The economy and making money: what am I doing wrong?

[Lifthil]

First, a little background: I've been playing LOTRO, almost exclusively on Vilya, since March of 2013 (Riders of Rohan days). After creating about 10 characters and advancing them to various levels (the ones who made it past L20 are listed in my signature), I finally got my main, a guardian, to level 100 in, as I recall, early 2015.

Now that I'm at level cap, I'm enjoying pursuing my level-capped advancement in pursuit of better gear. However, items like Crystals of Remembrance, essences and the ingredients to craft them, and stat tomes if I'm lucky enough to find one I need in the Auction House, cost significant amounts of gold. These items range from straight-up barter-able, like Emerald Shards and purple essences, to RNG-based drops (most of them), to simply inaccessible, like crafting journals (my Westemnet Master Scholar is in the mid-20s, and I have no intentions to level her all the way to W Rohan in the foreseeable future). Therefore, I need a reliable source of income to finance my continued advancement.

However, I have so far been unable to find such a source of gold. The main things I sell on the AH are TA L100 LI's, of which I often have a surplus (remember how I only have one character at cap). However, I'm lucky if I can get a couple hundred silver for each one, and not all I post end up selling within 2 days, after which I repost the unsold items. I've tried selling teal drops from classic instances, but since most of those are merely stepping stones to the more powerful essence and Epic Battle gear, save for the occasional cloak, off-hand item, or bow/crossbow, the demand for those is so low that I've resorted to simply giving them away in /world just to clear them from my inventory after farming classic instances.

My impression thus far has been that almost everything that I see posted on the auction house for 100g buyout or more is something I need and don't have, rather than the other way around.

What am I doing wrong? How can I make more gold? I've never so much as seen 1000g on my main character. Often the items I want are posted for an amount over or very close to my current gold balance, so I haven't been able to buy anything of great worth.

Edit: My signature's gone; I don't know why. My hunter is in the low 60s, my cappy and burg are in the upper 40s, my warden is in the mid 30s, and my RK is in the mid 20s.

[DEATHKNYGHT]

Network with people on your server. They can help point out the best gold-making opportunities, save you money (ie crafting items solely for the mats), and enable you to improve your gold-farming efficiency. (Not to mention it makes the game more fun.)

When Update 17: The Siege of Minas Tirith was released, I asked about the best gold-farming opportunities and was told to farm ore, wood, and scholar mats. For the first week, I averaged about 3,500g/hr. Prices have gone down, but so has competition for nodes - this may be a good opportunity. You should keep a look out for market opportunities like this. (I'm from Brandywine, where people work together more often than on most other English servers, which means we earn gold faster and have higher prices. Keep that in mind when considering my numbers.)

Just before the update, I sometimes participated in raids sitting on the DA Boats killing everything instantly. It gave tasks and easy gold that could be earned while watching a movie and being all but AFK. Farming raids like this are common just before updates, when people get bored and want gold for the update.

Right now the best Mark and Medallion opportunity is Helegrod: Dragon Wing. With a PuG raid (these seem to be running 8+ hours a day on Brandywine), you can average 10 runs an hour, which equates to 4 Scrolls of Empowerment.

To learn the other gold-farming opportunities, network with people. This includes joining a kinship (preferably more than one) and talking with people in fellowships/raids.