The Warlords of Draenor expansion will soon be upon us and with just a few weeks to go before the Dark Portal opens I thought I would provide you with some gold making hints and tips to get you started on your path of exploration and mayhem in the new world that Blizzard has so artfully created. In this post I’ll explain some of the implications to the recent unification of the auction house and provide you with tips on building your first garrison.

But it’s easy to get caught up with the specifics of a new expansion and forget the basics of gold making in general. Having played all of the Warcraft expansions over the years I can reassure you that the basic principles of making gold hasn’t changed with Warlords. This is because the fundamentals of the Warcraft economy remains intact. So, if you’re just starting out in Warcraft and want to make gold fast, then make sure you first understand the basics of auction house trading. A good place to start is to read my post:

As of the date of this post, we are already in the pre-patch release of 6.03. Many of the changes we will see in the new expansion have now been implemented, and this includes the unification of the Auction House.

Prior to the pre-patch 6.02 the auction house was split in faction-specific areas – each faction isolated from the other. In effect each faction on the same server was its own gold economy. As of patch 6.02, this barrier has been removed and a unified auction house now exits allowing both Horde and Alliance players to freely trade with each other.

What this means for players is:

A bigger market to buy and sell items

Greater competition for sellers as a result of participating in a bigger market

Faction-specific pricing that many auction house addons accumulate is no longer valid.

I’ve written about these topics in great depth in my guides and on this blog so won’t elaborate further, but let me just say that as with any major change to the auction house or the release of a major patch or expansion you’ll need to clear down the scan data from addons like Auctioneer or adjust your pricing operations in Trade Skill Master (TSM).

To help with the increased competition you might also like to read:

With your addon housekeeping out of the way it’s time to plan your gold making strategy for when you enter Draenor. The central gameplay in Warlords is all about the garrison. Garrison leveling and strategy will be key to making gold in this new expansion. Those players who can level their garrison the quickest will be able to access the new gear and material of Draenor sooner and make a killing on the Auctionhouse before the rest of the market wakes up.

So my my first tip is to start the garrison building scenario as soon as possible. If the final release of the expansion follows the beta, then this will be one of the first quests upon entering the new zones of Frostfire Ridge (Horde) and Shadowmoon Valley (Alliance).

You might want to watch a short video of my garrison building in the beta:

Garrisons start at Tier 1 and progress to Tier 3. A tier one garrison is provided with a few basic building plots:

1 x small plot

1 x large plot

In this post I’ll be focusing on the gold making potential of the small, profession-based structures.

With a small plot you have the option to build one of the following small structures:

Alchemy Lab

Enchanter’s Study

Engineering Works

Gem Boutique

Scribe’s Quarters

Tailoring Emporium

The Forge

The Tannery

Salvage Yard

Storehouse

To build any structure on a plot you’ll need:

Garrison resource Architects plans for that structure

You initially obtain garrison resource by questing. As you level your garrison and obtain other structures, such as a Trading Post, you’ll be able to trade gathered mats for resource units. But for now, your aim to to pick up as many of the initial garrison quests as time allows, rewarding you with garrison resource.

Your next objective is to find a set of architects plans to build your small structure. Again, plans are acquired as quest rewards. If you have a set of chosen professions upon entering Draenor, you’ll likely as not be led down a quest chain to acquire plans for that profession. Example, I started with Alchemy in the beta and always found plans for an Alchemy Lab! So, in summary quest, quest quest until you have both resources and plans for the structures you need.

You might like to watch the short video on the making of a small Alchemy Lab in the beta

As you can tell from the list above, there is a structure to compliment each of the professions. I’ll ignore the Salvage Yard and Storehouse structures for now and talk about the general features of garrison small structures.

In general small garrison structures have the following features:

At level 1 each structure can produce a total of 7 Work Orders (WO). Each WO produces 1 unit of Draenor crafting material (BoP), specific for that profession. Each WO takes 4hrs to complete. Each WO has a chance of yielding Sorcerous Fire and Sorcerous Water If one of your primary crafting possessions compliments the profession of the small structure, the NPC will sell you the full range of Draenor recipes for that profession. If you have no matching primary crafting profession, the NPC will be able to craft a limit number of Draenor recipes and patterns on your behalf.

With these facts in mind, what type of small structure should you choose for this initial tier of garrison? Well, you have two options: choose a structure that compliments your primary crafting profession; or choose a structure that provides access to an additional crafting profession?

As a gold maker, the choice came down to the former – choose a structure that compliments my primary crafting profession. But why? Well it all comes down to the number of daily cool downs you can access and the speed to market for some of the higher level ( and therefore more sought after) patterns and recipes.

Let me take Alchemy as an example. During questing in Draenor you will quickly obtain A Treatise on the Alchemy of Draenor together with Garrison Blueprint – Alchemy Lab, level 1. The Treatise will raise you to Draenor Master Alchemist and allow you to craft all of the lesser recipes up to skill 700. You should note that you can only buy the more advanced Draenor recipes and patterns from the garrison NPC and some of these only with special tokens which I’ll mention later. The garrison blueprint will allow you to build your Alchemy Lab.

To craft the Draenor recipes you’ll need to build up a stock of BoP reagents from your daily cool downs. For Alchemy this is the reagent Alchemical Catalyst. Each of the professions has their own unique, daily cool down crafting reagent. The regular cool down is contained in your spell-book and will yield:

4 x Alchemical Catalyst

Chance of Sorcerous Fire

Chance of Sorcerous Water

However, if you also have a level 1 Alchemy Lab, you’ll also be able to create up to 7 Work Orders or an additional 6 x Alchemical Catalyst (6 in a 24hr period).

I should also mention those special tokens which are named: Secrets of Draenor Alchemy. These act as a form of currency that can be crafted daily and are used to purchase the higher level recipes and patterns. All small profession-based structures have a ‘Secret of Draenor …’ type of currency associated with them on the same daily cool down.

In the next post before the final release, I’ll discuss getting your garrison to Tier 2 and the must-have second small structure to build.

In summary

As with all expansions, you must learn to trade on the Auction House if you are to succeed in making gold in Warcraft. Changes brought with this new expansion have greatly increased the competition for sellers making it that much harder to turn a profit.

Gold making in Warlords of Draenor is linked to garrison building and garrison strategy. Players that can level their garrison the quickest and choose structures to harvest the most crafting material will be the first to market for the most desirable potions, enchants and gear and thus make an early killing on the Auction House.

Marcus Ty