Wowhead Economy Weekly Recap 320

Hello! Welcome to the 320th edition of the WoW Economy Weekly Wrap-up! This week we discuss whether gold making is dead (of course it's not) and the ethics of "baiting". We also have some great tips for Alchemy recipes and various other shuffles in Season of Discovery. 

Is Gold Making Dead?

A rather despairing title I know, but with all the recent changes to professions and the Auction House many have felt lost and unsure what the ways of gold making are anymore.. Auction is dead. I have almost negative income since that garbage happened, i had 100k per day from flipping old mats and crafted old profession items such as bolts from engi or all kind of transmutes from alche. Guess what now? Everything costs 1g or even negative for crafted items... Sniping is dead too. What the point to be a goblin in 2023/2024? Better do some boosting if u need gold, because u cannot sit on ur bruto and farm auction anymore.

Contrary to this belief, the Auction House is very much alive! It's just changed. The region wide commodities market is certainly active with sales happening almost immediately with high demand items. Just look at what happens with Dracothyst transmutes and you can see it in action. Sniping is a feature that came about in Classic due to the way the auction house works and TSM reading the first and last "pages" of the auction house thereby being able to see items either about to expire or recently put on. It's very much alive still in Classic. In Retail, there are still lucky opportunities to be had, you need to filter to a few items and look for cross realm opportunities.

What you mean to say is "it's too hard to be a goblin nowadays" The point is the same as it always was: To make gold, build wealth hoards, etc. There's more stuff than ever to spend gold on. A lot of the techniques for making it are just diminished or eliminated, especially at this point in an expansion (like always) and especially since the regionwide AH only exacerbated that mat price deflation that always occurs around this time anyways. There's still plenty of ways to be a goblin though, they're just less effortless than they have been in past expansions or even the earlier parts of DF. I'm +120 million in Dragonflight from AH activities. Being a goblin has always been about keeping up with the times and always finding the gold to be made. The key here is that there is still gold to be had, especially if you embrace the new changes to professions and how they are intended to work as a customer facing role marketing your wares. I left in BfA and came back in S2 DF. The biggest and best (imo) difference I’ve seen is that you can actually make a killing now by making a name for yourself and crafting items for people. I think that’s really cool and frankly what it should have been from day one. Everyone else’s comments have basically said enough but my unpopular opinion to add is that it’s actually better for the game that many of the things you listed are (comparatively) dead. Gold can still be made and change is inevitable. Maybe it’s just not in the way you found most fun and then that’s totally fair and understandable, bummer it changed that way for you (seriously, really not taking the p**s there at all) We are of course at the tail end of an expansion, the initial gold rush is over, but there are certainly things to do to make gold. A lot of the focus now is on completing collections before the next expansion. Of course, many have dived into Plunderstorm as a distraction (sadly, the pets aren't tradable) and there are the many flavors of Classic to enjoy too (Including making gold using old methods for tokens) What do you think? Is gold making dead for you or have you found new and interesting ways to enjoy your time in WoW and make money?

Alchemy Recipes for Phase 3 SoD

The Lazy Goldmaker has a great article this week discussing what Alchemy recipes might be in high demand come Phase 3 of Season of Discovery. Today we will take a quick look at some of the top consumable recipes in WoW that we will be getting access to in the next phase.

• 300 skill = end game recipes

With skill level 300 presumably available we will get getting into the true end-game recipes in WoW. Some of the recipes we can unlock in the next phase will be relevant for the rest of classic, and they are incredibly strong. Alchemy was my bread and butter in classic and some of the recipes we will talk about today were my best performers in classic.

Some of the recipes he talks about are:

• Limited Invulnerability Potion
• Elixir of Brute Force
• Elixir of Giants
• Elixir of Mongoose
• Arcane Elixir

Of course, we are still at the speculation stage as to what might be best for end game Phase 3 as we don't know what surprises are in store for us once it releases.

The Ethics of Baiting

"Baiting" is the term used when somebody posts a single item at a much lower cost than the rest in the hopes that other people will post their items after at the lower price which can then be snapped up before someone resets the price. It happens more often in Classic due to the nature of the Retail AH being region wide for commodities and moving too fast.

This is a super easy way to generate profit in the AH. Bots and inexperienced traders drop stacks at the auto-sell value listed in the AH. If you just spam 1 item a little bit lower than the previous item, but you do it over and over, it creates the illusion that this is the new market price. If you're too dramatic with it, it's less effective. You want a medium pace item, high pace items require a hefty gold start up to manipulate. First you ensure your item market is void of other undercut dogs. Then you begin by dropping the item relatively slowly. Since the price shown is what was on the AH when you opened it, even if someone buys your penny stock, everyone already has the lowered price in the AH. If you don't manually refresh the query for that item, you won't see the price update when you post the item for trade. This is extremely lucrative at the beginning of a major patch or expansion.

In many ways it's easy money and while may be seen as predatory, it relies on people using AH addons with less regard for the price and more looking for a quick sale. Does this mean it is unethical? Is it any different to buying lots at a cheap price and selling for more?

You don’t win this by buying his item, you get in on the game - people who don’t know better will dump stacks trying to undercut him, and with a proper sniper set up you can snatch them up cheap, but since he’s posting the dangle you assume no risk. When I do this occasionally someone comes along annoyed because it messes with their postings - if this is your issue, it means you aren’t setting appropriate minimum price rules for your posting operations and are leaving a ton of gold on the table. Personally, I buy them up as soon as I notice them because I'm usually buying a few to relist higher and it all forms part of a cheaper average price. I'd be buying all that Mageroyal all the way up to the "wall" of 38 stacks of 20

Shuffles for Season of Discovery

Seren Games has a great video this week going through a number of shuffles based around mainly Tailoring and Enchanting. It's interesting to see how the demand for items in Season of Discovery is unique to other versions of Classic and opens up whole new opportunities for gold making.

• Further Reading

Most of this information was discussed and originally posted on the /r/woweconomy subreddit or in the accompanying Discord Server.

I hope you found this useful and If you have any suggestions or feedback, please do say so in the comments below. Until next time, Happy Goldmaking!