Long Live the Lich King!

Today I'll be posting on the topic of Day 9 of Nev's Goldmaking Challenge.  Nev recently released a post with everyone currently participating, and there are a lot of interesting responses from the community, check 'em out!

What's your favorite niche market & why?

WotLK Epic Gems
This may not have been the answer some people were expecting.  I really love the twink markets out there, but I've made so much gold making Wrath Epic gems, and it's constantly been a great market for me since Wrath itself!  I actually did a post about it in May of 2011, when I was first starting this blog, I found it kind of interesting to look back at it, check it out here.  While my methodology in that post is a little outdated, the overall theme still rings true.  Today though I use a relatively simple Dealfinding list to find great deals on epic gems, and (of course) post them using TSM.

Dealfinding List
Below is the Dealfinding List I use for these epics, I have the prices set to 150g for the epics and 30g for the Frozen Orbs that I use to make Icy Prism (which no longer has a daily CD).  I don't have Eye of Zul on my dealfinding list because it doesn't sell particularly well for me.

d1@36931/1499999,36919/1499999,36928/1499999,36925/1499999,36922/1499999,43102/300000@

Cuts
If you don't have the cuts yet, start doing the Dalaran JC dailies.  The only way to get cuts is from Timothy Jones who is both the seller of the cuts (4 dailies each), as well as the NPC that offers the daily quest.

I find that the Cardinal Ruby and Majestic Zircon sell the fastest for me.  In general for Cardinal Rubies I cut Brilliant unless I have a huge supply in which case I'll start on Bold and Delicate.  Majestic Zircon's I always cut pure stamina (Solid).  For the other cuts my best sellers are Mystic for King's Amber, Willful for Ametrine (or any primary + resil), and Purified Dreadstones.  This is one of the great secondary markets for any profession, and is by far my favorite out there.

What's your favorite niche market out there?  If you wrote your post on this already, feel free to link it in the comments!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!
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First Look: 5.1 PTR

World PvP
If you haven't read it already, check out the current 5.1 PTR Patch notes.  Blizzard is doing a lot of great things with 5.1, including heating up the Horde vs. Alliance conflict the way they have been saying they would.  For gold making I think this will be a great boost.  They're adding 2 outposts, one for each faction that reward rep and have objects to capture.  They are also awarding "commendations" for slaying the opposite faction on the shores.

This is really going to boost PvP in Pandaria, and I think it's going to be absolutely amazing for the crafted PvP gear market, because people who normally wouldn't care about PvP Resil/Power as stats will suddenly be very interested in it.  This will also provide a boost for the enchant/JC enhancements for PvP as well.

Battle Pets
There were also some changes to battle pets that tweaked my interest, the first being that there will now be tokens that drop from wild pet battles that can be used to upgrade pets from grey/common -> uncommon, or uncommon -> rare.  Better yet, they're not BoP, so they can be sold on the Auction House.  This is going to be a very interesting thing to see progress.  Basically it makes any uncommon pet you could sell into a rare, and will allow Pet Battlers to capture uncommon pets instead of hunting for rares, and upgrade them for a price.  This is interesting to me at least, because I've been dabbling in the pet battle system.  They're also adding a 3,000g reward for going through the entire quest chain and defeating the "Grand Master" NPC Pet Battler of Pandaria.  At the very least it will get more people interested in these things!

On my server, I've just seen the first level 25 battle pet posted in the auction house, a Winterspring Cub (of all things).  The seller is selling it for 15k with a 10k bid, which I think will be interesting to see if it pans out.  That's all from me for now, just wanted to get a quick post out about the gold making changes in 5.1, there are other cool features though, check out the Blizzard post I linked at the top! How do you think 5.1 will impact your gold making strategy?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

JC and Mining, Making Wrath Gold!

Hey guys,

I originally wrote a post about something similar over a year ago, but I recently got back into doing this when I have had some free time in game, and it's a great way to amass a good amount of gold if you have Mining + JC or just JC even.

Dalaran JC Dailies
If you don't have a lot of epic and rare WotLK cuts, start doing the Dalaran Jewelcrafting dailies on your Jewelcrafter.  The quest is given by Timothy Jones in Dalaran and gets you tokens for epic and rare cuts (also it does not interfere with your regular JC daily).  Sidenote: Resilience is a great seller to these markets.

Obtaining Epic Gems
Now that you have some epic and rare cuts, you're going to want to obtain epic Wrath Gems.  This market is huge and viable for both 70 and 80 twinks, and they sell great.  Also, the cut rare gems sell well, and are byproducts of my method.  There are two profitable ways of obtaining the epic gems.  One way is to buy them for 220 Justice Points from any of these three vendors in Dalaran (probably the best way to spend excess JP).  The other way is to attempt an Icy Prism proc.  These create at least 3 gems, usually 3 rares, with a chance at a Dragon's Eye or a Wrath epic.  This USED to be a daily CD in wrath, but as of Cataclysm, you can do it as much as you want every day, but may only have one in your inventory.

Icy Prism
The downside to the second method is that you have to have to come up with Frozen Orbs.  These are only obtainable from doing Wrath Heroics (killing the final boss) or from 110 JP, which probably isn't worth it considering the Epic Gems themselves only cost 220 JP.  I just have it on a TSM search list I commonly use and pick them up whenever they're cheap (< 35g for me).  Then after I accumulate a certain amount I usually prospect for the other mats of Icy Prism from Saronite Ore, and I uses these macros to create and use the Prisms:

Crafting:

/use Jewelcrafting
/run for i=1,GetNumTradeSkills()do local skillName,_,nA,_,_,_=GetTradeSkillInfo(i)if skillName=="Icy Prism"then DoTradeSkill(i,nA)end end

Opening:
/use Icy Prism

You have to alternate between these two macros since you can only have one Icy Prism in your inventory at one time.


So Wait...Where Does Mining Come in to All of This?
Glad you asked.  To get the mats for this, as well as some additional gold, I farm (that's right I said it...FARM my Saronite Ore from Wintergrasp.  Doing about 2-3 rounds of WG on my Tauren Druid with +310% flying in a level 25 guild, I have about a stack of Titanium Ore, which I can sell for 500g/stack on my server, plus about 10-12 stacks of Saronite Ore, which I can prospect for common and rare gems for Icy Prism and Dalaran Dailies.  Make sure you have the guild perk that allows extra procs :-).

Disclaimer:  I am not claiming that farming in this case or any is the most productive or best way to spend your time.  It is however a great way to reduce your investment capital and come out on top!


Hope you enjoy this method of creative Wrath gold making, I like to change up my methods every now and then to cut the drudge of my daily gold making routine...even if that means farming!  What's your favorite way to make gold that you don't do on a daily basis?



Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Phat's Weekly Lewt Review 3/19

If you like my posts, follow me on twitter @PhatLewtsGold!!

The Bots Are Back in Town!
The first thing I noticed this week is that the farming bots are obviously back in WoW.  The average price of Whiptail on my server is 50g per stack.  This is what I found this week:

Yes, that's only 2 different posters, one posting 285 stacks and another posting 357 stacks at less than half the normal price.  I've been hearing people saying that the SoR's are just getting bored and farming now.  I'm sorry but no human being is going to farm 300+ stacks of Whiptail, let alone 2 of them on the same (small) server, and willing to post at those ridiculously low prices.  For Example the top seller here sold 285 stacks of whiptail for a mere 4061g25s after AH 'taxes'.  I don't think anyone in their right mind would be pricing like this.  I did enjoy buying it all up, but I don't even know if I'll EVER be able to go through it all.  This puts my price point of MFC's at about 3g each, so...lots of barking in my future!

Kindness in WoW
This week I was faced with a unique problem.  If you read my 1,000,000 gold post, you'd know that my main source of income is selling gems, and it's something I enjoy.  This week though I was faced with a new competitor who was CONSTANTLY posting his Inferno Rubies (all cuts) for a measley 100g, which really cuts into my profit margin.  I tried buying up what he had off the AH but by the next time he logged they were up at the same price.  In my eyes I had 2 options:  Sell at a loss, and hope that the other gems bail me out, or start going on a war path, pricing my gems as low as 50g to get him out of the market.  This was a tough one and for a day or two I just stopped posting Inferno Rubies.  Then on twitter, after asking about what others would do, @msherretz suggested that I whisper the guy and figure out why he was doing this.

So I did.  I approached the guy and politely asked "Hey I was just wondering, why are you pricing your Inferno Rubies so low?".  He replied with something along the lines of "My guild had half a bank tab full of them and asked me to sell them off".  Now to me that doesn't make sense, but that's irrelevant.  He was selling for 100g each so I said "If you want I'd be willing to buy them all for 90 g each."  He Replied: "The 100g point is the lowest that I'd be willing to go, but I have 25 stacks left."  "I'll take em" I said.

After we traded the ridiculous amount of Inferno Rubies, he whispered me and said "Thanks for being so nice about it, most of the people who whispered me were doing it just to be rude or call me names.  If you approached me like that I wouldn't have sold to you."

So try to remember guys, your competition are people too.  Just like IRL, people like to be treated with respect.  We've all vote kicked the level 62 frost DK who won't stop Death Gripping, but there are real people behind the characters, and some younger and less experienced than we are.  Be an example of the WoW community you want, not the one we have.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

Your JC and Engineer (and Miner?) Should Get Along

For more tips follow me on twitter @PhatLewtsGold! My contact email is PhatLewtsGold@Gmail.com.








Dream Emeralds.
The mere mention of these is enough to make any serious JC cringe.  If you're like me and you do the shuffle on a semi-regular basis you probably have at least 100 of these sitting idly if not more, or trying to sell them in stacks of 20.  Luckily there's a simple solution to this conundrum.  Will it get rid of all of your Dream Emeralds?  No.  Will it increase their worth?  Yes.  Worth it.

The US Horde average market price of Dream Emeralds is just above 9 gold.  The cut gems usually go for slightly more, sometimes less.  Even if you don't have a JC this method may be worth your time.

Gnomish X-Ray Scope
Yes.  Gnomish X-Ray Scope. The outdated scope is the secret here.  You may be thinking "no one will buy that" but I personally have been able to sell on average in the past 30 days, 2.8 per week, for a decent profit, my TSM_Accounting window for this item is shown below.

Some key things to point out:
1) The prices on my server are way above average.
2) I have had 12 sales to repeat buyers
3) My Engineer only started crafting these after Flintlockes Woodchucker became available.
4) As I've mentioned in previous posts, my server is small.

Raw Materials
The mats for one scope is:
2 Hardened Elementium Bar
2 Dream Emerald

If you have the a miner, you can make your own Hardened Elementium Bar, so all you need is:

2 Stacks of Elementium Ore
8 Volatile Earth
2 Dream Emerald

US Horde Avg Prices: (Via TUJ)

1 Stack Elementium Ore = 61g 23s 38c

1 Volatile Earth = 1g 94s 27c

On Average 2 Hardened Elementium Bar's will cost a miner a little under 140g to smelt, and they cost about 180g to buy if you don't have a miner.  The US market prices for Horde/Alliance X-Ray Scopes are:

270g96s5c for 1

241g40s76c for 1

So if you have a miner, you can increase the value of your Dream Emeralds from 9g to 50-65g each, and without one you can make them worth 30-45g each.  Also provides an outlet to dump them on, 2 at a time.

How I Go About it
This method will vary by server, I'd imagine the smaller the server, the more profitable the method.  I craft 2 stacks of Dream Emeralds worth of these at a time, which is 20 scopes.  Unfortunately these things only stack in 5's so I keep at least 2 stacks on my posting toon at any time.  My reset price is 750g, and my lowest is 175g.

Keep an eye out for the component materials to make a better return, especially if you have a miner that can smelt the bars.  They're not frequent sellers but I've been able to convert my otherwise unused Dream Emeralds to not only sell, but also increase their value, even compared to the cut gems.  A decent market to look into if have an Engineer.

Note: I also expect this market to increase with all the new level 80's getting into the game again, prices may go up or stay the same, but more sales are imminent!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

Scroll of Resurection: Blizzard is Profiting, So Should You!

For more tips follow me on twitter @PhatLewtsGold! My contact email is PhatLewtsGold@Gmail.com.

So Scroll of Resurection has been reintroduced and people are given free level 80s and Cataclysm, and gold makers are trying to figure out the best way to maximize profit.  Simple.  These characters are going to get to 85 really fast.  What will they want?  They will want to see the latest content and get into Raid Finder ASAP.  OR they will want to PvP.  Either way there is a simple solution to this conundrum for any smart buyer.  Vicious Gear.  Yes this crafted, iLevel 377 gear not only gets you into heroics, but gets you resilience and stats needed for PvP.

Who?
Tailors, Blacksmiths, Leatherworkers, and Jewelcrafters all have Vicious items they can craft for a profit, and let me tell you I am selling these like hot cakes.  I've made 14k selling these items, in the past 24 hours with about 9k of that being profit.  I can't keep enough of them on the shelves to keep up with the demand!  (Especially the Amberjewel Ring/Neck) (HINT: The JC rings are not unique equipped so people tend to buy in 2's)

What Else?
Of course with a whole new pool of 85s we will also see an increased demand for cut gems as well as enchants, both middle of the line and end game level.  These items will have a much higher turnover rate than before.  Also if you have some of the 397 patterns, look into the price to craft vs the price they're going for on your auction house.  On some servers this may be another viable way to make gold with your crafting professions.  Don't forget those 365 weapons either, those of you who have done FL dailies (I haven't on my BS), as well as leg armors/spellthreads.  It's like Cataclysm has just been released except people have access to better gear, and want to get it ASAP.

Tank and Healer gear.  DPS can get by in the new heroics with the Vicious sets.  Underperforming? yes. Wiping the group? No.  New tanks and healers cannot rely as much on this gear so I see a rise in Valor gear as well as crafted tank/healer gear.  Check your AH for some 397 Valor tanking boots, and if there are none, get some up, you can probably turn a decent profit.  Also check the prices of Truegold on your server before considering your Alchemist's CD.

Closing Arguements
I don't expect this surge to last particularly long, maybe 3-4 noticeable weeks at most.  Try to get out there ASAP and turn a profit on your professions.  Check your AH before hand.  Those on larger servers are more likely to already have competition in these areas, and make sure you can craft these items at a profit before doing so.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

1,000,000 Gold on a Low/Med Population Server

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Finally made it to 1,000,000 gold this past Thursday!  On December 9th I hit half a million, so in 47 days I managed to make 500k, or about 10,500g per day profit on a server that is Low pop during the week and Medium on weekends.  For those who are curious I'm going to post some of my data taken from TSM for my favorite gold making strategies.


1) Jewelcrafting


Spent

Item	Gold Spent
Elementium Ore	320,156
Obsidium Ore	37,051
Pyrite Ore	33,301
Total Spent:	390,508

Gold Earned on Cut Gems (Sums of Rare Cuts)

Item	Gold Made
Inferno Ruby	585,408
Ember Topaz	93,296
Demonseye	64,942
Amberjewel	27,367
Ocean Sapphire	17,046
Dream Emerald	16,785
Total Earned:	804,844

This alone puts my profit from JC over 400k gold, more than doubling my original investment in the ore.  Now, this data is only for the cut gems that I sold, not to mention the rings/necklaces I made with the common gems and Disenchanted for enchanting scrolls/raw enchanting mats.  JC is my favorite, can you tell? 

2) Cata Twink Gear

Armor Type	Gold Earned	Gold Spent	Profit
Lvl 77 Cloth	13,375	4,476	8,599
Lvl 77 Leather	13,052	7,325	5,727
Lvl 77 Mail	11,495	5,658	5,837
Lvl 77 Plate	13,703	6,768	6,935
Lvl 77 Ring/Neck	4,796	1,813	2,983
Lvl 77 Weapon	15,576	6,342	8,984
Lvl 78 Assorted	9,322	7,660	1,662
TOTALS	81,319	40,042	41,277

The reason I've included this is because, like the initial cut gems, it has basically doubled my investment.  The only difference is that this method literally takes seconds per day, compared to the enormous amounts of time jewelcrafting takes to prospect and cut.  

NOTE: The "Gold Spent" column also reflects gold I have spent on items that haven't sold yet.  

3) Mogging

Love it or hate it, mogging has become a great source of quick income for many gold makers, and I'm no exception.  Unlike most moggers I prefer crafting and selling items on the AH, although when I have no work to do for JC you can find me at the AH looking through models.  Here is my data for crafted and resales.

Type of Mogging	Profit	Number in Category
Resales:	13,784	28
Crafted	7,786	3
Total:	21,570	----

The three items that I am able to resell that I craft are below with their average profit per item.  The links are to posts about them by me, or in the case of the axe, Power Word: Gold:

• Icy Cloak: 2195g Profit per sale
• Big Voodoo Robe: 1402g Profit per sale
• Huge Thorium Axe : 688g Profit per sale

A lot of the responses I got from my Icy Cloak post was that there's another cloak that's purchasable from vendors in Shattrath for 300ish Justice Points.  I've sold 2 of these cloaks on a small server, and what I have to say to that is don't assume that all players have the same resources that you do, or know how to utilize them properly.  

4) Misc. Sales

Some other sales data that I think is worth noting:

Wrath Epic Gems

Gem and Cut	Number Sold	Gold Made	Average Gold/Sale
Brilliant Cardinal Ruby	110	22,288	202.6
Solid Majestic Zircon	61	12,870	211
Mystic King's Amber	96	21,535	224.3
Reckless Ametrine	23	4,563	198.4
Willful Ametrine	13	3,130	240.8
Purified Dreadstone	4	763	190.4
Total:	307	65,149g	212.2

Easily the most profitable use for Justice Points when the gear is too cheap, will also buy @100g raw to cut.

Transmutes

Volatile Life Avg Price Bought Per: 5.24g

Volatile Air Avg Sale Price: 17.59g

Profit per "Living Element" Transmute: 185.25g (procs not included)

Volatile Air Sold: 3,690

Total for Living Elements: 45,571g (Didn't include procs)

Avg Price of Volatile Air x10: 162.5g

Avg Price of Volatile Water x10: 118.8g

Avg Price of Volatile Fire x10: 47.99g

Avg Price of Pyrium Bar x3: 36.65g

Avg Cost to make Truegold: 365.94

Cost after factoring in x1.2 proc: 304.95

Avg Truegold Sale Price: 606.34

Avg Profit per Truegold: 301.39

Truegold crafted: 55

Total Truegold Profit: 16,576g 

The reason I tended to do Living Elements more even though Truegold was more profitable, there was a point in the expansion where someone who seemed to have been stockpiling Truegold decided to sell about 150 for under 400g each, which would have drastically reduced my profit margin.  

Alright that's it for now, thanks for reading until the end, not all my data, but the interesting bit of it.  Look out for more gold making posts as I ease down on game time after hitting my milestone.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

Crushing the Competition with OreCrusher 2

If you are a major gold making Jewelcrafter odds are you've probably heard of the OreCrusher 2 Addon.  If you don't use it I highly suggest downloading it and trying it out.  OreCrusher 2 just got a SERIOUS facelift that made it infinitely more useful!

The Basics
OreCrusher 2 (OC for short) is an in game spread sheet that calculates how much profit you can make if you maximize your prospecting potential.  It pulls values from Auctionator, Auctioneer, or TSM and calculates the maximum profit (on average) that you can make from prospecting each major type of ore.  A screenshot example for Elementium Ore is below(type /oc  in game to bring up this window).

**Make sure you do a recent scan of the AH with Auctionator, Auctioneer, or TSM before doing this**



Now, they may look like Wrath gems, but the prices are in reference to Cata commons and rares.  The quantity is from Elementium Ore average prospecting rates, as I chose it for this example.  Not only does this addon tell you that your total profit will be 265 gold for 1 stack of Elementium Ore, it also tells you what to do with your commons (Transmute, Auction Raw, or DE).  It also suggests cuts for your rare gems!  To see how much profit you'd make with 2 stacks, change the # of stacks to 2 and hit the "DO IT!" button.  I can't stress how impressed I am with the added functionality of this spreadsheet addon.  I now consider this to be a necessity for any good Jewelcrafter.

If you mouse over the suggestions for the common gems, it will tell you the values it used for comparison for the alternatives.  The best way to learn about this addon is to use it in practice, so stop reading, go download it, and get using it now!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

Wrath Gems Still Profitable?

My DK, who happens to be my JC wracked up all of the most useful gem cuts during Wrath.  Like many people, since Cataclysm hit I've been solely focusing on the market of Cata gems, and my Wrath recipes have been sitting idly.  I recently came across a stack of raw Majestic Zircon for 80g a pop.  I cut these into Solid Majestic Zircon (Stamina) and was able to sell every last one for 215g each.  After AH fees, thats about an 125 gold Profit per gem!!

My tip of the day is use Auctionator to set up a list of Wrath raw gems, and keep an eye out for when they're cheap.  Whether they're rare or epic, usually there's a nice enough profit margin to justify the time put in.  Another alternative is watching for the mats for Icy Prism, which no longer has a cooldown, to get your Wrath gems.  If you don't pay too much for the Frozen orb (the most I'll pay is 20 g) the green gems that go along with it in this recipe are usually 1-2 g on my server, which results in some nice profits on the gems made, even if they don't proc an epic!

Personally I would only get 5 cuts (in my experience Wrath green gems don't sell well, I just sell them raw for leveling JC's).  For Red i would go with Brilliant for all the leveling casters, Purple I'd go with a Purified cut for the healers, Yellow I would go with a Quick cut, but this one could go a few ways, do some research on your server particularly, for Orange I would suggest a Reckless cut, and of course for Blue go with Solid, leveling tanks love stamina.


The only problem is if your JC doesn't have a cut, you will have to go to Dalaran to do some Dalaran JC dailies, but I'd even suggest making your JC's hearth there, because since 4.1 the portals to Orgrimmar and Stormwind are back in Dalaran.  The turnover rate isn't as high, but the rares and epics both sell at a pretty good profit margin for that extra gold making edge in what may be a niche market on your server!