking supply vendors. Ask a guard for tor the location of the Cooking trainer in any capital if you aren't sure where to go. The base cost before discounts is 25 copper per flour, or 1 silver, 25 copper for the group.

Leatherworking
10 Shiny Bauble, 5 Coarse Thread, 5 Blue Dye. See Tailoring, above, for information on the Coarse Thread and Blue Dye. Shiny Baubles are available from fishing supply vendors. There's actually a fishing vendor on Darkmoon Island that sells these, but some people might not bother looking. If you skip the Baubles, you'll need 3 silver for the thread and dye. If you purchase some Baubles to save your customers the hassle, you'll need another 5 silver, or 8 silver total.

Alchemy
5 Moonberry Juice, sold by Innkeepers. Stop by your favorite inn to get some. The base cost before discounts is 20 silver each, or 1 gold for the group.

Once you have the materials, park yourself at the faire and advertise in General Chat (/1 will start typing in general chat) that you have materials for these 5 professions. When I was playing around with it, I found it most helpful to play off the convenience factor, and generally sold supply packs for 5 gold across the board. At worst, that's still 4 gold in profit for each pack.

I didn't stay long, because I had other things to do that were more profitable, but if you don't have the capital or professions to do those other things, this is a great start. One particularly useful message I was barking was: "Tailoring, Inscription, Cooking, Leatherworking and Alchemy quest items for sale! Turn 5 gold into 16, get 4 tickets and 5 free skill points in your profession!"

Don't underestimate how much gold people are willing to spend to avoid the hassle of gathering these materials themselves. You still have a couple days to give it a try, but chances are most of the player base that is going to do the quests are already through them. But keep this in mind for the next Darkmoon Faire as a way to make some start-up capital!

You got your jewelcrafter in my alchemist ....




On the day after a patch hits the realms, the jewelcrafting market provides many frustrations...

Which one of my crafters is going to make the most money?   Did i put enough materials away to ride
the wave of buyers to it's maximum?  How will I find the best way to replenish stock?  Is the elementium shuffle still valid at the inflated stack prices for ore?  Can I buy enough stock of blank gems to fill orders.

Inferno rubies sold out on many markets faster than people could restock the shelves.  Whether they
were cut or in raw form,  blank searches for inferno rubies were continual.  Same with many of the other colors (ember topazs and demoneyes seemed to be in the same predicament).

Across the board,  realms saw the depletion of the inferno rubies stock piled go quickly.   Six slots to stack their main statistic causes a lot of sales.   Not to count the need by multiple alternate toons etc.   Also included in this rush was the mass amount of shadowspirit diamond orders needed to be filled.

The problem with this issue is what could the jewelcrafter and alchemist combination use to maximize their profits?   With the stacks of elementium and obsidium ore dwindling,  the JC shuffle became much more expensive   On my server some of the ore stacks were going for over 250 a stack at it's highest.  The basic gems were going for obscene amounts (40g a piece of jaspers,  hessonites going for almost 50 and carnelians at 80g per).   Is transmuting inferno rubies and ember topaz the more economical way to use materials?  Would it be best to transmute shadowspirit diamonds (3 of each common gem needed) or transmute the rare gems that were selling and then wait for the market to balance itself and then sell inventory of the excess common and rare gems?

No doubt both would make large amounts of money.   You could easily just transmute the hessonites,  carnelians and even alicites into their respective gems with the needed herbalism materials and make a profit.  Or take all of them and transmute the respective shadowspirit diamonds.    At its heights on Tuesday and Wednesday on many servers even just listing the basic gems themselves you could make mass amount of gold.

So lets do a quick math review:

Assuming you are a transmute specialist (you did remember to change over before the more expensive
quest costs were put into effect right?),  you need 3 of each of the low level gems.

*these were basic figured from theunderminejournal.com.  As always your server may vary*

3 - hessonite  (40g+ selling raw)
3 - nightstone (40g+ selling raw)
3 - carnelian  (60g+ selling raw)
3 - alicite (20g+ selling raw)
3 - zephyrite (15g+ selling raw)
3 - jasper (20g+ selling raw)

Doing the math, crafting two shadowspirits you ended up with around 400g+ in materials.   That split to somewhere around 220g per diamond.  Now on my server the main shadow spirits were selling consistantly for around 360g per cut diamond.

Lets look at the transmutes we have available.

3  hessonites per transmute (@40g x 3 needed)+ 3 cinderbloom (@2g) =136 per ember topaz
3  carnelian per transmute  (@60g x 3 needed)+ 3 heartblossom (@4g) = 192 per inferno ruby
3  alicite per transmute (@20g x 3 needed) + 3 + 3 Whiptail (@2g) = 66 per amberjewel
3  zephyrite per transmute (@7g x 3 needed) + 3 Azshara's Veil (@2g) 28 per ocean sapphire
3  jasper per transmute (@20g x 3 needed) + 3 Stormvine @3g) = 69g per Dream Emerald
3  nightstone per transmute (@40g x 3 needed) + 3 Twilight Jasmine (3g) 120g per Demonseye

You can continue down the list,  and accepting the idea of variance between server fluctuations.  It
begins to come into light that the best way to maximize your profits is to transmute to the individual
rare items and cut them for a profit.   Even sales of the raw rare gems tend to hold onto this idea
for now.

A third option is just to sell the materials in their raw state.  This ends up being the quickest,  because it lists items without any crafting necessary.  But it also is the most limited in profit making.   You are susceptible to the rises and falls of the market.

Later on as the patch continues,  there will be a leveling out of the market.  Shadowspirit diamonds will begin to catch up and become the leading profit margin.   Elementium ore is already beginning to catch up from the large burst of need,  and many of the common gems will start to come down to a regular price.  As more and more jewelcrafters become comfortable resuming their normal crafting progression,  resuming their elementium/obsidium shuffle.   Pyrite ore on many markets didn't take as big of a nosedive as some had speculated.   Since there was multiple markets to relieve the stockpiles of pyrite ore (bars,  transmutes,  crafting ) it didn't shock the market as expected.   The possibility that an emptying of pyrite inventory later on in the next couple of weeks may also drive down many of the gem markets.

The need for the inferno rubies and ember topaz cuts,  as well as the other colored gems will equal out to levels similar to what they were at the end of patch 4.2.   If you keep these basic math formulas in your head,  then you will be ready for the switch and still keep on riding the profit wave.

Just keep a mental tally of how much you are putting into each transmute,  and decide which one will make you more profit.   For now the obvious choice on most servers is going to be the transmuting the inferno rubies,  ember topazs and other rare colored gems.  But be ready for the momentum shift to come.

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at  "@Dragonbearjoe" or leave a comment here.   You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server,  chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Links to Previous articles by mommar

join the fun ... buy the t-shirt

Tools of the Trade

Goodbye Darkmoon Faire

Freud never said anything about warcraft gold

Between Deathwing and panda invasion





The Arrival of Patch 4.3 and Darkmoon Faire Gold Tips



Hey everyone, Alerick here again this week with a post about how to make gold through the arrival of the new and improved Darkmoon Faire that is now available after the release of patch 4.3. Now there are a number of activities you can take part in here, including daily quests which involve carnival-like games, profession related quests, a petting zoo, and even a PvP "arena cage".


Now although this new zone may seem like fun and games, there are many unique gold making opportunities available here. I first realized a niche market for the Oily Blackmouth fish while browsing auctions on my smartphone. I saw quite a few of them for less than 10 silver each, and I quickly bought them all up. The reason I was so excited to see them available on the auction house was that these fish are often very hard to get ahold of, and they are basically a must-have for anyone who is leveling alchemy. People who are looking to level this profession will often come to many places along the way where they need a rare herb, or a special rare ingredient that cannot be found on the AH. If you can control the market of Oily Blackmouth fish on your server, there's a lot of room for profit. They are fished from low level zones, and the arrival of the Darkmoon Faire and the new "Sea Pony" pet has brought many avid pet collectors to this zone who are looking to add this one to their collection. Another reason there might be an increase in the flow of Oily Blackmouth fish to your market is that there is a fishing profession based quest that will cause people to fish in the waters around the faire, therefore further increasing the supply of Oily Blacksmith to the market.


Along with the arrival of the new Darkmoon Faire came a multitude of Faire related achievements. Among these are achievements that involve turning in quest items to receive credit for them. The items required are all BoE which again offers up a gold making opportunity for us goblins out there. These items can be bought and flipped, and are also an excellent way to make gold while leveling through dungeons. The only requirement to collect these "artifacts" it to have an item in your bags called a Darkmoon Adventurer's Guide. This item can be aquired by speaking to the NPC Selina Dourman located towards the entrance of the Darkmoon Faire. She will give you one for free if you ask for it through chat. To delve deeper into the topic, there are three achievements associated with these artifacts. One for artifacts recieved from dungeons, one from looting the insignias from enemy corpses in BGs, and one for having turned in both all 3 the PvP and all 5 PvE items. So certain bosses in certain dungeons have a chance to drop these randomly. The drops are not level specific, and as long as you have the Guide, you can farm these items. For example, I ran the Stockades instance in Stormwind city just to kill the first boss, Randolph Muloch for a chance at the Ornate Weapon to drop. I can run this five time an hour in the space of about 3 or 4 minutes only. Since I am usually in SW anyways, doing this is a simple easy way to make gold. I got an Ornate Weapon on my first run and sold it for 1000 gold within 2 minutes through trade chat. This is just an example. Since this is still right after the patch, these items will be in extreme demand. Any of the 5 PvE dungeon items can be acquired from a range of bosses found in dungeons all across the World of Warcraft. The 3 PvE items can be acquired by looting the insignias off of corpses of the enemy factions. If you're a PvPer and are looking to make some super easy gold on the side, take a second or two to loot the corpse of a player once you kill them.


These are just two of the new additions to WoW through the Darkmoon Faire in patch 4.3 that I know will be very profitable. Take these into account while running dungeons and pvping, and you could make some serious gold on the side.



You can follow me through my twitter @AlerickF

Patch 4.3 Review


So, the patch is live. Everyone's happy. Prices are rising, demand is great, money is flowing. It's been 3 days into the patch so I think it is time for the first review.

First of all I have to say that I wasn't playing at all on Wednesday, so I can only rely on two days of experience.
The patch in many aspects brought exactly what most of us expected. There were a few surprises though, at least for me.

Traffic on the AH increased very much. It's been long since I've last seen a crowd like this in the AH or in the capitals cities for that matter.
Materials have twice the price as prior to the patch. That is bad, but not surprising, everyone is crafting. What's more troubling though is that realm stocks are running low on mats. There are less then 25 stacks of ores, herbs and what-not on the AH usually, and you can't find much more. With a million crafters spamming the trade chat with WTB macros, you can't even find a decent amount at the chat either. I hope you guys stocked up on mats before. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to play before the patch due to IRL reasons, so on some items I'm already running low, but I manage.

As for the products, the demand is incredibly high. As usual, gems and enchants are the best-sellers. Yesterday I sold a stack of Bold Inferno Rubies in about 10 minutes.
Surprisingly (for me) there is a high demand for crafted gear too. I expected that the Vicious PVP sets will be a hit, but I just can't understand what people still want with these Hardened Obsidium sets (and others like it). I know that the racional explanation would be that people are leveling alts, but first of all, right after the patch no one is on their alts, and second of all, that still doesn't explain why can I sell 10 complete sets a day. Actually I can't now because I have to prioritize with my obsidium but no matter how much I post on the AH, they all get bought.
Another thing I'd like to point out is that if you still have leftover Bloodthirsty pieces, check if there is a Vicious piece posted on the AH which match your Bloodthirsty, because if not, you should post the Bloodthirsty first, and hold back your vicious untill it gets sold. People are not looking especially for a Vicious Leather Gloves, but rather a good PVP gloves, so no they will take the Bloodthirsty. In this sense the patch also increased the demand for old items.

Epic gems are also here. As expected, their price is extremely high. As it turned out, there is no other way of acquiring the raw gems other than raiding. You cannot transmute them, and they are not in the fire prism. If you are raiding, selling these gems can be a great source of income, but if not, speculating with them, reselling, or cutting them is a risky investment. They only came out three days ago so their price is still very unstable. However if you know what you are doing, and have enough capital you can easily earn thousands of gold with a 3 second cast. Or lose just as much.

Altogether the patch is a blast, Thursday I closed with +73k and +61k on Friday. Too bad I couldn't play more (I was only home about 2-3 hours each day).

How was your patch-experience? How did your realm's economy react to the patch? (comments section below)

Speculating on Mists of Pandaria Gold-Making


One of the biggest challenges Blizzard faces as Warcraft continues to expand in scope is giving players choices, but maintaining balance amid those choices. Every expansion brings change to the World of Warcraft. By looking at those changes, we can see trends that point to further development into the future. Some of the major trends we've seen so far:
  • Deep But Simple
    Talents have undergone changes with every expansion. What abilities do, how hard they hit, how many you get for "free" for choosing a spec, how you modify them have all been overhauled. The goal was to make talents easier to understand while bringing more depth to the game.
  • Accessibility
    Classic WoW was noted for it's grind-y nature. You had to put in hours and hours of time to get anywhere and progress your character. New raids often required completing old ones to be able to access them. But over time, things like price reductions (mounts, training of skills), alternate progression (badges, more crafted gear) and new/changed features (Dungeon/Raid Finder, weekly valor caps, daily quest hubs, reduced XP for old content) all aim to remove the barrier of entry for people new to the game. Increasingly, it's easier for new players to catch up to long-time players.
  • Balance and "Fairness"
    While Blizzard can never make all things equal, they strive as much as possible to do so. DPS numbers, class cooldowns, mobility and utility all need to be balanced. It's the reason Druids lost their position as the sole battle res, why tank abilities were brought into line to provide similar tools, damage reducing cooldowns and raid survivability. Profession bonuses are all about equal so people don't feel they have to take a certain combo to maximize their effectiveness in game.
These are just a few broad trends, but they have informed (and will continue to inform) the development of this game we love to play. What are their implications for gold-making in Mists of Pandaria? Some predictions for you:

Glyphs are not done being overhauled. 
Cataclysm changed glyphs from commodities to "skills" you learn. No longer did people need multiple copies of a glyph if they wanted to switch out glyphs. Instead, learn it once and change them whenever you want for the lost cost of about 9g by purchasing a reagent from the glyph vendors. Most classes, however, don't have much choice in their glyphs. There are certain popular (read: mandatory) glyphs, so while there is an illusion of choice, in reality there isn't much.

A quick look through the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator shows that many of the unpopular glyphs are being included as part of the base spell. Blizzard has even stated that they are considering removing prime glyphs in their current state because they are so uninteresting from a choice perspective. The entire system isn't going away, however, so something is going to have to fill the gap to make glyphs an interesting/meaningful choice going forward. At a minimum, this could mean many new glyphs. But it could also mean a completely different concept for glyphs and what they do. Maybe there is a set of glyphs for your companion pets that ties into the new pet battle system.

All professions will have daily/weekly quests.
All of them. Cooking, Fishing, Jewelcrafting and Inscription already have them. The new Darkmoon Faire added profession skill-up quests to help ease the leveling of professions. It's not hard to imagine all of the professions getting some sort of quest in MoP. I think a combination of weekly skill increases (+5 each week) coupled with a daily token system like Jewelcrafting would help people max their profession, while still allowing the dedicated trader to get a leg up by doing dailies.

Primary professions will have a weekly/daily craft cooldown.
Alchemy (Transmutes) and tailoring (Dream Cloth) have one already. Other professions will get one as a way to artificially limit supply. It will help casual auctioneers make more money off other players (an important point in the ongoing battle against hyper-inflation in Warcraft) rather than generating more money from NPCs (like the obsidium shuffle and 9g vendor gems). Too much gold coming into the economy from "created" sources (in other words, new money is created and given to the players from mobs, quests, vendor sales) leads to higher prices, making it harder for the average player to keep up with the "haves".

Gathering professions will be buffed.
The end-game benefits of gathering professions lag too far behind the crafting professions. Blizzard is looking for ways to get people out into the world more and away from the capital cities. Buffing the benefits to gathering professions will help a bit. There's talk that archeology could get random encounters at digsites with mummies or similar archeology-themed mobs. Killing the mob would result in more artifacts. Why can't mining/herbing/skinning have a similar function added to make them more interesting? Maybe killing the mob gives a unique material (like a chaos orb) that gives some added value to the gathering professions. Skin enough mobs in an area and DEHTA might show up to attack you. Fight them off and you get a buff to attack power against creatures to kill skinnable mobs faster.

I can also see the relationship of gathering/crafting professions becoming more closely linked, much like Mining/Blacksmithing. Smiths require a miner to smelt ore into bars. Why don't other profession pairs have this relationship? It would encourage people to keep the gathering professions while making pairings on the same character more useful. A system like this could add some depth too, where some recipes required you have both the crafting and gathering profession on the same character through the use of some bind-on-pickup item.

What are your thoughts on the future of crafting in Mists of Pandaria? What changes do you see on the horizon?

Unrelated note: Hope your 4.3 sales went smoothly! Any surprises for you there?

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