Too Greedy - WoW and Gold, The Perfect Combination: Professions

Showing posts with label Professions. Show all posts

So, you have patiently waited for part II of my Glyph Insane series, eh?

Your wait was not in vain. So, as I promised, the results are here. First batch result:

4,000 gold was my initial profit. It got better...way better! You see, when you got all your competitors on your friends list (and apparently you're not on theirs), you can easily outsmart them, specially if they're just mindless creatures who only look at QA's "Post" button.

The second batch was just crazy. I didn't expect it to go the way it did.

So, what do you think of this great improvement over 1 year?

Also, did I mention I'm on a low population server now? (last year I was on Medium Population)

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Do you remember my posts about my Glyph Madness a year ago? If you do, you realise that it was a great accomplishment to me back then (thanks for sticking around this long, by the way!). 2 days of experiment, and the result was 2,000g profit on day 1, and nearly 4,000g profit on day 2, with a total of 500 glyphs posted. Why am I bring this back, you ask? Well, I want to show you how I have improved since then by constantly trying to improve all the process, time and quantity wise.

I use QA and KTQ for this (along with some other addon requirements for KTQ). Back in those Glyph Madness days, I didn't use KTQ because I was either too dumb or too lazy to even try it. It sounded horrifying having to config all those settings through the console and slash commands. That was mistake number one.

Mistake number two was not selling anything besides glyphs and Snowfall Inks. There are way more options to profit, like selling Vellums and Off-Hands, and they should not be overlooked. These allow me to raise my net profit by a few thousands.

So now, onto business! I know we're in an economy tension moment due to the "Cataclysm will arrive anytime now" state that we're living, but I still make a lot of money from glyphs, and I decided to make another Insane experiment from glyphs 1 year later and see where we stand.

(Just ignore the green gems, they aren't involved in anything, they happened to be there while I was moving stuff to my guild bank)

The initial process is the same. Get herbs (I got suppliers now, which speeds up the process and lets me have lower ink costs), mill them, and ask KTQ for directions. After crafting everything above my threshold, and posting it all, it's just a matter of waiting.

I doubled the number of glyphs I posted. I dominated most of the market. Are you curious to know how well this pre-Cataclysm test worked? Stay tuned! If you liked it last year, I'm sure you'll love this...

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I'm not getting ready for 3.3 like I did with 3.2. I don't know why, I just don't have the will to do it. In 3.2 I stockpiled Titanium. I had it planned for like more than 1 month ahead. But in 3.3, I can't find anything which I find worth stockpiling. I could go and buy thousands of Borean Leather for the first Leather-Arctic Fur conversions but I'd get crazy and buy dozens of thousands of stacks, and I don't believe I'd be able to sell them all.

Because of this, I'm sticking to Inscription as my ever lasting boat, which never sinks. In every patch, there's been a glyph rush and 3.3 should be no exception. This time, I'm putting ALL of my efforts on glyphs and maybe I can get large amounts of gold.

How will I prepare for it then?

I will start rising my stock of inks and 1 week before the patch hits, I will craft every glyph available, giving special attention to the ones I know that will be most popular. I hope to be at the AH all night, not even lag will stop me (it didn't on 3.2, and believe me, posting/crafting 10 glyphs each 7 minutes is a bit awkward), so I better have enough glyphs on my mule. That way I won't have to go to my Scribe and craft more unless it really gets out of control.

Will this be enough? Maybe not, but I just don't feel like stockpiling a stuff to fill a whole Guild Bank again. Something tells me that it won't be necessary to stockpile stuff in order to make money this time. However, there should be more ways of making money without too much risk (= large investment).
What are you doing/will do to make money when 3.3 arrives?

There are lots of opportunities that show up throughout life. Some are like doors, which you choose to leave open or not; some are like trains, meaning you only have one chance to catch it. There's always a time when you have to look at a situation and choose your path. This may be either a good or bad decision, but it's not just about luck. There are ways of knowing which option is more likely to be a good one, and that possibility is often inside us. All we need to reveal it is some sort of a motivation, something that acts as a fuel to our brains (which tend to be lazy, thus the need to wake them up with this motivation).

Take the professions in WoW as an example. You obviously have no way to know what Blizzard will implement, but you can know what's the potential of each profession in the present. If you're well-informed about them, you'll know you can make higher profits by combining a few professions than with just one of them. If you're in a "frozen" state, unsure if you should or should not take Inscription, Jewelcrafting, or whatever, don't hesitate in taking them. Cataclysm is for sure a year away. Isn't a year more than enough to take as much as you can from a profession? You'll make plenty of gold until then, and if you regret of it by the time the expansion comes, you can always walk back, and choose another door. It's not a train. Changing professions is just a click away.

Now, let's take the example of Titanium Ore pre-3.2. It was a train. You either took all your luggage in it, spending loads on Titanium, expecting a trip to Wonderland (which is what happened), or you were too scared to go on a train trip, didn't get on it, and you'll never be able to get on it again. Deep inside, you knew there was potential on Titanium, but you were afraid to take the risk. That's where luck comes in. Luck to have the right hunch at the right time. Some time before 3.2 I went "Hey, what the heck! I can still prospect it all if it doesn't pull off as I want!" and bought a lot of Titanium. I had that hunch and was lucky for it to work nicely. The fuel to my brains was a plan B (it's always good to have one). You can't really know beforehand if all this betting pays off, but you can do your best to minimise damage to you if it doesn't go as you expect.

With these examples, I want to tell you that there are opportunities you should evaluate as either a door or a train in this game. If it's a door, you can go back and forth if you want. If it's a train, you must decide if you want to take the risk, but remember it's not just about luck. You can have something to say on it.

Day Two

On Day 2, there were slight changes. My ink cost was significantly reduced due to the fact that my Snowfall Inks sold, therefore my net profit rose...a lot.

The day started with the posting of another 500 glyphs, my second batch. I have to admit that I cancelled-undercut a bit more than I did on Day 1, and perhaps that's why I got better results too, along with the lower ink cost.

Summarising day 2, I can say I tried a little harder and it paid off.

Results

The results were certainly positive. At the end of day 2, here's the net profit:

(Bear in mind that this is day 1 and day 2 combined. The result of day 1 was 2,041g. Therefore, the result of day 2 was 3,951g.)

Now, let's analyze what I did during these 2 days, and how you can do it too.

You must be willing to spend 1-2 hours before actually posting the glyphs. Buy herbs for milling. If there are no herbs at the AH for good prices, just buy the inks. They're usually not very expensive. Use Quick Auctions, always. Go to the AH, type /qa summary and scan data for Glyphs. Anything that sells above your threshold must be crafted. Then, it's just a matter of posting the glyphs, and cancelling-reposting whenever you get the time among your other activities. There's no need to be an AH camper. If you follow these steps (anyone can do them, and you don't need to play 24/7, like I mentioned before), you're on your way to success. On the other hand, if you follow these steps on my server, I may not be too happy about it!

( /point Nectarine )

Just kidding...!

Now, some answers to the "Part 1" post comments:

Out of interest, how do you have your groups set up in QA?

by Sarainy (hey, free link love ^^)

I would tell you, but to be honest, my competition would love to know too. But it's not really important for me to mention my specific configurations anyway. I'll explain how you should config your own. Basically, your threshold (the minimum price you sell your glyphs for) should be a bit higher than your ink cost (this topic at JMTC should help), say 1g or so above your ink cost. The undercut value is up to you, but usually a few copper/silver is okay, and that's what everyone uses (except Goblins). The fallback value should be high, but shouldn't seem like an outrage. Usually 35-45g is the way to go, but you may find yourself pricing it differently depending on what people on your server are willing to pay (some are willing to pay more than those values; some would think they're way too high), which you will only find out after you try several different prices. About the auction time, 12 hours is what I use (and I guess everyone else does too, because of all the undercutting that happens on this market).

Can't wait for day 2!!! Yesterday I just start leveling my Inscription and ended with 100 auctions (and I'm not lvl 200 skill yet!!).

by Raddik

Not bad. Keep it going, and you'll be amazed on how many auctions you post when you've got most or all the glyph recipes ;)

The glyph madness has begun.
Just like I mentioned 2 days ago, the goal is to have the best profit possible selling glyphs during a couple of days. This is the complete report of how I did the whole thing. It will be divided into days (Day 1 and Day 2).

Day One

I had roughly 650-700 inks stored in my bank, and started crafting glyphs, according to what QA Summary told me.
After this kind of long process, here are my bags:

That's every kind of glyph that sells over my threshold. And I was crazy enough to manage glyphs from all classes only on one toon!

After posting, the total number was:

...

532 glyph auctions, out the 3984 total, means 13,35% of all the glyph auctions are mine. It might not seem much (percentage wise), but these 13% are the ones 90+ % of people buy, because they are the cheapest almost all day.

At the end of Day One:

2,041 gold in one day is just the beginning. Stay tuned for the report of Day Two. You haven't seen anything yet. It gets even crazier.

After spending nearly 10,000 gold on some stuff (epic flying skill, and other minor spendings to enhance my gear and level Tailoring and Enchanting on my mage), I got down to 50k and kind of lost some motivation.
But now, I decided I want to go big on my server. Now that I know every glyph recipe, it's gonna be huge. And by huge, I mean having a huge presence in the glyph market, on nearly every glyph available. The goal? For now, getting over 100k is the short-term goal. A couple of days ago, I was sitting on 55k total in my bags, and I re-remembered that money makes money. And, of course, a lot of money makes a lot of money, so perhaps I'm not too far away from 100k, and even the gold cap, time wise.

This week, maybe tomorrow or the day after, I'll post about this experiment. I will be aiming for high daily profits, and considering I can make 1k by just dropping "a few" glyphs at the AH, I certainly can achieve a lot of more if I really focus on it.

The objectives will be: getting the lowest ink cost possible, selling the glyphs for the highest amount possible (I won't go goblin on this) through moderate undercutting and reposting in the afternoon/at night.

It will be a series of posts throughout two days, that will cover those 2 days of business, and I'll analyze what did, and what did not work, and I'll show how much money I made. You may be saying "that's only for hardcore AH players", but you're wrong. It's possible, if you're greedy enough. :)

Will I achieve what I want? Only time will tell...stick around and you'll see.

This is the first experiment I post on Too Greedy. It's a new topic I'll bring up from time to time. The goal is to give evidence that something is/isn't possible. This is the first of some new topics I'm bringing up in the (near) future. Enjoy :)

Making money at low levels?

It is possible. Starting areas are filled with beasts that drop Meat, Eggs, and other "animal things". You can make a lot of money by selling these at the AH. The buyers are usually people who are leveling professions. But this is not the only way.

Mining and Herbalism, for example, are amazing professions for this. While doing the low level quests, you can mine dozens of ores and gather loads of herbs. Turning the ores into bars, and selling them, along with the herbs, is a great source of income if you're looking for starter cash, and it should be more than enough to start doing funny stuff at the AH.

I'm now leveling a warlock for such purpose, and I'm gathering all sorts of materials; herbs, ores (Mining and Herbalism are my two professions), cloth, meats, etc.

After some days, I'm now level 14, and have done my first postings at the AH, like the following screenshot shows (these are just 3 of the many pages - they were roughly 100 total auctions):

These materials were farmed during my Elwynn Forest/Westfall questing. The results of the these few days gathering and selling while leveling are:

These are only 2 pictures; I could've taken a lot more, but it would take a lot of space to show all of them, and it's not really necessary. You can see I sold all my Copper Bars, some Boar Ribs for 50s each, a few herbs...all this in a couple of days. My bags after the first business adventure on this character:

Note that I still got more herbs, feathers, meat, eggs, and other random stuff to sell. I didn't sell them all at the same time.

Conclusion

As you can see, you can make plenty of money before level 15 while just enjoying the quests, and gathering stuff meanwhile. It may not seem much money, but it's a start, and it's definitely not bad for a toon of such level. The gold you acquire also increases as you level, because items become more valuable, either because they're just higher level, or because sometimes there's very low supply for them (people often vendor them, don't be such a silly person). So, making money at low levels? I did it, so it IS possible.

Today's results from selling gems and glyphs, and also a couple of stacks of Titanium Ore, but they were posted accidentally (lol):

Whoever is still reluctant to believe these 2 professions are profittable, the proof you're wrong is right before your eyes. And this was low profitting, because I only posted a few gems and glyphs!

Inscription isn't hard to level up and you get your money back as you do it (I made a guide for scribes a few days ago). JC is quite expensive to level up, but after you get there, it's an endless source of money. There are people re-glyphing and re-gemming every day, it's crazy.

If you're not sure if you should level these professions, I hope you get the motivation you need to do it with these screenshots ;)

Should I have sold all my Titanium Ores long ago? Perhaps, but I was too greedy...

Stats simplification
What we were finding is that in many cases things had just become so complicated that players were not making intelligent decisions based on their knowledge of how various stats benefited them. That sounds like what you wanted to have happened, but it really wasn't. Instead players would pull up a BiS list, or plug the item into a spreadsheet. If the answer was "upgrade" they equipped the item. We could pretty much just give the items a name and art and make all the stats not displayed.

If you were one of those players who picked up a piece and understood how armor pen vs. attack power benefited you or whether defense was still worth collecting after you had hit crit immunity, then you were in the minority. Hopefully we can get back to a system where eyeballing an item's stats has some chance of being right. (Source)

How exactly will choosing stats be hard in Cataclysm? If we analyze the new stat system (based on the information so far), we have:

MP5 removed, Spirit will be the regen stat for everyone.

Spell Power removed, Intellect will raise your damage/healing.

Attack Power removed. Leather/Mail armour will give Attack Power through Agility and Plate will give Attack Power through Strength.

Defense removed. Tanks will get it through talents, so they don't have to get 'capped' through gear.

Armor Penetration removed. It seems it's too ~~hard~~ "mathy".

Stamina: Players will notice more Stamina on gear as Defense, Spell Power, Attack Power and Armor Penetration are removed.

Haste: Will also increase the rate at which you gain energy, runes, and focus. Retribution paladins and Enhancement shaman will have a talent that allows them to take advantage of this benefit.

With this, we have 5 main stats: Spirit, Intellect, Stamina, Strenght and Haste.

Can we think about this in a non-easy mode way, by any chance...? I mean, Warrior and Death Knight tanks will stack Stamina and Strength (and DKs will also stack Haste because of the quickest rune gaining); Paladin tanks will stack Stamina and Strenght (and Intellect? Not sure as I'm not into Pally tanks); Druid tanks will stack Stamina and Agility. Healers will stack Intellect, Spirit and Haste (considering Haste will stay the same for healers). As for DPS:
Rogues - Agility/Haste/(Stamina);
Hunters - Agility/Haste/(Stamina);
Mage - Intellect/Spirit(?)
...You see where I'm getting.

Am I missing something here, or is Blizzard intending to make those fewer stats much more complex than what was shown?

Note, I'm not whining on this post, I'm just looking at information and trying to understand it, based on what everyone knows so far. The ultimate difference between two players isn't their stats; it's skill. And Blizzard will never be able to change that. :)

Other than gear itself, the stat changes will also cause severe gem changes (and, therefore, Jewelcrafting changes). There's still not much to speculate on at the moment, because there was (close to) no information on this; we have to wait a bit longer.

Markco at Just My Two Copper made a good point 2 days ago, regarding these changes. He said that "Gems will either be destroyed or changed in some way".

I believe this change won't happen like the prismatic to coloured Dragon's Eye change, mainly because they wouldn't be able to change AP gems into Agility/Strength according to the player's will. These changes imply something bigger, something like destroying the gems themselves (removing them from the game), which means a demand boom for gems.

I'm 100% sure JC won't be negatively affected by these changes, and I'm confident that everyone will have to re-gem, meaning thousands of profit (some might be saying "Dream on!", but hey I'm a dreamer ^^). So, considering the information already given remains unchanged (ah, the usual gamble), it should be wise to start gathering Agility, Strength, Haste, Spirit and Intellect gems for that tiny little space in your bank tab named "For the not-so-far away future".

If you're too greedy to stockpile just yet, just wait for the Beta! ;) I'm making decent amounts of money from Jewelcrafting at the moment anyway! But hey, putting some gems "to the side" can't hurt, can it?

Quick tip! Because of all the Titanium farming going around after 3.2, people also farm Saronite obviously, and Saronite (along with Eternal Earths, Shadow...) is dumped at the AH in large quantities, meaning very low prices (yes, even lower than vendor sometimes!). You may want to combine your professions to multiply the profit you can make.

If you have a miner, any stack of Saronite Ore under 12.5 gold is profit, because 10 bars (20 ores) sell for 12,5 gold. I've seen quite a few farmers lately on trade "WTS Saronite Ore 10g a stack!", that's a great opportunity.

In addition to this, if you have a crafting profession that uses Saronite Bars (like Blacksmithing), you can craft even more valuable items. (Eternal Belt Buckles are my favourite choice, specially on raid nights)

If you have a JC, you can craft green rings (mats are a couple of Crystallized and some green gems). Disenchanting those is an amazing source of income; you'll get about double of your money back. (Note: You should always check the prices on your server beforehand!)

It's a chain! You just have to look through your professions and see how you can connect them for more profit.

By the way, the blog logo will be changed soon, because I'm now 1 day away from getting my brand new [Nobundo's Shoulderguards of Conquest]! :D

Analysis of the Inscription profession

With Inscription you can: mill herbs for pigments, turn those pigments into inks, and turn inks (along with cheap parchments) into glyphs. There is a huge profit margin when it comes to ink/glyph price difference. It always depends on your server, but there is a niche you can explore almost always. Let's see how we profit with Inscription, shall we? I'll mention a few methods for a Scribe to make money with his profession.

First, you need to do the maths with the values of stuff from your server. You should check the AH for the price of:

*Northrend herbs - These are: Adder's Tongue (with 50% Icy Pigment chance), Icethorn (50% Icy Pigment chance), Lichbloom (usually more expensive due to its Alchemy use), Tiger Lily (25% Icy Pigment chance).
Edit - Quote by Tempfire at JMTC Forum:

"in your post "Making money as a Scribe - Analysis of the Inscription profession" you forgot to mention some of the lesser northrend herbs (which I try to buy all the time while everyone else scrambles for the adder's tongue) ... deadnettle, talandra's rose, fireleaf, and goldclover."

*Ink of the Sea - This is the ink that will give you your threshold (minimum price you will ever sell a glyph for). They are usually no higher than 5g each, but then again, this is server dependant.

*Snowfall Ink - This is obtained from Icy Pigments, which are rare pigments you get from Northrend herbs. Price usually varies from 5g to 30g (again, server dependant).

*Eternal Life - This is used to craft Darkmoon Cards of North. You should only look for the price of this if the Snowfall Ink market is close to dead (this happens on my server). "Darkmoon Card of the North" crafts one card randomly out of 32 possible, 8 from each of the 4 decks (Undeath, Prisms, Chaos or Nobles). It's a matter of luck, because only 1 kind of cards is profittable.

After you check the price of all these items, do the maths and find out which option lets you have the lowest glyph crafting cost (1 or 2 Ink of the Sea + Parchment, but the Parchment prices are neglectable, so focus on ink prices only for less confusion). To do the maths, you should consider: each stack of herbs awards you 6 Inks of the Sea and 1 Snowfall Ink, in average. If Snowfall Inks sell easily and the price of 1 is close to the price of a stack of herbs, you should ALWAYS buy the herbs, because it will allow you to have a very low Ink of the Sea cost. If Snowfall Inks don't sell, you should highly consider 2 options:
**Buying Inks of the Sea directly from the AH if they're at decent prices (What's 'decent', you ask? It's the value which is lower than the majority of the glyphs shown at the AH).
**Buying Eternal Lifes, and craft Darkmoon Cards of the North hoping for Nobles, which are the ones who make you profit a lot. The others usually don't, considering the 3x Eternal Life, 6x Snowfall Ink required.

With all these explanations, what I mean is that you should adapt your business to your server's economy. Always keep that in mind.

After doing all the maths (the longest part is over, yay!), you should find out which glyphs are most popular on your server. You can check a general list (gathered from many servers) of the most popular glyphs on WoWPopular. Note that you should not trust these lists blindly. You will only truly find out your server's demand by trying and succeding/failing.

Then, it's time to start crafting. Bring your (hopefully big) supply of Inks of the Sea to the Ink Trader in Dalaran, and start crafting all the glyphs you intend to sell. After the job is done, send the glyphs to your glyph bank alt. A glyphs-only bank alt with 32-slot Inscription bags is a must if your glyph supply is huge, otherwise you'll have to post your glyphs in a lot of posting sessions (I've got a glyphs-only bank alt, and have to do 2 or 3 posting sessions to be able to post all my glyphs!)

How to post all the glyphs, and for how much?

Personally I use (and love) the addon Quick Auctions. With it, you just have to:

*Decide the minimum price you're willing to sell your glyphs for (usually 2g or 3g above your ink cost, which you get by doing the maths explained above) - This is called your threshold.

*Decide how many of each glyph you post each time (usually 2 or 3 works the best, depending on the demand).

*Decide a fallback price. This is the price you set to your glyphs if no one else is posting a glyph of that kind (you should push the price up as far as you can, but be reasonable because no one will buy a glyph for 200g, for example).

*Decide the undercut value. 1 copper will do, and it will minimise the lowering of prices through heavy undercutting.

This is all very easy to do with the latest version of Quick Auctions, and you'll soon be in love with it like me.

And you're done. Just wait and you'll see your glyphs selling and making you earn a lot of money in no time.

This is it. I hope you find this useful to start doing business as a Scribe!

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