How can you win the AH game?

What does it cost to win the AH game? You need a starting fund of about 200 gold and about 30 minutes a day of time spent in the AH. You have to be willing to take some risks. By spreading your risks around you lower your total risk. Over a few months you will see a solid return on your investment.

The skills you need to sharpen in the AH are knowing what the fair price at the moment for a particular item is and predicting where the price is headed. Once you reach that point you can easily spot the bargains and know when to buy and when to sell. It may take a week or a month of watching the pricing before you have the confidence to invest your hard earned gold. That is not time wasted.

Bargain! Cut to the lowest price!

Potions are the same except you probably want to maintain a stockpile. If you are using 2 stacks of major mana pots a week then you should try to have (say) 8 stacks in the bank. This allows you to avoid buying them at high prices and stock up when a price war is ongoing.

You can sometimes spot bargains by looking at the quantity for sale. If the quantities of illusion dust for sale are 1, 1, 3, 4, 8, 5, 5, 7, 10 (when listed in order by price) then take a closer look at the 8 quantity. Its current bid is lower than the 5’s that follow. If the 5’s are fair priced then the 8’s minimum bid is a deal, it might be worth a bid or even a buyout if the buyout price is also a deal. Be aware that if the 5’s are overpriced then the 8 may not be a bargain. Even if you only need 6 illusion dust, it may still be cheaper to buy the 8 set and sell the 2 leftover.

Alright, let’s go back to our auction house guide which we stopped last two days ago.

Tips for buying in auction house

Buying items on the AH for resale will be covered in the advanced section. In this section, I will be discussing buying items for personal use. Items that fall into this category are materials for enchantments, potions and equipment purchases. If you have no gold then you are at the mercy of the sellers in the AH. Without some gold on hand you are unable to take advantage of bargains that you find in the AH. Go farm some herbs, minerals, cloth or leather until you have made some gold.

Mats and potions are commodity items. They will have dozens or hundreds of that item for sale at any given time. The key to getting the items that you need cheaply, is to buy over time. If you are looking to buy 3 x nexus crystals for that uber enchantment then start looking at nexus crystal prices at least a week in advance. Why pay 60g each on Thursday when they are selling for 42g each on Saturday? If you know what nexus crystals are selling for on your server then you can spot the bargains and snap them up.

It’s a bit busy today …
So, let’s take a look at the peaceful gathering of all kinds of wow characters first!

Gladiators are more offensive fighters, think fury-specced warriors in WoW. What they lack in defense, they make up in offense. If you’re looking for a tank that also can dish out some damage, you’ll probably be happy with this choice.

Aion Gladiators

Better server for your characters?

Each server has a varying number of players online at any given time. I will use North American servers as an example as they are the most common. In the early morning (2am to 8am server), the players are at a minimum. During the day the number of players is increasing. A lot of players start logging on around 4pm and the numbers peak from 6pm to 11pm. Why is this important? Say you were lucky enough to win a lifestone by rolling 100. When should you sell it? If you rush to the AH at 1am and try and sell it you will only have a few potential buyers online. You’d be far better off waiting until 5pm the next day and trying to sell it then. If everyone is off on guild raids from 7pm to 11pm on your server then you might try to list the item at around 5pm on a 2 hour basis. Seeing a short or medium time limit on an auction does tend to attract more bids.

(Take a look at the previous posts about auction house!)

No more “buy low sell high”!

You can set the length of the auction as 2, 8 or 24 hours. A lot of items are best sold on the 24 hour basis. This gives you the best chance of finding a customer. The 24 hour fee is negligible if you are fairly certain of selling the item in that time period. Some items like player equipment have very high initial fees and are best sold on an 8 hour basis during a busy time on your server. It can be brutal to list an item for multiple 24 hour periods and end up paying more in fees than the item was worth. This is the situation for Darkmoon Faire cards on my server. I laugh every time I see a time limit of very long on a card that has a 2g buyout. Somebody is just giving his or her gold back to Blizzard. Be mindful of the time when your auction expires. Starting an 8 hour auction at 7pm means it expires at 3am. If you have a low minimum bid compared to the buyout then it may sell at minimum price.

It is an old saying in business that the secret to success is to “buy low and sell high”. That is very true for the AH. Most players make the mistake as thinking of the AH as just another NPC vendor in the game. It is not. The difference is that vendor prices are static and AH prices change over time. Recognizing those price cycles is very important. Some price cycles are predictable and you need to take them into account.

Fees in Auction House:

The AH charges a fee for every item that you try to sell. You will see the fee listed when you place the item in the auction box. It varies, from nothing on nexus crystals to multiple gold for a weapon. Also the longer the item will be listed, the greater the fee. You will pay this fee immediately when you create the auction. If the item sells, the AH will charge you a 5% commission, and you will then get the initial fee back. That is why the item you sold on the AH for 100g shows up as 97g in your mailbox. Think of it as 100 – 5g (5% commission) + 2g initial fee = 97g. It is important to note that you only netted 95g even though 97g was in the mailbox. You paid the initial 2g fee when the auction was created. If the item doesn’t sell then it will show up in your mailbox when the time expires and you will have lost the 2g initial fee.

Basics of Auction House 2

Try to bracket the estimated selling price when you set the initial and buyout prices. The example of 35/50 (40) is smart. The initial bid price is a little below what you think the item will sell for. The buyout is about 25% higher than the expected sell price. Always set a buyout since many players simply refuse to bid and will only buy items. If they need something now they buy it now. Not a smart way to buy but their loss is your gain.

You can see if other identical items are for sale on the AH by browsing. Many players just undercut the lowest price currently on the AH when they create an auction. Simple, but effective. The problem is that you may be entering a price war. You can often maximize your selling price by waiting until there is less competition for your item (More on this in the later blog post, you may also read the previous post).

Here’s a simple … guide, you may say.

Basics for Selling in the Auction House:

In this guide I will be using examples of AH prices. A notation of 12/20 (17) means opening price of 12g, a buyout of 20g and an expected selling price of 17g. The expected selling price is your own personal opinion of what you think that item will sell for on that day. That number will become easier to predict as your experience grows. If you find yourself in a situation where you don’t know what something is worth then talk to a trusted group mate or guildee. If your friend from school plays on a different server his/her advice may be wrong as prices can vary considerably from server to server.

Never create an auction like 1/50 (40). Nobody will buy it out at 50, they will bid 1g and hope for a windfall. It takes many, many bids to move a 1g starting price up to around a fair price of 40g. You will likely end up selling that 40g item for 5g. You would be much better off listing it as 35/50 (40) particularly if the initial fee is high. The 35g initial price should attract some bids and then you can hope for either continued bidding or a buyout by some player with more gold than brains. Even an auction like 1/30 (40) can backfire on you. Buying a 40g item for 30g is attractive to players but a lot of them will try to bid the 1g and hope for the big score.