Sunday, August 26, 2012

Battle Pet Update

For today's post I just wanted to go over some news on battle pets that you may have missed in the past 2 weeks.  5.0.4 is just around the corner, and although the Theramore event is not going to be released Tuesday, I look forward to seeing what happens with glyphs!

As prerequisite knowledge for this post, the overall limit on amount of pets is 500, and 3x is the most you can have of a single pet (for some the limit is only 1, see below for more info).

Duplicate Pet Problem (Launch of MoP)
As you may remember from my previous post or elsewhere, pets were originally slated to be mailed back to you caged if you had any duplicates.  This has been changed.  Instead, for MoP launch, the limit of 500 pets total is going to be lifted as well as the 3x per pet limit.  So on pets that are not unique you will be able to have an 'unlimited' amount (although per account, 50) of each non-unique pet, granted you have one on each character.  This is a one shot deal kind of thing, other than at launch, you will be held to the limits for the rest of the expansion.

From my point of view this is good, my idea on camping Jadefang should work out, at least in a minimal setting, if not better (being able to learn the extras and sell).  Otherwise, this will be great for those sellable blues that we have tons of across alts (for a full list see my Rare Battle Pets link at the top of the page).

SO...Which Pets Are Unique?
As of now, there are 4 types of pets that are unique:

  1. Achievement Pets
  2. Blizzard Pet Store Pets
  3. Promotional Pets
  4. Guild Pets
So these pets, even at launch you will not be able to have more than one of.  Going into launch these pets, are currently slated to not be tradeable anyway.  Also of note, the TCG Pets will be cageable/tradeable on launch, according to this recent post.

**Edit: "Standard" Pets
After I released this post, Nev from Auction House Addict pointed out to me this blue post from today, that says "standard pets" will be merged upon 5.0.4 release with a cap of 3 each.  The examples of a standard pet that they gave are "Orange Tabby Cat, Brown Prairie Dog, Crimson Whelpling" which is a bit odd, considering the Crimson Whelpling is slated to be a "Rare Battle Pet".  That being said these changes are going live before MoP release, so we should have time to fully analyze the breadth of this change before Mists comes out.

Wrap it up!
In all, these changes seem beneficial to gold making with pets.  Also, although some in the gold making community are skeptical, I expect all the companion pets that are slated to turn into rare battle pets to be so at MoP launch, until Blizzard indicates otherwise, citing the "Beta is Beta" principle.  So, What aspect of Battle Pets do you most look forward to in Mists of Pandaria?  Also, how long do you expect servers to actually be down Tuesday?


Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

High Pop vs. Low Pop

Hi Guys,

Today I wanted to talk about High Pop vs. Low Pop servers, specifically my experiences with them.  For those of you who don't know or don't remember from previous posts, my main server is Low Pop (until MoP when it'll probably hit medium).  Recently I participated in a gold making competition where we competed on a high pop server.  Since then I have been playing with their AH on and off for fun, and I've learned quite a bit about how size effects sales among different markets, and I just wanted to share some general observations.

Transmog
Being on my Low Pop server and having a large (~800 item) transmog inventory, I get less sales per 48 hour posting  than my character on a high pop server with ~150 item inventory.  This could be due to a few factors I suppose.  There are probably more characters with disposable income on a large server, and more characters interested in transmog as well.  One thing I'm interested in seeing the results of once MoP comes around is doubling all my xmog prices (except my highest tier which is really expensive as is :-P), and seeing how the two markets react.

Jewelcrafting/Enhancement Professions
Since my experiment is mostly for fun, I decided to use a gem strategy similar to what I use on my Low Pop server and see how it worked on a high pop server.  As I don't have a JC on the larger server, I bought up gems I would craft and resold.  As you could (probably) imagine, I actually sold less gems per 12 hour posting on the High Pop as compared to the Low.  This is due to more/faster undercutting on a higher population server, which just makes sense.  Although, when I did dungeons on the high pop, I got A LOT more sales posting in between queues.  iSold was going crazy!  For a regular player who posts from their main, a High Pop server will give you a distinct advantage for repost sales, but I can't say it makes a huge difference from a small with "set it and forget it" auctions.

Inscription
In this one I have a clear favorite.  Small servers.  If you are the type of gold maker like me, you aren't logging and reposting all the time, you either want to enjoy the game time you have, or other aspects of your life, and want to get your routine done and over with.  This is where glyphs on a small server blows large servers out of the water.  Even if you have a competitor or two, it's nothing compared to what you have to face on a large server.  You can make lots of gold not having to repost so often, and that's great for me.

Advantages of my Second Server
If you're someone like me who enjoys making gold just for the "how much can I make" aspect of it, you don't like spending gold on your main server.  If you're a hardcore gold maker you'll find it easy to get on a high pop server and start making gold relatively fast.  Although I had an extra kickstart of motivation to make my characters, I look forward to using this character to purchase high-end TCG mounts, rare pets, etc. that will be account wide in MoP.  Why spend all that gold on your main server when you can get it on another server you are not interested in?  Also even though I have the utility to make gold on that server, I don't have anywhere near as much utility as I do on my main server.  That being said when Black Market AH comes out in MoP I'm not going to be depending on my secondary server to buy things (nor would I want to, especially in the case of something like gear).  So having a large gold stockpile will be functional (maybe).  What is your favorite (or least favorite) difference between low and high pop servers?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Friday, August 10, 2012

5.0.4 on the Horizon

Well it's official.  We are now currently downloading 5.0.4, the Pre-expansion Patch leading up to Pandamonioum.  If you're interested, the patch notes for the current 5.0.4 build on the PTR can be read here.  For those of you who don't like to read through patch notes to find what you need, I'll be highlighting the gold making implications here.  Also as a side note predictions and history don't put this patch until early September, so you still have time to prepare!
He's ready, are you?


Glyphs Overhauled
Blizzard is not waiting until Mists is released to completely overhaul the glyph and talent system, they're giving us a window to adjust.  For those of you whom are scribes you know the potential implications of this.  All glyphs are changing.  A few are being removed but MOST are being changed in some way.  Speculation is saying Glyphmas 2.0 may occur, especially if the inks are no longer tradeable as they were during the original Glyphmas.  Only time will tell on that one, although I know many of us have our fingers crossed.

How I'm Preparing

I'm not big into glyphs, but with all the hype I can't not have a hand in it.  I already have crafted 9 of each glyph my scribe can craft (and doing lots of research), and hope for 20 of each before 5.0.4 comes out.  I'm ignoring the info about the ones that are changing to nothing, mostly because of my laziness.  Last I checked there were only 3, and if we make out the way we're supposed to, 3 stacks of glyphs will be the least of my expenditures.

My suggestion during your grinding is to do something else while crafting to occupy your time, and while you craft all the inks, feel free to browse the web, and perhaps catch up on your favorite TV series or read your favorite WoW Gold Blog.



Mogging Wands!
This is a market I have been looking at for a while, if you don't have my ultimate list of BoE transmog wands, check it out here!  Yes, casters will be able to use their wands as main hands in 5.0.4.  If you're not a caster and don't see why this is important, previously wands were never seen on a caster unless they took them out (rare) or if they decided to cast "shoot" with their wand (hopefully never).  In 5.0.4, wands will be used as main-hand weapons for casters, so they can (and probably will) be WAY more prevalent in transmog.  Buy low now to sell high soon!

AoE Looting
I'm excited about this one.  AoE looting will be live on servers come the pre-expansion patch, which will give us gold makers something to twiddle with in the weeks before MoP.  I mentioned in a previous post that I will be using this to my advantage to go after the pet Mr. Grubbs.  I have not tried it on the PTR because I hate putting the time in to test something and even if it works I'm not benefited by it in the "real game" (yes IRG I just got meta on you).  They have nerfed overall gold/silver drops of mobs, which is to be expected, but it will be interesting to see how other keen gold makers take advantage of this in the coming weeks.  Transitions are always a fun time in WoW.

Account Wide Pets/Mounts
This may have some gold making implications on the mount side (think Mechanohog), but there are not many gold makers who focus greatly on mounts.  This change may get you better selling prices (possibly more sales).  Buyers will be a lot more willing to shell out 20k for a Mechanohog on 10 players than only 1 player.  Same goes for pets. Since the battle system won't be instated until Mists, we won't see that huge surge in pet interest yet, but consider charging more for your pets/mounts.  Although a lot of alts will now have what you're selling, a lot of them will be more willing to pay higher prices for a companion across alts.

Cool, but Irrelevant to Gold Making
Yes 5.0.4 has other cool things but alas not all of them are going to increase our wealth.

  • Pre-MoP quests: I'm interested to see how these pan out, not released yet on the PTR so I know something epic is going to happen on the poor Alliance isle of Theramore!  
  • Battle Tags: If you've played D3 you know what they are, basically real ID without exchanging Email addresses.
  • Overhaul of Abilities: Not only are glyphs being changed, but all talent trees are being completely revamped.  I'm not the one to get the info from about this though :).
All in all it's going to be an interesting time, with glyphs being my major focus (at least on the things changing level).  What is your favorite part of patch 5.0.4? 


Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Friday, August 3, 2012

My Top 2 Pre-MoP Lists

In the past month I came out with 2 shopping lists, one was only two posts ago, but the other was a bit of time away.  Both however are necessary to be used in the next few weeks to maximize profits based off of them, so I wanted to repost them for my readers to get if they haven't.  If this is all old news to you, I apologize 

Wands!
Wands are going to be turned into Main-hands when the Pre-Expansion patch is released.  That's right, BEFORE Mists.  I expect this patch to fall near the end of this month, so time is a-wasting on these lists!  My list consists of wands that could potentially be transmogged once wands are brought to the public eye as main hands.  The original post can be found here.



Auctionator

***Mogging Wands
Wand of Allistarj
Wand of Arcane Potency
Torch of Austen
Antenna of Invigoration
Crystalized Ebony Wand
Wasteland Wand
Gwyneth's Runed Dragonwand
Incessant Torch
Nightmare Ender
Torchlight Wand
Wand of Dark Worship
Cyu's Ornate Wand
Theresa's Booklight

TradeSkillMaster

s1@13065,18338,37824,59460,13004,66920,55823,21801,35652,36665,67104,50472,25283$@

Rare Battle Pets
This list of Rare BoE pets to keep an eye on comes from my post Rare Battle Pets Mean Lots of Gold.  If you are interested in the BoP pets that will become tradeable come Mists, check it out, otherwise keep a keen eye on the following lists, and perhaps add them to your TUJ notifications.  Keep an eye for really great deals, this one really depends on your server, so use your best judgement!


Auctionator List:

***Rare Battle Pets:
Azure Whelpling
Captured Firefly
Crimson Whelpling
Dark Whelpling
Emerald Whelpling
Gundrak Hatchling
Hyacinth Macaw
Razzashi Hatchling
Disguisting Oozeling
Guardian Cub
Elementium Geode

TSM List:
s1@8498,29960,20769,10822,48116,67282,72068,8499,8494,48126,34535$@


Hope these lists aide in preparing you for Mists!  How ready are you for the new expansion in < 2 months?  Are you on schedule or behind?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Phat's Weekly Lewt Review: 7/31

Okay so I'm 2 days late on the :Lewt Review...it's okay though!  If you haven't read it already check out my previous post on Rare Battle Pets!

Jadefang
Tiny Shale Spider
In my previous post I mentioned farming Jadefang for the pet drop, Tiny Shale Spider.  I cannot advocate you doing this enough.  Based on pet farming forums as well as my own personal experience farming this week, his spawn timer is anywhere from 12-24 hours.  I have a dual farmer that I'm not using near the end of this expansion and he's parked out there, and whenever I see the guy spawn I send another alt to learn it.


In the comment section in that post, a question was asked if having extra of the Tiny Shale Spider in your bags will let you sell it come MoP.  While I don't doubt that you will be able to sell the extras already learned across toons, and may be able to relearn it with this if you cage your "last one", I'm not sure Blizzard will allow it in the long run.  That being said though, I will be camping this spawn (now that I've gotten it on all the alts I can) and getting as many as possible.

Stockpiling
I spent a lot of time this week building up a stockpile of leather transmog.  I'm treating this like all my other transmog at the moment, I'm still posting what I buy, but I'm buying at higher prices than I was willing to, hoping that the 50% increase in Leather wearers come MoP will boost sales.  I don't think you can really lose this bet, whether it gets bought by monks or not, transmog sales in general are going to go up when people flock back to the game.

I'm also stockpiling the pets I mentioned in my last post (linked at top of page).  I don't want to give people a set price they should buyout at, but keep an eye on the market.  From my experience people aren't selling, and reduce prices.  Wait until they get to a price range that is comfortable for you.

I'm also cleaning up what's left of my shuffle mats, stocking up on Hypnotic Dust and the like.  I want to get all of it done before MoP release, because once it's released I think my gold per hour will be raised significantly higher and I don't want to waste my time in the Cata shuffle.

All in all it's been a slow week for me in WoW once again.  Haven't had time to play much, enjoying my summer.  I'm looking to do quite a few posts this week so keep checking back for updates.  Also, I'd like to direct some of my readers to the discussion at Farli's blog, The Overcut: Top 10 Items not to stockpile post: Farli's take.  There's a great discussion going on, and I think my readers would have a lot to contribute/a lot to soak in.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Don't Call it a Comeback

Okay. You can probably call it a comeback in this case. I've been gone a long time. So if you follow my Twitter you'll know I recent...