My first post is going to deal with gray loot, having big bags & making the most of your limited game time (yes, these things are linked together). I've always been the type of player who looted every item that dropped, and was ready to vendor it after a play session. It was a habit I always had. So when grouping with people in my guild recently, I was fairly shocked to discover many of them never looted gray items. I also noticed in PuGs that many players would leave gray loot, which I would then scoop up.
Typically, if I'm reputation grinding Netherwing or Shattered Sun for an hour, I'll get a couple of gray items at least which could add upto 5 or 10 gold. Now say if I spend 2 hours a day on dailies (or even better leveling in Outland), that's potentially 140g a week. It could be significantly more if your spending time questing in Outland. That's a huge amount of money to be throwing away long term. It's certainly a nice way to cover your repair and other maintenance costs at minimum. Personally I find it a great source of income, as I don't spend all that much on repairs.
Asking people why they don't loot gray items, I'm often faced with the same answer; I just don't have the bag space. The same people however often have 16 slot bags, which for anyone level 70 is a poor effort. Having large bags for me is an investment every WoW player should make. Earning the 40g to buy an 18 slot bag off the auction house, is about 30 minutes worth of dailies. A small price to pay for something that will make you time and money. If you upgrade from a set of 16's to all 18 slotters, thats 8 gray items you may have previously left unlooted. Vendoring these items soon adds up, and soon the 160g spent on the 18 slot bags has turned into hundreds more.
I carry 20 slot bags with me, which set me back 400-500g each, but I feel it was money well spent. Looting everything you see is not the only way you're making money out of having large bags; you're actually buying time. Say you spend 2 hours a night questing or farming, and you have a set of 16 slotters. 30 minutes in your all out of space and you have to run back to town to vendor your trash, or mail stuff to your bank alt. Meanwhile the extra 16 slots I have mean I've gone uninterrupted for the entire 2 hour session. Again this time all adds up.
The next patch update will see the introduction of 22 slot bags priced at a massive 1200g. I'm probably going to buy at least two, but most likely I'll get four for my main. That's 600g for one extra slot, so it will probably take a long time to make any return on that investment (if at all, Wrath of the Lich King will probably introduce a 24 slot bag before I get the chance t0), but I have the funds to indulge myself. However, this post still serves as a useful tip for lower level players. You might be new to the game, in your 30's and still carrying 6 or 8 slot bags. You can buy 14 slot bags on the auction house for just a couple gold, which really is not a huge amount of money, certainly achievable. Soon your first mounts will be available at level 30 for a mere 40g, and maybe the 60g saving will encourage you to spend money on 14 or 16 slot bags, which will certainly make your leveling process towards Outland more enjoyable, easier and maybe you'll end up a little richer along the way.
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6 comments:
Brilliantly written article. I too love picking up the grey items and pre-TBC farmed places which I knew dropped greys which sold well to a vendor. My main issue is the bag space, I have 20 slot bags and 16's in my bank, I still find that I run out of space easily which really frustrates me.
Thanks for the feedback mate.
Yeah I do have this same problem myself, I'm the sucker for collecting vanity pets & nice/unusual looking gear to wear in town, so I usually don't have more than a few free spaces in my bank. This is despite having all 18s and 1 20 slot bag in the bank. A few tips I can think of to help solve this problem;
- Try starting a guild, with your only your bank alt as a member. You can buy a guild bank slot or two, and this should be a lot of space for most people.
- If you're running Zul Aman, you can pretty easily pick up the 20 slot bag quest reward from there. However, my guild does not raid, so I asked about in trade if any ZA guild was willing to let me sneak into the raid once they were done; the quest item can be picked up by anyone, and 2 minutes later you'll have a free 20 slot bag. I'm sure most people will have friends who run ZA.
- Also you can get 20 slot bags by running Magtheridon, although here you'll have to convince the rest of the raid why you deserve the bag, or get lucky on the roll. However, regularly running it could mean you'll end up with plenty of 20 slot bags, as the boss drops it every time.
Great ideas, never thought of the guild bank one. You obviously know what you're talking about, can't wait to see your next post up.
Grey items are an awesome source of income. One thing that I've noticed is that staves and hammers usually are the highest priced weapons and so picking up those over a grey sword might actually benefit you more when you're down to picking and choosing between bag slots.
I used to have an add on that told me the selling price of every item I picked up, how it stacked, and what it was used for. Damned if I can remember what it was, but it helped me a lot. I'd select items that stacked over high-priced items that didn't and get up with a lot more money. Or choose one type of stacked item over another because it was more. I wish that I remember what it was!
Good tips and damned fine advice.
That is certainly the case CynraAnar. There is one staff that drops in Outland fairly regularly that vendors for over 1g, I was planning to use it in the article as an example of a nicely priced gray, but couldn't for the life of me remember its name. Excellent point about stackable gray loot, especially when grinding the same mobs for an extended period. When I was grinding my Netherwing mount, the mobs within the mine would drop a selection of about 5 gray items, so by the end of my 45 minutes in the mine I would easily have 10-15g worth of grays in about 7-8 neat stacks. So not only was I doing 5 or so daily quests in this time, I was also getting gray loot equivalent to 1 or 2 more (not to mention the rich loot from the mobs and mining nodes there). On a lucky 45 minute run there, 200g could be cleared. Not bad eh?
The add-on you mention is a must for any trader, especially in the situation described above. I use one called ItemPriceTooltip. I'm actually planning to do little add-ons blog every now and then, so I can have smaller articles and longer ones too. I'll probably include this one first, thanks for bringing it up, because it would have been a useful mention in this article. The version I'm using does not include Pre-2.4 prices, but I notice there is an update available which I'll check out once I'm at home. I won't include any links just yet, because I like to check out the security of add-ons before linking them. Feel free to search yourself, but I don't want the guilty feeling of being responsible for someone's account hack lol. Thanks for the helpful tips and feedback CynraAnar.
Sorry for the lack of any updates guys, but my macbook's wireless is playing up (sort it out apple!) and I'm confined to posting from the iPhone or at work, neither are that appealing.
^ Edit: I meant to say Post 2.4 prices (ie. the new items we saw with the inclusion of the last patch)
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