A Beginner's Guide to Botting.

[403Forbidden]

Foreword: This is not a guide on how to sell botted gold, bot specific items, or set up your bot. This is more of a story of how i started my botting, and became completely self-sufficient in terms of gold and materials. To many "hardcore" botters this might seem useless, however a lot of people seem to be misunderstanding the basic concepts, and as such i thought this small guide would be helpful towards them.

A quick summary
Words of that font/style are meant to represent "large" topics, separating this guide into several small parts, which makes it easier to write, read and navigate.

Words in green represent certain "frequently asked questions" that might be relevant to the nearby sentences.
Words in red represent answers to those questions.

Please note that for the purpose of this guide, i will only be referring to (1) Cataclysm and (2) Honorbuddy bot. Most (if not all) of the advices given here can be used with any other bots, however, just for the sake of clarity, i have only ever used Honorbuddy, and have always been happy with it.



To bot or not to bot, that is the question.

Things like security and morality aside, people always want to know whether its worth it to bot, or to just buy gold. The answer is - it is, and always will be, cheaper to bot yourself. Let us compare:

Right now, on offgamers.com 100k gold for Argent Dawn EU is around £60 (which is, i think, around 90$).
A full cata account will cost you ~£25 (40$?) from the same offgamers website.
A year+ bot subscription to Honorbuddy (yes, that is the bot i have always used) will cost you ~25 euros, which is around 30$ i think?
And dont forget subscription of ~15$ per month

OMG that is already same as gold price, its more complicated!
Yes it is, however remember that you pay EACH TIME when you want to buy gold, but you only pay ONCE to get the account and bot. So its cheaper to buy if you only plan to do it once, but much cheaper in longrun to bot if you need gold more than once.

Now, when i was botting on ONE account, with botting being simply herb/mining deepholme, uldum, hyjal and twilight highlands, i was making roughly 50-70k gold per day.
Please note that this amount is not objective - depending on your realm, market, farming strategy and a lot of other things, you might be earning much more or less. This was the number for me, however.
Assuming you make ~50k per day, thats around 1.5 million gold per month. Seeing how you pay ~15$ subscription for your bot account, this essentially comes down to:

Bot Gold cost = Fixed cost (~$70) + monthly cost ($15) = 85 for first month, and 15$ every next month.
Assuming 1.5mil per month that means 90$ for first 1,500,000 gold, and 15$ for every next 1,500,000 gold. Obviously the amounts will be different, probably a bit less, but not by much, really, if done smartly.

Now, do you want to pay $90 to buy 100,000 gold, or do you want to pay $90, get 1,500,000 gold AND an account with which you can get more for nearly free?
Id say the answer is obvious


Is it safe to bot?

As with all "wrong" things to do - exploting, hacking, botting- a simple answer is: Do not bot with what you are afraid to lose. There is always, ALWAYS a chance that you will get banned.
You might bot for 10 years without a ban, or bot for 5 minutes and get a permaban. Nobody can predict it, and nobody will help you if it happens. So once again, the golden rule of botting:
Do not bot with what you cannot afford to lose
Which is why you should always have a "mule" separate account which will do all the botting, leaving your "main" account safe. So if your "mule" gets banned, sure, you lose the $70 you paid for it, but you keep your main account, which, in most cases, is the most important part.

But is my main account at risk if i send the gold from my botter to my main?
This question is tricky. Short answer: Don't know. Long answer: When i first started botting, every gold i sent to my main was "covered" with a mail saying "thanks for help" or "here, as promised" or whatever. As time went by, i stopped doing that. From some point onwards i was simply "face-to-face" trading the gold and materials to my account with no problem whatsoever. That does not mean it was safe. It just means i did not get banned for doing it.

From what i have heard, the biggest risk is for people who trade lots of gold to many different accounts (i.e. gold sellers). If you only trade gold to one account, you seem to have a lot less risk (again, theoretically) of getting banned.

But what about trading? does this mean i cant sell/buy stuff from others?
Of course not. It means that you shouldnt give hundreds of thousands of gold daily to different accounts. You are still perfectly fine in terms of buying/selling stuff via trade window or AH.


Botting 101, or "How do I...?"

A lot of people who thought about botting have probably found a small brickwall in terms of learning how to do it properly. Of course, many passed it, but still, some always give up because its "too complicated" (im not saying it is, im saying it is understandable that some might think that).

The best learning place is the bot's forum (for me, it was honorbuddy forum). I cannot speak for other bots, but HB made it easy enough for me to understand the basics, and get rolling quite fast from reading the stickies and guides. The basic advices i can give are the following:

• Always be near your bot until you get used to it. Until you know exactly what, how, and why bot will do, do not leave it unattended for any time. Later on you will be leaving it overnight or longer, once you are sure if will behave like you want it to, but until that moment, consider it a small puppy who needs to be toilet trained. Dont leave it alone.
• Dont risk too much. Is the area overcrowded and full of people? Is there a large possibility of bot getting stuck due to map layout? Go somewhere else. Sure, you might lose some gold per hour, but its still better than losing your bot due to GM seeing it running into the wall for hours without changing direction.
• Dont oversocialize. Sure, talking and being in a guild might seem like a good cover, but tell me this - won't it look suspicious to your guildmates to see you 24/7 in Uldum without talking to them? Yes, guild provides perks, but unless your whole guild is aware of what you are doing, its much easier to either not be guilded, or have a very small guild of just you & people who know you bot (i.e. forum friends, etc).

Now, to cover the botting process from start to finish. For the purposes of this guide, i will only cover MATERIALS FARMING botting - that is, herbalism and mining.

Leveling.

Technically, it does not matter what class you pick. Druids generally have faster herbing, since they dont need to dismount, but in the end it doesnt matter. I would recommend picking a "burst" class like a rogue, warrior, druid, DK or Hunter - as these have enough short cast / instants to quickly dispatch nearby mobs, but i dont keep much up to date with classes anymore (since i quit some time ago) and so its up to you. I was botting on a druid and a warrior, and both did fine.

There are many ways to level - you can always do it manually, which is safest and (usually) fastest way - but if you cant be bothered with that, you can always bot it.

I have tried all botting ways - questbotting, grinding, PVPing, gathering and instancing, and here are my thoughts:

Questbotting:
Sure, it might seem like the best idea, but EVERY single quest botting profile i found was buggy and not really afk-able. Maybe i was unlucky, maybe you will do fine, but personally it seemed to take much longer for me than it should have.

Grinding:
Slow, detectable and ... well, slow. It could work, but there are much better ways.

PVPing:
In my personal opinion, the best way to levelbot. There are enough newbies in the BGs to not be considered a bot, and frankly, sometimes my bot was actually doing BETTER than the rest of my team. Sure, it won't cap a flag, but it will defo charge in middle of enemy group and whirlwind them to death, which makes EVERYONE sure that you are most definetely not a bot. Ironic. My warrior leveled in PVP from 40 onwards, and it went smooth as silk.
Not only that, but you can get "epic" pvp gear at 60, 70 and 80 to keep you somewhat up to date with the gear levels as you get higher in your character levels.

Gathering:
In my opinion, only worth it at 80+, because the low level mats arent THAT important for you to make gold. Sure, its possible, but it will take longer & wont be as efficient. Your goal is to reach 80 ASAP so you can farm hyjal and uldum, so in my opinion, dont do it.

Instancing:
This is 50/50. On one hand, instance bots usually behave just fine, do encounters fine, kill trash fine, and even heal fine. However the key word is usually.
Getting stuck behind a staircase, running into a corner, or passing all the loot from all instance CAN make your group suspicious. I would say not worth the risk, even though it CAN work.



Gearing and farming

You will need:

• Your botter character (that you will level)
• Your bank character (same account for instant mail)
• Possibly your second bank character (if you cant sell all the stock fast enough)

Your botter should have:

• Every bag slot filled with max size NORMAL bag (why not "herb" or "mine" bag read blow)
• Gear of at least blue quality cataclysm entry. So as to actually be able to kill the mobs fast enough. This is really cheap these days.
• Epic flying. You know why.

Your bank should have:

• Every bag slot filled with max size NORMAL bag
• Every bank slot filled with max size bag (normal, herb or mine)

Why should i not use herb/mine bags for my botter? They have much more space in them!
I do not know if this is fixed now, but back when i was botting the bots tended to not understand the difference between "normal bag space" and "specific bag space", and when you only had 5 empty slots left in the herb bag, it would still mine the veins, even though it could not put them in bags. This resulted in a lot of wasted time and mats, so its much easier to just have "normal" bags.


Profiles and zones

It is of outmost importance to farm in the correct zone, with correct profiles. Your bot forums usually should contain good profiles for you to use (HB did), or alternatively you can just make your own - it really is much easier than it looks. Time consuming, but easy.

When trying a new profile, ALWAYS watch it for at least a day or two. Does it run smooth? Does it bring in enough materials? Does it pull any elite packs? Does it get stuck anywhere? What happens if you dismount mid-path? What happens if you enter a cave?
It will save you a LOT of trouble, and is much better than waking up in the morning only to find out your bot has been running back and forth between two corners of a pillar unable to find next waypoint.

Always make sure your profile contains data such as Repair vendors and Mailboxes. You will want to set up your bot to automatically repair/sell junk when needed, and mail all your materials to your bank alt. If its not in the profile, you can always add it yourself - again, its easier than it seems.

As always - your bot forums will have a lot of in-depth tutorials about using and creating profiles, as well as quite a few existing ones made by users themselves.



Selling your goods

Possibly the most important part of botting - actually transforming all those herbs and ores into shiny gold.
There are many ways to go about it

1. Direct auction selling. You will always be using AH, the trick is to use it a lot, but not too much. You do not want to flood AH and ruin the economy - but you DO want the people to notice you. Why?
2. Private buyers. Sooner or later, you WILL be contacted by people who are in need of a lot of raw materials. Usually they will offer to buy large bulks of your stuff for cheaper-than-AH prices. Almost always it is a good idea to haggle a bit and get a decent price, however do try and make them interested - the more of those you have, the larger your gold income will be, since you can always rely on them buying your stuff, unlike AH.
3. Transformation. Is there a demand for darkmoon cards? Send mats to your scribe and make a ton of cards to sell. Do people need ores for epic gems? Send them to your jeweller and get the gems yourself. Raiding and need potions? Send herbs to your alchemist and craft your own flasks and pots.
4. Trade chat announcement. Should be used as last resort, or when only entering the market with a new bot. Announcing things like "selling a ton of herbs" will only get you comments like "did you bot them?". So just try and do a normal sale of "selling X cheaper than AH", and then just ask interested people how many herbs they want. Some of those might become your (2. Private Buyer) as well!

Common tips and tricks:

• Be kind. Flaming, emoing and generally being a dick will get you nowhere. Be nice and polite, always.
• Its in YOUR interest to sell stuff, not in other's interest to buy it. So it must be YOU who pitches your product (cheaper prices / fast delivery), and YOU who keeps track of who needs what. Friends list is a great way to keep track of sellers, as it has way for you to "add notes" such as "whiptail 50g/stack" or "only ore", etc
• If asked about how you farm so much, try and avoid the answer, but not too obviously. If pushed, just invent something like "im a night shift guard", or "my kids do it for pocket money" or something like that. Never, ever, EVER admit to botting. Ever. Ever.
• Do not reveal your main botter char. Your "banker" and "botter" should remain completely separate identities.
• Do not flood AH with stuff. Find the price, post ~20 stacks cheaper. 10 min later rescan, and post 20 more. Do not put more than 200 stacks at once, cancel if needed. Your goal is not only to sell, but also to let people know about you (private buyers!)
• Watch the market price. If this week cinderweed sells for 10g/stack, while last 2 months it sold for 30g/stack, maybe you should hold on to it for a bit?
• Watch the market price. If you have always sold cinderweed for 30g/stack to your private buyer, he MIGHT ask you to lower the price if the AH starts selling it for 10g/stack!
• Do not anger your private buyer. Do not anger your private buyer. DO NOT anger your private buyer. It might be better to sell at a smaller price than to lose a potential buyer, who will always be there for you. Haggling is fine, but remember - you need them more than they need you.

Overnight botting & leaving it alone

Once you are satisfied with how bot performs, farms and handles itself, you can start leaving it alone. Make sure that you know EXACTLY how your bot will behave (i.e. by having watched it farm same profile for a week before). For me, the common schedule was:
Wake up. Log out from botter, log to banker. Sell stuff/collect auctions. Log back to botter & resume.

But what about people whispering me? Dont i need to reply?
No, you do not. Even blues have replied many times that just because someone does not reply, it does not mean it's a bot. You have EVERY right to play like you want, even if it includes not talking to a single person in your entire gaming history.


Moving gold to main account

Sooner or later you will want to actually use all that gold you farmed up, so the question will be - "How do i get it?".

Here is the "history" of how i used to transfer my gold:

• At first, i used to send in-game mails with small sums and messages such as "thanks for that run" or "As promised, here you go".
  
• As time went by, i stopped adding messages, and simply was sending.
• At some point i was in the game at the same time with both of my chars, so i did a face trade. And since then, i have been doing only face trading.

Some tips for face trading:
Try not to trade too much at once. I usually traded ~100k per trade, if i needed to trade more i traded later in the day rather than at same time. i also traded some mats at the same time if my main needed them.
Try not to target your main when trading - sure, nobody cares if a level 1 bank targets someone, but we want to be safe, right? Target, trade, target someeone else. Cant hurt to be safe.



Conclusion

All in all, the botting has been VERY worth it for me. From a person who spent a lot of cash on gold (because i couldnt be bothered to farm), i became a person who could afford EVERYTHING i wanted, for every single character, and still have hundreds of thousands left for whatever else i might want or need.
I did NOT sell any gold to anyone, so that made my "botting" quite a bit safer than the gold sellers. It was more of a "private" bot to just keep me in the game, rather than to make profit.
I absolutely completely recommend Honorbuddy - i hold a lifetime license, and i absolutely loved that bot.

I think i included everything, but if you think something needs to be added, just let me know.


403Forbidden.


CHANGELOG:
July 29: Guide created. Wooo!

Quick edit: This guide has been posted in wrong subforum. I have reported it to mods, requesting for it to be transferred to the Bots section.

[azuro]

Thanks for sharing, +3 rep from me

[InLikeFlint]

Really good guide, even though i knew most of the stuff from experience this will really help a lot of people! +rep

[wow98xd]

should i use a different name on my bot account on battle.net?

[403Forbidden]

should i use a different name on my bot account on battle.net?

I dont think it matters really. You should be fine if you use different battle net acc.

[Traxex84]

Nice guide, I have botted on and off since BC so I know all this but it will definitely help a lot of people who are looking to start.

+rep

[ClavenWins]

50-70k with a single botting account per night? Either your nights are extremely long or your server is as close to death as they come...

[Traxex84]

50-70k with a single botting account per night? Either your nights are extremely long or your server is as close to death as they come...

I think he might have been referring to the start of cata when elementium and herbs cost a small fortune as he did state he no longer plays wow.

[403Forbidden]

This was around early firelands. I would leave my bot harvesting uldum overnight, sell stuff in the morning and put it on farm again. 50k per day was quite common - usually got around 70-80k, 100 in good days, ~30 in bad.

Kilrogg EU, if someone cares.

[Jstonez]

Very impressive guide. I thought I knew a decent amount about botting but this has introduced more than my current knowledge. Much appreciated.

[403Forbidden]

Very impressive guide. I thought I knew a decent amount about botting but this has introduced more than my current knowledge. Much appreciated.

Im glad i could help you

And note to all: If you have any suggestions, or think something is missing, please let me know!

[Ninjaderp]

This thread would be great to read for all the newbies out there. +rep

[wow98xd]

again sorry for asking, are u sure its safe to use the same name on the bot account as my main account if they are different battle.net accounts?
just wanna make sure x)

[Jaladhjin]

again sorry for asking, are u sure its safe to use the same name on the bot account as my main account if they are different battle.net accounts?
just wanna make sure x)

You're seeking more certainty than there is..tell you what though..the philosophy is sound..if you're not willing to take the risk..don't ;-)

Even if the entire site..owner of it..highest rep verified members personally guarantee you its safe..not any chance at all of a ban..& you get banned..what then?

[Jaladhjin]

For me, the common schedule was:
Wake up. Log out from botter, log to banker. Sell stuff/collect auctions. Log back to botter & resume

I want to talk about that..the premise of it..I know there's a lot of people..a real lot that think bot hard or don't bother..maximum up time on as many accounts as you can manage..

I disagree..I'd think its far safer to bot like a normal player 7 - 10 hours on any given day with some time off a few times a month..a day or two maybe..than to have your play pattern become regular at 24/7..there are only 2 types of players that're logged in that often..botters & sharers..

My wild & free shot in the dark assumption is that you might be 1 of those of the mind that..you're taking a big risk botting anyway..may as well make it as profitable as you can for as long as you can..the ban is inevitable after so long..

Not to claim I know a thing about you..I don't..but I'm telling you the ideas I'm basing my chatter off ;-) since we aren't talking instantly :-D

It interests me though..people that think from that position..not claiming you're doing it wrong or anything..I'm just genuinely interested in why the people think bot hard or don't bother think that..seems far safer to me doin' it the way I like to ;-)