Exploit the Bottleneck: Frostweave Cloth

I'm finally getting back into the grind.  I'm still currently working on my Mage.  I've found that the best way to level is to Queue for the dungeon finder and then hang around Org trying to be productive.  At least, for me, anyway.  I feel like I'm more focused and don't become as bored as easily as I do with questing. 

With that in mind, I noticed I never finished getting my Mage to max level tailoring.  In typical fashion, I pulled up a leveling guide and got to work.  Soon, I found myself crippled.  Between level 375-425 there was almost nothing available as far as materials go on the AH.  The main material for those 50 levels is Frostweave cloth.  What I found on my relatively large server was a major shortage. This stems from the fact the cloth is found in Northrend.  With the majority of leveling players are skipping completely over the zone so there are very few players bringing the cloth into the market.

The average stack of Frostweave cloth averaged out at about 40 gold.  However, there were probably no more than 10-15 stacks listed at any one time.  Certainly not enough to appease a wealthy leveler trying to grind through those levels. 

I've devised a few strategies that I'm going to implement in order to take advantage of this shortage.  Hopefully, you'll be able to implement these on your server as well.

Adding Frostweave to Scan: 
I know things have changed and there may be better avenues for scanning, but I still like Auctionator.  I've added frostweave to my list and I will scan for it when I scan for other items to buy at a low price.   With my average price coming back at 40g per stack, any stack I can pick up 30g or less is a no brainer.

Zone Farming:
This isn't farming in a traditional sense.    Head to Northrend and fly around some of the higher end zones. Icecrown and Storm Peaks work well.  Spam general chat that you are looking to buy Frostweave cloth.  See if you can catch some levelers and provide gold on the spot.  Most players don't mind you swooping in, cleaning out their bags and giving them some gold.

Own the Market:
Depending on your server, take a stab at this.  If your server is like mine, this is an easy market for easy on to control.  The supply is limited, so it doesn't take constant supervision.   To do this properly, you will need to make sure you're buying all incoming materials and price fix the market.  Keep supply artificially low while keeping the prices high.  For example, take my server price.  At 40g and roughly 15 stacks listed I would purchase all of the stacks, relist 8 of them and mark the price up to 75g per stack.  Do this and see how the market fairs.  Did you have undercutters come in behind you?  Did you sell your posted auctions?  Did you price yourself out of the market?  Adjust your strategy accordingly.

Conclusion:
While I found this to work well with Netherweave cloth, it can also work just as well with other WotLK era materials.  This also spans other professions as well.  What other leveling bottlenecks have you found?  Any luck making them into profitable adventures?  Let me know!

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Old Habits Die Hard

So, I'm not going to lie.  I've been resubbed for about 2 days.  A lot has changed during my time away from the game.  Loads of new content. Lots of abbreviations in trade chat that I don't understand.  I don't know any of the high end markets.  I don't have maxed professions.  I ran my mage out to Kun Lei Summit, (Did I say that right? I know that's close, or something else that's Street Fighter related.) fought a tiger's minions and rode a hot air balloon.  I decided I didn't like questing as I have no idea wtf I'm doing, so I would queue for the dungeon finder and go about leveling that way.

With that, I hearthed back to Org and found myself with plenty of time on my hands.  What did I do? The only thing I knew how to do.  Make Netherweave bags of course.  I still had plenty of cloth left over from my stockpile and the price was still excellent.  Not the crazy high prices I experienced at the earlier parts of the expansion, but a solid 22 gold per bag.  Another thing that didn't change is that demand is still crazy high.  I don't undercut, I just post for 48 hours in the middle of the pack and let players buy into my auctions.

I'm going to hop back in and do some leveling tonight, but I'm also going to see if I can take back control of this market and own it.  At last scan only 79 auctions available.  26 were mine.  Highest price was 29g.  I'm going to cancel all of mine, buy out all the remaining and set the price to 50g tonight and see what happens.

My past two overnight sales have been about 50 bags each so I don't see why it wouldn't work.

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Operation Reboot

Yep, it happened.  After listening to Res and Cold on the on the Eviscerated Gaming Podcast over at Eviscerated.net and texting with MSherretz of Auction House Junkies fame (pointless to link to that, as there is no content there anymore as I quit paying for the hosting service.)  I've decided to resub.

Partially because I'm interested in building a new gaming rig and partially because I never made it to 90, damnit.  So to keep my interest in the game going, I've decided to set a couple goals.  I figured I would write them down and share them with the three people who might read this when my account auto tweets the posting.

Battle Pets
"If you could choose between playing Pokemon in real life or world peace, who would your starter be?"

That pretty much sums it all up.  I never got into it, but after hearing about these fancy Pet Battle Leagues, I'd like to get it a legitimate try.  Couple that with the fact that you can make some gold with those guys, and I think it might be fun.

Level Toons
Yep, gonna do that too.  I might even transfer all my toons to one server.  $12.50 for a transfer?  What a perfect time to come back.  Anyhow, my Mage will get to 90 first (currently 88) followed by whatever doesn't seem like a pain in the ass to level.

Get Gold Cap...again
A quick look at all toons across my main server and my total gold is 129,372.  No, I didn't leave off a number or a comma.  I bought up a ton of mounts toward the end (Hello there see through kitty cat, I forgot about you) and actually gave a fair bit to a former co-worker.

With that said I'll update this as I go along.  Probably mostly gold making, as I'm sure of the three of you reading this you couldn't care less about me hitting 90.  I'm not up on recent market trends or anything like that at the moment, nor  do I have any strategies going forward.  But, I'm going to go out a limb and say all of the strats will still work.  So will see how it goes.

Also, as I have not kept up with the community feel free to say Hi! Or if you're an old reader, drop a link to some active gold blogs, I'd love to have a good read at work.

Wes

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Check out Episode 33 of Eviscerated Gaming Podcast!

Hey guys!  Just checking in and wanted to give everyone a quick update. I had the opportunity to be a Guest Host this week on the Eviscerated Gaming Podcast.  Lots of laughs and a good time with Cold of Cold's Gold Factory, and Res of Eviscerated.net

So what are you waiting for?  Go check it out, I know Res put in some hard work editing to make it perfect for you.  Find it right here: Eviscerated Gaming Podcast Episode 33: "The Nut Ninja"

As always feel free to catch up on past Episodes of The Auction House Junkies Podcast as well :)

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Pro Tip: Don't be afraid to reset Living Steel

Now that I'm finally digging into MoP, I wanted to post today about Living Steel.  Thanks to Mike (@MSherretz) and Cold (@SSmith0911) from the Auction House Junkies podcast for letting me in on the Living Steel trick.  Because I'm well late to the party, I won't sit here and try and explain the process for Living Steel but it's pretty simple.  Ghost Iron Ore>Ghost Iron Bars>Trillium Bars>Living Steel on CD with each transmute spec Alchemist you have. (I have four!).  With that out of the way, I want to get to the meat of the subject, the Living Steel market it's self.

Two days ago, my Living Steel Market was at a solid 700g per unit and moving as quickly as things were being listed. When I came home yesterday after the patch, my auctionator informed me the price had dropped to 500g.  My first assumption was well, Ore must have came down in price, and I almost went ahead and listed anyway.  However, I decided I'd take a look and see what was going on.  Upon review, the majority of the market was still hanging out at 688g.  However, one seller had listed three bars and dropped his price to 550g, while the other had undercut him even deeper with 4 bars at 500g.  Rather than following the downward trend, I decided I would stop it and make a profit with it.

Knowing how much demand out weighs supply right now and how fast these bars are moving, I quickly bought out all 7 bars, and relisted them, along with the 5 I had just made (Hell yea, LS Proc!).  I worried a bit at first, but two hours later, all 12 bars had sold for the 688 price that I listed them.  So on top of the profit made from just using my transmutes, I made an additional 1166g by simple moving the market back in an upward direction. 

Long story short, Living Steel has a gated supply.  There is no reason at all to lower the pricing.  This is one of those examples, that even if you list higher then the lowest item the demand will buy back into your price bracket as well.  Be smart with what you're doing, especially at this point in the expansion.  Markets are volatile, but Living Steel is a great example of being able to ride a market upward.

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