I never really like the standard Auctioneer, grinding, and Neutral-AH Sniping approaches, they were time consuming, high-risk, and not always guaranteed.
So I'm moving some of my old gold strategy posts from MMOWNED/E*PVPERS here. They're low-risk and high return with little work required. Once I get back into WoW (when Cata is out), I'll have plenty more strategies to add on the blog too.
This first one was originally posted in September 2007, but it's still relevant today and can be highly lucrative.
Note: I was the first to post something like this, well, actually anywhere at the time.. but the strategy has since been reposted hundreds of times and has even been put in some paid Guide Books for professional gold farmers. (In many cases word-for-word. In fact, a lot of my strategies on MMOWNED were reposted word-for-word and taken credit by someone else.) =]
What To Expect
Basically - you're going to be crafting items, disenchanting them, and selling in mass quantities.
I typically spend 2 hours max per day doing this, and collect 3000-4000G in return (each day.) The more you do it, the faster your technique. (I have 10 toons on one server, and they all have maxed professions so I can do a wide variety of crafting for this approach. But you really only need 1 toon to do this.)
What You Need
The Enchanting profession is a must, but check the spreadsheet to see if any of your crafting professions are applicable.
First, download one of these spreadsheets:
Daeity's Disenchanting Guide (Open Office Format - my personal favorite)
Daeity's Disenchanting Guide (Excel Format)
Next, all you need to do here is check AH/Vendor prices and plug them into the spreadsheet at the top. The bottom matrix will calculate everything else and tell you what the return on investment is.
The spreadsheet will be different for each realm, since we all have our own independent economies. The attached documents show the prices that were on my PVP realm for example.
Note:
- Don't change anything in the "BOLTS" column. This is just used as a basic calculator to convert the cost of ONE BOLT from their associated cloth.
- Don't let all of the materials listed intimidate you. You can start out by just focusing on popular DE's like Infinite Dust, Illusion Dust, Vision Dust, Eternal Essences, Cosmic Essences, etc.
- All of the currency in this spreadsheet is in SILVER. There is only one column "Return (GOLD OUT)" that shows the value in GOLD.
- For example, 4 = "4 silver", 40 = 40 "silver", 400 = "4 gold", 6000 = "60 gold", 12550 = "125 gold 50 silver".
- Everything is in individual quantities, there aren't any stacks or anything like that.
Finally, look under the column "Return (GOLD OUT)" and look for any entries that are at 90G or higher. (You could go lower if you wanted, but I like the really profitable stuff.)
What this means is that for every 100 items you DE, you will receive 90G profit. (Or roughly 90 silver per disenchant.) Frostsaver Tunic, for example, will net you 8.16G for every single disenchant you do. (100 DE's - 816G profit!)
And that's pretty much it. If you got it figured out, start using it right away. Keep reading if you want more details how it works though.
Here's an example of what this spreadsheet will calculate for you:
[Volcanic Shoulders]
Materials:
10 Rugged Leather (45s each on AH)
1 Essence of Fire (1.0G each on AH)
1 Essence of Earth (1.5G each on AH)
2 Rune Thread (40s each from exalted vendor)
Cost to Craft: 780G to make 100 x [Volcanic Shoulders]
Disenchanting Results:
222 x Illusion Dust (Sells for 3G each on AH)
64 x Greater Eternal Essence (Sells for 12G each on AH)
4 x Large Brilliant Shard (Sells for 4G each on AH)
Total value of disenchants: 1450G
Total value of D/E - cost to craft = profit of 670G for every 100 you disenchant
To summarize, if you were to buy 50 stacks of Rugged Leather (at an average of 9G per stack), craft into Volcanic Shoulders and disenchant, you stand to receive almost 700G in profit every 15-30 minutes.
Note: In regards to the [Volcanic Shoulders] recipe, this pattern is dropped by Firebrand Legionnaires in LBRS. Took me about 30 runs to get it. They're located in LBRS, at the base of the ramp leading up to Smolderweb. There are only 2 Legionnaires there, so this will take a lot of runs/resets - but definitely worth it if you crunch your numbers using the above Disenchant Results. You could also sell the recipe on the AH for 300-500G - but it won't be bought by anyone unless they know of this method (or just trying to complete achievements.)
Other Important Notes:
- Keep in mind that AH prices are typically lower in the morning than later in the day. I buyout 20-60 stacks of Rugged Leather for 5-9G in the AM, but the prices jump to 20G per stack in the afternoon. Watch the trends.
- When filling out the AH prices in the above section, pick the lowest AH "average" prices you can find. Arcane Dust, for example, people will dump for 90-99 silver, but you know that others will still buy it for 1G 10S. In that case, just put down 1G on the spreadsheet (just enough to sell, but not too low).
- You could avoid selling the DE's on the AH.. just advertise in Trade Chat. (e.g. "Selling starter kits for levelling Enchanting Skills to 300".)
- What's nice about these spreadsheet guide is that you can use this to level your Professions, all the while making a profit and selling back the DE's. Only focus on the profitable returns.
- I control the AH market to maximize profits. Buyout all existing DE inventories, put up my own prices on multiple toons (to make it look like the prices are reasonable), and I completely corner the market. I drive down the prices of materials and drive up the prices of disenchants.