How to be a Great Transmog Salesman Part 2

This is a follow up to my previous 2 posts, How to be a Great Transmog Salesman Part 1, and it's recent Addendum, a shorter way to do it.  Now that we've gone through the various ways of purchasing these items, I'm going to go through some methods that I use to sell the items.

Handy Dandy Transmog Seller
I highly suggest for anyone who is going to get serious about transmog to make a level 1 bank mule solely for transmog.  This way your bags are free of any other potential clutter.  My character also has a guild bank for himself to store anything I have more than 3 of.  He has all 26 slot bags (28 aren't worth it yet).  With the backpack that's 120 slots.  150 would of course be preferable because mail comes in 50's, but not an option  right now.

I also find that attempting to be as anonymous as possible is the way to go with this as well.  If guildies find out you're the guy selling all the xmog gear they want, they're going to want you to cut them a deal.  All the time.  Trust me I've been down that road, and minus RealID (which you still can't appear invisible on), don't advertise yourself as being that lvl 1 transmog guy.

The 48-Hour Auction
For Transmog gear, I always set my TSM groups to be on 48 hours.  This way you only have to repost unsold items every 2 days.  You may get undercut, but with the amount of items you have on the AH, you won't particularly care.  I tend to scan at least once per day to find any good deals, but more than that on occasion.  If you're using the TSM Application, it has the option to notify you of Deals if you're using one of the dealfinding lists.  I don't want to go in length on that topic right now, but may in a future post.

My Tiers
Yesterday, in Part 1, I noted that I set up 4 tiers for my transmog sales, I'm going to simplify them by refering  to them as follows:

Low Level: 499g Threshold/749g Fallback
Mid Level: 749g Threshold/1249g Fallback
High Level: 4499g Threshold/4999g Fallback
Extremely Rare: 17999g Fallback

Now you could honestly buy everything below 50g, and put it all in the Low Level Group and make gold, but putting better looking pieces in pricier groups helps make you more profit!  I'd say a majority of my pieces actually do fall into the Low Level group, but there are a few sets (more than this but I'm going to give you some highlights) that I throw into the higher groups, as follows.  Mouse over the set name to look at the set!

Mid Level
My mid level items consist of gear from the following sets (among others):
Blood Knight, Bloodfist, Bloodscale, Captain's, Darkcrest, and Imbued Plate
Note that some of these Chest and Pants I will bump up to the 5k, as they really are the core pieces for the set.

High Level
Arachnidian Robes, Hibernal Robe, Venomshroud Silk Robes, Buccaneer's Set, Hyperion Set (Chest/Legs in Extremely Rare), Silver-Thread Robe, Soulkeeper, Speedsteel Rapier, and my favorite Anvilmar Hammer

Extremely Rare
Exalted Plate, Robes of Insight, Jade Plate

Of course different people have different lists, but these are roughly how I group mine together.  Get a feel for your own server.  My server is Low Pop so I usually have a monopoly on any of the High Level or higher sets, so I can price them how I want.  In a higher pop setting you may want to reduce your prices to remain profitable.  Try out different things, and see what works for you.

Barking
Rarely I will talk about my transmog gear on my main.  Just to get some free advertising.  Say something like (and link the item) "Anvilmar Hammer for 5,000g!?  What a rip off!".  Now you may be thinking Phat, why slander your beautiful self in such a way?  I'll tell you why.  This one is on the principle "any publicity is good publicity".  I can't tell you how many sales I've made off of posting unique items to trade in this way.  A lot of players don't know they exist, even if it doesn't sell that day, you've planted a seed!

That's all for now, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below!


Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

How to Be a Great Transmog Salesman Part 1

**In the comments in this post, lasagna pointed out that there's a faster method to doing this search. I outlined this method here.  You can still use this shopping list, but the other method utilizes dealfinding lists for quicker searches.**

This is intended as a simple guide to purchase transmog gear in the most efficient way possible.  If you're not familiar with Transmog or TSM, learn how to use the addon package TradeSkillMaster before reading this guide, it's necessary, trust me.  Check out Faid's Instructional TradeSkillMaster videos here.

1. Addons

To be a great xmog seller you really only need 2 addons (although TSM is a package of addons):

Tradeskillmaster: I use this to buy, post, and empty my mail (as well as keep track of sales).  In particular you'll only need the Auctioning, Mailing, and Shopping packages, but all are recommended. 

Mogit: Great addon that adds hover over previews to armor items.  You'll have to check off "Load out of date addons" on your login screen for this one to work in it's current version.  It works flawlessly though, which is probably (hopefully) why they haven't updated it for 5.1.

2. My Strategy

Shopping:

A lot of gold makers use separate lists, say Cloth, Leather, Mail, Plate, Weapons, and Shields.  While doing this has it's pros, you're wasting a whole bunch of your own time sitting and searching for 100 items.  I often found myself AFKing or browsing the web while doing these searches, and coming back to searches that were completed 10 minutes earlier because I got distracted.  Then it hit me.  If I'm going to do 6 huge xmog searches, why not do them all at once?  Search for 500-600 items, browse the internet, go AFK, or read my Favorite Gold Blog, and then come back later and go through the results.  I've tried it out for over a week now, and I really like my results with this method.  Generally I'll buy anything under 50g on this list, and the rest I judge by the appearance whether it's worth buying to flip.  My list is based on a compilation of these lists from Faid at GoClockorkRiot, Shannon, and myself.  Shannon's list I trimmed down a bit for my own tastes, it originally had over 200 weapons, it now has only 151.  

Selling:

For those of you who are new to transmog, I'm going to go over my shopping strategies.  Those of you with preset Groups for selling set up already feel free to move to the next section.  For selling I break my items down into 4 tiers.  Some people like less, some people like more, I like four.  My different groups are set up for 48 hour posting, and priced as follows:

(Threshold/Fallback)

499/749g - Common Transmog

750/1250g - Better looking/rarer Transmog

4499/4999g - Really Cool looking/unique Transmog

17,999/18,000g - Ridiculously Rare Transmog (think Jade, Exalted, etc)

As you start working with transmog gear you may decide you want different prices or more tiers based on your server's needs.  This is what works for me, and I've had success with it.  The first 2 groups above were originally 500 and 1k in Cata, and I bumped them up when MoP was launched because inflation.  Use your best guess.  Transmog doesn't sell constantly, so don't change your price levels around too much at first.  You have to set a standard for your server, and possibly work against any competition.  Use your best guess when first making sets.  Base it off of the look, and what you think you can get out of your potential buyer for it (use Mogit to mouse over and see what it looks like).

3. The List
Below is the list, Import it by typing /tsm, going to the Shopping Options tab, clicking Shopping Lists, then Import Shopping list.  Name it and copy/paste the following data into the "List Data" field.  Hit the Accept Button, then Import List.  I had some trouble importing this list, most likely because it's so huge.  The name didn't go through at first and it took a while to load after importing, but these are minor problems that should not effect the list.

s1@13035,12784,13043,12535,7944,13053,3854,19169,13065,8226,23540,9511,7961,2077,2205,12838,31234,36601,25126,25138,25142,10571,23632,37749,31318,31322,37805,37813,32661,31139,4696,23505,15229,55066,15239,15251,15265,21800,12974,12976,25127,15275,25139,25147,2244,23629,31291,17015,31299,43871,25191,13014,13018,25215,12769,12775,12777,13034,13036,68601,13044,13046,13052,35664,6802,65013,8223,8225,1391,23542,25331,37808,37824,1394,36589,25144,31268,44311,55284,25208,31332,31336,25220,9718,30077,25236,8190,35652,12528,870,25221,15925,13004,15216,25119,23746,25214,23499,31153,59463,1728,15232,10570,15236,43611,25316,15238,10573,65318,9383,25336,2299,25212,15256,13983,25216,68161,20698,15266,21802,36599,15272,16039,15276,15278,25141,1986,15240,25161,55286,23631,9427,15273,14531,12825,866,23543,1925,2801,15267,1607,13017,13051,55289,3208,12260,13027,17054,25233,25237,1958,14913,25001,14915,14917,14918,14920,14921,14922,14924,14926,14927,14928,14929,10368,10369,8138,10371,24934,10373,8140,24940,8141,24944,10378,8143,10382,10383,10384,10385,10386,10387,14833,10389,10390,14838,14966,14840,14968,24984,14970,14971,14972,14975,14976,14977,14978,14980,14854,14855,14856,14857,14858,14859,14860,14862,14863,14864,14865,14867,14868,14967,14839,10376,14981,14905,14908,24987,14906,24935,24937,24939,10206,14904,12618,24947,25000,31232,14900,13072,24982,24988,24936,14895,14896,14897,14898,24983,10201,24999,10203,25003,10205,12619,24985,10208,10209,14909,14911,10380,8139,13082,14973,14942,15352,66895,10093,36452,4068,15891,15892,4069,1204,12997,14825,1169,14954,1203,15648,14947,9974,31292,15494,14800,13079,7496,36447,7465,2040,10078,10362,14930,15592,36448,31200,14964,10365,4444,14902,25076,10367,25073,25079,25080,25081,25082,14780,14812,45450,9899,13083,1168,8309,7489,7490,6411,4079,6412,14793,14794,15050,7494,15052,14799,14802,14803,10232,10233,10234,10236,15575,15576,15578,10118,10119,15581,15582,4712,10124,10125,12415,15591,4717,24839,15596,24843,15598,10266,15601,10268,10269,10270,4725,7454,10273,10274,24867,24865,14798,15680,4727,7486,10154,24862,8303,10157,6596,10122,15609,10161,10162,4697,6594,7491,15607,7455,6386,6592,8265,8267,15506,15511,8269,15509,15510,2989,6590,15513,15514,2990,9928,4073,4076,2991,4071,9933,15051,2992,15524,4072,24863,15527,15528,15529,10121,8271,24840,4074,6402,1988,14789,4075,14792,6595,12420,16984,15669,6597,24864,7487,14805,14796,10230,6409,15168,10220,10221,10222,14670,14671,10227,24773,24775,14675,24779,14677,14680,15189,15191,15192,14685,14559,14560,14562,4054,14565,14566,4055,24694,24696,24698,6430,4057,4721,9887,9892,9894,4062,15195,6431,4063,14687,14564,15370,15372,8255,8256,15369,8258,8262,8260,24776,15374,15167,15376,9782,15378,15379,15386,15381,10183,15383,6581,15385,6582,10189,10187,10182,6584,24695,6587,15139,6586,10188,15142,10190,15144,24778,15130,15194,15148,15149,15150,15151,24774,24699,9947,9948,10186,9950,10225,9952,14681,9954,15162,20575,15164,6408,15166,14684,10214,14025,7110,14413,14294,14296,14297,14425,6610,14175,17050,3291,6615,6617,14441,14442,14443,4714,14445,14192,14452,14453,10143,7517,7518,14213,7520,7521,7522,14231,14232,14106,14234,7468,14367,7470,4037,7471,14371,14119,14120,6395,3309,8111,4040,2034,14117,8113,14113,8114,18486,3308,14254,4038,24585,10216,14091,6527,6531,6393,4035,2800,14272,14273,10210,14275,10178,10215,8110$@

Tomorrow I'll be going over more specific strategies I use.  This should be more than enough to get you going for the time being!   

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

The New 77-80 Market: 80-84 MoP Gear

As predicted, there is a new era of twink gear out that is equivalent to Cataclysm's 77-80 market (which is still alive and kicking).  Keep in mind that now is not a great time to sell, it's a great time to buy.  Lots of this will be on AH's for relatively cheap, but now is not necessarily the best time to post these, except leather (for monks).  Keep in mind that if you start posting at high prices will result in people undercutting you, ruining the potentially endless flow of great deals for the greens(and blues) on the AH.

Search Terms!
If you're using TSM, there is only one search that you need to do:

80/84/i364

These searches look for all items available to those in the range 80-84 with ilvl 364 and higher.  This will include all weapons and armor that came out in MoP available to this bracket.  There are 80-82 blues that are super OP, so keep an eye out for those, they're ilvl 409-425!

If you're using Auctionator you have to do 2 searches

***MoP Twinks
Armor/80/84/i364
Weapon/80/84/i364

And that's it!  You may want to go through this gear and hand pick the ones with the best stats, but at the current prices I'm seeing, if it doesn't sell, you can DE it for a profit!  Now is a great time to stock up on this to sell it throughout the expansion.  Even with a little gold you can make a decent investment, and expect high returns once a majority of the characters are at max level and not questing in the 85-86 zones that drop these!  Welcome to the new era of twink gear!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Top 5 Professions to Level ASAP!

Today I figured I'd do a post on what professions I personally will be leveling as soon as possible.  Mists releases at midnight on the west coast US, which is a relatively ungodly 3 AM for those of us on the east coast.  That being said I'm still considering setting my alarm and having a pot of coffee on hand, but right now it looks unlikely. Once I do eventually log, I am going to focus on leveling my professions before stepping into Pandaria.

Living Steel

My main focus though is the new "Truegold", Living Steel.  This new alchemy cooldown is used in 28 recipes, all but 10 of which will be craftable at launch, given the crafter has the correct (and in some cases absurdly high) amount of Spirit of Harmony in some cases.  This precious metal is used in many crafts.  16 total are required to craft the new JC Epic Mount (which will require Exalted rep to get all recipes for), 1 is required to craft the new Belt Buckle, as well as quite a few needed for the BS and Engineering Epics.  Let's just say there's going to be quite a demand for this item, especially from those elite raiding guilds on your server.

Primordial Ruby

A JC's Best Friend

My second focus will be leveling Jewelcrafting acquiring all of the Jewelcrafting Primordial Ruby base cuts (Delicate, Bold, Brilliant) ASAP.  These cuts will be learned through research or doing Golden Lotus Dailies at Revered.  **Here's the thing to consider with Jewelcrafting though**, they're scaling gem cuts this expansion.  This means they're scrapping the Cataclysm (and previous expansion) model of say 40 base stats total for all gems. Instead, the off color gems will have more base stats to compensate for the lack of Primary stats (Int, Str, Agi).  This doesn't concern me because I think during the first few weeks people will still be following their old gemming ways, and I'm not too worried about these not being HOT sellers.  I may however stop once I get the Brilliant cut, so I can diversify.  The more colors of rare gems I can cut the first few weeks the better.

Without Further Ado, my list:
Top 5 Professions to Level (IMO)

1. Alchemy
• As Stated above, Alchemy transmutes will be used in many recipes, so I will be focusing on leveling the Alchemy my 4 Transmute Masters as soon as possible, to get these xmutes on the AH before the price drops 1 copper!
2. Jewelcrafting
• Again as stated above I want to take good care to learn as many cuts as possible, as soon as possible, and you can start researching once you hit 550, so after that I'm going to stop and focus on other professions.  It's also useful to note I have 2 JCs for double the research possibilities.
3. Tailoring
• Tailoring also has a new daily cooldown that will be added, which again will be craftable at only 550, so getting my 2 Tailors up to burn their daily cooldowns is necessary as soon as possible again.
4. Inscription
• Once again, Inscription is another profession has a once daily cooldown (525), which is a necessary material for Darkmoon Cards(600).
• This makes the individual Darkmoon Cards way more valuable, and will focus trinket seekers on getting individual cards as opposed to full decks.
• Take into consideration that there is also 3 BoA Staves that require 20 of these first daily CDs to make.  Priorities!!! **Note that you can acquire 7 per week doing proffesion specific (level 600) weekly quests, so this is where maxing your Scribe comes in handy.
• I'm not sure if you need to be a certain level to access the area, if so you will need to obtain that level as well. 
5. Mining
• This may seem like a curveball to some, given my (and most gold makers) "Gathering isn't the best GPH" stance.  I still agree with this, and think my profession leveling order above will payout the most, but my go to craft, Living Steel Transmute requires 6 Trillium Bars EACH, each of which require 2 of each color of Trillium Ore (so needs 24 raw ore total, 12 of each color).

• This bar cannot be smelted by Miners until 600 Skill Level, which can only be obtained by farming nodes (no smelting skill ups), so you KNOW the bars are going to be in high demand, and are also going to be very expensive for the first few weeks. By having my own miner smelt the bars, I can cut my costs, and acquire some ore for the transmutes.  It's a win win (except I don't want to level my Tauren Druid, but oh well).

So this is it, my master plan.  If anyone is curious I will be leveling my Mage (Tailor/Alchemy) to 90 first after all this, and starting my farm ASAP, so my mage will be the first one to be able to benefit from the Tiller's Bonus Spirit of Harmony, which is nice because then I'll have the option to choose between the most profitable of the two daily CDs (Tailoring/Alch) that character can craft, based on established AH prices. 

So that's my plan (and suggestion) on which Professions to level first.  Which professions are you planning on leveling up first?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Your Guide to Spirit of Harmony

***If you're here looking for a guide on farming Motes of Harmony, check out this post!!***

Spirit of Harmony
(via Wowhead)

Remember all the way back in Cataclysm when crafted items were made with Volatile Air, Fire, Water, Life, and Earth? It seems like just yesterday that multiple elementals were the norm, but Blizzard decided to scrap this system for a simpler one.  Spirit of Harmony, which are essential to about every major crafting profession, are the only elementals in MoP (for now at least).  They can be created by combining 10 Motes of Harmony which are random world drops from 85-90.

The bad news for your low level crafters though is that they are BoP, so any alts not yet in Pandaria will not be able to benefit from them.  

Which Profession Benefits most from Spirit of Harmony?
This is an debatable question, but here's the breakdown (number 1 are the ones that cannot truly benefit, then the rest of the professions follow in alphabetic order).
*Right now on wowhead, the only way I can see to sort what can be crafted using this item by each profession is to go to this link and type in the profession name.

1. Mining, Herbalism, Skinning, Enchanting
• Relatively no benefit.  These professions can use the Spirits to trade for these raw mats, which is not terrible, but any profession could do this.  
2. Alchemy
• Using 3 Spirits of Harmony, an Alchemist can get an extra transmute CD for the day Riddle of Steel.  (this is the Truegold of Pandaria)
3. Blacksmithing
• Most notably requires 8 Spirits of Harmony to craft ilvl 476 epic gloves + chest (first level of craftable epics).
• To craft ilvl 496 items it requres 2-3 Spirits of Harmony as well as 8 Blood Spirit, an item gained from disenchanting raid armor (not available first week).
4. Engineering
• Staying true to Engineering's roots, it is used in recipes that create cool things (mounts, daily CD robot, etc) for the owner, as well as scopes, a gun, a pet, and a Pandarian Wormhole Generator!
5. Inscription
• The new Darkmoon Cards require 10 Spirits of Harmony or a weekly quest reward to craft more than one per day! This will lead to more scribes trading cards to get full decks rather than grinding a ton until they get a full deck.
• Cool Addition: Scribes can now craft any of 3 new staves that are Bind on Account, requiring 20 daily cooldowns.
• The 4 Inscription weeklies to get the CDs faster: avoiding the daily cooldown by doing weekly crafts, requiring 4-6 Spirits of Harmony per.
6. Jewelcrafting
• Not Needed for the cool new mounts!
• Two new vanity pets require 3 Spirits of Harmony each.
• If you didn't know already, JC now requires a daily CD to discover new cuts (you pick which color you want to discover).  You can do more the one per day using 3 Spirits of Harmony.
7. Leatherworking
• Similar to Blacksmithing.  Again click here and search Leatherworking to see all the recipes, again gloves and chest
8. Tailoring
• With 3 Spirits of Harmony, Tailors can avoid their Daily Cooldown, to craft epic items faster.
• The epics require 4-6 of the daily CDs to create, again more for the 'upgraded' ilvl gear.

Farm Your Motes!

Like I said above, the Spirit of Harmony are created by combining 10 Mote of Harmony. If you get to revered with a new faction in Pandaria, The Tillers, you will be able to get over 1 full Spirit worth a day by "cultivating a farm".  If you're interested in learning more about this, check out wowhead's Tillers Guide, it's a very comprehensive preview of what you can expect. Basically once you get revered you can obtain Songbell Seeds and cultivate them (only taking a few minutes every day) and not have to grind out Motes from random mobs in Pandaria.  This should certainly speed up the process for any of you looking to get your hand on Spirits of Harmony ASAP.  

Which profession are you leveling first, and which one do you think has the coolest use for Spirits of Harmony?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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