Greed/Disenchant Options

If there is an enchanter in your group, everyone has the option of Greed to receive the item as is, or to Disenchant and get the item's respective worth as Dream Shards, Abyss Crystals, Greater Cosmic Essences or Infinite Dust. I've come across too many instances, excuse the pun, of people misusing the Disenchant option during LFGs that I thought it's worth going over.

I've witnessed all range of players choosing to Disenchant items that Vendor for significantly more than the enchant mats are worth. Personally, I'd rather pocket the vendor price of 14g on a green weapon than the 5 dust I'll receive that isn't worth more than 6g.

These are the excuses I've heard so far when I point out that they're better off paying attention to the vendor price for an item before blindly clicking Disenchant...

"Oh but I'd still rather have the enchant mats." - You could buy even more enchant mats by vendoring for better gold.

"Not on my server. They are worth more." - Prove it. I have yet to see a server where Dust is still high or Shards are above 10g.

"It's easier to just always click Disenchant." - So be it. What else do you do because it's easier but less efficient in life?

"I get lucky on Disenchanting procs." - The human mind exaggerates probability in memory. We remember the highs but not the lows or vice versa to fit our own current delusion. Everyone's probability is the same over time.

If you're only doing a single LFG run a day for your Emblems of Frost, this may not add up to much. However, if you're ever running more Heroics, you'll want to change up your routine.

Breakdown
While everyone's server economies are different, there's a general range that most items fall into. On my server, Dust is 1.2g average, Shards are 6g, Essences are 14g and Crystals are 28g. This will fluctuate based on your AH but not by a percentage great enough to justify losing money. On most green/blue/purple quality items, Disenchant IS the superior profit option. But most ≠ always.

Items vendor for significantly more based on the item type and armor class. Plate vendors for more than cloth, weapons more than waists, etc. There are many addons that can give you a breakdown of an item's AH history, vendor value, disenchant/mill/prospect percentages are and more. They will tell you probability of an item turning into any of the enchant mats and how many of those items will proc on average as well. Use one and you'll never be guessing which option to choose during your runs.

The only situations that require a careful decision are those items that have a chance to proc both Dust and Essences. Since the price of these two items are so drastically different, you'll want to weigh the probability of getting Essences against both the Vendor price and Dust probability and proc amounts.

While less frequent, some people still don't pay attention to Bind on Equip rare items and choose Disenchant or even Greed followed by Vendoring the item. These should always be listed on the AH for a much higher profit. I generally get 25-30g for blue-quality BoE items and up to 100g for sought after pieces that are superior to others while leveling. Check out your AH for lvl70-80 rare BoEs and take note of those that sell well.

Shady Behavior
When items like Damaged Necklace(350g) or Book of Glyph Mastery(30g) drop, you can wait until the rest of the group has selected Greed and then Need, claiming it's for your profession. Unless they are looking up your profile online, they can't dispute otherwise.

On the end boss (or earlier bosses if you're confident you won't get vote kicked) you can just need on items that aren't worth Disenchanting since the consequence of being called a ninja post-run is minimal.

Depending on the price of Abyss Crystals on your server and if you are able to Need on an epic, you make slightly more gold over time. Being a group of 5, you have a 20% chance to win the roll on the item. Since Abyss are 28 on my server, (28g x 20% = 5.6g) I would make an average of 5.6 gold per run on the final epic. For those items that you can Need on, just check if the vendor price is more than 1/5 of your server's Abyss rate. If so, then Need if you're willing to risk a ninja reputation in your Battlegroup.

If you want to be even more shady, always Vote to Kick the lowest damage member of the group before pulling the last boss. There is no Heroic run where having only two dps is going to hurt your chances of success. This allows you a 25% chance to win final loots instead of only 20%.

When it comes to Heroic Trial of the Champion, Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection, it's important to note that loot is higher in item level. The epics are lvl219 and 232 in these Heroics. Since vendor values are based partly on item level, expect to see tighter margins here between the Abyss Crystal or Vendor choices.

Vendor Pets

After seeing early on what vendor pets are capable of selling for, I created an exclusive toon to sell vendor pets from. This took quite a while to set up, but once finished, provides you with a steady income. Or, if you're a goblin it can be a nice supplementary profit to your other markets. I don't bother much with crafted pets from Engineering since the whole concept of this AH alt was to profit purely from vendor-available pets.

Why would someone buy a pet available from a vendor at much cheaper prices? A toon is lazy and knows they're available or they're ignorant of it's location. Either way, you profit.

Basics
There are eight Horde pets, ten Alliance pets, one limited supply Alliance pet, two at Booty Bay, five in Netherstorm and three Dalaran pets available from vendors. It's important to note that all of the faction pets are accessible by a lvl1 toon. It's just the Netherstorm, Dalaran and Booty Bay pets that require a little travel.



Cheap Pets
Black Kingsnake (Org)
Brown Snake (Org)
Crimson Snake (Org)
Red Dragonhawk (Fairbreeze Village)
Golden Dragonhawk (Fairbreeze Village)
Silver Dragonhawk (Fairbreeze Village)
Prairie Dog Whistle (TB)
Cockroach (UC)
White Moth Egg (Exxodar)
Blue Moth Egg (Exxodar)
Yellow Moth Egg (Exxodar)
Rabbit Crate (Ironforge)
Cat Carrier Bombay (Goldshire)
Cat Carrier Orange (Goldshire)
Cat Carrier Cornish Rex (Goldshire)
Cat Carrier Silver Tabby (Goldshire)
Cat Carrier Siamese (Netherstorm)
Hawk Owl (Darnassus)
Great Horned Owl (Darnassus)
Parrot Cage Senegal (Booty Bay, limited -- Netherstorm unlimited)
Parrot Cage Cockatiel (Booty Bay, limited)

Expensive Pets
Albino Snake (Dalaran)
Calico Cat (Dalaran)
Obsidian Hatchling (Dalaran)
Red Moth Egg (Netherstorm)
Brown Rabbit Crate (Netherstorm)
Blue Dragonhawk (Netherstorm)
Mana Wyrmling (Netherstorm)
White Kitten (Stormwind, limited)

Personally, I stock 50+ of each 'cheap' pet in the mailbox of my alt. Having 12 pets in a single mail, with 50 mail items visible at a time, allows for a huge storage space and easy restocking between cancel/post sessions. Just make sure to return and mail back a batch before they expire every 30 days.

The cheap Horde pets are all put into a Quick Auctions group with a set fallback and threshold. I use 15g fallback and a 1g threshold with two of each posted at a time for 24-hour posts. This allows for huge percentage profit without flooding the availability.

The Alliance pets I set into a second group that has higher margins since they're harder to acquire by my fellow Horde. Fallback prices are set at 75g and thresholds still quite low at 5g.

The expensive pets fall into a third group with a much higher threshold so I don't lose any gold on a transaction, but the Fallback is significantly higher at 300g since they aren't seen often on the AH. Many first-timers will be more inclined to make the purchase if the price is high versus more affordable. If it costs hundreds of gold, it must be a rare drop right? :)

There is no Refund button on the Auction House and you should always take advantage of that lacking feature.

Results
I've made over 7k gold from vendor pets since starting my gold-making run to a million. It's not a huge slice of my pie, but it's steady and a very fun category to profit from. I've only recently brought over Alliance pets in bulk and as you can see...



it's made quite the difference in sales. I've cleared more than 2k gold in the last week alone on pets.

My next step to advance this category is bringing my first bulk batch of Horde pets to my Alliance alt. Not only will I be doubling my presence on Auction Houses, but the Allies are the large majority on my server.

Second Gold Cap

It took me six weeks to hit the first gold cap and only four weeks, Dec. 19th to Jan 17th, to hit it again. I had a lucky flip on a Battered Hilt that pushed me over the mark yesterday.

Herbs have been pretty nonexistent on my AH so my glyph production has completely halted. Saronite Ore however, is flush. My blue-quality gem cuts have been flying off the AH because of epic cuts remaining too high priced for many consumers.

Next up... Vendor pets and the consistent profit they can provide.