Rituals of the New Moon

Again, I have to begin by giving credit where credit is due. I already had the recipe for Rituals of the New Moon, but I learned how to sell them in this blog post. Technique: Rituals of the New Moon drops from Silverbrook Hunter in Grizzly Hills. You must have inscription for one to drop, which is why the drop rate looks so low (every time someone without inscription kills one of these guys and the recipe doesn't drop, it causes the drop rate reported on wowhead and similar sites to decrease).

I encourage you to go to Haora's blog post to read why this works, but basically I copy pasted the tell he was using and made it into a macro (look at the third comment on that article to see how I made a macro that linked an item). This item costs 30 to 50 gold to make, and I have been selling them for upwards of 250 (I sold one for 500!). I don't want to saturate the market, so I have been selling one per day.

The next step is to start posting one of each color in the auction house for 499g each, to manage the expectations of those who use auctioneer or some other addon that monitors auction house prices. The auction house fee is minimal, and who knows, some of them might sell :)

Felsteel Shield Spike - Update

Ok, I have learned a few things. First, I own this market on my server. I haven't seen anyone else post a felsteel shield spike since I started paying attention. Second, people will not pay 400g for this spike. Third, there is at least some interest (someone was interested enough to put my auction house character on their friend list, because I only log in for about 1-2 minutes on that character, and they whispered me during that time, asking me to reduce the price).

I had put them up at such a high price (400g) as an experiment, involving advertising with a macro. I generally post twice a day on this character, and when I do, I click a macro that says something like, "Want to level your paladin or warrior tank in style? Consider using Felsteel Shield Spike, a luxury item with a luxury price. No level requirement."

The results? I haven't sold one. That's ok though, I did learn something that I wouldn't have known if I hadn't tried: I won't be missing out on gold if I sell them for a lower price. Plus, I might end up getting some auction house flippers to try to buy and resell them when I lower the price to 199g. Here's hoping :)

In the morning, I'll change the price to 199g and from there will continue posting one every 12 hours along with a macro click... I'll see where that gets me. As far as material cost goes, I am looking at 10g per primal fire, 1g per primal earth, and 10g per felsteel bar. That comes to 84g to make each shield spike. I have ten made, I don't think I'll be crafting any more until I can sell the ones I have.

Cobalt Tanking Gear

This is not my idea, I actually got it from a post on the JMTC Forums. (Great forums by the way, you can probably learn far more there than you can from my blog.) The idea is simple: because of the LFD system, more people than ever are leveling as tanks. When they hit Northrend wearing BC gear, the dungeons become more difficult. The monsters hit harder and the dps starts getting shiny new northrend blues, making it more difficult to hold aggro. Many of these tanks will go to the auction house to see if they can get any cheap upgrades. They won't be willing to spend hundreds of gold, as they will get better gear soon, they just want a quick fix to allow them to tank the first few dungeons in Northrend.

Enter the cobalt tanking gear. These items can be used at level 70, and are upgrades for tanks who leveled in BC dungeons. They cost roughly 5 Cobalt Bar per item, and tanks will pay 40g for these items in my experience. On my server, if I pay attention, I can find cobalt ore for 25g or less per stack.

The AH listing fee is a bit steep, so I only list one of each item at a time. I list for 12 hours... I'm not sure if I would make more gold by listing auctions for longer or if I would just end up getting undercut, but what I'm doing seems to be working :)

The Cake Is Not A Lie!

Those of you out there who cook and have done the daily cooking quests, check to see if you can cook Delicious Chocolate Cake. If not, there are two cooking quests available each day (BC and Northrend), and you have until May 2 to get the recipe. Why May 2? Here's why: For The Children requires Bad Example, which requires you to eat a Delicious Chocolate Cake while your orphan is watching. The drop rate for this recipe is something like 1%, so if you don't have it yet you would need to get lucky to get it in time for the event.

The ingredients for the cake are 8 small eggs, 3 mageroyal, and some vendor bought items. The best place to farm small eggs is just south of Silvermoon City, from the red dragon looking creatures.

Even if you don't have the recipe, if you farm the mats to make a bunch of the cakes, you can find someone who has the recipe and tip them to craft the cakes for you, which you can then sell on the auction house on May 2 for a tidy profit. I think that 100g per cake is not unrealistic, if you have them ready and on the auction house the day the event starts. Worth farming the mats, I'd say!

Making gold passively

I will be the first to admit that I make a lot of gold from inscription. However, that takes work. I dislike gathering professions, and to me, inscription is only a small step above a gathering profession. When all the milling, crafting, purchasing of inks and parchments, cancelling of auctions, mail collection, and glyph posting is done, I feel like I've just finished farming the auction house.

The reason I don't like gathering professions, and that I hold a grudge against inscription, is that the amount of gold you make from these professions is linked to the amount of time you are willing to spend on that activity. I prefer to locate items that I can craft and sell for a profit, create a small stockpile of these items, and send them to a character who exists solely to post auctions.

I then configure Quick Auctions 3 to post one of these items on the auction house when the market price is within the price range I specify. This allows me to log into this character for one minute twice a day, collect my mail, open the auction house, press "Post", and log off once my auctions have finished posting.

Items I have had success with using this method include: Titanium Weapon Chain, Titanium Shield Spike, Titanium Plating, Iron-Bound Tome, Faces of Doom, Scroll of Enchant Weapon - Crusader, Runescroll of Fortitude (posting one stack of 20 at a time), Eternal Belt Buckle (posting five single auctions at a time), and all of the enchanting rods.

These items may not sell often, but when they do it's typically for a high profit margin. Once I have made the initial investment to obtain the recipe on one of my characters and set up Quick Auctions 3, gold from these items flows in even if my play time is extremely limited some days.

Blacksmithing - Felsteel Shield Spike

Ugh. If I never see the shattered halls again, it will be too soon. I spent the last couple of days on my mage, in frost spec, soloing the shattered halls instance to gain reputation with Honor Hold. Why, you ask? This is why: Plans: Felsteel Shield Spike. That's right, I made the grind to exalted with Honor Hold so I could craft Felsteel Shield Spikes. If you're wondering why I would work so hard for an obsolete recipe (Titanium Shield Spike is better), take a close look at Felsteel Shield Spike. Notice anything? That's right, there's no level requirement. Which means that low level paladin (and possibly warrior) tanks will fork over a lot of gold for this item, as it will help them to maintain aggro on large pulls. That's what I'm hoping, anyway.

Oh, I also hit 100,000 gold!