Most Profitable Tradeskill?

[Marteeny]

Doesn't anyone else make $$ off the PotC items anymore? Good, cause I do. Everyone has shied away from some of these on my server.

I can't keep blessed fishing rods in stock at 2k each. Over the last year, the fishing rods alone have probably netted me around 300k.

[Velurian]

Originally posted by NightGod
Gonna have to disagree with you there. You basically NEED elemental access to make money, but if you have it, you can make it reasonably quickly.

Not as much as you might think.

Bloodmetal Earrings of Engagement -- require Tactics access, but that's a lot easier than elemental access -- can be very profitable.

Robes of Tempest -- have to be an Erudite -- are becoming a high(-ish)-volume item for me.

Leatherfoot Haversacks sell consistently for 6K -- but you have to be a halfling.

I make spells for sale from bazaar ingredients for a modest profit -- but you have to be an int-caster...

Heck, a friend of mine has a six-figure bank account mostly based on Leather Padding sales. But he spends a lot of time doing it.

The common thread? A limited number of sellers. Either by virtue of an in-game limitation (access to a given plane, being a certain race or class), or by being willing to spend more time or more money than most people are (doing the farming other people aren't willing to do).

If you try to sell into a market that everybody can and does already sell in, you'll never get anywhere -- and that's why a lot of people really don't ever make money in tradeskills. The trick is to identify and exploit those markets where you either have a built-in advantage (race, class, flagging status) or can create one (if you can bear farming spiders in EK for hours, for example). Being elemental flagged certainly helps, but it's far from a necessity.

[iasmin]

Originally posted by Velurian
The common thread? A limited number of sellers. Either by virtue of an in-game limitation (access to a given plane, being a certain race or class), or by being willing to spend more time or more money than most people are (doing the farming other people aren't willing to do).

Or an in-game elimination. This is where resellers make a lot of money. Some people specifically haunt the bazaar to "sweep it." Their theory is that if someone has 15 leather padding at 10pp each and you have your 100 leather padding priced at 28pp each, spending the cash to buy out the guy at 10pp gives you a better shot at selling everything. Not everyone wants to pick up short stacks, half stacks, and one offs just to get cheaper prices. Some people want their stuff now and going to one seller, even at a high price, is better than dealing with the running around or lag or pick-an-excuse-du-jour.

Originally posted by Velurian
If you try to sell into a market that everybody can and does already sell in, you'll never get anywhere -- and that's why a lot of people really don't ever make money in tradeskills. The trick is to identify and exploit those markets where you either have a built-in advantage (race, class, flagging status) or can create one

While fundamentally I agree with your sentiment, I think I'll have to disagree that you can't get anywhere (because I've done it). The key is to pay attention. Watch the market. Watch it at different times of the day. Think about when the various time zones (eastern, central, western...) get close to the end of the work day and after dinner. Think about what day of the week it is. Think about when Sony will implement a patch. Think about when holidays fall in various areas of the US. Watch what sits and what doesn't watch who the people are who have items and how much they have and for how long. For that matter, watch what specific sellers are selling. Sometimes you can guess where they're going next based on what they're selling (and even guess which tradskill guide they're using to do it).

I would argue that with patience and research, sometimes you can make an extremely educated guess on how things are going in a particular market and break into it, or even take it over. It just involves work, as much as any tradeskill. Unfortunately you can't get skillups recognized for shopping.

[Rorgg]

I've also had a run of tremendous moneymaking off my tradeskills lately. While subcombines are a valid method, I went with door #2, the high end niche market. My main sales have been:

- Blacksmithing: Ogre cultural is 95% of my sales, and is reasonably lucrative. If I keep I did, however, recently realize that my market would accept Mistletoe Sickles at 3k each, and making them in a batch of 20 attempts wasn't too irritating. The key to this is advertizing. I consistently send /auc in PoK and the auction channel the fact that I'm a GM smith making Ogre and Troll cultural armor. After about a month of it, people have started coming to me on their own.

- Brewing: someone was paying 30k for 600 Mistletoe tempers. Ok, that's a subcombine thing, but for that kind of volume? Totally worth it.

- Pottery: Buy the ingredients, and close your eyes and click combine. I've been lucky so far, making both my Ceramic Shield of Valor and Totem of the Rathe first try. Plus, Star Ruby Encrusted Steins still sell reasonably well for a small profit, and again, aren't too irritating in batches of 20.

[Tudamorf]

Re: Most Profitable Tradeskill?

Originally posted by OutcastAssassin
I would like to know what the most profitable tradeskill is.

That's kind of like asking what the most profitable casino game is. While you can make money with trade skills, when you factor in the effort and capital needed to do it, you'll find that farming is a far better source of cash. Even if you're elemental flagged, you'll probably make more money selling off trade skill components than skilling up yourself and doing the combines. Do trade skills for entertainment, not for money.

[Palarran]

Watching the bazaar for elemental tradeskill components works if you have a lot of patience. I made two ceramic totems of xegony before I ever had elemental access, and sold one for double what I paid for all the components combined. It took me several months to find the components for sale though.

[Lilosh]

Re: Re: Most Profitable Tradeskill?

Originally posted by Tudamorf
That's kind of like asking what the most profitable casino game is. While you can make money with trade skills, when you factor in the effort and capital needed to do it,

I audibly laughed at this analogy. Good thing I'm alone, at work.


*snicker* I need to remember that.



-Lilosh

[AbitooXev]

If I had to guess, I'd say on my server the most profittable tradeskills are (or at least were):

1) Alchemy
2) Brewing (Kaladim Constitutionals, CVT, Tempers/curing agents)
3) (tie) Baking, Smithing Tailoring
6) fishing (cobalt cod, storm salmon, etc)

Now, if you want to really rake in the profit, combine Brewing (tempers) with smithing and/or Tailoring and sell Ethereal Rings, Sheets, silks and swatches.

Other profitable items include, some potions. Kaladim Constitutionals. MTPs

Another for profit item as stated above in the subcombines is celestial essence, going rate on my server is 3-4pp or about a 1-2pp profit per combine.

Bottom line is, if you cant sell top end items (elemental) your best bet is to KISS and do bottom end stuff that no one else has the patience to do on their own.

[eniamn]

chenier

I like jello.

with whip cream.

[zandorian]

At this point the most Profitable Tradeskill is Tailoring although it costs a small fortune to get it up to a level where you can make a good amount of plat.


I started with tailoring but Skill ups where slow, I then moved to baking which paid its own way plus paid to get most skills near 150+ . Once baking got over 200 i needed fishing. where I did very well profit wise ( Blessed fishing poles).

Once Tailoring was 230+ I started making Haversacks which has paid for JC,Fletching, Pottery, Smithing, Brewing

Hainnon
1750 CLUB 12/16/2003

[Garulf]

The most profitable tradeskill...

Is whichever one the latest expansion emphasizes, at least until the market floods. With Luclin it was tailoring (especially things like Acrylia studded cloaks selling for 10k each).

With Velious it was also Tailoring (Arctic Wyvern, Tigeraptor, Black and Haze Panther, Cobalt Drake). Luclin also made all tradeskills somewhat profitable (for a while) making the items for the PotC quest.

PoP added quite a few nice items, all of which have very rare ingredients (Valorium Ring of Galantry, the Ceramic items, etc.)

LoY made Alchemy profitable (Dyes and Illusion potions) and Research (making formerly drop-only spells).

LDoN didn't make any tradeskills greatly profitable, although it did add an alternative method of getting high smithing skill. Couple of moderately nice Jewelcrat items.

One thing to keep in mind, these bursts of tradeskill profitability tend to be pretty short, and don't really allow for skillup time, if you have the skills and access to the ingredients at the right time, you can clean up (I may even manage it with GoD).

[Ellesidil]

Easiest way to make plat in Tradeskills?

Sell the subcombines and the goods tradeskillers want, seriously that is probably the most profitability you will ever see, once you are done doing that, you can sell stuff you make. You will never see the profit margin of looting and selling though when making finished goods, the real plat is the steady plat you make selling the ingredients.

The fast money is if you are one of the only people who can make an item (due to skill level, race, or access to planes), then you have cornered a market for a while, and the world is your oyster. Soon people will see that and realize they can have a piece and your oyster begins to rot, but until then, you can rake in the plat.

If you become an effective farmer of subcombines though, there is a lot of plat in that over the long run.....just keep churning out the subcombines and the plat will roll in.

Ellesidil

[Galain]

I'd say 4 skills are currently the money makers. I base this on relative ease of gathering components. They are:

Fletching - Stonewood Compound Bows
Tailoring - Stonehide and Earthweave Armors
Pottery - Incense Burners and Rathe Totems
JC- Steel Ring of Earthen Resilience

Brewing and Baking just don't have the profit margins I like. And let's face it. Elemental smithing is just a huge pita because of the number of tempers it takes for a combine. You make alot more plat using that temper on studs.

[Morniel]

hmmmm...

I'd have to agree with what others have said... the easiest way to make plat using tradeskills is to do the subcombines/farming for other tradeskillers. I don't even want to think about the total amount of plat I spent on essence of shadow and othmir furs... easily over a hundred thousand on each.

That being said... I think the easiest trade skill to make plat with is tinkering. I know that only gnomes can do it, so many people don't even consider it a true tradeskill... but in my experience it's by far the easiest one to make plat with.

I've mastered all the normal tradeskills, and I don't think that I will ever have enough time on my hands to manage to turn a profit over what I spent raising the skills in the first place. My best friend, on the other hand, tinkers. This past weekend she did some tinkering - she spent about 3k on parts (plus she had maybe 2-3k worth of things I had bought for her). In a matter of two days we made that much - and still had a full inventory of items to sell. The profit margin is just huge, especially if you have a skill near 200 (hers is 209 now I think) and can farm your own blue diamonds.

Corking devices are a good example - they are trivial to her, so have a good success rate. They use blue diamonds (we get those exp'ing, so no cost) - cost of other parts is minimal. I sell them for 995 each (could probably get more, but hate to gouge). I sold 4 the first day I had them up for sale.

Tinkering is one of the few tradeskills where you can actually sell the items you are making for skill, and turn a decent profit.

[Aubron the Tailor]

Sell the subcombines and the goods tradeskillers want, seriously that is probably the most profitability you will ever see, once you are done doing that, you can sell stuff you make. You will never see the profit margin of looting and selling though when making finished goods, the real plat is the steady plat you make selling the ingredients.

should read...

Sell the subcombines and the goods tradeskillers want. Seriously, that is probably the most profitability you will ever see. Once you are done doing that, you can sell stuff you make. You will never see the profit margin of looting and selling though. When making finished goods, the real plat is the steady plat you make selling the ingredients.

Sigh - I'm sorry Was just teasing and wanted to help sort that out for readability. Some days I really think I should be an English teacher. My apologies for my obsessive behavior