There was once a wise old saying that man cannot live on bread alone, given that you still need water and a scource of Vitamin A and C, this saying would not be far from the truth. In the wake of the most recent expansion, coupled with a change in attitude from Blizzard toward the gold selling scourge (Sunwell island daily quests etc) these here are profitable times for many. But is it enough? So here is the issue I am putting forward to debate from anyone willing to answer:

That a level 80 raider using only the income derived from Raids and heroic 5-person dungeons, sustain a profit after all expenses (Flasks, repairs, enchants on new gear etc) have been taken into consideration. Without having to rely on outside revenue streams like the AH or tips from crafting.

Where do you stand on this myth?


To me? I say its plausible. As long as the following conditions are met:

* We will assume our subject has a life beyond WoW and can raid at least 3 times a week (about average)

* Has sufficient time to run two heroics a day after work and the odd one on the weekend, not that difficult really. This would be where most of the money is coming from.

* Has a good guild that accomplishes most raids without too many wipes.

* Has a sound knowledge of consumables needed.

* Has a sound knowledge of enchants/glyphs/gems required should an upgrade come his or her way.

With the content as it stands now and if these conditions are met, the profits sustained from doing all the above would be at best marginal, but I would say its within the realms of possibility.

So I ask again, where do you stand on this myth?

Confirmed?

Plausible?

or Busted?

I think a number of variables have to be looked at. First, is class. A hunter has to continually buy ammo (at least until 3.1) whereas a class like a warrior or warlock doesn't have to buy reagents for buffs or deal damage. Also, what kind of guild is the said person in? Is he or she in a guild that provides consumables, materials for enchants, glyphs, etc.? If so, there goes those costs. Food and drink are immaterial as they would be relying on a mage conjuring a table for food/drink during raids. Repair costs (if they aren't covered by the guild) would be covered in the gold looted and trash vendored.

In theory, it could be at least be plausible, but there are way too many variables to be considered for it to be really doable though.

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Q u o t e:
I think a number of variables have to be looked at. First, is class. A hunter has to continually buy ammo (at least until 3.1) whereas a class like a warrior or warlock doesn't have to buy reagents for buffs or deal damage. Also, what kind of guild is the said person in? Is he or she in a guild that provides consumables, materials for enchants, glyphs, etc.? If so, there goes those costs. Food and drink are immaterial as they would be relying on a mage conjuring a table for food/drink during raids. Repair costs (if they aren't covered by the guild) would be covered in the gold looted and trash vendored.

In theory, it could be at least be plausible, but there are way too many variables to be considered for it to be really doable though.

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Bull%*%#, I buy infernal stones and doomy doom stuff now.

Are we counting quest revenue? Because you can make a LOT of money from quests. Dailies as well.

Deny, since we have to buy Je'Tze's Bell off the AH for vast quantities of gold.

I do not see why you could not do that. Honestly you could farm icecrown dailies unless your one of the lazy ones who have not phazed it and make 300 gold in about an hour

If a raider is finding it hard to keep up with the costs of playing it is they're own fault. As mentioned above all it takes is a few dailies. There are plenty that generally take about 10-15 minutes to complete and even a casual player can spend less than an hour on them. I am in a guild that if the bank has something you need we are welcome to it, yet I would never expect the guild to foot my costs. I chose the class I play knowing what would be expected, just as I made the choice to raid.

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Q u o t e:

So I ask again, where do you stand on this myth?

Confirmed?

Plausible?

or Busted?

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I'll refer the matter to Jamie & Adam. Maybe they'll have Tory raid for a week, Kari do nothing but heroics and make poor Grant go farm (although he'd probably just 'bot it anyway) for comparison.


And I'd go plausible, but barely. One bad night and it's back to farming/working the AH.

Edit: I am assuming that dailies are not included in the OP's premise.

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Q u o t e:


Voxen gimme some gold?

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I said I thought it was possible. Not that *I* could do it. ;)

Making money really is so easy now. I'm not talking about vast thousands of gold that will allow you to purchase the Mammoth mount, Darkmoon decks for all specs, and any BOE epic that you see on the AH. But as far as earning enough to cover repairs, raid buffs, and paying for any enchants/gems you need when you win an upgrade, that money can be earned any number of ways.

1. Running heroics, I actually have this one really far down personally. The only thing you can get of value is an Abyss Crystal at the end, IF noone needs the epic, and IF you win the 20% roll. Dream shards and the occasional BOE blue aren't worth enough anymore to justify heroics unless you still need Emblems or rep.

2. Dailies. There are so many dailies, just pick the easiest/fastest ones and knock em out for a quick 100g or whatever. I personally hit up the Venture Company ones every morning for about 50g in 10 minutes.

3. Running old dungeons. This is probably well known to a lot of people, but I actually just recently discovered it while running Strat for the mount. Just by vendoring drops from the bosses and the few trash mobs I actually did have to fight I earned about 40-50g each run and that's in about 15-20 minutes. I know it's mind-numbingly boring for some, but the potential is there to earn 150-200g per hour and with no competition for any mobs. Of course this actually can increase if you are an enchanter and know which items to DE for the high-priced mats.

4. Gathering professions. I personally don't find this as lucrative as it was during BC times. Maybe there's just a lot more people doing it, or maybe just a few are doing it better than everyone else, but whatever it is I actually decided to drop Mining and Skinning shortly after WotLK came out. I spend the first few weeks really capitalizing on crazy demand for Ore, Leather, and Titansteel but after more people got high enough level to get flying mounts there was just too much competition. Also most people have their craftable epics made and their trade skills levelled so the demand just isn't there anymore. You can still make money, but personally I just don't care for the competition farming mats and the AH game that goes through such ridiculous shifts.

5. Crafting Professions. I find these even worse then the gathering professions for earning gold. There are just too many people spamming in trade at any given time, and when you do get lucky enough to find work there's a 50/50 shot of getting a decent tip. I enjoy my professions for the BoP bonuses I can get from them, but any money I make is a bonus.

There are a lot more conditions here than specified so far. The big one I am thinking of is:

Is a guild allow to AH BOE raid drops (sunfire robe, nether vortex crafted goods, or even to sell stuff like Amani War Bears).



If the answer is yes, than a guild can support players 100% for raiding, with no outside farming needed. However if the answer is no, then the answer is no.

There has to be an income source somewhere. Flasks don't grow on trees, and bosses don't drop enough gold to sustain repairs + consumables (not to mention enchants and gems).


Fusion members as a whole have not had to pay for any raiding type item for years now. All flasks, gems, enchants, repairs, etc, are all paid for by the guild. We even finance people swapping trade skills. This comes with a price though. We ran ZA speed runs for months after the guild had bears. I don't know exactly how many we sold, but for the last 3 weeks we were selling 3 bears per reset (3 days). That's over 20 bears at 5k gold a pop. Prior to that we had been selling 2 bears almost every reset for a fairly long time (2 months maybe?).

In addition, we had been supplementing this by selling sunmotes, hearts of darkness, and nether vortexes. For a short time we also sold BT and Hyjal loot, however it is a bit cumbersome, and not something we actively try to do.

If there is a mechanic similar to those listed above, then yes, a guild can be 100% self sufficient without any member having to individually farm (unless it's for personal reasons).


However, with that said, it is very hard to sell stuff right now. Purely speculation, but it seems that a lot of gold has been taken out of the system, or people are sitting on very large stashes for no apparent reason. In addition, the fact that content is a joke allows anyone to do it, and consequently, there is no market to sell items (BOE epics already hitting rock bottom prices).

Even selling Sarth3D mounts is difficult (Admittedly, our asking price is steep). Even so, I know some people can afford it, but I am curious as to how much gold is in the economy.

I have a feeling that items such as the Travelers Mammoth, Grand Ice Mammoth, Mechanohog, etc - have proven to be extremely large money sinks that are taking a great deal of wealth out of the economy. That combined with the fact that a Isle of Quel'danas (spelling?) does not exist at the moment. The influx of gold to the economy we seen at the end of the expansion was like no other, and I'm not sure Blizzard will introduce another quest hub like that again.

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Q u o t e:

Is a guild allow to AH BOE raid drops (sunfire robe, nether vortex crafted goods, or even to sell stuff like Amani War Bears).



If the answer is yes, than a guild can support players 100% for raiding, with no outside farming needed. However if the answer is no, then the answer is no.



In addition, we had been supplementing this by selling sunmotes, hearts of darkness, and nether vortexes. For a short time we also sold BT and Hyjal loot, however it is a bit cumbersome, and not something we actively try to do.

If there is a mechanic similar to those listed above, then yes, a guild can be 100% self sufficient without any member having to individually farm (unless it's for personal reasons).


However, with that said, it is very hard to sell stuff right now. Purely speculation, but it seems that a lot of gold has been taken out of the system, or people are sitting on very large stashes for no apparent reason. In addition, the fact that content is a joke allows anyone to do it, and consequently, there is no market to sell items (BOE epics already hitting rock bottom prices).

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I tried to cut out the parts that didn't apply to my response, so I apologize in advance if I cut out a part you deem important.

I believe that there is a large number of players sitting on gold, even myself a very casual player am sitting on about 10k gold, no large sum but again I'm pretty casual so I can only imagine what hardcore farmers/grinders have stockpiled. While some are doing it for no reason, perhaps just to brag about how much they have in the bank, I think a lot of people are just trying to be prepared if Blizz releases an upgraded item like the Rings of the Kirin Tor.

Or perhaps someone is hoping that you guys or Might on the alliance side will be selling gear from the new raids when 3.1 hits. I have to admit I have been thinking myself of just going all out for the next month or so trying to accumulate as much gold as possible so that if the opportunity presents itself I could get my main toon epicced out very quickly, depending on the price and difficulty of the new raid.

Not to sound like I'm kissing ass to Bazz or Fusion, especially since they're on the horde side so it offers me no benefit to do so, but this type of thinking, and just the fact that he peruses the message boards still, is a good reason that Bazz has managed to keep Fusion as a top guild and running so smoothly for a long period of time. He knows how to play the economy, and he watches trends that develop in the game, anticipating and preparing for the future. Too many people pop into the boards just to post lolret, noobz, etc. and are a missing a good chance to actually learn something that could help them.

Baz = Asz

Discuss

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Q u o t e:
Baz = Asz

Discuss

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Don't blow my cover of being the leader for both the top Alliance and Horde raiding guilds. I'll gkick you faster than you can cup your balls.

I'm sitting on a pile of gold mostly because of Ulduar. Don't want to make any large expenditures until that situation clarifies itself.

The economy stabilizes in between major content patches. Big moves occur with those patches, both in terms of spending and making money. Although I did make a nice chunk of change recently on darkmoon cards, when I was able to convert my massive stockpiles of ink of the sea over to snowfall. (Stacks of same were selling for as little as 20g at one point. Which created a nice arbitrage opportunity for scribes who kept up with the PTR.)

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Q u o t e:
Deny, since we have to buy Je'Tze's Bell off the AH for vast quantities of gold.

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I was outbid.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

raiding pays for my shiz fine im allways flasked or poted and jsut bought an alt his epic flight i dont farm what so ever expect for the once in awhile daily i do if i get bored (i hate dailys) an i respec constantly and still have a few thou g chilling if needed.

just doing naxx10 gives me about 100g profit after deducting flasks/foods




sidenote: bazzshalinde is a #@^%ing terrifying concept