Making Gold with Engineering in Patch 5.2 by Marcus Ty

The Engineering profession is often seen as a poor means to make gold in World of Warcraft and many players tend to avoid it  in favor of professions such as Inscription or Jewelcrafting. But on the right server and with a little local knowledge of the market, Engineering can be a great addition to a gold makers armory of professions.

Reduced Competition

If you look on sites like www.wowuction.com you can get a breakdown of the professions on your server. On my server, everyone seems to want to be a Scribe and a Jewelcrafter. I can understand this as many players see this as the route to riches. However, the competition can be fierce and many players end up spending most of their time undercutting and canceling auctions, resulting in a few gold profit. But there are fewer Engineers on my server and that’s a great advantage because competition is reduced and I can dominate the market - or at least own more of it for a greater profit.

What to Craft in Patch 5.2

I’ve always loved the Engineering profession in World of warcraft. It’s the Tinker in me and the fact that you can craft exploding sheep. I love the smell of Seaforium in the morning! But there are many other cool gadgets to craft. A number of Engineering items that can make you a tidy profit happen to be super alt friendly and can help you boost your ilvl to get into heroics.

Gears of Warcraft

One such group of items that took many a gold maker by surprise was the introduction of Tinker’s Gears. These are a socket enhancement to crafted Engineering gear and trinkets that have proved to be a huge seller on many servers. They come in several flavors:

Flashing Tinker’s Gear    +600 Parry
Fractured Tinker’s Gear  +600 Mastery
Precise Tinker’s Gear     +600 Expertise
Quick Tinker’s Gear        +600 Haste
Rigid Tinker’s Gear         +600 Hit
Smooth Tinker’s Gear     +600 Critical Strike
Sparkling Tinker’s Gear   +600 Spirit
Subtle Tinker’s Gear       +600 Dodge

By looking on www.wowuction.com you can see what’s in demand. Not surprisingly the biggest sellers on my server are Smooth, Quick, Rigid, Fractured and Precise. Engineer’s can craft them using just two Ghost Iron Bars. On my server they sell on average for 75g. Now that’s a great profit!

Recent Sales from Farli's realm

Ghost Iron Dragonling

The reason that Tinker’s Gear are so popular is the introduction in patch 5.2 of the Engineer crafted Ghost Iron Dragonling. This trinket accepts three Tinker’s Gears in any combination. This is a non-Engineering specific trinket that any player can use, greatly increasing it’s demand across the various realms. On my server the Ghost Iron Dragonling is selling for around 250-300g. I normally craft 4-5 of these trinkets a week and list the most popular Tinker’s Gears at the same time, greatly adding to my weekly profit.

Summary

Engineering can be used effectively to make gold if players learn what’s in demand on their server. Sites like wowuction.com and the Undermine Journal can help make sense of  the market for any given profession. The introduction of the Ghost Iron Dragonlin and Tinker’s Gears in patch 5.2 is an example of the types of gear that Engineers can craft for a great profit. The lack of players with the Engineering profession greatly reduces competition on many servers.

Author Bio

Marcus Ty is a level 90 Alliance Mage of Stormwind and has written extensively on the art and craft of making World of Warcraft Gold. His tips and strategies are chronicled on his Blog  and the Journal of Marcus Ty Podcast

Guest Post : Borean Leather Farming by huntermastery.com

Today I want to talk a little bit about farming. It’s important to understand that in every gold makers toolbox that farming is important. I know there are many gold makers out there who are against farming, they feel it’s a waste of time. I some respect to that, it can be. It all depends on what you are farming.

Borean Leather is on of those leathers that you need a whole lot of it to level your Leatherworking to 425. At 425 you move into Cataclysm level leather. My new Hunter is level 75 with both Leatherworking and Skinning, as I talk about earlier today as well as yesterday in getting ready for Mist of Pandaria. I believe that farming is most important the start of an expansion and the end.

The Farming Spot: Dragonblight, Northrend

 

To keep it short, if you look at the map, you can see the red circle in the upper center of the map. There is a cave, which has a bunch of level 72-74ish mobs all can be skin, but what makes this farming spot better than ALL others is that you can farm Jormungar Scales here as well. Those are the easiest leather to level your Leatherworking, you also will get tons of Borean Leather and Scrapes from the mobs. If you’re in a guild with the perk is ideal for farming.

The problem is Jormungar Scale these days are generally limited on the Auction House as no one is farming them. Those that do hit the auction house are just from skinners leveling through and not going out of their way to farm it.

Why is this important?

 

Simple, you want to stock up on Borean Leather for Mist of Pandaria because you’re going to have new Monks (of all races) leveling and more than likely people are going to take Leatherworking because Monks are leather users (like Druids and Rogues). So in general it makes sense, I’ll craft my own gear.

Just like with all professions there are choke points to where people end up having issues getting a whole of mats to level their professions. As a result they generally don’t want to farm and end up paying outright high prices to get the mats. Such choke points can some times, depending on your server controlled.

Maybe people talk about controlling a market I believe that a choke point are the best markets a person can control. Now Borean Leather is the hardest one to control, but generally the price can be kept up high.

In the time of any new expansion it does pay off to have a stockpile of it, simply because players will be focus on the new stuff. Those who decided to level new mains at the start if they choose Leatherworking. Within the first month they likely will be hitting Northrend content and Borean Leather. If they didn’t take skinning with Leatherworking they will be hitting the auction house.

 If you would like to see more please be sure to Subscribe to our RSS Feed and YouTube Channel and like us on Facebook. You can also follow us on Twitter @HunterMastery. Thank you for reading and if you have any questions please feel free to leave us a comment or you can always e-mail us.

New Server Heirlooms by Jamie

Having recently rerolled on a new realm I really missed having access to my heirlooms. This was a great guest post and i am super happy to host it on my blog.

Follow Jamie on twitter @sjamielynn

Over to you Jamie.

~~~~~~~~~~

Howdy folks! Jamie here.

I recently started on a new server, Shannon's server, Steamweedle Cartel, and was very upset about not having all my awesome Bind-on-Account pieces. (Should be renamed Bind-on-Server >.<) So I thought of this awesome idea of how to acquire heirlooms, which I shall now share with all of you.

     STEP ONE, you will need to already have a level 80 character (or above) on another server somewhere. You will also need to have Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft, but that should be a given, especially if you already have a level 80 character somewhere. ^_- Another thing to note though, just in case, is if you already have a high level character (above level 55 would be considered "high level" in this situation) on the server you are looking to get heirlooms on, you can skip step two and step three, and go straight to step four, if you're looking to use this method anyway. :)

     STEP TWO, create a Death Knight. Any DK, make it special and pretty/handsome and awesome ;) You'll be using this toon a lot for a while. This endeavor will take you a good amount of time to complete, so you might as well enjoy the character you're making :)

Also, once you log in, you should find a level 19 or higher guild. Normally when starting on a new server, like in my case, you're joining up with other friends so look to see if they can hook you up, but also when you log in you get spammed by a few people to join their guild. Accept any of them that are level 19 or higher. The reason for this is two-fold.

     First off, at level 6, guilds gain the perk Fast Track (Rank 2), which increases experience gained from monsters and quest completion by 10%. This will help you level up faster, which is always good. ^_^ 

     Second reason, at level 19, guilds gain the perk Honorable Mention (Rank 2), which increases Honor points gained by 10%. This will help you greatly once you're on to step four. 

    STEP THREE, start leveling your DK. You will need to get out of the DK starting area. It shouldn't take you more than about 2 hours. I recommend for this idea to go Blood spec. It will increase your survivability by doing it this way, making farming HK easier.



You should be around level 57 or 58 when you leave this area and head to Stormwind or Orgrimmar.




Here are my recommendations for your talent tree when doing this. Because you're leaving at level 57 or 58, the first picture is how many points you'll be able to spend up to that point. The second picture is how I complete out the DK tree for Blood, with PvP in mind.

     STEP FOUR, At this point, you will be entering Battlegrounds. YaY! You should queue up for one of two Battlegrounds. Either a) select Random Battleground or b) select which ever battleground has the Call to Arms in parentheses next to it. Please note, the Call to Arms is only from Friday at server reset to Tuesday at server reset. It's a nice chunk of time, 4 days, but it means the other 3 days have no Call to Arms.

     Choosing one of these two options will optimize the amount of Honor you will be gaining from doing Battlegrounds. This is because if you win, you'll get a bonus of 90 Honor points and even if you lose, you'll still get a bonus of 15 Honor points. Losing bonus isn't much but it's still something extra, making it worth it if you pick Random Battleground or the Call to Arms. Also, something to make note of with the random battleground/CtA rewards is the higher level you are the more you get. On my 85, the bonus is 270 Honor points for a win (plus 100 Conquest points, but that's something entirely different, lol just a bonus ;) ) and 45 Honor points for a loss. Another thing, if you PvP a lot, and there is a specific battleground that you are good at, it could be worth picking that one instead of random or the CtA if you are confident in your ability to get Honor Kills and such. This option becomes less viable as you gain levels because the 270 bonus at 85 would be hard to make up for unless you're uber awesome epic good. ;)

Edlan Halsing is the NPC who can exchange your HP -> JP.

     STEP FIVE, to convert or not to convert. This is a question you need to ask yourself. You can buy two different types of Heirlooms: PvP gear or PvE gear. If you're mainly a PvPer or don't really care that much about your stats or what not as you're leveling, then grabbing the PvP gear will be more beneficial. If you do care about having the PvE gear, then grab the PvE gear. The downfall to the PvE gear is you lose out on the conversion. It takes 375 HP to get 250 JP, which comes out to you needing 1.5 HP for every 1 JP you need.


So let's look at these numbers a little bit now. At level 57 or 58, you enter a battleground by random/CtA queueing. I did this at level 58 on my DK. The queue came up with Alterac Valley. I didn't try to go for the win, I tried going for Honor Kills and such.

Alliance won this Battleground, so I got the extra 90 Honor. As you can see I didn't do super well. I died 12 times, and only got 157 Honorable Kills, with 4 Killing Blows. Not super good. I ended up with 197 Honor. Note: The window said I should have received 241 Honor. I spoke to a GM about this and it is an error that Blizzard is aware of. The amount you receive is the correct amount, even if the pop-up table says more or less. In the adding of the bonus or what not, sometimes the number get jumbled up. /shrug That's all I know on the situation, kinda sucks to see that it says you got X amount but you only actually got Y.

Here is a quick breakdown of the Justice Heirlooms so you know how much HP you need to grind to get each piece of gear.

• All Shoulder and Chest pieces are 2175 JP - 3263 HP needed.
• Weapons are between 2175 JP and 3500 JP, depending on 1H, 2H ranged, type, etc - 3263-5250 HP needed.
• Trinkets are 2725 JP - 4088 HP needed.

***Math Time***
Moving on from this, I'm going to go into details about getting Justice Heirlooms, because that is the gear that I go for. To get one shoulder or chest piece in Justice Heirlooms you need 3263 Honor. With using 197 as Honor per BG, you'll need to do 17 BGs, which will get you 3349 Honor. (16 only gets you 3152 Honor.) For the most expensive Justice Heirloom, let's take the Two-Handed Staff, you need 5250 Honor. Using 197 again, you'll need to do 27 BGs, which will result in 5319. (26 only gets you 5122 Honor.) For trinkets you need 4088 Honor. With 197 yet again, you'll need 21 BGs, which will result in 4137. (20 only gets you 3940 Honor.) Now, 17 - 27 BGs seems like a ton to do. So now let's look at how long it takes. The AV I was in took 32 minutes. Round that to 30 minutes and it takes eight and a half hours to finish 17 BGs, 13 and a half hours for 27 BGs. If you do about two hours worth of BGs, it will take you just over 4 days to get each of the cheaper pieces and 7 days to get the most expensive ones that are weapons.


TL;DR
Each shoulder and chest piece will take 17 BGs, or 8.5 hours.
Each weapon will take between 17 to 27 BGs, or 8.5 to  13.5 hours.
Each trinket will take 21 BGs, or 10.5 hours.


With using the same mathematics, here is the results for Honor Heirlooms:
Each shoulder and chest piece will take 10 BGs, or 5 hours.
Each weapon will take between 10 to 18 BGs, or 5 to 9 hours.
Each trinket will take 14 BGs, or 7 hours.


NOTE: These numbers are all for wins. If you lose every BG here is what the numbers look like for Justice Heirlooms:

Each shoulder and chest piece will take 27 BGs, or 13.5 hours.

Each weapon will take between 27 to 43 BGs, or 13.5 to 21.5 hours.

Each trinket will take 34 BGs, or 17 hours.

For Honor Heirlooms: 

Each shoulder and chest piece will take 18 BGs, or 9 hours.

Each weapon will take between 18 to 29 BGs, or 9 to 14.5 hours.

Each trinket will take 23 BGs, or 11.5 hours.

You're wins and loses will very and have no guarantee either way which means for a chest piece it will take between 8.5 hours and 13.5 hours, averaging out to about 11 hours per piece. Another thing to keep in mind is that all weapons and trinkets do NOT have an experience bonus on them. So with this in mind, you only need the shoulder and chest pieces. Therefore, it should take you about 9 to 14 days, depending on win/lose ratio, to get the Justice shoulder and chest piece for your new character, and only 5 to 9 days to get the Honor shoulder and chest piece.


All in all, it will take a little bit to get these pieces, but it should be worth it in the end. :) 20% extra experience is nice. ^_-


That is all for now, folks, stay tuned for more posts from me in the weeks to come! :D

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Transmog and me by @AudemGold

 I am a relatively new player in World of Warcraft. I only began playing  on my main character  Audem on US Fenris in June of 2011. I was a total noob to online gaming and MMORPG's in general. I remember being shocked that I could talk and play a game with players all across the world in real time and do anything I wanted. I progressed through the game, attempted to raid, and was always the most greedy person in my guild (though usually the most broke... I have a spending problem!). I became obsessed with trying to make gold because I had a dream. I realized that I was never going to down Heroic Ragnaros, it just wasn't going to happen but there was something else I was in awe of and was determined to get. It was Vial of the Sands and it would be mine. There was only one problem I had like 10k gold after 6+ months in the game and acquiring epic flying (borrowing gold from a former GM for that) that was all I had though I tried and tried to find ways to get the scratch up to buy it I never could. Then it happened.... 4.3!

            It was a cold day about a month after patch 4.3 hit and I was still struggling making gold when it happened for me. I was at work checking over my twitter feed when I kept seeing this guy being called the Mogfather showing the world how he was making literally TONS of gold flipping low level green items. Players wanted these greens to use for transmogrification and they were paying as much as 20k gold per piece. I was shocked that this was possible because I had tried for a few weeks to sell these things on my realm and no bites so I reached out to  @Deazeroth aka The Mogfather asking him whether or not he could do it on my realm as well because I was trying and it wasn't working at all. He kindly agreed to give it a shot and I scrambled with the RAH app on my iphone and got a guildie to send him 200g to play around with. He joined my guild and we began to talk about the items to buy and flip and he showed me where to find his lists. I was giddy (though quite skeptical) and began buying everything I could find that fit his theme and mailed off to him and sat back and waited. It wasn't instant,  it wasn't in a day, but in about 3 days we had built his inventory to around 100 pcs and profits started coming in. I couldn't believe it! I picked his brain constantly, I continued to buy and he continued to post and after around 1 week he had made me 5k gold! It was like Christmas for me. That's where my journey began.

            I took that initial 5k plus the roughly 20k I had personally and went to work. The Mogfather had left me roughly 80 pcs of inventory and a good knowledge of what to do.  I began using TSM and Auctionator and scoured my AH via the game client and RAH app for hours a day. I was obsessed with it. I started making sales... 2k one day, 9k a few days later, 24k one weekend, the gold was pouring in and all I was doing was buying low and selling high. I didn't have time to raid,  didn't have much time to run my guild, nothing I was obsessed and it was ok! I made my first 100k about a month in (maybe less) and was feeling pretty good about things. I technically had the gold to buy my Vial but greedy goblin set in and I wasn't comfortable letting it go just yet but did want to do something else. 

            I play Horde on my main and all of my alts but I had been noticing that the models transmogrification wise for characters was so much better on the Alliance side. I had a guildie help me move 1k gold over to the Alliance side and made my first Ally toon. Bankonally was his name and that is all he was. He was a human hunter and never made it past level 1. He didn't have to! I began the same process again and was AMAZED at how many sales I raked in on the Alliance side. I bought a lvl 11 guild with 7 tabs for 7k about 2 weeks later, started stocking up, and literally making a killing on the AH. I was literally posting around 2,000 auctions a day across both factions, deposit fees were in the 1,000's but it didn't matter because I was clearing 3-5k a day. A month went buy and I was up to 100k gold on the Alliance and it was finally time. I found my Vial on the AH for 38k snagged it up, had a guildie help me move it over to the horde side and victory was mine! Hell I even decided to wear some of the stuff I'm selling because why not market a little while out in the world. The two photos are of my Rogue Splitpea wearing full Bonechewer with  Boneshredder shoulders and gloves plus my new Alliance Toon Cailou in almost a complete set of Vanguard plate!

            There were very few if any cons to selling transmogrification gear for me. Trade Trolls would rage “That is never gonna sell!” “lol 5k for a lvl 50 green”and right after that I would post “XXX on the AH now. 9K!” …......... Troll Rage........... “a buyer has been found for you auction of XXX”. I've had mails from players raging on me. I get whispers “thanks for ruining the economy on this server” to which I reply “your welcome”. I have been reported as a gold seller and accused of making the game unplayable for leveling characters. I have also gotten the mails from people grateful that I had the one item they were looking for and more requesting pcs that they themselves couldn't find. I was and am always willing to help and even cut a deal to those genuine people in game and love it when I see them in Org wearing my gear.

            I have since retired Bankonally as a toon on the Alliance and rolled a DK and leveled enchanting so I could DE the items that wouldn't sell. I have began to stockpile cloth and dusts for MoP and continue to sell albeit at a much slower rate now that we are 5 months into the patch. I use a bank alt on the Horde side as well but it is fairly well known on my server who I am and what I do. I am the GM of my own guild with over 250 members and am quite happy to say we are 1/8H DS and ALL guild members have full repairs along with flasks and feasts paid for by the guild that is 100% funded by my transmogrification sales. The transmogrification market has changed the game for me, I would still be the guy that had to borrow 2500g from my former GM for epic flying just to manage it. Now if I want it I buy it and don't worry about what it costs. I have dipped into so many new markets that I now have a steady stream of gold coming in  via shuffling, crafting, and flipping that I know if I spend 10k today I'll make 11k tomorrow so who cares.

            In conclusion the transmogrification feature added with patch 4.3 has netted me over 400k gold. Liquid gold after buying Vials, funding a guild, Mechano Hogs (x3) and I don’t have a care in the world as far as gold goes. I lend gold out to guildies never intending to be repaid. I give 1000g to random players attempting to sell 20x Wool cloth in trade and watch them freak out, there is nothing better than bankrolling a lvl 19 warlock that is selling wool cloth.  I would like to give special thanks for all of this to @deazeroth (for getting me my start),  @powerwordgold (for having a site to bring all the lists together), @theovercut (for supplying me a forum to write this and for the EXCELLENT leather lists!), @bishopswow (for letting me bounce ideas off of from time to time), and too many others to name.

            I will leave you with a few screen shots of some of my successes and to everyone good luck in all your gold making endeavors! 

 This is Audem Gold signing off.

Check out another Guest Post: Transmog Tactics by @marthapie Part 1

Transmog Tactics by @marthapie Part 2

Pie here again with the second half of my post on selling BoE greens on your server. They hold so much potential with transmogrification, but not everyone realizes it! Sometimes for your sales to grow on your server, you need to step in. Here are some more methods I have used myself and I hope these help you.

Advertisement

I don’t mean announcing in trade “selling Conqueror set for 4k, PST”. I have seen this a few times. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t (I normally see the pieces later on the AH posted by the same seller). If for nothing it does get the word out there about greens. I also don’t mean listing what you have for sale on forums.

These two methods may work for you. I personally stay away from them because I feel I’m just asking for trolls. “4k LOLWAT UR SO DUM!!!!!1!!!one” no thank you. (However, if you’re not afraid of that or if your server is friendly, then post your sets on the forums. It helps if you lead with complete sets, and mention that you have many other single pieces.)

Nay! I’m talking about parking one of your decked-out toons in the middle of town. What’s a better advertisement than seeing it in person? For this I use my blood elf pally (in the banner… isn’t she a beauty?). I just unsheathe my weapon and shield and stand in a high-traffic area and look pretty. If you’re feeling extra creative, find a mount and pet to match your outfit (the Horde balloon and paladin charger look lovely with my bloodfist set). You will notice some players targeting you to check you out, and even get some compliments. This method pairs very well with the two I described in my first post.

What you’re hoping for here is for players to ask themselves, “what set is that? I don’t remember that tier” and then be surprised when they check your gear. You want to open up people’s minds!

Helpfulness

I do not proactively interact with anyone on my mogging mule. However you do need to get used to players contacting YOU, whether it’s to call you bad names or to request custom orders. If it’s the former, there’s nothing you can do, haters gon hate.  Now the latter is what you really want! If you respond to these players with a helpful attitude, they will come back for more and hopefully even spread the word.

Along with requests, you’ll also receive offers for items you have up currently. If they’re offering 200g for a very rare item, then it probably won’t work out (depends on how generous you are). However if it’s reasonable enough, check out their armory. Is this the last piece they need? Consider obliging them. They’ll remember you as a helpful seller and maybe even tell their friends.

Example: I received a request to gather the Revenant set. I was completely honest with her and said she could grab all the pieces herself via BC questing. I didn’t mind doing this since the Revenant set is not a huge gold maker (thanks, ugly shoulders!). She thanked me for my honesty and that was that. However one week later, she ended up buying several other pieces from me on the AH. So my point here is to be polite and helpful for some good karma points!

And finally, one last tip: simply talking about transmog with your friends and guildies will get the buzz going. If you’re passionate about something, it’s not difficult to get someone else excited about it too.  The topic of transmog outfits comes up rather frequently during our raids. And it’s not just me! All the pictures you see in these two posts are of my guildies in some great-looking greens ^_^ In fact, their passion for mogging far surpasses mine. I have one set for each of my toons, they have multiple for each. Go figure!

Be prepared to recommend some nice resources for finding attractive green sets (MogIt addon, DEAzeroth, wowroleplaygear, worldofwardrobes, etc). It’s one thing to get someone excited but you should also push them in the right direction.

I hope this helps those of you looking to promote transmogging BoE greens on your server. I believe that transmogrification is one of the best concepts introduced to the game. Old content revisited and creativity and style encouraged, what’s not to love? Personally, I’m enjoying making gold again. This isn’t your typical “craft x of these glyphs, cut x of these gems, etc” but it does require patience. I hope you find this market rewarding and satisfying like I am.

Once again, you can follow me on Twitter @marthapie if not for the food-related tweets alone. You’ve been warned.

Now Farli, where is my naked dwarf picture?

Check out Part 1 here Transmogg Tactics by @marthapie Part 1

Transmog Tactics by @marthapie Part 1

Since Farli is busy being pro at his transmog sales (actually he’s just standing alone naked at the BRD bar, wondering why no one will join him), I’m filling in for a minute!

I’m Pie. My first love and priority in the World is raiding with my awesome guild, <Cake> (see a pattern?). It does take up a lot of time, so I can’t farm or craft too much. The transmog market is perfect for me, both in convenience and enjoyment.

I’m not here to write about how much I make daily, or to tell you what pieces to sell. This post is for those of you on servers where maybe players aren’t thinking outside the box. I have found that a lot of people overlook BoE greens and stick to tier and raid drops. There’s nothing wrong with this of course, but you can’t really make gold off these!

In my two-part post, I’ll explain the various methods that I’ve found to help increase my transmog sales. It’s important to note that I do the first two strictly on my main! I like to keep my main separate from my mogging mule. 








Compliments

Raise your hand if you tend to afk in Org/SW (my hand is raised). Take a look at the players around you. Most of the time you’ll see entire matching tier sets… that’s cool, but keep looking. You might just find a few players mogging greens, and those are the ones who stand out to me. Appreciate the effort that these players have put into their outfits. Don’t be afraid to send them a tell complimenting them. Most of the time you’ll receive a happy response! Sometimes you’ll even get into a conversation about transmogging, or you’ll find that they’re missing just that ONE piece (that you probably have /wink).

Example: I saw a blood elf hunter wearing the Battleforge set with the pimp hat that actually went very well with the rest of the outfit. He even matched his pet to the leopard trim on his hat! So of course I sent him a tell because I loved his outfit. He was so appreciative and excited, he even showed me his other transmog set stored in the bank. This was another absolutely beautiful and unique set (a skirt! on a hunter!). Since then he race-changed to an orc, so of course he had to change his outfit. And from whom did he buy greens for this set? Mmhmm. This is your ideal buyer. Find them, compliment them, encourage them to buy more.

What if you can’t find any toons with greens? See if there are any tier outfits that are missing a good belt or boots. Maybe that person just has bad luck with drops. If you have an item in your mule’s inventory that you think would go well, suggest it to them (“my alt’s wearing that tier set too, but with this belt. I got it on the AH, maybe there’s another?”)

Gold

The pioneer of this market, Keelhaul, inspired me to pursue this method on my server (in my own small way). If you have the capital (which you should after spending some time in this market), consider sharing the wealth. Sometimes I do it randomly, and sometimes I announce it in trade. I will say something like “giving out 1k to players wearing unique, non-tier transmog sets, PST”. Doing this in trade will get other players thinking about starting a set themselves if they haven’t already. By specifying “non-tier” you will steer them in the direction of the AH. You will garner a lot of interest and curiosity, and probably have several conversations with random players. You’ll also find some who have a set in progress, meaning they’re still missing pieces. I give these players 500g and tell them to look me up when they complete the set to receive the other half. Where will they go? The AH to buy from you!

Of course players love getting gold but sometimes the player doesn’t want it; they just wanted to show off their outfit. This is exactly the creativity and effort you want to promote on your server.

Example: someone I gave gold to a few weeks ago for his outfit at the time recently bought an entire Overlord’s set from my mule. I like to think that appreciating someone’s outfit will encourage them to make more.

These first two methods are very similar in that at the end of your exchange, the other person feels confident and satisfied that someone else took the time to appreciate his/her creativity (whether through words or a monetary reward). It’s one thing to be happy with the look you’ve created yourself; it’s another feeling entirely to have a stranger notice as well.

The key here is to plant seeds of encouragement that will hopefully branch out and be noticed by other players!

Stay tuned for my other methods soon. Follow me on Twitter @marthapie for nonsense!

-Pie

Check out Part 2 here Transmogg Tactic by @marthapie Part 2