Back To Banking Basics

We’ve posted a lot of information about this topic before in various posts, but we received and email a few days back from a reader trying to put it all together. So let’s take a look at some of the intricacies of using DK toons as bankers and which professions you might want to consider giving them – here is the question:

I have a L80 with Jewelcrafting and Enchanting, and am raising a DK for
profession sake only.

I had considered Alchemy (for transmutes) and Inscription, knowing that I
will have to work hard to make money with Inscription vs established scribes
already working the AH on my server.

While reading blogs and listening to podcasts, it sounds like Inscription
requires much more knowledge of add-ons and market conditions, and this
would be the biggest profitability challenge of any profession. I like
challenges, and would enjoy learning a new market, but thought I would get
your advice before jumping into it. Should I be considering a different
profession than Inscription, this late in the game?

Tyberiuss

Two good moves here by Tyberiuss: first, a DK profession alt is a great idea, and second, Alchemy is certainly at the top of the list. Let’s walk through the other choices you can make here, Tyberiuss, and give you a good synopsis of everything we’ve talked about on the site in one clean spot.

First, I would park your DK in your favorite major city and leave him there to do your auctions as well. When you use a bank alt for professions he really should do all your banking, as the name would suggest. In order to make full use of Alchemy, which would have been our choice as well (my DK banker does the same on several servers) the only thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need to train him up to level 68 to get the full benefit.

You have two choices with specialization in Alchemy, and although I prefer elixir mastery for the procs on flasks, on some servers there may be something to be said for transmute mastery if gems are hard to come by. That’s where you’re going to have to have a finger on the pulse of the economy. If your gem transmutes sell like hotcackes it’s not a terrible option, but it’s generally more profitable to go with elixir mastery. remember, you don’t have to do the dungeons to get Elixir mastery done, you can train for one of the other masteries (which only require things you can do yourself) and then switch to Elixir mastery later.

Next, I normally give my bankers enchanting for convenience sake, but it seems you already have one of those. The cool thing about hitting level 68 for alchemy is that you will already be past the level requirement for training all of the Grand master level professions, meaning you have three good options.

Tailoring, Jewelcrafting and the gathering professions almost require level 80 in order to do the dailies or gain the rep for the profitable patterns. So your first guess is a good one, that Inscription is not a bad idea, but let me throw in another one just for kicks – Leatherworking. Enchanting is also in this category, but you already have one of those.

Inscription, Leatherworking and Enchanting all have one advantage for the bank alt at level 65+. In each of these professions the best patterns can either be bought or learned from purchasable items. In the case of Inscription (and Alchemy, although the learned stuff kinda blows) you can learn all of the most profitable rare recipes from books of glyph mastery or the Inscription research spell. In other words, you can get all the good stuff and never do a single thing in Northrend.

The same thing holds true for Enchanting, where all the high end patterns can be purchased for Dream Shards, but don’t forget Leatherworking. Letherworking is a lot like Enchanting in that the epic leg armors can be had for Arctic Furs, so it also makes a good option. Depending on the mat cost of raising those two professions, and the profit potential on the leg armors you might choose LW instead. Besides that, it’s just simpler to make a profit on two items than it is trying to guess right on 50.

I’m not a big fan of Inscription for making gold, but it’s probably just the servers I’m on and the fact that I haven’t spent any time at all on it for more than a year. So your first instinct is probably the best one, which says that competing in the Inscription Glyph marketplace may be more hassle than it is worth. It’s not a bad idea to have an inscriptionist lying around somewhere so that you can make your own glyphs, but as far as dominating the Ah with one, it’s pretty hit or miss.

In the end, I did exactly that with my DK, however, since I didn’t want to blow Inscription on one of my raiding toons, and he ended up with Alch/Inscr – but only because I already have two raiding toons with Leatherworking. But as you all know, Law is just a weird alt-aholic with at least two of every profession (except Inscription, only one of those) maxed out to 450.

What it boils down to is that a DK alt for professions and banking is not only a great idea, it’s what we always do. And, for those off professions Alchemy is certainly at the top of the list. Past that, our favorite choices, in order, are: Enchanting, Leatherworking and Inscription. Any one of these professions can be effectively used to make a good profit or support your other toons at just level 68. But Tyberiuss is right about one thing, you’ll need to have some idea of just how saturated the market is for those leg armors or glyphs before you make your choice final.

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Powerleveling Leather Working From 1 to 450

Leatherworking  is one of those professions that doesn’t get a whole lot of play.  But it does have reasonable gold-making and toon buffing potential for your character – plus it’s not all that expensive to power level if you do it properly.  Having a good Leatherworking Guide can certainly save you time and expense.  The link above will take you all the way through the steps to do it cheaper and faster.

Primarily we recommend that you use professions that have the greatest benefit to your toon for end-game activities such as arena and raiding.  The crafting professions are generally best for this but the list of professions with the best toon buffs combinations is fairly short.

You’ll see a lot of casters going with Tailoring and Enchanting, while mail and plate wearers tend to go with Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting for their min/max needs.  It’s hard to beat those combinations for pure added power.  However, if you already have those professions covered and need something different for balance Leatherworking isn’t a bad choice either.

The fur linings can actually outdo the extra gem slots from blacksmithing, even if you are slotting in the JC only gems.  If Spell Power and Attack power fit your toon needs best, Leatherworking is a great choice.

The Leg armors and drums also have some decent profit potential from auction house sales.  And considering there are probably far fewer Leatherworkers than Tailors on many servers it means that for the most part you can probably make more selling leg armors than threads.  That’s not always the case on every server, but you might look into it.

Getting all the mats for leather working may be a little tough for power leveling, but if you know ahead of time what you need and have any patience at all at the ah you should be able to get it done without too much waiting and expense.  Northrend mats should be plentiful, it’s the mid levels that might give you fits.  A DK alt with skinning is just the ticket to solve that issue.

If you’re cheap, and don’t mind farming, skinning is a joke to level.  If you skin your way through the mats list in our Leatherworking Guide, you’ll have no trouble making it through the rougher parts of the leatherworking mats.  Plus, DK’s come with all the flight paths and and epic land mount to boot, so you don’t have to waste skinning on a main.

So while Leather working may not be your first choice, it’s certainly not a bad choice for an end-game profession.  And if you’re using it for raiding you may very well end up with one of the new 264 ilevel gear recipes which are selling quite well in patch 3.3.  As a matter of fact – I may just do JC/LW on my old druid.  In the end leveling leatherworking is not all that hard and gives you a chance to Dominate in raids and at the AH.

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Two Trade Skills That Fit Great On Bank Alts

Alright kids, let’s review.  We don’t farm here at DYS – well almost never.  From time to time the perfect conflagration of once per year occurrences happens that makes us do it, as we have mentioned in this post: Investing And Farming For Gold.

Next, we recommend banking be done in certain ways.  First, a bank alt is by far the best use for a DK we’ve ever seen, and we’re going to tell you which two professions suit bank alts best.  But a DK banker is perfect because you only have to get to level 65 from a level 55 start to train all the way to Grand Master in any profession.  But over the last six months we’ve figured out two professions that just stand far and above the others when it comes to making gold quick and easy.

The first one will come as absolutely zero surprise to anyone who reads DYS.  Enchanting – the gran-daddy of them all when it comes to gold making.  I recently had to change my tune a bit when it comes to Jewelcrafting, but I still don’t make as much from Jewelcrafting as I do from enchanting – not by a wide margin.  Just in case you missed it, here is another post if you want to read about the true power of enchanting for making gold: Best Profession For Those New To Gold Making.

Currently, you’ll want to focus on DE items between level 200 and 300 skill.  With everyone doing 5 million heroics per day, the market for Northrend mats is pretty depressed already – flooding it with another 50 stacks of infinite dust will just generate even more downward pressure on the price by inflating supply that much more.

A few months ago we suggested using a DK as your bank alt and giving them Enchanting, it’s a little more complex than that if you want it to be, as in this post: More Banking Toons Make It Easier To Make Gold At The AH.  But after working with that system for a few months, another profession has jumped out of the woodwork as absolutely perfect for the single DK bank alt.

You will need one DK, a desire for more gold and enough patience to gain 13 levels.  You’ll need  to hit level 68, but with a DK that’s pretty easy to do in just a few hours if you concentrate.  Then it’s off to the profession trainers for Enchanting and . . . Alchemy.

Alchemy is perfect for a bank alt because it requires zero rep to get all the recipes, so you can stand all by yourself in the major city of your choice and end up with every recipe in the game through discovery.  And you’ll make all the accidental discoveries in record time.

In our last post – Alchemy, Wow Quest Tricks, we talked about how to get the Elixir Master profession bonus for Alchemy without doing the Elixir Master quest, which is a pain in the tookus.  At level 68 your DK can do exactly the same thing and end up with Elixir Mastery and that’s where the real dough starts rolling in.

On an average day I will have my DK bank alt brew up around 200-300 elixirs and flasks.  Now that’s just the number I have mats for.  Since the proc rate for Elixir Mastery is a little higher than 10%, I generally end up with an extra 10-15 flasks for every hundred I make, sometimes more.  With flasks on our server going for about 60g, that’s 600+ gold for zero extra work.

All I do is put all of the herbs and other mats for the best alchemy potions (Lil’Sparky is a must here) in my Snatch filter for AADV and grab everything under 100% market price a couple of times a day.  Then I just afk brew, post the products and profit – generally while raiding or watching SportsCenter.

Alchemy is ridiculously easy to make gold with, and unlike Tailoring, Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking and other professions that can be lucrative, they also all require that you be level 80 and gain exalted rep with certain factions or acquire recipe drops in raids to get the patterns that will make you serious gold.  (yes, I have seen the stupid youtube video of the guy DE’ing the JC rings a bazillion times, but with northrend DE mats prices being what they are LilSparky’s tells me I would lose a lot more than I gained doing that right now.)

So My main DK banker does Inscription and Alchemy.  Inscription is another good fit for bankers, but if you only have 2 to work with.  On a single bank alt, alchemy and enchanting is the only way to go.  Between those two professions you should be able to knock down an easy 2,000 to 5,000 extra gold each week and not spend more than a few minutes each day fiddling with it.  It’s easy, fast and very Dominating.

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Professions for the Tank: an exercise in futility if you get it wrong

My personal choice for professions is based solely on what they bring to the fight. As a Tank you are expected to be the best you can be and nothing less. As much as I like some of these professions and most of them can be quite useful, they are not all equal for the role we play in a group.

This article will help you determine what professions are best for you as a Paladin Tank:

• Herbalism: a Heal over time every 2 minutes that will sometimes save you … but it’s a HoT and if your healers are on the ball it’s relatively useless.

• Alchemy: Twice as long potions/flasks and a minor effect increase: that’s nice

• Inscription: No farming Sons of Hodir rep for the shoulder enchants, “scroll of Recall” is handy but overall, lacks a little luster for my tastes.

• Skinning: Crit bonus: not exactly our most praised stat as a tank.

• Leatherworking: Utterly USELESS in a raid.

• Engineering: Handy and fun to tinker with, expensive to level, it had its uses when Palys didn’t have any ranged abilities, but now is not nearly as efficient as other professions.

• Enchanting: Extremely profitable if you’re using the AH Mastery Guide but useless to a Tank… better suited to Tailors/Cloth wearers)

• Tailoring: Even more useless then leather working, unless you absolutely MUST ride your flying carpet into battle!

• Blacksmithing: Expensive to level, but adds 2 Prismatic sockets to your gear: extremely convenient and very useful.

• Mining: 60 Stam bonus when maxed along with the  ability to make Titansteel, and gather Ore.

• Jewel crafting: Finally the BEST (and arguably the most expensive) profession for a tank:  Jewelers’ gems baby … that’s what it’s all about. Especially at early levels this single ability can make the difference between sitting out a raid at 535 Def rating and picking up all the gear that drops in a single run just because nobody needs it. This will allow you to customize your character more then any other profession in the game, it gives you versatility and is an absolute MUST when upgrading gear since you may have to re-socket  2-3 pieces just to be able to wear the new whatever you just won.

For my money Mining and JC are the best. Some will argue Blacksmithing for the two extra sockets that will hold prismatic gems. All I have to say about that is: if you’re going to fill those up with Stamina (like you should) then Mining is a direct equivalent with the 60 Stam Mining bonus (2x 30Stam gems), it’s far cheaper to level, you’ll actually MAKE money with it and it will subsidize your other expensive profession: Jewel crafting!
For other classes that would like to add versatility or fill the need for a very specific stat (Druids & Armor Pen) then Blacksmithing and JC are the better (and most expensive) way to go.

Gems you want:

• Blue:  Stamina, Stamina and MORE STAMINA!
• Red:  Strength > Expertise > Attack Power
• Yellow: Defense Rating > Hit Rating > Crit.
• Orange, Green, Purple: Pick any of the stats above and get the corresponding mixed one.

Now let’s go over what enchants/Gems you want to have on your gear.

Head

• Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector: 37 Stam; 20 Def – Argent Crusade: Revered
• Arcanum of the Defender: 16 Def; 17 Dodge – Keepers of Time: revered

You’ll want to get to Revered with Argent Crusade as soon as possible since you’ll be putting that on every helm you will ever wear during your career as a tank.

Meta Socket

• Austere Earthsiege Diamond 32 Stam; +2% Armor from gear
• Eternal Earthsiege Diamond 21 Def; +5% Block Value
  

In the beginning you might want to consider the Eternal for the Def bonus but could easily migrate to the Austere as your gear gets better (2% of 25,000+ is nothing to sneeze at)

Shoulder

• Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle: 20 Dodge; 15 Def – Sons of Hodir: Exalted
• Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle: 15 Dodge; 10 Def – Sons of Hodir: Revered
• Master’s Inscription of the Pinnacle: 52 Dodge; 15 Def – Inscription (400)

Sons of Hodir are the only faction that sell Shoulder Enchants. You will have to grind that rep eventually, so might as well get the (super) long quest chain going while you’re making your way to 80. This is a must since you’ll need that rep for every shoulder enchant regardless of what you choose to do with your Paladin Character.

Cloak

• Enchant Cloak: Titanweave 16 Def
• Enchant Cloak: Major Agility 22 Agi
• Enchant Cloak: Mighty Armor 225 Armor
• Enchant Cloak: Superior Agility 16 Agi
• Enchant Cloak: Steelweave 12 Def

Agility is far from being the best stat for Tanking but it goes a long way when it comes to avoidance. In this particular scenario when you start having choices you can keep the Titanweave enchant and start changing out some of your Gems instead.

Chest

• Enchant Chest: Super Health275 Health (roughly equivalent to 21 Stamina for Paladins)
• Enchant Chest: Powerful Stats +10 to All stats
• Enchant Chest: Greater Defense 22 Def
• Enchant Chest: Super Stats +8 to All Stats
• Heavy Borean Armor Kit 18 Stam
  

Greater Def has most itemization and will definitely help with reaching the Def cap initially but you might want to consider Powerful Stats as your end-game raiding chest enchant since Paladins are one of the few classes that actually benefit from most of the 5 stats (Str, Agi, Stam, Int, and less from Spirit)

Wrists

• Enchant Brace: Major Stamina 40 Stamina
• Enchant Bracer: Major Defense 12 Def
• Fur Lining: Stamina 90 Stam (Leatherworking 400)

Here again Defense until you reach the Cap and then switch to Stam. You can never have too much Stam: Ask any healer.

Hands

• Enchant Gloves: Armsman 10 Parry; +2% Threat
• Enchant Gloves: Major Agility 20 Agi
• Enchant Gloves: Precision 20 Hit
• Enchant Gloves: Expertise 20 Expertise
• Enchant Gloves: Major Strength 15 Str
• Reticulated Armor Webbing 885 Armor (Engineering 400)
• Hand Mounted Pyro Rocket 1654-2020 Fire Damage on a 45 sec CD (Engineering 400)

Armsman is your best bet initially from a Defensive stand point, although you may want to consider the Strength (even if it is a Burning Crusade Enchant) for more DPS  down the line.

Waist

• Eternal Belt Buckle Adds a Prismatic Socket to your Belt

A must have for EVERY belt you ever buy. Being a Jewel Crafter this gives you Options.

Legs

• Frosthide Leg Armor 55 Stam; 22 Agi
• Jormungar Leg Armor 45 Stam; 15 Agi

The Jormungar Leg armor is far cheaper than the Frosthide, so if you plan to upgrade soon you may want to hold back if money is an issue.

Feet

• Enchant Boots: Greater Fortitude 22 Stam
• Enchant Boots: Tuskarr’s Vitality 15 Stam +8% Run speed Increase

Greater Fortitude if you have PoJ, Tuskarr’s if you don’t.

Weapon

• Enchant Weapon: Mongoose the Agility on proc is worth quite a bit of Avoidance.
• Enchant Weapon: Blood Draining The BEST enchant you can get (worth ~200 Stam)
• Enchant Weapon: Blade Ward Possibly the 2nd Best enchant
• Enchant Weapon: Accuracy 25 Hit; 25 Crit
• Enchant Weapon: Potency +20 Str
• Enchant WEapon: Titanguard +50 Stam
• Titanium Weapons Chain 28 hit; -50% disarm duration

As expensive as you think Blood Draining might be, an instant heal worth 2000 health that only procs when you need it (fall below 35% health) is about as good as it gets. It’s the equivalent of 200 Stamina … no other enchant even comes close.

Shield

• Enchant Shield: Defense 20 Def
• Enchant Shield:  Major Stamina 18 Stam
• Titanium Plating 81 Block Value

As with other pieces of gear, initially you’ll want the Def to reach the Cap but should switch to Stam or Block Value down the line. (81 Block value is far from negligible).

This should cover most of our bases when it comes to upgrading our gear and will show you most of your options. Knowing is half the battle, now you KNOW: get out there and Dominate!

Articles in this thread:

Part 1 – The Basics

Part 2 – Combat Ratings

Part 3 – Armor: Mitigation vs. Avoidance

Part 4 – Hit Table and Threat Generation

Part 5  – Abilities and Rotation

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades (you are here)

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear

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When To Buy, When To Sell – And When To Farm?

Farming is not something we do. It takes a perfect storm of circumstances to make me even think about it. But there are a couple of situations that came up recently that basically required doing a little bit of actually getting my hands dirty.

Well, OK, they weren’t my hands, but someone did some farming. It pointed out that there is a really good way to tell when there is a huge hole in the market where supply is way below demand. The good part is that it’s pretty easy to spot since the holes are HUGE on many servers.

In the end I didn’t actually do any farming at all, but I have some folks around the guild and the family that tend to miss the finer points of auction house Domination, but they understand that if they go get a few stacks of something they can get paid – by me.

The guy who has the gold makes the rules. It’s been that way ever since the Magna Carta. That one document took most of the power away from those born into power by shifting the money (and therefore the power) to those who had some cash. Enough with the history lesson, let’s get on to how you can take advantage of this with the whole force of more than 150 years of history behind you.

Normally we just buy low and sell high. It works best when you spread your offerings (and by default, purchases) out over a LOT of different types of things. By far my favorite is mats. Mats make up the majority of the profitable items anyway and only a pro should deal with Items – the market for those things is just too volatile.

When it comes to mats you are making a grave mistake if you try to deal too much with Northrend stuff. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but think about it for a minute. Most folks who farm are going to do so at level 80. This means that when enough of them are out there herbing and mining Sholazar that there is going to be a huge influx of high end mats into the market, thereby depressing the prices for those items.

Everyone else is rushing to GET to level 80 and not stopping to farm along the way. You see, the way you know exactly what to sell is to project what everyone in the market is doing and then do whatever they are not doing. Everyone wants 25 stacks of Titanium ore right now before the patch. When the patch hits, prices will triple, but there will be soooooo much of it around that it will drop again rather sharply once all the Jewelcrafters get sick of prospecting at 15 gold a turn for those new rare epic gems (that won’t hold a price either if you know anything about the gems market).

So – what WE do to make gold hand over fist day in and day out without having to rely on hoarding and market spikes is very simple. Instead of Titanium (which you think everyone wants) you need to control the Mithril and Thorium markets. Instead of Arctic fur, you need to make sure you have a stranglehold on the Medium and light leather markets.

You see, all those guys leveling new toons and alts skip trade skills on the way to 80 (almost everyone does). Then, when they hit 80 they want to powerlevel two (or even four if you count cooking and first aid) trade skills all the way to 400+ in a few hours. This is where you get rich. Not on Titanium, not on Lichbloom, not on Borean leathers – it’s the low level stuff that has the best supply/demand ratio.

In other words, the amount of time it takes to get those things compared to the profit margin for selling them is often higher than the Northrend mats. You can get 20 stacks of light leather in the time it takes to get 5 or 10 heavy Borean. Because listing fees for low level mats are almost nothing, you can post them over and over again for almost any price you like and they WILL SELL.

These holes in the supply end of your market become apparent when YOU try to do what everyone ELSE is doing. I was working up Alchemy, Tailoring and Leatherworking on my DK bankers last week and there were 36 light leather and 13 Stranglekelp on the AH. That was all there was, and I needed maybe five or ten times that much. Since I have a lot of gold I could care less what the prices were, I would have bought them all and not even thought twice about it.

You see, there is no such thing as a “fair price.” Fair is in the eye of the beholder. When I want to powerlevel a profession I’ll pay 20 gold a stack for peacebloom if that’s all there is. It will still cost me a lot less gold if I pay Northrend mat prices for starting area mats because it requires so much less to get skill points out of that stuff.

If YOU don’t like the high prices for entry level stuff go farm some yourself. Use what you need and sell the rest – probably to me (and I’ll jack the price up to where supply equals demand and make the bucks off of your effort). That’s how a free market works.

If you know how people want to behave or how they ARE behaving in relationship to any market you can find what their need is and fill it. This situation showed me that there was a HUGE need for light leather, medium leather, Mithril, Thorium, and about a half dozen other things. It became obvious that there was no one on the server farming mats between the levels of 15-50, but hundreds of guys supplying Northrend stuff. Low supply and steady demand (demand for mats is almost always steady) means big profits if you can fill the gaps.

I still didn’t farm, but I told a few people I would pay them twice the market rate for every stack they could get their hands on. Now the AH has just enough mats at a price I set that I make far more out of the low end mats. And since I control the supply, I set the price. Every now and again some nut posts a few stacks at doofy prices and I happily buy him out and pop them right back up at the proper price.

The proper price is always the price where the supply curve meets the demand curve and establishes an equilibrium.

Item level has absolutely nothing to do with it. If there are 400 stacks of Titanium and a demand for 200, the price is at least two times too high. If there are 2 stacks of Liferoot and demand for 20 stacks, the price is 10 times too low. It makes no difference if the price for Earthroot eventually passes that of the price for the Titanium. Supply above demand lowers prices, demand above supply raises them.

So look for these types of things in your market, and be sure you’re looking in the right spots. If you must farm, look for the things most people skip (normally in the 150-300 skill range in most gathering professions) and pretty soon you’ll be raking it in with both hands and just laughing when everyone else is taking a beating on those highly volatile high end mats – while you vacation in Stranglethorn off your earnings from the lowbie stuff.

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