One of the many ways to maximize your profits at the AH is carefully regulating your stack sizes.  Although it can be tempting to put everything up in maximum lots to save a little time, or to split everything into singles, you could be robbing yourself of some serious cash in the long run.  So I’m going to give you some pointers to use that will really help you know exactly what to do that should cover you in almost any situation, and really boost your gold-making.

There are three classes of things we’re dealing with here.  First are those items that simply stack into lots of 5, 10 or 20.  Next come items that convert, such as motes (from stacks of 10) and essences (from stacks of 3).  And finally are those oddball items that stack up to 250.

For the most part you will hardly ever want to post in maximum stack sizes for several reasons.  The biggest one is that there are still a lot of people who do not use Auctioneer.  I know it’s hard to believe, but because of this, there are a ton of folks playing this game that only see the final price and not the price per unit.  Smaller stacks are going to look cheaper than larger ones to them.  It’s just human nature to want to spend less (even if you are really spending more in the long run).

You can see per item prices in the WoW tooltip, (see posts by Ren and Trevor) but that doesn’t mean everybody will.

Don’t believe me?  Go to the grocery store and see how many things are being sold in smaller and smaller units in real life.  If multi-billion dollar companies use this little trick, then it’s safe to say it’s a good bet in WoW.  You can buy the ginormous bag of chips for 5 bucks, but people still buy gobs of the snack packs for $3.50 - even though the total weight of the the chips in the snack pack bags is less than 25% as much as is in the big bag.

Use this on things like cloth, especially wool.  If you split into stacks of 5, you can actually raise your price a touch over everyone else and still sell a ton of whatever it is you are selling.  People will see the 20 stacks of wool selling for 5g 50s (a price of 27s 50c each) and will often opt for your five stack at 1g 50s (a price of 30s each).  This works best when there are is a lot of price variation among the competition.  Without Auctioneer, it makes it very hard to tell what is really cheaper if the prices are all over the map.

Another area that this really comes in handy is on ore.  You also need to learn this now before WotLK when herbs go through the roof.  By this time you know that if you pay close attention to the AADV stats on metals, you can often make more money selling ore for prospecting than you can smelting the stuff and selling it that way.

Prospecting uses a LOT of ore.  Although most high end Jewelcrafters are not burning through the ore like they were at the beginning of the year, it is still a lucrative part of my weekly AH routine.  It’s not going to be any different with WotLK.

You see, Inscription has a skill called milling that is exactly like prospecting.  So far, it doesn’t seem that Inscription is going to use a lot of herbs directly, but it will be using even MORE herbs in the long run because of the milling process.  Milling uses five of any herb and turns it into a Pomace for the various Inscription recipes.  There are different Pomaces made from different level herbs, so herbs of all types will be in high demand, regardless of how rare they are, unlike alchemy which requires specific herbs.

We’ll do an article on Inscription when we know more.  Lawbringer is working on an Inscription guide, but since there are only about 10 recipes functioning now in the Beta, he hasn’t been able to test past about level 125.  But it is obvious from our initial look at Inscription that herbs are going to be a huge market.

We already told you to buy up all the herbs you can find of all levels.  Initial testing in inscription took us about 10 stacks of level 5 and 10 herbs just to get through the first few recipes.  So those stacks of peacebloom that go for next to nothing now will be worth well over 1g or more when WotLK goes live.  Expect even more profit increases from the higher level stuff.

Here’s how to capitalize on this with stack sizes. Since Milling requires 5 herbs, don’t post your lots in stacks of five, force them to buy more.  Since it’s going to take a LOT of herbs for the milling process, they need stacks of 20 and probably multiple stacks, but don’t give it to them that way.  Then as the power levelers pass you by, there will be stragglers that do only need five just to round out a skill point or two, and you can take advantage of both types of folks by splitting into stacks of 3 or 4.

Stacks of 4 requires them to buy at least 5 stacks from you.  Since milling takes 5, and only 5 will do, a stack of four is not enough.  8 is not enough, neither is 12, and 16 is still a mess.  The only way they can get a multiple of 5 for 4 milling runs is to buy 5 stacks of 4 for 20 herbs.  The other size, a 3 stack, also requires 5 purchases to get to a multiple of 5 at 15, but may be too frustrating for the dude who needs 200 herbs and doesn’t want to hit buyout 67 times.

This example of how to take advantage of stack sizes in this one area should open you mind to a lot of other areas at the AH you can do the exact same thing to really maximize you profits.  Just by splitting to smaller stacks, and raising your unit price a bit, you can still APPEAR to have lower prices, and yet price your stuff over everyone else.

Remember, people have the attention span of gnats.  They want to get in, get what they need and get out fast.  Post your stack items consistently in reasonable stacks and you can take advantage of their rush to get what they need and get on with whatever else it is they would rather be doing.

Next, there are those monster stack items.  I have found that weird stack sizes do best with these.  If you have 100 green power crystals, post a stack of 29, one of 41, and the last one at 24.  Just vary it up a lot, and make the unit price for each stack a little different.  If they need a whole bunch of them, they will be forced to buy your higher priced stack to go with the other two.

Finally, comes the ones I always harp on here at DYS - the enchanting mats.  These have the greatest stack separation potential for making even more gold above what you already do with DE.  Please tell me you buy things with the help of AADV for DE!  Don’t make me lecture you again on this.  OK, off my soapbox now - on with the show.

For enchanting mats as well as the mote conversions there are no real hard and fast rules, but I’ll give you the general things to look for.  With essences, the conversion rate is 3 to 1.  One greater splits to 3 lesser, 3 lesser to 1 greater.  MOST, but not all, of the time, you should be selling lessers.  This is one place you’ll have to check the conversion suggestion in the AADV tooltip to make sure.

When selling Greaters, split to a stack of 2.  Lessers go in a stack of 4.  We sell 2 greaters because not many recipes require an even number of greaters to create, and we don’t want to sell just one.  If they only need one, they have to buy two to get it from me.  As for the lessers, if they need greaters, they have to buy three sets of four to convert them all cleanly, and again, I always want them to buy more than they need.  If they only needed one greater and bought my 4 lessers to make it, they ended up having to buy one more lesser than they needed.

This also applies to motes.  I normally sell motes and hardly ever convert to primals.  This is because if I am selling primals I use a 2 stack (make them buy more than one), but since many primals are pretty steeply priced, it’s tough to buff your unit price on those since it’s going to look a lot more expensive than a single.  Remember, we want them to THINK they are getting a better price, and never KNOW they just got hammered.  For motes, use a stack of 6.  Again, a 6 stack requires 5 to convert cleanly to primals (5 stacks of 6 is 30 for 3 primals).

Finally, also apply the stack of 2 to any large shards.  There’s just no helping this one.  remember, make them buy more from you.  A few things we didn’t mention so far are dusts, which I will normally put in a stack of 5.  That sounds odd, since I’ve been preaching other oddball stack sizes and 5 seems like a nice round number.  This is because I did a survey of the different enchants, and very few enchants use a multiple of five, so the 5 stack maximizes over-purchases the vast majority of the time.

You can see, there are a LOT of little things you can do to boost your sales and gold potential at the AH, and we’re putting every single one of them in our gold guide.  But you’re going to have to wait for that one.  Until then, split your stacks right and Dominate the auction house on your server!

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39 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

So everyone knows its Midsummer’s Fire Festival. Everyone’s farming the new boss in Slave Pens, trying to get that new epic scythe. Everyone’s doing the dailies, to get the petals for that Brazier of Dancing Flames. Afterwards, most people make the mistake of going back to doing their regular dailies.

Outside most settlements in Azeroth and Outland have been placed festival bonfires. They look a lot like the ones in the major cities that I’m sure you’ve seen. Alliance and Horde both have their own fires burning. At both factions bonfires you will find a quest.

At every friendly fire you will find an NPC with a quest called “Honor the Flame.” At any level, this will grant you 5 Burning Blossom. Even better, if you’re level 70, you will also receive 5g95s.

At every hostile fire you will find that the fire itself gives a quest called “Desecrate this Fire!” At any level this will give you 10 Burning Blossom. At level 70 you will also receive 11g99s. That’s the same as a daily!

For both these quests all you have to do is talk to the NPC or fire and you complete the quest automatically. A very easy way to make gold.

Now, last but not least, the four hostile cities. Within these are the big fires. These will be harder to put out, due to having to sneak past the guards as well as avoid combat with the opposing faction. However they are well worth it. For each one you will get a selection of some basic holiday items, 25 Burning Blossom and 9g10s. On top of all that if you turn in all of the opposing city flames, you will receive 5g70s and the item Crown of the Festive Fire.

Now you may think that’s all well and good, but you might think that if the gold is similar to what you get from dallies, surely it’s quicker just to complete all the quests in Quel’Danas for the same amount of gold - wrong.

I have done this with two of my level 70s so far and I’ve found the same thing. It should take you roughly 3 hours to reach every fire. I visited every bonfire in the game, and I was very surprised to find out that by doing so on one character I made more than 550+ gold.

As a Horde player at level 70, if you visit every bonfire you will gain a total of 178 gold 50 silver for the Horde bonfires and 383 gold 68 silver for the Alliance bonfires (562 gold 18 silver total).

As an Alliance player at level 70, if you visit every bonfire you will gain a total of 190 gold 40 silver for the Alliance bonfires and 359 gold 70 silver for the Horde bonfires (550 gold 10 silver total).

Eastern Kingdoms

• Arathi Highlands: Refuge Pointe [50,44] (A) / Hammerfall [74,41] (H)
• Badlands: Kargath [4,49] (H)
• Blasted Lands: Nethergarde Keep [58,17] (A)
• Burning Steppes: Morgan’s Vigil [80,62] (A) / Flame Crest [62,29] (H)
• Dun Morogh: Kharanos [46,46] (A)
• Duskwood: Darkshire [74,51] (A)
• Elwynn Forest: Goldshire [43,65] (A)
• Eversong Woods: North Sanctum [46,50] (H)
• Ghostlands: Tranquillien [46,26] (H)
• Hillsbrad Foothills: Southshore [50,46] (A) / Tarren Mill [58,25] (H)
• Loch Modan: Thelsamar [32,40] (A)
• Redridge Mountains: Lakeshire [24,59] (A)
• Silverpine Forest: The Sepulcher [49,38] (H)
• Stranglethorn Vale: Booty Bay [34,73] (A) / Booty Bay [33,75] (H)
• Swamp of Sorrows: Stonard [47,47] (H)
• The Hinterlands: Aerie Peak [14,50] (A) / Revantusk Village [76,74] (H)
• Tirisfal Glades: Brill [57,52] (H)
• Western Plaguelands: Chillwind Camp [43,82] (A)
• Westfall: Sentinel Hill [56,64] (A)
• Wetlands: Menethil Harbor [13,47] (A)

Kalimdor

• Ashenvale: Astranaar [37,54] (A) / Splintertree Post [70,69] (H)
• Azuremyst Isle: Azure Watch [44,53] (A)
• Bloodmyst Isle: Blood Watch [55,69] (A)
• Darkshore: Auberdine [37,46] (A)
• Desolace: Nijel’s Point [65,17] (A) / Shadowprey Village [26,76] (H)
• Durotar: Razor Hill [52,47] (H)
• Dustwallow Marsh: Theramore Isle [62,40] (A) / Brackenwall Village [33,30] (H)
• Feralas: Feathermoon Stronghold [28,43] (A) / Camp Mojache [72,47] (H)
• Mulgore: Bloodhoof Village [51,60] (H)
• Silithus: Cenarion Hold [57,34] (A) / Cenarion Hold [46,44] (H)
• Stonetalon Mountains: Sun Rock Retreat [50,60] (H)
• Tanaris: Gadgetzan [52,29] (A) / Gadgetzan [49,27] (H)
• Teldrassil: Dolanaar [55,60] (A)
• The Barrens: Crossroads [52,28] (H)
• Thousand Needles: Freewind Post [42,53] (H)
• Winterspring: Everlook [62,35] (A) / Everlook [59,35] (H)

Outland

• Blade’s Edge Mountains: Sylvanaar [42,66] (A) / Thunderlord Stronghold [50,59] (H)
• Hellfire Peninsula: Honor Hold [62,58] (A) / Thrallmar [55,40] (H)
• Nagrand: Telaar [50,70] (A) / Garadar [51,34] (H)
• Netherstorm: Area 52 [31,63] (A) / Area 52 [32,68] (H)
• Shadowmoon Valley: Wildhammer Stronghold [40,55] (A) / Shadowmoon Village [33,30] (H)
• Terokkar Forest: Allerian Stronghold [55,55] (A) / Stonebreaker Hold [52,43] (H)
• Zangarmarsh: Telredor [69,52] (A) / Zabra’Jin [36,52] (H)

Major Towns

Alliance:

• Darnassus (57, 93)
• Ironforge (64, 25)
• Stormwind (41, 61)
• The Exodar (41, 26)

Horde:

• Orgrimmar (47, 38)
• Silvermoon City (70, 43)
• Thunder Bluff (21, 26)
• Undercity (68, 9 [upstairs])

So get out there and start hunting down all the flames, honoring your own flames will grant you rewards, but remember that desecrating your enemies bonfires will not only get you more gold and blossoms, but will also grant your faction the zone buff, and remove it from your enemies - just be prepared to fight your way in, and out again.

Contributing Authors: Slavrix and David Norton

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13 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

One of the best ways to maintain you dominant advantage on your server is to be one step ahead of everyone else. The very best opportunities are often found in the patch notes for the PTR (Public Test Realm). If you don’t make it a habit of watching for updates and patch notes, you should.

The patch notes are great because they let you in on what’s coming well before it happens. I made a fortune in gold when I read that Shaman were going to get dual-wielding in a previous patch. All I did was go buy up all the axes on the ah for a couple of weeks and then put them all back up for sale the day the patch went live!

To see the latest patch notes, bookmark this link: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The next patch is 2.4.3 and while there isn’t anything of interest from the gold-making perspective, it does contain some really big news that will get everyone in a tizzy. We wanted you to hear it from us first.

Mounts will now be available at level 30! That’s right, and not only that, but the cost for the apprentice riding training has been reduced to 35 gold. This is really going to speed things up when working on a new alt since your travel times from quest to quest will be drastically reduced for those classes without travel speed forms or talents.

Some other interesting tidbits in the next patch:

Tailoring - The cooldown for regular mooncloth will be removed completely
Rogue - Cheat death seems to be nerfed to a large degree
Shaman - Lightening Overload will also be nerfed, although it’s almost impossible to tell how much
Warlock - Curse of Shadows is gone completely, while Curse of Elements takes on shadow buff properties
Quests - Several quests have been fixed. One, the Blueleaf Tubers quest in RFK, has been broken for as long as I can remember - I’ve actually skipped it for years now.

Head over to the link above and check out the hundreds of minor details. It’s definitely worth the time to read the patch notes, there’s always a few exciting fixes, otherwise they wouldn’t go to the trouble to change them! OH, and get ready to enjoy your mount at level 30! Mounts at level 30 is a dominating occurrence in my book.

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33 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

It has recently been announced by Blizzard that season 4 of arenas will begin on the 24^th and 25^th of this month on the US and European servers respectively and this presents a unique opportunity to all players to make a good sum of gold.

When season 4 goes live not only does the brutal gladiators’ set become available for the top arena players; but also season 2 equipment becomes purchasable for honor. Currently each servers’ PvP players are working diligently at stashing away masses of arena points and honor for season 4.

What this inevitably leads to is an astronomical one-off influx of new equipment into each and every server much larger than normal kit replacement. All this new kit will be needing gems and enchants, those prepared to provide the materials needed for these gear buffs stand to make a good deal of gold indeed as demand will far outstrip supply leading to inflated prices.

In an effort to aid you in exploiting this massive demand for enchants, let us explore exactly what will be in demand on a profession by profession basis.

Tailoring

Spellthread of all types will be in demand for leg enchants by all casters, and in order to create those threads large amounts of primals are needed.

The common ingredient to all spellthread is a primal nether, unfortunately these cannot really be farmed and are not worth spending badges on to resell the primal; if you have any spare nethers stashed away however, then this is the best opportunity to sell them you will likely ever have.

The next ingredient needed is either primal life or primal mana in very large quantities, both will see massive price escalation and so are ideally suited to being farmed for profit.

Leatherworking

Leatherworking creates leg enchants used by melee classes. These also use a large quantity of primals which can be farmed by anyone.

Once again primal nethers are required, creating an even larger demand for them. However this time it is primal earth and air that is required; unfortunately primal earth is almost always in surplus due to a high amount of miners in game so these are generally not worth farming. This is not the case with primal air - it always sells well.

Secondly, if you are a skinner, all leg armors require a large amount of knothide leather so it may be worth farming some to sell.

Jewelcrafting

Gems of all colours will be in high demand, however PvP kit comes with a mix of yellow and red sockets leading to a much higher demand for yellow and red gems over blue.

Since you have little control as to what gems specifically you get, just hold back any gems you have for sale once season 4 is released and you should see a price rise for all types.

Alchemy

Alchemists create the base meta gems before a jewelcrafter can cut them, and creating meta gems requires primals. Earth, water, fire and air will all be in demand.

Note that primal air is also required by tailors so having two professions requiring primal air only serves to further increase the demand for primals and motes of air - and as such raise its price even further.

Enchanting

All base enchanting materials will see a price hike as the demand for them will be overwhelming; when out farming other materials keep any greens you find for disenchanting either by yourself, if possible, or a friend.

Besides the basic materials though, enchanting requires an astronomical number of primals. Primal fire, water, life and mana are in demand for caster based enchants while a small amount of primal air is in demand for agility enchants.

Misc

On top of all these profesion based requirements, new shoulder enchants will be in demand which will lead to a rise in the price of arcane tomes and fel armaments; arcane tomes are more common due to the sunwell runs now available so if you plan to farm either then I suggest you farm fel armaments.

Once you have farmed a good amount it will be time to dominate the auction house on the 24^th/25^th for some good old fashioned profiteering.

Addition by Lawbringer:

After doing a test on this theory (and being flamed for it in the comments by Richard) I decided to post the results of my own experience with this information directly in the post for all to see.  The following screen shot show the bags of my banking toon on Fenris, Horde side, toon name “Moneybaggins.”  I sent every penny I had past 5,000 gold to my mule toon on Fenris to hold for the duration of this experiment.

With my 5,000 gold I spent the 22nd, and 23rd purchasing every available items for DE that would yield high level mats as well as purchasing every available Void Crystal, Large Prismatic Shard and Arcane Dust.  Fenris Horde has a fairly small AH, just over 160 pages on average (information from AADV).

On the morning of the 24th I re-posted every single enchanting mat I had gleaned from my purchases and DE efforts for approximately 150% more than market value based on data from AADV and Bottom Scanner.  Needless to say, since I had the only available mats in any sort of volume I was the only choice.  I would also spend some of my earning each day buying out people who tried to undercut my price by a significant percentage as well as any auctions of large stacks to make sure I kept nearly complete control of the market.

What was really amazing is that I was able to corner the market on a server as mature as Fenris with as little as 5,000 gold.

The following screen shot shows the results of this exercise as of the morning of July 5th, 2008.  You can see that I was able to far more than double my 5,000 gold and I still have a mailbox full of mats I sold at the ah I haven’t even opened yet.  If you doubt the existence of any of this, you are welcome to meet me on Fenris and I will be happy to show you first hand.

I certainly hope that many of you were able to profit as handsomely as I did from this tip and I look forward to more of these tips from Lithanial as well as the pointers Gavin and I try to give you when the fruit is ripe for the picking on the AH - we don’t just make this stuff up folks, we know how to make things work!

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12 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

(Now for our third place winner - Nameless Demon Hunter. He’s a rogue expert and did a really nice piece of machinima about the grind for the winterspring frostsaber mount. You will be able to read his work a couple of times each week from now on!)

Everyone is out there trying to find the best and most effective way to earn gold. There are epic mounts to be bought, materials for those l33t weapons to make, and even more just to spend it on leisure stuff from the AH (we have to tweak out those alts after all).

Well, I’m here to give you the straight forward answer on how to earn your cash the fastest way once you hit level 70: take your character to 70 and do two things;

1. Dailies
2. Quests that have not been completed

As for the Don’t dos:

1. DO NOT go around in SW begging all the other 70s for loose change!

This sounds so basic and ingenious, could it actually work? Not only does it work, it’s one of the fastest and most consistent ways. There are other gold making tips for working your way up to 70, because you will need it for earning your epic land mount. There are also people like Lawbringer who do nothing but work the ah. But this guide is for making serious gold doing dailies and quests so you can proceed toward buying your epic flyer as well as making life easy for your alts.

Since patch 2.4, blizzard upped the daily quest limit to 25. They did this because of all the new Sunwell Isle quests that came into play. Players can now earn an easy 100g in less then an hour.

So where to start? If you are a fresh level 70 with only a land mount, start doing the dailies at the isle. The purpose of doing this is not only for the gold, but for the reputation. The SSO faction has some powerful rewards to offer, especially if you are a gem cutter. Aside from the awesome recipes, there are rare and epic items for everyone to use.

Spend an hour and do all the SSO (Shattered Sun Offense) dailies. For the most part, every server should have at least the armory opened by now; which means more quests to do and more gold and reputation to be earned. If you have a friend to help don’t hesitate, the repetitiveness can become quite boring and you will be doing this for the next 1-2 months. But of course, what is Warcraft with out some kind of a grind?

Now you have done all the SSO quests, what do you do next? If you have a regular flying mount, do the Outland daily quests. There are some in Shattrath city and then 2 in hellfire peninsula that you especially want to focus on.

The importance of these quests is that they offer a SSO package and you do not want to pass this up. The reason being, there is a chance that a badge of justice will drop. It is the only way to earn badges in the game besides running heroic and raids.

There are other sets of dailies you should concern yourself with. They are the Skettis, Netherwing, and Ogri’la dailies. You will need a flying mount to access all 3 sets, so do not bother with these until you have one.

The Skettis dailies will provide you with reputation for the Sha’tari Skygaurd, to buy the nether ray mount. The Netherwing quests are for the same cause, an epic Netherwing mount.

The Ogri’la dailies have a lot more to offer. You can hit 3 birds with one stone doing these quests. First, the faction rewards from Ogri’la are somewhat decent depending on your class/spec. Second, it is a very good way to earn quick gold. And third, you are grinding two factions at the price of one. That’s right; you are getting both Ogri’la and Sha’tari Skygaurd reputation.

The last way, notably the most important, is to do regular quests at 70. Once you max your level, quests will yield gold instead of experience. The amount of gold will range from12-26, an average of 16g per quest. Not to mention the item rewards you will vendor off.

The importance of doing regular quests, I can not stress enough, is the reputation you will be earning along side with all that gold. Doing all the basic quests in outland will get you between honored and revered with almost all factions. This is so important when you start reaching end game material, you will want to be exalted with all factions.

Just a re-cap:

• When you hit 70, do the daily quests along with reputation grinds. This is a constant 100-200g per day in a short period of time.
• Do regular quests, you can literally earn 1k gold in 3 hours from grinding regular quests and quest chains. This will also help you gain reputation with the major factions necessary for end game.
• Always sell good material that is dropped on the AH. Look up your item and do some research for the best profit (an obvious tip).

I followed these 3 simple steps and went from having 200g to 7,000g in less then two months. I purchased artisan riding along with a Cenarion War Hippogryph mount (costs 1600g and you never see anyone riding it). Now I have money to spare for all my alts and buy whatever I need.

The best part of it for me, I never had to farm mats/items and I spent barely any time at the AH. It is hard earned gold, but in a very quick and non irritating matter for me, especially since you are gaining other rewards in the process.

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6 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

(This is the first post by our contest winner Marco, to be known henceforth as Raknathal! I think you’ll see why Raknathal was our winner. Enjoy, you can look forward to posts by Raknathal about four times each week. Happy Reading!)

Before patch 2.4.0, the arcane tome was the jewel of the Scryers. Now, it’s only a dusty old book sitting on the shelves of the Auction House. Patch 2.4.0, unleashed the Isle of Quel’Danas along with Kael’thas’ private army, the Dawnblade, creating a massive surplus of Arcane Tomes to be had. Also, to fight Kael’thas, Shattrath City has dispatched the Shattered Sun Offensive, which rewards players who are also exalted with the Aldor or the Scryers. An unforeseen opportunity arises out of these events.

What exactly happened to the Arcane Tomes and Fel Armaments? The new private army of Kael’thas, the Dawnblade, drops Arcane tomes like any other Blood Elf mob in the world, but also at greater rates. Due to the increased chance of getting an Arcane Tome and the increased activity in the Isle of Quel’Danas (Daily Quests Galore), a massive surplus of Arcane tomes has been pouring in. Due to decreased activity in other areas, Fel Armaments have become scarce, but the demand has stayed the same. Prices for Fel armaments have shot upwards, and Arcane Tomes have plummeted as a result.

After conducting some research on four realms, Medivh (Normal), Warsong (PVP), Thorium Brotherhood (RP), and Emerald Dream (RPPVP) I found conclusive information on the prices of Arcane Tomes and Fel Armaments. First, a fact from all the servers, Arcane Tomes had numerous pages of the item on sale. Fel Armaments had two or less.

On the Normal server that I researched, the average price for Alliance and Horde for an Arcane Tome was 15 gold 33 silver whereas for Fel Armaments, the average price was 24 gold 85 silver. The difference is 9 gold 52 silver.

On the PVP server, the average price for an Arcane Tome was 11 gold 37 silver and 17 gold 14 silver for a Fel Armament. That is a 5 gold 77 silver difference.

As for the RP server - I don’t know if it’s just this realm, but the numbers are extreme. The average price for an Arcane Tome was 14 gold 85 silver and for Fel Armaments it was 41 gold 27 silver! That’s a 26 gold 42 silver difference!

On the RPPVP realm, the average price for an Arcane Tome was 16 gold 16 silver and 23 gold 37 silver for Fel Armaments. The overall average price for Alliance is 11 gold 31 silver for Arcane Tomes and 23 gold 59 silver for Fel Armaments. And For the Horde (no pun intended) 17 gold 55 silver for Arcane Tomes, and 29 gold 78 silver for Fel Armaments.

So, what’s the point? Farm Fel Armaments; you can undercut the price and still make a lot of gold off the ridiculous prices. Fel Armaments is where the money is at, also it’s just good to have them because now if you want them, you can’t go to the Auction House and get a good deal like you normally would.

Where? As they say in the famous Youtube movie, Ni Hao, “Go farm some in Shadowmoon Valley.”

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6 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

There are a lot of ways to turn an easy profit and make decent gold in WoW. We live in an information age, and that also applies to WoW. What you know can be very valuable. We apply this to limited supply recipes all the time.

Limited supply recipes are those recipes you can only get from certain vendors and they usually only carry one at a time. Once you buy the recipe, you have to wait for the thing to respawn in their inventory before you can buy another one. The spawn timers for limited supply items ranges from 5 minutes to more than 24 hours. One of our favorite limited supply recipes is one for engineers – the Mithril Mechanical Dragonling.

The MMD recipe can be purchased from Ruppo Zipcoil in the Hinterlands. That means you need to be about level 50 before you can survive the run to his shop. He’s a little tricky to find, but we’re going to show you exactly where he is. The MMD recipe also has a short timer. Most of the time this recipe will respawn within 15-25 minutes. So when you are running around doing the hinterlands grind, it’s a pretty easy thing to grab 5-10 of these. For alliance, he’s an easier run from the FP, so you might want to drop by the Hinterlands from time to time if you happen to be flying nearby to plaguelands and chillwind point.

The recipe sells for a mere 40 silver and can fetch as much as 4-10 gold on most servers. Talk about markup! Check out the map below to see how to find this dude and turn some silver into gold double quick.

The yellow circle indicates the location of the little hut where Ruppo hangs out. For alliance, follow the blue path from Aerie Peak, Horde toons run the Red path from Revantusk Village. What you are looking for is a big rock just northeast of Quel’Danil Lodge.

Facing north from the rock take a slight turn to the right and follow a narrow path up the hill.  When you get to a dead-end, just hook a sharp left, and you’ll be right on top of the hut.  When you see the gears sticking up out of the ground, you’re there.

Once inside talk to Ruppo and open a buy screen from him and turn to page 2 - you can see the plans in the top left.

That’s all there is to it. Go mess around farming some Mithril or questing for a bit and come grab another one. You should be able to pick up enough of these schematics to make a good 8-40 gold in a little over and hour and a half. Not bad for spending a few silver. This recipe tends to sell pretty quickly as well since it is not only limited supply but in a really out of the way place that only level 50+ toons can reach. That makes it pretty rare - only those in the know - like you - sell this one.

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4 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Hello to all you Gavin groupies out there! This is Lawbringer, a staffer here at Dominate Your Server. I help Gavin with research and development here at the site and we’ve got a killer opportunity for all you serious WoW players.

You might be wondering why Gavin isn’t telling you this news if it’s so great. Well, while working on his new leveling guide (maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that, forget I ever said anything about it), his hands and arms were mangled beyond recognition in a horrible stampede during the completion of the quest “Kodo Roundup” in Desolace.

I mean, he really took one for the team this time. The guy is a complete Warcraft freak. To make matters worse, it took me a while to figure out what he wanted me to write today, since he has also lost his voice (no joke). I think he was typing with his nose during our IM session (which would explain the horrid spelling). When G isn’t writing about WoW, he’s talking about it. All the time – the hard part is getting him to shut up. Laryngitis has now set in and he’s completely out of service.

Needless to say, it will be a while before the first aid trainers can get him back typing all those killer tips and tricks you all like so much. That’s where you come in.

Think you know as much about WoW as Gavin? Now’s your chance to prove it. Many of you post regularly here at the site, and now you have a shot at being a regular staff writer for Dominate Your Server!

I couldn’t be any happier about working for Gavin here at Dominate Your Server. I mean, how cool is it to get paid to play WoW? Out of the millions of people who play this game, it’s so awesome to be one of the very few who get paid to do what I would be doing for free.

So here’s what Gavin is going to do. We’re holding a contest starting, well, right now. The contest will run for two weeks only. During these next two weeks, you can submit up to five articles about World of Warcraft. Gavin and the DYS (Dominate Your Server) staff, including myself, will judge those entries based on the following criteria:

25% Style - the more fun it is to read, the more we will like it. Originality and humor captivates readers.
25% Content - Accurate information is the only thing that will make the cut.
25% Expertise - If you can show that you have special and in-depth knowledge about a specific area of the game, such as your class, build, PVP, professions, or Raiding please feel free to impress us.
25% Grammar and Syntax - Our writers are painstakingly selected and masters of their craft. We don’t want to have to hire an editor to clean up messy structure.

Besides bragging rights in the game, and some notoriety here in the real world, there are also killer prizes to be had. The winner gets $500 bucks and a staff writing job here at DYS. Second place $250 dollars, and third prize is $100. Nice! Third prize pays your WoW account fees for 6 months!

Articles should be between 500-1000 words. Screenshots need to be no wider than 475 pixels and should be no larger than 30k, preferably PNG format. Submit your articles in a zipped file to contest@dominateyourserver.com – If you include screenshots; no more than 5 per article, and put each article and its screenshots in a separate subfolder in the zip file so we can tell what shots go with which article. Also, leave us clear notes in the article telling us where the screenshots should be placed.

Articles must be submitted before midnight on May 28th, and we’ll announce the winners on Saturday, May31st. What a great way to start June – 5 crisp, new $100 dollar bills in your pocket and a sweet new job to boot!

We all sure hope big G gets the use of his larynx and phalanges back very soon, but his misfortune is your gain! So start writing, and always remember to Dominate!

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92 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

One of the biggest secret money-makers in WoW is wool. It’s weird that everyone seems to know that wool always costs about as much or more than silk, everyone needs it to level up first aid, but no one seems to know why. Well you’re about to find out, and how to cash in as a low level toon or even farm a bit from time to time on your main.

Wool is expensive because it’s one of the harder cloths to get in the whole game. It’s actually surprising it doesn’t sell for more than Runecloth, since it actually drops a lot less often. To explain why, let’s look at the levels cloth drops from mobs.

Analyzing the chart shows us why wool is so hard to get. Although all cloths drop for about 20 levels, take a look at the 30% drop rates. When we look at the levels of mobs that drop the individual cloth at a 30% chance, we can see that you only have at least a 30% chance to get wool for a mere 5 levels. Another interesting fact is that for the two highest level cloths Runecloth and Netherweave, about 90% of the mobs that drop these cloths do so at a 30% or higher rate. This means it’s much easier to collect Runecloth than it is to get wool.

Wool is even more difficult to farm for Horde characters than Alliance since the best drop rates are in the Deadmines and the Stockades. Since you would have a really hard time getting into the stockades instance in the middle of Stormwind, which leaves Horde toons with only one really good farming run and that in contested territory.

You may get your hands on a ton of silk, and it sells well, but it is just as profitable to run for wool. The best spot is definitely the Deadmines. But you can also grind through the Foulweald Furbolgs in Ashenvale forest. The Furbolgs are easy to get to for both Horde and Alliance and drop enough wool to get about 5 stacks an hour if you can kill them fast enough.

Also watch the wool prices on the AH. If someone is selling too low, be sure to scoop it up and repost it for sale at high market value.

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16 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Amazon.com has made a fortune reselling books. You can have your own little version of this in WoW and make some serious money on a regular basis. There are several types of books every player needs, and they are all in odd places to purchase.

For twinked toons, it can be particularly frustrating to be leveling up and need to train the next level and it’s just too difficult and time consuming to run all the way across the world to buy one. Enter you and your careful planning. You keep a mental list of where these books are sold and grab a few whenever you’re in the right area. Post them on the AH for a tidy profit, and you’ve got yourself a nice little business for virtually no effort whatsoever.

First Aid - everyone trains first aid, and first aid books will always sell on the AH. Here’s where you get them:

Heavy Silk Bandage, Mageweave Bandage, Expert First Aid
Alliance - Deneb Walker in Stromgard Keep, Arathi Highlands
Horde - Balai Lok’Wein in Brackenwall Village, Dustwallow Marsh

Netherweave Bandage, Heavy Netherweave Bandage, Master First Aid
Alliance - Burko in Temple of Telhamat, Hellfire Peninsula
Horde - Arasella in Falcon Watch, Hellfire Peninsula

Fishing - The fishing books are pretty easy to get, although you won’t sell as many. Most people don’t take the time to level fishing all the way, but it’s hard to find the vendors for these books if you don’t know where to look. For both Alliance and Horde you buy the books from:

Expert Fishing - Old Man Hemming on the lowest level in Booty Bay, Stranglethorn Vale
Master Fishing - Juno Dufrain just SW of Cenarion Refuge, Zangaramarsh.

Cooking - Cooking is another skill a lot of people ignore, but the first book can be a real pain to get. These will sell a little better than the fishing books, but not quite as fast as the First Aid books. However, since they are more rare on the AH, you can normally make more money off each one by marking them up more than you might be able to with first aid.

Expert Cookbook
Alliance - Shandrina in Silverwind Refuge, Ashenvale
Horde - Wulan in Shadowprey Village, Desolace

Master Cookbook
Alliance - Gaston in Honor Hold, Hellfire Peninsula
Horde - Baxter in Thrallmar, Hellfire Peninsula
Kalaen in Thrallmar, Hellfire Peninsula
BOTH - Naka in Cenarion Refuge, Zangaramarsh
Lethyn Moonfire in Cenarion Refuge, Zangaramarsh

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3 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post