Making a fortune in Mists of Pandaria

[Trollblod]

Hello!

I played alot during Wrath of the Lich King and reached the gold cap on several characters, had a bit downtime during cataclysm due to different reasons, recently came back to give Mists of Pandaria a try (about two months ago). I've always been an endgame hardcore raider with focus on downing heroic bosses as one of the first on the realm, other than that I'm making money, and loads of it. It took me some time to start a huge cash flow in Mists of Pandaria but finally got it under control and raking in 30k/gold per day easily, I'm making these amounts of gold mainly because of myself but also for friends and guildies needing gold. I will be using my realms price on items during this guide, you may need to tweak the prices and methods abit depending on your realms economy. I will go through each professions separately.

Before starting with this guide I really recommend you to go through the list I've posted here and made sure you've stockpiled for 5.4 as the profit will be large there.
Preparing for 5.4

For this to work to its' fullest you need those professions (listed in order from most important to least):
1.0 Inscription
1.1 Jewelcrafting
1.2 Enchanting
1.3 Alchemy
1.4 Mining/Herbalism



1.0 Inscription
Inscription is by far the most important profession to me, remember that I am using the prices on my realm for this.
The point of inscription is to purchase all the Mists of Pandaria Herbs which cost 25g/stack or lower.

These herbs will be milled into Shadow Pigment & Misty Pigment.
This pigment will be turned into the inks, Ink of Dreams & Starlight Ink
Now for the three most important items to craft using inscription:
Scroll of Wisdom this one should be crafted daily, it requires one Light Parchment and three Ink of Dreams, which will then be used to craft Darkmoon Card of Mists which require ten Starlight inks, one Light Parchment and one Scroll of Wisdom.
The rest of the Ink of Dreams should turned into Blackfallow Ink and then crafting Mysterious Fortune Card, I usually spend all my ink of dreams on this.
The Starlight Ink should be used to craft the following shoulder enchants:
Greater Crane Wing Inscription
Greater Ox Horn Inscription
Greater Tiger Fang Inscription
Greater Tiger Claw Inscription

The darkmoon card should be saved until you have all eight of a card, then turn it into a deck and sell it on the auction house, tend to sell the decks during darkmoon faire as the price tend to skyrocket, I can get 5k for a deck during a regular week, but whenever darkmoon faire is in town I can easily sell them for 10-15k each.
The shoulder enchants will be put on the auction house as well, on my realm the tiger enchants go for about 330g, the crane for 280g and the ox horn for 190g, keep in mind that you can swap your Ink of Dreams for Starlight Ink if these sell really well on your realm.

The fortune cards will be advertised in the trade channel! I usually use the message "Feeling lucky? Selling Mysterious Fortune Card for a chance to win up to 5000g!! I never mention the price, but when they whisper and ask I sell them for 10g each, or if they buy a stack or more (200) I will drop the price by 10%, i.e. 9g each card, keep in mind that it cost me about 4-5g to make on of these cards so it's almost doubling the money I spent on the herbs.

1.1 Jewelcrafting
If you have jewelcrafting, which you really should, you want to buy all the Ghost Iron Ore & Kyparite for 50g stack or cheaper.
You will prospect all this ore which will turn into various Pandaria gems, you will also get sparkling shards will will turn into serpent's eye, but they play no role in making gold.
You want to craft most rare uncut gems into cut gems, all gem colors except blue is a profit for me, so I tend to use the blue gems to do the daily jewelcrafting research, otherwise I would just sell them as they are, either on the AH or the vendor, it depends, sometimes the raw gems can go for as low as 2g each on my auction house.
You will also get alot of Uncommon Gems which will play a big part. You want to craft those into Shadowfire Necklace & Ornate Band, send those to your enchanter. You will also receive necklaces and bands or a rare quality, sell those on the auction house, people leveling alts will love them. You will probably have a few leftover uncommon gems, send those to your alchemist.

You'd also love to buy Saronite Ore which you will prospect, you will get lots of gems by doing this, also purchase eternal earth, use all the uncommon gems to craft:

Chalcedony - Crystal Chalcedony Amulet
Bloodstone - Bloodstone Band
Huge Citrine - Crystal Citrine Necklace
Sun Crystal - Sun Rock Ring
Shadow Crystal - Earthshadow Ring
Dark Jade - Jade Ring of Slaying
You will be disenchanting those and selling the materials on the auction house, even the shards.

Next ore to buy is the Obsidium Ore & Elementium Ore, you will prospect those ores as well.

Zephyrite - Vendor these.
Alicite - Alicite Pendant
Carnelian - Carnelian Spikes
Hessonite - Hessonite Band
Jasper - Jasper Ring
Nightstone - Nightstone Choker
Rare Gems - The Perforator

Once again, disenchant these and put it up on the auction house.


1.2 Enchanting
As you just sent all of those bands and necklaces to the enchanter you should collect these and disenchant, you will receive Mysterious Essence & Spirit Dust by doing this. You should create enchants with those materials, on my realm I mainly craft the following enchants:


Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery
Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats
Enchant Boots - Pandaren's Step
Enchant Cloak - Superior Intellect
Enchant Gloves - Superior Expertise
Enchant Bracer - Mastery
Enchant Chest - Mighty Spirit
Enchant Boots - Greater Haste
Enchant Chest - Superior Stamina

This will of course depend on your server, what people buy, what the prices are and such, but for me it's stable, just do some simple calculations to see if you earn more by doing this rather than what the ore cost/selling the materials raw.

1.3 Alchemy
Alchemy is great but it can be really risky as well, with your alchemist you will be doing transmutations, I stay away from potions and flasks as the actual flower cost way more than the flask itself, but as always it's server dependant, that's why I recommend you to be a transmutation master.
Buy x6 Trillium Bar per day on your alchemist and transmute it into Living Steel if the price of a living steel exceeds the price of 6 trillium bars.
If your orange, green and purple gem market isn't going to well, you can transmute those gems into a Primal Diamond.
You should also have a few uncommon gems sent to you from your jewelcrafter, look up the value of each rare gem of those uncommon gems, i.e. Pandarian Garnet -> Primordial Ruby and check the price of those as well as of one golden lotus, if the price of a primordial ruby exceeds the price of the pandarian garnet and golden lotus together, buy a golden lotus and transmute the gem.
To clarify and give an example:
Pandarian Garnet = 5g
Golden Lotus = 50g
Primordial Ruby = 60g
This means Garnet + Lotus will cost 55g to buy at the AH, and the ruby 60g, you can safely transmute the garnet and lotus into a primordial ruby and sell it at the auction for a 5g profit, this can be done with all gems as long as there's a profit.

1.4 Mining/Herbalism
Nothing special about those two really, the mining is mainly so you can craft your own Ghost Iron Bars and Trillium Bars, as well as mine your own materials, the herbalism is just for gathering.

Some general information is to tend to have a stack of everything, it makes undercutting way easier as the second you've been undercut you can put up new auctions before canceling the older ones, it saves abit of time and gives your auctions more uptime at the AH, always post stuff at 12h duration as well, try to post 1-2 auctions at a time instead of a whole stack, or even five units, five units can be too many as well, especially when there's hefty competition, on my realm I post two gems at a time, one shoulder enchant at a time, however I post the disenchanting materials in stacks of 20. The addon TradeSkillMaster is great as well, you can configure it to tell you whenever you've been undercut. If you have honorbuddy you can also get all those materials, set it up so it will keep posting, canceling and undercutting items on the auction house.
If I have missed something crucial, please tell me so I can add it here, if I have forgot something I will add it myself as well, but I think this is about it.

[Ziggeh]

Next ore to buy is the Elementium Ore, you will prospect those ores as well.

Obsidium is preferable if available. The chances of getting rare gems instead of green are higher from Elementium and they are worthless.
Anyhow, well-thought out otherwise

[Trollblod]

Obsidium is preferable if available. The chances of getting rare gems instead of green are higher from Elementium and they are worthless.
Anyhow, well-thought out otherwise

Ah damn, just forgot to write that, actually buying it myself, thanks

[Cecu]

Obsidium is preferable if available. The chances of getting rare gems instead of green are higher from Elementium and they are worthless.
Anyhow, well-thought out otherwise

True that, but for the botting community out there, obtaining Elemenitum Ore is much easier, via botting in Uldum, vs farming Obsidium in Hyjal/Deepholm/Vash'jr.

Anyway, common practices, but very good guide for the begginers to start from.

\

You should also have a few uncommon gems sent to you from your jewelcrafter, look up the value of each rare gem of those uncommon gems, i.e. Pandarian Garnet -> Primordial Ruby and check the price of those as well as of one golden lotus, if the price of a primordial ruby exceeds the price of the pandarian garnet and golden lotus together, buy a golden lotus and transmute the gem.
To clarify and give an example:
Pandarian Garnet = 5g
Golden Lotus = 50g
Primordial Ruby = 60g
This means Garnet + Lotus will cost 55g to buy at the AH, and the ruby 60g, you can safely transmute the garnet and lotus into a primordial ruby and sell it at the auction for a 5g profit, this can be done with all gems as long as there's a profit.

Here the maths are slightly better. When applying the 20% Transmute master bonus, the profit rises to 60*1.2-(50+5)=17g per transmute.

[Trollblod]

True that, but for the botting community out there, obtaining Elemenitum Ore is much easier, via botting in Uldum, vs farming Obsidium in Hyjal/Deepholm/Vash'jr.

Anyway, common practices, but very good guide for the begginers to start from.

\

Here the maths are slightly better. When applying the 20% Transmute master bonus, the profit rises to 60*1.2-(50+5)=17g per transmute.

Yeah, thanks for that thought I wouldn't include transmutation mastery benefits in the calcs.