wow Gold Making: Preparing for Legion

[Peelyon 416]

Although there isn't any new content available in game right now there are plenty of activities you can be doing that will help you to make gold both now and at the start of Legion.  Peelyon shows us how to prepare for the upcoming expansion and how to maximise your gold potential.

 

*PLEASE NOTE THIS POST INCLUDES POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR LEGION*

 

Introduction

 

With a release date now set I wanted to share with you some of the preparations I am making for Legion.  The start of an expansion can get a little crazy for us gold makers, and hopefully by following some of these steps you will manage to cash in on the early expansion boom.

 

Motivation and organisation are key to maximizing your gold, both at the end of an expansion and the beginning of a new one.  As more information becomes available on the Alpha / Beta I will be making a few more posts that will allow you to keep up to date with any relevant changes.

 

There are two main objectives at this stage of the expansion.  

 

• Begin to stockpile items that will potentially increase in value

• Sell any "time sensitive" items that are only relevant to current content

 

It is also important not to get "stuck" with unwanted items / materials that will no longer be of use after Warlords of Draenor has ended.  A few examples are

 

• Consumables like potions / flasks and food (although it is worth noting some players do like to use "old content" items at the beginning of the expansion while questing / leveling).
• Gear / Upgrade items

 

Personally, I prefer to sell these sort of items sooner rather than later to ensure I don't end up with bags full of items that then drop heavily in value (or even become worthless).   It will depend on your own particular server population and also if you enjoy taking some risk.  Tentatively research your markets and see how it goes over the next few months!

 

I have outlined a few potential markets and methods to help get yourselves as prepared as you can and to try and give you an indication as to how to use your professions in this period.  Just note it is hard for me to cover everything in one post so if you think I have missed anything or have any ideas / tricks of your own please feel free to share!

 

 

Bank Storage

 

 

 

 

 

Storage Storage Storage!

 

Before I begin to go through items and professions it's best to start at storage.  Having extra bank storage can really help when it comes to stockpiling various items.  I currently have a number of banking alts all with guild banks attached, to help in my organisation of various materials.  With guild reputation not mattering too much right now I have even /gquit on a number of alts from my main guild in order to have some extra space just between now and the beginning of Legion.

 

The price for a guild with 5 bank tabs (just shy of 500 slots) is 4350g - so even if you have to pay for a few signatures to register the guild itself, you should still be able to keep this price under 5k.  

 

If you store the right items in there then you should easily clear enough profit to make up for this small investment!

 

Just a few side things to note about storage

 

 

Hexweave Bags

 

Prices have been dropping for most regions lately (although your individual server may be different).  It is a great time to upgrade your bags to the max size available, whether you consider your character a "main" toon or not.  Remember, even for your banking alts it can help save time if you have full mailboxes of unsold items.   I highly recommend crafting your own to save on some gold (see Tailoring section below)

 

 

Void Storage

 

Right now it looks like there are still only two tabs available on the Alpha.  This may change between now and release but it should allow for the majority of your vanity items to be stored still.

 

 

Tabards

 

Tabards are now including in the Appearances Wardrobe.  This should help to free up quite a lot of space in your bank for those annoying "unique" tabards that wouldn't ever go into Void Storage (after release of course).

 

 

Go Through those Bags!

 

I appreciate it is not the most exciting task in the world but the sooner you do it the better you will feel when it is all finished (promise!).  Not only will it help you identify time sensitive items to sell, it will free up some extra space and it will ensure you can organise your future auctions more successfully.

 

 

Now you've got your storage sorted it's time to fill it!  

 

 

 

Legion Transmog and the Wardrobe

 

 

 

 

 

I hope to have a specific highlight for the appearance wardrobe in the near future.  For now it is sufficient to say that the wardrobe will allow players to "store" all of the various item appearances in their collections journal (SHIFT+P).  As you can see from the above it is possible to search for "Not Collected" items, and I assume that there will be some really great addons developed to enhance the search functionalities.  It is predicted that the addition of this wardrobe will cause the current transmog market to explode in value.

 

There are number of reasons for this:

 

 

• Achievements

As you can see from the picture above it seems that there will be achievements associated with the wardrobe.  I'm not sure if they will be Feats of Strength, or if it is a placeholder and will eventually have a points value attached.  Either way players go crazy for achievements and titles and if the numbers are progressive (25 / 50 / 100 etc) then it will even give value to some of the cheaper transmog items as well just so players can complete their collections.

 

• Shared appearances

On live servers, players are sometimes reluctant to spend a large sum of gold on a transmog item that they can only use on one character.  With the addition of the wardrobe, players will be able to "share" their transmog items with other characters on that account, so suddenly the transmog item is no longer 20k for one player, but 20k for all of the characters of that particular armour class.

 

• Lazy Players

There are a large proportion of players (like me) who would love to spend time on various transmog on a number of different characters, but struggle to find the time and motivation to get it all together.  Now that players can just grab appearances from the wardrobe for each of their characters it may actually encourage them to farm / buy some of the items they require, especially if it is for an armour class they don't normally play.

As a bit of an example, I main a priest I have very little in the form of plate transmog currently available on my alts.  However with a shared wardrobe I may be encouraged to play a little more on my paladin and grab a few plate pieces as I hunt for achievements rather than just constantly playing my priest.

 

 

How Do I Prepare?

 

If you enjoy farming take a quick look at my beginners guide to transmog farming found here.  Any items that you can obtain for yourself will obviously increase your profits.  As the expansion winds down to a close you may find you have more and more time to go farming for items (especially if you have stopped raiding / completed quests and achievements etc).

 

I don't recommend spending gold on transmog items unless you are confident in not only your server prices, but your ability to resell.  There will be gold makers who are intentionally dumping some transmog stock in the hope players will buy up items early.  This is a tactic you may wish to employ yourselves if you are already experienced in your own servers transmog markets!  Just remember, there is no way of knowing how much "stock" other sellers have, so trying to buy up items to monopolize the market may not go well!

 

The amount of storage you have and how much time you wish to spend farming between now and Legion's release is entirely up to you.  It may be useful to sort your items into particular armour classes (or maybe value) depending on what you see fit!  I am really excited about this addition to the game and the gold making potential could be huge, don't miss out!

 

I will be releasing more transmog farming area guides in the near future.  If you are looking for a few locations to get started then take a look at my available guides:

 

Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj

 

The Admiral's Den

 

 

 

Professions

 

 

 

 

 

As with the Appearance Wardrobe, I am hoping to make various "preview" posts with regards to the new recipes and skills learned for professions in Legion.  Currently on Alpha, you are able to craft the new recipes at skill level 1.  It is not clear if your current skill level will have an impact on your ability to use certain recipes, or if it affects the number of items you may produce.  Most recipes appear to be gated with your character level and have quests associated with them.

 

This gating raises some concerns.  As recipes are aquired through quests and character level rather than skill, profession "mules" (using alts just for professions rather than general gameplay) may not be that viable on launch.  In previous expansions it was possible to grind your profession at the previous max level (so for example during MoP you could have a character at level 85 learn the majority of recipes and achieve max profession skill).  If this goes through to release it will require you to decide what character (and what professions) you want to level up first!

 

This may change of course, but it is worth noting.  

 

 

Current Professions

 

Between now and release I recommend that each level 100 character has two max professions.  If you do not have many professions or you have each profession and are unsure what else to take, then both Inscription and Tailoring are great to pick up.  They will not cost a lot to power level from 1 to ~650 skill (using Draenor recipes).

The main reason I recommend both of these professions is that the current cooldown items War Paints and Hexweave Cloth will be useful even after the expansion has finished.

 

War Paints = Card of Omens (flippable card that will always have potential to sell)

 

Hexweave Cloth = Hexweave Bag 

 

 

Ideally I would recommend something along the lines of:

 

• At least one of each profession
• Multiple tailors and scribes
• 3 Alchemists (one for each mastery Transmutation Master Potion Master & Elixir Master) 

Having three alchemists isn't really about preparation for Legion but I thought I would throw my own personal preference in if you are struggling what to pick.  The only reason I have three alchemists is to have one of each mastery.  At first glance it doesn't appear that masteries will have any impact on Legion crafting (the same as WoD), however it can be useful for old world materials and recipes.

 

With regards to your daily cooldowns and filling your garrison profession buildings with work orders, it is entirely up to yourselves how long you keep producing them.  Personally I have stopped crafting some of the materials such as Gearspring Parts and Taladite Crystal.  The majority of professions have some items that can be used after the expansion ends (such as pets like Soul of the Forge, Mechanical Scorpid) but their value is already very low.  Try and use your materials on upgrade items within the next few months and try and beat the rush of players dumping!

 

 

For Legion

 

 

Herbalism, Mining and Skinning always do well at the beginning of an expansion as the mats are wanted by crafters trying to skill up.  If possible try and get at least one gathering profession on your "main" character that you will be playing in Legion.  I appreciate some players do not like dropping professions due to the number of recipes you may have acquired over the years, but if you aren't that attached to your professions it may help in your gold making in the first few weeks.   You have plenty of time between now and release to get your skill level from 1-700.  For herbalism and mining you can level slowly in your garrison without too much effort.

 

Having the opportunity to pick up herbs and mining nodes as you quest will be useful and will even give you a little experience as you do so.  It is very feasible to drop the herbalism and mining after you have reached level 110 especially if you have no intention to continue to go out into the world with to farm for materials.

 

You can then quickly retrain your previous profession back up to 700.  If you do consider doing this then it is worth stockpiling some materials for the profession you wish to switch back to.  Like mentioned above it is quite cheap to power level the majority of professions using Draenor crafting recipes to ~650 skill, and if you are fully prepared you could even have some of the soulbound items saved in your bank to craft a few +15 skill items to get you quickly from 650-700.

 

I will try and summarize the above:

 

• Drop a crafting profession for a gathering one
• Level from 1-700 now during WoD
• When Legion hits farm gathering materials while you level to sell to other crafters or use yourself
• Drop the gathering profession at level 110
• Re-learn your previous crafting profession
• Power level it back to 700 with stockpiled materials

 

If you don't wish to take up a gathering profession it can be worthwhile getting someone else to farm for you.  Try and ask friends / guildies or even farmers through trade chat to strike up a deal so you have ready access to some materials early without having to pay extortionate auction houses prices.

 

Remember, have all bases covered with regards to professions.  Don't leave any character with a free profession slot (fill it with Tailoring or Inscription!) and consider taking up mining and / or herbalism on your main character!

 

 

 

Old World Crafting

 

 

 

Although you may not feel motivated to do so, keep up with your old world crafting.  In this "lull" between expansions players are looking towards casual gameplay.  They have a lot of gold to spend, and nothing to really spend it on (less people using consumables or repairing gear through raids etc).  Selling things such as mounts, battle pets, transmog and items for achievements should net you a considerable amount of gold.  So keep up with your old world crafting and cooldowns. A few examples are items such as Living Steel, Balanced Trillium Ingot.

I don't expect prices to change much with regards to previous content but it is worth noting that with the addition of the wardrobe some crafted pieces may become valuable again (which could lead to a rise in material prices).  So look to pick up any bargain materials whenever you can.

 

 

 

Battle Pets

 

 

 

There have been a large number of trade-able battle pets added to the game in Warlords of Draenor.

 

Items like Cinder Pup and Left Shark, have seen their value drop to less than 1g on certain servers.  If you have played much of Warlords of Draenor you will know that they are so widely available now that they have become almost worthless.  I don't expect their prices to rise much at all in future expansions, even with a potential influx of new / returning players in Legion.  I know a number of players that have bank tabs full of both of these pets (Left Shark Sanctuaries as they are commonly known), so it is up to you if you wish to grab a few or not.  Investing 1-10g on any item holds very little risk, so even if you spend a few hundred gold chances are you won't make much of a loss in a worse case scenario.  If you do decide to purchase a few of them ensure you aren't using too much storage space. If its a choice between storing transmog items or pets - I would pick the transmog.

 

The pets available from the garrison (such as Albino Chimaeraling) currently sell for around 100-250g on most servers.  I have around two full guild bank tabs with these pets at this stage of the expansion (I trade quite a lot of pets so don;t worry if that sounds a bit extreme).  I predict their prices to rise in Legion and beyond, but this all depends on if players return to their garrisons frequently in Legion (or if the pet menagerie will still exist etc).  It may be worth picking a few up if you can grab them on the cheap!

 

Shard of Cyrukh is a reward from completing the Tanaan Jungle questline.  Due to the number of players having duplicate characters (who have completed the questline) there is a high volume of these around at the moment.  I have been buying these up for 300g or less and I expect the price to rise quite a bit come Legion.  Although there are achievements attached with Tanaan I don't expect many new / returning players will be in a hurry to go back and complete the quest chain there for some time.

 

The pet I feel that has the most potential to increase in value is Lil' Leftovers.  It is obtained through creating Leftovers which has a very small to "drop" when creating food.  As players will not be using the food itself I don't expect there to be many fish and other food materials on the auction house. Players won't want to go back and farm the items just for a small chance to get hold of a pet.  I have been buying these up anywhere from 500g-3000g.  

 

It may be worth picking up some cheap fish if / when it gets dumped onto your auction house as the expansion comes to a close and trying your luck at cooking a pet up for yourself, but in the meantime just keep scanning your auction house for the pet!

 

 

 

Stockpiling

 

 

 

There are a vast number of materials and items that will potentially increase in value after Warlords has ended.  I won't be able to outline them all, however I will give you a few examples of what I am starting to stockpile and why.

 

 

Herbs

 

Gorgrond Flytrap in particular I am stockpiling heavily (at current time of writing I have over 15,000 across my characters).  This is used in a number of daily cooldowns, most notably for Hexweave Cloth which can be used to make bags.  

 

All of Warlord of Draenor herbs have some use right now and the main way I utilise them is through crafting Warbinder's Ink and trading them in for various inks at the ink trader (if you are unsure how then check out my guide HERE).

 

At this moment in time the ink trader on Alpha is still showing Warbinder's Ink.  I will try and continue to check this information as I test more over the upcoming months as it will have a massive impact on the ink / herb market.

 

Sumptuous Fur

 

As with the Gorgrond Flytrap I am trying to stock up as much Sumptuous Fur as possible so I can comfortably craft Hexweave bags.  As we are still unsure of the ability to produce work orders in the garrison (even if we can in Legion players may not want to) I think it is safer to stock up now as I can only see prices rising come the new expansion.

 

 

Socerous Air / Fire / Water / Earth

 

Prices are extremely low for these right now.  If they follow the same pattern as other previous expansion primals / volatiles / eternals, then they should increase in price and provide a fairly hefty return.

 

Just keep in mind that they are easily produced if players continue to craft their daily profession cooldowns, but I think picking these up for 1g each or less should be a fairly safe bet.

 

 

Blackrock / True Iron Ore / Raw Beast Hide

 

I don't predict these to become as profitable as herbs or fur, however it is worth trying to pick up any cheap stacks if and when you are able to.  Again it will depend on your own personal storage and how heavily you use these items in your professions as to how much you will want to buy!

 

And just to think outside of the box a little:

 

Arrakoa Cipher

 

Arakkoa Cipher have been very common this expansion.  As you may already know they have been available from the archaeological treasures in Spires of Arak and also through garrison missions.  The price has been very low compared to the other fragment boosts in Warlords of Draenor and as less and less players are leveling and doing missions I think these prices will rise.  Don't expect to be able to resell a large quantity of these but it is something you can pick up relatively cheaply now and just hold on to in the future.

 

 

Keep doing those Garrison Missions

 

 

However much we hate them we will miss the gold when its gone!

 

 

Wrap Up!

 

 

Thanks if you managed to make it this far!  I appreciate this may be a lot to try and take in.  As I mentioned in the introduction, organisation is a big part of being prepared.  Being motivated will encourage you to keep logging in and complete those daily tasks.  There is a lot of gold to be made between now and the release of Legion even if we are lacking general content!

 

Do you have any other preparation plans for Legion with regards to goldmaking?  What other items are you stockpiling right now?  Feel free to share your thoughts and remember...keep checking your auction houses for cheap Northern Eggs and Small Eggs ready for my Children's Week guide next week!

[gurupak 21]

@Peelyon, man that is some information you have provided. Great work!

 

So how can lazy person I am can do this? Thinking.....

[Peelyon 416]

What I will say gurupak is that regardless of ANY gold making method / tactic / advice - only do it if it interests you.  So for example if you HATE farming ( / are really lazy :P) then don't farm.  You'll get bored after 10minutes and it won't net you any gold in the long run.  

 

This applies to the game in general in my opinion.  Maybe try a few of the above things and see if you enjoy it.  If not try something else.  I can't emphasize enough the importance of motivation (especially at this stage of the expansion).

 

I've recently taken a few weeks away from WoW and I feel better for it (the announcement of a 10million gold cap in Legion has got me excited again)!

 

Hope that helps!

[Meraki22 2]

Awesome post, Peelyon. Very useful for getting your head around the monumental task that can be Expac prep with an alt army. 

Thanks! 

[Ethyr 1]

Definitely trying to stock up on Hexweave Bags. As they haven't announced a larger bag for Legion, I imagine the prices will hopefully increase after release.

[Peelyon 416]

Prices have gone from 800g to 1300-1400g in the past few weeks alone.  With the prepatch coming out players will be making new characters, and / or changing mains so expect them to keep pushing up in price!  Get the Flytraps and Fur while you can!!