Optimizing Gold While Leveling

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

This post is a submission by Aliethiawow to be a writer at JMTC. Please let Aliethia know what you thought of the post in the comments section.

I recently started leveling my bank alt again. Usually, this happens because I need to get to a certain level for some benefit. First it was Level 20 to get a mount. Then it was 40 for a faster one. Supposedly Netherweave Bags are a good item to sell, so it was off to 50. Cataclysm hits and I need to fly around Stormwind; level 60 here I come. Patch 4.1 drops, opening the new recipes to level 75s, so I’m off again. Slowly, I started looking to optimize and speed up the process of earning gold while leveling.

Maximizing Quest Rewards
Always grab the highest value reward if there’s nothing to improve leveling speed. For me, the threshold is a 10+ increase in my primary stat (Str, Agi, Int). An Addon like Vendor Bait highlights the most valuable item to vendor.

Automated Vendoring
The first problem I faced was all the grey quality items in my bags. Enter Sell-O-Matic 2. Any time I hit a vendor, it sells all my greys. In addition, it can also sell any BoP items that your class can’t use (great for clothies!). Over time, this adds up in both time saved and money earned. Every time I find a vendor, I click it and sell junk, freeing precious bag space for more items.

Auctioning Drops
Once my bags are clear of the junk items, it’s time to hit up the Auction House. After a leveling session, or when I’m low on bag space, it’s time to prep for the AH. Thankfully, Trade Skill Master has us covered. You’ll need to have been using it for a week or so, getting several complete AH scans a day to have a good average price for items for this to be effective, but that shouldn’t be hard for auctioning types. If you need help with TSM, check out Basil’s basic or advanced tutorials.

Initial Trade Skill Master Setup
I don’t want to re-list random items frequently because it interferes with my regular AH business, so I price things to move. The first thing I do is make a few categories based on the stack size I want to sell items in. I use “Market 1″, “Market 5″ and “Market 20″ for my categories. All of them use the same settings except for stack size. My settings are generally:

• Minimum Price: 75% of AuctionDB Market
• Maximum Price: 150% of AuctionDB Market
• Stacks of 1, 5, 20
• Click “Per Auction Cap”. This will allow TSM to post up to your stack size. For example, if I have 7 medium leather selling in stacks of 5, it will post one stack of 5 and one of 2 if I check this. If you don’t check it, it will wait until you have at least 5.

Creating Groups
Finally, create a group for each item. Navigate to the screen for creating groups, then drag an item into the box where you would type the name. TSM will automatically create a group with the item name and add the item. Do this for all the items you wish to sell.

Before heading to the Auction House, add each of the groups to one of the categories. Click on a category, then choose the “Add Groups” tab. Make a best guess for which stack size to use—you can always change it later. I put rarer items in Market 1, meats and frequent drops in Market 5 and farmables (ore, herbs, leather, volatiles, cloth) in Market 20.
About That Banker…

New recipes in patch 4.2 you say? Guess we’re off to 85…

Do you want to write for JMTC? Send in a post to Markco and if it makes it past the initial screening process then I will publish your submission on the blog. JMTC pays 50% commission to writers on the day that their post goes live.