Lechuza
New Member
Different people play this game with different goals. These may include, but are not limited to, World PvP, Battlegrounds, leveling, Raids. Instance Runs or any combinations thereof. Some people carefully plan their equipment path out, others just go-with-the-flow. Some folks twink their character out, some folks don't.
One of the few things all of these characters have in common is money. Your mount. armor and weapon upgrades, potions, enchants, armor kits, food, drink, ammo & repairs all cost money. Some of these things cost a lot of money, but it all adds up. Making money gets easier as you level, so this is designed to give a hand to lower level players.
By following some simple suggestions, you will be able to finance your mount, a full set of green and blue equipment with upgrades in your bank, and never run out of money for food, drink, potions, and repairs.
First things first: your level 40 racial mount will cost 90g (10g for your mount, 90g for the Riding skill, both affected by your 10% discount at Honored), your level 60 epic racial mount will cost 900g (100g for your mount, 800g for your Riding skill, both affected by your discount at Honored) These are good goals, and a good way to gauge your success. Quite frankly, if you can't save this amount by these levels, you are doing it wrong.
When it comes to money (in game, and in real life), it's not about the money you make, it's about the money you save. Buying nice equipment (even at bargain prices), that are not appropriate for your class, is a waste of money. Buying upgrades that you will outgrow within a few levels, is a waste of money. Party wipes and unnecessary repairs is a waste of money.
Understand that wasting money is OK, if you can replace it before you need it. If I see a cool vanity pet that I simply MUST have at level 10, and it costs 10g, I can buy it with confidence if I know that I'll have 15-20g in the mail tomorrow.
And therein lies the crux of the matter. The secret to money management (in game and in life) is the establishment of a consistent positive cash flow, and the minimization of money waste.
First rule: only buy necessities at early levels. This means equipment repairs and ammo to start, professions and bags after you get at least one gold. Your early equipment will be found and received as quest rewards and loot. At these levels, do not worry about upgrades, anything will do, so sell anything you find to a vendor. (This is the concept of vendor trash. Most grey items fall into this category) Rush through your starting area. I know that people are tempted to grind for a while for extra experience and loot, but it is not worth it here. Once you get your "Go to the next village" quest, bypass it and get to your capitol. My goal is to get there at level five, with about one gold in my pocket.
Rule 2: While there, learn two gathering professions: skinning and mining or herbalism. You'll be killing a lot of beasts, so I really recommend Skinning (it's also easier to level up) Your choice of the other is completely up to you. Please notice that I said two GATHERING professions. At this time, CRAFTING professions will only cost you money. The early items from recipes needed to level up are not worth much to sell, you are much better off selling the base materials. Sell leather scraps to vendors, until you are able to skin Light Leather, then sell them on the Auction House.
Rule 3: Hunt and kill humanoids. Humanoids drop cash and cloth. Gather cloth in stacks and sell it on the Auction House.
Rule 4: Learn to use the Auction House. The AH is the best, fastest way to make money, even once you get to Outland. Your first purchase on the AH should be bags. Buy as many of the largest bags that you can, and keep upgrading those as you get the money. Gather as many materials (leather, cloth, minerals / ore and herbs) as you can while you quest, and when your bags are full, head to the AH (I set my hearthstone to an inn near the AH) and sell.
Rule 4.5: (subset of the AH rule) Make the Auction House work better. There are many AH addons, I recommend Auctioneer. At it's simplest, it will keep and show data of all the items sold on the AH. When you mouse over an item, you will get a large tooltip with data. It includes how many times it's been seen at auction, and the average price it's bid on and bought out. You can be sure that you are pricing your wares accordingly.
Rule 4.75 (Still a part of the AH rules) There are a lot of recipes / patterns / formulas that sell for many times their worth on the Auction House. Check trade suppliers every time you walk by one. Often times you will find a recipe that you can buy for a few silver and sell for a few gold. (the Auctioneer tooltip will let you know which ones these are) In IronForge, for example, you can speak to the enchanting supplier and buy several formulas like this.
Rule 5: Once you've saved 20g, drop one of your gathering professions, and switch to the best profession IN THE GAME: Enchanting. Enchanting is unique because it is both a crafting and a gathering profession. A part of the Enchanting profession is Disenchanting, the ability to break down green or better items to their magical components. (This also includes your soulbound items, which you normally have to sell for pennies on the dollar.) The best part of this is you can avoid the bane of the Auction House, deposit fees. Every time you put something on auction, The AH charges a deposit fee. Reagents are not charged a fee (The reason is the deposit fee is based on vendor prices, and reagents are not considered vendor items by the game) This means that you are never charged a fee for reagents until they are sold. No matter how many times you must repost them, you are never charged. The fee you can charge for actually enchanting items is merely a bonus, your money comes from disenchanting.
Rule 5.5: A part of the Auctionner set is Enchantrix (at this writing, it must be downloaded and installed separately). Similar to Auctioneer, its tooltips will give you information on what an item will disenchant into, and what the value of the reagents are. This allows you to buy items off the AH to disenchant for a profit. I've discovered some settings and commands to maximize your profit.
At the Enchatrix settings GUI (click on the red diamond on your minimap) in the Auctions settings, you can set the minimum profit margin. I start of at 10s and move up as my skill moves up. at 75 skill, I move to 50s, at 150 I upgrade to 1g, at 225 5g. This is just a suggestion.
The command that I use most is
/enchantrix percentless 50 (I've made a macro of this, and assigned it to a button on my Actionbar)
This tells Enchantrix to list out all items that will disenchant 50% than their buyout price, effectively doubling your money. I've set it as a macro, to avoid having to retype it all the time.
At the start of my playing schedule, I go to the AH, and hit the "Scan" button that Auctioneer places at it's Browse pane. Depending on the size of the realm, this will take between 5 - 15 minutes. When it is done, I hit the macro button (or type out the command I gave earlier) Enchantrix lists out items in the chat window. Alt-click on the name, and Auctioneer will search for the item. Buy with confidence!
As your skill goes up, so does your profit.
These are just suggestions, but I hope they help.
Good hunting, and many profits to you!
One of the few things all of these characters have in common is money. Your mount. armor and weapon upgrades, potions, enchants, armor kits, food, drink, ammo & repairs all cost money. Some of these things cost a lot of money, but it all adds up. Making money gets easier as you level, so this is designed to give a hand to lower level players.
By following some simple suggestions, you will be able to finance your mount, a full set of green and blue equipment with upgrades in your bank, and never run out of money for food, drink, potions, and repairs.
First things first: your level 40 racial mount will cost 90g (10g for your mount, 90g for the Riding skill, both affected by your 10% discount at Honored), your level 60 epic racial mount will cost 900g (100g for your mount, 800g for your Riding skill, both affected by your discount at Honored) These are good goals, and a good way to gauge your success. Quite frankly, if you can't save this amount by these levels, you are doing it wrong.
When it comes to money (in game, and in real life), it's not about the money you make, it's about the money you save. Buying nice equipment (even at bargain prices), that are not appropriate for your class, is a waste of money. Buying upgrades that you will outgrow within a few levels, is a waste of money. Party wipes and unnecessary repairs is a waste of money.
Understand that wasting money is OK, if you can replace it before you need it. If I see a cool vanity pet that I simply MUST have at level 10, and it costs 10g, I can buy it with confidence if I know that I'll have 15-20g in the mail tomorrow.
And therein lies the crux of the matter. The secret to money management (in game and in life) is the establishment of a consistent positive cash flow, and the minimization of money waste.
First rule: only buy necessities at early levels. This means equipment repairs and ammo to start, professions and bags after you get at least one gold. Your early equipment will be found and received as quest rewards and loot. At these levels, do not worry about upgrades, anything will do, so sell anything you find to a vendor. (This is the concept of vendor trash. Most grey items fall into this category) Rush through your starting area. I know that people are tempted to grind for a while for extra experience and loot, but it is not worth it here. Once you get your "Go to the next village" quest, bypass it and get to your capitol. My goal is to get there at level five, with about one gold in my pocket.
Rule 2: While there, learn two gathering professions: skinning and mining or herbalism. You'll be killing a lot of beasts, so I really recommend Skinning (it's also easier to level up) Your choice of the other is completely up to you. Please notice that I said two GATHERING professions. At this time, CRAFTING professions will only cost you money. The early items from recipes needed to level up are not worth much to sell, you are much better off selling the base materials. Sell leather scraps to vendors, until you are able to skin Light Leather, then sell them on the Auction House.
Rule 3: Hunt and kill humanoids. Humanoids drop cash and cloth. Gather cloth in stacks and sell it on the Auction House.
Rule 4: Learn to use the Auction House. The AH is the best, fastest way to make money, even once you get to Outland. Your first purchase on the AH should be bags. Buy as many of the largest bags that you can, and keep upgrading those as you get the money. Gather as many materials (leather, cloth, minerals / ore and herbs) as you can while you quest, and when your bags are full, head to the AH (I set my hearthstone to an inn near the AH) and sell.
Rule 4.5: (subset of the AH rule) Make the Auction House work better. There are many AH addons, I recommend Auctioneer. At it's simplest, it will keep and show data of all the items sold on the AH. When you mouse over an item, you will get a large tooltip with data. It includes how many times it's been seen at auction, and the average price it's bid on and bought out. You can be sure that you are pricing your wares accordingly.
Rule 4.75 (Still a part of the AH rules) There are a lot of recipes / patterns / formulas that sell for many times their worth on the Auction House. Check trade suppliers every time you walk by one. Often times you will find a recipe that you can buy for a few silver and sell for a few gold. (the Auctioneer tooltip will let you know which ones these are) In IronForge, for example, you can speak to the enchanting supplier and buy several formulas like this.
Rule 5: Once you've saved 20g, drop one of your gathering professions, and switch to the best profession IN THE GAME: Enchanting. Enchanting is unique because it is both a crafting and a gathering profession. A part of the Enchanting profession is Disenchanting, the ability to break down green or better items to their magical components. (This also includes your soulbound items, which you normally have to sell for pennies on the dollar.) The best part of this is you can avoid the bane of the Auction House, deposit fees. Every time you put something on auction, The AH charges a deposit fee. Reagents are not charged a fee (The reason is the deposit fee is based on vendor prices, and reagents are not considered vendor items by the game) This means that you are never charged a fee for reagents until they are sold. No matter how many times you must repost them, you are never charged. The fee you can charge for actually enchanting items is merely a bonus, your money comes from disenchanting.
Rule 5.5: A part of the Auctionner set is Enchantrix (at this writing, it must be downloaded and installed separately). Similar to Auctioneer, its tooltips will give you information on what an item will disenchant into, and what the value of the reagents are. This allows you to buy items off the AH to disenchant for a profit. I've discovered some settings and commands to maximize your profit.
At the Enchatrix settings GUI (click on the red diamond on your minimap) in the Auctions settings, you can set the minimum profit margin. I start of at 10s and move up as my skill moves up. at 75 skill, I move to 50s, at 150 I upgrade to 1g, at 225 5g. This is just a suggestion.
The command that I use most is
/enchantrix percentless 50 (I've made a macro of this, and assigned it to a button on my Actionbar)
This tells Enchantrix to list out all items that will disenchant 50% than their buyout price, effectively doubling your money. I've set it as a macro, to avoid having to retype it all the time.
At the start of my playing schedule, I go to the AH, and hit the "Scan" button that Auctioneer places at it's Browse pane. Depending on the size of the realm, this will take between 5 - 15 minutes. When it is done, I hit the macro button (or type out the command I gave earlier) Enchantrix lists out items in the chat window. Alt-click on the name, and Auctioneer will search for the item. Buy with confidence!
As your skill goes up, so does your profit.
These are just suggestions, but I hope they help.
Good hunting, and many profits to you!
