WoW Classic: Darnassus Reputation

A few things to note before I start the post: 

First, I talk about the cost of items in terms of AH price.  That’s because for the purpose of this post, that’s the only value that matters. 

Second, it doesn’t matter how easy/hard it is for you to farm Runecloth, or Un’Goro Soil, or anything else.  The best items to farm is a completely different discussion.

Third, just because you farmed an item, doesn’t make it “free”.  If you farmed it, you spent time doing so.  Also, you could sell the item on the AH instead of using it for…whatever.  One day I'll write a post about opportunity cost.

Ok, let’s get started!


Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty

You want to get a kitty mount but you don’t have long, pointy ears.  Time to grind that Darnassus rep up to Exalted!  While any number of non-repeatable quests will give you reputation, at some point you’ll have to grind out the remaining rep.  There are two* repeatable quests for Darnassus reputation:

1.     Additional Runecloth** 

2.     Morrowgrain Research

Additional Runecloth is simple.  Give Raedon Duskstriker in Darnassus 20 Runecloth, you get 50 rep. 

Morrowgrain Research is simple turn in as well, but much more math is involved in determining the best way to obtain Morrowgrain and how the cost compares to Runecloth turn-ins.  The turn in itself is similar to Runecloth: Give Mathrengyl Bearwalker in Darnassus 10 Morrowgrain.  He gives you 50 rep & a Cenarion Circle Cache.  Note that Wowhead says you get 100 rep, but it's 50 at level 60.  I personally tested this on a live Classic server.  

Morrowgrain? More Like RNGgrain

You can either get Morrowgrain directly on the AH, or you can grow your own.  I know what you’re thinking, actual farms weren’t introduced until Mists of Pandaria, wtf are you talking about “grown your own”?  You can indeed grow your own, without the need of a farm.  You need 3 things:

1.       Evergreen Pouch

2.       Packet of Tharlendris Seeds

3.       Un’Goro Soil

The initial Evergreen Pouch and Packets of Tharlendris Seeds are provided the first time you do the quest.  After that, you’ll need to purchase Packets from Mathrengyl Bearwalker for 9s each (that includes Darnassus Honored rep discount).  You keep the Evergreen Pouch after you complete the initial quest.  If you happen to have destroyed it for bag space, you’ll have to purchase another for 90s.

Each time you use the Evergreen Pouch, it requires 1 Packet & 2 Un’Goro Soil.  The Seed Pouch has a 10 minute cooldown (real time, cooldown counts down while you’re offline).  It produces an Evergreen Herb Casing, which will contain either 1-5 Morrowgrain, or 1-3 low to mid-level herbs (no chance of a Black Lotus I’m afraid).  I have read comments and posts that having Herbalism, particularly at 300, increases the chance and quantity of Morrowgrain received.  I’ve not seen empirical evidence either way.  If it’s true that Herbalists are more likely to get Morrowgrain, then the expected value of the Evergreen Herb Casing for Herbalists is slightly higher (owing to more Morrowgrain), and non-Herbalists slightly lower.  

The Math

In my calculations below, I use the drop rates from Wowhead. 

The full calculations can be found in this Google Sheet.  You can save a copy and edit the prices for your server; your results may vary but the largest factors will be the price of Runecloth, Morrowgrain, and Un’Goro Soil.

Note that with the Morrowgrain Research quest, you get the Cenarion Circle Cache with a variety of food, water, elixirs, potions, and scrolls in addition to the reputation.  When calculating this turn-in, I have done the calculations assuming you will vendor everything you get in the Cache and credited that against the cost of the Morrowgrain.  Some of the Elixirs/Potions may be worth listing on the AH, but most of them are not quick sellers.  You’ll end up re-listing them multiple times running up deposit fees. 

There are several questions that you can use the calculations in the Google Sheet to answer.

1. Is making Evergreen Herb Casings profitable?

• If yes, they should be made on cooldown, regardless what we do with the resulting     Morrowgrain. 
• If no, don’t make them. (Duh.)

2.  Which turn-in is cheaper per point of reputation?

     a.  If Runecloth, do Additional Runecloth.

• If Casings are profitable, make them and sell all of the contents, including Morrowgrain and buy Runecloth
• If Casings are not profitable, don’t make them.

     b.  If Morrowgrain, do Morrowgrain Research. Sell your Runecloth and:

• Buy Un’Goro Soil and make Casings if they profitable to make
• Buy Morrowgrain

The Bottom Line

Unless prices on your server are VASTLY different to mine, the bottom line based on the numbers above is to do Runecloth turn-Ins & make Evergreen Herb Casings and sell the contents.

1.       Additional Runecloth is by far the most cost-effective way to get reputation.  At 6s (typical AH price for my server) per Runecloth, that’s 1g20s per turn or 2s40c per point of rep.  Not bad until you consider that just for Revered to Exalted is 21,000 points of reputation, meaning just that portion will cost over 500g.  Most likely you’ll only be around halfway through Honored by the time you hit 60, so the total cost will likely be closer to 650g or more. 

2.       Evergreen Herb Casings are profitable to make, but not massively.  It’s a good small passive income.   Make them while browsing the AH, between pulls in instances/raids, while you’re out farming other things, etc.  It’s usually worth buying the Un’Goro soil (plug the cost into the linked spreadsheet to verify).  It’s a ok supplemental farm if you’re in Un’Goro for herbs, ore, or Devilsaur Leather, but probably not on its own.

You might have a question at this point.  If Runecloth is the cheaper way to get rep but making Casings is profitable, who’s buying all the Morrowgrain?

1.       People who are questing and want the XP.  The first time you turn in Morrowgrain Research, it gives a good bit of XP.  For those wanting to level as fast as possible, it’s worth buying Morrowgrain to complete the quest rather than trying to grow it in Casings.

2.       People who haven’t done/can’t be bothered to do the math. 

Notes:

*Technically there is a third, Pristine Yeti Hide, but it's not reasonable to try to farm.  It has a low drop rate, it's unique, and you have to travel from Feralas to Darnassus (then back) each time to turn it in.

**In order to unlock Additional Runecloth, you must first complete A Donation of Wool, A Donation of Silk, A Donation of Mageweave, A Donation of Runecloth.

That's all for this post. Thanks for reading!

It's About The Cards

I was browsing the WoW subreddit this evening, and came upon this post: Card of Omens: 520 cards opened.  User Random-reference made a bunch of Card of Omens.

He did a profit calculation based on purely buying herbs at 75s each, and turning those into War Paints to craft the Card of Omens.

So, take a look at his original post.  Then, read my reply:

There’s the initial quest from the herb trader that gives 25 Primal Spirits for a total of 50 herbs.  So the cost per Spirit there is 1.5g each.

More relevant is that Primal Spirits after the initial quest cost 5 herbs each (not 25). So 3.75g per Primal Spirit.  As they mentioned, since one is doing this in mass, that’s really the number to go by, since the quest can only be done once per 5 days.

10 herbs = 4 pigment: 7.5g

5 herbs = 1 Primal Spirit: 3.75g

15 herbs = 2 War Paints: 11.25g (1 War Paints: 5.625g)

5 War Paints (28.125g) + 10 Light Parchment (.03g) = 10 Card of Omens for 28.155g

So 1 Card of Omens costs 2.82g

For their sample, they averaged 6.56g per card.  That’s a profit of 3.74g per card.

So that’s pretty good!  But I’d argue that one needs to evaluate how to best profit from Primal Spirits.

Let’s say you had 15,000 herbs.

Plan A:

Turn 15,000 herbs into 2,000 War Paints (Total cumulative cost: 11,250g)

Make 400 sets of 10 Card of Omens, a total of 4000 Cards (Total cumulative cost: 11,256g)

Use the cards, average card has a vendor value of 6.56g. Total Vendor value of cards is 26,240g,

Profit of 14,984g.

Plan B:

Turn 15,000 herbs into 2,000 War Paints (Total cumulative cost: 11,250g)

Make 400 sets of 10 Card of Omens, a total of 4000 Cards (Total cumulative cost: 11,256g)

Sell the cards on the AH for 8g (very conservative). Total AH sales: 30,400 (32,000g – 5% AH cut)

Profit of 19,144g, even better but there are complicating issues (see notes below)

Plan C:

Turn 15,000 herbs into 120 Savage Bloods (5 herbs per Spirit, 25 Spirit per Blood) (Total cumulative cost: 11,250g)

Sell 120 Savage Bloods on the AH @ 150g each: 17,100 (18,000 – 5% AH cut, assuming they sell the first time listed, and deposit is refunded).

Profit of 5,850g.  So not as good. :(

Plan D:

Turn 15,000 herbs into 2,000 War Paints (Total cumulative cost: 11,250g)

Turn 2,000 War Paints into 28.57 Ensorcelled Tarots (Total cumulative cost: 84,104g (8,571 for Water, 64,283 for Blood))

Sell 28.57 Ensorcelled Tarots for 4,986g each, for a total of 135,328g (142,450g – 5% AH cut)

Profit of 51,224g!

Plan D looks pretty good, but…there’s a catch.  Or rather, a few of them.  Plan C requires purchasing or using Sorcerous Water and Savage Blood, and there may be more profitable uses for them.  And even if there isn’t, you’d have to allocate the some of the profit towards the Water and Blood.  If you do it based on their cost, you’d only allocate 13.4% of the profit to the War Paints, which is 6,852g. 

And obviously, you can’t craft or sell fractional items, but this is just a theoretical example.

The other issue is the sample size.  I’m not a statistician, so I’m not sure how many cards you’d have to produce to have 90 or 95% confidence in the average vendor sell price.

As far as Plan B goes, that’s a LOT of cards to sell.  TradeSkillMaster is showing the average sales volume at 10 per day at best (per server).  Maybe you could sell them in lots in trade chat, who knows.  But listing on the AH, you’d constantly be eating deposit costs, reducing your profit.

As an aside, if you’re trying to transfer gold to another server, and are hitting up against the ridiculous gold limits for transferring a character these cards are another way to get around that cap (there are other ways however).  Just keep in mind that unlike the resulting cards from Mysterious Fortune Cards, cards created by using a Card of Omens are soulbound.

All in all, I’d say they've found a pretty good money making plan.  Personally, I have about 1500 War Paints sitting on an alt, and I think I’m going to be making myself some cards.

Let's Talk About Ore

A Whole New World

Warlords of Draenor has been out for a little over a month, and the economy has gone through some rocky times.  Jewelcrafting and Enchanting are no longer the massive moneymakers they once were.  Sockets are rare, and enchantable slots are down to 5 (if you're counting both rings).  But as always, there is gold to be made.  Let's talk about ore.

At launch, it was incredibly easy to get a level 2 Mine unlocked at your garrison.  So easy, that many people leveled multiple toons to 92 or 93 (depending on rested xp and which quests you did), unlocked level 2 Mine, and logged on those toons daily to reap the bounty of ore.  While that's still viable, the amount of ore coming out of mines was nerfed a good bit about 2 weeks into the expansion.  Still, the damage was done.  Ore flooded the market, and drove prices down to ridiculous levels.  I actually bought some ore at vendor price, which meant whoever listed it actually lost money by posting the auction (after the Auction House cut).

Even now, True Iron Ore and Blackrock Ore is around 65 to 75 silver globally.  Often, especially in the morning, you can find it cheaper as people clear out their mine and dump all their ore on the Auction House.  Now, a common thought is that everyone has more than enough ore to cover all their daily cooldowns, work orders, crafting, etc.  And that may be true.  But we do have a good use for it.  Converting it to Draenic Dust.

Draenic Dust

Several professions can craft blue quality gear with ore.  For me, the easiest is Jewelcrafting.  Each Glowing Iron Choker takes 60 True Iron Ore, and Whispering Iron Choker takes 60 Blackrock Ore.  Both pieces of gear disenchant into 8-12 Draenic Dust, or 1 Luminous Shard.  I've been averaging about 9 dust each, so I base my calculations on that.  Luminous Shards are fairly uncommon to get, but currently are worth more than 9 dust anyhow, so I just consider them a bonus.

Draenic Dust currently fluctuates between 6 and 10 gold on my auction house, usually staying around 7-8.5.  The calculation for converting ore to dust is pretty easy:

(60 x Ore Price) / 9 = Cost per Dust

So if Ore is 75 silver: (60*.75)/9 = 5 gold per Draenic Dust.  So any time dust is over 5 gold (let's say 6 to be safe), and ore is 75 silver or less, you're making a profit by converting ore to dust.  Obviously, you'll need to adjust the equation for your server economy.

Dust, What Is It Good For?

Whenever you enter a market, or start any endeavor, it's a good idea to get an overall understanding of what's going on.  Now, the transmog market...I understand why people will pay huge sums of gold for certain items.  And it doesn't matter whether I would or not, only that other people will.  Before I digress too much, back to dust. 

What's Draenic Dust used for?  Here's a full list.  However, not it's not going to be used for everything on that list, at least not on a regular basis.  Primarily, it's used for 2 things:

1. Work Orders.  5 dust makes 1 (or 2 if you have a follower assigned) Fractured Temporal Crystal
2. Luminous Shards.  20 dust makes 1.  The issue right now is that 20 dust is worth far more than 1 shard.  However, Luminous Shards are needed for the daily Enchanting CD, which turns 1 shard into a Temporal Crystal (a cooldown that is definitely worth it).


That being said, we have to consider how the price will move long term.  I think we'll certainly see a decline in dust price.  I think people will continue to do work orders, regardless of whether it's really profitable, because there's a psychological reward thing going on there.  It feels rewarding to put in a work order, and then come back later and pick up something.   There's also the issue of availability.  Enchanters, as they level, will get a good bit of dust while leveling, simply by disenchanting greens and quest rewards during the leveling process.  Once they hit 100, that'll slow significantly, even considering running dungeons.  So the demand will continue as those characters run out of the dust they accumulated.

Rapping Up


For now, keeping a decent supply of dust on hand is a good idea, but don't go overboard.  Ore prices are fairly level right now, so replacing your stock shouldn't be too much of a problem.  But you don't want to be stuck with 1000s of dust that you've paid 5g each to make, and then dust plummets down below 5 before you can unload it.


With any commodity market like this, where it's fairly easy to convert, the only real barrier to entry is knowledge.  As more people find out about converting ore to dust, the more will do it.  Ore prices will go up, dust prices will go down, narrowing your profit margin.  Eventually, the margin will be so small as to not be worth the effort.  Move out of the market, and come back if and when it's profitable again.
 

Specifics

Most of my posts, at least recently, have been about theory just general knowledge.  Being Christmas and all, let's focus on materialism...er...actual facts and figures.

What's been selling?

Gems are still going at an ok pace, but prices have been pretty depressing.  At least from a seller's perspective; from a buyer's perspective, times have never been better.  Gem prices are low.  How low? They barely command a premium (if at all) over uncut gem prices. 

Enchants are also still selling, but at nowhere near the profit they once were.  And enchanting mats have become incredibly cheap on my server as well.  So I still maintain a decent margin percentage wise, but gold wise, profits are way down.

Pets are profitable, as usual, but I farm them myself.  I recently sold a level 8 Rotten Little Helper (upgraded to Blue/Rare quality for 14,000g.  I also sold a Rotten Helper Box (which turns into a level 1 green quality pet) for the same price.  Prices are dropping quickly on them though, as more people get them themselves through the daily, and get extras.  My advice to you is to sell quickly if you have extras.

I also sold a [Cat Carrier (Black Tabby)] for 4500g.  This is on the very low end of what it should sell for, and really below.  However, even at that price level, I've had it for sale for months.  I got it out of an Idiot Box anyhow, so I was just glad to get a little of my money wasted back.  I could have gotten a piece of Horde PvP that vendored for 20g, so it's not all bad.

Transmog gear still sells about the same, slowly.  I'm not huge in that market, but I dabble a bit. Most of what I pick up is from random pieces people throw on the AH, so the investment is usually under 100g, and very often 10-20g.  But with sales of 400g on the low end, and 5000g+ on the high end, it's quite worthwhile.

"Uber MoP blues" (stuff like Matsuba's Breadmaker) can still be quite profitable as well.  But many of the ilevel 409+ plus items that can be equipped at 80-85 have tanked.  Especially the ilevel 450 gear.  Be cautious if you're still buying these items.  Don't just look at current prices, or even historical prices.  Look at the trend of what they're selling for.  The weapons that can be equipped at 80-84 are still quite hot, so I'd look at those as good investments, at least for the next few months.

Gem Specifics

Here are the prices of my gem sales over the past 24 hours (prices only, I sold multiples of most, if not all):

• Purified Imperial Amethyst: 85g
• Brilliant Primordial Ruby: 71g
• Smooth Sun's Radiance: 95g
• Misty Wild Jade: 70g
• Fractured Sun's Radiance: 75g
• Delicate Primordial Ruby: 88g
• Wicked Vermilion Onyx: 160g
• Lightning Wild Jade: 190g
• Energized Wild Jade: 90g

 For comparison, the prices of uncut (as of right now, minimum buyout):

• Sun's Radiance: 39g
• Imperial Amethyst: 58g
• Primordial Ruby: 61g
• Wild Jade: 74g
• Vermilion Onyx: 100g

So overall, still a profit to be made, especially transmuting Golden Lotus and green gems up to rare, then cutting.

Enchants Specifics

Here are the prices of my enchanting scroll sales over the past 24 hours (again, prices only)

• Enchant Gloves - Super Strength: 157g (120g profit)
• Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery: 47g (20g profit)
• Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats: 138g (110g profit)
• Enchant Cloak - Superior Critical Strike: 123g (110g profit)
• Enchant Boots - Blurred Speed: 85g (29g profit)
• Enchant Boots - Greater Haste: 94g (80g profit)
• Enchant Boots - Pandaren's Step: 180g (130g profit)
• Enchant Shield - Greater Parry: 80g (24g profit)

And minimum buyout on enchanting mats:

• Spirit Dust: 1.2g
• Mysterious Essence: 10g
• Ethereal Shard: 16g
• Sha Crystal: 74g

Cheap Ethereal Shards are a great value.  They're easily converted to Essences, which almost always are more than 1/3 the price of a Shard on the AH.  And in a pinch, you can convert your Essences to Dust, if for some reason Dust spikes on your server and you've run out.

The End is Not Here

It's not really even near.  And that's true whether you're talking about the current expansion cycle, or the game as a whole.  Warlords is many months off (I'm optimistically hoping for late fall 2014).  With people continuing to play, gearing alts in LFR and Flex, and server mergers, there's plenty of opportunities.  Everything isn't going gangbusters anymore, but it's still a pretty good time to be a Goblin.

Starting Over

Today, we're returning to Auction House Addict's 20 Days of Gold Making. 

Day 7:  If you were starting over again (maybe on a new server perhaps), how would you start building some capital & what goal would you set yourself?

Starting over.  It's hard for me to fathom.  It'd be challenge for sure, but it'd probably be a lot of fun. 

Starting Out

First off, I'd take a look at the market on The Undermine Journal.  I'd look at What low level gathered mats are selling for the most (probably ore).  Then I'd roll a level one, head to the nearest AH, and start research further.  Sometimes it's easy to parse markets and data by directly looking at auctions.

If I was just playing the AH, and not planning on playing/leveling any toons, I'd roll a DK. After I ended up in Stormwind (or Orgrimmar), I'd head to the profession trainer for the gathering professions I'd selected (mining, and possible herbalism).  Then off I'd head to the lowbie zones to start gathering and leveling my professions.

If I was planning on leveling toons, I'd just start with the class of my choice, grab professions, and gather while leveling.

After spending whatever time I'd allotted to gather/level, I'd head back to the AH and list my mats.  Then I'd look at the AH and TUJ again, seeing what I can reinvest in to flip.  The next day rinse, repeat, and profit.

If I was just changing servers on the same account, I'd likely just cage some pets on the new server.  Barking in trade would work fairly well, then just listing on the AH when I logged for the day.

Setting Goals

Personally, I wouldn't set any goals right away.  I'd give it a week or two, see how things were going, then look at setting goals.  A likely goal would initially be 10,000g after 2 weeks, then reevaluating after the 2 weeks.

That's all folks

That's all for this week.  Lots of stuff going on in the real world for me this week and next, so posts have to be even more brief than usual.  Best of luck, and good selling!

Spending Money

Gold sitting in your bank is not doing you any good.  But Honus, you say, "I can do all kinds of things with my gold.  I can buy that mount I want!  I can buy that rare pet, or buy better armor for my alts!"  Well, go on and do that then.  I'll wait for you to get back.

Got that new ride?  Sweet.  The gold still sitting in your bank is doing nothing for you.

You can use gold for quite a few things.  Some of those things advance your character, either in power, prestige, or vanity.  Whatever you feel is worth spending gold on is fine.  You should do whatever makes you happy with your gold.  But if you're looking to make more gold, you're not going to do it by just sitting on your stockpile of gold.  It doesn't matter if you have 1,000g or 1,000,000g.

In the real world, if you put your money in a bank, you generally earn interest.  The interest rates on CDs and savings accounts are currently abysmally low (talking less than 1%).  But you still do earn money on them. No such thing exists for WoW.  Your gold in your bank doesn't earn interest.  It doesn't do much of anything, other than being there when you want to spend it.

Another concept that's important is inflation.  100g in Vanilla could buy a lot more compared to 100g in MoP.  It was also much harder to come by that 100g in Vanilla.  You'd have to go out and farm herbs or ore or cloth or even gold itself to get it.   In MoP, do 3 or 4 daily quests, and you're done.

All of this to say: You have to spend money to make money.  The more you have on the AH, or available to sell (immediately, or when the time is right), the more you're going to make.  Exactly how much of your gold you should have tied up in items to sell is hard to put an exact figure on.  If you're gold capped (or more), you may have a hard time having more than 20 or 30% of your wealth in items (maybe not, depends on your server).  If you have significantly less, you'll likely be able to have the majority of your wealth in items.

A few things to keep in mind:

1. Always have enough gold (or materials) around to fund whatever your main objectives outside gold making are.  If you're a raider, that means always having flasks, potions and possibly buff food.  Always have money for repairs.
2. Do your research before you buy anything.  The Undermine Journal is always a good resource, but there are many more.
3. Take risks.  The greater (educated) risk you take, the greater rewards you are likely to reap.
4. Don't spend more than you're willing to lose.  When you take risks (which you need to be doing), you're going to lose occasionally.  Maybe one day I'll tell the story about my massive Runecloth stockpile.  But I digress.
5. If you see an opportunity, take it.  Even if it's a stretch.  

In short, don't be afraid to spent a lot of gold. You'll earn it back, and you'll earn more than if you don't make bold purchases.  Fortune favors the bold.

Ethics and the Economy

Most of the time, ethics doesn't cross my mind when buying and selling on the auction house.  As far as WoW goes, I live by caveat emptor.  Let the buyer beware.  I'm not going to get into real life politics too much, suffice to say in the real world, a market ruled by caveat emptor alone is a really, really bad idea. 

In WoW, it's a much different story.  No one can come to personal or financial harm as a result of auction house transactions.  Well, mostly.

Before I continue, please keep in mind I'm only referring to the auction house, and to gold only transactions.  I would strongly advise you to NEVER get involved in any transaction that involves real money (TCG codes, Blizzard store pets/mounts, game time, etc).  Also, if you buy anything out of trade that seems too good to be true, it probably is.  So three rules:

1. Only pay gold for something that can be traded in the trade window, and even then, be careful.
2. Don't do anything against the ToS, or that involves real money in any way.
3. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.  Walk away.

Buying from the AH is almost always fine (from Blizzard's standpoint).   Outside the AH, you could run into issues.  Follow the above three rules, and you'll probably be fine.  With the disclaimers out of the way, let's get to the meat of the issue. 

If you buy a item, or number of items for a ridiculously low price, it's generally for one of 4 reasons:

1. It was a typo.  Unfortunate for them, but they'll learn the lesson, and probably not make that mistake again.  
2. They're clearing out their bank. They might prepping for quitting the game, getting out of buying and selling on a regular basis, or a myriad of other reasons.  They're purposely selling stuff really cheap.
3. It's a hacked account.  Someone's account was hacked by a third party, said third party is selling all their stuff, then probably selling that gold for real money.  They'll sell as much as they can, cheaply, because they want the gold off the account before Blizzard or the account holder figures out what's going on, and the account gets locked down.
4. It's materials from a gathering bot.

Obviously in case 2, there's no ethical issue.  In case 1, there might be an emotional or courteousy issue.  There's circumstances under which I could see myself returning the item (assuming they refund me whatever I paid for it).  Rare circumstances mind you, as I can be heartless, but I'm not completely so.

Cases 3 and 4 are tough to determine.  It's hard to know for sure if it really is a hacked account or from a bot.  It could be case 1 or 2.  It can be case 1 even if it's a lot of items; they may have typo'd in an auction mod and just didn't notice it.  The more familiar you are with the game and auction house, and the economy on your server in particular, you start to have a better feeling for when it's a hacked account or bot.  Still not ironclad, but odds are you have a pretty good idea.

This is where the issue of ethics comes up.  Hacked accounts are not good for the affected individuals, nor the community as a whole.  It's ultimately bad for the economy, and hurts people that are legitimately gathering by driving down prices. Bots are also bad for the economy (at least everyone besides the botter), for the same reason.

So let's say you're reasonably certain the items in question are botted or from a hacked account.  Do you buy them?  Why or why not? 

Your competitors will probably buy them.  The buyer might not even be buying for crafting mats or resale.  They may just be leveling a profession.  There will definitely be at least one person that won't even consider the ethics of the situation.  But will you?

It's hard to say if there's a right answer.  If it could be answered on a macro or community basis, I think the consensus would be that no one should buy them.  It would make bots useless (they couldn't sell the mats, at least in great quantity as they'd risk detection).  Hacked accounts would be somewhat less valuable (besides the gold, which is obviously liquid), which could lead to fewer compromised accounts.

Just some things to think about.  If you persist in the gold making business, odds are this situation will come up eventually.  Make the choice that you'll be comfortable with, even if it means less gold in your pocket.