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's Been Selling This Week?

What a good week I've had! I finally knuckled down & made sure to log in briefly almost every day and get stuff listed. It just shows how much difference actually logging in can make!

I decided to make some more Living Steel Belt Buckles as the prices for Living Steel, Pierre the Engineering pet & the Sky Golems are so bad, it really wasn't worth keeping my little stockpile of Living Steel. I'm glad I did because I could probably have sold another 10 or 20 at this price!

The Mammoth Mining Bags have been moving well too - not quite sure how or why but for the last couple of weeks, some guy has crashed the market down to about 80g each. I snatched them up & relisted at almost 500g and mine have sold!

I'm still moving Mysterious Fortune Cards too - again, I'm having to pick my days for listing these as I do have some competition. My server seems to like low prices - I tried undercutting for a day or two but I didn't seem to sell any more that way. I wondered if the volume of sales at the lower price would make up the profit of the higher price cards but it doesn't. So now I'm only posting when the price is above 14g or I am the only one listing. I have plenty of space to store the few stacks I have & I have enough gold sitting in the bank not to be worried about selling them quickly.

Talking of bank space - I found some Hypnotic Dust tucked away in an alt's bank - when I checked the AH price, it was a rather attractive 12 - 15g per dust so I just couldn't resist that listing! I've also been selling some of my excess Ink of Dreams. I should probably do the maths properly on whether it's worth converting it to Starlight Ink but I don't think it is. I only use the Starlight Ink for the shoulder inscriptions and although they sold well this week, last week they were much lower priced and have been for a while.

The crafted PvP gear is selling nicely - I'm concentrating on the leather & mail stuff as the plate & cloth items are super low priced right now. I have more than enough cloth & ore though so perhaps I should just move it all along my production line & try to boost the prices a bit more - hmmm will have to have a think about that this week.

I've been slow on gems again - for some reason, I just can't seem to get my head a round the gem market in this expansion. I did really well with gems in Cataclysm but the prices seem way more volatile these days & I haven't kept up with all the changes to stats so I'm not totally sure of which gems are best now. Another market that needs a bit more attention I think - I did manage to snatch up about 4 stacks of cheap Golden Lotus - under 40g each which is super low for my server. I think I'm just going to transmute the uncommon gems I have & sell the uncut rares - the prices are more stable so I should be able to recoup my costs with much less risk than crafting the wrong cuts!

I also haven't logged my enchanter this week - I've never really got to grips with enchanting other than the main stats to chest which everybody & his mum is selling these days.

I've been checking some other markets out - keeping an eye on things like Netherweave Bags, Frostweave Cloth & bags, pets, flasks and a few other bits but not much is moving really. I did treat myself to 5 new pets today but I was pretty good and only picked up those below 1000g that I didn't already have! Hopefully next week will show some good numbers too - I have a side project going which should keep me logging in & that can only mean good things in the Auction House!

Have a great week everybody xxx

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What's Been Selling This Week - Patch 5.4 First Report

As promised - my first proper weekly sales report since Patch 5.4 arrived and I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed! I've heard/read so many stories & tweets about large amounts of gold rolling in on these big patches that this report seems just a little lacklustre in comparison. Having said that, my server is definitely low population on the Alliance side so I guess it's not so bad really!

I've learned a few lessons too - I wrote about the new Noodle Carts & Cooking Recipes but in my rush to get my Leatherworker & Engineer maxed, I completely forgot to stock up on food stuffs! I also didn't dive as deeply into Glyphs or Starlight Ink as I should have so I'm playing catch up on those too. The good news is though, herb prices seem to be falling a bit so although I'm doing a lot of milling again, at least I'm getting my inks cheaper than I would have previously!

I did however, stockpile a fair bit of Living Steel and as you can see, the Living Steel Belt Buckles are flying off the shelf as expected - as are the various Shoulder Inscriptions. Gems are doing ok too although the prices are swinging high & low on many cuts. It's as if people are still listing them at pre-patch prices instead of making a killing on all these new armor items that need gemming! This was another market I underestimated material quantities for - I think I got complacent with the amount of Ghost Iron Ore I had but forgot to prospect much of it!

The Crafted Malevolent PvP items are moving too - albeit much slower than the older Crafted Dreadful gear but I'd take a guess that most buyers are over on the Timeless Isle picking up the free loot there. Once the shine wears off that, I'm hoping people will turn to PvP & buy some of this gear. I'm still doing the daily cooldown on my Leatherworkers, Tailor & Blacksmith - I'll keep the AH stocked with at least one piece of each pattern I learn if I have enough materials.

One thing I just noticed I have't done is to make any leg armors! I'll have to fix that tonight. The Tailoring Spellthreads is a market I haven't touched - my Tailor is still level 85 and apparently I need Honoured with the Golden Lotus to get the Epic patterns - I guess I'll have to add that to my growing to-do list!

And I couldn't finish a weekly summary without my two old reliable markets! Yup, Mysterious Fortune Cards & Mammoth Mining Bags are still selling well enough to stay in my top sellers list, even with a little competition on both!

So for this coming week, I'll be prospecting & milling what I should have done before the patch hit & hopefully as people continue to gear up alts, I won't have missed those markets too much! I'm running around the isle on my Paladin & my DK but I think I'm missing something. It's Monk Week over on Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation Week so I'll be leveling my first Monk a bit too this week. You can read more Alt Appreciation posts from me over on my other, more general WoW blog if you'd like - She Rides Dragons.

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Sky Golem - New Engineering Mount in patch 5.4?

All the Engineers I know were getting excited for patch 5.2 with the datamined Sky Claw mount becoming available - sadly it never made it to the live release & Engineers have been moaning about it ever since! With the release of patch 5.4 on the PTR, a similar mount was datamined called 'Not Sky Claw' which it was assumed was a placeholder name but now at last, Engineers are rejoicing again! Yup there's a new mount called the Sky Golem that apparently replaces the Not Sky Claw!

Sadly, it looks as though this isn't going to be a 2 person mount but one which will let you pick herbs without dismounting. I can live with that disappointment though - this mount looks absolutely amazing & for now, at least, isn't marked as Engineers only so hopefully it will be sellable like the Mechano-hog/Chopper mount from WOTLK days.

It's basically a Shredder suit and from early reports on Wowinsider & MMOchampion, it has 4 different colours. The materials are currently shown as 30 x Jard's Peculiar Energy Source & 30 x Living Steel, with the Jard's being on a daily cooldown, requiring 10 Ghost Iron Bars to make and are bind on pick-up!

This means that it will be at least 30 days after patch day before an Engineer can craft this mount as long as they don't miss a cooldown too! I think the first Engineers to get this crafted will make an absolute killing on the Auction House - I would happily pay 50,000 gold for it and with the crafting cost being less than 20,000 even on an expensive server, that will be a nice chunk of profit for someone!

Where did I get my crafting cost figures? Well Living Steel on my server, hovers between 450-550 gold each so average that to 500 gold x 30 = 15,000 gold. Add in just 30 stacks of Ghost Iron Ore (or 10 Ghost Iron Bars) at even 100 gold a stack would equal 3,000 gold - total cost around 18,000 gold.

I don't usually buy Living Steel as I have 2 Alchemists & use their cooldowns most days but I think I will keep an eye on the prices & snatch up a few when the price does drop below 450g. That will allow me to continue making a profit on my Living Steel Belt Buckles whilst keeping some Living Steel in reserve for the mount! The other option for Living Steel is the transmute spell that uses 3 Spirits of Harmony - I don't know about you but I just don't have that many Spirits & I sure as heck don't want to go & farm them!

I think it may be time to get my Engineer leveled at last - that means I have to resurrect my unloved Warlock & get her from 50 something to 85 at least - Yay! yet another project to add to my list!

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What's Been Selling This Week?

As expected, my sales have slowed down this week as I've started a new job. I was hoping I could sneak onto the Remote AH now & then but in an open plan office with a boss sitting behind me, I haven't even tried! I was only cancelling/relisting once during the day anyway but I messed up my auction timings too so one evening I got home to find they had all expired!

Given that, I'm still quite happy with my sales this week - not quite the 'ramping up' I was hoping for but hey ho, life happens!

I've added screen shots of the top 2 pages of My Sales this week - I thought it might be interesting to see some of the stuff that didn't make page 1. Living Steel Belt Buckles are selling pretty well - in fact, faster than I can make the Living Steel so that market will dry up a bit for me soon. I was tempted to buy some Living Steel when it was around 400g mark but I decided against it for now - the belt buckle market isn't as high volume as I would like to be able to turn the Living Steels around quickly.

I've definitely picked up some competition in the 300+ buff food markets - I'm still dominating the Black Pepper Ribs & Shrimp but all the others have dropped off, I've tried buying up the cheap stuff but there's too much for now so I'll hang on to what I've got, pick up the super cheap stuff & just focus on the Black Pepper Ribs & Shrimp.

In making my Mysterious Fortune cards, I've ended up with loads of Starlight Ink. Yes, I know I could make Darkmoon Cards but I've never had much success with those & I don't have many Scrolls of Wisdom so I decided to sell some of the Inks - just to see what sort of market was there. Bear in mind that I'm only buying the very cheapest herbs at a max price of 30g a stack, so selling Starlight Ink for 70g each or more is nice, especially as my Mysterious Fortune Cards are selling themselves too.

By far my biggest gold making market right now is the crafted PvP gear - both my Tailor & Leatherworker are still doing their daily cooldowns for the new patterns & I'm adding 2 of each new item every day. I'm still managing to pick up Windwool Cloth & Exotic Leather for around 30g a stack & I have over 200 stacks of each right now so that will keep me supplied for a while longer!

The Flasks market this week has sucked! Very few evening opportunities at anything over 50g which is way too close to my crafting price so I've been hanging on to most of them for now. I did make a few leg armors this week, just to test the market. Once my Leatherworker has finished her daily work orders on her farm, then I'll definitely be back to planting Songbell Seeds for the Motes of Harmony.

Enchanting has been going well this week too although I have slipped a bit on crafting scrolls - I thought I could buy the enchanting vellum from the vendor on the Travellers Tundra Mammoth so I took my priest back out into the wilds to do some questing but then it was way too much hassle to get the vellums so I let it go for now! I keep forgetting to use my banker in Ironforge to send some in the mail too. D'oh!

So there we go - Nev's fairly casual approach to selling stuffs this week.

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Living Steel - Still Profitable?

Living Steel - Still Profitable?

I think most of us know that Living Steel was a great way to make some really good gold early on during the expansion but as prices dropped, many moved away from this market as the profit margins got smaller. I know I was one of those who left it for a while, especially as the Ghost Iron Ore price didn't seem to come down by much at the same time. However, I recently snagged a bargain bundle of Ghost Iron Ore & decided to look at the costings for Living Steel once more.

I bought 92 stacks of Ghost Iron Ore at around 32g per stack for a total cost of 2944g. I already had 4 stacks in my bags so I converted all of them to Ghost Iron bars (48 stacks of bars), split them in half & sent 24 stacks to each of my alchemists. Converting 24 stacks of Ghost Iron bars to Trillium, I expected 48 Trillium bars for each alt but both my alchemists are Transmute Mastery so in the end, I received 62 on one alt & 61 on the other.

So that gave me enough Trillium Bars to do the Living Steel transmute  for 10 days on both alchemists so I kept a note of how many I received each day, obviously hoping for some nice procs! Without transmute mastery, I would have received just 20 Living Steel but in the end, I received 27.

I've been selling them as I produce them except on days when the price dropped really low. At the last count, I had sold all of them for a total of around 10900g. With an initial outlay of just 3000g, I think it's fair to say that yes, Living Steel is still profitable on my server as long as I watch my raw material costs.

What I haven't done is check for other uses of Living Steel. It may be that crafting Epic armor, the panther mounts or the Living Steel belt buckle would be more profitable but I don't have the patterns yet so plain Living Steel is my best option. As always though, check your own auction house for prices & use your own judgement.

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