Post by Quinn Winters on Apr 29, 2013 20:07:48 GMT -5
How to make money in Guild Wars 2 can be a bit of a mystery at first. There is nothing in the game that explains how to do it, it's not obvious, and the game is designed to drain you of your hard earned money in an effort to tempt you into buying gems.
Before even getting into how to make money let's talk about something that's actually more important - how to save money. You can make a fortune but if you don't know how to save it you're still going to be broke all the time.
Step 1 - How to Save Money:
Just like any good government, Arenanet likes to take every possible opportunity to tax Tyria's citizens of their hard earned money. The reason is simple and understandable - the game is 'buy to play' and they want to keep making money from the players. They offer gems for real cash, which can then be exchanged for gold in the game. The easiest way to get players to buy those gems is to keep those same players poor.
We can however take precautions against the bulk of the taxes. There are several primary ways in which Arenanet taxes us in Guild Wars 2. Let's take a look at them and the methods for saving money on each.
Waypoint Fees - The higher level you are the more it costs to waypoint. The further you are from a waypoint the more it costs to waypoint. Please read How to Travel Quickly & Cheaply (draw.boards.net/index.cgi?board=tutorials&action=display&thread=6) for information on how to save money while traveling.
Listing and Selling Fees - It's obvious when you sell something on the trading post that it charges you a listing fee. It shows you how much the listing fee is and what your projected profit is. What it doesn't show you is the selling fee or its effect on your profit.
Every transaction on the trading post takes 15% of the listed price. 5% of that is the listing fee, what you see. 10% of that is the selling fee, what you don't see. The only way to see that 10% is to sell one item and wait for the money to come in and compare that amount to what the trading post said the projected profit would be. The profit will always be 10% less.
When you list something you should always take the selling fee into account. Many people do not even know there is a selling fee and you will see items listed on the trading post that, were you to list them at that price, you will make less than you would if you were to sell them to a vendor. On the trading post it looks like you would make a profit on them due to the projected profit number, so many people have gotten confused and destroyed the ability for anyone to make a profit above vendor value on many items in the game. Don't be one of these people! Get the most money you can out of every item!
In addition to the listing and selling fees you should also pay attention to the "meet highest buyer" and "match lowest seller" numbers. If you can make more money from "match lowest seller," do it, but if it's anything other than a crafting material list it for one copper less than what the lowest seller has it listed for so you've got a more solid guarantee of selling it. If it's a crafting material the "match lowest seller" number will sometimes be very large. If it's larger than 1,000 you probably want to list it for one copper less or it may not sell for a long time, if ever.
Crafting - There are only two reasons you should be crafting. One, you want to craft something that can only be obtained by crafting (soulbound on acquire), and Two, you want to power level (10 levels gained per crafting profession maxed - 12-ish if using a booster.) Otherwise you will be better off buying what you need off the trading post, as it's usually cheaper to buy it than it is to craft it. Leveling crafting also forces you to make a lot of stuff you don't need, isn't valuable, and has to be vendor trashed.
Deposit-able Collectables - That deposit all collectables button is nifty isn't it? It lets you clear a lot of bag space while out in the field. Collectables you deposit from your bags are primarily crafting materials. Crafting materials are the most valuable items in the game, in mass. Don't deposit them! Those things your depositing are little gold nuggets! Sell them and turn them into gold coins!
It may seem like a good idea to deposit them to help you craft later, and when you go to craft and you've got a lot of materials in the bank it does make it easier I wont deny, but you will actually make more money in the long run if you sell the materials now at a "meet lowest seller -1 copper" price and later when you're ready to craft you buy the materials you need at a "place a custom offer" price. This way you only have to buy exactly what you need to craft. Depositing will give you a lot of stuff you will never use that will just sit there collecting virtual dust.
Unidentified Dyes - It's tempting to open these isn't it? Don't do it! Unidentified dyes go for close to 20 silver each. That means 6-7 of them is a whole gold after the fees!
Consider that almost all the dyes on the trading post are more or less worthless. There are only a very few, primarily blacks and whites, that are valuable. Getting one of those valuable dyes from an unidentified dye is like winning the lottery. It's a gamble. If you want a particular dye color, buy it. From the profit from just one unidentified dye you can buy a vast collection of dye colors for your character!
There are actually websites similar to Alcoholics Anonymous for Unidentified Dye addicts. If you want to read some sad gambling and losing it all stories check out this page: www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/11fymb/i_am_obsessed_with_buying_unidentified_dyes/
Salvaging - Salvaging is a type of gamble. Sometimes you get lucky and get materials that sell for a lot more than what the original item was worth. Most of the time you just get junk. Selling the items you would salvage guarantees money. Salvaging doesn't. If you want to save money, don't salvage.
The Mystic Forge - The biggest money sink of all. Do not use the Mystic Forge unless you absolutely must if you want to save money. It is a gambling device, and the house always wins.
Armor and Weapons - Guild Wars 2 gives us several options of rarity in armor and weapons. There are, in order of common to legendary, white, blue, green, yellow, orange and purple items. As you are leveling you will be changing out armor and weapons frequently. Any items green and up become soulbound on use and can only be vendor trashed or salvaged when you're done with them.
This means blue items are your friend. You can use these items for a level or two and then sell them on the trading post for almost the same price you bought them, so long as you didn't put runes or sigils on them. You will benefit more from having items of your current level that aren't quite as good of quality than you will from having better quality items that you only upgrade every 10 levels or so. With weapons especially, you need to have items that are close to your level and the level of the mobs you're fighting in order to do a decent amount of damage. Buying blue items allows you to keep your weapons up to date without breaking the bank. You'll be able to do this until around level 60, then you'll likely be forced to move to a higher tier.
This doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't use greens that you find. If a green item drops for you that you can use and it's not something that will make you a good chunk of change on the Trading Post, by all means use it. Just don't go out of your way to deck yourself out all in greens or yellows because within a few levels you will have to vendor trash them and that money will be gone forever.
Step 2 - Farming:
Farming before level 80 is not going to do much for you. Wait until level 80. Save what money you get up until that point and when you finally get there you should have enough for a set of rare magic find armor. Completely outfit yourself in magic find gear - armor, weapons, runes, sigils, accessories, accessory upgrades - and buy magic find food. Omnomberry Bars are the best, though they do cost 3-4 silver each. This amount will be made back very quickly though so it's actually not that bad.
There are some who will debate the usefulness of magic find. From personal experience and the claims of friends I believe it works and works very well. Also to be taken into consideration is that it would likely not even be in the game if it did not do anything.
What - Vials of Powerful Blood
Where - Snow Trolls in Frostgorge Sound
There are several places you can farm to make a lot of money very quickly. Most of them are located in Frostgorge Sound. Out of all of them there is one that stands out above the rest, the Snow Trolls that drop Vials of Powerful Blood.
The Snow Trolls can be found in the Trionic Lattice between Earthshake Waypoint and Yaks Bend Waypoint. The Trionic Lattice is an area of ice that has two main channels running through it forming a chasm / open-top caves that you can walk through. The one on the west / left side is the one with the trolls.
Farming the trolls is best done in a party for speed, as many more can be killed in a far shorter time when more people are doing damage, thus increasing the amount of loot.
Watch out when the trolls duck down and start emitting particle effects, they will cause an ice explosion that will knock you off your feet if you're within the blast radius.
In the main area of the chasm is a wide opening with a rock protruding from the ground. On top of the rock is a Champion Snow Troll. Avoid this champion at all costs. When entering that area from the south, hug the wall to the right. When Exiting from the north, hug the wall to the left. If you aggro him you can run into any of the four openings into the area to make him reset. He is extremely difficult to kill even with a group and he never drops anything worthwhile. The chest at the base of the Champion's rock never gives anything worthwhile either, but can be opened by having someone kite him away for a short time.
Arctodus bears, adult and young, will also be found in one of the openings off of the main area. They too will drop Vials of Powerful Blood, along with several other tier 6 mats.
While your primary mission is to acquire Vials of Powerful Blood, you will get a lot of loot while farming this area. Sell it all! Resist the urge to deposit. When you're farming your soul goal should be making money. If you sell everything that drops you will make a lot of money.
If you want mats for crafting or for a legendary, don't farm them. Farm the trolls for blood, sell the blood (it's the most expensive of the t6 mats), and buy the mats you want with a buy order on the trading post. If you're farming other t6 mats you're not making as much money as you could be for your time.
Farming in this location, if you farm all your waking hours for a full day, you can make over 20 gold. Even if you're not up for farming that much you can still make a decent amount of money. On average you'll get 1-7 Vials of Powerful Blood per 30 minute Omnomberry Bar run.
Sometimes you'll farm for a solid hour and won't get much of anything. Other times you'll start getting Vials of Powerful Blood right away and they just don't stop. Sometimes you won't be getting any drops and then suddenly it's like it's raining Powerful Blood. It's completely random, aside from those spurts of many drops in a row not happening quite so often or intensely without magic find.
There is a merchant not far from the exit of the Trionic Lattice chasm on both the north and south ends where you can sell the junk you pick up while farming. You can also take a break near these merchants without fear of being mauled by an angry mob, though the Claw of Jormag does spawn near the northern merchant every several hours.
What - Corrupted Lodestones
Where - Icebrood Colossus in Frostgorge Sound
The next farming spot is in Shattered Ice Floe near the Ice Floe Waypoint. There are Icebrood Colossus and Corrupted Quaggans that inhabit the area to the east of the waypoint. This area is very easy to farm, as the mobs are spread out along a coast line and through a short chasm in very close proximity to one another.
Both the Icebrood Colossus and Corrupted Quaggans drop Corrupted Lodestones, which go for over a gold each. They also drop some other stuff of value but not nearly as much as what's dropped from the Snow Trolls. The drop rate on Corrupted Lodestones is pretty terrible. You can farm for hours and not get one. You can also farm for half an hour and get two. As with all drops it's completely random, but you have a much better chance with full magic find gear.
Farming for Corrupted Lodestones is not as profitable as farming for Vials of Powerful Blood so long as the blood stays in the 20 to 30 silver range. If it drops down to the teens the Corrupted Lodestones are likely to make you more money for your time, though they may also fluctuate in value.
There are two other locations in Frostgorge Sound where Corrupted Lodestones can be farmed. One is in the cornered-in area on the edge of the water to the north-east of Watchful Waypoint in Watchful Fjord. The other is in the far northwest corner of the zone in the Drakkar Spurs. The Watchful Fjord location has mobs spread out over a large area and requires a lot of running between them. The Drakkar Spurs location has a roaming champion and corrupted ice everywhere so it's difficult to navigate. Neither location is as efficient as the Shattered Ice Floe location.
What - Charged Lodestones
Where - Sparks in Cursed Shore
The next farming spot is tricky to farm. This one is in Cursed Shore, but for the Sparks Charged Lodestones drop from to even be there to farm, the Cathedral of Zephyrs in Malchors Leap must be uncontested. This means either doing an event chain in Malchors Leap or waiting for someone else to do it. It works well to check your map every once in a while to see if the Cathedral is uncontested. If it is you know the Sparks are up.
The Sparks appear near Arah Waypoint in the Promenade of the Gods, just below the Narthex. The area may be contested, but even if it is the Sparks can still be farmed. Each 'step' in the Promenade of the Gods will have Undead mobs on it, but the one where the Sparks spawn will not have any Undead except the ones that were there before the Sparks appeared. Once the remaining Undead are killed they do not respawn.
When farming with the surrounding areas contested you will need to be careful in the north-east corner of the step due to catapults on the step to the north. There will also be Evil Eyes that spawn in the area with the Sparks. They are totems that do not move, but the balls of energy that shoot from them will turn you into a rabbit. Kill these Evil Eyes when you see them to avoid being slowed down by them.
Charged Lodestones drop about as often as Corrupted Lodestones (some will say they drop less often but I've not noticed a difference), but they go for between 3 and 4 gold each. They are worth more simply because of the fact that they can't always be farmed.
What - Rare Armor / Weapons
Where - Citadel of Flame Explorable Paths 1 & 2 in Fireheart Rise / Fractals in Lions Arch
While I'm reluctant to add this to the guide, many people prefer to make their money this way. The reason for my reluctance is two-fold: Depending on the group you're with any of these three dungeon runs can take a very long time to complete. You're also more or less guaranteed how much money you'll make in a given amount of time and, compared to farming things such as Vials of Powerful Blood, you will, in most instances, not make as much money for the time spent. Also, if you're not with a very well organized group, you will have a repair bill.
What you'll be farming for in any of these 3 locations is rare armor and weapons. By selling the rares and everything else that drops, you're more or less guaranteed to make at least 1 gold per run of Citadel of Flame.
With a good group that's well organized and makes no mistakes CoF path's 1 and 2 can be run in just over 20 minutes each. With a non-organized group it can take an hour to two hours. Even with a well organized group however, each time you go into CoF you have to uncontest the area around the dungeon entrance, which also takes time and doesn't net you much of anything in the way of profit. Guesting onto other servers can sometimes save time in finding an uncontested entrance.
Fractals are much the same in that they can be run quickly or take a very long time. The amount of money made in this is not so guaranteed as with CoF, but often times fractals can be run very fast so you can potentially get more drops overall.
There are two options with the rares you find in this manner. Sell them on the Trading Post, or salvage them for Globs of Ectoplasm. I personally recommend selling them. Selling guarantees money, where salvaging is a gamble.
Step 3 - Playing the Trading Post:
Playing the trading post is an art that takes time to learn. In the beginning you're probably not going to make just a whole lot, but as you learn what makes money and what doesn't your profits will increase exponentially.
What you're doing when you play the trading post is looking for items that you can buy for significantly less than what you can sell them for. There are two (technically 3) varieties of items you can flip: Smalls, Larges, and Super Larges. Smalls are things that sell for any amount of copper up to 1 gold. Larges are anything a gold and above, up to about 20 gold. Super Larges are items that sell for over 20 gold.
Something to consider when making any deal on the Trading Post are the listing and selling fees. If you don't know what these are, scroll back up through this article to the section on how to save money and read the part about listing and selling fees. These play a huge factor in whether you can make profit on any item.
When searching for things to flip (flipping is the act of buying something for a low price and selling it for a higher price), look for things that you can at least double your money on after the fees, or at least make a gold profit on. In the higher priced items (Larges and Super Larges) you're usually not going to double your money but if you're making at least a gold on each flip you're doing it right.
Placing Buy Orders:
When you look at any item on the Trading Post you'll see two options. There will be a "Buy" button to buy the item, and right beside it will be a link that says "Place a Custom Order." When you click the place a custom order button it will show you a list of the current orders that people have placed and how much they're willing to pay for the item.
To place a buy order you put in how many of the item you want and how much you're willing to pay for it. Any time you place a buy order you want to place it for 1 copper more than the previous person placed their order for. This guarantees that you'll be the one to buy the item next, at the lowest possible price.
You'll notice as you continue to do this that some people will place their orders at prices far beyond what the previous order was placed at. DO NOT DO THIS! By doing this you drive up the custom order price of the item and ruin it for not only yourself but for everyone else that's trying to flip it as well.
Buy orders are heavily competitive in Guild Wars 2. You will have to frequently check back on your buy orders to see if you still have the highest buy price. The majority of the time someone will have outbid you. At this point you'll have to remove your buy order and place it again, once more 1 copper above what the previous person placed theirs for. It's a never ending game - someone is always going to outbid you. Playing the Trading Post is very time consuming for this reason. You have to constantly check and recheck and re-place your buy orders.
When you place a buy order you have to have the money on hand to place it. It will take the money and put it in limbo on the Trading Post until someone sells you the item. If you remove an item you will be refunded the entire amount and it will be available to be picked up just like any other money or items are on the Trading Post.
Small Flips:
Anything that's not an exotic, save for a few specialty rare items, is likely going to be a small flip. Smalls can and do make people a lot of money when you add them up, however there is a major downfall to flipping smalls.
When you put in a buy order for say, 250 of an item, the majority of the time you're not going to get all 250 from the same person in the same transaction. What this means is that when you go to pick up the things you purchased they're all going to be separated. Let's say it took 30 people selling you Copper Ore to fill an order of 250. That means that when you go to pick it up from the Trading Post it's going to fill up 30 of your bag slots and then you're going to have to manually stack them into a stack of 250 (that compact inventory option works well for doing this for you.) Now multiply that by the thousands it takes to really make a profit. That is a LOT of clicking, and most of it isn't going to fit in your inventory all at once. For this reason alone I don't recommend flipping smalls unless you just don't have a lot of money to play with.
Large Flips:
Larges are where the majority of your money is going to be made. Anything that goes for between 1 gold and 20 gold would be considered a large flip (depending on who you talk to - a super rich person probably wouldn't consider it so.)
The majority of large flips are going to be level 80 exotics, though you can find them in rares and other items occasionally as well.
Let's use Vallog's Demise as an example. Currently it's selling for 4 gold 50 silver, and you can put a buy order in for 2 gold 92 silver 11 copper. It's magic find so it wont be a really quick flip but it's something I'd personally invest in.
Some flips are near instant, others you'll be stuck with for days, weeks or months. If there are a lot of other people playing on the particular item it could end up being a bum deal and you get stuck with it or lose money.
Using the Vallog's Demise example, do a filter search and look for trinkets, exotic, levels 80 to 80. There are 83 of them at the time of this writing. Organize them by price going down. Look at things that are under 20 gold but above 1-2 gold. Look at what their sell price is, then look at what their buy price is.
Super Large Flips:
Super Larges are something you don't want to invest in unless you have a lot of money to blow without breaking the rule of fifths (see below) and you REALLY know what you're doing. Super Larges are anything that goes for over 20 gold. You can seriously lose a lot of money trying to flip these items. If you get undercut on one you likely will not want to relist it no matter what because the listing fee will be astronomical - and relisting means you've paid the listing fee twice.
What to Buy:
When searching for things to flip, consider your potential market. What is it that every single player in the game needs? Jewelry comes directly to mind. There is not a single player in the game that doesn't need it.
But Jewelry only covers a very small portion of items. What else does every player need? Armor and Weapons of course! There are masses of individual Armor and Weapon items on the Trading Post just waiting for you to flip them for great profit. Just be careful which ones you try to flip, as some can put you into the hole.
Get creative with what you flip. Just because something is in a niche market doesn't mean you can't make a fortune on it. In fact, niche markets can sometimes be the most profitable. Find things that work for you and milk them for all you can, but be careful not to drain them dry for your own sake and the sake of anyone else that's discovered the niche.
I've mentioned a couple of items in this article, which means that whoever reads this article will likely try to flip them, devaluing them. There are websites all over the internet that give good advice on what to flip in the current market. If you follow their advice you may make a good amount of money, but then again you may lose a good amount of money as well because everybody else and their mom is reading that they should invest in that item too.
What to Avoid:
Avoid anything like "Ruby Orichalcum Amulet of the Berserker" that has a crazy long name like that due to a jewel that's on it - they tend to not net much profit and don't sell quickly due to people mass crafting them.
Avoid items with healing power because they're a niche market. Guardians and Elementalists need healing power, and some other unique builds for other professions. But those are only 2 out of a whole variety of professions, so you're decreasing your chances of the item selling if it's got healing power. The item is likely going to sit there for a while before that low ratio of character types buys it, and during that time the item is likely to get undercut.
Avoid magic find, because not everyone goes for it. There are only a small amount of players that actually go out of the way to deck themselves out in magic find gear - and if they do it's usually of the rare variety. Not that many people deck their characters out in full exotic magic find gear.
However, some magic find and healing power things are just too good to pass up, such as one I'm currently looking at called Sam. The buy order for it is currently at 1 gold 95 silver 8 copper and it could be sold, undercutting the lowest seller, for 3 gold 38 silver 96 copper. That's more than double your money if it sells - BUT, there's a ton of them, which means you're going to be in a heated listing war with people and likely to be undercut. If it is undercut though there is still room to relist it a couple of times before you start losing profit.
Avoid anything that looks too good to be true, because it probably is. You will see items with a 75 silver to 3 gold bid on them and the list price is over 20 gold. There is a reason for this. People are not buying the item. If people were buying the item regularly you can be guaranteed that there would be heated bidding wars going on over it. If you buy one of these items and post if for over 20 gold it will sit there indefinitely and likely get undercut by the next gullible person.
As you come to know the market you will notice really good deals occasionally where you can make multiple times your investment money, but they are few and far between. If you see something like this and you don't know the item and it's normal bid / list prices very well, don't try to flip it!
How Bidding and Listing Wars Work:
How bidding wars work (and almost everything you flip you're going to be in a bidding war over), is you put in a buy order at say, 1 gold 95 silver 6 copper. Someone else then puts in a buy order for 1 copper more, raising the buy order bid to 1 gold 95 silver 7 copper. You now have to remove your order and put it back in again for 1 copper higher than the last person.
It works the same way with listing except you don't get your listing fee back. You don't want to remove your listing just because someone listed one for 1 copper less than you did or else you'll be cutting into your profits twice - with the first listing fee and second listing fee. The only time you want to relist your item is if you get undercut to hell, with tons of other copies of the item listed below yours. This becomes especially true the higher you list the item for.
Here's an example of a perfect flip - it's not a gold profit but still it will flip and it will make you money. Level 80 Exotic Rampager's Ring, which at the time of this writing you could place a buy order for at 1 gold 93 silver 2 copper, and you could sell it, undercutting the lowest seller, for 2 gold 68 silver 48 copper. I've flipped dozens of that ring in the past. They generally sell fast because it's a very desirable item by many professions, so even though it's not much profit on a single flip, you can keep on flipping them and it adds up to a lot of profit.
How Much You Need to Start:
If you really want to make a decent amount of gold, you need about 20 gold to start investing with. You can start with less and do silver items but you won't make much and you'll have to work your way up to gold items.
To get the money to invest I recommend farming the Snow Trolls in Frostgorge Sound for Vials of Powerful Blood to sell (detailed earlier in this article.) That's how I made all my investment money.
The Rule of Fifths:
Don't ever invest more than a 5th of what you've got, that way if the market goes under you don't lose everything. If you want to invest 20 gold, as stated in the previous section, you should preferably have 100 gold in the bank. It's not something you absolutely have to do but that's what I recommend. In the real world people end up committing suicide over stuff like this because they were stupid and invested it all.
Also never invest everything in one particular thing - spread it out! If one thing goes under you still haven't lost it all and you've still got money flowing in. Again use the rule of fifths. Never invest more than a fifth of your investment money into any one thing.
When the Money Starts Rolling In:
As money builds up you'll want to adjust the previously stated ratio - 1/10th, 1/20th, etc., to keep yourself from losing too much on any one thing.
Once you successfully get into flipping larges for a good while you'll eventually end up with page after page of exotics up for sale and ordered and every time you check the Trading Post there will be lots of gold and exotics to pick up.
You've got to stay right on top of it - it's like a full time job. The undercutting / outbidding goes on all day long and if you don't keep up with where your items and bids are you'll end up losing money.
When I was flipping I'd go through the whole list of items I had bids on, then go through the whole list of items I had for sale, checking to make sure I was the one that stood to profit and not someone else. Then when I'd gone through the whole list I'd go back and do it again. Once I was satisfied that I wasn't outbid or undercut too bad on anything I'd take a 15-30 minute break, then go check it again. By that point, sure enough, I'd have to rebid on many items and sometimes even relist some stuff.
Applying This Knowledge to the Real World:
Once you figure this out and start investing tons of time and making gobs of in-game money you'll see that it transfers over into real life. Working a job is farming. Playing the stock market with the money from that 'farming' is playing the Trading Post. So once you've made your fortune in Guild Wars 2, take the knowledge with which you earned all that in-game gold with and apply it to the real world. It's really not that hard to do, it just takes time, patience and a bit of research.
Good luck getting rich!
Before even getting into how to make money let's talk about something that's actually more important - how to save money. You can make a fortune but if you don't know how to save it you're still going to be broke all the time.
Step 1 - How to Save Money:
Just like any good government, Arenanet likes to take every possible opportunity to tax Tyria's citizens of their hard earned money. The reason is simple and understandable - the game is 'buy to play' and they want to keep making money from the players. They offer gems for real cash, which can then be exchanged for gold in the game. The easiest way to get players to buy those gems is to keep those same players poor.
We can however take precautions against the bulk of the taxes. There are several primary ways in which Arenanet taxes us in Guild Wars 2. Let's take a look at them and the methods for saving money on each.
Waypoint Fees - The higher level you are the more it costs to waypoint. The further you are from a waypoint the more it costs to waypoint. Please read How to Travel Quickly & Cheaply (draw.boards.net/index.cgi?board=tutorials&action=display&thread=6) for information on how to save money while traveling.
Listing and Selling Fees - It's obvious when you sell something on the trading post that it charges you a listing fee. It shows you how much the listing fee is and what your projected profit is. What it doesn't show you is the selling fee or its effect on your profit.
Every transaction on the trading post takes 15% of the listed price. 5% of that is the listing fee, what you see. 10% of that is the selling fee, what you don't see. The only way to see that 10% is to sell one item and wait for the money to come in and compare that amount to what the trading post said the projected profit would be. The profit will always be 10% less.
When you list something you should always take the selling fee into account. Many people do not even know there is a selling fee and you will see items listed on the trading post that, were you to list them at that price, you will make less than you would if you were to sell them to a vendor. On the trading post it looks like you would make a profit on them due to the projected profit number, so many people have gotten confused and destroyed the ability for anyone to make a profit above vendor value on many items in the game. Don't be one of these people! Get the most money you can out of every item!
In addition to the listing and selling fees you should also pay attention to the "meet highest buyer" and "match lowest seller" numbers. If you can make more money from "match lowest seller," do it, but if it's anything other than a crafting material list it for one copper less than what the lowest seller has it listed for so you've got a more solid guarantee of selling it. If it's a crafting material the "match lowest seller" number will sometimes be very large. If it's larger than 1,000 you probably want to list it for one copper less or it may not sell for a long time, if ever.
Crafting - There are only two reasons you should be crafting. One, you want to craft something that can only be obtained by crafting (soulbound on acquire), and Two, you want to power level (10 levels gained per crafting profession maxed - 12-ish if using a booster.) Otherwise you will be better off buying what you need off the trading post, as it's usually cheaper to buy it than it is to craft it. Leveling crafting also forces you to make a lot of stuff you don't need, isn't valuable, and has to be vendor trashed.
Deposit-able Collectables - That deposit all collectables button is nifty isn't it? It lets you clear a lot of bag space while out in the field. Collectables you deposit from your bags are primarily crafting materials. Crafting materials are the most valuable items in the game, in mass. Don't deposit them! Those things your depositing are little gold nuggets! Sell them and turn them into gold coins!
It may seem like a good idea to deposit them to help you craft later, and when you go to craft and you've got a lot of materials in the bank it does make it easier I wont deny, but you will actually make more money in the long run if you sell the materials now at a "meet lowest seller -1 copper" price and later when you're ready to craft you buy the materials you need at a "place a custom offer" price. This way you only have to buy exactly what you need to craft. Depositing will give you a lot of stuff you will never use that will just sit there collecting virtual dust.
Unidentified Dyes - It's tempting to open these isn't it? Don't do it! Unidentified dyes go for close to 20 silver each. That means 6-7 of them is a whole gold after the fees!
Consider that almost all the dyes on the trading post are more or less worthless. There are only a very few, primarily blacks and whites, that are valuable. Getting one of those valuable dyes from an unidentified dye is like winning the lottery. It's a gamble. If you want a particular dye color, buy it. From the profit from just one unidentified dye you can buy a vast collection of dye colors for your character!
There are actually websites similar to Alcoholics Anonymous for Unidentified Dye addicts. If you want to read some sad gambling and losing it all stories check out this page: www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/11fymb/i_am_obsessed_with_buying_unidentified_dyes/
Salvaging - Salvaging is a type of gamble. Sometimes you get lucky and get materials that sell for a lot more than what the original item was worth. Most of the time you just get junk. Selling the items you would salvage guarantees money. Salvaging doesn't. If you want to save money, don't salvage.
The Mystic Forge - The biggest money sink of all. Do not use the Mystic Forge unless you absolutely must if you want to save money. It is a gambling device, and the house always wins.
Armor and Weapons - Guild Wars 2 gives us several options of rarity in armor and weapons. There are, in order of common to legendary, white, blue, green, yellow, orange and purple items. As you are leveling you will be changing out armor and weapons frequently. Any items green and up become soulbound on use and can only be vendor trashed or salvaged when you're done with them.
This means blue items are your friend. You can use these items for a level or two and then sell them on the trading post for almost the same price you bought them, so long as you didn't put runes or sigils on them. You will benefit more from having items of your current level that aren't quite as good of quality than you will from having better quality items that you only upgrade every 10 levels or so. With weapons especially, you need to have items that are close to your level and the level of the mobs you're fighting in order to do a decent amount of damage. Buying blue items allows you to keep your weapons up to date without breaking the bank. You'll be able to do this until around level 60, then you'll likely be forced to move to a higher tier.
This doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't use greens that you find. If a green item drops for you that you can use and it's not something that will make you a good chunk of change on the Trading Post, by all means use it. Just don't go out of your way to deck yourself out all in greens or yellows because within a few levels you will have to vendor trash them and that money will be gone forever.
Step 2 - Farming:
Farming before level 80 is not going to do much for you. Wait until level 80. Save what money you get up until that point and when you finally get there you should have enough for a set of rare magic find armor. Completely outfit yourself in magic find gear - armor, weapons, runes, sigils, accessories, accessory upgrades - and buy magic find food. Omnomberry Bars are the best, though they do cost 3-4 silver each. This amount will be made back very quickly though so it's actually not that bad.
There are some who will debate the usefulness of magic find. From personal experience and the claims of friends I believe it works and works very well. Also to be taken into consideration is that it would likely not even be in the game if it did not do anything.
What - Vials of Powerful Blood
Where - Snow Trolls in Frostgorge Sound
There are several places you can farm to make a lot of money very quickly. Most of them are located in Frostgorge Sound. Out of all of them there is one that stands out above the rest, the Snow Trolls that drop Vials of Powerful Blood.
The Snow Trolls can be found in the Trionic Lattice between Earthshake Waypoint and Yaks Bend Waypoint. The Trionic Lattice is an area of ice that has two main channels running through it forming a chasm / open-top caves that you can walk through. The one on the west / left side is the one with the trolls.
Farming the trolls is best done in a party for speed, as many more can be killed in a far shorter time when more people are doing damage, thus increasing the amount of loot.
Watch out when the trolls duck down and start emitting particle effects, they will cause an ice explosion that will knock you off your feet if you're within the blast radius.
In the main area of the chasm is a wide opening with a rock protruding from the ground. On top of the rock is a Champion Snow Troll. Avoid this champion at all costs. When entering that area from the south, hug the wall to the right. When Exiting from the north, hug the wall to the left. If you aggro him you can run into any of the four openings into the area to make him reset. He is extremely difficult to kill even with a group and he never drops anything worthwhile. The chest at the base of the Champion's rock never gives anything worthwhile either, but can be opened by having someone kite him away for a short time.
Arctodus bears, adult and young, will also be found in one of the openings off of the main area. They too will drop Vials of Powerful Blood, along with several other tier 6 mats.
While your primary mission is to acquire Vials of Powerful Blood, you will get a lot of loot while farming this area. Sell it all! Resist the urge to deposit. When you're farming your soul goal should be making money. If you sell everything that drops you will make a lot of money.
If you want mats for crafting or for a legendary, don't farm them. Farm the trolls for blood, sell the blood (it's the most expensive of the t6 mats), and buy the mats you want with a buy order on the trading post. If you're farming other t6 mats you're not making as much money as you could be for your time.
Farming in this location, if you farm all your waking hours for a full day, you can make over 20 gold. Even if you're not up for farming that much you can still make a decent amount of money. On average you'll get 1-7 Vials of Powerful Blood per 30 minute Omnomberry Bar run.
Sometimes you'll farm for a solid hour and won't get much of anything. Other times you'll start getting Vials of Powerful Blood right away and they just don't stop. Sometimes you won't be getting any drops and then suddenly it's like it's raining Powerful Blood. It's completely random, aside from those spurts of many drops in a row not happening quite so often or intensely without magic find.
There is a merchant not far from the exit of the Trionic Lattice chasm on both the north and south ends where you can sell the junk you pick up while farming. You can also take a break near these merchants without fear of being mauled by an angry mob, though the Claw of Jormag does spawn near the northern merchant every several hours.
What - Corrupted Lodestones
Where - Icebrood Colossus in Frostgorge Sound
The next farming spot is in Shattered Ice Floe near the Ice Floe Waypoint. There are Icebrood Colossus and Corrupted Quaggans that inhabit the area to the east of the waypoint. This area is very easy to farm, as the mobs are spread out along a coast line and through a short chasm in very close proximity to one another.
Both the Icebrood Colossus and Corrupted Quaggans drop Corrupted Lodestones, which go for over a gold each. They also drop some other stuff of value but not nearly as much as what's dropped from the Snow Trolls. The drop rate on Corrupted Lodestones is pretty terrible. You can farm for hours and not get one. You can also farm for half an hour and get two. As with all drops it's completely random, but you have a much better chance with full magic find gear.
Farming for Corrupted Lodestones is not as profitable as farming for Vials of Powerful Blood so long as the blood stays in the 20 to 30 silver range. If it drops down to the teens the Corrupted Lodestones are likely to make you more money for your time, though they may also fluctuate in value.
There are two other locations in Frostgorge Sound where Corrupted Lodestones can be farmed. One is in the cornered-in area on the edge of the water to the north-east of Watchful Waypoint in Watchful Fjord. The other is in the far northwest corner of the zone in the Drakkar Spurs. The Watchful Fjord location has mobs spread out over a large area and requires a lot of running between them. The Drakkar Spurs location has a roaming champion and corrupted ice everywhere so it's difficult to navigate. Neither location is as efficient as the Shattered Ice Floe location.
What - Charged Lodestones
Where - Sparks in Cursed Shore
The next farming spot is tricky to farm. This one is in Cursed Shore, but for the Sparks Charged Lodestones drop from to even be there to farm, the Cathedral of Zephyrs in Malchors Leap must be uncontested. This means either doing an event chain in Malchors Leap or waiting for someone else to do it. It works well to check your map every once in a while to see if the Cathedral is uncontested. If it is you know the Sparks are up.
The Sparks appear near Arah Waypoint in the Promenade of the Gods, just below the Narthex. The area may be contested, but even if it is the Sparks can still be farmed. Each 'step' in the Promenade of the Gods will have Undead mobs on it, but the one where the Sparks spawn will not have any Undead except the ones that were there before the Sparks appeared. Once the remaining Undead are killed they do not respawn.
When farming with the surrounding areas contested you will need to be careful in the north-east corner of the step due to catapults on the step to the north. There will also be Evil Eyes that spawn in the area with the Sparks. They are totems that do not move, but the balls of energy that shoot from them will turn you into a rabbit. Kill these Evil Eyes when you see them to avoid being slowed down by them.
Charged Lodestones drop about as often as Corrupted Lodestones (some will say they drop less often but I've not noticed a difference), but they go for between 3 and 4 gold each. They are worth more simply because of the fact that they can't always be farmed.
What - Rare Armor / Weapons
Where - Citadel of Flame Explorable Paths 1 & 2 in Fireheart Rise / Fractals in Lions Arch
While I'm reluctant to add this to the guide, many people prefer to make their money this way. The reason for my reluctance is two-fold: Depending on the group you're with any of these three dungeon runs can take a very long time to complete. You're also more or less guaranteed how much money you'll make in a given amount of time and, compared to farming things such as Vials of Powerful Blood, you will, in most instances, not make as much money for the time spent. Also, if you're not with a very well organized group, you will have a repair bill.
What you'll be farming for in any of these 3 locations is rare armor and weapons. By selling the rares and everything else that drops, you're more or less guaranteed to make at least 1 gold per run of Citadel of Flame.
With a good group that's well organized and makes no mistakes CoF path's 1 and 2 can be run in just over 20 minutes each. With a non-organized group it can take an hour to two hours. Even with a well organized group however, each time you go into CoF you have to uncontest the area around the dungeon entrance, which also takes time and doesn't net you much of anything in the way of profit. Guesting onto other servers can sometimes save time in finding an uncontested entrance.
Fractals are much the same in that they can be run quickly or take a very long time. The amount of money made in this is not so guaranteed as with CoF, but often times fractals can be run very fast so you can potentially get more drops overall.
There are two options with the rares you find in this manner. Sell them on the Trading Post, or salvage them for Globs of Ectoplasm. I personally recommend selling them. Selling guarantees money, where salvaging is a gamble.
Step 3 - Playing the Trading Post:
Playing the trading post is an art that takes time to learn. In the beginning you're probably not going to make just a whole lot, but as you learn what makes money and what doesn't your profits will increase exponentially.
What you're doing when you play the trading post is looking for items that you can buy for significantly less than what you can sell them for. There are two (technically 3) varieties of items you can flip: Smalls, Larges, and Super Larges. Smalls are things that sell for any amount of copper up to 1 gold. Larges are anything a gold and above, up to about 20 gold. Super Larges are items that sell for over 20 gold.
Something to consider when making any deal on the Trading Post are the listing and selling fees. If you don't know what these are, scroll back up through this article to the section on how to save money and read the part about listing and selling fees. These play a huge factor in whether you can make profit on any item.
When searching for things to flip (flipping is the act of buying something for a low price and selling it for a higher price), look for things that you can at least double your money on after the fees, or at least make a gold profit on. In the higher priced items (Larges and Super Larges) you're usually not going to double your money but if you're making at least a gold on each flip you're doing it right.
Placing Buy Orders:
When you look at any item on the Trading Post you'll see two options. There will be a "Buy" button to buy the item, and right beside it will be a link that says "Place a Custom Order." When you click the place a custom order button it will show you a list of the current orders that people have placed and how much they're willing to pay for the item.
To place a buy order you put in how many of the item you want and how much you're willing to pay for it. Any time you place a buy order you want to place it for 1 copper more than the previous person placed their order for. This guarantees that you'll be the one to buy the item next, at the lowest possible price.
You'll notice as you continue to do this that some people will place their orders at prices far beyond what the previous order was placed at. DO NOT DO THIS! By doing this you drive up the custom order price of the item and ruin it for not only yourself but for everyone else that's trying to flip it as well.
Buy orders are heavily competitive in Guild Wars 2. You will have to frequently check back on your buy orders to see if you still have the highest buy price. The majority of the time someone will have outbid you. At this point you'll have to remove your buy order and place it again, once more 1 copper above what the previous person placed theirs for. It's a never ending game - someone is always going to outbid you. Playing the Trading Post is very time consuming for this reason. You have to constantly check and recheck and re-place your buy orders.
When you place a buy order you have to have the money on hand to place it. It will take the money and put it in limbo on the Trading Post until someone sells you the item. If you remove an item you will be refunded the entire amount and it will be available to be picked up just like any other money or items are on the Trading Post.
Small Flips:
Anything that's not an exotic, save for a few specialty rare items, is likely going to be a small flip. Smalls can and do make people a lot of money when you add them up, however there is a major downfall to flipping smalls.
When you put in a buy order for say, 250 of an item, the majority of the time you're not going to get all 250 from the same person in the same transaction. What this means is that when you go to pick up the things you purchased they're all going to be separated. Let's say it took 30 people selling you Copper Ore to fill an order of 250. That means that when you go to pick it up from the Trading Post it's going to fill up 30 of your bag slots and then you're going to have to manually stack them into a stack of 250 (that compact inventory option works well for doing this for you.) Now multiply that by the thousands it takes to really make a profit. That is a LOT of clicking, and most of it isn't going to fit in your inventory all at once. For this reason alone I don't recommend flipping smalls unless you just don't have a lot of money to play with.
Large Flips:
Larges are where the majority of your money is going to be made. Anything that goes for between 1 gold and 20 gold would be considered a large flip (depending on who you talk to - a super rich person probably wouldn't consider it so.)
The majority of large flips are going to be level 80 exotics, though you can find them in rares and other items occasionally as well.
Let's use Vallog's Demise as an example. Currently it's selling for 4 gold 50 silver, and you can put a buy order in for 2 gold 92 silver 11 copper. It's magic find so it wont be a really quick flip but it's something I'd personally invest in.
Some flips are near instant, others you'll be stuck with for days, weeks or months. If there are a lot of other people playing on the particular item it could end up being a bum deal and you get stuck with it or lose money.
Using the Vallog's Demise example, do a filter search and look for trinkets, exotic, levels 80 to 80. There are 83 of them at the time of this writing. Organize them by price going down. Look at things that are under 20 gold but above 1-2 gold. Look at what their sell price is, then look at what their buy price is.
Super Large Flips:
Super Larges are something you don't want to invest in unless you have a lot of money to blow without breaking the rule of fifths (see below) and you REALLY know what you're doing. Super Larges are anything that goes for over 20 gold. You can seriously lose a lot of money trying to flip these items. If you get undercut on one you likely will not want to relist it no matter what because the listing fee will be astronomical - and relisting means you've paid the listing fee twice.
What to Buy:
When searching for things to flip, consider your potential market. What is it that every single player in the game needs? Jewelry comes directly to mind. There is not a single player in the game that doesn't need it.
But Jewelry only covers a very small portion of items. What else does every player need? Armor and Weapons of course! There are masses of individual Armor and Weapon items on the Trading Post just waiting for you to flip them for great profit. Just be careful which ones you try to flip, as some can put you into the hole.
Get creative with what you flip. Just because something is in a niche market doesn't mean you can't make a fortune on it. In fact, niche markets can sometimes be the most profitable. Find things that work for you and milk them for all you can, but be careful not to drain them dry for your own sake and the sake of anyone else that's discovered the niche.
I've mentioned a couple of items in this article, which means that whoever reads this article will likely try to flip them, devaluing them. There are websites all over the internet that give good advice on what to flip in the current market. If you follow their advice you may make a good amount of money, but then again you may lose a good amount of money as well because everybody else and their mom is reading that they should invest in that item too.
What to Avoid:
Avoid anything like "Ruby Orichalcum Amulet of the Berserker" that has a crazy long name like that due to a jewel that's on it - they tend to not net much profit and don't sell quickly due to people mass crafting them.
Avoid items with healing power because they're a niche market. Guardians and Elementalists need healing power, and some other unique builds for other professions. But those are only 2 out of a whole variety of professions, so you're decreasing your chances of the item selling if it's got healing power. The item is likely going to sit there for a while before that low ratio of character types buys it, and during that time the item is likely to get undercut.
Avoid magic find, because not everyone goes for it. There are only a small amount of players that actually go out of the way to deck themselves out in magic find gear - and if they do it's usually of the rare variety. Not that many people deck their characters out in full exotic magic find gear.
However, some magic find and healing power things are just too good to pass up, such as one I'm currently looking at called Sam. The buy order for it is currently at 1 gold 95 silver 8 copper and it could be sold, undercutting the lowest seller, for 3 gold 38 silver 96 copper. That's more than double your money if it sells - BUT, there's a ton of them, which means you're going to be in a heated listing war with people and likely to be undercut. If it is undercut though there is still room to relist it a couple of times before you start losing profit.
Avoid anything that looks too good to be true, because it probably is. You will see items with a 75 silver to 3 gold bid on them and the list price is over 20 gold. There is a reason for this. People are not buying the item. If people were buying the item regularly you can be guaranteed that there would be heated bidding wars going on over it. If you buy one of these items and post if for over 20 gold it will sit there indefinitely and likely get undercut by the next gullible person.
As you come to know the market you will notice really good deals occasionally where you can make multiple times your investment money, but they are few and far between. If you see something like this and you don't know the item and it's normal bid / list prices very well, don't try to flip it!
How Bidding and Listing Wars Work:
How bidding wars work (and almost everything you flip you're going to be in a bidding war over), is you put in a buy order at say, 1 gold 95 silver 6 copper. Someone else then puts in a buy order for 1 copper more, raising the buy order bid to 1 gold 95 silver 7 copper. You now have to remove your order and put it back in again for 1 copper higher than the last person.
It works the same way with listing except you don't get your listing fee back. You don't want to remove your listing just because someone listed one for 1 copper less than you did or else you'll be cutting into your profits twice - with the first listing fee and second listing fee. The only time you want to relist your item is if you get undercut to hell, with tons of other copies of the item listed below yours. This becomes especially true the higher you list the item for.
Here's an example of a perfect flip - it's not a gold profit but still it will flip and it will make you money. Level 80 Exotic Rampager's Ring, which at the time of this writing you could place a buy order for at 1 gold 93 silver 2 copper, and you could sell it, undercutting the lowest seller, for 2 gold 68 silver 48 copper. I've flipped dozens of that ring in the past. They generally sell fast because it's a very desirable item by many professions, so even though it's not much profit on a single flip, you can keep on flipping them and it adds up to a lot of profit.
How Much You Need to Start:
If you really want to make a decent amount of gold, you need about 20 gold to start investing with. You can start with less and do silver items but you won't make much and you'll have to work your way up to gold items.
To get the money to invest I recommend farming the Snow Trolls in Frostgorge Sound for Vials of Powerful Blood to sell (detailed earlier in this article.) That's how I made all my investment money.
The Rule of Fifths:
Don't ever invest more than a 5th of what you've got, that way if the market goes under you don't lose everything. If you want to invest 20 gold, as stated in the previous section, you should preferably have 100 gold in the bank. It's not something you absolutely have to do but that's what I recommend. In the real world people end up committing suicide over stuff like this because they were stupid and invested it all.
Also never invest everything in one particular thing - spread it out! If one thing goes under you still haven't lost it all and you've still got money flowing in. Again use the rule of fifths. Never invest more than a fifth of your investment money into any one thing.
When the Money Starts Rolling In:
As money builds up you'll want to adjust the previously stated ratio - 1/10th, 1/20th, etc., to keep yourself from losing too much on any one thing.
Once you successfully get into flipping larges for a good while you'll eventually end up with page after page of exotics up for sale and ordered and every time you check the Trading Post there will be lots of gold and exotics to pick up.
You've got to stay right on top of it - it's like a full time job. The undercutting / outbidding goes on all day long and if you don't keep up with where your items and bids are you'll end up losing money.
When I was flipping I'd go through the whole list of items I had bids on, then go through the whole list of items I had for sale, checking to make sure I was the one that stood to profit and not someone else. Then when I'd gone through the whole list I'd go back and do it again. Once I was satisfied that I wasn't outbid or undercut too bad on anything I'd take a 15-30 minute break, then go check it again. By that point, sure enough, I'd have to rebid on many items and sometimes even relist some stuff.
Applying This Knowledge to the Real World:
Once you figure this out and start investing tons of time and making gobs of in-game money you'll see that it transfers over into real life. Working a job is farming. Playing the stock market with the money from that 'farming' is playing the Trading Post. So once you've made your fortune in Guild Wars 2, take the knowledge with which you earned all that in-game gold with and apply it to the real world. It's really not that hard to do, it just takes time, patience and a bit of research.
Good luck getting rich!
