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[center]Are you tired of grinding? Can you not stand to enter the coliseum for another minute? Or maybe it just doesn't work for you - we can't all have fast internet, eliminate, or tons of free time. What if I told you there was another way? There must be because frankly I'm rolling in treasure and I haven't grinded in forever. And I don't know any Shock Switch protips and I haven't hacked Artifracture. And my familiars just sort of… gather dust? (I'm sorry!) I'm actually surprised that there are no guides on this. [b]I flip apparel[/b] and various other items, buying them from the marketplace and selling them in the AH at a higher price. I put up about a hundred or so items every three days, which takes me about an hour. It's still monotonous, sorry, and you're not gonna get rare drops to reward you. But I'm going to say on average I get 80k per day over those 3 days. Add this to some other tips and tricks and frankly I don't know what to do with my treasure. [b]TLDR:[/b][/center] [LIST] [*]Sell genes and breed changes with a dom discount for gems [*]Sell gem genes for treasure [*]Sell new and popular apparel [*]Sell marketplace festival skins [*]Look for any way to make money from a new release [/LIST] [center] [u][b]General Auction House Tips [/u][/b]Check both treasure and gem price before buying or selling. Also make note of the current treasure to gem exchange rate. Only undercut by a small amount, unless the lowest price is ridiculously high. For genes, undercut by the minimum possible. An item's marketplace price is the sell price in its tooltip. Just add a 0. If it's a stack of an item, always check the lowest unit price using the dropdown bar. If you're buying anything from the marketplace or anywhere in general, check the LAH price first! [u][b]Flipping Genes[/b][/u] Alright, let's get the bad news out of the way first. You need to spend money to earn money. Buying genes and breed changes takes the most initial investment. The easiest way to make money this way is [b]buy specialty items when your flight is dominant and sell them on the AH[/b]. The more expensive it is, the more you'll earn (15% of 100k is 15k, but 15% of 400k is 60k). Therefore, the best items to buy are higher rarity breed changes, especially [b]Skydancer[/b]. Without dominance, it'll be harder to make a profit, but some items occasionally have high markups, generally [b]Jaguar and Rosette[/b]. It'll take longer to wait for a good price, and you'll be down a huge chunk of money until it sells. Generally, flipping one high-price item for a higher profit takes longer, ties up your money longer, and involves more risk than flipping multiple low-price items for a lower profit. You can also just go find a Dom Shop in the Items For Sale forum and buy your item using their dom discount. Be a good sport and tip. For genes, you have to know what's popular. Something like Ripple just won't sell as well as Runes. Generally I would say Jaguar, Rosette, Thylacine, Tapir, Striation, Ghost, and Runes are popular, but I don't have much experience in this area. Newer genes will also sell well. [b]For treasure marketplace genes, the gem price on the AH tends to be higher.[/b] Check both. Currently the gem conversion rate is around 1:850, so calculate if you need to. Selling genes is a good way to get gems as well. [u][b]Gem Genes [/u][/b]Willing to wait a bit to exchange your gems? You can get a better rate by buying a gem scroll and selling it for treasure. Make sure the gene's a popular one like Petal, Butterfly, Wasp, Bee, Glimmer, Filigree. But make it not a brand new one, because everyone will be selling it. Sell it on the AH for treasure, and you'll get 900-1000t for each gem, instead of the current 850 exchange rate. Lower-price items like Scatterscrolls, Vials, and Boons of Fertility will sell faster, but for a lower rate. Less in-demand genes will have a high rate, but sell slowly. Unfortunately, this takes forever. And you'll have to keep checking the price and undercutting people to make sure yours is lowest, because otherwise it really will never sell. Be courteous and undercut by the minimum amount. It won't sell faster no matter how hard you undercut unless you go so low you're losing profit. By selling treasure scrolls for gems and using those to buy gem scrolls to sell for a treasure, you can make a decent amount of reliable cash. I would not recommend doing this with apparel or familiars. They in much lower demand and are often marked down on the AH. [u][b]Flipping Apparel[/b][/u] You'll need less money for this than the genes. Most of the resellable apparel costs around 12k or so. Technically you can start doing this even if you only buy one piece, but so that you can get a good supply and snipe enough of the rarer items, I recommend 100k or so. Okay, let's start with this. [b]70% or so of the apparel on the marketplace are huge ripoffs[/b]. The only things in the treasure marketplace that are worse ripoffs are coliseum familiars. [b]Always check the Auction House price before you buy something. [/b]Apparel value is heavily dependent on the tastes of the playerbase, and a lot of apparel winds up being Baldwin fodder which sells for 3-5k, same with familiars. [b]The newest set of apparel is usually the best bet. [/b]They sell fast and sometimes for huge markups. I get an average profit of 5k for each apparel I sell, maybe 10k for new ones. If it's too new, the market tends to be oversaturated and the price is driven down for the first few weeks. It will also be really hard to snipe, but never fear if your internet is slow. After a while people will stop sniping it immediately and the number of listings will also go down, which means the price will rise. Sniping isn't as hard as people say it is. If an apparel is new, it'll stock in larger quantities. Just refresh the market every 10 minutes or so. If you get lucky and land on a new item when it restocks, you'll have time to get plenty. I usually buy around 3-5 of an apparel to work with, because I only list one at a time for the highest price possible. I relist them every 3 days. It's fine to put them on for shorter or longer or list them in bulk too. Depends on what you want. Try to [b]undercut by only a bit[/b], unless the previous person is selling for a ridiculously high price. I would say if you bought it for under 20k, it's gonna be hard to sell it for more than 40k, 50k if it's very in demand. So you don't have to look up the AH price of every apparel in the market, I'll be putting a list of good sellers at the end of this post. [b][u]Festivals[/u][/b] During festivals, I generally just buy a lot of stuff and sell it later. Sometimes I feel like I'm not really celebrating, but the facts are:[/center] [LIST] [*]Coliseum skins often see their price plunge and stay low for a long time after the festival [*]Chests take forever to appreciate [*]You're losing money by opening spare inventory crates [*]Often the festival item sells for cheaper on the AH than the equal amount of fest currency - especially the familiar [*]The baldwin skins will also be cheaper on the AH than their materials [/LIST] Basically, when the festival starts, sell. Later on when the prices have fallen, buy. [center][b][u]What skins to get[/b][/u] Several factors affect the popularity of skins. If it's a full skin, it won't sell. If it's for Snapper, Tundra, or Mirror, it'll usually be a lot less valuable. If it's a skincent that covers a lot of the dragon or covers all of a body part like the wings, head, body, it'll be less valuable. Whether the skin is pretty is the biggest deciding factor. This affects Coliseum and Baldwin skins most heavily, because in general, the prices of marketplace skins will still grow. An unpopular marketplace skin will see its price shoot up because of low supply. Demand will also be low, though. Also buy up a bunch of apparel and familiars. [b]Wait to buy them[/b]. I know you're excited that the festival started but the prices will be so much cheaper around Wednesday or Thursday. If you cannot wait when a new item is released, you will lose money. If you can wait, you will be making money while everyone else loses money. I said [b]spare inventory crates lose you money[/b]. It's true. They sell for about 120k on the AH, which is 40k profit. If you open it, you'll get a prismatic token, which can range in resale price from 90k to 40k depending on how recently a new Joxar item has come out. If you use the token to buy anything except new Joxar items, you will certainly lose money. The Nymphs now resell for 40k and some of the less appealing apparel are selling for 20k. Opening a Crate could be a profit loss of up to 60k. Before spending any Prismatic Tokens, check the LAH price first! Don't open chests. They're more valuable unopened. ...Or so I [i]hear[/i], but honestly they take forever to appreciate, while MP skins sell for 70k the next month. [b]Always dig in the festival flight's territory.[/b] Digging has a chance of yielding chests, and also you can get ingredients for the two Baldwin skins. Sell those. It's most profitable to sell festival currency individually but that'll take you all day. The currency to treasure exchange rate is highest if you buy Emblems or Halos and sell them on the AH. It'll take a lot longer than selling currency. Light, Lightning, Arcane, Plague, and Ice tend to be the most popular festivals. For Fire, Water, and Earth, their currencies are pretty devalued, so items don't sell as well. Always check Maki's Festival Coliseum Guide before grinding. It'll tell you how much currency you'll get per hour, but there are other factors you should consider too - what rare or valuable drops come from there and what common drops are expensive swipp materials. This is also important because you'll know what venue the entire site's grinding in. Drops from there will be super cheap for the festival and some time afterward. Prices spike for festival items when it's about to end or the day after it ends. [b]The AH value of coliseum skins tend to drop after the festival.[/b] On the other hand, the value of marketplace-exclusive skins rises sharply and keeps rising. You'll need patience because it can take a few months for festival items to appreciate, but some more in-demand skins sell for over 100k. The familiars take longer to appreciate but at this point the more recent Spirits sell for 50k or so and the older ones 100k or more. Prismatic Tokens can suddenly spike in price when new Joxar items are announced. If their price is especially low, think about stocking up. However, it's an investment that could take months to pay off. [b]Night of the Nocturne[/b] Okay, this is a two-week event. That means every common item is going to be dirt-cheap by the end of it. Everything from this festival also takes forever to appreciate. In fact the overpopulation of Unhatched Nocturne Eggs even drives the price of unhatched eggs down for months. [b]Never open Strange Chests[/b] ...I'm no fun, I know. But mostly you'll get junk familiars. The chest itself is worth 35k and the familiar might be worth 5k. The way to go in earning money during NotN is to [b]snipe and flip apparel[/b]. By this time the witch apparel is in low demand and its base price is too high anyway, so it doesn't sell well. The other marketplace exclusive apparel sell like hotcakes. Flame Regalia appreciates very well. The marketplace Tatters sell well, but prices for Witch are still low. Jester might be unpopular or the supply might still be oversaturated. [b][u]Baldwin and Swipp[/b][/u] There are two easy ways to earn money from Baldwin: [b]selling materials, and selling genes[/b]. If you buy apparel off the AH for fodder price, they'll sell for 4k as Grey Slime, 15k as White Slime, and 6k as Black Slime. Familiars will sell for 3.5k as Copper Muck, 10k as Silver Muck, and 8k as Gold Muck. Note that rare colors of Muck are much more common than Slime, [b]making familiars generally more profitable.[/b] The prices of baldwin ingredients jump during festivals, and the price of Grey Slime can actually jump to 6k or more, making Slime more profitable. Selling genes involves a large cash and time investment but is perfect if you can't constantly check on your cauldron. You just buy the materials off the AH and sell the finished product for higher. There are honestly a ton of Swipp and Baldwin items and you won't remember all of them unless you are crazy like me, but you don't have to either. Most of them are severely devalued. [b]New Swipp items will sell for crazy prices, and so will the ones that drop in unpopular coliseum venues. [/b]The rarity (stars) of an item only matter for gathering, but even a 2-star gathering item will sell for much more than a 1-star. The level the item's available for gathering also affects the price, as well as how it's obtained - everyone scavenges or digs, so food items that come from gathering are pricier. Selling swipp items can get you a bit of money, but it takes forever. Some older items sell for 200t each or less, which isn't much more than just hoardselling. Definitely sell new swipp items, they're a treasure trove. As an important Swipp and Baldwin note, it is usually cheaper to sell the materials and buy the item off the AH. [b]Always check the LAH price![/b] [u][b]Cash Saving Tips [/u][/b]Make use of player-run Dom Shops in the Items For Sale forum to purchase high price items. Also look there for free cauldrons to brew genes. It'll usually cost lower than the gene's Auction House price. People may also be selling various items for lower than LAH. If you have a lot of money just lying around, try to invest it by spending it on an item that can consistently appreciate in price, instead of just vaulting it. Inflation is the enemy of saving. I recommend Wildclaw scrolls or some of the oldest festival items. 3 or 4-point food is usually cheapest. Crystal Pools and Mire don't drop Eliminate. Scorched Forest and Boreal Woods don't drop eggs. [b][u]Every new release is an opportunity for profit![/b][/u] [b]But only if you can wait.[/b] Don't get the item for yourself just yet. Sell it, or the stuff to make it, to other people. If a new treasure marketplace item is released, snipe and resell. If a new swipp trade is released, sell the ingredients. Same thing for new baldwin recipes. If new coli familiars are released, go grind in that area and sell the familiars for huge profits. Same thing with gathering familiars. In fact, I'm gonna say that the only new releases you can't make a huge profit off are new gem marketplace items and baldwin recipes which only involve common baldwin materials. [u][b]Bestselling Apparel[/b][/u] I promised a list:[/center] [LIST] [*]Flowers - Larkspur, Dried, Seapetal, Tigerlily, and Silver are new and selling very high. Best sellers'll be Flowerfall and Wings. For the old ones, Sakura, Red Rose, and Marigold sell rather well. Bestsellers are Flowerfall, Wing Garland, and Tail Lei. [*]Spring's Breath, Summer Swelter, Autumn Breeze, Winter Wind - Cycle in and out with the seasons. The longer they've been out of stock, the higher their price will be. Most popular are Winter, Autumn, Summer. [*]Antlers - Bone and Ebony sell really well [*]Rose Thorn - Sells slower than new apparel but for a decent price. Crowns, Collars, Wings, and Tails sell best, the arm and leg items not so well. [*]Silks - Wings sell really well, then Scarf, Tail, Sash, Veil [*]Woodgrove - Best are Autumn, Frosted, Raven, Pastel Sepia, Druid, Lucky, and Poisonous are no longer worth selling. Mask, Trail, Wing sell best, Basket and Guard sell worse. [*]Plumed - Best are Cloudberry, Pomegranate, Black Currant, Strawberry Less popular ones are Kiwi, Peach, Mango. Headdress, Tuft, Cover, Jabbot sell best, Corsage, Anklet don't sell as well, Mantle sells worst [*]Scale Armor - Wing, Tasset, Tail sell best, don't try to sell Skullcap [*]Traditional Broadsword - They stock rarely so their price can really climb [*]Phantasmal Halfmask - See above. Also it's really cheap [*]Eastsong Face Mask - It's a swipp item so its price jumps when the trade is available. [*]Aviator - The Boots sell decently [*]Seaspray - Cycles in every September 19th. Gem apparel. Price rises by 100g or more throughout the year. [/LIST] [u][b]Scroll Prices w/ Dom Discounts [/u][/b] Thank you to Zyxyz! [img]https://i.imgur.com/8hPlW0n.png[/img]

Bless you for not being afraid of making competetion for yourself. I had been thinking about doing this but wasnt sure where to start in regards to what was best to buy.

I buyout the Battle MP and sell for 2x as much in the AH. Everyone needs to Coli.

@Xeyla
I've never really seen any of the elemental stones sell for nearly their purchase price. Prices were higher back when welcome week opened up every month and there was a huge influx of new users at a time. Anyway I would say only Anticipate, Shred, and Sap are worth selling.

@shadowliepard
I buyout the Aid, Sap and major healing potions, and sell them higher.

Very nice guide! Here's a few extra notes on the "sell discounted treasure scrolls for gems -> buy gem scrolls and sell for treasure -> repeat" profit loop, since that's what I'm most experienced in: – For treasure scrolls, the effective conversion rate varies wildly depending on demand, the number of competing resellers in the market, and (in the long-term) shifts in the direct treasure/gem conversion rate. Currently, you can expect a rough average of around 1:700, but individual items can end up as low as 1:850 (I try to avoid anything worse than 1:800 myself, though) or as high as 1:600 (if you get very lucky with timing—especially if you can catch a point where there are no other listings for that item, because you can then set the starting price yourself). – If you're low on gems or just impatient, Boons of Fertility and Scatterscrolls will sell faster and more reliably for treasure than regular gem scrolls. As a tradeoff, though, they're also more volatile markets, so you'll have to relist more often and will usually get an inferior profit margin compared to gem genes. – As a rule, breed scrolls will sell slower than genes on average. For treasure breeds, they're still generally reliable enough to invest in if you can afford the delayed payoff (especially Skydancer scrolls), but trying to sell Coatl scrolls is rarely worth it, as they'll usually get undercut into the ground by the time a buyer comes along. – Unlike the real stock market, these rates are favorable enough that there's almost no risk of [i]losing[/i] money from the flipping process, just of the profits being smaller or slower than you'd like. So, naturally, the more kinds of scrolls you're selling at once, the more profit you'll make overall. That said, I'd recommend flipping in moderation—if you're like me and have more time and money than sense, it'll eventually become tempting to try investing in every scroll market at once, but the sheer time and energy that goes into keeping that many auctions up-to-date can cause burnout very quickly! Edit: one more thing I almost forgot to add: having a list of regular and discounted scroll prices on hand makes it easier to check the current exchange rate/profit margin for any particular item (and thus decide if it's worth investing in). Here's my current one for reference: [img]https://i.imgur.com/8hPlW0n.png[/img]

@Zyxyz

Thank you very much! Do you mind if I just quote your post in the guide?

@shadowliepard
Sure, that's fine!

To add on to the scroll flipping side as someone who has been doing it for my main income for over a year: Don't undercut by too much or too often. This crashes prices, loses you money, and annoys all the other sellers. 1g or 10t undercuts every 8 hours is more than sufficient to make you money without crashing anything or making people mad at you, and it's also better for preventing burnout.

With scrolls, the idea that the lower you price the faster you'll sell is a myth. Unless you're pricing it so low you're losing money by doing so, all this accomplishes is crashing prices and ruining good profits for you and everyone else while still having the item sell at the same speed it would have if you only undercut by 10t or 1g.

Be responsible and courteous capitalists if you want to flip items. Competitors can get along fine and even be friends, but not if you're so aggressive about undercutting that you're not giving anyone else a chance.

"Getting rich" on it also takes an incredible amount of money and time investment. In order to "get rich" via scroll flipping, I have to invest tens of millions of treasure into it every week, and I can spend up to 30 minutes multiple times a day just listing things. I have multiple spreadsheets for tracking it. While you can make a bit of money with lower time/treasure investment, making a lot of money requires a ton of investment and dedication, it's not a free get-rich-quick scheme as many people believe.