The Fragile Dragons

Instead of altering my past posts about strategies for making gold in Guild Wars 2, I've decided to combine the old posts AND edit in the new information!

General Tips on Making Gold

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!

Flipping

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.  In the past I paid for a subscription to http://www.goldwars2.com, but our in house software suite (see below) by Wade does the same thing.  You'll get 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?

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.

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.

My old strategy

I used to place buy orders at 7:30 am, again when I got home at 5:00 pm, and third time before I went to bed (usually between 10:30 pm and 11:00 pm) to see what I can snag from the late night players.  Each time I would cancel my buy orders and place completely new buy orders to make sure I was at the top of the buying queue.  I would also relist anything that went over 24 hours of age on the trading post.  However, that is now too much effort and I think I was hurting my profits too much.  Those relisting fees!

My current strategy

What I do now is place all of my buy orders between 7:00 am and 8:00 am on weekdays and listing them for sale when I get home from work around 5:00 pm.  At that point I cancel my buy orders and do not put in new buy orders that day.  I do not relist old items during the work week.  Weekends is when I purge my old stock.  On Saturday at noon I take anything that has sat for over 48 hours, cancel the listings and relist it at 2 copper below the lowest listing.  This gets rid of any of the slow sellers that didn't move during the work week.  On Sunday I do it again.  I almost without fail start Monday with a fresh slate.

Each listing session can take between 10 and 45 minutes, depending on how many items you are placing buy orders for.

This will not be the most efficient method, as more patient sellers will earn more gold.. but it gives more opportunity for your inventory to sell than my old method of relisting day-by-day.  It's a middle ground for those who want to see rewards of flipping relatively frequently without hurting the profits too much.  If you can hold out, by all means do it!

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!

TFDGold Trading Post Analyzer

Software

Tracker for software bugs and feature requests

What to Flip

Filter parameters

I get the best results by having a minimum buy price of 5 silver (or 500 in the program) and a maximum of 3.5 gold (or 35000 in the program).  I set my spread percentage to a minimum of 18.5 percent.  Set the minimum spread to 10 silver (1000 in the program).  Those settings seem to work well with everything on this list.

Pact weapons

Pact weapons are only awarded once per character.. and only when that character has completed the personal story.  This means there’s always a cap on how many of these items are generated at a time.  Plus unique skins.

Create a list called “Pact”
Search term “Pact”, filter down to weapons and add all items to it.

I typically bid on 7 of each daily.

Mid-range (level 20-70) rare weapons

Anything with the word “Honed” in it is a good starter spot.

I put around 25-50 bids on each, rarely get that much back.

Rare quality dyes

Self explanatory.

Bids of 20 seem to do well.

Rare quality accessories and backpieces

• Field guides


• Arctic Ring


• Amulet of the Dead


• Band of the Moliarchy


• Beetlestone’s Band


• Book of Rabid Deeds


• Carving of Jormag


• Flame Legion Ritual Book <- often not profitable


• Magi’s Ring


• Twisted Tendril


• Spineguards


• Charred back warmers

Bids of 15-50 each.

Superior runes and sigils

Just make sure you have the filters set to not include recipes.  I advise against frailty or paralyzation.  I’ve been burned on those two.

50 bids each.

Minis of all rarity types.

Green, blue and rare.  You’ll find good margins on all three.  Though, exotics are typically way too expensive.

10-20 bids each.

Named exotic armours

Create a list and add the following armour set items to it. Some sets have six pieces, others only three.

• Aidan


• Brutus


• Devona


• Errol


• Galrath


• Jalis


• Jatoro


• Khilbron


• Mhenlo


• Nika


• Norgu


• Ogden


• Reyna


• Rurik


• Sheena


• Shiro


• Tahlkora


• Vatlaaw


• Yakkington


• Zhed


• Zho

7 bids each.

Named exotic accessories / amulets / rings

• All Seeing


• Alpha Conduit


• Ashes of the Effigy


• Balthazar's Band


• Bloodstone Fragment


• Bone Fragments of Tequatl <- These typically come in too fast to flip.  Be wary


• Breath of Kralkatorrik


• Claw of the Howling King


• Colossus Fang


• Commissar's Manifesto


• Dwayna's Embrace


• Eternal Flame


• Eternal Ice


• Fang of Tequatl  <- These typically come in too fast to flip.  Be wary


• Husk of the Destroyer


• Infinity Loop


• Koda's Gift


• Melandru's Bloom


• Nightmare Coil


• Operative's Creed


• Plague


• Rhendak's Signet


• Ring of Blood


• Rotbeard's Treasure


• Sam


• Sentinel's Bane


• Signet of Grenth


• Stargazer Pendant


• Star of Dwayna


• Symbol of the Inquest


• The Replicator


• The Zealot's Amulet


• Tortured Root


• Triforge Pendant


• Ulgoth's Tail


• Vallog's Demise

7-10 bids each.

Named exotic weapons

Here’s a big list of uniquely named exotic weapons. You’ll have to add them manually to a list one by one, but it’s worth it.  Some of them will say they’re super expensive and you’ll wonder why you’d ever bother tracking them.  Some items, like Foulbear’s Lucky Feathers, Final Rest or Cinderspire’s Rage started off very high, and then fell easily into a flippable zone.   With Wade’s software you can add them up and forget all about them.  Then software will track them in case they suddenly become profitable and in your range.

This list updated Jan 27 2014 to include the champion bag exotics and the new twilight arbor path exotics.

• Accursed Chains


• Adam


• Adder’s Hiss


• Aether


• Ak-Muhl’s Jaw


• Alderune’s Last Stand


• Al’ir’aska


• Ambrosia


• Anton’s Boot Blade


• Anura


• Arachnophobia


• Arc


• Arcanus Obscurus


• Arthropoda


• Atlatl


• Avirdanag


• Axiquiotl


• Azure Railgun


• Azureflame


• Beacon of Kryta


• Beacon of Light


• Beacon of the True Legions


• Belladonna


• Big Juju


• Bite of the Ebon Viper


• Black Fleet Bludgeon


• Blastmaster 3000


• Blaze of the Serpents


• Bloodlily


• Bloodroot


• Bloodseeker


• Bonetti’s Rapier


• Bow of the Pale Stag


• Bow of the White Hart


• Bramblethorne


• Brandt


• Breath of Flame


• Call of the Commissar


• Chalice of the Gods


• Charrzooka


• Cinderspire’s Rage


• Cinderspire’s Tactics


• Claws of the Desert


• Cobalt


• Coiler


• Coldsnap


• Combustion


• Combustion <- Yes, there are two different kinds


• Cooguloosh


• Courage


• Crustacea


• Crying Thorn


• Crystal Guardian


• Crystalline Blade


• Cutthroat Caller


• Deathcamas


• Deathwish


• Defiant Blaze


• Delusion


• Dhuumseal


• Dragonfury


• Dragonshot


• Dragonspine


• Drakestrike


• Drakevenom


• Dreadwing


• Droknar’s Forgehammer


• Droknar’s Recurve Bow


• Droknar’s Short Bow


• Ebonblade


• Eibhear Dunn


• Eibhear Finn


• Eir’s Longbow


• Eir’s Short Bow


• Emberglow


• Emberspire


• Entropy


• Exterminator


• Eye of Rodgort


• Faithful


• Fellsprout


• Final Curse


• Final Rest


• Firebringer


• Firelighter


• Fixer Upper


• Flamebelcher


• Flux Matrix


• Foefire’s Essence


• Foefire’s Power


• Foulbear Lucky Feathers


• Ganadriva


• Gaze


• Gearbore


• Genesis


• Glimmerfang


• Glint’s Scale


• Goblet of Kings


• Godswalk Enchiridion


• Graveyard Bloom


• Grimward


• Guardian of the Six


• Guild Defender


• Gungnir


• Handheld Disaster


• Haunting Cap


• Heart of Mellaggan


• Hemlock


• Henbane


• Honor of Humanity


• Horn of the Rogue Bull


• Hypnotic Scepter


• Ignus Fatuus


• Ilex


• Illusion


• Ilya


• Impaler


• Imryldyeen


• Infinite Light


• Infinite Wisdom


• Ironfist


• Jaws of Death


• Jora’s Defender


• Jormag’s Breath


• Jormag’s Needle


• Kenshi’s Wing


• Kevin


• Khrysaor, the Golden Sword


• King’s Rememberance


• Knot of Justice


• Knowledge is Power


• Kodanroar


• Komalie’s Sacrificial Blade


• Kryta’s Embrace


• Kryta’s Salvation


• Kymswarden


• Labrys


• Levvi’s Detector


• Lidless Eye


• Limitless Furnace


• Lord Taeres’s Shadow


• Lyss


• Magmaton


• Malachidean


• Malefacterym


• Malice


• Master Blaster


• Maw of the Damned


• Mecha Anchor


• Melandru’s Gaze


• Memory of the Sky


• Mirage


• Mojo


• Monkshood


• Monsoon


• Moonshank


• Moonshine


• Naegling


• Naga Fang


• Nitro


• Occultist Flame


• Oikoumene


• Old Reliable


• Ophidian


• Peasant’s Solution


• Phoenix Reborn


• Phoenix Talon


• Pillar of Ulgoth


• Poyaqui’s Noggin


• Razah’s Nightmare


• Razorstone


• Reaver of the Mists


• Remnant of Ascalon


• Resonator


• Rhendak’s Trident


• Rhongomyniad


• Rivetwall


• Rockweed Spire


• Ruinmaker


• Rusttooth


• Scepter of the Highborn


• Scorchrazor’s Fist


• Serpentsniper


• Serpentstone


• Shadewort


• Shard of the Deep


• Shield of the Moon


• Shield of the Wing


• Shiverstone


• Silence


• Siren’s Call


• Skybringer


• Snakeroot


• Song of the Numberless Pack


• Song of the Temptress


• Soulshard


• Spade of the Deep


• Spectral Wave Modulator


• Spirit Links


• Squeedily Spooch


• Stardust


• SteamFire


• Stinger


• Stygian Blade


• Sun God’s Gift


• Super Hyperbeam Alpha


• Tear of Grenth


• The Anomaly


• The Briny Deep


• The Fate of Menzies


• The Mad Moon


• The Malestrom


• The Punisher


• The Stingray


• The Ugly Stick


• Tinwail


• Titans’ Vengance


• Tooth of Frostfang


• Trident of the True Legion


• Trosa’s Short Bow


• Trusty Rusty


• Truth


• Tsunami


• Twin Sisters


• Twin Talons


• Unspoken Curse


• Urchin’s Needles


• Usoku’s Needle


• Venomstriker


• Vera


• Vision of the Mists


• Volcanus


• Wall of Thorns


• Whisperblade


• Windstorm


• Winged Spatha


• Wintersbite


• Wisteria


• Wolfsbane


• Xanthium


• X6-31 Beta


• X7-10 Alpha


• Zhaitan’s Reach

7 bids each.

Conclusion

Be inventive and try to find new markets to play in.  I’m sure we don’t affect each other much, but it can only be beneficial if we’re spread out a little.