Meet MsOhnekase....on Deathwing: Week Four and Five

Ok, so welcome back to Deathwing.  I don't really have time to play today, however, its time for a new project. A Jewelcrafter.

Meet Windfinder

So, we are going to spend the next day or so leveling her.  I will let you know how it goes.

Also, here is an accounting of our sales for the past little while.

Day 1


Reposted my stuff, then started working on Windfinder.

Just some starting quest leveling today.

Day......


So, I know it has been a while, and unfortunately, it will have to be a lot longer of a while.  See, I lost my job last week, and it was really hard on me.  It is also hard on my pregnant wife and our livelihood.  As I strive to find a new job, I am kind of suspending my work here.  I have not played wow much anyway, so I couldn't really comment on it if I wanted to.  I am sorry for this, but Real life has to come first.

Thank you,

Meet MsOhnekase....on Deathwing: Week Three

Hello again.

So we posted a bunch of Cataclysm level trade mats we got from the DMF.  Lets see how we did.

My gold just spiked...a lot.  Lets see what all sold.

A lot of the Cata stuff sold.  A nice little buffer.  Great results there.

OK, so today, I decided to do 2 things in, both in Blasted Lands:  Quest and Kill Rare Mobs.  Any good transmog greens I got were going to go to Msohnekase and try and be sold.  Otherwise, I will just Disenchant it, cause I need mats anyway, or I can sell the mats for a good price.

Now, for those wanting to do the Blasted lands, there is some great info for it.  The best info comes from @Faidtastic, she had the original farming for Transmog gear.  I also wrote a guest post for the Power Word: Gold blog.  Here is a link if you want to see it (scroll to the Blasted lands specifically, it will tell you where to get the rare spawns and a nice macro.)

http://www.powerwordgold.net/2012/01/guide-to-farming-instances-for-mogging.html

So, here are some screenshots of me killing mobs.

Special note:  Paladins feel a little OP.  Seriously, I took on mobs 4 - 5 levels higher than me, and I took on multiple mobs many levels higher than me.  Either that or doing dungeons gives you awesome gear.  But I digress.

After all is said and done, here is what got posted (I think I killed somewhere around 10 mobs, and turned in all the yummy fragments for more greens and blues).  Note, all of them may seem high, but for transmog, this makes sense.

So, we will see how they sell tomorrow.

Day 2






So, I am not going to spend a lot of time today actually questing or whatever, I am instead going to talk about how to make some easy gold without leaving the home city (For enchanters).

So we have a bit of money, lets find some creative ways to spend it.  OK, so you can disenchant green items and get dust and essence from them, right?  So that means that each green and blue item has a value for disenchanting.  Well, green and blue items themselves do not have a static costs.  After all, Armor of the Wolf is not as sought after as Armor of the Monkey or or the Bear or Tiger.  So we are going to take advantage of that fact.

The easiest way to do this is to use an Auction House Addon, my AH Addon of choice is Auctionator.  Auctionator can be easily set up to show you the Disenchant Value of an item.  Basically, it takes the % chance you have to get dust and essence, and then uses that to calculate an average value based on the AH prices.

Easy example (we are going to over simplify it to show the point).

Lets say an item can be disenchanted as follows:  1 x dust (50%) or 1 x essence (50%).  We will say dust goes for 5 gold ea on the AH and essence goes for 10 gold ea.  So if you look at the item tooltip, it should say 7g50s [(10 * .5) + (5 * .5)].  Meaning that if I had an infinite supply of these items, the value of each of them as I am DEing them would be really close to 7g50s.

So, let me show you in game, with Gondamer.  First, I am going to take out all my enchanting mats I have, that way we have a starting point of 0.

Then I am going to do a search of all weapons and armor based on price (NOTE:  If you have the TSM addon and feel so inclined, it can do it, but I will use Auctionator for simplicity).

So lets look at out search.  What we are going to do is search, then look at each item and see what the DE price is.

Check this out.  Single digit buy price, double digit DE.  This is what we want to see.

Another good weapon for DEing

Onto Armor.  Same idea.  Armor is not as profitable as weapons are.
Dust doesn't tend to sell as well as Essence does.

Note:  You probably don't want to spend too much just yet.  You  can usually find some good stuff below like gold that will turn a profit.  Later when you have a better feel for it and are higher, the Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm stuff can sometimes do well, but you need to be careful.

Your best items are usually the Nether and Eternal essences, as well as some dusts.  Not entirely sure why, but that is my experience.  Either way though, I think we will do ok.  Also, if you can be in a lvl 25 guild, this DEing is even more profitable for you as you have a chance to get extra loot.

Finally, note something else.  Sometimes the best way to make dust and essence (or the cheapest way anyway) is to make an item cheaply yourself.  For example.  Linen can sometimes be really really cheap (a couple silver ea).  Strange dust averages between 50s and 1g ea.  So if you take linen bought cheaply (say 7s each), turn it into bolts, turn that into Brown Linen Pants (2 bolts, 1 coarse thread) and DE it, you cost is only about 30 silver, and you can sell it for about 20 silver profit (assuming you only get one).

So here is our stash.  I spent 65 gold for all this.

So, 36 items.  I am going to get to DEing and see what we have to sell.

OK, so here is our DE stash from that.

Now lets see what it fetches on the AH.

The great thing is that even if one stack of the Dust sells, I have paid for my investment.  So it will likely be profitable.  We will see though.

Finally, one last thing.  This is courtesy of @Faidtastic (I saw it on her blog a few months ago).  For those of us that need or want Eternal essence to sell, check this out.


So Eternal Essence are expensive, right now lesser Eternals are going for 15 gold each.  So, if we can find something that will give us lesser eternals for less than say.....10 or so gold, that might be worth it.  Enter Gorn One-Eye (Star trek reference I think, but I don't know).  He sells this:

1H Mace for 10.64 gold (less if you are revered or exalted).  This DEs into Essence and Dream Dust.  The Dream Dust is kinda not as good a seller (97s), but the Essence is, and the dust still has its uses.  So I am going to buy 10 of them, DE them and see what we get.

Well, so that is 11 Lesser Eternals (I got 2 from a quest turn in), and 22 Dream Dust.  I can use the Dream Dust to either level or I can sell it, or I can turn it into other stuff (I have heart that Enchanted Thorium Blades are a great way to go for those.

However, even with the 11 Eternals, those will turn into 3 Greater Eternals and 2 lessers.  Greater Eternals are going at 40g ea right now.  So that is 120 gold right there.  Again I can make back my money and then some.

Well, that is it for today.  I will let you know how I do.

Day Three


Well, I don't have a ton of time, but lets take a look anyway...

So we sold a bit, but not nearly what we put into it.  Honestly, that is fine.  The beautiful thing about enchanting is that the mats all sell on the AH for a really cheap deposit.  So if something just goes through and doesn't sell, meh.

So, without a lot of time, all I decided to do was run around to try and find me some more rare spawns.....15 minutes later, I found 2.  None of them were there, and the loot they gave me wasn't really worth mentioning, however, it did DE.

The other thing I did do is I bought a bunch of Runecloth and leveled my tailoring.  When your profession mats get cheap, there is no reason not to look into purchasing some and using them.  Whether it be for leveling your profession, or just making stuff to sell/DE/whatever, it is usually worth it.  In this case, I made a bunch of Runecloth Belts to level my skill, then DEed them and used those mats to level my enchanting.

That is it for now.  I will see you tomorrow.

Day 4


Ok, so lets see what happened today.

Ok, so check out what I sold.  I sold a Cat Carrier and a Recipe for over about 175 gold combined.  Remember, I paid less than a gold ea for them.  In fact, mentioning that, I am gonna go buy up some more of those recipes and send them to msohnekase.  I am also gonna go do the Cooking daily cause I haven't done it in a few days and the Cocoa beans are decent sellers.

Today, I don't really have many plans.  I am gonna go do the rares.  Other than that....well, I didn't get a chance to turn in my Sunken Temple Quests, maybe I will do that.  I will let you know in a minute.

Ok, so I ran to Sunken Temple, next...

I did a litle questing, then did a LBRS random.  Hit 58 wooo.

So that is it.  i will keep you informed tomorrow of how stuff went.

Day 5


I did not do much today, however, here is how I did.

I sold another White Kitten and my Cocoa beans.  Really, I am not doing anything today, but I did find some Runecloth for 23 silver each, which is really good, so I am gonna buy a bunch of it.  It might be costly, but it will be worth it to level my profession and try and get some good mats.

Meet MsOhnekase....on Deathwing: Week Two

So, I was gonna do some stuff with the Mists of Pandaria Beta, but I didn't know what to do.  So for now, I will continue on this for week two.

Day 2


Here is where we are sitting.

So, not too much more.   The Bonechewer Spear I got sold for like 35 gold.

So, the plan today.  Lets get some more cooking stuff to turn into cocoa beans, then lets do a dungeon.  I want to hit 55.

Why 55?  Blasted lands.  Being an enchanter means I need dust and shards.  But it also means that I can get a lot of Transmogriphication items to sell.  And those are also really really good sellers.  Plus it is an area where I can get Runecloth.

So, I didn't get anything really to sell, but I did get a level, which is fine, cause that is part of what I am trying to get out of it.  I will let you know how our sales do the next time I am on.

Day 3 (Saturday)


OK, so weird thing happened.  I got a little bit of play time on Saturday.  It has been awhile since I have seriously played on a Saturday, but hey, I won't complain.

Nothing huge this time around.  I didn't sell a ton, but that is ok.  Lets see what we can do today.

OK, so I have wanted to do some DMF stuff on my Paladin cause he has quite a few Tickets.  So I decided to take a page from my own guides and see if I could get some money from the DMF.

First things first, I gotta learn Fishing.

Ok, so I did a couple things at the DMF.

1) I did all the games, and all the profession quests.  +5 in the profession plus xp plus the more tickets will be good.  I am going to try something with the tickets....

2) I tried to go and buy some replica armor to see if I could sell it on the AH.  Some of the Replica Dungeon Set is actually pretty cool, and you really cannot get the recolored models anywhere else (I am talking about the Deathmist, Heroism, etc.  The others are largely heirloom items).  I decided on the Rogue chest piece (don't remember what it is called), but....I need to be level 60.  Oh well, I can wait.

3)  Fishing.  Lots of good loot to be had in those crates.  Especially for low level me.  So I fished.

There was a little competition, and a couple 85s running around, but I was lucky and they decided that they didn't feel like PVPing the crap out of me.  So I spent probably 1/2 hour fishing, give or take a bit.  Here is what I posted on the AH.

A lot, I will show you how I did the next post.

Well, that will do it for Week two.  I am working on Week 3 day 1 now.

See ya next time....

Meet MsOhnekase....on Deathwing: Week One

So, I have an hour or so this morning, so lets begin.  I will try and chronicle this (hmmm, maybe I will do this as a Twitch.tv later.....you can all let me know what you wanna do.)

Day One

Got some hot water boiling for some tea, lets get into it.

We have nothing.  We have 2 characters:  a level 1 bank toon and a level 49 Prot Paladin.  Our paladin, Gondamer, has Tailoring and Enchanting and some tanking blues that need repairing.  So, lets look at our options for this morning.

1) We can go get low level stuff.  Linen Cloth, Chunks of Boar Meat, and low level greens can all make us some gold.

2) We could also use this to solo a low level dungeon.  it would be about 15-20 minutes and would get us a lot of cloth and greens.

3) Or, we can insta-queue a lvl 49 dungeon, get 1g65s, possible quests, and greens and some cloth, all while leveling.

Honestly, I think I am going for option 3.  So lets do it.

Insta-queue

I instant queued for Blackrock Depths.  Lets see what I can get from it.

Special note:  If you are a Disenchanter, greed on everything instead of disenchanting.  The Guild perk Bountiful Bags applies to stuff you disenchant, but will not apply to pressing the Disenchant button.

Here is what I ended up with...

Most of it I am going to vendor.  I am going to keep the Runecloth cause I am a tailor and I can probably use it, but everything else I will vendor.  The Blue item I thought about disenchanting, but I vendored instead for 2 reasons: it vendors for 1g90s and the DE value is 2g00s.  As such, not worth a DE.

Now, I am going to run one more and then I am going to put my plan in order.  I will explain either today or tomorrow.

Sweet, got Undead Side Strathholme.  Haven't done those quests yet.  So we get a lot of stuff.  Things of notw are Revenant shoulders (a low tier Transmog piece, but a cool set), Dream dust from a useless green, some more runecloth and mageweave, and some offspec healing plate.  After everything totalled we hit 50 and have 23 gold.

No new training at 50, just a couple new glyphs.  So, lets buy some stuff.  Lets get some vendor stuff and see what we can do with it in SW.

Cat Carrier (White Kitten)
Cat Carrier (Bombay)
Cat Carrier  (Cornish Rex)
Cat Carrier  (Orange Tabby)
Cat Carrier  (Silver Tabby)
All the Cooking recipe's in old town.

These are all going to go to MsOhnekase for selling.  Then we are done with Gondamer.  All we are gonna do is post and we will be done for the morning and probably the day.

After remembering that Msohnekase needs money to post, I posted everything, and now I am going to log off for the day.

So, for now, I think we are done.  Questions, comments, suggestions, maybe if you want to see livestream of it (I will have to look into it anyway, but if you guys want, happy to do it), let me know.

Day 2


So I get up and try and jump in and....right, it is tuesday, so they are doing realm restarts :(.  Oh well, after an hour I can now get in.  Lets collect any auctions we might have and get started.

Ok, no auctions.....nothing sold.  That is ok, I only paid a few gold for them anyway.  They will sell eventually, its what they do.  However, because the White kitten is a limited quantity, I am gonna go pick up one on Msohnekase.

Onto Gondamer.  So, what are we doing with him, you ask?  Well, first we are going to do the cooking daily so we can get a chef's award and see if we can sell the Cocoa beans we can get from it.  I got 40 Beans and put them up for a gold (there weren't any up so I can kinda set the price).  Ok, time to move on.

Then we move on.

So, what is this plan I have for Gondamer?  Well, being at level 50, it gives him the perfect opportunity to quest in an area and work towards a potential gold mine of money:  Enchanting recipes.  Not just any recipe, heirloom recipes.

Behold...

This baby is the staple for rogues and some hunters for their heirloom weapons.  +15 Agility on a weapon that you only have to enchant once is amazing for them.  At low levels, they basically double their agi.  At high levels, its a nice boost above and beyond the heirloom bonuses.  Plus it sells for anywhere between 500-2000 gold (avg is probably about 750-1k).

Quick note:  To get to Felwood from Stormwind, I am taking the boat to Darnassus, then flying to Felwood from there.

OK, so I am basically doing a lot of questing.  All of the greens are being DEed (except for those that are good for transmog, which I have yet to find one).

And I think that is it for the day.  Not terribly much goldmaking, but we are basically investing some time into leveling plus getting that really good enchanting stuff.

But before I go, best....trinket......ever.

Alright, and I will end us there.  I will show you all how we did tomorrow.

Day 3


So, lets see how we did yesterday...

Ok, nothing sold.. but no matter, we are still sitting ok on our 20 gold and yesterday was an investment day, which we will continue today.

So I did the next piece of questing in Felwood.  A cool thing happened and I would recommend that you always keep an eye out for these.

Treasure chests give you a blue and several other goodies.  I am not sure, but i think I might have even got a bunch of XP, cause it dinged me after I looted it.

I did the quests, DEed the Greens I got from them, then decided to just head up to the Timbermaw and grind rep (it is easier than you think).  On my way though, my Silverdragon addon found me this.

Another green to add to the pile.  This one is the Royal trousers which I don't think are that sought after.  That is ok though, cause it will go into the DE pile, which I will definitely use.

Once I got up to Felpaw Village, there are quests waiting for me and the Furbolgs give 24 Rep a kill, which isn't bad.  They also give me XP so I am still leveling.  Plus they give Beads which turn in for like 1000 rep each.  So, I am going to grind up some rep with them.  I will lets you know how I do.  Plus as I am a prot paladin I might be able to AoE a bunch down at once.

Ok, so after 30 minutes of questing in the Timbermaw area and killing Furbolgs, I am honored with the Timbermaw, now I just need to get my enchanting up and I can learn the stuff.  Plus, I will use a little secret that @Faidtastic posted several months ago.

But for now, I need to be done.  It is time for work after all.

Day 3


Hello everyone.

OK, time to check our money.

So, nothing of Msohnekase's stuff sold, but I am not worried cause I know that those will.  They tend to sell anyway.  However, Gondamer sold all of his Cocoa beans for a nice profit.

So, we are going do another cooking daily for more profit.

And it was worth a level.  Gratz to me on 53.  At 55, I have devious, nefarious plans.  Or just a way I am gonna make me some money.  We got another 40 Beans, then put them up for 2.5 gold each, we will see if they sell.  OK, now to other stuff.  Also, that chest we found yesterday in Felwood had a blue polearm in it, I am gonna put that up for 35 gold and see if anyone buys it.

So, I did get Plate Specialization at level 50 and never took advantage of it, so lets go train some, then I am gonna do some dungeon for cloth and essence/dust.

We also have some mageweave cloth that we can tailor for 2 purposes.  First, it will level our skill.  Second, we can DE the greens for dust/essence, which we need as well.

Speaking of which, I should probably explain.  I went Tailoring/Enchanting on my paladin purely for goldmaking.  Tailoring is really good for getting extra cloth and if I actually farm it, it gets even better (and it is easy to AoE farm on a paladin).  The enchanting is a nice combo with tailoring and I can make money simply by DEing the stuff I get.  Speaking of which, I need to write an enchanting profession guide.  Maybe I will use Gondamer as a quick one...hmmm, maybe next week.

So we got 4 points of tailoring and now we DE them to get roughly 10 dream dust.  Not spectacular, but at least we are using as many tools as we can.

So now we do some enchanting.  It looks like the best way to enchant is through Bracer - Greater Strength (+7 Str).  So I am going to buy some Vellums  and try and sell them on the AH.  Low level PVPers might like an extra 7 str to bracers.  Besides, worst case, they are 6 silver deposit, its worth the risk to me.

Ok, so I just spent 20 minutes on a daily and crafting (this is what high levels can do to focus on making money and not play), so I would like to do a dungeon to try and get gold and stuff.

Interesting, I queued as Damage.  This should be fun.

Now, piece of advice.  When you are in dungeons, greed on all of the greens.  The reason is 2 fold.  First, you want to be able to DE it if you are one of those.  Second, Transmog pieces sell for a lot.  For eample, I juts got the Overlord Shield, which is this Big white shield with a clenched fist.  I think it looks awesome.  I think it will sell, so I greeded it and won.  Plus if you look on Power Word Gold Blog or the Hatchery, it is on Keelhaul;s mogging list.

So, good news.  The gear in BRD (the latter part) DEs in Large Brilliant Shards, which we will huse for our Agility Enchant to weapon.  And, thanks to being in a lvl 25 guild, we have the Bountiful Bags perk.

Now that is done, I am going to send the Overlord shield to Msohnekase and have her put it up.  I am going to put it up for 900 gold.  I could probably get more for it, but I will shoot for 900.

Alright, so I think I am done for the day.  I will be logging off today, but I will keep see you tomorrow....maybe.

Meet the Cast of Deathwing

Gondamer

This is the tune I was playing for a bit before I got started.  As of right now, he has nothing (except for the Truesilver rod, cause I hate making those.)

MsOhnekase

My new bank toon.  The reason it is a Human female is because they allow for me to look at Transmogriphication.  If I want to sell it, a Human Female is usually the easiest model to look at the pieces on.

More to Come

Results of the Onemonthonetoon challenge. Also, what happening next?

Ok, so lets go ahead and give the results of my onemonthonetoon.

In short, I would call it a success.  I wouldn't so much say it was a glowing success, but it was a success.  I did only play one toon (except for my 15 min of DMF for the blog, which I would say is fine), however, I didn't really stick to WoW so much.  If you check out my twitter feed, you will notice that a lot of days I didn't play WoW.  Some days this is fine (I have been getting back into MTG and I have a DnD night on Thursdays usually).  However, I played a lot of ME3.

So, what was the point?  What did I learn?  Well:

1) A Dedication to Goldmaking is a different game than other ways of playing:  This may be obvious to some, but it really hit home to me.  So, before the challenge, I would spend a few hours on WoW.  And I pretty much didn't do any end game content.  I had never done LFR, I had done the End of Time Dungeons, but not in a month or so.  Once I wandered around, I started to be able to do these things more consistently.  Is this good or bad?  Neither, really.  Just different ways of playing the game.  But it does help to be able to talk about both sides of WoW.

2) I am an altoholic:  I love my alts.  I think part of the reason I moved to ME3 was because I wasn't as interested in the one character after a while.  I needed other stuff to do.  Granted, ME3 was fantastic, I loved it and would have done it anyway, but there were days when I got back to wow and kinda just gave up on it.


Ok, there are others, but lets move to the other thing I was thinking.  So, the Onemonthonetoon challenge did help me to focus my efforts to do anything on one server.  As it stands, whenever people I know play on WoW, I tend to put a character on their server and play that one.  I am really scatterbrained when it comes to WoW.  I was pursuing auctioning and such on multiple servers (somewhere between 3-5 servers), which didn't really give me much time to play or focus on goldmaking.

So, what am I gonna do about it.  I am going to focus on a server.  I am going to create a toon on one of my friend's server, and focus to try and get as much gold as I can.  My toons will be shown and noted on the blog.  I am not going to hold anything back.  You will know their names even and what I am going to do with them.

The server:  Deathwing US.  An alternate interesting thing for this is that I am going to try and make gold on a PVP server, which adds a layer of interesting.

So, here is where we are sitting on this server.  This server had Ohnekase the Hunter, who was the first goldmaking and sold turkeys for a while to make a couple hundred gold.  Second, we have Gondamer the Paladin.  He has about 2600 gold cause I did some inital foray into transmog here.  Plus, he has some Enchanting stuff.

In the next couple of days, here is what we are going to do"

1) Delete Ohnekase:  I am going to have him get rid of his gold (probably by just giving it away, then delete him.  Why?  Well, first I want to start with a new Bank toon solely for this challenge (female Human).  And I haven't played for a while so eh.

2) Empty Gondamer's bags and money:  I don't want to delete this paladin cause I like this paladin.  However, he does have a gold start.  So lets get rid of that.  Mats, stuff, gold?  All gone.  I might even get rid of his gear (though it isn't all that amazing, and I could get it all back with a little LFD).

So, for now, I am just going to throw this out to keep in touch.  We will shortly introduce the new cast and we will go for that.

See ya next time...

Meet Ohnekase: The Power of Alts

Meet Ohnekase

Welcome to my Main Server.  I am Horde Side on Sentinels-US.  Meet my bank toon (I want to do a full article about the advantages of Bank Toons later).  Ohnekase is wealthy.  He is sitting around 500k gold, just on him.  Across all the characters on my server, I am about 725k, which is cool.  However, Ohnekase himself is kinda useless.  He doesn't really have much in the way of professions, and I don't use him for crafting at all.  How does he have so much money?  One word:  Alts.

So, if you look back on our Getting the Grade series, we found that Jewelry on Earthen Ring sold really really well.  That is great, but it really only took me 5 - 10 minutes to do with that.  And if there was really really cheap jewelry, I couldn't do anything but sit there and wait for it to go away.  But, what if that was not the case.  While each character can have only 2 primary professions, you can have more than one character.

Alts are an amazing tool.  If you look at @Faidtastic, @PowerWordGold, they each have a large pile of alts.  Why?  Because if you have extra alts, you can have them do extra professions without erasing the progress on a different character.  On my main server, I have every professions to max, except Herbalism (cause I dropped it to get Engineering on a character).  This is how I have as much money as I do.  When I just had Alchemy and Herbalism on my main, and only focused there, I didn't really make a lot of money.

So, lets go over the reasons for alts in more details.  Be aware that some of these are gold-making reasons more than game reasons, I will list what they are for.

Goldmaking benefits

1) Diversity:  On a recent Justin.tv stream with @Faidtastic and @PowerWordGold, the question was asked what the one profession is that made the most gold.  While some good answers were had, the best answer is that the best way to make gold in general is not through 1 profession (though you can), it is to diversify.  Let me give an example from my server.

My DK is a Jewelcrafter.  He can cut gems and sell them.  There is a market for this, but why stop there.  When I shuffle (and I haven't done it in a while) for cata ore, I buy Obsidium, Elementium, and Pyrite Ore, prospect it all down, cut the blue gems and sell those on Ohnekase.  If I just stopped there, I would still make money, but why stop there, there is more than one way to bake a cake.  My green gems turn into jewelry, which goes to my mage to DE for dust to make scrolls.  I buy herbs on my Priest for Inscription, then make glyphs, scrolls, and other Inscrip stuff.  I take some of that ore and make stuff on my Warrior for Blacksmithing and my Rogue for Engineering.

By itself, the gems might make me 100s or 1000s of gold over time.  But with the diversity, now I make make more and more and more, just by having more diversity.  Alts provide that diversity.  Even at low level, you can always have an alt or two to turn your useless greens from leveling a profession into dust (low level enchanting allows you to DE any of the low level stuff you get, and gets better as you level it, not hard to do).  Dust sells.  Lets say you get ore somewhere and aren't a miner.  Well, a miner alt, or a Jewelcrafting alt can make use of it, again at low levels.  And you don't need to be high levels to get high level professions.  A 10th level character can train up to 150, 20th level character can train up to 225 (both easy to get).

2) Anonymity:  This I am not going to touch on this much, because it is its own category really.  Anonymity gives you the abillity to do more than a single character would.  This is why most people have bank alts.  You can buy items on one character to send to another character.

For example, lets say someone was selling Valor Bracers (at high end) in trade for a great price.  You know that you can buy them and put them on the AH for double that.  Well, use another character (one that might make use of the items, Rogue for leather, Shaman for Mail, etc.), buy them, ship them to another character, and put them up on the AH shortly after.  That way, the person doesn't think he just sold some bracers to someone who just put it up (which creates animosity) and you can still get profit.

Also, this helps you organize your rage emails to a character.  If someone gets upset at a character, you know what they do?  Frequently, they will mail that person about it.  Or message, or switch factions and grief that character (on PVP servers), or just do some general hating wherever people will listen.  Trust me, very nice to be able to do it on a seperate character to avoid that.

3) Self-Sufficiency:  Part of making money is spending as little as you can for yourself.  If you can make your own stuff, why do you need to pay AH prices for it.  For example, Inferno rubies are really expensive (Last time I checked, they were 300 g + ea).  But if you have an alt, you can cut your own, which saves money, or if you have extra gems, you don't really pay for it itself (this isn't true cause the cost you could sell it for you technically take a hit for, but the idea is still there).

Other (possibly gold making) reasons

1) Diversity:  Yes it is the same, but I still think they fit both there.  If you have a Hunter, you can only DPS.  But if you have a Hunter and a Priest, you can DPS and Heal.  And sometimes, healing comes with its own rewards (Call to Arms comes to mind).  Sometimes you are at 85, wanna do a dungeon and the queue for DPS is 20 minutes.  Well, the Queue for healers and tanks is almost never that, so do it.

A side note on this for people on a PVP server.  Having an alt also gives you the diversity to avoid griefing if you want to.  Have you been killed by the same 85 Rogue for the 5th time in STV and none of your guild is on.  Well, skip him and move on another character.  Its not like that Rogue knows where you are.  And after an hour of doing something else with your other character, the Rogue will have gotten bored and moved on, I am sure.

2) Seperation of Goldmaking and playing time:  This is something that I think might be a good idea for some of my own characters.  So, I have a problem.  Some days, I don't feel like I really play the game.  Sure I am on for 5 hours, but I don't feel like I played.  Why?  Because those 5 hours were done Running Dungeon X, then doing my Jewelcrafting, the crafting on my blah blah blah.  That kind of thing.  All in all, I was on for a while, but all I did was craft.  This is something that can make the game stale. An alt (say a leveling alt on another server or something like that) can make the game continue to be fun.  Honestly, this is why I think I have altidus is that I hit max level and then kinda just stop afterword.  Sure I run a few dungeons here and there, and occassionally play a BG, but that is it.  But then I play a new alt and it is exciting again.  Being able to have some characters that are away from the all the gold making hubub I think can make you appreciate and play more.

But I have yet to do this on my main server, so maybe it isn't quite so.

My Alts

So I have talked about the power of Alts, but what do I have myself and why?  There is a reason after all.  So lets go over them.  Note:  For now, I am not going to include my other characters names cause I want to take advantage of my anonymity.

My Bank Alt

Originally, this character was created to play with my wife.  He still does occasionally, however, she is very good about staying on her Mage, so I let her be there.  For now, this is pretty much where I do all my Auctions.  On a given day, I can post 100-500 auctions.  I use TSM for it cause that addon makes a 4 hour posting cycle take much less.  His guild, <And What Army>, was a guild that I have turned into a bank guild for extra storage, which works really well.

My "Main"

My main, in all his Transmogriphication Glory.  I like the look.  However, he has some advantages as well.  He is an Alchemist and Engineer.  So he occassionally makes and sells pets, Flintlocke's Woodchucker, and transmutes.

Btw, let me know what you think of the Transmog set.  Also, to add to it, I made sure to use the title "the Argent Champion" and I use the Argent Hypogryph.

My Profession Alts

My Jewelcrafting alt.  I also had him grab Tailoring cause I like it for farming cloth.  But the JCer makes me the money definitely.

My Blacksmithing character and Tank.  For Blacksmithing, there are a lot of good things that everyone seems to want (Belt Buckles and Epic Shields).  Occassionally, I will run the Call to Arms and get me a nice set of Bags with money, flasks, and pets.  Happy face.

My Mage is a Tailor and an Enchanter.  Lots of good money from him, even if he is wearing a pregnancy belt.

My Priest is only level 75.  But he has max Inscription and has Alchemy as a side Profession.  He make a lot of Glyphs and some potions.

This is what alts get you.  I can literally make anything I need for any of my characters and can usually keep Ohnekase Stocked.

One last example...

If I did another getting the grade challenge (which I will do something similar), I would add in the ability for using alts in there as well.  Even at low level, I would find a use for them.

Think about it.  At one point, I was debating where to move Ohnekase to: Jewelcrafting, Blacksmithing, or Engineering.  Well, lets say instead that I just made an alt that was Engineering and Blacksmithing and made Ohnekase a Jewelcrafter.  Remember that Ohnekase has a lot of Copper.  Now I can start looking at using more of it.  Then my copper can make even more stuff to try and sell on the AH.  Even the Rough stone could possibly be used.  Even better is that I could make another alt that is Enchanting (and probably tailoring) so that I can DE items as well.

So if I did all that, lets look at what I could do for money.

I buy Copper at 20s ea.  I send it to my JC to make jewelry which sells for 10-15 gold ea.  I then make some low level armor to try and sell for maybe 5 gold ea.  Then I make greens with that copper as cheap as I can and DE them for Strange Dust and Essence.  Strange Dust fluctuates a lot, but we will say I can sell it occassionally for 1 gold ea.

So with copper, I have literally shuffled it all around and made money on it.  Will every avenue work?  Of course not, but then I have the diversity to move around if I need to and try other things.

Conclusion...

So, if you are serious about goldmaking, I would say that you really need alts.  They provide you with so many benefits that one character just cannot provide.  It also gives you some leway to try different things.  Even if you want to just power a character through to 85, make a quick Enchanter to DE whatever it can, so you can prepare for it later.  The benefits are huge.

See ya next time....