What can honestly beat a herbalism/miner in wintergrasp for G/Hr?

[Shodokan]

Wrong. If You don't know what You're talking about, don't talk about it.

If i don't know what i'm talking about don't talk about it? I'm minoring in economics. It is extremely server dependent on what you can do too as many servers do not work as a stream flow of items due to their population and can be influenced much more than others. Like in real life it would be comparing places such as new servers to places like illidan or blackrock which have been established from the beginning and have some of the highest population of all WoW servers. At least in the US.

Options:
1: The obvious buy low sell high
2: Cornering a market and pushing profits up slowly
3: Margin of profit through trade professions such as alchemy/BS/titansteel bars etc. AKA, if you can make more than 25% extra on top of the mats you buy + time it takes to make items, list them and sell them. Cutting low priced gems is in this area.
4: Hording item types and flooding the market at X point to rebuild it and corner it.
5: Knowing the flow of the economy to best take advantage of selling what you get. Such as normal raid days for your server. Example items sell highest on tuesdays, wednesdays and saturdays of Illidan so if you were to sell gems or leg armors or flasks these times are the best to do so obviously.
6: Being able to see trends and stocking up for the known future demand (see titanium ore ala patch 3.2)
7: Abusing trade chat to buy in bulk. Example: People on my server buy frost lotus in bulk @ 700g per stack, re-sell @ 850+, gems @ 120-130 in bulk to resell the cuts they have for 20-30g profit per.

There are no secrets to the AH nor economics. Someone who took basic economic classes can abuse the auction house and take full advantage of all that can be done with it. It works the same way as a commodities market in the real world. Knowing supply and demand of things is important and most people can't do that, this can't be done with addons from what i'm aware of either.

So next time you say someone doesn't know what they are talking about realize just because they didn't go into huge detail about it doesn't mean they are "wrong."

If you were to corner a market like i did in BC with cobra scales you can effectively double your profit per item you put up in some cases. I use this example because the price of cobra scales was brought up from 20g per to 50g per by myself over a period of 3 weeks and because there were few people supplying these items and the demand never changed the price stayed at that price set by myself. If you are saying that isn't the best way to use resources over time then you sir arn't thinking outside the box enough. The single best way i've found over my 4 years of playing (and i have hit gold cap playing by myself, not boxing) is to do this. It worked pre BC, it worked in BC and it can and will work now. Not all markets are worth cornering though.

Now all this is done by hand. If you were to play the auction house with every major profession and make the items that were in demand to re-sell for a higher profit margin (which is mostly what you can do other than buy low sell high) such as all the low cost gems and cutting them. You yourself said your main group can make 1800~ gold from dailies, so you are telling me YOU can get the materials to make that much money in 1 hour (including time invested in making said items and listing them) and that at any given time you could come out with that sort of profit? Even on the best economies at the best times this is ridiculous to expect. Maybe on your server there are higher gem profits or w/e you are making that are upwards to 80 gold per after tax from the AH but even then it would take 20-30 of X items being sold @ 80g profit per to make that 1800g. Now this can be done over time if you are buying X items when ever you can for the highest profit margin, but like for example gems...especially on a low pop server you will end up flooding the market. Most trade goods made this way are in demand but not to the point where you could steadily throughout a day of playing have it all sell.

There are few ways right now to make huge profit for little effort. Abusing the AH works, but like i said. Cornering the price on a commodity in game can easily make you as much if not more than any other AH strategy.

Doing heroics:

- Selling grays / whites / blues
- DE'ing greens
- Converting triumph emblems to epic gems
- AH'ing tradeskill mats

You'll average 1600-2200 gold per hour depending on your speed (assuming a team in the best emblem gear).

If you include the daily frost emblems and selling them for primordial saronite, you can add 850g per day (at current prices).

Of course, that's just as mind-numbingly boring as mining/herbalism, but at least your rates will be steady and you'll have zero competition.

This is server dependent as well. Yes it can make great money, but even at 3 heroics per hour and no wipes you are looking at about 250-300g per heroic (including des, selling blues whites grays etc) and then because of the average of 6 badges per heroic you are looking at 18 badges (if you were buying gems it would not even be enough emblems to buy 1 gem per character) theres also stone keeper shards which if you own wintergrasp the entire time about every 4 hours you get another gem per character from honor gained. Most servers crusader orbs are still in very decent demand and you can get 5 of those per hour, but if they are only 100g per like they are on my server it's not worth it at all. Like you said this to some in very boring, and although you have no competition you will still net about the same profit as the gathering professions, sometimes less sometimes more depending on the luck with the greens/blues that drop (some blues sell for 15g per, where on my server dream shards sell for 5g per). Also some greens DE for less than they are worth, sometimes more... so i guess in the end it evens out maybe a bit extra in the end, but from my standpoint the only huge profit you can make from DE at this point in time is abyss crystals, either by shattering and hoping you get 4+ GCE or selling them for w/e price they are at on your server (25 on mine)