The launch of a new expansion is the prime time to make buttloads of easy money. The window is short, but if you’re quick enough, you can fill your coffers to Scrooge McDuck levels of swimability (new word!). Amazingly, it doesn’t even take that much time or knowledge. I may have missed the boat on pinching the last few copper out of Wrath of the Lich King, but I’ll be damned if I don’t turn around and make at least 10,000 gold before the wave of Cataclysm dies down.
The least dangerous way to make tons of quick Au is by abusing all those players that must have the best or first of everything. That is, being quick on the draw for gathering professions. Unfortunately, the small increase in the level cap this round means that this window of opportunity has closed on most servers. Herbs, ore and leather can still make you quick money, but the profit margin has plummeted from ridiculous highs to slightly inflated. Whereas last Wednesday I sold a Pristine Hide for 950 gold, they’re now only going in the hundreds. Still, getting a gathering skill is a sure-fire way to earn some coin, or, at least, save some by producing your own consumables.
Enchanting is still ripe for the picking, thanks to its general difficulty in leveling and tax-free AH postings. Snapping up cheaply-priced enchanting mats – or simply all of them – and then reposting them is a strategy I’ve used for awhile, but it’s not without its risks. Should a competitor come along, a Glyph-like bidding war can drive your profits to a handful of silver per sale. However, the current time is the safest. More and more players are going to begin searching for materials as the average player hits level 85 and begins to enchant gear for heroics. The downside here is that you need some scratch to get your prospecting started.
Jewelcrafting is as open as enchanting, for the same reasons. The glyph market is still viable, but I’ll leave that to our resident expert.
My favorite avenue of generating Atomic Number 79 is the oddities. I’m talking about methods that aren’t incredibly popular but guarantee a decent turnaround. For example, in the olden days it was converting cloth to bandages and selling them. It was a small profit, but guaranteed to always generate something. Like the Bond market, slow, steady, stable. Sadly, it hasn’t worked on cloth since TBC. Transmuting Deviate Fish to Savory Deviate Delight is still an underused money maker, as is buying leather and converting. It seems that people are just too lazy to convert things themselves, or they don’t have the capability. Pets from the Argent Crusade dailies can line your pockets too.
While I’ve put my hand in every hair-brained “Get Rich Quick” scheme Azeroth has to offer, I always return to the oddities once the schemes run their courses. The safe, stable, stress-free money is far more enjoyable than spending hours on the Glyph market or prospecting in the lulls of a content patch.
What are you favorite “odd” money makers?
Blacksmithing!
On Archimonde I can still turn around 700-900g (after the AH tax) per Ebonsteel Belt Buckle.
Most of my money income is vendor trash + drops from mobs + rewards from random queues.
Every once in a while I’ll sell some metals because I want quick cash (still about 20g a pop for 1 Elementium bar).
Jewelcrafting has plummeted fast. Uncommon gems go for about 10g (used to be about 30g) and rares are around 50g (used to be about 150g).
Still will be an interesting expansion with an inflated market across the board, in my opinion.
December 23rd, 2010 at 3:18 pmQuote
Buying cheap crafting items/crappy green drops from the AH, disenchanting them and posting the mats back to the AH. I did this back late in TBC with my lvl 55ish toon and within 2 months pulled in about 10,000G.
I remembered this two days ago when contemplating buying mats from the AH to get my 520 skill up to 525. “Why buy when you can profit?”, I asked myself. So, using Autioneer, I’ve started again. It’s taken about 15,000G to rescan/rebid every 12 hours, but as it stands right now, I’ve got that 15KG back with a whole mess of mats. It’s a nice way to make money off of the AH, but it does take quite a bit of change to prime the pump.
If you have a buddy, you can go cross-faction with faction-specific items, such as major city vendored pets as well as some recipes. You need the buddy to go with you to a neutral AH and buy out what you post (or post what you buy out) on the other faction.
Sometimes the prospecting value of ores is more than the general market price of the ores is.
Sometimes the milling value of herbs is more than the general market price of the herbs is.
Other than (iirc) the Jaggel clam, every clams’ contents are worth more than the clam itself is. Example: I got the Clamlette Magnifique cooking quest earlier tonight (on an alt). That’s the quest in Gadgetzan, Tanaris that requires 20 large eggs, 20 zesty clam meats and (used to be) 20 alterac swiss cheeses. Zesty clam meat comes from big-mouth clams, guaranteed drop. 1 zesty clam meat goes for about 1.5G on my server. I searched and bought a stack of 20 big-mouth clams for about 3G, which was the going market price. Got the meat and some pearls as well. So… check your clams.
Is that ore worth more as bars? I made a killing smelting a buttload of truesilver ore into bars early this year on my “see the horde” alt. One guy kept posting ore when there were no bars on the market, so I bought the ore out and filled a need.
Some recipes are sold by only one or two vendors, so are not well know to the general wow masses. Buying up recipes and reposting them to the AH can be a modest way to earn some G. An example is… the enchanting rod upgrade recipe sold in Moonglade. There are a couple of cooking recipes sold on the Draenei isles. (Going from memory) One is sold at Odesyus’ landing or azure watch, the other is sold in Blood Watch. That’s the only place those two recipes are sold, they only cost a few silver, and last I checked auction off for 20-50 gold.
Being ready for holiday events is always worth it. I recalled that the Christmas event requires small eggs, so I had slowly been buying up all cheap small eggs posted to the AH these last few months. Once the holiday started, I posted everything at the new “holiday inflated price”. Made a few G there.
December 24th, 2010 at 5:18 amQuote