This is nothing really new to the scene of gold making, but sometimes you need a bit of inspiration or reminder to get back into a certain strategy. Or you just need help doing it right
Entry level Cataclysm gear starts at level 77 with an item level of 272. They are usually leagues ahead in stats compared items available at that level, as well as compared to items available even from places like ICC Heroic.
Reasons players will want these items:
- Often they still have level 60-low70-ish level gear, because they simply haven't found replacements for them yet or have leveled too fast to actually get some (maybe they dungeon grinded with bad luck or BG leveled - who knows, WOTLK questing content is hated by many anyways).
- Believe it or not the stamina increase. There is a massive jump in stamina between WOTLK and Cataclysm (for all classes, not just tanks), and it's extremely noticeable even when questing, but particularly when dungeoning and getting hit by mobs / boss abilities and especially when pvping and getting 1 shotted by someone in Cata instance blues.
- Item Level increase, you need a certain item level in order to join the beginning lower level Cataclysm dungeons, and most of the time if you are still in WOTLK quest/dungeon items, you won't have the sufficient item level.
- Hierlooms. They stop working once you reach level 80 in terms of their experience increase bonus, and their item level also gets reset to 1, making them completely useless when wanting to queue for a dungeon.
Flipping them without much hassle:
- Open up the Auctionator Buy tab if you have it.
- Click Manage Shopping Lists.
- Click New and enter your new shopping list name (such as Beginner Cata Gear) and hit Accept.
- Click on your new shopping list displayed in the window next to the button, and then clickEdit.
- Paste the following text into the box that appears and then click on Save, and then Okay to close the shopping list window and get back to the main Auctionator Buy tab.
Code:
Armor/Cloth/77/80/i272
Armor/Leather/77/80/i272
Armor/Mail/77/80/i272
Armor/Plate/77/80/i272
Weapon/77/80/i272
I don't bother with looking for Rings and Necklaces, because there is a lot of competition from crafted JC items to make it worth the risk, and there aren't any, or at least very few BoE trinkets available for that level besides the Engineering Dragonling and Darkmoon Faire Decks.
- Once you have created your shopping list, click the drop down arrow found in the top left corner of the Auctionator Buy tab (it most probably says "Recent Searches" as the moment) and select your new shopping list.
- You will then see the new search categories that I gave you in that list such as the Armor/Cloth/77-80/i272 list.
- When you click on it, it will search for cloth items, within the required level range of 77 and 80, and that is item level 272 or higher.
- Click the Lowest Price heading once to order the items in a price order that allows you to see the lowest price listed first.
- Hover over the item name or price to view its stats and use some common sense to decide if it is something that people might want.
- I usually buy all the useful items that are listed below 100 gold, and re-list them for 150g, 190g or 250g depending on how good I reckon them to be.
- Don't buy 2-stat items such as stamina and spirit because those are the least appealing and least useful.
- Don't buy items crafted by professions (most of these will be part of a set and you will see so when hovering over the item).
- I also try stay away from items with stats that have competition from profession crafted items - for example a tanking plate gloves item will have competition from [item]Hardened Obsidium Gauntlets[/item], which will effectively make your items harder to sell, or limit the amount that you can sell it for to equivalent of what the profession item is selling for.
As I said, I usually re-list my items for 150g, 190g or 250g depending on how useful I think they will be to players. You will actually be surprised how much players are willing to pay for these items if they are desperate to reach the minimum ilvl for dungeons. Of course they could cheat by holding some nice shiny BoE epics in their bags, but not many have the luxury of being able to do that.
I also sometimes fly around in Hyjal (for example while I'm doing my dailies or while I'm on the way there, or getting ready for a Firelands raid, etc) and post in general chat something like:
Code:
/1 WTB your level 77-80 Cataclysm green items for 20g-30g each. Whisper me the item link and I will tell you whether or not I want to buy it.
20g-30g is one hell of a bargain for a lot of those items and much more than they would get from Disenchanting or vendoring it (which most do).
This strategy takes some patience, but if you gain a monopoly on the items and check frequently for items to resell, you will notice a steady stream of sales with decent profits. At worst you can disenchant the items eventually if you find they are not selling or you get tired of relisting them.
I make myself 1 or 2 TSM Auctioning Group and just throw all those items into the groups as I get them, so it's quick and easy listing them each time.
P.S. - Other examples that you can use the same strategy for:
- Level 38-42 Mail and Plate items - this is the level that hunters/shamans gain mail usage and warrior/paladins gain plate usage. Be wary of heirloom alternatives though.
- Level 57-60 TBC items - be wary of crafted alternatives.
- Level 65-66 TBC items - this seems to be a very common sort of halfway mark place where leveling starts to slow down slightly, players head back to town in order to train new skills and often pick up a few nice upgrades to try increase the leveling pace again.
- Level 67-70 WOTLK items - be wary of crafted alternatives.
- Level 75-76 WOTLK items - same as the above TBC example. Halfway mark where leveling starts to slow down more, and players head back to town in order to train new skills and pick up better upgrades.
- I would avoid trying to flip Level 81-85 greens, there is a plethora of upgrades available from both questing and dungeon grouping, and the end goal with nice shiny welfare epics is within spitting distance.
See my update
HERE to see my progress (made 16,000g in 5 days, spending less than 10 minutes a day on this market).