"Farming" the auction house - enchanters only

drowland wrote:
> I wouldn't give this tip to strangers on my realm (competition sucks), but
> figured I'd share with you guys as you've always been very helpful to me.
>
> If you're an enchanter, 225+, *get the enchantrix mod*. You can use it to
> "farm" the auction house for profitable items to DE. Take about 30-40 mins
> of time and set it aside. First, check the going rate on LBS's, GEE's, and
> Ill Dust's on your AH. Work it out to the expected per-unit price and jot it
> down beside you.
>
> Note that enchantrix is currently only available as an 'alpha' release,
> that's all that's compatible with 2.1.0 so far. But I think a few LUA errors
> are worth the risk, and if it messes up badly you can always /console
> ReloadUI.
>
> Now, search the AH for greens 51-58 (azerothian greens). Enchantrix will
> tell you what you can expect to get when DE'ing it. If you can expect to get
> enough of the mat to make a profit vs the item's buyout price, then buy it.
> Enchanting mats have *no listing fee* on the AH (at least old-world ones),
> so even if they don't sell, you can freely relist them.
>
> I discovered this trick last night and "farmed" the AH. I invested 150g into
> purchases, and by the time I logged off, I'd already made that back plus
> 100g more, and I still had auctions outstanding
>
>
> This may not be new to some of you, but thought I'd share the wisdom anyways
>

This has been on my mind for a while now. It could very very easily
backfire if more people started doing it. Enchanting mats would drop
substantially and/or the prices of the greens go up.

I'm very seriously considering dropping mining on my main (hunter) who
is level 56 with 300 herbalism but only 196 mining. I find mining such a
pain to level but it does make me money. I figured that just by doing
what you suggest above I could turn enchanting into a profitable
profession plus I get to disenchant all those non-useful quest rewards
instead of selling them to vendors. Not sure if I'm being naive though.
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

"Mark (newsgroups)" wrote in message

> I'm very seriously considering dropping mining on my main (hunter) who is
> level 56 with 300 herbalism but only 196 mining. I find mining such a pain
> to level but it does make me money. I figured that just by doing what you
> suggest above I could turn enchanting into a profitable profession plus I
> get to disenchant all those non-useful quest rewards instead of selling
> them to vendors. Not sure if I'm being naive though.

In order to get your enchanting up to 225 (highest required to disenchant
everything), you're going to have to invest some serious coin. It'll take a
bit to get there. You can only reach 40 by disenchanting, then disenchant
goes gray.

So be prepared for a significant initial investment. If you want to level it
higher than 225, the price gets even steeper. I've probably burnt 2-3k gold
in enchanting mats, if not more, over the course of the year and a half I've
been an enchanter just to get to 343.
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

> I could turn enchanting into a profitable
> profession plus I get to disenchant all those non-useful quest rewards
> instead of selling them to vendors. Not sure if I'm being naive though.

No, enchanting is not profitable. It can be fun at times, it isn't a
bad profession. But the time/effort/materials you put into it could
make you a LOT more money in other ways. Enchanting is a sink, plain
and simple. Talk to most/all enchanters in your guild or on your
server and they'll agree.

That said, farming the AH for items to disenchant then resell them can
make you money. This works really well for the 250-299 skillup
materials right now. Why? People aren't doing that content anymore
and would-be enchanters want to get past 299 so they can use all their
expansion materials.

Once you get to 300+ and are trying to farm the auction house for mats
to DE, you'll see the market dries up. It costs a lot more for people
to put TBC items, so they cost more to buy. The mats demand isn't
high enough though. So you are back to running instances and DE the
greens and blues you get there. You get a couple arcane dust,
everyone else vendors them.

Sure, you could sell the dust, but woulnd't you rather skilup your
profession? Pow, you just lost money compared to everyone else.
Until you hit 375, and then you realise most people will just talk to
their other 375 friends and won't pay/tip you to enchant their gear.

You will loose money doing enchanting. Accept it. If you still want
to do enchanting anyway, then great, enchanting is for you. But if
you expect to make money, you will be disappointed.
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

wrote in message
> That said, farming the AH for items to disenchant then resell them can
> make you money. This works really well for the 250-299 skillup
> materials right now. Why? People aren't doing that content anymore
> and would-be enchanters want to get past 299 so they can use all their
> expansion materials.

The point was not for people to level enchanting beyond 225 to try and make
money, it's a sink to level it beyond 225. But get it to 225 and you can now
DE anything, thus opening up the chance to farm the AH for items which will
likely DE into mats more valuable than the item's buyout price.

The key is to know what the items on the AH will likely DE into, and compare
the cost of those enchanting mats to the item's price to determine if it's
likely to be profitable. Sometimes it's a chance, and you gamble a
little...just don't go blowing 10g on an item that's only 20% likely to DE
into a GEE - 80% of the time you'll get burned and only get 1-2 illusion
dust that'll fetch 2-4g.
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

drowland wrote:
> "Mark (newsgroups)" wrote in message
>
>> I'm very seriously considering dropping mining on my main (hunter) who is
>> level 56 with 300 herbalism but only 196 mining. I find mining such a pain
>> to level but it does make me money. I figured that just by doing what you
>> suggest above I could turn enchanting into a profitable profession plus I
>> get to disenchant all those non-useful quest rewards instead of selling
>> them to vendors. Not sure if I'm being naive though.
>
> In order to get your enchanting up to 225 (highest required to disenchant
> everything), you're going to have to invest some serious coin. It'll take a
> bit to get there. You can only reach 40 by disenchanting, then disenchant
> goes gray.
>
> So be prepared for a significant initial investment. If you want to level it
> higher than 225, the price gets even steeper. I've probably burnt 2-3k gold
> in enchanting mats, if not more, over the course of the year and a half I've
> been an enchanter just to get to 343.

Ouch. Though I'm not sure I'd bother leveling about 225 to be honest.
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

wrote:
>> I could turn enchanting into a profitable
>> profession plus I get to disenchant all those non-useful quest rewards
>> instead of selling them to vendors. Not sure if I'm being naive though.
>
> No, enchanting is not profitable. It can be fun at times, it isn't a
> bad profession. But the time/effort/materials you put into it could
> make you a LOT more money in other ways. Enchanting is a sink, plain
> and simple. Talk to most/all enchanters in your guild or on your
> server and they'll agree.
>
> That said, farming the AH for items to disenchant then resell them can
> make you money. This works really well for the 250-299 skillup
> materials right now. Why? People aren't doing that content anymore
> and would-be enchanters want to get past 299 so they can use all their
> expansion materials.
>
> Once you get to 300+ and are trying to farm the auction house for mats
> to DE, you'll see the market dries up. It costs a lot more for people
> to put TBC items, so they cost more to buy. The mats demand isn't
> high enough though. So you are back to running instances and DE the
> greens and blues you get there. You get a couple arcane dust,
> everyone else vendors them.
>
> Sure, you could sell the dust, but woulnd't you rather skilup your
> profession? Pow, you just lost money compared to everyone else.
> Until you hit 375, and then you realise most people will just talk to
> their other 375 friends and won't pay/tip you to enchant their gear.
>
> You will loose money doing enchanting. Accept it. If you still want
> to do enchanting anyway, then great, enchanting is for you. But if
> you expect to make money, you will be disappointed.

Thanks. I was only really considering enchanting because I was thinking
of doing what drowland suggested in the OP, not because I particularly
thought it would be a fun profession. Since there are no BoP enchants,
and we already have a high level enchanter in the guild, I would only be
doing it to make some spare cash through disenchanting. If it still
costs way to much to level up to 225 (disenchant everything) then it's
not something I'll consider at the moment being new to WoW and
relatively poor.
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

"Jason Tinling" wrote in message

> On May 29, 9:24 am, "drowland" wrote:
>>
>> The point was not for people to level enchanting beyond 225 to try and
>> make
>> money, it's a sink to level it beyond 225. But get it to 225 and you can
>> now
>> DE anything, thus opening up the chance to farm the AH for items which
>> will
>> likely DE into mats more valuable than the item's buyout price.
>
>
> Umm, you need 275 enchanting to DE anything above L64 requirement.
> Just an FYI.

Unkay. Well it's still not *too* bad to get to, and not an issue for me as
I'm already at 343. 225-275 may cost a bit, but if you stopped there you're
not into the insanely pricey enchants yet. I also didn't know this, I
thought 225 was the max required to DE an item.
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

Why would you combine mining and herbalism on the same toon? You can
only minimap one of them, so you are always blind on the other.

Personally I put skinning on all my toons, then the second will be
mining OR herbalism (with one toon on each server having enchanting).

I do like the OPs suggestion of DE purchased greens though. I am afraid
I have never been very good at using DE effectivly. Probably leaving a
lot of money on the virtual table as a result...

Mark (newsgroups) wrote:

> I'm very seriously considering dropping mining on my main (hunter) who
> is level 56 with 300 herbalism but only 196 mining. I find mining such a
> pain to level but it does make me money.


--
- Burt Johnson
MindStorm, Inc.
http://www.mindstorm-inc.com/software.html
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

I agree, and that is how I read your initial post. I have one enchanter
per server. This looks like a good way to earn back some money after
they are at 225+. If nothing else, they could probably earn the money
for their mats as they climb to 300.

Thx for the suggestion. Now I gotta make the effort to put it to
work...

drowland wrote:

> wrote in message
> > That said, farming the AH for items to disenchant then resell them can
> > make you money. This works really well for the 250-299 skillup
> > materials right now. Why? People aren't doing that content anymore
> > and would-be enchanters want to get past 299 so they can use all their
> > expansion materials.
>
> The point was not for people to level enchanting beyond 225 to try and make
> money, it's a sink to level it beyond 225. But get it to 225 and you can now
> DE anything, thus opening up the chance to farm the AH for items which will
> likely DE into mats more valuable than the item's buyout price.
>
> The key is to know what the items on the AH will likely DE into, and compare
> the cost of those enchanting mats to the item's price to determine if it's
> likely to be profitable. Sometimes it's a chance, and you gamble a
> little...just don't go blowing 10g on an item that's only 20% likely to DE
> into a GEE - 80% of the time you'll get burned and only get 1-2 illusion
> dust that'll fetch 2-4g.


--
- Burt Johnson
MindStorm, Inc.
http://www.mindstorm-inc.com/software.html
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

Burt Johnson wrote:
> Mark (newsgroups) wrote:
>>I'm very seriously considering dropping mining on my main (hunter) who
>>is level 56 with 300 herbalism but only 196 mining. I find mining such a
>>pain to level but it does make me money.
>
> Why would you combine mining and herbalism on the same toon? You can
> only minimap one of them, so you are always blind on the other.
>
> Personally I put skinning on all my toons, then the second will be
> mining OR herbalism (with one toon on each server having enchanting).

I wouldn't do it again Burt. I can't remember the exact reason I decided
to do so now. It's even worse than you think, these skills are on my
hunter so they interfere with her own tracking skills.

If I hadn't invested _so_ much time into mining then I'd drop it now for
something else. Either Skinning, Alchemy or perhaps Enchanting (just to
get to a respectable level for disenchanting greens and useless BoP
blues). My hunter is very suited to gathering though since they are solo
kings (or queens), and I'm aware that mining is still a top money maker
and the high end ore sells for lots. If one of the other professions
above could make similar cash then sure I'd drop mining.
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

On Tue, 29 May 2007 16:21:50 +0100, "Mark (newsgroups)"
wrote:

>This has been on my mind for a while now. It could very very easily
>backfire if more people started doing it. Enchanting mats would drop
>substantially and/or the prices of the greens go up.

Yep, I made about 400-500g a few weeks back on it, then everyone else
picked up on it and prices dropped a lot, plus greens went up a bit,
although there were still bargains to be found. Right now I have 30 GEEs
and 100 illusion dust sitting around that I'm listing just a couple at a
time, and half the time can't sell because the market's so flooded :-/
Still, it was good while it lasted!
--
EU-Draenor:
Balgair - Human Rogue (lvl 70)
Naomh - Draenei Priest (lvl 70)
Sealgair - Dwarf Hunter (lvl 67)
Sagart - Undead Priest (lvl 60)
Sgoildubh - Human Mage (lvl 52)
Beag - Dwarf Paladin (lvl 51)
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

wrote:
> No, enchanting is not profitable. It can be fun at times, it isn't a
> bad profession. But the time/effort/materials you put into it could
> make you a LOT more money in other ways. Enchanting is a sink, plain
> and simple. Talk to most/all enchanters in your guild or on your
> server and they'll agree.

True, enchanting is profitable only for the few who have managed to
get the rarer enchants, and who can be bothered to stand around
advertising their abilities on the trade channcel.

However, DISenchanting is, as the OP notes, a huge money maker.
I have made most of my money by disenchanting - and that's enough for
an epic flying mount, a full set of Primal Mooncloth gear, both
Whitemend peices, Hand of Eternity, potions, flasks & repairs for
regular raiding, and I still have 3000g+ left over.

There are some down sides to it though:

1) As noted elsewhere in this thread, you need to level your
enchanting skill quite a lot in order to be able to disenchant high
level items, and that levelling comes at quite a large price (It's an
investment that will be recovered in time, though).

2) There are a finite number of greens on the AH, so the more people
that farm the AH for cheap greens, the less profit there is to be
made. In fact I've noticed the market drying up a little over the last
month or two. Whether it's due to more people farming the AH, or less
people levelling (so less greens acquired) I don't know.

I don't use Enchantrix, but a bit of common sense and memory.

Here's how I do it (If you're Alliance on Stormrage Europe, look away
now! ) :

* The average 66-70 green disenchants into 3 Arcane Dust, so see what
price Arcane Dust is on your server, mutiply by 3, and that should be
the absolute maximum you pay for a 66-70 green. Personally I set a
limit of about 1g less. For level 60-65 greens, I assume an average of
2.5 Arcane Dusts and price my bids accordingly.

* Keep an eye on the AH for level 66-70 blues priced less than Large
Prismatic Shards - if you see them then snap them up, disenchant, and
sell the shard.

* Learn the market - prices fluctuate quite a lot (on my server,
anyway). For example, a Greater Planar Essence will sometimes be 4g,
sometimes 7g+, so I save mine up until the price rises, then list
them. Learn which items fluctuate in price, and sell them only when
the price is high. Other items, like Arcance Dusts, stay fairly static
in price.

* Learn the market (again!) - If you see enchanting mats listed *well*
below normal it can be profitable to buy up the low-priced stock and
re-list at a more reasonable price. But be careful - it's an easy way
to lose money if someone else has a large stock of those items and
lists even more at the low price.

* When selling your mats, list them at just under the going rate. If
there are a bunch of Greater Planar Essences up for 6g99 each, put
yours up at 6g95 or so.

* Get quantities right. I find that I can sell Arcance Dusts in stacks
of 1's, 2's, and 4's a lot easier than 20's (and for slightly more per
piece, too).

* Know your buyer - find out who might be using the item in question,
and what sort of quantities they'll need. For example, a tailor making a
bolt of imbued netherweave will need 2 Arcane Dust - they're not
likely to want to buy a stack of 20 - so stacks of 2 sell quite well.


> You will loose money doing enchanting. Accept it. If you still want
> to do enchanting anyway, then great, enchanting is for you. But if
> you expect to make money, you will be disappointed.

You will only be disappointed if you fail to take advantage of all
aspects of your tradeskill.

--
Zil, Level 70 NE Priest, Aman Shan're, Stormrage Europe
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only 

"Catriona R" wrote in message

> Yep, I made about 400-500g a few weeks back on it, then everyone else
> picked up on it and prices dropped a lot, plus greens went up a bit,
> although there were still bargains to be found. Right now I have 30 GEEs
> and 100 illusion dust sitting around that I'm listing just a couple at a
> time, and half the time can't sell because the market's so flooded :-/
> Still, it was good while it lasted!

I'll keep an eye out for that on my realm. Currently, there's typically
about 5-6 auctions each of GEE's (1s or 2s) and Illusion Dust (anywhere from
5-stacks to 20-stacks). Both are still quite profitable. 16-20g for a GEE,
2g per Illusion Dust (or 40g for a stack).

Last night, I spent about 30 mins on the AH. 15 doing a full scan, then
another 15 doing yet another scan but this time with
bottomscanner/enchantrix running. Logged in briefly this AM at breakfast,
had 50g worth coming in already, in under 7 hours and those 7 hours were the
overnight hours. (invested about 18-22g to make that 50).

Repeated the scan/buy this morning, but only had time to scan 60/144 pages
of the AH before leaving for work.

I'm definately working this into my daily routine. At least on the days I
get to play wow lol. I'm at 1275g so far, striving for that magical 5200
number...
 >> Stay informed about: ""Farming"" the auction house - enchanters only