The Auction House Grind: February 2013

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 At this time I have withdrawn from selling in the pet market.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