The Fragile Dragons

Someone on Reddit posted a fairly good primer on making gold.  Good stuff here!

Reddit's "Moderately Awesome Guide to Making Money in GW2"

• Part 1 - Currency Conversion


• Part 2 - Arbitrage (Trading Post Flipping)


• Part 3 - Speculation


• Part 4 - Crafting


• Part 5 - Salvaging


• Part 6 - A Day in the Life

A couple of additional tips.

Sell everything that you don't need.  Hoarding and wealth do not go hand in hand.  If you're going for a specific crafted item (such as a legendary), sell off everything that is not used in the crafting of that item.

It takes money to make money.  If you're going to invest in flipping on the trading post, you're going to need about 25 - 40 gold minimum before flipping is worth your time.

I'll add more as we go! So much, in fact.. that I'm going to restrict this post to just guild members who have signed up!

Personal Strategy

Some people salvage gamble, others open bags or play with the mystic forge.  Here's what I do to make money.

I flip items on the trading post.  I buy them for low, sell them high enough to make profit.  The TP is global.. some people don't realize this.  It has thousands and thousands of people buying and selling items.  What I do is I place buy orders and see what I can catch in that ocean of constantly moving transactions.

The trick is to only buy items that can sell for higher AFTER the TP fees take their cut.  The damage is 5% of the requested price on listing.. and an additional 10% on selling.  So anything you buy has to sell for more than 15% of the difference.

How do I know which items are more than 15% of the difference and will make me money?  http://www.gw2spidy.com is a good reference for free, but I paid for a subscription to http://www.goldwars2.com .  It gives me a nice little report like this.



So, from that report I can see that I'm interested in that Mini Dredge Excavator!  I bid ONE copper over the current asking price.. NO MORE.  All you want to do is be at the front of the buying queue.  If you're going to be outbid, it's typically going to be by one copper.  Nobody wants to pay more than they have to.  So I put down 16 silver and 4 copper on the table.  Set the quantity for how many you'd like.. and away you go!

What now?

That covers the HOW, let's talk about the what.  What do I buy.  The goldwars2 site allows me to make custom lists to track my regular buys.  Here's what I go for.

• Level 80 exotic named armor (Mhenlo, Reyna, etc)


• Level 80 named exotic weapons (Gungnir, Dhuumseal, etc)


• "Pact" skin weapons


• Level 40-50 rare daggers and greatswords


• Rare accessories and backpieces


• Minipets


• Major and Superior sigils and runes

I'm giving up a bit telling you some of my specific markets, but it gives you an idea.  They say that the trick is to think about what YOU would want to buy.. and then use a price checker to see if any items in that category would make you a profit.  For instance, I thought the pact skins were really cool.. and you can ONLY get them when you finish the personal story of Guild Wars 2.  Which means most people will turn to the trading post to get them.  Another fun story I read is that another guy made a killing on underwater weapons and headpieces.. because everybody seems to forget that they need these right up until they're being eaten by sharks.

You'll want to cast your net wide.  Place buy orders on many different items.   Diversify!  Most won't be filled, but some will.  .. and each one is money in your pocket.

Some markets move so fast that you will be quickly outbid when you place your buy orders.  Here are the buy quantities that have worked for me before I was outbid, but will differ from market to market.  Repeat investments will let you know where the sweet spot is.. so that you're not putting more buy orders in than what will be fulfilled.

• Exotics - no more than 4.


• Pact items - I've been lucky to get 5 at times, so I keep it there.


• Rare accessories - 50 seems around the sweet number.


• Minipets - 10 seems to work out.


• Sigils - 25-40 is what I typically "win".

Selling

Alright, so you won some trading post items.  Now what?  You sell them back!  Let's say I won that Mini Dredge Excavator from before.  In fact, I won six of them.  Once again, all I care about is being at the front of the queue.  I list them all for 25 silver and 84 copper.

The math is that listing those items at that price took 5% of 25s 84c (which was 1s 29c) and if they sell, the TP takes another 10% (which is 2s 58c).  That leaves me with 5s 83c profit per mini!  Times that by six and you have 34s 95c in your pocket!

All that for under thirty five silver, you ask?  Well, keep in mind that setting the buy order for that mini took only about 10 seconds.. and listing the item took another 10 seconds.  You fill in the time waiting to win buy orders and waiting to sell your listings by playing the actual game!  In terms of money vs time invested, you can't beat the income.

There will be times when your item does not sell.  HAVE PATIENCE.  The market seems to move in a tide.  Starts low at the beginning of the week.. and peaks with high prices at the weekend.  Rinse and repeat.  Give items at least a week to see if the tide comes back to you.

When to play the trading post

We covered the how and the what.. now for the when.  I find there are a few sweet spots when placing your buy orders.  8:00 am seems to be when a lot of players wake up and do their dailies /events before headed to work.  This results in an influx of items moving through the trading post.  Same goes for around 5:00 pm when people get home.  I usually place buy orders at 7:30 am and again before I go to bed (usually between 10:30 pm and 11:00 pm) to see what I can snag from the late night players.  I used to also do orders after I got home from work during my legendary gold grinding.. but that is now too much effort.  Each listing session can take between 10 and 30 minutes, depending on how many items you are placing buy orders for.

Epilogue

Well, that's what I got.  Smarter people than me actually use that tide to buy low at the beginning of the week, and sell high later.. but I'm not that sophisticated.  Other people also buy items in super-bulk (20,000 items) and sell them all for 1 copper profit each.  I find that boring.

This is what I do, and maybe you can use it to make your own strategies and gold!

My goldwars2 account allows me to share it with two other people.  I've got a slot for one more person, if anyone wants to give this a shot.

Good luck!

See the links page for more GW2 finance oriented websites!