Thread: Where to invest 40k and my time? Advice for a newbie.

Greetings, fellow goblineers

I've recently come back from a break to find the market and buying activity pretty dim, so I'd like to ask for your sage advice about planning for MoP and maximizing profits.

About myself:
- a high populated server (Ashenvale)
- 40k in gold, about 40-50k in flasks, 4 stacks of Truegold, some volatiles, etc,
- 2 85 chars (alchemy/herb, JC/mining) and 3 newbs (ench/tailoring, two without professions) with 2 guild banks total (but can get 2 more)
- a desire to maximize profit before and after MoP release.

Right now, someone regularly undercuts flasks from 70g to their auction mat price and the amount of sales is lower, so I don't want to bother with selling my stock at the moment (unless I have to, since MoP would probably have better flasks for raiding).

So, I'd like to prepare to MoP somehow and maximize my profits. I've read a bit around here and noticed that you'd generally recommend:
- leveling alts to 80-85
- for such a small budget, work in short sales, don't stockpile just yet (or buy really cheap stuff in huge stacks, such as volatiles)
- stockpile rare pets, bottlenecks (herbs, ore, etc).

What I am doing right now is:
- leveling two 40-60lev chars to 85, another just to get a guild bank (I'm dabbling with cooking and it requires lots of space )
- picking bs/eng and inscription/? for two other chars and trying to maximize them as well
- researching options to buy cheap stuff and stockpile it (bottlenecks, pets, etc)
- researching on what to do since the release day.

But suspect that you would take more things into account and can direct me in a better direction.

Thus, my questions are:
- what would you do, if you had what I have?
- which professions would you pick for the two new characters? do I need to take herbalism to go with inscription (and take bs on my main, for example) or make another alchemist (a transmuter)? Do I need to make a double gatherer for MoP, even though I can only enjoy farming for 1-2 hours max?
- what would you stockpile, when, and how much?
- what else would you recommend for me to do?
- in the spirit of the server review by Kathroman, what would you do on this very server (Ashenvale)?
- would you recommend any threads/posts for alchemists or general gold making that aren't in the "Quality guides" sections?

I'd appreciate all the advice you can provide

Thank you in advance

After taking a look at your server's page, here are a few quick suggestions:

#1 - don't hang onto your flasks. They will have very little demand after 5.0.1. If you are uneasy about selling them for cheap, try to pinpoint a specific time/day that might be optimal for selling. I looked at each of the major Cata flasks, and quantity available seems to consistently dip on Sun. That could be a good window to try to corner the market for a bit and push out as many as you can. Another option would be to contact any guild you know are raiding still and work out some sort of bulk deal with them.

#2 - Which professions to look at/add? Inscription seems like a write-off, especially if you don't already have a scribe. Leatherworking looks strong. Cheap leather, and then nice margins on the PvP gear especially. Leg armor seems a bit saturated, but that just tells me that you have LW'ers who don't take the time to attend to their entire inventory. Which brings me to my next point:

#3 - Look for the untapped markets. WotLk, TBC, and even Vanilla content can still turn a great profit, especially on a large server where so many people will flock to the current content and top levels of their professions. One prime example that jumps out at me (that also works with your current profs) is WotLK epic gems. If you have some cuts, there seems to be a high profit to be made here. Also, if yoou can add an enchanter into your rotation, a full-fledged saronite shuffle would probably net you a strong ROI.

#4 - get an enchanter. Scroll prices seem reasonable for your server, and enchanting just opens up so many more possibilities.

Hope that helps.

Well, if you can get an enchanter, you can start the saronite shuffle without worrying about the epics just yet. As far as leveling enchanting for cheap - if you level it alongside one of the other crafting profs (ie. leatherworking, or maybe tailoring) you can DE what you produce and probably reduce your overall leveling costs by 25-35%.

From there, the Dalaran dailies are a PITA, but if you can get at least 1 cut of each colour, you can probably carve out a decent niche for yourself. On that same vein, remember that prospecting [Titanium Ore] will produce [Titanium Powder] - 10 of which can be turned in for a JC token.

My enchanter already has tailoring and is leveling them together. I also have two gb lots full of Cata greens to disenchant, when I need the mats (though, to be honest, I should rather have stored or bought the mats).

Can you point me to a good thread on saronite shuffle? From what I understand, I simply need to cut rare and disenchant uncommon gems. Are there any tips in this regard?

Does swapping gathering profs to bs/lw account for MoP? Won't I have trouble getting mats there, if I don't have gathering professions?

I'll only have 2 more toons to spare profs, but maybe I do need to make alchemists/tailors. But, from what I understand, that's not as urgent as leveling the current ones (ench/tailoring) and maxing out their profs.

I am not sure about flipping cheap epics, I couldn't grasp how it's done, when Firelands came out. What's a cheap price for an epic on MoP release? How do I determine it? How do I know I am not buying it from someone, who's already flipping it?

From what I heard, I'd rather invest in pets, though it could potentially be as disastrous for me as any other unknown market

Thanks a lot for the responses, folks You got my planning going.

P.S. I guess I should sell all my Truegold stash as well, right?

dirtycache, what will be the selling point of ore? Will it be the bottleneck in leveling, or it'll be used elsewhere?

From what I understand, new characters will also require 16 slot bags: do I need to craft and stockpile these, as well?

Thanks again for the advice.

Boggot, thanks for the tip, I'll try it

sunny goblin, the problem of using the gold I have remains, however:
- it is a small amount, but I still don't know where to invest it (unless you all take it for granted that I'll need all of my money to level my enchanter and tailor and I'm oblivious to this fact)

Selling flasks and truegold can fund my embersilk/frostweave cloth and obsidian ore stockpiling (though, I guess I need to turn clothes into bolts after leveling my tailor). Plus, suddenly, JC PvP items are selling fine now, so I have more extra cash.

- is there anything else moderately expensive that I should invest in?

+ What would be more profitable, than holding onto Truegold and sell it for x2 the price, when the current stocks dry out? I assume that, if people start leveling new characters, they'll want to level and progress as fast as possible, thus requiring more forges, rather than only patiently relying on drops from DS, to progress to MoP raiding.

+ Currently, elementium ore is extremely cheap, for example, or netherweave cloth for 16 slot bags (or just make the bags themselves). I am already stockpiling cheap volatile air for PvP gear for the new characters, too.

+ Also, this post discusses the pricing of enchanting mats during various expansions and MoP, which hints that I should stockpile enchanting mats or even most popular scrolls (main stat, 2-h, etc), if I'm making the right assumptions.

+ Moreover, leveling tailor to 530 will require embersilk cloth and volatiles (air, water, fire) - these are pretty expensive and don't require much space. Is it worth stockpiling volatiles? Then again, I guess, I shouldn't put all my money into a single source, even though I could fit my entire cash into a few bags of volatiles.

Also, I've remembered that Kathroman advised against farming (except immediately after the release), so I'm still inbetween keeping gathering profs and swapping them for crafting ones (I've always wanted to be a blacksmither ), as it just feels uneasy to only rely on auction and bulk sellers for my mats I suppose, it'll require more rigorous stockpiling of cheap mats, so I'll have to max the number of toons just for the sake of bags and guild banks. I'll have to make a list of things I'll be crafting, too, so I don't find myself missing some critical herb-mining mats along the way (are there any existing lists for this?).

Overall, what general or specific topics do I need to learn and read about to stop asking these silly questions?

Thanks again for the responses, folks, I guess I'll have to re-read most discussions around here to get the hang of it

@Taroniel

To re-iterate what has been said; given your situation I would definitely consider farming during the opening days of MoP. WotLK/Cata offered huge GPH for gatherers that were able to offer farmed goods early. With some hardcore farming you could easily bank 500k within the first 2 days of MoP. This is no exaggeration. You just need to weigh the benefits of 500k vs maxed professions early on.

By the way, good job doing your own research. It's easy to help people that help themselves .

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