Guide: How to Make Gold #10 - SAVE YOUR GOLD

We can’t stress this enough: save your gold. Don’t buy unnecessary stuff just because you feel like it. Hold back on your spending frenzy and keep your hands out of your pocket. If you are one of those people who thinks money will burn your virtual pockets, create a bank character and send most of your gold to him. Having little gold on your main character might actually prevent you from going into a shopping-spree!

Yes this last tip is not a "real" tip. But it's probably the most valuable one. You can't save what you spend, right? So, don't spend it!

I hope you guys enjoyed these tips. Let us know if they helped you somehow! Write us at nadva dot hunter at gmail dot com.

Guide: How to Make Gold #9 - When you hit 80, quest hard and do dailies.

Once you hit the cap-level (which is level 80 right now), quests will no longer provide you experience points. Instead you will start earning some more gold (about 4 extra gold coins per quest). So, instead of stopping doing quests because you don’t need XP, do them for gold instead. Along with the regular quests you can also start doing daily quests. If you have your professions maxed (both main and secondary) you can do quests related to them too (like fishing, for example). This will provide you with a way to make some extra gold even when there are no more regular (leveling) quests to do.

Guide: How to Make Gold #8 - Do Instances

Instances are a great way to increase your XP, learn to play in a team and make money. Items looted in instances are better than items looted outside and can sell for more money. You’ll easily find Uncommon, Rare or even Epic items here that you can either sell at the AH or vendor (in case of Bind on Pickup items).

Instance as much as you can, but remember to empty your bags before going in. Let everything you don’t need at the bank, so that you can carry as many items as possible. Then, fill up your bags with everything you can (see tip #3) and sell it on the AH or vendor it, depending on the item.

Guide: How to Make Gold #7 - Create a Bank Character

Bank characters are characters you create and put inside cities so you can send them items for them to keep at the bank and place them in the AH if necessary.

Start a new character, bring it to a major city, sell everything you don’t need (clothes, weapons, food) and send him/her a few gold coins if you can (5 will do for starters). Remember seeing some very low-level characters naked around the bank in Org? Well, now you know what those are.

Having a bank character will save you time. Instead of having to travel back and forth to and from a major city, you can simply mail the items you get to your bank character and have him/her put it in the bank or sell it at the AH. Mail to and from your bank character is received instantaneously, so there’s no delay.

Guide: How to Make Gold #6 - Learn Which Crafted Items Sell Well

If you decide to take on one (or more) crafting profession(s) the only way you'll be making money out of it will be by selling the stuff you make.

Keep this in mind though: don't take 2 crafting professions. Always combine them in a way by which you can gather your own materials (Mining and Blacksmithing or Skinning and Leatherworking, for example). Also, you will need to spend money on trade goods. While this may be seen as an "investment" you may actually lose money if you don't manage to sell the items you craft at the price necessary to, at least, cover your expenses.

If you do decide on a crafting profession, try to learn what items people need and what price they are willing to pay for it – try not to speculate though. There's nothing people hate more than seeing an item being sold for 4 gold coins when they know the fair price would be around 1 gold piece. They may not buy from you again – ever.

Quest items are usually sold well (such as the Deadly Blunderbuss, for example, which is a gun used on the Warsong Saw Blades quest).

Rare or Epic items are harder to sell although they can very profitable. For the Barbaric Bracers example we gave before, we spent around 6 gold on materials, gathered some more while questing and sold it for 17 gold coins. We had a net profit of about 11 gold coins but we had to put it on AH every day for nearly a week. It was still worth it, of course, but we didn't do it again.

Guide: How to Make Gold #5 - Learn Gathering Professions

World of Warcraft lets you learn 2 main professions. There are two kinds of professions: gathering and crafting. Gathering will allow you to... well... gather items from the world: you can skin beasts, mine veins and gather herbs. Crafting professions allow you to create items other players can buy from you (or you can use yourself) such as armor or weapons. While some items can be sold for a lot of gold (we once sold Barbaric Bracers for 17 gold coins), these items will require a lot of time to level up to the required level. Gathering professions takes time leveling too but don’t require you to occupy bank slots, purchase other goods or learn new recipes. You just mine and level. Of course you do have to upgrade your skill once in a while (see table) but you only have to do it when you’re hitting the top of your current knowledge.

Profession Skill	Upgreadable at	Maximum Potential Skill
Apprentice	50	75
Journeyman	125	150
Expert	200	225
Artisan	275	300
Grand Master	-	450

The 3 gathering professions are Herbalism, Leatherworking and Mining. Herbalism and Mining allows you to detect herbs and veins on your minimap. You can only detect one thing at a time though so if you’re currently detecting herbs, you won’t be able to detect veins and vice-versa. Of course you can still see them (everyone does) but you won’t be able to detect them from a distance by spotting them in your minimap.

Herbs and veins are not too common either – you’ll find a lot but not as many as beasts – so if you’re going with gathering professions I would recommend combining any of them with Leatherworking. That way you can focus on searching for herbs or veins in your minimap while checking the horizon for beasts. Also, you’ll kill a lot of beasts throughout your adventuring so you’ll have plenty of skinning to do.

Stack them out nicely (usually in 10 or 20 items stacks) and put them in the AH. Eventually they will sell and you’ll have some money sitting for you in your mailbox. You can always learn what stack size can be handy for other professions.

Learn the value of the items you sell and undercut slightly against the cheapest seller. Again, addons can help you by doing your dirty work.

Guide: How to Make Gold #4 - Get Some Big Bags

Of course you can only sell as much as you can carry. If you can carry 15 items, which is the default amount of items you can carry when you start playing (you have a 16-slot bag, but you need one slot for your Hearthstone – you can also destroy your hearthstone and get a new one at an Inn which will provide you with one extra slot, though). The more bags you get, the more items you can carry and the more money you will make. Some mobs drop bags. It’s not rare to get one or two 6-slot bags before you reach level 10 or so and you can probably find 8-slot bags (such as Linen Bags) at the AH for about 2 silver pieces each. If you can, get them as soon as possible. Fill all your bag slots with the biggest bags you can afford. If you don’t need a special bag – we hunters need quivers which occupies one bag slot – you will probably spend around 8-10 silver pieces on bags but don’t worry: you’ll soon recover it!

You can also announce you’re buying bags on the trade channel and have a tailor made them for you at a discount. We once bought 4 Netherweave Bags for 30 gold coins directly from a tailor that crafted them for me on the spot. At the time those bags were sold at 8g50s each, so we saved 4g on that deal.

Upgrade your bags as soon as you can to the largest bags you possibly can. After getting the 6-slot bags, we started replacing them with 10-slot bags (Small Silk Packs) which cost us about 20 silver coins each. Later we purchased the Netherweave Bags described above. Yes we know it goes against Tip Number 2 but remember Tip Number 3? The more you carry, the more you sell and the more money you make! And you WILL notice the difference.

Guide: How to Make Gold - Tip #3 - Loot Everything, Sell Everything!

This one may seem obvious but it's not. When looting, some people will pick up only Common or better items, which are more valuable than Poor items. Nonetheless you should have this in mind: EVERYTHING is worth something. Even if you pick up something worth 1 copper, it's still worth 1 copper. If you get your bags full and need to scrap something, then go for the Poor values. Until then, gather everything and sell it all!

In our high-50s we have made as much as 5-10 gold pieces per hour in grey (Poor) items alone.

Poor items you can sell directly to vendors. Common or better items can be put on the AH. Most of the Common items will not sell well on the AH though, so you should not spend money putting them there. Just sell them to vendors. You can get some add-ons that can help you deciding what to put or not on the AH such as Auctioneer.

Go make some loot gold!

Hunter Basics: Pull Shot

Sometimes, we will find groups of mobs. Running towards them with guns blazing may not be the solution. Most of the times it will be your demise and your fast way to the graveyard. You'll see your self in a situation where you must break the group and fight one or two mobs at a time - divide to conquer.

Or maybe you just want to pull the mob out to a place where you can have an advantage over him.

In these cases you need to do a Pull Shot.

A Pull Shot is nothing more than a single shot to aggro the mob, making it run towards you. Now, here's the catch: you want to pull the mob, make it target you but you want it to leave you alone and target your pet instead, when you need to chew it down. So you'll need to do one of two things: either Misdirect your shot aggro to your pet - but you can only do this when you hit 70 - and thus you can use your most powerful shot available (Steady Shot, for example) or pull aggro towards you, using a weaker shot, allowing your pet to easily turn the mob away from you.

Misdirection is easy to do. Just cast it on your pet and the blast the mob away. This is particularly useful for casters and we'll have an article soon about it. Our goal on this post is to talk about the pull shot you'll be using until you hit level 70.

We want to aggro the mob, but in a way that your pet can engage it, hold it and tank it fast and easily. For that you need to produce the least amount of damage possible by using Arcane Shot (Rank 1). Here's the macro:

/cast Arcane Shot(Rank 1)
/cleartarget
/petfollow

This will simply shoot Arcane Shot (Rank 1), tell your pet to follow you (so it doesn't attack your target) and then clear your target (target nothing) so you will stop attacking the mob.

Use the macro to pull the mob, make it follow you to where you want it to be and send your pet to attack it. Your pet should grab aggro fairly easy and you can start shooting away.

This should help you go through your quests and instances up to level 70 where you will, very probably, start using Misdirection.

Go do some proper huntering now!

Guide: How to Make Gold - Tip #2 - The Best Way to Save Money is...

...not to spend it, of course! This may sound basic (and it really is) but a lot of players forget the most basic of the rules of saving money: not to spend it. When we started playing World of Warcraft we tended to buy us some new gear every couple of levels. If you follow this path, remember that gear costs money and, in the end, you will have probably spend quite a few precious gold coins.

Of course we're not saying you should not purchase any new gear. If you do realize your gear is getting under-leveled for you, buy some new one if you can't loot or earn some better one as quest items (but you usually do, unless you're doing something VERY wrong). You'll see, thought, that a lot of very nice gear is offered as quest rewards and that you can find some pretty interesting stuff on mobs you kill, chests you open, etc.. It may not be any Epic or Rare items, but you'll sure find some nice Uncommon (green) gear along your quests.

Hunter Basics: Engaging Mobs

All right. You just hit level 10 with your hunter. You got yourself a pet, learned how to feed him (although feeding your pet is not as important as used to - back in the old days, feeding your pet was one of the major micro-management tasks a hunter had. You'd have to feed or pet or it's loyalty would drop and you could lose your pet and have to tame a new one). You're all set to go!

Up until now, the way you engaged mobs was pretty simple. You'd probably start with a couple of shots and the mob would rapidly engage you in melee distance. From then on you'd fight him with your melee weapon until the end of the combat.

Once you get your pet, though, it's a whole new ball game.

One of the things you must have in mind is that mobs are no longer allowed to get into melee range from you. You do ALL your fights from far away, blasting them away with your gun or bow. Your pet tanks, you shoot him to pieces. He's dead. Gone. Done. Next.

Here's how things should be: first of all, you should cast Hunter's Mark. With that one, all your ranged attacks will have their power increased (the increase depends on the spell level and goes from 20 (for level 1) up to 300 (for level 5).

Once you have your Hunter's Mark on your target, send your pet in. Wait a couple of seconds, so it builds some nice aggro and start shooting away. From then on it's a matter of burning the mob down. Move to the next mob, rinse and repeat.

Easy deal, isn't it?

You can use a macro to help you on your attacks. The one bellow will cast Hunter's Mark on your target and order your pet to attack it. Hit it, start shooting and your all set.

/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack

We also use another macro that can be handy in case a mob jumps on you unexpectedly. If you keep your pet on defensive, it will attack the mob. If you use the macro bellow, you will target your pet's target, start attacking it (using Auto Shot) and cast Hunter's Mark.

/target pettarget;
/cast Auto Shot;
/cast Hunter's Mark();

Now, don't forget this: hunters are a RANGED class. Your job is to stay away from the mobs, shooting them down. If they move to you, keep them at a distance. Use your pet to tank them. It should keep the mobs away from you so you can do your job.

Go do some proper huntering now!

Tank Guide to Traps

Woah! Wait a minute... TANK guide to traps?

Indeed!

Although traps are the hunter's domains, tanks should be able to understand how they work, what's the cooldown and what's the amount or time they stay active. A bad hunter does bad trapping but a tank that doesn't understand how things work will make a master-trapper seem like a kindergarten kid sticking his hand into a bear trap. So, fellow hunters, show this post to your tank friends from your guild!

First of all, a couple of facts about traps:

1) Only 1 trap can be active at a time. If a hunter drops a trap, any other trap active will vanish.

2) Traps will exist for 60 seconds.

3) The cooldown for traps is 30 seconds.

So, whenever a hunter drops a trap, he can not lay another one for 30 seconds. This means that if a mob runs over the trap and the trap doesn't hold him, the hunter can not try to trap it again for a while. Also, even if the mob is trapped, the amount of time he's held may not be enough for the hunter to get another trap ready to catch it once it sets free. Therefore, timing - as with pretty much anything in World of Warcraft - is important.

When doing a trap-pull (a pull of mobs in which you require a hunter to lay a trap - usually a freeze trap), wait for the hunter to tell you he/she is ready. The hunter will lay the trap, wait a few seconds (usually around 25 seconds) and then tell you to go.

Now, something worth noting: remember traps only last for 60 seconds? Well if the hunter has to wait 25-30 seconds to give you the "go" call, that trap will only hold for another 30-35 seconds. So you now have 30 seconds to do that pull. If you know you are going to lose this window of opportunity for some reason (because a patrol is coming your way, for example), let your party know and ask your hunter to re-deploy the trap on your call.

After this, let the hunter do his job. Don't touch the mob unless the hunter asks for help. If done properly, the hunter will keep that mob under control for a couple of minutes, more than enough time for your party to get rid of 2 or 3 other mobs and then go frenzy on the poor frozen bastard.

So, in a nutshell:

1) Wait for your hunter to give you the go (usually 25-30 seconds after he/she lays the trap)

2) Do the pull within the next 30 seconds or abort the pull and let everyone know you're aborting. Ask the hunter to lay another trap when you think it's ok to retry.

3) LEAVE THAT MOB ALONE. Don't touch it, don't talk to it, don't even look at it unless the hunter cries for help. Your hunter has it. Let it be. Shoo. Go get spanked by the other mobs.

Guide: How to Make Gold - Introduction and First Tip

This is a guide to help you earn gold to get your mount when you hit 30. It's not a get-rich-fast, get-filthy-rich, power-leveling or a hacks guide. Rather, it is a guide with all we have learned while playing World of Warcraft about how to make enough (or, hopefully, more than enough) gold to buy your mount when your character reaches level 30.

We won't be teaching you any miraculous or secret ways to get your gold. We won't be teaching you how to make a gazillion gold pieces per day. We'll be teaching you simple, effective, 100% legit ways to reach your purpose. It will require some discipline and lots of work (hey there's no such thing as a free lunch, right?) but you'll see that, in the end, it will pay out (no pun intended).

So here's Tip Number 1: Money Will Come

While 100 gold (90 if you are honored with your faction – which you very probably will) may seem an enormous amount of money when you start playing WoW, you do have 30 levels ahead of you and that should be more than enough time for you to get your mount gold. Although it's hard, it is not impossible. Of course, if you are of a higher level, you'll have less time until you hit 30. Nonetheless these tips will help you get your gold and buy yourself your mount anyway.

Just be patient. Money will come. It may be slow, but it will.

More to come soon. Stay tuned.