Saturday, June 30, 2007

Enchantrix + Auction House = Gold

Enchantrix is an addon that takes advantage of a very powerful skill: disenchanting. Do you ever see a green item for sale and think to yourself, "What a useless item. No one will buy that." Well, YOU can buy that, disenchant it, and sell the raw materials you glean from it.

Enchantrix makes this process so much more efficient. It, like Auctioneer, builds a database of how much certain enchanting materials sell for, and which items yield which materials. With this, it can compare how much a certain Auction House item costs to how much you could sell the materials for if you disenchanted it. So, you can scan the Auction House, find items that sell more when disenchanted, buy those items and disenchant them, and sell the materials for profit!

This is a great way to make money AND raise your Enchanting skill. These materials are always in demand, because Enchanters are always in need of them. So, if you're getting tired of just using Auctioneer, give Enchantrix a try! I will be posting a more detailed guide in the days to follow.

PPP: Major Mana Potion

Time for another PPP, that is, Particularly Profitable Pattern installment, a guide to buying and reselling vendor items for easy gold!

Everyone loves an Alchemist, because their potions can be used by anyone. One of the most valuable potions for other players is the Major Mana Potion. They sell very well in the Auction House. Unfortunately, the recipe is BoP, so you can't sell it anymore. Still, Major Mana Potions are easy for you to make, and who doesn't love an Alchemist who can make useful potions!

It sells for only 3 gold from Magnus Frostwake in the Western Plaguelands, so if you're in the area, buy one. You have to have completed the Butcher Scholomance quest to be able to see this shop, which explains why so few people know it's here.

Friday, June 29, 2007

May the Grind Be With You - The Legion Hold

Keeping in theory with my guide about farming in Deadwind Pass, here's another tip on a great spot to simply grind mobs for reliable gold. These are good things to know, because selling items to other players is simply too variable of a thing to be relied on ALL the time.

Go to Shadowmoon Valley, to the Legion Hold. Here, you'll find Terrormasters, Wrathwalkers and Mo'Arg Weaponsmiths. They aren't terribly hard to kill, and there are lots of them! They drop silver, Aldor rep items, and Netherweave. They also have a chance of dropping Eternium Lockboxes, and various other greens and blues.

Remember, it isn't always about being smart. Grinding mobs is a reliable way to bring in some quick gold, as long as you've got the patience for it!

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Anyone Out There?

Thank you, everyone who commented! It made my day. =)

So... do I have any readers? Does anyone check this site regularly? Does anyone find any of this information helpful?

Tips, requests, flames, the like? Come on, someone post a comment so I know you're out there. ;)

Nothing Fancy About Deadwind Pass

This one doesn't require and finesse, skill, or luck. It requires a lot of patience, and preferably, something to keep your mind engaged. I like to do this while watching a movie or something. Yses, it is that mindless.

Go to Deadwind pass. Now, run the route shown here. Kill everything you see. Repeat ad nauseum. These mobs don't drop any great blues, recipes, not much of notice. What they do drop is vendor trash, and a lot of it. Since the mobs are only 56-57, a high 60s or level 70 could do this nonstop with little pause.


Don't think this doesn't work because it's boring, everyone. It IS boring, but the vendor loot ads up FAST, especially if you're here alone. You can stand to make 2 or 3 gold per 10 minutes here, just by mindlessly killing the mobs you encounter. Just goes to show, sometimes the best way to do it is also the simplest.

Technorati:, ,

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Chinese World of Warcraft:Different Undead--Bone VS Gravestone

Chinese World of Warcraft 2.0 released yesterday.Differnet from other versions, bone in CWoW is changed to gravestone!

A Brief Word on Buying or Selling Gold

To put it bluntly, I do NOT support the practice of buying World of Warcraft Gold, or selling to companies. Some of you who read my site (oh, how lucky and rare you are, gentle reader!) may have noticed that my Google ads are serving up gold-selling sites. Not to worry! Thanks to Google's Competitive Ad filter, I've blocked every gold-selling site I can find on Google, to keep that kind of content off of the page. I'll be blocking ones that continue to show up as I see them. Hopefully, with time, I'll be rid of that kind of content. (After all, encouraging people to BUY gold runs contrary to my desire to make people read my guides! ;)

In other news, check out my Primal Farming post! It's a rather large write up, but (I think) worth the read!

Also, plans are underway for me to host this blog on a "real" domain. Once I think up a name, I'll probably move over there, and redirect traffic from here as well. If you've got a catchy-cool name idea, let me know!

Herbalize Those Guys!

Never having been a fan of herbalism, I never realized you could "herbalize" plant enemies, essentially allowing you to get extra loot from them! Here's a cool tip I found which will have you making some nice money!

Go to Skettis, in southeastern Terokkar Forest. Look around the lake there for Talonsworn Forest-Rangers. Usually there are 2 up, and respawn in under 5 minutes. It's not the loot you want from them, because their loot isn't anything special. But if you're an Herbalist, you can "herbalize" them and get 2 sets of herbs containing 2 to 4 herbs, which can include: Felweed, Dreaming Glory, Mana Thistle, Terocone, Ancient Lichen, and even Black Lotus, one of the hardest herbs to find in the game. They can also give up to FIVE motes of life at a time.

They're 69-72 elites, but they can be stunned/feared, so a well-geared Warlock or Hunter or maybe Mage could solo them. Otherwise, bring a friend. If it takes about 2 minutes to kill one, you could do them almost non-stop until you were tired. At that kind of rate, you'd be able to make a huge profit from all of those herbs and motes of life.


The Complete Primal Farming Guide

"Primals" are needed by most high level professions and crafting recipes. They are created by collecting 10 motes of the same element, and combining them.

The demand for Primals is high, and what is more, unless Blizzard makes some very unexpected and dramatic (and silly) changes, demand is not going to go down. In fact, as more and more players achieve level 70, demand is only likely to go UP. This all means that farming Primals can be very lucrative, IF you know what you’re doing, and willing to put in some time.

Before I get into the best ways to farm for these items, there are a couple ways to get them without the need to farm. Check the Auction House for motes. They aren’t frequently for sale, given their value, and when they are, most players are good about calculating value according to current Primal prices. But still, keep an eye out. With some patience and luck, you’ll sometimes find you can buy 10 motes for less than a Primal is going for, and make a profit!

Dealer Najeeb and Dealer Tariq, in Netherstorm and Terokkar respectively, sell various motes, under limited supply (3 of each kind). IF you’re around either of them, give them a check and see if they have any. At 16 silver each, they’re a bargain, but don’t expect to find them in stock much. (Hint: Keep a character by them at all times, and check them as soon as the server comes back up!) Don’t try to farm motes from these dealers, it is too unreliable!

Understand first that Primals are a huge deal right now. You aren’t the only player looking for them, and so you’ll often find your spot of choice is inhabited. If that happens, just move on to a different spot, or wait a few hours and try again. Expect to be semi-frequently attacked by the opposing faction, as well. However, often the other faction’s farmers will leave you alone, as it’s in both of your best interests to make as much profit as peacefully as you can.

Farming Primal Earth
Anything that looks like a big, floaty-swirling pile of rocks is a likely candidate for Motes of Earth. Far and away, I prefer Nagrand for the large amount of likely mobs to kill, and their relatively low level (mid 60s) There are plenty of Shattered Rumblers south of Osh’gun, near the edge of the world. You can also find various earth-based creatures wandering Nagrand proper (Tortured Earth Spirits and Enraged Crushers), so be sure to kill them when you see them! You can make runs along the mountain’s edge between the Throne of the Elements and Laughing Skull Keep to find Enraged Crushers.

As a bonus, Nagrand contains a lot of mining nodes, especially if you’re running the mountains I mentioned above. You can often get 3 or 4 motes from node, so if you’re a miner, this place is perfect.

In Shadowmoon Valley, you can go to the center of the zone to the Hand of Gul’Dan and kill Enraged Earth Spirits. They won’t drop as easily as the mobs in Nagrand, but when they drop additional loot, it will be better!

Primal Earths fetch the lowest price in the Auction House, probably owing that there aren’t a huge amount of good, popular items that especially need them. They’re also the easiest to get, thanks to them being found during mining. HOWEVER, if you are an alchemist, or know one, they can Transmute your Primal Earths into Primal Water!

Farming Primal Air
All those high-level tornado-looking mobs drop Motes of Air. Again, Nagrand is a great place to farm these, because of the Throne of the Elements. If you have a flying mount, head to the northeastern corner to get there. You’ll find plenty of Storming Wind-Rippers here. Be advised though, this place is constantly and heavily farmed by both factions.

Again, you can find more in Shadowmoon Valley, in the southeastern area. Look for mobs called Enraged Air Spirits. There is another group of them north of the Altar of Shatar.

Farming Primal Water
According to Thottbot, Shimmerscale Eels seem to be the best combination of low-level and decent % drops. They can be found in Terokkar Forest, at Slimyr Lake, north of Shattrath. These mobs drop fast, and have a decent drop rate. However, I found them to be always heavily farmed. Still, it’s a decent area to spend some time at, and there is also a lot of good mining in the mountain area.

You can also go to the Elemental Plateau in Nagrand and kill Crashing Wave Spirits for these. Previous warnings about this area still apply, especially to Motes of Water, as Primal Water is a particularly huge seller on most servers. Still, the elementals respawn quickly, and drop high-level greens sometimes, so this is a very good place to farm.

Another favorite spot of mine are Lake Spirits, found in Nagrand, in the lake just south of the Throne of the Elements. The lake is huge, so even if others are farming, you can probably go about your business steadily and in relative peace. I usually get about 20 motes per hour or so. If you’re not Undead or a Druid, and you have some Nagrand Cherrys left over from A Rare Bean, they let you breath underwater for 30 minutes per cherry. Otherwise, get a Deepdive Helmet, which lets you breath under water.

Muck Spawns around Halaa also drop motes of water, with the added benefit that you don’t need to be under water all the time. Blackwind Lake in Skettis in Terokkar Forest has Skettis Surgers, and they can also drop them. This place is somewhat less-often farmed, in my experience. Watch out for the 72 elite! He is deceptively sneaky.

Most high-level fishing spots will also fetch you Motes of Water. Look for Pure Water and fish! That also means you can combine killing at the lakes with fishing. But be warned! Other people want to farm these, too, and there are only so many viable farming spots in the world. Any popular primal farming spot is a good place to get PK’ed.


Farming Primal Fire
Motes of Fire can also be farmed at the Elemental Plateau in Nagrand. See why that place is so popular and dangerous? Kill Raging Fire-Souls there, they drop them often.

You can also go to Forge Camp Terror in the Bladefist Mountains to kill Vile Fire-Souls. This place is nicely out of the way, and you'll have a better chance to farm in peace here. Also in the Bladefist Mountains (northeastern part) you can go to Skald and kill Searing Elementals.

The Hand of Gul'Dan in Shadowmoon valley is another good source of Motes of Fire. Kill Enraged Fire Spirits here.

Wherever you go, if you've got fire resist gear, use it. It will greatly decrease your time between mobs, which will increase your gold per hour! Just watch your back -- if you had an easy time getting to the spot, opposing players will be able to as well, and they'd probably love to kill you.

Primal Fire sells very well in the Auction House!

Farming Primal Mana
Netherstorm is just about the only place where you can farm for Motes of Mana. I recommend Wizard’s Row in Kirin’Var village. Look for Mana Seekers and Mageslayers. You can drop these guys pretty quickly, and make great gold here.

Head south of Area 52 and you’ll find Nether Rays and Mana Wraiths. You can also kill Mana Snappers along the edges of the islands (check Thottbot for a map), which are less frequently farmed.

Primal Mana is probably one of the most expensive Primals on the Auction House, so don’t be afraid to sell high.

Farming Primal Life
The Bone Wastes in Terokkar are a great place to farm lower-level mobs. Look for Infested Root Walkers and Rotting Forest Ragers, which both have decent drop rates, and are only around level 64.

The Dead Mire in Zangamarsh is another good spot, with even lower level enemies. Remember how many Withered Bog Lords you killed here when you were questing? They’ll go down even more easily if you’re around 70, and they drop Motes of Life regularly.

Primal Life, like Primal Earth, is fairly easy to come by, and so doesn’t fetch a huge price in the Auction House, unfortunately.

Farming Primal Shadow
Motes of Shadow are the most easy to come by, out of all of them. Go to Hellfire Peninsula’s Pools of Aggonar and kill Terrorfiends for them. They are only level 61 ish, and you’ll go through them like butter. Chances are this was the first place you saw a Mote of anything drop, and you said to yourself “What the heck is this thing?” There’s also less of a chance of any higher-level PK’ers wandering around.

Also in Hellfire Peninsula is The Warp Fields, in the south. Kill the Uncontrolled Voidwalkers to quickly build up your Mote of Shadow supply. There seems to be an endless supply of these mobs, and I’ve never seen them farmed.

That’s all I’ve got for information on Primals. I hope this guide is helpful to some people! You can send me questions via e-mail or private message on the TenTonHammer forums (wave1345) if you need more information.

Technorati:, ,

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Cobra Scales Sell

Sometimes, I think when Blizzard adds a new item to World of Warcraft, I don't think they check to see what's already available. Case in point, these leatherworking patterns:
  • Nethercobra Leg Armor
  • Cobrahide Leg Armor
Nethercobra Leg Armor requires some pretty hefty resources, not to mention being EXALTED with Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Who's exalted with Honor Hold or Thrallmar? Hardly anyone, that's right. But wait, do you even NEED to make Nethercobra Leg Armor?

Cobrahide Leg Armor has only 2 points less crit rating, and 10 less attack power. So, it's a fraction of a percent of crit lost, and maybe 2 points of damage lost. You only have to be HONORED with Honor Hold or Thrallmar to get the pattern, and the materials are much, much less expensive to the leatherworker.(doesn't need primal nethers, and only half as many primal airs!).

Whichever one you make, it sells well. Twinks love it, and well-geared players love it because it ads some more "oomph" to their already uber items. You can make it yourself, or just farm and sell the most difficult to come by component in the recipe, Cobra Scales.

Yes, everyone, that IS a 1.7% drop rate. What does that mean? They're darn hard to come by! And they're DARN expensive to buy (so they're DARN profitable to sell! 20-30 gold PER SCALE). Head over to Shadowmoon Valley's Coilskar Cistern and kill Coilskar Cobras. If you only see 3 or 4, go into the cave to find more. If you get lucky on the drops, you stand to make maybe 80 to 100 gold per hour, here.

Technorati:, ,

Recycle Raw Materials

It's amazing to me how many gold earning guides don't cover some of the less obtuse, more subtle ways to earn gold in World of Warcraft. Here's one of my favorites!

If you've got a crafting skill, you need to go to the Auction House and check out the prices on some things: Raw materials. The goal is to find unworked materials, buy them, turn them into something else, and sell that for more than you spent for the materials. This works, everyone, it just takes some careful planning or market information.

For example, a leatherworker might check out the price for Knothide Leather. If the price of buying 100 knothide leather is 60 gold, and the price for a stack of 20 Heavy Knothide Leather is 100 gold, you can buy the raw materials, rework it, and sell it at a profit. This gives you more skill ups, and free profit. You can do this for as long as you can find the raw materials in the auction house. It's especially useful for crafting skills, because stuff like this example don't have cool downs.

Open up your craft window and find an item you think people need. Search it in the Auction House and get an idea of average price. Then search out the components, and see what they cost. Even if the average prices come out to be the same, if the market is undervalue on the components (if people keep undercutting each other) or over value on the final product, you can still make a profit before the prices even out. You just have to make a point to look for deals like this.

So go to your Auction House and sniff around a bit! There are plenty of people waiting to be taken advantage of!

Technorati: , ,

Heavy Knothide Leather

The best thing about World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade is that they added so many high-level patterns to the craft skills. This is great for YOU, because it means materials are perpetually in demand! Heavy Knothide Leather is very popular right now for higher-level recipes, as people grind their way to 375 in leatherworking.

Before you begin farming this, head for Shattrath to get Pattern: Heavy Knothide Leather from
Cro Threadstrong. It's also sold in Silvermoon City by Tyn and Zaralda. Now you can turn 5 Knothide Leathers into Heavy Knothide Leather.

The best place to get this, in my opinion, is in Terokkar, in a cave where you can find Blackwind Sabrecats (map). Now, you can skin them and make the leather yourself, which is good money, and 100% profit. OR, you can take advantage of other people's hard work. Less profit, but it's easier to do, and more convenient. Read on!

Go to the Auction House (with the pattern learned), and buy stacks of Knothide Leather. Buy up, oh, 100 knothide leathers. Then turn that into a stack of 20 Heavy Knothide Leather. In most economies, you'll be able to sell that stack of 20 at a profit of 30 gold or so over what you paid for the raw materials. MAKE SURE YOU VERIFY THIS FIRST. If Heavy Knothide Leather is down in price, this will obviously not work, and cost you gold.

As an added bonus, you'll be getting skill ups as you do this, whichever method you choose.

Technorati:, ,

Skinning For Big Gold

If you're a skinner, Nagrand is probably the closest to heaven you'll find, even though it probably smells pretty awful. Nagrand is FULL of skinnable mobs, and many aren't even hostile until you attack them!

You'll want to get the quests At Nessingwary's Expidition at the entrance to the zone, because you'll kill enough mobs while skinning to complete them easily.

Once you get the quests, go do them, and skin every mob you kill. Because there are simply so MANY mobs, there's very little downtime spent trying to find them. Kill, skin, repeat. You can make anywhere from 70 to 85 gold an hour here, with the grays they drop, leather to sell, and occasional green items.

Technorati: , ,

Aldor/Scryers Rep Items For Gold

People take rep very seriously in World of Warcraft. Higher rep with factions means more quests, nifty vendor rewards, etc.

Thankfully, people also take being lazy very seriously! Because of this, there is a good market for getting rep items yourself, and selling them to other people. A lazy, rich player would much rather BUY the rep items than farm it themselves. They have more important things to do!

Aldor
Go to Osh'Gun in Nagrand, and kill Terrorguards and Ritualists. Not only do they have even odds of dropping Marks of Kil'jaeden (needed to raise Aldor to Honored), but as humanoids they reglularly drop netherweave cloth. On my server, Kil'jaeden, Netherweave is going for between 3.5 and 4 gold a stack! It's like bathing 2 orcs with 1 bar of soap! Or killing 2 birds with one stone.

You can also farm in the Northwestern Bone Wastes in Terokkar. Cabal-anythings drop these marks often, also Netherweave and Runecloth.

To get to Revered and Exalted, you need Marks of Sargeras and Fel Armaments. Legion Hold in Shadowmoon Valley is a good place to farm for the former, because they drop other sellable loot on top of the marks. Also in Shadowmoon Valley, hit up The Deathforge. Lots of marks, lots of other good loot! And while you're farming at either of these spots, be on the lookout for Fel Armanents. They have maybe a 5% chance of being dropped by these mobs too, so really you're farming for 2 things at the same time, AND making money/getting loot.

In Netherstorm, check out Forge Camps Oblivion and Gehenna. All these mobs drop Aldor rep items and other loot, and they aren't even particularly tough to kill!

Scryers
To get to Honored with the Scryers, you need to turn in Firewing Signets, to head over to Terokkar's Firewing Point. These mobs, especially the casters, are very squishy. And again, they drop tons of cloth, so you're working double here.

For getting to Revered and Exalted, you need Sunfury Signets and Arcane Tomes. The various manaforges in Netherstorm have mobs for the signets (Blood Knights, Bloodwarders, and Researchers). There are lots of forges to choose from, so finding one for yourself shouldn't be too hard.

As with the Fel Armaments for the Aldor, these same mobs you're farming will also drop Arcane Tomes! Insert clever 2-birds-with-one-stone phrase here!

Technorati:, ,

The Rogue's Magic Chest

Edit: I have heard that there may actually be THREE mobs here, not 2. Can anyone confirm this? If there is, you'll need a friend; maybe another Rogue, a Druid, whatever.

Who doesn't love a treasure chest? That's right, everyone in World of Warcraft does! A treasure chest has a higher percentage of holding good items than a mob's corpse does. Here's a trick for a high-level rogue or priest, to continually loot one in the Auchenai Crypts for good gold and items!

Get into the instance, and make your way to the end of the second room (stealth, or mind sooth and luck!) Chances are good there's a chest in that area, but it's guarded by 2 elites. One of them is able to be improve sapped. The other is only 65-66 elite, but he spawns 2 additional mobs, so have a potion, or your cooldowns up.

Depending on your health when the other mob recovers, snuff him too, or vanish and recover, THEN tear him down. Loot the chest. If you can get here as a priest, simple mind control one mob, and wait for one to kill the other. Then kill the survivor! It's a tough world, sorry monsters.

Technorati:, ,

Monday, June 25, 2007

Good Information About Motes

Since the introduction of motes in the World of Warcraft expansion, selling Primals (1o motes = 1 primal) in the Auction House has been a huge gold-earner. Just check the prices for these things sometime. While Primal Earth and Primal Shadow are very easy to gather and sell for between 2 and 7 gold each, Primal Water and Mana go for up to and over 20 gold EACH. Primal Fire and Air, the hardest to gather, sell for up to and over 30 gold each! Check out my Complete Primal Farming Guide. Keep a weather eye out for similar guides for Primal Life, Shadow, Earth, Air, and Mana.

By the way, don't think that having low prices on Primal Earth is a bad thing. If you're an alchemist, or know one, you can make some easy gold by simply buying Primal Earths, transmuting them to Primal Waters, and selling them at a huge profit. The cooldown for the transmute is 24 hours, and an extra 20 gold a day never hurt anyone!

Technorati:, ,

Buy Small Stacks, Sell Big Stacks

I was at the Auction House today, looking at Primal Earths. They were available in stacks of 1, 2, and 20. The stacks of 20 were going for about 100 gold. On a hunch, I did some quick math, and discovered that I could make my OWN stack of 20 by buying all the smaller stacks, but it cost me 30 gold LESS to do it that way. I then turned around and undercut the other stacks of 20, and earned a 25 gold profit.

This is a good example of how the average World of Warcraft player makes mistakes, especially ones who haven't read and gold earning guides. ALWAYS be on the lookout for easy scores like this! It works with primals, enchanting items, cloth -- anything that can be stacked!

Of course, this can work in the opposite way even more effectively. Rather than rely on a stupid player paying more for a stack when they could save by buying separately, you can take advantage of the deal seakers! Just keep an eye out for big stacks of items - in order to make them sell, players tend to sell stacks of items for LESS money per item than the ones for sale individually. For example, a stack of 20 Adamantite Ore might be up for 20 gold (1 gold per ore), while individual listings will be up for 1.5 gold per. Just reverse engineer this by buying these discounted stacks, and breaking them into individual stacks to sell at a higher price!

PPP: Flask of Distilled Wisdom

Time for another PPP, that is, Particularly Profitable Pattern installment, a guide to buying and reselling vendor items for easy gold!

Here's a tip for anyone who is EXALTED with Cenarion Expidition. Fedryen Swiftspear, in Zangamarsh, sells Recipe: Flask of Distilled Wisdom (+65 int, 2 hours), and it isn't BoP, YET. So, go buy a few (4g each), and put them on the AH at a hugely inflated price. Be sure to only put ONE up at a time, to keep the price low!

, ,

Use Patches to Judge Demand

When a new patch is going to come out, you can find the patch notes detailing the changes beforehand. This is a good chance to make some easy money. Look for items that are going to be changed (weakened or beefed up), or have their drop percentage decreased.

Let's say that the drop rate of Staff X is going to be decreased in the next patch. Go to the Auction House, and see if Staff X is up for sale. If it is, buy it! I don't care how high the price is. When they become rarer after the patch, that price will go up. This is especially true for Epic (purple) items. If Staff Y is Epic, and going for 500g, you can buy it, and probably sell it after the patch for 3 times that. This goes for any kind of item. Read those notes carefully!

On the other hand, if an item is going to be made more common through INCREASED drop rate, make sure you try to sell as many as you can before the patch comes out! Remember that blue weapon in your bank that you're holding on to until the price goes up? Uh-oh, it's being made more common in the next patch. Sell that thing now, even if you have to drop your price. Once more are on the market, the price will go down anyway, and probably by even more.

The Gray Gold

In World of Warcraft, "Vendor Trash" is kind of a disparaging name for something that can rake in so much gold. I'm talking about gray items - any of that junk like feathers, meat, claws, eyeballs, etc, that you have no other use for but to sell. If you think it's useless, think again!

As soon as you begin a character in WoW, deck them out with the biggest containers you can find. Why? So you aren't tempted to throw away gray items to make room for more "valuable" ones. You have to think small, here. Those gray items usually stack, and individually aren't worth squat, but when you sell a large amount of them, like you acquire ALL the time from simply questing and killing, you can make a lot of gold. Particularly valuable are gray weapons. In Outlands, these "trash" items can sell for up to 3 gold each!

Simple advice for simple gold. Don't throw anything away! SELL EVERYTHING, or you're losing out! I've yet to find a single gold-earning guide that doesn't point this out, because so many people don't understand it.

PPP: Double Feature

Time for another PPP, that is, Particularly Profitable Pattern installment, a guide to buying and reselling vendor items for easy gold!

Formula: Enchant Shield - Major Stamina is a new enchanting recipe with the Burning Crusade. It can be bought for the relatively low price of 4 gold from the lovely Madame Ruby, of Shattrath City. Prices on this enchant vary per server, but you're almost guaranteed to get at least double what you paid!

Formula: Enchant Weapon - Lifestealing has been, traditionally, one of the most expensive and difficult to find patterns in the game. And with it's cool purple glow and awesome benefit to twinks, one of the most sought-after. Thankfully, you can farm for this in total peace from other players, as it drops off of Spectral Researchers in Scholomance. Don't try this until you get to high level 60s or level 70! Unfortunately, with all the awesome new enchants around, this doesn't fetch nearly the price is once did.

Power Professions from 1-375

This site is more about making money than anything else, at least for now. Given that, instead of writing my own posts up on this, I'm going to direct you to some much more knowledgeable people's work! I will, however, be posting guides about how to use your professions for the most money. But for those of you who just want to raise them as quickly as possible, here are some great guides written by players much more knowledgeable than I!

Awesome Profession Leveling Guide

Highlander wrote up some very concise, easy-to-read guides for all the professions, posted in one location. For more detailed guides, continue reading.

1-300 Guides
Alchemy
Blacksmithing
Cooking
Enchanting
Engineering
First Aid
Fishing/Cooking
Herbalism
Jewelcrafting
Leatherworking
Mining
Skinning
Tailoring

300-375 Guides
Alchemy
Blacksmithing
Cooking
Enchanting
Engineering
First Aid
Fishing/Cooking
Herbalism
Jewelcrafting
Leatherworking
Mining
Skinning
Tailoring

Lockpicking 1-375

PPP: Deepdive Helmet

Time for another PPP, that is, Particularly Profitable Pattern installment, a guide to buying and reselling vendor items for easy gold!

If you read my post about Taking Advantage of Laziness, you know how easy it can be to earn money by selling things in the Auction House after buying them from vendors. Well, some are more profitable than others!

Schematic: Deepdive Helmet
A helmet that lets you breath underwater for however long you want. How cool is that! This would sell simply for "coolness" factor alone, but being able to breath underwater is incredible useful, especially for farming Motes of Water!

The pattern sells in Azshara. Go to Durotar, and swim up the northeast coast. Eventually, you'll see the observatory, a tiny mushroom-looking house on a ledge. Inside is Blimo Gadgetspring, who sells the schematic, and some other good patterns as well. This schematic has a quick respawn time (about 30 minutes I think) so keep a character there for a day or so to collect them, then go to the Auction House to sell them!

Honesty is Not Your Best Policy!

Here's a sneaky trick that sometimes works wonders.
The biggest risk in buying something from the Auction House is being unable to sell it again, right? So, don't buy it, I say!

Get on the Auction House and find an item being sold under value that you'd like to be able to resell. But don't buy it. Get into the /trade channel and advertise the item at the price you would sell it at. If someone makes an offer for it to you, THEN buy it from the Auction House and turn around and immediately resell it! 100% money guarantee!

This trick is hit and miss. Any smart player will check the Auction House for a better deal before paying someone directly. But if you've played WoW long enough, you know that way too many players are just not that smart!

Auctioneer Settings to Tweak

You can tweak the settings of Auctioneer with text-based commands. A complete list can be found at The Auctioneer Wiki, which is a guide to all the features of Auctioneer. I'm only going over the ones here that I feel are the best to tweak. Always remove the brackets <> when putting in the command in WoW.

/auctioneer pct-markup If you have an item you've never seen at auction before, this is how it is priced. It will take how much you could sell it to a vendor for, and mark it up by whatever is. The logic being that vendors in World of Warcraft generally buy items for 1/5 the gold that they'd sell it for. I'd set this to 300 or so. In time, with enough scans, you'll see less and less of this, and start seeing real data.

/auctioneer pct-bidmarkdown This controls the difference between the bid and buyout prices when Auctioneer prices an item for sale. Keep it between 15 and 20. That way, even if someone wins by bidding, you're not going to get ripped off, like if you set the bid very low. A key mistake many novices to World of Warcraft make in the Auction House is setting the bid low to encourage a bidding war. Unfortunately, each bid placed only barely outdoes the previous, so the result is often selling the item far under value.

/auctioneer pct-nocomp This controls how much ABOVE market value Auctioneer will set an item if there is no competition. It makes market sense - if there's no competition, supply is probably low, and prices can go up. Don't be shy here. Ratchet up the price, if the item is in demand. See, then you set the market. Even if someone underbids you, chances are they'll only do it a by a bit, because they want to secure a profit for themselves. Rarely will you get an honest player who will know your 100 gold blue is only worth 20 gold, and underbid you by 80g. It's in everyone's best interest to sell their item for as much as they can! Take advantage of human greed.

/auctioneer pct-underlow This controls how much you undercut someone by when Auctioneer does your pricing. The default is 5, but you can go down to 2 or 3. It's a negligible profit gain, but a buyer is going to go for the lowest-priced item, even if it is only a couple silver lower!

/auctioneer pct-maxless This is a handy one. It controls how low Auctioneer is willing to go to undercut someone before giving up because you'll lose too much gold. I wouldn't go below 70%, here. If someone wants to lose hard earned (or ill-gained!) gold by selling an item at only 70% of its worth, let them lose money.

So tweak your settings people! Only amateur install and go. YOU will actually understand Auctioneer, and soon you'll be sharking those other Auctioneer users as well!

Auctioneer Interface In Depth

Auctioneer is very user friendly, even to a World of Warcraft novice, but some explanation is always nice to have! Without further ado!


1.) Your Scan button. The most important tool in Auctioneer! It scans the WoW's Auction House and saves all pricing information in a nifty database.

2.) Search Auctions. Let's you filter through the data Auctioneer gathered, based on bid price, buyout price, profit margin, etc. In depth information further down in this post.

3.) Post Auctions. The tab that brings you to the area where you can post your own Auctions.

4.) Btmscan. Bottom Scanner, very a handy tool. More information further down in the post.

5.) Transactions. This keeps track of what you've bought and how much gold paid. It's a handy way to gauge how much gold you've earned (or, unfortunately, lost!)

1.) Search. This dropdown lets you search according to Bids, Buyouts, search the competition, search for particular items (nice for monopolizing purposes), and search according to seller. Set the Minimum Profit to whatever you'd like, and Auctioneer will only return profits of that amount or greater. I generally set mine to 1 or 1.5 gold.

2.) Min PCT Less. "PCT" stands for percent, and means "percent discount from highest sellable price". So an item listed with 80pct is going for 80% cheaper than what you can get for it on the Auction House, and so is 80% profit. I keep this at 30, because I like to see all my auctions, even the low profit ones. Sorting by PCT is a good way to search out good deals. The highest PCT auctions are usually bids set to 1 silver, with the seller wanting a bidding war to occur. Look for 100PCT items with a "short" time left and bid, and if you win you're making 100% profit!

3.) Minimum Bid Percent. This one is kind of confusing. It filters based on how many times you've seen an item at auction, and it has been bid on. So, if you set it for "1%", it will return any scanned auctions that have only been bid on 1% of the time, and so are very poor sellers. Setting it to, say, 80% will return only auctions that have been bid on 80% or more of the times they've been posted. I recommend leaving this at zero and judging the sale-worthiness on an item-specific scale. After all, many epic items, expensive items and new items in World of Warcraft will have been bid on very few times!

4.) Maximum Time Left. Just what it sounds like. It only returns auctions with the amount of time you set or less. I like to set mine for "very long" to return all auctions, then just sort the list according to time left (click the time left column in the main window) to organize into order of short, medium, long, very long.

5.) Item specifics. Here can you specify what KIND of item to search for (category restrictions), minimum quality (search only grays, greens, blues, purples, artifact, whatever), and search for a particular item, in the last window at the bottom.

For tips on how to buy smartly with Auctioneer, see my post Buying With Auctioneer.

I feel that the post auctions tab requires little explanation, so I will keep it brief. Starting price is the price the auction begins at, what the first bid will cost. Buyout price is how much someone can pay to buy it immediately. You can set the auction to 2, 8, or 24 hours in length before having it expire if no one bids on it. You can find some tips on selling in my Selling With Auctioneer post.

1.) Bottom Scanner is easy to use. Just hit "Play" and review the auctions it alerts you to. It searches the auction house every 20 seconds for the last 50 auctions posted and looks for undervalued items. Go here for more information about it.

And lastly, the transactions tab. I'm not going to put a screenshot up, because you won't need one. It simply logs the date of your transactions, if it was a buy or sell, what the item was, what you made/lost, and who bought it or sold it to you!

Sunday, June 24, 2007

World of Warcraft: Archimonde down Video

IGOLG made the video that Archimonde down by Forte, enjoy it!

Whew!

What a day! 8 posts! I hope I can keep this momentum up. I'm enjoying writing the guides and tips, so far.

Hey, if you're reading this, I hope you enjoy the information! I'm trying to cover enough information in this site for it to be sort of a one-stop-shop for money issues and money-making guides in WoW. Comment me or email me if you've got suggestions or criticism!

You can sign up for my RSS Feed at the very bottom of the page. I've also signed up with Feedburner! Isn't blogging fun at the beginning?


Take Advantage of Laziness

If you think about it, the driving force behind any economy is LAZINESS. People don't want to take the time (or can't, in most cases) to do themselves what they can pay others to do. We don't cut down trees and make our beds, we buy them. We don't forge our cooking knives, we buy them.

The same holds true to World of Warcraft. An non-mining character won't drop their professions and respec to mining in order to get ore. They'll let someone else do it, and buy it from them. This is, of course, what makes the Auction House so darn useful. It's "conservation of labor" if you will: The same amount of work gets done (the mining of the minerals), it's just shifted to someone else. (Kind of like the law of conservation of energy, I know!)

But it doesn't stop there. It's possible to capitalize on that laziness without even putting in any significant effort. In this case, it's taking advantage of a combination of laziness and ignorance. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta.

There are tons of vendors throughout the world who sell limited quantity items. You can tell by the little number in the corner of the box displaying the picture - that means there are only "x" of them left available. Usually, there are only 1 or 2, and when they're gone, they're gone until the vendor restocks them. So what do we have?
  • Items that aren't in high supply.
  • Items that many people don't even know come from vendors.
  • Items you can buy for a very small amount, and sell for very good profit on the Auction House.
Since most players won't be willing to go around and search for these limited-quantity items, they'll instead buy them when they pop up on the Auction House!

Small Pets
At one time, the pets that came from vendors were in vogue. When WoW was shiny and new, everyone had them, and there was money to be made by buying them from vendors and reselling them in the Auction House. Now, most WoW players are too hardened to care about these useless pets. Not much profit to be made here anymore. However, if you should happen to find a Whelpling (Dark, Emerald, or Crimson), you can sell them for up to 100 gold. Be warned, they have a low drop rate. In my opinion, they too inconsistent to be worth farming.

Profession Recipes, Patterns, and Schematics
That leaves us with crafting patterns, cooking recipes, and various green items. Almost all characters have a crafting recipe of some sort and cooking. That means that any recipes or patterns will be appealing to a very broad audience. The best part is, unless someone knows these come from a vendor, odds are they've never seen a lot of them, which will increase the odds that they'll buy, because they'll assume it's hard to get! If you click the links, they will send you to the corresponding thottbot page, where you can see the name and zone for the vendor selling the item.


Cooking Recipes
Cooking recipes sell very well on the Auction House. Because everyone can learn cooking, it's very useful, and just plain fun, recipes tend to be in high demand, especially ones essential to continue to raise your skill.

Recipe: Baked Salmon Cooking (275)
Recipe: Bat Bites Cooking (50)
Recipe: Blackened Basilisk Cooking (315)
Recipe: Blackened Sporefish Cooking (310)
Recipe: Blackened Trout Cooking (300)
Recipe: Brilliant Smallfish Cooking (1)
Recipe: Bristle Whisker Catfish Cooking (100)
Recipe: Carrion Surprise Cooking (175)
Recipe: Clam Bar Cooking (300)
Recipe: Clam Chowder Cooking (90
Recipe: Cooked Glossy Mightfish Cooking (225)
Recipe: Crispy Bat Wing Cooking (1)
Recipe: Crispy Lizard Tail Cooking (100)
Recipe: Dragonbreath Chili Cooking (200)
Recipe: Egg Nog Cooking (35)
Recipe: Feltail Delight Cooking (300
Recipe: Filet of Redgill Cooking (225
Recipe: Fillet of Frenzy Cooking (50)
Recipe: Giant Clam Scorcho Cooking (175)
Recipe: Gingerbread Cookie Cooking (1)
Recipe: Golden Fish Sticks Cooking (325)
Recipe: Grilled Mudfish Cooking (320)
Recipe: Grilled Squid Cooking (240)
Recipe: Heavy Crocolisk Stew Cooking (150)
Recipe: Heavy Kodo Stew Cooking (200)
Recipe: Hot Smoked Bass Cooking (240)
Recipe: Hot Wolf Ribs Cooking (175)
Recipe: Jungle Stew Cooking (175)
Recipe: Lean Venison Cooking (110)
Recipe: Lean Wolf Steak Cooking (125)
Recipe: Lobster Stew Cooking (275)
Recipe: Loch Frenzy Delight Cooking (50)
Recipe: Longjaw Mud Snapper Cooking (50)
Recipe: Mightfish Steak Cooking (275)
Recipe: Mithril Head Trout Cooking (175)
Recipe: Monster Omelet Cooking (225)
Recipe: Mystery Stew Cooking (175)
Recipe: Nightfin Soup Cooking (250)
Recipe: Poached Bluefish Cooking (320)
Recipe: Poached Sunscale Salmon Cooking (250)
Recipe: Ravager Dog Cooking (300)
Recipe: Roast Raptor Cooking (175)
Recipe: Feltail DelightCooking (300)

Alchemy
Potions can make or break an instance raid. There are potions to give mages more power, warriors more health and defense, rogues more agility, and of course, health and mana potions, which are essential to everyone. There are still many useful and powerful recipes from vendors, and most sell well to other players.

Recipe: Fire Protection Potion Alchemy (165)
Recipe: Free Action Potion Alchemy (150)
Recipe: Frost Oil Alchemy (200)
Recipe: Frost Protection Potion Alchemy (190)
Recipe: Ghost Dye Alchemy (245)
Recipe: Holy Protection Potion Alchemy (100)
Recipe: Philosopher's Stone Alchemy (225)
Recipe: Great Rage Potion Alchemy (175), Warrior
Recipe: Major Healing Potion Alchemy (275)
Recipe: Major Dreamless Sleep Potion Alchemy (350)
Recipe: Elixir of Camouflage Alchemy (305)
Recipe: Elixir of Major Defense Alchemy (345)
Recipe: Elixir of Shadow Power Alchemy (250)
Recipe: Elixir of Superior Defense Alchemy (265)
Recipe: Nature Protection Potion Alchemy (190)
Recipe: Elixir of Major Frost Power Alchemy (320)
Recipe: Elixir of Shadow Power Alchemy (250)
Recipe: Elixir of Superior Defense Alchemy (265)
Recipe: Rage Potion Alchemy (60), Warrior

Tailoring


Pattern: Admiral's Hat
Tailoring (240)
Pattern: Azure Silk Cloak Tailoring (175)
Pattern: Azure Silk Gloves Tailoring (145)
Pattern: Black Swashbuckler's Shirt Tailoring (200)
Pattern: Blue Linen Robe Tailoring (70)
Pattern: Blue Overalls Tailoring (100)
Pattern: Bolt of Imbued Netherweave Tailoring (325)
Pattern: Bolt of Soulcloth Tailoring (345)
Pattern: Bright Yellow Shirt Tailoring (135)
Pattern: Crimson Silk Cloak Tailoring (180)
Pattern: Crimson Silk Robe Tailoring (205)
Pattern: Enchanted Mageweave Pouch Tailoring (225)
Pattern: Enchanted Runecloth Bag Tailoring (275)
Pattern: Enchanter's Cowl Tailoring (165)

Leatherworking

Pattern: Barbaric Bracers Leatherworking (155)
Pattern: Barbaric Leggings Leatherworking (170)
Pattern: Black Dragonscale Breastplate Leatherworking (290)
Pattern: Black Whelp Cloak Leatherworking (100)
Pattern: Black Whelp Tunic Leatherworking (100)
Pattern: Chimeric Gloves Leatherworking (265)
Pattern: Comfortable Insoles Leatherworking (300)
Pattern: Deviate Scale Cloak Leatherworking (90)
Pattern: Deviate Scale Gloves Leatherworking (105)
Pattern: Devilsaur Gauntlets Leatherworking (290)
Pattern: Earthen Leather Shoulders Leatherworking (135)

Engineering

Schematic: Accurate Scope Engineering (180)
Schematic: Adamantite Rifle Engineering (350)
Schematic: Adamantite Scope Engineering (335)
Schematic: Adamantite Shells Engineering (335)
Schematic: Blue Firework Engineering (150)
Schematic: Cogspinner Goggles Engineering (340)
Schematic: Deadly Scope Engineering (210)
Schematic: Deepdive Helmet Engineering (230)
Schematic: Delicate Arcanite Converter
Engineering (285)
Schematic: EZ-Thro Dynamite II Engineering (200)
Schematic: Fel Iron Toolbox Engineering (325)
Schematic: Fel Iron Toolbox Engineering (325)
Schematic: Fused Wiring Engineering (275)
Schematic: Green Firework Engineering (150)
Schematic: Gyrofreeze Ice Reflector Engineering (260)
Schematic: Ice Deflector Engineering (155)
Schematic: Lovingly Crafted Boomstick Engineering (120)
Schematic: Masterwork Target Dummy Engineering (275)
Schematic: Mechanical Dragonling Engineering (200)
Schematic: Minor Recombobulator Engineering (140)
Schematic: Mithril Mechanical Dragonling Engineering (250)
Schematic: Red Firework Engineering (150)
Schematic: Snake Burst Firework Engineering (250)
Schematic: Thorium Grenade Engineering (260)
Schematic: Thorium Tube Engineering (275)
Schematic: Thorium Widget Engineering (260)
Schematic: Truesilver Transformer Engineering (260)
Schematic: Ultra-Spectropic Detection Goggles Engineering (350)
Schematic: White Smoke Flare Engineering (335)
Schematic: Gnomish Universal Remote Engineering (125)
Schematic: Goblin Jumper Cables Engineering (165)

continued in next post down.

Take Advantage of Laziness 2

Blacksmithing

Plans: Adamantite Breastplate Blacksmithing (340)
Plans: Adamantite Cleaver Blacksmithing (330)
Plans: Adamantite Dagger Blacksmithing (330)
Plans: Adamantite Maul Blacksmithing (325)
Plans: Adamantite Plate Bracers Blacksmithing (335)
Plans: Adamantite Plate Gloves Blacksmithing (335)
Plans: Adamantite Rapier Blacksmithing (335)
Plans: Adamantite Rod Blacksmithing (350)
Plans: Eternium Rod Blacksmithing (375)
Plans: Golden Scale Coif Blacksmithing (190)
Plans: Hardened Iron Shortsword Blacksmithing (160)
Plans: Lesser Rune of Shielding Blacksmithing (340)
Plans: Massive Iron Axe Blacksmithing (185)
Plans: Mithril Scale Bracers Blacksmithing (215)
Plans: Moonsteel Broadsword Blacksmithing (180)
Plans: Solid Iron Maul Blacksmithing (155)
Plans: Storm Gauntlets Blacksmithing (295)

Enchanting

Formula: Enchant 2H Weapon - Lesser Intellect Enchanting (100)
Formula: Enchant Boots - Minor Agility Enchanting (125)
Formula: Enchant Bracer - Deflection Enchanting (235)
Formula: Enchant Bracer - Lesser Deflection Enchanting (170)
Formula: Enchant Bracer - Lesser Strength Enchanting (140)
Formula: Enchant Shield - Intellect Enchanting (325)
Formula: Enchant Shield - Major Stamina Enchanting (325)
Formula: Lesser Mana Oil Enchanting (250)
Formula: Lesser Wizard Oil Enchanting (200)
Formula: Minor Mana Oil Enchanting (150)
Formula: Runed Adamantite Rod Enchanting (350)
Formula: Runed Arcanite Rod Enchanting (290)
Formula: Runed Eternium Rod Enchanting (375)
Formula: Superior Mana Oil Enchanting (310)
Formula: Superior Wizard Oil Enchanting (340)
Formula: Wizard Oil Enchanting (275)
Formula: Enchant Chest - Minor Mana Enchanting (20)
Formula: Enchant Cloak - Minor Agility Enchanting (110)

Jewelcrafting

Design: Amulet of the Moon Jewelcrafting (110)
Design: Black Pearl Panther Jewelcrafting (215)
Design: Blazing Citrine Ring Jewelcrafting (150)
Design: Bold Blood Garnet Jewelcrafting (305)
Design: Bright Blood Garnet Jewelcrafting (305)
Design: Brilliant Golden Draenite ewelcrafting (300)
Design: Emerald Crown of Destruction Jewelcrafting (275)
Design: Glinting Flame Spessarite Jewelcrafting (315)
Design: Glowing Shadow Draenite Jewelcrafting (300)
Design: Heavy Golden Necklace of Battle Jewelcrafting (150)
Design: Heavy Iron Knuckles Jewelcrafting (125)
Design: Inscribed Flame Spessarite Jewelcrafting (300)
Design: Jagged Deep Peridot Jewelcrafting (305)
Design: Necklace of the Diamond Tower Jewelcrafting (305)
Design: Opal Necklace of Impact Jewelcrafting (250)
Design: Pendant of the Agate Shield Jewelcrafting (120)
Design: Rigid Golden Draenite Jewelcrafting (325)
Design: Ring of Bitter ShadowsJewelcrafting (285)
Design: Smooth Golden Draenite Jewelcrafting (325)
Design: Solid Azure Moonstone Jewelcrafting (300)
Design: Sovereign Shadow Draenite Jewelcrafting (325)
Design: Sparkling Azure Moonstone Jewelcrafting (305)
Design: Wicked Moonstone Ring Jewelcrafting (125)