Cataclysm Gold-making Tips

[Bravada]

Incoming wall of text... first post, hope detailed guides are liked here. >_>

Firstly and most importantly, stock up on low level trade goods!

I can't disagree more with this suggestion. There are three major prof changes coming in Cata that make this a bad idea, with one caveat.

First, they are making prof leveling much quicker. Players leveling profs will get multiple prof skill ups per craft for higher value goods. Blue items will typically give 5 skill dings when initially learned. So profs will use, on the margin per ding, fewer mats. Now, this is the critical point, for leveling toons this will have a non-linear, highly disproportionate effect on demand!

There are two types of prof levelers: those who level profs as they level and try to have their profs keep up with their leveling, and max level toons who powerlevel profs from 1 to the cap in one go. The second type of prof leveler is totally irrelevant to initial demand, since people interested in their mains are going to be powerleveling to 85 and/or leveling their prof from 450 to 525. Nobody is going to bother dropping profs until at least they hit the cap since there's more interesting / better things to do.

This leaves just levelers. Now, most players who level profs on their toons as they level pick a gathering / crafting pair. Traditionally, this has meant that the crafting prof has fallen behind because of the much higher mat needs for level the crafting prof than the gathering prof. With multiple dings per craft this will no longer be the case! So, instead of everyone leveling in sync buying ~half the mats needed to level from the AH, they will be buying a smaller fraction from the AH. Thus, even if the number of people doing this doubles, there will likely still be lower demand in aggregate.

Second: Flying mount in Azeroth. Old World mats have held their value in TBC and WotLK because they are needed for leveling profs, but they are very inefficient to farm. Flying mounts in Azeroth will fix this. Say you're looking at Briarthorn at 80g/stack right now. If you're buying that expecting to flip it at a profit, lets say your target sell price is 160g/stack. How many people do you think are willing to pay that much for a stack of Briarthorn if they can just fly over Silverpine for 5 mins and gather that much?

In other words, supply of old world mats is going to shoot through the roof.

Third, data mining data has found a BoA tome that doubles the number of skill points you get for leveling profs! The speculation right now is that these tomes will be purchasable by anyone with a max level prof to make releveling the prof much easier for all future toons. I don't know about your server, but on my server a very large percent of herbs used are from people leveling extra alchemists for xmute alts. These players will now need half the herbs as previously.

Caveat: If you are planning on flipping your entire stockpile of old world goods in the first couple weeks of the expansion, then you may do okay, but even then it's not a sure thing imo. There may be some people who haven't used their DK slots yet that want to level a Worgen or Goblin DK, and if they're the type of player who likes to keep profs in sync with their level, they'll need to powerlevel from 1-275 when TBC recipes will start. This small set of players may lead to a temporary spike in mat prices.

So, in conclusion, demand will plummet (due to speeding prof leveling) and supply will skyrocket (due to flying mounts in Azeroth), so there is no possible sustainable gain to be had in stockpiling old world mats.


*whew*


So, what should you be stockpiling?

Answering this question depends on your investment goals. Are you looking to preserve capital against inflation or flip some goods for small profit from Cata changes?

Deciding which you want to do has wildly different investment strategies.

First, lets cover inflation, and inflation protection since it's simplest.

I'm just going to jump right in and assume you're on board with the idea of general gold inflation in Cata. Simply due to the power curve, Cata content needs to reward much more than WotLK content otherwise people would just farm the WotLK content with gear that trivializes it. I'm personally expecting the traditional 5× inflation over the first year of the expansion, with a minimum 100% inflation by the time most people start hitting 85.

For example, with my ~400k nest egg, that makes inflation kinda a big deal. If I just sat on that, I'd be looking at the equivalent in today's terms of 80k a year into Cata.

So, how do you combat inflation?

Vanity items. By far the best store of value in WoW are vanity items. They have low turnover, but that's okay, since if you're actually just concerned about protection against inflation then you're okay taking your time liquidating at the other end.

The best example of this is tracking White Kitten prices since Vanilla. It has had the exact same supply for the entire time. I remember when they sold for 1g in Vanilla. Now they fetch 100g easy. Expect them to sell for 300-500g in a year.

If you can get your hands on them, the Sealed Chest vanity items from the Shadowmourne completion rewards are killer for protecting against inflation. These are vanity items that, right now, are created incidentally from guilds pursuing top tier content. In Cata, these vanity items will only be pursued by (imo crazy) people looking to pursue vanity items! (SMourne itself being a vanity item). I'd suggest paying up to 100k for the mount, 40k for the tabard, and 20k for the other three.

Other good options are Tourney pets for 400g per or less, rare drop pets for 1.5k per or less, white kittens (yes, srsly) for 100g per or less, or hyacinth macaws for 10k or less. The only exception is the azure drake pet, since the mobs that drop it are being removed from the game, this pet is a total wild card.


OK that covers inflation, so what should you invest in if you're looking to actively profit from Cata changes? WotLK 350-425 mats are by far the best bet. Yes, even with the prof changes listed above.

The reason is two fold: first and foremost, margin of safety. Saronite Ore sells on most servers for about the vendor price (if smelted). JCs are mass churning amulets out of green gems to vendor. Bot farmers are farming the hell out of WotLK level herbs, driving prices into the ground.

Secondly, there is no way that anyone in Cata will be farming these in the volume that it happens today. In particular, it won't interest bot farmers since WotLK mats just won't have the volume.

So, they're currently trading for ~vendor costs, and we know that Cata ore is going to have higher vendor costs (either directly, or through tradeskills), and the supply is going to plummet. The only way prices can go is up.


Also, bags are a great choice. The OP was bang on there. Bags will always do well at the beginning of an expansion. I'm personally planning on putting about 20 frostweave bags up on the AH per day for the first week.


There are a couple more possibilities for Cata investment, but I've run out of time to go into them. I'll try to come back and post more later.

[Confidence]

Bravo, Bravada! :P I knew about those upcoming ideas, but I didn't line them up with professions like you did. I will reflect these ideas in the OP and you definitely deserve +Rep. Welcome to MMOwned, I am honored that your first post was here.

[Bravada]

Welcome to MMOwned, I am honored that your first post was here.

Thanks! Glad you liked the post. Here's the promised two other tips I have at present. (I'll probably have more contingent on being able to get some suspicions confirmed during the Beta, but I don't want to post them yet in case things end up going differently than expected.)

So I gave some AH / stockpiling tips in my previous post, but there's far more you can do to get your roster of toons prepped for maximum gold making once Cata ships. In my opinion, this is far more valuable than simply stockpiling items; stockpiling items will give you a one time profit. While this profit can be substantial, you'll make far more in the long run with an account loaded with toons that (maybe even passively) churn out gold continuously for the rest of the expansion.

Dual Gatherers

Now, this next piece of advice is probably a bit obvious, but it will make an absolute killing in the first two months of Cata:

Level an 80 Druid dual-gatherer with epic flight.

That's it. Do this, and take a couple short brakes from racing your main to 85, and you'll make bank. In the first two months of the expansion, Cata mats will be by far the best way to make gold, but the window of opportunity is very narrow. Every single serious raider is going to be madly rushing to complete their crafting profs for the first tier of raiding content, and many many casual players will want to level their crafting profs as well. There's a huge opportunity here for 200g/stack herb/ore sales, and with flying mounts right out of the gate, having a dual gatherer ready to go will make an absolute killing.

You'll want to be a Druid, of course, for five reasons:
1. Instant speed flying mount.
2. No need to dismount to gather herbs.
3. Combat speed (Travel form) to run away from mobs that aggro from your gathering ore.
4/5. Indoor speed (feral talent, 30% cat form speed) + Stealth to get at all those mineral nodes underground.

I would be shocked to find dual gatherers getting less than 1k/hour when all the raiders are busy powerleveling to 85 and/or gearing for the first tier raid content. There will be astronomical-never-will-you-see-it-again demand, and limited supply (since lots of players will focus on non-gold aspects of the game and/or don't have a dual gatherer like you to take advantage of the market opportunity!)

Depending on how heavily invested you are in your main's profs, you may actually want to drop your profs pre-Cata and change your main to a dual gatherer. This way you'll be able to make a killing while you're madly powerleveling to 85. This depends very much on which profs you have right now though: don't drop tailoring / alch (see below) for herb / mining, but most other profs should be safe--but only if you're willing to start from scratch once the herbing/mining boom is over! You'll need to decide for youself if this is worth it to you. (I'm not doing this, personally).

Alchemy / Tailoring CDs

The second fantastic account prep strategy is to level as many 75+ toons as you can to set up a factory of xmute / cooldown toons. I have two accounts, and plan on having 11 max lvl alchemists and ~5 tailors to churn out Volatile xmutes, epic gems, and cloth.

Assuming that the value of xmutes and tailoring cooldowns keeps pace in Cata, you're looking at about 150g/day per toon (in today's terms), or 300g/day in 4.0 inflation-adjusted terms. Lets say you get 5 of these alts for Cata, then you'll be able to afford epic flight for a new toon every ~3 days! That's a lot of passive income!!

"But Bravada!" I hear you say, "Didn't you just say before that leveling profs post Cata will be easier than today!? How can you turn around and suggest that we level profs now, before we can take advantage of this?"

Wow, that's an excellent question. You've been paying attention! Well, I guess the answer depends on how much gold you want to make before the xpac hits! >_>

At level 65, you can learn WotLK level profs, including (for alchemy) epic gem xmutes and (for tailoring) frostweave bags and specialty cloth (Spellweave, Ebonweave, and Moonshroud). I'll talk about alch first, then tailoring after.

Now, lets assume that (like last time) Blizzard targets a release in November. This means that there's a solid 4 months of epic gem xmutes to cash in on before the Cataclysm. The average profit per xmute right now is about 65g (without a JC). With 120 days before the next expansion, that's... 7800g. Profit. Without taking into account XMute specialization! Per alt! With XMute added in, profit jumps to 80g per xmute, for a total profit of 9.6k. Multiply that by however many alts you're willing to level and you'll see why I'm not too concerned with saving even 2k gold in leveling costs! As an added bonus, alchemy is one of the cheapest profs to level, with average powerleveling costs in the ~3k range, including the Primal Mights needed to specialize. And, you only need to be lvl 65 to take advantage of this, so you can race all your alts to 65 now (or 68 for xmute spec) and then take your sweet time finishing off the grind to 75.

Now, tailoring is much less sweet of a deal, unfortunately. Since they got rid of tailoring CDs in 3.3, there isn't any passive earning power left. That being said, every serious gold maker should already have at least one tailor leveled to make bags. Assuming you're on board with churning out a gbank tab (9 of bags, at 50g profit per bag, there's no way your first tailor won't pay for itself. You can also still make good gold on a lot of servers (server dependent! know your economy before relying on this!) by making specialty cloth, so I'd suggest trying that market out as well.

Unfortunately, since there's no passive bonus for additional tailors, there isn't much value in pre-leveling tailoring on your remaining posse of alts, but I would highly suggest stockpiling mats now sitting in these alts bags waiting to go once 4.0 ships. There should be an opportunity in there a few weeks before the expansion hits where new prof changes are in the game, but Cata content is still unavailable. This way you'll be able to take full advantage of easier prof leveling while still being ready to start churning out Cata specialty cloth (on a one week CD) out of the gate.

Note: I suggest powerleveling a tailor pre 4.0 since you'll want to get started on bags ASAP, and unprocessed frostweave cloth takes up a lot of bag space. If you're willing to mail bounce a lot of cloth, then you may do better waiting for 4.0.


Here's hoping this is helpful for some of you. As I said at the top, check back here later and I'll try to update with more speculative strategies for Cata investment (assuming I can find reliable Beta info).

[Confidence]

Thanks again, Bravada! Just edited OP with your last post of tips. You deserve lots of +Rep for what you've contributed here, so I added this:

Special thanks to..
+Rep Bravada - For correcting most of my previously written misconceptions in and adding a ton to this tip compilation. Your first couple of posts here on MMOwned (and in this topic) were definitely some of the most contributory posts I've seen. I welcome you and hope you're here to stay, because I thoroughly enjoyed reading what you wrote.

[RealonWoW]

Damn, that was a loooooong guide xD

But pretty!! Thx. +Rep

[Confidence]

Damn, that was a loooooong guide xD

But pretty!! Thx. +Rep

Haha yes it is, thanks and you're welcome.

Also, if anyone has any more tips, please share!

[Shodokan]

Step 1: Become a multi-boxer
Step 2: Get 30+ jc/alchemist or alchemist/tailor or jc/tailor
Step 3: Make daily cooldowns
Step 4: Make millions.

[Confidence]

Step 1: Become a multi-boxer
Step 2: Get 30+ jc/alchemist or alchemist/tailor or jc/tailor
Step 3: Make daily cooldowns
Step 4: Make millions.

Yeah but that's not realistic considering the fact that you'd have to pay for multiple accounts every month and buy multiple retail keys. Some people can deal with the initial investment, but that really isn't Cata-specific or relevant here.

[Chinchy]

Good post. +Rep =)

[Confidence]

Good post. +Rep =)

Thanks (: haha

[jlrm365]

Ok. Some questions, the answers to which may help everyone.

Taking the above information about Cataclysm mats being the prime source of cash, and from the point of view of a dual gatherer:

I am thinking...
You'll have to level your main, to experience content.
You'll have to level your gatherer, to gather higher level mats.

- How much time do you dedicate to levelling your main?
- How much to experiencing content with your main?
- How much to levelling your gatherer?
- How much go just plain gathering?

With those considerations in mind, perhaps the most basic questions are:

- What do you do, logging in for the first time (looking around would be on your main)?
- What do you do, after you "wake up" (play for the first time) each day?
- What are your daily patterns? How much time do you spend on each thing?

This has been an EXCELLENT guide, to inform us as to "what" - but answering those questions is sure to help us with the "how".

Thanks!

[Confidence]

Ok. Some questions, the answers to which may help everyone.

Taking the above information about Cataclysm mats being the prime source of cash, and from the point of view of a dual gatherer:

I am thinking...
You'll have to level your main, to experience content.
You'll have to level your gatherer, to gather higher level mats.

- How much time do you dedicate to levelling your main?
- How much to experiencing content with your main?
- How much to levelling your gatherer?
- How much go just plain gathering?

With those considerations in mind, perhaps the most basic questions are:

- What do you do, logging in for the first time (looking around would be on your main)?
- What do you do, after you "wake up" (play for the first time) each day?
- What are your daily patterns? How much time do you spend on each thing?

This has been an EXCELLENT guide, to inform us as to "what" - but answering those questions is sure to help us with the "how".

Thanks!

These are some excellent questions indeed. The answer to these questions is simply up to you. If your interest is to make gold over raiding with your guild as soon as possible, understand that it would be best to get your gatherer through all of the content as soon as the xpac releases so as to put all these newly-acquired herbs on the market straight away -- you will benefit in the long run with several hardcore guilds on your realm buying them up and using them to progress through new raid content.

Now that it has been awhile since the Cata release, feel free to pick either or. The questions you've asked for the "how" are definitely subjective ones, so maybe others can provide you with their opinions on the matter.

[jlrm365]

Now that it has been awhile since the Cata release.

It has. The questions have long been answered, in / from / by various sources.