Fueling your tradeskill addictions

[Zatara]

I see a lot of people are tradeskillers, and doing hundreds of combines at once seems commonplace, even with expensive components, so I was wondering how you fund your habits. Do you play the bazaar? Farm things and sell the results? Farm raw plat? Roll your tradeskill profits into even more tradeskill profits? How much is your time worth? At what point do you start wasting plat instead of time?

For example, the two main paths to 300 brewing are Kaladim Constitutionals, and Brut Champagnes. KCs cost ~6 plat per combine, while Brut is ~28 plat per combine. Brut requires enchanted gold bars, KCs require mushrooms from Kaladim. 10 pairs per 6 minute spawn, if I remember correctly. That means you save roughly 2200 plat per hour of mushroom picking. More if you're able to sell the KCs to someone. Judging from the posts in the brewing section, and the number of KCs for sale in the bazaar, both routes are fairly popular. This seems to indicate some tradeskillers make more than 2200 plat hourly, and others make less.

So how do you bankroll your tradeskill runs?

[Grolyn]

I have a buyer and seller in bazaar. I buy low and sell high. Also occasional farming like hero parts (for sandwich), Regruga part (bucket of crab leg), slarghilug (poppers) and various tormentor mobs in Torment (for tormentor stew) those still sell well.

Vendor diving also helps. Find a few BD's for about 250p sell them for 500 in bazaar. Find a glossy drake hide for 2p sell for 20k (yes it happens). I often find prestidigitase on various vendor in rellic and arcstone plus a few in freeport, they usually sell for a few k's

[Ysall]

Find your niches, exploit them for as long as it's possible, then move onto your next niche. At the moment my niches are spells from the new DoD recipies, mechanoinstuctions used in Bazu/Last Blood augs, and PoR druzzil bows.

As for what I do with my plat, I use it to save time, as I have far more plat than I do time. I will happily pay huge premiums for skill up recipies where I can do 100 combines per 2 hours work, instead of 100 combines per 10 hours work. So, for example, if I want to skill up in smithing, I will happily pay 1kp per combine to make bazu and chronal seals (lovely simple recipies, no subcombines), over 500pp/combine for doing sickles (evil recipies, tons of subcombines).

[Aldier]

I see a lot of people are tradeskillers, and doing hundreds of combines at once seems commonplace, even with expensive components, so I was wondering how you fund your habits. Do you play the bazaar? Farm things and sell the results? Farm raw plat? Roll your tradeskill profits into even more tradeskill profits? How much is your time worth? At what point do you start wasting plat instead of time?

For example, the two main paths to 300 brewing are Kaladim Constitutionals, and Brut Champagnes. KCs cost ~6 plat per combine, while Brut is ~28 plat per combine. Brut requires enchanted gold bars, KCs require mushrooms from Kaladim. 10 pairs per 6 minute spawn, if I remember correctly. That means you save roughly 2200 plat per hour of mushroom picking. More if you're able to sell the KCs to someone. Judging from the posts in the brewing section, and the number of KCs for sale in the bazaar, both routes are fairly popular. This seems to indicate some tradeskillers make more than 2200 plat hourly, and others make less.

So how do you bankroll your tradeskill runs?

Yes I play the bazaar if I find a good price.

Some items that sell well and are relatively easy to farm, I will farm and sell.

I have at times just gone hunting in groups/solo for plat.

Everything I make in tradeskills I spend on other tradeskills.

You start wasting plat instead of time when you have enough excess plat that you are don't care if you spend some or if the time it takes to farm becomes so much that it begins to drone on for me I will sometimes seek an alternate route which may including purchasing at higher than normal rates for me.

The difference in your brewing example is exactly accurate. It is a toss up between more plat per combine and all vendored items with only 1 enchanted item versus spending hours sitting in a corner of an empty zone picking up ground spawns. I chose to pick up the ground spawns. I had the time when I was working on brewing and not the plat to burn on the champagne.

[Wyvernwill]

When it comes down to just working up skill alone, it depends on how badly I need to get to x skill. I got a late start on Spell Research, so I didn't see it as necessary to burn through it as hard or fast as I would have if I started on it from day one. The difference? The amount of profit made and the overall use of what I would have been making.

So I farmed the important part, saltpeters alone ended up making me almost 300k just farming those. Between 5 AAAA worth of parts, I also probably sold 400-800 Steel Ball Bearings, Coiled Springs, etc.

My typical method is to farm the areas that provide as much collateral bonus instead of just the best drop rate.

[Dutchy]

I've used all of the methods above. started out with baking and brewing and sold my leftovers, farmed supplies for tailoring in the meanwhile but sold most of it to earn some starting plat. Slowly made my first 10K (took me over a year) that way which allowed me to invest in my first earring of the solstice kit when the bazaar as a selling/trading area came out. Things went fast from there, I sold over 100 kits with some profit which allowed me to work on my other skills so I could one day create the entire kit myself. Started doing resales in the meanwhile as well for some extra plat and some gear for my chars. I farmed almost all my own supplies, and my friends and guildies saved things for me which was a great help. (I got to 250+ skill in almost everything that way the first time).
The little ball just kept rolling, farming & resales have been the biggest part of my income for a long time (untill tradeskills started paying off). The more plat I made the easier it became to earn more.

These days all my plat comes from the bazaar, I sell high end tradeskill goods and fast selling mid-level tradeskill gear mostly. Still do some resales but only if it's 50K+ items I can get a decent profit on. My main chars and alts I play are all geared to the (bazaar) max now so there's really not much left for me to spend plat on, other than more tradeskill investments.
My two traders are running really well now and earn me a few hundred Kpp per day, about 30K an hour average while being afk. So going out to farm components/items would usually cost me more plat than it would save me. So I buy almost all of my components in the bazaar.
Took me 7 years to get to where I am now though, but the investments I've done have been paying off and allow me to spend some more time exp-ing and doing combines instead of farming for components.

[Devilcharm]

Baking is your friend.

In one good day you can sell ~80K plat worth of stat food at an investment of ~120pp

Makes all other tradeskills virtually free. Not to mention how easy it is to max baking.

[Queletan]

Pretty much what Ysall and Dutchy said..

AAAAs, Dwarven Plate (some chain), Some Gnomish plate, Mechanoinstructions, and some DoD spells are where I make my money. I have a second trader up with all of my cheaper junk (masters armor, levitation packs, potions, KCs, MTPs, etc) because of how many spells and Instructions I have on my primary... I turn enough of a profit to usually come out ahead despite the fact that I'm still throwing money away trying to finish off my last point of tinkering. On spell research I'm still turning a small profit, but I have a feeling it is going to dwindle to a small loss in a month or two.

I was never much for reselling... too afraid the prices would plummet and I'd be stuck with a stock that I'd take a huge loss on (happened to a few people on bert with MDSs I think). That and it was hard enough keeping track of my buyer prices for stuff I wanted for tradeskills, let alone stuff I wanted to resell..

Q

[Thalia]

Knowing your prices is a good way to earn some plat.

I have on occasion went thru the Bazaar and bought items that people were selling that had a lower price than what the vendors buy it for, then I sell it to the NPC vendor and make some plat. Spells seem to be a good example of this. Some sell for about 18pp to NPC vendors and people will sell them on their traders for 5pp ea. It's not always a quick buck but I have bought near 40 spells in a 15 min shopping trip and sold them for a profit and made a quick 400pp

Another way is to buy blocks of ore and convert them to the smaller sizes. I have noticed that a few people seem to buy a small brick of " " ore for 50pp. If you vendor mine you can usually find large bricks and blocks and convert them to the lower sizes and make a profit at 50pp a small brick. It all depends on how prices are on your server.

Another way can be to sell forages. I haven't specifically foraged for items to sell but if I'm in a zone with my druid and happen to forage something that is used in a tradeskill I usually put it on my trader at the going rate for forages of that type.


I can not disclose my current plat making process. Everytime I happen to mention to one person that I'm doing well making plat doing something i end up getting trampled on by those who are out to make a quick buck, so I never disclose my current path.

Good luck in finding you nitch.

[MedailMeadmezzer-eci]

started in the POP era with the POP JC, would buy the raw stuff and make the refined **** then sell for profit, GOD came out and i made the weapons thought not to many with the same thought. this netted me about 500k money with a few items left to sell when they became "common" (more than 10-20 people selling) then OOW came out and there augs, which i promtly started into and grew to be the major aug maker/seller on ECI selling them for a tiny bit above cost, and taking a few orders which i would sell for a bit more than the others. this netted me up to about 2.5 million plat. then eci merged with tunare and my aug making days, which where slowly coming to an end, stoped like a train over a cliff. o well i thought there goes my 300-500k single item sales (waves and thanks wyvernwill)
then DODH came out, and having explored it in beta, and finding the majoity of the subcombines in beta, I produced about 10 AAAA's in a matter of 2 weeks (once again only one on server.) only to find that only the top end guild on tunare, talsmin, was into the dodh. To this i said fook it, since i was not only not going to be any use tradeskill wise, but was not having fun in the guild i was in, i server trasfered to drinal's CIH, but not before helping make the first bazu aug on tunare, bazu seal of sharpshooting, for a talsmin monk.
once on drinal i made a new name for my self with the now 9 AAAA's i had, and produced another 10 within the first week of me being on drinal, handing them out freely and some what randomly to members of CIH, and helping produce the server's first lastblood aug (bilmani or dinobar i think). with my money backing me I have proceded to make and sell AAAA's on drinal for 150-200k and have been the major maker and seller of them since I trasfered, buying the raw items for 5-10k for the rarer stuff, and just farming the more common things myself and selling my results making plat.
though i haven't quite cared much for making lots and lots of money, im curently at about 2.8 million with 4 AAAA tokens in my bank that i shall keep

[Dutchy]

I was never much for reselling... too afraid the prices would plummet and I'd be stuck with a stock that I'd take a huge loss on

Yes it can get risky, thats why I don't do much resales anymore myself. Lost a few million plat myself on bad investments (crystals mainly in my case). Other investments made up for the loss luckily and all my chars are running around fully augmented now lol.

What I used to do is just do resales on items that would be an upgrade to my chars. In case the price crashed on the item I would just equip it myself =) And (if the item was not attunable) it would allow me to use it on my chars untill I sold it again.
I would advise this to anyone trying the resales method with equipment or skill up components. Invest in things you could use yourself, that way it won't be as bad if the price plummets.

[tuis]

My steadiest income came from Kaladim Constitutionals, Misty Thicket Picnics, Holy Cakes, Halas Pies, and Vials of Prismatic Dye. My biggest jumps came from PoR bows, AAAA's, and DoN cultural combines. All of it ended up getting plowed right back into skillups until I hit the level I am at now (/rude Tailoring trophy). There isn't much market for Mechanoinstructions on Zek, as the guilds capable of getting the Bazu and Last Blood stones have their own researcher or 2 and generally do whatever they can to cockblock the other guilds.

I've been away for a few weeks...a combination of NG annual training, work, and general burnout...but I want to get my traders restocked again...just gotta sit down and do it.

[Chakua]

I started with Cloak of Greater Pernicity. I would buy the components cheap in the bazaar and I had a network of people that would contact me when Wires dropped in Innovation. I always had enough supplies for at least ten cloaks at any given time, minus the wires. It was not uncommon for me to sell 5-8 cloaks per day at a 5-20k profit depending on bazaar prices. All told, I made about 150 cloaks over the years.

From the Cloak profits, I was able to feed my addiction and make some profits off various items and it allowed me to start playing around with buy low/sell high in the bazaar.

OoW augs are what paid for my tradeskill Mastery but it's the PoR bows and AAAA that filled my bank, ensuring that I will never have to worry about plat for as long as the servers remain open.