I’ve decided to join in to Cold’s Gold Blogging Carnival this month and share a little love with the new goblins who are just starting out. His topic this month is “Pick A Market Or A Strategy That You Planned To Focus On For The MoP Launch. What Were Your Results?”
There were a number of potential markets that I put either time or gold into that failed (detail on successes and failures in my last post), but one that really worked well for me as a poor would-be goblin with more time than gold was Thorium Ore. Since most goblins just starting out find themselves in the same predicament, this is a great method for them to make some gold.
Before MoP launched, thorium was dirt cheap on the auction house. A goblin with some gold to risk would have done well to buy it up and use the strategy I outline below. I, however, had plenty of time and sons who were willing to trade a little grunt work for something they wanted. One son wanted a new $10 game… he got it after farming up 100 stacks of thorium ore for me while I cooked dinner. *evil grin*
The backbone of my wow gold making mindset is: Always have a backup plan or alternative use for everything.
Thorium is fantastic for this. It can be mined by a low-level miner, and sold as ore (if your market is ripe) or bars.
It prospects into 5 fantastic gems: Azerothian Diamond, Huge Emerald, Blue Sapphire, Star Ruby, and Large Opal. Each of those can be sold raw to jewelcrafters, blacksmiths, tailors, and engineers.
All of those gems can easily be crafted into rings, necklaces, and a helm, which can be sold to low-level toons.
Nearly all of those crafted items can be disenchanted into… here’s the kicker… Greater Eternal Essence, Illusion Dust, and Large Brilliant Shards.
Azerothian Diamonds turn into Glowing Thorium Bands.
Large Opals turn into Simple Opal Rings.
Huge Emeralds turn into Emerald Lion Rings.
Blue Sapphires turn into Sapphire Pendant of Winter Night.
Star Rubies turn into Wizardweave Turbans.
The only one that doesn’t disenchant into Greater Eternal Essence, Illusion Dust, and Large Brilliant Shards is the Simple Opal Ring. That’s okay though; the Dream Dust can be used to help make the Wizardweave Turbans, and the Small Brilliant Shards can be sold to enchanters wanting to make the Icy Chill enchant (or turned into that yourself).
I didn’t have the bank space to make up a bunch of rings in advance and store them to sell to leveling alts, so I focused mainly on dominating the markets for those raw gems. If someone came in and undercut me, I’d buy out their auctions and keep my gems as the only ones available. Buying their gems for less than my price was just fine, as I could still turn their gems into GEE and Illusion Dust. Here’s my results:
Now, like I said, it’s not much – but for a new goblin, that’s a nice chunk of gold. 2,393 wow gold just from two weeks of posting… and it was only 243 gems!
The enchanting mats market absolutely tanked when Mists of Pandaria launched, and rather than sell my enchanting mats for 10% of their normal price, I sat on them. I’ve just in the past week started selling them again as the prices have started to come back to normal, and for the Large Brilliant Shards, Illusion Dust, and Greater Eternal Essences I’ve made another 1,917 wow gold.
- Success:
- 4,310 wow gold in two weeks with minimal posting (once daily)
- I still have a TON of gems that I can sell or shuffle into rings/necks, or enchanting mats – so this 4,310 wow gold that I made in the past two weeks will continue to grow.
- Fail:
- Not making and storing rings/necks beforehand. I could have kept them bouncing in the mail system, and made some nice gold selling them to the new pandas.
- Prospecting all of the thorium I got my hands on. In the first few days of MoP, the price of thorium hopped from 50s to 6g50s per ore. I should have had some thorium stocked up to jump in on that.
So, in conclusion, if you’re wondering how to start out making gold and you’ve got a dual gatherer (if you don’t, you SHOULD!), go mine up some thorium ore. Use your alts or fellow guildmates to prospect it, craft, and disenchant it. Watch the gold roll in.
Farming Tips:
My favorite spot for farming thorium is Silithus. It’s an easy flight/ride there now with the Uldum portal, and is usually deserted. While you’re there, kill the air elementals in the Northwest corner for Essence of Air, which on my server sells for over 200 wow gold each. Also, keep an eye out for the Twilight Prophets, who spawn every half hour and drop 10 Encrypted Twilight Text each.
If you’re into the transmogging market, go to The Blasted Lands instead. While you’re farming thorium, keep NPCscan running and kill the rares (there’s a ton of them there). They each drop a nice transmog item, and a Flawless Draenethyst Sphere that can be turned in for another transmogging item. After you’ve farmed out the Blasted Lands, hop up into the Swamp of Sorrows and farm the ore and rares there. (They don’t drop the spheres, though, and there are far less rares.) Go back and forth between those two zones.
The best place to farm runecloth for the wizardweave turbans is Upper and Lower Blackrock Spire. Especially now with AoE looting, your bags will be bursting with cloth by the time you’re done with just one of these instances. You’ll find tons of greens in there that can be sold for transmog or DE’d into GEE, illusion dust, and LBS, as well as rare BoE patterns. My pally likes to do Lower Blackrock Spire with a few pulls, step out of the instance and onto the little balcony there, pop onto her vendor mount to sell the greys. Then she DEs what can’t be transmogged, turns the runecloth into bolts, and heads back in (without resetting!) to do Upper Blackrock Spire. Once she’s done with that one, it’s another trip to the balcony and a reset of the instance (which resets both at once.)
Happy gold making!