Platinum is the main type of currency in Rift: Planes of Telara. It’s the driving force of the game’s economy and having plenty of it enable you to purchase better equipment for your characters, level up your professions and more.
When you first start playing Rift and finish your first few quests you’ll get a few silver coins. One hundred silver coins gives you 1 gold, and 100 gold gives you 1 platinum.
There are also other types of currencies in Rift such as planarite and valor: planarite is gained by participating in rifts and invasions and valor is gained by fighting other players in either open world PvP or Warfronts. We’ll probably not be discussing those currencies in detail here but rather focus on just platinum.
Easiest way to get more gold in Rift
One of the most simple and easiest ways you will have more platinum in Rift is by making sure your bags are always empty. Often times when you’re doing quests and participating in Rifts you don’t have enough room to pick up all the items dropped from monsters. Even worse, I’ve been known to sometimes destroy green quest rewards because I had no room for some better items.
It’s absolutely the worst thing you can do. Sometimes you simply have no choice though as you have to prioritize: I’d rather destroy a 1g worth of item than a 2g item, but it’s still just a huge waste. I definitely recommend you fill out your bag slots as soon as you can.
Where to get bags?
- Quest rewards – certain quests will award you with bags
- Monster drops – although not very frequently and you can’t count on it really, you will get bags even from random monsters you kill
- Vendors – you can always go to the nearest “General Goods” vendor and purchase bags
- Auction house – auction house is also a source for bags, and quite frequently a lot cheaper than vendors. If you’re passing by make sure to take a look, you might just strike a very cheap deal.
Inventory space can be a significant problem especially if you take all three gathering professions in order to make the most money. In that case you will have tons and tons of materials with you at all times which you definitely won’t be selling to vendors. It’s easy with random green, white and gray quality items which you can sell whenever you’re at a quest hub, but these stacks of materials are worth far more on the auction house.
In conclusion, this is the most newbie and also the most important platinum making tip I can give you. Make sure your inventory is never full so you can always loot EVERYTHING. Even the gray quality items which sell for decent amounts and if you’re serious about making platinum, every silver counts.
Making platinum with gathering professions
There are three gathering professions in Rift: butchering, foraging and mining. Needless to say if you want to make the most money while leveling up it’s no doubt the best to take all three of them. You’ll have TONS of materials to pick up all the time (assuming your bags are empty), and with a huge number of players leveling up their crafting professions all the time you have a decent demand for the raw materials.
If you do decide to take all gathering professions make sure you save some of the materials so you can level your own crafting professions later on. If you want to take only one or two gathering professions however you probably want to know which ones are the most profitable, and I’ll try to do a small analysis below.
The only resource I’ve been able to find on the popularity of certain professions is this professions guide. There are polls embedded and the current results are as follows:
- Mining – 36,6%
- Butchering – 31,5%
- Foraging – 20,7%
The other 11,3% are haters who either don’t like gathering or whatever else. Based on this we can assume most players are picking up mining and butchering, and by a significant percentage.
On the other hand, and from the same guide, we know the popularity of crafting professions as well:
- Apothecary – 20,6%
- Outfitting – 17%
- Weaponsmithing – 15,6%
- Armorsmithing – 15,6%
- Runecrafting – 13,5%
- Artificing – 12,1%
Mining gives materials mostly for weaponsmiths and armorsmiths which in theory gives you access to the biggest pool of players looking for them: 31%. It’s also a bit useful for runecrafters, thus increasing this number to almost 45% of the player base.
Butchering is used to provide materials for outfitters, and a small bit for armorsmiths and apothecaries, thus having the demand of roughly 55% of the player base.
Lastly foraging gives materials for apothecaries, artificers and even weaponsmiths. Those three crafting professions combined roughly equal to 46% of players.
From these statistics we can conclude the following: while butchering is seemingly profitable it doesn’t have enough players with the appropriate crafting skills: most of the demand is from outfitters and far less from armorsmiths and apothecaries. A lot of players are also taking butchering because it’s easy to gather materials since you’re killing beasts most of the time, but that also reflects the prices on leather and hides.
On the other hand there is a rather high demand for ore. Both weaponsmithing and armorsmithing are popular professions and require a lot of ore for crafting. While low-level ore is relatively easy to come by and the prices are cheap, high-level ore like Platinum or Orichalcum sells for quite a lot. It’s also popular to take both armorsmithing and weaponsmithing as a warrior so having mining is a must, otherwise you’ll be spending a ton of money buying overpriced ore from other players.
Foraging is clearly the least favorite gathering profession but also possible one with the most potential for making platinum. Apothecary is the most popular crafting profession, and if you look at the numbers closely you’ll notice there’s almost the same number of apothecaries and foragers. Potions and elixirs are always wanted commodities and if you can craft high-level ones you’re bound to make plenty of money. A lot of higher level players are also dropping gathering professions and focusing on crafting only so there will in fact always be a demand for herbs. Additionally, you can sell wood to artificers and weaponsmiths.
When picking gathering professions you should 100% first figure out which crafting profession you’ll take along with it. These are some basic recommendations:
- Warriors: Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing
- Clerics: Armorsmithing, Artificing, Apothecary
- Mages: Outfitting, Artificing, Apothecary
- Rogues: Outfitting, Weaponsmithing
Your first gathering profession should thus definitely be picked according to your preferred crafting profession.
Basically all of the three gathering professions are profitable, even though I’d rank them like this:
- Mining
- Foraging
- Butchering
You should not actually look at this ranking but rather think about which crafting professions you’ll be picking later on, because most of these platinum-making profitability factors will be irrelevant if you end up buying materials from other players.
My recommendation: pick all three gathering professions and make the most of it. Take a look at roughly how many raw materials you’ll need in order to level up gathering professions and save it in your bank for later on, and sell the rest. By the time you hit level 50 and decide on crafting professions you’ll have a ton of materials to level up any crafting profession you like, and more than enough platinum to purchase any additional mats you might need.
But hey, that’s just my opinion. If you have better ideas be sure to post them in the comments below!
Platinum making tip: get a banker alt!
Banker alts are nothing new. If you ever played an MMORPG before you most likely know what I’m talking about, and how much easier they can make your life.
A banker alt is basically a character you make in order to utilize additional inventory space and get easier access to the auction house. If you took all three gathering professions to make platinum it’s very likely that your characters inventory and your bank combined is simply not enough for all the materials you gather. In that case your options are to either get rid of those mats on the auction or create another character to hold it for you.
The latter is a preferable option, because you should never feel forced to sell items. You’ll often sell them underpriced in that case and waste even more platinum. Fortunately creating a banker alt doesn’t require a lot of work. Basically you make another character and get him to your faction’s capital city. Park him near a bank or a mailbox for convenience sake. You can then easily use his inventory to store items, as well as quickly relog from one character to another if you wish to sell some of the items on the auction house: it saves a lot of time since you won’t have to travel with your main character.
Just as with your main character, you should buy additional bags on your banker alt as well. They don’t have to have 16 slots immediately, but having additional space is always beneficial. Consider how much space you need and buy bags accordingly. You can even start with several 4-slot bags you get from quests or just buy them off the AH. They will pay off quickly.
Make sure you utilize the mailbox as well. It can be used as temporary storage if you need it. Also, if you run out of inventory room on your banker alt you can always make another. It might get a bit difficult to keep track of all items across several different characters, but if you keep for example ore on one character and herbs on another you’ll get used to it soon.
Auction house flipping basics
Flipping items on the auction house basically means buying them for low prices and reselling for higher in order to make a profit. It’s not an exact science and it’s hard to say what works and what doesn’t. Basically it requires good knowledge of the market and your server’s economy, as the prices can often vary from shard to shard.
Lots of players try to do this but frequently fail. Many are lazy to do the proper research and end up wasting more platinum than they earn, or earn so little it’s not even worth the effort. A few years ago, back in my WoW days I used to make literally thousands of gold weekly just by spending 10-15 minutes per day browsing the auction house. It’s not overly complicated and you don’t have to have a degree in economy in order to turn a profit, but some basics are necessary to know before you get started.
1. Start slowly
Don’t expect you can just visit the AH, buy a random item and sell it for a fortune. In most cases that will turn out badly and you’ll end up desperately trying to sell the item in order to get your investment back. Which brings me to…
2. Be patient
Patience is the key. You also shouldn’t expect to sell an item 5 minutes after you purchase it. The prices often fluctuate a great deal, and what may be cheap one day may be expensive another, even a week after. It also depends on the supply as well: if there are 10 identical rare Daggers listed all the time it’s unlikely you’ll be able to (re)sell it for a substantial amount.
3. Sell what you know
Don’t try to flip rare items (blue or purple) if you don’t know the prices. And I don’t mean the current prices, but rather how they fluctuate through a week or even month. Stick to selling items you are confident you know prices on, for example if you have all gathering professions and always sell raw materials then. If you have armorsmithing you most likely know the prices for crafted items so start there, and later on when you memorize the prices of related items you’ll know for how much to buy or sell.
Those are the three key things you should known about auction house flipping. It’s not hard, but can sometimes be time consuming. If you’re serious about flipping then make sure you log in and browse the auction house for at least 10 minutes a day: you’ll quickly get the hang of it and within a week or two you’ll know which items sell easily and for how much. If you use a banker alt you don’t even have to bother traveling to the capital city.
Making platinum with Weaponsmithing
Currently one of the most profitable crafting professions can be weaponsmithing. The reasons are actually quite simple: there’s a lack of decent weapon rewards from quests.
This is especially true for warriors and rogues which are highly dependent on quality weapons and they do increase their DPS by a decent amount. It’s important to upgrade them frequently for these callings so you should definitely do your best to monetize it as much as possible.
Selling on the auction house however might not be as profitable as advertising your crafted items in chat channels, so take that into consideration as well.
Making platinum with Runebreaking
From my experiences so far runecrafting is extremely profitable. A bunch of players are just now leveling up so there isn’t much demand for enchanting items yet, but it soon surely will be. As soon as more players hit level 50 and start doing instances and raids, thus getting better gear, they will start investing a lot of money in order to put quality enchantments on them.
But this post won’t really talk about making platinum with runecrafting, but rather runebreaking. Runebreaking is a skill you get when you learn runecrafting which enables you to destroy green or better quality gear and get shards, essences and other items required for runecrafting. All the time the quest items I receive and don’t need, or the gear I replace I runebreak to gain materials needed to level up the profession. As such leveling runecrafting can be expensive since you don’t sell those items to vendors, but I’m sure it’ll all pay off many times once I hit the cap.
Anyway, the materials you get from runebreaking your items are quite often worth twice as much if you sell them on the auction house. At lower levels you’ll typically sell green items for 1-2g, and these raw materials can be sold for 3-4g easily. I expect the prices to increase as well as soon as more players start hitting level 50 and leveling their professions, of which runecrafting will surely be popular as well.
Another way you can earn plenty of gold also is by buying green items on the AH and then runebreaking them. Sometimes you’ll find green items sold for such cheap prices that vendors will actually give you more money than it costs you to buy it from the auction house — there’s always players who don’t check the actual price of the item. Auction house flipping suddenly gets a lot more profitable for runecrafters! Lots of players don’t know what to do with crafted items as well and will gladly get rid of them for no profit at all: be sure to check the chat channels from time to time as well for good offers.
In most cases runebreaking an item can yield a decent profit and takes very little work.
Have you found an item you can consistenly runebreak in order to make a profit? Did you find runebreaking to be as profitable as I did, or do you consider runecrafting as a profession just a drain on your income? Answer these questions and tell us what you think in the comments below!
