Phase 3: Profit !

Fishing, lowbie money, and profession talk.

Oh, loyal readers, it’s been so long since a post from either Zekta or me. We’ve each sent the usual, “Man, I should have posted by now,” emails to each other, and we’ve each received the usual, “yeah, I know. I should really have posted by now,” replies. My point in all this is that I should have posted more recently… but I digress.

First, a quick post-3.3 checkup. I did very well on my server on patch day, mostly by liquidating my stacks of Saronite Bars transmuted into titanium. I sold the titanium in stacks at about 75% of the previous server norm, and they were all gone in a few hours. Maybe others had this experience as well. I imagine I was just preying on people who didn’t know the removal of the Transmute: Titanium cooldown, but shame on them for not reading P3P!

I have also been stacking epic gems, cut and otherwise. They’ve been moving more slowly, but I imagine that their value will generally go up for about a month or more, at least. As people get new gear, they will need new gems. I believe the place to make money in gems will be similar in 3.3 to what it was in 3.2: at first cut gems sell well, then they stagnate and uncut gems sell.

(The question I have- which is the one that makes the big money- is when exactly does this switch occur? 4 weeks? 6 weeks? More? I really don’t know. If anyone has a bright idea about this timeline, please put it in comments. My gut says 4-6 weeks, but that’s about all I’ve got. Anyone, ftw?)

ANYWAY, I want to get back to responding to a comment posted in my first post. Hugmenot said:

One thing I rarely see discussed is opportunities for new players to make decent coin while leveling. The standard recommendation is to pick up two gathering professions but no almost no one talks about the meat, fish, and cloth markets.

Before beginning, I’d like to point to JMTC, who recently stole any thunder I may have had about this topic. The recent topic on “How to make gold pre-level 50” is full of great ideas. Read this post, then read that one, and then go make money. (And, if you make a lot of money, come back here and tell us how you did it, in the comments!)

ANYWAY, in my experience, making money as a new character depends, in part, on what level your toon is. For the sake of argument, let’s say the person is brand new, no other toons, no 80s, no ability to make a deathknight… nothing. Just you and your level 1 toon. Here is what I’d recommend.

First of all, let’s establish a goal- flying and dual spec by level 70; coldweather and *cough* maybe even epic flying by 80. Here’s how I’d do it.

First, I’d start w/the advice that Hugmenot originally mentions: two gathering professions. One should absolutely, positively, without question, be Mining. I never ceases to make money, at any level. At last check, Copper Ore on my server was selling at 4-5g/stack (it was a Thursday, fyi). You can get 3 stacks of copper walking around outside of Stormwind for 5 mins at level 15 or so. That’s 10-20g (depending on market fluctuation) at a very low level. That’s crazy money.

Going further up the chain, mining keeps paying. Mithril ore is at a (relatively) low 35g/stack currently. Thorium Ore continues to be the winner on my server- the market standard is currently 80g/stack on my server (I think because someone is messing with it), but is normally closer to 60g/stack.

Anyway, my big point is that mining pays at every level. As for a second profession, Skinning is often recommended, and it’s solid. There’s lots of stuff to skin as you level. However, leather isn’t in demand the way that mining and Herbalism mats are, and so I would recommend Enchanting. As you level, you’ll get plenty of items that you won’t need that are BOP. This is a great way to not have to vendor them. Also, Enchanting mats are valuable at any level- any greens you pick up will sell better as enchanting mats than as the item itself (people will buy the greens to DE, so you might as well do it yourself). And, most importantly, Enchanting is great at endgame, so if you can make money while leveling it AND have it rock at endgame, that’s a win-win.

Finally, there is only one other profession that I’ve found to be close: Fishing. As Hug mentions, fishing is potential cash cow. Fishing in the home cities (Stormwind, Ogrimmar, etc.) and the starting zones (Goldshire, Barrens, etc.) isn’t rewarding. However, outside of that, it’s very lucrative. I recently decided I liked the tranquility of Azshara and so I went to fish up that effing RNG fish there. After about an hour I had 5 stacks of assorted Winter Squid, Stonescale Eel, and Large Raw Mightfish. They all sold for about 60/g stack, and so that hour made me 300g. That was easier than doing dailies, and certainly more money than any zone-appropriate (level 55-ish+) can make questing in a similar amount of time.

As for the other things that Hug mentions- cloth and meat farming- they’re both viable. I don’t know much about farming meat, so I’m not going to say anything about it. In my experience, cloth farming is preferable to farming meat. I say this because often cloth farming will also generally happen while you’re questing. By this I mean that you will often be killing humanoids (that will drop cloth) while you’re questing. In my experience, the sweet spot is the Scarlet Monastery. However, picking up Linen Cloth in the Stocks/RFC or farming Mageweave from the Dunemaul Ogres in Tanaris can also be very lucrative.

Okay, that’s about all I’ve got. Hopefully this post helps. 3.3 is here all, so make that money! I’ll keep answering questions, and taking new questions in comments to this post.

GL! /bow