Lethal Shots

Earlier this week I decided to participate in yet another aspect of WoW. The Auction House. Of course I have used the AH before. I’ve bought gear, enchants, gems, crafting mats, etc. I’ve auctioned whatever I might have come across while leveling. But I have never actually played the AH.

Now I don’t mean the old “buy low, sell high” scheme (it hardly ever works), I mean the art of Goblinism. This means I am taking raw materials available on the AH, crafting something useful out of them, and re-selling them for a profit. Maximum profit for minimal work. Naturally, this is done with the professions that I have already invested considerable time and money into leveling. Currently I have four professions greater than 400 skill available to me: Mining (on 2 characters), Engineering, Enchanting, and Jewelcrafting.

Mining provides a small, but steady income in the form of Titansteel. With a 20 hour cooldown to smelt and the still relatively high demand, it is almost always a guaranteed sell. I profit about 30g per bar sold, meaning about 60g a day.

Engineering is by no means a cash cow. There are really only a few items that non-engineers have any interest in. The motorcycle requires too high of a initial investment. The two epic guns require a rather large investment to make, and sell for almost no profit at all. And ammunition will often sell for less than the raw mats to make it. I’m still keeping an eye on tings in case the opportunity for profit does come up.

Enchanting is where I see a huge potential for profit. Every time a piece of gear is replaced, it needs enchanted. The problem for me is that my Enchanter (a level 60 Death Knight) is currently unable to learn any enchants other than the standard ones available from the trainer. There is very little profit from there since every Enchanter on the server knows them and the market is flooded. I’m not going to make any profit here until my DK learns more.

That leaves Jewelcrafting. I’ve started out small, putting no more than 30 gems on the market at once, and I am already starting to show a healthy profit. While many gem cuts sell for the same, or less, than the raw gem, there are still several that offer a nice profit. I am also making sure to do the JC daily every day to broaden my range of wares. The epic necklaces are also tempting, though I’ll want to make sure they turn enough profit to justify the hefty token cost for the recipe.

On top of my crafting endeavors, I also scan the AH for any sources of quick cash, such as crystallized to eternal conversions, or buying stuff to vendor. Not a whole lot of coin there, but it takes practically no time to do so why not.

I now just need to decide what profession to pair with Enchanting on my DK. It needs to offer decent profit potential, but getting the mats to level it may be a problem. I am looking at Inscription, but without a Herbalist to gather mats, leveling it could be quite expensive. Another option would be Tailoring. Mats would be easy to obtain, plus I could DE the items I make while leveling it. This would only be viable though if bags and BoE items could be sold for a decent profit.

It is definitely different looking at the game this way, but it is providing me with a challenge that I am already starting to enjoy.

Banker alts are great. I know a lot of people already have one, but for those of you that don’t, you need to create an alt strictly for banking. Banker alts serve 2 main purposes; storage and working the Auction House.

First let’s talk about storage. I know that you are just like the rest of us. Your bank and bags are bursting at the seams with food, potions, flasks, enchanting materials, leather, ore/metal, gems, armor, weapons, non-combat pets, mounts, and just about anything else you can think of. Now I am not here judge. We all hang on to things we don’t really need. It is human nature. Sometimes you do it for sentimental reasons (like armor and weapons we no longer use), sometimes you like to collect things (like non-combat pets), or sometimes you find a good deal on the auction house and buy more than you need. But whatever the reason may be, the result is the same. You just don’t have enough room to store it all. This is where a dedicated banker alt comes in. He can hold onto all your non-soulbound items that you can’t bear to part with, which for the most part means crafting materials.

Now we’ll go over the advantages of having a dedicated Auction House alt. Imagine what you have to do whenever you want to browse the Auction House, sell items, or perform an Auctioneer scan without a banker alt. You have to spend time running or flying to one of your factions major cities, then more time running or flying back to where you are questing. This is terribly inefficient. Now imagine that you have an alt that is permanently parked in one of the major cities. Any time you need to do Auction House related task, all you need to do is log out and log back in on your parked alt. You can then use him to browse or scan the Auction House, sell any itmes you have mailed to him, and then mail any purchases you made to your character that you are leveling. There is also another advantage to this strategy. If you remember right, any time that a character spends in an inn or major city grants them rested status, which he in turn gains faster if he is logged out. So if you are wanting to spend some time working the Auction House, then it would be to your advantage to let your leveling characters rest to the fullest while you use a banker alt to work the Auction House.

A third advantage of a banker alt that is a little less obvious is to have him hang on to all of your money. A lot of people do this to help curb impulse spending. If they have to log out and then back in as another character just to buy something, they may think twice about how bad they need / want it. I try to only keep a maximum of 30 gold on any one character, everything above that i mail to my bank alt at the end of my playing session. This also makes it easy to consolidate money for large purchases, such as mounts.

I have one character that I use for all these functions. Some people may choose to have one alt for banking and another for working the Auction House. It really is just a matter of personal preference. Whichever you may choose, I wish you well and that you may always find space in your bags for your latest knick knack.