Making gold in cata

[JohnGabriel]

In WotLK I took my 5 man team and did dailies, that brought it quite a bit of gold. Running a couple heroics with them every day and disenchanting all the drops made quite a bit as well.

But now in Cata the dailies seem to take twice as long and heroics too tough to make quick work of.

How are you making gold this expansion?

[Emo?]

Maggy (500), Gruul (500), TK (not sure but around 2-4), BT (2-3k depending on drops), Doomwallker (if hes up). Gives a good net of cash, doesnt take that long, i can solo all with my 4x DK team (1 blood, 3 frost) all just blue pvp gears.

[Ualaa]

I've got the army of transmute specialist alchemists.

Toons who are 75+ can raise their alchemy cap to 525.
You don't need any special recipe, it can all be learnt from trainers in SW/Org.
You need 485 for Transmute: Elements.

On each team, leave the one who is on the same account as your AH toon in SW/Org.
Park them at the mailbox closest to the bind point.

Take the rest of the team and fly to Gadgetzan.
From there, head to Vortex Pinnacle, in Uldum.
Specifically, the summoning stone.

Buy Volatile Life.
Use a spam macro, that you push every 5 mins or so, when on your AH toon.
Buying Volatile Life in bulk, paying "x" each or "y" per stack of 200, please send COD to AH Toon.

Mail 15 Volatile life, per team member... or 75 per team of five toons to the toon on the team that is in SW/Org.
Have the party summon the toon to Vortex Pinnacle.
Distribute the Life, so each toon gets 15.
Do your once per day transmute (cooldown refreshes at Midnight server time).
Trade the transmuted Air + Randoms to the delivery toon.
Have that toon (only the one) hearth back to SW/Org.
Mail the transmuted mats to your AH mule.

You'll get mostly Air.
But the proc, if transmute spec, will be randomly Fire, Water, Air or Earth.
Earth will always be sold.
If Truegold is at a decent price on your server...
Then save Fire/Water.
The Transmute Elements will take your toons up to 520/525 skill.
Not that far or expensive to go to 525 for Truegold.
If Truegold is not selling well, or is too lowly priced then just sell Fire/Water off as well as Earth.

Truegold is 3 Pyrium Bar, 10 Air, 10 Fire and 10 Water per transmute.

For me, Truegold was a good option for a close to a month.
But Life > Air is far better now.
Then again each server has a different economy.

I buy Life at 8g each, having people send to me COD.
Buying on the AH is on average 9g each.
For quite a while, I've had two different bulk suppliers sending me Life at 6g each... but they've stopped.

Air sells for 15-16g on average per single.
But in stacks of 5's, they sell for 17-18g on average (per one, or 85-90g per stack).
Stacks of 10's sell for 18-19g (per one, or 180-190g per stack).
And stacks of 20's, 50's and 100's regularly sell at 20-22g per one.
Not sure why larger stacks sell for more.

With 29 transmute spec alchemists.
I average 10-15 stacks of 5, 10-15 stacks of 10, 5 stacks of 20 and 2-5 stacks of 50 or 100 per day.
That is listing the Volatiles once a day, and not even checking back to relist or undercut beyond the initial listing.
I will occasionally buy out those who have undercut too much, and then list everything at a "fair" price.

Currently I'm making 25k a week on average.
That is for 45 minutes work per day, in transmutes/mailing/listing/mailbox time.
I'm a little over +450k since Cata launched, purely from transmutes.
It is pretty simple to do.

[burningforce]

playing the auction house game works ok for me, I just need to learn the addons and do more research on what to sell/buy at what price.

Here is a nice site for learning the ah
http://consortium.stormspire.net/forum.php

Getting started and understanding ah basics is very time consuming but in the end worth it :)

[MiRai]

Maggy (500), Gruul (500), TK (not sure but around 2-4), BT (2-3k depending on drops), Doomwallker (if hes up). Gives a good net of cash, doesnt take that long, i can solo all with my 4x DK team (1 blood, 3 frost) all just blue pvp gears.
Some of this goes away very soon in 4.1.


The gold amounts awarded for the following encounters have been substantially reduced: Flame Leviathan, Magtheridon, Gruul the Dragonkiller, Doom Lord Kazzak, and all encounters in Karazhan.

[zenga]

I reset My Sales on wednesday as soon as I log in (that is after the weekly reset). We are now sunday morning here and the results for this week so after 4 days:

Enchanting (all including LW & buckles) / smelting / jc / engineering +

http://i53.tinypic.com/25ov147.jpg

With best sellers:

http://i56.tinypic.com/10r1vo5.jpg

For inscription:

http://i54.tinypic.com/2wlswp1.jpg

And best sellers:

http://i54.tinypic.com/sbikqb.jpg


On top of these markets I sell a lot of bags: the LW bag (from revered rep with the kalu'ak), the mining bag, the engineering bag, they sell like candy and there is no competition. There are a ton of pets you can buy from the vendor. Tons of mats you can buy from vendors and flip on the AH (google for auction house flipping route). I literally try to make gold out of anything I see.

The crafted pvp sets from blacksmithing, lw'ing sell well. I always have some in stock.

Smelting is a great resource: buy ore cheap, melt it while you have dinner, list it back for 4x + the price.

For JC I do a lot of elementium prospecting. The normal gems sell to vendor for 9g, if you need enchanting mats you can craft gear to DE. every rare gem can be cut and sold.

From engineering: i put up many stuff that is needed while leveling engineering, people are lazy and generally check the AH first and then their craft window: volatile blasting trigger, handful of cobalt bolts, electric ether, ... those kind of mats that are needed have hardly competition and something with a crafting cost worth 2g can be flipped for 40g. I have 3 toons at the AH who basically only list crap.

You'd expect it to take a lot of work, but nothing less is true. I think I spend maybe half an hour each day to craft, buy/sell. And of course some time listing and relisting, but thats something I do while waiting for a BG. It's all about knowing your addons and setting it up once. I use auctionator for my buying lists, I use Trade Skill Master for crafting and auctioneer for snatch lists. The initial setup is a lot of work, but this can be a gradual process. If I enter a new market, I prefer to list things manually the first days until I have a good feel.

Currently I'm sitting at around 50k g profit per day. And that's for me only possible because of my multiboxing setup. And the more gold you have, the easier it gets. I can easily craft 100 belt buckles, epic LW leg enchants and let them sit in my bags while I don't have to restock for a while. I don't farm pve content nor do I craft epics. I just use the mats on the AH. The only thing I do is buying epic shoes on horde and trade them over to alliance, to have cash there. I play horde on an alliance dominated realm, so a lot of mats are cheaper there.

The advantage of boxing is that you can make the whole process way more efficient than a solo player can ever dream of. Prospecting 300 stacks of elementium ore on 2 toons, meanwhile milling herbs on 2 other toon while making bags on a 5th, it takes 1 keystroke and 5 toons do something. Not to mention I can way faster list/relist than solo toons.

Contrary to wotlk, I stay far away from alchemy. It's just not worth it for me, way too much work for me compared to the gain for the transmutes. I used to have 15 capped alchemists, but even for flasks and pots it's not longer worth the trouble. I only craft dps pots in bulk for my own use in raids. Any decent guild has now the cauldrons.

[Shania]

Zenga what addon is that your using in the screen shotz ?

[zenga]

MySales

[Sam DeathWalker]

My guys are to low level to get the twilight stuffs but I have one inscription guy and I make a TON of darkmoon cards.

I have 8 Alk transmutes a day also but my main income is from the cards. I have like 50 cards for sale right now and even only selling one or two a day its 15K-20K or so per day.

Its takes awhile prospecting the herbs but I just put a movie on my bigger monitor and keep pressing 1000 times lol.

I really should set it up to have 6 guys prospecting at the same time but I just been hit with RL badly.

I just spend 1/2 hour a day prospecting herbs then turn those into inks and the inks into decks and then the decks into cards.

Gonna check some of Zenga items and see if I can expand a bit, I have 525 JC and most every craft over 500. The rubies go for 50g on my server so a lot of stuffs is just selling to low compare to cards for me to get involved.

[Shodokan]

The best way to make gold is not to make gold. Gold falls into your lap in this expansion.

Ultimately it just comes down to how you use your professions and the AH if you don't want to farm your own mats. Same as always.

Making gold is heavily server dependent. If you want specifics on what to do give us information on what professions you have avail and what realm you play on. I love working numbers so i'll be glad to tell you what to buy/sell etc.

[zenga]

Example from what i just did:

Prices on gems are low, after a weekend of reposting and undercutting. There where 5 types of gems that were under 15g each, with 5-6 listed. It'd be dumb to undercut those. So I bought those out and reset them.
Even if you are not JC thats a good opportunity: sunday night is like the busiest day for gems, so monday morning there can be found quite some bargains on the AH.

Another thing you can pay attention to: scan AH half an hour before the reset, select auctions on duration, and make a bit on stuff that's going to expire in during the reset. Been able to get some sweet deals when i happen to be around.

[Zub]

Another thing you can pay attention to: scan AH half an hour before the reset, select auctions on duration, and make a bit on stuff that's going to expire in during the reset. Been able to get some sweet deals when i happen to be around.
Auction houses have been changed to game time in late 2006? so that time wouldn't tick for auctions during maintenance.
Have they changed that back?
Or are you saying that people don't typically check as soon as the servers are up and you have a god chance to get the items.

It used to be a fun sport to try and be the last one to bid in those fateful seconds before the servers went down.

[zenga]

zub, don't know not been around that long. All I can say is that when I list an auction for 12h at 02h00 when there is weekly reset at 03h00-11h00 am, and I check back late afternoon, the auction expired. Whereas I should still be up according to your logic.

On top of that would 've been extremely lucky with the bids I place that none is overbidding me when the servers are back up, for months. So yeah I do believe it just keeps counting during downtime.

[Zub]

zub, don't know not been around that long. All I can say is that when I list an auction for 12h at 02h00 when there is weekly reset at 03h00-11h00 am, and I check back late afternoon, the auction expired. Whereas I should still be up according to your logic.

On top of that would 've been extremely lucky with the bids I place that none is overbidding me when the servers are back up, for months. So yeah I do believe it just keeps counting during downtime.
I've ust read all the patch notes since the AH were added (patch 0.8) and also found this: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2267589384?page=1
Seems i must have dreamed it, i was sure they made that change long ago.
Sorry for the confusion.

[zenga]

Sorry for the confusion.

thats why i'm rich and u are poor!

just kidding :P

[JohnGabriel]

How much of that is profit though? I did some checking on my server using the list of your sales, and its a pretty slim profit.

As an example, Dragonscale leg armor has a market price of 690 gold while the mats needed have market price of 600. Granted that is a 15% profit and in the real world it would be great but in WoW it seems alot of work.

[burningforce]

How much of that is profit though? I did some checking on my server using the list of your sales, and its a pretty slim profit.

As an example, Dragonscale leg armor has a market price of 690 gold while the mats needed have market price of 600. Granted that is a 15% profit and in the real world it would be great but in WoW it seems alot of work.

it depends really, at least for me. If I have a whole lot of gold not tied up into other things, I might spend some of it for mats depending on the price. Most of the mats I have come from characters, farming, or undercutters in the auction house or people who make mistakes pricing the mats and putting them in the AH (i love that :P).

Remember that each server's economy is different, so his list might not work for your server. But I would spend some gold to make some gold as long as I see at least 5+% profit.
I think it was mentioned. but if you get on WoW on weekends, check the AH for undercutted and/or wrong prices that are lower then usual then snatch them up and sell during the week :)

Some people like selling during weekdays at prime time for your server, I however like doing that and selling late night on the weekdays. That is when I really jack up the prices of, lets say glyphs, mats, or any other high in demand items. Also look for other markets to dip your feet in, do not stick to one thing like enchanting. If you have many different items that are from different professions or other high demand stuff like low/high level gear, you will bring in more gold per hour.

Another thing is if you are lazy and do not want to put in the effort to learn the AH, addons, and or your servers economy, you will not make the amount of gold you want. It takes awhile to get setup but once setup everything will just fall into place :)

[Ualaa]

I always look at it like this...

If you don't have a whole lot of gold, then farming your own stuff...
Whether that is herbs, ore, skin or cloth to sell...
Or whether it is mats for a combine...

It all makes you a decent amount of gold for your time, and is basically pure profit.

Once you have a bit of capital to work with.
And you want to mass produce something.
You're likely better off buying the mats and making it... for a smaller profit per piece.
But doing 35 transactions at a profit of 50g each...
Then you are in farming everything yourself, and making one transaction in the same amount of time that makes your 300g.

[zenga]

How much of that is profit though? I did some checking on my server using the list of your sales, and its a pretty slim profit.

As an example, Dragonscale leg armor has a market price of 690 gold while the mats needed have market price of 600. Granted that is a 15% profit and in the real world it would be great but in WoW it seems alot of work.

That's the big question. I don't keep track of indvidual profit for each item, I just try to sell in large volumes. Blackened Dragonscale costs around 10g to me, so thats 200g in total, you need 50 savage leathers to get the pristine orb iirc. At 2g or less each, that means a total crafting cost of 300g. So basically everything above that is pure profit.

However about 'alot of work'.yeah that is true if you were to buy mats, do the whole crafting up savage leather, go to twilight highlands to swap hides for pristine orb, etc ... each time you gonna craft one.

1) But I have my mats buyer setup such that he buys out all savage leather under 2g, and all blackened dragonscale under 15g. That + many other mats. It's a push on the button, and then a few quick successive clicks to confirm buyout/bd.
2) Open mailbox, and my mats buyer auto mails the proper mats to my respective crafters. Takes a minute.
3) If I have these crafters open, TradeSkillMaster automatically tells me how many of the crafted items I still have in stock.
4) 1 push on the button and he converts all my savage leathers gathered over the course of 1-2 weeks into heavy, take portal to twilight highlands, buy pristine orbs, and craft the enchantments. Last time I crafted 40 of each. But meanwhile my other 4 toons are crafting stuff as well.
5) Done, open mailbox, and my addon automagically sends the crafted stuff to my seller.
6) Whevener I have my seller open, the stuff is just sitting in his bags, and they 'll be automatically listed on the AH, matching the rules I've set for buyout, fallback, min. treshhold, etc ..

Long story short: if you have to do this process each time for 1-2 of those enchants then it's poor time/gold ratio. If as a multiboxer you are able to craft enough stuff for a whole week, then the 2-3k I gain from this item alone (its more) then the 10 minutes are well spend. The more because my other toons do something similar meanwhile.

It's all about addons, knowing them and setting them up properly.

[Tin]

I still do 6 of the Argent Tournament daily quest - Every day that`s 101G and 9 Champion's Seals on every toon.
Everytime i have 40 Champion's Seals, I buy one of the Companion Pet and send it over to the other side. Sell for 3-4.5k Gold

and it only take me 15 min a groupe to do with us of the Argent Crusader's Tabard.

[coglistings]

How much of that is profit though? I did some checking on my server using the list of your sales, and its a pretty slim profit.

As an example, Dragonscale leg armor has a market price of 690 gold while the mats needed have market price of 600. Granted that is a 15% profit and in the real world it would be great but in WoW it seems alot of work.

while it takes more screen time, you can always offer to buy at 10-25% below ah lowest price spammed in trade channel. most people don't figuer out that if you actually bought everything you were going to use off the ah, you extinguish the low prices total quanities really fast and are left with moderately higher prices and a new higher price point.

also, if you don't care about how people get their mats, you can establish purchasing agreements that are sizeably below market norms as long as you consume say 10-30 stacks of product. but buyer beware.

[Shodokan]

while it takes more screen time, you can always offer to buy at 10-25% below ah lowest price spammed in trade channel. most people don't figuer out that if you actually bought everything you were going to use off the ah, you extinguish the low prices total quanities really fast and are left with moderately higher prices and a new higher price point.

also, if you don't care about how people get their mats, you can establish purchasing agreements that are sizeably below market norms as long as you consume say 10-30 stacks of product. but buyer beware.

Bulk buys are always the best way to go. AH prices are always inflated a bit over the true value of an item.

[zenga]

Just an addition to my previous posts: in the pasts days i've been buying all kinds of gems (both cut/uncut) & enchanting mats for cheap, as I expect 4.1 hitting us on next reset. New dungeons = alts gearing up to purple level = people need gems/enchants. That's the reason why I haven't been selling any cata cuts in the past days, just hoarding them up so I definitely have enough for patch day. Expecting to make a killing.