Written by Sorry, Flux – that one was just sitting there, and it’s all in good fun, so I hope you’ll understand.
One of the main reasons why I hate farming is because I am both lazy and impatient. Hence, when writing up my last post about why farming isn’t profitable, I decided not to offer an example and instead decided to rely on my quick wit and good looks to persuade you…
Thankfully, Fluxdada of Power Word: Gold offered this treasure (pun intended, and I won’t apologize for it’s cheesiness), so I’m going to take a closer look at it. While Break the Bank might not have any fancy videos or screenshots (I’m lazy, remember), I do own a calculator, courtesy of your local dollar store. Let’s do some math, shall we.
Starting Costs
In his post, Flux lists the following haul in an hour of farming:
- 139 Savage Leather
- 23 Embersilk Cloth
- 4 Volatile Air
- 2 Volatile Fire
- 3 Volatile Life
- 46 Blackened Dragonscale
- 2 Green Items
- 56g worth of vendor trash
- 2 Pristine Hide
I’m going to list the market value for those items for my own server, ignoring the 2 greens and the vendor trash (that can be your “bonus” for all that farming – I won’t need it for anything, just watch). I am also rounding up so you can be sure I’m not stretching my numbers for the sake of making my point.
- 139 Savage Leather = 700g
- 23 Embersilk Cloth = 50g
- 4 Volatile Air = 80g
- 2 Volatile Fire = 30g
- 3 Volatile Life = 20g
- 46 Blackened Dragonscale = 700g
- 2 Pristine Hide = 800g
Total = 2380g.
Investment Choices
I would use those materials in the following manner:
- Convert the Leather into Heavy Savage Leather to be used in Bloodied PvP pieces (enough for 3)
- Convert the cloth into bolts, and then into Fireweave PvP pieces (enough for 2)
- Volatile Air will also be used in the Fireweave pieces
- Volatile Fire will also be used in the Bloodied and Fireweave pieces
- Volatile Life will also be used in the Bloodied pieces
- Blackened Dragonscale will be used in the Bloodied pieces and then in a Dragonscale Leg armor
- The Pristine Hides will be used to make a Dragonscale Leg Armor and a Charscale Leg Armor
Profit Margin
By using the market values listed above, and current market value of finished product, I am looking at an average profit margin of:
- 200% of mat cost on Bloodied pieces (that’s rounded down from an inconsistent 250%)
- 200% of mat cost on Fireweave pieces
- 135% of mat cost on Leg Armor
Based on that, adjusted values for our list would be:
- 139 Savage Leather – 700g * 200% = 1400g
- 23 Embersilk Cloth – 50g * 200% = 100g
- 4 Volatile Air – 80g * 200% = 160g
- 2 Volatile Fire – 30g * 200% = 60g
- 3 Volatile Life – 20g * 200% = 40g
- 46 Blackened Dragonscale – 700g * (30 @ 200% and 16 @ 135%) = 1225g
- 2 Pristine Hide – 800g * 135% = 1080g
Total haul = 4065g
Total after AH fees = 3860g
Total profit after investment costs = 1480g
Time Spent
In order to pull this off, I would require the following time investment:
- Running from my spot at the Mailbox to the AH = 10 sec
- Purchasing materials = 30 sec
- Running back to the Mailbox = 10 sec
- Opening mail = 30 sec
- Crafting 28 Heavy Savage Leather from 140 Savage Leather @ 3 sec each = 84 sec (round to 85 sec)
- Crafting 5 Bolt of Embersilk from 25 Embersilk Cloth @ 2 sec each = 10 sec
- Crafting 3 Bloodied pieces @ 3 sec each = 9 sec (round to 10sec)
- Crafting 2 Fireweave pieces @ 2 sec each = 4 sec (round to 5 sec)
- Crafting 2 leg armor pieces @ 3 sec each = 6 sec (round to 10 sec)
- Running back to the AH = 10 sec
- Posting items = 15 sec
- Running back to Mailbox = 10 sec
Total time spent = 235 sec / 4 min. Let’s round that up to 5 min, which allows for 25% wasted/lost time, but still bringing us to:
17,760 GPH
Isn’t math fun? I think my point has been made. If anyone else would like to throw out some numbers in the comments or on their own blog, I’d love to do this again. I can do this with herbs and ore, too. Put your best farming spots to the test, I dare you.
Thanks again to Fluxdada of Power Word: Gold for being such a good sport. I would encourage you guys to check out his site if you haven’t already, as there is some good information there, including a regular podcast and some nice videos (if you’re into that sort of thing, 
).
If nobody else has any farming “triumphs” that they want to throw under the microscope, I did still enjoy this style of post, so I might look for some other “debatable” topics to cover in the future. It was good to get some ideas bouncing around on both sides, and I really appreciate everyone taking the time to comment.
-Kathroman
Yeah math is fun but that’s optimal conditions.
Care to elaborate? I underestimated my returns and overestimated my expenses – what else would you take issue with? It’s not like I’ve saturated the market here or anything – we are talking about 5 total pieces of armor and 2 leg armors.
The point is exactly that: using AH mats IS optimal compared to farming – all day every day. What am I missing?
It also depends on the sale speed and such. Yes you can get a 17k profit value on your items within a matter of minutes but there are factors like the the daily auction house stock, price and how much you can sell within a certain amount of time.
If you need to farm a few hours to make 17k profit in liquid gold which sells a lot faster then the leg armors you were talking about then yes you are investing more time and your profit margin is lower but that’s where you will have to make choices.
However you can also think about the amount of items you can throw on the auction house before your sales will diminish because the demand isn’t high enough. If the demand for these items isn’t there then you can make a lot of gold within a few minutes as calculated but when you have to wait for a long time to sell them it might be a better idea to move ur markets around a little bit.
I’d like to make gold quickly by moving a lot of stuff. It requires some work but I know the profit comes flooding in very quickly. Ofcourse I also have some items on the auction house with a very high profit margin but that’s not where my focus is because it sells too slow in my opinion.
it sounds kind of like you are saying that you would rather work harder for less gold now than more gold later? I can understand doing this at lower liquid gold levels, when you need the cash flow, but once you have the capital to invest, it just doesn’t make sense.
As far as how quickly the items will sell, I mentioned above that this is hardly saturating the market. I used the mats to craft a total of 5 out of 48 potential items between the 2 professions. If you choose the right 5, which shouldn’t be hard, since it’s only 10% of the whole market, those profit margins should be easy to secure. Also, only 1 of each leg armor – how long are we thinking these are going to take to sell? It’s not like I’m trying to flip a Darkmoon Trinket for 20K here…
It’s having the certainty of knowing what will sell after what period of time that pulls me towards other markets. If I have to do triple the work to get the same amount of gold income, I’m sure I’ll get before/at day X I won’t hesitate to go with that tactic because I don’t like having to wait for random buyers. Armor sets are harder to get rid off and it all depends on what server you’re on. People don’t spend a lot of gold on armors every day. That’s what I wanted to say.
See this math is correct, but the biggest assumption you make is that the player reading the idea has the gold to buy the matts to start with.
Lets say a player with only a few hundred gold maybe 1k reads a guide saying never farm and cannot afford materials the time investment will take longer to make gold than spending a few hours farming 3kgph for a few hours to get some start up money or materials.
So although i agree farming is inefficient once you can afford to use AH bought materials, it is still good for some people
Thats just my thoughts, I hope they aren’t taken as rude as I think this post and its math are brilliant ( I love math, and sepcialy manual math
)
You are correct, I am making that assumption, but I also feel I have make a conscious effort to point people towards tools that will help them get to that point as well. The Consortium has a wealth of knowledge, and there are plenty of helpful threads for new players or people getting started in the gold-making game.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate and still suggest that there are better options that farming. When I switched servers, I rolled a DK to get me started, gold-wise, but you can do this with just about any character. After blowing through the DK starter area, I had about 60 -70g. I did a vendor run of Thunder Bluff, snatching up every limited supply recipe and a few various items such as copper rod and rune thread that people usually forget about. This same tactic will work in pretty much every major city, so it is applicable for just about any player, anywhere. After one run, I had spent about 30 – 40g. The next day, I was up to about 500g, and after 3 days, I was over 1000g. As a new player, without any tradeskills, there is no way I would have been able to farm 1000g in the amount of time it took me to run around TB once and throw everything up in the AH.
You seem to know these markets and items intimately. It’s fun to show off in our own areas of expertise.
Like I mentioned in the post I’m not a full-on gold-per-hour min/maxer. I also don’t feel the need to compare myself to others (even if only in jest).
I guess a compliment is a compliment if if it’s a backhanded one.
I honestly didn’t mean any ill-will towards you, Flux. If you would like me to change the name of the post, let me know. I fully respect the effort that must go into making those videos and podcats, even if I have no personal use for them (for purely technical reasons, not because I wouldn’t enjoy them)
I don’t think there is anything wrong with what you did – that was your choice. I was merely pointing out that I would have done it very differently. But you are right, I would be doing it that way to try and maximize my time, etc. I don’t raid, and I’m not an arena Gladiator, so don’t min/max some of the other facets of the game, but this is one where I do, because I enjoy it. Farming has never been part of the equation, and I don’t think it ever will, outside of the 2 scenarios I mentioned in the original post.
Again, I apologize if any offense was taken from this post, it certainly was not intended.
No worries. We’re all in this together.
I am an avid anti-fan of farming. I agree with your premise. That said, I do have a couple of points just for the sake of illustration.
I don’t dispute that your math works. I’m just not a fan of calculations like these to illustrate GPH, which I consider so amorphous that it is an irrelevant measurement.
For example, Bobsbank has a brain fart. Instead of listing his Pyrium Ore at 7.5g per ore in 20 stacks (150g per stack) he lists the stacks at 7.5g each. His mistake is compounded by his listing of 10 stacks.
I come along and buy his 75g worth of ore and simply flip it at 7.5g per ore, 150g per stack. It all sells. My good fortune grossed me 1,425g (1,500g list price less 75g investment) for only 1 minute’s work.
It would be illegitimate to extropolate this windfall into 85,500 GPH (1,425g per minute for 60 minutes) because this activity is neither predictable or repeatable. Instead, I consider this simply a 1,425g windfall.
This is an oversimplified way of showing why GPH can be misleading, but the point remains that if one has the gold on hand and can afford to purchase from the AH and craft the same items that one has to spend an hour or more farming, then even if the return per item is a bit lower due to capital outlay, the overall impact on one’s gold stores will be higher by using the “wholesaler”, or AH, in lieu of gathering the same mats.
I’m sure you did this for illustration purposes but your example assumes the character who crafts these items has the requisite skills. For many of us the AH toon is simply a mule. Mats then have to be sent from the AH toon to playing toons who craft and either list or re-send the finished products back to the mule. This time investment would lower your GPH calculation somewhat.
To the extent that GPH is useful at all it is only useful in comparing similar activities. Farming Wool Cloth might yeild 100 GPH while farming Embersilk might yeild 400 GPH. Neither is wholly trustworthy but if one is asking oneself “what shall I farm today?”, the answer would most likely be Embersilk–assuming one had the ability to farm either.
Similarly, if one is buying materials on the AH to craft and re-sell items, one might find a higher GPH from making Bloodied Pyrium gear than one would receive from crafting Copper armor. Same time investment, vastly different result based on item value.
Another consideration is that of shelf life. If I buy mats to make 10 Ebonsteel Belt Buckles, craft them, and list them at 300g each my gross is not 3,000 GPH until they all sell. If the materials cost me 1,000g and I only sold 1 Belt Buckle, then I’m actually at (700)GPH with some inventory left over. I may not realize that income for a few days if sales are slow or if the market is depressed.
Likewise, if I am flying around Twilight Highlands and find 4 each Pyrium and Elementium nodes, mine them, and get (lucky drops) 8 Elementium Ore, 8 Pyrium Ore and 4 Vol Earths, I can then craft an Ebonsteel Belt Buckle. Say it took me 15 minutes to farm, smelt and craft the belt. If I list the one Belt Buckle for 250g and it sells, is my GPH then 67.5, or essentially 10x better than the guy who made the 1,000g investment and sold only one of his 10 Buckles?
Anyway, nice post, good math and enjoyable reading. I will be back to visit again. Very interesting site.
Kammler, I completely agree with you about GPH, however, it is unfortunately the most efficient measure currently in place. You might be very interested in following the progress of the Goblin Index Rating, as it’s current implementation (which admittedly, exists only in my head) does address some of the specific problems you have raised with GPH.
The idea is that it utilizes historic “sold” data in conjunction with current market values to ascertain more appropriate “thresholds” for individual markets. It ends up working a lot like a DPS priority list does – it isn’t a simple cut and paste roadmap, but it will give you an idea of where your effort would be best spent. For example, if there are 3 markets and they respectively take 15 min, 30 min, and 1 hour to capitalize on, let’s consider the following scenarios:
If the GIR suggests that the most profitable order would be A then B then C and you only had an hour to spend, doing A exclusively doesn’t make sense because the market would become too saturated. The GIR would suggest you stop A after you hit the threshold, then move onto B, leaving you with 15 mins to spend on C.
If the order was C , B, A, then spending the full hour on C would be the best choice in that scenario. This is an oversimplified representation of what it actually does – it isn’t based purely on time, but it DOES factor in how deep you should go into a market before you start seeing diminished returns.
Stede has been helping me work through some of the details with the GIR calculations, perhaps you might be interested in some sort of collaboration as well? We seem to be on the same page about the heart of the problem, maybe we can all work together to introduce a better solution…?
Your other points I think I am actually going to cover in my response to the “delightful” poster below you.
Hmmm… No….
you THEORETICALLY could have made 1400ish gold for about 5 min of time DIRECTLY invested… not 17K in an hour… (since we are rounding everything)
I buy and sell vendor pets… I buy at <1gold sell on average for 10gold. Travel time 5 minutes. There are 3 pets in the BE starting area. I buy 100 each and mail them to posting alt, buying/mailing takes 10 minutes, loggin over and posting takes 10 more minutes. thats 2700 gold in less than a half hour so By doing this I can make 6KGPH… Numbers rounded of course.
REALLY.. thats AWESOME… (sarcasm)
If you play regularly, and say, one half an hour a day is AHing, this would mean that with ONLY 1/2 hour per day playing the AH you make 8.5K (since we are rounding)per day in net profits, and you would then make 45K/week in Net profits. Remember the 45K number is using ONLY 1/2 hour per day.
Since time is money… how much time did you spend researching the markets to get the info for this post? Did you just know all this? Did you log on and have market alerts to tell you what and where to buy and sell? What was the oportunity cost? Did you actually go out and do this or are you just doing a spreadsheet calculation to theoretical GPH for inflated numbers…
We can all twist numbers… Or did my assumtions and use of math to make lots of numbers (rounded) not accuratly mimic what you did with a healthy dose of sarcasm and mocking in it to boot….
I am a bit torn, here – since I don’t make a habit of moderating comments that aren’t spam or offensive, but I also try and treat all of my readers with respect when I reply to them.
Let me just say this: If I were in your position, I would be very careful of getting in the habit of running around, coping attitude on other people’s sites. You won’t get out of it what you think you will, of that I am 100% certain.
Now, let’s go through your reply step by step, shall we? (condescension)
First, let’s look at the vendor pets example. The point you seem to be getting at is that taking 5 minute endeavor and calculating a GPH number isn’t possible. This is incorrect. The example that you provided is definitely not reasonable, but that doesn’t mean mine isn’t. Instead of seeing how I derived 17k GPH from something that takes only 5 minutes and assuming I don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to take a closer look at this and see whether or not expansion is possible. Let’s take a look at that now, ok?
Between the 2 professions, there are a total of 48 items that can be made. I identified 5. If we were to make 1 of each of them (which would still not saturate our market, since they are still unique items) then we can roughly extrapolate our time investment into 45 mins. (rounding again, of course). Math: 48/5 = 9.6. 5 min x 9 = 45 min. The total profit from those 45 mins would be ~12k (rounded down, again). Even if we were to stop there and assume that no further expansion is possible, do you think people would rather spend 1 hour in order to make ~3k (rounded up) or 45 min to make 12k (rounded down)?
The POINT of both of these posts, since it has clearly been missed here, is that farming is categorically a less effective means of acquiring gold than simply purchasing mats off the AH and crafting them into something else.
Both you and Kammler will note that my example can both be expanded AND carried out on a single toon, if necessary. My original calculation involved using Transmute: Living Elements to turn the Volatile Life into Air, but since that would have involved a third profession, and thus, logging in and out, I skipped it.
As far as my information goes, I have been crafting and selling PvP sets since very early on in the expansion and can assure you that I am intimately familiar with the ins and outs of the market.
The final thing I would like to do is help you fix your vendor pet business. You mentioned that it would take you 10 minutes to login in and post them on your other toon. I don’t know what addon you are using for posting, but if your started using TSM and set up a single group for the pets, you could probably cut your time down to around 2.5 minutes. This would increase your GPH significantly (rounded).
The 17K GPH wasn’t the point of the post, as I have already mentioned – it was that farming for the sake of profit is a waste of your time. The math was simply to emphasize the point, not to prove it. I could very easily list an entire hour’s worth of work that would earn me more than 3000g profit, but I chose 1 example. It was simple and easier, but the premise remains – The AH is the most efficient place to get mats, and an hour farming will almost always fall short when it comes to profit.
The next time you get a hunch to post a thought or comment, I would recommend sleeping on it. Get some perspective and see how you feel in the morning – I know it helps me personally, this is probably at least my third version of this reply.
Thanks for coming just the same.
As those that have already posted have said, to calculate GPH using a 10 minute burst strategy is like calculating my DPS from my 3 second burst damage in a melee. GPH is only GPH if what you are doing is actually sustainable for that hour… if it isn’t, you can still say that you’ve earned XXX of gold in XXX of time, which may be impressive in itself… just don’t call it GPH…
I think 10 minute strategies are great – string a few of them together and you could probably do really good TRUE GPH with them… Do that each day and it could be a truly gold growing strategy.
I’m not going to argue with the “specific” arguments that everyone has been making, but I will reiterate the “general” point that was made in the original post, which is to compare crafting/flipping vs. farming. If you look at those 2 activities, you can reasonable spend hours doing either, but crafting/flipping WILL net you more gold/time spent than farming ever will, period.
The purpose of this post was not to suggest that everyone should go out and start crafting 3 pieces of LW PvP gear and 2 Tailoring pieces and expect to be rewarded with an easy 17,000g for their efforts. Rather it was to further illustrate my point, that based on the small amount of time it takes and reasonable profit conditions (useful, produced goods will always be more valuable that their components), crafting is by far a better idea (which was why I compared the farming GPH to the crafting GPH – for effect, not to be taken literally)
Once more, for emphasis, I will say this: any amount of time spent crafting/flipping items from the AH will definitely be more profitable for you than an equal amount of time spent farming.
Yesterday I went to Twighlight Highlands on my lvl 82 DK to complete leveling his mining – something I had started on him about 2 years ago. (He will only be my 2nd 85 – I literally just finished leveling my Ret Pally a few days ago. He’s maxed on herbs and inscription).
After a couple of hours of semi-dedicated farming (I was half listening/watching TV at the same time), I looked in my bags and realized how little gold I had accumulated in the 2 hours. Yes, his mining is at 515 or so… and he was now able to smelt Hardened Elementium bars for my fiance’s engineer. (She just maxed that out today).
So… if I dropped mining and picked up blacksmithing, I could still smelt (once I leveled it of course) plus I could make some nice equipment for others, right? Are there any other professions other then herbalists that can mill herbs? Not being able to mill herbs for inks would sound like a very bad idea… Of course, I’m sure you’d say that you’d level them to max and then buy the herbs from that point on, what I’ve done as well.
In short, yea… I agree that farming may be a way of easily making some gold, it certainly isn’t the best way to make alot of it.
I read your comment a couple times now, and I think I’m missing something.
To clarify: Smelting is part of the mining profession. Milling is part of the Inscription profession. If you were to drop mining for Blacksmithing, you would lose the ability to smelt ore into bars. If you were to drop herbalism, you would still be able to mill herbs into inks. You would no longer be able to gather the herbs from their nodes, but you could still mill them.
On that same note, Mining is the one gathering profession that actually does retain some value for me via. smelting.
If I were you, I would drop herbalism for Blacksmithing, not mining. And, yes – I buy all my herbs from the AH, but based on current market prices and average returns on both Blackfallow and Inferno Ink, that is simply a no-brainer.
See what happens when you aren’t paying attention to what prof gives you what and you try to comment while at work? lol
Thanks for the info and have a great day
I’m wondering if you’re taking into account the original investment of time it takes to learn a market?
In all honesty. The total time you have ever played the game or at least ever looked at the value of any item (being inside or outside the game) should be accounted for because without that prior knowledge you would never have been able to accomplish what you do now.
So a more proper estimation of gph would also include an impossible number to determine which would represent total amount of time spent learning markets and practicing your methods.
While taking into account that you also have to consider how much gold you made back then when you were a “noob” to the AH game.
Only reason I’m mentioning any of this is because even if you lay out step for step what you need to do. A person who is new to the AH game will never be able to replicate how much gold you are making at your peak.
Anytime anyone mentions a ridiculously high gph they’re only taking into account things that are happening at that particular time. In effect, skewing the data.
Are you taking into account the amount of time you have to wait for those things to sell? Only reason I’m mentioning this is because you can’t post 1,000 of the same item at once. We all know that if you did you would over saturate the market. So the time you’re waiting for those items to sell should always be taken into consideration as it should when farming. Unless of course you literally log in, check markets, craft, post, log off. Which we all know that none of us does that every single time we play this game.
I have more questions but I have to go. More later.
Alright, let’s not lose our heads here, folks.
I mean, why stop there? Should we also not take into account varying levels of intelligence and one’s ability to “learn a market” faster than someone else. Should overall life experience be overlooked? By that token, a pure formula would factor in the total number of hours a person has lived to that point, wouldn’t it? Do you see what I’m getting at, though? There are any number of questions we can ask about GPH, but do they actual enhance anyone’s experience? Not always. In order to make effective use of a comparison tool such as GPH, you first need to identify it’s purpose.
If your purpose for GPH is to “strut your stuff”, then people are always going to take issue with you. It is the same reason why people seem to loathe gearscore and subsequent item comparison methods. If you are out to have the biggest GPH possible, people will always want to bring you down a peg or two, it’s human nature.
If, however, you utilize GPH as a means of comparing 2 or more gold making opportunities, it CAN be an effective way to help you better prioritize your time. If you have some time to spend, and you are wondering whether to go hit up your secret farming spot or power through your TSM crafting queue, the point of GPH is to help you realize which would be a better use of your time. The specific numbers here are irrelevant, the fact of the matter remains that the answer to that question is going to be the same, virtually every time.
I actually agree with you there Kathroman.
Perfect answer.
If you’re using it only to compare two separate methods; then the rough estimate number you get that is GPH is more than likely the exact figure you need to use to determine which is superior.
One other thing that needs to be taken into consideration is that fact that the 5 min effort you describe in the post can not happen infinitely. It can only happen when prices and supply dictate.
In other words, if both of those situations aren’t happening then you’re not turning quite the GPH that you’re estimating.
All in all, I agree with you Kath and I enjoy reading your posts as well as the information you share at the CF.
Absolutely. To further add to what you said, I don’t think anything can be repeated “infinitely” – even farming. There will be a saturation point for ore, and supply and demand will swing prices in those markets as well.
Thanks for your comments, Ralthrus.