The Accidental Goldmaker - A Challenge from the Godmother!

Cute kitten pic...just because!

A fair few weeks ago now, Marcus & I had the opportunity to chat to The Godmother about her adventures in WoW and her accidental goldmaking on episode 21 of The Journal of Marcus Ty podcast. She told us then that she was going to issue a challenge to the goldmaking community and soon after, she did indeed, publish that challenge.

So here is my answer, albeit rather later in the day than planned, for which I apologise profusely - I've been kind of spaced out/absent due to some new medications but I'm getting used to them now so hopefully, normal service shall be resumed soon.

The Challenge

To suggest the best way to make gold from the stuff she had picked up whilst farming skyshards in the Vale. You can read her challenge post here.

The Stuff

Windwool Cloth (over 200) plus 3 Bolts
17 green items(416/429's)
+10 plus of the three new Pandarian Cookery materials
34 Ghost Iron Ore
25 Black Trillium ore, 18 White Trillium ore
40 Spirit Dust
30 Exotic Leather

Shadowsong-EU server alliance

My Suggestions

Windwool Cloth

Currently selling for about 16-17g per stack which is about 4g per bolt - but bolts are only selling for 3-5gold at the moment so personally, I wouldn't bother making the cloth into bolts just to sell. I know Godmother has all professions maxed so I'd suggest looking at the Crafted Malevolent PvP gear market - most of those items take between 4-6 bolts of windwool cloth so even if the PvP gear is only selling for 100g (as it is on my server!), there is still more profit than just selling the cloth.

Green Armor/weapons, ilevel 416 & 429

These are the level 87 & 88 items - not much market for these and although they could be disenchanted, the enchanting materials are so cheap right now, it's better to just vendor these - unless any alts can make use of them of course. Vendor prices start at around 9g from what I can see so unless you were to get lucky & d/enchant them to Mysterious Essence, you'd only get Spirit Dust and probably not 9g's worth either!

3 new Pandaren Cookery materials

I'm going to assume Godmother means the Aged Balsamic Vinegar, the Aged Mogu'Shan Cheese & the Ancient Pandaren Spices. I checked out the Undermine Journal for these as I haven't kept up to date on their prices. I was surprised to find them selling for little more than 1g each. Not much profit there then! 

They aren't used in the Noodle cart recipes either so the only other use for them is the 6 new Bind on Pickup cooking recipes that provide the new 300+ buff foods. These recipes use the other new ingredients like the Fresh Pomfruit or the Fresh Lushrooms but these have to be gathered specifically as they only have a 2 hour 'life'. If you're in the Vale grinding out rep or stones or whatever is going on there, then it might be worth a few minutes to pick up some of the Fresh ingredients even if only to make buff food for your own endeavours!

Ghost Iron Ore

Currently selling around 45-50g a stack is a nice price - my server has it around 35g most of the time! I checked out the bar price just in case but Bars are at 5-6g each so not much profit there at all. There are several options for Ghost Iron Ore in general - make bars for Engineer or Blacksmith, send Bars to your Alchemist to make Trillium or send Ore to your Jewelcrafter to prospect. With only 34 Ore though, I'd be tempted to make Bars & send it to my Blacksmith to craft the Malevolent PvP gear (yes, again!)

Black Trillium Ore, White Trillium Ore

Black trillium is selling for 5-8 gold and White Trillium is selling for 6-7.50g - that's nice profit right there but what else can we do with it? It takes 2 Black + 2 White trillium to smelt to 1 standard Trillium Bar. So that would be a cost of 22g-31g per Trillium Bar which is selling for 39-45g - still not that much profit but better than selling the plain black & white ores.

With 18 White Trillium as the limiting factor - Godmother could produce 9 Trillium Bars from this haul which would be at least one Living Steel Bar (sale price 284-340g) which could then go to make a Living Steel Belt Buckle (sale price 330-390g).

Spirit Dust

This is selling for around 1g on Godmother's server and on my own. I've even dropped my maximum buy price to 80s as I was getting way too much availability for the number of enchant scrolls I could sell. It used to be worth converting Spirit Dust up to Mysterious Essence & just selling the Essences but the prices have stabilised to a point where there is very little profit there now.

Looking at prices on Shadowsong-EU, I'd suggest the best use of these dusts is to make a few of the Spirit Dust only enchants like Enchant Gloves - Greater Haste or Enchant Chest - Mighty Spirit. Both use just 4 Spirit Dusts but sell for around 30g. Not great prices but better than just selling the dusts alone.

There are better enchants to sell of course but they use Mysterious Essences or Ethereal Shards - not a problem these days as both are fairly cheap but the current best way to get Mysterious Essences is to buy Ethereal Shards and break them down, not to convert the Dusts up! So for this exercise, I've assumed Godmother doesn't want to go buying extra materials to make stuff.

Exotic Leather

For me, the very best use of these is to make Magnificent Hides either through the daily cooldown which uses just 20 or even the more expensive way but without a cooldown of using 50 leathers. At the current sell price of Exotic Leather of 87silvers, even a 50 piece Magnificent Hide only costs 44g - massive profits when I make my Crafted Malevolent PvP gear which sells for 700g or more.

Summary

There's definitely some gold laying around to be picked up when you are out & about doing other stuff as this shows very clearly. It's hard to make accurate suggestions for selling such small quantities for profit as so much of what I do requires more materials than Godmother picked up. But I've tried to limit myself to suggestions that don't require buying extra materials but one thing I would do, is to not sell everything in a rush.

If, like the Godmother, you are out & about picking up random stuff like this - don't be in too much of a hurry to sell it every day. Sometimes it is worth hanging on to a few smaller stacks until you have enough materials to make a proper go at crafting something profitable! Like the Ores - if you pick up more black & white trillium the following day which would add to the pile of standard trillium you could make then you could make 2 Living Steels Belt Buckles & the greater profit from them, rather than 1 Belt Buckle and selling the remaining trillium at the lower profit price!

I hope that makes sense but all I'm trying to say is patience is a virtue - don't be in too great a hurry to sell everything when a little patience may make you a better item in a few days.

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide
or this great TCG post
WoW Reign of Fire TCG Box

Image © Angelica under Creative Commons licence