f13.net

The jewelcrafting thread got me to thinking about the various money-making schemes outside of straight farming that people can use.  I am personally one of those peoples who LOVE playing the AH.

I would write a big long piece on how I've turned 100 gold into 700+ inventory, but nothing I say is relevant anymore because of BC.  DO NOT PLAY THE AH UNTIL BC IF YOU ARE ON A RELEASE SERVER.  Since everyone knows that green items there are as good as T1-T2 stuff now, the market for high end current purples is severely depressed.  I picked up a Cenarion belt for 65 weeks ago and was very fortunate to sell it for 80 today.  Allakhazam's AH tracking simply isn't reliable to gauge release server market conditions.  My only piece of high value inventory currently (Portals Deck) is a stinker that I will have to sell at a big loss because I didn't realize this when I bought it a couple months ago.

So I'll share my other consistent moneymaker, one I expect to still be relevant in the coming months:  vendor schematic auctioning.  I make 5-7g a day off selling obscure, relatively low-level schematics that drop from hard to reach vendors on the AH.  Every week I make 30-50g off of this.  In two months of consistently doing this I have over 200g.

I expect the market to completely change after BC, and I am a druid with enough money for my epic mount (and I fly myself! Whee!) so I don't mind revealing this.  Spend a few hours with your character logged in in Ravenholdt Manor (logging in every 10 min to buy the Gnomish Cloaking Device Schematic) and then spend a few hours logged in in the most hard to reach corner of the Hinterlands (buying Schematics for Mithril Mechanical Dragonlings).  Buy 10 of each and enjoy a steady income for the next week that you'll get even if you never play except to check the AH.  These two schematics, even on a release server, ALWAYS sell.  Gyrofreeze Ice Reflectors and things like THorium Widgets are more expensive initially and are hit and miss as most high level engineers know they exist in Org and Winterspring.  Stick with the Big Two. 

What do you guys do (if you wish to reveal?)

I clear Scarlet Monastery with my rogue (I DE the BOPs). I'd guess I make around 10g (sometimes more, sometimes less) per Cathedral clear.. which I can do before my poison timers are up.  I used to do Jadefire run with my rogue, but that fucking place is perma-camped.  All of the high level areas I like to run for cash are perma-camped.  Pisses me off at times.  Then I just go back to SM.

I'm usually pretty poor, since I can never commit to actually making money.  I've been away from the game too long to play the AH, and yah.. due to BC I'm scared to start.  Pre-quitting I made most of my cash prospecting the AH, but I never had a system.  I'd just look for underpriced stuff and then resell it.

1. Create a DE mule and park at mail box
2. Post mule money
3. Have mule bid on every level 46-50 armor item on the AH paying no more than 1.5g
4. Park mule at mail box
5. Come back next day and DE items.  Most DE into 1-4 dream dust (at 40-50s each), 1-2 greater nether (at 1.5-2g each), or Large brilliant shards (at 4g ea).  Sell components on AH (checking local component pricing).
6. Goto 3.

Generally a 20g float is sufficient to make 5-10g per day (depending on shards) in about 15 mins of dickering around with the AH.  Sometimes you'll need to bid so that only getting shards is profitable but this is still worth it on a short-term basis (one shard DE will make up for any losses).  You can also do the same with 51-55 and 59-59 items but your average margin is much narrower. 

I buy herbs on the AH and sell potions.  I buy thorium bars and dense stone on the AH and sell ammo (although some stinker has stolen my business).  I buy stacks of trade goods like wildvine or iron bars or whatever I can find cheap and resell them single-y.  I don't usually buy greens or blues or purples to resell, because that's just too volatile.  I buy cloth cheap and make crap that sells (bags, cindercloth cloaks, etc.).  I'm not above buying out a competitor and reselling his stuff, either (if he tries to undercut me too low - like Greater Fire Protection Potions for 8g - I'll buy and resell for 10g - might be the next day that I sell them but sell them I will).  I'll stock up on dreamfoil or whatever is the price is good and then resell it when the supply has fallen. 

I'll trade at the neutral AH also for recipes or pets or other things not available to one side or the other, and auction those.  I'll buy the fishing book and the cookbook and the bandage books to resell also.  Whatever I can move.

Whatever it is that other people are doing, I do something different.  The markets for each thing ebbs and flows; it depends upon who else is doing what I'm doing.  The key is to be flexible.

If people are competing in everything I can make, I go out and fish or farm humanoids or sell herbs or whatever.  (Helps to have a couple of 60s plus a 45).  Either the market for crafted consumables is good, or the market for raw materials is good.

I used to do two-man DM East runs. Me and a priest, I'm a warrior, so I'd mix up some Tank and DPS gear. We both had t1 and some t2, so it usually took 1hr. I also had the summon-thing for the extra boss there. I'd usually end up with about 2-5 Living Essences, and several dusts and Large Brills, also mine the veins in the cave, nettet me many an Arcane Crystal. If we were lucky, about 50g each in 1.5hrs. Plus always the chance of Foror's Dropping (or another class-book). And the rarespawn showing up.

We also started doing Strat Scarlet with a mage. Two hours, almost always an orb each (= 50-70g). About 2 shards each. 2hrs for about 80g is nice. Also had the t0.5 summon there, one extra shard ;)

DME can be quite hard with just two people, good gear and some paying attention is a requirement. The priest should be Holy specced, and the Warrior with Sweeping strikes. Strat Scarlet is just about focused fire and some good sheeping, mind controlling helps, if the warrior has some good tank gear.

I usually look for things no one is making. The last few months it was cenarian herb bags. I had one alt camped in darnassus that just made morrowgrain. I sold all the other herbs I created and mailed the morrowgrain to my tailor who churned out bags. Bought the purple lotus on the ah. A couple of weeks ago competition started dropping the price on bags so I stopped bothering. I noticed wicked leather headbands weren't in the ah and sell those occasionally. I also pick up all the cheap spider silk I can find and sell Robes of Arcana for the warlock quest.

My goal was to have 5k for the expansion and I'm about 500g away from it.

I find it's a lot more profitable to DE the Wicked Leather Headbands then sell them, unless they command an insane price on your AH. When I last played my Alliance characters, Wicked Leather Headbands wouldn't sell for a shade over materials on the AH (~2g) but the Enchanting mats would sell for a few times that.

At best, I made around 10g/ea., and rarely would I lose 50s/ea. That, and I could simply farm the Rugged Leather for the Headbands instead of trying to AH the mats for enchants. Overall, it served me rather well. If I had the drive to snag an Epic mount before I left, it wouldn't have been too tough.

I'm terrible at making money, always have been.  I tried to play the AH for a while, but I lost all my gains on a few bad investments and lost my stomach for it.  I have leveled a character to 60 and one to 50 and have yet to see a purple world drop.  I do have some decent value tied up in items (libram, chromatic scales, core leather etc) but that is essentially farming income, and some of the items I may yet need one day.

I do have a friend who always has loads of cash simply by taking gathering professions and mining/herbing/skinning and just AHing it as he goes.  It really does add up to real money.  That was another problem I had - I took blacksmithing on my first character and this latest one I have tailoring and enchanting, two major money sinks that I hope will turn around as I get to 300.

In the meantime, I think the value of buying stuff from remote vendors and reselling can't be underestimated.  Even the bandage books from Stromgarde (and wherever the Horde have them) sell for decent money vis a vis their vendor price because it's out of the way and people are lazy.

All I've been doing to make money is finishing the plethora of level 60 quests I never got done before I dinged 60. You get like 4-6G per quest usually and they're easy enough to do. Or I just do plain old instance runs and make sure I have room for every single trash drop I get. Level 55+ greys go for like 1.5-3.5G per. I've walked out of spur-of-the-moment Scholo/Strat/BRD/etc pugs with 30G+ in grey/white drops.

Its stupid, its so easy. Make an anything on the server you will play on, get it to lvl 5. Now you need enough coin to train enchanting. Mail all greens or betterr to it and let it auction the dusts and essences in full stacks. Laugh

This will change with Burning Crusade, I've heard.

Yeah you can only DE items you are big enough to wear i think.

Nope, my 22 Lock DE'd everything I shot at him.

I read that it was based on your Enchanter's skill, not level?

You can always disenchant something, even at 1 Enchanting. Hell, there's a video I remember of a guy dropping 300 Alchemy, picking up Enchanting, and sharding some of his stuff to get Nexus Crystals.

1) Raid.  BWL in particular.  Use itemrack to unequip your weapons before you die; saves a zillion.
2) Sell the garbage spider parts, bug gunk, runecloth that no one picks up during raids.  An entire run of AQ bug gunk usually at least covered my repairs.
3) Make strong virtual friendships with people who farm a lot.  When they burn out on the game, they give you their stuff!

I combined these three steps with a bit of speculation in the potion market during that obscene spate of DM farming, and came out a.. multiple thousandaire!

I just buy it from the Chinese. The Ebay cost of 1000 last time I bought some was about equivalent of 2 and a half hours salary. Since there's no fucking way I could make that much doing anything fun, it's well worth the cost. I just looked at the price right now and It's gone up quite a bit - as well as almost all the companies gone. There must have just been a bust or something. Ah well, If I want 1000 gold, it's still a good deal to throw down $180 bucks to get it.

Before that, I sold stacks of ore, cloth, and enchanting components to impatient AH retards.

Now maybe, but NOT in BC.  In burning crusade, disenchanting will be tied to your characters skill.  from what i understand, you will HAVE to be 300 Enchanting do DE any level 61 or higher item.  Not sure what the breakdown is between the other ranks, but probably related in some way to the minimum level required to train that rank.

Thank golly I was stupid enough to level my alts enchanting to 300.

If anyone wants to start playing the AH game, the Auctioneer mod (no link, I'm at work) will make your life an order of magnitude easier.

Well, i think the big question will be if you just need 300 enchanting, or if you will need to get the new rank to de higher level stuff.  If so, that will REALLY suck for all those level 35 skill 300 enchanters who need to grind up to 60 (or whatever the minimum level is) to get the new sklll rank.

Make it level 60. Hehe. My alt is level 60 too.

Me too, but I did it for fun, not profit.  Actually, that means for a loss with enchanting.  I really should start selling my enchanting materials...

Hrm, did I say fun?  I really meant for a chance at fun.  It turned out to be /meh.

My friend pointed out, and I have found it to be true, that you just build up enchanting mats over the course of adventuring, then once in a while sell the excess and cash in.  It's not super lucrative but it's a nice bonus 5-10g here and there.

If you put a massive reduction in the number of people who can DE items, isn't that going to really affect the viability of enchanting as a whole? Presumably someone's buying all those.

Er, How so ?

Because DE is part of Enchanting.

I think I know what she means, and yes it will have an impact, but the impact will be that high-end enchanting mats will go through the roof.

If you can't send stuff to your bank alt to disenchant (because he's level 1) then you have to either take enchanting on your main or sell it on the AH.  That means that high-level greens/blues will see additional supply, and the supply of high level enchanting mats will be constrained.  Hence, for those 300 enchanters, profit.

Right, right, right.  Totally see what you're saying now.

And Yes, that sounds about right.

I was thinking along the same lines, but the 300 enchanters in my guild all offered to de any BOEs someone needs done.  I still think it'll limit the number of mats out there, just because not every instance group will have a 300 enchanter, so more blues and bop greens will be going to the vendors instead of winding up as mats on the AH.

I think perhaps we'll see more of those greens and blues that normally get disenchanted by people with good equipment turning up on the AH at around the price of what they'd disenchant into too. As the owner of a very badly equipped 60 druid I think this is probably going to be a good thing for me.

As one of those 'good equipment' people, the blues you're speaking of already make it to the AH, because they typically sell for more than just a shard.  It's only BOP blues (boss drops) that get DE'd to turn up as mats.  With the enchanting change, they'll simply become vendor fodder in groups lacking an enchanter rather than ever making it into the economy in some state.

Back when I was playing I made money by buying undervalued greens that people didn't realize were important to 10-19 and 20-29 twinks. Things like Forest Leather Bracers and Sanguine Sandals, buyable for under 25sp can often be sold for 5g and 3g respectively as there are no better blues for those particular armor types and classes at those levels.

Is Crusader going to be worth having for an enchanter after BC?  I have the formula or whatever it's called but I'm trying to sell it.  Should I learn it on my tailor/priest instead?

Haven't played since July, but my druid's source of WoW gold was running a fishing/mining circuit in Azshara (Bay of Storms). Aquatic form, 300 mining, 420 fishing (300 skill, +20 pole +100 lure) = Essences of Water, Arcane Crystals.

Coincidentally, I had a habit of banking every gem I ever looted (apart from the Arcane Crystals), thinking they would be valuable someday. My bank is full of stacks of low-high level gems. If I go back, selling to aspiring jewelcrafters may be the best money I ever make.

I was looking for something interesting to do and I came up with an interesting challenge. Made a new alt and gave it 1g to play the AH. Set your goal for whatever you want to hit, mine was 100g. I had turned around the 1g into 5g by the end of the first day and 20g by the second day, I actually did a hell of a lot better than I expected. I didn't get to finish because other things distracted me by day 4, but the idea is solid.

I used auctioneer and I had a pretty hefty database going in Day 1, so I didn't go in blind. I did an auction scan with auctioneer from 1 to 5 times a day to look for amazing deals and that's how I built up on the first couple days with such limited funds. There's a ton of gold to be made from turning around very very small cap items, like mid level gems such as jade and citrine. It just takes patience.

For fury warriors Crusader is still the best enchant of the ones we've dug up (I think, let me browse through the list again)

EDIT : I think the new AP enchant is better than Crusader for 2h warriors, but for DW warriors crusader will still be one of the best, if not the best.

Plus you could go solofarm some crusader orbs and make a ton of money.

That's been a big question for me actually. Right now SM is the best soloable instance for all classes in terms of bang for the buck. What will move to the forefront in the expansion? Will it be Strat live? Dead? Scholo? UBRS? LBRS? Personally I'm thinking that two/three decently geared lvl 70 people would be able to stomp UBRS into the ground for fast cash if they wanted.

I theorize if you had the right two or three level 70s you could probably stomp most of MC, Razorgore (Vaelstraz would still own that small a group), and if you had enough gear a couple of naxx bosses pretty easily.

I've theorycrafted a 2-3man team that could kill Loatheb.  All it requires is a lot of HP, and three offspecs :p

I think you're getting carried away.

Maybe.  But Improved Leader of the Pack and the new stamina budget is going to make quick work of many of the older dungeons.

Quick work?

3 people killing any MC boss would take fucking forever, unless their DPS has gone up x 10 upon reaching 70.

I think it's a figurative term meaning it wouldn't be difficult.

I was playing off of that fact, implying that it simply wouldn't be feasable or desirable due tp how long it would take, and being facetious at the same time.  I'm clever that way.

After I saw this post I started doing this with my enchanter alt. Over the weekend I probably made about 30g doing just what was listed above. A few times I would have to re-list a dust auction that wouldn't sell but overall this is a great and easy way to make some cash. I've tried playing the auctioneer game a few times but I always get bored and end up making just a little money or hardly none at all.

No way.

Maybe MC with 5. But it would be SLLLLOOOWW going. I think minimum it would take would be 10 people to do Razor+

Agreed. With Razor you'd have one person controlling him and 1-2 people holding off or kiting that entire army with no mistakes or deaths?  No way.

Razor is way to chaotic. It's more about control then pure dps. I'd say; 1 controller, two warriors kiting dragons, two dps in each corner and some healers. Domo and Raggy's sons are the only control-fights in MC, Garr to some extent. One warrior can easilly tank all eight adds at 70, I've tanked six, and at Domo, a warrior tanking all adds should be pretty easy. Only problem being that you NEED two tanks for Domo himself. Unless you like him raping healers, or some good positioning, so he runs past a warrior on his way to the healer camp.

Hmmm... WoW at 70 sounds interesting  :-D :-D

We use one Warrior on Domo, and two hunters that shoot distracting shot to 'fish' him back when he de-aggros the tank.  Works out very well.   (Can be done with one hunter. The second's backup in case the healer or the hunter spaces and the first hunter dies)

That's more the point.. obviously there would be no practical point to trying to do MC/BWL with that few people except as a challenge, like the 10-man Onyxia that EJ did a while ago. Hell, I'd be up for such crazy shenanigans.

10 man Onyxia would actually be EASY under current end game standards (our guild regularly runs 15-20 man onys now, just for the bags and hopes of getting a shard of the scale.

word has it that there was actually a 3 man onyxia done recently (video was supposed to be circling around on youtube, and quite frankly, i wouldnt doubt it would be possible)

Honestly for Razor I think it might be possible with 5-6.  One person controlling, a couple people pulling and a warlock popping out seed of corruptions every two seconds (every 1.5 if its affected by instant corruption like I think it is).  Essentially if you did it right you could force all the mobs to the center with dots and have seed of corruption AOE spam constantly.

Also one thing to consider, these are level 63 mobs.  If they have elemental attacks you will have a 2/3rds resist rate against them.  If they have melee attacks you will have as much defense as a low to medium end tank by virtue of level alone.  Just make sure you have some party members getting stuff to move to the center before they attack the orb controller and you're set.

As for Loatheb the fact that Improved Leader of the Pack scales according to HP is what makes the encounter trivial with the right gear.  When he's 'enraged' his impending doom does 160 dps to all people in the raid.  To outheal that with Leader of the Pack alone you would need to have 16,000hp.  Unlikely, however 10,000 is pretty likely (we are talking raid buffed here).  Add in the new ranks of bandages and while it might take a long time and a lot of bandages a small group Loatheb kill would be possible. 

Keep in mind when I talk about possible I mean on the same scale that the Emperor in BRD is currently soloable.  Not really amzing return for the time / money invested but possible and maybe worth it for a couple key drops.

I dunno, I just usually take my 60 warrior and go mass kill stuff in the 40's.  Right now I'm enjoying making gold by slaughtering the level ~42 elite trolls just outside of ZF in Tanaris... I can probably pull in 10+ gold per hour doing that.  Not great, but not awful.

There's any number of ways to make money. Essentially, though, they're all simply more grinding.

If you like risk and yet another ingame "game" activity, playing the AH is a good way. I've made fairly respectable gold doing this via Auctioneer. However, it's not really my cup of tea.

What I normally do is use faction grinding mobs to make cash. At least I'm doing more than one thing. Twilight Cultists in Silithus are great for cash and Cenarion Circle rep (even better for cash if you sell the texts). Also, the vestments you collect can summon templars that can be soloed for some decent drops to sell on AH or disenchant (assuming you have this level of equipment...or are a warlock). Timbermaw firbolg are another great money maker. The rep isn't all that unless you're an enchanter, but the money is good and there's a goodly number of herbalism and mining nodes near their hangouts. Then there's Argent Dawn rep. The cauldron vales in EPL are another good spot to make cash grinding for invader stones. Again, you'll need to be fairly buff to work here nonstop, but you can make a few bucks. Also, the mobs drop parts for the AD quest turnins (both rare and epic). Any of these will net you 15 to 20 gold an hour. You can make that doing SM instances, but the rep gained in these schemes help with endgame advancement, not just bank advancement.

I get enough gold to cover my costs just playing normally. I've never felt the need to grind for gold.

Dream Dust doesn't sell for much on Thrall, so I DE the higher level armors, then turn it into enchanted Thorium. Keep a few piles of 5 on the AH, and the money seems to continually roll in. Plus all the other occasional DE goodies, lesser eternal for enchanted leather for instance. Good for a fairly consistent 10g a day for 20 minutes of auction scanning.

Now if only I hadn't started a female NE hunter as a joke, then discovered how much fun it is to play.

That Auctioneer mod works really well. I've been using it for about a week now with my alliance guy who's all alone and can't be twinked and he almost has enough for his mount. I've been trying to do the same with my horde guy but it's much harder because the horde side AH on Whisperwind is less than half as active as the alliance side. I'm just not seeing those wonderful bid 1 silver for something worth 1 gold deals there at all.

UPDATE:

For miners, just wanted to let you know that there is one absolutely insane spot in the game for rich thorium veins- the Ashi Hive adjacent to Cenarion Hold.  If all the veins are spawned, there are 5-7 in a VERY small area.  Granted, most of them are underground, but if you are a stealther (like me) most are in spots that you can mine without engaging in combat (and for the ones that are, the patrols in the Hive are nonaggressive and you should be able to take one 59-60 elite- I have a Gob Rocket Helmet too for my druid).  You can almost just do a mining patrol of Ashi itself (not quite, check out Zora and Regal hives- usually 1-3 veins somewhere underground).  And there are usually small veins a bit inland from the outer edges of the hives.  In three hours today I had over 70 thorium and four arcane crystals.  Thorium bars don't seem to sell that well but I am amassing the ore to rape the jewelcrafting prospectors.   This is a hunting area that NOBODY seems to farm- I guess the dozens of 60 elites between the non-stealthers and the veins deep underground are discouraging to Mr. Pally Who Rides Around Winterspring For 16 Hours Straight Ganking All the Ore.   :-P

Here's something I really don't understand.  Stacks of deviate delights selling for under 2g/stack.  And I mean stacks, as in 15-20.  Clearly a fishing bot.  But who is buying 20 stacks a few times a week of deviates? 

Also the popular stonescale eels selling for 7-9g/stack.  Clearly bots too, because of the quantities.

So I understand (although don't approve of) someone botting stonescales because of the cost but deviates?

hehe, i love ashi.  Im not a stealther (my miner is a shaman X.X) but i have developed a neat little tactic for gettign those annoying to reach ores.

Strip naked, train into hive and die near vein.
Run back, rez in non aggro spot, re equip gear.
kill anything too close to vein
mine, strip naked, train out

Works wonders for ashi, since most of the veins are short trips to the surface, and the graveyard is really close by.

Feign Death is <3 for ore gankage.  I haven't tried silithus on my server just because it's so crowded all the time.  Since two of you are recommending it, though, I'll give it a shot.


Some people love the ninja/ pirate effect of the cooked Deviate.  It always sells pretty decently on my server, usually about 5-7g for a stack of 20 cooked fish.  Someone's figured that out on your server.  The price for the cooked fish is so damned high because 1) few people outside of hunters take cooking to 300 and 2) fewer still bother with the deviate recipie, because it's such a rare drop in the Barrens.  The recipie alone goes for 20+g on Alleria.

Yep, alot of my undead guildies used the Deviate fish, every raid, after every wipe. The UD models don't really look all that good. I went for the full Bloodsail Pirate outfit, looks sexy on Tauren ;)

A friend of mine used to fish for 50g+ every two days. Stonescale Eel's, went for about 20g a stack, and Essences of Water, went for about 10g per piece. 2-3hrs of fishing, pretty profitable, if boring. But there aren't alot of people doing it, so competition isn't really too high. I made loads of gathering herbs during off-hours. Rounds in Azshara, EPL, Felwood and Winterspring brought in alot of Gromsblood and WoW's equalent of cocaine; Dreamfoil. Dreamfoil sells for 15g-25g per stack, and you can easilly get a stack or two during a lucky run.

Couple it with Alchemy and you can make Mongoose potions, these sell fast, for some good money. I also made Greater Shadow Protection Potions, and they sold surprisingly well. Hunters doing their epic quests need a couple of those. The  herbs needed can be a bit of a pain, but a couple of rounds around Swamp of Sorrows gets you some easy Fadeleaf, Raven Hill in Duskwood is full of Grave Moss (and lowbies to gank and grief :D). Flask of Supreme Power also brought in some nice cash, but you need to advertise it a bit. Once you get some "loyal" customers, they are an easy sell, so stock herbs and sell them on demand.

Alchemy and Herbalism, it did wonders for me.

Greater Shadow Protection Potion's price is based mostly on how advanced the raiding is on your server.

Loatheb, the last encounter in one of the harder wings of Naxxrammas needs 80 per attempt.

Needless to say on a server where there are mutiple guilds attempting / farming Loatheb the price can skyrocket.  I sold some for around 25-30g a stack.

Just Alch and Herb here as well.

Since release to this day, the trusty Healing potion has never failed me as a money maker :) But pretty much everything I can make thats over say... level 10 potion wise will sell. Even the lowly minor agility pot will make me money.

If I spend the time to gather herbs, I can make 50-100g per session. Talking roughly 1-3 hours, depending how determined I am (usually not very). I made my epic mount 800g in roughly a week, I had my normal mount money by level 35 and I currently am able generate cash more or less at will.


It Probably helps that I am alliance on a old, high pop, release server... no shortage of customers.

Ah ye, the good old Healing pot.

The herbs, Silversage and Sansam aren't really used for alot of other potions. And people buy them like crazy.

I used to sell deviate delight for very cheap when I played my hordling, all fished by hand.  We were a fairly new server at the time, however I was the one determining the market for a few months until I switched sides to play with a friend.  If I ever get the recipe for my druid (I am not trying very hard) I imagine I will be doing a lot of fishing again, still undercutting, and making even better coin.

People love deviates though.  Give them a cheap supply and they go crazy.  It is a niche market, but one a couple of bots can sustain especially with the deposit being two orders of magnitude less than the sell price.

I understand the attraction of deviates.  What I don't understand is botfishing deviates when they are selling for 1g88s/stack.

Dreamfoil on my server typically goes for 12-18g (mostly around 14g) per stack.  There's a lot more herbs/alchemists lately, so the potion prices have dropped significantly.  The herbs/potion market is not terribly good anymore.  I don't know what's changed.

Well...
* People see potions & herbs for sale at high prices on the AH.
* People realise that there's money to be made from herb/alch.
* People flood the AH with potions, leading to a glut (as demand remains fairly constant).
* Prices drop (supply & demand, etc).

Next step:
* People complain about all the newcomers 'ruining' alchemy and drop it, taking up the Next Big Thing (whatever that happens to be - my own guess would be miner/whatever).

Pretty much the same thing happened to Enchanting not long after launch.

I find enchanting prices vary wildly over the course of a single week, for both chants and mats. Sunday night / Monday morning hits a peak for both, and the higher level essences/shards sell for over double Thursday's low price. Tried playing the mat market this week with 100g, turned it into 300g.

I do note that I'm playing less of the regular game, instead spending my hour or so of play in the AH/bank.

Not a coincidence that Sat/ Sunday are the biggest 'raid days' so Sunday/ Monday are when folks are looking for mats to put enchants on their upgrades.   You see the something similar with Potions, where Fri/ Sat are the peak price days.  15g for 5 Greater Fire Prot on Saturday night, but I picked up a stack for 10g last night.

On my server, potion prices are lowest on Friday night and Saturday night.  The weekend WoWers are playing more, but the elite raiders get their stuff done Wednesday-Thursday for some reason (maybe they have social lives or something).

I have been selling potions for a long time.  I sell them for the same price.  If the mats get too expensive, I don't buy them and don't make potions, because then people feel ripped off and I'm stuck with a bunch of expensive potions, and the price will come back down in short order.  Greater fire/nature/frost I sell a stack for 10g.  (Arcanes 8-9/stack).  If other people want to sell theirs for 8, I'll buy them for resale.  If others want to sell them for 15, they can buy mine for resale, I don't care.

Same for the elites on my server.  Well, they raid every night except Tues and Sat, actually.  However, we have a much, much larger pool of 'casual' raiding guilds & alliances who only go on Sat & Sundays.  Last I heard there's about 40 guilds in various stages of Molten Core, and 26 Chromagus+ BWL Guilds.  Alleria Progression Linkage (http://www.guildprogression.com/azeroth/guild/guildchart.cfm?server=5) My own guild doesn't even rate mention on the list because we're only up to learning Chromag.  (5% and a server lag spike, whee! Hooray for the "Hourglass Sand" cockblock.)

I've been selling Thorium ammo lately, when I can buy a stack of thorium bars for 2g and a stack of dense stone for 1g.  I can make 10 stacks, sell them at 60 silver per stack (a reasonable price), which comes out to 6g total, or a 3g profit, which is certainly a decent profit.

Considering that I go through 5-6 stacks per play session, if not more, it's a high-use consumable.

Other people sell stacks for 1gold each.  I can't afford that on something that I use a bunch of every day - who can?  So I dropped herbing and picked up engineering.  When I can find the mats on the AH to make cheap ammo, I do, and make and sell some.  (Again, if other people want to buy my stuff for resale, I don't care).

This is the whacked part.  I put up a stack of Thorium Bullets on the auction house.  There's a 12 silver deposit for the 24 hr option on an item I'm selling for 60silver - which I have to eat if it doesn't sell.

Now, I can put up a stack of Greater Fire Protection potions for 10gold buyout and the deposit is only 22 silver.

I really hope Blizzard is changing ammo sales for BC, because this is just screwy.

Oh, a popular scam seems to be that some asshole will put up 1 bullet or 1 arrow for the price of a stack.  Wish Blizzard would disallow fewer than a full stack on ammo sales.  It's bad for business when people get scammed like that.

Are you sure about that?  I don't watch it closely, but I used to think you had to eat the deposit if it didn't sell, then someone convinced me that wasn't the case.  I have been laboring under the impression that you get that money back if it doesn't sell.

You get the deposit back if the item sells, you lose it if it doesn't and is shipped back to you.

I'm all but certain you don't get the money back. It tells you when you cancel an auction that you'll eat the deposit, and you just get the item back. In the same way, when an auction expires, you just get the item back.

So at no point are you getting the deposit money out of the mailbox, and it's not magically reappearing on my character either :P.

Check the email that you get when something sells in an auction. The deposit money is added back in to the total that you get. You only lose your deposit if the auction expires or is cancelled.

The AH still takes a 10% cut or so, and the Neutral AH's take a 25% cut.

The regular auction house cut is 5% and the neutral AH cut is 15%.

The deposits are hugely different also, between the regular AH and neutral AH. 

This is a good reference page for the formulas:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Auction_House (http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Auction_House)

The answer to our Disenchanting questions on Page 1, From the lastest test client patch notes:

Skill level now determines what items you can disenchant.
Skill 1= Level 1-20
Skill 25= Level 20-25
Skill 50= Level 25-30
Skill 75= Level 30-35
Skill 100= Level 35-40
Skill 125= Level 40-45
Skill 150= Level 45-50
Skill 175= Level 50-55
Skill 200= Level 55-60
Skill 225= Level 60-65

No word on special restrictions regarding epics or whatnot.  So people with level 1 enchanting alts, are out of luck disenthanting anything level 26 or higher.  But your level 35 skill 300 enchanter should still be viable to de anything that drops in Burning Crusade (time to change one of my lvl 35 alts professions)

Good.  That was always a fuckstick way to do things.

I always ran a casino within the guild... Random 100 - 1-59 I win, 60-99 they win, 100 they win double. Was very lucrative during the wait between Nef attempts! :)

Umm...yeah with those odds it would be.

People played?

People beggar belief.

I say the same thing about the National Lottery and Vegas....

That poker mod still available?  It was pretty popular for a while.  I imagine that's a good way to make cash.

One of my guildies is constantly making bets.  Pretty sure that's his main source of income in game.

Holy crap that's a lot of guilds. There's a total of 19 guilds that have killed anything on my server, 14 have killed Ragnaros, 7 have killled Nefarian, 3 have killed C'Thun (two are transfer guilds).

Well, we've got more than that. We (http://www.wowwiki.com/Server:Icecrown) have killed:

Kel'Thuzad: 1 (1 Alliance : 0 Horde)
C'Thun: 4 (3 Alliance : 1 Horde)
Nefarian: 28 (19 Alliance : 9 Horde)
Ragnaros: 46 (34 Alliance : 12 Horde)
TOTAL: 52 (38 Alliance : 14 Horde)

Oh, top guild on our server killed kel last night. Nice. My guild's one of the c'thun ones, but I haven't logged on in 2-3 weeks -- I'm waiting for expansion.

That site wasn't close to representative of ER server progression. I guess it takes the guilds actively updating things. There's a post in the forums that is better for ER:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=32104561&sid=1

The sad part is, when you actually look at those numbers, It is a very accurate indication of exactly how much more effective alliance is at PvE encounters simply by dint of being alliance.

It's not going to get fixed in the X-pac either, unfortunatly.  Paladins are one part of it, but Fear Ward really DOES make some encounters trivial.  It's ridiculous the ease with which you can take down fearing bosses using it and just one priest who can cast it.  So of course, they gave it to Draeni as well becuase having more than one makes things harder.  :-P

Or maybe it's just a reflection of the population imbalance on that server.

A 2.7:1 Alliance to Horde Guild Instance Clears Ratio isn't too bad when you're looking at a 2.4:1 Alliance to Horde 60s Ratio (http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=40&minlevel=60&maxlevel=60).

I'd compare it to my current server, but the Alliance won't use Census+ :P.

Or perhaps they go hand in hand. Perhaps there's a significant number of people who choose Alliance because it is easier. You're not denying that 'Alliance is easy mode' are you?

I love hearing these sorts of things.  Actually, my favourite is when people say things like "The Horde just attracts people who are more skilled at PvP", but then turn around and say "The Alliance is just overpowered when it comes to PvE".  That same amusing line of thinking happens in reverse: "Horde are overpowered and have better abilities in PvP" as opposed to "The Horde side just attracts people who are bad at doing Raids."

Everyone wants to take credit for that which their side is "good" at because of personal skill, but if they're "bad" at it, it's just because the other side has "easy mode".

If that was the case you would expect an even greater disparity between Alliance and Horde in terms of raid accomplishments and I don't see that on bhodi's server. In other words the ratio of Alliance vs Horde raid accomplishments on his server is the same as the population ratio: roughly 2.5:1 to 3:1.

I only dabbled with Horde during Open Beta -- all my characters upon release were Alliance -- and I never raided so I couldn't say personally which side should be better for raid encounters though I do hear people say that Pallys >> Shamans in raids so there's presumably that advantage but apparently that advantage is not so great that the Horde is unable to complete the same raids.

Its basically a numbers game. If your side has 2-3 times the other side, your pool of players will have more skilled raiders. Maybe by only 1.5 to 1 but thats a different argument.

Alliance PvE is easier than Horde, there is no doubt about it. Eventually, once the BE Pallys catch up gearwise to some of the current alliance ones, things will change slightly. But for now there is no denying that:

Blessings > Totems
Lay on Hands is better than having an Ankh.
Paladins can Spec
Fear Ward beats WotF by a mile.

In general, I find the race specific abilities to be fairly even in PVP, with a slight horde advantage with Will and Tauren warstomp.

Horde has it easier in pvp. (wotf >>> fear ward in pvp, etc)
Alliance has it easier in pve. (fear ward >>> wotf in pve, paladins, etc)

This isn't really a new revelation, and the new racials seem to reaffirm this. (alliance get a free scaling slow-cast dispellable HOT, horde get an aoe silence that can give rogues burst energy, it's half a renataki's basically)


-- Z.

WoW devs themselves publicly stated, both at Blizzcon and on their forums, that Alliance has a PvE advantage, with Paladins > Shamans for raids.

If you still can't/won't believe/understand that after 2 years, then you just might be retarded.

The biggest difference is the difficulty in mastering new encounters; with Salvation, Kings, and Infinite Healers (that generate almost no healing agro), Alliance has a distinct advantage.

...

Back on topic; does/did anyone camp the Twilights in Silithus for Texts?  Probably slowing down a bit now, but counting turning Crests into Signets and selling those on the AH as well, I was running at about 100g/hour farming down there with my brother's T2 Rogue.

But now I'm fairly sure only the clueless would...  how 'bout buying some texts off me, Val?

I still farm the twilight camps with my rogue [have him parked there actually]... though not being a raider, I only have full tier0.5. :P

The texts still sell, but prices are way down. On my server I can only sell'm for about 30-40s a pop, if that. But the money/vendortrash/runecloth drops are still respectable.. and I send the twilight sets to my lock main to turn into crests.


-- Z.

I don't recall any such dev statement, do you have a quote? I have to say that given that assumption it's quite odd that the Horde should be the first to clear MC, AQ40 and Naxx. In China as well, where the pop imbalance is reputedly heavily on the horde side, horde has been getting the raiding firsts there as well. Maybe they are too retarded to realize they are playing hardmode? Heh.

Alliance has a minor pve advantage in a very select, few fights. Horde also has a minor pve advantage in a very select, few fights. Unfortunately, alliance has more 'advantage' fights than horde. Generally, horde centers around poison cleansing or slowing totems, for the aoe, and alliance has the advantage of targeted dispells and "most importantly" fear ward. Also, when they raised blessings from 5 to 15 minutes, they did not give any corresponding ease of use to shamans. They are still totems, totems, totems.

It was Tseric or Eyonix, iirc, that made the post in the general forum of the old boards; something along the line of 'the developers are aware of the heightened difficulty for Horde raiding; perhaps this will be addressed with the expansion, /wink /wink' (this was just prior to the Draenai Shaman/BE Paladin announcement).

Also, at least one blog/msg board mentioned a conversation with some of the devs during Blizzcon (I'm fairly certain said page/blog was linked to from this forum); the main two points I recall being discussed were moving Paladins back to the frontlines, and the Pally Advantage w/raiding; they hinted they were working on fixes for both, to be implemented ASAP (fucking liars).

As hunting for said links to 'prove' it to you appeals to me about as much as looking for and linking a Newton wiki page to 'prove' to you that gravity exists... I suggest that you go look for them yourselves (I guarantee you they're archived/remembered somewhere; perhaps try on the current WoW forums).

Its a numbers game... if you have 40 horde guilds trying Naxx and 15 alliance, chances are that one of the horde guilds will do it first. Especially since they have a larger playerbase to choose the most 'ubar' guys.

Cleanse, blessings, bubbles...comeon...Blessing of Protection is pretty big. A get outta jail free bubble... I hope you arent arguing the PvE imbalance. Its not massive , but its there.

I would argue that back in the day of MC/BWL being cutting edge, it WAS a massive advantage in all those tank-and-spank fights, and insufficient-dispelling-will-wipe-you fights like Geddon and Chromie.  BoS for Vaelstrasz?  Infinite Healing for Broodlord/Drakes?

And any Horde guild that's farming Nefarion will tell you how much harder learning that fight is without Fearward and Blessings (and the potential wipe that is the Shaman Call, as opposed to the pattycake Pally Call).

Back on the main topic:

GO OUT AND FARM ORE NOW!   Seriously.  Even low-level shit like copper will have you rolling in cash come jewelcrafting.  I copied the character I've been hording ore & gems on over to the beta so I could try out jewelcrafting and found I was short some Silver bars and Shadowgems for the leveling process.

Copper ore, from which you can prospect shadow gems, was selling for about 5g a stack of 10. Silver Bars were anywhere from 18g-50g for 20, and silver's VERY MUCH a required part of the leveling process if you're trying to reduce the amount of mats you're using.

Truesilver bars were about 55g for 20 at the lowest.  I didn't look up Thorium or Mithril, but at a rate of consumption of 5 ore per prospecting attempt, they're going to be pricey as people try to get the rare gems like Opals, Emeralds and Diamonds.

I know what I'm going to be farming for the next few months.

Well, since Nef how many fear ward fights have there been? Gluth, and horde has its own advantages in that fight.

Oh, I'm not denying that alliance still has a slight advantage in aggro control and mana regen and warrior hp, but at the top levels such things get lost in the noise of massive consumables/buffage. The end results speak for themselves, US horde failures don't reflect what is going on in the rest of the world and can almost certainly be laid at the feet of heavy pop imbalances rather than truly significant PvE capability imbalances. Either that or Nihilium is just that much better than everyone else, and the Stars people did KT first on their horde instead of their alliance division because the Chinese are all just that hardcore.

Way to miss the point.  Did I say that there WASN'T an advantage in PvE for alliance?  No.  What I was pointing out was that often the same people who whine about the game being broken in an aspect that makes them underachievers are quick to cite personal skill when it comes to those aspects of the game where they achieve "more".  In essence, I'm agreeing with you in a backhanded way. 

But hey, continue to make personal attacks, I'm sure it makes your argument more correct, after all.

Actually, your original comment read like a backhanded personal attack. But it didn't surprise me.

Really?  What kind of personal attack would it be?  I'm puzzled. 

That was either an implication that I'm 'bad' at something, or you're just really crap at stringing together words.

But I never said YOU said that: 
Basically, your original claim reminded me of those people who claim the same sort of things AND also claim "superior skill" when it comes to things that they do well at in the game.

I know I've never ran into a bad undead healer.

Ok, why do you suppose that is?  Is it because your sample size is small?  Because they have some sort of trait that makes them better?  Or perhaps because "People who are better at playing healers choose undead healers!"?

There are seriously people who with one breath will claim that the reason their side wins BG's all the time is because skilled players choose their side, and in the next say the reason they can't complete an instance is because of game imbalances.

I just find that sort of rationalization amusing, that's all.

So I'm guessing it's B, then? I'm still confused... It's either very B, or you just being an ass with a splash of B.

When someone makes a comment and you liken people that make those comments to "bad" players you liken them to a "bad" player. it's pretty straightforwrd.

Just to change the topic even more off that of money:

I suggest that people who are good at PvP are good at PvE, but that the reverse is not true.

I also suggest that with good players the PvE faction imbalances are marginal, but with average players they are more notable. Hence the difference in Ally progression in terms of numbers, but not in respect to time.

Back on topic:

Beta Realm Economy is completely FUCKED for a number of reasons, I don't see what th prices of ore on there has to do with anything at all.

Thorium ore is selling for 1-1.5g for 10 on my server ATM.

The best money in the game is ALWAYS avaliable to those who are the higest level. I suggest you spend your time working a plan to grind up fast then farm if you really want to make cash in TBC and worry less about grinding away pointlessly in the current game.

Are you sure?  They're dead, aren't they?

Having raided on both Horde (Priest) and Alliance (Druid) on PvP servers, the group design alone makes healing a lot harder on Horde. On top of that, the lack of Blessing of Wisdom (we almost never had Kings in the guild) is kinda noticeable.

It may just be that a) I'm not an officer in the guild I raid with on Horde, and b) we don't really have "healing assignments" like I did on Alliance. I basically just took care of my group/tank and threw HoTs around where needed. Overhealing + lack of Pally buffs = bad. Still, Mana Spring and Tide are still pretty nice, and melee DPS seems godly compared to my Alliance raids (again, may just be the mass of DPS Warriors the Horde guild has versus the mass of Mages in the Alliance one).

Yeah, Windfury totems are money (it can proc an extra attack off anything -- even stuff like revenge or hamstring, which led to the phrase "spamstring" referring to DPS warriors spamming hamstring between bt/ww cooldowns to maximize procs). I remember Blizz trying to nerf it to not affect specials, and the massive outcry of horde raiders made them change it back. It doesn't quite make up for BoSalvation, but it gives tanks a nice aggro boost, and makes dps warriors wtfbbqpwn. There ARE some other horde advantages (poison cleansing totems especially at viscidus, earthbind totems for oldschool razorgore, earth shocks at c'thun, etc), but I agree that pallies and fear ward are generally more useful. Though fearward is kind of overrated imo, the #1 alliance guild on my server got their server-first Mag, Ony and Nef kills with 0 dwarf priests. :P

From what I've heard from my horde friends on IRC, it's not even BoWisdom that's the problem, it's Judgement of Wisdom, which basically allows alliance hunters to DPS recklessly compared to horde counterparts who have to FD/drink and/or chug mana pots like crazy. Plus it allows priests who are regenning to wand the boss for even more mana.


Obligatory ontopic: I second the motion about farming massive amounts of raw ore. There was that Jewelcrafting guide posted a while back, and most of that stuff is easily obtainable now -- better do it before the uberguilds hog the nodes to powerlevel their jewelcrafting mules. I personally have a mule character with all backpacks/bank slots full of ores, stones, and shaman twink gear (3 BOE elements pieces, etc).

Also, if anyone is STILL farming for a Tidal Charm, don't -- if you're an engineer, you'll get better trinkets in BC, both gnome (polymorph.. kinda) and goblin (tidal charm with a longer stun, shorter cooldown, does damage and has +40 stamina on it).


-- Z.

That doesn't even work slightly well - its a wipe strategy that sometimes goes wrong and results in a boss kill rather than the other way round. Release and run back.

However, what you say about windfury is entirely true, but because shaman have buffs for many classes, and their buffs are only useful when they are in the same 5 man grouping, horde raids are full of people demanding to be in this group or that, or that their shaman provides gift of air, windfury, gift of earth, mana tide etc. Only the other week, I watched a warrior leave a raid in a huff after he wasn't given his windfury shaman. That paladins can buff people not joined to the hip with them is another Alliance raiding advantage that only they enjoy at present. And as a result, its much easier for an Alliance raid to run light on paladins than it is for a Horde raid to run light on shaman.

Yeah, by 'oldschool' I meant when BWL was released (weird aggro issues if you try it now, but I remember everyone posting how it made Razorgore ez for horde... then again, DIing Razorgore was even worse, though that is a sploit). It's not really applicable to the present, but there are some places where earthbind totems are good (ZG-panther, AQ20-rajaxx, etcetera). Poison cleansing totems are also very good.

The raidwide pally buff <-> partywide shaman totem difference IS mostly the cause of the raiding disparity (after greater blessings were added to the game, that is).. and it's the one Blizzard couldn't solve, thus they cut the gordian knot by adding pallies to the horde and shaman to the alliance.


-- Z.

Or perhaps it's C, a difficulty with reading?  I agree that it's pretty straightforward, if you bother to read the post I made, I was pretty clear about the type of argument that I find amusing.

Now unless you are suggesting that HE said that A) he was making the argument that the faction he was a member of was good at what they tend to succeed at because that faction attracts more skilled players AND B) the other faction just has an unfair game advantage to be good at what they succeed at, then what I said has nothing to do with his claim, other than the fact that HIS statement _reminded_ me of such claims.

Don't even get me started on the bitching about groups on horde. I'm responsible for doing groups in my guild and it can be quite a pain. I use a mod that remembers groups and does organization and then I tweak it for the current setup and all that. I still constantly get whispers "switch me and this other rogue, he's swords and I'm daggers and I want the other totem". It's like a steady stream of this all night long and it can get old. Definitely envious of the fuckall that alliance can do on setting up groups, it's like a science for horde if the raid leaders are actually trying to maximize their raid.

So true, as raid and guild leader I just began ignoring some people. I still cringe watching some of the setups the new leaders run, but fuck it. Group makeup was very important as horde raiders is my point :)

They really should learn the awesomeness of furyspecc + 2h + imp. slam. I can outdps almost anybody with slam+BT and WF totem. Its very underused for some reason. Just work up 100rage with a auto-attack+BT rotation. Then slam your way down to zero. And once you get weapons like Untamed Blade or Sword of the Brotherhood, youre made. I dont really get the whole Dual Wield thing, youre just asking for glancing blows, and you need loads of bad +hit% gear to be effective.

Sure fearward isnt THE BOMB, but It can save the day when you get an unlucky fear. Like Ony and Nef, they fear pretty random, so if both tanks got Zerker Rage on CD, its pretty much a quarter to three quarters of your raid down (If you are unlucky and get a fear-spam). While having it gives you extra room for mistake, same with BoK, 10% extra HP on your tanks can save many a raid. Saying that Alliance isnt "easymode" is utter bullcrap. Having that extra inch for mistakes saves you, and there is no denying that.

Someone uses Slam ??  Wait a Minute :  Improved Slam ?  Are you kidding me ?

 :|

Protip : Slam resets your swing timer.  There's a reason everyone uses spamstring.

Also for DW its got a higher potential for damage assuming you are specced properly.  Given the balance of white vs. yellow damage dosen't change that much in general glancing hits just happen more often with DW than 2h, but affect you just as much.  (Damn you blizz, nerfing the effect of +skill in the expansion).

Point being while its even more reliant on gear (since you have to balance AP, hit and cirt) it has a higher potential for damage in the long run. 

Horde only has the advantage (currently) regarding dps warrior output.  After TBC and both sides have level 70s the advantage will still be on Alliance side ut it won't be that intense as it is right now.  Possibly Horde tanks will come close due to the tauren racial but that's left to be seen.

I hope you all realize that this tangent makes this thread completely suck now.

Here's an attempt at a rerail. I make most of my money farming Scarlet Monastary in sets of two. I run the East wing, and then the Cathedral, but I skip most of the trash mobs that I can walk by because the main money winners are the chests in the East side, and the mobs/bosses inside the actual Cathedral. Typically to do both takes about one hour, you make about 5-7g in pure coin, 2-4g in vendoring blues (more if you can DE), 3-5g in vendorable greys/greens, and about 3g on selling silk and greens on the AH. So, usually I'm getting 13-20g an hour, plus there is the chance of a blue boe drop every ten runs or so that's worth about 20g.

You figure, 5 days a week, one run a day, one hour a day, you can make 70-100g. Then, I use that seed money to play auctioneer. I hunt for any materials used in crafting that are undervalued and snatch them up. Also, patterns work well too.

What do you mean by this?  Why would Alliance have an advantage for Warrior DPS after TBC?

Is anyone else buying Righteous Orbs to resell once BC goes live?

I'm buying them at 30g or less on my server; and while I know that the 1k that someone paid for 4 in BC Beta won't be typical (as it'll be 'real' gold in Live), I guarantee they're going to hit triple digits once folks start upgrading their weapons on a large scale (and no, most folks are *not* going to want to take time out from new content to go farm orbs themselves).

Also, I think 16-slot bags are a good investment; buying those for 12g or less, and once BC goes live and every character now has 5 extra inv/bank slots... I can't see how those will fail to double in price (and that's being conservative).

And while investing for BC, bear in mind the *massive* gold inflation that's going to take place...  100g won't have close to the same comparative buying power in BC that it does now, so only save enough actual gold to get you by (repairs, etc).  Invest the rest.

To venture a guess - because of the human racial +5 skill to swords and maces.

+skill got changed in TBC, it no longer has any effect on glancing blows.

+5 skill would net you something silly like 0.5% crit chance on a higher level mob now.

I disagree on bag investment.  There's a "Netherweave Bag (http://thottbot.com/beta?i=5915)" pattern @ 320 tailoring.  No leather requirement means they'll be even easier for tailors to make than the current Runecloth Bags.

I hadden't thought about picking up the orbs, though. That's a hell of an idea, since I'd heard there were no new enchants that will replace crusader in uefulness for several classes.

Well...

1. Nether bags are BoE, and...

2. There won't be enough to fill demand for at least a couple... days?  Weeks?  Dunno, but at least not for a bit; gonna be a lotta Netherweave being burned up for bandages.  I'll be shocked if those Nether bags sell for less than 15g.

Regarding the BoE thing; nice thing about the non-binding bags is that you can throw a couple on a lowbie alt and use them for storage/alt-itis leveling, then transfer the bags back to your main, or a friend.  I don't know how much extra value they'll keep, but they WILL be more valuable than the Nether bags for just that reason.

...

Regarding the Orbs: Yeah, only sidegrade enchants for Strength-based melee classes in BC, really, and again, those won't be readily available for a while, either. 

Combining the huge jump in demand with a lesser supply, AND a massive influx of raw currency... 150g+ each wouldn't shock me; heck, they were almost worth that much on my server for a long time.

It was two separate thoughts.  Point A - The main PvE advantage to Horde currently is Warrior DPS.  Point B - After all's said and done advantage still alliance with a possibility of tauren racial evening things.

How exactly does the Tauren Racial effect warrior DPS?  Having more hitpoints will not make you hit harder.  The orc or troll racial would maybe make up for that (hitting harder every few minutes, or hitting faster when when low health)   I know every troll rogue / DPS warrior in our patchwerk fights jumps in the slime once the tanks have a lock on him, for the berserking damage boost.

As to alliance.  The advantage will still be there due to one thing: Draenie racial +hit aura.  Having 1 draenie in any mele group will give them a massive boost in not missing (not sure if +hit affects glancings now or not)

Point A was the only one to mention Warrior DPS.

Point B was more a "After level 70 and its all shaken down Horde mght have an overall perspective PvE advantage due to the extra health on tauren tanks."

+hit never affected glancings, only weapon skill.  And after 2.0 glancings aren't affected by weapon skill either.

Who's on first?

Exactly.

FYI, I play pretty casual and right now I'm standing at 400G on my main and 300G on my mage alt just doing instance runs and vendoring mats and vendoring greys. Every now and then you get the windfall of a decent BoE or book and get a sizable boost to your bankroll.

Good one to farm up with friends is the book of eviscerate that drops in UBRS now.

edit: wait, the Tidal Charm is good? I got one on my mage alt and I've nearly vendored it like 4 times because I hardly use it. I got it off some rare naga spawn in the water off of Arathi while doing the quests there.

I generally just play the market - its a lot easier on alliance side.

I'd recommend playing it on the alliance side and using the neutral AH to transfer money back. The 25% loss is eatable.

It's one of the only non-engineering/class ability ranged stuns in the game.

One of the few things that will hit through a divine shield too :D

Right now the best way to make money in WoW is to go out and gather/farm stuff.  The amount of auctions on my server has dropped by more than half.  Apparently everyone is pvping (I know I am!).

Which means supplies will tighten.  Which means prices will rise.

Actually, the lack of Auctioneer is what's keeping everyone I know from putting up Auctions.  They don't know the value of the item because they don't have a mod to tell them.   That's VERY telling about who's running the pricing market.

Particularly when you see certain items start to drop in price, and all of the sudden there's 3-5 items up there with a ridiculous buyout like 99 or 200g.  Auctioneer isn't smart enough to discard those when doing its price scans.

I'm currently using an alpha version.  There's some bugs, yes, but it works more or less.