Life Happens

So, this was my first week of college and man was I busy!  I've been trying to get together everything I need for classes and for baseball.  Just wanted to apologize for no posts the past week, but plan on seeing some more.

Fishing for Gold

    Today, I wanted to talk about something that 90% of the people in WoW hate doing.  Fishing is one of the most, if not the most boring profession of all the professions in the game.  However, after the LONG trip to 450, it can have some rewards.  To be able to take full advantage of the fish a maxed cooked is essential as well.  

Lets take a look at what the most popular Northrend fish are, and what they are used for.  
Glacial Salmon


Glacial Salmon is one of the most profitable fish on my server most of the time.  For a stack of 20 the A.M.P.(Average Market Price) is just under 40g.  However, on raid nights the price for a stack will go above the normal price, due to the high demand.  The main recipes that they are used in are Firecracker Salmon and Fish Feast.  Glacial Salmon can be found in Wintergrasp, Grizzly Hills, Howling Fjord and Dragonblight.

Musselback Sculpin


Musselback Sculpin is another one of the fish that is required in a Fish Feast.  For a stack of 20 the A.M.P. is at 37g.  Once again this price will increase on raid nights.  The main recipes used are Poached Northern Sculpin and Fish Feast.  Musselback Sculpin can be found in Wintergrasp, Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, Zul'Drak and Grizzly Hills.

Nettlefish

Nettlefish is the last remaining fish to make a Fish Feast.  It is the least profitable uncooked on my server.  For a stack of 20 the A.M.P. is 31g.  The main recipes use are Spicy Blue Nettlefish and Fish Feast.  Nettlefish can be found in Wintergrasp, Sholazar Basin, Dragonblight, and Ulduar.  


    The main reason for this post is just to point out that there are reasons behind the mindless clicking that we call fishing in WoW.  If you can buy up some of these fish for cheap, or actually enjoy farming*, you can make some nice profit.  With the fish market it is all about timing.  Hit it when the demand is high, and you will be able to make some nice gold.


* I do not advise farming fish for hours, because your gold per hour will not be great on most servers. This is just a tip for some extra gold in your pockets, not a strategy that should be used for your main source of income.   

Busy Weekend

Hey guys,

Just wanted to say sorry about falling behind on posts, but I have had a busy weekend.  I just now got moved into my new apartment up at college, and finally have got to relax for a moment.  Expect more gold posts rolling in this week.

Getting the most out of your Jewelcrafting

 Ever since Jewelcrafting has come into the game it has been one of the most profitable professions.  This is no surprise, because of the constant demand of gems on all levels of characters.  Today I wanted to give five tips on how to take this profession and maybe help you get more out of it than you already do.

First tip:  This should be obvious, but do your daily as often as possible.  If you can help it, don't ever let a day go by without getting this done.  It is to important to forget it.  This is especially true early in the expansion/patch with new gems.  At the point we are at in WOTLK, it does not make it as important, but why waste days when you could be gaining tokens on more cuts.  More cuts means more profit.  The other two ways to gain tokens are through Titanium Powder and Damaged Necklace.  The powder comes from prospecting Titanium Ore and the Necklace is a random world drop.  Both of these can be found on the AH.

Second tip: Don't ever sell your Jewelcrafting through trade chat.  Trade chat is an excellent tool (between all the anal spam) to buy your mats, not to sell them.  By selling gem cuts through trade you could be giving people the necessary materials to compete with your own auctions on the Auction House.  Also, on average most people will tip around 10g.  Sure, it seems like a good idea at the time, however, if they then turn around and undercut you on the AH it will take away the amount of profit you could be making.

Third tip:  Take advantage of all the cuts you own.  This includes uncommon, rare, and epic gems.  On most servers, they will all sell.  Epic cuts on my server are on the downfall right now, because most people have killed LK on their mains and have most of the loot they are ever going to get.  So what do these people do?  They roll alts and start all over.  This is why my uncommon and rare gems have been selling like crazy.  Nobody is going to buy epic gems to level a character with, however, they will buy the lesser versions to just fill a gem slot.  Some of the most popular uncommon and rare gems I sell are: Runed Bloodstone, Bold Bloodstone, Runed Scarlet Ruby, Solid Chalcedony, and Solid Sky Sapphire.  There are many more you can sell through these lower level markets.  I just try to focus on these, because I feel they give me the best return on my server.

Fourth tip:  Cut popular Meta-gems.  Meta-gems can net a nice profit.  Especially, now that they removed the CD from creating the raw gems.  Check on a site like wowpopular.com and find your top selling Meta-gems.  Purchase a couple of these, and it will help add to your gold income.

Fifth tip:  Prospect your ore for gems if prices allow it.  More times than not it is cheaper to prospect ore for the gems over buying the raw gems themselves.  Take advantage of your prospect tool and prospect ore for your own gem sells.  Also, prospecting is an important part of the Saronite Shuffle.  The Saronite Shuffle is a technique used to make gold from all the gems you can prospect from Saronite Ore.  If you have an enchanter it can be taken a step even farther than the chart shows.

Update:
Cold from http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com/ made a great point in the comments on an additional way to add epic gems to your stock.  His blog post: http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com/search/label/Wintergrasp%20Shuffle/  explains in detail.  If you haven't checked him out go give him a read.  Thanks Cold.

Vendor Pet Experiment

  Markco over at "justmytwocopper.blogspot.com" asked his readers, "How do you turn 1k gold into 2k gold?" for the next blogging carnival.   What I decided to try was an all vendor pet experiment. I thought it would be a good idea to try this just to see if I could get it to work, and see how long it would take.  Rule was this:  only vendor pets are allowed to be purchased with a 1,000g starting cap.  I then will put them all on the AH and see what kind of profit I could make, and how long it takes me to make that profit.  Hopefully, I'll be able to rake in another 1k gold and turn it into 2k gold.  Whether I am able to turn my 1k into 2k or not, I'll show the results and how it went.

Using the "Resale" function of Auctioneer to make gold

     The "Resale" function of the addon Auctioneer is a great tool if you know how to use it properly.  By using "Resale," one can make thousands of gold without a single profession.  Even though this is not the best way to make gold on the AH, it is a way that could help you bring in more income.  I'm going to take you through a few steps on how to get it working properly, and what to expect out of it once it does.  Let it be noted that this will only work after you have had several scans of your AH.  If you do not have very many scans of your AH the data "Resale" provides will in most cases not be true.

1. First off, you have to config what you want the "Resale" to find for you.  You can set the price anywhere in your range that you feel is worth flipping.  Some people do 5g, some do 500g, it is all up to you. You will place this amount under the "Minimum Profit" heading.  You will want your MinDiscount to be set at 50%.

2. After you have set up the price you want, run a get all scan of the auction house.  After this is done click on your "Resale" icon and click search.

3.  Once our search is complete you can set it up to list by buyout, bid, PCT, profit, whatever you would like it to show.  Remember, these numbers could be not accurate if you have not done at least a couple weeks worth of scans.

4.  At this point you are ready to buy/bid.  "Resale" will give a suggestion on the side of the item if it is worth buying or bidding. Check out all the items and see which ones you could possibly resale for a profit.

Items to look for:  "Resale" will be showing all items in the database they can be flipped according to your settings.  However, there are some items you will want to avoid.  Even though auctioneer might say you can flip this for profit, do you really think you can sell Heavy Linen Bandage for 2,000g?  Items to look for are your: enchant mats, ore, herbs, skins, scrolls, some epics, battered hilts, and pets.  There are more items that are worth purchasing, but I wanted to just name a few to let you understand the type of items to search for.


Items to NOT purchase:  The items you want to avoid while using "Resale" are the items that are very common everyday drops and items that are crafted from people leveling their professions.  Items you want to make sure to avoid are green and blue item level armor/weapons.  There are so few of that particular item on the AH no matter how many times you have scanned the AH the numbers will be off.  Avoid most lower level armor and weapons unless you feel you really are getting a good deal.

Where do I get starter cash???

    I thought that a good topic to begin with would be to talk about what markets you could get into for easy starter gold for that epic flying or to just simply pay for your repairs.  I'll go through each crafting profession and name some markets that has low risk high reward items that will help you get started in making some gold.

Alchemy-  Most people would think that flasks is the way to go as an Alchemist, however, the ONLY time this is true is when you are an elixir spec.  Sometimes, this will not even help.  A great way to make some starter gold in Alchemy is through the use of your epic gem transmute.  This is especially true if you are a transmute spec(which I highly recommend).  The mats for an epic gem transmute are fairly cheap especially since you can trade frozen orbs for the eternals.  Alchemy is best used when grouped with another big money profession such as Jewelcrafting.  However, I would not rely on it being your main source of income.

Blacksmithing- A safe market to get into with Blacksmithing is the Eternal Belt Buckle market.  These will always be in demand.  Every time a new belt is won, this belt buckle is the first thing bought.  Mats are fairly cheap and you will always be able to make a profit off of them.  Blacksmithing has more areas available to it to make gold, but this is a market that will always be there.  

Enchanting- The entire enchanting market in general is a low risk market.  The constant need for enchants will always have people running to the auction house over paying to get them five minutes before they raid.  There are many different enchants you can put on scrolls to make profit, however, the one I want to focus on for starter cash is "Fiery".  It is an easy farmable drop from Blackrock Depths.  It should take you no longer than an hour to farm.  This enchant is used all the time on BoA gear.  Put this enchant on scrolls and watch out for people trying to undercut you, and you should be able to make decent profit off of this.

Engineering-  So pretty much engineering is one of the hardest professions to make gold with in WOTLK.  There is just not many ways to earn you gold.  In Cata they will be changing this.  However, your best bet until then will always be pets.  Make them and pray that nobody else wants to make 200 of them too.

Starter Cash--- Part 2

      We are going to continue talking about ways to get starter cash with the rest of the crafting professions.  We left off with Engineering and we'll begin with Inscription.

Inscription-  Many people have tried to get into the glyph business and have failed miserably.  The reason this happens is because there is always somebody on your server who will camp the ah and undercut you constantly all day.  I choose to let these people continue having no life and take the money where they allow it.  Sometimes people forget, or are not aware, that glyphs are not the only profitable item that a scribe can make.  The low risk high reward item for a scribe are Weapon and Armor Vellums.  These items are used by chanters to make scrolls.  They are great sellers and you avoid the hassle of trying to keep up with hundreds of glyphs.

Jewelcrafting-  Jewelcrafting could arguably have been the best gold making profession in WoW during WOTLK.  The constant demand for gems keeps jewelcrafting at the top of the totem pole for making gold.  I could just say how all you need to do is post your epic gems and there you go, however, I want to talk about the rare and uncommon gems as well.  Obviously, posting your epic cut gems will net you nice profit.  What you need to remember is there are people who are leveling toons who do not want to pay 125g for an epic gem that they will replace two levels later.  This is where the rare and uncommon gem market come into play. They provide nice profit and will help in addition to your normal epic gem sales.

Leatherworking-  Leatherworking provides some good opportunities to make gold.  A great way to make some gold in Leatherworking will be the epic leg enchants.  They will not net huge profit, but it provides a steady income of gold.  The leg enchants are big sellers, and will be in demand most days.

Tailoring-  There will always be a demand  for the bags and spellthread that Tailors can make.  The best item to make as a tailor to get some starter cash is the Netherweave Bag.  These bags will ALWAYS sell.  Alts buy them all the time, and even mains will buy them for bank slots.  They are cheap to make and will always be in demand.

That rounds out the rest of our crafting professions.  Now that you have some starter cash the real fun can begin.

First Post!!

Hey guys!

Just wanted to start out by giving a brief history about me, and why I wanted to create this blog.  I have been playing World of Warcraft for about two years now.  I first started playing during BC and got into a raiding group and really enjoyed healing it as a Holy Priest.  I absolutely loved Kara, and still think that is the best raid in the game.  I took a break from the game for about six months once I went to college, but I returned to play WOTLK.  It was at this point that I rejoined my old guild and began raiding again as a Shadow Priest.  I'm now currently a "Kingslayer" and getting into PVP.  It has been a blast so far.

Now, I will move on to the reason why I wanted to make this blog.  I first started getting into the auction house when I returned from my six month break.  I was amazed at how much fun working the auction house could be.  However, I only had one level 80 with maxed JC and Mining.  I decided that I needed to level a Death Knight to 65 for two more professions.  So, my max professions at the moment are: Jewelcrafting, Mining, and Inscription.  I have Blacksmithing leveling as well on my DK.  

What I want everyone to see from my blog is just an average player's perspective on trying to make gold in the auction house without having every profession.  I will talk about my strategies that I use on trying to make gold, but also keep enough to power level my other professions.

I'll be posting again this afternoon, so be sure to check it out.