The Auctioneer Hot Spot In New Orgrimmar

New Orgrimmar Tauren Area

New Orgrimmar

You aren't still basing your auctioneering operations in the near front gate of Orgrimmar are you?  The front gate commerce area in the new Orgrimmar era is one of the least efficient areas to use as your base of operations since Cataclysm.  It is really bad compared to my new favorite area.

Why The Orgrimmar Front Gate Auction House Sucks

Everything is too far apart.  This wastes valuable time running to the auction house from the anvil, the forge, the bank, trade merchants selling your dyes, thread, parchaments, etc.  The one good thing is that there is a mailbox at the foot of the steps leading up to the auction house.  That's all though.

The Most Efficient Auctioneer Area

The most efficient area to set up shop and organize your business is the Tauren area within the Valley of Wisdom.  The screenshot above shows all of the basics you need as a merchant to cut down on wasted time while crafting, buying, selling, mailing, and listing on the auction house.  Let's look at what the Tauren area has to offer.

• Forge and Anvil next to each other, along with a repairing vendor.
• Mailbox.
• Bank and Guild Vault next to each other.
• Bonfire for cooking.
• Trade vendor selling commonly used items, like Runethread.
• Auctioneer.

The best part is this is almost everything you could ask for and all within a few paces from each other.  This has quickly become my new favorite spot to post and craft as everything is so close together.

The Goblin area isn't as good because the mailbox is too far away from the auction house.  Same goes for the troll area.  The mailbox is on the ground level and the auctioneer and bank are higher up.  No guild bank (or at least none easily found) is also a huge penalty for both of these areas. 

One nice benefit of the troll area is that the auctioneer and the bank can both be accessed without having to move, but if you need to add mailbox and / or guild bank interaction into your routine, then you are better off over in the sweet Tauren hot spot.

The Orgrimmar back blacksmithing area is just as bad as the front.  Everything is too far apart.

Submitted into The Best of The Month Blogging Carnival over at Not So Secret Society.

You aren't running back and forth from the bank to the auction house in the front of Ogrimmar are you?

Epic 5k Fortune Card: Why The Physical Copy Is Better Than The Script Macro

Epic Mysterious Fortune Cards

I have been heavily into selling mysterious fortune cards via barking in the trade chat channel.  These mysterious fortune cards continue to be a hot seller.  On Tuesday night, I was lucky enough to log in to barely any competition on the auction house.  A whopping 13 Mysterious Fortune Cards were all that were posted.  Of course I bought all of those 16g cards out and relisted them along with my own for 36g each with price breaks for 10 and 20 packs.  After my usual round of barking macros, they started to sell like crazy.  How crazy?  35k in 5 hours crazy.

Give Them A Reason To Buy Yours

One of my tried and true strategies is to give the buyers a reason to buy your Mysterious Fortune Cards over your competitor's fortune cards.  One strategy is to list in multiple size packs with a slight discount.  10 packs and 20 packs work best in my experience.  Another strategy that has been ingenious in driving buyers to my Mysterious Fortune Cards relies on one of my barking macros.

"Mysterious Fortune Cards in stock on the Auction House now!  Your chance at winning the 5k Jackpot.  If you win the (Insert Epic 5k Fortune Card Here) from one of MY CARDS, I will buy it back for 5.5 k gold - That's a 10% PRIME BONUS!" --Primerib

This barking macro has 2 purposes. 

• Even though I have no way to tell that the winner came from a card of mine, people tend to skip right over the under cutters and buy my cards because of the extra incentive. 
• This 5.5k epic fortune card is a great item to actual own yourself as a barking scribe.  Barking that you will it back gives you first dips at any card out there.

Let's look at why you should get one. 

Epic 5k Fortune Card - Why You Want A Physical Copy

Many players are skeptical about just how rare these cards actually are.  They think the odds are very low that anyone will win.  Having one of these cards to show to players improves their perception about the chances of themselves getting a winner.  This leads to more sales.  Linking in trade chat from a macro works to drive more sales, but physically showing someone that there has been a winner drives a lot more sales than linking alone.

The crazy thing is that I actually own 2 now.  Bought them both back on the same night.  I cannot prove it, but I have a hunch that there was a hotfix this last Tuesday that improved the odds.  I had 2 winners from purchasers boths on Tuesday night.  One reported buying 10 cards and the other had bought 60 cards.  I purchased both of these as promised. 

Another benefit is that I can thwart trade trolls by showing these cards to players in the trade window.  They usually run right from me and into the auction house and convert to more sales.

I also use them on alts of mine procaliming that I just won and thank my scribe in trade chat for selling me a winning fortune card.  Trolls shout out in disbelief, I show a few more players and they confirm it in trade as well.  More sales roll in.

Funny thing is a can actualy charge an "observation fee" of 5-10g just to have a peek at the rare card.  Made some gold already by just letting people see it or betting that I do in fact have one in my possession.

And lastly, having one makes linking a lot easier.  Using the macros and scripts has worked some nights and other nights the scripts seem to be broken.  Some times they owrk and other times they appear to work, but are actually unlinkable or only link the non-hyper linked versions of the card text only, which is worthless.  Having a physical copy in your possession completely eliminates that issue. 

I am a big proponant of using the AnnounceIt Add-on to make all your barking much easier.  The biggest drawback is that you cannot code the script into the macro for the 5k epic fortune card.  You must have a physical copy as it relies on a drag and drop interface to register the hyperlinks.  Now that I have one, I can use a 1 click macro and never have to link the scripted card version into a new bark.  It makes barking a one click masterpiece without any problems at all. 

So I highly recommend picking up at least one of these Epic 5k Mysterious Fortune Card Jackpot Winners to both help increase your sales and make your barking career much easier.

Get caught up on a ton of resources for Mysterious Fortune Cards.  This is also the post featured in the Auction House Junkies podcast, Episode #1.

Check out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Guide

Obsidium Ores & The Big Three Professions Shuffle

Obsidium Ore Selling Idiots

Obsidium Ore - Farming The Auction House

Obsidium Ore was listed at very low prices on the Auction House.  Who would sell Obsidium Ore at such a low price?  Probably ignorant and uninformed farmers or players too lazy to put these to good use.  These Obsidium Ores were selling from 29 - 35g for full stacks, when I logged in early in the morning to hunt for deals.  My Mammoth Mining Bags are now overflowing as I bought 8k gold worth of Obsidium Ore at this price.  Wes, I beg to differ.  The dumbest Warcraft players are on my server!  Time to shuffle all these ores for major profits.

The Big Three Professions

The Big Three is the excellent gold making profession combination of Jewel Crafting, Alchemy, and Enchanting.  It was an added bonus if you had an Alchemist / Enchanter and could take advantage of disenchanting the Bind-On-Pickup Epic Alchemist trinkets for Maelstrom Crystals.  As of yesterday's hotfix, these are no longer able to be disenchanted.  The Big Three has been very profitable through out Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and now into Cataclysm.  Jewelcrafting was introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion, so The Big Three did not exist during Vanilla World of Warcraft.  If you are stuck and looking to expand your gold making oppurtunities, be sure to have The Big Three Professions covered.

• Jewelcrafting - Is used primarily for prospecting ores into uncommon and rare gems.  Also is used for crafting jewelry and weapons (like Carnilian Spikes) to be disenchanted.  Also is used for cutting gems and jewelry to vendor for a profit or sell on the Auction Houses of Azeroth.
• Alchemy - Is used to transmute gems and meta-gems, truegold and living elements. 
• Enchanting - Is used to disenchant jewelry and other items to create Enchanting materials like Dusts, Essences, and Shards.  Also used to create Enchanting scrolls to sell on the Auction House.

I also recommend that you take a look at the Venture, LLC Blog.  Stede has a nice post about making gold from Selling Cataclysm Jewelry.

Shuffling Your Ores

1. Buy ores from the Auction House or gather from farming.
2. Have the Jewelcrafter prospect the ores for gems.
3. Cut the rare gems and post on the Auction House.
4. Sell uncommon gems raw, cut and vendor, or craft jewelry & weapons for disenchating.
5. Send all jewelry and weapons to Enchanter.
6. Send some gems to Alchemist to Transmute rare gems and metagems.
7. Send those transmuted gems back and cut them to sell on the Auction House.
8. Have Enchanter disenchant all items and sell some Enchanting materials raw on the Auction House.
9. Create Enchanting scrolls to sell on the Auction House.

This processing of ores is profitable with most of the ores, but especially the newest forms of ores.  If you don't have The Big Three covered with your professions, then I highly suggest you start working towards having all three professions.  Jewelcrafting, Alchemy, and Enchanting are an excellent first set of professions to be working towards.

Are you covering The Big Three in your World of Warcraft gold making process?

The Auction House Junkies Gold Making Podcast

Auction House Junkies - A Gold Making Podcast

As you may have caught wind, Wes of Capped by Cata and I, Cold of Cold's Gold Factory, have been hard at work on a super secret project.  This secret project has been leaked by Hagor da Goblin, an employee within Cold's Gold Factory.  Hagor has been a highly popular little defector, but he will be punished accordingly.

Wes and I proudly present to you today the premiere edition of our Auction House Junkies podcast.  This podcast will focus on auction house tips, gold making, and listener submissions and questions.  We ask that you help us spread the word about this podcast as we have high expectations for ourselves and plan to provide helpful and practical content for expanding your gold making knowledge.  We are both Auction House Junkies and we will also feed your addiction one episode at a time.

So head on over to the new website and listen to episode one.  Feedback will be highly appreciated.

Auction House Junkies Podcast Homepage

Official Auction House Junkies Lens on Squidoo

What should the punishment be for Hagor da Goblin?  Should we give Hagor his own segment in upcoming shows?

Free Blackened Dragonscales and Savage Leather Scraps

Twilight Dragonkin in Mount Hyjal

Free Savage Leather, Scraps, and Blackened Dragonscales

Sethria's Roost in the Cataclysm zone Mount Hyjal is an excellent spot to find already dead Twilight Dragonkin.  When leveling a character witht the skinning profession, I liked to periodically check this area of the zone.  Remember how profitable the old Yeti cavern was east of Everlook when you would arrive and find a non skinner killing the yetis for the quests there?  Well this area in southern area of the Cataclysm zone Mount Hyjal is another one of those great finds.  The quest chains are in the middle of the leveling process of this zone and are often completed by many players, both Horde and Alliance.  Most players will complete this part of the zones quests because they are still not level 82 when they begin the quests.  Some players will head off to Deepholm as soon as they hit level 82.

I love checking this area for free dead mobs for many reasons.

• The Twilight Dragonkin are heavily concentrated in these small areas.
• Questing traffic from players is very high, which increases the chances of dead mobs waiting to be skinned.
• During high traffic times of the day, you may have more corpses than you can skin before decaying.
• The respawn rates are very rapid.
• These Twilight Dragonkin drop Savage Leather, Savage Leather Scraps, Blackened Dragonscales, and Strange Bloated Stomachs when skinned.

The types of Twilight Dragonkin that can be found at Sethria's Roost in Mount Hyjal are:

• Twilight Dragonkin
• Twilight Dragonkin Armorer
• Twilight Juggernaut
• Sethria's Hatchling

Strange Bloated Stomachs

Strange Bloated Stomachs are a rare drop from skinning any Cataclysm creatures.  These Strange Bloated Stomachs can be opened and will contain 1-2 of the various Cataclysm volatile elements: 

• Volatile Earth
• Volatile Air
• Volatile Life
• Volatile Fire
• Volatile Water

In addition, any Skinner / Engineer carrying an Electrostatic Condenser can get an additional 1-2 Volatile Air contained within the Strange Bloated Stomachs.

What other sweet spots are there for free skinning oppurtunities in Cataclysm?

Cataclysm Gas Clouds and Electrostatic Condenser

Where are the Gas Clouds in Cataclysm?

There are none!  The Zappthrottle Mote Extractor that is used by Engineers to gather motes in Outland and crystalized elements fron Northrend gas clouds is useless within the World of Warcraft Cataclysm zones.  Why?  There are no gas clouds in Cataclysm zones.  Maybe they will be added later or maybe not.

Electrostatic Condenser

New to Cataclysm Engineers is the Electrostatic Condenser.  This gadget allows engineers that also have a gathering profession to occasionally collect extra Volatile Air from Cataclysm mineral veins, skinnable corpses, and herbalism plantlife.  This new gadget is worthless to any engineer that has another crafting profession as it only benefits gathering professions.  Luckily, my main is an Engineer / Miner.  I would not recommend changing professions just to benefit from the procs of the Electrostatic Condensor.  Think of it more as an added bonus for gathering Engineers.  If you are a Engineer / Miner, Engineer / Skinner, or Engineer / Herbalist be sure to either buy one, have one crafted, or craft it yourself before anything else.  This will allow you to instantly reap the benefits of occasional extra Volatile Airs.

Mammoth Mining Bags - Reader Submission

Cold,

I've lurked on your site for a while and I've noticed that you're always very active in the gold blog community. You have my thanks.

I play on a pretty low population faction on my server so I may be in a unique situation but I doubt it. I'm currently killing the Mammoth Mining Bag market. The reasons are obvious, farming ore is a big business in Cat and players want to store as much it as they can on their farming runs. I'm discovering that I've got very little competition on this market and my bags are selling for around 400g. Even on my low pop faction they are selling very quickly. It takes 48 borean leather to make one (8 heavy borean). The leather is slowly rising in price because it's just in shorter supply but it's a perfect candidate for your snatch list because the current margin on the MMB is huge.

So why is the MMB so limited on the AH? The answer is, that it's a lot less common for a new Leatherworker. The reason it's less common is because you need to be honored with Sons of Hordir. That in itself isn't a super difficult task but you do have to complete the 23 part quest chain at http://www.wowhead.com/quest=12843 (see comments there for details) . The subtle reason this isn't more common is that because of the experience increase in wotlk, you don't really hit this content while leveling. That entire area is a ghost town in Storm Peaks, you're just leveling too fast. You go straight to the ice crown area and the bigger payoff quests there. Besides, the quest chain for Sons of Hordir is kind of a pain. If you remember, part of it includes flying your butt alllllll the way up that extremely high mountain peak to talk to the giant Thorim several times. You have to put in the hard time to get this recipe and in Cataclysm this bag is still the largest mining bag. They released new bags for everything else it seems, but not mining.

I also think a lot of LW switched professions in Cat (that wanted to make money).
Thanks,
Plink

**************

 

Thanks for the sumbission Plink.  I have been selling a few of these myself.  They were really a great common commodity to craft and sell early into Cataclysm when there were tons of miners.  Great that you are still seeing sales as I am too.  I touched on this slightly in a previous Relics of Hodir discussion.

 

You too can email in a reader submission for posting consideration.  Feel free to submit one or contact me with any questions you may have.

Hagor da Goblin Leaks Secret Information

Hagor da Goblin

Hello fellow goblins and tall ones.

You nots know me.  Me Hagor.  Me sneaks and listens and hears secret information.  Hagor share with you all now.  Please listen to Hagor.  Hagor will show you great many things.  Hagor will show you wonderful things.  Me go now 'for boss sees me in office and nots work.  Me help boss makes gold.

-Hagor da Goblin

Listen to Hagor's Leaked Information Here

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals: February 11th Topic

These blogging carnivals are excellent resources for our readers to get some excellent nuggets of knowledge all in one place. They are also excellent tools for bloggers to get recognized and start to drive traffic from our sites to yours. I highly recommend participating in these blogging carnivals as your submission's will tend to be some of the most visited content on your site. Be sure to read about the benefits of blogging carnivals, if you are undecided about participating in Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.


What Is a Blogging Carnival?

A blogging carnival is a compilation of blog posts all created around one specific topic, which is chosen by the host site. Entries into the carnival are submitted to the host. The host then organizes the posts into one big post with links back to the original articles on the participating author's sites.

Rules for Cold's Gold Factory Blogging Carnivals

Create the entire post on your own site.

Send me an email with a link to your post. SSmith0911 (at) live (dot) com

Submissions must be in by the 10th of each month.

All carnivals will go live on Cold's Gold Factory on the 11th of each month.

All World of Warcraft bloggers are invited to participate. You don't have to author a gold blog, but you need to follow the set topic.

Each post written for the carnival should begin with a link with the anchor text "Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival" and link to http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com/p/colds-gold-blogging-carnivals.html

Learn more about the importance of proper anchor text here. Linking to the above page with the proper anchor text in each carnival entry will help to drive traffic to the gold blogging carnival and in turn drive more traffic to your entries.

February 11th Topic:  What 3 Pieces Of Advise Would You Give A Little Goblin? (3 Top Tips For New Auctioneers?)

Be sure to check out the first carnival if you missed it.  Favorite Farming Spots in Cataclysm

Have you tipped your bloggers today?

Thanks for all the wonderful farming entries for January!  Hope to have you all and more for February.

-Cold

*****************

Shhhhhh!  It's secret to everbody!  Me works at Cold factory.  Boss works on secret project.  Me listen outside boss room.  Me leaks project info when boss no hear.  You keeps watch.  Shhh.  Boss coming!  We speaks soon.

- Hagor da goblin

Mr. Pinchy and His Magical Crawdad Box

Magical Crawdad

El's Professions Contest Giveaway

El over at El's Professions (El's Extreme Anglin') is giving away a fishing card WoW TCG Loot Code.  Follow the link to read the rules.  I have decided to turn my entry into a full post to help El promote this contest.  The question she asks is:

What one catch are you most proud of, and why?  The catch must be gained by fishing in Azeroth (or Outland). It does not have to be rare – the catch can be special for personal reasons.

Mr. Pinchy - Contest Answer

My favorite catch is by far Mr. Pinchy!  Magical Crawdad is absolutely my most favorite vanity pet within World of Warcraft.  This little crustacean is as cool as cool can be!  He looks so good I just want to rip his little head off and suck all the juice out! 

My Luck With Rare Mounts And Pets

Why am I most proud of this cute little red guy?  Well, he's super rare for one.  I have heard horror stories of players fishing for him for over a year with no luck.  Well, for some reason I have been ridiculously lucky when it comes to acquiring rare vanity pets and rare dropped mounts.  You may remember last year when I got both the Swift Razzashi Raptor and the Swift Zulian Tiger from the same run.  Or you may recall me discussing how I got my Headless Horseman's Mount (back when it was uber-rare before the dungeon auto queues) as the 2nd time it dropped in the same instance group!  Or the X-53 Touring Rocket I got from buying in trade chat that turned out to be one of the very few legit transactions that wasn't a scam. 

Mr. Pinchy My Luckiest Catch

Well I truely believe that Mr. Pinchy started off this entire mount and pet lucky streak.  Many players had a hell of time fishing for Mr. Pinchy from the pools in Terrokar Forest.  Once you fish him up you aren't even guaranteed the pet.  He will grant you 3 wishes and getting the pet is the rarest of the options he will grant.  Well, truth be told, I got Mr. Pinchy out of my 3rd or 4th pool that I attempted granting me the  Mr. Pinchy's Magical Crawdad Box Achievement and with my first wish he granted me Mr. Pinchy the vanity pet!  So Mr. Pinchy this one is for you!  You have truly been magical to me!  Thanks for all the great luck you have brought to me over the years.  Mr. Pinchy's luck also helped me to fish up Old Crafty within my first 20 casts in Ogrimmar.  Mr. Pinchy, I love you.

Mr. Pinchy - How To Get Yours

Mr. Pinchy the magical crawdad can only be fished up from pools of Highland Mixed Schools in Terrokar Forest, Outlands.  These pools are in lakes atop high plateaus and require a flying mount to even reach.  The chance to catch him is very rare and once caught he will grant you 3 wishes.  These wishes have a 2 day cooldown and once all 3 are used he is gone.  If you didn't get the pet, you will have to fish him up from another pool and hope one of the new wishes will grant you the pet.  Mr. Pinchy's wishes can grant you:

• Mr. Pinchy's Gift - Contains 4-5 level appropriate mana and health potions (4-5 of each).
• Mr. Pinchy's Blessing - A 2 hour buff that grants 1300 extra health and persists through death(counts as a flask).
• Furious Mr. Pinchy - A level 70 non-elite that attacks you and your party.
• Benevolent Mr. Pinchy - A level 70 guardian that assists you in combat for 10 minutes.
• Magical Crawdad Box - Contains the Magical Crawdad vanity pet.

Make sure to stop by El's site and enter for your chance at the Fishing Chair loot code.

Mr. Pinchy

What is your favorite vanity pet?

Rare Recipes: Flipping Vs Learning

Rare Recipes : Learn It or Sell It?

So you just found a poorly priced rare profession recipe on the auction house.  Maybe you were out questing or farming and were lucky enough to have a valuable profession recipe drop off of a creature you killed.  Or maybe you got lucky with the contents of a sealed scroll case.  Regardless of how that rare recipe was obtained, what should you do with it? Should you learn it or should you sell it?

My Own Philosophy
I have every profession covered with my factory of alts.  I also am a recipe collector, so the answer is easy for me.  I learn the first copy I obtain and I sell the rest of the profession recipes I accumulate.  Removing the aspect of being a collector, how can you determine whether you should sell the recipe or learn it?

Placing Value On Rare Recipes
The real question when placing value on a rare profession recipe is will I make more profit from flipping the recipe or from mass crafting the item it teaches?  In order to determine whether the items are worth crafting we need to analyze various factors.

What are the materials required to craft the item and what is the value of those materials?
Many times an item can be ruled out as not worth being learned due to the insane material requirements needed for crafting.  Here is a good example of a pattern with expensive material requirements - Plans: Hammer Of Righteous Might:  Khorium Bar (16), Felsteel Bar (12), Primal Might (6), Primal Nether (2). Remember if the value of the crafted item is less than the sum of the materials you are better off selling the raw materials.  Not all rare patterns are worth learning because they are not all profitable investments.

How much will the rare pattern sell for?
Sometimes a pattern may be so rare that you may not have enough demand for the crafted product to sell enough of that product over time to meet the quick and easy profit of just selling the recipe.

Is there a demand for the crafted item and how much will the item sell for?
Lack of demand for the item trumps everything.  An item can be very cost efficient to craft, but if it isn't going to sell there is no point in learning the recipe and crafting the items.  The one exception is, if the item is cheap enough to craft and be utilized in a way other than selling, like via disenchanting.  Maybe it is one of the most cost efficient recipes to learn for disenchanting to create a certain high demand dust, essence, or shard.  So be sure to consider all options for the item.

A Case Study
An excellent example of a very rare pattern that is highly worth learning is for Rich Purple Silk Shirts.  The materials are stupidly cheap and the return on investment is amazing.  The rich purple silk shirt requires Bolt of Silk Cloth (4), Purple Dye, Silken Thread.   These rare craftable shirts sell easily for 15-25 gold each!  It doesn't take many sales to pass up the profit level you would obtain from simply selling the recipe.  Best thing is the demand of these shirts is constant as there are always new characters and new players entering the game. 

I have found similar success selling the Whitesoul Helm as it is a great niche market item.

Can anyone list any other rare patterns that have been worth learning and crafting instead of selling the pattern outright?

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival #1 Favorite Cataclysm Farming Spots

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival


Welcome to the premiere edition of Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.  These carnivals will continue to take place the 11th day of every month and will be hosted here at Cold's Gold Factory. All World of Warcraft bloggers are welcome to participate and feedback both here and on the original authors' sites is strongly encouraged.  So show some support and please leave some feedback in the comments section.  These bloggers put a lot of time and hard work into these blogging carnival posts so please leave them some comments.


If you would like to be included in the next month's carnival, please review the guidelines for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals and submit your link via email (ssmith0911 at live dot com) before the 10th of the month.  Read up on the benefits of participating in blogging carnivals at my other blog designed to help new bloggers, Blogging Vitals.  Articles are listed in the order they are received.  Thank you to all the bloggers participating in this months carnival!  And without further ado, I present to you this month's participants answering the question:


What Is One Of Your Favorite Farming Spots In Cataclysm?


Wes of Capped By Cata
Fishing For Volatile Fires in Hyjal and the Sulfuron Spire
"My favorite spot in all of Cataclysm is located in Hyjal and the Sulfuron Spire. (Map above) This spot was originally reported over at Just My Two Copper "Fishing for Volatile Fire" However, I feel this spot is so incredibly good I wanted to give it a full write up."


Kreaton of Not So Secret Society
Go Dive Gathering In Vashj'ir
"Yesterday I was questing with my gathering alt in Vashj'ir. And suddently I started seeing more and more herbs and mining nodes, spawning too fast for me to gather them. Sadly they're in the middle of a lot of mobs, but this actually also help keeping other characters from gathering them.  Here there is the location, "The Clutch" in the Kelp'thar Forest."


Wow For Dummies
Farming in Vashj'ir
"I am sure that there are a lot of great farming spots in Cataclysm. Matter of fact now that I can fly around Eastern kingdom every farming spot is extraordinary because it is easier to access. However I came across this nice farming spot in cataclysm."

Zoxy of Trading With Zoxy

Multiple Things To Farm In Tol Barad
"This post is about  my favourite farming spots in Cataclysm in Tol Barad , the previous post Blizzard Decided to Nerf .The Previous spot still works but only with a a Potion of treasure finding"

Hyrm of WowStability
Farming Heartblossom and Troggs In Between
"If you didn’t look well enough at the big picture at the top of this post, let me put it in text format – HEARTBLOSSOM IS EVERYWHERE IN DEEPHOLM. For those who are not aware of how these herb icons appeared in the map, see my post on Gathermate. The hundreds of icons that appear in Deepholm map makes it my favorite farming spot for herbs."


Markco and Mageshadow of Just My Two Copper
Best Cataclysm Whiptail Farming Spot
"I farm some specific herbs, especially since Deepholm and Twilight Highlands have been nerfed. I have resorted to farming Whiptail, and Azsahara's Veil. Both currently go for 3-400g per stack, and they're both extremely easy and plentyful to farm."

Mining For Gold In Molten Core
"I simply love Molten Core, this place is and has been one of the best places to make gold, from ingots to enchanting patterns, and even level 60 BOE gear, this place is a gold mine, you simply need a pick axe and you'll be mining your own gold!"


Smudger of Warcraft Corner
Farming Volatile Fire
"Currently I have only one thing that is worth farming and that is Volatile Fire. Most professions require this and theres only a few places to farm it."


Moravec of Follow The Gold Road
Farming The Auction House
"In terms of farming, what we are looking at is the potential income lost from farming materials as opposed to buying them from other farmers.  This also has a time aspect – the time spent farming could be spent processing more of the materials from alternative supplies or engaging in other markets."


Dizzy of I Has Stuffs
Dungeon Farming For Frostweave Bag Mats
"So not to throw everyone a complete curve ball but my favorite spot to farm atm will have you going back to Wrath content.  On my server the cost to make a Frostweave Bag has finally caught back up with the new price."


Shamaenei of Ele-Mental Gold
Relaxing Farming in the Abyssal Depths
"For me the Abyssal Depths are coming closest to relaxation for several reasons, it's underwater making it relaxing and there are only a few and sometimes even no player at all in this area. Looking at documentaries about the deep seas always does the job of relaxation for me(but all the water also make you go to the toilet!) and the design team really nailed the whole experience on this one. The deep seas of the Abyssal Depths really feel vast."


Wukam of Bank of Wukam
Farming Savage Leather
"Normally, I'm not a huge fan of farming. It certainly has it's uses and it's advantages, but I generally find it repetitive and tedious, and just not for me. But there is one type of farming I tend to enjoy, and that's leather farming. Why? Because you get to kill stuff. Who doesn't enjoy slaughtering hundreds of helpless little creatures and then adding insult to injury by tearing the skin off their backs?"


Stede of Venture, LLT
Pilfering Epics
"I've mentioned that my main is a Rogue (alliance-side; sorry hordies, that's all I know), and one of the oft-forgotten abilities of Rogues is Pick Pocket."


Nicegrl of Nicegrl
Deepholm and Twilight Highlands Mining Routes
"I found some great places for you guys to mine if you need some to your jewelcrafting or blacksmithing maybe? (If you are from my realm (Azuremyst EU) look away now so you don’t steal my mining spots!  )"


Xeroaze of The Tipped Copper
Farming The Trade Chat Channel
"My favorite farming spot (Trade Chat) can only be accessed through being in a major city and you MUST have a keyboard.  Over time you adapt to the environment and learn the skill"


Mageshadow of The Gnomish Coin
Farming For Azshara's Veil in Tol Borad
"By now most of you know that having a gathering profession is crucial when a new expansion comes out, and I've recently found a spot that is excellent for farming Aszhara's veil, a rare herb that is only found under water, and is not found in many places."

Brouk of Confessions of A Half Ass Gold Maker
Farming The Tol'Vir Instance
"I, like many others out there, hate farming. I only find farming fun, when I am accomplishing something else in the process. Enter Tol'vir. This instance is a blast. Every day, my guild and I run Lost City on Heroic. Our reasoning, it takes 45 minutes or less."

BoA Guild Cloak Profits: Are You Ready?

BoA Guild Cloaks Incoming

Guilds will soon be able to purchase the BoA cloaks and helms.  The guild achievement system will be rewarding guilds that have reached the guild level 10 with the ability to purchase Bind-On-Account Cloaks from the guild vendor.  As with any BoA item, players will be looking for some of the best enchants to place on these items for their twinks and alternate Warcraft characters.  So once guilds start to hit the required guild level 10, expect sales of BoA and Twink enchants for cloaks to increase.  Sales will continue to improve as even more guilds obtain enough guild experience to hit level 10.

BoA Guild Cloaks

There are going to be 3 BoA cloak options available to players.  If you are building a twink and want to compare the stat values at specific levels (for comparing to similar blues) be sure to check out the BoA Item Scaler.  The 3 Cloak options are:

• Worn Stoneskin Gargoyle Cape
• Inherited Cape of the Black Baron
• Ancient Bloodmoon Cloak

BoA & Twink Cloak Enchants

The Best Options For Selling


[Enchant Cloak - Superior Defense] +70 Armor

[Enchant Cloak - Greater Nature Resistance] +15 Nature Resistance

[Enchant Cloak - Greater Resistance] +5 Resistance All

[Enchant Cloak - Stealth] +8 Agi and +8 Dodge (AQ Drop, or Exhalted Cenarion Expedition)*
 
[Enchant Cloak - Subtlety] Decrease All Threat by 2% (AQ Drop, or Exhalted Honor Hold / Thrallmar)
 
[Enchant Cloak - Dodge] +12 Dodge (The AQ drop version has no level restriction)

*Mageshadow of The Gnomish Coin broke the news on the Buff to the Stealth Enchant a while ago.  Check out his original post.

PRO TIP:  Grab up Coilfang Armaments and Fel Lotus as the value of both will be increasing as guilds hit guild level 10.

Lil' Ragnaros - The Critter Killing Cooking Fire

Lil' Raggy

Bishops was one of the 2 lucky winners of the Cold's Gold Factory Win A Pet Code Contest that I held for the 1 year birthday here at Cold's Gold Factory.  Bishops has also been inspired to start his own blog titled The Noob's Corner.  Good luck with your new site Bishops!

Lil' Ragnaros

Since I had read on the Blizzard site that the vanity pet Lil' Raggy kills critters that get too close to him, I wondered if those critters killed by Lil' Ragnaros actually counted towards the guild achievements.  Bishops chose Lil' Ragnaros as his contest prize so I asked him to test it out for me. 

We are now verified by testing and can report that Critters Killed By Lil' Ragnaros Do Count Towards The Guild Achievements Critter Kill Squad and Crittergeddon. 

Has anyone tested to see if Lil' KT killed critters also count?  So an easier way to work on these guild acheivements  and get your Armadillo Pup is to always have a Lil' Ragnaros out following you around to kill critters for you.  He can even add kills while you are AFK.  On a side note, Lil' Ragnaros also counts as a cooking fire.  Read more about Lil' Ragnaros over at The Noob's Corner.

Attention Warcraft Bloggers and Blog Readers

Apologies

I want to apologize to the other great gold blogs that are out there.  While I have many of you in my blogroll already, I am finding it harder and harder to find time to read each and every one of you daily.  I have been involved in a great new project, working with Wes from Capped by Cata.  It should be ready shortly.  We think you are going to love it.  More news on this secret project as we get the final stages wrapped up.

There has been such an explosion of gold bloggers onto the scene that there are many excellent sites out there putting out awesome content.  I want to do a better job of linking to your great articles and helping grow your site's traffic and reader base.  Many of you have been instrumental in helping drive traffic my direction.  I thank you for that.  Now I would like to help reciprocate the favor.

What I am asking is this:  If there is a post that you are very proud of please send me a link and I will try to work up a post that links to it.  Please make sure to submit to me your very best content that you worked long and hard on.  Think guest post quality.  If its a great post, I will link to it to get you some inbound links.  Thanks to all of you that have been including inbound links to all of my Mysterious Fortune Card Posts.  All incoming links are very welcome.  Now I just want to return the favors.

Guest Posts

Similarly, guest posts are always welcome.  Please submit them to me for consideration or contact me with a topic idea as well.  I do also do guest post swaps, if you prefer to trade posts.  Again, contact me for topic and release discussion.  Remember that guest posting is an excellent way to get new traffic.  Please review my post on Why You Should Be Guest Posting over at my new blog, Blogging Vitals.

Blogroll Additions

I have a lot of you already included on my blogroll.  If you are a new gold blogger or a Warcraft blogger that often but not always talks about gold making strategies, then by all means, contact me to be added to my blogroll.  This is another great way to get new incoming traffic to your upcoming site.

Blogging Carnival

The first Blogging Carnival here at Cold's Gold Factory goes live on January 11th.  You have only 2 more days to get your submissions included for this carnival.  Again, my new site has an excellent article on The Benefits Of Blogging Carnivals and why you should participate.

ATTENTION READERS:  Tipping Your Bloggers

I would like to call you attention to another great article that I have written on Tipping Your Bloggers.
You can tip your favorite bloggers without even coming out of your own pocket!  Check out the article to learn how.  Fellow bloggers feel free to link to that said tipping article with the anchor text "Have you tipped a blogger today?"  Let's all try to help cultivate a new mindset for our readers.

Disciplinary Action

Last but not least, I want each and every one of you World of Warcraft bloggers to go and read this excellent article on promoting your site, which was posted at Disciplinary Action.  Check it out now!  I use most of  these strategies.  Are you too?
Shameless Self Promotion: A Beginner's Guide To Driving Traffic to Your WoW Blog

AnnounceIt Add-On For Barking Assistance

Barking Assistance

So I have found an add-on that I am now using to help with my business of barking to sell mysterious fortune cards.  The WoW add-on is called AnnounceIt and is available from Curse Gaming.  Follow this link to the AnnounceIt page at Curse.  This add-on is designed for creating up to 5 lines of text in any chat channel.  It is commonly used for posting vent info, but it can also be used to help automate your barking business.

AnnounceIt Add-On

The tool is accessed by an icon on your mini-map ring.  All you have to do is set up each line of text, select the channel it will appear in, and then name the individual bark.  When you want to send a bark out, you just select which one to use, and click on it on the pull down tab.  Having multiple barks prewritten and ready to send to trade chat helps with sales and also allows for a much wider variety of barks.  You can drag and drop items or spells into each line of text to have the active hyperlinks show as well.  The only downside is that you must have a physical copy of the 5k Fortune Card in order to drag ad drop it into the chat line.  You can still set up a macro with the code for the 5k card to fill in between barks as you see fit.  This is an excellent add-on to include in your collection.

Anyone using any other add ons to bark with?

Mysterious Fortune Card Tales: A Reader Submission

Cold,


I wanted to share my Mysterious Fortune Card success with you...not that you aren't fully aware of the tricks :)

At first, I didn't believe that these cards would sell. First, I checked the AH for current card prices, which ranged from 28 - 55g each. After I learned the recipe, I checked the AH for Blackfallow because my server has ridiculous herb prices at the moment, and found a guy selling them for 15g per in stacks of 20. This is a huge cost benefit because I could never mill and obtain for that price. I snapped these up regardless, since the next cheapest ink was 25g and up. While in the AH, I saw a few folks barking the cards, using the bark tactics listed on the various blogs, so I figured it was my turn.

So, I whipped up 12 cards, figured out that macro bark with the clickable Fortune Card links, and fired off a bark without listing anything. I wanted to clear 10 stacks of 1, set at 28g before I listed mine, because the next tier of listed singles was set at 35g. At first, this didn't work...no cards moved from the bottom. So, I spammed again...but listed 2 of my cards for 27g 50s and undercut. The cards sold instantly, and I just made a decent profit for nothing but a few button clicks. Immediately, I got a hate whisper from the seller who had the stacks at 35g, who said "I am trying to get the stacks back to 35g so don't be stupid and let the 28g cards clear out...you aren't going to make any profit and neither will I." I'm not sure where this guy learned economics, but it is pretty clear that if I just sold 2 cards to his 0, and he won't dip down to undercut me, then yes, I will be the one to profit. So, I crafted the rest of the cards I had, which left me 58 total.

I didn't respond to the other seller, and barked again, then quickly listed 5 cards. Gone. Waited 2 minutes, barked, listed 5. Gone. In comes another hate whisper, and the other seller pulls his cards. Not the smartest guy, so I bark until I get the 28g stacks gone that I was undercutting, and Mr.35g was undercutting a 37g seller, so in less than 10 minutes, my cards have gone from 27g 50s to 36g 50s. After this, I went back and checked Blackfallow, and there were a bunch listed at 20-22g each. Since it is apparent that the card market moves extremely fast, I bought all of these inks, crafted cards and went back to barking. I sold dozens of these things with zero competition for about 2 hours, and eventually, a new aggressive undercutter came along so I paused and watched how he operated. I would bark, he would not. After I barked, he'd undercut me. I'd undercut him, bark, count to 5, and undercut 2g and post a few. My tactic here was an attempt to bring his cards down to a point where I could buy his stock, and I got very lucky as a third scribe entered the fight and I just sat back and watched them bring the prices down to 20g a card, and I bought them all.

Overall, I have only made profits with this. On Sunday, I had the market the entire day, literally. I sold my cards for 35g for 8 hours straight. In a week of selling, helped by a lucky long day, I have made about 20k profit so far. I have never seen over 100k in my account, and I will turn that tonight as I sit at 99,900g with a full mailbox of card sales.

My favorite thing to do is change my barks until I piss someone off who is either a fellow scribe who got smoked out of the market, or a player who doesn't agree with gambling, etc. These folks are my sales fuel, because almost 100% of the time, they label the cards as a "scam". What will soon happen, is that the trade channel will buzz with this discussion about the cards, and any press is good press. I argued back and forth with a guy for an hour and moved 400 cards, and I think that if he had not kept it up, I would have sold half that.

Thanks for your blog, I read it every day looking for tips like this, and appreciate the effort :)

Have a good day,

DC from Doomhammer

*********************

Thanks DC for the great submission!  Remember to try posting in multiple stacks and bark that those stacks are available to help deal with the undercutters.

I welcome any reader submissions, guest posts, or question.  Just send them to the email listed on my contact page.

Attention Bloggers:  You have 4 days left to submit your entries for the January 11th Premier Release of  Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.

Mysterious Fortune Card Undercutters and How To Deal With Them

Mysterious Fortune Card Undercutters

The popularity of the Mysterious Fortune Card has led to many other players invading the market on servers everywhere.  By now you are not the sole provider or one of a few Mysterious Fortune Card dealers on your server.  The auction house may even be flooded with these cards by people who really have no clue how to market them.  This is your guide for dealing with the competition.

The 5 Ways I Deal With Undercutters

1. Limit Resources
2. Bark The Price Up
3. Stealthy Undercuts
4. Post In Multi-Pack Stacks
5. Take A Break

All of these tactics can be used together for increased ways to deal with your Mysterious Fortune Card competition on the Auction House.  Let's go over each of these tactics in more detail.

Limiting Resources

There are a lot of scribes out there that use the auction house in World of Warcraft as their only supplier of herbs.  If you can constantly buy all of the nicely priced Cataclysm herbs, the blackfallow inks, and ashen pigments, you can cripple or limit their access to these materials.  If they can't get new herbs for a profitable price, then they can't compete. 

In addition to buying your materials off of the auction house to limit your competition's ability to do the same, you should also be looking for farmers to supply your crafting needs.  Often times you can set a price that is below auction house value, if you are constantly buying their farmed herbs in large quantities.

Barking The Prices Up

Another strategy is to bark the prices up.  This is easy if you have a macro set up to bark in trade.  By now you know that Fortune Cards don't sell much unless you are barking.  Sure you can get some residual sales or return buyers picking up more off the auction house, but if you are wanting to move large volumes of cards, you simply must be barking in trade chat.

If the current auction house price for Mysterious Fortune Cards isn't as high as you would like it to be, just bark the price up.  When you bark, players rush to the auction house to make a purchase.  You can send those first initial waves to buy up your competition's cards that are below the price threshold that you would like to sell at.  Just bark the price up to the price you would like to see them selling for. 

I like to go ahead and post a few at the low price and in-between price jumps, just to keep track that cards are moving off the auction house and to notify when the next price level has been attained.  This also helps with name recognition on the auction house.  Many players have bought my cards for just a few copper more than the undercutter's because they respect that I am working for my sales or because they thought my barks were creative.

Stealthy Undercutting

Stealthy undercutting is undercutting the cards on the auction house without being seen by your competition.  This involves posting only a handful of Mysterious Fortune Cards in hopes that yours will be bought out from under the other seller.  This works best when you have another scribe barking in trade chat already.  Instead of barking along, make some cards and post them for 1 copper less than his, but just a few at a time.  That way you sell some and he gets a sale or two.  You post a few more and steal some sales away from him.  Keep doing this until your are out of cards or he catches on. 

Posting In Multi-Pack Stacks

Another great way of ignoring other sellers all together is to post and advertise your own unique stack sizes.  Again barking is key as a lot of players won't even bother to check the auction house listings after the first page.  I have found the best stack sizes to be 3, 4, 5, 10, and 20.  I like to post 10 and 20 stacks and add that "10 and 20 pack stacks of Mysterious Fortune Cards are available on the Auction House for you HIGH ROLLERS!"

If you are offering a discount for purchasing multi-packs you can ignore the undercutting wars that sometimes happen with singles.  If singles sell for 35g, try selling and barking some 3 packs for 100g.  Ideally, if the current rate is 35g, I would post some singles at 34.99.99, 3 packs for 100g, 10 packs for 300, and 20 packs for 600.  They will all sell in the various sized stacks as long as you are barking.

Taking A Break

Sometimes there comes a point when its just not worth the effort to try and battle it out in trade chat or on the auction house for your Mysterious Fortune Card sales.  Some days idiots will wall the auction house with fortune cards set at 10g each and in hundreds.  You can risk buying them up and relisting at a higher price, but it is a risk, as they can come back and wall you again.

Some days, just leave this market alone, go back to another market that you work in and come back another day to another new set of card prices.  Most of these players walling the auction house with sub-prime prices are clueless to the real value of these great sellers.  Let them sell for stupid prices and then swoop back in once the market is back to where you would like it to be.

Hope this guide gave you some ideas on how to deal with competition within the Mysterious Fortune Card market, the new inscription goldmine.

Mysterious Fortune Cards Mega-Compilation

Mysterious Fortune Cards

Mysterious Fortune Cards have become one of my most profitable markets within World of Warcraft and the Azerothian Auction Houses.  Barking for sales has become a very fun way to play the game for me as well.  My posts on these Mysterious Fortune Cards spurred a lot of discussion on blogs and gold forums.  The posts on Mysterious Fortune Cards Preview, Fortune Card Bait N Switch, and Fortune Card Barking Tactics have all 3 moved into my top 10 most popular blog posts of all time!  So starting the discussion before Cataclysm spurred a lot of discussion, interest, and sales of these highly profitable Inscription made Mysterious Fortune Cards.

In case you have been living under a rock these past few weeks, here is a recap of the entire gold blogosphere and the discussions on Mysterious Fortune Cards.  This should serve to help any of you getting into this hot topic late.

Cold's Gold Factory - 5 Part Series on Mysterious Fortune Cards

1. Cataclysm Item Preview: Fortune Cards and Fortune Cookies
2. Mysterious Fortune Cards Barking Tips - Great Tactics For Trade Chat Advertisements
3. Fortune Card Bait and Switch Tactics - Get 'Em Hooked and Raise the Price
4. Dealing With Undercutters
5. The 5k Epic Fortune Card and Why You Should Own One

Wukam did a Mysterious Fortune Cards Gambling Guest Post in response to my original article.
Gnome of Zurich did a Fortune Cards post in response to Wukam's guest post.
Sterling of the Consortium did a great post comparing the Fortune Cards to pull tabs.
Xeroaze of The Tipper Copper has great ideas on Fortune Card Barking Tips.

Also check out Cold's Blog Azeroth Secret Santa Guest Post at Nicegrl.com on Mysterious Fortune Cards - What's The Hype?  This is an excellent overview I did as my guest post on a non-gold making blog.

Here's some more articles from around the Gold Blogosphere on the topic of Mysterious Fortune Cards

Zoxy of Trading With Zoxy:  How Zoxy Made 20k Gold In One Day
Faid of Nerf Faids:  Hops on Mysterious Fortune Card Bandwagon
Breevok at CSAAHF:  Fortune Cards - A Simple Perspective
Euripides at WoW Insider:  Take The Mysterious Fortune Card House Advantage
Mageshadow at JMTC:  Making a Fortune From Mysterious Fortune Cards
Alto at Alto's Goldish Advice:  The New WoW Crack
Cindia of The Golden Muse:  Random Rewards From Mysterious Fortune Cards

This list is not mean to be fullyinclusive of every post on Mysterious Fortune Cards.  These are the most popular posts on the topic.  Apologies to anyone I missed.  Feel free to post a link in the comments section, if you also did a post on Mysterious Fortune Cards.

So has anyone found a 5000 gold jackpot winner yet?
As of the Hotfix on Tuesday the 18th, I've seen 4 5k Winners in 3 days.  They haven't mention any improvement in the odds, but I believe the odds have been increased.  Hell, I own 2 of the 5k cards myself.

Clearing Out Netherweave Cloth Reserves

Netherweave Bag Sales Stalled?

Did you stock up on a ton of netherweave cloth hoping to cash in on selling Netherweave Bags in new players and alts in Cataclysm?  Has competition been fierce and your having a hard time moving your Netherweave Bags?  Have players become smarter and realized that Mooncloth Bags and Traveler's Backpacks are a much more efficient purchase?  Maybe the price didn't hit a mark you wanted to sell at.  You may be sitting on a ton of Netherweave Cloth or pre-crafted Netherweave Bolts.  Is there another way to move some of this cloth?

Tailoring To Disenchant

Crafting tailoring items with the sole purpose of disenchanting may be another option for you to move some of that extra Netherweave Cloth or Bolts.  Those enchanting materials can also be used to craft some nice scroll enchants for selling on the auction house.  The 2 best items to craft with netherweave and then disenchant are Netherweave Bracers and Netherweave Pants.  The bracers take 1 runethread and 3 Netherweave Bolts while the pants required 1 runethread and 6 bolts.  Craft the bracers if you need more Arcane Dust and the pants if you need more Greater Planar Essense.

Depending on the prices on your server's market, you may be able to make more profit from your Netherweave from selling the disenchanted materials over selling the Netherweave Bags.

Enchanting Scrolls

There are 4 notable twink and BoA enchants that utilize these disenchanted materials and are worth selling. 

• Gloves: Superior Agility
• Cloak:  Stealth Check out Mageshadow's post on The Best BoA Enchant For Cloaks.
• Cloak:  Greater Nature Resistance
• Cloak:  Greater Fire Resistance

You also can try selling any of the other enchants that require level 35 items, like Mongoose as some other ways to unload these materials.

Saronite Ore Stockpiles

Saronite Ore Stockpiles

Saronite Ore is the most common item I am asked about.  Many people have stocked up on Saronite Ore as it was one of the easiest and plentiful resources that Markco had recommended to stockpile prior to Cataclysm.  It was actually the #1 item on his list of Top 10 Items to Stockpile for Cataclysm.  So its not uncommon to see people blindly follow his advice, then not really understand what to do next.  You need to understand why you invested in the Saronite Ore and should have had a plan for unloading it before making the investment. 

What To Do With Your Saronite Ore

Hopefully you bought all that ore at prices below the vendor value of the bars.  If you got your stacks of Saronite Ore below 12.5g per stack, then you can safely smelt it into bars and sell those bars to vendors for profit.  There are many other options you can use to diverisfy how you are going to profit off of your Saronite Ore stockpile.

1. Smelt it into Saronite Bars to sell.
2. Use bars to transmute into Titanium Bars.
3. Craft Titanium Rods to sell to enchanters.
4. Send your ore through the Saronite Shuffle.
5. Sell the ores in stacks to other crafters.
6. Or just let it sit and wait for the value to inflate over time.

How To Ninja Locked Treasure Chests

Dungeon Chests

Most people assume that if there is no rogue in the dungeon group, then any locked treasure chest within the dungeon is unlootable.  "It's locked.  Keep pulling!" I'm not sure why this is a common belief, but I always use it to my advantage.  We as auctioneers are often profitting off of other players' errors and ignorance, and this is another oppurtunity. 

Dungeon Groups

If you are dungeoneering in a guild group or with a group of friends, then you probably use your lockpicking skill to open any locked chests.  If you are in a PUG dungeon group, do you use your lockpicking skills?  I only do if it is a quality group and we are planning on running multiple dungeons.  If not, I ignore all locked chests within the instance.  Why?  Being the greedy and evil goblin that I am, I want to keep all the chest's contents for myself.  I go back through the instance after the dungeon group disbands and claim all of the chest's goodies for myself.  These random PUG members may never cross your path again so you don't really owe them anything.  You way remember back during Hallow's Eve when I discussed this tactic briefly for claiming all the scarlet monastery chests for yourself.

3 Ways To Ninja Locked Chests

1)  Rogue - "Sorry my lockpicking skill isn't high enough."  Then go pick the lock once everyone leaves and collect all the gold and items.

2)  Blacksmith - No one needs to know that you are a blacksmith or whether you have blacksmith keys on you or not.  Use those blacksmith lockpicking skills after everyone else leaves.  You do carry keys on you right?

3)  Engineer - Just like blacksmiths, engineers can craft seaforium charges to open chests.  Backtrack through the dungeon and collect those locked goods waiting for you in the empty instance.  Bonus if you use a speed boost with your engineering gadgets to get to those chests.

Just remember to have the dungeoun group clear out any mobs near those locked chests so you can return to the safely when you are alone.