It’s been a while since I’ve written on this site, but when you see the magnititude of this post I hope all will be forgiven. The following is essentially the result of a math geek with too much time on his hands. Read on for how this could benefit you now and in the future.

A friend and fellow gold-making enthusiast, Frontendloader, created an addon which scanned my realm’s entire AH and dumped it’s output information to a text file. The information file contains every item on the Auction House, it’s bid price, buyout price and quantity of items. I’ve then used Microsoft Excel to lookup this data, for the purpose of manipulating it and calculating things with it.

Exporting Auctioneer Data to Excel

Find Out Cost of Power leveling Professions

1) Obtaining a total figure on a profession power leveling mats shopping list.

Find Out Best Gold Making Profession

2) Calculating profit and loss for each profession. A lot of the individual profession spreadsheets out there do this already but with user input data instead getting mat prices fresh from the AH and comparing them with end product prices fresh from the AH.

Which Server Has The Best Economy

3) Comparing economies with friends or if considering server transferring.

4) I want to see more ideas in the comments section of what could be done with an AH snapshot. If you can envision it, I can make it!

I have so far done #1 from the list above and included some screenshots below. In doing so I learnt that people can corrupt data fairly effortlessly. For example, one goose on my realm listed linen cloth for 1000g per unit which blew out the power leveling budget for tailoring. I have since excluded such nonsense data.

The costs of power leveling jewelcrafting, inscription, alchemy, leatherworking, tailoring, engineering and blacksmithing are based on the material costs at www.wow-professions.com. I have excluded from them vendor items such as tailor threads and alchemy vials since the value of these is widely known. For cost to Power level Inscription, since there are multiple herbs that result in each ink you require, I picked a typical one for each ink group.

As you can see, this is a good way to find out how much it would cost to power level a profession. It is not without flaw however, some items can be obtained much cheaper off the auction house. A good example of this is the rods required for power leveling Enchanting; buying them from the AH is expensive (and in turn Blacksmiths make good profit on them) and much could be saved by having them made by an alt or friend. When looking at the figures, you also need to consider that you can sell or disenchant many of the items made to offset the total cost.

Cost of Power Leveling Professions

Cost of Power leveling Jewelcrafting

Cost of Power Leveling Inscription

Cost of Power Leveling Enchanting

Cost of Power Leveling Alchemy

Cost of Power leveling Blacksmithing

Cost of Power leveling Engineering

Cost of Power Leveling Tailoring

Cost of Power Leveling Leatherworking

Finding out Profit of Each Profession

I’ve already began work on spreadsheets to examine profit and loss calculations on crafting items and gear with Tailoring, Leatherworking and Blacksmithing using the data obtained from the AH Scan Snapshot. Check back shortly and I’ll show you the results of those spreadsheets. I also plan to make ones that lookup prices for ore, herbs, gems and glyphs, to assess the viability of Jewelcrafting or Inscription on your realm.

In the future, we are looking to produce an End-User version of the addon and spreadsheet so that you can all simply press the AH button ingame to get a spreadsheet full of useful information. Right now it’d require a couple steps like pressing the getall button at the auction house, using an .exe to convert that output file into a spreadsheet format then inserting that spreadsheet into the master spreadsheet we’d provide.

In the meantime, if you were able to find out any information about your servers auction house, be it the highest priced items, which items at the most profitable to make with each profession, figuring out which profession makes the most gold or anything else what would it be?

Good news for those with engineering, PTR Patch notes were updated for the 3.3.3 PTR to make the non-combat Pet Bombling and Lil’ Smoky bind on equip.

This will give players another method to make gold with engineering as they can craft these and supply them on the AH for players who haven’t been able to pick them up before (as they were BoP and engineer only) or players seeking to buy them towards completing acheivements.

Also savvy players without engineering have a potential to profit from this change right now by buying and selling the materials required to craft these items or going out and farming/mining to be prepared to supply the AH for the incoming spike in demand.

Main Materials required

I am only including the trade good items that I’d suggest buying now and reselling once patch goes live.
Lil Smoky = 1 x Core of Earth 2x Mithril Bar and 1x Truesilver Bar

Pet Bombling = 1x Heart of Fire 6x Mithril Bar

Buy up these items at the current 100% market price (you have been scanning the AH with auctioneer consistently right?) these items should experience a big spike in demand once patch 3.3.3 goes live. I’ve already bought up 800g worth of mithril bars and added all the above items to my Auctioneer Snatch list. Buying and selling on the auction house is a major way I make gold and I learned this technique from WoW Schools Guide.

How To Get the Recipes

The way to acquire the recipe for both pets was changed in patch 3.1 when it used to be contained in Gnome Engineer’s Renewal Gift. The recipes are now BoP drops off of mobs located in Gnomeregan.

Schematic: Lil’ Smoky drops from three different mobs in the instance – Arcane Nullifier X-21, Peacekeeper Security Suit and Crowd Pummeler 9-60. The drop rate reported on wowhead is around 1-2% which seems low, but I think this is due to engineers only getting the drop which skews the numbers for non engineers who are looting.

Schematic: Pet Bombling drops off of the last boss in the zone Mekgineer Thermaplugg, although wowhead reports that the recipe is a 9% drop rate from the boss, I believe it is a 100% drop for engineers (those without engineering don’t see the drop when they loot which skews the numbers).

Getting to Gnomeregan

I believe these pets are going to sell for high amounts of gold in the first couple of days and not many players will have hte recipie, since it is quite the hassle to get it, especially for horde players, I decided to take some time and get the recipes myself.

Gnomeregan is located in Dun Morogh which is where the main city of Ironforge is located. Horde players will have a bit of a journey getting there but a very quick way to do so for us engineers is to pick up a quest from Sovik who is the engineering mats seller located in Orgrimmar (located next to engineer trainers near the blacksmith). He’ll give you a quest called Chief Engineer Scooty, go fly to rachett and take the boat to Booty Bay.

There you meet up with Scooty who will give you a Goblin Transponder that will allow you to teleport directly to Gnomeregan instantly every time you step on the teleporter behind him. Don’t worry this is completely safe and as he adjusts the teleporter for your weight, height and size

Time To Get Patterns

I recorded the time I entered the instance (12:28am) to see how long it’d take me to find the mobs and get all the recipes, and this was a tall task as I’ve never been to Gnomeregan (I think I wound up there accidently once doing the teleporter on a previous character). I used this map to get an idea of where I was going, I found Crowd Pummler 9-60 at the south side of the Engineering Labs area (#7 on the map), he didn’t drop it, I then travelled down the thin hallway on the left towards #6 and #5 and saw a lot of the Arcane Nullifier’s and Peacekeeper Security along the way.

At 12:51am (23 minutes into the run) I looted the Lil’ Smoky pattern from an Arcane Nullifier.

I continued down the hallway towards Thermaplugg, only took me 1 minute to reach him and took him down with ease. He dropped the Pet Bombling Schematic at 12:52am with a total time of 24 minutes invested to grab these 2 schematics.

I know the time may vary, especially to get the Lil’ Smoky pattern but I wouldn’t say it’d take you more than an hour to get.

Here was a helpful comment I found on WoWhead regarding their experience with the run as well:

It took me 5 resets. To better my chances I killed Crowd Pummeler 9-60s + Arcane Nullifier X-21s + the Peacekeeper Security Suits along the way. Taking the back door I turned left directly before the elevator. This leads to Pummeler (atlas helps). Then I continued that direction and took the first left which leads into the large circular room that lies before the tunnel to Thermaplugg – this is where i found the Peacekeeper Security Suits (only 1 or 2). Then i continued down the passageway to Thermaplugg, going up and down both sides of the ramp killing Arcane Nullifiers. It was tedious but i finally got it. Just keep trying and hopefully you are more lucky than i was! source

Good luck with making gold with this change, be sure to check out my full predictions on how you can profit from patch 3.3.3 changes.

There is still gold to be made with this profession and I’ll outline the ways you can make gold daily by crafting a few key items that will only take a couple of minutes to put up on the auction house and net you 150-500g/day profit. I combine this method with Luke’s Guide to make the most gold an hour.

Zapthrottle Mote Extractor

At skill level 305 engineerings are able to make a mote extractor and begin to extract any gas clouds they happen to cross around Northrend or even back in Outlands. Crystallized Fires which can be extracted from Steam and Cinder clouds yield the most value. I found that a typical run in Sholazar basin will net you between 400-500g an hour without an epic flyer. Farming motes is a great way to leverage your gold making time if you combine this while doing dailies or farming mobs, it’s a nice gold boost per hour.

Here’s a link to some maps for Steam Clouds in Sholazar Basin and Borean Tundra

Also Arctic Clouds- In Dragonblight In Storm Peaks and In Icecrown

Mammoth Cutters

This will be your bread and butter to make consistent gold daily. These bullets are used by hunters and they go through them like crazy. Sell these in stacks of 1,000 and expect to sell between 5,000 to 15,000 bullets during peak hours (server dependent). To see if these are profitable to make you can use my engineering spreadsheet and plug in your servers AH numbers.

My average
Saronite bar: 1g 70s  Volatile Blasting Trigger: 2g 50s   total cost per 1,000 = 4g 20s

Profit per 1,000 = 6g 64s   at 10,000 sold/day = 70g profit for 5 minutes of buying/crafting.

Saronite Razorheads

Another ammo craftable that can be lucrative, however on my server the price of these have plummeted so input your servers raw material prices into the spreadsheet and the selling prices currently listed on the auction house.

Nesingwary 4000 and Armor Plated Combat Shotgun

While these two items can fetch you around 1,000 g each the sales are very inconsistent and not high in demand. I would craft one of each and re-list at 1,000 gold as long as the material costs are below 800g. Be prepared to re-list and also promote in trade chat whenever you are busy crafting.

Engineering Spreadsheet

A great way to know what is in demand on the auction house and worth your time to craft is to plug all your auction house numbers into a spreadsheet. This will automatically calculate the gold profit per item and the profit % you’ll get. Here is the one I use.

The “Cost” is linked to the materials column right beside this table. Notice how mammoth cutters provide a 68% profit while Saronite Bombs would be a big waste of gold.

Insert your servers prices in the green cells, leaving Walnut Stocks as that is a vendor item.

Every server has a different economy, you may find that neither mammoth cutters nor saronite razorheads are worth selling due to oversupply but the best way to make gold is to find out which markets are undersupplied and fill in that demand to make a profit. Luke’s Guide has many gold making methods you can fall back on if these engineering items have too much competition in the auction house.

While most players are still on their way to level 80 in WOTLK, it is wise to think ahead of anticipated demand.

Achievements were introduced by blizzard as a time-sink and reason to complete other facets of the game that don’t offer gear upgrades.

Players priorities rest in leveling, gearing up – both pve(raids, instances, reputation) and pvp(arena, BG), professions and lastly achievements. With some top guilds already reporting they have cleared out everything WOTLK has to offer so far, the market for achievement items that can be bought on the AH will slowly start to rise.

A noticeable spike occurred in all these prices before wotlk came out, obviously because no one had anything to do but try and get those cool titles and have a more “complete” character. The prices have lowered now since everyone is focused on leveling but I expect those prices to return to that higher price and even more since players will have more cash via dailies and quests.

Continue reading for the most profitable items to buy/sell and produce

Here is a comprehensive list of items which can be produced from a profession or bought from a vendor where you can control the market and expect huge returns, a way I make gold right now along with following Luke’s Guide’s. You can buy unlimited pets from the vendor and stock pile them in your alt’s bank. When you notice a certain pet is not available on the AH or the price is really high, put it up for sale and watch them sell for 2x – 50x the price you bought them from a vendor!

In this part (Part 1) I will be focusing on the General Achievement to obtain companion pets:

This achievement has 4 stages:

Can I Keep Him?

Plenty of Pets

Plethora of Pets

Shop Smart, Shop Pet…Smart

Reward: Reeking Pet Carrier – Stinker

*NOTE: (VP = Vendor Price) (CP = Crafting Cost) (APP = Auctioneer Purchased Price – price my auctioneer has seen this sell for more than 10 times)

Vendor Items (Both Factions):

1. Blue Dragonhawk Hatchling ( Netherstorm ) VP: 10g  APP: 25g = 15g profit
2. Brown Rabbit Crate ( Netherstorm ) VP: 10g APP: 20g = 10g profit
3. Cat Carrier (Siamese) ( Netherstorm ) VP: 60s APP: 12g = 11g 20s profit
4. Mana Wyrmling ( Netherstorm ) VP: 40g APP: 55g = 15g profit
5. Red Moth Egg ( Netherstorm ) VP: 10g APP: 20g = 10g profit
6. Cockroach ( UC, Netherstorm ) VP: 50s APP: 3g = 2g 50s profit
7. Crimson Snake ( ORG, Netherstorm ) VP: 50s APP: 4g 50s = 4g profit
8. Parrot Cage (Cockatiel) ( Stranglethorn Vale ) VP: 40s APP: 6g = 5g 60s profit
9. Parrot Cage (Senegal) ( Stranglethorn Vale ) VP: 40s APP: 6g = 5g 60s profit
10. Ancona Chicken ( Thousand Needles ) VP: 1 APP: 8g = 7g profit

Vendor Items (Alliance):

*NOTE = the APP price are based on cross-faction prices since my data is Horde side.

1. Rabbit Crate (Snowshoe) ( Dun Morogh ) VP: 20s APP: 8g = 7g 80s profit
2. Cat Carrier (Bombay) ( Elwynn Forest ) VP: 40s APP: 8g = 7g 80s profit
3. Cat Carrier (Cornish Rex) ( Elwynn Forest ) VP: 40s APP: 8g = 7g 60s profit
4. Cat Carrier (Orange Tabby) ( Elwynn Forest ) VP: 40s APP: 8g = 7g 60s profit
5. Cat Carrier (Silver Tabby) ( Elwynn Forest ) VP: 40s APP: 7g = 6g 60s profit
6. Cat Carrier (White Kitten) ( Stormwind City, Rare Vendor ) VP: 60s APP: 380g = 379g 40s profit
7. Great Horned Owl ( Teldrassil ) VP: 50s APP: 8g = 7g 50s profit
8. Hawk Owl ( Teldrassil ) VP: 50s APP: 7g = 6g 50s profit
9. Blue Moth Egg ( The Exodar ) VP: 50s APP: 7g =  profit
10. White Moth Egg ( The Exodar ) VP: 50s APP: 8g = 7g 50s profit
11. Yellow Moth Egg ( The Exodar ) VP: 50s APP: 8g = 7g 50s profit

Vendor Items (Horde):

1. Golden Dragonhawk Hatchling ( Eversong Woods ) VP: 50s APP: 11g = 10g 50s profit
2. Red Dragonhawk Hatchling ( Eversong Woods ) VP: 50s APP: 10g = 9g 50s profit
3. Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling ( Eversong Woods ) VP: 50s APP: 11g = 10g 50s profit
4. Black Kingsnake ( Orgrimmar ) VP: 50s APP: 6g = 5g 50s profit
5. Brown Snake ( Orgrimmar ) VP: 50s APP: 4g = 3g 50s profit
6. Prairie Dog Whistle ( Thunder Bluff ) VP: 50s APP: 7g = 6g 50s profit

Crafts:

1. Mechanical Squirrel Box ( Engineering 75 ) CC: 85s APP: 11g = 10g 15s profit
2. Tranquil Mechanical Yeti ( Engineering 250 ) CC: 65g APP: 230g = 165g profit
3. Lifelike Mechanical Toad ( Engineering 265 ) CC: 25g APP: 120g = 95g profit

*Keep an eye on the market for the raw materials required to craft these items = Tranquil Mechanical Yeti Lifelike Mechanical Toad as the costs will surely go up once people catch on to the money making potential. Especially Thorium Bars.

Drops:

These have a huge potential to be bought from the Auciton house and resold if you find them underpriced.

1. Azure Whelpling ( Azshara ) APP: 1,000g
2. Captured Firefly ( Zangarmarsh ) APP: 1,850g
3. Cat Carrier (Black Tabby) ( Silverpine Forest, Horde only ) APP: 900g
4. Dark Whelpling ( Dustwallow Marsh ) APP: 1,100g
5. Disgusting Oozeling ( Felwood ) APP: 2,500g
6. Parrot Cage (Green Wing Macaw) ( The Deadmines ) APP: 250g
7. Parrot Cage (Hyacinth Macaw) ( Stranglethorn Vale ) APP:1,800g
8. Tiny Crimson Whelpling ( Wetlands ) APP: 1,200g
9. Tiny Emerald Whelpling ( Swamp of Sorrows ) APP:1,800g

That completes Part 1 of the Achievement Objectives series, subscribe to my RSS to know how to profit from more achievements like the Cooking profession, represent, reputation and many more that can be completed by buying/producing items and selling them at the auction house.

If you found this article helpful, refer this article on the forums you frequent, refer us to your friends, or digg it! they may benefit from this too.