My Strategy
There are many ways to make gold in WoW:
Grinding, Tradeskills, Questing Etc.
However none are as effective as "Reselling" or "Buying low and selling High" .
This strategy can be applied to any mmorpg, I started doing it in Everquest years ago, it worked well for me back then and it has worked very well for me in WoW as well. I have made somewhere in the ballpark of 80,000g in the time that I have been playing WoW spending only around 30 minutes per day on average buying and selling.
I sold a good portion of that gold, and the rest I spent on friends, and myself. I was able to keep all my (and a couple of my close friends) characters in the very best blues and purples as I leveled them (I had all the BoE tier 1 epics from molten core in my bank when I was in my 40's), buy mounts at 40, and epic mounts at 60, power level all my tradeskills to 300 in a matter of hours, even powerlevel many factions through turn-ins of BoE items purchased in AH. Allowing me to buy other races epic mounts among other rewards. I got all 1,200 tickets for darkmoon fair in an afternoon buying all the turning mats on AH. I also was able to create an army of twinks all decked out in the best gear, and best enchants money can buy. And I still have so much gold I don't even know what to do with it. And the best part is that it was so easy! I laugh every time I think of someone grinding for hours on end to make a few gold .
Ok enough of that lets talk about what we need to do to prepare to make some money!
First we need to download and install a few indispensable tools:
Tools
Auctioneer
Auctioneer is included with many UI mods already, but if you do not have it, go download it, it is the single most important tool to have for making gold in wow.
Auctioneer scans the auction hall and records all of the items and their prices into a searchable database for you. This allows you to do two things:
1) spot items that are listed for too low of a price
2) buy said items and sell for a profit.
CT mail
The CT Mail Mod allows you to auto-open all the mail in your mailbox. Very handy when you are dealing with 100+ emails a day with gold from sold auctions, items to re-list from expired auctions, and items from new purchases.
Lootlink WoW Guide
Lootlink stores clickable links to every item that is ever linked in public channels or on people that you inspect. It is very handy for getting links to rare items to add to your Shopping List.
Bring up the lootlink window once it is installed by typing /ll or /lootlink
Linkeratior WoW Guide
Is a good alternative to lootlink also.
It keeps track of links that you see, and then to retrieve the link you simply type the text version of it.
For example you would type [krol blade] and on your screen would actually appear [Krol Blade]
as a clickable link
*update*
In order to install any of these mods in warcraft all you have to do is unzip them into:
C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons
or wherever you have wow installed, that is the default location though.
If the addon does not appear when you log in to wow, you probably do not have it unzipped into the correct location. Check and make sure it is in the addons directory.
If you get an error saying that you do not have enough memory to run the mod, then do the following:
log into warcraft and at the character selection screen click the "addons" button, then in the upper right hand corner notice the box labeled "Script Memory(MB)" I believe the default number is 48, change it to a few mb higher than what it is set for , say 64mb for example. Then click ok and try to log in again.
MACRO KEYS
I have the following macro keys set up:
/auctioneer broker 500
/auctioneer broker 100
these will allow you to quickly check for buyouts with a 5 gold, and 1 gold profit respectively, these can be pressed even during a scan and if you see something worth buying you can stop the scan and buy it. (if your sitting at your PC) The number is in silver so 100 = 100silver = 1 gold.
Here is how you create a macro for those who don't know:
(from the main menu click macros, click "New", give it a name and icon, then in the commands box type the "/auctioneer XXX" command. where XXX is the number of silver"
General Strategy
READ THIS ONCE NOW, FINISH READING THE GUIDE, THEN READ THIS SECTION AGAIN.
The general idea is to scan the AH, buy the items which are listed below the average selling price, then re-list them for a profit:
1. Make a level 1 character
2. Give Him/Her a catchy name
3. If you have enough money to do so at this point, go ahead and buy some 14 or 16 slot bags. If not don't worry, you can work your way up to that when your rolling in gold.
4. Park yourself in AH
5. Set up your shopping list (read on to find out how)
6. Open up the auction window
7. Uncheck the categories: Container, Consumable, Projectile, and Quiver as things in those categories generally do not produce good profits and just slow down your scans.
8. Press the scan button and wait for it to finish.
9. For the first few days the best thing to do is scan with Auctioneer as many times as you can through the day at different times. After a dozen or so scans across a span of 2 or 3 days auctioneer will begin to accumulate enough data to give you somewhat accurate pricing information.
10. Once you think you have enough scans to have good enough pricing data you can start searching for good buys:
11. I search for good deals 2 ways:
I create a macro : ?/auctioneer broker 500?
This is a quick button I can click at any time and see everything that is listed at least 5g too low.(you can do whatever amount of gold you like 100 = 1g)
I also use the ?Search Auctions? Tab in the AH window. This is installed by the Auctioneer add-on.
12. Check your /auctioneer broker 500" hotkey results
13. Check your shopping list report.
14. On the Search Auctions' tab in AH search for:
Buyouts with percent less 80% and minimum profit 50silver
Buyouts with percent less 50% and minimum profit 1g
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 80% and minimum profit 50s
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 50% and minimum profit 1g
15. I have the 6 searches saved so I can run them all quickly in a row, starting with the 1g profit searches first.
16. As you begin to make more money you can search for higher profit items only as the smaller profit items will not be worth the effort then. For example I usually search:
Buyouts with percent less 90% and minimum profit 2g
Buyouts with percent less 50% and minimum profit 5g
Buyouts with percent less 25% and minimum profit 10g
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 90% and minimum profit 2g
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 50% and minimum profit 5g
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 25% and minimum profit 10g
17. Then if I don't find many items in those searches, then I fall back to my lower profit searches and pick up a few more items there.
18. You can tweak these numbers and percents as you see fit those are just what I do.
19. Buyout all the good deals, and then head to the mailbox to pick them up and come back and re-list them for more in AH. Read the rest of this guide for exact guidelines on what to buy and how to sell. You have to use common sense and some guidelines when choosing what to buy. In general when you are just starting out stick with low level(
20. When you start to accumulate a lot of items (I usually have over 100 items in AH at a given time) it is helpful to leave the expired ones in your mailbox until you are ready to re-list all of the items at once. This will make it so that you only have to empty your mailbox and list items once a day, rather than every time you are at the mailbox. This will make your life a lot simpler once you have a large inventory.
21. Run these scans as often as you can, because the more you scan the more money you will make. I generally scan 3 times a day on weekdays: Once when I wake up and let it run while I shower. Once when I get home from work or while I eat dinner, and once right before I go to bed. Scan more if you can, remember it only costs you about 30 seconds of your time to log in and start a scan you can go do something else while it scans.
22. Always keep your character either at the mailbox, or in front of an auctioneer, that's why you made a lvl 1 alt for this so that you are always ready to go when you log in.
SPECIFIC GUIDELINES
BUYING
* Run scans as often as possible
The more scans you run the better your data will be, and the more deals you will find.
Also scan at non-peak times to find deals that others miss. Scan many times during peak time if you can because many items get listed every minute.
* Bid on Tuesdays before the servers go down
Get your bid in before the server goes down on items with short or even medium durations left and you will have a better chance of winning them.
* Scan late Sunday night/ early Monday morning
These are one of the best times to pick up some cheep deals because everyone lists all the items they found over the weekend late Sunday night or early Monday morning. Not only are there a large amount of items for sale, but lots of competition so people list their items cheaper undercutting each other. This is great for us because we can buy up the under priced items then wait till a better time to sell them for a profit.
* Sell on Sunday
Sunday is by far the best day to sell. For some reason a lot of people do their AH shopping on Sunday. Maybe it's just because more people log-in on Sundays so more items get bought, but whatever it is Sundays are great for selling items. I always have a mailbox full of gold by Monday morning.
* Make offers to people auctioning their items in the trade channel
If you see a particularly good item in a trade channel that you know will sell well make the seller an offer that is lower than what you know you can sell it for in AH. I usually offer anywhere from 50% to 75% of what I can sell it for depending on the item. Don't waste too much time haggling with them, just make them an offer, and if they refuse don't worry about it there are plenty more deals to be had. Also many times a seller who has rejected my offer will message me some time later and ask me if I still want the item for what I offered because they have not had luck selling it and they just want to get rid of it.
* Manually searching for items
Here is where you can really make some money, after you have done the auctioneer thing, and all the good deals have been bought up, there are some other actions you can take to ensure maximum profits. And this is where I make a lot of money so pay attention.
I was bored one day with doing the same old auctioneer scan thing so I decided to try something new. I decided to find something that I could buy up for cheep that I felt was undervalued. While power leveling my rogue one day I noticed that the biggest help in my killing power was having the best daggers I could get for my level, I also noticed that a lot of people make twink rogues. So I went to AH and bought up every green dagger between the levels of 5-19 that have agility and attack power since these seemed to be the most desirable for a lowbie rogue. They were selling anywhere from 5s to 50s on my server. I re-listed them all for 1g 99s, Every time I was in AH I would buy up all the lower priced daggers than mine. Mine began to sell.
Within a week I had upped the price to 2g99s for of power, and of agility daggers, and was now buying up all the other alternative green daggers such as +strength and +stamina and was listing them at 1g99s. They always sell. The re-listing fee is negligible so I can list them as many times as it takes. In fact if I get an overabundance of a certain type of dagger, I usually just vendor them. Since I buy then for like 10s its better to just buy them up and vendor them and loose a few silver , and have someone buy yours for 2g99s instead. You are still making a huge profit.
I then moved on to other green lvl 1-19 items following the same idea:
Lvl 1-19 green cloth ?of the eagle?; listing them all for 1g99s to 2g99s
Lvl 1-19 green leather of the monkey of agility of power; listing them all for 2g99s or more. I can sell a +5of the monkey legs or +4monkey gloves for well over 10g a pair.
1-19 green rings of the monkey, eagle, bear, etc as well as Blood rings, Demon Bands, and Ring of the Moon; Buying them all up and re-listing them for anywhere from 5g for a +2stat ring to 19g for a +3 of the monkey or of the eagle ring.
Another idea I had that has worked well:
lvl 40-50 green MAIL of the Monkey, Agility, attack Power. At level 40 hunters can begin to wear chain, this means that they need to upgrade all their gear starting at 40, so I buy up all the 40+ green mail gear that has good hunter stats and I re-list it for higher prices. If you keep buying up all the cheaper alternatives that get listed the hunters have no choice but to pay your prices, which they will because they are excited about getting to wear chain so they impulse buy.
You can come up with your own ideas following the same idea, some that I haven't had time to try are 40+ plate of the bear for warriors, or 40+ gear for shamans.
It doesn't really matter what item you choose as long as you know there is a demand for it and you are diligent in buying up all the lower competition and re-listing them. You could even do this with rare or uncommonly seen trade goods etc.
* Use caution buying 40+ blues; especially weapons
Use a bit of judgment before buying up too many 40+ blue items. Be sure that you are going to be able to sell the item for a decent profit because the AH listing fees on 40+ blue items can be high. Some higher level blue weapons can have listing fee’s of several gold. So only buy high level blues if you know 1) the item has a high demand 2) you will be able to make a profit even if you have to list it a few times because 2g a listing adds up.
* Epic Items
The same goes for epics, they generally have high listing fees, and the auctioneer data may be skewed because of a handful of overpriced epics that have been sitting in AH for weeks. Use caution when buying epic items. I would suggest that you only get involved with epics once you have plenty of experience and gold reserves on hand. Unless you are 100% sure that it's a killer deal. If you do see something hat jumps out at you don't hesitate to buy it. When I was just getting started I didn't know a whole lot about the prices and values of most epics, but I did know that when I saw a Krol Blade for 150g it was an awesome deal and I snapped it up and resold it for over 500g.
* How much gold to keep in reserve, how much to invest
In the beginning buy up every good deal you see, don't worry about having gold in reserve. As you start to accumulate gold however you will find that you cant spend it all because there are not enough good buys on AH to spend it on, at this point you will probably be buying items and mounts for your other chars, and spending gold on other things. Once you reach that point you should always keep at least several thousand gold on you’re AH char at all times, you never know when someone is going to list 100 nexus crystals for 199g a stack of 10. This is exactly what happened to me one day. I spent 1990g buying 100 nexus crystals that I assume were listed by some guild bank , and re-listed them for 59g a piece over several weeks, and turned that 1990g into 5900g ? quite a hefty profit.
SELLING
* Sell on Sunday
Sunday is by far the best day to sell. For some reason a lot of people do their AH shopping on Sunday. Maybe it's just because more people log-in on Sundays so more items get bought, but whatever it is Sundays are great for selling items. I always have a mailbox full of gold by Monday morning.
* Listing fees and durations
Always list items for 24 hours, the fee isn't that much more, it lets more people see the item, and it makes it so you only have to list the item once per day.
* Always use buyout
Always set a buyout. If you don't you will miss out on 99% of your sales. People want instant gratification, and also a buyout scares people into impulse buying because they feel that someone else could buyout the auction at any moment. With just bids and no buyout people know they have hours to think about it and often decide they don't really need to spend all that gold on that item today.
* Stack size
A lot of times I will buy up stackable items either in small stacks or 2 or 3 etc, or I will end up with stacks with like 17 or 18 items in them. This is not the best way to sell stackable items. I use the following guidelines:
o In general if you have enough to combine into a stack of 10 or 20 do that because it is a nice even number and people can easily figure out if the price is good.
o If you only have a few of the item (like 3 or 4) split them up and list them singly.
o Some items are needed in specific quantities for quests or tradeskills; these are the exceptions where it may be beneficial to list them in those quantities. An example is nexus crystals are generally required in quantities of 3 for most high level enchants. So if someone else has them listed for 50g singly, and you have 3 for 150g, odds are your stack of three will be purchased because someone probably needs 3, and its less clicking for them to buy your stack of 3.
* 7's 9's rule
I always list my items using 7's and 9's let me explain:
If the item usually sells for around 10g I list it with a min bid of 7g77s and a buyout of 9g 99s. Never list anything for 10g or 20g etc, always 9g99s, 19g 99s
Its only 1 s difference but it makes people feel like its 10g cheaper. It's the same principal as all those TV commercials that sell stuff for $19.95 It just sounds a lot cheaper than $20 even though its not really.
Sometimes if the item is worth only 15g, but there is no competition in AH at the time I'll list it for 17g 77s / 19g 99s. People see 17g and think 17 is about the same as 15, and 19g is only 2 more gold I really want it so I'm just going to buy it. They just paid 20g for a 15g item that's 33% markup. They probably wouldn't have bought the item had you listed it for 20g.
Granted if you had listed the same item for 13g/14g99s they defiantly would buy it, but that is a judgment call you will have to make on an item to item basis based on how much competition there is, how much you paid for it, and how badly you need to sell it (because listing fee is high or whatever) personally I do not like to put myself in situations where I feel pressure to sell an item, and the best way to avoid that is to stay away from the higher level items whose demand you are unsure about.
* Undercutting minimum bids
When most people search specifically for an item they sort the results based on lowest price first. The price is not determined by the buyout price but rather the minimum bid. So sometimes it makes sense to undercut the competitions minimum bid, but not necessarily their buyout. This will ensure that your item is at the top of the list and the first thing they see when they sort their results by lowest price. Be careful though never set your minimum bid below the minimum price you can sell the item for or you could loose money if someone bids on the item and the auction ends with that bid.
**How to start with no money at level 1 **
Use searches that will find lower priced items to buy
People ask me "what if i don't have any money to start?" Well I say I started with about 1 gold. You should be able to start with even less. So after telling someone this ... I started another char lvl 1 with 0 gold just to see how difficult it would be, I killed a few mobs on my way to orgimar, leveled to lvl 3, sold all the stuff I had collected and had 3 silver total. So now what can I get for 3 silver and turn a profit ?!?
I did a couple scans and then did a search for:
and ended up with this result:
Bam I bought up the 3 lesser mystics (that was a stack of 3, i accidentally chopped the 3 off), split them up and sold them each for 24s.
Now I was sitting at 72s, almost a whole gold at level 3 within an hour or two of creating the char.
Later I did:
Buyouts with percent less 80% and minimum profit 20silver
which yielded the following results:
As you can see there are several items here which you can buy for a few silver and make
a hefty profit, especially the heart ring which is a level 18 ring with +5sta. A very nice twink item which will sell very well for 1g99s leaving you with a quick 1g79s profit.
So if I bought that ring and that cloak, I spend 27s, that puts me down to 45s, and I sell the two items for a total of 2g50s, I am now sitting at just under 3 gold. !!!!!
Keep in mind I’m only lvl 3 and has gone from 1 silver to 3 gold in 3 quick transactions
that is impressive!
You can change the numbers till you find something, try lowering the minimum profit, or try lowering the percent less numbers a little until you find something that looks good.
Important thoughts:
Auctioneer is in no way definitive or perfect at what it does!
It is simply a tool to HELP you sort through the 1,000's of auctions in the auction house. If you trust the scan results of auctioneer 100 % and buy up everything that it says is too cheep, you will loose money. The key is to use common sense to narrow those choices down to make smart purchases. I have had several people read this guide, run two or three auctioneer scans in a row and then proceed to buy up everything it tells them to. Guess what? they lost some gold!
Run lots of scans, and use some common sense in what you purchase. In the following sections I will try to give you a run down of what type of items I look for. As a rule of thumb just think about the item like this is it rare? does it have awesome stats for the classes that can use it?
No one is going to want a plate item with intelligence on it on the horde side, and conversely no one will want chain items with intelligence on it on the alliance side. Or I look at daggers and think rogues want agility or + attack power, so those are the daggers I buy. Caster gear with +int, + sta at lower levels, and + spell damage at higher levels. You get the idea.
In the beginning start small, and use caution till you get a feel for the market.
*updated 3/07*
Rare blues - these are the blues that only drop in one instance, and are not world drops, there are only a handful of them.
These are the big ones that I have on my list right now I will update this list as I find more:
* Antenna of Invigoration
* Elemental Attuned Blade
* Teebu's Blazing Longsword
* Recipe: Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops
These are less rare, but still worth putting on the list, especially in the beginning when you don't have many scans:
* Pendulum of Doom
* Assassin's Blade
* Shadowfang
* Miner's Hat of the Deep
* Expert Goldminer's Helmet
* Shovelphlange's Mining Axe
* The Jackhammer
* Unearthed Bands of _ _ _ _
Unearthed Bands of Agility
Etc. (keep in mind its leather so the good ones are going to be agility, power, monkey, etc)
* Petrolspill Leggings
* Mantle of Thieves
* Flintrock Shoulders
* Wolfclaw Gloves
* Hotshot Pilot's Gloves
* Mechbuilder's Overalls
* Maiden's Circle
::Here are some of the other sets of items which I know are good sellers when im looking for stuff to buy::
Cross-faction patterns/items
There are several patterns or items that are only available to either alliance or horde. These can be purchased at vendors and if you can get them to the other faction AH you can mark them up hundreds of percent.
For example an alliance only pattern that costs around 50silver and sells very well horde side for 50gold + on my server is
* Pattern: Red Whelp Gloves
* To get a hold of this item you will either need to have a friend with an account on the other faction, or a second account yourself. Have the friend, or on your other account buy the item and list it for 1s or something in a neutral AH, then buy it and list it in your factions AH for whatever you want.
This is one of the better items I have found because the Gloves that it makes are highly desirable 10-19 BG Twink items.
Again I will update this List as I find more items worth doing this with.
Rare Tradeskill goods:
These are hard to come by tradeskill goods that usually are not on the AH much or are very expensive because they come from raid zones/bosses. They are defiantly worth putting on your shopping list and keeping an eye on, especially once your get a good stash of gold, or if you have a lvl 60 char that can use them, or items made from them.
[Dreamscale]
[Fiery Core]
[Lava Core]
[Brilliant Chromatic Scale]
[Bloodvine]
[Core Leather]
[Large Obsidian Shard]
Rare Tradeskill Patterns
There are some rare tradeskill patterns that you should keep an eye out for, prices on them might vary by server but they will sell for a lot regardless. I found a Formula: Enchant Chest - Greater Stats for 5g once, and a Enchant Shield - Lesser Block for 1g. I sold the first for 500g, and the other for over 100g. So just keep your eyes out for a obviously cheep price on any of these. *Update* I picked up the following recently: felcloth bag for 100g, flarecore wraps for 150g. I sold the first for 499g, and the second for 399g.
Formula: Enchant Weapon Lifstealing
Formula: Enchant Chest - Greater Stats
Enchant Shield - Lesser Block
Formula: Enchant Weapon - Crusade
Formula: Enchant Weapon - Superior Striking
Formula: Enchant 2H Weapon - Superior Impact
Pattern: Core Felcloth Bag
Recipe: Major Rejuvenation Potion
Pattern: Flarecore Wraps
Pattern: Black Grasp of the Destroyer
Items with no listing fee
Some items have NO listing fee, enchanting supplies are a good example. Dusts, Essences, and Shards have absolutely no listing fee, which is good because it means you can re-list them over and over and not loose money. These are GREAT items for people who are just starting in their gold earning career because you can start with the lower lvl ones which are cheep and you can re-list them without loosing any money. Also you can list them for only slightly more than you paid because you don't have to worry about fees.
One word of advice about buying enchanting supplies is to buy on the weekends or when you notice a large amount of them in AH, and then sell in the middle of the week when supplies are dwindling.
TWINK ITEMS
Twinks are a huge source of money for me, a twink for those of you that don't know is generally a lvl 19, 29, or 39 char (top of each battlegrounds level bracket) that is decked out in the best blues/purples that money can buy or can be obtained through instances or quests. And they generally have lvl 60 enchants on every slot. They are usually funded by their lvl 60 mains, and their only goal is to be the most decked out badass person in the battlegrounds so that they can dominate. They generally stay at that level for months or indefinitely just to dominate that bracket. Many people have one of each of the 3 levels for each bracket.
Once you start making gold you will be able to make twinks if you choose, however the reason we are talking about them now is because they will buy certain gear from you for ridiculous prices. I know a lot of other guides say no lvl 19 will pay 200g for a lvl 19 blue. But that is just in fact UNTRUE. Lvl 19's repeatedly pay 50-200g for lvl 19 blues. There is a list of these items to look for below, but let me just provide you with one specific example. For example I love when I find an Assassin's Blade
For like 5g in AH (happens quite a bit) they sell for 150g-200g on my server. And they DO sell. You might have to re-list it 5 or 10 times, but the re-listing fee is like 5s so no big deal. That is an extreme example because it is an especially rare item which comes from only 1 instance. However many of the items below sell for 40g or 50g regularly.
Twink blues:
10-19:
Feet of the Lynx
Deviate Scale Belt
Sentry Cloak
Assassin's Blade
Thorbia's Gauntlets
Silver-linked Footguards
Skeletal Club
Night Reaver
Shadowfang
Black Malice
Tree Bark Jacket
Darkweave Breeches
Keller's Girdle
Magefist Gloves
Twisted Chanter's Staff
Witching Stave
Skycaller
Lil Timmy's Peashooter
20-29:
Barbaric Bracers
Enduring Cap
River Pride Choker
Watchman Pauldrons
Tigerstrike Mantle
Brawler Gloves
Harbinger Boots
Dreamslayer
Cobalt Crusher
Forest Tracker Epaulets
Mantle of Thieves
The Butcher
Zealot Blade
Ironweaver
Claw of the Shadowmancer
Frostreaver Crown
Pugilist Bracers
Girdle of Golem Strength
Hotshot Pilot's Gloves
Beguiler Robes
Mechbuilder's Overalls
Glowing Magical Bracelets
30-39
Basilisk Hide Pants
Assault Band
Necklace of Calisea
Ogron's Sash
Papal Fez
Speedsteel Rapier
40-49
Elven Chain Boots
Twink greens :
Some lvl 10-19 greens sell for 5g or even 10g+ simply because they are the best items you can get for those slots period(AH, Instances, Quests or otherwise) here are a couple examples.
Bristlebark Gloves
Forest Leather Bracers
Red Whelp Gloves <- On horde side they are very valuable, because it's an alliance only pattern LVL 10-19 rings: Ring of the eagle, monkey, bear, agi, eluding, blood ring, demon band, ring of the moon, etc good low level rings always seem to sell well, I think it is because lower levels always seem to have empty ring slots to fill because they seem to drop less than regular armor. Also because for twinking they are generally better than the blue instance dropped or quest rings for some classes. Here are a couple of searches I run without using auctioneer. I just use the standard AH search box: 1) lvl 2 - 19 rare all categories. Sort lowest price first Emitting level 1 skips over all tradskill items and leaves us only with blue weapons, and armor below lvl 19. Since it is sorted lowest price first, we can immediately see if there are any items listed very cheaply. Her is an example I ran today to show you: as you can see I entered 2 and 19 in the lvl box, selected rare from the rarity box, clicked search, and finally clicked current bit to sort it by price. Keller's girdle is listed for way way too low, it actually sells for closer to 20g, and I will buy it and re-list it at 19g for a great profit! 2) Lvl 1 - 19 rings of any quality sorted by price. Same idea here, easy way to find good twink rings. 3) lvl 1 - 19 daggers sorted by price. Look for cheep of agi, power, monkey daggers. Saves you the time of searching for them one by one! 4) lvl 1-19 one hand swords. I usually buy of the tiger, monkey, agi, and power. Especially the lvl 19 decapitating swords, they usually sell for 3 or 4 gold. **8/17 Update - Upcoming expansion** The upcoming expansion will allow for paladins on the horde side, and shamans on the alliance side. What does this mean? 1) lots of people will make new characters: This will create a huge demand for twink items when the patch comes out. Chain gear for the new paladins on horde side, and leather items for the new shamans on alliance side. Also lvl 40+ plate for the pallies, and 40+ chain for the shamans to a lesser extent. The real demand will be for lvl 1-40 gear though. 2) people will also want to level trade skills (especially first aid) for these new characters, so we may see an increase in demand and price for cloth, and other tradeskill supplies. In addition the new expansion will bring a NEW TRADESKILL: Jewelcrafting ! I can only speculate at this point, but I have a strong feeling that the prices of Gems and Metals will skyrocket, especially the high end ones. I am personally going to start thinking about some long term investment in gems, and I am guessing that they might have finally found a use for those now almost useless Pristine Black Diamonds, and Black Diamonds. As well as some azerothian diamonds, blue sapphires, huge emeralds, rubies, large opals, ETC, cant hurt to pick up any that you see for cheap, you can always sell them for what you paid. I’m going to pick up a bag full of stuff and stick it in the bank. Might pay off it Might not. /shrug. In addition with the increase of the level cap to level 70 in the Burning Crusade, level 60 items will loose much of their value. I would not recommend buying any lvl 60 gear at the moment, and the same goes for lvl 60 tradeskill materials. Lava Cores, Fiery Cores, and the like will *probably* drop in value significantly. I have unloaded all of my high end gear and tradskill mats on AH for the time being. **3/07 Update - Results from above observation** Well I followed my advice and bought up many many stacks of gems prior to the expansion. I bought 8 stacks of [azerothian diamonds] for an average price of 3.7 gold each. or 592g total. I have just finished selling them all off for between 19.99 and 24.99 a PIECE. With an average of 22.05 gold each, that’s around 3,520 gold.... or a profit of about 3,000g! And that’s just from azerothian diamonds. I did the same with blue sapphires, huge emeralds, large opals, and star rubies. I had around a dozen stacks of each, and overall made well over 10,000 in profits from my gem sales. I hope some of you took my advice and invested in gems before BC, if so drop me a line and let me know how well you fared! I personally did not invest in cloth too heavily as the profit margin for the amount of bank space it took up was not worth it to me, however cloth prices did go up, and those of you who did invest in lots of cloth before BC probably did well. Also, as I predicted lvl 60 ish epics, blues, and tradeskill items all hit rock bottom, moltencore, and AQ trade skill mats are almost worthless now, and I'm glad I dumped all mine before the expansion! Other thoughts: You will find that over time you will get better and better at knowing what to buy and how to sell, it is just like anything else it takes practice. This guide gives you a big head start but there is still plenty to learn, different items will sell better or for different amounts depending on your server, the economies between new and old , high and low pop servers varies greatly. Once you have a good feel for the local economy on your server you will begin to make wiser choices and make more gold
There are many ways to make gold in WoW:
Grinding, Tradeskills, Questing Etc.
However none are as effective as "Reselling" or "Buying low and selling High" .
This strategy can be applied to any mmorpg, I started doing it in Everquest years ago, it worked well for me back then and it has worked very well for me in WoW as well. I have made somewhere in the ballpark of 80,000g in the time that I have been playing WoW spending only around 30 minutes per day on average buying and selling.
I sold a good portion of that gold, and the rest I spent on friends, and myself. I was able to keep all my (and a couple of my close friends) characters in the very best blues and purples as I leveled them (I had all the BoE tier 1 epics from molten core in my bank when I was in my 40's), buy mounts at 40, and epic mounts at 60, power level all my tradeskills to 300 in a matter of hours, even powerlevel many factions through turn-ins of BoE items purchased in AH. Allowing me to buy other races epic mounts among other rewards. I got all 1,200 tickets for darkmoon fair in an afternoon buying all the turning mats on AH. I also was able to create an army of twinks all decked out in the best gear, and best enchants money can buy. And I still have so much gold I don't even know what to do with it. And the best part is that it was so easy! I laugh every time I think of someone grinding for hours on end to make a few gold .
Ok enough of that lets talk about what we need to do to prepare to make some money!
First we need to download and install a few indispensable tools:
Tools
Auctioneer
Auctioneer is included with many UI mods already, but if you do not have it, go download it, it is the single most important tool to have for making gold in wow.
Auctioneer scans the auction hall and records all of the items and their prices into a searchable database for you. This allows you to do two things:
1) spot items that are listed for too low of a price
2) buy said items and sell for a profit.
CT mail
The CT Mail Mod allows you to auto-open all the mail in your mailbox. Very handy when you are dealing with 100+ emails a day with gold from sold auctions, items to re-list from expired auctions, and items from new purchases.
Lootlink WoW Guide
Lootlink stores clickable links to every item that is ever linked in public channels or on people that you inspect. It is very handy for getting links to rare items to add to your Shopping List.
Bring up the lootlink window once it is installed by typing /ll or /lootlink
Linkeratior WoW Guide
Is a good alternative to lootlink also.
It keeps track of links that you see, and then to retrieve the link you simply type the text version of it.
For example you would type [krol blade] and on your screen would actually appear [Krol Blade]
as a clickable link
*update*
In order to install any of these mods in warcraft all you have to do is unzip them into:
C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons
or wherever you have wow installed, that is the default location though.
If the addon does not appear when you log in to wow, you probably do not have it unzipped into the correct location. Check and make sure it is in the addons directory.
If you get an error saying that you do not have enough memory to run the mod, then do the following:
log into warcraft and at the character selection screen click the "addons" button, then in the upper right hand corner notice the box labeled "Script Memory(MB)" I believe the default number is 48, change it to a few mb higher than what it is set for , say 64mb for example. Then click ok and try to log in again.
MACRO KEYS
I have the following macro keys set up:
/auctioneer broker 500
/auctioneer broker 100
these will allow you to quickly check for buyouts with a 5 gold, and 1 gold profit respectively, these can be pressed even during a scan and if you see something worth buying you can stop the scan and buy it. (if your sitting at your PC) The number is in silver so 100 = 100silver = 1 gold.
Here is how you create a macro for those who don't know:
(from the main menu click macros, click "New", give it a name and icon, then in the commands box type the "/auctioneer XXX" command. where XXX is the number of silver"
General Strategy
READ THIS ONCE NOW, FINISH READING THE GUIDE, THEN READ THIS SECTION AGAIN.
The general idea is to scan the AH, buy the items which are listed below the average selling price, then re-list them for a profit:
1. Make a level 1 character
2. Give Him/Her a catchy name
3. If you have enough money to do so at this point, go ahead and buy some 14 or 16 slot bags. If not don't worry, you can work your way up to that when your rolling in gold.
4. Park yourself in AH
5. Set up your shopping list (read on to find out how)
6. Open up the auction window
7. Uncheck the categories: Container, Consumable, Projectile, and Quiver as things in those categories generally do not produce good profits and just slow down your scans.
8. Press the scan button and wait for it to finish.
9. For the first few days the best thing to do is scan with Auctioneer as many times as you can through the day at different times. After a dozen or so scans across a span of 2 or 3 days auctioneer will begin to accumulate enough data to give you somewhat accurate pricing information.
10. Once you think you have enough scans to have good enough pricing data you can start searching for good buys:
11. I search for good deals 2 ways:
I create a macro : ?/auctioneer broker 500?
This is a quick button I can click at any time and see everything that is listed at least 5g too low.(you can do whatever amount of gold you like 100 = 1g)
I also use the ?Search Auctions? Tab in the AH window. This is installed by the Auctioneer add-on.
12. Check your /auctioneer broker 500" hotkey results
13. Check your shopping list report.
14. On the Search Auctions' tab in AH search for:
Buyouts with percent less 80% and minimum profit 50silver
Buyouts with percent less 50% and minimum profit 1g
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 80% and minimum profit 50s
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 50% and minimum profit 1g
15. I have the 6 searches saved so I can run them all quickly in a row, starting with the 1g profit searches first.
16. As you begin to make more money you can search for higher profit items only as the smaller profit items will not be worth the effort then. For example I usually search:
Buyouts with percent less 90% and minimum profit 2g
Buyouts with percent less 50% and minimum profit 5g
Buyouts with percent less 25% and minimum profit 10g
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 90% and minimum profit 2g
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 50% and minimum profit 5g
Bids (short / medium) with percent less 25% and minimum profit 10g
17. Then if I don't find many items in those searches, then I fall back to my lower profit searches and pick up a few more items there.
18. You can tweak these numbers and percents as you see fit those are just what I do.
19. Buyout all the good deals, and then head to the mailbox to pick them up and come back and re-list them for more in AH. Read the rest of this guide for exact guidelines on what to buy and how to sell. You have to use common sense and some guidelines when choosing what to buy. In general when you are just starting out stick with low level(
20. When you start to accumulate a lot of items (I usually have over 100 items in AH at a given time) it is helpful to leave the expired ones in your mailbox until you are ready to re-list all of the items at once. This will make it so that you only have to empty your mailbox and list items once a day, rather than every time you are at the mailbox. This will make your life a lot simpler once you have a large inventory.
21. Run these scans as often as you can, because the more you scan the more money you will make. I generally scan 3 times a day on weekdays: Once when I wake up and let it run while I shower. Once when I get home from work or while I eat dinner, and once right before I go to bed. Scan more if you can, remember it only costs you about 30 seconds of your time to log in and start a scan you can go do something else while it scans.
22. Always keep your character either at the mailbox, or in front of an auctioneer, that's why you made a lvl 1 alt for this so that you are always ready to go when you log in.
SPECIFIC GUIDELINES
BUYING
* Run scans as often as possible
The more scans you run the better your data will be, and the more deals you will find.
Also scan at non-peak times to find deals that others miss. Scan many times during peak time if you can because many items get listed every minute.
* Bid on Tuesdays before the servers go down
Get your bid in before the server goes down on items with short or even medium durations left and you will have a better chance of winning them.
* Scan late Sunday night/ early Monday morning
These are one of the best times to pick up some cheep deals because everyone lists all the items they found over the weekend late Sunday night or early Monday morning. Not only are there a large amount of items for sale, but lots of competition so people list their items cheaper undercutting each other. This is great for us because we can buy up the under priced items then wait till a better time to sell them for a profit.
* Sell on Sunday
Sunday is by far the best day to sell. For some reason a lot of people do their AH shopping on Sunday. Maybe it's just because more people log-in on Sundays so more items get bought, but whatever it is Sundays are great for selling items. I always have a mailbox full of gold by Monday morning.
* Make offers to people auctioning their items in the trade channel
If you see a particularly good item in a trade channel that you know will sell well make the seller an offer that is lower than what you know you can sell it for in AH. I usually offer anywhere from 50% to 75% of what I can sell it for depending on the item. Don't waste too much time haggling with them, just make them an offer, and if they refuse don't worry about it there are plenty more deals to be had. Also many times a seller who has rejected my offer will message me some time later and ask me if I still want the item for what I offered because they have not had luck selling it and they just want to get rid of it.
* Manually searching for items
Here is where you can really make some money, after you have done the auctioneer thing, and all the good deals have been bought up, there are some other actions you can take to ensure maximum profits. And this is where I make a lot of money so pay attention.
I was bored one day with doing the same old auctioneer scan thing so I decided to try something new. I decided to find something that I could buy up for cheep that I felt was undervalued. While power leveling my rogue one day I noticed that the biggest help in my killing power was having the best daggers I could get for my level, I also noticed that a lot of people make twink rogues. So I went to AH and bought up every green dagger between the levels of 5-19 that have agility and attack power since these seemed to be the most desirable for a lowbie rogue. They were selling anywhere from 5s to 50s on my server. I re-listed them all for 1g 99s, Every time I was in AH I would buy up all the lower priced daggers than mine. Mine began to sell.
Within a week I had upped the price to 2g99s for of power, and of agility daggers, and was now buying up all the other alternative green daggers such as +strength and +stamina and was listing them at 1g99s. They always sell. The re-listing fee is negligible so I can list them as many times as it takes. In fact if I get an overabundance of a certain type of dagger, I usually just vendor them. Since I buy then for like 10s its better to just buy them up and vendor them and loose a few silver , and have someone buy yours for 2g99s instead. You are still making a huge profit.
I then moved on to other green lvl 1-19 items following the same idea:
Lvl 1-19 green cloth ?of the eagle?; listing them all for 1g99s to 2g99s
Lvl 1-19 green leather of the monkey of agility of power; listing them all for 2g99s or more. I can sell a +5of the monkey legs or +4monkey gloves for well over 10g a pair.
1-19 green rings of the monkey, eagle, bear, etc as well as Blood rings, Demon Bands, and Ring of the Moon; Buying them all up and re-listing them for anywhere from 5g for a +2stat ring to 19g for a +3 of the monkey or of the eagle ring.
Another idea I had that has worked well:
lvl 40-50 green MAIL of the Monkey, Agility, attack Power. At level 40 hunters can begin to wear chain, this means that they need to upgrade all their gear starting at 40, so I buy up all the 40+ green mail gear that has good hunter stats and I re-list it for higher prices. If you keep buying up all the cheaper alternatives that get listed the hunters have no choice but to pay your prices, which they will because they are excited about getting to wear chain so they impulse buy.
You can come up with your own ideas following the same idea, some that I haven't had time to try are 40+ plate of the bear for warriors, or 40+ gear for shamans.
It doesn't really matter what item you choose as long as you know there is a demand for it and you are diligent in buying up all the lower competition and re-listing them. You could even do this with rare or uncommonly seen trade goods etc.
* Use caution buying 40+ blues; especially weapons
Use a bit of judgment before buying up too many 40+ blue items. Be sure that you are going to be able to sell the item for a decent profit because the AH listing fees on 40+ blue items can be high. Some higher level blue weapons can have listing fee’s of several gold. So only buy high level blues if you know 1) the item has a high demand 2) you will be able to make a profit even if you have to list it a few times because 2g a listing adds up.
* Epic Items
The same goes for epics, they generally have high listing fees, and the auctioneer data may be skewed because of a handful of overpriced epics that have been sitting in AH for weeks. Use caution when buying epic items. I would suggest that you only get involved with epics once you have plenty of experience and gold reserves on hand. Unless you are 100% sure that it's a killer deal. If you do see something hat jumps out at you don't hesitate to buy it. When I was just getting started I didn't know a whole lot about the prices and values of most epics, but I did know that when I saw a Krol Blade for 150g it was an awesome deal and I snapped it up and resold it for over 500g.
* How much gold to keep in reserve, how much to invest
In the beginning buy up every good deal you see, don't worry about having gold in reserve. As you start to accumulate gold however you will find that you cant spend it all because there are not enough good buys on AH to spend it on, at this point you will probably be buying items and mounts for your other chars, and spending gold on other things. Once you reach that point you should always keep at least several thousand gold on you’re AH char at all times, you never know when someone is going to list 100 nexus crystals for 199g a stack of 10. This is exactly what happened to me one day. I spent 1990g buying 100 nexus crystals that I assume were listed by some guild bank , and re-listed them for 59g a piece over several weeks, and turned that 1990g into 5900g ? quite a hefty profit.
SELLING
* Sell on Sunday
Sunday is by far the best day to sell. For some reason a lot of people do their AH shopping on Sunday. Maybe it's just because more people log-in on Sundays so more items get bought, but whatever it is Sundays are great for selling items. I always have a mailbox full of gold by Monday morning.
* Listing fees and durations
Always list items for 24 hours, the fee isn't that much more, it lets more people see the item, and it makes it so you only have to list the item once per day.
* Always use buyout
Always set a buyout. If you don't you will miss out on 99% of your sales. People want instant gratification, and also a buyout scares people into impulse buying because they feel that someone else could buyout the auction at any moment. With just bids and no buyout people know they have hours to think about it and often decide they don't really need to spend all that gold on that item today.
* Stack size
A lot of times I will buy up stackable items either in small stacks or 2 or 3 etc, or I will end up with stacks with like 17 or 18 items in them. This is not the best way to sell stackable items. I use the following guidelines:
o In general if you have enough to combine into a stack of 10 or 20 do that because it is a nice even number and people can easily figure out if the price is good.
o If you only have a few of the item (like 3 or 4) split them up and list them singly.
o Some items are needed in specific quantities for quests or tradeskills; these are the exceptions where it may be beneficial to list them in those quantities. An example is nexus crystals are generally required in quantities of 3 for most high level enchants. So if someone else has them listed for 50g singly, and you have 3 for 150g, odds are your stack of three will be purchased because someone probably needs 3, and its less clicking for them to buy your stack of 3.
* 7's 9's rule
I always list my items using 7's and 9's let me explain:
If the item usually sells for around 10g I list it with a min bid of 7g77s and a buyout of 9g 99s. Never list anything for 10g or 20g etc, always 9g99s, 19g 99s
Its only 1 s difference but it makes people feel like its 10g cheaper. It's the same principal as all those TV commercials that sell stuff for $19.95 It just sounds a lot cheaper than $20 even though its not really.
Sometimes if the item is worth only 15g, but there is no competition in AH at the time I'll list it for 17g 77s / 19g 99s. People see 17g and think 17 is about the same as 15, and 19g is only 2 more gold I really want it so I'm just going to buy it. They just paid 20g for a 15g item that's 33% markup. They probably wouldn't have bought the item had you listed it for 20g.
Granted if you had listed the same item for 13g/14g99s they defiantly would buy it, but that is a judgment call you will have to make on an item to item basis based on how much competition there is, how much you paid for it, and how badly you need to sell it (because listing fee is high or whatever) personally I do not like to put myself in situations where I feel pressure to sell an item, and the best way to avoid that is to stay away from the higher level items whose demand you are unsure about.
* Undercutting minimum bids
When most people search specifically for an item they sort the results based on lowest price first. The price is not determined by the buyout price but rather the minimum bid. So sometimes it makes sense to undercut the competitions minimum bid, but not necessarily their buyout. This will ensure that your item is at the top of the list and the first thing they see when they sort their results by lowest price. Be careful though never set your minimum bid below the minimum price you can sell the item for or you could loose money if someone bids on the item and the auction ends with that bid.
**How to start with no money at level 1 **
Use searches that will find lower priced items to buy
People ask me "what if i don't have any money to start?" Well I say I started with about 1 gold. You should be able to start with even less. So after telling someone this ... I started another char lvl 1 with 0 gold just to see how difficult it would be, I killed a few mobs on my way to orgimar, leveled to lvl 3, sold all the stuff I had collected and had 3 silver total. So now what can I get for 3 silver and turn a profit ?!?
I did a couple scans and then did a search for:
and ended up with this result:
Bam I bought up the 3 lesser mystics (that was a stack of 3, i accidentally chopped the 3 off), split them up and sold them each for 24s.
Now I was sitting at 72s, almost a whole gold at level 3 within an hour or two of creating the char.
Later I did:
Buyouts with percent less 80% and minimum profit 20silver
which yielded the following results:
As you can see there are several items here which you can buy for a few silver and make
a hefty profit, especially the heart ring which is a level 18 ring with +5sta. A very nice twink item which will sell very well for 1g99s leaving you with a quick 1g79s profit.
So if I bought that ring and that cloak, I spend 27s, that puts me down to 45s, and I sell the two items for a total of 2g50s, I am now sitting at just under 3 gold. !!!!!
Keep in mind I’m only lvl 3 and has gone from 1 silver to 3 gold in 3 quick transactions
that is impressive!
You can change the numbers till you find something, try lowering the minimum profit, or try lowering the percent less numbers a little until you find something that looks good.
Important thoughts:
Auctioneer is in no way definitive or perfect at what it does!
It is simply a tool to HELP you sort through the 1,000's of auctions in the auction house. If you trust the scan results of auctioneer 100 % and buy up everything that it says is too cheep, you will loose money. The key is to use common sense to narrow those choices down to make smart purchases. I have had several people read this guide, run two or three auctioneer scans in a row and then proceed to buy up everything it tells them to. Guess what? they lost some gold!
Run lots of scans, and use some common sense in what you purchase. In the following sections I will try to give you a run down of what type of items I look for. As a rule of thumb just think about the item like this is it rare? does it have awesome stats for the classes that can use it?
No one is going to want a plate item with intelligence on it on the horde side, and conversely no one will want chain items with intelligence on it on the alliance side. Or I look at daggers and think rogues want agility or + attack power, so those are the daggers I buy. Caster gear with +int, + sta at lower levels, and + spell damage at higher levels. You get the idea.
In the beginning start small, and use caution till you get a feel for the market.
Rare blues - these are the blues that only drop in one instance, and are not world drops, there are only a handful of them.
These are the big ones that I have on my list right now I will update this list as I find more:
* Antenna of Invigoration
* Elemental Attuned Blade
* Teebu's Blazing Longsword
* Recipe: Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops
These are less rare, but still worth putting on the list, especially in the beginning when you don't have many scans:
* Pendulum of Doom
* Assassin's Blade
* Shadowfang
* Miner's Hat of the Deep
* Expert Goldminer's Helmet
* Shovelphlange's Mining Axe
* The Jackhammer
* Unearthed Bands of _ _ _ _
Unearthed Bands of Agility
Etc. (keep in mind its leather so the good ones are going to be agility, power, monkey, etc)
* Petrolspill Leggings
* Mantle of Thieves
* Flintrock Shoulders
* Wolfclaw Gloves
* Hotshot Pilot's Gloves
* Mechbuilder's Overalls
* Maiden's Circle
::Here are some of the other sets of items which I know are good sellers when im looking for stuff to buy::
Cross-faction patterns/items
There are several patterns or items that are only available to either alliance or horde. These can be purchased at vendors and if you can get them to the other faction AH you can mark them up hundreds of percent.
For example an alliance only pattern that costs around 50silver and sells very well horde side for 50gold + on my server is
* Pattern: Red Whelp Gloves
* To get a hold of this item you will either need to have a friend with an account on the other faction, or a second account yourself. Have the friend, or on your other account buy the item and list it for 1s or something in a neutral AH, then buy it and list it in your factions AH for whatever you want.
This is one of the better items I have found because the Gloves that it makes are highly desirable 10-19 BG Twink items.
Again I will update this List as I find more items worth doing this with.
Rare Tradeskill goods:
These are hard to come by tradeskill goods that usually are not on the AH much or are very expensive because they come from raid zones/bosses. They are defiantly worth putting on your shopping list and keeping an eye on, especially once your get a good stash of gold, or if you have a lvl 60 char that can use them, or items made from them.
[Dreamscale]
[Fiery Core]
[Lava Core]
[Brilliant Chromatic Scale]
[Bloodvine]
[Core Leather]
[Large Obsidian Shard]
Rare Tradeskill Patterns
There are some rare tradeskill patterns that you should keep an eye out for, prices on them might vary by server but they will sell for a lot regardless. I found a Formula: Enchant Chest - Greater Stats for 5g once, and a Enchant Shield - Lesser Block for 1g. I sold the first for 500g, and the other for over 100g. So just keep your eyes out for a obviously cheep price on any of these. *Update* I picked up the following recently: felcloth bag for 100g, flarecore wraps for 150g. I sold the first for 499g, and the second for 399g.
Formula: Enchant Weapon Lifstealing
Formula: Enchant Chest - Greater Stats
Enchant Shield - Lesser Block
Formula: Enchant Weapon - Crusade
Formula: Enchant Weapon - Superior Striking
Formula: Enchant 2H Weapon - Superior Impact
Pattern: Core Felcloth Bag
Recipe: Major Rejuvenation Potion
Pattern: Flarecore Wraps
Pattern: Black Grasp of the Destroyer
Items with no listing fee
Some items have NO listing fee, enchanting supplies are a good example. Dusts, Essences, and Shards have absolutely no listing fee, which is good because it means you can re-list them over and over and not loose money. These are GREAT items for people who are just starting in their gold earning career because you can start with the lower lvl ones which are cheep and you can re-list them without loosing any money. Also you can list them for only slightly more than you paid because you don't have to worry about fees.
One word of advice about buying enchanting supplies is to buy on the weekends or when you notice a large amount of them in AH, and then sell in the middle of the week when supplies are dwindling.
TWINK ITEMS
Twinks are a huge source of money for me, a twink for those of you that don't know is generally a lvl 19, 29, or 39 char (top of each battlegrounds level bracket) that is decked out in the best blues/purples that money can buy or can be obtained through instances or quests. And they generally have lvl 60 enchants on every slot. They are usually funded by their lvl 60 mains, and their only goal is to be the most decked out badass person in the battlegrounds so that they can dominate. They generally stay at that level for months or indefinitely just to dominate that bracket. Many people have one of each of the 3 levels for each bracket.
Once you start making gold you will be able to make twinks if you choose, however the reason we are talking about them now is because they will buy certain gear from you for ridiculous prices. I know a lot of other guides say no lvl 19 will pay 200g for a lvl 19 blue. But that is just in fact UNTRUE. Lvl 19's repeatedly pay 50-200g for lvl 19 blues. There is a list of these items to look for below, but let me just provide you with one specific example. For example I love when I find an Assassin's Blade
For like 5g in AH (happens quite a bit) they sell for 150g-200g on my server. And they DO sell. You might have to re-list it 5 or 10 times, but the re-listing fee is like 5s so no big deal. That is an extreme example because it is an especially rare item which comes from only 1 instance. However many of the items below sell for 40g or 50g regularly.
Twink blues:
10-19:
Feet of the Lynx
Deviate Scale Belt
Sentry Cloak
Assassin's Blade
Thorbia's Gauntlets
Silver-linked Footguards
Skeletal Club
Night Reaver
Shadowfang
Black Malice
Tree Bark Jacket
Darkweave Breeches
Keller's Girdle
Magefist Gloves
Twisted Chanter's Staff
Witching Stave
Skycaller
Lil Timmy's Peashooter
20-29:
Barbaric Bracers
Enduring Cap
River Pride Choker
Watchman Pauldrons
Tigerstrike Mantle
Brawler Gloves
Harbinger Boots
Dreamslayer
Cobalt Crusher
Forest Tracker Epaulets
Mantle of Thieves
The Butcher
Zealot Blade
Ironweaver
Claw of the Shadowmancer
Frostreaver Crown
Pugilist Bracers
Girdle of Golem Strength
Hotshot Pilot's Gloves
Beguiler Robes
Mechbuilder's Overalls
Glowing Magical Bracelets
30-39
Basilisk Hide Pants
Assault Band
Necklace of Calisea
Ogron's Sash
Papal Fez
Speedsteel Rapier
40-49
Elven Chain Boots
Twink greens :
Some lvl 10-19 greens sell for 5g or even 10g+ simply because they are the best items you can get for those slots period(AH, Instances, Quests or otherwise) here are a couple examples.
Bristlebark Gloves
Forest Leather Bracers
Red Whelp Gloves <- On horde side they are very valuable, because it's an alliance only pattern LVL 10-19 rings: Ring of the eagle, monkey, bear, agi, eluding, blood ring, demon band, ring of the moon, etc good low level rings always seem to sell well, I think it is because lower levels always seem to have empty ring slots to fill because they seem to drop less than regular armor. Also because for twinking they are generally better than the blue instance dropped or quest rings for some classes. Here are a couple of searches I run without using auctioneer. I just use the standard AH search box: 1) lvl 2 - 19 rare all categories. Sort lowest price first Emitting level 1 skips over all tradskill items and leaves us only with blue weapons, and armor below lvl 19. Since it is sorted lowest price first, we can immediately see if there are any items listed very cheaply. Her is an example I ran today to show you: as you can see I entered 2 and 19 in the lvl box, selected rare from the rarity box, clicked search, and finally clicked current bit to sort it by price. Keller's girdle is listed for way way too low, it actually sells for closer to 20g, and I will buy it and re-list it at 19g for a great profit! 2) Lvl 1 - 19 rings of any quality sorted by price. Same idea here, easy way to find good twink rings. 3) lvl 1 - 19 daggers sorted by price. Look for cheep of agi, power, monkey daggers. Saves you the time of searching for them one by one! 4) lvl 1-19 one hand swords. I usually buy of the tiger, monkey, agi, and power. Especially the lvl 19 decapitating swords, they usually sell for 3 or 4 gold. **8/17 Update - Upcoming expansion** The upcoming expansion will allow for paladins on the horde side, and shamans on the alliance side. What does this mean? 1) lots of people will make new characters: This will create a huge demand for twink items when the patch comes out. Chain gear for the new paladins on horde side, and leather items for the new shamans on alliance side. Also lvl 40+ plate for the pallies, and 40+ chain for the shamans to a lesser extent. The real demand will be for lvl 1-40 gear though. 2) people will also want to level trade skills (especially first aid) for these new characters, so we may see an increase in demand and price for cloth, and other tradeskill supplies. In addition the new expansion will bring a NEW TRADESKILL: Jewelcrafting ! I can only speculate at this point, but I have a strong feeling that the prices of Gems and Metals will skyrocket, especially the high end ones. I am personally going to start thinking about some long term investment in gems, and I am guessing that they might have finally found a use for those now almost useless Pristine Black Diamonds, and Black Diamonds. As well as some azerothian diamonds, blue sapphires, huge emeralds, rubies, large opals, ETC, cant hurt to pick up any that you see for cheap, you can always sell them for what you paid. I’m going to pick up a bag full of stuff and stick it in the bank. Might pay off it Might not. /shrug. In addition with the increase of the level cap to level 70 in the Burning Crusade, level 60 items will loose much of their value. I would not recommend buying any lvl 60 gear at the moment, and the same goes for lvl 60 tradeskill materials. Lava Cores, Fiery Cores, and the like will *probably* drop in value significantly. I have unloaded all of my high end gear and tradskill mats on AH for the time being. **3/07 Update - Results from above observation** Well I followed my advice and bought up many many stacks of gems prior to the expansion. I bought 8 stacks of [azerothian diamonds] for an average price of 3.7 gold each. or 592g total. I have just finished selling them all off for between 19.99 and 24.99 a PIECE. With an average of 22.05 gold each, that’s around 3,520 gold.... or a profit of about 3,000g! And that’s just from azerothian diamonds. I did the same with blue sapphires, huge emeralds, large opals, and star rubies. I had around a dozen stacks of each, and overall made well over 10,000 in profits from my gem sales. I hope some of you took my advice and invested in gems before BC, if so drop me a line and let me know how well you fared! I personally did not invest in cloth too heavily as the profit margin for the amount of bank space it took up was not worth it to me, however cloth prices did go up, and those of you who did invest in lots of cloth before BC probably did well. Also, as I predicted lvl 60 ish epics, blues, and tradeskill items all hit rock bottom, moltencore, and AQ trade skill mats are almost worthless now, and I'm glad I dumped all mine before the expansion! Other thoughts: You will find that over time you will get better and better at knowing what to buy and how to sell, it is just like anything else it takes practice. This guide gives you a big head start but there is still plenty to learn, different items will sell better or for different amounts depending on your server, the economies between new and old , high and low pop servers varies greatly. Once you have a good feel for the local economy on your server you will begin to make wiser choices and make more gold
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