I am still leveling my hunter for the token challenge, it is currently level 115, so a little while to go, but that just means I can write some more of my thoughts on the challenge.
What do you optimize for?
One question I will have to consider is what time frame I want to optimize for. Two main approaches is to either optimize for the first token and trying to get that as quickly as possible or to optimize for a longer time frame. If I just want to get one token as quickly as possible I would pick different methods than if I want to get a token quickly while also increasing the speed of my next token.
Optimizing for a single token
If you just want a single token the most time efficient method will most likely be farming for current expansion materials. Depending on the method you can get this in a week by farming about an hour per day.
Is you are in an actual pinch to get a token to continue your sub, then this is certainly the way to go.
The issue with just farming is that the time you spend will not have any impact on how quickly you get token #2.
Longer term focus
If you focus on methods with a longer time horizon you will probably get your first token slower, but you will build up useful stock and a presence that ensures that every further token is easier to earn.
The general idea is to use AH based methods like crafting and flipping where you typically increase your inventory as you get sales. You will slowly keep adding new markets with your profits until you are maxed out in terms of professions and the potential flipping markets you can afford to play in.
By the time you get your first token you will probably have at least 200k worth of auctions posted on the AH, and more stuff in your bags.
Combining them may be most optimal
The optimal route may be to do some farming to get started with the AH and then focus on flipping and crafting, but it’s hard to tell without testing. When I do the challenge the first time I will do it as long term focused as possible. I will try to build a large auction house and I will be active in as many markets as I can.
I want to make a token in 30 days, and see how much surplus stuff I end up with that will help me get the next token even faster!
I’ll probably discuss how various methods will place themselves along this spectrum when we get into the challenge.
hey lazy, i just started gold farming a little over a week ago. iv’e read and watched pretty much all the recommended resources recommended by the wowecon reddit but your blog is by far my favorite. you’ve helped me grasp a lot of these concepts and i really appreciate it.
I originally started trying to snipe. it didn’t go well, at all. none of the “snipping for beginners” resources from reddit and youtube talked about a very important aspect of selling. sale rate. needless to say I threw away a lot of gold on “great deals” with a .01 sale rate.
so i decided to do what i’ve done in many other games, flipping mats. I found your post about flipping mats being the best way to start a gold empire with operations and groups included and i finally started seeing progress.
im really excited about this series. i started playing again with the intent of making gold because i found out about wow tokens. im now 20 days left on my sub and working towards playing for free so obviously im gonna follow it closely.
so im flipping mats. i want to get into the next steps you addressed in your 30 day plan post, enchanting shuffling, expulsom crafting, and crafting. at this point my time in game has mainly been spent gaining experience with TSM, and leveling (im 112)
how do i go about these steps and is this what you’d recommend doing next? i purchased a token to sell just for capitol, im obviously looking for a long term approach here so im sitting about 130k, with about 60k sitting on the ah in mats.
I outlined the Expulsom shuffle in this post (https://thelazygoldmaker.com/optimizing-the-expulsom-shuffle-to-build-a-crafting-empire), which gives an overview of that part of goldmaking. You can actually take material flipping fairly far.
Since you are only level 112, a lot of rank 3 crafting will be unavailable to you, as you need revered and level 120 for that. I would stick to material flipping, as you can take this fairly far. Focus on learning by doing. Which means starting small with your experiments and then scaling up when you find something that works.
The first parts of my zero to one million challenge will also be a good place for inspiration for various low cost methods. https://thelazygoldmaker.com/category/zero-to-one-million/page/4