How do you make money in WoW?

[Shavnir]

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?

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.

[Paelos]

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.

[Shavnir]

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

[Ironwood]

I think you're getting carried away.

[Shavnir]

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

[trias_e]

Quick work?

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

[Chenghiz]

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.

[trias_e]

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.

[ClydeJr]

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.

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.

[Morfiend]

I theorize if you had the right two or three level 70s

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+

[Jayce]

I theorize if you had the right two or three level 70s

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.

[Scadente]

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

[Merusk]

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)

[Chenghiz]

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

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.

[SurfD]

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)

[Shavnir]

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

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.

[Kenrick]

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.

[Shrike]

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.

[lamaros]

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

[rattran]

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.

[Reg]

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.

[Triforcer]

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.   

[Xanthippe]

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?

[SurfD]

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.

[Merusk]

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.

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? 

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.

[Scadente]

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.

[Shavnir]

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.

[Fordel]

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.

[Scadente]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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?

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.

[Xanthippe]

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.

[Simond]

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.

[rattran]

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.

[Merusk]

Sunday night / Monday morning hits a peak for both, and the higher level essences/shards sell for over double Thursday's low price.

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.

[Xanthippe]

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.