Resetting Markets to Make Gold in Legion

First off, I guess I should explain what I mean by resetting markets. When someone tries to undercut the lowest price on the market but leaves a large gap in the prices, then there is an opportunity for you to make some gold. Of course, it does depend on you having enough gold to buy all the cheaper items up and there is a risk element too - you may get stuck with the cheaper goods if the market is dropping and yours don't sell quickly enough.

But at this point in a new expansion, prices are still pretty high and quantities of herbs, ores, leather and silk is dependent on people still leveling. There aren't many farming routes established yet and most players are spending time leveling, not farming.

As you can tell from my previous two posts, I started my herbalist in Highmountain because Foxflowers were the most expensive herbs at the time (not including Starlight Rose though). I did post a small area that is pretty good for farming Foxflowers but it's not an efficient way to do it.

So what I did to make the most gold from Foxflowers was to reset the market. Prices drop over the weekend to 20g or so but during the week, they are regularly at 30g or more. When I saw a bunch of Foxflowers at 9g, of course, I snapped them up and I also grabbed all the Foxflowers upto about 18g. Luckily I remembered to take a screenshot just before I bought the last cheap Foxflower!

They all sold at 30g or more so I made a tidy profit on those.

Today I had a brainwave when looking at Stonehide Leather - I noticed that there were a couple of bid only lines so when I went to check the prices on those, they were about the average market price but what I did see at the top end of the price range was a huge discount for a bid price. Basically someone had overpriced their main buy price so they were never going to sell but their bid price was actually below the market price by about 3g. That doesn't sound like a huge profit but I snapped up 4 stacks of 200 leathers at an average price of 9g30s when the market price is over 12g50s.

I'm pretty sure I could sell them all very quickly if I wanted to but I actually want them to level up my leatherworker so this way, I have comparatively cheap materials to do so and if I make the right items to level up, I can also sell them and have a lower base price than my competitors.

You can reset all sorts of markets but I tend to play it a little safe and stick to profession materials. It doesn't have to be the current materials either - I'm resetting Living Steel and Golden Lotus markets too - I'm not sure why those markets are still so active but I'm not going to complain!

What To Do With Golden Lotuses?

What To Do With Golden Lotuses

Now that Blizzard have upped the spawn rate for Golden Lotuses (Loti?), as extras from normal herb picks & from the Enigma Seeds on your Tillers farm, I wondered whether I could make some good gold from them. Yes, I know, I'm late to the party but I've been focused on completing my cooking Ways & leveling & dailies! I'm also trying to work out which is the best crop to plant to make the most gold from my Farm. I've been planting the Songbell seeds to get Motes of Harmony but as my Leatherworker is creeping so slowly through her dailies, I have more than enough Spirits of Harmony for now.

As far as I can see, there are several options for using Golden Lotus to make gold - the 5 different flasks or transmuting uncommen gems into rare gems (6 colours) as well as the Mists of Pandaria Potion of Luck - all made/used by Alchemists. I could also just sell the Golden Lotus on the Auction House & save myself a fair bit of time & effort by not crafting anything but looking at this graph from The Undermine Journal, an average price of 100g-ish per Golden Lotus is not exactly the most profitable way.

Golden Lotus Prices (from TUJ)

My alchemists are both transmute masters so making flasks is probably not the best option either - the additional procs of a mastery are where the real profits lie as they bring the per item crafting cost down. I could change one alchemist to an Elixir Master at a cost of 8 Flasks, especially as the Living Steel transmute is not exactly profitable right now but I'm hesitant to do that straight away. I think I'll test the market first.

Alchemy Flask Prices (from TUJ)

The transmute uncommon gems to rare gems is also a bit of a non-starter - prices for gems are pretty bad on my server - to the point where my Jewelcrafter is still sitting around not doing much. Again, I've been focused elsewhere so I haven't been watching the JC markets as closely as I used to. Besides cut rare gems though, there are the ilevel 450 rings & necks to make as well as the JC crafted Panther mounts. Looking on the Undermine Journal for my server, it looks like there are some good profits in those for now but I'd need to do the prospect vs. transmute costings before I throw all my Golden Lotuses at those!

JC Rings & Necks (from TUJ)

So what to do? Well for now, I think I'm going to try the Flasks market - just dip a toe in to see how things go - for the cost of 16 Enigma seeds each day, I'm picking up 3-7 Golden Lotus as well as a variety of the other Pandaren herbs so my crafting costs are minimal (yes, I'm ignoring opportunity cost etc!).

Like so many, I'm also limited by time so I think this will be least time consuming whilst I have a better look at prospecting. My other 4-plot farms are still producing vegetables but I may just leave those lie for now - spend that time doing dailies or prospecting instead. I'm beginning to feel as if I'm a long way behind - with the release of patch 5.1 there's a whole load of new stuff to get into but I haven't even seen all of the initial Mists of Pandaria stuff yet and that's without spending much time at the Auction House! My gold flow is just ok but so many of my traditional markets seem to have almost disappeared that I really need to knuckle down & get that gold really flowing again.

What do you do with your Golden Lotuses? Are you feeling time-pressures, falling behind etc too? Let me know in comments - I'd love to hear from you.

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Mists of Pandaria Level 90 - What To Do Next?

Level 90 - So What's Next?

After a week of almost nothing but questing, I finally made it to level 90 on my first character - my beloved Retribution Paladin. I contemplated being a ruthless goldmaker & leveling a different alt purely for goldmaking reasons but I just couldn't do it! My darling girl got left way behind during Cataclysm because I just could not get the hang of the Holy Power changes. Now I seem to have just magically managed it & I'm feeling much better about that, as you can imagine!

So where does she go from here? I've been reading my Twitter feed & numerous blog posts for the last few weeks but without actually being there or doing that stuff, it's difficult to make sense of it all. Some information has stuck but not enough to make an informed decision as to my next steps. Talk about information overload & too much choice!

If you're a regular reader, you'll know I don't raid (well, not since ICC anyway, long story) & I didn't do many dungeons during Cataclysm either. I really do want to do more in game than just making gold this expansion though so yes, I will be doing dailies for gear reputation grinds. However, I also need to look at the various factions for goldmaking stuffs and of course, there's lots of lovely new mounts to aim for as well.

For this post, I'm going to ignore the gearing up possibilities & just look at professions. There are too many gear options for me to cover & the chances are, you'll need class/spec specific advice anyway which I certainly can't do!

Leatherworking & Tailoring

The Golden Lotus faction has patterns at Honored level purchased with gold. With over 50 dailies available (depending on progress), it shouldn't take too long to get to just honored level. There are also shoulder & chest armor at Revered & 3 new Crane mounts at Exalted. Hopefully you unlocked the Vale of Eternal Blossoms whilst you were leveling so you just pick up the daily quests from their NPC's in your faction city there.

The Leatherworking patterns are the leg armors & epic armor (ilvl 476) for chest & gloves - all the usual combinations - Mail (agility & intellect types) & of course, Leather (intellect & agility types).

The Tailoring patterns are the spellthreads & epic armor (ilvl 476) for chest & gloves too - intellect or intellect & spirit combos.

Blacksmithing

The Klaxxi is the faction for all your Blacksmithing needs - as with the Golden Lotus above, these patterns are available at Honored reputation level. As well as the epic chest & gloves patterns (ilvl 476) there are also weapons patterns but these are rare quality ones with ilvl 463. There is also the usual enhancements of belt buckles, shield spikes & weapon chains available.

Gearwise, there are epic legs & waist items for all classes at Revered (also ilvl 476) & my favorite is the Amber Scorpion mount available at Exalted :) Rare quality weapons are also available at Exalted, ilvl 463 so if you can make the rare quality weapons from patterns available at Honored, you should find a market for these as people aren't going to be raising their reputations with all factions as once.

Jewelcrafting

The Order of the Cloud Serpent is the faction that teaches you to fly on the cloud serpent mounts (need Exalted though) but it also has the patterns for the Jewelcrafting Panther mounts - 2 mount patterns (Jade & Sunstone) at Honored, 2 mount patterns (Ruby & Sapphire) at Revered & lastly, the Onyx Panther at Exalted.

Enchanting

The Shado-Pan faction has the 3 weapon enchants for you at Revered & the August Celestials have the strength, agility & intellect bracer enchants, also at Revered. It seems a bit of a pain to have to level both factions to Revered to get at the recipes but for me, the bonus is the 2 Cloud Serpent mounts available from the August Celestials at Exalted & the 3 Riding Tigers available from the Shado-Pan also at Exalted.

Other Professions

Lucky you! You don't have to grind any specific factions to get any patterns. Alchemy & Inscription are 'discovery' based so as you create potions or do your daily research, you gain new patterns at the highest levels. Engineers get to learn everything from their trainers, as small compensation for how complicated some of the items are to craft I guess :P

Next Steps for my Paladin

My Paladin is a skinner/leatherworker & I have saved all my leather whilst leveling. So my first faction to start with will be The Golden Lotus, a faction that was recommended to be first for all classes/crafters anyway due to the fact that you need Revered with them to open the Shado-Pan & August Celestials dailies.

Lissana over at Restokin.com has a great guide post to all this faction related stuff too, especially if you are gearing up as well as leveling your professions.

I haven't mentioned the Tillers here because although having your own farm will be very useful & make a fair bit of gold, I just haven't got my head around it yet & there are loads of other Tiller guides out there already! I'm using Els' Angling guide to the Tillers & farm related stuff but there's also a wealth of detail in The Godmother's posts about her farming adventures, well worth a read if you're looking for the nitty gritty stuff.

I hope this helps - I know I panicked when I saw all those quest givers suddenly appear on my map last night! I ignored them & went to get my flying training so I could explore those last few places for the achievement & then I sat down & fished for a while!