In this guide I'm going to introduce you to probably one of the most underestimated and least used, yet very valuable Auctioneer Function called Snatch. The Snatch feature is very often misunderstood and therefore not used very often, or not used to it's full potential.
The idea behind Snatch is to basically create a snatch list where you add items to the list and add a certain buyout price as well. Then when you run a snatch search at the Auction House, it will tell you if any of the items on your list are on the auction house for under or equal to the buyout price that you specified.
Now let's talk about the three main uses for the Snatch Function:
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to crafting professions and mass production, is that they browse the Auction House and come to the conclusion that:
"Oh, if I was to buy the raw materials to make a Mongoose Enchant Scroll, I can resell it for a 50 gold profit!".
Yes, this may be that you would make a profit, but you are limiting your profits by what is currently available on the Auction House. If you want to start making real profits at any time of day or any day of the week, you need to have a stockpile of necessary raw materials. Many people shy away from this because they are scared that 1 week later they for some reason won't have managed to use those raw materials, and the prices for the materials that they stockpiled is going to sink below the price at which they bought them.
Now this the first way where the Snatch Feature comes in handy. Let's say you are a heavy user of Saronite Ore for what ever reason be it Jewelcrafting, Blacksmithing, Enchanting (Saronite Shuffle), etc. You get many farmers who will often simply dump their Saronite Ore on the Auction House because they would rather get less gold quicker than spend time waiting for a slightly bigger profit. You can set your Snatch Feature to scan and tell you when ever there is Saronite Ore below say 40% of the usual sell price.
This isn't the best way to make use of the Snatch Feature but it does the job, especially if you have several different materials that you want to stockpile but only at very low prices. Instead of searching each material individually, you just click 1 button and it will scan all those different materials at once and output a list immediately.
This is probably the most useful and vital way to use the Snatch Feature of Auctioneer, and honestly it is something that EVERYONE should do. There are certain recipe's in WoW (mainly pre-bc level 30-60 recipes) that are EXTREMELY hard to find, and highly sought after by players wanting to complete their profession recipe sets.
I will give you an example of 2 low level profession items. An enchanting recipe and a Tailoring pattern to prove my point:
[Pattern: Star Belt]
Very average looking Tailoring Pattern right? Level 200, fairly crappy stats, quite a tiresome or out-of-the-way materials. Who on earth would want it? It's an item that drops in Scarlet Monastery so usually players level 28-38 will pick this up, most of them being new will try Auction it for a few gold or learn it. Many of those low levels who are alts of higher players, will just delete or vendor the recipe since it doesn't seem worth making a couple of gold.
WRONG. This sells on most servers for 1,000g-3,000g.
[Formula: Enchant Shield - Lesser Block]
Next up is this enchanting formula with very pathetic looking stats for leveling. Again around the level 28-38 level range.
Sellprice? 2,000g.
Really, you can pick these up on the Auction House for under 20 gold, and resell them for insane profits. There are tons of recipes and formulas like this out there that are highly sought after by those looking to complete their profession lists. If you don't believe me take a look at some of the threads on the official forums like THIS.
Something else that you can use the Snatch Feature to find, are items that are currently available ingame but soon won't be. Things such as [Razzashi Hatchling] which will have their "dropped by" mobs removed in Cataclysm.
To go along with this last point, you can also include items that used to be available ingame but are now no longer.
[Ruby Shades] and [Haunted Momento] are excellent examples.
Okay, okay so I've got you all hot and sweaty now what? Well here is a quick how-to guide on using and setting up the Snatch Feature:
- Make sure you have a working version of Auctioneer Installed. Having a relatively accurate scan data rate can help in this process.
- Login to your bank character with Auctioneer enabled, go to the Auction House and click on the Search Tab that is found right at the bottom of the Auction House window.
- This will then open up the Auctioneer SearchUI where you have a plethora of searching tools to help you make gold. On the left hand side at the top you will see an About, Searches, Filters, Options and Settings main section list. Under Searches you should see the subsection called Snatch. Click on it.
- This will then open up the Snatch Window as I displayed in the top of my thread. In short for those who get overwhelmed quickly when using new addons. Top left (with the text saying "Drop item into box") is where you drag items that you want to add to the list. Right under that you can choose a gold value or a market percentage value. I prefer to use a gold value since then I have more control over the prices.
Below that is "Snatch search settings" heading, I would recommend leaving that section untouched.
On the right is your actual Snatch "List" (probably blank for you right now). This is where all the items that you add to your list will be saved.
- Ok I'm going to be straight forward and say to you now, the "Drag item into box" label is pretty misleading, because that can only be done if you have the item in your inventory. However, there is a rather well designed solution. If you click on an item link (for example from trade chat) as if you were wanting to look at the items details, it will then automatically put that item in the "Drag item into box" location.
- Now what happens if no one has linked the item that you want? There is a nice quick solution. Wowhead: The Original > search for the item you want > click on the "Link" button and copy and paste the code that pops up.
For example [Ruby Shades] will give you the code:
Code:
/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("\124cffffffff\124Hitem:38089:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[Ruby Shades]\124h\124r");
- Next go into WoW and type /script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("\124cffffffff\124Hitem:38089:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[Ruby Shades]\124h\124r");. This will then post the item link into chat (it won't actually /say it or anything, it just appears in your chat window). You can then click the item like normal and it will appear in your Snatch window.
- Next is setting your price. This takes a bit of research on your part (read wowhead comments, google it and look for forum posts about the item etc). Having a reliable Auctioneer Scan Price Database can come in handy here to give you a general idea of what it is usually sold for on your server. You then set your price as however much you are willing to pay for it and then click Add item.
It will then be added into your list on the right. Basically repeat this process, adding a good selection of items that you want in your Snatch List.
- The last step is to click the "Search" Button. Now this is located on the bottom left of the Search Tab Window (under the list where you originally chose "Snatch" from). Auctioneer will run a scan from your most recent scan data and then output the results, telling you if that item is available for the price you specified or under. Keep in mind it runs of your most RECENT STORED data from a scan. So it's always a good idea to do a proper Auction House scan before running a Snatch Search.
You can type /auc getall to speed up the scan process a LOT (full scan on my server takes 40 mins, getall scan takes 3-5 minutes and does pretty much the same thing).
Thank you very much for reading, Please feel free to ask any questions