How To Make Money!

No, this isn't a guide ...yet.

I need your help, people. As we all know, the most F of all FAQs is "how do I make money?" - and threads like that tend to get shot down on sight. After the latest such thread (here) I thought it would be a good idea if we had a brief guide, just a list of bullet points, to which we could point people when they ask that most oft asked of all Qs.

For example:

• Identify all items including whites before selling
• Use collectors for weapons and armor as much as possible
• Pick up and sell everything

Give me your ideas, people - all input will be most welcome.

I find Speed Clears and Running are the easiest and quickest methods to make fast cash. IMO Power Trading takes too time of standing around and "learning the market"

My tips for anyone wanting to make money via SC and Runs:

- Join a Speed Clear Guild - Important

- Work out which areas are and aren't worthwhile, for example: VSF runs, are they really worth spending hours and hours doing when the chance of getting a VSF is slim and could take weeks? (I once did VSF non-stop for a month and only ever saw 3/4 drop). An example of an area which is worth the effort is DoA, you'll get a minimum of 1 gem from each chest plus an additional gem from the quest, a gem set is worth 15k so, for around an hour and a half's work you've made 30k (include the other drops and DoA can net you on average 75k+ every run)

- Don't rely on one character: be prepared to remake toons depending on what’s good and isn’t (e.g. if SF gets nerfed tomorrow and something else takes its place be prepared to learn that)

- Got to spend money to make money: Getting the right build and equipment for a run or SC will cost money, I’ve personally spent hundreds of gold on getting my toons armour, weapons, skills etc. But it will pay off in the end.

That’s all that springs to mind at the moment but I'll keep updating and editing this as and when I do think of stuff.

Regards.

sell ur weekly gifts 20-25K a week
let all ur req 9s PC'd some can be worth much more then u think

- Material farming - feathers, granite, dust - they sell for 3-9k a stack
- Items for Nick farming - even if you can't reach him or you already got your five gifts, keep farming and sell the items. Enough for one gift sells for 2-3k.
- Don't spend money on weapons and armor
- finish a campaign so that you can do HM and vanquishing

Sell unid gold items (insert current price here).

Play lots of pve, this includes vanquishing, SC's. Time spent sitting around wondering how to get rich, is time lost getting rich.

A major tip for newbies - dont use expert salvage kits for materials unless your after rare materials.Always use normal kits otherwise you tend to be paying more in the long run - common mistake new players always make.
Dont waste money of flashy armor untill you have completed a campaign - get hardmode then find a gd farm and then the armor cost wont make a huge dent in your money.
And last is one which im sure many will agree upon - Never rely on 1 single farm nor on 1 single chr - when kegging was killed a lot of players quit their sins as they made them only for kegging

Do alot of vaettir farming. Most of the wepons can be salvaged for dust at a preety high rate, and people need lots of dust for BUs and the like.

ill edit this if more comes to mind.

Do Zaishen Elite once a day for 6k balth faction. Exchange 5k balth faction for z-keys and sell keys for 6k+ each.

Find something your good at (Running missions, outposts, Running lockpicks/keys, Powertrading or farming for example), check the market to see if others arent as good at that or dont want to do that. Expand on the idea and see what people are willing to pay and offer your services.

If your good at what you do and honest with yourself and your customers, they will return for more. The biggest mistake you can do is always say that you are perfect every time. I run missions for example, and if I get a request for one im not so good at, then I will let them know in advance that they may expect a fail or 2 before it works out. Stick with whatever you choose as long as you are enjoying it.

Another thing is; dont forget to diversify as others have said above. If you farm, make sore that you have more than one char that is able to farm (Monk, Necro, Ele, Sin, Rit and Im guessing Mesmer might be the next in farming character after the next update hits live).

Finally, choose something where you can relax and chill out to balance the hard action times. It doesnt haev to be anything which makes loads of money or has great rewards. I run the Minister Chos solo mission on my Necro for example

reward trophies (luxon totems, imperial commedations, kourman coins) can be traded for items that are worth more than the trophies alone, eg (from the wiki) The faster rate for converting these directly to gold is purchasing and selling superior salvage kits, which will pay out 200Gold per totem (1Platinum per kit, 1 kit per 5 totems). Keeping and using the kits may be even more profitable, since each one saves you 4 expert salvage kits, at a cost of 1.6Platinum total, increasing the potential value of 5 totems to 1.6Platinum; that is, 320Gold each. In any case, do not sell them to other players for less than 200Gold each.

many collectable drops (plague idols, decayed orr emblems) can be exchanged for items that are worth more than the items them selves...and some items (wintersday collectable items) can be sold to other players around holidays for a LOT more than they are worth to the merchant.

This is mainly advice for newbies, but I'm assuming those are the ones who ask "How do I make money?"
And that is: Make the Rune Trader your best friend.

Knowing which runes and insignias are worth something (not just the Vigors, but Soul Reaping, Spawning Power, etc.), and when their prices are apt to fluctuate (festivals drive the prices down with all the farming), can put a significant amount of cash in your pocket, and can also save you money down the line if you store the expensive ones you think you might use.

Buy and use normal salvage kits on any white items you find, keep the materials and sell them in stacks to people. Try to avoid salvaging bows though - they usually just give you wood planks, which are mostly worthless.

Keep in mind that you should ID them first, that way you get more materials.

A former guildy once told me: "Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves."

If you have a lot of characters and NF HM, doing Chabek Village on HM can rack up some good cash.

Also, playing a lot of JQ nets you z-keys and amber/jade.

Only identify whites if the pre-id value is 50g or more. Identifying a white worth 4g isn't worth it (you'll get an increase of a couple of g), but identifying a 50g white can increase the price to 120 (the highest I have personally seen).

Don't buy skills that you can get for free as quest rewards.

I'm loving this so far - thanks for all your ideas.

Tidied list in a few days, hopefully

Actually it IS worth id'ing whites even if the pre-id value is say only 20gp. The id'd item is always worth more, and a good part of the time it's nearly twice as much as it was pre-id.

yeah, but like for his example with an item being 4g pre-identified. even if it does double in value, it would just cover the 4g cost of identifying it in the first place, being a waste of time.

No. For whites, you can start ID'ing at ~40g. Before that, the value it increases is insignificant, or worse, it increases in value less than or equal to the gold value of a single use of the ID kit, either 4g or 5g(superior). On average, you gain gold ID'ing whites at about 40g and up. Below that you merely break even, gain very little(not worth your time), or lose gold(identifying pre-sear whites).

If you are going on a long quest or dungeon or mapping or vanquishing and you can't be sure you will have room for everything in your bags, make sure you bring a Salvage Kit and salvage all the whites. It's better to get 3 planks for a salvaged bow than to leave the bow laying on the ground.

Use an Expert or Superior Salvage Kit to remove good mods from gold weapons. Check the guru Price Check thread for Components at http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/c...tml?t=10405139
for the sell prices. The list is not out of date because the prices do not really change. When selling mods don't be afraid to take less than top price. You need to weigh your time spent against what you would get. (Unless you enjoy the trader business, then go for it.)

I'm not going to get into a war over this but you are quite wrong. Any item of 20gp (Usually with a Req of 4 or more), will quite often goto 30gp when id'd, this is more than the cost of the ID, and only tards id pre-searing carp.

And whilst I'm here, get the ZM, ZB or ZC bounties (depending on your playstyle), if you did all the missions in the game whilst under the ZM, that's easily another 50K+ for doing nothing more than you were going to anyway. And it's even more for the dungeons.