Hi folks!
First of all, I’ve been busy in WoW. Primarily, I’ve been making money, which is the main point of this post. However, I’ve also healed The Nexus and Utgarde Keep on Madrana and both Madrana and Kurn are level 71. This is possibly the slowest I have ever levelled barring the original Vanilla… Anyway, if you’d like to see my adventures, I’m recording and posting at least the first healing run of all the dungeons I’m doing on Madrana. Here’s The Nexus and here’s Utgarde Keep. They’re unedited, just raw runs complete with my muttering about tanks and complaining about mana. Check it out and please do subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’re interested in more Wrath videos!
GOLD, GOLD, GOLD!!!
Okay, on to making money! I walked into Wrath Classic with about 1500g. Certainly not a lot of money — Madrana doesn’t even have epic flying. I also knew I wasn’t going to be able to participate in the absolute wildness that is Darkmoon Cards at the start of the expansion. I don’t have a scribe and didn’t have the money to make one, plus I like my current professions. So I knew Inscription and cards weren’t going to be an option for me, but I did know that anyone who was lucky enough to create any of the Nobles cards was going to get super rich. The Nobles cards turn into one of four Greatness trinkets and these are, without a doubt, incredibly powerful to start off in this expansion.
So I had a plan that included mining and jewelcrafting. My plan was to get to Dalaran and start in on getting my Jewelcrafting tokens on day one, basically. The majority of the “good” cuts of gems require 3 JC tokens, which are basically rewards from the daily JC quests in Dal.
Problem: Dalaran requires you to do a quest at level 74 to gain access to the city. I was wholly unamused that I had forgotten this.
So what I did was I looked up when mages get the Dal portal. It’s level 74 (which makes sense, given the quest requirements). I spent a while watching mages ding 71, 72, 73… but by the time I went to bed on Monday, either no mage on my server was 74 or no one was responding to my whispers. (I tried two mages who were 74 and no dice.) So the next morning I logged on before work and whispered a couple more mages with something like “Hey! So sorry to bother you. Do you have the Dal port yet? If so, I’ll tip you 150g to port me there!” And so that’s exactly what happened.
Using Professions to make Gold
Jewelcrafting Dailies FTW
So, once in Dalaran, I made it my hearth, then turned in the first JC quest and then did the daily. On Day 2, I had 2 JC tokens. Sweet.
Mining… and Engineering!
Meanwhile, I was mining like crazy on Kurn. Very little questing, a TON of mining. As such, I found myself with a ton of Cobalt Ore and Eternal/Crystallized Earth. What do 4 Cobalt Bars and 1 Crystallized Earth get you? For an engineer, like Kurn, it gets you 1 Overcharged Capacitor. That’s the objective of a low-level quest in Borean Tundra and five Overcharged Capacitors are the objective of a Storm Peaks quest. Basically, people need Overcharged Capacitors. I had, to be frank, completely forgotten about this. Entirely. When I saw people asking for it in Borean’s General Chat channel, it clicked. “OH MY GOD, I CAN PROVIDE THIS.”
Folks, I have probably sold approximately 80-90 Overcharged Capacitors in the last 5-6 days. Prices have ranged from 27g apiece to close to 80g apiece, depending on the market’s fluctuations. At the peak, I was selling approximately 1-2 Overcharged Capacitors every minute. It was literally unlimited money. As I write this, I have sold five in the last ten minutes, and that’s slow for me. People are also happy to undercut me, so it’s important to check every few minutes while you’re selling to make sure no one has undercut you. It’s gotten so profitable that I’ve just started buying Cobalt Ore outright. I spent 258g or so on 60 ore. I smelted it into bars (it’s 1:1, unlike Saronite and Titanium which are 2:1) and, thanks to my mining, I have a ton of crystallized earth and it’s cheap on the AH, too. So if I then make 15 Overcharged Capacitors and list them at about 27g, that’s about 450g in sales, then that’s about 247 in profit, minus the AH cut of 5%, so about 227g in profit. I spend 258g and get it all back and a 227g profit. Really not bad at all.
However! The market is volatile! SO volatile! I was sometimes selling for almost 80 a pop, now around 26-30g each. So, it’s important to diversify your portfolio.
This is where jewelcrafting comes in.
Back to Jewelcrafting!
On Day 3, Madrana learned her first “good” cut — Delicate Scarlet Ruby. Why 16 agility? Why not Bold and go with 16 strength? Strength gems are good for DPS warriors, DPS DKs and ret paladins, while agility gems are good for hunters, enhancement shamans, rogues and feral (DPS) druids. It seemed to me that I would hit a wider bunch of players with agility — including Kurn. Why not learn gem cuts that will benefit my other toon, right? Plus, Bold is a more obvious choice. There was at least one other JC on the server who was selling Bold, but I didn’t see anyone selling Delicates. I still believe, even a few days on, that there are only 4-5 of us on the server. I only just picked up my second good cut today from the vendor and I went with the Glinting Monarch Topaz. Why? Well, see above. All those agi folks also need hit, particularly at this time of the expansion when hit is rare to find enough of on gear, especially for melee folks who are dual-wielding (rogues, enhancement shaman). Plus, again, that particular gem can benefit Kurn. So now I can cut 16 agi and 8 agi/8 hit and I may be one of the only people on the server who can do both, catering specifically to the agi classes.
I could have decided to go for a meta gem recipe, which are 5 tokens each. Those will be around all expansion, after all. But my alchemy isn’t levelled up, so I’d have to rely on the AH to get the diamonds and such. Besides, there are already people selling Insightfuls and Chaotics, so I decided to hold off on those. I could have decided to go for a ring or necklace recipe (4 tokens apiece), but these won’t last the whole expansion. The gear, while useful now, will be crap in six months. Right now, people are tipping outrageously, but you’ve given up four tokens to rely on combines, because all of these recipes require Dragon’s Eye gems. These are only obtained by purchasing them from the vendor with, you guessed it, JC tokens. So you take your first four tokens and buy a recipe. Great. Then for four days, unless you want to pony up 500-700 gold for each Dragon’s Eye (at least on my server), you’re stuck only doing combines for people who may or may not tip, while you spend your daily token on a Dragon’s Eye. Not to mention the other mats you’d need to purchase, etc. And for what? Level 200 gear that will be completely outdated come Ulduar.
So I decided to go with stable cuts that will be good all expansion long, until epic gems come out. Your mileage may vary, check your server’s prices, and remember, it’s volatile as crap right now! What might go for 100g tonight might go for 20g tomorrow! Keep an eye on a market before you jump in and know it may shift dramatically without warning.
All right, so I’m making money from jewelcrafting and from engineering… what about mining?
Back to Mining!
Mining, you ask? Just mine ore and sell it or convert it to Overcharged Capacitors or send to the JC for prospecting, right?
Wrong. At 450 mining, you get Smelt Titansteel! It’s a 20h cooldown with really simple mats — 2 titanium bars (4 ore), 1 Crystallized Fire, 1 Crystallized Earth and 1 Crystallized Shadow. Titansteel bars go for ~550-700g apiece on my server right now. And if you don’t have the mats, you can sell your cooldown for up to 300-350g! (I’ve seen very desperate people looking for a smelt tipping that much.) I’ve sold two bars, one for 670ish and one for 600 even, plus made a 200g tip. Totally worth it right now.
I got to 450 mining by virtue of doing laps in Sholazar Basin… at level 70. Yep. Cannot recommend it on any other toon than a hunter or a rogue. Feign Death (or vanish) is basically required and I’ve still died a ton of times. Also, don’t be dumb like me. Buy a vellum on the AH for Enchant Gloves: Advanced Mining. I passed not one, not two, but three Titanium nodes in Sholazar when I was at 446 mining. You can’t mine it ’till 450, so imagine my displeasure when I saw three nodes that I could have mined if only I had that enchant on my gloves! At this point, I’m also sending Saronite Ore to Madrana to prospect if the cost of a stack is under 50g or so. If I can sell at stack for 75+, it goes to the AH. I’m not smelting it yet, but I’ll be looking at those prices too. If you can get two ore for cheaper than 1 bar, you can make a nice little profit for your time spent smelting.
What about Alchemy?
Finally, why haven’t I touched alchemy? Well, I don’t have an herbalist anymore… but also, no one is raiding right now. So I have a bit of time to start in on that. Flasks, of course, will be popular, as well as potions like Potion of Speed, Indestructible Potion and such, plus things like Mighty Frost Protection Potion, for fights like Sapphiron in Naxxramas.
Miscellaneous
Additionally, I have a level 1 toon in Stormwind. With the advent of guild banks, tons of people are always looking for people to sign their guild charters for their own personal guild banks. So run a level 1 toon from Elwynn to Stormwind or wherever to Orgrimmar and if you see someone advertising for guild sigs, go for it. I get 5-10g per signature. Now these guilds get formed rather quickly, so after a day or so, I’ll log in on that toon and if I’m still guilded I’ll /gquit and sign another charter. If I’m not guilded, the guild probably formed and I got kicked (which is fine). So I’m then free to sign. I’ve made at least 50g doing this. Every little bit helps!
What about you?
How are you making money in this expansion so far? Are you remembering old tips and tricks? Are you just questing? Tell me how you’re going to earn your 1k for Cold Weather Flying!
