World of Warcraft Gold Tip #2 - 7 Days to Riches

If you've been keeping track of my Sparter earnings for September you've probably noticed that it hasn't moved last month. Like I mentioned in before that the average price per 1000g was down to $50. I'm just playing it like a stock market, and waiting for the prices to go back up. If you want to see Warcraft gold price trends Sparter has a very nice stock market like gold trend graph. Hopefully the prices go back up sometime soon so I can cash in some more.

As I wait for the prices to go back up again here's another gold making freebie. Rightfully dubbed 'Time is of the Essence'. This tip is for people who use the auction house a lot.

If you haven't already noticed, real life coincides greatly with what happens in the game. If you've participated in raids then you have felt the crunch of school/work then go home raid/sleep. People who watch the auction carefully also pick up on patterns in the market, and I'll break it down into the seven days of the week. The World of Warcraft week starts on Tuesday also known as the reset or patch day.

Tuesday - Raid Instance Reset, Patch Day, PVP Arena Armor

This is one of the bigger auction house days for me as a jewel crafter. The PVP players get their nice brand new PVP gear that they earned from arena points today, which means they'll need nice shiny +12 stam gems @ 50-60g a pop. Other items that sell well is Enchanting & Enchanting materials. Check the Auction House (AH) for good deals before today (even buy it out Monday), and sell it to people who need them on Tuesday.
Raiders also go into instances on this day getting new armors as well. Over all this is a good day for the following professions:

1. Jewelcrafters - New armor means new gems they need to socket with
2. Enchanters - New armor/weapons means they'll need enchants
3. Leatherworkers - people want Cobrahide Leg Armor or Clefthide Leg Armor and the materials to make them
   
4. Alchemists - last minute raid consumables sell well, as well as end of the night restocking
5. Tailors - Mystic Spellthread and Silver Spellthread and the materials for them sell well
6. Herbalists - Herbs for the better selling consumables will sell. Look up materials for health/mana potions, Major Agility Elixirs, and Flasks to narrow down what to gather.
7. Engineer - Used to do well for repair bots... Not since Burning Crusade though.

• Buy up cheap materials today - There will be left over short bids on items if it was a patch day. Bid on items that you can resell later or pick up cheaper materials by bidding instead of buying out. The longer the patch the better chance to pick up an item for cheaper. The best day for this is Monday the night before a major patch.
  

Wednesday - Raid Day #2

There's no significant day about this one except that many guilds will have a second raid day on Wednesdays. Also a few stragglers will pick up their pvp gear today. The above items sell sell okay, but not as much as Tuesday.

Thursday - Raid Day #3 - Auction House items depleted somewhat

Many guilds either skip Thursday to break or continue raiding. Some will break off to do pvp or instances or start farming consumables for raids. What do you do on this day?

• Mark up your items a little more - By this day in the week the items on the AH is a little depleted. You can mark up your items a little more, but keep the number of items on the AH lesser. You won't move as much items today, but you can get higher prices for them. Consumables for raids do so-so today as people start restocking for the Friday/Saturday raid groups.

Friday - Raid or Get a life day

Friday is the end of the real life work week, and also the end of the school week. You'll see people you don't see during the week due to 'busy life' etc starting to show up. AH items start off selling at a good price early Friday, but the prices start dropping as more and more people log in to start their play time for the weekend. The player base basically splits into two groups today. The hard core raiders will raid, and the people who want to have some sort of life outside of World of Warcraft will go out.

• Watch for good deals on the AH - the price wars start today on auction house items. You're Thursday auction items will probably get sold at a good price, but don't count on it today.
• Good day for raiding consumables, but watch the bid/buyout prices.
  
• Professions people do so-so today, but usually better off on Sunday.

Saturday - Raid or Get a life day 2 - Farmers Galore - Barren Chat Day 1

Saturday is many people's day off so you'll see people struggling to farm gold/materials, run instances, pvp for pvp honor bonuses. Auction house prices tend to dive on Saturday as the supply is pretty good on gathered items. Crafted items, depending on server populations, can do well here. If you have a rare or uncommon profession recipe, and is logged on today you can sometimes monopolize the market. Server is usually crowded all day, and well the annoying Barrens chat fills up the trade channel so that sitting there announcing your wares is kind of moot.

• Check the Auction House for good deals on materials that can resold later in the week for profit
• Check rare or harder to make craftables on the Auction House, as some regulars won't be on to put them up. If you're the only one putting them up today then feel free to mark it up and profit.

Sunday - Raid Day Commences - Pvp Holiday continues - Big Auction House Day #2

Sunday is my second biggest Auction house day, and I'm not sure why. Here are my speculations though based on what I sell:

• Leftover enchant/gemming needed - some people just can't find the stuff they need on Saturday so that demand is still there Sunday.
• Late night sessions - People play till late in the night Saturday so they just log off without restocking or enchanting/gemming their stuff
• Pvp Honor gear - I notice alot of stamina gems selling today, probably due to people playing all day Saturday to collect honor for the Veteran/Warlord Pvp sets.

Sunday becomes a good day for crafting. For gatherers, there is alot of surplus herbs, and ore today so unless you need the cash I'd wait till later in the week to sell gathered items. Sunday also is a day that many people will start raiding again so you see many people with new raid armor needing enchants/kits/gems.

Monday - Careful of what you put up on AH - Leftover weekend surplus - last minute raid/pvp day

Monday is the day many guilds will try to finish up a raid instance, or people try to put in the 10 games for the pvp arena points. Its relatively quite with alot of surplus supplies from the weekend still flooding the market. Its a good day to buy stuff to resell on Tuesday-Thursday.

I put a big Careful up top for a good reason. Tuesday is sometimes a BIG patch day. What does this mean for Auction House people? Make sure your minimum bids are set higher than normal or to something you can accept as a sell price. If the server goes out for 12 hours, the last person who bid 10g on your 100g item will win it for 10g during the server down time. This is why I stress to be careful on what you put up today.

• Monday is also one of the best days to low ball bid everything hoping to win those expensive items that other people put up. Only bid on stuff you know you can resell later though.
• Setup your Tuesday gem/armor kits/enchanting materials Monday night to get the first dibs on people who buy on Tuesday. Check back on Tuesday to adjust your sell prices if someone came in and underbid you on something your trying to sell.

Long post, but if you want to make money on the Auction House in World of Warcraft, this is one of the more important things to learn early on. As for how I'm doing on my gold? Its been about 13 days since my last post, and I'm at almost 9k gold, hopefully prices go back up so that I don't have 30k gold sitting in my bank again.