The Auction House Grind: 2013

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Profitable (and not-so-profitable) Markets

Gem Market

For the past few weeks the gem market has been one of the strongest markets. The PvP gems have seen the greatest increase in value with the introduction of the Crafted Dreadful Gladiator gear. Red, Blue, and Yellow gems are strong sellers, however, the overabundance of competition keep these gems selling below the 50 gold threshold. The mixed-stat purple, orange, and green gems are the most profitable selling gems. I find that these gems can sell for over 500 gold each on Tuesday nights if I get lucky. Unfortunately I am not as lucky as I would like to be. I have a persistent competitor in the gem market who has a price ceiling of 150 gold per gem. No matter what the current price is for gems he will list several at 150 gold each. My attempts to buy out his auctions to reset the market have failed as he seems to have an endless supply of gems. Unfortunately he/she tends to check for undercuts approximately ever 30-45 minutes so even trying to undercut doesn’t work for long. I have driven the price of some of the gems below 10 gold each in an attempt to find his price floor but he doesn’t appear to have one. He seems willing to sell his gems at a loss just to keep his at the cheapest. I attempted to buy out his stock doing this but I only succeeded at obtaining a large stockpile of gems with him continuing to restock without hesitation. At this point I am forced to wait him out of the market. Eventually he will get tired and leave. I will remain. Until then I will have to accept low profits and the ability to control the market for the few hours that he isn’t on.

Enchant Market

Like the gem market I have seen strong sales in the enchant market. Also like the gem market I have seen the profits from the enchant market shrink from competition. Currently I am concentrating on the weapon enchants as well as the bracer enchants that require Sha Crystals to make. I can usually pull a profit of 100-200 gold from each enchant. Not very profitable but the other enchants tend to sell below mat costs due to a great many unwise sellers in the market.

Crafted Dreadful Gladiator Armor

At first I attempted to control all aspects of this market. However I underestimated the stupidity of my fellow crafters and sellers on my server. At this time I have almost completely abandoned the cloth market. The plate market is “iffy” with people selling some items below crafting costs. I am finding the leather crafted gear to be very profitable. I am buying the cloth gear to disenchant to resupply my enchant mats.

Miscellaneous

Other items currently selling well are leg enchants, shoulder enchants, belt buckles. The rare blue ilvl 416 gear is still selling well to people beginning to level their 85 alts. Transmog items continue to sell at a steady pace.

While I had hoped to make some gold selling battle pets I have been disappointed. The prices for level 25 rare pets have dropped from 15k to about 4k in the last two weeks with most not selling. I have found that mid-level pets do sell but only if they have been upgraded to rare and priced cheap. The best sellers are level 10, 15 and 20. These sell for 200g for the level 10, 400g for the level 15 and 600g for the level 20. There might be a disparity between different servers but mine has been very disappointing. This is a new market and I'm hoping it will stabilize in the future and we will be able to make a decent profit from it. Until then I will continue to monitor it.

While we have always had competition in our markets I have never seen so many people with seemingly no idea as to what they are doing. Many markets have people selling items for a loss. Other markets have had their profits driven down to almost nothing. All these people seem blissfully unaware of what they are doing. It tends to be exceedingly frustrating for those of us who have been around for a long time. It can be very difficult seeing our markets ruined by those that have no clue. I am not concerned for the long-term. I have been playing since BC and making gold off the AH since Wrath. I have seen many people come and go in this game and on the auction house. I know that I will outlast these people too. However I am concerned for the short-term. Being an AH goblin I have learned the “cycles” that the game and the auction house goes through. This is supposed to be the time when the AH is supposed to be on the “up-swing” with profits at their highest. However this is not the case. If things do not improve soon I shudder to think what the AH will look like in the summer when school is out and the AH is on the “down-swing” with decreased profits. Oh well, I'm off to the AH now to see if I can squeeze a couple of more coppers out of it.

Thanks,

Jafo

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Patch 5.2 First Week of Sales

The first week after the patch turned out to be a decent profit. My preparation of stocking mats appear to be accurate. Generally I stocked up heavily on leather, just enough cloth to meet my personal crafting needs, and stayed away from the metals market.

Just before server shutdown I bought out all gems and reset the gem market. I was able to buy out all cut and uncut gems for very low prices. I re-listed cut gems at 500 gold per and uncut gems at 750 gold per. These began to be undercut almost immediately after server restart but the prices generally stayed above the 250 gold mark for about three days allowing me to turn a huge profit. I did expect a surge in buying of gems but, if anything, I appear to underestimated the demand. It is now over a week after the patch and I am having a hard time keeping up with the continuing demand for gems.

Before server restart I crafted multiples of all enchant scrolls. I then bought out key enchants to reset prices. Also with this market I underestimated the demand. My supply of scrolls sold out within two days and my supply of raw materials were used up by the end of the week. I am now forced to buy mats off the auction house which decreases my profits. However the initial demand has yielded me huge profits. I am now limited to crafting only the highest priced, most profitable, scrolls.

Of all my auction sales I am most disappointed with the crafted weapons. I made two of all the crafted ilvl 463weapons and only two out of ten have sold. Also the inscribed fans, off-hands, have remained on the auction house and have not been sold even after being discounted.

My enhancements have been selling faster than I can craft them. Belt buckles, leg armors, spellthreads, and shoulder enchants are difficult to keep on the auction house for long. Even with stiff competition the sales are so fast that prices remain strong even now.

I crafted several pieces of ilvl 476 and ilvl 496 armor expecting an uptick in demand by buyers to meet the ilvl 480 requirement for LFR. I was surprised to see more sales in the 476 market than the 496 market. With the drop in prices of blood spirits and the resulting drop in prices of the 496 gear I expected the opposite would be true.

The sales of the crafted PvP Contenders gear is still strong. With the slow release of the Crafted Dreadful Gladiators gear both markets are showing decent sales. Once the patch hit and people began learning the ilvl 458 gear these items began showing up on the market. With new items most sellers tend to underestimate the true value of their items. Thus I was able to buy up many under priced pieces of armor and re-list them for huge profits. Still many people tend to list items at ridiculous low prices tanking the market. This is most seen in the cloth market. I am buying up a decent stockpile of these now because once these temporary sellers leave the market I doubt prices will be this low again.

Two additional markets I am involved in are ilvl 417 armor and transmog gear. Item level 417 rare gear is the best gear for level 85 toons. This gear has the highest equipable stats for 85's and will carry a player through the leveling process with gear that will not be replaced till level 88. Thus this gear is highly sought after by players trying to level their alts as quickly and easily as possible. I expected to see a drop in sales as players focused on the new content. I was pleasantly surprised to see no drop in sales in both of these markets.

All in all the patch was a decent profit maker for me. With approximately 150,000 gold in sales means I made about 100,000 gold in profit. Not a bad take for one week. With the new raids being slowly phased in for LFR I expect a continued strong market for enhancements, enchants and gems. Also with the slow lead in to the crafted PvP armor market should bring good profits. I expect the plate gear and new weapon recipes should be available within a week or two and will plan accordingly for these markets. All told I'm very happy with the patch and expect the auction house market will be viable for quite some time.

Thanks,

Jafo

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Are you ready for Patch 5.2 LFR?

While a few guilds have ventured into the normal Throne of Thunder raids many of us are waiting for the LFR feature to be released on March 12^th. Blizzards release dates for raids are:

March 5 – Normal Throne of Thunder
March 12 – Heroic Throne of Thunder and LFR Wing 1 “Last Stand of the Zandalari”
March 19 – LFR Wing 2 “Forgotten Depths”
April 2 – LFR Wing 3 “Halls of Flesh-Shaping”
April 16 – LFR Wing 4 “Pinnacle of Storms”

If you wish to participate in LFR on your main or alts there is a ilvl 480 gear requirement. You do have a few options to help you gear up. Fortunately when Patch 5.2 dropped Blizzard lowered the valor cost of ilvl 489 valor gear by 50%. Here is a quick list of which faction to check for gear:

489 Valor Gear

Shado-Pan – Head, Back, Trinket

August Celestials – Hands, Wrists, Feet

Golden Lotus – Chest, Shoulder, Ring

Kalaxxi – Neck, Legs, Belt

Also in the recent patch Blizzard reduced the ilvl 496 valor gear cost by 25%.

496 Valor Gear

Operation: Shieldwall – Ring, Belt, Feet, Trinket

Dominance Offensive – Ring, Belt, Feet, Trinket

Also remember that ilvl 496 gear can be crafted by blacksmiths, tailors, and leatherworkers. With the latest patch the mats required for this gear has dropped in cost. Especially the cost of Blood Spirits have fallen recently making the cost on the auction house affordable to many.

Good Luck,

Jafo

Sunday, March 3, 2013

New Professions Review and Stockpiling for Patch 5.2

In my previous post Patch 5.2 New Profession Recipes I showed all the new profession recipes in the upcoming patch. In this post I will discuss them along with my opinions on all the profession changes.

Overview

Most of the new recipes we will see will be for Blacksmithing, Tailoring, and Leatherworking. The new PvE recipes will be for feet and head armor. New PvP armor is also introduced with some nice changes. Engineering and Jewelcrafting will see a little bit of love as well. An important thing to note is that none of these recipes require Blood Spirits. They have been replaced with a new item Haunting Spirit. We know Blood Spirits are obtained from disenchanting 5.1 raid gear it appears that Haunting Spirits are obtained from disenchanting 5.2 raid gear.

Leatherworking

Leatherworkers will receive 8 new PvE armor patterns along with 77 new PvP armor patterns. Leatherworkers will also receive one new bag pattern and two new Magnificent Hide crafting patterns.

Along with Haunting Spirits the main crafting reagent for PvE ilvl 522 leather gear will be Magnificent Hide. It will require 7 hides for the feet armor and 14 hides for the head armor. Leatherworkers will receive two new recipes for crafting Magnificent Hide. They are Pattern: Magnificence of Scales. and Pattern: Magnificence of Leather both of these are found from random world drops from all mobs in Mists of Panderia. The drop rates of these are pretty common on the PTR and should be easily obtainable once the patch hits. Our current recipe for creating Magnificent Hide will stay in the game costing 50 Exotic Leathers to craft. The new recipes will only cost 20 Exotic Leather or 20 Prismatic Sale to craft, however both recipes are on a shared cooldown of once per day. The important thing to note is that the new PvP and PvE recipes are discovered from crafting the hide once per day using the new recipes. Thus learning the new recipes will be gated at one new recipe per day. The discoveries are random and there is no way to choose if the discovery will be for a PvP or PvE recipe. The new bag recipe Magnificent Hide Pack will be a new 36 slot leatherworking bag replacing the old Trapper's Traveling Pack a 28 slot leatherworking bag. The new ilvl 458 PvP armor will require Magnificent Hide to craft.

Tailoring

Tailors will receive 4 new PvE ilvl 522 armor patterns along with 34 new PvP ilvl 458 armor patterns. Along with Haunting Spirits the new PvE head armor will require 6 Imperial Silk while the new Feet armor will require 4 Imperial Silk. As with leatherworking, the tailor patterns are discovered once per day while using the Imperial Silk crafting. PvP armor will require Bolts of Windwool Cloth to craft.

Blacksmithing

Blacksmiths will receive 6 new PvE ilvl 522 armor patterns, 6 new ilvl 463 weapon patterns, and 33 new ilvl 458 PvP patterns. They will also learn a new reagent recipe Living Steel Ingot. Along with Haunting Spirits the new PvE Head armor will require 8 Living Steel and 3 Spirits of Harmony while the new Feet armor will require 6 Living Steel and 2 Spirits of Harmony. The new weapons will require Lightning Steel Ingots, Living Steel, and Spirits of Harmony. The PvP armor will require Ghost Iron Bars to craft. As with the other professions recipe discoveries are gated behind a daily Lightning Steel crafting.

Conclusion

The PvE patterns show promise but with the reagent requirement of Haunting Spirits these items will not be realistically craftable for 6-8 weeks from patch release. My plan is to make gold from the new PvP items. With leatherworking I plan on stockpiling large amounts of Magnificent Hide. This will allow me to make all the PvP items and the new Leatherworking bags. For tailoring I plan on stockpiling Windwool cloth and bolts. I also plan on hoarding my Imperial Silk until I can make the PvE cloth items, however I will watch the leg enchant market closely and may use a few to make leg enchants if the prices rise dramatically. With Blacksmithing I will stockpile Ghost Iron Ore/Bars, Living Steel, Trillium, and Spirits of Harmony. I will craft PvP gear for all professions as soon as I learn the recipes.

While stockpiling all the mats is wise I feel that the hidden gold mine is in leatherworking. Blacksmithing has a large number of suppliers for the market. Players farm ore and botting helps provide a large supply to market. While questing, dungeons and raids provide a continued supply of cloth. The truly limited supply item is from skinning. The supply is the most limited of all the professions. Many people have alts to farm herbs and ore but few have skinners. Due to the large demand there will be for leather and scales I do not believe the supply will be able to come close to meeting the demand. While I expect ore and cloth prices to rise in this patch I expect the highest price spike to be with leather. Not only will leather prices rise the highest but I expect the leather market will have a longer time to stabilize compared to the cloth and ore markets.

One important thing to remember about ore and bar prices is that there will be two separate price spikes. The first will occur immediately after the patch release. This will be due to players needing more bars to craft the PvP gear and those using the new method to level up their lower level blacksmiths. The second, and larger, price spike will come after the server unlocks the Thunder Forge. The exact amount of time for a server to unlock the Thunder Forge will vary by server but estimate it will take approximately 30-40 days for an average server to complete it. Once the Thunder Forge is open up to blacksmiths you can expect the second price spike to hit so be prepared for it.

I also advise stockpiling all items necessary to make item enhancements. This includes all enchants for Enchanters for the new supply of gear players will be replacing from the new raids. Also leg enchants made by tailors and leatherworkers, shoulder enchants made by Inscriptionists, and gems made by Jewelcrafters. Alchemists can also expect an increased demand for potions and flasks. Don’t forget there will be an increased demand for specialty foods if you have leveled your cooking. Thus expect an increased demand, and price, for key cooking mats.

A special note for Jewelcrafters: in the past PvP crafting gear never had gem slots. Thus PvP gems were reserved to armor bought with honor and conquest points. However as of this patch the new crafted PvP gear will have gems slots available in them. This might be a good time to take a new look at the PvP gem market. Now would be a good time for all players to check their auction house for cheap PvP gems and for Jewelcrafters to collect mats to meet the demand for this increasing market.

Hopefully this will help you for the upcoming patch.

Thanks,

Jafo

Friday, March 1, 2013

Patch 5.2 New Profession Recipes

In this post I will show all the new profession recipes in the patch so everyone can gain a bit of perspective in whats coming. My next post I will discuss my opinions and plans for planning and stockpiling for these.

Leatherworking

Dreadrunner Sabatons

Cloud Serpent Helm

Cloud Serpent Sabatons

Dreadrunner Helm

Quilen Hide Boots

Quilen Hide Helm

Spirit Keeper Footguards

Spirit Keeper Helm

Pattern: Magnificence of Leather

Pattern: Magnificence of Scales

Magnificent Hide Pack

PvP

Armbands of Meditation

Tailoring

Falling Blossom Cowl

Falling Blossom Hood

Falling Blossom Sandals

Falling Blossom Treads

PvP

Blacksmithing

Haunted Steel Greathelm

Haunted Steel Greaves

Haunted Steel Headcover

Haunted Steel Headguard

Haunted Steel Treads

Haunted Steel Warboots

LightningSteel Ingot

Thunderforge Weapons

Drakefist Hammer, Reborn

Fireguard, Reborn

Lionheart Blade, Reborn

Lunar Crescent, Reborn

The Planar Edge, Reborn

Thunder, Reborn

PvP

Jewelcrafting

Design: Serpent's Heart

Design: Primal Diamond

Design: Sapphire Cub

Design: Jade Owl

Engineering

Pierre
Advanced Refrigeration Unit

For additional information I would recommend the following resources:

Zerohours Nameless Blog:

A Bit About 5.2 Professions

The Golden Crusade:

Profession Changes in Patch 5.2

Kaliope's WoW Crafting Blog

Thanks,

Jafo

Monday, February 25, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 20

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

Lets spread some blog love - which are your 'must read' or 'go to' gold blogs or even other places you go for information & reading matter?

I probably read a couple dozen blogs every week but these are the ones I read consistantly

Goldgrub's Goblin Academy

Kaliope's Crafting Blog

Kuja's Gold Mine

Phat Lewts' Gold Blog

PowerWord:Gold

WoW or Gold

The Xtreme Gold Blog

Zerohour's Nameless Blog

I also read these websites

The Consortium

MMO-Champion

WoWhead

Jafo

Thursday, February 21, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 18

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

What is the most important bit of advice you could give to a new gold maker? (not a game newbie though, just a newbie gold maker)

In my opinion there are two qualities that make a good gold maker. These are curiosity and persistence. If you are just interested in making gold you will be able to jump into the market for a couple of weeks but without curiosity and persistence you will not last.

If you want to make gold in WoW the information is out there. Plenty of blogs, websites and podcasts that will tell you everything you need to know. If you have the curiosity to search and learn and the persistence to apply it you will be successful.

Jafo

Sunday, February 17, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 17

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

Pets - Did you used to do the Vendor pet sales? How have pet battles changed things for you?

Prior to Mists I did occasionally have a route that I ran to obtain rarer pets from vendors that I would then sell to collectors via the auction house. I also created craftable pets to sell on the auction house. The most profitable of these being the crafted engineering pets.

After the release of Mists and the introduction of pet battles the markets for pets changed drastically. No longer were people collecting interesting pets just to show them off in the cities. No longer were people collecting these pets with the simple purpose of obtaining an achievement. Pets were now being collected to battle.

With different pets having different abilities the goal changed from collecting a certain number of pets to collecting pets with certain abilities. This had an extreme impact on the pet market by changing from perceived rarity to desired abilities. Thus previously difficult to obtain and expensive pets were no longer wanted by the pet collectors in the auction house.

Two additional changes that have effected the market are the merging of all pet collections across an account and the ability to cage pets from your collection. This has caused a flood in the pet market. Even extremely rare pets, once valued at tens of thousands of gold, can now be bought for a few hundred gold each.

These changes have crashed the pet market and changed it forever. However I believe the drop in prices may only be temporary. At this time I have withdrawn from selling in the pet market. I still continue to watch this market and study it to learn the new trends. Once the market prices have rebounded and recovered from the flood I will reenter the market. Until the I plan on watching the market and creating a new strategy that will enable me to profit from it once again.

Jafo

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Patch 5.2 and Inscription Staffs

Time is running out.

Blizzard has announced that they will be removing the item upgrade vendors in patch 5.2. The purpose of this is to encourage players to get the new patch gear in favor of trying to upgrade the patch 5.1 gear. This action will have a direct impact on the BoA Inscription Staffs in the game. These are:

Inscribed Crane Staff

Inscribed Serpent Staff

Inscribed Tiger Staff

It is important to remember that these staffs, once created, are bind on account and can be used by all toons on a players account. These staffs are considered some of the best weapons available for new level 90 players. At starting item level of 476 these weapons are upgraded up to two times. An example of this is the Inscribed Serpent Staff:

Inscribed Serpent Staff
Item Level 476
Upgrade Level 0/2
Binds to Battle.net account
Two-Hand
4895 - 7343 Damage
(1854.2 damage per second)
+1522 Stamina
+1015 Intellect
+677 Hit
+5813 Spell Power
+677 Mastery

Inscribed Serpent Staff
Item Level 480
Upgrade Level 1/2
Binds to Battle.net account
Two-Hand
5080 - 7622 Damage
(1924.6 damage per second)
+1579 Stamina
+1053 Intellect
+702 Hit
+6033 Spell Power
+702 Mastery

Inscribed Serpent Staff
Item Level 484
Upgrade Level 2/2
Binds to Battle.net account
Two-Hand
5273 - 7912 Damage
(1997.7 damage per second)
+1839 Stamina
+1093 Intellect
+729 Hit
+6262 Spell Power
+729 Mastery

As you can see from the above example these staffs can be upgraded twice for a total item level increase of 8 item levels. This is a significant stat increase on these weapons. This puts these staffs as best in slot and only sees a replacement when one replaces them with other weapons found in the Terrace of Endless Springs raid in normal or heroic modes. An upgraded inscription staff is superior to similar weapon drops from raid finder groups.

While the item level 476 staffs can be made after patch 5.2 drops we will no longer be able to upgrade them. The removal of the upgrade vendors will thus severely limit the usefulness of these weapons. It is therefore worthwhile to create and upgrade the staffs prior to the release of the patch.

Blizzard has hinted that they may bring the upgrade vendor back later in the game. Possibly as early as patch 5.3. However we don’t know when or if they will be brought back. Thus it would be in everyone’s best interest to create and upgrade these items now, even if you don’t plan on using them in the immediate future.

A single upgrade of the staffs costs only 750 valor points each. Costing a total of 1500 valor to max upgrade them. Fortunately since they are bind on account we are not restricted to upgrading them on one toon. These items can be mailed to one toon to be upgraded the first upgrade and then mailed to a second toon to receive the second upgrade. They do not need to be equipped or even equippable on a specific toon for that toon to be able to upgrade it. This gives us an easy opportunity to upgrade the staff.

While you may plan to use these weapons on you main or alts it is important to upgrade them now. If you are like me, then you have multiple characters of various classes and specs, and thus have a need for all three staffs. For those of you with only one character who can use these weapons you will only need to focus on one staff. The number off staffs you need as well as your play time will factor in to your ability to upgrade these.

With patch 5.2 expected to drop on Tuesday, February 26^th, we have about one and a half weeks to upgrade. Each person will have to arrange their playtime to earn sufficient valor in that time frame. You may need to run raids, dungeons, scenarios, and dailies every day on a single or multiple toons to achieve this. Decide on your goal and work towards it. Time is running out.

Jafo

Monday, February 11, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 16

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

Flipping! Do you flip stuff regularly or sometimes? Big ticket items or smaller high volume stuff?

When I teach friends on how to make gold in WoW I strongly advise them to avoid flipping. Of all the ways to make gold in the game I view this as one of the most dangerous. It requires an extensive knowledge of the auction house that most people do not possess.

Having said that, I must admit that I do flip auctions. I will almost always stay away from high priced items. Very few times do I profit from high priced items. On are rare time you might find an item that was priced low because the seller made a pricing mistake or simply did not know the true value of the item. However most times a seemingly low priced item is priced low for a reason. Usually because the seller knows something that you do not. Stay away from high priced items. If you choose to try this I recommend you not spend more gold than you are willing to lose. From my experience I have had more high price items flip for break-even or loss than I have had for profitable sales.

Most items that I buy to flip fall into the 50-250 gold range. I will buy rare armor, weapons, rings, and necklaces at low cost and will flip them for twice the price of what I have paid. I also have a list of transmog items that I search for daily on the ah. I can buy transmog items for 10-20 gold each and re-sell them for 200-500 gold each.

Some markets I would recommend caution with trying to flip. Jewelcrafting is a good example. Many times I have tried to reset the gem market only to have my competition undercut me so drastically and rapidly that I ended up losing gold. Inscription and Alchemy are two other markets I have found to have low profits for flipping.

Jafo

Saturday, February 9, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 15

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

Professions - do you have all of them, some or none? Which is your favorite for goldmaking?

I have all professions currently maxed out on six toons.

1) Alchemy (Transmute) – Inscription – Fishing – Cooking – First Aid - Archeology

2) Jewelcrafting – Enchanting – Cooking

3) Tailoring – Leatherworking – Cooking

4) Blacksmithing – Inscription – Cooking

5) Engineering – Mining – Cooking

6) Herbalism – Skinning – Cooking

While I use all my professions for gold making I tend to favor the crafting professions of tailoring, leatherworking, and blacksmithing. Crafting epic, rare, and pvp gear has earned me more gold than I can count. Starting back in Wrath and continuing through Mists these have been my “go-to” professions for making gold. I have found that while other professions have crowded the profit margins on the auction house there is little competition for these items. Perhaps that is because these professions don’t seem to get as much notice by the rank and file gold makers. Many blogs and podcasts talk about profits that can be made from the likes of alchemy, inscription, enchanting, and jewelcrafting. The crafting professions do tend to get overlooked by many.

Jafo

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 14

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

How much of your playtime is devoted to gold making? Do you raid/pvp/pet battle too or is the AH your main playtime?

I post on average of 2500 auctions a day. Between re-posting auctions and making new items to replace what sold. I tend to take about about and hour and a half. Another 45 minutes is spent scanning the auction house prices and searching for deals an items to flip. About another 15 minutes spent listing items for resale. In addition I will check back in the auction house about two or three times a day. During these times I scan my auctions to see if I've been undercut. If I've been undercut I decide if I will buy out the auction or cancel and re-list. All told I spend approximately three to four hours per day on the auction house and crafting profession items to sell.

In addition to playing the auction house I also raid, run dungeons, and scenarios on my main. I run dungeons on a second toon. At this time I have four level 90's. I have reached revered with all necessary factions necessary to get the items and recipes for their respective professions. I have three more toons currently at level 85 that I plan to level to 90 however two of these I'm not in a rush to level. The third is my engineer, currently at level 85, that I plan on getting to 90 before patch 5.2 hits.

Jafo

Sunday, February 3, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 13

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

What was your biggest 'Yay!' moment?

I thought this would be an easy question to answer but the more I thought about it the more difficult it became. The truth is that I cant really think of the “biggest” yay moment. As I look back I remember a lot of ups and downs. I view my time in gold making as a journey. It has provided a lot of fun as well as a lot of not so fun times.

I could say that I had a big yay moment when I reached my first goal of ten thousand gold. Also a big yay moment when I reached my goal of one million gold. Another moment when I flipped my first epic for a huge profit. There have been many yay moments for me in the game.

I suppose that if I was forced to choose one moment that provided me with the greatest moment it would be when I truly discovered gold making in the first place. Reading gold making blogs and realizing that this was something that I could do. Making that first real sale on the auction house as a gold maker. Discovering a new part of the game that I never new existed. Starting a journey, so many years ago, that has continued to this very day. Yeah, thats probably my biggest Yay moment.

Jafo

Friday, February 1, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 12

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

What was your biggest 'oops' moment?

I have had many oops moments and they all seem to come from the same source. That is trying to post auctions as fast as possible and making pricing mistakes. You see I post, on average, about 2200 auctions per day. I use the Trade Skill Master addon to post. It allows me to post auctions rapidly. It also allows me to post without paying attention to the exact prices I'm posting at. This has caused me many pricing mistakes that went unnoticed until I received the sales notice in the mail.

My biggest pricing mistake was made by me not paying close enough attention to the price I was listing. It was back in Wrath. I don’t remember exactly what epic piece it was but I do remember that I meant to price it at 100k. Imagine my surprise when I received a notice that it had sold within one minute of posting it. Imagine my surprise when I received the mail from the auction house with only 10k gold. It would appear that in posting I had left off one of the zeros. Not one of my better days.

I still tend to make minor mistakes like this from time to time but I do tend to pay more attention to the higher price listings.

Jafo

Thursday, January 31, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 11

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

Most of us use TSM, Auctioneer and/or Auctionator in combo with Postal - are there any other lesser known gold making addons you use?

For my gold making I use the following addons. Auctioneer, Auctionator, Altoholic, Bagnon, Panda, Postal, The Undermine Journal, and Tradeskill Master.

Jafo

Monday, January 28, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 10

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

Do you farm materials? Why? Why not? & which ones, where?

When people ask me if I farm for mats I usually tell them that I farm the mats from the auction house. When you gain a certain amount of money you find that you time can be more profitably spent playing the auction house than in farming mats in game.

The only time I will farm mats is when the cost of the materials on the auction house becomes prohibitively expensive or when there are no mats to be found on the auction house at all. This rarely happens however when it does it tends, at least on my server, to be leather. When it happens I will send my druid skinner out into the world to farm for leather. For the most part I never find ore or herbs to be too expensive or unavailable.

Jafo

Sunday, January 27, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 9

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

What's your favorite niche market & why?

I don’t actually have a favorite. I tend to jump in and out of all markets as long as they are profitable. Currently I am making a great deal of profit selling the rare (blue) ilevel 415 crafted gear. I'm also selling a large amount of transmog gear.

I tend to be drawn to markets with low competition and high profits. Once the competition drives the prices down I will leave the market. After the market rebounds from the kobalds I will return to the market. Thus I'm constantly moving into and out of markets.

Jafo

Friday, January 25, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 8

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

Thinking back to day 2, did you ever reach your goal or are you still working towards it? If you reached it - have you set yourself a new one?

The question for day 2 was “If you set yourself a goal, what was your goal & at what point did you set it?”

My original goal was to reach the gold cap at one million gold. I reached my goal on April 15^th 2012. I have set my new goal to reach double gold cap with two million. While I know I will eventually reach that goal I'm not in any great rush. I probably could have reached that goal by now but I am having too much fun spending it. If I can keep my spending at or below my sales then I'm happy.

Jafo

Thursday, January 24, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 7

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

If you were starting over again (maybe on a new server perhaps), how would you start building some capital & what goal would you set yourself?

To start building capital I would begin with farming. I would make my toon an herbalist and skinner. Its my experience that herbs and leather sells for higher prices than ore. I would also resell vendor recipes. Selling all BoE greens along the way. Since the release of Mists we now have pet battles. This gives us the opportunity to level pets to sell as well.

What goal would I set for myself? A small one to start with. At first 10 gold then 50 to 100 gold. I find its more rewarding to set and reach small goals than to set a large goal that seems almost impossible to reach. Its too easy to get frustrated and burned out trying to reach a goal of 100,000 gold. Trying to reach smaller goals is easier and more satisfying. Remember: Baby Steps.

Jafo

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 6

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

Which market has made you the most gold over the years?

Without a doubt the most profitable market for me was the glyph market. When glyphs were first introduced I was in at the beginning. I have made hundreds of thousands of gold in this market. Unfortunately this market is no longer as profitable as it once was. Like many others I stockpiled a large amount of glyphs. At this time I am trying to sell these glyphs hoping to get back at least the cost of crafting them.

My second most profitable market has been the jewelcrafting market. I have also made large amounts of gold by crafting PVP gear. Although I sell fewer transmog items than other items the transmog gear has a higher return on investment than any other market. Typically I buy the gear from 10 silver to 10 gold and resell it at 500 gold.

Jafo

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

20 Days of Gold Making – Day 5

Thanks to Nev of Auction House Addict for coming up with this idea.

Do you keep the same banker alt or do you change them up occasionally? Why?

I typically post on the same alts. The majority of my auctions are split up on three different alts. One manages my glyph sales, another manages my transmog and profession sales, and the third handles pet, mat and misc sales.

Although my main banker alt has changed a few times over the years this reflects my choices in playing the characters rather than any specific strategy. While there may be reasons to change posting alts to hide from your competition I perfer to stay on the same toons.