economics: rags to riches

By ironhelm

having recently leveled a hunter to 70, i have had a chance to experiment methodically and objectively with some end game gold-making strategies. it is a nice round-out for my experience in gold-making at the lower levels – by lower I mean like at level 1.

say what?!

right. well, in response to inquiries from new guild members, and for the benefit of refreshing all of our memories for those that have been here a while, i decided to put up a reminder post about accumulating gold.

Og and i have put several trials in place and he did a great job of documenting his on his blog: Og’s Ledger. In addition to recommending that you read his rags to riches compilations, i recommend a couple of other finer points:

  • by not buying anything (nothing is worthwhile at those levels) from level 1-10 and vendoring everything or auctioning off everything, you end up with a large slush fund to start out with.
  • at level 5, learn mining and use it to earn mony on the auction house until level 10 (after that, drop it unless you want to keep it) – you are only learning it for the sole purpose of increasing your slush fund with copper ore sales on the auction house – and at that, only for level 5-10.
  • use auctioneer (addon) and auctioneer advanced (addon) – and by use it, i mean scan the AH in the morning and the night with both auctioneer and auctioneer advanced (one scan start button is at the top of the auciton house window and one is at the bottom) – do one before the other, not at the same time. do this for 2 weeks (at the most).
  • buy low, sell high – easy enough.

in no more than 10 days and 10 levels, you’ll have just about 140g. this is probably a good time to remind you to not spend any gold on gear! ok, so now you have absolutely no gold worries (at level 10) for a mount, all skills you need to buy and you have all 16-slot bags. at level 10.

do what you want on your way to 60, but somewhere before you get to 60, repeat and you will now have your epic mount funds before you ding 60.

outlands. you just got there and are a fresh level 60 (if you are there at 58, so be it). quests are good. gear up from quest rewards and instance drops. buy nothing on the auction house. everyday go to the southeast corner of Hellfire Penninsula and grind collapsing voidwalkers for an hour. they drop motes of shadow. gather a stack of ten and right-click to make it into a primal shadow. each primal sells for about 25g. you only need 36 of these to buy your flying mount at level 70 and you have 10 levels to gather them at a drop rate of 18%.

once you get to 70, there are varying options depending on what your professions are and what skill level they are at, as well as what you like to do. do dailies. without a question – they farm not only gold for you, but also faction rep (e.g. Shattered Sun Offensive rep by doing Isle of Quel’danas dailies) rep which allows you to get stuff (like gem patterns for example) that help you make more money. however, do not forget to look at the AH listings to see what mats sell well (high dollar value) per item (especially if they are listed in stacks of 1), look at the sites like wowhead.com to see where they drop from most often, and go fetch and auction off. epic flying mount in less than 2 weeks if you have the time. less than a month if you barely have time.

so, in short – go from rags to riches starting at level 1. have your mounts paid off starting at level 10. have your mount funds before you need them. plan ahead: there are some sha-weet mounts coming up in WotLK, sock some gold away for them, too.

having shared this with you all, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to need any loans anymore.  = )

ok, now go make some gold!

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