Whether you are new to the game or a long-term veteran, finding ways of making platinum is always good knowledge to have in Rift.

Unless you are willing to spend Credits; new role slots, wardrobe slots and dimension items cost quite a large chunk of platinum. Not only that but the extremely rare and highly desirable Level 60 Greater Essences used to upgrade your Lesser Essences are worth several thousand platinum. Plus REX at ~1k plat each can be quite a desirable item to have if you prefer not to spend real money in the game but still want that Premium Mount.

Below is a series of information I have gained from my time in Rift that I hope will help you out. If you’re a veteran there will be quite a few things you can skip, although some tips may even help you out.

If you don’t have 1,500 Loyalty yet on your account (and thus cannot sell on the AH), consider checking out Riftgrate’s Guide: Making platinum without the AH.

Table of Contents:

• Gathering Professions
• Crafting Professions
• Salvaging
• Buy Low Sell High
• Knowing How to Sell
• Artifacts
• Quests

Gathering Professions

Gathering professions are Foraging, Butchering and Mining. Together they provide almost all the base crafting materials used by Crafters. As you can imagine, this means the materials are in high demand.

If you use any Gathering professions, you have the choice of either selling the materials you gather, converting them into crafted items with a Crafting profession, or converting them into secondary crafting materials.

If you decide that you only wish to sell the materials and nothing more, you should check the Auction House (“AH”) beforehand to get an idea of what materials will be worth farming.

E.g. There are plenty of Lucidflowers in Dendrome and they are in high demand, due to their use in various raid-quality potions and other crafts.

Karthite Bars tend to also sell well as they are used to create Powerstones for Mages and Clerics as well as Whetstones and Oilstones for Warriors and Rogues for use in Raids.

Crafting Professions

Crafted Gear –
The crafted gear most people are after will usually be ones that have been augmented with Epic-quality Augments, otherwise known as “Stellar” and the higher-tier “Marvelous” Augments. Check BiS lists for each class to get an idea of which crafted gear is Best-in-Slot (“BiS”) or near-BiS prior to raid gear as those will be in the highest demand.

It’s not only Armor and Weapons that people will be after. You can also create Seals that can add a significant amount of stats to a person with the right augment and seal quality. Note that the best Seals cost a LOT of crafting materials to make so it is a large risk selling these on the AH. It is best to instead offer your services for a fee to someone who already has the mats but who needs someone with the recipe.

Augments –
Generally speaking, the Epic-quality Augments, prefixed with “Stellar” or the higher-tier “Marvelous” are in high demand due to the ability to use them to boost crafted gear that is BiS or near BiS prior to raid gear. Any Marvelous Augment with a combination of WIS+CP (Critical Power), WIS+SP, INT+CP, DEX+CP or STR+CP are in high demand because they are generally used in the BiS or near BiS pre-raid crafted gear.

The Augments themselves can sell for a chunk of platinum, but usually the augmented crafted gear will sell for more. Check each class’ BiS gear list to check how close to pre-raid BiS the Marvelous augmented crafted gear is to get an indication of demand. Crafted gear with spell or physical crit usually does not sell well.

Secondary Crafting Materials –
As a crafter you can look beyond the usual crafted gear and instead look at Secondary Crafting Mats. This is something more aimed towards Apothecaries. As an apothecary you can convert Major Catalysts into Catalytic Dust.

There’s some arbitrage to be had with Major Cats and Catalytic Dusts. I.e., you can create 3 Catalytic Dusts with 1 Major Catalyst at minimal cost via Apothecary profession. Yet oftentimes you’ll see a single Catalytic Dust be worth more than 1/3rd of a Major Catalyst on the AH. There’s potential money to be made there.

Runes –
Runes are huge. Everyone wants runes and raiders especially will want anywhere from Epic to Relic-quality Runes depending on their progression.

For most runes you can use a Butcher to gather a ton of Dense Hide, convert them to Dense Leather, then convert them into a ton of relatively low-cost Dense Leather Belts to runebreak for the basic Level 60 runecrafting mats. Random gear drops can provide you with an ample source of cheap Branching and Solidifying Stars.

Be aware of the AH prices, and which runes people actually want. E.g. Don’t make a ton of BLK runes when nobody uses them (tanks prefer END runes). Pay special attention to Lustrous (Relic-quality) Runes if you are planning on making and selling them because of the effect that lockboxes and demand has on them.

E.g. – Lustrous Thwarting Rune for 60plat on AH even though one of the ingredients is 3x Dreaming Stars that go for 80-100plat each on the AH. Does that mean crafters are selling at a loss? No. It’s because Lustrous Thwarting Rune is Block and nobody uses Block runes. So why would people create it to sell? They don’t – it comes as a random drop from lockboxes and those are the people desperately trying to get rid of them.

On the other hand, Lustrous Recondite Runeshard is on the AH for an insane ~400plat which is way above cost because:

1. Few people have the recipe;
2. Those Mages and Clerics with 1h/oh weapons will require 4x Lustrous Recondite Runeshards (1h, oh, ranged, seal) and even those with a 2h weapon will require 2x (ranged, seal).

Now you might think “that’s an insane price, nobody will buy it at that price” but you’d be surprised when some people have an excess amount of plat with nothing to spend on until recently and impatience. People too impatient to gather all the mats and find someone with the recipe to craft it for them.

I’ve sold things at insane prices simply because someone was impatient enough to buy it.

Raid Consumables –
Raid consumables are generally in high demand by most raiding guilds unless they are self-sufficient. The vast majority of raiding guilds will have minimum requirements that all their raiders be equipped with either Oilstones, Whetstones or Powerstones depending on class and weapon type; Stellar/Excellent Brightsurge/Powersurge Vials and Comfortable Insoles to every raid.

If you consider that a 20-man raid has 20 people whom require 1 Powerstone/Oilstone or 2 Whetstones + 3-4x Stellar/Excellent Brightsurge/Powersurge Vials + 1 Comfortable Insole per 3-4hr raid day and the average raiding guild seems to have 2-3 raid days; those raid requirements can quickly add up.

Although some guilds are self-sufficient, others will be low on base materials each week (in which case your gathering profession can handle that demand) or in the consumables themselves (in which case your crafting professions can sell to them through the AH). Some guilds have a policy of only providing consumables to their core raiders leaving their casuals or trials to create their own (or buy from the AH). Others may put the responsibility solely on the raiders.

Unless they are self-sufficient, they’ll be your customer.

Hardcore raiding guilds may even go for the Relic-quality raid consumables during progression. It is not advised to cater to them however as they are usually self-sufficient or there are so few of them that you’ll be taking a huge risk.

Other Items –
Other items you might consider selling are dyes such as Black Dye, White Dye, Exceptionally Black Dye and Exceptionally White Dye that Apothecaries are able to make. Those craft-only dyes are usually in high demand.

Salvaging

The salvaging skills available to each crafting profession can be a good source of platinum through either the sale of the salvaged materials, or in their use in crafting augments and runes.

Salvage Armor/Weapon –
Gained from Armorsmithing and Outfitting (for Salvage Armor) and Weaponsmithing (for Salvage Weapon), they break armor/weapons into Metal Fragments and other Metal components. If the item is made from wood (like a bow) it can be broken into Wooden Boards. If the item is made from a cloth-based material (like Cloth armor), it can be broken into Fabric Squares.

Use: Ingredient in Augments. In particular, Treated Wooden Boards gained from salvaging Epic-quality Level 60 ‘wood’-based gear (such as bows and staves), Polished Metal Scraps gained from salvaging Epic-quality Level 60 ‘metal’-based gear (such as swords and plate armor) and Pristine Leather Scraps gained from salvaging Epic-quality Level 60 ‘Cloth’-based gear (such as Cloth armor) are used in some of the current most high-quality augments.

Salvage Planar Essences –
Gained from Apothecary, this breaks Essences into Inert Fragments.

Use: Ingredient in Augments. In particular, Immaculate Inert Fragment gained from salvaging Epic-quality Level 60 non-raid Essences are used in some of the current most high-quality augments.

The augments and crafted gear that results from these augments can sell for a significant amount of plat. Even the Epic-quality salvage materials can sell for 20-40p each.

Runebreaking –
Gained from Runecrafting, this breaks just about any armor, weapon, accessory or essence (and sometimes other misc. items) into runecrafting materials used for runecrafting.

Use: Runebreaking is essential for any Runecrafter as it is the only way to derive the ingredients required to make runes. As such, it’s an important ability to employ.

It is important to weigh up what exactly to break though. Usually you will want to break the tons of gear drops you might receive that are not an upgrade to you. However, be wary of the NPC sell-back price or whether or not you can trade the gear to someone who may be willing to pay good plat for the item.

E.g. A typical Level 60 Green/Uncommon Ring might sell for 40g to the NPC. However, runebreaking it gives you the chance of gaining Emergent Cloud which sells for 2-3plat and Wandering Star which sells for ~1-2plat each.

Another example is in the form of a lot of Level 60 Expert gear drops where you will have to weigh up whether it is better to NPC the item or Runebreak it for Branching Stars.

E.g. Avoxia’s Imprisoned Soul is a Level 60 Expert gear drop that NPCs for 1plat 61silver. If you runebreak it you have a chance of obtaining a Branching Star and/or other mats. Branching Stars on Laethys currently sells for 2 plat 7gold. So you gain a nice bit of profit there.

For Level 60 Purple/Epic-quality gear, they runebreak into Solidifying Stars. Again, check the NPC sell-back cost compared to current AH prices to determine whether to runebreak or NPC the item.

The biggest gain will be from runebreaking Level 60 Purple/Epic-quality gear or higher that is deemed ‘raid’-quality. I.e., Drops from Raid Instances, Raid Rifts and Raid-quality Essences. If you runebreak these items you’ll have a chance at Dreaming Stars used in the current BiS Lustrous-level runes. These Dreaming Stars currently sell for 80-100plat+ on the AH.

Tip: To obtain more Dreaming Stars, consider running the Daily Raid Rift or Great Hunts IVs/Vs and reserving at least one essence drop. That way, you can runebreak for Dreaming Stars. You can also consider auctioning off the chest drops from these Rifts for ~100p+.

Buy Low Sell High

Buying Low and Selling High is a hallmark of all markets out there and that is no different in Rift. If you feel something is underpriced and has a decent amount of demand, you should go ahead and buy it, then sell when you feel the price is right, or overpriced.

Anticipating increased demand due to Crafting Dailies/Weeklies is one way to play the market by buying ingredients that are low-priced right after reset and watching as the price adjusts up.

This process doesn’t have to be short-term either.

Information is key –
Long-term gains are possible if you have information on something that will change market demand or supply for a good.

Some examples:

• ‘Moted’ Artifacts. These artifacts were only available during a certain past World Event (or something similar) and are no longer obtainable in the open world. It makes up the ‘Moted Life’ Artifact set. During the time when they were available they sold for as low as 25 silver as there was minimal demand but a huge ton of supply. Now they are selling for 10-30 plat each.
• Steel-Stitched Leather, Enchanted Shadethorn Lumber and Tempered Orichalcum Bars. Anyone who was here when they introduced Seals pre-Storm Legion (“SL”) will understand this. When Seals were introduced the market price for these crafted mats exploded. They were used to create the newly introduced Seals and thanks to their 20hr CD their prices shot through the roof. Unstable Catalysts also shot through the roof in price. Those who knew about the Seals thanks to PTS made a killing.

Know your PTS.
And the point about Seals leads to an important fact – Keep your Public Test Shard (“PTS”) client updated and know about what is new on the PTS as it can provide invaluable information on upcoming changes to the market. Luckily here at RiftGrate I’ll be constantly updating you with new stuff on the PTS so hopefully that will help out, especially to those who can’t afford the time or download limit to maintain your PTS client.

As another more recent example, we turn to those expensive 15k+ plat Greater Essences like Charred Flamesource, and the 140plat Dreaming Stars. (prices have since changed)

Prior to the new runes and essences going onto Live, they were on PTS for a while. Those such as myself who regularly check PTS immediately bought a ton of Dreaming Stars for 90-100p and the Greater Essences for 100-500plat. That’s right, those 15k+ plat Greater Essences were 100-500plat on the various shards’ AHs each prior to the changes. Of course, the longer the changes stayed on the PTS, the more people noticed the changes and tried to benefit from this information which led to their price increase to 5-8k prior to hitting Live.

Understand the prices –
One more important point is to make sure you understand why a certain item may be at the price they are currently at. Sometimes it makes sense. E.g., Branching Stars are below cost in terms of runebreaking a Branching Star from the cheapest-made Blue/Rare crafted item. However, it makes sense because lots of people are breaking Rare-quality gear that they would have otherwise NPC’d for 1-2 plat. As such they are willing to sell Branching Stars for lower than crafted cost because they are still making a profit on a runebroken gear that they would have otherwise NPC’d.

Knowing how to sell

Knowing how to sell is essential. This cannot be understated. I see too many people trying to sell off a heap of 99 stack materials for close to the lowest price and this almost never works unless the market is heavily under-priced and a reseller buys out your stock. You will generally not sell well, but instead force others to bid lower than yourself. Or, your listings are completely ignored and people will sell in smaller stacks for a dearer price (and still sell before you do).

When you sell materials you need to consider your potential customers. Are they people who will buy 99 stack mats all at once? Or are they crafters looking to finish off Crafting Dailies, or people looking to buy mats so someone else can craft an item for them? In that case they aren’t looking for large stacks and may be willing to buy that higher-priced listing because it costs them less overall.

I.e. If a large amount of demand is based on a Crafting Daily or getting together this week’s raid consumes for themselves they’ll have to decide between getting a 99 stack of Karthite Bars at 1plat 30g each (128plat 70g total) or a 10 stack at 2plat each (20plat total). They would go for the 10 stack simply because they can’t afford the higher stacks.

Most people buy on a short-term basis. Mind-set is similar to the following:

• Missing 6 Lucidflower for Crafting Daily. I can go out and forage again but screw it, I’ll just buy it off the AH and quickly get my Dailies done.
• Raid in 5min. Oh god, just checked and I’m missing Excellent Brightsurge Vials. I could gather the mats and get my guildmate to craft for me, but then they’ll have to change to their alt and raid would have begun by then. Screw it, I’ll buy it off AH. I’m not using plat for anything anyway.
• I don’t have X profession, I need Y mats to create Z or send Y mats to Guildmate Bob so he can create Z for me.

They make the bulk of sales for mats on the AH. The others are either resellers who buy your large stacks because they know it is heavily underpriced, guild leaders/officers buying bulk mats for their guild bank or those leveling up crafting professions and for some reason require 99 stacks.

It takes longer to sell in smaller stacks, but you will almost always sell for more. You also have the advantage of averaging out your sales to reduce the risk of selling a large amount during a particular underpriced period on the AH.

Also, don’t sell large amounts of small stacks either –
This is another problem I see constantly. If you have, say, 10 listings of 10 stacks you’ll end up forcing people to price their mats lower than you.

Here’s the mind-set of a lot of sellers:

• I want to sell now, so I’ll just underprice. (these people you can’t ‘change’ no matter how much you list)
• I want a sale, but I think the market is slightly underpriced. I’ll sell slightly higher than the lower bid, but I also want a sale.

Now if you’ve filled up an entire page with your mats at the same price, they’ll be forced to sell lower because it will take a long time before all your listings are sold if they choose to sell slightly higher than your listing. Whereas if you only have 3-4 listings this is less of an issue.

Pay attention to demand –
Pay close attention to demand. For raw or refined materials, check what the crafting dailies and weeklies are and price accordingly. There’s usually a temporary surge in demand an hour or so before daily reset and an hour or so before US prime time (or EU if you are in EU region). There’s usually also a surge in demand for the weekly crafting mats before weekly reset and just after.

Check what the bulk of guild raid times are for your shard. There’s usually higher demand for mats or consumables before raid.

Again, think about what is going on through people’s minds:

• Need to get my crafting dailies done before raid and before reset. Better get the mats I’m missing from AH so I have time to do my non-crafting dailies as well before raid/reset.
• Weekly reset is upon us, need my Grandmaster Craft Marks. Buy anything I’m missing from the AH.
• About to raid – need consumes.
• Weekly reset. Time to stock up on a week’s worth of raid consumes via mats or consumes.

Artifacts

You’ll find a lot of artifacts all over the place, and if you pick up your Patron and Non-Patron Rewards from the Cash Shop every day, chances are your bank is full of them. It’s always a good idea to spend some time on the AH every now and then going through your artifacts and selling them.

If your inventory/bank is getting full, you can send the artifacts off to an alt to sell.

Dream Weaving

With the recent addition of the Dream Weaving Craft Profession, there is quite a lot of money to be made with Artifacts. The lowest prices for each rarity has increased significantly thanks to the ability to convert artifacts into dream ribbons to create Dream Orbs (stat enchants).

The more you AH artifacts, the greater your grasp of what will sell well and what will be better off salvaged with the Dream Weaving ‘Salvage Artifact’ ability. If you can’t salvage artifacts yourself – consider asking someone you trust who has Level 375 Dream Weaving to salvage for you. The higher their Dream Weaving level, the more Dream Ribbons they can obtain per artifact.

Artifact Hunters

Don’t be afraid to sell even common artifacts at a relatively high price if you don’t see any other listings on the AH. Sometimes an artifact collector will have one last artifact to complete a set and will be willing to spend a bit just to finish their set, especially if they are afraid of the risk that they won’t be able to buy that artifact (and thus complete their set) from the AH for a while if your one is sold to someone else.

Quests

Don’t knock how much plat you can get from simple questing. Sometimes it isn’t about how much plat you can make in how many minutes, but how efficient you go about gaining plat.

In this case, daily quests provide you with experience, tons of plat, tokens and notoriety all at once and are relatively fast to complete (the Level 60 solo ones at least).

e.g. Your typical Dendrome Daily Quest gives 300-ish notoriety, 180 Infinity Stones, 119,070XP and 2.5-3.8 plat base (before potions/patron bonuses/etc).

Just from Dendrome Dailies alone you should have 20-30plat+ per day. Add a 6plat Expert Random Dungeon Daily and a 3.8plat Random Warfront daily plus the Weekly quests out there as well as the daily quests in Ashora and Steppes of Infinity and it really adds up. Throw in some Level 60 Chronicles (there’s quite a few now and very fast to complete in a good duo) for extra plat/notoriety/exp.

Check out the Guide: Making Platinum without the AH to get an idea of just how much money you can make even without the AH. Very useful for those without 1,500 Loyalty (and thus cannot sell on the AH).

Conclusion

I hope this guide helps you out in making platinum in Rift. Once you apply some of the knowledge here, you can start planning your retirement!~

If you have any other money-making schemes (that are legit, not illegal please) I’d love to hear your suggestions and I’ll look at adding them to this guide (credits where due of course).

Check out other Plat-making tips below:

• Tag: Plat-making