Using Tradeskillmaster to Snipe
stargrace 
I’ve said a few times that my time in-game is pretty limited, and nothing has really changed there. I often sit in game at the auction house waiting for sales to snipe, only glancing at the screen every so often or when something triggers my sniper. This allows me to play with my son, clean the house, and do chores and whatever else needs to get done while still having a potential of making some coin. What it doesn’t do is automate anything for you or allow you to gain money AFK, so that’s not what this post is about.
Sniper is a feature of tradeskillmaster. It scans items as they are placed for sale, and allows you to see if they are under the market value. Having this information is only half of the equation though you still need to know the market of your server and understand how it can be manipulated. You also need to know what sells and what won’t sell. For example vendor sold items are often placed for auction well below what they seem to be ‘worth’ – that worth is an inflated price from people playing the market though, hoping to catch snipers unaware.
With Legion ramping down and most of us eagerly awaiting for the pre-show to BfA, I haven’t been sniping as much gear as I normally would. People are liquidating their stock hoping to sell before it becomes worthless (aside from appearance items). This is a great time to buy things like craft supplies.
There are some unique instances where sniper has really paid off for me – it doesn’t happen ALL the time, especially on a low population server, but if you’re lucky you can walk away with some amazing deals. Someone who forgets a zero, someone who doesn’t know the worth of an item (especially if none others are for sale), someone who just wants to sell fast and they want to sell fast now. Take the screenshot above as an example. The flame shield currently drops in game, and even shares an appearance with another item – a player put it for sale for 500g and less than 4h later, I re-sold it for 43,000 gold. Not a bad little profit.
Again, sales like that don’t always come along. I (these days) run two accounts, my main one that I use for playing, and my husbands I leave up so I can snipe. There are good days and there are bad, but it’s all a little extra income on top of my main money makers, and pretty hands-free, which I appreciate. Sometimes I strike it ‘big’ (not big compared to real goblins, but big for me) and other days are a bust. It’s all about waiting, and patience. So. Much. Patience.
There is also a short list of items I’m always in the market for if they drop below 50% market value in order to resell. Medallion of the legion, elixir of rapid mind, most craft materials, a handful of pets and mounts. They don’t come up in my sniper searches too frequently, but when they do I’m almost always guaranteed a simple sale, which is nice.
I did some calculations yesterday, and so far for the month of May I’ve earned almost 500,000 gold, and I’ve spent 240,000 gold (I did pick up a token earlier in the month to help pay for a character transfer). That’s not too bad. It’s not a great month but again we’re in a weird lull where it’s a sellers market (liquidating for BfA) and I expect that things will turn around once the expansion gets nearer.
As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!