The Importance of Quick Decisions

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 11:19 AM

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Mommar here.

I seriously thought about titling this 'my 20,000$ days' but that felt a little too much like humble bragging.   But I will share a story that occurred this weekend to help you understand why it's important to not just sell but know how to trade your items.

Since the opening patch of 5.4 I have burned my cooldowns on all of my professions.  Many players have been slowing down their professions and just concentrating on the items that make direct sales.  One of the items that are produced on the dailies is the Balanced Trillium Ingot.   Each of these if done on your daily rotation costs you a the Trillium Bar (yes,  I know you can use a Spirit Of War + a Trillium Bar but these are still expensive on many servers).

Most of the time,  when I've produced 21 of the bars I will go ahead and craft one of the belt recipe.   Having an overabundance of plate wearers on my server that DPs I generally will craft an Avengers Trillium Waistplate selling at around 9500g.   Doing quick math and producing my own Trillium bars from my miner, I end up profiting the entire 9500g.   For the 21 days that ends up Avg about 450g a day.  Some servers show this item going for higher.   My server seems to like this number with maybe a 10% give or take.

So I listed my belt (Saying "Avengers Belt Assemble' because it amused me) and went on my merry way to finish up some game chores.  Receiving an in game message a player asked if I would take 6500g for the belt.   Depending on my attitude for the day I sometimes would take that deal simply because I am not that worried so much about eeking out every bit of profit I can.  (Save the bricks and pitchforks,  I'm not the overbearing miser that some have set me up to be).

Deciding that his offer was a little low I dropped my price 500g.   He countered with an offer of 3000g and throwing in a Gooey Shaling from SOO raid.   Those that have read my missives before know that I do not like to buy pets from raids.   They feel unearned and I like to think I've earned everything I have in my inventory.   In this case I made an exception and considered making the trade.  I was near the AH so I went to see what the going rate on the Board was for the little Gooeyness to see just what the entire total was being offered.   To my surprise, I saw that there was one listed on the AH for 500g.   Knowing the drop rate for pets in any of the current raid tiers is pretty low that seemed very cheap to me.  So I jumped over to my favorite listing place theunderminejournal.com  to get a quick peek at what the normal going rate was.   The barterer had graciously suggested that the pet could easily be sold for 5k.   On most of my trades I like to trade for a little higher value than an item would be just from a gold transaction.   TUJ showed that the going rate for the pet was 7500g.  Doing quick math in my head that gave me an approximate value of 10,500 g.  I liked that number so I made the trade.

Here is where the fun begins.  After making the trade I quickly grabbed the 500g Gooey Shaling pet off the AH,  listed one on the Ah for 8500 and then added the new Shaling pet to my stable of awesomeness.   30 minutes later I received an ingame message saying that my pet had sold for 8500g.   So after all of these trades I ended up with

3000g  - original trade
1 Gooey Shaling - Original trade
8500g  sale on the AH

Subtract the 500g investment to flip the pet
Subtract AH fees

Ending up with a profit of just over 10,000g.   Now I could probably take the Pet I added to my book and sell that for another 8500g which would net me for three transactions just over 17500g.  But he's so cute that I just can't sell him... til he starts eating at my profits.

So why tell you this?   It truly isn't meant to make me feel superior.   I've told many stories of where I took the wrong end of a deal and ended up eating some crow.  Everytime I see someone selling a Sky Golem Mount for 15k it makes me kick myself for how much I paid to try to control the market early.  The reason I shared, this is simply because direct sales can net you a lot of cash.  Bartered sales or combinations that allow you to flip items off the AH can net you a huge increase in revenue.  Plus, you can come out with some nifty little toys in the end.

Now me and my little pet Blinky have to go whoop some pets around Azeroth.  Papa needs a new achievement.

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting

PS.   The reason I was going to call it 25,000 day is because adding all of my professions that day I netted around 36,000g.   But that just was a really, really good day.

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

 WOD:   Leave The Wheelbarrow At The Door
Adding To The Sales Floor
60 Dollars to Leave Your Level
Stop Teasing My Rocket
Stop Beating My Warforged Seals
Buying Vs Ending
My 15 ate your 14 (Season 15 PVP)
Keep Your Head Up
Disenchant,  Rinse and Repeat
WOD: Guild? I have a Guild?
Leave Your 'Tude At The Door
Going Looney over the Lunar Festival
Cleaning Out The Closet (Achievement Edition)
WOD: Future Catch Up Zones
Ebay Warriors Prepare For Battle

The True Cost of Goods

Pitty Pat Sales

Be Prepared

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 8:55 AM

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Mommar here.

Saturday is one of the days that is set aside for raiding with my Guild.  We are the definition of casual in the idea that we only get together one day out of the week to do an organized raid.  Other days we are on our own to pick up runs to gear up,  play around in different groups or just relax and finish up dailies.   Where it is enjoyable it also means we probably won't be on the progression list that high anymore.

Part of my job here is part cheerleader (no you cannot look up my skirt),  part wow financial 'guru' and a part humorist.  Most of my guild members know that I write for this journal and occasionally I get some flack for doing it.  Stick and stones and such,  assuming they are not epic sticks and stones because those tend to hurt.

One thing that my guild members have gotten to be is very self sufficient.  Having many of them been playing this game for years they have almost all have multiple toons with multiple professions.  With extra gold reserves they also have the ability to buy what they want if they cannot craft it themselves.  This can be both a blessing and a curse. 

So from that large buildup came last night's run.  We did a flex run and finished up the first four bosses in Seige of Orgrimmar.  As we progressed,  players received their loot which of course excited some and irritated others.  A couple of my guilders wanted to equip the items immediately but wanted to enchant the items first.  So on a break they jotted over to the local auction house to pick up the required enchant.

One of the things that I"ve kept up on is the current professions for most of the guilders that I run with or spend time with.  So I knew that one of the players on the run was an enchanter.  With the access to both personal and guild banks being readily available (guild perk + Argent Gruntling for the win).  The guilder popped up to his stash,  grabbed an extra enchant and offered it to the fellow guilder for free.  This may seem very strange to many because many guild charge each other for these type of services.  That has never been the way that we run when it comes to professions.

But one thing that can be taken away from this is to always be prepared for a sale.  I have said it many times you never know when you can make a sale.  You cannot carry every enchant with you wherever you go.  But you can easily carry the materials in your bag for one or two weapon enchants. As a leatherworker you should always have a stack of Magnificent Hide to craft a new armor patch for a player. 

A gold goblin never stops hustling when it comes to being prepared.   In today's game there are more and more players learning how to make gold.  This spreads out the opportunities to everyone to make gold in the strangest of places.  Keeping your eyes open and ready can add more profit to your portfolio.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

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

Poor Poor Spirits of Harmony
Not Enough Loot On My Hands
10 Rules To Price My Golem.
Timeless Isle Tagging Is For Rich Chumps
Bring Me the Alchemist
Welcome To Loot Pinata Island
Last Minute Buys and Sells
Patch 5.4: Mental Preparation
You Found What????
Hearthstone:   The Beginning
Patch 5.4: Budgeting for the Patch
Get thee To a TradeSkillMaster 2.0
Patch 5.4 Prep:  No Sleep til Brooklyn
Customer First

Poor Poor Spirits of Harmony

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:39 PM

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Mommar here.

At the beginning of Mists of Pandaria the number one item that players with crafters wanted were the Spirits of Harmony.    These were it,  these were what you needed to make the big bucks.   Almost all of the level 90 armor and gear required these.  They were (and still are) BOP so they would never see the auction house steps.   You farmed them from either Half Hill or from killing mobs, and you hoarded them like they were air.

Now fast forward to today.   Most of the gear that is crafted from these are barely worth the time.  Yes some will sell to the occasional player but being three patches from their introduction most players consider them worthless.

But the shrewd investor knows this isn't completely true.   Some of the crafting items do sell to newly level 90's.   Professions such as Jewelcrafting can craft the Sapphire Cub pet to sell on the AH.  scribes (that's the inscription profession for those playing the home game) still have a group of powerful level 90 staves that can be crafted and sold for a decent profit.

But what about the non crafters.   They just show up in your bag and sit there,  taunting you.   Making you feel less of a player if you don't put them to use.   Your answer is here.   From the beginning there was a vendor in the Shrine of the Two Moons (on the upper deck) there is a vendor named Danky.   Danky gets ignored most of the time because he only has materials for sale.  Stacks of leather,  Stacks of ghost iron ore.  But one of the most important things he sells is Black and White Trillium Ore.

So this again seems a little strange.  A non crafter really cannot use trillium ore for anything.   Why just trade one slot filler for another?   This is where you contacts come in handy.  You can either drop these on the AH (some servers have these listed for 15-20g a piece) or talk to your favorite miner to have them smelted into Trillium Bars.

With the higher demand from Alchemists and Blacksmiths for Trillium Bars  the prices have been steadily rising for these materials.  Time for the non crafters to get into the profits for those leftover abandoned spirits of harmony.

If profit is not your forte these lone poor Spirits of Harmony can be exchanged in the same area that you get your daily archeology quests for Restored Artifact.  If your working on older expansion archeology projects these can give you a boost in your progress of finishing up.

So take those much maligned crafter materials and give them a new place into your heart.   Let them bring profits and fun into your life.   Or at least some profit into your collection.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

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

Not Enough Loot On My Hands
10 Rules To Price My Golem.
Timeless Isle Tagging Is For Rich Chumps
Bring Me the Alchemist
Welcome To Loot Pinata Island
Last Minute Buys and Sells
Patch 5.4: Mental Preparation
You Found What????
Hearthstone:   The Beginning
Patch 5.4: Budgeting for the Patch
Get thee To a TradeSkillMaster 2.0
Patch 5.4 Prep:  No Sleep til Brooklyn
Customer First