Saturday, December 29, 2012

Looking Forward: Patch 5.2 Preview

About a week ago, Blizzard released a preview of Patch 5.2 in the 5.2 PTR Patch notes.  Now these changes as we know may not see it to live, but I always think it's good to look ahead, and in this case it's no different.

First Thoughts
As it is with every raid patch, demand for consumables (jewels, flasks, food, etc.) will increase when 5.2 first is released.  This patch however comes with a questing hub that will slowly unlock new things for each faction as they progress through it.  One of them will give a distinct (gold making) advantage to Blacksmiths:
"As the heroes conquer the Isle, they will unlock the powerful Lightning Forge, which will allow Blacksmiths to forge mighty raid-worthy items, as well as classic weapons from the past."
While this is still in it's infancy stages, this is an interesting concept.  It seems that Blacksmiths will have the ability to create raid and transmog weapons, but most likely will require your BS to be 90 to take advantage of this, if it is in the final release.  Other than this particular change, a lot of the gold making changes seem to be on the front of your Tiller's farm.

Buying the Farm
The first major change to the Tiller's farm is the option to purchase the farm from Farmer Yoon.  This will make the farm a place you can hearth to and treated like an inn.  Once you purchase it you will also start receiving "work orders" from factions in Pandaria and completing them will reward you rep.  While this will most likely not net you much gold in the long run, it can certainly help you unlock rep barred recipes on the enchanter you just got to 90 (for example).  The other changes to your Halfhill Farm focus on making your farm more efficient.

Farming Like a Boss
Patch 5.2 will be adding some long awaited changes for all you farmers out there!  The first will be AoE seeding, 4 plots at a time, using special Seed Bags.  Also, using the master plow and running over plots with vermin in them, will knock them out of their plot, stunned, with only 30% health!  Wild crops will also occur less often, once again speeding up the daily farming process.  Efficiency ho!  Some very nice simplifications to the farming system.   Last but not least, possibly the most important farm change:
The yield from special crops has been improved to make farming them competitive with gathering these items out in the world.
Aaah yes, increased yield on our favorite special crops.  I must say I look forward to these changes, as well as seeing how the whole Blacksmithing changes unfold.  It will be very interesting to see how they reintroduce some unobtainable transmog items (and which ones).  This patch also contains a LOT of class changes, so if you have gotten out of the glyph market, but still have a stockpile, the release of this patch may be a time to dabble once more, for a few weeks at least.

Hope you enjoyed this post, and I hope you all have a happy and safe new year!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Friday, December 28, 2012

Phats' Weekly Lewt Review 12/28

Hey Everyone!

Hope you all are having a great and relaxing holiday!  Today as always I'm going to bring you my latest gold making escapades in the past week, in hope of helping you, and/or letting me vent a bit (you'll see below).

Tailoring
Tailoring has been really good for me the past few weeks.  I am still burning my daily CD, and selling both the crafted PvP sets and the Imperial Silk crafted (ilvl 476) gear.  Both at an amazing profit.  I actually can't keep the Imperial Silk crafted gear on the AH long enough to replenish it with my daily cooldown, which is nice!  I'm tending to craft only the gloves now, as both gloves and robes sell for about the same on my server, and gloves take 2 less cooldowns.  If I work up 6 cloths before I sell a pair of gloves though, I will make the robes.  As for the PvP gear, for some simple calculations I figure each PvP piece takes about one stack of Windwool (ie. 4 bolts) on average.  This means that for anywhere from 20-40g I can craft one piece of PvP gear.  That means Selling it from 150-350g is well worth my time!  I'm also crafting Netherweave Bags while AFK because the profit margins are strangely high on my server right now.

Alchemy/Farming
As I mentioned a few weeks ago when 5.1 dropped, I started planting Enigma Seeds.  I'm now using them to make flasks with the rest of the herbs that come up, since my 90 is an alchemist.  Just adds a little bit of value to my Lotus, but well worth it, as they both sell just as quickly for me.  Also, I've been using a spreadsheet to calculate my minimum Living Steel method (since TUJ doesn't account for procs from transmuting).  It's going well, but my profit margin is only about 100g on any given day, with procs taken into consideration.  With 4 alchemists, this means 400g/day so I can't complain for what little work I do to get it.

Burned at the BMAH
So recently I saw a Battered Hilt on the Black Market Auction House.  The starting bid was 15k and I know I can probably get anywhere from 25-30k on my server for such an item, and I figured if it didn't sell, I could use it myself, I've always wanted to do that quest line.  I won the bid at 15k and got the item, only to see that I had purchased the Alliance only version on my Horde character.  So I almost instantly opened up a ticket with a GM.  I got my response within 48 hrs, and I was not very pleased with it. They said 2 things: 1) They would not change the item to the Horde version and 2) They would not refund me the gold I payed for the item.  Bummer.  So I'm out 15k, it's my own fault but I figured they'd at least swap it for the Horde version, but what can you do.  Lesson learned, watch out for faction specific items on the BMAH.

That's about all for this week, it's been a lot of sales I figure because the college and high school kids have off this week through New Year's, and I've gotten a noticeable increase in sales, which is always welcome.  I will try to do another post some time before 2013, but I'm not sure that I will have the time.  In any case, I hope you all have a Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Thursday, December 20, 2012

How to be a Great Transmog Salesman Part 2

This is a follow up to my previous 2 posts, How to be a Great Transmog Salesman Part 1, and it's recent Addendum, a shorter way to do it.  Now that we've gone through the various ways of purchasing these items, I'm going to go through some methods that I use to sell the items.

Handy Dandy Transmog Seller
I highly suggest for anyone who is going to get serious about transmog to make a level 1 bank mule solely for transmog.  This way your bags are free of any other potential clutter.  My character also has a guild bank for himself to store anything I have more than 3 of.  He has all 26 slot bags (28 aren't worth it yet).  With the backpack that's 120 slots.  150 would of course be preferable because mail comes in 50's, but not an option  right now.

I also find that attempting to be as anonymous as possible is the way to go with this as well.  If guildies find out you're the guy selling all the xmog gear they want, they're going to want you to cut them a deal.  All the time.  Trust me I've been down that road, and minus RealID (which you still can't appear invisible on), don't advertise yourself as being that lvl 1 transmog guy.

The 48-Hour Auction
For Transmog gear, I always set my TSM groups to be on 48 hours.  This way you only have to repost unsold items every 2 days.  You may get undercut, but with the amount of items you have on the AH, you won't particularly care.  I tend to scan at least once per day to find any good deals, but more than that on occasion.  If you're using the TSM Application, it has the option to notify you of Deals if you're using one of the dealfinding lists.  I don't want to go in length on that topic right now, but may in a future post.

My Tiers
Yesterday, in Part 1, I noted that I set up 4 tiers for my transmog sales, I'm going to simplify them by refering  to them as follows:

Low Level: 499g Threshold/749g Fallback
Mid Level: 749g Threshold/1249g Fallback
High Level: 4499g Threshold/4999g Fallback
Extremely Rare: 17999g Fallback

Now you could honestly buy everything below 50g, and put it all in the Low Level Group and make gold, but putting better looking pieces in pricier groups helps make you more profit!  I'd say a majority of my pieces actually do fall into the Low Level group, but there are a few sets (more than this but I'm going to give you some highlights) that I throw into the higher groups, as follows.  Mouse over the set name to look at the set!

Mid Level
My mid level items consist of gear from the following sets (among others):
Blood KnightBloodfistBloodscaleCaptain'sDarkcrest, and Imbued Plate
Note that some of these Chest and Pants I will bump up to the 5k, as they really are the core pieces for the set.

High Level
Arachnidian RobesHibernal RobeVenomshroud Silk Robes, Buccaneer's SetHyperion Set (Chest/Legs in Extremely Rare), Silver-Thread Robe, Soulkeeper, Speedsteel Rapier, and my favorite Anvilmar Hammer

Extremely Rare
Exalted Plate, Robes of Insight, Jade Plate

Of course different people have different lists, but these are roughly how I group mine together.  Get a feel for your own server.  My server is Low Pop so I usually have a monopoly on any of the High Level or higher sets, so I can price them how I want.  In a higher pop setting you may want to reduce your prices to remain profitable.  Try out different things, and see what works for you.

Barking
Rarely I will talk about my transmog gear on my main.  Just to get some free advertising.  Say something like (and link the item) "Anvilmar Hammer for 5,000g!?  What a rip off!".  Now you may be thinking Phat, why slander your beautiful self in such a way?  I'll tell you why.  This one is on the principle "any publicity is good publicity".  I can't tell you how many sales I've made off of posting unique items to trade in this way.  A lot of players don't know they exist, even if it doesn't sell that day, you've planted a seed!

That's all for now, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below!


Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Addendum to How to be a Great Transmog Salesman Part 1

If you read my post yesterday and liked it, a reader, lasagna left a note in the comments, and pointed out that there's an even FASTER way to do this search, which takes little (or almost no) time.  It involves using a dealfinding search with up to date scan data so that it only scans items that are actually on the AH, below a defined price, and takes just seconds to do!

TSM App
Since you need recent scan data, there are two ways to go about it.  The fist is using the Tradeskillmaster App, which will download your data about once per hour (it's an external application to WoW), and you can get that data into WoW with a /reload.  What the dealfinding list is going to do, using this strategy, that a normal shopping list won't, is it will only check for things that were cheaper than your threshold at the last full scan.  Using this TSM App, downloadable straight from the TSM website at this link, you will be able to constantly update your data without ever doing a scan in game!  You will have to do a /reload to retrieve the most recent data if it has scanned since you've been logged in, it's a very useful application to have.

While visiting TSM's website, be sure to check out their Child's Play Charity Fundraiser.  They're currently raising money for the Child's Play charity, and are matching every donation made!

Alternatively, if you don't want to download the application, you can just click Run Scan (under AuctionDB with the AH window open), and then "Run GetAll Scan".  This will also provide you with the data you need to do a quick dealfinding search.

Two Different Lists
If you want to skip my ramblings and just download the precious lists, click the "TSM Transmog Lists" button above.  

Now there are two different ways to do this, and I'm just going to go into what each scan brings to the table, and why I personally prefer one to the other (although both are extremely useful in their own way).  The way we're going to use these lists, they're going to take our recent scan data, and then use our list to only search for items that were below our threshold price at the last scan.  Basically it will scan only the items that are on the AH, below your defined price, which is very nice.

List 1: 745g
The list I prefer is one where the limits are set just below my 750 minimum posting price, at 745.  This scan is preferable to me because I will not be scanning any of my 800+ auctions, saving a lot of scan time for me.  The con of this list is that some items you'd be willing to pay more for, you won't see.  The best deals for flipping on the other hand will mostly be below 745 gold, so to me, it's preferable.

List 2: 999,999g99s99c
Now if you either don't have a large inventory, or just want to see EVERYTHING, that is another viable option, my second list has a limit of 999,999g99s99c, which will of course show you every item.  This list will scan every item that was seen in your AH at the last scan.  This will still scan less items than a shopping list, but will find your own items.

List 3: Custom
If you want to easily change your limits to whatever you see fit (especially if you have different limits than I do), see my quick write up above the lists.

All of the lists can be found at this link, or by clicking the "TSM Transmog List" button above.

Importing Your Chosen List
Last but not least I will go over how to import a dealfinding list for those of you who do not know how to.  First type /tsm, and click Shopping Options at the top.








After doing this, click Dealfinding Lists then Import Dealfinding list.








Now enter a name, hit Okay, Then paste the list data you chose into the box, Hit accept, then Import List










And there you go, your list is imported!!

Using the List Properly
Now to use the list properly for fast search times, do a GetAll scan or refresh your data if need be (detailed above).  Then, in the TSM Auction House window, click Search -> Special Searches -> Dealfinding Search.  And there you have it!  A Simplified Search!

Thanks once again to lasagna for this awesome idea, for some reason it never occured to me, but doing it is so simple and worth it!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

How to Be a Great Transmog Salesman Part 1

**In the comments in this post, lasagna pointed out that there's a faster method to doing this search. I outlined this method here.  You can still use this shopping list, but the other method utilizes dealfinding lists for quicker searches.**

This is intended as a simple guide to purchase transmog gear in the most efficient way possible.  If you're not familiar with Transmog or TSM, learn how to use the addon package TradeSkillMaster before reading this guide, it's necessary, trust me.  Check out Faid's Instructional TradeSkillMaster videos here.

1. Addons
To be a great xmog seller you really only need 2 addons (although TSM is a package of addons):
Tradeskillmaster: I use this to buy, post, and empty my mail (as well as keep track of sales).  In particular you'll only need the Auctioning, Mailing, and Shopping packages, but all are recommended. 

Mogit: Great addon that adds hover over previews to armor items.  You'll have to check off "Load out of date addons" on your login screen for this one to work in it's current version.  It works flawlessly though, which is probably (hopefully) why they haven't updated it for 5.1.

2. My Strategy
Shopping:
A lot of gold makers use separate lists, say Cloth, Leather, Mail, Plate, Weapons, and Shields.  While doing this has it's pros, you're wasting a whole bunch of your own time sitting and searching for 100 items.  I often found myself AFKing or browsing the web while doing these searches, and coming back to searches that were completed 10 minutes earlier because I got distracted.  Then it hit me.  If I'm going to do 6 huge xmog searches, why not do them all at once?  Search for 500-600 items, browse the internet, go AFK, or read my Favorite Gold Blog, and then come back later and go through the results.  I've tried it out for over a week now, and I really like my results with this method.  Generally I'll buy anything under 50g on this list, and the rest I judge by the appearance whether it's worth buying to flip.  My list is based on a compilation of these lists from Faid at GoClockorkRiot, Shannon, and myself.  Shannon's list I trimmed down a bit for my own tastes, it originally had over 200 weapons, it now has only 151.  

Selling:
For those of you who are new to transmog, I'm going to go over my shopping strategies.  Those of you with preset Groups for selling set up already feel free to move to the next section.  For selling I break my items down into 4 tiers.  Some people like less, some people like more, I like four.  My different groups are set up for 48 hour posting, and priced as follows:

(Threshold/Fallback)
499/749g - Common Transmog
750/1250g - Better looking/rarer Transmog
4499/4999g - Really Cool looking/unique Transmog
17,999/18,000g - Ridiculously Rare Transmog (think Jade, Exalted, etc)

As you start working with transmog gear you may decide you want different prices or more tiers based on your server's needs.  This is what works for me, and I've had success with it.  The first 2 groups above were originally 500 and 1k in Cata, and I bumped them up when MoP was launched because inflation.  Use your best guess.  Transmog doesn't sell constantly, so don't change your price levels around too much at first.  You have to set a standard for your server, and possibly work against any competition.  Use your best guess when first making sets.  Base it off of the look, and what you think you can get out of your potential buyer for it (use Mogit to mouse over and see what it looks like).

3. The List
Below is the list, Import it by typing /tsm, going to the Shopping Options tab, clicking Shopping Lists, then Import Shopping list.  Name it and copy/paste the following data into the "List Data" field.  Hit the Accept Button, then Import List.  I had some trouble importing this list, most likely because it's so huge.  The name didn't go through at first and it took a while to load after importing, but these are minor problems that should not effect the list.

s1@13035,12784,13043,12535,7944,13053,3854,19169,13065,8226,23540,9511,7961,2077,2205,12838,31234,36601,25126,25138,25142,10571,23632,37749,31318,31322,37805,37813,32661,31139,4696,23505,15229,55066,15239,15251,15265,21800,12974,12976,25127,15275,25139,25147,2244,23629,31291,17015,31299,43871,25191,13014,13018,25215,12769,12775,12777,13034,13036,68601,13044,13046,13052,35664,6802,65013,8223,8225,1391,23542,25331,37808,37824,1394,36589,25144,31268,44311,55284,25208,31332,31336,25220,9718,30077,25236,8190,35652,12528,870,25221,15925,13004,15216,25119,23746,25214,23499,31153,59463,1728,15232,10570,15236,43611,25316,15238,10573,65318,9383,25336,2299,25212,15256,13983,25216,68161,20698,15266,21802,36599,15272,16039,15276,15278,25141,1986,15240,25161,55286,23631,9427,15273,14531,12825,866,23543,1925,2801,15267,1607,13017,13051,55289,3208,12260,13027,17054,25233,25237,1958,14913,25001,14915,14917,14918,14920,14921,14922,14924,14926,14927,14928,14929,10368,10369,8138,10371,24934,10373,8140,24940,8141,24944,10378,8143,10382,10383,10384,10385,10386,10387,14833,10389,10390,14838,14966,14840,14968,24984,14970,14971,14972,14975,14976,14977,14978,14980,14854,14855,14856,14857,14858,14859,14860,14862,14863,14864,14865,14867,14868,14967,14839,10376,14981,14905,14908,24987,14906,24935,24937,24939,10206,14904,12618,24947,25000,31232,14900,13072,24982,24988,24936,14895,14896,14897,14898,24983,10201,24999,10203,25003,10205,12619,24985,10208,10209,14909,14911,10380,8139,13082,14973,14942,15352,66895,10093,36452,4068,15891,15892,4069,1204,12997,14825,1169,14954,1203,15648,14947,9974,31292,15494,14800,13079,7496,36447,7465,2040,10078,10362,14930,15592,36448,31200,14964,10365,4444,14902,25076,10367,25073,25079,25080,25081,25082,14780,14812,45450,9899,13083,1168,8309,7489,7490,6411,4079,6412,14793,14794,15050,7494,15052,14799,14802,14803,10232,10233,10234,10236,15575,15576,15578,10118,10119,15581,15582,4712,10124,10125,12415,15591,4717,24839,15596,24843,15598,10266,15601,10268,10269,10270,4725,7454,10273,10274,24867,24865,14798,15680,4727,7486,10154,24862,8303,10157,6596,10122,15609,10161,10162,4697,6594,7491,15607,7455,6386,6592,8265,8267,15506,15511,8269,15509,15510,2989,6590,15513,15514,2990,9928,4073,4076,2991,4071,9933,15051,2992,15524,4072,24863,15527,15528,15529,10121,8271,24840,4074,6402,1988,14789,4075,14792,6595,12420,16984,15669,6597,24864,7487,14805,14796,10230,6409,15168,10220,10221,10222,14670,14671,10227,24773,24775,14675,24779,14677,14680,15189,15191,15192,14685,14559,14560,14562,4054,14565,14566,4055,24694,24696,24698,6430,4057,4721,9887,9892,9894,4062,15195,6431,4063,14687,14564,15370,15372,8255,8256,15369,8258,8262,8260,24776,15374,15167,15376,9782,15378,15379,15386,15381,10183,15383,6581,15385,6582,10189,10187,10182,6584,24695,6587,15139,6586,10188,15142,10190,15144,24778,15130,15194,15148,15149,15150,15151,24774,24699,9947,9948,10186,9950,10225,9952,14681,9954,15162,20575,15164,6408,15166,14684,10214,14025,7110,14413,14294,14296,14297,14425,6610,14175,17050,3291,6615,6617,14441,14442,14443,4714,14445,14192,14452,14453,10143,7517,7518,14213,7520,7521,7522,14231,14232,14106,14234,7468,14367,7470,4037,7471,14371,14119,14120,6395,3309,8111,4040,2034,14117,8113,14113,8114,18486,3308,14254,4038,24585,10216,14091,6527,6531,6393,4035,2800,14272,14273,10210,14275,10178,10215,8110$@

Tomorrow I'll be going over more specific strategies I use.  This should be more than enough to get you going for the time being!   

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Phat's Weekly Lewt Review: 12/18

Those of you that have been regular readers of my blog for a while know that I used to regularly come out with a "weekly review" going over what worked for me and didn't work for me in the past week in WoW.  I haven't come out with one in a while since MoP launch, but I think that now is a good time in the expansion to look at weekly trends.

Living Steel
Living Steel has still been strong for me.  I get weird peaks and valleys of selling it, it seems that when it does sell, it sells somewhere in the 8-12 range at a time, which is nice.  Again being on a small server, I'm sure most other servers have a steady in and out stream of Living Steel, but it's just not the case for me.

Transmog
My level 1 transmog seller (pictured here) has been very busy as of late!  This week I tried a new strategy with transmog, which I'm liking quite a bit and I'm going to address in it's very own post.  What I've been doing is searching for items 600 at a time.  Yes.  A 600 item TSM list that takes a ridiculously long amount of time to search for.  I go afk or browse the internet while it's working, and go through the results when it's done buying anything under 50g that will sell.  It's been working quite well so far, and hopefully later today I'll have a post up here including my list and how to use it if you're new to transmog (or not).  It makes transmog shopping a bit more painless, which is always great in my opinion.



DMF Trinks
On my server DMF trinks are still going strong, during DMF I was able to sell quite a few individual cards for a nice markup, and I came out with 3 trinkets (one of which sold already).  A good haul IMO, still burning those cooldowns daily, and will in the weeks to come!

Gems
JC has also been doing decently well on my server, mostly because the halving of the ore nodes actually impacted my server.  A lot of servers are back to normal, or at least near it, but my server, because of it's smaller size still has high prices on Ghost Iron Ore, and it's making gems worth slightly more, which is nice.  Worth me doing a bit of prospecting and cutting now with my WoW time.

Halfhill Market
If you haven't been already, get rep with the Tillers!  I've been planting Enigma Seeds recently (see my previous post) and I'm making about 750g/day worth of herbs.  Quite the nice haul from farming.  In Halfhill as well there is Nam Ironpaw, and this dude should be your new best friend.  If you go to theunderminejournal, and click "Gathered -> Cooking" after getting on your server, you'll find a list entitled "Ironpaw Token Tradesof the cheapest items turn into Bundles of Groceries (containers from Merchant Chang after doing starting quests).  Buy those up off the AH, bundle them up, and exchange them in Halfhill for Ironpaw Tokens.  Using them you can buy 100 Year Soy SauceBlack Pepper, and/or Rice Flour and sell them for a markup on your AH.  I find that these usually sell to people who are trying to max their cooking for the first time rather than max chefs for raiding guilds.  The max chefs tend to know about this arbitrage, but are using it for their guilds.

That's all for me, one last thing to note is I recently bought a Battered Hilt off the BMAH for 10k, and I put myself on a deadline to sell it by the end of the year.  If I don't I'm going to do the quest line myself as I never got to do it in Wrath.  My week in WoW was pretty good, I crossed the 1.75 million threshold on my server, aiming for 2 million by Jan 8th, but we'll see how that goes!  Also bought an invite to the Brawler's Guild, and I found it quite boring actually, but I did not pay much for it, so no big loss there.  How was your past week in WoW gold?  What is/isn't selling for you?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Dispelling the Enigma Surrounding Enigma Seeds

After 5.1 nerfing the exchange of Spirit of Harmony to Golden Lotus, many people were up in the air about what seed to plant at their Tiller's farm, and you may have recently read that Enigma Seeds (which produce herbs) got a stealth-buff, possibly the better alternative for providing Golden Lotus.

My Findings
I have been planting Enigma Seeds over the past 10 days or so, and every day so far I have gotten 4-6 Golden Lotus each day.   On top of that, the other plots that aren't Lotuses are other herbs that I send off to my Scribe to mill into pigments.  Below is a screenshot of my normal yield:





















So not only do you get the 4-6 Golden Lotus, you get other herbs on top of that.  When you plant Songbell Seeds on the other hand, you get 1.6 Spirits which turns into 3.2 Golden Lotus.  So 4 Golden Lotus alone and you'd be better off.  Add to that the other herbs and you're much better planting other seeds.  On some servers vegetables may be the way to go, but the price per Golden Lotus (on average across servers) is currently: , which with the addition of the other herbs are worth more than vegetables (at 5-7 per plot).

If you haven't yet began grinding Tillers rep, now is certainly still a good time.  The rep is a decent grind, and as far as gold making is concerned, is by far your best rep (minus the profession specific grinds).  Cooking is also doing (semi) well for me currently, don't forget the Ironpaw Exchange!!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The Return of Realistic Returns

Many times, as gold makers, we get dismayed if we can't make some major returns on our investments.  I know I always try to focus on the highest return activities, well letting others fall by the wayside.   Flipping things for twice what they cost is almost ingrained in our brains.  While this of course is the easiest and fastest way of getting gold, there's no point missing out on other opportunities available.  Diversify!

Investments
Quite like real life, the more you invest in profitable things, the more money you're going to have in the long run.  Say (hypothetically) you are able to make a 10% return per day by using some profession, selling everything you post daily and using the new amount as investment capitol.  By the end of the week, you would have (roughly) doubled the money you initially invested.  Now there are of course better investments than this to be made in WoW, but know that  every investment counts, small investments that sell constantly are just as good as long term investments that make tons of gold from 1 sale (such as transmog/leveling green market).

Prioritize
That being said you can't do everything all the time.  Some days you don't play, some days you don't have time to play the AH, or only a limited time.  Do what makes the most gold for you.  This is hopefully something everyone already does out of instinct alone.  Daily cooldowns to me alone across a few characters are more than enough for the average player to have a mass of gold, and be able to pay for what they want (within reason) in game.  But just because uncut gems are 50g and the cut are 70g, doesn't mean that this 20g isn't worth your time.  When I post a spread gems on my server, I sell at least a handful each day.  At 20g profit per, even with selling costs factored in, it's not a negligible gain in gold each day.

That doesn't mean I'm going to focus in on JC first, by all means I'm not.  I prefer to focus in on things like Inscription CDs as well as Alchemy and Tailoring before I get into any sort of mass processing of ore.   Diversification is key though, and it's important to do the things that may not net you as much overall gold, but good and fast returns.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Friday, November 30, 2012

What 5.1 Brings to (and takes away from) the Table

5.1 brought some changes as a patch, noted in the Patch Notes, but has also brought around some stealth changes that were not anticipated.  I'm going to go over some of the ones that I think are important to us as gold makers, feel free to chime in if you think I missed one or want to add!

SoH + Node Nerfs
In the official Patch Notes, they noted that 1 SoH will only get you 2 Golden Lotus now (as opposed to 3).  Also, you can now purchase SoH for 600 Conquest Points if you're a PvPer.  Now this significantly decreases the value of your SoH, consider growing some of the higher value plants on your farm instead of Motes!  Check out my previous post here for more info on determining what your SoH is worth.

Also, Blizzard announced that all nodes in Pandaria have gotten a 50% nerf.  This is pretty big, as they're trying to make the ore/herbs more valuable (see the post).  This is good for us as both crafters and farmers.  Assuming that we make the same percentage return regardless, having the mats cost more means that for each thing we craft we're getting more gold.  For farmers they're getting more for their work, for crafters they have to do less work to make the same profit.  It's a win win situation for all of us!

Pet Battle Changes
There are a few major pet battle changes that I think (sort of) impact the gold making community, one is that for completing the full chain (EK + Kalimdor, Outland, Northrend, and Pandaria) you are rewarded with 3k.  For me this is nice because I enjoyed the pet battles to begin with and it gives me an excuse to go finish the quest line!  Also, a reward from the bags for completing these quest now includes the Flawless Battle-Stone which can be sold on the AH.  This item will automatically upgrade your pet to rare, which is a helpful thing for players with pets that are only uncommon (learned from items), or for the ones in the wild they're too lazy to hunt for.

Mr. Bigglesworth (image from Wowhead)
It's also useful to note that a few pets have been added to the game, I'm not going to go too in depth into these, but a lot of raid pets have been added, the reward for getting them all being the much coveted companion, Mr. Bigglesworth, from Naxxramas!  If you want to read more about these pets check out Wowhead's article here  I think this will encourage some players to get into the new pets as this is one awesome vanity pet that's hard for anyone to pass up!  Another nice addition for Tailors is that they can now craft 2 new pets, the Imperial Silkworm and Imperial Moth, which can both be created by using your Imperial Silk Cooldown.  A potential extra profit/reason for tailors to burn their CDs every day!

Darkmoon Trinkets Upgradable
Another nice feature they added in 5.1 is the ability to upgrade epic items with valor points.  Previous to this Darkmoon Trinkets were BiS, and now they are upgradable as well, helping ensure their value for at least a few more DMFs!

The one last thing that may be of value is that we can now enter old raids by ourselves, and some solo friendly changes have been made to some bosses.  This could be useful if you farm raids, but was not essential, just makes your life (slightly) easier.  So, what is your favorite or least favorite part of the new patch?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Brawling Time - BMAH

I want to start out this post by appologizing a bit for the lack of content in the past few weeks.  I was busy for a while IRL and when Sandy came (I live in NJ)  things got hectic for a while, but now things have settled down and I finally have some time to write and play WoW.

First Rule of Brawler's Guild
Well I'm breaking the first rule by writing this post, but when reading an article on Wowhead about Brawler's Guild on the PTR, I was surprised to see that you can access this content by invite only.  And where does one obtain such an invite?  The Black Market Auction House, or as Cold pointed out to me, through member invite.  Invites take Rank 7 in the guild which this post (read it for more info) says currently requires ~75k dps on the PTR.  Needless to say these non-BMAH invites won't be spreading around for a while.

BMAH on the PTR courtesy Wowhead.com













Now, the number of invites  you see in this picture will most likely be more than that on the live servers when 5.1 comes out (maybe not though), but these are going to be a pricey commodity when 5.1 first comes out and the weeks to follow.

What does this mean?
Well, you have two options.  Maybe you're one of the elite gold makers on your server and you want to try out this Brawler's Guild before everyone else, perhaps because you're after the Realm First Achievement associated with it.  If your pockets are deep and you can outbid your competitors, and babysit the auctions, you can be the first to try this, and possibly get the Realm First.  On the other hand you can just wait.  If you're not interested in the Realm First I HIGHLY suggest this route.  Sure go back and check daily what they're going for, or check trade for people selling cheap invites, but wait it out at least 1-2 weeks.  Maybe even get an invite from a friend if they have one.  Prices will drop exponentially by then and you can get your invitation for a great deal.

General BMAH Tactics
In general when using the BMAH you have to take 2 things into consideration.  What you're willing to pay, and where you're going to be when the auction expires.  If you're not going to be on when the auction expires you may very well lose the item to someone who is willing to just pay 1k more than you at the last second.  You may have to pay a premium if you really want an item on the BMAH but just can't be in game when the auction expires.

Always set a price threshold.  If there's an item you're interested in, decide what the maximum price you'd be willing to pay BEFORE you start a bidding war.  This way you don't get caught up in a silly bidding war and end up in a situation like this:
Click to Enlarge.  Image courtesy reddit user jlwg.
















Finally, if you're able to be in game near when the auction is expiring, don't start bidding until then.  This one is pretty simple, if you start bidding before then you're only raising the price for yourself, and why do that?  If you're going to start a bidding war, do it as late as possible.

So, if the system goes as planned, when are you going to try to get your invite to the Brawler's Guild after 5.1 is released?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Friday, October 19, 2012

Phat's Weekly Lewt Review: MoP Style 10/19

So I haven't done a weekly review in quite some time, but I think it would be helpful to give you an insight into what I'm doing right now in game for gold making purposes.

Dailies
Even though I care about other factions, I always make sure I do my Tillers dailies.  They are the only faction (other than the crafting recipe ones) that directly relate to gold making.  Ironpaw Tokens are even extraordinarily useful in this time of the game, and will be in the months coming.  Cooking is turning out to be quite a lucrative profession for me, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.  Visiting my farm is one of the first things I do every day, as well as the Silk Fields just south of the farm for my Tailoring CD.  Very convenient.  My tailoring CD has to be one of my most favorite CDs of this expansion.  It takes raw mats and increases their value by at least tenfold.

Black Market Auction House
As a mage with ports to both Org and Vale I decided to set my main's hearth to the BMAH.  So far I've bought two heroic crafting patterns for their minimum 20k, and have flipped one for 30k.  I check this daily for great deals, and have already blown 80k on a mount.  Even though 80k was over my 50k threshold, I got a little caught up in a bidding war, which I shouldn't have.  I noticed the player bidding against me was running back and forth to the mailbox going up in 1k increments and decided to do 10k.  It got a bit out of hand.  Backfired you could say.  Oh well.

Transmogrification
I don't know how everyone else is doing with transmog gear, but so far it's been a great seller for me on my low pop server since MoP release.  I'd imagine larger servers are seeing too big of an influx of greens to be able to control the market, but I'm getting just enough greens in to hold my market down, and even though I'm not being good about reposting every 2 days, I've been making a lot using transmog strategies from last patch.

My Main's MoP Xmog
(Click to Enlarge)
On a related note I'm really loving the new look of the gear this expansion in every single way.  I love how when you quest all the questing gear matches, and that the gear is so intricate and not as generic as Cataclysm gear was.  It hasn't slowed down my transmog sales either, which is a bonus.  I think it is a step in the right direction from Blizzard, but I'll stop this rant right now before it turns into a monster.







Living Steel
I'm kind of disappointed with the way that Living Steel has gone this expansion, as Truegold had a much better presence throughout Cataclysm, especially in regards to profit margin.  I think it's mostly because all the crafted gear is raid finder level, so raiders can replace it pretty fast, and the non hardcore raiders don't bother buying it.  I've already dropped my 2nd JC for Inscription and I'm considering dropping at least 1 of my 4 Alchemists to pick up Inscription as well.  Mostly for the cards which will lose a lot of value after this upcoming DMF, but I think the trinkets will be in high demand through November DMF so the sooner the better IMO.

While this is by no means an exhaustive list, it's certainly what I've been focusing in on as far as gold making in the new expansion.  What are your opinions on the viability of Alchemy (or any profession for that matter) going forward in WoW?  What's your new favorite profession?


Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Friday, October 12, 2012

First Look: 5.1 PTR

World PvP
If you haven't read it already, check out the current 5.1 PTR Patch notes.  Blizzard is doing a lot of great things with 5.1, including heating up the Horde vs. Alliance conflict the way they have been saying they would.  For gold making I think this will be a great boost.  They're adding 2 outposts, one for each faction that reward rep and have objects to capture.  They are also awarding "commendations" for slaying the opposite faction on the shores.

This is really going to boost PvP in Pandaria, and I think it's going to be absolutely amazing for the crafted PvP gear market, because people who normally wouldn't care about PvP Resil/Power as stats will suddenly be very interested in it.  This will also provide a boost for the enchant/JC enhancements for PvP as well.

Battle Pets
There were also some changes to battle pets that tweaked my interest, the first being that there will now be tokens that drop from wild pet battles that can be used to upgrade pets from grey/common -> uncommon, or uncommon -> rare.  Better yet, they're not BoP, so they can be sold on the Auction House.  This is going to be a very interesting thing to see progress.  Basically it makes any uncommon pet you could sell into a rare, and will allow Pet Battlers to capture uncommon pets instead of hunting for rares, and upgrade them for a price.  This is interesting to me at least, because I've been dabbling in the pet battle system.  They're also adding a 3,000g reward for going through the entire quest chain and defeating the "Grand Master" NPC Pet Battler of Pandaria.  At the very least it will get more people interested in these things!

On my server, I've just seen the first level 25 battle pet posted in the auction house, a Winterspring Cub (of all things).  The seller is selling it for 15k with a 10k bid, which I think will be interesting to see if it pans out.  That's all from me for now, just wanted to get a quick post out about the gold making changes in 5.1, there are other cool features though, check out the Blizzard post I linked at the top! How do you think 5.1 will impact your gold making strategy?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Calculating the Value of Spirit of Harmony


Okay so you've been farming Motes of Harmony, both literally with the Tillers, and also by killing mobs and receiving drops.  Now you have a decent amount, but is it worthwhile to use it for a craft?  What's the price point for one of these things?  These are the questions I'm here to answer.

Point for Comparison
Since we have a vendor that will trade Spirit of Harmony for various goods, we can calculate the "Opportunity Cost" of using a Spirit of Harmony in a craft.  9 times out of 10 on any given server the conversion from 1 Spirit of Harmony -> 3 Golden Lotus will be the most profitable, BUT if you would like to compare the other options as well, The Undermine Journal has a neat tool for doing so for you.

Once on your server page, simply hover over Consumables, then select Elementals.
Click to Enlarge




After doing so you should see a page similar to this one, which will multiply by the number you can buy from the vendor by the current going rate for each item.



What this table shows us is that for every Spirit of Harmony you have, you can trade it for about 880 gold.  So if a recipe you're crafting has say 6 Spirit of harmony, and the raw mats + 880*6 = raw mats + 5280 is less than the price that you could get for that item, don't craft it! Now not everything is as black and white as say the LW or BS that NEED this in their Epic crafts, some professions have CDs that you can ignore by using SoH, and others have recipes you can buy with them. So the question for those professions is "Is having this extra CD/recipe worth the gold that these SoH are worth?" or "Is this PvP recipe worth 880g?" For example, on most servers an additional Living Steel CD for your Alchemist is NEVER worth the price of the 9 Golden Lotus I could get instead.  So it's just something to keep in mind.

Additional Valuation
So, you thought that was it huh?  Unfortunately for you it's not!   We have another problem because if you're Revered or greater with the Tillers, you have the opportunity to grow these from the ground!  Is it worth it?
Okay so make sure you've done the above step, which way is worth more?  What's a SoH worth to you? Let's say like the above example your server had the SoH worth 880g to trade in for Golden Lotus, but your LW craft for example takes raw mats that sell for 720g and 8 SoH, but you can sell it for 34k.  TUJ even does THIS math for you!

Click to Enlarge







Since it's worth crafting we can calculate the value of your SoH to be (Selling Price) - (Other Mats) = 34k-720g = 33.3k divided among 8 SoH = 4,162g per SoH!!  So it's definitely worth it for you to craft this item instead of trade it to the vendor.  On the other hand, if you determine the opposite, such as an Alchemist, that it's not worth it with your 90's professions, it's only worth 880g.

Now here comes the interesting (and slightly annoying) part.  Each plot in your farm grows 1 Mote of Harmony (1/10th of a Spirit).  To the LW each plot is worth 416.2g (very nice!), but to the Alchemist, it's only worth 88g.  Not that great...could you get more planting something else?

Currently the other Revered seeds won't (on most servers) get you something worth more than 88g, as they are the most basic of Raw Mats for professions.  BUT, right now there is a very high demand for vegetables!  So back to TUJ to check: Consumables -> Cooking

Click to Enlarge




You will be able to see a chart like this:


Note the price and that each plot will grow not one but five of these each day.  *Note: Ginseng is sold by a Tillers vendor. Basically multiply any of these numbers by 5 and you'll get more than that 88g.  Juicycrunch Carrot would be my go to because Intellect lovers are always my best buyers, but also note that Jogu the Drunk, for a fee, will tell you which one of these to grow each day to harvest 8 the next day.  So one of these will get a x8 multiplier instead of x5.


Now that I've thoroughly bored you to death, get out there and start getting THE MOST out of your Spirit of Harmony!! If you remember to reply after checking, leave a comment with your 2 primary professions and how much your Spirit of Harmony are worth!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Alchemy or Inscription?

This post is for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival, which is on Oct 11th!

This month, the topic is:
Pick A Market Or A Strategy That You Planned To Focus On For The MoP Launch.  What Were Your Results?

Maxing My Alchemists
My goal was to level all my Alchemists ASAP and start doing my Living Steel cooldown, and honestly the first week it worked great.  Since you really only need Green Tea Leaves (the most abundant herb in Pandaria) to get the Living Steel Recipe, it was easy and cheap to get all my alchemists the Living Steel Recipe (learned at 550) by the first day.  It cost me around 7,500g to level all 4 to get Living Steel the first day, and I made 70k selling Living Steel that week.  Needless to say, I'm pleased with these results.  For the long run though I'm not so sure that it is the most viable gold making strategy to have 4 Alchemists, as my Living Steel  sales have started to drop off quite a bit, and they're starting to back pile.



Multiple Scribes
So now I'm considering dropping one of my Alchemists for a second scribe. By considering I mean I will do it if Blizzard ever gets their act together and changes the Inscription vendor!!  I would use my second scribe (maybe even a third) for crafting DMF cards, as well as probably a BoA Scribe Staff (after November's DMF).  So far I've been really good at putting off my personal wants (like obtaining a DMF trink ASAP) for more gold making.  I plan on getting a trinket, but I don't raid in a group that really pushes progression, so I have no need for an overpriced trinket right now, especially when there's gold to be made!  I think that the DMF trinks will sell well through the end of the November Faire, after that I'll be focusing in on my own cards/incription needs.  I only wish that I had multiple scribes sooner!

Do you have multiple Scribes, and if not, do you plan on making a second scribe?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Saturday, September 29, 2012

The New 77-80 Market: 80-84 MoP Gear

As predicted, there is a new era of twink gear out that is equivalent to Cataclysm's 77-80 market (which is still alive and kicking).  Keep in mind that now is not a great time to sell, it's a great time to buy.  Lots of this will be on AH's for relatively cheap, but now is not necessarily the best time to post these, except leather (for monks).  Keep in mind that if you start posting at high prices will result in people undercutting you, ruining the potentially endless flow of great deals for the greens(and blues) on the AH.

Search Terms!
If you're using TSM, there is only one search that you need to do:

80/84/i364

These searches look for all items available to those in the range 80-84 with ilvl 364 and higher.  This will include all weapons and armor that came out in MoP available to this bracket.  There are 80-82 blues that are super OP, so keep an eye out for those, they're ilvl 409-425!

If you're using Auctionator you have to do 2 searches

***MoP Twinks
Armor/80/84/i364
Weapon/80/84/i364

And that's it!  You may want to go through this gear and hand pick the ones with the best stats, but at the current prices I'm seeing, if it doesn't sell, you can DE it for a profit!  Now is a great time to stock up on this to sell it throughout the expansion.  Even with a little gold you can make a decent investment, and expect high returns once a majority of the characters are at max level and not questing in the 85-86 zones that drop these!  Welcome to the new era of twink gear!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Friday, September 28, 2012

Enchanters: Work your Cooldown!

Today I'm going to be doing a post for all my enchanters out there.

Maxing your Enchanting with JC
Feel free to skip this section if you're at 600 already.
Since I had a Jewelcrafter and a Tailor I needed (wanted) to get to 600, I figured they can help each other out.  First start by prospecting 15(ish) stacks of Ghost Iron Ore.  Once you have your common gems, instead of cutting useless gem cuts, make Ornate Bands then Shadowfire Necklaces to disenchant.  This is what is suggested by wow-professions anyway until 527, I suggest going past that.  Craft it until you cant craft them anymore!  Then send em off to your Enchanter to use as enchanting mats to level enchanting.  **Note that you can now convert 5 Dusts to 1 Essence.  Do it until you have the ratio you need.  Enchanting 525-600 is a cakewalk after this, I suggest using the wow-professions enchanting guide. Congratulations!

Enchanting Cooldown!
That's right, enchanting has a daily cooldown this time around, namely to create the new Maelstrom, Sha Crystal.  These are most likely going to be in high demand the first few weeks, when raid gear won't be disenchanted (as much). The new Weapon and Bracer enchants require these (at 10 per and 6 per respectively), so the raiders will want to get their hands on these Crystals.  Since you can convert from Dusts -> Essences -> Shards -> Crystal, there are a few ways you can start out.  The Sha Crystal daily CD requires either:

5 Etherial Shards
25 Mysterious Essence
125 Spirit Dust

If you disenchant your gear as you level your enchanter or get some Shards from dungeons, you will easily be able to do this CD with all the mats you have.  Check your prices to see which of these is cheapest and convert it up the ladder!  This may not stay valuable as raid gear gets disenchanted in the future, but for the next few weeks, I imagine it will!

As always consult your servers auction house before starting this method.  Side effects include making gold, selling valuable enchanting mats, and having your friends ask you for gold.  Consult a doctor if gold making lasts more than 4 hours.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Monday, September 24, 2012

Top 5 Professions to Level ASAP!

Today I figured I'd do a post on what professions I personally will be leveling as soon as possible.  Mists releases at midnight on the west coast US, which is a relatively ungodly 3 AM for those of us on the east coast.  That being said I'm still considering setting my alarm and having a pot of coffee on hand, but right now it looks unlikely. Once I do eventually log, I am going to focus on leveling my professions before stepping into Pandaria.

Living Steel
My main focus though is the new "Truegold", Living Steel.  This new alchemy cooldown is used in 28 recipes, all but 10 of which will be craftable at launch, given the crafter has the correct (and in some cases absurdly high) amount of Spirit of Harmony in some cases.  This precious metal is used in many crafts.  16 total are required to craft the new JC Epic Mount (which will require Exalted rep to get all recipes for), 1 is required to craft the new Belt Buckle, as well as quite a few needed for the BS and Engineering Epics.  Let's just say there's going to be quite a demand for this item, especially from those elite raiding guilds on your server.

Primordial Ruby
A JC's Best Friend
My second focus will be leveling Jewelcrafting acquiring all of the Jewelcrafting Primordial Ruby base cuts (Delicate, Bold, Brilliant) ASAP.  These cuts will be learned through research or doing Golden Lotus Dailies at Revered.  **Here's the thing to consider with Jewelcrafting though**, they're scaling gem cuts this expansion.  This means they're scrapping the Cataclysm (and previous expansion) model of say 40 base stats total for all gems. Instead, the off color gems will have more base stats to compensate for the lack of Primary stats (Int, Str, Agi).  This doesn't concern me because I think during the first few weeks people will still be following their old gemming ways, and I'm not too worried about these not being HOT sellers.  I may however stop once I get the Brilliant cut, so I can diversify.  The more colors of rare gems I can cut the first few weeks the better.

Without Further Ado, my list:
Top 5 Professions to Level (IMO)
  1. Alchemy
    • As Stated above, Alchemy transmutes will be used in many recipes, so I will be focusing on leveling the Alchemy my 4 Transmute Masters as soon as possible, to get these xmutes on the AH before the price drops 1 copper!
  2. Jewelcrafting
    • Again as stated above I want to take good care to learn as many cuts as possible, as soon as possible, and you can start researching once you hit 550, so after that I'm going to stop and focus on other professions.  It's also useful to note I have 2 JCs for double the research possibilities.
  3. Tailoring
    • Tailoring also has a new daily cooldown that will be added, which again will be craftable at only 550, so getting my 2 Tailors up to burn their daily cooldowns is necessary as soon as possible again.
  4. Inscription
    • Once again, Inscription is another profession has a once daily cooldown (525), which is a necessary material for Darkmoon Cards(600).
      • This makes the individual Darkmoon Cards way more valuable, and will focus trinket seekers on getting individual cards as opposed to full decks.
      • Take into consideration that there is also 3 BoA Staves that require 20 of these first daily CDs to make.  Priorities!!! **Note that you can acquire 7 per week doing proffesion specific (level 600) weekly quests, so this is where maxing your Scribe comes in handy.
        • I'm not sure if you need to be a certain level to access the area, if so you will need to obtain that level as well. 
  5. Mining
    • This may seem like a curveball to some, given my (and most gold makers) "Gathering isn't the best GPH" stance.  I still agree with this, and think my profession leveling order above will payout the most, but my go to craft, Living Steel Transmute requires 6 Trillium Bars EACH, each of which require 2 of each color of Trillium Ore (so needs 24 raw ore total, 12 of each color).
      • This bar cannot be smelted by Miners until 600 Skill Level, which can only be obtained by farming nodes (no smelting skill ups), so you KNOW the bars are going to be in high demand, and are also going to be very expensive for the first few weeks. By having my own miner smelt the bars, I can cut my costs, and acquire some ore for the transmutes.  It's a win win (except I don't want to level my Tauren Druid, but oh well).
So this is it, my master plan.  If anyone is curious I will be leveling my Mage (Tailor/Alchemy) to 90 first after all this, and starting my farm ASAP, so my mage will be the first one to be able to benefit from the Tiller's Bonus Spirit of Harmony, which is nice because then I'll have the option to choose between the most profitable of the two daily CDs (Tailoring/Alch) that character can craft, based on established AH prices. 

So that's my plan (and suggestion) on which Professions to level first.  Which professions are you planning on leveling up first?


Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Your Guide to Spirit of Harmony

***If you're here looking for a guide on farming Motes of Harmony, check out this post!!***


Spirit of Harmony
(via Wowhead)


Remember all the way back in Cataclysm when crafted items were made with Volatile Air, Fire, Water, Life, and Earth? It seems like just yesterday that multiple elementals were the norm, but Blizzard decided to scrap this system for a simpler one.  Spirit of Harmony, which are essential to about every major crafting profession, are the only elementals in MoP (for now at least).  They can be created by combining 10 Motes of Harmony which are random world drops from 85-90.

The bad news for your low level crafters though is that they are BoP, so any alts not yet in Pandaria will not be able to benefit from them.  

Which Profession Benefits most from Spirit of Harmony?
This is an debatable question, but here's the breakdown (number 1 are the ones that cannot truly benefit, then the rest of the professions follow in alphabetic order).
*Right now on wowhead, the only way I can see to sort what can be crafted using this item by each profession is to go to this link and type in the profession name.

  1. Mining, Herbalism, Skinning, Enchanting
    • Relatively no benefit.  These professions can use the Spirits to trade for these raw mats, which is not terrible, but any profession could do this.  
  2. Alchemy
    • Using 3 Spirits of Harmony, an Alchemist can get an extra transmute CD for the day Riddle of Steel.  (this is the Truegold of Pandaria)
  3. Blacksmithing
    • Most notably requires 8 Spirits of Harmony to craft ilvl 476 epic gloves + chest (first level of craftable epics).
      • To craft ilvl 496 items it requres 2-3 Spirits of Harmony as well as 8 Blood Spirit, an item gained from disenchanting raid armor (not available first week).
  4. Engineering
    • Staying true to Engineering's roots, it is used in recipes that create cool things (mounts, daily CD robot, etc) for the owner, as well as scopes, a gun, a pet, and a Pandarian Wormhole Generator!
  5. Inscription
    • The new Darkmoon Cards require 10 Spirits of Harmony or a weekly quest reward to craft more than one per day! This will lead to more scribes trading cards to get full decks rather than grinding a ton until they get a full deck.
    • Cool Addition: Scribes can now craft any of 3 new staves that are Bind on Account, requiring 20 daily cooldowns.
      • The 4 Inscription weeklies to get the CDs faster: avoiding the daily cooldown by doing weekly crafts, requiring 4-6 Spirits of Harmony per.
  6. Jewelcrafting
    • Not Needed for the cool new mounts!
    • Two new vanity pets require 3 Spirits of Harmony each.
    • If you didn't know already, JC now requires a daily CD to discover new cuts (you pick which color you want to discover).  You can do more the one per day using 3 Spirits of Harmony.
  7. Leatherworking
    • Similar to Blacksmithing.  Again click here and search Leatherworking to see all the recipes, again gloves and chest
  8. Tailoring
    • With 3 Spirits of Harmony, Tailors can avoid their Daily Cooldown, to craft epic items faster.
      • The epics require 4-6 of the daily CDs to create, again more for the 'upgraded' ilvl gear.

Farm Your Motes!
Like I said above, the Spirit of Harmony are created by combining 10 Mote of Harmony. If you get to revered with a new faction in Pandaria, The Tillers, you will be able to get over 1 full Spirit worth a day by "cultivating a farm".  If you're interested in learning more about this, check out wowhead's Tillers Guide, it's a very comprehensive preview of what you can expect. Basically once you get revered you can obtain Songbell Seeds and cultivate them (only taking a few minutes every day) and not have to grind out Motes from random mobs in Pandaria.  This should certainly speed up the process for any of you looking to get your hand on Spirits of Harmony ASAP.  

Which profession are you leveling first, and which one do you think has the coolest use for Spirits of Harmony?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Prepping for Mists

If you haven't been keeping up, when MoP is released Tuesday at midnight, it will be a "rollover" (source).  What this means is that unlike the Cataclysm release, if you're playing at 11:59pm Monday night, when the clock rolls over to 12:00am (depending of course on your time zone), you will be playing Mists of Pandaria, no need to log out and in!  This gives a more fair chance for those trying to get server firsts, especially the profession ones.  Now if this ends up working flawlessly or not is yet to be seen, but that's a whole different story...

Cooking
Just as an aside I wanted to write a bit about why they did this.  At the end of Wrath, for some reason, they made it so that you could aquire all of the mats that you needed to get cooking from 450-525 within the first minute or two of Cataclysm's release (especially with the Chef's Hat).  So basically it was a race to see who could log in faster to get the Realm First for cooking, rather than who could get the mats together and create the items faster, or possibly completing relevant daily quests, etc.  By doing the rollover everyone should have an equal chance at getting all the server firsts, minus all the relogging you're going to have to do when the servers don't work as expected of course.

What does this mean for you?
If you download addon updates for the expansion while logged into the game, don't forget to relog.  If you plan on playing at the midnight release, have all your addons updated about a half hour before, then relog.  In theory addons shouldn't need crazy updates because we're in 5.0 already, but some will need to be updated, just grab what you can then go! Make sure you're doing the same during down time, getting on curse and updating all your addons, developers constantly work on these things to keep them up to date, and addons are a gold makers best friend.  You also may have to check the "load out of date addons" box as well for everything to transition smoothly.  Hard to say considering Blizzard has never done this for WoW in the past.

Okay what if I'm not going after server firsts?
  • Get your most valuable crafters to 90! (More about why I say this tomorrow)
  • Don't forget to post Monk glyphs, and post them often!  Pre craft the ones you can NOW so that you're ready on expansion day!
  • If you've created Blackfallow Ink since it was tradeable in 5.0, dump it NOW.  No speculation this time, trading it WILL be gone for good at the stroke of midnight!  Don't let your carriage turn into a pumpkin!
  • Level your crafting professions ASAP anyway! The best profits come at max level!
    • JC/Alchemy will have a daily gem cut discovery and transmute CD respectively, the sooner you start, the better!
  • Clear out your quest logs in advance.  You may be able to do more than 25 dailies every day, but your log can still only hold 25 quests.
    • If you have the time, do as many level 85 dailies before hand, and be ready to turn them in at the stroke of midnight/the next time you log.  It will give you a slight edge over everyone else!
  • Don't be ashamed to spam trade for Ore or other raw mats.  The sooner you can get your professions up, the better (esp for cooldowns)
  • Dump everything Cataclysm related, vendor it after MoP or put it in a bank, you'll need the bag space!
  • Last but certainly not least, even if you're not going to level their professions, LOG INTO YOUR ALTS!  At the beginning of Cataclysm, for 80s to start recieving Rested XP, they needed to be logged into at least once after the expansion was released.   If MoP follows suit (which it very well may) you should log your alts so they start to receive rested ASAP.
Look out for my post tomorrow where I will cover which crafter I personally am leveling up first and why. 

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Friday, September 14, 2012

Dev AMA Thoughts/Highlights

After the Developer AMA on reddit, I'd just like to highlight and briefly comment on some of the things they said that relate to the AH and gold making.  (Dev posts in blue, my responses black).

Q: Cross Realm Auction Houses?
A: "With regard to the auction house, I can imagine a future where we might decide to make auction houses cross-server. It's not something to jump into lightly, but there may be ways to design a cross-realm auction house that ensures a viable economy without getting "too big"."

To me this just says "No this just isn't going to happen".  It's something that if it did happen we'd be given a wide window of notification, but is something they're not worried about at all right now, and haven't put any thought into yet.  They seem to like how Cross Realm Zones (CRZs) are working so far(see below), and have no plans to change how the AH works to be cross realm in the near future.

Q: CRZs Killed Hunting Rare Spawns and Gathering.  Also my servers economy!:
A1: "We understand some players have gotten used to the idea of farming nodes or rares without any competition, but we designed all of those features with a certain population in mind."
A2: "CRZ wasn't intended to fill up the auction houses of realms with low auction activity. That wasn't the goal of the feature, so blaming it for not achieving that goal isn't terribly fair."

Going through the AMA recap, there are a lot of questions regarding CRZ and the AH.  I agree here, it did really kill the ability to hunt rares on smaller servers, and may in fact hurt your gathering chances greatly (especially on lower level nodes), decreasing mats that are on the AH, because they are brought to other servers.  Don't think though that they won't adjust the spawn rates of nodes or rares, if they see it as needed.
So basically as a small pop server, there are now an equal amount of people camping a spawn, or competing for nodes as a high pop server. Working as 'Intended'.  Not so sure it's equal now, but I don't doubt that they'll make it equal "Soon.™"

Finally on a second article, "World of Warcraft Devs: Q&A for Fansites" which I first read on wowjuju, Blizzard answered a few more questions, only one of which I think has interest to gold making:


Q: What's the reasoning behind removing the Auction House from Pandaria?
A: Firstly, we want to ensure our servers are stable. The Pandaria hub will be a very crowded area. Ultimately, we think the model for TBC and WotLK worked okay, so we don't foresee any major issues with requiring players to return to capital cities to use the AH. This also helps keep the capitals from being ghost towns.


Not being on the Beta, I was actually unaware that they did this.  I can understand the reasoning, but I post non Transmog or Glyph auctions from my main, and could definitely see this as an inconvenience.  Can easily be resolved by switching my posting toon though, with minimal effort.  Not the worst thing in the world, but definitely annoying.  Guess they did it because they don't want Lagaran 2.0, and that's completely understandable.  That's all from me for now, what are your thoughts on these developments?

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...