Engineering For No Profits .. Yeah Right !

   Through my time spent in World Of Warcraft i have had people come to me with the statement that Engineering is the most worthless profession, and that there is no way one could make a profit from it. Well this post is going to be a place where i can direct those people, and will prove their claims wrong.

   Engineering as a profession happens to be one of my favorite professions, not for it's gold making aspect, but rather for it's fun aspect. Having those rocket boots, belts that turn you invisible, mounts that show off to everyone that  you are an awesome engineer etc. are all what got me drawn to this profession back when i first started it.

   Well after the initial fun factor you start thinking how to profit from it. At a first glance you end up with a grim conclusion, you don't have the ability to make anything that will make you profit.

   That is what most of the engineers come to think, so they come out with the conclusion that their profession is crap, and that the ability to earn from it is simply not there, so they take their frustration and leave, or go whine on the forums.

   There is one advice i can give you, and that advice is simple, don't be one of those people. Engineering might be a bit of a weird profession, and more of a PvP oriented profession, like many would call it, but it's far from being a worthless profession but rather a high earner, if you know how to do it properly that is. I will give you a few pointers as to what to make and how to do it properly in continuation.

Pets

   First off, the pet making market is one of the markets that can net in some great profits for a skilled engineer.

For the best pets that can be used to make gold from engineering you can find in the Gold Pets Continued post, so i won't go into re writing the same content twice, but in short those pets will make you awesome profits.

Mounts

Feel the love of the chopper owners

   Engineers have the unique ability to make a certain mount in the game that no one else can make, yup i'm talking about the Mechano-Hog mount. It used to be that you needed to be exalted with the Warsong Offensive to obtain the pattern, but that might have been changed, i'm not sure. If it has been changed then anyone can get it, if not then you'll have to do a bit of leg work to get it, but in the long run you will only make gold from it.

   There's one thing that you need to know about making these mounts though, and that is the fact that you will need to have some gold so you can actually buy the needed parts from the vendor in K3, so if you are totally broke you can't make these right away. Fact is that with the usual prices, the mats worth of crafting a bike is about 12k and you can sell them anywhere from 14-20k per bike depending on your server, so that's a good way to make a decent profit.

Miscellaneous Items

   As i said before engineering is quite a fun profession due to it's ability to make different kinds of fun things, as well as things that go boom. Among these "fun" things there are a few very profitable items that can make you some profit as well.

Gnomish Army Knife
This is one of those profitable items that almost no one is ever selling them. Reason why these items are worth selling, is that in one item you have a blacksmith hammer, mining pick, skinning knife, heck it even has flint and tinder, so in 1 item you have everything you might need. So make these knives, post them on the AH, and then do some advertising on trade channel with a catchy phrase and look at those profits pile up.

Electrified Ether
Yup this is another one of the profitable items, the reason behind the sales of these ones is not clear to me, basically because any engineer can make them, where they end up with 2-3 from using 2 Volatile Air, and the reason why i can't understand why it's selling is that i've been selling them for anywhere from 15-35g per one while the Volatile Airs have been going from 8-15g. But even with all the unclear reasons why it's selling, it's selling, so that's the important thing we need to remember and then turn it to our advantage and profit from it.

Big Daddy
This item is a bit of a limited market, due to the fact that you are "shooting" at a very narrow portion of the market, namely the PvP oriented engineers that don't want to be bothered to craft them or farm for the mats. This one is not a huge seller but it can rack up some good profits in irregular intervals.

Flintlocke's Woodchucker
This is the weapon enchant that is unique for every hunter, and BIS enchant for them as well, and the way to obtain it is to get down with doing the Firelands daily quests. Make sure that you have at least 1 up on the AH at any given time and you will notice that the profit will not be far behind.

   So in a short summary, i gave you a proof that engineering is not a profession that has no profit making potential, but quite the opposite. So log in to that engineer and start making those profits anywhere you see fit, and next time someone tells you that engineering has no gold making potential, poke them in the eye or send them to this post, which ever you like the most.

   So, like always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.

Let It Rain, Leather And Gold

   I have always been one to be vocal against farming, mostly due to my inability to stay and do the same thing, over and over again. This was not the case always though, i used to love farming back in the TBC days, and the reason for that was that back then we used to do killing for our farming, opposed to the flying around in a circle nowadays, which might be the idea taken from the modern day airport flying routes as you can see on the image below. It does seem like that plane has been farming some herbs.

  Well there's still one profession in the game that has pretty much stayed the same, no matter what expansion it is, and that is skinning. Skinning remains as it is due to the fact that you actually need to kill, whatever it is that you want to skin. Due to this technicality bots seem to not go for this profession, basically due to the fact that they can't simply teleport around and mine it, or herb it, but they will need to do some actual killing. What this means is that the actual price of leather is going to be high, because it is collected by players.

   But enough about that, lets get down to the profiting part of the deal. As i am writing this post, the days to the release of patch 4.3 are cutting short, and what that means is that there's going to be new gear that leather workers will be able to craft, and to do that they will need our leather. One of the best places to farm leather in this expansion of WoW is Deepholm, or the Stone Drakes that are to the left of the Therazane Throne.

   The main reason for this place being worth mentioning, hell even me making this post, is the sheer gold per hour you can make off of it, let me explain.

   As you can see on the image on the left, the mobs we will be killing there will be the Stone Drakes. Reason why these mobs are so good to kill is because they are elites, but they drop out of the sky and are stunned with about 50k hp left on them, so basically as a 83 mob, so killing these is pretty much a joke.

 Well killing them might be a joke but that's where the joke stops. What i mean by this is that these mobs drop as much gold as if you killed them when they were at full hp, so you will be getting about 1 - 1.5g per kill, on top of that you can skin them for Savage Leather and Blackened Dragonscale, and like with all animals that you skin you have a chance to get a Bloated Stomach which can have volatiles in it that usually sell good.

   One other thing that's a plus when you have to kill things for your profession, is the fact that you will get greens and maybe even epics that are world drops, but put that aside and take on a treasure finding potion and you have a chance to get those tiny treasure chests that will give you even more of a profit boost.

   So as we have the patch just around the corner, this could be a good way to make some good gold by using your skinning profession, but remember to take on the Potion Of Treasure Finding to max out on the profit.

   Just as a clarification, i did some math based on the economy of my server and came up with some numbers. As a herbalist, or a miner, you end up making about 1000-1200g/hour, while killing these guys at this place and skinning them you end up with about 2000-2300g/h, and that is without taking into account that you might end up getting a green item (which you aren't supposed to vendor or DE but rather put them on the AH).

   So, like always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.

Preparing To Ride The Storm

   So here we are, a week or two, maybe three away from the landing of the next patch Blizzard has in stock for us. This patch is going to bring in some new dungeons, a new raid, but most importantly it is going to bring opportunity to make gold. If you are one of those people that really look forward to making some gold off of this patch, then you need to know a few things, namely you will need to stock up on materials.

   As you can see on the image these guys are "stocking up", well not really, they are probably getting ready for a party, but the basics are the same. So like these guys have booze and snacks, that's how you will need materials for the patch, and the best time to get them, if you haven't already, is now.

   I will try and point out some of the things that people should stock up, things that are always in demand and that you can't loose with.

   As a starter up, if you would like to profit off the start of the patch you might want to get a healthy stock of enchanting materials. This is a good idea due to the fact that with the release of the new patch comes new gear, hence people will want to enchant it, and from there the increase of demand. So Hypnotic Dust, Greater Celestial Essences, Heavenly Shards and Maelstrom Crystals should be on your to have list.

   As you can see on the image here, your stock should be something like this as a basic stock up, so you don't have to buy off the Auction House for your own needs. But, if you happen to be an enchanter, and intend on profiting from the enchanting materials by making scrolls, and then selling them, then you need to take this base stock and quadruple it, or even make it tenfold.

   When we are at the enchanting materials, there's something you need to know. Coming this patch we get Maelstrom Shatter, which is basically taking one Maelstrom Crystal, and breaking it into two Heavenly Shards. This is not a bad thing, as long as you know how to deal with it, and most importantly how to profit from it. So what this actually means is that the prices of the Heavenly Shards is gonna go down for quite a bit, while the prices of the Maelstroms is going to skyrocket. So my tip about this situation would be, get stocked up on Maelstrom Crystals now while they are cheap, and unload your Heavenly Shards now while their price is nice and high.

   So as a recap for enchanting materials, buy out those Maelstrom Crystals, and unload those Heavenly Shards.

   Enchanting is not the only thing you want to get stocked up, if you happen to be a jewelcrafter you want to have a healthy stock of gems (yes i know there are epic gems coming with this patch but until you get them you are going to be using these).

   Usually on patch day, especially when there's new justice points gear and new PvP gear available gem sales and gem prices explode. Last patch i managed to make 270k gold in 5 hours just from selling gems, overpriced, but still, sales are sales.

   This was pretty much a no brainer, but still there are people out there claiming that the gem prices are going to crash because epic gems are going to be the new hotness, but that's simply wrong.

   If you are not into the enchanting market, or lack a proper jewelcrafter and have a blacksmith or a leatherworker, then this would be a good time to catch the last train for the "Restock Express".

   As a blacksmith, you want to get a nice stock of Elementium Bars, alongside with Pyrium Bars and Volatiles, like the Fire, Water and Earth. The reason for stocking up on these is that you will need them to craft all the belt buckles, the new gear that gets shipped in the patch, as well as the weapon chains and the Orb weapons.
 
   Another thing you want to stock up on is Truegold, and if you want to know why check out my previous post The Era Of The Truegold ... Let It Come

   So, in a nutshell, this would be it for stocking up with materials for blacksmithing.

   Same as the blacksmith, if you are a leatherworker you will want to stock up on some volatiles so you can craft some of the PvP gear, that hopefully gets a new boost up, but might not happen. But even with no boost on the PvP front, you will certainly get big sales on the pants armor kits.

   So as a overview of the entire post, buy Maelstrom Crystals, sell Heavenly Shards, buy Elementium Ore/Bars, Buy Leather. (you will buy if the price is low or normal, don't go and buy at inflated prices, there really shouldn't be any reason why you should)

   So there we are ladies and gentle goblins, that's all for this post, and like always, keep your eyes peeled for good opportunities out there.

Barking Up The Wrong Tree, Or Is It ?

   Ladies and gentle goblins, i will keep this post very brief as i will not go into lengthy descriptions, colorful ranting and what not, but instead i will simply give you a quick gold making tip that will be viable for a short duration, so let me explain.

   I give to you the Guardian Cub companion. It's a pretty much safe bet that you have all heard about it from MMO-Champion, or from the Blizzard site. This companion is the first companion that you can buy for real money, and then be able to sell it to some other guy for in game gold. (Does not break the rules Blizzard has, where it says you are not allowed to acquire gold by paying real money, or the other way around)

   Well, i'm not going to give you tips on how to take these and then try and sell them on the AH for a profit, which on it's own is a good tactic, no i am going to give you a tip on how to profit for a huge margin, without having to invest into buying anything that's expensive.

   Ok, so down to the cold facts. If you happen to see the trade channel chatter after the release of the Guardian Cub, you will see a lot of people selling their Guardian Cubs on trade channel. This is where you come in and actually monetize on the whole situation by using a weapon that no one is impervious against, the way their brain works.

   What i mean with this is that while everyone keeps seeing lines like "WTS Guardian Cub 7k" they immediately make a note in their head that it's worth that, so what you do it you make a macro where you sell an item with a similar name, in this case the "Winterspring Cub", and now the pure genius in this is that people will think that you are selling the Guardian cub at a cheaper price like 3 or 4K and will whisper you for a buy, hoping to monetize on your lack of information about what you have, and will try and get it off you as soon as possible.

   The reason why i said it's pure genius is that you are doing something that's borderline cheating, but not really because you actually told them what they are getting. I managed to sell 7 cubs all ranging from 2-4k in less then 2 hours, and if you take into account that the cubs can be bought from a vendor in Winterspring then you can have a good stock of these and sell them to hasty buyers.

   Just so you are ready, after the people realize what they have done they will either want their gold back, or call you bad names, which if you are a good goblin you will not give in to either.

   So good luck with your sales and as always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.

Profession Grabbing Profits

   As any player of World Of Warcraft would tell you, be it a new player or a long time veteran of the game, World of Warcraft is a game which offers many diverse ways of making gold to fuel your needs and fill your bags so you can buy all those things you might end up needing, or repairing that armor after you had your behind handed to you by a nasty Dragon. So if there are so many ways of making gold, how do you choose which ones to take upon and use to earn your profits? Well it's quite simple, you choose the ones that give you maximum return profits at the minimum time required, or a way that would incorporate into your free available time.

   Well no matter how much free time you have, it's always a no brainer that  the best route to take is the one where you spend 1 gold to make 10 gold without having to do pretty much anything special.

   These opportunities are usually not always out there in plain sight, because let's be honest, if it were that easy and everyone would be able to do it, then everyone would know and noone would pay the price. So this is where the ones with the information on where and how will be the ones to reap the profits.

   So this is where you, as a gold making goblin armed with the right set of tools (information), will take on those opportunities and make great profits on them. But enough with beating around the bush lets get down to the hard cold facts and the how to.

   First to define what we are gonna do. We are gonna do a simple game of selling the items that are already up for sale, so we wont have to be farming anything, or kill any mobs, and no i'm not gonna tell you to buy a sword and relist it for a higher price, because there are already way too many people doing that dance with the selling of gear on the AH and the trade channel. No we are gonna take on one of the most used and most neglected section of the market by almost everyone, the profession powerleveling market.

   Yup, those are the guys we are going to be aiming for, because as you can see on the demotivational on the right it pretty much shows it as it is, bunch of guys that don't want to get to the cheese (which in this case is the max level profession) without having to go through the maze (which in their case is farm all the materials that they will need to do it ).

   Just as a clarification, we are not gonna be looking at one particular profession but rather all the professions in general and from it we will take on the one ones that we find to offer the best profits.

   That's was the What, and now we are going down to the How bit of the post. There are many possible ways of finding the best items to keep your eyes on, but from my experience you want to take on the most used information when it comes to powerleveling a certain profession, and the way to do this is by asking the all mighty Google. The first place it will send you to is WoW-Professions where you will be given the choice to choose which profession would you like to level? After you have chosen, it will give you a list of items you will need to get that profession leveled up following that given guide.

   As an example, if we choose Alchemy, we can see the list of all the herbs that are needed, and from here what we can do is check the prices of those herbs on the AH or simply go over to TUJ and check the prices from there. (If you are not familiar with The Undermine Journal check the TUJ Part 1 and TUJ Part 2 posts)

You want to focus more on the lower level herbs as they are the ones that are the least farmed and in the highest demand due to everyone who is powerleveling some profession will be buying them out.

   If you choose to do the price check by manually it will take on some time due to having to alt tab and check the names, and then check the prices, so i would recommend using the TUJ for that bit because it will give you a clean breakdown on the prices of all herbs along with the visual representation of the stock available on the auction house, as well as the little slider bar which is telling you if the price is low or high on that item compared with the prices seen on the AH in the past.

   So what you would want to do is for instance, like we said we would be checking the alchemy we can see that Goldthorn, Briarthorn, Sungrass are all in high demand, and usually people don't really look at that so they would post stacks upon stacks of whatever they have leftover for next to nothing, and that is where you take on the charge and flip it for those great profits we were talking about. As you can see the price of the Goldthorn is  10g per item which is racking up at 200g per stack while i spent 15g per stack to buy them (Granted i should have taken the screenshot when the price was low as well but heck what's done it's done you get the idea anyways)

   So what you want to do is like i said, check that list for items that you will need, then check the TUJ for the actual price of the items, and once you find items that are with low price but high demand, check your local AH buy those puppies out and repost them back at the high price and watch those profits rack up.

   Well like i said there are more then one ways to skin a cat, and if you don't want to go through WoW-Professions and TUJ you might want to give a quick glance to one of the sites that i mentioned in                 The Spotlight post, that being Warcraftprofessional.

   This site is pretty much like the TUJ and WoW-Professional put into one sweet package with a twist, and that twist being that it will give you an estimate on how much gold you would need to fork out to get it up to Max skill.

   As you can see on the image on the right, it gives you the estimate on the cost to powerlevel that profession, as well as the individual cost of every single item that's included into that overall price as well as a little colored box (green or red) where it's telling you if that price is high for that item, or it's low, so pretty much like the slider option that the TUJ offers.

   So just so we are clear, in this post i took the first profession that was there, alchemy, as an example but this whole strategy can be used on ANY and i do repeat ANY profession out there that requires any materials.

   And there it is, you follow these steps and you will be able to find a good deal of awesome deals that by simply taking the stacks of cheap materials and reposting them back on the Auction House at prices that are x3,  x5 or even x10 will make you those sweet awesome profits. 

   Well, like always keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.