Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Alchemy's Cash-cow.

So yesterday while working on my massive list of Cataclysm wonders, I got to get a little upcloseandpersonal with many of the new trainer-learned recipes and profession products. Something that really stood out to me was the Alchemy: Transmute Truegold recipe. It appears that Alchemists are the only profession masters that can produce this hot little bar that is used in both Blacksmithing and Engineering recipes to create new Heroic-dungeon level BoE epics.

The recipe requires:

3x Pyrium Bar
10x Volatile Fire
10x Volatile Air
10x Volatile Water


Pyrium Bar is attainable two ways:

Mining: Smelt Pyrite Requiring 2x Pyrite Ore
or
Alchemy: Transmute Pyrium Bar Requiring 4x Elementium Bar and 4x Volatile Earth

The rarity of these materials will heavily influence the price, as well as Alchemy transmutation cooldowns. I would assume that the mining route to Pyrium Bar would be the best bet, and will influence the price of the Truegold Bar. But ultimately, it's going to be the Alchemists deciding the price for the Truegold bars.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Cataclysm Profession Material List

I won't be posting anything here today, because I spent all morning working on a thread on the Consortium Forums called Cataclysm Profession Material List. I'm a Wind Trader on the Consortium forums, and I thought it was my turn to do a bit of grunt work. So I complied this list while working on my own materials snatch lists in preparation for the coming expansion.

I hope you enjoy.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

What is batch posting?

Here's some additional information for those of you that are unfamiliar with batch posters and the how and why they work.

So what IS a batch poster?

A batch poster is an addon that does a live scan of the auction house for every item you have programmed into your groups, calculates a posting price for each item based on the settings for the group it's in, gets you to confirm the posting, and continues to queue up more items.

Batch posting allows you to put any item in your bags, and group them up to be sold at similar prices. The best example of this is glyphs. There's so many glyphs, and it just makes it easier to use a batch poster to do the work for you. You can also set it up to recognize your alts, and add white listed characters to prevent you from undercutting affiliates if you wish.

So how exactly does this work?

Batch posting other items.

Let's just go ahead and call it. The market is crazy, and varying incredibly server to server, and even day to day. As I've already noted, many things are extremely expensive on my server, and in extremely low supply. While other servers are the opposite, where people are madly dumping items they believe will be obsolete in Cataclysm. Lucky for those servers.

In the meantime, I've been experimenting with batch posting. You know, the strategy for glyphs, using a  batch poster like AuctionProfitMaster or ZeroAuction. Except, instead of posting glyphs, you're posting other things.

You could use this for flasks, food, enchanting materials, ores, cloth.. anything really. I've chosen to use it for gems. I think when you have many different versions of the same item, or cuts of gems, this will be helpful in getting all your items up on the AH.

I've experimented with TBC uncommon cut gems, and WotLK uncommon cut gems. I had a bunch left over from leveling a Jewelcrafter and thought, why not? Instead searching the price of each item and listing manually, or even using Auctioneer to help with pricing, I figured it would be simpler to just use my batch poster. This has saved me lots of time posting the items, and they are selling.

So, why not use this in Cataclysm?

The only way for this to really be very efficient is to make sure you place uncommon, rare and epic gems in different groups, as there will be a notable difference in price of each tier. The amount you post each time would have to depend on your supply and how often you plan to post each day. If I'm prepared to be undercut, and will be posting frequently, I will probably post 2 at a time, and maybe trying to have 6 of the popular gem types at any time. I might increase my stock this if demand is higher.

Just be cautious of where you put your threshold and fallbacks. In the first few weeks or months of Cataclysm, it's pretty much anyone's game, really. So I suggest setting both fairly high, as there is plenty of gold to earn.

Tip: Be sure to update your boundaries every day, especially until the market stabilizes. Also watch your competition and spend a little time scoping out your competition. Batch posting will fail you if you don't pay attention. It's a tool, meant to help, not do the work for you.

If this works out well in Cataclysm, I'll likely be carrying this concept over to flasks, crafted cloth, and other finished products. It doesn't make sense to really bother with it for single items like raw ore, bars, crafted armor or weapons, etc. So use it wisely, and you'll save yourself some time, and be able to spend it leveling other professions, keeping a closer eye on competition, or enjoying the expansion!

I'd love feedback on this. Do you think it's a poor idea? Do you think it's great? Have you thought of this yourself? Maybe you've read this idea elsewhere. I encourage those of you reading to leave a comment. :)

10 days to Cataclysm.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Achievements, quests and drop rates.

As many have reported and probably read, 4.0.3a has shaken up the markets a bit with changes to drop rates on formerly rare recipes and items. An example of this would be Recipe: Savory Deviate Delight, which was a rare drop in the Barrens, but now drops fairly frequently.

I've also noticed the drop rate of uncommon items has increased during some achievement farming. I did a quest chain in Darkshore to obtain Withers a new non-combat pet, if you are horde you do not have to do the quest line. If you're Alliance, you to Darkshore and pick up a quest near the flight master. You go on a pretty epic journey saving Nightelves and gathering reagents, saving a bear, and eventually fighting against the Darkspear trolls before being sent back to the new Darkshore Alliance quest hub, Lor'Danel, and receiving your pet.

If you haven't tried out "Peacebloom vs Ghoul", especially if you are a fan of Plants Vs Zombies, head up to Hillsbrad, just south of the Dalaran crater. Once you work your way through the short quest chain and defeat the end boss, you get Singing Sunflower.

Also, I've been working on Wintersaber reputation, and I've noticed the drop rates for the provisions quest is about 90% now, I'm getting tons of uncommon items. However, the Furblog mobs you need to kill seem to be fewer, perhaps it's worth trying to farm in other places? Also, you can't get to the appropriate giants without the use of a flying mount, or jumping to your death and taking rez sickness to revive on the other side of the gorge. The mobs are located right outside the gates of Hyjal, a bad placement, but only a temporary inconvenience.


On to some gold maybe?

Yea, there's not much to say here, really. Glyphs are selling alright, prices seem to be going up slightly, but it does seem that a few of the serious glyphers picked up on the ink changes, although I have seen a fair bit of rage and QQing in trade.

Herb prices haven't really dropped much, if anything there's fewer herbs than ever on the auction house, so no stock-piling herbs for me. However, saronite keeps dropping in price. Gems have increased in price.

My opinion, is that right now, it's best to not freak out and dump items, they WILL sell... eventually. Just horde away anything that won't sell now, don't buy anything unless it's a safe buy, aka : vendor price, or high demand leveling material. Check out any Cataclysm profession guides to get an idea of materials that might not be used any more or as much for lower levels.

Otherwise, really, go and enjoy the game before you're up to your eyeballs in farming, power-leveling and fresh 80+ content.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Now that the world has changed...

Quick gold tip:

Meta gems have been changed, well a few anyways. A very popular meta, Relentless Earthsiege Diamond now "requires more blue gems than red gems". Unfortunately, the majority of classes that prefered this meta have more red than blue gems on their gear, because they are agility stackers. This means that rogues, hunters, and I believe cat druids will now all need to change their meta. Gem of choice seems to be Thundering Skyflare Diamond as a temporary replacement. A blue post has said that the gems will be reverted back, but not until the next major patch as it cannot be hot fixed. So there's a bit of an opportunity to make a little gold. Anyone serious about the game will likely swap to this alternative meta gem.

Warning to Horde: The following is more Alliance specific, but you can get some general ideas from this.

In preparation for Cataclysm, I decided I should spend some time wandering and familiarize myself with the new Stormwind. First things you should do is go find the following:

Some specific trainers:
Fishing Supplies/ Quest giver  The trainer is standing right next to her.
Cooking Quest giver and likely trainer The vendor is right near him.
And because we're not sure: Cooking trainer.
Archaeology Trainer Appropriately in the Stormwind Library.

Check out the food and drink vendors because they already have the new tier of consumables for 80 and 85. You can also pick up and complete the fishing and cooking dailies for rewards, but you will not gain profession levels from this, and you will not be able to learn the new recipes until Cataclysm, when the next level of each profession is available.

Some of these NPC's won't have anything to sell you yet, but when you talk to them it's obvious that there will be things in those trainer lists or vendor boxes.


Then find an Inn to set your hearth to. There's a few options here. The Trade District is nearest the flight paths, a bank, an auction house and some trainers and also very central in Stormwind. Old Town is nearest the Justice Point and Tier 11 vendors, as well as rogue, warrior and hunter trainers. Lastly, and my choice, is the Dwarven District. 

Other than not being near the flight point out of Stormwind, the Dwarven District's inn seems to be the most ideal place. There's an AH, a bank, the tram, harbour, and close to Old Town where my class trainer is along with the JP, VP and T11 vendors. Also, this is closest to the portal site, at least once you can fly. I'm pretty sure you can fly in Stormwind once you learn flying in the Old world, but don't hurt me if I'm wrong.

For me, my engineering trainer is right outside the inn, the anvil is close by as well, however, the jewelcrafting trainer is along the canals near the Trade District. Oh well, you can't have everything. 

Also, you are able to go and learn the location of one of the first new dungeons available in Cataclysm: Blackrock Caverns. You can discover the entrance by going to Blackrock Mountain. If you follow the link to wowhead.com the top comment will give you adequate instructions on how to find it. This is necessary to queue up for the dungeon if you desire to enter dungeons while questing. I suggest doing this in guild groups to save time. Gear ilvl in this instance is 279 for normal. The other instance people are talking about for 80-81 is The Throne of Tides but you will have to discover it once Cataclysm opens, as it is located in Vashs'ir.

If you're interested in leveling fast, or farming, I suggest starting off in Hyjal. However, if you're wanting to beat some crowds, discover the new instance, and do some interesting quest lines, start off in Vashj'ir.

Personally, I plan to level at a quick pace, but I will not be rushing for server first. I prefer to enjoy the expansion and not burn through it so fast I don't have a clue about what is going on. That being said, I have more than enough leveling to do, so I should experience the lore and plots by the time I have my army at level cap. And probably will accomplish a lot of farming along the way.

So, what's your plan? How are you getting ready for the coming expansion that's 2 weeks away?





Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Patch day 4.0.3a! New Azeroth.

Just a short post today folks, so let's get right into it, shall we?

Yes, Blackfallow Ink is the new currency for Ink Trader Jessica Sellers in Dalaran. Yes, Ethereal Ink is 10 Blackfallow Ink. No, Vanishing Powder is not gone, but we can still sell on the AH for a good profit.

Wrath herbs have already dropped 30% over night on my server, as well.

The new Azeroth looks amazing. Take some time to go out and explore the world a bit, maybe scope out some of the new nodes, and familiarize yourself with the new gaming world.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Deathwing approaches!

I heart patches! Major patches always bring some interesting things to the table, like instances, Tiers of gear, unfair buffs, massive nerf bats and let's not forget the broken add ons, bugs and of course the goodie bags of surprises Blizzard like to toss in.

So a quick few reminders you're bound to see everywhere else:

Jessica Sellers in Dalaran will no longer be willing to trade your crappy Ink of the Sea for lesser inks. She will only be accepting Blackfallow Ink, which will not be attainable until Dec. 7th.

There will no longer be portals in Dalaran or Shattrath, so it's probably best for you to set your hearth stone to Stormwind or Orgrimmar. Apparently Deathwing strikes here the hardest and you're bound for some surprises when you log in.

Alright and just a bunch of new stuff. I'm pretty excited for this. I've been playing in the same boring old Azeroth for a good 3 years now, and I'm looking forward to all the changes. Personally, I'll still be working on making some gold, but I'm with all the others who intend on leveling an alt or two in the time between The Shattering and The Cataclysm.

Oh, I also completely forgot about Pilgrim's Bounty! Well, no, I didn't really, I had it in the back of my head, but since I'm so busy with other things at the moment, I shoved it to the side. Right now is a great time to farm turkies and sell them to people cooking for the Bounty. Another option is to sell tracker snacks for folks doing The Turkinator achievement. Or, just go level cooking on  your alts!

Alright, well apologies for my short, not-so-awesome post today folks. I'm knee deep in herbs, pigments and inks for trading. See you in the new Azeroth.

Monday, November 22, 2010

To glyph or not to glyph...

I was one of those that "got rich fast" via glyphing. I was lucky enough to have an awesome friend who helped me a little with my initial investment, by giving me a few bank tabs worth of inscription materials to use my own brains to work with.

My strategy was to make 20 of each glyph that I knew, and restock when that stack dropped to 10. I started off  only knowing the recipes you were taught from the trainers as I leveled my scribe up, but I sold all the glyphs I made. Once I reached cap level, I would just keep my supply up and craft a stack of each new glyph I learned from the cooldowns and books.

I had 3 bank toons for this. One was my main banker and only carried 3 classes in 32 slot scribe bags, so there was room for my odds and ends. I had two more toons devoted to glyphing alone, one with blue-spectrum, and one with red-spectrum classes. I did this, because it made it easy for me to visually see what glyphs needed to go where, and also whether I made a mistake and sent the wrong glyph to the wrong toon. Not that it's a big issue, but I have serious organization issues and inefficient use of storage drivers me bonkers.

I'd log into each toon in a rotation first thing. Postal would run and empty mail while I surfed forums and blogs, then QA3 would auto post everything for me. I had my threshold set to whatever would give me a 100% ROI depending on prices it was sometimes higher than 100%, and my fall back was set to 30g. When I finally rolled over to my main bank toon, after I posted up glyphs, I would then snatch up all herbs and inks within my price range, ship them over to my scribe and spend a goodly amount of time milling and restocking.

ProTip#1: Restock before the weekend. I would often make more sales over Friday-Sunday than I would during the rest of the week. Be sure to check in and make sure you're not incredibly low on anything.

ProTip#2: Empty your mail box, scan and repost as often as you can. The more posting I did, the more gold I made.

I might go into WHY this strategy another time, or else this post will be even more monstrous than it already is.

And then Blizzard fully announced the 4.0.1 changes. Glyphs are now a one-time-use-only item. Oh noes! The feelings over all were quite mixed, but I was one of those that knew the market would die down, but still survive. For two weeks prior to Glyphmas, I crafted my little heart out. I had a massive stock of inks and was scoring amazing deals on herbs (5g per stack!). I stocked 40 of each glyph, 60 of the ones I knew were very popular. I suddenly watched a small investment blossom into my first gold cap and beyond. I made over 180k  within 4 days of that event.

And since 4.0.1, I haven't made a single glyph for profit. But the glyphs I'm still posting (only a small handful on one toon) are posting and selling for anywhere between 20g and 180g.

Tomorrow is likely 4.0.3a where more than a few interesting changes will occur to inscription and Azeroth as a whole. It seems the scribe vendors have fallen off their rockers and no longer sell or trade items relevant to level 80 and Wrath of the Lich King. Vanishing powder will no longer be purchasable from any vendor, but still craftable by scribes. Ink of the Sea will no longer be full currency for other inks, so seriously do your trading today if you intend to stay in the glyph market after patch.

My consideration is this:

I have two days to sort my crap out, mill my brains out, and then I can take it a bit slow. Or, I can just not bother, miss out on some gold from a rush of bored players leveling alts to check out the new Azeroth. Hmmm. Oh and don't forget glyph sales into Cataclysm. Hmm.

To glyph, or not to glyph?

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Pecking order of professions.

Patience is a virtue. My consumable experiment has gone well, but I doubt it will go over well in any mass. But, I still think I might work on a small stockpile of fish and Northrend meats to sell later for people leveling cooking.

After feeling a bit silly for getting confused about profession leveling in Cataclysm, especially since I'm normally quite thorough with my reading comprehension, I now have a more clear understanding of what is going on and can start to speculate on exactly what order I'm going to be leveling my characters. I was enlightened by a fellow poster at The Consortium, who pointed out some important bits from two reputable sources. The first source is a  post made by WoW insider about a week ago, and I also get a lot of my information from Kaliope's blog but I obviously missed some key articles.

It's understood that you will be able to train Illustrious Grand Master level profession at character level 75, however, a few professions (Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting, and Leatherworking) will be gated (cannot purchase recipes from city trainers) at profession level 500 until you do a quest chain at level 84 that unlocks Twilight Highlands. Twilight Highlands phasing will reveal trainers and recipe vendors for at least some professions. This leaves the other professions to be leveled to 525, unless there's some last minute changes. Engineering and more importantly Tailoring are two that I'm half expecting to change. I know this is making a lot of people groan, but you know what? I totally like this idea. Plus, it allows me to solve the puzzle of omgwhatdoIfreakingdoaboutthisproblemIhave?!

So, based on this beta information we can speculate a few key things. I should worry about leveling my characters with with BS, JC or LW first. I should then worry about the characters with gathering professions second, and lastly the ones with professions that aren't going to be gated to max crafting level. So where does this leave me?

Well, it looks like I'm in luck here. The only character with a confirmed gated profession is my main. Yay! Now I have an even more justified reason to level her first, and that will bring me to a max level Jewelcrafter and Engineer. That leaves me with herb/mining likely second on the list, however hesitant I am about my DK, I really do want to get back into the groove with her for Cataclysm. My third toon will likely be my tailor/enchanter, however I may decide to level her second instead of my farmer for the simple fact of recipe access. Lastly, will likely be my scribe/ alchemist. I think this is a bit of a risk though, but at the same time I have a fall back. 

Since I'm the gold-savvy family member, I get to call the shots, so since it will be my hard earned gold leveling a few certain other people's professions, I will have access to these. Leatherworking/ Jewelcrafting and a Scribe/ Herber. Pretty awesome wild card huh? And I don't even have to level the characters myself.

Also, on that note, I'd like to just say that having a large guild is going to be massively beneficial to any entrepreneur, especially in the early days of Cataclysm when no one has the same professions. Generally guild members means good deals or "your mats no tip". All this along with the guild leveling perks that eventually kick in (also another reason why I might hold off on my farming toon right away) is a pretty good deal for having to put up with people. So, if you're not in a guild, GET IN ONE.

Now, really, there's going to be so many people looking to max their professions. Look at my main for example; both professions consume ore and volatiles (I think that's the new elemental crafting unit). Miners are going to be making a KILLING. Because of this I've considered forgoing questing on my DK and every time my rogue hits a new level, I'll put in a good hour or two of farming (while everyone else is questing) with my On a Pale Horse and well-invested 310% mount speed. Hopefully this will put me ahead of the questing droves, and I can skirt high-level mobs trying to eat me while I gather some mats.

See, I'm still all over the place! But, at least I've shared some of my ideas and thought them out myself here.

PS. I'm still working out my design, so let me know if something is hard to read or looks funny, and forgive me if the blog looks totally different every time you visit.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Consumables!

So, remember my post a few posts past where I talked about consumable speculation?
Well, I decided to go ahead with a few consumables, mostly Elixir of Might Agility and Elixir of Mighty Strength. I purchased Adder's Tongue and Goldclover for roughly 20g per stack, so I can make 10 elixirs (without procs) out of 40g work of herbs. I was selling elixirs in stacks of 5, for 30g each. And yes, every single one sold in the first posting. Pulling in 60g - 40g investment = 20g profit with Agility, but strength was much more profitable since it only requires 2 of one herb type, instead of 2 herbs each of 2 herb types.

 I've watched again, and no one else has posted any consumables. However, today I've posted some again and I'm going to see what happens. So far my competition is nearly non-existent. It's Friday night, so I'm ready to make more if they sell. But, even in the small batch, it's minimal effort for a quick investment return and with little competition, it's guaranteed profit if the demand is there.

However, the herb prices are unrelentingly high. There's an ever decreasing supply and obviously steady demand with the need for raid consumables and the glyph market. I'm really thinking that this isn't as profitable or awesome as I had thought, at least on this server, but mostly I'm testing the demand for consumables not the profitability. Maybe if herbs take a massive drop in value (heh, yea right) I'll snatch up a bunch and try again later. But if they take a hike, which is what I'm expecting, I'll be slapping up my reserve stock.

So my new speculation is to pull out my trusty little fishing rod and go fishing. Anyone have a suggestion on a good show to watch while waiting for that "sploosh" of a caught fish? Between foods that solo buff someone, or mats that are required for feasts it may be a fair investment, even for the later future, to sell for people leveling their cooking profession.

Most people will probably choose to be efficient and make a food they can use themselves or will be valuable to others, so hopefully, Dragonfin Angelfish will be a desired item. If not, it's still time put in for my damned Sea Turtle mount. Other meats to consider are the Nettlefish, Rhino meat, Glacial Salmon, Chunk o' Mammoth and Mussle-Back Sculpin. All of those are used in the Gigantic Feast and Small Feast items that are the bottle neck from 425 to 450, and lead into the making of Fish Feasts. I wouldn't *make* the feasts, just sell the mats, and I also wouldn't make the food unless you knew there was a demand.

Just a note though, in Cataclysm you will be able to use Cataclysm mats at cooking skill level 400, so it's a risk and a bit of a hope that people will be still wanting to use Wrath mats to level past 400. There's only two recipes on beta so far though. It's likely to be easier to buy/ fish up the Wrath mats to level, so there will still be a value in them for people looking to level, or even for the guild achievement Time to Open a Restaurant which requires 10,000 feasts to be laid, however the recipe reward is granted for the 5,000 feasts achievement, but some guilds are packed with achievement junkies.

Alright, so I think I'm rambled enough for one day, and much more than I expected to. Hope you enjoyed reading.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Which toon?

As the next expansion nears, I'm sure the majority of players are asking themselves "what do I want to do in the expansion?" I know I am. I have 4 level 80's that all have professions that are fairly valuable. I have a JC/ Engineer (main PVE, Rogue), a Tailor/ Enchanter (Druid resto/boom), a Herb/Miner (DK Frost/blood) and a Alchemist/ Inscription (Mage). ( I fund toons with the rest of the professions in exchange for use). So, my most obvious choice would be my rogue, I definately want her to 85 because I'll be playing her the most and want to get her geared up and ready. However, my DK will be a massive money-maker, if I can handle farming for hours instead of getting rep and gear for my rogue and starting in on that pesky achievement-whoring fever I have. The druid and mage are both enjoyable as raiding alts, and both their professions are needed and valued in my gold-making.

So there's only one choice to make here. Level, level, level, and level some more until my eyes bleed. Ok no, not really. I guess the biggest thing is to know yourself and your play style. It would suck quite a bit if you spent so much of your first play hours powering your farming toon, only to get them up to a good farming level and not want to farm. It could also go where you just aren't interested in playing a class that has really important professions on them. Or, like me, you wish you could log into your account 4 different times, on 4 toons, and /follow and then you wouldn't be chewing your nails and freaking out about omgwhatdoIfreakingdoaboutthisproblemIhave?!

*Breathes deeply* Ok, so it's just a game, and I've been stock-piling gold-making stuff to carry me through so I can enjoy it. But oh man. I'm just really excited for something new. I've accepted (and you should too) that you just can't level everything at once. Ultimately, you should let your heart decide for you and level the toon you know you love the most. Or, if you're cold hearted, go ahead and level that farmer, because I'll be the poor sucker paying through my nose for your cold-hearted farmed goods.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

My pre-Cata doing.

So, after my last post about using your brain and thinking, I thought maybe I might be nice and share what I'm stockpiling and other small things I'm doing pre-expansion.

I'm currently holding on to a full bank tab of Saronite Ore, a bank tab of cloth, and cheap Eternals.

Not really much is it? Well, I never bothered with the pets, and I've been rather busy with achievements. The only other things I'm considering are Cobalt ore, borean/ heavy borean leather and a few stacks of each of the Northrend herbs. I'm being overly cautious, on purpose. I know that when the expansion comes out I want to focus on Cataclysm stuff. Why? Well, since I'm into raiding etc, I'm going to need many of the new things Cataclysm has to offer for my 4 (yes, 4) raiding toons, plus the other 3 80's belonging to family members that my bank has adopted. I don't want to be putting all my efforts into clearing out guild banks so I can fill them with new stuff, so I'm sure to leave room open.

Pre-expansion, however, I've noticed there's a serious lack of elixirs on our server, so I put out a little test with a few stacks and a few singles of different elixirs and they all sold. So, I'll be back at that again. I also scoped out the rune scroll and drums market, unfortunately they look fairly flooded, but I'll keep my eye on them for now. The food markets is interesting on this server. There's always a fair amount of cooked products, but never any of the raw meats. I'm pretty sure a few people have this market dominated, but I'm also keeping my eye out on it.

Why am I doing this? Well, there's many people who aren't bothering any more with making sales, so there's markets with big gaping holes in them. Why have I chosen these certain markets? Well if you haven't noticed the pattern yet, I'm looking at consumables. I can sell them now, and I'll also be able to sell them right into the first week of Cataclsym. There will be many people wanting to power level to 85, and will suddenly think about consumables last minute. If you can get a few friends to have a discussion about server first leveling over trade chat during peak hours, this may help increase the demand for your products. Any crafty AH pvpers will have already considered this, or just don't care at the moment.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Just a few things I've been thinking about.

So, in my speculation about stock-piling and what's coming up, I've thought of a few general things to consider in general when considering stock-piles.

Is there anything better that will replace end product in Cataclysm? A great example of this is weapon enchants. I heard someone in guild chat mention stocking up on mats for Mongoose because it was the best enchant. This is a terrible mistake, and obvious this person didn't look anything up. There's quite a few very good (while bland) enchantments coming out in Cataclysm.

Will people need this to level a profession? Is it a popular material in leveling a profession? Can I provide enough of said material to make someone want to purchase my item to fill their leveling needs? Is it a bottle-neck material? There are some items out there, that will always sell because they are always needed for one or more professions, but are also abundant in the game. There are also items out there that leveling guides list to use, and recipes that need to be purchased from a vendor. There are also items that are not easily found, but some people will buy them up (this is higher risk) if there's enough to level a profession if the end product is worth-while, or if there's a lack of other things, this works great in a bottle-neck. And then of course there's mats in bottle-necks. A good example of this is alchemy. In order to max out 450 alchemy, you need to transmute meta gems, so the materials for these are a worth-while investment. However, with Cataclysm coming out, it's always good to stay on top of whether these materials will still be desired for leveling, or bottle-necked.

What about achievements? There are many achievements that require consumption of items, wearing items while dancing under the influence, or reputation hand-ins as we saw with Insane in the Membrane, or Sporeggar. These are often items worth adding to a snatch list to be purchased at a low-price and flip for extremely easy gold. Let's not forget the upcoming guild achievements that may use a substantial amount of consumable items.

I've been looking at a few items lately, especially Saronite Ore, to keep a tidy little stock-pile of for Cataclysm. Eternals are another item I think is worth stock-piling, especially Life, Water and Fire. Shadow is a bit more common from mining, but worth holding on to.  Making money off these items is all about supply and demand however, so you need to be sure you know your server's markets.

Saronite Ore can be sold raw, in bars, transmuted to Titanium bars and further made into Titansteel which is used in mounts that will still be sought-after in Cataclysm. It can also be prospected and turned into gems that Jewelcrafters need to level, and Alchemists need to x-mute for levels. Yellow epic gems are used to make the engineering Jeeves which may be desired.

Eternals are used in everything to level, especially the 4 I listed. Earth isn't used as much, but can be used to create infinite dust in Cata if there is a demand for it on your server as well. Frozen orbs are also needed for a few items, and can easily be traded for Eternals. I'd keep my eye out in Cata to use Frozen Orbs as a flipping item.


Any ways, just my thoughts, probably not the most original things, but a good process to get your brain thinking.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The expansion lull.

It feels like we've really hit the lull in the expansion. You know, that time when nothing is certain enough to really get too excited and set it in stone, when we're all running around doing the pre-expansion events and quests, when things stop selling on the AH, and your gear starts to look faded and worn because you've been wearing the same tier for far too long. Yup, that would be it. 

I haven't really had much to say, and personally, enjoying the break to sort out where I want to take this blog in Cataclysm. I hardly know what I'm going to eat for lunch today, so it's a bit of a stretch, and since this blog is a bit of a "why not?" project, I think I'm going to let it roam free until I settle into a cozy little niche. But, I'd really like to stick to achievements, and gold-making mostly, but still toss in any interesting tid-bits about end-game, since that's a very important part of the game for me. I'd also like to make my posts about once every 2-3 days, but would prefer not to leave much time between if I can help it.

Until Cataclysm though, I highly doubt my posts will be that frequent, since there really isn't anything to post. MMO-Champion and Wowhead seem to be well on top of the Cataclysmic events, as well as WoW insider, so keep yourself updated with the excitement. Phase 2 began yesterday, and I suspect phase 3 will be approaching us soon, perhaps in about a week. 4.0.3, aka The Cataclysm, should occur about a week (probably during shut down) before the expansion launches. I'm pretty excited to go explore the new Azeroth on my low-level alts who have been patiently waiting to grow up.

Also, speaking of exploring... I was working on a fishing achievement, I know - such a slacker - and ended up starting to explore areas because I only have one or two subzones. Now, I'm nearly done Kalimdor, which will compete the achievement. Now would be an excellent time to work on this if you haven't yet, because it gives you a last chance to really explore Classic WoW how you would have back at level 60. There was a bit of nostalgia and some revenge on a few mobs that gave me trouble back in my noob days, but mostly it was a relaxing break from my hard pushing grind to finish off my goblin reputations and Ravenholt boxes.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

It's been a few days, but not overly much is happening. Except a whole lot of achievement whoring. Actually, before I continue, I want to mention that the glyph prices have become really interesting. Some post for 9g, some for 49g. Sometimes even higher. My speculation here is that people are still producing glyphs, but have adjusted their prices to the new mat requirements and herb prices on my server.

So back to achievements. I finally finished off Shen'dralar rep. Woo! I can finally take it easy with the rest of the feat.  Now, I'm working on making back the gold I spent by preparing for the upcoming holidays, as well as cleaning out my character banks and speculating on what to do with things like my epic gem stash. It's not very large, thankfully, but I supply about 6 characters with gear/enchants/gems and I'm debating whether holding on to a small stash will help in the coming expansion. Likely not, and I should just get rid of them now, since I have two JC toons to make money with.

Also, now may be a good time to look at any professions you want to level/ change for Cataclysm. The markets may be in high supply and low prices, or maybe you have an abundance of mats stored. But importantly, many servers are quiet right now. A lot of people have been taking breaks from farming mats, so it's also a good time to go out and do your own scavenging if you notice your server is a bit quiet.

Oh, back to achievements! My guild has been working on Neck Deep in Vile for the past week or so, and we just found the following strat:

       We did it a couple of weeks ago by accident. During 2nd ledge phase have all your ranged dps stay on LK (Remorseless Winter damage is a joke on normal mode, if the ranged even get hit by it). We didn't intentionally set out to do it like this, but we called a swap after the first Raging Spirit in the ledge phase, used lust and came out with LK at around 23-24%, ignored the remaining Ragings and just burned LK. He spawned the first wave of Vile Spirits but died before they became active, and none exploded on our raid. 


If you intend to try this you could even drop healers for ranged dps (the fight is easily healable by 2-3 people on normal mode, however we did this with 5 healers)


From the official WoW forums

We're giving it a go tomorrow night, so hopefully that will be done and dusted and we can all chill out before Cataclysm and enjoy summer (in the Southern Hemisphere) for a few months before raiding gets back into full swing again. Well some of us will be breaking, there's about 13-15 people working on Bane of the Fallen King at the moment (10 man HM LK). I've been there for every attempt/clear to so far, and to be honest, I've actually found enjoyment and fun for the game again. I'm being challenged with learning a new way of doing the fight, everyone is enjoying themselves (aka no one is complaining about the wiping) and it just gets better. We've had about 40 attempts to far, some due to silly mistakes, many from us trying different things out, but we suspect we should get it in no more than 30 more attempts, and that's being pretty modest about our talents. I think if we did this Pre-4.0.1 we would have a higher success rate, but since everyone is adjusting to the changes in class and game mechanics, it's expected.