What are your most effective way of earning lots of gold in World of Warcraft?
Should I be farming materials for my trades or to sell on the Auction House? Or should I be doing speed runs on the daily heroics?
Any suggestions?
World-of-warcraft – How to earn lots of gold
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First off: I would warn against basing any decision like this on month to month balance considerations. Things change so often in WoW that you should really decide based on how much you enjoy a particular classes playstyle, toolbox, and yes, even aesthetics. Healing Balance is Pretty Good right now. All five healing specs have a role to play, and a (25 man) raid which doesn't have the flexibility to see them all represented is a 25 man raid that is going to run into trouble. At the five man level, all five specs are more than capable of handling any content you'll see, though Discipline Priests in particular may find Heroics somewhat more challenging than most due to increased gear dependency.
That said, the current state of PvE healer balance at the high end is this: Priests are somewhat above average at Group and Raid healing - this is reflected by the nerfs to Prayer of Healing in the upcoming 4.0.6 patch, but those nerfs don't really change the overall state of things. Additionally, Priests bring extremely powerful cooldowns to a group such as Pain Suppression, Guardian Spirit, Leap of Faith, Divine Hymn, and Power Word: Barrier, all of which are defining abilities that have had entire strategies built around them. If you see raids specifically looking for Priests to heal, this is why.
Shaman by contrast, are currently the kings of PvP healing because they are extremely durable, mobile thanks to the new Spiritwalker's Grace ability, and bring substantially more offensive utility than other healers thanks to Heroism/Bloodlust, Wind Shear, Totems and Purge. In PvE, every 25 man raid wants at least one Resto Shaman for Mana Tide - and 10 mans love to have it as well. Mana Tide is the single most powerful mana regen ability in the game, and it is absolutely essential for success for many groups in many encounters. Additionally, you may find it easier to gear up a Shaman for healing because there will be less competition on mail pieces with intellect than you will find on similar cloth pieces - and because if you already have decent DPS gear, you always have the option of DPSing your way to a healing set.
My advice to you? Try out healing on the shaman. Chain Heal, Spiritwalkers Grace, Riptide and Healing Rain are all enormously fun abilities, and the Shaman healing style is unique among healers in WoW. Unless you're pushing bleeding edge content the class balance issues seen there are going to be largely moot for you - what matters much more is your own competence and gear.
As an aside, checking the WoW forums will always find you nothing but gripes. A saying I'm fond of is that the forums are as much an indicator of players happiness as a hospital is an indicator of public health.
Allow me to preface this by saying that this is not coming from personal-playstyle experience, but leading raids and watching / working with the priests in my guild that run Smite spec, I have a good amount of observation.
First and foremost, your most efficient heal is through Atonement procs. Simply spamming Smite is enough to keep most tanks topped through regular damage. Take note of the 15 yard range requirement on Atonement, however. If you're trying to heal up a group/raid member and they're not within 15 yards of the target that you're Smiting, they're not going to get healed. As LessPop_MoreFizz mentions in his comment, you're replacing Heal with Smite, and relying on the 15 yard range rule. It requires a bit more spatial awareness in that you need to know where your targets are as opposed to just yourself. Heal is certainly less effective, but should still be your filler spell (besides Penance) when targets are out of range or you absolutely must heal a certain target right then and there. Also, you should definitely be running with the Divine Accuracy Major Glyph, as that essentially makes it impossible to miss with Smite on any Boss level target.
Secondly, you should note some of the big interactions with your spells:
Penance is great for burst healing and quickly getting Grace stacked on a target.
Power Word: Shield, as you mentioned, is important due to Rapture procs, and managing these is key to your mana management.
Prayer of Healing remains a strong group heal (not only with just Inner Focus) especially so as Disc, since you auto-proc your Divine Aegis shield off PoH regardless of crit vs. non crit.
Power Infusion is considerably stronger when used on yourself as a throughput cooldown. In the past, it's been reserved exclusively for mage/warlock types, but it's perfectly viable to use it on yourself now. It's practically a "use when up" spell due to it's relatively low cooldown.
Healing your Weakened Soul targets with FH, GH, Heal or Penance results in higher crit chance, not only proccing DA but also Inspiration. Note that this does not include the Atonement heal, so if you're vehement about keeping Inspiration up, watching Weakened Soul is a very good way to help maximize uptime.
Generally speaking, while popping Archangel is great for your mana, note that Evangelism actually increases your damage done by Smite and reduces the cost of both it and Penance by more than Archangel provides overall. If you're looking for instantaneous throughput, it's oftentimes better not to pop Archangel. However, for prolonged throughput and mana effeciency, you definitely should. That choice is obviously reserved for your feel of the current fight and how much effective healing you need.
Binding Heal, Greater Heal and Flash Heal all have their place, though they're certainly a bit more niche as Disc.
Greater Heal is still your largest single target heal, and capable of being spammed, which edges it out above Penance ever so slightly if your tank is taking continuous large hits. That's not to say you shouldn't be mixing them together, but rather that you can't chain Penance back to back.
Flash Heal is still good if someone needs a rapid heal to avoid dying in the next 2 seconds, and you know that they wont survive without a good amount of health in a short amount of time. The raid encounter Chimaeron in Blackwing Depths is a perfect example of fights where this is often utilized.
Binding Heal is your throughput go-to when there's a good amount of damage going out but you're focusing on getting a certain target back up. It's effective in smaller groups like 5 mans, or raid fights where you're supposed to split up. Nefarian phase 2 comes to mind. It's not mana efficient, but it's great for getting quick health to two targets at the same time, and it's overall more efficient than Flash Heal.
Lastly, as an overall word about Cataclysm healing. The healing game early on is a lot more about teaching you how to play triage and get out of the Wrath mindset of "heal everyone to 100% in the next 2 seconds". If a player is at 25% health, with 0 chance of taking damage in the next 10 seconds, but your tank is at 70% and taking constant damage, you pick the tank. Mana regeneration and spell costs for fresh 85 characters is rather punishing, admittedly. If you're having trouble maintaining your mana pool, however, ask yourself these questions:
- Can I get more spirit somehow? Gems, reforging, elixirs, etc.
- Am I using mana potions when necessary?
- Am I using all of my helpful CDs? Pain Suppression, Power Word: Barrier, etc.
- Is my tank using his CDs? Shield Wall / Barkskin / Divine Protection / Icebound Fortitude and any other number of tanking CDs they have.
- Are my DPS taking damage from things they shouldn't?
A special note for the last point there regarding DPS taking damage. As noted, gone are the days where healers can heal through stupid mistakes. If DPS are taking damage to things that they can be moving out of, avoiding, or that they can prevent (like interrupts, using CDs of their own), it's little that you can do to help.
I know some of these last points were more generic than specifically focused on Discipline spec, however I feel that they're important to note since it sounds like there are some general issues in progressing from normals to heroics (and logically, subsequently, to the raid scene) where each "tier" gets progressively stricter in performance, gear and knowledge requirements.
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Best Answer
This answer was posted by roguediary on Epic Advice
Markets for Making/Losing Gold
From my experience with flipping items on the auction house, I put together my top 5 and bottom 5 markets that I make my most gold in. Enjoy! :)
Top 5 Markets
5 -Reputation Items
You have to be careful with this one, because some types of reputation grinding, (ie. Sporeggar) is not as easy to sell as, say, Hodir reputation… (btw. Relics of Ulduar is probably my number one selling item on most days… people are desperate to get exalted for the shoulder enchant there… )
4 -Enchanting Materials
You can focus on one or both types of markets, the leveling market, (read, mid-level, such as Greater Nether, Small and Large Brilliant Shards), or high-level, such as Cosmic Essences and Abyss Crystals. Stay away from lower level mats as their profit margins are low and they are easier to come by.
3 – Milling/Alchemy Goods
Still currently a flavor of the month type of skill set… many are taking their alts higher up into the Inscription tradeset, causing a need for many mid-level herbs, (i.e. netherbloom, briarthorn, mageroyal)… avoid lower and higher level herbs as they are easier to come by, (ie. lower levels are easier to pick, higher levels are easier to glut into the market).
2 -Basic Trade Goods
(i.e. leathers, clothes, herbs, ores and bars) This is the majority of where I do my business… remember to fill both short and full stack markets and wait for a good loading time, (i.e. early in the weekend, during the week as necessary)
1 – Middle Level Gems
(i.e. Citrine, Blue Sapphires, Star Rubies, Large Opals, etc)… due to the resurgence of jewelcrafting, many are either respecing their mains or skilling up their alts… there is a level of ignorance with these mid-level gems, (i.e. before Lich King, Citrine was lucky to sell for 1g a piece… now it easily sells for 11g on our server)… while a bit hard to come by, you will feel like you hit a homerun everytime you find these as they sell very quickly and almost always grab top-dollar.
Bottom 5 Markets
5 - Top Level Gear
Dabbling in level 80 gear has been, in my experience a “break-even” type of market in that the number of options available for purchase at lvl 80 is fairly limited due to progression available gear, as well as subject to the leveling of different tradeskills, (i.e. Blacksmithing, Leather-Working). It is hard to corner a market that has a very select group buying and a very large group selling.
4 – Pets
Some people swear by pet selling… and there is SOME gold there as long as you are willing to farm the pets and are also willing to undercut the competition… I hate farming pets, so UNLESS I find a CRAZY deal on a pet, I generally stay away from these. Sure, there are tons of people out there collecting these, but at the prohibitive cost of most of these, the buying is sporadic and slow at best, backing up the market… glut causes lower prices, increasing your chances of losing your profit margin in repeat AH postings.
3 – Glyphs
There are a TON of glyphs being sold online… cheap and available… but the problem here is the market is SO glutted right now with these types of articles it is nearly impossible to make any type of flip profit on the straight glyphs, (there are some that tell me that Inscribers can make a profit on these… however as a buy/sell flipper, I avoid these unless I find a CRAZY deal.
2 – Quest Items
Again, we are talking about a VERY limited number of players that would even NEED this type of item at any given time. Given the almost universal availability of quest items NEARBY a quest hub, running to a AH to pick up something laying on the group nearby is ridiculous and a sure-fire way to lose money… not to be confused with reputation items, (see above #5).
1 – Leveling Gear
Unless you have an Enchanter you are trying to level, stay away from speculative buying of gear under level 80… gear is so specific to each class, so you are limited WHO would be interested in a specific piece of gear… PLUS quest rewards usually are better than anything available through AH, and is “free” considering you are willing to put time into doing the quest, which most people are since you are LEVELING anyways…. PLUS leveling has become much faster nowadays, meaning that while people are needing to upgrade gear more often, they are less apt to spend top-dollar on gear that is going to be replaced in the next few days.
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