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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.