So in Part 1 of this guide I wrote up how you can prepare to make lots of gold from your fellow players.
So if you followed my advice by now you probably have set up a banking alt, started saving your gold, got yourself some helpful addons and a few big bags full of loot.
Now what to do with that loot?
Here comes the second set of tips how to become rich in the World of Warcraft.
7. Don’t stockpile. Sell everything. When logging of for the night, switch to your bank alt, empty their mailbox, run over to the AH and just put up everything for sale. Don’t worry too much about getting good prices for your stuff or wasting money on AH fees. Selling lots of cheap stuff is better than not selling a lot of expensive stuff. Every copper counts!
8. Consider your professions. Professions are part of my personal gold making scheme. I have two characters at max level. The second one I leveled mostly because I wanted a character with maxed out Tailoring and Skinning. My main has Alchemy and Herbalism and I am leveling a third character with Jewelcrafting and Mining. The easiest professions to make money of are the three gathering professions. If you want to level another alt just choose Skining and either Herbalism or Mining as professions. From the crafting professions there are those that are more useful than others:
Alchemy: the specializations are nice because they help make the most out of materials. Use your timers if you have the time to log on. Transmutations are money makers for a minimum amount of invested time. Primal Earth -> Primal Water is my favorite. Alchemy is cheap to level I think.
Tailoring: make your own bags. Again: if you have the time to use up your timers … they all generate money. Plus there are some things that can be sold. Even when it is not Xmas the Xmas outfits sell quite nicely sometimes. I think it is nice to have a tailor to be able to use up all that cloth you find to make items for your Disenchanter (up next).
Enchanter: well most Enchanters really are Disenchanters, right? Of course you could just ask a friend to do it for you. But it is much more comfortable to have your own. But … it is a bit expensive to level this as you need to have quite a high level to be able to disenchant most things you find. But the Enchanting mats are definitely worth it on the AH. It is a good idea to use your Bank alt as Enchanter if you plan to level your Bank alt (my bank alts are level 38 and level 36). Right now on our realm you could get rich from Greater Eternal Essences and Greater Nether Essences. Illusion Dust is also very nice. (Enchantrix which is included with Auctioneer usually is very helpful to see which items will yield which enchant mats)
Jewelcrafting: Definitely not cheap to level. But Lakshmi has now reached 350+ and can sell cut gems on the AH and that makes great money. I have not yet bought a single one of the recipes for the rare stones, they are too expensive with every recipe going for at least 300 gold. It would take way too many gems to make a profit from a single recipe. There are enough “free” recipes for uncommon gems that still sell. Prospecting is also very nice. Even “simple” gems go for great profits on the auction house because most are needed for a variety of recipes and often those are recipes people will craft for their alts. I don’t think the timer for the Brilliant Glas recipe is very useful unless you get skillpoints from it and still have a huge cash of uncommon gems from the times when these sold for next to nothing.
Leatherworker: Has some nice items for your alts. For the rest it is much the same as Tailoring except that you need a Skinner for the Mats.
Smith: I have to say I never leveled a smith so I can’t really say anything about that. I much prefer to use my ores for Jewelcrafting.
I am very curious about Inscription and the new mechanism to sell enchants on the AH. I believe both will be huge in making gold. As with gems, buff food, flasks etc. I believe that Inscriptions and Enchants are items which cannot really be obtained from anywhere but your fellow players.
My price for best return on investment for crafting professions goes to Jewelcrafting right now. Enchanting and Alchemy should be close. Nothing beats gathering professions however because everyone tends to stockpile mats for their crafting profession “just in case” which is not helping in making you gold. Just sell it!
9. Cook and fish. If you are into fishing you probably already know it’s a gold maker. Fishing has a very good time:gold ratio. On the lower levels you are better off using up only the cooking materials that you need to level and selling the rest, preferably in big batches that people who are too lazy to farm are looking for. I never thought people would buy all the Mystery Meat and stuff I found. Absolute bestseller are the items you need for the level 225 cooking quest. Any kind of pool fishing will yield an ok amount of gold. The best fishing is in the three zones around Shattrath. Zangarmarshes are usually the quietest. You can just wander around the lakes and fish out all the junk plus some fish. I like my Golden Scale Vendor Fish. When I feel like it I do the cooking and fishing dailies with my druid. Both are easy to do and yield a nice return on my time.
10. Auctioning for the Experts. At first you just sell everything for whatever price feels right. If you keep it up for a while you will learn what sells and what doesn’t. If you have a few minutes to spare on your auction runs let Auctioneer scan the AH. It stores a lot of price statistics which will help you in the long run. But don’t trust those statistics blindly! Thinking is still required. There are people who game Auctioneer users. Once you have a feeling for the market and prices you may consider doing some AH Flipping. Flipping is when you buy something cheap and sell it again for a good profit. Flipping carries a big risk. Use it sparingly and only when you are pretty sure that the price you are paying really is cheap. I think my best flip recently was buying to Shadow Pearls for 80 silver (silver!) and making them into two Necklaces of the Deep which sold for 100 gold each.
There are some weapons across all levels that will always sell sooner or later for a nice price. Sometimes you can find them cheap and resell them.
Much less risky is to buy cheap green items and disenchant them or buy cheap ores to prospect them. Buying uncut gems and cutting them also yields nice profits. But anytime you buy something to re-sell there is risk involved! Don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work out every time. Just keep going.
Most of the time I just sell stuff I have found.
Additional Pricing resources:
- http://www.wowhead.com
- http://www.wowecon.com
11. Set yourself small goals. It is much easier to save up to reach 1000 gold instead of 5000.
12. Plan ahead on your own purchases. If you know that you will want certain items, plan ahead. Wait for a good deal or until you get the materials during your normal play. Having to buy stuff “now” on the AH costs a fortune usually. You will want to reserve that kind of behavior for emergencies. Finally: in this game time time equals gold. Always remember that farming most often is a boring activity that takes lots of time and somebody else may have done it for you and offer the goods you need for a price that you can easily pay when you think how long it would take to get the gold as opposed to the items.
So basically my gold making scheme is adding a gold making aspect to a variety of in-game activities I have fun with instead of stupidly doing dailies or farming some type of ore or leather until I drop dead of boredom. It still takes (out-of-game) time (until all your wares are bought) and some spending discipline to get lots of gold, but it is not impossible even for somebody with little time on their hands to get enough money for any type of mount.
A fast mount is a good investment by the way as it allows for much faster gathering or daily questing at max level.
I hope there was something in this guide for everyone and I’d be glad to hear of your strategies for making even more gold.
Sell everything. Doesn’t make as much gold per hour probably but it should be fun, right? Hint: do something easy so you don’t wipe. Wipes cost money! Even better if you still need rep somewhere.
