Today, we’re talking about Gold Making in a wholly different way than before. Instead of discussing how to make gold, I want to warn you about not wasting your gold and not selling your items too cheaply. Currently, there are people making a lot of gold by taking advantage of others who use TSM to sell their items or who are looking for a quick sale, sometimes selling their items way too cheap. This is known as the bait tactic, used in almost every version of the game.

The Bait Tactic Explained

First of all, let me show you what I mean when I talk about the bait strategy. This involves people posting items on the auction house for much less than they should be, to hopefully prompt quick buys. For example, you might see someone putting Dream Foils up for 17 silver when they usually go for 74. This is about 20% of the actual value of the item. What this person does is place this on the auction house, hoping that you will follow suit.

Manipulation Tactics on the Auction House

They will put up one stack of one and hope that someone else is just using the auction house to quickly post items without looking too much at the price. They could post it even cheaper, but the cheaper the post, the fewer people fall for it. These people are trying to push the price as low as they can without it being too cheap. For instance, if the price is set too low, the item might be instantly bought by bots or people using scripts on the auction house, or by TSM sniper scans, who get alerted when it’s too cheap.

Personal Strategies and Auction Tools

In this scenario, they are just on the brink of it being too cheap, and they also don’t want people to second guess when they’re posting the item. Essentially, they are banking on taking this away whenever I’m selling items myself on the auction house. I use an add-on called Auctioneer or Auctionator, and I just click on the item; it automatically puts in the price. What they are banking on is people just clicking on an item, then clicking post without double-checking the price. Even for me,

Market Manipulation on the Auction House

It does show me the price right underneath, but once again, the people that get baited here literally go to the auction house, do this, and then click post without even looking at the price of the item. Unless it’s super cheap—if it’s selling for like coppers—then obviously, they will double-check. But if it’s selling close to the vendor value or close to the actual value in the auction house, they’re just going to click post.

Now, that’s only example number one. There are lots more examples. I’ve seen this happen to Nightmare Seeds, and to Flasks of TM Mojo, which right now are looking really good on price. I bought them for five gold each. Even this one is looking really good for me, but holy, I’m getting undercut in L now. Going back to the examples, this was example number one, Dream Foil.

Detailed Examples of Auction House Strategies

Example number two is right here on Grum’s Blood. This is the same person, by the way, and this is roughly the same time of the day as well. I think there’s about one or two minutes or something between these screenshots, and you can see it’s the same person doing the same strategy. Now, what the baiting people usually do here, they either do one item or two items that way they can keep control.

Because the more items they’re trying to bait, the harder it is for them to actually get the postings. If you do it on 10 items, you would have to control 10 items and actively scout 10 items and try to snipe the items on 10 different ones. Even doing two, I think, is kind of risky, but they usually do one and try to push the prices down as much as they can and hopefully, they get some buys. The thing is, if a person successfully does this, he saves so much gold. As you can see, Grum’s Blood is 30 something silver instead of 1.7 gold, once again in roughly the 20% market value margin. They tend to not go below 20%.

Continuation of Auction House Examples

That is only example number two. Here we have number three, and this one is from a different person pushing the prices down even more. As you can see, this one is on the flask, and they usually go for 6.4 plus, and he tried to push them down to 1.5. Now these are only once again three examples that I managed to grab screenshots of while.

Understanding Auction House Baiting Techniques

I was selling some items and noticed that this baiting tactic was happening frequently over a couple of days on different items. I decided to keep checking, usually late at night or early in the morning, to see if anyone was still doing this. It’s crucial not to fall for it when you’re selling items; always double-check because people are constantly trying to bait. It’s worth noting that most people engaging in this strategy usually choose items with a high sell rate, such as Afterlife Flasks, because they have a high cell rate and include items like Nightmare Seeds.

Specifics of Baiting Strategy and Item Selection

When they are trying to bait, they have to find items that are not only appealing but also priced very low. For example, Nightmare Seeds are really cheap right now, or someone is attempting to bait again. The prices have gone down significantly on the seeds. They are looking for items with a high sell rate because their bait item will likely only be on the auction house for about 10, 20, or 30 seconds. They are not going to choose items like Traveler’s Backpacks, as these do not have a high enough sell rate and there aren’t enough people posting these on the auction house.

Common Targets and Tactics

It usually happens with items like Nightmare Seeds, Hal Mojo Flasks, GRS Blood—which I have been buying a lot of, and there are none of those today—and Dream Foil. For instance, I have been buying Dream Foil as well as Vibrant Plumes. This is an item that I’ve been buying a little bit, and it’s happened to Vibrant Plumes where people are dropping their price all the way down to 10 silver instead of 20, and then they just hope people follow suit and they buy all the items.

Think about all the different herbs that you can find, even ores. You have Iron Ores, Thorium Ores; it could happen to those as well. Anything with a really high sell rate can be a target, and it usually happens to items that are used in consumables, which is why Dream Foil is so popular. I’ve seen it happen to Mountain Silver Sage as well because both of those are used in so many consumables.

Utilization of Herbs in Popular Elixirs

Sage is used in the Greater Arcane Elixir, for example, and Dream Foil is used in Greater Nature Protection Potions and, once again, the Greater Arcane Elixir. This phase specifically, people are starting to play the auction house and are employing the dirty tricks that have been used for years now. Remember to always double-check when selling at auctions. Before you instantly click post, make sure to check again, and do not fall for common tricks.

Thank you for diving into our guide! Discover our exceptional WoW Classic Season of Discovery boosting services and elevate your gaming experience with our top-tier boosts.