[Exalted] Darkmoon Faire - Gold Mine

[Village Drunk]

After using the search tool, I found alot of stuff about how to make gold with inscription, how to make gold while getting Insane in the Membrane achievement, Darkmoon Faire scams and something about trees. However I didn't find a noobs guide to Darkmoon Faire exalted. I thought I'd share mine with you.

Here's my first contribution - guide to getting Exalted with Darkmoon Faire, one of the reputations towards 'the Insane' title, although with this guide it should make you 'the Wise'. At first glance this reputation seems extremely expensive and requires alot of time. Time yes, expensive no. In fact you can make gold out of it, alot of gold.

I have typed this out in two stages, if you wish to get a reputation bump start and don't care for a small gold loss please follow both stages. If not, skip straight to stage two. I've also added a tips section at the end.

Stage One

Neutral 0/3000 - Friendly 2000/6000 (cut off point)

You can do this two ways, handing in decks (that I will go over in depth in stage two) and handing in numerous low level items that are crafted by various professions or can be looted off particular low level monsters. These hand-ins are rewarded with Darkmoon Fair Prize Tickets and can be traded in for low level items, including epics, but generally they're useless and will not give you any profit. This is just a quick head start, however you're going to lose gold. This will save making 14 decks.

You can find a list of these items, and at what reputation stage they finish here.

I personally did not do this, I went straight for the deck hand-ins shown in stage two.

Stage Two

Neutral 0/3000 (or if you did the first stage - Friendly 2000/6000) - Exalted 999/1000

Exalted 999/1000 is not required for the achievement, any points at all is needed as long as you have exalted status. It's all about maxing reputations out completely though right?

This can be done with three sets of decks - Vanilla decks, Burning Crusade decks and Wrath of the Lich King decks. All decks give 350 reputation when handed in and you are rewarded with a epic trinket. All the trinkets are bind on equip however the Burning Crusade ones are unique, meaning you have to visit the bank or use a mail box if you're handing the same deck in multiple times in the same visit to the Darkmoon Faire.

From Neutral you need 120 decks to be spot on Exalted.
From 2000/6000 Friendly you require 106, you'll be just over Exalted.

Vanilla decks

These decks, just like all other epic decks, are created by combining the eight cards of that "suit" (Ace, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight) There is four "suits" - Beasts, Elementals, Portals and Warlords.

These cards drop from higher level monsters in Vanilla content, mostly from instances (such as Scholomance, Blackrock Spire, Dire Maul etc) however they can also be made by Inscriptions.

Darkmoon Card - Inscription 275 required to create

Ink of the Sky x 5
Heavy Parchment x 1 - From any Inscription vendor, general supplies/goods.
Shimmering Ink x 2

Sapphire Pigment are needed to make Ink of the Sky, they're gained by milling (Inscription) Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom, Icecap, Dreamfoil and Golden Sansam.

Silvery Pigment are needed to make Shimmering Ink, these are also gained by milling (Inscription) Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom, Icecap, Dreamfoil and Golden Sansam.

This will create a random Vanilla deck card. All cards have the exact % chance of being created, it's all RNG.

Raw cost to make per card on my server: 10g - 15g (roughly)

Beasts Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon.
Price: 100g - 150g.
Buyers: No idea why, it's not that good.

Elementals Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom.
Price: 200g - 350g.
Buyers: Mainly people with 60 twinks.

Portals Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Twisting Nether.
Price: 250 - 400g
Buyers: "Arena trinket" or "Alt leveling trinket" seemed to be the main selling points.

Warlords Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Heroism
Price: 100g - 150g
Buyers: Like the Blue Dragon, quite a useless trinket so I don't see why people where buying these.

So at rough maximum per card (15g) it works out at maximum of 120g a deck. With the minimum average price of the trinkets being 162g 50s, I was making 42g 50s minimum profit per deck. Free rep (excluding your time) However, server prices ranging, luck on cards created and buyers effect this greatly.

Not that impressive? I agree it's not. However free rep, is free rep... I strongly suggest people with low amounts of gold use this method as it has a lower risk factor compared to higher level decks.

Burning Crusade Decks

These decks, just like all other epic decks, are created by combining the eight cards of that "suit" (Ace, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight) There is four "suits" - Furies, Lunacy, Blessings, Storms.

These cards drop from higher level monsters in Burning Crusade content, mostly from instances (such as Botanica, Steamvaults, Shadowlab etc) however they can also be made by Inscriptions.

Greater Darkmoon Card - Inscription 325 required to create

Darkflame Ink x 3
Resilient Parchment x 1 - From any Inscription vendor, general supplies/goods.
Primal Life x 3
Ethereal Ink

Ebon Pigment are needed to make Darkflame Ink, they're gained by milling (Inscription) Netherbloom, Nightmare Vine, Ancient Lichen, Mana Thistle, Dreaming Glory, Felweed, Ragveil, Terocone.

Nether Pigment are needed to make Ethereal Ink, these are also gained by milling (Inscription) Netherbloom, Nightmare Vine, Ancient Lichen, Mana Thistle, Dreaming Glory, Felweed, Ragveil, Terocone.

This will create a random Burning Crusade deck card. All cards have the exact % chance of being created, it's all RNG.

Raw cost to make per card on my server: 35g - 50g (roughly)

Furies Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Vengeance
Price: Unknown
Buyers: I'm guessing people with leveling tank alts or perhaps 70 twinks would buy this trinket.

Lunacy Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Madness
Price: Unknown
Buyers: Likely 70 Twinks, alt levelers.

Blessings Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Crusade
Price: Unknown
Buyers: Likely 70 Twinks, alt levelers.

Storms Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Wrath
Price: Unknown
Buyers: Likely 70 Twinks, alt levelers.

So at a rough maximum per card (50g) it works out at 400g a deck. Meaning you'd have to sell at a minimum of 400g or more to make money... this being the reason why I didn't try this method (hence the unknown prices) The prices on my server for these mats are simply to high in my opinion to make anything out of this.The best sellers would likely be Darkmoon Card: Madness and Darkmoon Card: Crusade but how much over 400g you could sell them I have no idea. So in my case this was far to high risk, yet on your server if you do a search on the mats on the AH it may well be alot lower risk for you.

If anyone can give any feedback or past experience with Burning Crusade card making that would be awesome!

Wrath of the Lich King decks

These decks, just like all other epic decks, are created by combining the eight cards of that "suit" (Ace, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight) There is four "suits" - Nobles, Chaos, Undeath, Prisms.

Unlike Vanila and Burning Crusade cards, these can only be made by Scribes.

Darkmoon Card of the North - Inscription 400 required to create

Resilient Parchment - From any Inscription vendor, general supplies/goods.
Snowfall Ink x 6
Eternal Life x 3
Ink of the Sea x 3

Icy Pigment are needed to make Snowfall Ink they're gained by milling (Inscription) Adder's Tongue, Icethorn, Lichbloom, Fireseed, Deadnettle, Goldclover, Taladra's Rose, Tiger Lily and Fire Leaf. However the rate on Icethorn and Lichbloom is much higher than the others and Adder's Tongue is the highest. So I suggest you buy them instead of the others.

Azure Pigment are needed to make Ink of the Sea they're gained by milling (Inscription) Adder's Tongue, Icethorn, Lichbloom, Fireseed, Deadnettle, Goldclover, Taladra's Rose, Tiger Lily and Fire Leaf. Just like Icy Pigment, the rate is much better with Icethorn, Lichbloom and Adder's Tongue.

Note that Ink of the Sea x 10 can be traded in at the Inscription trainer/vendor in Dalaran (and all trainers/vendors?) for Snowfall Ink x 1. This provides handy as you'll find you'll lack Snowfall Ink a hell lot more than Ink of the Sea, but, before you take this step with hundreds or thousands of Ink of the Sea I'd suggest you try trade them with other scribes at a better ratio. I was trading at 7:1 for a while, I believe the player wanted them for glyph making.

This will create a random Wrath of the Lich King deck card. All cards have the exact % chance of being created, it's all RNG.

Raw cost to make per card on my server: 70g - 90g

Nobles Deck can be handed in for:
Darkmoon Card: Greatness (+90 Strength)
Darkmoon Card: Greatness (+90 Spirit)
Darkmoon Card: Greatness (+90 Agility)
Darkmoon Card: Greatness (+90 Intellect)
Price: 4000g - 5500g
Buyers: Raiders mainly. The Strength and Agility versions are still very good trinkets, regardless of their item level. Recommend serious buyers to visit websites such as maxdps to check how decent they still are. The spirit version I never made and therefore never sold and the intellect version I made once for a Paladin who was convinced it was the best trinket he'd ever seen in his life and of course, I agreed... for a 5250g fee.

Prisms Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Illusion
Price: 350g - 550g
Buyers: Mainly alts, or new level 80's.

Chaos Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Berserker!
Price: 200g - 400g
Buyers: PvP players, new level 80's, alts.

Undeath Deck can be handed in for Darkmoon Card: Death
Price: 600g - 1000g
Buyers: New level 80's and alts.

So at rough maximum per card (90g) it works out at maximum of 720g a deck. With the minimum average price of the trinkets being 1287g 50s, I make 567g 50s minimum profit per deck. More free rep. However, server prices ranging, luck on cards created and buyers effect this greatly.

Tips

Research

Research all raw materials prices on your server and work out which one would be best for you, possibly making all levels of decks is worth it. Likely only Wrath of the Lich King decks are worth making.

Banks

Make multiple bank alts, the amount of herbs that you will need to mill will be immense. I had three bank characters holding around 400 stacks of herbs on more than one occasion.

Gold Track

Keep track of your gold. Make sure you note how much you're spending and how much return you're getting.

Find a farmer.

A trust worthy farmer may increase your profit dramatically. Asking around in general chat or whispering people in zones where herb / primal / eternal farming is a hot spot, Wintergrasp generally being a good place to start.

A good guide to communicate with farmers can be found here*

Buying

Check AH daily, but be sure not to buy to much. It will raise the prices and you'll be only screwing yourself over. You won't get exalted over night, it will take alot of investment of time and gold.

Not a scribe?

This is a problem, leveling Inscription purely for this is quite a commitment and may cost some gold. I suggest you ask a guildy, use a friends account or level it on an alt if you do not wish to lose your current professions. Not got an alt? Make a Deathknight, you can gain 400 Inscription at level 65.

Find another Darkmoon enthusiast!

You will get alot of multiple cards, try and find someone also creating cards and try swapping Pokemon cards. He'll swap his Charizard for your Pikachu I can assure you. A good way to find people is searching the AH for cards, decks and trinkets and add the players name to friends list.

Will this be worth it in a few months time?

Perhaps, but the prices will forever go down. As new content is released and new trinkets become ever easier to come across the market will slow down and with that so will the prices. The Vanilla and Burning Crusade decks should always stay roughly at the same price I'd imagine.

Selling

A good time to sell is when the Faire has finished or when no sales are currently in the AH. If you sell while the Faire is on you're likely to come across alot of competition depending on your server population. Something also to take into consideration is selling on the opposite faction, if you can find a buyer and the neutral AH cut (15%) won't break into your profit margin then this is definitely worth doing. Do not advertise how many you are selling, just say what you have and if people ask just say you have limited amounts. People may catch on to what you're doing and try it themselves. You will get alot of people asking how they're made and why you're selling the Greatness cards for so much (If you decide to go with WOTLK cards) I setup macro's to reply to these people, explaining how I'm not ripping them off... or am I?

Competition

Try setup a system so you both get rid of your trinkets. Try organise different days/time of selling in trade channel and the AH.

I hope this guide helps and I hope you get your title soon! Please feel free to ask questions and most importantly feedback, show me how much you made using this guide.

Thanks alot, Village Drunk.

*Hope it's okay that I've linked to your awesome post about communicating with farmers Unholy[S]haman, felt it was quite relevant here.

edit: fixed bad phrasing

[devo1995]

Nice guide helped alot

[horst]

OK, nice guide, but you still have to put a lot of effort and gold with this way of getting rep. I did the Insane-Achievement for myself and there is a "easy" way to get the rep.

First: Get every trinket once (buy trinket or deck, you can leave out Greatness, if its to expensive for ya)

Second: Announce in Trade-Channel, that u will give people the trinket for the decks ans pay them 50-200g extra (take how much you think you need to get people to trade with you)

Third: You hand in the deck and get the trinket to trade again with another player.

I found some people on my server, who made Northend-Decks for gold income and often handed them in at the fair to sell the trinkets in the auctionhouse. If u can get some fof them ur lucky, cause they will earn more money and have more then 1 deck to hand in.

So if we sum this up and assume you pay 100g per deck-trinket-trade you will end up with just 10600g for the excaltet rep, because you can sell the trinkets u bought again in the auction house. This is by far the cheapest and fastest way to get rep at the Darkmoon Faire

[late1]

OK, nice guide, but you still have to put a lot of effort and gold with this way of getting rep. I did the Insane-Achievement for myself and there is a "easy" way to get the rep.

First: Get every trinket once (buy trinket or deck, you can leave out Greatness, if its to expensive for ya)

Second: Announce in Trade-Channel, that u will give people the trinket for the decks ans pay them 50-200g extra (take how much you think you need to get people to trade with you)

Third: You hand in the deck and get the trinket to trade again with another player.

I found some people on my server, who made Northend-Decks for gold income and often handed them in at the fair to sell the trinkets in the auctionhouse. If u can get some fof them ur lucky, cause they will earn more money and have more then 1 deck to hand in.

So if we sum this up and assume you pay 100g per deck-trinket-trade you will end up with just 10600g for the excaltet rep, because you can sell the trinkets u bought again in the auction house. This is by far the cheapest and fastest way to get rep at the Darkmoon Faire

I'm not quite sure I understood what you tried saying there.. I got the part, find someone who has a deck and offer him gold to trade the deck to trinket at the faire and then give him the trinket back, right. But you mentioned something about ending up paying ONLY 10k gold to get exalted with Darkmoon Faire? That is not cheap by any means, nor is it easy. You will find it hard to find people willing to give up their expensive deck and "loan" it to you to hand it in.

I did exactly what was told in the guide.. Took my lvl 63 paladin, leveled it to 73 and botted away in Sholazar for herbs. I had a lvl 66 Dk which I didn't play, leveled inscription to 400 and started making the cards.

I might have spent some time playing, but I ended up with more than 40k gold after farming herbs and buying them off the ah constantly and making the cards, decks, handing them in and selling the trinkets.

So the OP's guide is by far the better one here, trust me, I did it too!

+1 to op

[Village Drunk]

OK, nice guide, but you still have to put a lot of effort and gold with this way of getting rep. I did the Insane-Achievement for myself and there is a "easy" way to get the rep.

So if we sum this up and assume you pay 100g per deck-trinket-trade you will end up with just 10600g for the excaltet rep, because you can sell the trinkets u bought again in the auction house. This is by far the cheapest and fastest way to get rep at the Darkmoon Faire

There are multiple ways of getting this repuation and I'm sure there are guides everywhere, however my way is guide is about getting exalted and making gold at the same.. not losing it as you described. Why lose 10600g when you can make 50000g or more using this method?

All depends on how much time you wish to invest getting this reputation.

Getting Exalted I paid off a 32000g debt, 13000g debt and finished with 24000g of my own.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to post screenshots of sales or gold as I wrote this guide three weeks after I completed it and decided to type it on the spot. My next guides will include screen shots and be slightly more organised.

Thanks for you reply.

[Village Drunk]

I did exactly what was told in the guide.. Took my lvl 63 paladin, leveled it to 73 and botted away in Sholazar for herbs. I had a lvl 66 Dk which I didn't play, leveled inscription to 400 and started making the cards.

I might have spent some time playing, but I ended up with more than 40k gold after farming herbs and buying them off the ah constantly and making the cards, decks, handing them in and selling the trinkets.

So the OP's guide is by far the better one here, trust me, I did it too!

+1 to op

Thanks for the reply.

Just to make it clear to people who may be slightly mislead by your post here, I did not farm any herbs myself. I bought all mats directly from trade/AH. I used a friends character to mill and create the cards.

Yes, you're right. It really does work, but I'd suggest people do it sooner rather than later, I think it's only going to become more difficult. However with 3.3.3 coming and being able to hand in Frozen Orbs for Eternal Lifes the prices may well go down, maybe up... who can tell. Eternal Lifes for me where the most expensive material used to create the WOTLK cards.

[rasha]

Thanks for the guide. I am at 47 exalted Reps with DMF, Ravenholt and Shen'dralar left. This gives me a reason to start working on DMF rep.

+Rep

[Epimetheus]

Awesome! Thanks for the guide. I've been meaning to get my alt's inscription and herbalism up, and this gives me a reason.

[Village Drunk]

Thanks for the kind words.

[Jicre]

This is really one awesome guide, thanks man. +Rep

[Moldy Toast]

i did some maths and this will be even cheaper on my server to make the woltk cards, thanks for awesome guide

[Freefall552]

Hey this is indeed a very nice well written guide Village Drunk, my friend is currently farming for the insane title so I belive he'd love to read this guy.

Thanks and keep up the good work! +Rep :wave:

[late1]

Thanks for the reply.

Just to make it clear to people who may be slightly mislead by your post here, I did not farm any herbs myself. I bought all mats directly from trade/AH. I used a friends character to mill and create the cards.

Yes, you're right. It really does work, but I'd suggest people do it sooner rather than later, I think it's only going to become more difficult. However with 3.3.3 coming and being able to hand in Frozen Orbs for Eternal Lifes the prices may well go down, maybe up... who can tell. Eternal Lifes for me where the most expensive material used to create the WOTLK cards.

Ah sure, didn't mean to mislead anyone, just wanted to point out that I did level a paladin and raise herbalism to the appropriate level and did 0-400 (ending up with 450) inscription with another character and it still is worth the trouble!

And when it comes for the Eternals, Wintergrasp is an excellent place to farm when it under control for your own faction. The big-ass elementals drop crystallized stuff like crazy.

I found it was best to play arena or something with your friends, have someone queue you in dala, and you can stay in WG farming in between matches. Made quite a few stacks of eternals in practically no time!

Anyway, actually gave +2, nice guide

[Overaggro]

Been posted before and almost noone buys the cards anymore!

[horst]

I'm not quite sure I understood what you tried saying there.. I got the part, find someone who has a deck and offer him gold to trade the deck to trinket at the faire and then give him the trinket back, right. But you mentioned something about ending up paying ONLY 10k gold to get exalted with Darkmoon Faire? That is not cheap by any means, nor is it easy. You will find it hard to find people willing to give up their expensive deck and "loan" it to you to hand it in.

I did exactly what was told in the guide.. Took my lvl 63 paladin, leveled it to 73 and botted away in Sholazar for herbs. I had a lvl 66 Dk which I didn't play, leveled inscription to 400 and started making the cards.

I might have spent some time playing, but I ended up with more than 40k gold after farming herbs and buying them off the ah constantly and making the cards, decks, handing them in and selling the trinkets.

So the OP's guide is by far the better one here, trust me, I did it too!

+1 to op

no you got me wrong.

Player A (you)
Player B (other)

[A] buys trinkets
[A] Offers in /2 that ppl can hand in decks at him and get 100g this means
[A] puts trinket and 100g in his trade-window [B] puts deck in his trade-window
[A] gets deck which he can hand in at Darkmoon Fairefor rep and new trinket and [B] gets Trinket+100g

after this find someone new to get him "hand in" his tranket at you