First of all I would like to say thanks for reading this guide! I sincerely hope you find the information here useful so that you can make more gold in World of Warcraft and thus have more fun!
If you are new to gold making I suggest you start with Chapter 2 first and read the guide in it's entirety. Don't worry if you don't understand everything the first time. The purpose should be to get a good idea of the different ways to make gold and to get down the basics like profession choice and basic use of addons.
If you are a bit more comfortable making gold (or have already read the guide once) then feel free to pick and choose what you want to look into. The chapters are not arranged by level of gold making knowledge so once you have the basics mastered you should be able to understand Chapter 10 without reading Chapters 9 or 8 if you choose to do so. Also remember to come back regularly as I will update this guide on a regular basis with new chapters, tips, and tricks. You can always check out the update page here to see what I am currently working on along with any past changes made to the guide.
Lastly, if you find something in this guide isn't clear or would like more information on a particular subject please e-mail me and you will likely find your question included in a future update!
Next: Chapter 2 - Introduction to Addons
The Power Word: Gold Guide Free is Copyright © 2011 Jim Younkin. Guide contributors include Bangkok Bill and fluxdada.
Chapter 2 - Introduction to Addons
Addons are a great tool to use in Warcraft. There are addons for virtually all aspects of the game from class specific addons to addons that simply ensure that you always have a companion pet out. While in this guide I will only be covering addons that have value to gold making be sure to check out all the various categories of addons to enhance your style of gameplay.
There are two ways to get and install addons for Warcraft.
Part I
Installing Addons
There are two ways to get and install addons for Warcraft.
1) Use the Curse gaming site and the Curse downloader.
-Advantages: Automatic updates. Ease of use.
-Disadvantages: You miss out on some information generally available at the actual addon's webpage (such as beta versions becoming available). In addition I have heard rumors for as long as I remember that some people have accidentally downloaded keyloggers and had their account compromised from using Curse. I've never been able to verify these rumors but the word is out there.
Chapter 3 - Auctioneer
Auctioneer
Scanning
Once you have Auctioneer installed and running the first thing you will want to do is to scan the auction house. Scanning the auction house is how Auctioneer builds up a database of prices - and it is this database that Auctioneer uses to give you appraisals of an item's value. This database is probably the most useful tool you will have for making gold and building it up should be your number one priority at first. To build it up I recommended choosing one of the below scanning methods and scanning the auction house 1-2 times a day for two weeks.
There are two ways of scanning the Auction House - the full scan and the quick scan. The quick scan is quicker (duh) but it doesn't collect the names of sellers on the Auction House. In addition you can only run a quick scan every 15 minutes and it can be a little buggy. With the current version of Auctioneer you might get kicked / timed out when trying to run a quick scan. There is no fix (yet) but you can lessen the chance of this happening by only doing quick scans in low population areas and during quiet times on your server (AKA don't run a quick scan during peak time in Orgrimmar or Stormwind). A full scan takes longer but pulls all of the information from the Auction House (including seller names).
Chapter 4 - Auctionator
AUCTIONATOR
Video Guides:WoW Gold Making - Choosing the Right Undercut Price With Auctionator
WoW Addon Auctionator: Fast Selling and Profession Searches How To
Additional Auctionator Videos:
- 2/3 Using Auctioneer, Auctionator and TradeSkillMaster to Make Gold in WoW
- Auction House Basics: How To Cancel Auctions Efficiently Using Addons
Written Guide:
Auctionator is a great lightweight addon that enables you to easily buy, sell, scan, and search the auction house. Personally I tend to use it to buy items in bulk and to sell items that I don't have set up in TradeSkillMaster.
Setup
In order to set up Auctionator first click on the "Buy" tab in the bottom of your window and then click the "options" button in the top right.
Under Basic Options you have a number of choices to make.
Chapter 5 - TradeSkillMaster
Video Guides:
Setting Up TradeSkillMaster Groups - A Beginner's Guide
(Part 1 of 2) Making And Selling Glyphs With The TradeSkillMaster Addon
Additional TradeSkillMaster videos:
Written Guide:
Setting Up TradeSkillMaster Groups - A Beginner's Guide
(Part 1 of 2) Making And Selling Glyphs With The TradeSkillMaster Addon
Additional TradeSkillMaster videos:
- (Part 2 of 2) Making And Selling Glyphs With The TradeSkillMaster Addon
- New (Feb 2012 New User Interface) TSM Videos by Faid:
TradeSkillMaster is, without a doubt, an amazing addon. It does almost everything that you need - at the price of being rather difficult to set up. In order to get it's full functionality you will need to download the actual TradeSkillMaster addon along with eight other modules (TradeSkillMaster, Auctioning, Gathering, Destroying, Accounting, Crafting, Shopping, AuctionDB, Mailing). Once you have downloaded them all you will also have to set them all up and figure out how to use them. As this can be a lengthy process I recommend you break it up into sections if you start getting bored. There is NO NEED to learn everything in this chapter at once. Instead break it up and do a little bit everyday if you find yourself getting bored or frustrated.
Chapter 6 - Other Goldmaking Addons
Video Guides:
Quickly Vendor Jewelcrafting Gems With The AutoVendor Addon
Written Guide:
So now that you know about the big three addons it is time to take a look at the world of other goldmaking addons. To install any of these addons simply follow the instructions in the previous chapter. I'm including instructions on how to use the more complicated addons but for some of the other addons I'll just provide a link and a description. If you find that you would like to have instructions added for any addon included in this list please send me an e-mail and I'll consider adding it to this guide. :)
Quickly Vendor Jewelcrafting Gems With The AutoVendor Addon
Written Guide:
So now that you know about the big three addons it is time to take a look at the world of other goldmaking addons. To install any of these addons simply follow the instructions in the previous chapter. I'm including instructions on how to use the more complicated addons but for some of the other addons I'll just provide a link and a description. If you find that you would like to have instructions added for any addon included in this list please send me an e-mail and I'll consider adding it to this guide. :)
Chapter 7 - Professions Overview
Choosing which professions to learn can be a confusing process. The fact that each profession has its own positives and negatives combined with the fact that Blizzard is constantly adjusting the professions from patch to patch means that what is the best profession choice for you today might not be the best choice tomorrow. This is true whether you are choosing your professions in order to maximize your DPS, gain the most needed stat bonuses for your class, and/or make the most gold. Looking at the three types of professions (farming, crafting, and converting), however, does offer some insights into which professions are the best for gold making.
Chapter 8 - Inscription
Inscription is the crazy red headed step child of all professions. It is both a great money maker and a great time consumer. It beats other professions by a landslide in the number of recipes it has that can be made for a profit and in the amount of time it takes to learn all of the recipes. In order to learn all of the glyphs you will have to conduct both Northrend Inscription Research and Minor Inscription Research daily for months. In addition there are numerous glyphs that can only be learned from Books of Glyph Mastery. With the coming of Cataclysm there are fewer and fewer of these books to be found on the Auction House as they are WotLK world drops - many times they will sell for 500g+ each - by no means a small price to pay to learn a recipe. None the less if you have the time and money to spend on Inscription by the time you have learned all of the glyphs you may well find that it is your number 1 money making profession.
Chapter 9 - Jewelcrafting and Shuffling
Jewelcrafting is one of the workhorses when it comes to making money with gold. With this profession you can take part in the raw gem, cut gem, and jewelery markets. These markets are often very profitable but the main benefit of having a jewelcrafter is that it is the one MUST have profession to shuffle.
Benefits:
1) Because many recipes are bought with jewelcrafting tokens (which are obtained from doing the JC dailies) you can pick and choose which recipes to learn first. This means that with a bit of research you can choose the most profitable recipes for your server and learn them first - less time wasted learning useless recipes.
Benefits:
1) Because many recipes are bought with jewelcrafting tokens (which are obtained from doing the JC dailies) you can pick and choose which recipes to learn first. This means that with a bit of research you can choose the most profitable recipes for your server and learn them first - less time wasted learning useless recipes.
Chapter 10 - Enchanting
Enchanting is an all around great profession to have. The fact that it is a converting profession means that enchanters can take part in both the enchanting materials and finished products markets. There is no research or dailies to be done to get recipes so you can max out your enchanting and know all of the trainer recipes in a few hours. Scrolls always sell well and if you also have a jewelcrafter you can use jewelcrafting to make cheap enchanting materials.
Chapter 11 - Alchemy
Video Guides:
Maximizing Your Living Elements Alchemy Transmute In WoW
Written Guide:
While not a full fledged converting profession alchemy is very similar with it's ability to transmute. In addition alchemy is probably the easiest profession to make money with as simply doing a transmute everyday will almost certainly net you some profit. Furthermore the choice to change your specialization in transmutation, potions, or elixirs means that if one market dries up profit wise there is usually another market that you can move to.
Maximizing Your Living Elements Alchemy Transmute In WoW
Written Guide:
While not a full fledged converting profession alchemy is very similar with it's ability to transmute. In addition alchemy is probably the easiest profession to make money with as simply doing a transmute everyday will almost certainly net you some profit. Furthermore the choice to change your specialization in transmutation, potions, or elixirs means that if one market dries up profit wise there is usually another market that you can move to.
Chapter 12 - Blacksmithing
Being a crafting profession Blacksmithing has a few items that will probably always sell for a profit along with a few higher end recipes that also make profitable items. Along with tailoring and leatherworking this profession offers a bit of profit but is generally nothing to write home about gold making wise.
Benefits:
1) Easy to level.
2) Some of the higher level items can make you quite a bit of profit per sale.
Benefits:
1) Easy to level.
2) Some of the higher level items can make you quite a bit of profit per sale.
Chapter 13 - Tailoring
Generally tailoring has been one of the better crafting professions to have gold making wise due to their ability to craft high end sellable cloth that was on a cooldown. Currently, however, Dreamcloth is BoP meaning that at this time tailors don't have this ability. Thus while historically it has been one of the better crafting professions to have from a gold making standpoint the general concensus now is that since Cataclysm it has been one of the poorer crafting professions to pick.
Benefits:
1) Easy to level
2) Anyone can gather the materials needed for this profession - just kill mobs that drop cloth.
Benefits:
1) Easy to level
2) Anyone can gather the materials needed for this profession - just kill mobs that drop cloth.
Chapter 14 - Leatherworking
Like the other crafting professions Leatherworking is a profession with a few high end pretty high profit recipes and a few smaller profit lower level recipes. If you have this profession alone you will be able to bring in some profits, but you will not get rich quickly off of leatherworking alone.
Benefits:
1) Easy to level. Like tailoring, leatherworking is a profession that doesn't need lots of different kinds of materials to level up. Just stock up on lots of leather at the Auction House and you will pretty much be set.
Benefits:
1) Easy to level. Like tailoring, leatherworking is a profession that doesn't need lots of different kinds of materials to level up. Just stock up on lots of leather at the Auction House and you will pretty much be set.
Chapter 15 - Engineering
Engineering is generally considered to be the worst profession in terms of making gold. While in my opinion it is the most enjoyable profession to have due to the large number of unique items you can make the fact that most of the items made by engineers can only be used by other engineers means that there is no market whatsoever for most of the items you can make.
Benefits:
1) You can make cool items with unique abilities.
Benefits:
1) You can make cool items with unique abilities.
Chapter 16 - Farming
Video Guides:
Cataclysm Skinning + Potion of Treasure Finding = 3000 Gold Per Hour
Quickly Farm Netherweave Cloth in Outland
Additional Farming Videos:
Uldum Whiptail Hotspot (In fresh 4.0.6 w/ rapid spawn rates)
Written Guide:
Probably one of the most common ways people try to make gold in Warcraft is to combine a farming profession with a crafting profession. They then spend time farming materials for their crafting profession, crafting items, and selling the crafted items on the auction house. People do this because they believe that the farmed materials are "free" since they didn't spend gold on them. This, however, is not true. If you spend time farming materials you have paid for them - you just decided to spend time instead of gold. This time could have been spent doing something else - and 99% of the time that something else will be more profitable than farming. This is why farming is generally looked upon unfavorably by many gold makers.
An easy way to calculate the cost of any farmed materials is to simply see what they would sell for on the Auction House. If you spent an hour gathering ten stacks of herbs to make glyphs and each stack would sell on the Auction House for ten gold then the cost of the herbs is 100 gold. This is because even though you didn't spend anything on them you could have sold them for 100 gold - and you are giving up this 100 gold in order to craft some items. Once you know this price you should ask yourself, is there something I could have done in the hour I farmed that would have made me more than 100 gold? Usually you will find that the answer is yes - there would be a way to make more gold than farming.
Cataclysm Skinning + Potion of Treasure Finding = 3000 Gold Per Hour
Quickly Farm Netherweave Cloth in Outland
Additional Farming Videos:
Uldum Whiptail Hotspot (In fresh 4.0.6 w/ rapid spawn rates)
Written Guide:
Probably one of the most common ways people try to make gold in Warcraft is to combine a farming profession with a crafting profession. They then spend time farming materials for their crafting profession, crafting items, and selling the crafted items on the auction house. People do this because they believe that the farmed materials are "free" since they didn't spend gold on them. This, however, is not true. If you spend time farming materials you have paid for them - you just decided to spend time instead of gold. This time could have been spent doing something else - and 99% of the time that something else will be more profitable than farming. This is why farming is generally looked upon unfavorably by many gold makers.
An easy way to calculate the cost of any farmed materials is to simply see what they would sell for on the Auction House. If you spent an hour gathering ten stacks of herbs to make glyphs and each stack would sell on the Auction House for ten gold then the cost of the herbs is 100 gold. This is because even though you didn't spend anything on them you could have sold them for 100 gold - and you are giving up this 100 gold in order to craft some items. Once you know this price you should ask yourself, is there something I could have done in the hour I farmed that would have made me more than 100 gold? Usually you will find that the answer is yes - there would be a way to make more gold than farming.
Chapter 17 - The Undermine Journal
The Undermine Journal is an excellent source of raw data for prices and market conditions on your realm. Currently it is only available for U.S. realms but I have heard in the past that EU realms are in the works. Using this website you can look up sellers to see when they post their auctions, what they sell, and when most of their sales occur. Alternatively you can look up specific items to see who sells them, how many are posted, what their current price is, and how much they sell for. Lastly you can set up e-mail notifications that tell you when certain items are listed on your Auction House (make sure to check out my pre-made list in chapter 13).
Appendix 1 - Snatch and Notification Lists
Below you will find both my suggested snatch list and Undermine Journal Notification List. Both were created by looking at the data across multiple realms so the lists should be quite profitable for everyone - this does NOT mean, however, that I can guarantee you will make a profit off of each and every item.
The Notification List consists of items I believe can be sold for a 1,000 gold profit or more. The price is already set accordingly but feel free to readjust it for your realm if necessary. If you are unable to currently use the Undermine Journal I suggest adding these items to your snatch list. Items in red should be added for a horde side auction house while items in blue should be added for an alliance side auction house. To add the items simply copy the list (after deleting either the red or blue items) and copy it into the notification window at The Undermine Journal.
The Notification List consists of items I believe can be sold for a 1,000 gold profit or more. The price is already set accordingly but feel free to readjust it for your realm if necessary. If you are unable to currently use the Undermine Journal I suggest adding these items to your snatch list. Items in red should be added for a horde side auction house while items in blue should be added for an alliance side auction house. To add the items simply copy the list (after deleting either the red or blue items) and copy it into the notification window at The Undermine Journal.
Latest Updates
6.24.2011 - Added "Additional Resources" sections to the profession and TradeSkillMaster sections. Initially consist auto-generated lists of relevant links from Power Word: Gold.
6.19.2011 - Initial version of The Power Word: Gold Guide Free released.
6.19.2011 - Initial version of The Power Word: Gold Guide Free released.
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