As many of you know, one of the goals of my blog and YouTube channel is to raise the bar on the quality and ethical standards of gold guides available to World of Warcraft players. Recently, a few people have pointed something out to me. On my Zul'Farrak guide, promising 5800 gold in 23 minutes, Alexander Moor commented with the following.
Now, it's easy to write this off, as "oh, he just doesn't understand the transmog market." But then you have the surprisingly negative response my good friend Manthieus received with his fantastic 20,000 gold in 30 minutes video. It was the same concept but showed you how to farm up Battered Hilts really effectively. Even Asmondgold, an actual goldmaker and youtuber said "There's no way you're going to be able to get anywhere near 20k an hour here, much less in 30 minutes. Nice job on the clickbait title though, apparently it worked." If you close your eyes, I'm sure you can think of a ridiculous video thumbnail promising a bajillion gold you've seen in the past week or two. We've all come to expect some degree of skepticism from thumbnails and titles even though they're otherwise fantastic gold guides, right?
I put some thought into this and I don't think there's any "clickbaiting" going on. Rather, there's an understanding among the goldmaking community. When a thumbnail says "Make XYZ Gold Per Hour" what it infers is "increase your potential net worth (liquid gold, inventory, auctionables) by XYZ per hour invested."
Unfortunately, this doesn't fit on most thumbnails. :P There usually isn't a problem with interpretation either. If you're mining, making gems, or farming cloth, those items will sell pretty quickly and no one has a problem with assuming GPH. When you move on to slower sale items though, like transmog, battered hilts, or battle pets, suddenly you have a sale cycle that can be weeks or months long. As Alexander said at the start, "you have no gold, just some items." Viewers may feel cheated if they don't get immediate gold or at least have auctioning time accounted for in the calculations. This may seem like a silly thing to write a while post over, but if we can manage to resolve this issue over time in the goldmaking community, we can get rid of that nagging feeling of "is this video just trying to scam me?" you have every time you click on a guide or a blog post.
So, what's our fix?
Do we introduce the new acronym GPHF: Gold Per Hour Farmed in our titles?
Do we stick to the GPH system, for ease of use, but make sure to fully explain in the video or guide the process of selling that particular item for each type of the 120 different Auction Houses?
Do we do nothing and let the haters hate, cause YOLO?
If you have any ideas, let me know. Let's keep making the goldmaking community a better place.
Thanks for reading my little WoW blog! And remember that in the end, the key to making gold in World of Warcraft is just to
Search. Craft. Post.
Every Day.
I hate to be a doomsayer for anyone used to buying gems for under 300g, but it looks like we have some changes coming in WoD. At the same time, I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news for those who decided to keep Jewelcrafting as a profession or not. But it looks like we're going to see 2,000 gold gems in Warlords of Draenor.
Get shocked now, so you can prepare later, and share in the wealth. :)
Did a little talking about this on the YourWoWMoney podcast, but I just ran some numbers. The rare gems for WoD cost 50 Taladite Crystals, 10 Sorcerous Air, and 5 Warlord of Draenor Herbs. Taladite Crystals at max level are crafted from 20 Blackrock ore and 10 True Iron, yielding 10 crystals. So, essentially you'll get 1 crystal for 3 ore. Sorcerous Air is a byproduct of crafting, so it's worthless and it's price will be entirely dictated by demand, competition, and server size. Expect prices to be pretty high initially, and settle in somewhere in the 10g-200g range depending on your server. Ore routes from my testing give 600-900 ore per hour, so we'll see about the same prices at the start of the xpac, in the 2g-5g range, maybe leveling out back to 1g or maybe not (we don't know enough about long-term demand yet to figure out that equilibrium but we can assume what people will put the ore up for at release).
Currently, with the prospecting mechanic we all know and love are used to, you can generally get 1 rare gem from 20 ore. In MoP, we're seeing gems at 100g to 300g with a mat cost of 20g for a stack of Ghost Iron. When Lore first announced that Jewelcrafting and Gem prices would be higher because Blizzard was reducing the number of slots in gear, who would have thought they were going to do it by increasing the mat cost x10? Share this with any JC friends and let me know in a comment what you think.
Long story short, on a high pop server, we're looking at gems that cost a minimum to craft of 400g, and a maximum of almost 3000g. And depending on where sorcerous prices stabilize at (I'd expect 25-40g personally), you should be expecting gem prices in the 1,000g to 2000g range FOR THE ENTIRE EXPANSION. Start saving.
Thanks for reading my little WoW blog and remember that the key to making gold in the end is just to
Search. Craft. Post.
Every Day.
We have a bombshell, ladies and gentlemen. That's right, come 6.0, the neutral AH is being abolished and the Alliance and Horde Auction Houses are going to merge. I'll give you a minute to freak out, run around the room with your arms flailing, and then come on back and we'll figure out what this faction AH merger means.
Ok ok, this breaking news is a couple weeks old aleady, but I did want to do a full blog post on it, and I'm sure some of y'all may not know. First, yes, it means you will be able to buy and sell things to the horde if you're Alliance, and vice versa. What it DOESN'T mean is that the world is ending, WoW is exploding, or the Auction Housing are going to be destroyed. So, what have we got here?
On every realm, we'll essentially be going through a realm merger, where population increases and competition increases, pushing down prices of most markets slightly. Raise your hand if you've been through a realm merger. Wasn't as bad as you thought, was it? If you haven't, essentially, the few days beforehand, everyone gets nervous, the auction house starts to go a little crazy, and then the merger happens. The three days after the merger, everyone yells at each other to "GET OFF MY REALM," makes awkward one-word combinations of the two realms' names, while the AH is adjusting to the increased competition. Eventually AHers get tired if bidding wars and buying each other out to prove who is top dog (aka. someone runs out of money). After four days...everything is fine.
Will prices fall?
Yes, but not necessarily on everything, it won't be anything to worry about because you might actually be making more profit in the long run. So, if you're a miner or herbalist, chances are you already have a lot of competition. Even on a low-med pop, 6-10 farmers are out and about. So, a merger doubling 8 miners to 16 won't affect the market as much as Blacksmithing, where the number would double from say 3 major competitors to 6. Of course you'd have the smattering of 10 or 20 half-hearted posters, but I'm talking about the people who run their professions like they own it. (People like you, the kind are prepared and read blogs)
But Why Would I Be More Profitable?
So, prices generally fall according to the inverse log of the number of people on the server. Blah blah blah, math, what this means is that if you double the number of people, the price won't be cut in half, but less than that. If you triple the people, prices will be less than a third of what they were. Taking Sky Golems as an example, on the day they were released, on low pop realms, they were selling for 300-400k gold, and on high pop realms like Stormrage, they were at 60-80k within a few hours.
Left: Graph showing inverse log function. Right: Google related image search. Nailed it, Google. Nailed it. -_-
So, let's say you've been selling 10 gems a day for 150g each. 1500g in revenue. Well, when the population doubles, if you stay on your game, you can expect 20 gems a day, but prices won't be cut in half. So, 20 gems a day at (for instance, but realistically) 100g each, which would total to 2,000g in revenue.
But That's Just Revenue. What About Profit?
Yah, this eats into low-profit-margin crafted professions a lot more that it does other trade professions, true. Miners could essentially mine forever, since small servers are now medium pop and mediums are now large. However, with WoD, they're changing the structure of professions to be higher priced on average. Fewer gem sockets, by itself, raises the price of each individual gem. With items like Sorcerous Earth, and the Alchemical Catalyst, there seems to be incentives to deplete materials by selling goods to other profession users rather than using them yourself (or building up your Garrison or course). Either way, this expansion should not be a "dump all raw materials from Halfhill on the AH." The professions you know and love now are being altered to sell for a higher price in the future. Still, it's early. It's Beta.
So, am I worried about this? A little bit, but not really. There will be a pretty significant adjustment, especially for people on servers who have 15% Horde and 85% Alliance where the Horde prices would plummet, but in reality, most of those server have been merged already and won't be drastically affected. Furthermore, if you've already been through a server merge, pat yourself on the back, because you know what this is going to be like, except this time, you don't have to deal with all the BS in Trade chat. :P
Welcome to Patch 5.4.8, everybody! So, what's new? Honestly, there aren't a whole lot of changes as you can tell by the number of decimal points, but there are enough to influence us for a little bit and to talk about them. So let's do that, shall we?
Intro
If any of you played back in Lich King, or have run Icecrown Citadel in a while, you'll notice a huge buff when you enter that instance: Strength of Wrynn if you're Alliance or Hellscream's Warsong if you're Horde. ICC was released on December 8th, 2009, and by patch Patch 3.3.2 when the entire instance was open a majority of the players were still banging their heads against it ("[2] DKillerz - "LFM Gearscore 8000+ required!" ...shoot me now), so Blizzard decided to buff it. They did something similar, yet opposite, in Dragon Soul with a raidwide nerf, the Power of the Aspects.
5.4.8: Get buffed enough to solo Xuen...maybe...probably not...unless you're a Blood DK
News
Now, one of the goals of the Blizzard is to get everyone playing regardless of whether they raid or not, so they're trying something new this time. Instead of nerfing raid bosses or buffing raiders, they're instead allowing all players to double upgrade their gear again. So, rather than being able to upgrade an epic 2/2, you'll be able to upgrade it 4/4. Also, Heirloom BoA Gear from Garrosh is buffed 8 ilvls higher. In short, everyone will be able to be quite a bit stronger if you farm up some valor and do your daily quests or heroic scenarios. If you don't like doing dailies how can you get all that valor though?
To see the second big change, take a trip on out to the Timeless Isle. Chances are, it's more packed with PVP-killing action and rare farming than you've seen it in the past couple months. (If you haven't read my article on Sha-crystal farming on the Timeless Isle, go do that now, it'll be important in a second) You can now trade in 3000 Timeless Coins for 100 Valor at Mistweaver Ai by purchasing Deeds of Valor. These stack with the Valor of the Ancients buff, although the Heart of the Valorous buff didn't seem to make it to live.
So, we've got people back out in the Timeless Isle farming their hearts out for Deeds of Valor, and we've got buffed up raiders killing and disenchanting more gear than ever before. What does that mean for you and your goldmaking opportunities right now and in the future? Well...
Maelstrom Crystal History
1. Sha Crystals are at the highest they're ever going to be...ever again. People are going to be farming up Sha Crystals on the Timeless Isle, and with better gear more people are going to be disenchanting gear in from Siege of Orgrimmar. Since, the demand for Sha Crystals has gone down, we can expect that prices will fall. (Note: gearing and enchanting insta-90s may initially offset/stabilize this drop in demand, but I personally wouldn't bet on it). So absolutely sell any Sha Crystals you have right now before prices plummet uncontrollably. Or you could convert them into Mysterious Essences, except
Greater Celestial Essence History
2. Mysterious Essences are also the highest they're ever going to be...ever again. With a new expansion comes a dramatic fall in demand for the secondary resources for last xpac's enchants. Greater Celestial Essences dropped from 60g to 20g, and not only that but they hardly ever sell. Unload your Mysterious Essences.
Hypnotic Dust History
3. Spirit Dust will boom. Blizzard has designed Patch 5.4.8 so that the entire player base is buffed up, out and about, and killing things. With that comes greens to disenchant. As a major leveling component, Spirit Dust, which currently sells for under 1g each, is likely to be pushed a smidge lower. However, if Cataclysm, and MoP are any examples, then we can expect that once people stop farming dust, but people still need it to level professions and get a few basic Enchants here and there, that the price of Spirit Dust will go from it's current price to somewhere in the range of 5g-15g each and the supply falls lower than demand.
BUT
Here's the monkey wrench, and hopefully some of you Enchanters spotted it already. If Sha Crystals Drop to 15 gold in the first week or two of the expansion, and Spirit Dust jumps up to 15 gold in the same time frame, what's the obvious answer? Well, there's two that pop up immediately.
Next Expansion's Annoying Enchanting Requirements: MoP Full Breakdown
So, Spirit Dust is trying to be as expensive as Sha Crystals and will sell the fastest on almost every realm (highest relative demand out of the enchanting mats). Then, if you're farming old Pandaria dungeons, rather than just disenchanting your BoP boss drops and BoE Blues, you will "have to" completely shatter them down into dust. While this seems silly it adds that extra "ugh" hassle to farming old content. However, it may not be necessary at all because of the future-
MoP Shatter Check
This expansion is the first we've had with a full conversion, and right now, Enchanting mat prices are kept in line with the Shatter, where you destroy a Crystal or Ethereal Shard to break it down and sell it into the occasionally more valuable and definitely more in-demand Mysterious Essence. In WoD though, we should keep our eyes out for huge discrepancies between Crystals, Shards, Essences, and the then more valuable Spirit Dust, especially in the first couple months before and after WoD is released. The Invisible Hand should drive Sha Crystal prices up to the point where they match the value of Spirit Dust, whevever it ends up at. So, if Spirit Dust gets to 15g each like Hypnotic is, then someone would be willing to pay 270 gold per Sha Crystal, since each crystal yields 18 dust. A more reasonable 5g value would give you 90 gold crystals, 45 gold shards, and 15 gold essences: about what we're at now. Depending on your stock, and how things go, Sha Crystals may rise in value and it could be very smart to invest heavily in Sha Crystals.
Conclusion
Ok, so it may have sounded like I went back and forth or lied to you here. There was a method, I promise. I started with the premise "There will be a small permanent increase in the supply of Sha Crystals from Patch 5.4.8" and then used a few different available models to try and figure out what will happen now and into the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Funny thing is, that some models say sell all your Sha Crystals now, because they'll all be worthless, while others say that since Spirit Dust will go up in value 500%, so will Sha Crystals. As we approach the next expansion, this is the type of thing you'll be reading on forums from people trying their best to make sense out of everything going on with the coming expansion. It was an in-depth look at a very simple example showing how varied your answers can be. Essentially, the point of this article is "there are lots of correct and contradicting right answers when it comes to WoD speculation. Make money now how you know you can, and learn about WoD, but don't stress about any one blogger's method." We'll give you our best insights but only gameday will know for sure.
So, how am I going to profit from this? What are my actual personal recommendations? I think Crystal, Shard, and Essence prices will fall, Essences less so, but I can still profit by selling my current stock right now, since I don't have a huge supply, and then just stay out of the enchanting material market until it bottoms out and enter again around patch day. On WoD release, I think everything will plummet like we've seen before, but since we have the first full conversion/arbitrage system in place for enchanting, there will be a demand for goods. I'll buy anything above dust right after launch and hide it away somewhere for a month. After a month, when everything evens out and those are worth double or triple I sell and make some cash. Alternatively, I might be off the mark and Mysterious Essences will be the old world mat of choice, and be the driving force, but luckily the same basic rules apply since it's a full conversion. But that's just me and my speculation.
Either way, I'm betting 100g that they remove one of the Shatters from the game.
Thanks for reading my little WoW blog! You can follow me on Twitter here and Google+ Here. Visit my YouTube channel or just I recommend that all goldmakers download the TSM Suite and the UndermineJournalGE addon for all goldmakers. You can read my setup guide if you'd like. And remember that the key to making gold in WoW is just to
I was on the conference call with the Activision Blizzard gang yesterday and things are looking great. I don't invest with them but I like to stay up to date on the business side of things. New games are coming out, profits are up, even Kevin Spacey is on board as the villain in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. But no one reading this cares about First Person Shooters, amiright?! So lets get to the meat and potatoes and get talking about some Blizzard products.
Diablo 3 Mike Morhaime got on the mike (get it?) and started off with Diablo 3. It's broken records as the top selling game of 2014 so far and had 2.7 million purchases in its first week alone. Mr. Morhaime said "We attribute a lot of the game's success to a focused effort on listening to player feedback and making improvements to the game based on that feedback." While that may sound like a pretty obvious course of action, it can be an expensive one, and was seemingly ignored for a majority of Diablo 3's release until recently. Thank goodness this has changed because things are gamers are getting involved again. Players can look forward to content updates that include Tiered Rifts, which will be Rifts that increase in difficulty and give greater rewards based on that difficulty, as well as "The Ultimate Evil Edition," a console edition of Reaper of Souls.
Hearthstone
As far as numbers go (which y'all know I'm big on) 10 million people downloaded and played the game even before the official launch of the game, which is phenomenal. With the launch of the IPad version, even more people have joined and Blizzard has earned a top rating on Metacritic. However, they claimed it was too early to talk specific numbers of the IPad launch, which I kindof don't buy, but whatever. The big news is the upcoming expansion of the Curse of Naxxramas "The Naxxramas content will be released over several weeks. To celebrate the launch, the first set of content will be free for a limited time, while the subsequent ones will be unlockable through in-game gold or real money." This is great news because it gives alternatives to Arenas for those who don't like that content, and it gives players another option to spend gold, since once you have all the cards you need, gold is essentially worthless.
Personally, I've always had a problem with companies that say "we released this product on 'so-and-so date' when they had an massively marketed open beta months or years prior. Other than that sneaky little bit of finagling, Hearthstone is going great, and is a fantastic game that I love playing. I can get lost in it when I feel like it, or can spend 10 minutes if I'm in a rush and just want to knock out a daily quest. Great job, Blizz.
Heroes of the Storm
Again no numbers were released on this product but they're super excited about the combination of MOBA/Team Brawler and the iconic blizzard characters. It's in Technical Alpha right now but will be opening up to larger audiences soon, but no word on whether or not this will be an open beta. At the PAX East event though, people stood in line for 2 hours just to play. Pretty phenomenal. Blizzard, if you're reading, I wanna invite! Let me innnnn!
World of Warcraft
Alright, so things dropped off a smidge from 7.8 million subscribers to 7.6. With no new content released, this slight falloff was to be expected, and in the call, he said that before Warlords of Draenor is released, things will probably fall off a little more. From my perspective, while games like Wildstar may nibble away at the MMO market share, any doomsayers out there that think a 200k sub drop is worth prophesying the end of the world, should just relax and join a Flex raid. We all lived through one Cataclysm. This is the end of expansion blues. As Mr. Morhaime relates "Overall, we're pleased with the ongoing stability in the player base but look ahead cautiously given seasonality and the late expansion cycle dynamics." They know what they're doing and have done this five times before. They're prepared.
On the other hand, even though WoD is still 7 months away from it's 12/20/2014 scheduled release date, it already has 1 million presales. These come with an automatic lvl 90 boost, which I used to level my Pacifist toon to 90 (yes, I gave up on the goal to level it through mining and herbalism alone, although I still haven't killed anything after several hours of farming ore and herbs in Valley of the Four Winds). You can also purchase level 90 boost for $60, and those seem to be going better than expected, and I really wish they would have released some numbers on how people purchased these 90 boosts, but no luck. That was the call though, hope my wrap up was informative!
Hey there, gold makers! Today I'm going to be sharing a little secret with you that I've had in my goldmaking routine for a while now, and have been using to bring in an extra 20,000g to 30,000g per week. I've had fun, but it's time to share the magic. Turns out, you can make gold, and a ton of it, just by selling vendor grays for ridiculous prices on the Auction House.
Farewell, Gnimo! We won't be needing you anymore.
Initially, I just put everything into a 1,000 gold group, and things sold. But then, either on a whim or out of curiosity, I started testing and came up with the price discrimination setup you see below. Price discrimination is where charge more for the same thing, but if someone can pay more and is willing to, you might as well let them, right? (Think Airplane tickets, some people pay $400 while some pay $199. Same flight). I'm sure the specific numbers would vary depending on the server size, but the whole point of this is capitalizing on curiosity and accidental purchases.
Open world farming is awful for grays, so head to dungeons. If you're farming just for grays, then I only recommend doing 1 run of each of the following six instances, but if you're also going for cloth, mats, and transmog, then go ahead and do 3-5 of each of these, although be warned that multiple runs of six dungeons will take a while. Otherwise, it's pretty quick. The goal of this route is a shotgun approach; you're not going to get all of one kind, but you're going to get a few from each expansion's vendor list. (i.e. Most of the vendor greys from the Wrath of the Lich King have a "Frozen/Frigid/Frost XXX" theme)
Also, the Crochet Hat looks amazing if you're a fisherman.
Each of the following dungeons will require at least 40 free bag slots, so have room. To start head off to Deadmines located in Southern Westfall, then run Uldaman in northern Badlands, and then head over to Zul'Farrak which you can get to easiest from the Uldum portal. After you mail your ZF stuff in Gadgetzan, MAKE SURE to do the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj located in Silithus. One run through there will usually net about 20 unique vendor greys! Follow that up with Tempest Keep: Botanica out in eastern Netherstorm (it's the northern ship) and Halls of Lighning in Storm peaks.
I avoid Mist of Pandaria and Cata content just because the vendor loot there are things that people see or remember, and therefore recognize as trash, whereas some of this is less recognizable, and when you post it for 3,000g, has the same effect as things like the Ruby Shades, which sell regularly for 17,000g, despite being white items. It makes people wonder, "Is this something being taken out of the game? What the heck, I have 300k gold."
One last thought before I share my TradeSkillMaster Import lists. If you're a terrible person, you can set the Codex of Greater Heal and similar items at the same prices as the corresponding glyphs on your realm and unfortunate newbies will buy them. [Go to the Crafting tab of TSM, the nuts and bolts icon, click on materials, scroll down until you find Codex of Greater Heal, and then right click and enter in dbmarket(item:21284) ] made a decent chunk off this until my conscience got the better of me. Better to just post them for 1,000g as "Memories of Yesteryear's Patches." People still buy. (meh, probably still newbie mistakes)
TSM 2.0 Import Group Items
1. Vendor 1000 gold This group is your run of the mill items. Wicked Claw, Troll Sweat, and Protective Pavise. Fun or good looking items, but nothing you would write home for. For all of these, keep a post cap of 1, a high minimum price 50% of each groups normal price, and have a maximum of about 50% over. So, for this group my setup is 595g min, 995g normal, 1595g max. It's still somewhat arbitrary, play around on your server's economy.
2. Vendor 2000 gold
Here, you have the same general level of mediocrity as group 1, but these are either a little bit cooler looking, a little bit cooler sounding, or they're rarer/harder to get.
3. Vendor 3000 gold
I reserve this group for the best pieces - the quality junk that people will really go for, and even though the 2000 gold group is my largest, I get a higher percentage of sales from this group. This is mainly composed of items that would be great transmog gear if you could transmog grays. As such, they're mainly RP items. Things like the Red Defias Mask are fabulous sellers and I'll consistantly sell at least one of those a week. You can find it in Deadmines.
Yep, this was the best April Fools Day trick I could muster. Funny thing is, you'll still make 20,000g-50,000g from transmog, rare items, and battle pets if you do this run that I "made up" for this April Fools day gag, because it's actually what I use for farming a large of diverse gear from multiple ranges. (I try and take care of my readers even when I play a joke on em) Thanks for reading and good luck! 4-2
Someone on my YouTube channel left a comment yesterday claiming that transmog is worthless. While some people just rage that "lol greenz can't sell for 500g!" his basic point was more thought out; while transmog will sell on any server, it's only really a viable market on a Role Playing server where there are enough people transmogging to drive sales. As goldmakers this is an important thing to consider and I think we would all agree with that on the surface, or at least we would agree with the general rule of thumb that "Transmog sells better on RP servers." However I don't know of anyone who has delved into the topic analytically to find out if it's actually true or if it's just hearsay. So let's do that now!
If you aren't reading the Daily Blink, you should.
Before we see how many individual pieces people buy, let's look at actual mogs they wear at any given time, which is the driving force of the issue. We'll study how many people actually take each slot of their gear and transmog it and then see if there a significant difference on Role Playing Realms. While there are 11 moggable slots if you include the duel wielders, some classes only single wield, so I lumped together "Weapon" into one to simplify for a total of 10 moggable slots. i.e.Fury Warriors who only mogged one of their two maces got counted as having a total weapon mog.
I looked at a large sample of toons on each of four different servers: my home realm Tanaris (PVE- Ally pop 54,000), a large pvp server Darkspear (PVP - population 171,000), and then two popular Role playing servers Earthen Ring (RP - population 48,000), and Moon Guard (RP - Ally pop: 89,000). Before we get into the important analysis, there are a couple unimportant things that I learned inspecting a couple hundred toons, like:
You'd be surprised how many mog just the hands
You'd be surprised how many mog just the belt
Heroic raiders go all the way or nothing at all
PVPers never bother mogging their equipment (except of course for their weapons)
The majority of moggers actually have a pretty decent sense of style, or I have none.
Results
Ok, on to the good stuff. after looking at all these toons, the total mog rate is higher on average for RP realms (some rates were the same or lower on Earthen Ring). Combining everything, 43% of the population on PVE/PVP didn't mog anything at all, while RP servers had only 23% completely unmogged. Interestingly though, when you take those people out of the sample, both RP and PVE/PVP players both mog exactly 54% of their available slots. and those that mog do so in the following priority system:
1. Weapon 80%
2-4. Head/Shoulder/Chest 70% (RPs order is Shoulder/Chest/Head with head devalued but let's call it a tie)
5. Hands 62%
6. Legs 58%
7. Waist 53%
8. Boots 52%
Something missing from the list? Oh right! Well the Legendary cape quest chain absolutely KILLED the cape transmog market; only 6% of people have a cape mog right now. Come to think of it though, cool cape transmogs might be something to stock up on for Warlords of Draenor that a lot of sellers might not have once everyone starts hitting 100 and the 608s become obsolete. #SadDay
Conclusion
Moggers mog the same no matter where they are, however there may be more of them on RP servers, although not as overwhelmingly so as the grapevine may lead us to believe. If you're looking to enter the transmog market, focus on things near the top of the list and ignore capes and bracers, and be wary of boots and belts. Don't server transfer to take advantage of the phat mog markets on another server though, because that is mostly a myth. Although, we may need to do another test looking at sales data...
Thanks for reading my little WoW blog! You can follow me on Twitter here and Twitch here. My YouTube channel is growing and has lots of great guides over here. I recommend that all goldmakers download the TSM Suite and the UndermineJournalGE addon for all goldmakers. You can read my setup guide if you'd like. And remember that the key to making gold in wow is just to
At Columbia, I learned a bunch of fun and excitingly mathematical ways to evaluate companies and securities. In short, I learned an overview of the ways people with PhDs make money on Wall Street, and looking at the WoW markets, there are some interesting parallels to the superb traders. My favorite strategy I learned in school is a form of arbitrage, called the "Long Strangle," and hopefully, by the time I'm done explaining, you'll understand the concept of the trade. While you probably won't want to get out and execute one right then and there, hopefully I will have convinced you to sign in to World of Warcraft and "execute" on your warrior.
It's funny cause they sound the same.
If at any point you want this post gets too Econ-y for you, feel free to read my Guide to Blackrock Caverns or Guide to Leveling Battle Pets for Profit. The first step in this is to understand what a Call Option is. Let's say everyone thinks Twitter stock is gonna stay at about $50 a share but you somehow know it'll go up to $100. In essence, you pay $2.70/share in order to buy a option contract that gives you the right to sell 100 shares of Twitter next month at NEXT month's prices that you buy at THIS months prices. If prices go above $50, you can redeem/exercise your contract, and if they don't then you lost $270 bucks. If you hit your goal of $100 though, then you make $5000 minus your fees because 100 shares x $100 (final selling price) - 100 shares x $50 (initial purchase price).
No money, no money, no money, MONEY!
So, this has risk involved, since you don't really know that Twitter is going to hit $100. or even stay above $50, where the call options become valuable as you see in the chart. What if you're "Bearish?" Then we use a Put Option. If you think Twitter is going to cease to exist in a month (lolz), then buy a Put at $50 for (it won't be the same price but it's usually close) $2.70. It does the opposite; it allows you to buy a share at next months prices at this months prices rather than sell them. So, everything is essentially the same, but you make money when prices go down. If Twitter went down to $20 dollars a share, in a month, we would exercise the option for 100 shares x $50 (initial purchase price) - 100 share x $20 (final selling price) = 3000. If the price went up, we'd lose our initial $270.
Money, money, money, No money.... :(
Again, we got a lot of risk, and here's where I start to get excited (and where I start to peak my head into the World of Warcraft, almost there guys!) Y'all have heard about battle pet arbitrage? Well here's my favorite for of arbitrage IRL. When you combine these two and buy a call and a put at the same time, you have something called a straddle, which works ok; it pays off if the price moves but you lose a lot if the price doesn't. My favorite though is the "Long Strangle." Since options are markets too, what you do is search for under-priced calls and puts. So for instance, sometimes you'll find the aforementioned $2.70 at say $1.00. In the above examples, we bought both options at the same "strike price" of $50, but you can buy an option at any price you want to (The math changes, but I'll keep the example simple.) So, rather than buying both of them at $50, the you buy a Put at a higher one, of $80, and a Call at a lower price of $40. The two then add up to form a flat positive return (equal to how undervalued they were), and they give increasing returns beyond $40 and $80. Neat, huh?
...Money, Money, Money, Money, Money,...
Just to be clear, the above graph is not realistic as the calls and puts pictured would have dramatically higher prices IRL, and thus much lower returns, but the shape and general idea is the same:
You are combining two otherwise risky techniques in order to provide security and make positive income no matter what you do. Now, if you were absolutely waiting for a form of arbitrage in Warcraft (that's not what I'm here to talk about) fine, here's a form or low-risk cross-market trading. Buy a battle pet that you get a really good deal on. Then, start a level one toon on another server (not a high population server as pet prices are low on those). Cage the pet and sell it there. Take your gold and buy as many other underpriced pets with your earnings as you can. Addons like TheUndermineJournal GE are great for giving tooltips for this. Sell the purchased pets on your home realm. If you started with a pet you bought for 3,000g and sold it for 4,000g. Then you bought four pets for 1,000g each and sold each of them for 1,500g on your home realm, then you started with 3,000g and finished with 6k. May take a couple days but really it's just logging in and out for a couple minutes.
BUT!
That's not the point. What I wanted to say after explaining the long strangle, is that in WoW you should combine different techniques, professions, and strategies so that you're not only always making money, but so that you're risk of being broke and thus unable of making money in the future is reduced. We've all been inundated with ads showing how to get rich quick with penny stocks or how to win in the Forex or options markets. They'll show you the ins-and-outs of calls but buying them will always have risk. Similarly, if you focus on Jewelcrafting alone, you're at the mercy of your competitors. One person with too much time and gold on his hands (and a guild vault of gems) can come in and completely bottom out the market, and keep it that way for as long as he/she likes. If you don't believe me, go to Stormspire.net and read some of the horror stories. That's why I love both low-risk strategies (hard to go wrong with mining) and diversity of income sources.
By low-risk strategies, I mean traditional profession crafting and posting. The simple professions crafts like current PvP crafted armor are a lot easier to price and sell than rare Burning Crusade gem cuts. For posting strategies, if someone posts a flask for 10g less than everyone else on Tuesday, I probably won't undercut them, and will instead post above them since my goods will sell anyways, but doing that increases the risk of not selling out my inventory, as does buying someone out. Higher-risk strategies that I avoid are things like market takeovers, where you control an entire market for an extended period of time. I also avoid large-scale resets in areas like gems, glyphs, (and now blacksmithing, cause that didn't end up going very well), because, like in options, while you stand to make a large profit if it all goes well, maneuvers like that carry needless risk if you can get rich either way.
My answer and recommendation to goldmakers is to use multiple progressive income streams.
1. Have your initial source of income be from professions. It's how the game is designed. How I recommend setting up TSM for professions
2. From there, you can branch out to farming your favorite dungeons and raids for battle pets and transmog. YouTube: 17,000 Gold Per Hour in Feralas?
3. Level an alt for more professions. You've got a stable income by now, so make the first part bigger by leveling an alchemist, tailor, engineer, or inscriptionist.
4. Find something fun you want to do and incorporate in. I like leveling and selling battle pets. You can be a master of halfhill though. Work around in the TCG market or play around with old crafts like Fortune Cards. Or do your research and become a master of the high-risk strategies that I so vehemently avoid so that you can implement them without as much risk. Fun little niche markets like this are great ways to keep learning and increasing your gold income while doing so. Easy Trick For 25% Experience Boost to Leveling Pets
*I don't own Twitter stock and am not promoting or bashing the company.
Also, for the love of Garrosh, this is not financial advice. I am sharing with you what I read in my textbooks to enlighten and entertain.
For the past two weeks, we've been doing a series about preparing for Patch 5.4. If you've read everything, then thanks for following along, and I applaud you; it's been a lot of information.
/clap
With Patch 5.4 at our doorstep, it's time for an abridged recap of everything you need to know to make gold with the auction house, crafting, and with no professions, 1) in case you missed a few posts, 2) to correct any changes Blizzard has made on the PTR or any accidental reporting errors on my part, and 3) to provide a link you can bookmark and easily come back to in the next few weeks, since many of these tips will be valid goldmaking strategies for Patch 5.4 for the first month or two.
The Build Up
Step 1: Sell off 522s and Spirits
Unload any crafted 522 armor you have, Haunted Steel Headguards, Quillen Hide Helm, etc. While TheUndermineJournal.com states the median price in the 25k range, the moving price for both helms and boots has dropped to about 18,000 so post in that range if you want them to sell (my recommendation, servers vary and of course yours may be different).
Sell your Haunting Spirits if you have any. Their prices are mirroring Blood spirits trend so they should plummet to 1000g in the second week, 600g in the first month, and bottom out to 300g in month two. Don't get caught holding the bag. There's still a week left to make gold with spirits before the opportunity is gone.
Step 2: Build up an inventory of crafting mats
The new daily cooldowns for tailoring, blacksmithing, and leatherworking require a lot of basic materials: 1 Trillium bar, 10 Bolts, and 2 Hides. In addition, the new ilvl 476 crafted PVP gear will need about 50% more mats to make than the old ilvl 458 stuff. So, stock up now on cloth, ghost iron, trillium, or hides before prices jump up. Trillium's increase will influence Living Steel's price, but since no crafted gear requires it, expect Living Steel's demand to drop until about October 10th, when the first Engineers are able to craft the Sky Golem/Sky Claw mount, and the price will rise some. The new mount requires 30 Living Steel and 30 Stabilized Lightning Source, the new Engineer daily cooldown.
Step 3: Get enhancement professions ready
Generally, this refers to Jewelcrafting, but Enchanting and Inscription as well. Glyphs are getting a rework so that'll be covered later in the guide, but include those mentally here too. If you're prepared, you could potentially make 20,000 gold an hour from jewelcrafting as a few people did in patch 5.2. Here's why. Many of the classes' spells are changing, and because of this, lots of players will need to reforge, regem, and re-enchant when they log in after 5.4 drops. In addition, with everyone running Siege of Orgrimmar on Normal and Flex immediately, they'll be getting replacement gear en masse, which needs optimization.
Prospect a large stockpile of gems, cut a stack or two of each of the solid-color pure-stat cuts, and then look at your server's history, read my rundown of spell changes, and determine if my list of recommended mixed cuts (crit/agi, haste/agi, haste/int, spirit/int, and mastery/str, along with block and parry cuts) makes sense to you. If not, head on over to Stormspire.net and see if any other seasoned JCs have other input. You can make a ridiculous amount of money here in the first two or three days.
Other professions should follow the same general advice and build up an inventory of materials, have basic sure fire sellers precrafted, and study your market for any specialty items.
Step 4: Noodle Cart Prep Work
Patch 5.4 is introducing an easier way to buff up: Noodle Carts. In short, they let one person become a vendor (Blizz keeps the gold, whamp whamp) and people buy multiple max level food buffs from them, rather than just the one use that the raid feasts have. They're more efficient than feasts, but still requires a royal ton of materials. Moreover, everyone will be doing the same quest chain to get these mats all at once, so you can load up on them beforehand (since the materials will probably sell out) and mark em up to 500-1000% the normal price. No one wants to spend 20 minutes flying around just to farm out 5 Wildfowl Breasts. The quest chain is pretty long so I expect most people to take a break after the "Noodle Cart Kit" but I put together a Google Document outlining all the mats for each kit so you can farm all the mats for everything if you choose to own the entire Noodle Industry.
The Post-Release Hustle
Step 1: Jewelcrafting Sellof
If you're a JC, get everything posted up. Depending on how crazy the AH is, this could be a small time commitment, or it could be a full-time thing. We'll see, although honestly I don't think it will be quite as ridiculous as the 5.2 rush was. Follow TheUndermineJournal.com, WoWuction.com, or Stormspire.net for news from your server and others on what price trends are going on and what demand for different gems is looking like. If you use TSM 2.0, make sure you have your Cancel scans set up; you will be undercut often.
Step 2: Profiting from Battle Pets and LFR
Four new tradeable battle pets drop from LFR and Flex that will sell very well on the Auction House: Droplet of Y'Shaarj, Gooey Sha-ling, Blackfuse Bombling, and Kovok (baby Garalon, Eeeeee!) Additionally, any boss drops that you don't need can be disenchanted for Spirits of War, the new version of Haunting Spirits. These will start off very expensive (10k+) and then slowly become more reasonably priced, so sell them as soon as possible. Make sure to run Flex, Normal, and LFR Siege of Orgrimmar as soon as you can on as many toons as you can in the first week or two. LFR part four won't come out for a while, but keep running these for your chances. They're adorable and good pets that you'll be able to sell for a bundle, especially if you take 45 minutes and level up to 25 before you AH them.
Step 3: Grinding New Glyph Patterns (Corrections)
42 new glyphs have been added, but these aren't learned on a daily cooldown for once! These recipes are learned from killing mobs, similar to Jewelcrafting meta recipes. Some of the glyphs are Bind on Pickup from Pandaria mobs and some are Bind on Equip from Timeless isle kills. El from ElsAnglin put together a great comment on which glyphs drop where. If you can get your glyph toon geared above ilvl 500, go to the Timeless isle and grind there. If you can't, grind your favorite 90 pandaria spot, then switch to your main, and grind Timeless Isle on that toon. On my original post, I made a big deal about bind on pickup, but it looks like you can mail patterns from Timeless Isle between toons.
Step 4: Noodle Cart Quests
So, you posted up all the mats for noodle carts before the patch was released, now it's time to actually learn the recipe for the cart itself and sell those, because they'll be overpriced themselves. The quest chain starts northeast of the lake in Timeless Isle. Here's a guide I put together about how to get the noodle cart.
The short version is run Temple of the Jade Serpent, kill the bonus boss, go to Halfhill, catch sacks in the Imperial Granary, and run Stormstout Brewery. But watch the video, cause you might have to redo a step or two otherwise, cause there are a few tricky parts. When you get the +300 kits, but a few on the Auction house and you should make a very decent profit for the first couple weeks as all the lazy people procrastinate on doing the full quest chain.
Step 5: Timeless Isle Pets
There are going to be 12 great (read: profitable) pets dropping from rares and elites on the Isle in Patch 5.4 (couldn't get the filter to show only the 12, but you'll get the idea). You'll also be able to purchase some new pets with Timeless Coins, which drop off NPCs (x10-40) and Bloody Coins, obtained from killing players (x1). Oh, and of course, Blingtron 4000 is finally dropping a pet. Hazaa!
Lil Bling Bling
If you need a map of all the rares, Wowhead has a great guide here. As you can see, they're all on the perimeter, so rare farming is just a nice Un'goro-style route around the outside, rather than zig zagging around like in Isle of Giants.
Clarification: The Celestial Tournament reward pets, the Celestialets, are NOT cageable, so you will not be able to sell them, as I alluded to in the first version of my pet post, before I was kindly corrected.
And that's it. Each of these step should be able to, by themselves, be able to earn 50k at least in the first week if you spend just a little bit of time working on them. If you call in sick to work all week (I'm sure your boss will understand) then the sky is the limit. Good luck, everyone. Remember to subscribe to this lil ole WoW blog, follow me on Twitter, and until next time remember to
Search. Craft. Post.
Every Day.
P.S. I also wanted to say, sincerely, thank you for all the comments, tweets, and general support from you all. WTBGold has been growing recently because of y'all spreading the word and I really appreciate it. I look forward to helping more people start and continue their goldmaking journey.
Some people like to make gold on the auction house, some like to use professions or mob grinding, but a select few get bored of all that jazz and turn to more creative means: using Whiskers the Rat or a Lashtail Hatchling to make a massive stockpile. That's right, don't think I forgot about you Battle Pet aficionados, and don't think Blizzard did either. Patch 5.4 is currently introducing 92 new Battle pets according to WoWhead, of which 20 will be tradable. And yes, finally, Blingtron 4000 is dropping a pet!
Lil Bling is the cutest thing EVER!
Celestial Tournament:
This blog is dedicated to goldmaking, so I want to focus on that aspect and how people who prefer pet battling could go about making gold in 5.4, but there is one thing I wanted to touch on first that is worth mentioning, and luckily it could be fairly profitable. Blizzard has introduced a really neat addition called the Celestial Tournament. This is a single-person non-PVP weekly scenario that requires you to have fifteen level 25 pets in order to enter (recently hotfixed from a requirement of thirty). While in the tournament, you fight one round of 3 legendary NPCs, and then a second round of the four celestials in pet form. You can choose the order of your fights during each round, but the trick is, that you have a debuff preventing you from healing or reviving any of your pets during the entire scenario. In short, have a lot of max lvl pets (The minimum recommended "all goes well" number for completion is 21). Upon finishing the scenario you recieve 1 Celestial Coin, and for 3 coins each you can buy the Battle Pet versions of the four Celestials ("Celestialets") Yu'lon, Xuen, Chi'Ji, and Nuizoa. So, get to leveling if this interests you. Unfortunately, Blizzard has stated that these new Celestialets are not tradeable, so we won't be able to sell cute little Xu-Fu, Cub of Xuen. Whamp whamp.
Battle Pet Rundown:
In the spirit of "OMGITSANEWPATCHTHERESSOMUCHTODO!" I'll try and sort this list by easiest to hardest. Here's what you need to know to get the best pets in Patch 5.4. These are the pets that you can attain, cage, and immediately sell on the AH to make some decent cash. Most new pets sell for an absurd amount of gold when they're first released, so if you find a way to obtain a few of these, feel free to share your secrets in the comments!
Things You're Going to Do Anyways
You're probably going to run LFR, but make sure you also try to run Flex every week too, and make sure you pick up a daily Blingtron somewhere. Not only is he adorable, but his new pet is actually pretty OP.
Lil Bling - He makes it rain. As in, that's actually an ability he uses. What more do you want?!
Gooey Sha-ling - Get your very own sha! Deals good damage and reduces healing, so it should be good for Celestial Tournament bosses with healing abilities, according to MestMistel. Drops from Sha of Pride in Wing #1: Vale of Eternal Sorrows, on LFR and Flex.
Droplet of Y'shaarj - Sha: now comes in purple! Also, it's an elemental pet with magic, aquatic, humanoid, and undead abilities. I'm all kinds of confused with this guy. Y'shaarj is a jerk. Anyways. Drops from Sha of Pride on Flex, Normal, and Heroic, but not LFR.
Blackfuse Bombling - Adorable walking mine. Drops from Siegecrafter Blackfuse in Wing #4: Downfall, on all difficulties. The LFR and Flex won't be released for another ~40 days though, just FYI.
Kovok - Oh my god, we get a mini-Garalon! This guy is actually really overpowered from the videos I've watched, to the point where I'd expect it to be nerfed a little. He has Pheremones (about 200 dmg to all pets for 4 rounds) a poison, and a poison-modified bash. He's like Lil Ragnaros on steroids. Anyways, he drops from Paragon of the Klaxxi, Wing #4: Downfall.
While You're Out and About-Rare Drops
There are plenty of rares and elites on the Timeless Isle, just like there were on the Isle of Giants, and some of them drop pets. The coolest look ones are the pandaren spirits, although the Darkmoon Faire has some new goodies as well.
Ruby Droplet - Red Pandaren Spirit dropped from Garnia at the Ruby Lake. My personal favorite, and I might even just camp this one for a little bit; I have a thing for red though. Good undead skills. To access the mountain top, attack an albatross, and have it carry you.
Jademist Dancer - This guy is absolutely cute as a frickin' button, and has a very decent aquatic setup with Acid Rain->Rain Dance->Steam Vent x2. These don't drop from rares, but just normal elite mobs by the same name, so feel free to grind some out.
Dandelion Frolicker - And we finally get sprite pets! These drop from Scary Sprites, another elite creature located on the Isle. Not impressed by this guy's skill set, but hey, who doesn't want to own a sprite after grinding out Alani?
Moon Moon - First off, props to Blizz for the meme reference. lolz. Possible drop from killing the new Darkmoon Faire boss, Moonfang.
Grindy Things
In the Timeless Isle there are two new main currencies, Timeless Coins and Bloody Coins. Timeless drop off mobs at a rate of about 10-40 per mob. Bloody drop off people after turning in 7500 Timeless coins for a special trinket that turns you Hostile to both factions. Every kill, whether Alliance or Horde, grants you 1 Bloody Coin.
Harmonious Porcupette - This little guy is sold from Mistweaver Ku in the Timeless Isle for 7500 Timeless Coins at Revered reputation with Emperor. You'll be getting coins anyways, by doing your dailies and spending time on the Isle. Might as well spend it on this pet ASAP and put him on the AH within the first couple of days. Rep can be grinded out by killing Yaungols (i.e. Black Prince Rep 2.0)
Vengeful Porcupette - For the vengeful version, talk to the Bloody coins vendor, Speaker Gulan. This required 2500 coins. Grindy Grindy. You can try and survive on your own, but much like farming Kokron mats, it's easier to team up for this. Timeless Isle is going to be a wild place to be for the next couple of weeks.
Gameplan:
In my opinion, Pet Battling is an entirely personal gameplay style, so it's up to you. I will be focusing on the more profitable aspect of selling gems and enchants on the first day or two, but if you don't have a JC, and enjoy pets, this could be very lucrative. Several guildies sold 3 or 4 of the Spectral Porcupettes for over 12,000g each when those were new, and they hadn't even leveled them up. So, you have options:
Option 1- Find one thing that you're good at or enjoy doing. For instance, you're just awesome at Timeless Coin farming or can make the rounds of the rare elites like a boss. Just do that one thing and load up on a bunch of one type of pet and be the go-to guy (or girl) for that on your server.
Option 2- Focus on everything pet related. Figure out a route that works for you that lets you hit everything I've listed here. Note: I left out a few of the boring/repetitive pets.
Option 3- Do the main questline, work on the story, and do whatever else you feel is important, but keep pet farming in the back of your head so that you can earn a little extra from it. For instance, if you're running around the Isle and see a Scary Sprite or Jademist Dancer, for the first week or two, it's worthwhile to stop and kill it until prices fall on the pets.
Either way, any of the pets you farm out should sell for 10k pretty easily, worst case, you spend 45 minutes leveling them to 25 and THEN sell them for 10k. It shouldn't be very difficult to farm out 5 or 10 of these in the first week if that's what you decide to devote yourself to, and there you go: 50-100k gold in a week. Bling Bling.
And that's it guys, hope you enjoyed what is the last full guide of the Countdown series. I'll be doing a wrap up and compiling everything into a nice, clean, pretty (and hopefully short) list for Saturday's post. See you then! I wouldn't be at all hurt if you Followed me on Twitter or shared this with you friends on Facebook. Until next time, remember to
