Today I'm sharing a method of making a steady income of gold
that can be used by anyone that has unlocked the Blacksmith. This should be
well known to any WoW players using Enchanting and trawling the AH for Items to
Disenchant however works slightly differently on Diablo, and is made
fractionally more complex by the lack of addons such as Auctioneer and
therefore the mass buyout options available in WoW. It doesn't need any
spreadsheets and constant tracking for market fluctuations but this would help
to maximize profits if you have the time and patience to follow your market in
depth.
First we need to select a market. There are 4 tiers of
crafting materials to cover. I recommend picking the one that is within your
means to play with. The lowest end is going to be Subtle Essences (20-35g each)
and the highest end Fiery Brimstone (100-150k each). In this example I'm
picking Subtle Essences, obtainable 100% of the time from Blues in the 1-29
range, along side Fallen Teeth 100% of the time from Rares in the same 1-29
range, and noting that Blues also drop a Fallen Tooth 15% of the time.
I will caveat the following by stating it is an example and
I am using round numbers to make the math easier to follow. Lets assume that
Subtle Essences are selling for 100g (I know they aren't right now, although
they could be going up due to 1.0.3 and people crafting for alts, but last
check 30g was the nominal value give or take weekend and peak times market
fluctuations. I'm also assuming that Fallen Teeth are selling for 100g each,
also not a real figure.
Now we need to acknowledge the 15% Auction house Fee. 100% -
15% is 85%. So we multiply the price we will sell our materials by 0.85 to find
the amount we will actually receive on completion of our sale.
So selling my disenchanted Subtle Essences for 100g each
gets me 85g in my balance on completion. This is my Magic Number!
Take the market price of our Subtle Essence (100g). You may want
adjust for anticipated fluctuations between buying you items and being able to
sell the materials if you want additional safety margin or if you are willing
to gamble a bit. Multiply by 0.85 to get your Magic Number 85g and start
searching for ALL rarities of item on the AH. Lets start with level 1-29 Swords. Look for items you can bid
on for under your 85g. I tend to find 1-3 per page in any given market sector
and price bracket. If you set a max buyout you will be looking at 46 pages of
items from your figure down to wherever 46 pages gets you to. It is unlikely you
will get all the way to the bottom provided you start at a high enough buyout
figure! There are simply that many auctions! The buyout figure and the starting
bid aren't linked so I regularly see silly numbers like 40million buyout, with
100g starting bid. People do this for several reasons, for example to entice
bidders by having a buyout price that puts their item on the first page. You
will notice that if looking for low starting bids you will tend to find more
per page in low buyout ranges, but you will also find more competition trawling
for these same deals in those lower ranges.
I like to keep 100 active WINNING auctions at all times in
my chosen sector. If you can't find 100 to bid on note the lowest buyout figure
on the last page and rerun you search, lets assume is was 54,000, search again
from 54k and you'll be looking at 46pages of items with buyouts from 54,000 on
down. By narrowing your search to a range of buyouts you also dodge the other
people searching just the Bids without Buyouts, or people going for the
9999999999 and down bracket. Remember you will get your money back if out bid
so find every item you can bid on for 85g, be they magic, rare, or even
ledgendaries. Now note the bracket you ended on, so when you log in the morning
before work you can grab your "out bids" and rebid on either a lower
bracket in the same sector (1H weapons for barbarians), or move on to 2H
weapons for Wizards. Keep it up over a period of days. It takes 10 mins before
leaving for work, during a lunch break, before you log for an evening play
session or after a play session. Cut and Paste your Bid amount so you are
hitting CTRL+V on each bid pane rather than typing 85 or whatever your
"Magic Number" is for your materials. The seconds saved really add up
when you get into the brackets with values in the tens of thousands.
At some point you will be ready for a salvaging session.
With 100 auctions won and more coming in every hour or so your stash will fill
up rapidly so make sure you have at least a full page clear for this so you can
send a decent amount from the AH completed tab to stash to salvage at least a
page full at a time!
Your going to spend a few minuets salvaging your mix of
blues, rares, and maybe even a legendary if some one let one go for 85g in this
case...lol. You might even spot an item that you can flip, which is always a
bonus, but lets just assume it is all going to be salvaged.
Every item you got for under 85g the difference was refunded
and you will make at least that in profit from your Subtle Essence. You saw it
at 30g start bid, you bid and won it at 30g, you get 55g and the item so
salvage, and get 85g from the sale of the subtle essence.
Every Blue gets your Subtle Essence so that is at least a
break even.
15% of your Blues drop a Fallen Tooth so all those teeth are
profit (you could vendor them and it would still be profit, but AH will of
course get you more).
In the level 60 blues and rares bracket you have a 0.1% or
1% (I forget actual drop rates) chance of Fiery Brimstone. More bonus profit if
you get lucky!
Every Rare you found you get a Fallen Tooth and a Subtle
Essence, since the Subtle Essence was your break even your Fallen Teeth are
pure profit.
Cancel the stacks of Essences and Teeth you currently have
up, relist with the additional ones you just salvaged and get ready to hear
that ITEM SOLD ding while you play or see the big chunk of change in you
completed tab next time you log!
A WORD OF WARNING!
IF YOU ARE BUYING 20,000,000g items for you main there is no
way to keep them separate from the junk you are planning to salvage SO DON'T
GET TOO CLICK HAPPY OR YOU WILL BE A VERY SAD PANDA!!!!!!
One nice thing to note about the AH system is you don't have
to worry about a competitor out bidding you
by 1g in the final minutes of an auction. The minimum threshold for new bids
will probably put him above his break even number, unless it is vastly
different to yours, in which case one of you has gotten their math wrong.
Alternatively he knows something you don't, i.e. he is going to use, flip, or
if he is planning on disenchanting he is speculating on a price rise or using
knowledge of market peaks to raise his "magic number". I get out bid
on at least 50% of auctions I bid on. I simply take that money and keep bidding.
Being out bid costs you nothing, unless it is happening all the time in which
case your time becomes a factor.
