Time Is Money: Dungeon finder
by Amanda Miller 
Dec 14th 2009 at 3:00PM
The new Dungeon Finder that was added in Patch 3.3 has been garnering a lot of attention lately - and for good reason! But did you know that you could use it to make money?
Step One: Maximizing your speed.
If you spend too much time in each instance, or waiting in the queues, the amount of gold that you make per hour will decline significantly. Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do to to help ensure that your dungeon runs go as smoothly as possible.
- You can queue from anywhere, so choose a location that will allow you to do some farming on the side should you need to wait in a queue. Why not try a favorite fishing locale? Don't wander too far away from a vendor, though, unless you have peculiarly empty bags.
- Don't be choosy. Sign up for a random dungeon, because you are more likely to find a match more quickly.
- To avoid queues almost entirely, sign up as a healer or tank if you can. Don't do this to trick your group mates, however. Many people are selecting tank or healer and then showing up in green sets expecting someone else to agree to switch specs. This is not only idiotic, it will take more time in the end.
- Queue prepared. This means snacks, drinks, in-game buff food and water, glyphs, enchants, scrolls, flasks, reagents, and whatever else you might spontaneously want.
- Use the teleport feature! On the way into or out of each dungeon, simply click on the little green eye around your mini-map and select teleport. This is also handy if you do have to go back to town in the middle of the dungeon.
- Sell and restock! Between groups, hit up a vendor.
- Keep a good group member! Once you meet up with a good group member, remember that you can keep them! Ask them if they would like to continue playing with you, and make sure that no one degroups between queues. Polite, competent, geared group members will not only make the experience more enjoyable, it will also speed it up significantly, and minimize dying.That last part is important because, aside from the lost time, repairs will cut into your profits.
No, I'm just kidding. Step two is the bread and butter! There are some wonderful features and changes that you might not have noticed yet, as well as some generic tips to help you earn big. To begin with, you will want to use a level 80 character if possible, and queue for Heroic Northrend dungeons.
- Right off the bat, you'll get some goodies. The first successful run each day using the Dungeon Finder tool will net you 26 gold 46 silver and 2 Emblems of Frost. Each subsequent run in the same day will net you half of the gold (13 gold 23 silver), and 2 Emblems of Triumph.These awards are in addition to everything that you get from bosses, including the last boss.
- When something drops that can be rolled for, notice that there is an extra button next to Need and Greed when you have an enchanter in your party, called Disenchant. When you click this, if you win the roll, you will automatically get the disenchanted materials instead of the item. This is a great way to make money. Although the prices of Infinite Dust are down on many servers because the drop rate has been increased, on many servers, they are still selling for 2-2.5g a piece, and you're likely to get 5-7. It is also a helpful way to get your own Dream Shards, Abyss Crystals, and if you get lucky, Greater Cosmic Essences. The price for the essences has risen wildly on many servers, so be smart with how you auction your new goodies!
- To gamble, or not to gamble? A weapon, whether green or blue, is going to be worth over 10 gold most likely. In fact, you can check the exact amount simply by hovering over the tooltip! As such, the vendors will pay you more for it. Of course, they also award more, or better, disenchanted materials.
- Pick up everything. From food and water to greys and up, don't pass on or ignore any piece of loot. Keep in mind that you will need some bag space, and take heed of my advice to hit up a vendor at every chance you get. Otherwise, you're simply throwing away several gold per mob that you were able to loot. If you can skin, mine, or herbalize, politely ask if you can harvest the nodes that you encounter.
This is the fun part. You can vendor plenty of items in between queues, but you can also funnel auctionables to your bank alts via the mail. If you don't have anything pressing to purchase using your badges, remember that you can always buy heirloom for alts or even epic gems, which you can either use or resell for a profit.
So how many times per day can you exploit this? As many times as you can stand to before beginning to pull out your hair. As long as you are using the Random feature, the completion of a Heroic will not give you a lock-out. In fact, even if you are locked out for the day, if the Random feature selects that dungeon, you will still be able to go. Happy dungeoning!
If you're new to dungeoning, why not head over and check out WoW Rookie's Grouping With Others collection of articles and guides?
Stay tuned for more tips to help you make piles of gold on Time is Money. Kebina Trudough is dishing the dirt on coveted gold-making secrets, and you won't want to miss it! Check out my guide to making 45 gold in under 20 minutes, or find out how to make the most of your time in Storm Peaks.Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, How-tos, Instances, Features, Guides, Making money, Time Is Money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
fearthefireblade Dec 14th 2009 3:06PM
Two words: Crusader Orbs.
macdee34653 Dec 14th 2009 3:13PM
or T-9 gear for alts.
Ebylon Dec 14th 2009 3:43PM
'Time is Money', not 'Time is Gear'.
Achiistra Dec 14th 2009 3:14PM
"As long as you are using the Random feature, the completion of a Heroic will not give you a lock-out."
This is untrue. If you use the Random Heroic feature, and complete Heroic Violet Hold, for example, you will be unable to run Heroic Violet Hold outside of the Random Heroic tool.
Ikarus Dec 14th 2009 3:22PM
Other way around works. If you've done the heroic on your server, you can still do it in a random LFG
Achiistra Dec 14th 2009 3:23PM
@Ikarus
Correct. The Random Heroic feature does ignore existing lockouts, but it gives you a new lockout if you use it.
MaatJusticeTruth Dec 14th 2009 3:36PM
No I defiantly ran H FoS for my random Heroic yesterday then specifically queued myself for it when I was done.
jrizutko Dec 14th 2009 3:48PM
@ MaatJusticeTruth
You may have encountered a glitch, or you may have gone to non-heroic FoS the second time, but the system when its working properly right now definitely creates a lock when you run a random heroic.
jrizutko Dec 14th 2009 3:14PM
Just to clarify: right now the random dungeon mechanic DOES give you a lockout for any dungeon you run. It just ignores lockouts when placing you into a random dungeon.
Example1: You run heroic AN with your guild to get a trinket for a tank buddy, which locks you for AN. The random heroic queue will still have a chance to send you to AN the same day.
Example2: You queue for a random heroic, and go to ToC with a pug. Later your hunter buddy wants to hit heroic ToC for Marrowstrike, but you are locked out and cannot go unless ToC comes up via the random dungeon finder system.
jrizutko Dec 14th 2009 3:15PM
Doh! Achiistra beat me to it.
Arbitor Dec 14th 2009 4:05PM
Just to clarify DOUBLY SO:
While the LFG does select HC dungeons that you have already run that day (as well as causing the lockout for that HC outside of random LFG) it will be less likely to be picked from the list of dungeons when choosing random HC.
Example:
You run Heroic Azjol-Nerub with your guild. You are now locked from Hc AN for the day.
You join the random LFG. It selects Hc UK. You run it. You are now locked from Hc AN and UK now.
You join LFG for the 2nd time. Hc UK and AN can still pop up, but they're less likely to than instances you are not locked to.
KJP Dec 14th 2009 4:19PM
This may have been just a glitch, but last week I was in a guild group that ran the ICC 5-man heroics, whereupon we signed up as a full group for a random heroic as a group, drew HoR, and found the instance empty and had to wait out the 15 minutes to try again. Bad luck to be sure, and not the hugest of setbacks, but reports of running afoul of lockouts in the random dungeon finder are not entirely unfounded.
jrizutko Dec 14th 2009 4:28PM
@KJP
Agreed. The system is certainly still pretty buggy.
DeathPaladin Dec 14th 2009 3:15PM
The random heroic actually does lock you out. The only difference is that the random heroic also ignores lockouts. If you queue for a random heroic and get, for example, Forge of Souls, the only way you can run it a second time that day would be through another random heroic.
If you want to try to farm a particular piece of loot from a heroic, I recommend not doing the random heroic first. Sign up specifically for the heroic you want to farm, then once you finish try your luck against the random heroic.
Condor Dec 14th 2009 3:17PM
Is it just me or does it indeed lock you out? I'm pretty sure I do 'random heroic dungeon' and get put into, say, Gundrak. Then when I'm done, my raid tab says I'm saved to Gundrak. My understanding was that though you do get saved, the tool ignores what you are saved to when it places you in a group.
Example: I can run Gundrak with some guildies, then happen to get it in the 'random' pug-finder but I cannot do it the other way around.
AtomB Dec 14th 2009 3:27PM
You are correct on how that works.
Beelzebud Dec 14th 2009 3:18PM
I must say, the new LFG system is a total success. I ran heroics all weekend just for the badges and gold, and usually never run that many. Sure it's not all perfect, because sometimes you do get stuck in bad groups, but I find this system infinitely more useful than the old 'your-server-only' system. Hat's off to Blizz for making it work!
LuminousNerd Dec 14th 2009 3:25PM
"As long as you are using the Random feature, the completion of a Heroic will not give you a lock-out."
If that's how it's supposed to work, it's not how it's working currently. You do indeed get saved to dungeons you complete with the random dungeon finder. (Or at least, I do. Boy that would suck if everyone else didn't, cause it's most definitely saving me, I have completed nothing but randoms yet have tons of lockouts).
IE, say I haven't done anything today, and I queue for a random dungeon and get Occulus (damn the luck). We complete it after wiping twice since some nub thought the light ball thingies were a crit buff. I'm not saved to Occulus. I can't specifically queue, or go there with on-server friends to complete it, I'm saved to the dungeon. There is still a chance I could be exceptionally unlucky and get it again while queuing randoms, but that's it.
TL;DR: You DO get locked out of dungeons from the LFD tool.
LuminousNerd Dec 14th 2009 3:26PM
Ugh, wtb edit button. I meant to say "I'm NOW saved" not "I'm not saved" in the example... little different.
cbz Dec 14th 2009 3:28PM
in addition to the orbs and shards, i've made quite a crapload of money with leather. especially in places like the violet eye, where almost everything can be skinned and yield several leather a pop, sometimes up to 8. i've come out of quite a few dungeons with 2 or 3 full stacks of borean leather.