So, you’ve just reached 80 and after long days leveling you need to get gold together to get some gear, and the necessary enchants. You are 450 in mining so you decide to get out and start mining. You get about 200 saronite ore and 10 titanium ore after a couple of hours searching. So you’re thinking that should be a few hundred gold towards your new gear and enchants. You get to the auction house and look at prices, your jaw drops as you see a stack of saronite going for 12g, and this is the average within the auction house.
So for your 2 hours work you have around 200g, and if you are selling saronite on the auction house and it doesn’t sell you have the deposit prices to worry about. It doesn’t make financial sense to mine saronite at this time purely for selling on the auction house.
With this in mind lets look at the options that will make money.
The key point here is the use of mining, while you would think the higher level ores would be at the highest price, it simply isn’t the case now. The problem being that there is a huge supply of saronite, because it has a very high spawn rate, and most miners farm this regularly. So it begs the question what does make money?
Well, with regard to the high level ores, the only one worth collecting now is titanium. With the latest patch and epic gems, it has risen in price. This has also had the effect of driving titansteel bars up in price, thus these are a good source of income if you are smelting them daily. The main difficulty is that everyone is doing the same thing and it is a rare spawn as it is, so its a matter of luck how much you can gather over a period of time.
So is there any point in gathering saronite ore? The answer is yes, under certain circumstances. The key to making money is in your second profession. If you have taken another gathering profession then you have the problem that most people are having, there is simply too much supply, too little demand. This has driven the price of most high level ores and herbs through the floor, so to speak. For example you can buy a stack of saronite ore for around 11-13g per stack on my server just now, and this is not uncommon.
Jewelcrafting
The key to making money in any profession is in repeat sales. So we have to look at what sells no matter what gear level people have. Gems are a necessity for all classes so Jewelcrafting is an excellent 2nd profession with mining. You can prospect the saronite ore for gems, which, even in light of the epic gems now available, still sell at a reasonable price.
You may think the uncommon quality gems wouldn’t sell, but actually in stacks they sell very well generally, better in fact than the rare gems on some occasions. The reason for this is that in alchemy, for transmutes, you require the uncommon gems and rare gems for various transmutes to produce higher quality gems.
The highest priced gems in my experience tend to be Scarlet rubies, and if you have these they sell for around 30-40g each on average. The other rare gems sell for 10-30g each depending on how the market is on a particular day.
You also have the option of cutting the gemstones for others, though I would not cut huge amounts of them and put them in the AH. The reason for this is again the deposit price. It would be better to keep a few of each gem uncut in your bank and charge for each cut, than to lose gold by putting your gems on the AH and getting only a few sales.
Blacksmithing
The other logical option for a 2nd profession is becoming a blacksmith. This is a viable option though again, in my experience, most of the good gear you can make is now being eclipsed by the new badge gear. The only real goods you can make that have repeat use value are the eternal belt buckle and titanium weapon chain/titanium plating. There are a few epics which may sell, I.e. the weapons, but again I have found that they do not sell regularly enough to warrant making too often.
With regard to selling such items it is probably best done at the weekend when most people are on and your auction gets the most exposure. Alternatively you can sell through the trade channel and avoid any extra costs, though you are relying on a buyer being on when you are, which is of course the disadvantage of this method.
Another point to blacksmiths, don’t forget to make skeleton keys! There are usually people looking for rogues to open lockboxes, and this can provide a small profit for you if you offer this service.
If you are looking at other options from mining and blacksmithing, make some of the specific gear sets, or even better keep the trade mats in the bank for sets. This will allow you to make them if someone asks for them on the trade channel. A new tank for example will use some of the defence gear you can make until he has gained some heroic gear.
I personally have never had much success selling gear or weapons, so its not a road I have followed. Just to give an example of why, I had the same gear on the AH for a week without selling, and tried unsuccessfully to sell pieces of epic gear via the trade channel about 5-6times, hence I decided it was not a way that worked for me.
General Mining Points
When you are looking for ways to make money the AH is your main guide to prices and supply/demand. It will not be the same on any given day or week, and prices do vary – hugely sometimes. An addon like Auctioneer is essential to give you an estimate of the value of trade goods. I use regularly and have found it to be extremely useful.
A second addon which I consider a necessity for gathering anything is Gathermate and its respective data file. It highlights where nodes/herbs have been found previously and gives an indication where the highest concentrations of materials can be found.
Now let me address the issue of someone who has taken 2 gathering professions, i.e. skinning/mining. Obviously you don’t have the ability to prospect ore, or make armour/weapons with it. So how do you make the most of your professions?
One possible solution is to arrange with a jewelcrafter to have your ore prospected, and pay them for their service. This gives you access to other options without having the profession yourself.
If this isn’t an option open to you, perhaps you have leveled solo to 80 and you want to gear up before looking for a guild, then you need to look at the other minerals you can mine.
On my server, Sporregar, I have found that many of the lower level minerals are actually better money makers than the Northrend equivalents, apart from Titanium. Thorium and Mithril actually sell at 20g+ per stack, and have the advantage that there is much less competition farming them. From Outland, adamantite and fel iron also sell at better prices, again in my own experience 20g+ per stack, and you can use your flying mount to collect them faster. As I previously mentioned it varies from day to day. Sometimes I have seen Thorium at 40g+ per stack, and sold it at that level.
Now this may come as a surprise to some as you would not expect these sort of prices, but people, in my experience, are never happy with just one character. Even at the top level of raiding people can and do get bored, so they make a new character and start again. This is why there is demand for the lower level trade goods, as well as new people joining the game for the first time.
With new characters there are new professions to be leveled, so again we can look at alternatives to simply selling the ore. The original high level gems, i.e. Large opals, Azerothian diamonds etc, all sell for comparatively high prices. At the present time opals are around 25g+ each on my AH.
The major difference here is that there is not the same demand as the top level gems, so caution is advised when dealing with these. If you are putting these on the AH, don’t put a lot on at once(i.e. More than 5-10 of the same gem) as it will drive the price down very quickly, a few at a time will encourage the price to stay high. The ores can have a similar problem, but with the lesser supply it does help to keep prices more stable, and I have found they usually sell without problems. Check your AH regularly to see when the price is high and when there is too much competition.
To give an example of this, albeit it was Ebonweave cloth from one of my alts, I originally put a stack of 10 on at 830g buyout when there was about 12 other Ebonweave auctions as well. It never sold over 48hrs. I put it back on, on a Saturday with only 4 other auctions available at 1000g and it sold within a few hours. The other auctions were all around 125g each, when a few days before it was around 85g per cloth. This is why I say make sure you know the prices for trade goods all the time, a day or two can make a big difference.
A good way to use your mining is to combine it with another task you are doing. Lets say you want to get a disgusting ooze pet. The best place to farm oozes is considered to be the Eastern Plaguelands, within the 2 scars. These scars also happen to be a good place to farm thorium ore. So if you are gathering the ore while killing the oozes you are increasing your overall income and not simply doing one or the other.
A point to keep in mind generally, is to try to combine tasks together as it will increase you overall efficiency and lower the time you need to spend doing things that you don’t enjoy.
A last point to keep in mind is that 20saronite bars vendors for 25g, so if all else fails you can buy saronite ore at less than 12g 50silver and always guarantee a profit.
Hope this guide helps you to make some gold and think about other ways to apply your abilities.
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